In this episode, Brock talks with Greg Fischer. Greg is a former Marine Corps infantryman and currently running Burn Pit BBQ, a sauces and rub business he started from a recipe blog. Expect to learn how to instill an ownership mentality in your employees when starting a business. We talk about the cohort of men in the world today putting their job ahead of their family. Greg found himself drowning and never ending slew of emails and communication, even outside of working hours, which was the fuel for him to burn the boats and start a business. We also hear about his strategy on consumer packaged goods, how his distribution strategy mirrors strategies you've learned in combat overseas, why discounting products for deals like Prime Day don't work, and why influencers tend to be overrated in the CPG space.

Episode Resources:

Greg on Linkedin

Burn Pit BBQ

Show Notes:

Intro to this episode. 0:00

Creating a content day 1:36

Burn Pit BBQ 4:31

How did you decide to start your business? 7:40

The biggest difference between working for a small business and large business. 14:53

Why do most men not pursue their passions? 17:59

The role of a man. 24:31

What does it mean to serve your wife? 28:17

Managing expectations with a partner when quitting your job 33:45

Burn the boats 37:08

Small business milestones 40:34

Strategies for building the brand. 46:07

Why they don't do prime day deals 49:21

Importance of sharing your story when building a business. 54:46

Lessons learned from breaking bottles during shipping. 58:22

--

The Scuttlebutt Podcast - The podcast for service members and veterans building a life outside the military.

The Scuttlebutt Podcast features discussions on lifestyle, careers, business, and resources for service members. Show host, Brock Briggs, talks with a special guest from the community committed to helping military members build a successful life, inside and outside the service.

Follow along:   

• Episode & transcript: ⁠https://www.scuttlebuttpodcast.co/⁠

• Brock: ⁠https://www.brockbriggs.com/

In this episode, Brock talks with Shamus Flynn. Shamus is a former Marine Corps officer and now a partner at Flynn Giudici, a law firm he co founded where he specializes in small and medium sized businesses, particularly litigation. Expect to learn how the changing world we live in today on the heels of a global pandemic and the advent of artificial intelligence is influencing our court systems. We discuss the fee structure of law firms, when it's worth it to pursue litigation as a small business and specific leverage points that you can take into any dispute to find the upper hand potentially a bad situation,

Show resources:

Flynn Giudici

Show Notes:

Working for yourself vs. working for others. 1:50

Streamlining the court process. 4:53

Will artificial intelligence help streamline the legal process? 7:37

How did you decide to start your own law firm? 14:20

How long does it take to become a self-sustaining business? 17:55

Flat fee vs. Retainer. 20:51

Working with small and medium sized businesses. 27:40

The true nature of disputes 30:51

The art of mediation. 33:00

Small claims strategies. 39:26

Advice on how to deal with small claims. 42:34

When is it time to call a lawyer? 47:12

The psychological effects of stiffing people. 54:10

High profile cases of bullying. 58:00

The remoteness of the legal industry. 1:00:58

--

The Scuttlebutt Podcast - The podcast for service members and veterans building a life outside the military.

The Scuttlebutt Podcast features discussions on lifestyle, careers, business, and resources for service members. Show host, Brock Briggs, talks with a special guest from the community committed to helping military members build a successful life, inside and outside the service.

Follow along:   

• Episode & transcript: https://www.scuttlebuttpodcast.co/

• Brock: https://www.brockbriggs.com/

In this episode, Brock talks with Troy Peterson. Troy was a PYSOPS officer in the Army and is now working on product policy and trust and safety at OpenAI. In this conversation, we talk about the value of information and how the control of access to information can be used as a weapon. Troy shares a story of providing radios to locals in Afghanistan in an attempt to build trust and encourage participation in elections and government activity. We talk about how we see access to information play out in our world today, particularly in social media, the news and the rise of individual influence over large populations. And we also talk about how to optimize for learning and growth not always money. After some time spent aligning his personal interests with careers, Troy landed a job at Facebook, which has helped him propel through several tech jobs and kept him from being forced to make decisions he didn't want to. He gives a few lessons on how to approach your finances and career that keep you from being backed into a corner.

