Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. This is Episode number 310 of that show that, as the name implies, talks about people that make businesses and make business happen.

John: That's right. Over 300 times. That's hard to believe.

Russ: Yep.

John: But anyway these are the people who really grow the economy and really make things work. These are the people who create things out of nothing and turn them into something of significance for not only them themselves, but their customers and for the country, all of us.

Russ: Yeah. Alright. Here's our lineup for today. First up Lily Pickard, co-founder and chief content officer of TotalSiteSupport.com. It's interesting that title, chief content officer.

John: That's right. Yeah, that's becoming used a lot -

Russ: That's right -

John: -- because people have a print and online presence.

Russ: Right, yeah. Content's important.

John: That's right, yeah.

Russ: Alright. Then that's gonna be followed by my interview with Thomas Benford, co-founder and CEO of I Protest, a real interesting approach to the property tax problem -

John: That's right. Oh, that's right. Yeah, they're really on the ball, too.

Russ: You bet.

John: Yeah.

Russ: But first. That's right. It's time for the Businessmakers School of Business brought to you by the Ambrose Group. Today talking about Ambrose appraisal capabilities, which I think is second to nobody as far as I've been able to find out. These guys are very experienced in the process. They've performed over 1,000 appraisals each year offering quality reports with timely completion and they have extensive experience in appraising all property types including multi-family, residential, office, warehouse, industrial, retail shopping centers, office buildings and special purpose properties. And we know these guys have a lot on the ball, don't we? Otherwise they wouldn't be sponsoring the Businessmakers School of Business -

John: I know. They have the same passion for capitalism that we do.

Russ: You bet.

John: But to challenging property taxes in whatever part of Texas or part of the country you live in, you've gotta really have an on the ball appraisal, one that's accurate and one that really reflects the realistic nature of the neighborhood you live in and these guys have figured out how to do that.

Russ: You bet. Alright and we kick off the School of Business with the quote of the day.

John: Quote of the day, yes.

Russ: And today we're gonna go with Mr. Peter Drucker once again -

John: Peter Drucker, yes.

Russ: We haven't quoted him in awhile, but this is a pretty cool one. There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

John: That's right, yeah.

Russ: You might as well just do it inefficiently if you don't have to do it at all.

John: That's right or take the day off.

Russ: That's right.

John: Go play golf -

Russ: That's better.

John: Yeah, it'd probably be better.

Russ: Alright. That brings us to this week in business history. What happened during this May week in business history ______ --?

John: We're gonna start off this week in business history in 1804. Louis and Clark expedition begins out of St. Louis and they go clear to the Pacific Ocean and back and find out what's out there. They were hired by Thomas Jefferson to explore the Louisiana Purchase. They'd just purchased all this land from France and they wanted to see what was out there.

Russ: Right, and you would know this I think if anybody would, did what they find come anywhere close to their expectations --?

John: No, 'cause they were looking for a northwest passage that would connect the East Coast with the Pacific Ocean without having to go around South America.

Russ: Right. And they found it, but it's over land and it was difficult -

John: Yeah, the passage is land. You can't take a boat.

Russ: Right.

John: You could take a boat, but it'd have to be a small boat.

Russ: Right, that you'd carry most of the way - Alright.

John: Alright. This week in business history in 1817 the Mississippi River steamboat service begins.

Russ: I wonder if those boats are runnin' these days.

John: Well there are steamboats.

Russ: Yeah, but the Mississippi's kind of out of control these days, too -

John: Yeah, right, yeah.

Russ: Do they keep doin' business on it even when that happens?

John: Well I don't' think they get anywhere near it --

Russ: Alright.

John: This week in business history in 1819 the first bicycles in the U.S. are introduced in New York City. They're called swift walkers -

Russ: Swift walkers; wow -

John: ________ in New York City. They had to pick a city somewhere so they might as well pick that place, right?

Russ: That's right. That's right.

John: Okay. This week in business history in 1846 the saxophone is patented by Antoine Joseph Sax. I played alto sax in my high school years. One of my favorite musical heroes was the alto sax player for the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Paul Desmond. Okay. This week in business history in 1874 Levi Strauss starts marketing blue jeans with copper rivets for $13.50 a dozen. Like a buck a piece. This week in business history in 1891 George A. Hormel and Company, we all know they make meat products, introduced Spam -

Russ: Right. ________ ________ long life -

John: Some mistakes you never stop payin' for.

Russ: That's right. That's right.

John: Spam is a butt of a lot of jokes.

Russ: Yes, it is.

John: I guess people eat it.

Russ: Oh, there's a lot of people. I understand it's still very popular. The food in Hawaii.

John: Oh really.

Russ: They like Spam out there, yeah.

John: That's _________. It's so far out.

Russ: That's right. That's right.

John: We don't want 'em anywhere near us if they're Spam eaters.

Russ: That's right.

