Russ: Good morning. This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. We're that show about those people that go out and take risks and make businesses. We're trying to recognize them, encourage them and for heaven's sake, keep them unencumbered.

John: They're the ones that are keeping the economy afloat in spite the government's best efforts to wreck everything.

Russ: Absolutely.

John: That's a strong statement I know.

Russ: Alright. And here's our lineup for this morning. First up for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, we are going to feature three former guests who all had interesting and out of the ordinary stories about what specifically motivated them to start their successful companies. We like to refer to these as idea triggers. First Bennett Greenspan, founder of FamilyTreeDNA.com, and then Brian Liu co-founder and former CEO of LegalZoom.com and lastly Mr. Farouk Shami, founder and chairman of the board of Farouk Systems Group. This is a cool Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback. And then for our featured guest segment I am going to visit with Charlie Paulette, CEO of Dulce Vista Spirits LLC, a cool story about a brand new tequila. But first, that's right. It's time for the BusinessMakers School of Business and this is not business as usual school.

John: It's my favorite time of the week actually is when we sit down and dissect the knowledge that we impart on the business community.

Russ: There ya' go. And we do kick it off each Saturday morning with the quote of the day.

John: Quote of the day.

Russ: And today the guy's wisdom that we're going to be imparting is P.J. O'Rourke.

John: Oh, one of my favorite, favorite writers. He's great.

Russ: Here's the quote. 'When buying and selling are controlled by legislation the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.'

John: There we go. Okay. Everything's for sale including votes. One of his best books he ever wrote was called Parliament of Horrors.

Russ: Okay.

John: It starts off in the foreword about him and a friend of his who were walking across the mall and there were a bunch of protestors out there. His friend turns to him, he says, 'How come conservative people never protest on the mall?' He says, 'Well it's because they all have jobs.

Russ: And they're working.

John: And they're working, yes.

Russ: Alright. That brings us to this week in business history. What happened right here at the end of October and the beginning of November in business history?

John: We have a whole panoply of things.

Russ: Alright.

John: This week in business history in 1893 the father of industrial design is born, Raymond Lowry.

Russ: Wow.

John: He was a pretty good guy because he knew that in order to sell things they had to look good and they had to work well and they had to be kind of user friendly.

Russ: Right.

John: And so he did a lot of design work. He worked on radios, refrigerators, lighters, toothbrushes. He designed several important versions of the Studebaker car, but he came up with the quote is, 'There is no curve so beautiful as a rising sales graph.'

Russ: Cool.

Russ: So he was designing with that in mind.

John: With that in mind.

Russ: Well that reminds me. We've had one industrial designer on the show.

John: That's right.

Russ: Mr. Brenden Macaluso back in –

John: Macaluso.

Russ: Yeah; and he's the founder of Recompute, that eco-friendly computer.

John: There ya' go.

Russ: So it's an important sector.

John: It's an important segment. While we're at it, we're moving all the way to 1944.

Russ: Okay.

John: Kinky Freedman, country singer, band leader, author.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Former candidate for governor of Texas is born.

Russ: In 1944.

John: Yeah; four years before I was born.

Russ: So he's like what? Sixty?

John: Sixty-five.

Russ: Yeah; wow.

John: Something like that, right. Okay.

Russ: Kinky Freedman.

John: This week in business history in 1952 the first thermal nuclear explosion took place on November 1st 1952 on one of the islands in the Marshall Island chain.

Russ: Wow.

John: Called the Enewetak Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands between Australia and Hawaii. Now before this the bombs were atom bombs.

Russ: Right.

John: These were hydrogen bombs. They're much more powerful.

Russ: And this was –

John: Much more efficient.

Russ: This was an explosion by our country, right?

John: Yes, right, by our country and the tail fins of the bomb when it dropped were actually designed by the father of design, Raymond Lowry, who actually got into nuclear weaponry. I'm just kidding. Alright; okay.

Russ: Man, what a story.

John: What a story.

Russ: Here's how these nuclear hydrogen bombs should look.

John: That's right.

Russ: You don't want no ugly lookin' bomb.

John: You want a good lookin' one that's easy to load onto the airplane.

Russ: That's right.

John: This week in business history in 1952 was the first use of a computer to predict winners on election night.

Russ: 1952; wow.

John: Yeah; the Univac computer and Walter Cronkite –

Russ: Oh wow.

John: Was in charge of explaining the computer's findings to viewers.

Russ: Okay.

John: Now it was Eisenhower and Adlai Stephenson, Eisenhower the moderate conservative.

Russ: Right.

John: And Adlai Stephenson the socialist.

Russ: Right.

John: Okay. As the election was going on the Univac computer was predicting that Eisenhower would win by a landslide and of course the network news guys, who are basically liberal, just couldn't believe that that many people would –

Russ: That it was going to be a landslide.