Show resources:

Troy on LinkedIn

Show Notes:

Welcome to the Scuttlebutt podcast. 0:00

Challenges in the training pipeline and the level of preparedness the military expects when you arrive. 1:55

Value of asking questions early. 5:10

Why haven’t you started your own company yet? 9:47

Early interest in tech while in the Army. 11:48

Breaking down barriers and build rapport with the local population while deployed. 16:42

The power of information and communication in Afghanistan. 22:05

Taliban Attacks in Afghanistan. 26:24

Was our war in Afghanistan representative of why the power of communication is important? 30:53

Having information is power. 37:56

Comparing information value in public to private sectors. 44:53

How to apply to tech jobs with your resume. 49:58

What’s the first thing you need to do when you get on the platform? 56:27

You’re only stealing from your future self if you aren’t taking the time to be intentional and try to learn. 58:52

What are some tangible things that you are doing now that protects life's downside? 1:04:05

Be open minded to change. 1:08:54

Journaling can be a good first step to holding yourself accountable to reaching your goals. 1:11:31

How do you balance the trade offs of technology and how do you make sure it’s not used for bad purposes? 1:16:16

--

The Scuttlebutt Podcast - The podcast for service members and veterans building a life outside the military.

The Scuttlebutt Podcast features discussions on lifestyle, careers, business, and resources for service members. Show host, Brock Briggs, talks with a special guest from the community committed to helping military members build a successful life, inside and outside the service.

• Episode & transcript: https://www.scuttlebuttpodcast.co/

• Brock: https://www.brockbriggs.com/

In this conversation, Brock speaks with Joe Heieck. Joe was an intelligence officer in the Navy, where he spent time on SEAL Team Three as part of the Naval Special Warfare community, and is now the CEO of gWorks, a software company serving state and local government. In this conversation, Joe talks through why leadership of the NSW community is different and the do's and don'ts for implementing strong leadership in your life and business. We talked about his entrepreneurship through acquisition journey, a checklist to consider for self funded versus traditional search for veterans, and all of the different parties you should consider being close to when buying a business and where to find them. And lastly, we also get into how Joe helped grow the business so quickly, whether to focus on horizontal or vertical growth, and the ins and outs of a recapitalization.

Resources:

Joe on Twitter

gWorks

Show Notes:

Welcome to the Scuttlebutt Podcast. 0:00

Scaling gWorks is top of mind today. 1:33

How to plan for a ramp up. 3:34

When to get involved and when to get out of the way. 9:24

Coming to acquire gWorks through ETA 12:51

The importance of earning the trust and respect of your teammates. 18:26

The different relationship dynamics of NSW community versus traditional Navy fleet 21:39

His first taste of real leadership. 28:03

When it was time to exit the Navy for good. 30:47

The pros and cons of getting out of the Navy. 37:12

The search process and why he became a searcher. 40:22

What are some of the risks that come with being a first time CEO? 46:18

Benefits of choosing a lifestyle business versus with partners. 48:49

Where can searchers go to find the right people? 54:48

Don’t be a dick and good things can happen. 1:01:10

What is the revenue mix look like now? 1:05:44

Deciding whether to grow vertically or horizontally. 1:10:23

What does going through this process tell you about the importance of who your investors are? 1:16:48

Where have you grown the most as a leader? 1:21:21

--

The Scuttlebutt Podcast - The podcast for service members and veterans building a life outside the military.

The Scuttlebutt Podcast features discussions on lifestyle, careers, business, and resources for service members. Show host, Brock Briggs, talks with a special guest from the community committed to helping military members build a successful life, inside and outside the service.

