Russ: Good morning. This is the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. This is episode number 201 of The Business Makers, and we'd like to welcome all our new listeners from the business talk radio network.
John: Man, isn't that great?
Russ: Absolutely.
John: I'm very excited about that.
Russ: Absolutely, and this is that show about those that most positively affect our lives, the innovators, the make-it-happen entrepreneurs.
John: That's right, Russ. These are the artists and the athletes of the free enterprise system.
Russ: Well, you're right about that. In fact, John, today when you say the athletes, I think that includes weight lifting, the guys that got to do the heavy weight lifting because, man, in this environment, that's the kind of athletes we need.
John: I know.
Russ: And here's our line up for this morning. The topic is handling the challenging times. Up first for the Aflac Business Makers Flashback, we're going to roll back to one of our very popular interviews, back to January of this year, when we had Dr. Don Minnick of Interpersonal Skills Laboratory on this show. He has a comprehensive database of what business decision makers use to decide who goes and who stays during a layoff. It's a real, real cool interview, and for our featured guest segment, we're going to take a close look at the new regulations that will be testing us in the near term, because my guest will be Carl Kleimann, president of Odyssey OneSource. And we're going to be talking about the impact of the new labor agenda, including the Ledbetter Fair Play Act and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
John: Man, it sounds like you're reading out of Atlas Shrugged.
Russ: It does, actually, man.
John: Okay.
Russ: It's that time again.
John: Yes.
Russ: But first... That's right, it's time for The Business Makers School of Business. And this is our specially selected curriculum, designed to fill in the gaps in ordinary business school. And we kick off The School of Business with the quote of the day.
John: Quote of the day.
Russ: And here's our quote of the day by none other than Winston Churchill. "Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked."
John: All right.
Russ: All right, and that brings us to this week in business history. What happened during this week during April in business history?
John: We have a panoply of activity here.
Russ: I can't wait, okay.
John: This week in business history in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth. It was a seminal moment in American history-
Russ: Yep, absolutely.
John: -because if you remember, Lincoln's second inaugural address-you know-he wanted to bind the nation's wounds, charity toward all, malice toward none, and as a result of his assassination, that was not carried out.
Russ: Right.
John: This week in business history in 1875, Snooker, which is a variation of pool, was invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain.
Russ: Wow, Snooker, huh?
John: Too bad he didn't stick with that because he later gave away Poland to Adolph Hitler.
Russ: So he should've just stuck with Snooker, right?
John: I think he got snookered. Maybe that's where the term came from, I don't know.
Russ: All right.
John: This week in business history in 1878, Harley Procter, in 1878, introduces Ivory soap.
Russ: Wow, that's 130 years old, that product is.
John: I know-and it still floats.
Russ: That's impressive.
John: Harley Procter, who eventually became the Procter in Procter and Gamble.
Russ: Wow.
John: This week in business history in 1892, George C. Blickensderfer patents a portable typewriter.
Russ: Okay, so we had the non-portable typewriter, and he came along with a portable, but, boy, in 1892?
John: It depends on how portable you're talking about.
Russ: Yeah, I know.
John: Because you figure the regular typewriter, before the so-called portable typewriter, if you wanted to move it from one side of the room to the other, you could probably do it. That was portable too. This was probably the more portable typewriter.
Russ: Sounds like some creative intellectual property writing went on there to get that patent, I'm thinking?
John: The portable typewriter.
Russ: Okay, all right.
John: All right, this week in business history in 1902, JCPenny opens it's first store, Kemmerer, Wyoming.
Russ: JCPenny's now is 107 years old?
John: Okay, later on this week in business history, four years later, Albert Einstein introduces his theory of relativity.
Russ: What a week, man!
John: I told you this was a panoply, baby!
Russ: God, everything happened this week, gees.
John: I wasn't mistaken, was I?
Russ: No, man.
John: If you think that's something-
Russ: Yeah.
John: -six years later in 1912, the Titanic sinks off of Newfoundland, as the band plays on.
Russ: Gosh.
John: It's 2:27 in the morning.
Russ: So all this happened.
John: Can you imagine some of those people went to bed like around 10:00, 11:00. Oh man, I'm so tired. I can't wait to get up early the next day and enjoy this ship, enjoy the cruise. Well, they go up around 2:00 a.m.
