Russ: Good morning. This is the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com. And this is that show that features the private sector, the make-it-happen innovators and entrepreneurs.
John: That's right. The private sector. They should call it the productive sector. This is the group of folks that whether you're running a company or whether you work for one, you're producing goods and services and wealth to the US economy, and growth to the US economy.
Russ: You bet. All right. And here's our lineup for this morning. And this is not your business-as-usual lineup [Laughter]. First up, I visit with Ernie Rapp, cofounder of the Up Experience. And Ernie's gonna tell us about the 2010 version of the Up Experience. It's a one-day event to network, meet and learn from some of the most influential thought leaders on the planet. This year's schedule for October 21st.
And then that's gonna be followed by our roving guest correspondent and major friend of the Business Makers, Laura Pennino, who last week ventured over to Orlando, Florida to participate in the 2010 Zumba® Convention. Zumba®. That's the real cool serious dance workout phenomena that fuses hypnotic Latin rhythms [Laughter] and easy-to-follow moves to create a one-of-a-kind fitness program that will blow you away.
Beto Perez essentially stumbled upon the concept in Columbia in the mid '90s and then was joined by Alberto Perlman and Alberto Iohone in 1999. All three of those guys.
John: Jeez.
Russ: Are named Berto or Alberto. So you got to be an Alberto.
John: Hey, any dance or any movement like this that begins with the letter Z is gonna have some action to it.
Russ: You got that right. And man, what a business it has turned out to be. And Laura Pennino managed to capture an audience with Alberto Perlman, cofounder and CEO of Zumba® Fitness. But first, that's right. It's time for the Business Makers School of Business. And this is that business school where John and I put together what we think is real-world curriculum.
John: Yeah. It's ground-level stuff where you find out mistakes people made or what's happened in history. We got a vocabulary lesson, one of those things you really need that, you know, when you graduate, well, actually, you don't graduate from our school, but when you get that job or you get that first company going, this is stuff you can take with ya.
Russ: You bet.
John: Yeah.
Russ: And the other thing that sort of separates our school of business is that we're powered by Champion Energy Systems.
John: I know. And that's - a lot of business schools can't make that claim.
Russ: Well, I don't think any others can [Laughter]. You know, I mean, here Champion Energy System is it's a very new-wave way to offer electricity to ya. And I think - I'm not sure about this, but I think what they did was look at all of the business schools -
John: All of them.
Russ: - across the country, and so far they've only chosen to champion ours. All right. And we kick off the school of business each Saturday morning with a quote of the day.
John: Quote of the day.
Russ: And today I've gone back into old Mr. Peter Drucker, unfortunately, who is no longer with us, but left us with a lot of cool business quotes.
John: He sure did.
Russ: That's right. Here's today's quote: "Plans are only good intentions, unless they immediately degenerate into hard work."
John: That's right 'cause, you know, how many times you see people, they kind of sit around and, you know, belch platitudes at call.
Russ: Right [Laughter].
John: You know, and they think well, just because I'm uttering these things, they must be important.
Russ: That's right.
John: And if they are that important to me, they got to be important to everybody else. During all this thinking and navel-gazing, you know, nothing ever gets done.
Russ: Well, I totally concur. You know, in a couple of my large, corporate business experiences, man, I was with some people that could plan and plan and plan, but never do anything [Laughter]. I mean, they kinda like thought that was going to work was sitting there and planning, you know [Laughter]. And I was going wow! When are we gonna do something here?
John: Well, you know, Eisenhower said that the - your battle plan never survives first contact -
Russ: That's right.
John: With the enemy anyway.
Russ: That's right. I love that.
John: Yeah.
Russ: I love that quote. All right. And that brings us to this week in business history. So what happened during this September week in business history?
John: Well, we're gonna start in 1775. A guy named Dr. John Kid was born, and he's the guy who invented the mothball.
Russ: Wow!
John: Right.
Russ: So the mothball inventor was born this week in business history in 1775. Wow!
John: In 1775. Right. Okay. This week in business history, in 1776 is the world's first submarine attack.