John: Alright. This week in business history a patent - this was 1897 - a patent was issued for surgical absorbent dressing patented by Robert W. Johnson of New Brunswick, New Jersey. It was the initial bandage.

Russ: Wow.

John: To start Johnson & Johnson.

Russ: So before that they just bled or what?

John: Yeah, I guess. Well no, they would put a tourniquet or just take a rag and put on there. This week in business history in 1906 a patent was issued for a flying machine to Orville and Wilbur Wright of Dayton, Ohio. Now they were also in the bicycle business. So the first bicycles were in 1819 and in 1906 they graduated from bicycles to flying machines.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Man, okay. This week in business history in 1927 the Supreme Court ruled that bootleggers must pay income tax. Why not? They're makin' money. They were makin' money back then -

Russ: Right; absolutely.

John: That's how they got Al Capone.

Russ: Right, right.

John: I think they passed that law and I'm sure the Supreme Court upheld it because they thought it was a good way to get some of these gangster - now if all these guys did was just make bootleg whiskey and that's it, chances are they wouldn't have gone this far -

Russ: Well maybe. I don't know. Maybe -

John: But a lot of these people who did this were actually murderers and thieves and crooks. Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Bugs Moran, all those guys. Okay. This week in business history in 1933 the drive-in theater was patented by Richard Hollingshead of Riverton, New Jersey ________ --

Russ: What an invention. Man, that was a key part of my growin' up. How about yours?

John: Oh man, I wouldn't have survived without the drive-in.

Russ: That's right. You could sneak in, too, pretty easily. Get in the trunk of somebody's car -

John: Yeah, right. Just make sure they let you out.

Russ: That's right.

John: Just don't forget about ya'.

Russ: That's right. And it definitely was one of the best things to do if you had a date with somebody you really liked.

John: I know, I know, I know. Okay. This week in business history in 1954 Robert Zimmerman also known as Bob Dylan is bar mitzvahed.

Russ: I bet that was an interesting bar mitzvah.

John: Yeah, I know. I wonder how. I wonder why. I guess he probably changed his name 'cause when you're bar mitzvahed you're what? Twelve, 13 years old.

Russ: Yeah, right.

John: So he didn't really hit the big time till later, much later than that -

Russ: Naw, he wasn't -- right.

John: This week in business history in 1961 the song Mother-In-Law, which is a good, catchy tune.

Russ: It's a great song.

John: By Ernie K. Doe hits number one on the charts; 1961. Later on this week in business history in 1964 LBJ presents The Great Society, which started our spiral into huge deficits which we have right now.

Russ: Right.

John: But I would say it's been a success because if you look at Census Bureau data on people at or below poverty level you'd find a lot of 'em live better than poor people anywhere else in the world.

Russ: Yeah.

John: But some of 'em own cars, they own their home, they have satellite cable TV. So I'd say I guess it worked.

Russ: Yeah, okay.

John: We can stop doin' it.

Russ: Right.

John: Okay. This week in business history in 1965 the Beatles' Ticket to Ride single goes number one. This week in business history in 1965 SpaghettiOs are first sold. I thought those things were around a lot longer than that. So yeah, SpaghettiOs.

Russ: But they were just presented as a canned food, right?

John: A canned food, right.

Russ: You couldn't buy like SpaghettiO pasta at a real pasta shop, could you?

John: Well maybe the pasta shop might have bought them -

Russ: In the can -

John: In the can.

Russ: Taken 'em out of the can.

John: And deceived the customer _______ were homemade, but I was more of a Rice-A-Roni _______ --

Russ: Were you?

John: Yeah.

Russ: I didn't like either one of 'em.

John: The San Francisco treat.

Russ: Treat.

John: This week in business history in 1966 one of the top albums the Beach Boys ever put out and I'd say in pop music, one of the top ones because of the sound that the Beach Boys -

Russ: And what was that?

John: It was called the Wall of Sound. The name of the album was Pet Sounds.

Russ: Okay.

John: They made that song Wouldn't It Be Nice and -

Russ: Yeah, and Sloop John B was on there, yeah -

John: Sloop John B, that was kinda' my -

Russ: That was one of your favorite ones -

John: Yeah, it was kinda' my nickname in high school.

Russ: Ah. Cool.

John: Sloop, yeah. Lasted about two years.

Russ: Alright, cool.

John: This week in business history in 1988 Surgeon General C. Everett Koop reports that nicotine is as addictive as heroine.

Russ: Wow.

John: What does a Surgeon General do anyway? When I first saw it I thought it was Sturgeon General. Like he was in charge of all the sturgeons out there, but no. It's Surgeon General. Guy walks around in some comic operative uniform. We have a woman Surgeon General right now and she's like walkin' around like the -

Russ: I thought they inspected all the surgeries that were going on.

John: Yeah, well that's what they should be doing.

Russ: That's right. That's right.