Follow along:   

• Episode & transcript: https://www.scuttlebuttpodcast.co/

• Brock: https://www.brockbriggs.com/

In this episode, Brock speaks with Jonathan Gensler. Jonathan spent a career worth of time working in the clean energy sector. In this conversation, you hear about some of the problems facing renewable energy today, from someone who grew up in coal country. We also get into an underrated mindset veterans don't take advantage of as often as they should and that's our unique ability to endure despite failure. Jonathan talks a lot about working in sales and is now currently a writer where he's had to get comfortable with a lot of people saying no, our time in the military makes us great at pushing through these knows. He also gets into a bit of the victimization of veterans and why it's paramount that we don't reenter the civilian world with our hands out.

Episode Resources:

Jonathan on Substack

Jonathan on Twitter

Show Notes:

Introduction to this episode. 0:00

What are you working on right now? 1:25

How do you know when you’re doing something wrong? 6:46

Getting started writing. 14:11

Introduction to the world's energy problems. 21:00

Why the move to renewable energy has been so slow. 32:42

Companies and technologies that are the key to the future of renewable energy 39:07

What is it that the veteran community can learn from John? 47:08

The idea that everything is beyond your control and nothing matters. 53:50

Safety in the known. Veteran community is acknowledged everywhere. 1:00:21

The role of the veteran in society continues to change. 1:05:45

Do the work you want to do, even if it doesn’t pay very well. 1:12:38

--

The Scuttlebutt Podcast - The podcast for service members and veterans building a life outside the military.

The Scuttlebutt Podcast features discussions on lifestyle, careers, business, and resources for service members. Show host, Brock Briggs, talks with a special guest from the community committed to helping military members build a successful life, inside and outside the service.

Follow along:   

• Episodes & transcripts: ⁠⁠https://www.scuttlebuttpodcast.co/⁠⁠

• Brock: ⁠⁠https://www.brockbriggs.com/⁠

In this episode, Brock speaks with Rob Wynkoop. After his time in the Marines, Rob went on to start the first franchise of Gyrene Burger, a delivery focused specialty burger chain started by Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza. Rob shares what he learned from Tom and the economics of food delivery before Uber Eats existed. We also talked about government contracting, specifically service disabled veteran owned small businesses, and why that niche isn't as profitable and easy as most people think it is. Lastly, we talked about worm buckets, a worm composting ecommerce company Rob started during COVID.

Episode Resources:

Rob on Twitter

Show Notes:

Introduction to this episode. 0:00

When is enough? What is your goal? What are you looking for? 1:18

Looking for ownership of something. 4:54

Rob's background in the marines. 11:17

How he met Tom Monaghan and got into the burger business. 13:52

What was the most challenging part of running a fast food restaurant? 19:19

What’s the concept of 100% delivery? 22:22

The three legs of the stool of success. 30:09

What is diversity contracting and how does it work? 36:20

What is government contracting and why is it hard? 40:02

The importance of getting the inside track in government contracting. 46:00

The three ways to be successful in government contracting. 48:57

How do you get into government contracting? 54:55

What’s the purchase price of a government contracting small business? 1:00:53

Taking over a SDVOSB. 1:04:11

Worm farming is a success. 1:10:52

Marketing in ecommerce. 1:13:41

Optionality for partnerships. 1:19:21

--

The Scuttlebutt Podcast - The podcast for service members and veterans building a life outside the military.

The Scuttlebutt Podcast features discussions on lifestyle, careers, business, and resources for service members. Show host, Brock Briggs, talks with a special guest from the community committed to helping military members build a successful life, inside and outside the service.

Follow along:   

• Episodes & transcripts: ⁠https://www.scuttlebuttpodcast.co/⁠

• Brock: ⁠https://www.brockbriggs.com/⁠

In this episode, Brock speaks with Josh Kristoff. Josh is a former surface warfare officer and is now the managing partner at Nomad Capital Ventures and Kristoff Real Estate Investments. In this discussion, Josh talks about the stark differences he saw leading a manufacturing company compared to working inside of a tech company in Silicon Valley. We talk about how the military develops you as a generalist and when you need to specialize in a particular skill, why executive MBAs are underrated, and building a highly verticalized property management company.