Russ: My goodness.
John: This happened during the Revolutionary War. Think about that. Submersible craft.
Russ: In 1776.
John: 1776.
Russ: Getting in a craft and going under water.
John: Yeah. The name of the craft was called the Turtle, and it was hand powered. And they were trying to attach a bomb to the hull of the eagle, and then they had to bore a hole in it, but it was an armor-plated bow, you know, steel-plated.
Russ: Right.
John: And they couldn't bore it, and they just -
Russ: So the submarine went up to the boat and was trying to bore a hole ____.
John: Yeah. Yeah. And it didn't work, and the bomb exploded harmlessly, and -
Russ: But it was the first submarine attack.
John: Hey, you know, not everything works the first time.
Russ: That's right [Laughter].
John: Okay. This week in business history in 1813, United States is nicknamed Uncle Sam.
Russ: Wow!
John: The guy named Samuel Wilson, he was a meatpacker, not to be confused with the Green Bay Packers.
Russ: Yeah. Right [Laughter].
John: He was a meat packer from Detroit, New York [Laughter], and he supplied beef to the US Army during the war of 1812. The barrel, side of the barrel they stamped with US, you know, for United States, but soldiers began referring to the food as hey, this is Uncle Sam's food. And then they picked up the nickname, and it's stuck with us ever since.
Russ: Wow! Cool.
John: All right. This week in business history in 1882, the first Labor Day is celebrated.
Russ: Hmm. That's interesting.
John: That's right. It was a tribute to the toil and achievement of the nation's workers. This week in business history in 1885, man, this is something else, the baseball glove was patented by George Rawlings of St. Louis.
Russ: Wow! Cool.
John: Okay. This week in business history in 1897, the first drunk driving arrest, 25-year-old London taxi driver. Wouldn't you know it that it would be a taxi driver. George Smith was arrested for drunk driving after he slammed his cab into a building [Laughter]. I guess that's a pretty good giveaway that you're under - your driving is impaired by some -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - foreign substance or something. This week in business history in 1900, the new electric car speed record is set.
Russ: In 1900. Wow!
John: I know. This guy drove five miles, a five-mile track, in ten minutes and twenty seconds.
Russ: Ten minutes. So wow! So he was going like 30 miles an hour. So yeah.
John: Yeah. Right.
Russ: Wow!
John: And the electric car, according to this report, remained fairly competitive until about 1920, and people liked it 'cause it was quiet. And if you ask me, I think it's too quiet. These Priuses driving around [Laughter], you don't hear them coming up on you. But anyway, developments in gasoline engine technology and cheaper mass-produced nonelectrics like the Model T signified the end of the electric car. But you wonder what would have happened if Henry Ford would have -
Russ: Embraced it. Yeah.
John: Embraced it. Yeah. Interesting. Also, this week in business history in 1900, a deadly hurricane, they call it Isaac Storms, hits Galveston. Category four. Rips through Galveston and killing 6,000 to 8,000 people. Fifteen-foot storm surge. And back then they had no, you know, Doppler radar.
Russ: Well, they didn't.
John: And some good-looking babes on TV.
Russ: Right.
John: 'Cause there wasn't any TV.
Russ: They didn't even have those.
John: And no guy with a rain slicker on TV hanging onto a lamppost. They were warned, but for some reason, you know, word didn't get around.
Russ: Well, it's so interesting. They say from 6,000 to 8,000 were killed. Number one, these days we don't have a 2,000 variation in how many were killed [Laughter]. They didn't even know, it was so bad.
John: Right.
Russ: And number two, it's the worst in US history. They hardly ever talked about it, you know. But man, 6,000 to 8,000 people with one storm.
John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1935, Frank Sinatra's talent is discovered.
Russ: Cool.
John: Nineteen years old, and he was singing with a group called the Hoboken Four, which was on a talent show called Major Bo's Amateur Hour.
Russ: Wow!
John: Five years later he's singing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. And if you would believe, Mario Puzo who wrote the Godfather, loosely based, in fact, on the relationship between Frank Sinatra, and Tommy Dorsey had to let Sinatra go because either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.
