Russ: This is The BusinessMakers Show, Episode Number 330 of that show that features those that most positively affect our lives.

John: That's right. That's your business class ,you might say.

Russ: You bet, the private sector.

John: And even - yeah, and even further. You drill down further and certainly the entrepreneurs and the artists and the athletes, athletes because of the stamina that's involved in starting these companies.

Russ: Right.

John: Artists in that they're, more or less, the more creative --

Russ: Absolutely.

John: -- types and from a GNA circuitry standpoint, compared to other business folks, you know, who are corporate types or middle managers at GM. and, of course, I don't think they - I don't even think have middle managers there anymore.

Russ: [Laughter] I don't think they do.

John: They have apparatchiks from - you know, and all that, so that's my take this week.

Russ: All right.

John: All right.

Russ: And speaking of entrepreneurs, our weekly shout-out to E.O. Houston --

John: Yeah, shout out!

Russ: -- and the Entrepreneurial Organization of Houston, all right, and also, speaking of entrepreneurs, we like to tell all of our audience about the Energy Makers Show, our sister or brother show, depending upon how you look at it.

John: Well, yeah but the --

Russ: -- The interview --

John: -- The shows really have no gender.

Russ: They don't? All right, all right.

John: See, so they're kind of android.

Russ: An -all right, android.

John: Androgynous, our androgynous relationship we have with-

Russ: All right.

John: -- with The Energy Makers

Russ: With theenergymakers.com.

John: Yeah, that's right.

Russ: And as a matter of fact, today's guest on The Business Makers Show is a guest that we've had on The Energy Maker Show, David Crane the CEO of NRG because our own Paul Dickerson, of The Energy Maker Show, is gonna be interviewing him today.

John: 0h, wow.

Russ: On The Business Makers Show.

John: NRG.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Yeah, okay.

Russ: But first -- It's time for The Business Makers School of Business.

John: That's right, our favorite segment.

Russ: You bet, yeah. This is where we go out and really put together real-world curriculum.

John: Yeah, some of its smart-ass, some of it we kinda make up on-the-fly, and some of it's actually true.

Russ: Some of it, yes.

John: Most of it is, yeah.

Russ: We might wanna have a contest after each week for them to point out what did we make up, what really happened and what was smart-ass.

John: Now most of its true but it is smart-ass, okay.

Russ: That's true, right, and we kick of The School of Business each week with the Quote of the Day.

John: Quote of the day!

Russ: And today's quote comes from Hunter S. Thompson.

John: Oh, yes.

Russ: You know who he is, yeah?

John: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, one of the best political campaign books I've ever read.

Russ: Really?! Wow, I didn't know you followed Hunter so closely.

John: Yeah, I grew up, I was a liberal, and I liked him and he still had a great "Gonzo," he called that "Gonzo Journalist" style of writing.

Russ: Yeah and had a great sense of humor.

John: Yeah and some of that was coke and marijuana.

Russ: Yeah, kinda crossed the line there, too. Here's the quote, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

John: There ya go.

Russ: Yeah, that sounds like Hunter Thompson, doesn't it?

John: Okay, okay, I've got one for you.

Russ: All right.

John: Okay, this is PJ O'Rourke. I just saw this, this morning, "Liberalism is Communism-by-the-drink."

Russ: Communism by the drink. All right, that brings us to This Week in Business History, so what happened at the beginning of October in business history John?

John: Yeah, 1843, The News of the World tabloid - that's the one who's getting in all that trouble with the phone tapping, the tapping of the voice mail messages and some other nefarious activities - begins publication, in London, in 1843, so this is that week, yeah, and they closed a couple a weeks ago.

Russ: Yeah, okay!

John: Okay, in this week in business history, in 1876, the first long-distance phone conversation of Graham Bell - Alexander Graham Bell - receives a patent. The invention was demonstrated several times and some critics thought it was a fraud perpetrated by Dr. Bell and all that, so.

Russ: Yeah, but this was - this was -- this week was the first long-distance call, huh?

John: Yeah, right, first long-distance call and, apparently, it worked out okay. 1876 was also when General Custer and the 7th Cavalry was wiped out by Indians.

Russ: Wow, interesting, yeah, I remember when long-distance was a big deal. Probably our younger listeners, if we have any, probably don't know what we're talking about.

John: Remember your parents would say, "Will ya shuddup? I'm talking long-distance!"

Russ: That's right!

John: Or "You have a long-distance call!" "Oh gosh, that makes me -- you know, I better stop! Yeah, I better run at it!"

Russ: Well, our front office was like, it would've been, "John Beddow, long distance holding on Line 1." It didn't matter who the hell it was!

John: If it was a long-distance, baby, you took it, you took it!

Russ: You took it.

