Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. Its guest time on the show and I have a very special guest with me a former two time - at least two time maybe three time guest on the show. Chuck Ashman the founder and CEO of Business Matchmaking and the president of SNA Global the company that manages Business Matchmaking. Chuck welcome back to the show.

Chuck: Thank you sir.

Russ: Why don't we start by you telling our audience about Business Matchmaking?

Chuck: Business Matchmaking is not a dating service.

Russ: Okay.

Chuck: As some reporter who called me the other day was convinced that we were in the business of fixing up men and women who were executives at different companies. Not that.

Russ: Okay.

Chuck: About 7 years ago something in Washington most unheard of happened. A man named Hector Baredo was unanimously approved by the senate to be President Bush's first major Hispanic appointment and I think the last time the senate unanimously approved anything was when Easter was.

Russ: That's right.

Chuck: So he got the job and his first mandate was to take what the SBA does and took take it from where it was to main street America to give small business an opportunity to touch and sell and deal with the government.

Russ: Okay.

Chuck: At the time I was representing Compaq which is being purchased by HP and they too were looking to carve out a space with small business. I was fortunate enough to be able to make a marriage and the private public sector initiative called Business Matchmaking was born through which I met you.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: And since that time exceedingly proud of the fact that we've done 112 events and that literally over 80,000 face to face meetings. And somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 billion dollars of contracts granted. But more than that we think we've created a mindset where an entrepreneur a small business owner doesn't have to be intimidated by the alleged red tape and bureaucracy of the government. My friend Dan Sterdivan the procurement officer at homeland security likes to tell people that he buys the most complicated software in the world and toilet paper.

Russ: Toilet paper.

Chuck: So he needs sellers for both.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: And that's what Matchmaking has become.

Russ: Cool well you clarified up front that it's not a dating service but I have heard you refer to it as speed kind of dating between small businesses.

Chuck: Indeed, indeed.

Russ: Large business and the government.

Chuck: Well we have a code system. It's called the United Nations Code System.

Russ: Okay.

Chuck: Which enables us to take everybody's company and with them classify the products they produce, the services they provide, and then we look at every government agency or Major Corporation what they're buying. Find their codes so that when we schedule meetings together we're not putting someone who's selling slippers to somebody who's buying t-shirts. Or someone who's selling janitorial services to someone who needs tires.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: It is in that sense a service and the meetings are quick you gotta do your homework before hand. We prequalify people and then you've got 15 minutes across from that buyer to make a difference and some people will get a contract rather quickly. More than that relationships are established.

Russ: Absolutely.

Chuck: It's an educational process.

Russ: Well it sounds like it's just the efficient process for this to happen. A small business person who wanted to attend one of these events what do they have to pay to get to these events?

Chuck: Well that's a great leading question, we're proud of the fact that no small business has ever paid a penny to come to any event. We don't participate in any of the contracts, there's not commissions, there's no fees, they even get their meals free. And that's as a result of initially an SBA grant in year one but since that time, companies like HP and American Airlines, and American Express Open, and Lockheed Martin, and Dun and Bradstreet are true believers that when you help entrepreneurs you help small business you're helping the American Economy and they provide the funds and the technology and the services. And the support to enable us to put on a free program as a non-profit foundation.

Russ: So a small business person who doesn't have enough business right now would be making a huge mistake by not attending one of these events right?

Chuck: Not only that you may find a small business that's got plenty of business but isn't getting paid.

Russ: Okay.

Chuck: That's a good reason to try to sell to the government because one thing for sure they pay their bills.

Russ: That's right absolutely. Now I also having attended these multiple times in the past know that there is also a focus on minority owned businesses and there's even a focus on veteran owned businesses right?

Chuck: And there's even a focus within the Veteran community on disabled veterans.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: First of all we follow the federal guidelines of making sure that a certain percentage of activity benefits women owned, the minority owned, veteran and disabled veteran owned, and it ends up working out well. My particular passion is making sure that those who have been in harm's way and sacrificed a limb or an eye or anything are not punished for having been away in combat. They get a level playing field and I'm very proud of the fact that we have of our success stories we have 52 percent women. 51 percent minority, 17 percent veteran, and 9 percent disabled vet. So it's, they're good numbers.

Russ: Wow you gotta be proud of that.

Chuck: I am.

Russ: Okay well also so when you take into consideration doing this in just kinda normal ordinary economic times is important but these extraordinarily turbulent times must make it even more important and I guess you've been as busy as ever or perhaps more busy.

Chuck: Well perhaps more busy indeed. I think the lesson we got was during Katrina. Hector Baredo then running the SBA called me and said we have an unusual problem in Mississippi and Alabama and I said what is that? And he said well we have several thousand small businesses that have survived but lost all their customers. If you sell food to a bunch of companies and their gone and he said we need help so we went down there. Sent a team had a bus full of computers sponsored by Chevron and HP at the time.

Russ: Okay.

