Authentic Business Adventures Podcast

Shane Whelan - Carrying the Fire

Every entrepreneur has ideas.  Some ideas you run with, others you tuck back into the back of your mind.

Shane Whelan is an entrepreneur with ideas that stemmed from his experience starting his dog containment fence business.  He started as a one person show and built his business to be a profitable, well-positioned company.

Then he helped create software to connect customers with other dog containment systems.  Another idea, another business and another successful story.

From there, he created Carrying the Fire.  This is more of a service business for entrepreneurs to help them market through a competitive landscape.

Listen as Shane details how he penetrated the market as a new business in an industry often dominated by franchisees by communicating well and getting the job done.

Enjoy!

Visit Shane at: PetBidder.com

Tricia and Brad - The Virtual Foundry

Creating something new is always a challenging task.  First, you need the idea, that part is easy.  The challenging part comes in the execution.  Enter 3D Printing.

With 3D Printing, you could affordably create three dimensional shapes and creations to test your ideas.  But the 3D printing was plastic, leading to some different limitations.

Things changed when Brad, founder of The Virtual Foundry came up with and patented the idea to be able to print metal objects with existing 3D printing machines.  Now The Virtual Foundry supplies the creative types around the world, from major aerospace companies to the lone creators in their basements, with the material to be able to get their ideas into tangible, metallic form.

Listen as Brad and Tricia discuss how they got started, built their business and are revolutionizing the creative world.

Enjoy!

Visit Tricia and Brad at: https://www.thevirtualfoundry.com/

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You have found

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Authentic Business Adventures,

the business program that brings you

[00:00:07]

the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land.

[00:00:12]

Past episodes

of the Authentic Business Adventures

[00:00:14]

program can be found in the podcast link

at drawincustomers.com

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We are underwritten locally

by the Bank of Sun Prairie.

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My name is James Kademan, entrepreneur,

[00:00:22]

author, speaker and helpful coach to small

business owners across the country.

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Today we're welcoming/

preparing to learn from Tricia,

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the President of Ritual Foundry,

as well as Brad, the founder.

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So welcome, you guys.

Thanks.

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Yes.

Great to be here.

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Thanks for having us.

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This is a cool space,

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and I'm excited to learn exactly what you

do, because when I met you,

[00:00:43]

when we started talking

the 3D printing world, it's pretty cool.

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But I always knew it as plastic. When

you mentioned metal 3D printing.

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Just mind blowing moment there.

Yeah.

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And what's super awesome about what we're

doing here is you're taking that plastic

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3D printing that you're familiar

with using that same 3D printer.

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But now you're printing

metal with our materials.

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That's cool. So the same exact printer?

Yes.

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Wow.

So tell us you guys supply the materials

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or just tell us more or

less what you guys do.

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Yeah.

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We're a materials company only.

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We supply other things in our store,

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like we'll sell printers and things

that you need to go along with it.

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Just to make it easier

for our customers.

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Our prime objective is to make

3D printing materials.

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All right. So what are people? Is it

typically businesses or is it typical,

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just people of their house

that are buying the stuff?

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It's really everybody. Okay.

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So a lot of universities and colleges

and schools all over the world.

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Wow.

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Research organizations,

the Department of Defense,

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people at home.

All right.

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And the industry.

Okay.

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About three quarters of the national labs.

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There are 17 of them, and we count at

least over a dozen of them as customers.

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Wow.

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In the middle, I see

a lot of stools there.

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I imagine a different varieties.

Yeah.

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Are we talking steel, aluminum. What is

the range that you guys have for metal?

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Right.

Well,

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everything about this is patented,

and the patent describes a method

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of fabricating manufacturing,

3D printing, metal, glass and ceramic.

[00:02:16]

Wow.

So it runs the spectrum.

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So you can actually use this technique

to print glass parts and ceramic parts.

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Really? Not just metal.

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How does that work?

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Like glass. I'm trying to fix

your how does that work?

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The easiest analogy is pottery.

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Everybody's worked with clay

and things like that.

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That is essentially very similar

to the process that we do here.

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Except we 3D print it rather than form it

on a partnership or something like that.

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So I imagine what they call the

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filament that has to get hot

enough to melt the medium, right.

[00:02:51]

Oh, my gosh.

My nomenclature,

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I'm way off here.

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Yeah.

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The filament is made of powdered metal

in case in regular 3D printing plastic.

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So when you're printing,

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that's why it works on a regular 3D

printer, because you're melting

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the plastic as it goes through,

but not the metal.