John: If it's short-distance, "Heck, you can wait, big deal, don't bother him." Yeah, okay, this week in business history, in 1880, the first electric lamp factory was opened by Thomas Edison, 1880.

Russ: So it's interesting, you know, he kinda came up with this light-bulb thing and he went, "Wow, I gotta do something with this to make money, so we make a lamp."

John: "I'll call it an electric lamp but how am I gonna -- I need a factory."

Russ: Yeah.

John: Okay, all right, then, okay, this week in business history, in 1892, George Beckett, of Providence, Rhode Island, he patents the letter box.

Russ: Wow.

John: Yeah, the letterbox, housing, a pivotal door with a letter inlet, you think this thing would've been invented like-

Russ: Well, mine is big, yeah, and I'm - I'm not so sure.

John: Yeah, but he patented it.

Russ: Yeah, and he prolly went, "Hey look, nobody's patented this thing."

John: If someone heard that guy saying, "We don't need to patent anything, everything's already been invented" and Becket said, "Oh, not - not so fast."

Russ: Yeah, right.

John: So you can - all right, this week in business history, in 1902, the birth of McDonalds founder -- or I'd say co-founder because he - Ray Kroc because there were some other people involved in this business.

Russ: Yeah, he kinda - he kinda bought a hamburger place that had a pretty good process goin'.

John: Right because he calling on them to sell them something else, so -- but, anyway, he, uhh, became an American institution.

Russ: Yeah, he made it happen, too.

John: Yeah he made prolly a lotta heart attacks-

Russ: Yeah, right!

John: that we think can be traced to it.

Russ: Right, that's prolly true.

John: But now look at that business. All right, okay, this week in business, 1947 -- that was the year before I was born.

Russ: Yeah?

John: The first presidential speech on television, President Harry Truman address from the White House asking Americans to cut back on their use of grain in order to help starving Europeans, many of which started World War II and got him into this fix in the first place.

Russ: Yup, yeah.

John: So he didn't mention that but it was a - all kidding aside - it was a - that was prolly a good move because the threat of Communism was hanging over these people and the only way the communists would help them is if they were given permission to invade those parts of Europe to feed them and, of course, they wouldn't leave. This week in business history, in 1850, Groucho Marx's game show debuts, yeah, "You Bet Your Life" and he would go on there and the game show was merely a platform for Groucho to insult the guests and do his shtick.

Russ: Which was very progressive back in 1950, wasn't it?

John: Yeah, he was - you know, then Don Rickles came along and kinda did some of that, too, but he was born in New York, in 1890. His mother encouraged him and his brothers to get into show business and they did okay for themselves. All right, this week in business history, in 1957, Sputnik is launched. Man, you talk about causing - what a fire alarm that was. It was a 10-alarm fire around the country.

Russ: Yeah, I was seven. I hadn't turned eight yet and I was even depressed. I just remember the way my parents described it, what happened.

John: Yeah, the Russians, the evil Russians.

Russ: We got beat! We got beat, yeah.

John: But we came back and put a man on the moon before they did.

Russ: Yeah, we did although now they're kinda comin' back, too.

John: Nobody knows where we're at with this whole thing, you know?

Russ: Nobody knows where they are, either, you know? They aren't doin' real well, so.

John: I know, nobody's doin' well, anywhere when it gets right down to it but, okay, this week in business history, in 1958, Billboard Magazine reported that payola was outta control. Now payola was the record - when the record companies would pay DJ's to play their records and I thought, "Well, what's wrong with that?" Well, the DJ's would play their records and nobody else's but, then again, ya know, and the more I think about this whole thing, I think, "I mean, if you want your - it's a form of advertising." You know if you're Elvis Presley and you want your record, I mean, you're promoting Elvis, okay? Now he's not workin' for free. I mean whenever I - last time I saw an Elvis concert - I never went to see an Elvis concert but whenever I read about one, saw one advertised in the newspaper, there was a tick price associated with it, okay?

Russ: And so he was advertising and your point is if the DJ decided, "Well, I'm gonna take the money to play his record" and then if his record wasn't any good, the DJ would probably lose his job, so he's gotta kinda weigh the consequences but, instead, they just made it against the law, right?

John: Yeah, right, it's what they usually do.

Russ: Yeah, that's right, they do, you're right.

John: If they want to take a right away from someone they just pass a law and you become a criminal.

Russ: That's right.

John: This week in business history in 1960 - ah, well, there we go, Route 66, you know?

Russ: Yeah, TV show.

John: We used to do that segment where we would talk about a "Todd 'n Buzz" episode and, God, I really liked that show, how about you?

Russ: I loved it, too. For our younger listeners, look it up, okay?

John: Yeah, look it up. About a buncha guys, you never know where they got their money from. They didn't have a job.

Russ: They had a Corvette.