Russ: Golly, so that happened this week in 1922, wooh!
John: Actually at about a half hour after that, Kate Winslett, who could have easily pulled Leonardo DeCaprio up on that floating wood thing...
Russ: Refused to do it.
John: She refused to do it. She lets the poor kid hang on that thing, then he goes away and she keeps the jewel of the Nile, or whatever that thing is called. Can you imagine that?
Russ: You pointed that out last week, on this show, because it was the anniversary of the launch of this particular...
John: Well I am still irate about that.
Russ: Well I know you are, I am too.
John: You think she would have said something at the last Academy Awards. She has got some answering to do about that.
Russ: I think so too.
John: Alright okay. In this week in business history in 1922, Annie Oakley shot 100 clay targets in a row, set a woman's record for sharp shooting.
Russ: So Annie Oakley was a real person, ay?
John: Oh, absolutely, yeah.
Russ: Wow, cool.
John: This week in business history in 1924, Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.
Russ: God.
John: I mean-it's still around. This week in business history in 1927, Babe Ruth hits his first of 60 home runs.
Russ: Gees, that too?
John: Yeah, uh-hunh (affirmative). I think later on in Ruth's career-you know-he was making a lot of money. He made more money than the president of the United States-
Russ: Right.
John: -and they asked him how he felt about that, and he says, "Well, I had a better year than he did."
Russ: Exactly.
John: It was Herbert Hoover.
Russ: That's right.
John: Okay, this week in business history in 1937, my favorite cartoon characters, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd-well, Petunia Pig I could take or leave-but I do like Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck.
Russ: They all debuted this week?
John: They-1937. Okay. This week in business history in 1946, birthday of Al Green, American singer and pastor, and that guy is still making records.
Russ: Yes he is. I love his music, too.
[Music: "Use Me Up"]
Russ: Cool, cool music.
John: Okay, later in 1951 this year in business history, President Truman fires General Douglas McArthur. You talk about a political firestorm.
Russ: Wow.
John: I'm not kidding, after he sacked him, the country just went bananas. They all loved McArthur. It was during the Korean war, and McArthur did not want to follow Truman's directive as far as how the war was being conducted.
Russ: Yeah.
John: McArthur wanted to invade China.
Russ: Oh, wow.
John: And it didn't work out very well.
Russ: He was probably fired for insubordination.
John: Insubordination.
Russ: Wow.
John: But the majority of people were on McArthur's side. They thought we should conduct the war more aggressively.
Russ: This week, like 58 years ago, that happened. Cool. All right.
John: Okay, 1954, this week in business history, Bill Haley and the Comets record Rock Around the Clock.
Russ: Boy, my parents listened to that all the time, and I heard it a lot too.
[Music: "Rock Around the Clock"]
John: I used to listen to it.
Russ: Yeah, okay, cool stuff.
John: This week in business history in 1961, more Douglas McArthur. He declines an offer to become baseball commissioner.
Russ: Now that's interesting that he even got the offer. Wow, so that certainly substantiates the popularity.
John: Well, later it turned out that he was, he, he wanted to take the New York Yankees and use them to invade China. So it was a good thing that they didn't give it to him.
Russ: That's great. All right. Cool.
John: All right. This week in business history in 1961, Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to orbit the earth on Vostok 1, a Russian.
Russ: Boy, that was big, too.
John: Oh, boy.
Russ: And we went way behind.
John: I know-it scared the b'jesus out of everybody when that guy went up.
Russ: Yeah, it was amazing how far behind we were for awhile.
John: Although a lot of people didn't know, in the Russian space history, how many Russian Cosmonauts died.
Russ: Didn't make it.
John: Didn't make it.
Russ: Yeah.
John: That was all kept secret.
Russ: Yeah.
John: This week in business history, the NFL changes their penalty flag from a white flag to bright gold.
Russ: Man, you don't get this stuff in regular business school, do you?
John: I wonder why they did that?
Russ: I remember when they did it, and it disappointed me for awhile.
John: Why?
Russ: I was so tuned into the white flag.
John: We were probably watching it in black-and-white, and it probably looked worse in black and white television. Okay, this week in business history in 1970, Apollo 13 launched to the moon. Two days later, they announced to Houston, we've got a problem. There's an oxygen tank, explodes right next to Tom Hanks in route to the moon.