Episode Resources:

Josh on LinkedIn

Nomad Capital Ventures

Show Notes:

Introduction to this episode. 0:00

What is the product you’re working on? 1:36

What are some of the accounting pain points you’re having and why is the willingness to pay so high? 6:42

What’s necessary in the short term rental industry. 11:41

How he ended up in the Navy and what he learned from it. 16:12

Is there the feeling of camaraderie that comes with being part of a tightly knit team? 22:58

What is the difference between working in Silicon Valley and manufacturing? 26:56

The importance of team leadership and communication and setting goals. 31:10

Why did you find yourself more apt at the manufacturing vs the tech focused gig? 36:11

When is the right time to specialize in a technical skill? 40:16

What’s the next five to 10 years looking like in terms of technical skills? 44:40

The three things executives need to brush up on and focus on. 49:40

The composition of the classroom and the opportunity cost. 54:26

The benefits of education after the military. 58:45

How he got started in real estate investing. 1:02:53

How his partnership started a real estate investing business. 1:07:47

The strength of the partnership has been the amount of stress they’ve experienced. 1:12:17

The impact of the pandemic on the short term rental industry. 1:19:38

What’s informing their decision to go vertical? 1:22:54

Why they’re not going to launch in every market. 1:27:03

What is it that you can offer them and we can take it from there? 1:32:10

--

The Scuttlebutt Podcast - The podcast for service members and veterans building a life outside the military.

The Scuttlebutt Podcast features discussions on lifestyle, careers, business, and resources for service members. Show host, Brock Briggs, talks with a special guest from the community committed to helping military members build a successful life, inside and outside the service.

Follow along:   

• Episodes & transcripts: https://www.scuttlebuttpodcast.co/

• Brock: https://www.brockbriggs.com/

In this episode, Brock speaks with Susan Maly. Susan is former Air Force and Booz Allen now working as a fractional Chief Strategy Officer for small technology companies. From this conversation, expect to learn how to structure your writing and how to speak more eloquently. Susan was a speechwriter during her time in the Air Force and has several simple ways to get your thoughts down on paper and connecting with your audience. You also learn about what strategy is why you need it in your business and the steps to implement it. Susan is an expert at translating the big vision you have in your head about what the future ought to look like down into the things you need to be doing in your life and business everyday to achieve those. She gives some helpful frameworks to think through and apply what you do and best practices for aligning your entire business towards one common goal.

Episode Resources:

Strategy Made Simple Newsletter

5 Tools for Your Strategy Toolkit

Susan on LinkedIn

Show Notes:

Introduction to today’s episode. 0:00

Finding the space to have enough flow to write. 1:45

Susan shares excerpts from her book with her readers. She also writes a newsletter. 7:33

Being a speechwriter for a four star. 11:56

What are we trying to accomplish with this speech? What is the end goal so that we can frame everything around it? 15:02

What’s your hook? What is the story? How can you pull that through? 20:26

How did your dreams of getting out of the Air Force play into landing your role at Booz Allen? 24:07

What is strategy? What does it mean? 31:12

Do you think it’s possible to succeed in business without everything you describe? 34:09

Why there’s a need for management consulting companies. 39:19

What was the largest barrier to large organizations implementing change? 42:18

What is your vision for what your perfect future will look like? 48:29

When is the right time to hire? 52:13

The benefits of having a third party come in. 56:57

The importance of having a Northstar strategy. 1:00:13

The importance of having a written down North Star plan. 1:05:27

What would you take away from this conversation and implement it today? 1:13:41

--

The Scuttlebutt Podcast - The podcast for service members and veterans building a life outside the military.

The Scuttlebutt Podcast features discussions on lifestyle, careers, business, and resources for service members. Show host, Brock Briggs, talks with a special guest from the community committed to helping military members build a successful life, inside and outside the service.