John: They drove around in a Corvette, tooling around America, getting into fights; fist fights, standing up for the underprivileged.

Russ: Saving poor people and girls used often.

John: Yeah, there were always girls, yeah.

Russ: They did real well.

John: They did well in the girl department.

Russ: Yes, they did, man, but as you have pointed out previously, the show is very progressive. It was one of the first shows that was always captured - much of it was captured on-site. They would literally go to Amarillo, Texas [crosstalk] -

John: Yeah, they would or Pittsburgh. They had two shows filmed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Russ: Yeah and they would be there and television shows didn't do that back then.

John: No, they didn't. They usually filmed out of a studio or they'd have the fake - they have the car with the screen background showin' 'em drivin' around but, anyway, "Route 66" did out there on the road and "Todd 'n Buzz."

Russ: Yup.

John: Okay, helpin' people. Okay, this week in business history, in 1961, John F. Kennedy urges Americans to build bomb shelters as if that's gonna do any good.

Russ: Yeah, right, right, right.

John: I think he must've had some support from the bomb shelter builders, they made some big contributions to him, yeah, some building companies, and building trades, they're heavily unionized, you know?

Russ: Yeah, did your family buy one?

John: No, we did not.

Russ: No, we didn't, either.

John: No, we just figured, you know, my dad prolly thought, you know, bein' six feet underground in a bomb shelter is not gonna stop us from [crosstalk] --

Russ: Well but I remember, you know they weren't designed, really, to protect you from the bomb; they were designed to protect you from the fallout but if there was fallout there, you'd only hafta stay down there for about 15 or 20 years.

John: Yeah, yeah.

Russ: You had a little bit.

John: And that's just with a little bit of fallout.

Russ: That's right, that's right, so you had to have about - you'd hafta have some big crates of canned food, too.

John: You'd hafta have a lotta - yeah, this week in business history, in 1970, Janice Joplin dies from a heroin overdose in Hollywood, California. You know a passionate voice, you know? It just goes to show you, you know, a lotta these stars, you know, they think the rules of law or the rules of health, and physics don't apply to them when actually it does and there's only so much abuse your body can take before it says, "Okay, I'm checkin' out."

Russ: That was a loss for a "Poor Arthur" girl.

John: Yeah, okay, this week in business history, in 1974, Oskar Schindler dies, credited with saving about 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust.

Russ: Ahh, great guy, great and I think the movie's supposed to be based pretty much on it.

John: I think so and, you know, that was the only successful business he ever had was that business he had with the Nazis in the movie and I think in real life he sabotaged his own business because he couldn't stand to see these people, you know, but after the war he tried his hand in all kinds of things and it just --

Russ: Didn't work out.

John: Didn't work out, right, should've stuck with it.

Russ: Great guy, though.

John: This week in business history, in 1983, Earl Silas Tupper passes away and this guy is born in 1907. His parents were in the boarding house and farming business and he liked workin' around the house and he worked out the key part of his career, I think, was DuPont, where he learned about plastics and the moldable plastics and durable plastics and all that and he got into this container thing, you know?

Russ: And Tupperware and Tupperware parties, you know?

John: I wonder if Tupperware had his own Tupperware parties.

Russ: Well, I dunno but I - I've heard you tell - talk about him before and you always like to talk about him this day when he passed away that you were pretty certain that he had a special casket.

John: Yeah, how could I - you know, when some people die they put things in the casket, like they used to do with the old pharaohs when they died? Well, in this case, they didn't do that. They put him in the thing that they would normally put --

Russ: The Tupperware.

John: The Tupperware casket and therefore put the last shovelful of dirt they burped the casket there to get the air out of it.

Russ: The younger generation that listens to our show has no idea what we're talkin' about half the time.

John: Well, that's okay. That's why they need to listen to us because we provide historical context to peoples' lives from a business point of view. If you don't know what burping Tupperware means --

Russ: Ask your mother.

John: Yeah, or look it up. I'm sure it's in Wikipedia, Tupperware, burping, yeah, okay, and then get back to us. We're tired of having to explain all these to a few people.

Russ: Right.

John: Not that we're - we know what we're here for but holding your hand isn't one of them. It's like my father used to say, you know, goes to - "Hey dad, what's this word?" He says, "Go look it up, we've got a dictionary." All right, this week in business history, in 2004, SpaceShipOne wins the Ansari X Prize, private space ride and it's growing, too.

Russ: Yeah, absolutely.

John: All right and that wraps it up. Hey, private space flight, Route 66, copper wire, Oscar Meyer, saves all those people.

Russ: He kinda just made a cameo appearance, Oscar Meyer did.

John: Yeah, he did, yeah.

Russ: Yeah, Groucho Marx, Sputnik Minute, a lot of it happened, huh?.