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All right. So does the plastic

itself work as a binder?

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Yeah, that's exactly.

It.

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Got it.

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So are the parts.

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Like, if I were to print out a threaded

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part with the threads on,

there be strong enough to hold

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what a normal metal piece would

it be just off the printer?

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It would not, because it

still has that plastic in.

[00:03:25]

Gotcha.

But there's a secondary process that you

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can go through to get rid of that plastic

and fuse those metal particles together.

[00:03:32]

That's called the debinding to get

that binder out and then centering

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is that process of fusing

those particles together.

[00:03:40]

All right.

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Then, in that case, that's where

the strength of metal comes into play.

[00:03:45]

This is where the analogy works.

[00:03:46]

Well, with play,

it's the same kind of thing.

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You form it, and then you put

it in a kiln and fire it.

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Okay.

Got it.

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So is that something that people

from home have equipment to do that?

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We have lots of home users.

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It runs the gamut.

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I mean, we have everybody from

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just people making things in their

basement to part of the maker movement.

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People are calling it.

So it's just a new method of letting

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people fabricate parts in a low cost,

simple way.

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All right.

That's cool.

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You ask about what different materials?

Yeah.

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We do keep a standard stock that's going

to include things like copper, bronze,

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a few different varieties of steel,

tungsten, aluminum, titanium.

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And then we get into ceramics

and then a Pyrex glass material.

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Really? How does that work?

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It's the same powdered glass

in this plastic binder.

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Sure.

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Our manufacturing process is the same

among all the materials,

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which allows us then to be able to take

nearly any metal, any ceramic, any glass,

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put it through the same process

that we developed here.

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And now you're three printing with it.

All right.

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When I think of Pyrix,

I think of something very durable and very

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resistant to heat. So does that challenge

when people have to Bake it?

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Essentially.

No.

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It still has the same properties.

The difference is,

[00:05:08]

it's not clear when they say glass,

people tend to picture clear glass.

[00:05:12]

It's not clear.

Okay.

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But it is Pyrex, and it has

all the same properties.

[00:05:16]

As far as dealing with thermal

shock and that kind of thing.

[00:05:19]

Yeah.

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So they can make their own beakers

or measuring cups or whatever.

[00:05:22]

Yeah.

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Like high performance

glass filters people used.

[00:05:27]

Wow.

[00:05:29]

That's cool.

[00:05:30]

So how did this whole thing come about?

[00:05:34]

I was dabbling in my basement, and

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this part of the project started in about

2014, but I'd actually been experimenting

[00:05:43]

with methods of making metal objects

that didn't use large amounts of heat.

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So that was where the virtual

Foundry concept came from.

[00:05:51]

So I've actually been using

the word for over 15 years.

[00:05:55]

Probably closer to 20 by now.

All right.

[00:05:57]

So the virtual Foundry at the term has

been around forever

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when a friend of mine gave me a 3D

printer said, you got to try this.

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So I got it up and running.

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The first thing I printed was a piece

of plastic, which was very disappointing.

[00:06:13]

It's plastic, and it felt like

a toy or a Happy Meal toy.

[00:06:18]

And then that was where I saw

[00:06:20]

an opportunity to combine all the things

that I was working on with using 3D

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printing as a method

of creating the form for those.

[00:06:27]

All right.

Interesting.

[00:06:30]

And how long was this?

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We're talking 15 years, 2014.

[00:06:35]

That's when I added 3D printing

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to the other parts of the technology

that I was working on.

[00:06:39]

Got you.

All right.

[00:06:41]

So did the business itself come about

at that moment, or when did you decide?

[00:06:46]

Hey, let's make this into a business?

[00:06:48]

Well, it started to make sense early on,

[00:06:50]

and I did a Kickstarter project, and we

had about, I think, 105% of our goal.

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So we made a pass that financed us

into this room,

[00:07:01]

into this building and financed our

...

Jason Stendalen - C4 Insurance

So you started a business.  You made a plan, put some money into it and are working on dotting i's and crossing t's.  One of those i's is insurance.  You know, the promise you pay for that you hope the company you pay doesn't have to be asked to keep?

Commercial or Business Insurance is a tough nut to crack, especially for the typical business owner.  How is an entrepreneur supposed to know what they need, what's worth paying for and what is a waste of money.

Listen as Jason Stendalen, owner of C4 insurance, tells us the best way to make sure your business is covered.

Enjoy!

