Our podcast team is taking a short break this weekend to enjoy time with our families (virtually in some cases). In the meantime, this is one of our favorite episodes from earlier this year. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. In January, we interviewed Rick Miller, owner and co-founder of Elijah Tooling, a company that sells innovative CNC work holding equipment. Rick has a knack for coming up with unique products and has several patents in the work holding sector. He says that innovative ideas are vital for success, but getting customers to buy into those ideas is what…
Author: Noah Graff
Today’s guest on the podcast is Marco Schiavoni, owner of Pizza Metro, one of my favorite pizza places in Chicago. Marco has been in the restaurant business for 20 years, and like most business owners he’s seen his share of ups and downs over time. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. I spoke to Marco last weekend about how restaurants in Chicago are navigating the COVID-19 crisis. He also taught me the secret to making the perfect espresso. Main points of the interview (2:45) Marco gives his story. He talks about leaving his home in Rome to come to…
This week on Swarfblog, we’re sharing a timely guest post by US veteran and B2B marketing expert, Chad Storlie. Chad discusses the similarities he sees between combat veterans and the nation’s healthcare workers, and offers encouragement and advice to strengthen their resolve. Read on: Imagine going to work each day armed with the best colleagues, the best technology, the best training, and the best education to battle a resilient, ever present, and capable foe. You do your best and people still die. Wake up the next day, do your best, people die. Then repeat, repeat, and repeat. Healthcare workers are…
Today’s podcast is the second half of a two part interview with Chris and Brandon Voss, coauthors of the best selling book on business negotiation, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. Chris Voss used to be an FBI hostage negotiator. When he retired, he applied the negotiation techniques he learned in law enforcement to the business world. Some of the methods Chris and Brandon teach can seem difficult to execute and counterintuitive, but I can personally vouch for their effectiveness in my own business dealings. Main Points…
Today’s podcast is part 1 of a two part interview with Chris and Brandon Voss, co-authors of the best selling book on business negotiation, Never Split the Difference, and executives at Black Swan Group, a company offering business negotiation training. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. Never Split the Difference teaches how to approach business negotiations using the same the techniques that Chris Voss learned from decades working as an FBI hostage negotiator. I can vouch for its effectiveness personally, having listened to the book from start to finish 3 years ago. I probably use its principles in our…
Today’s guest on the podcast is Taber West, founder of Gravity Worx, the manufacturer of a high performance suspension electric bike, called the E160FS. Scroll down to listen to the podcast When Taber was younger he raced bikes professionally, but as he aged and gained weight he no longer could do the type of cycling he used to enjoy, particularly mountain biking. When he discovered that a high performance e-bike could empower him to ride places he had thought were impossible, he set out to build his own. Main Points (3:50) Taber gives his background. He started out as a…
Norm and I were born on the same day. We grew up together. We did Cub Scouts in his basement. His mom, Miriam, was the den mother. Norm died from COVID-19 last Friday. I was stunned when I received the news, even though I had not had any contact with Norm for over seven years, and didn’t know of his Alzheimer’s. He was the first of my high school classmates to die from it. I heard this from the internet listserv our class maintains. It brought the COVID plague off the CNBC news streamer into my heart. The cold brutal…
Our guest on today’s podcast is Ben Cohen, sports writer for the Wall Street Journal and author of the new book, The Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. In the book, Ben analyzes many types of hot streaks, from basketball shooting streaks, to investing streaks, even a streak of hit plays by William Shakespeare. Most people have had a moment in their lives where a string of successes have given them the confidence that the next thing they try will also be successful. This book explores whether that belief is actually…
Are we getting a false positive signal from the stock market, or is it a predictor of the economy in 3 to 6 months? This is the question business folk, big, small, and tiny, are asking themselves as the markets regain the ground lost in the early March slaughter. The big tech stocks, Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Facebook, plus Amazon, Walmart, and Costco, are still sitting near all-time highs, while unemployment swells, small businesses languish, and Macy’s and Kohl’s starve. GM and Ford stock shrink, and Tesla stock hits $700 per share. Are we on the eve of a depression or is…
On today’s podcast we interviewed Rick Wheeler, owner of O’Malley Manufacturing in St. Petersburg, Florida, a company originally founded in 1910. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. Over the years O’Malley has had a knack for finding niche products to produce such as the Hair Snare, Lint Snare and Bait Bucket, which are all made with robotic injection molding. Rick likes to manufacture with injection molding because it allows him to make his products in-house from start to finish, and to sell them at competitive prices compared to products coming from overseas. Main points of the interview (3:30) Rick…