John: Right. They knew Adlai Stephenson was going to lose so they sat on the findings till he did lose by a landslide.

Russ: And they reported, 'Our computer predicted this hours ago.'

John: Yeah; hours ago. They went back in their time travel.

Russ: There ya' go.

John: This week in business history in 1956 The Wizard of Oz debuts on television.

Russ: Okay; wow.

John: And 45 million people tuned into CBS to see the movie. Judy Garland 10-year old daughter Liza Minelli introduced the program.

Russ: Wow.

John: This week in business history in 1957 Lyle Lovett is born.

Russ: Oh my goodness. So Lyle is 52.

John: That's right. He's got a great voice, but he's pretty hard to look at.

Russ: One of my favorite songs he did is that one entitled I Married Her Because She Looks Like You.

[Music: "I Married Her Because She Looks Like You"]

John: That's right. This week in business history in 1957 the Soviet space dog gets launched into outer space. The dog was named Laika.

Russ: Laika.

John: And it was aboard the Sputnik II spacecraft and part Siberian Husky, was a stray on the Moscow streets before being enlisted in the Soviet space program. According, there was no PETA chapter I guess –

Russ: I guess not because I'm sure there was no kind of return portion of that trip.

John: Right; I don't think so. She died after the batteries of her life support system ran down. Now there may have been a PETA chapter there, but it's probably a short lived chapter because if they protested they were sent to the Gulag.

Russ: That's probably true.

John: Where they ended up living like dogs.

Russ: Now this dog, he kind of had a ride what we thought was like that little six-year old boy up in Colorado ya' know.

John: Well no, the dog was actually in the vehicle. The kid in Colorado was not in there although we were led to believe that he could have been in there –

Russ: For awhile.

John: This week in business history Bob Dylan makes his concert debut in Carnegie Hall.

Russ: Wow.

John: And a huge crowd of 50 people attended.

[Music: "Positively 4th Street Blues"]

Russ: Fifty?

John: Fifty. You heard it here first, folks. I think he had a big fan base back in those days, may have, but they were all a bunch of hippies. They didn't make good money. They couldn't afford to go –

Russ: They couldn't afford to get in there.

John: I don't know whether you've ever walked by Carnegie Hall –

Russ: Yeah; I walked by it --

John: Poke your head in there. You can tell it's an expensive place. This week in business history in 1966, truth in packaging gets a go ahead. Lyndon Johnson pushes through a dizzying array of bills and measures through the legislative labyrinth in order to get truth in packaging so when people buy something they get to read the label and see what's actually in it. Jumbo ounces. That was one of the slogans they wanted to do away with because ya' know, an ounce is an ounce.

Russ: Jumbo ounces were against the law from that day forward.

John: I guess so. No hyperbole was allowed. Okay; this week in business history in 1988 John Fogerty was found not guilty of plagiarizing one of his own songs. How do you do that? I guess you could write the song and sell the rights to it, like the Beatles –

Russ: And then go do it again.

John: I guess that's what happened. The Old Man Down the Road, which is former label for all CCR releases, Fantasy Records claim is a copy of Run through the Jungle from 70.

Russ: Oh, okay.

John: He had to play live in the courtroom. He eventually paid $400,000 in legal fees.

Russ: Alright.

John: This week in business history the European Union was established. The master treaty comes into effect formally establishing the EU. It's drafted in 1991 from delegates from the European community meeting in the Netherlands. That should be a warning sign right there when they meet in the Netherlands. But when I first heard about this I, you know, Europe's been at war with each other all these years and all these centuries. It'd be nice if they didn't go to war. Well what this is, this turned out to be a protection racket disallowing any free trade from any countries that are not in the European Union. They've gone after Microsoft and a bunch of other companies because they don't like the way they operate and their superior product.

Russ: Alright. That brings us to navigating business jargon. This is our vocabulary lesson.

John: And every educational venue in the world has vocabulary tests and so do we.

Russ: So do we and we pick the new words that are just being created out there on the streets as we speak.

John: Or made up on the way to the studio.

Russ: Right. And the way that we have to present them here, I can't explain why it happened this way, but it is –

John: It's more fun this way, even though --

Russ: It's tightly contracted.

John: Tightly contracted.

Russ: Yes. That it's presented in a contest format where John has no idea what the word is.

John: How would I know?

Russ: I know what it is.

John: Of course you know.

Russ: And I say the word say the word and then John has to guess the meeting.

John: I have to guess the meeting.

Russ: Please, no wagering.

John: Void where prohibited by law.

Russ: Right. This morning's word is a word that previously was a noun and as I present it today it's going to be a verb.

John: A verb. That happens sometimes.

Russ: And that's a huge hint. Here it is. Plutoed.

John: Plutoed. Pluto is a planet that is way out there.

Russ: Mhmm.

John: Way out in the solar system.

Russ: Right.

John: I think it's either the last planet in the solar system or pretty close to it.

