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The Bcast
The Bcast
Author: Bplans.com
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The Bcast is the official podcast of Bplans.com, hosted by Jonathan Michael and Peter Thorsson.
Tune in weekly for a fun and informative discussion that will help you grow your business. Every week, we bring in business experts to discuss the latest trends in marketing, sales, and entrepreneurship. Skip the stuffy MBA classroom and get information and advice that will actually help you grow your business today—and have some fun while you’re doing it.
Tune in weekly for a fun and informative discussion that will help you grow your business. Every week, we bring in business experts to discuss the latest trends in marketing, sales, and entrepreneurship. Skip the stuffy MBA classroom and get information and advice that will actually help you grow your business today—and have some fun while you’re doing it.
17 Episodes
Reverse
Jonathan and Peter look back on the first season of The Bcast, and discuss what the future holds.
Take the Season 1 Survey: http://bplans.com/podcast
Follow us on Twitter: @Bplans
Peter and Jonathan discuss how to handle unhappy customers, interview Scott Gerber of the Young Entrepreneur Council, and talk about Volkswagen's customer service disaster.
Show Notes:
Unhappy Customers (:30)
How Should You Handle Unhappy Customers? - bit.ly/1OY12p3
Do You Have What It Takes to Provide Stand-out Customer Service? - bit.ly/1r3IMPy
10 Ideas for Winning Back Unhappy Customers - bit.ly/1p6J7PX
Turn a Negative Customer Service Experience into a Positive - bit.ly/1O0Ngow
What Can I Learn From an Angry Customer? - bit.ly/1J0SzNl
The Nordstrom’s Urban Legend - bit.ly/1O0N7kY
Top Gear - bit.ly/1Nnz1Vo
Scott Gerber (17:00)
Scott's Website - bit.ly/1OmFqji
YEC - bit.ly/1lBVS8R
Volkswagon (31:08)
The Story - bbc.in/21Wav7B
The Software - nyti.ms/1NnyZfZ
Peter and Jonathan discuss the pros and cons of being your own boss, interview Eric Cacciatore (creator of the Restaurant Unstoppable podcast) about what he's learned from other restaurant owners, and examine Thumbtack's list of the 10 friendliest cities for small business.
Show Notes:
Being Your Own Boss (1:27)
The Pros and Cons of Being Your Own Boss - bit.ly/20RPHgJ
The 10 Commandments of Being Your Own Boss - onforb.es/1WWWot9
Signs That You Are Your Own Boss - onforb.es/1PGeJKC
Interview with Eric Cacciatore (14:46)
About Eric - bit.ly/1iZtwDp
2015’s 10 Friendliest Cities for Small Businesses (27:42)
The Tumbtack Survey - thumb.tk/20RPNFg
In this episode, Peter and Jonathan discuss Kaizen, Kanban, and Scrum methodology and how they can be applied to small businesses. They also chat about recent changes at Zappos, and the CFO of Palo Alto Software, Trevor Betenson, talks about human resources and conflict resolution.
Show Notes:
How to Solve Problems In Your Business - http://bit.ly/1LgR1F1
A Brief Introduction to Kanban - http://bit.ly/1Wol2me
Get Better at Getting Better - http://bit.ly/1OdjHQi
A Brief Introduction to Scrum - http://bit.ly/1OdjWuC
How to Build a Kick-Ass Agile Team - http://bit.ly/1PUK51x
Scrum is a Major Management Discovery - http://onforb.es/1RDIuuf
Holacracy at Zappos:
First Let's Get Rid of All the Bosses - http://bit.ly/1KKGmeS
The Holacracy Constitution - http://bit.ly/1SdkQG3
Is Holacracy Succeeding at Zappos? http://onforb.es/1MxIjCV
Human Resources and Conflict Resolution:
Oregon's New Sick Leave Law - http://bit.ly/1GBuEZk
Zenefits (HR Tool) - http://bit.ly/1XERtzq
Peter and Jonathan discuss how to define your target market, competitive analysis with Eric Siu (The Growth Everywhere podcast), and whether or not the federal minimum wage should be increased. What do you think? Share your opinion with us by emailing us at Bcast@bplans.com or reach out to us on Twitter: @Bplans.
Show notes:
- How to Define Your Target Market: http://bit.ly/1JCf1OT
- TAM, SAM, and SOM: http://bit.ly/1ARJftn
- quickfacts.census.gov
- Malcolm Gladwell's TED talk on Pasta Sauce: http://bit.ly/1OkfREv
- Learn more about SingleGrain: http://singlegrain.com/
- Check out the Growth Everywhere podcast: http://bit.ly/1MXX9PW
- Google Alerts: https://www.google.com/alerts
- Buzzsumo: http://buzzsumo.com/
- SimilarWeb: http://www.similarweb.com/
- Datanyze: http://www.datanyze.com/
- Facebook Audience Insights: http://on.fb.me/1Lh4Flo
- Google Keyword Planner: http://bit.ly/1KYMhRi
- QuickSprout: http://www.quicksprout.com/blog/
- Inbound.org: http://inbound.org/
- GrowthHackers.com: http://growthhackers.com/
Peter and Jonathan list their most-hated business buzzwords and talk about false assumptions you can make about your business. Joe Pulizzi (Founder, Content Marketing Institute) also joins in to talk about the six steps of the Content, Inc. model.