Chuck: And we were able to get about 4,000 small businesses redirected into selling to government agencies, military bases etc... More recently Joplin Missouri we've been able to help a couple companies there. There's no question that small business has been clobbered much more than corporate America.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: As a matter of fact I don't think it's any secrete that corporate America is loaded with money right now. They're sitting with a lot of cash and hesitant to invest and small business has had trouble barrowing even with the same credit credentials they had three years ago.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: So it takes a little extra effort, many of the states, counties, and cities are working out programs that if you're otherwise qualified to handle a contract we'll work with you on advancing funds. So I'm somewhat optimistic about the future. But I think it'd be a terrible mistake to act as if the problem is gone.

Russ: Absolutely. Well a little while ago you said you started Business Matchmaking when you were working with Compaq I know quite a bit about your past and how you got from where you started to Compaq I wanna talk about after this. I'm talking with Chuck Ashman the founder and CEO of Business Matchmaking. We'll be back with more with Chuck after this. This is the BusinessMaker Show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com. This is the BusinessMaker Show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com. I'm talking with Chuck Ashman the founder and CEO of Business Matchmaking and if you're joining us right now you need to go to the web and hear the first segment because we got in-depth with Business Matchmaking right now a very cool initiative that Chuck heads up and leads. But what I wanna talk about now as I said as we left the show.

Chuck: Earlier lives.

Russ: Yes you talked about starting it because you were at Compaq and I know you have this incredible broadcast career. In fact I love your initiative and when I see how hard you work in Business Matchmaking I know where you came from I admire you even more.

Chuck: Well I appreciate that, there are certain rules the grayer the hair the more careers you're allowed to brag about. So I've reached the point I'm at about an 80 percent.

Russ: Alright.

Chuck: I celebrated recently an event I refuse to call it a birthday.

Russ: Okay.

Chuck: I celebrated the 3rd anniversary of my 25th birthday.

Russ: Alright.

Chuck: That was a week ago.

Russ: Okay congratulations.

Chuck: Thank you. 3rd anniversary, 3 candles on the cake.

Russ: I got it.

Chuck: I had anchored the news for what became Fox used to be Metromedia out in LA. I had had an opportunity to do radio both for ABC and for CBS everywhere from Saint Louis to LA and have always loved as I suspect you do to talk radio.

Russ: Yep.

Chuck: You know in television there can be the most monumental story for us that changes your life and it still gets 40 seconds, that's it.

Russ: Right, right.

Chuck: You know I wait for the day when the reports gonna be world comes to an end and in other news the Lakers lose you know. But when it comes to - and the same is true for the newspaper.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: They fight the battle of having to put it to press before all the changes are made but in talk radio you're able to not only keep going and maybe get the audience to share.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: So I had a lot of fun when I was on talk radio in LA, Saint Louis and nationally and got intrigued by those who were attempting to use the media as a marketing tool. I had written a book, this was the epiphany, I had written a book called the finest judges money can buy about corrupt judges. And I was in New York with a great radio host named Barry Farver one of the paramount voices in America. And I mentioned the name of the book several times in my first answer to his first question.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: So much so that it was embarrassing my publisher and he said don't forget and he was sitting out there behind the glass. And Barry did all but throw me off the show and that was a lesson.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: And I found out that if you are doing some interview with an author or someone that's invented a product or a politician.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: There's absolutely nothing with letting them toot their own horn as long as you do it in perspective.

Russ: Right.

Chuck: And then say okay we've done that now let's talk about this. So when I was doing talk radio and doing television the technology revolution was happening. Silicon Valley was being really in its strongest growth period and it was a natural thing to focus on those topics. And the opportunity came along and I took some of the folks that I had worked with in the past and the rest became the last decade.

Russ: Well you've done just a magnificent job and so you have had multiple successful careers. The last time you and I got together was about a year ago you invited me out to the California Governor's entrepreneurship conference in Oakland. What an impressive event that was.

Chuck: Yep.

Russ: And there you were up on the stage interviewing the governor.

Chuck: The governor yeah. That was an interesting time Arnold was at one point the most popular actor in the world. He was at one point the most recognizable American next to the president only.

Russ: That's right.

Chuck: And unfortunately he has - I do have a tip by the way I hope I don't get in trouble but I'm gonna share it with you. And that is I have found that there's some evidence that Arnold and Spitzer and Congressmen Wiener and former President Clinton are opening a gentlemen's club in Houston.

Russ: Wow.

Chuck: I don't know if that is true but I've heard about it.

Russ: There's a lot of competition for that for here so they're coming to the right market to see if they can make it.

Chuck: Arnold was and is and remains a good friend.

Russ: Yeah.

Chuck: I can't be anything but unhappy for what he went through, he did some good for the state and we shall see.

Russ: Yeah we will. Well I encourage you to keep doing what you do because this business matchmaking thing seems to help and kind of reinvigorate that American commitment to entrepreneurship.

Chuck: I'd like to do this again on the fourth anniversary of my 25th birthday.

Russ: Alright, there you go, alright. That's Chuck Ashman founder and CEO of Business Matchmaking and president of SMA global. This is The BusinessMaker Show heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com