Every week, we send out in depth breakdowns of episodes, resources and content not featured, and free swag. https://scuttlebutt.carrd.co/

Follow along:    

• Twitter   

• Instagram

• Send me an email: [email protected]

• Episodes & transcripts

In this episode, Brock speaks with Josh Thompson. Josh is a former Army medevac pilot and now a fractional CFO. In this conversation, we talk about the family dynamics of the military, and how to live for your legacy and not your resume. We hear about Josh's experience in command of several field hospitals in the army and how he managed finances for several struggling activities. He also goes in depth on the challenges facing medical services, both in a civilian capacity and in the service from a readiness perspective, I hit him with a hot question of whether or not pregnant women should be allowed in the service or not as well enough to listen through to hear his take on that. We also talk about some of the financial challenges SMB owners face and the best practices for having clean financials and operations, m&a, and raising money.

Episode Resources:

Fractional CFO Services

Josh on Twitter

Show Notes:

Welcome to the Scuttlebutt podcast. 0:00

The most important thing he’s anticipating in this season of transition. 1:39

Where are we going to settle? 7:49

What the service means to people is unique. 14:41

How he landed where he is today. 22:26

How the Army offered to pay for his grad school. 28:45

What was driving the misappropriation of money? 33:35

The importance of managing your hiring process. 36:59

Working with so many layers of complexity in the military. 44:30

What were the big lessons or takeaways from this process? 47:28

What’s the purpose of the Defense Department? 54:02

The second hard question that really challenges the Surgeon’s Journal and the services. 57:48

What happens if you’re in the middle of the Middle East and you have to find a host nation provider that can provide the same service 1:04:15

Mental health is a big issue in the service. 1:07:51

What are some of the repercussions that we’re feeling from using the healthcare system? 1:13:35

What is direct primary care? What is it? 1:16:04

Why you need to join a BNI group. 1:20:48

What business owners are struggling with. 1:23:54

The proliferation of fractional roles and their importance. 1:31:04

What’s the one thing that small business owners constantly mess up when it comes to their finances and something that you could articulate that they could 1:33:53

--

The Scuttlebutt Podcast - The podcast for service members and veterans building a life outside the military.

The Scuttlebutt Podcast features discussions on lifestyle, careers, business, and resources for service members. Show host, Brock Briggs, talks with a special guest from the community committed to helping military members build a successful life, inside and outside the service.

Every week, we send out in depth breakdowns of episodes, resources and content not featured, and free swag. https://scuttlebutt.carrd.co/

Follow along:    

• Twitter  

• Instagram

• Send me an email: [email protected]

• Episodes & transcripts

In this episode, Brock speaks with Josh Smith. Josh is former EOD tech and now the owner of a large welding and fabrication business. We talk about how his business is looking to adopt e commerce strategies and the pros and cons of customization versus mass adoption. He walks us through his first acquisition, everything that went wrong with it and how to avoid some of those pitfalls. And we talk about his strategies for recruiting top trade talent and cultivating an environment that retains highly skilled people.

Episode Resources:

Josh on Twitter

Show Notes:

Introduction to this episode. 0:00

The biggest problem he’s seen in the metal fabrication space. 1:13

What is ecommerce like? 3:58

Building an infrastructure around something that stops for whatever reason. 11:01

How he got started in real estate. 17:05

How he got started in the business. 20:25

What’s so attractive about starting a small and medium business? 25:21

What was the size of the shop at one point? 31:42

When he first came out here, he was looking for a place to work out of his garage. 34:09

The most critical things he would have done differently with the business. 39:55

What are the things that could have been a deal breaker for a SMB? 45:33

How do you know when you are being ripped off? 47:11

What are some of the benefits of bringing all of his businesses under one umbrella? 52:27

The best decision he’s ever made. 57:02

Trade work is similar to the military because it’s about the quality of your work. 1:02:44

What do you think people most misunderstand about business? 1:07:23

Don’t make the same mistake that I did. 1:13:50

--

The Scuttlebutt Podcast - The podcast for service members and veterans building a life outside the military.

The Scuttlebutt Podcast features discussions on lifestyle, careers, business, and resources for service members. Show host, Brock Briggs, talks with a special guest from the community committed to helping military members build a successful life, inside and outside the service.

Every week, we send out in depth breakdowns of episodes, resources and content not featured, and free swag.

Follow along:    

• Twitter

• Instagram

• Send me an email: [email protected]

• Episodes & transcripts