John: I know, I mean, we ran the gamut, the whole panoply of business activity.

Russ: Although we can't really take responsibility for what happened this week in business history.

John: No, but we can take responsibility for how we make fun of a lot of these and how we report. All right and that brings us to Navigating Business Jargon, also known as the Jargon Challenge Round, also known as "our vocabulary lesson" and probably a few other names, too, yes indeed.

Russ: That's right, all right, and I've come up with a word and John has to --

John: Guess the word. I've gotta, yeah, guess. I don't know the word. I know it sounds like it's a big put-on out there but I really - this way we add drama to the show.

Russ: Yeah, we sure do, drama, right, you ready?

John: Yeah.

Russ: Ruralpolitan.

John: "Royal-politan?"

Russ: Ruralpolitan.

John: Okay, metropolitan is someone who lives in the city. A ruralpolitan is someone who lives in the country.

Russ: Uhh, yeah, but not really, you know? Think about it, you know? I'll give you another shot.

John: All right.

Russ: You're close but.

John: You know a ruralpolitan. There's Neapolitan. That's a kind of ice cream and I would always eat the chocolate part and the vanilla part but I didn't like the cherry part.

Russ: Yeah, right, so it doesn't have anything to do with it.

John: All right.

Russ: But metropolitan meant just a little bit more than - it's not just anybody that lives in the city.

John: Yeah, has a high rank, a highfalutin, rich, classy person and a ruralpolitan is rube who can't read.

Russ: A ruralpolitan is an urban dweller who moves to a rural area, so sorry!

John: You should be after that.

Russ: Heh.

John: That was pretty _____.

Russ: All right and that brings us to Dumbest Moments in Business.

John: The government's gettin' more and more involved in healthcare.

Russ: Yeah, well, you can say that again.

John: Yeah but back in the '60 most people, on the average, paid about 60 to 70 percent of their own healthcare costs. In other words, when they went to a doctor, they could just pay a co-pay and then the insurance company would pick up the rest. They paid for the doctor visit, paid for the dentist visit. The only time they had health insurance, per se, was when they'd guard against an unforeseen catastrophe or --

Russ: Yeah, a big problem.

John: The big problem, yeah, yeah, like auto insurance, okay, but now healthcare, since the government's been more involved, it includes more things because the government's makin' these healthcare companies lard the - the - the - you know, with more benefits, so it's not really healthcare anymore, healthcare insurance. It's more of an income transfer, you know, and, as a result, it's become more expensive.

Russ: Sure.

John: All right and here's how expensive it has become. It is now beneficially proclaimed that the eight or nine percent jump in the average employer-provided health insurance company but policy has exceeded the $15,000.00, which is more than the cost of a Ford Fiesta. In other words, it costs more to buy health insurance with health insurance premiums and all that - the cost of it is more than buying a car.

Russ: Ugh! That's outrageous because, you know, I don't see any solution until such time as if they've cured death.

John: Yeah, right.

Russ: If they can do that, you know? I think it's kinda harder to do, though.

John: Well, yeah, it is because if you get older more things will happen but if you cure death, you know?

Russ: Yeah, well, you just keep gettin' older and older and older and wouldn't that be great, all right?

John: Yeah, sooner or later, you'd probably wanna say a --

Russ: Well, you might want to.

John: -- say a "Sayonara."

Russ: I think so.

John: Like if you're a little puddle there.

Russ: Yeah, right, you would say, "I've had enough!"

John: Okay, enough's enough, okay.

Russ: All right and before we wrap up this very interesting edition of the 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. When you start the proposal process with a prospect, you should immediately consider the client's expectations regarding three aspects of the project: Scope, cost and timing. Be sure it's clear which of these attributes is the most important to your prospect or client. For example, if a customer has budget constraints placed on them by the investors then cost is probably their main concern. Others may have compliance issues and scope is the most important consideration or going live on a system by the start of the next fiscal year, particularly in the last quarter of that year means time is probably the most important issue for them and just because one issue is seen as more significant than the other doesn't mean the others are not important, either. Remember scope, cost and timing are interdependent. For example if you want your scope to increase, it will, very likely, increase the cost. If you want more functionality, the timing could change as well. We have learned, over the years, how important it is to determine what matters more to the client and to communicate when reality is deviating from expectations but it's equally for clients to consider this before they begin to talk to consultants for a project. When both sides are honest and realistic in regards to scope, cost and timing, success usually follows. To read and comment on the PKF Texas' Entrepreneur's Playbook, visit my blog, from gregshead.com, PKF Texas, CPA's and Professional Advisors.

Russ: All right and that wraps up today's School of Business. Stay tuned in for Paul Dickerson's interview with David Crane, CEO of NRG. You're listening to The Business Makers Show heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com.