Russ: That's right.
John: Kevin Bacon was on that flight.
Russ: Kevin Bacon was even on there, wasn't he?
John: And then Gary Sinise, he got screwed over. He had to sit-and he's probably glad he did because-
Russ: He wasn't on the flight. He was back in Houston, right?
John: He wasn't on the flight. Yeah, yeah.
Russ: What an event that was, though.
John: It was a good movie, too.
Russ: Whoo, yes it was.
John: Okay, this week in business in 1975, ah, one of my favorite singers Linda Ronstadt released When Will I Be Loved?
[Music: "When Will I Be Loved?"]
John: She has a, quite an impressive opera voice. She was in The Pirates of Penzance, did a movie with Kevin Cline, and she also has done some country western, Spanish music, signing the old favorites. I mean-she is a-
Russ: Even some rock and roll.
John: Well, rock and roll, she started out with rock and roll. This week in business history in 1976, the Apple 1 is created. My goodness.
Russ: This is the beginning.
John: The beginning, yeah. This week in business history in 2002, the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez returns to office two days after being ousted and arrested by the country's military.
Russ: This was the last shot at taking him out, wasn't it? And then it worked for two days.
John: Poor Venezuelans.
Russ: Yeah.
John: This week in business history in 2003, the human genome project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequence to an accuracy of 99.99%.
Russ: Unbelievable history lesson.
John: Okay.
Russ: And that brings us to navigating business jargon. This is our part of the school of business where we do our best to help our listeners with the new vocabulary words, the new acronyms, the new techno speaks that are being invented every day.
John: Because we are judged by the words we use. But it's never been truer than in this day and age, because if you do not talk the talk-
Russ: Yeah.
John: It's one thing to walk the talk, but if you don't talk the talk.
Russ: That's right.
John: I mean-people are going to think you don't know what you're talking about.
Russ: You're absolutely right.
John: You got to use these words.
Russ: You're absolutely right.
John: It's very important.
Russ: All right, and the way we do this is in a contest format, where I get to go out and select the word, then I say the word.
Russ: And we challenge John, who's not seen the word-
John: I have not seen the word.
Russ: -to come up with its meaning.
John: And I do my best.
Russ: And if he gets it right, we proclaim him a winner.
John: Yeah.
Russ: And if he gets it wrong, we proclaim him a loser.
John: Right, and the big L.
Russ: And here's this morning's word.
John: Okay, all right.
Russ: And it's actually a two-word phrase.
John: Okay.
Russ: You ready?
John: Uh-hunh (affirmative).
Russ: Bank walk-away.
John: Bank walk-away.
Russ: Right.
John: Okay, so there's a bank run, where your people go to get their money out in a hurry, so you have a run on the banks. A bank walk-away is when everybody walks away and doesn't do business with the bank anymore.
Russ: Nope, wrong. You're a loser this morning.
John: Oh, all right. It sounded logical.
Russ: It's actually a little bit scarier than that, because as you well know, there are many real estate properties that go in to foreclosure these days, and often are owned by the banks once they execute the foreclosure.
John: Right.
Russ: There are many properties nowadays suddenly that the bank looks at and says, "You know what? I'm not going to execute this foreclosure." So it goes into the process. The bank looks at it. They look at the value of the property, the future value. They look at the cost just to do it and bring it back.
John: And maintain it, yeah, right.
Russ: And they decide thanks, but no thanks.
John: So it just lays there.
Russ: So it lays there, and it still belongs to the original owner who suddenly starts getting the property tax notices, and it's even a worse chapter for the person that just lost their home. They still have it, and it's uninhabitable.
John: It's like that line in the Godfather, "Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in."
Russ: That's exactly right, the bank walk-away.
John: All right, okay.
Russ: All right, and before we wrap up this morning's School of Business, it's time for PKF Texas, the entrepreneur's playbook.
John: You know Greg, the guy is always on time.
Russ: Right on time.
John: And he keeps the time.
Russ and John: A one, and a two, and a-
Russ: And that wraps up this morning's School of Business. Stay tuned for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback as we revisit with Dr. Don Minnick of interpersonal skills laboratory. And then for our featured guest segment this morning, with Carl Kleimann, the president of Odyssey OneSource. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.