Russ: Because Tommy Dorsey had him in a contract -
John: And he couldn't -
Russ: - and Frank couldn't break out on his own.
John: Yeah. He wanted to go out on his own. Yeah.
Russ: And so Frank had a little bit of help getting out of that contract.
John: Well, you never know. You never know. Okay. This week in business history in 1936 Buddy Holly is born.
Russ: Yeah. Wow! What an entertainer.
John: Yeah.
Russ: He was for a short while.
John: That's right. This week in business history in 1938, air-conditioning apparatus - we were talking about air-conditioning a little while back - patented by Reuben H. Underrog.
Russ: Thank you Reuben, man.
John: Reuben. Man.
Russ: We can't - you can't live where we live without it.
John: I know. Okay. This week in business history in 1956, Elvis appears on the Ed Sullivan show. He sings "Don't be Cruel" and "Hound Dog".
Russ: And I watched it.
John: We all watched it.
Russ: Yeah.
John: And Elvis, you know, did these suggestive hip gyrations, and Sullivan swore he'd never book the guy on the show again. Of course, he recanted on that.
Russ: After he saw everybody else likes those hip gyrations [Laughter].
John: That's right.
John: This week in business history, one of my favorite shows of all time, Leave it to Beaver, had debuted in 1957, but this week in business history it airs its last episode.
Russ: Oh, how sad.
John: The Cleaver family. And you had June and Ward and Wally Cleaver and then the Beaver, you know. The Beaver was the - he was the clinch pin. He was the straw that stirred the drink on that show.
Russ: That's right.
John: But there was an agitator on the show.
Russ: His good friend. Right.
John: His good friend Eddie Haskell.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Who actually stole the whole show, in my opinion.
Russ: Yeah. Yeah. I think he did.
John: And he would always come in and do these just awful compliments to people, and he'd go up to the Beaver's home and see June Cleaver and say gee, that sure is a wonderful dress you have on today Mrs. Cleaver [Laughter]. He was probably about ten years old, you know.
Russ: Right.
John: Just fawning and just - this week in business history in 1976, one of the world's greatest mass murders of all time, Chairman Mau Sa Dung dies.
Russ: Oh, wow! So you weren't part of the Chairman Mau Fan Club?
John: Well, how could you be when he killed all those people?
Russ: Right.
John: That's it
Russ: That wraps up this mooring's history lesson?
John: You bet.
Russ: Wow! From mothballs to Chairman Mau.
John: That's right.
Russ: What a history lesson.
John: Yeah. One thing killed insects, the other one killed, you know -
Russ: People.
John: - human beings. Yeah. Right. All right.
Russ: And that brings us to our jargon challenge round.
John: Oh, yes.
Russ: And also known as our vocabulary lesson.
John: Hey, I've been doing good this year.
Russ: Yeah.
John: I don't know how many I've gotten right. I got to start keeping score.
Russ: And the way we play this is I choose a word -
John: Yes, you do.
Russ: - and I say the word and then John guesses the meaning? Are you ready?
John: No. No. I'm kidding [Laughter].
Russ: This morning's word is mancession.
John: Mancession.
Russ: Let me spell it for you. M-A-N-C-E-S-S-I-O-N.
John: Oh, mancession.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Okay. That's another word for divorce [Laughter]. When a woman doesn't want the man around, she undergoes a mancession.
Russ: I'm so disappointed. I thought you were gonna get this one. So, no, you're wrong. Here it is. It's a recession that affects men more than women just like the recession that we're in right now. It's clear.
John: I was thinking of the succession.
Russ: I know. It's recession. So, no, there was logic in your guess.
John: Logic. It was -
Russ: Yeah, but -
John: - incorrect logic. So in other words, there are some economic downturns where men are more affected negatively than women are.
Russ: Right. All right. And that brings us to dumb moments. Do you have a dumb moment?
John: There was a provision in the Dodd-Frank Bill. It was one of these last-minute, there was no discussion.
Russ: Sounds exciting.