Visit Jason at: https://c4ins.com/

Dr. Marty Greer - Checkout Veterinary

Entrepreneurs always seem to have a plethora of ideas racing through their head.  Seemingly without notice you'll just get an idea and you come to a crossroads.  Do you pursue this idea, or do you let it lie?  This happens so often that you must say no to most ideas.

Already a big name in the veterinary world, Dr. Marty Greer came up with an idea for a drive-through veterinary clinic.  It would remove some basic time-wasting tasks for patients and doctors alike.  It would also make things easier, something that we all can appreciate.  So Dr. Marty Greer did what any entrepreneur with an idea that keeps swirling around does.  She started another business.  Keep in mind, this is beyond her already successful and still operating other veterinary clinics, as well as traveling around the world speaking about and to other veterinarians.

Listen as Dr. Greer explains the thought process and the joy of creating something new from a profession that has been around for generations.

Enjoy!

Visit Dr. Marty Greer at: CheckoutVet.com

Jordann Hartzheim - traumApothecary

We all have some ailment of one kind or another.  Sometimes it is stress, other times it may be a physical injury.  There are different ways to go about healing these ailments, but how do you know which may work the best to both heal and help prevent further injury?

With the use of different practices, Jordann is able to help those that may have not had the greatest success with more typical healing options.

Listen as Jordann Hartzheim of traumApothecary explains some different options that use energy, movement and nutrition rather than the typical western medicine reaction of pill-pushing.

Enjoy!

Visit  Jordann at: BeJOY.store

Barbara Zabawa, JD, MPH -  Entrepreneur, Author and Attorney

Just when I think I am accomplishing a lot, I meet someone like Barbara Zabawa.  Not only is she a full time educator at the University of Milwaukee, she runs her own law practice, the Center for Health and Wellness Law, LLC and is the founder of Pursesuitz, a clothing brand designed to eliminate purses by including pockets in women's clothing.  She also has authored Tug: Finding purpose and joy through entrepreneurship as Rule the Rules of Workplace Wellness Programs.

The woman continues to build, grow and inspire businesses all around her.

Listen as Barbara details her different endeavors and how she can help inspire you to chase your dreams, solve problems and have fun doing it.

Enjoy!

Visit Barbara at: https://barbarazabawa.com/

Find Pursesuitz at: https://pursesuitz.com/

Talmar Anderson - Boss Actions

What is a company, if not a collection of employees doing great things.  If it isn't a collection of employees, it's a job, and if the employees aren't doing great things, well, it isn't much of a business either.

One of the biggest problems entrepreneurs, managers and leaders of all types run into is keeping their employees engaged, trained, happy and loyal.  With help wanted signs littering the landscape more than lite beer cans, your employees clearly have options.

So what is a boss to do?  This is where Talmar Anderson of Boss Actions comes in.  She has set up a plan to get, keep and improve your employees.  Listen as she explains some tips and tricks for you to be the boss that your employees love to work for.

Enjoy!

Visit Talmar at: https://bossactions.com/

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You have found Authentic Business Adventures. The business program that brings the struggles, stories,

[00:00:25]

and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Past episodes of course can be found at the podcast link at drawincustomer.com

[00:00:27]

We are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie. My name is James Kademan and today we're welcoming/preparing

[00:00:29]

to learn from Talmar Anderson,

the founder and CEO of Boss Actions.

[00:00:35]

Helmer, how are you doing today?

[00:00:37]

I am doing great.

[00:00:39]

I have a little voice thing.

I apologize.

[00:00:41]

We were at a conference for four days,

but I'm excited to be.

[00:00:44]

I sound way sexier and deeper

than I normally do.

[00:00:47]

So it's really not a bad thing.

[00:00:49]

Now you got the Stevie Nicks

thing going on.

[00:00:53]

That's awesome.

[00:00:54]

So I was interested when I think

Susie Moon introduced me to you.

[00:00:59]

Yes, she is the bee's knees I love her.

Yeah.

[00:01:02]

And I checked out your website.

I saw what you have going on.

[00:01:04]

I'm like, oh, my goodness.

[00:01:05]

There is not an entrepreneur out there

that does not have employee issues.

[00:01:11]

If you don't have employee issues

[00:01:12]

that just tells me they

don't have employees.

[00:01:15]

Probably.

[00:01:17]

That's a statement I probably should make.

[00:01:19]

But you are correct.

[00:01:21]

So how about we start off, what is

Boss Actions and what do you do?

[00:01:26]

I love that.

First of all, James, thanks for having me.

[00:01:29]

I really appreciate it. Literally,

[00:01:31]

I'm just trying to let people know

[00:01:33]

that they don't have to figure

this stuff out by themselves.

