Raise your rates. Today. Pat makes the case that every service-based business owner is undercharging — and the window is wide open to fix it. Top lawyers now bill $3,400/hour, which means your mental ceiling just got blown off. Plus: a bipartisan bill to break up credit card swipe fees could put 3% back in your pocket, Viagra might prevent Alzheimer’s (yes, really), and two Idea Slams tackle summer slowdowns and late-paying clients.

Sponsors: Genhead (genhead.com) — AI-powered marketing for small business. Enji (enji.co/sboc) — marketing strategy made simple.

Businessing with Pat Miller airs live Mon–Thu at 11am CT.

Join the Small Business Owners Community: smallbusinesscommunity.com

Lead magnets are dead. Or at least dying. Today Pat breaks down why the old playbook — trade an email for a PDF, drip on them for weeks, then sell — is falling apart as AI makes education essentially free. The new trust equation? Stop teaching and start DOING. Give people a tangible result before you ever ask for money.

Plus: Zuckerberg in court over social media addiction, a hiring crisis where 79% of job seekers are using AI to apply, Dead Internet Theory invades the job market, the Jeff Bezos question every business owner should ask, and Pat introduces his AI agent named Houston.

Sponsors: Genhead (genhead.com) — AI-powered marketing for small business. Enji (enji.co/sboc) — marketing strategy made simple.

Businessing with Pat Miller airs live Mon–Thu at 11am CT. Join the Small Business Owners Community: smallbusinesscommunity.com

Today's theme: MONEY. How to keep more of it. Business insurance is at an 8-year high — local insurance expert Tom Gaumond from G2 Insurance explains why and what you can do about it.

Then Pat walks through 6 practical ways any business owner can cut 10% of their expenses starting today: domain hoarding, credit card interest, ACH payments, ad spend audits, software bloat, and the simple phone call that saves money every time.

Plus two Idea Slams: what to do when a coaching client keeps canceling, and the one tool that's saving Pat the most time right now (it's not AI... sort of).

Businessing with Pat Miller is small business's daily live show. New episodes weekdays at 11am Central.

Sponsored by Genhead (https://www.genhead.com) and Enji (https://www.enji.co/sboc)

Join the Small Business Owners Community: https://smallbusinesscommunity.com

It's Your Dream. Don't Grow It Alone.®

Is SEO dead? Taylor Cusick Holman from Enji joins the show to set the record straight - spoiler: it's not dead, it's evolving. Learn the free tools and checklist approach any business owner can use to get found online. Plus: Valentine's Day spending hit $29.1 billion (35% of us bought gifts for our PETS), small business owners lose 33 work days a year to tax stress, and Simon Cowell is now Team Fridays Off. In today's Idea Slam: what to do when your best employee leaves to become your competitor. The answer might surprise you.

Businessing with Pat Miller is small business's daily live show. New episodes weekdays at 11am Central.

Sponsored by Genhead (https://www.genhead.com) and Enji (https://www.enji.co/sboc)

Join the Small Business Owners Community: https://smallbusinesscommunity.com

It's Your Dream. Don't Grow It Alone.®

You got into this for freedom. Today we're making sure the people around you aren't stealing it.

Pat walks through an interactive audit of every business relationship in your life — seven questions that will tell you exactly who's dragging you down, who's pulling you forward, and which rooms you need to leave. No sugarcoating. You have permission.

Plus: a stat that proves you're probably doing better than you think (top 20%, anyone?), the January housing crash and what it means for your product lineup, and two Idea Slam bangers — how to respond when a big company expects you to work for exposure, and whether it's actually okay to copy a competitor.

🔑 Key topics: networking audit, business relationships, premium product strategy, working for exposure, competitive intelligence

📊 Stats: 29.8M solopreneurs in the US contribute $1.7T to the economy. $100K/year = top 20%.

💡 Idea Slam:

(1) Don't work for exposure — here's how to flip the script.

(2) Copy the transformation, not the technique — then make it yours.

🔗 Links:

• Join SBOC: smallbusinesscommunity.com

• Subscribe to Fridays Off Newsletter: fridaysoffnewsletter.com

• Submit your Idea Slam question: https://event.smallbusinesscommunity.com/do-you-want-to-be-a-guest

• GenHead: genhead.com

• EngG: enji.co/sbo

Claude Cowork is now available for Windows - and this changes everything. On today's Businessing, Pat breaks down the difference between AI chatbots and AI agents, why every small business owner will have an agent swarm within 90 days, and what a viral 31-million-view article reveals about the future of screen-based work.

Plus: The jobs report comes in HOT (130K jobs vs 75K expected), the El Paso airspace gets shut down overnight (and reopened 3 hours later), and the US Women's Hockey team beats Canada 5-0.

In the Idea Slam: How do I know if I'm cut out for entrepreneurship? And how do I take a vacation when I'm too busy working toward a deadline?

Today's Sponsors:

Genhead - Scale systems, not chaos. Built for early stage entrepreneurs. https://www.genhead.com

Enji - The AI marketing engine for small business. 14-day free trial at https://www.enji.co/sboc

Join the Small Business Owners Community: https://smallbusinesscommunity.com

Don't Grow It Alone - Get support from business owners who get it.

59% of small businesses experienced a cyber attack last year. That's not a typo. And if you think you're too small to be a target, you're exactly who they're after.