John: And there really wasn't any reason to put it in there. Okay? Other than political. What happened was they slipped this provision that will force companies to disclose regularly the ratio of the median annual pay of all their employees to that of the chief executive.
Russ: You're kidding me?
John: And make this public. No. Yeah.
Russ: That's a requirement now?
John: Right. Yeah. For example, the median salary of an S&P 500 CEO last year was a little over a million bucks a year, which is twenty-five times that of the forty thousand dollars that official statistics show was paid to the average US employee, private sector employee. The chief executive's total compensation, however, is like $7.5 million. That's the median, meaning half make more, half make less. And that's 187 times the average private sector pay. And get this. It's nineteen times what the President of the United States makes, his basic $400,000.00-a-year salary.
Russ: So are there actual numbers that say you can't go over this or under this or it's strictly for the -
John: No. It's just gonna put -
Russ: For the media.
John: - they're gonna put it out there.
Russ: Yeah. Oh, my God.
John: And, you know, I got to tell ya it's tough enough running a company and keeping your employees motivated, but when you throw this information out there, I mean -
Russ: It's ridiculous.
John: - it's ridiculous. And it just is gonna cause nothing but a lot of negative stuff, you know.
Russ: Oh, my God. I think maybe we should have some sort or ratio like that for Chris Dodd and Barney Frank and [Laughter] -
John: I know.
Russ: - what they make, and what kind of mistakes those guys have made. Jeez.
John: I know. And I want their total income. I don't want just their senator -
Russ: Absolutely.
John: - congress congressional pay. I mean, I want to know - add in all the graft and all that and all that.
Russ: Maybe if we just sort of put everybody together like in a collective forum like Chairman Mau wanted, it would be okay then.
John: I think what we ought to do is we got to put all the money there is in the world in the United States [Laughter] and put it in Kansas in bushel basket. And we have one-half of the US population over on the - you know, on the California Coast, and the other half over on the East Coast, and they have to run [Laughter] to Kansas to get their money.
Russ: And the winner gets as much as they can carry away?
John: Yeah. Whoever gets there the earliest gets most of the money [Laughter]. It's kind of like the World Football League when they did away with kickoffs.
Russ: That's right.
John: Remember that? They put the ball on the 50-yard line -
Russ: Right. And said go get it.
John: - and one guy on one side ____ [Laughter].
Russ: Go get it. All right. All right. And before we wrap up this morning's school of business, it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook.
Greg: This is Greg Price with PKF Texas' Entrepreneur's Playbook.
If you want to put the fear into a room of executives, ask them the following question, "Why would anyone want to be led by you?" In today's fast paced, self-empowered employee world, that question creates Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, (FUD) within a room of executives,
Before you can be a great leader, I believe you need to take stock of yourself in these key areas:
- Self Assessment-Knowing your own emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives, and values.
- Self Control-Controlling your own emotions and redirecting yourself when it becomes disruptive.
- Driven-Having an internal engine that works, showing passion, a can do attitude and accountability.
- Empathetic-Making sure your team understands that you are considering them, their situations and ideas.
- Social-Being persuasive and building consensus around an idea and getting your team to buy in.
You will note that technical expertise is not listed in these areas. These traits of success have more to do with your emotional intelligence (EI). A Harvard Business Review study showed that "EI" as it's commonly referred to, has shown that organizations with a high degree of emotional intelligence have outperformed the yearly goals by as much as 20%.
How strong is your EI? Do you know what your EI is? To be a leader, you will need followers. Make sure you and your followers have addressed where you think your EI stands today.
To read and comment on the PKF Texas' Entrepreneur's Playbook, visit my blog, fromgregshead.com. And be sure to check out the new mobile ready website at PKF Texas.com - PKF Texas, The Fit That's Right!
Russ: All right. And that wraps up this morning's school of business. Stay tuned in as w visit with Ernie Rapp, co-founder of the Up Experience, followed by our own Laura Pennino as she sits down and talks with Alberto Perlman, co-founder and CEO of Zumba® Fitness. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com.