John: All that on-site surgery out there -

Russ: That's right. That's right.

John: They operate on the wrong knee or ya' go in there for an appendectomy and they end up giving you a lung transplant or something 'cause they didn't mark your chest ________ --

Russ: That's what we need the Surgeon General to watch for.

John: This week in business history in 1992 the polls show that Ross Perot, George Herbert Walker Bush the first and Clinton could be in a deadlock where no one will get the plurality, but what ended up was Perot stole a lot of Bush votes which enabled Clinton to win the election without a majority vote -

Russ: But I also think -

John: Plurality of the vote.

Russ: That it probably was tighter until Perot introduced his vice presidential candidate and he lost probably about half his votes _______ --

John: Yeah, and that was really - that was a hard thing to watch.

Russ: Yes, it was.

John: Because the guy that was his vice president, he was obviously too old to be doin' this, but in his prime he was a war hero. He was a patriot and it's too bad he had to end his career like that. Alright. Last but not least, this week in business history in 1998 United States versus Microsoft, the Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states file an anti-trust case against Microsoft because of their web browser, which you don't have to use. You can get on the web and get another browser. It was one of these no-harm no-foul things out there, but I would say that that suit helped precipitate the dot com bust.

Russ: Yep. Ya' think so?

John: I think so, yeah.

Russ: Maybe, maybe. You might _______ _______ --

John: We'll never know.

Russ: You're right. Okay.

John: 'Cause we can't go back in history and change it and then see if there's a dot com bust.

Russ: Right. No, we can't do that. Alright. That brings us to navigating business jargon. This is our vocabulary lesson.

John: That's right. Yes, it is.

Russ: Where I go out and find a new word or phrase -

John: Oh yes.

Russ: And challenge John with his ability to -

John: My cognitive ability.

Russ: Right.

John: Yes, and I've been doin' pretty good. Although as of late I've been coming close, but no cigar.

Russ: You bet. Alright.

John: Alright.

Russ: Here's today's word. It's actually a phrase today. It's a noun phrase.

John: A phrase.

Russ: Alright. It's a lipstick indicator.

John: A lipstick indicator.

Russ: Yeah.

John: We all know what lipstick is.

Russ: Right.

John: A lipstick indicator is the guy who when he sees the woman with the lipstick you can tell by the look in his eye whether the guy likes the lipstick job that the girl he's with, woman he's with -

Russ: That's a good try, but you're not anywhere close to this one.

John: Man, I go down in flames again -

Russ: This one is more of the fact that a certain situation that is brought to light by more lipstick and it is the tendency for lipstick sales to increase prior to and during a recession.

John: Oh okay.

Russ: Makes sense, doesn't it?

John: Yeah, it does. When I go to restaurants I always look at how many women have their nails manicured.

Russ: Yeah, that's an indicator, too.

John: That could be an indicator.

Russ: I think this past downturn was so bad -

John: I'll tell ya' the best indicator how the economy's gonna go is when I look at my bank account and there's no money in it.

Russ: Right. Well this -

John: You can have all the lipstick out there ya' want.

Russ: This last recession was so bad I think there were a lot of men were startin' to consider wearing lipstick, too.

John: That's right 'cause women are favored over men in society.

Russ: Right, right, right. That brings us to dumb moments. Do you have a story for us this week, John?

John: Yeah, they say the - I've said this before, the definition of insanity is doin' the same thing over and over again expecting to get a different result. Well it looks like the Obama administration is stepping up its scrutiny of disadvantaged neighborhoods credit access. It's illegal for banks to discriminate on basis of sex, racial, national origin and all that. It's called red lining.

Russ: Right.

John: But very few banks actually do that. It's just that some certain minorities are not as good a credit risks in certain neighborhoods.

Russ: Right.

John: So now the government's, through the Community Reinvestment Act is starting to put pressure, especially in St. Louis. The Federal Reserve up there cited Midwest Bank Center to granting more loans to minorities and getting back into the subprime business.

Russ: Ah, the subprime business, yes.

John: Well that's what they have to do.

Russ: That's right, yeah.

John: So we'll see what happens, but we know what happened the last time.

Russ: Alright. Gotta lend people - anybody money that wants it, ay?

John: Yeah, I guess you're right.

Russ: Alright. Before we wrap up today's School of Business it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's playbook.

John: Here he is. They are the founding sponsor, by the way, of the best CFOs in Houston.

Russ: Cool.

John: For Celebrate Enterprise, which you're gonna be there covering with me for the Businessmakers Radio show.

Russ: Absolutely.

John: And here he is. A one and a two and a -

Russ: A one and a two and a. Alright and that wraps up today's School of Business. Stay tuned in for our interview with Lily Pickard, co-founder and chief content officer of TotalSiteSupport.com followed by our interview with Thomas Benford, co-founder and CEO of I Protest. You're listening to the Businessmakers Show heard here and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com.