[00:01:35]

So it's always any time I can get people

answers faster than I'm in my lane.

[00:01:40]

And I appreciate that.

Fair.

[00:01:41]

The Boss Actions, hiring strategy and boss

[00:01:45]

best practices for business owners

and entrepreneurs because it's a process.

[00:01:51]

It's a system.

[00:01:52]

It's not magic to find good people.

[00:01:55]

You don't have to be

lucky to be a great boss.

[00:01:58]

And so I'm trying to make it as easy as

possible for people to quickly

[00:02:04]

find the answers they need and start

building their kick ass team.

[00:02:08]

Right?

[00:02:08]

It's got to be specific to you, your

industry and what your business needs.

[00:02:13]

Nice. How long has

Boss Actions been going on?

[00:02:16]

So in 2018, Boss Actions was

the big shift, if you will.

[00:02:22]

I had an operational

consulting company since 2011.

[00:02:26]

It's called Talmar It Up because

I'm all about action verbs.

[00:02:31]

Then we shifted to Boss Actions when we

[00:02:33]

identified that literally,

no one is out there helping people learn

[00:02:37]

how to hire the right people and help

them be successful in the company.

[00:02:41]

It's interesting.

[00:02:43]

I had

[00:02:45]

Calls on Call,

[00:02:46]

my main business has grown quite

a bit in the past few months.

[00:02:50]

That's exciting.

Yeah, it's very exciting.

[00:02:52]

But that just means you're hiring more.

[00:02:54]

And in hiring more,

[00:02:57]

sometimes you drop the ball

on the people that you hire.

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You don't know how good they

are until after you hire them.

[00:03:02]

Okay.

Those are two different things.

[00:03:04]

The boss dropping the ball and not knowing

[00:03:06]

if they're the right

person before you hire.

[00:03:08]

Well, I guess in the end, I as the boss,

[00:03:12]

take responsibility for an employee

that I hired messing up.

[00:03:17]

I get it.

[00:03:18]

So

[00:03:20]

you have to tell me if that's correct

or not, but I believe it's at the top.

[00:03:24]

You look at the top.

[00:03:26]

Well, okay, James.

[00:03:27]

So I have, like,

100 questions I want to ask you about

[00:03:30]

that particular hire,

but let's go high level first.

[00:03:32]

Sure.

So, yes, I fundamentally believe that it

[00:03:36]

is up to the boss to learn how

to identify what the business needs.

[00:03:42]

So, yeah, it's on the boss.

[00:03:45]

But don't take it so

hard on yourself because

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I'm not exaggerating when I say,

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as far as I know, I'm the only business

with a process that is really

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giving people the ideas

of how to step through it.

[00:03:58]

So you just didn't know that there was

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somebody or away,

whether it's my way and you magically find

[00:04:03]

somewhere else, but that there's

a way to learn how to do this.

[00:04:06]

You can develop your own skills.

[00:04:08]

You can understand

there's a process to it.

[00:04:10]

So I would tell you

to give yourself a break.

[00:04:13]

However, now that you know

the answer, shame on you.

[00:04:16]

If you do this for the next three years

[00:04:17]

and you end up in what we call a hiring

loop, you're slowing your growth,

[00:04:21]

and you're not going to serve as

many clients as you want to impact.

[00:04:24]

Guaranteed if you can't get

this piece into your tool belt.

[00:04:28]

Yeah.

It's interesting when you think about

[00:04:30]

the opportunity cost of a bad

hireful and honestly.

[00:04:36]

The stress and the energy.

[00:04:38]

So what happens to a lot of small

business is they try to hire, right?

[00:04:42]

They do the best they can what they know

[00:04:44]

to do what they think

they're supposed to do.

[00:04:46]

And they just keep getting these people

that take advantage of them or literally

[00:04:50]

steal from them or don't

show up and can't deliver.

[00:04:54]

And they're like, is this good?

[00:04:56]

I literally had somebody hire me

at our highest level package.

[00:04:59]

First question he asked me was, tell me,

[00:05:02]

you just have to tell me,

are my standards too high?

[00:05:05]

Am I expecting too much from these people?

[00:05:08]

And that's what I'm doing wrong.

[00:05:09]

And my heart totally broke again.

[00:05:11]

And I was like, no, man,

it doesn't have to be this.

[00:05:15]

It's just that you want to learn how

[00:05:17]

to set the expectation so that you can

make sure you're getting what you need

[00:05:22]

and matching it to what

the business needs for success.