- What are some of your most-hated buzzwords?
- Definition: Beg the question (http://bit.ly/1OEnvpY)
- Gambler's Fallacy: http://bit.ly/1ihyfAJ
- Hot-hand Fallacy: http://bit.ly/1KHGgv4
- Cherry Picking: http://bit.ly/1QrT3k5
- NY Times: Test Your Problem Solving (Confirmation Bias)- http://nyti.ms/1gd43om
- Joe Pulizzi's new book, Content Inc.: http://amzn.to/1K0pmo8
- Follow Joe on Twitter: http://bit.ly/1UFwy0Y
This week Peter and Jonathan talk about how to pitch your business, and Park Howell (from The Business of Story podcast) explains how to tell your brand story.
Show notes:
How to Pitch Your Business
- Investor Pitch Deck Templates: http://bit.ly/bcast-pitch
- Guy Kawasaki's Art of Pitching: http://amex.co/1M96qVW
- Our Favorite Tools to Create Your Pitch: http://bit.ly/1ay1Tgo
- PitchEnvy: http://www.pitchenvy.com/
Brand Storytelling
- Simon Sinek's TED talk: http://bit.ly/1SW1Z6t
- The Business of Story: http://bit.ly/1J0h3LB
- The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall: http://amzn.to/1W4CiQh
- Winning the Story Wars by Jonah Sachs: http://amzn.to/1T8VSqi
- Finding Joe (the movie): http://bit.ly/1K66Esp
This week, Peter and Jonathan talk to Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto Software, about Lean Business Planning.
To download our free One Page Business Pitch Template, visit: http://bit.ly/onepagepitch
To learn more about Tim's new book, visit:
http://leanplan.com/
Email us: bcast@bplans.com
Send us a tweet: http://twitter.com/bplans #Bcast
This week, we get a message from one of our listeners. Peter and Jonathan discuss startup incubators. Our guest Caroline talks to us about the "F" word, and the 10 reasons startups fail.
This week we debate whether you should stick to your plan or change it. Lara Galloway (@mombizcoach) joins us to discuss niche marketing, and we all chat about the "Internet of Things."
This week we talk about our LivePlan YouTube ad with Cameron. Who is Cameron? Well, he hates our YouTube ad...
Show Notes:
- Our LivePlan Ad with John Procopio (:40)
- The YouTube Ad itself (1:41)
- Cameron Reilly from Motherlode.com.au (8:44)
- Be sure to check out Cameron's podcasts (Life of Caesar, Life of Alexander the Great, and The Napoleon Bonaparte Podcast)
- The Social Media Response Flow Chart: http://bit.ly/14wXIiM
- Do you have a positive story from responding to an upset customer? Email us: Bcast@bplans.com or send us a tweet: @bplans
In our first Bcast Bytes segment, Alex Blumberg joins our CEO, Sabrina Parsons, to talk about Gimlet Media, the Startup podcast, life as a company founder, and why high quality narrative audio content is still what drives him.
(This segment originally aired on Episode 5 of the Bcast.)
This week our CEO Sabrina Parsons spoke with Alex Blumberg (Startup Podcast, Planet Money) about his experience as the founder of Gimlet Media, in our first-ever "Bcast Bytes" segment. Peter and Jonathan talked to Levi King (founder and CEO of Creditera) about why your business credit matters. Then, we shared some of our favorite cloud-based subscription services for personal and business use.
This week, we discuss the Bplans article, 12 Signs You Need to Hire a Manager. Our guest and COO of Palo Alto Software, Noah Parsons, shares his favorite online tools to get your business up and running. We recommend our top picks for TV shows and podcasts that we think you'll love.
Tools Noah recommends:
- Weebly and Squarespace
- Mailchimp
- Grasshopper and RingCentral
- Google Apps
- HelloSign and DocuSign
- Upwork (formerly oDesk and elance)
In this week's episode, Peter and Jonathan talk about Robot Paper, a startup comic book company founded by Brian Wyrick. We also learn how to find a mentor with Caroline Cummings, and chat about how small businesses can use Big Data.
In this week's episode, we use the Bluth's Frozen Banana Stand to show you how to write a business plan in under an hour. We also learn about content marketing from Candice Landau, and share our thoughts on 3D printing.
In this week's episode we discuss:
- 10 Things the Bank Will Ask When You Need a Business Loan
(http://bit.ly/1NKZIVH)
- 5 Things Your Website Must Do (featuring John Procopio)
- Our Thoughts On the Apple Watch
Do you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show?
Send us an email: Bcast@Bplans.com