On today's Businessing, Pat breaks down what hackers actually want from your business (spoiler: it's not just your bank account—it's your CRM full of customer data), and exactly what to do about it: backups, 2FA, password managers, and cyber insurance.

Plus: Eddie Bauer is closing after 104 years and blaming the pandemic (really?), Valentine's Day spending is shifting from gifts to experiences (and how to apply that to YOUR business), and an Idea Slam with gravel bike coach Paul Waki asking the question: Did I niche down too far?

Pat's answer might surprise you: Go NARROWER.

Don't Grow It Alone®

Today's show sponsored by Genhead (genhead.com) and Enji (enji.co/sboc)

00:00 - Show Open

02:30 - Eddie Bauer Closing: 104 Years, $28 T-Shirts, Blaming the Pandemic

07:15 - Valentine's Day: $29B in Spending, Experiences Over Gifts

12:45 - How to Turn Your Product Into an Experience

17:00 - Lead Story: 59% of Small Businesses Got Cyber Attacked

22:30 - What Hackers Want from YOUR Business

26:00 - Cyber Protection: Backups, 2FA, Password Managers, Insurance

30:15 - Idea Slam: Paul Waki - Simple Endurance Coaching

35:00 - Should You Niche Down MORE?

42:30 - The Ownable Idea: What Makes You Different?

48:00 - Big News: DontGrowItAlone.com Domain Acquired

50:30 - SBOC Madison Meetup & Wrap

small business cybersecurity, cyber attacks small business, niche down business, eddie bauer closing, valentine's day business

$8 million for 30 seconds. That's what Super Bowl ads cost. And one company absolutely fumbled the opportunity.

On today's Super Bowl Monday edition of Businessing, Pat breaks down the ads that worked, the ads that didn't, and the one ad so bad it made him mad. (Spoiler: It's Slack and Salesforce with Mr. Beast, and the execution failures are a masterclass in what NOT to do.)

Plus: Breezy Johnson's incredible Olympic gold medal story (she won on the same course where she crashed in 2022), Gmail's new workflow feature that might replace your automation tools, and two Idea Slam questions:

• "I've been saying this year will be different for 5 years. It's not. What do I do?"

• "I need to raise my prices but I have clients on old rates. Do I rip off the bandaid?"

And why Olympic ski drones made Pat wish someone could follow small business owners around so our families finally understand how hard this actually is.

Don't Grow It Alone®

Today's show sponsored by Genhead (genhead.com) and Enji (enji.co/sboc)

00:00 - Show Open & Super Bowl Monday

02:15 - Olympics Update: Breezy Johnson's Inspirational Gold

05:30 - Gmail Studio: New Workflow Feature

07:45 - Super Bowl Ads Lead Story Intro

09:20 - GOOD Ads: Colon Screening & Ro with Serena

12:00 - BETTER Ads: Levi's Butts, Apartments.com, Claude AI

16:30 - BEST Ad: Google Gemini

18:00 - The Misses: Sofia Vergara x3, Ring's Creepy Moment

21:15 - Ad Recall Quiz

24:00 - BIGGEST LOSER: Slack/Salesforce Mr. Beast Disaster

30:45 - Idea Slam: "This Year Will Be Different" (5 Years Later)

36:20 - Idea Slam: How to Raise Prices on Existing Clients

42:00 - Olympic Drones & What Small Business Owners Wish People Saw

46:30 - SBOC Growth & Madison Meetup

It is Thursday, February 5th — the last day of the work week if your Fridays off.

We're opening with the stat that'll stop you cold: 99.9% of all businesses in America are small. That's 36.2 million of you. US small business employs 45.9% of all private sector workers. So why do small business owners feel so alone?

Then we're diving into the consumer confidence paradox. Confidence is down 10 points — lowest since 2014 — but retail spending is UP 10% and luxury is UP 15%.

Plus: hyper-personalization trends from Upwork's 2026 report, two Idea Slam questions on nightmare clients and proposal ghosting, and the Clever Collector segment.

Sponsored by GenHead and Enji.

One in three Americans want to start a business this year. Half of them will fail.

Today I'm sharing four things I wish someone told me before I started—lessons I learned the hard way so you don't have to.

Rule 1: You're not in the product business. You're in the sales business. Your success is directly proportional to how often you ask for money.

Rule 2: Start lean. The study says you need $12K. People think they need $28K. I say start with a farmer's market table before you open the coffee shop.

Rule 3: Don't start with a partner. Every decision becomes a negotiation. You lose all your autonomy before you even get started.

Rule 4: Don't do it broke. Little financial packages—good and bad—will drop on you every single day. If your family finances are already on fire, it will get worse.

Plus: Two Idea Slam questions on surviving chaos and getting started with AI. And I share exactly what Claude Cowork has been doing for my business—including optimizing my Google My Business page while I watched.

In the news: Government shutdown ends (kinda). We almost sent people to the Moon yesterday. Disney has a new CEO. And the Winter Olympics opening ceremony is tomorrow.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Open

09:00 - 4 Rules for New Business Owners

27:30 - Idea Slam: Chaos & AI

37:00 - Claude Cowork Deep Dive

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Sponsored by:

Genhead — https://www.genhead.com

Enji — https://www.enji.co/sboc

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@SmallBusinessOC?sub_confirmation=1

Newsletter: https://fridaysoffnewsletter.com

Join SBOC: https://smallbusinesscommunity.com