After a lengthy summer hiatus, Derrick has a chat with litigation support guru and podcast extraordinaire, Robb Helt. Robb is an industry veteran who knows the business like few others. He is currently the driving force at DeFacto Trialworks, and lives and breathes the strategies he presents in this episode. He takes us through his sales process and provides valuable insight for any small consulting business looking to increase their customer base. Learn more about Defacto at http://defactotrial.com and check out Robb's podcast at http://podcast.defactotrial.com/

Special Guest: Robb Helt.

Eric and Derrick discuss responding to criticism and the most productive way to confront clients and customers who aren't happy with your work.

Derrick continues his chat with Core's primary financial advisor, David Hergert, and goes into further detail about retirement plan options. Between this episode and last week's, they discuss everything from cash reserves, contingency planning, corporate structure, setting up employee benefits, and making sure your business is covered with liability insurance. To find out more about David and the services he offers, check out his profile at Ameriprise.

Special Guest: David Hergert.

Derrick has a chat with Core's primary financial advisor, David Hergert, to discuss the many financial considerations when starting a small business. Between this episode and the next, they discuss everything from cash reserves, contingency planning, corporate structure, setting up employee benefits, and making sure your business is covered with liability insurance. To find out more about David and the services he offers, check out his profile at Ameriprise.

Special Guest: David Hergert.

Eric and Derrick are back with a new episode about the need to find balance in so many aspects of running a consulting business. After a particularly hectic couple of months, it seemed like a good way to jump back in. Work vs family, casual vs professional, valuable vs high-maintenance - always walking a tightrope to try and keep everyone happy and keep your business moving in the right direction.

In this episode, Eric and Derrick do their best to offend almost everyone with their take on business communication processes and procedures. Voicemails? Unhelpful emails? Small talk chats on business calls? There are a few rants, a few laughs, and hopefully laced throughout - there are some helpful tips for making the most of your day-to-day business interactions.

This week Eric and Derrick discuss a few of the essential online tools they recommend when starting your business. In lieu of comprehensive, unbiased reviews of all the options out there, they rather lazily give you biased reviews based on nothing but gut feelings and the simple fact that they don't hate these tools after using them every day for years on end.

They highly recommend checking out the following tools discussed in this episode by visiting their respective websites.

In order of appearance:

In this week's episode, Derrick chats with friend and Core colleague, Alex Miller, about his passion for fine art, construction graphics and his newest source of anticipation, the OneWheel. But the real story here is an idea that he and his kids have developed over the past several years that he recently took public called creADDive Lessons. http://www.creaddivelessons.com. Great concept and great execution. Also check them out at the social media accounts below.

Facebook: @creADDive

From the website:

As an artist and a father, there is nothing more satisfying than watching my children create. They do so with such freedom, unencumbered by old habits, art history, or critiques. They are so proud of their artwork, each piece seemingly a new adventure and experiment in creativity. Great concept and great execution.

Day after day, my wife and I find ourselves teaching them the lessons of life we hold so dear – to be kind and empathetic, bold and fearless. These teachable moments happen everywhere, but especially around the same table where their art is made, as we talk about the day that was.

As I was hanging some of their art on the refrigerator, admiring the differences between their work and my own, a moment of inspiration came to me. While many of their paintings are full of free flowing strokes of color, my own work centers around bold images with simple monotone backgrounds. What they are creating is what I feel like I’m missing from my own work. So what if I combined my art with theirs while also creating pieces of work to help teach the lessons we discuss day to day?

With their permission I created our first combined piece of art, The Golden Rule, and hung it prominently in our home. My wife and I found that we were pointing to the artwork every time we thought they could be treating each other nicer. Outside of the house, we found they were referring to the piece when talking to each other and to us. So we created a couple more, and those too were helpful in getting our lessons through. These images now hang around our house, and are a part of our daily conversations. The boys love talking about them, and we love reinforcing the messages.

And so my wife and I have a running list of lessons and a countless supply of their art to marry together to create new pieces of work to help them learn the lessons. These are creADDive lessons, by Maxwell, Zachary and Dad.

Special Guest: Alex Miller.

The topic this week is what to expect when you first start working with a remote team you don't know, and how to establish an effective work routine right off the bat.

Eric and Derrick discuss the infamous corporate ladder and provide their take on the differences between advancing at a large company versus a small one.