[00:05:26]

And then we have to learn how to attract

and how to make people prove to us that we

[00:05:31]

have a reasonable expectation, they will

be able to bring those success markers.

[00:05:36]

And we do that with a lot

of different steps.

[00:05:38]

All right.

Does that help?

[00:05:39]

So tell me how when you first started boss

[00:05:41]

actions, did you have a system

in place with before no clean slate.

[00:05:48]

Let's figure this out.

[00:05:49]

Yeah.

[00:05:51]

Before I was on my own

business owner, entrepreneur.

[00:05:55]

I make the joke, but I used

to boss around attorneys.

[00:05:58]

I ran law firms.

[00:06:00]

And so I was always

the operational COO type person.

[00:06:04]

They call it a firm

administrator and law firms.

[00:06:06]

And so I would run these

million dollar companies.

[00:06:08]

And I handled the business

side of business, right.

[00:06:12]

Accounting, marketing it.

[00:06:14]

And, of course, HR.

[00:06:16]

And then the deliverables

the process and all that stuff.

[00:06:22]

I had internalized the process,

but I had never thought about it.

[00:06:25]

So then when I went on to be

[00:06:27]

an operational consultant, I was like,

just answering whatever they need,

[00:06:32]

meeting the business owner where

they were to give them answers.

[00:06:35]

Consultants tell you what to do.

[00:06:36]

Coaches help you figure it out.

[00:06:38]

Way too impatient to be a coach.

[00:06:40]

I could never do it.

[00:06:41]

I want to tell you the answer.

[00:06:43]

You can act on it or not.

[00:06:44]

But let's just get to the heart of it.

[00:06:46]

This is how we can do it successfully.

[00:06:49]

After several years,

[00:06:51]

there was a dearth of business coaches,

which I was often compared to.

[00:06:55]

And I was like, I feel like

there's something speaking to me.

[00:06:58]

So I went back over all of my cases

[00:07:00]

for seven years, and I found

out very interesting thing.

[00:07:05]

Every single client,

[00:07:06]

whether I worked with them for 1 hour or

one year, had the same two questions.

[00:07:11]

How do I find good people and what

do I do if I have to fire them?

[00:07:16]

And so I was consulting on that, like,

consistently with everything else.

[00:07:21]

So I thought I can't be

inventing the wheel here, right?

[00:07:25]

That imposter syndrome thing hanging over

[00:07:27]

my head telling me,...

Sam George - Author of Dyscommunication

It has happened to all of us, which probably means that we have all done it.  We send a communication out and get no response.  All we hear are crickets.

This is the most challenging part of communication today.  We have essentially limitless channels to communicate, yet people still are fin not utilizing them.

Text someone a quick message, get no response.  What does no response mean?  Were they hit by a bus, did their battery die, are they stuck on a mountain top without signal, or do they not want to talk to you.

In this podcast episode, Sam George tackles the communication response, or lack of, and gives us some tips on how to trigger a response.  Because the best communication, is the kind that actually gets a response.

Enjoy!

Visit Sam at: https://dyscommunication.com/

Martha Sullivan - Provenance Hill Consulting

Starting a business is a conundrum in balance.  First, you need to work hard, fast and long just to get the business off the ground.  Then you need to push more to add employees, expand on new ideas and keep the momentum going.

Then a funny thing happens.  You will continually come to forks in the road.  One way allows you to continue with the risk, pleasure and pain for running a successful company.  The other is a path that guides you to remove yourself from the business.  Preparing your business for sale is the same as preparing the business to become the freedom machine you wanted it to be.

Listen to Martha Sullivan, owner of Provenance Hill Consulting as she explains some strategies to prepare your business to sell.  Many of these strategies are focused on the mindset it takes to build a business you can walk away from.

As you stroll to the bank.

Enjoy!

Visit Martha at: https://www.provenancehill.com/

Craig Lemasters - CEO of GXG

It is not too often that we meet people that leave a lucrative corporate career to start their own gig and all the risk it entails.  It also isn't too often that you meet people like Craig Lemasters.

Craig is one of the leader builders in the entrepreneurial world.  He helps C level executives and business owners build their leadership skills to help them grow their businesses.

He has written the book Unstuck, a book on how to break yourself out of the pitfalls and challenges of business, and life, by bumping up your wisdom.

Listen as Craig details his experience as a guy answering to boards to the guy that became the board.  He encourages you to embrace humility and get to work.  Great advice, indeed.

Enjoy!

Visit Craig at: https://craiglemasters.com/