Russ: Yeah.

John: So when you're Plutoed that means you are so far out that you're not making any sense.

Russ: No, I think you're a loser today and apparently you're not a huge fan of astronomy because many of us know that the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided several years ago that Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet.

John: Who said this?

Russ: It's hard for you to play this game when you're not even paying attention to what's happening –

John: Who are you sourcing on this?

Russ: The General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union.

John: Oh okay.

Russ: Aren't I right, John Whiteside.

John: Are you sure that it's not astrological union?

Russ: No, it's not and therefore since Pluto was a planet and it had its planet authority stripped from it –

John: It's been revoked. It's been a revoke. It's rights of planetary orbital –

Russ: Right. No, it's still in orbit. It's just not a planet.

John: It's been revoked.

Russ: It's been demoted.

John: It's been demoted.

Russ: Therefore when someone is demoted or devalued they have been Plutoed.

John: Alright. Did the Plutonians have anything to say about this?

Russ: They had no voice in it what so ever.

John: If that isn't the height of arrogance I don't know what is.

Russ: Yes, it is. Alright. That brings us to dumbest moments. Do you have a dumb moment for us?

John: Well this is a result of a dumb moment. As you remember I think it was several months ago we talked about the airlines. Some of them were starting to charge for that first and second bag.

Russ: Oh yeah.

John: That you checked.

Russ: Yeah.

John: And we thought was probably not a good idea in this tough economy to start nickel and diming your customers and we thought that it would cause problems, but the problems that it's caused, we didn't really touch on. We just thought of the customer inconvenience and the log jams.

Russ: Yeah; we thought there'd be a lot more carry on because they were so –

John: Yeah; right, but as it turns out if you look on the surface it looks like it was a pretty good move because the amount of baggage fees the airlines have garnered have gone up about 275 percent from the second quarter –

Russ: Wow.

John: Of 2009 versus 2008.

Russ: Wow. But first they're pulling in a lot more bucks, right.

John: On the baggage, yes, yes, but as it turns out the airlines that are charging for the first and second bags are losing gross revenues.

Russ: Passengers?

John: Passengers and gross sales in a much higher rate than the airlines that are not charging for that first or second bag. So you got Southwest Airlines and Jet Blue who are doing quite well –

Russ: Free bags.

John: They're not setting the world on fire, but by not nickel and diming their customers they're not suffering the double digit decreases in gross sales and ticket sales like the big airlines. So I would say so far it was a dumb moment, a dumb move for these airlines to be nickel and diming their customers in such a way.

Russ: Okay. It's kind of like raising taxes, isn't it?

John: Funny you bring that up because see, the politicians get into this, too, because when they raise taxes and you could say the airline for instituting their own tax.

Russ: Right.

John: But when the politicians do anything with revenues and taxes they tend to look at the static analysis.

Russ: Right. Hey, if we just raise the price we'll have more money.

John: Yeah; people will sit still and you absorb it and keep buying at the same rate. Well it doesn't happen. So there's an algorithm associated with dynamic scoring.

Russ: And that's what's taking place here.

John: And that is people's behavior changes based on how much financial burden you put on them.

Russ: Right.

John: Apparently the airlines run like politicians most of them and they think oh, we'll just get the same number of passengers. They'll just grit their teeth and pay it. Well maybe they won't.

Russ: They're not doing it. Good story. Before we wrap up this morning's school of business it's time for the very popular PK of Texas, entrepreneur's playbook starring none other than Mr. Greg Price. A one, and a two and.

Greg: This is Greg Price with PKF Texas' Entrepreneur's Playbook. As we navigate through this current recession, watching our politicians talk about change, I recently recalled this quote from Eric Hoffer I learned at a leadership class I once attended, "In times of change, the learners will inherit the Earth, while the knower's will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."

So as a leader would you be classified as a "knower", or a "learner"? Or more importantly do you know the difference? In Jim Collins book Good to Great he talks about Level 5 Leadership. Level 5 leaders build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. Level 5 leaders channel their ego ambition away from themselves into the larger goal of building a great organization or company.

Knower's have very limited ability to stretch themselves and get to panic mode very quickly. On the other hand learners, have the ability to stretch themselves for a while before they reach panic mode.

What would your employees say about you…As a leader, are you a knower? Or a learner? As you meet people each day, employees, prospective customer, vendors, advisors, etc. Ask yourself are they knower's, or learners? Knowing the difference could make a huge impact on your satisfaction. To read and comment on the PKF Texas' Entrepreneur's Playbook, visit my blog, fromgregshead.com. PKF Texas – The Fit That's Right!

Russ: Stay tuned in for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback where we are going to feature three cool stories from former guests on the show about what triggered their idea to start their companies. And then for our featured guest segment I am going to be visiting with Charlie Paulette, CEO of Dulce Vista Spirits LLC. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com