Small Business War Stories

Just over 5 years ago, David Swider was lamenting with a friend about how they wished there was a good record store in their hometown of Oxford, Mississippi.

Finally, they asked themselves, "Why don't we do it?".

This simple idea led to the creation of the independent record store The End of All Music.

Now, 5 years later, the business is stronger than ever and David is working his dream job.

This week on Small Business War Stories, we sit down with David to talk about how he has managed to make an independent record store not only succeed but thrive.

Embrace community. Serve others. Create culture.

These are the words you will find on the walls of a coffee shop in Lexington, Kentucky.

A Cup of Common Wealth is doing what the biggest and best companies in the world aspire to do, create an amazing culture.

A great culture not only inspires your workforce, but helps to promote your brand.

A company's culture goes beyond their benefits and is not something that employees bring with them. It must be set by the founders of the business and it is reflective in the vision, beliefs and values of the organization.

We were lucky to speak with Sal Sanchez, founder of A Cup of Common Wealth, about how they think about culture and how that has helped the growth and success of their business.

This week on Small Business War Stories, Sal Sanchez of A Cup of Common Wealth Coffee.

Caroline Cook was a stay at home mother with three children (now four) when she decided to venture back into the workforce and become a real estate agent.

The initial stage for this career change was tough. She was pregnant with her fourth child and attempting to sell $4 million worth of property during a down market in 2009.

However, she not only persevered, but thrived.

She still loves what she does and besides somehow managing to raise four children while working full time, she had time to write a book about her ministry involvement in Haiti.

Carol is an amazing woman and we are excited to have her as today's guest on Small Business War Stories.

In 1969, a former coffin show room located at 3614 Jackson Highway in Sheffield, Albama was converted into the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.

Huge names in music like the Rolling Stones, Cher, Bob Seger, Lynrd Skynrd and many more recorded songs and albums within its' walls.

Only a decade later, in 1979, the studio would close.

Following a documentary titled Muscle Schoals in 2013, interest was peaked in restoring the forgotten building.

Today, on Small Business War Stories, we talk to Andrew Kelly of the Muscle Shoals Music Foundation about how they helped restore this building to help establish an iconic music museum.

There has been an explosion in growth of the craft beer market over the past 10 years. Today, there are more than 5,300 breweries in operation in the U.S., up from just 2,000 in 2011.

That means breweries have grown 21% annually since 2011!

However, after 8 years of double digit market growth, in 2016, the craft beer volume fell to just 6% year of year growth.

What does this mean for the craft brewery market? Is it time to panic or is this just a sign of the industry growing up? Have we reached a saturation point?

We sat down with Mike Raspatello, founder of October, a beer magazine and website, to discuss where he thinks the craft brew industry is going.

This and much more in today's episode of Small Business War Stories.

We often underestimate the impact that a small business can have on their community while in reality, small businesses are the main driver of job creation in the United States.

One small business has less impact than a major corporation, but as a whole, small businesses create more jobs, create a positive atmosphere within their communities, and create local role models for kids to look up to.

One coffee shop in Clarksdale, Mississippi is a perfect example of such a business.

Cali Noland and Ben Lewis of Meraki Roasting Company have combined their passions for education, community and business to use their local coffee shop to help teach kids necessary job skills.

With a poverty rate of 40% in Clarksdale, this program is filling an extremely important need for this community. These kids are learning necessary soft skills like time management, that will ultimately help them secure and keep a job in the future.

We get into this program and much more in the latest episode of Small Business War Stories.

Great business people are able to adapt, think on their feet, speak and captivate an audience, and collaborate and communicate with a variety of people in a variety of situations.

These also happen to be the exact types of skills you learn in improv.

Improv training is fantastic business training. The skills necessary to stand on stage and improvise any topic thrown at you, is an extremely transferable skill to business.

Jonas Koffler of the improv and training group Four Day Weekend, has been helping businesses learn these skills for the past 20 years. What started as a limited six week run at a local theatre, has grown into a 20 year successful business where the group has now worked the who's who of Fortune 500 companies, toured with the USO, and performed for two different U.S. presidents.

We were lucky to sit down with Jonas Koffler, and get his story, company background and advice as part of Small Business War Stories.

Starting a photography business is simple, but making it successful and profitable is a real challenge.

Between existing full-time photographers and those doing it as a secondary part-time job, there's a tremendous amount of competition in the market.

But many photographers have managed to succeed by carving out a niche and building a sustainable lucrative business.

We spoke with Dan Mitchell about his journey from budding school teacher to full-time music and events photographer.

His modest beginnings started with uploading a video he created with his cellphone of a friend's open mic performance. That was compelling enough to be contacted about the possibility of making money from creating similar content.

Fast forward to today, and this self-taught photographer has built a growing business specializing in music, portraits and special event photography.

We are excited to share with you our interview with Dan in today's episode of Small Business War Stories.

The Shack Up Inn embodies the intersection between music and cultural tourism.

A stay at one of their sharecropper shacks immediately immerses you in the history of plantation life while also immersing you in the live music scene at the birth place of the blues.

The Shack Up Inn started nearly 20 years ago as a single sharecropper shack on a plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Tourists interested in seeing what a plantation looked like started asking about renting the shack.

Fast forward to today, The Shack Up Inn has 19 shacks, can accommodate over 100 people, and has its own live music venue that has featured legends such as Robert Plant, Tom Waits and Elvis Costello.

In today's episode of Small Business War Stories, we spoke with Guy Malvezzi to learn how they got their start, why music tourism and much more.

Claire Flowers was in software sales and after years of suffering through poorly made shoes that would get caught in sidewalk grates and fall apart weeks after buying, she was inspired to design her own shoe.

Now, it turns out, getting someone to manufacture a single shoe is not so simple. It's not like getting a tailored suit. Large manufacturers have no interest in doing one-off business like that and no one overseas will do it.

This is what inspired Claire to start Claire Flowers Shoes. She wanted a woman's shoe that feel like a Nike, looks like a Jimmy Choo, and wears like a work boot.

We sat down with Claire to talk about how she went from idea to full fledged business and much more in this latest episode of Small Business War Stories.