Episodes

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

From the Profit First Professionals Website: Everyone on the planet knew it. It was a cold, hard fact. The world was flat. Until it wasn’t. That’s when everything changed. Society is addicted to axioms: beliefs that have become so entrenched in our global culture that they are never challenged. Sales – Expenses = Profit is one of those axioms. For centuries entrepreneurs have followed the “profit comes last” formula off the proverbial financial cliff. Now everything has changed… In his globally ...

Have you ever changed your mind on a significant issue? Nearly everyone we ask answers yes. What was the process like? How long did it take? How did you go about learning the new position? Philosopher Amélie Oksenberg Rorty wrote the crucial principle for coming to know the truth is, namely: Our ability to engage in continuous conversation, testing one another, discovering our hidden presuppositions, changing our minds because we have listened to the voices of our fellows. Lunatics also change t...

Ron and Ed were at Sage Summit 2017 in Atlanta and recorded an episode (or two) featuring a great panel discussion on the premise that accounting and innovation are not opposites (i.e. not an oxymoron). While the job description for accounting professionals has largely stayed the same, technologies and laws have come into play to change the way business is done. It is time that accountants alter the way they do business to keep up with the shifting tide.

Adrian Simmons is so interested in creating value, he’s been studying the history of the theory of value. He’ll enlighten us with what he’s learned, as well as explain how he uses these insights to create more value in his CPA firm.

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

Ron and Ed were at Sage Summit 2017 in Atlanta and recorded an episode (or two) featuring a great panel discussion on the premise that accounting and innovation are not opposites (i.e. not an oxymoron). While the job description for accounting professionals has largely stayed the same, technologies and laws have come into play to change the way business is done. It is time that accountants alter the way they do business to keep up with the shifting tide. Panelist Jodie Padar Gail Perry Gary Boom...

An enormous amount of ink has been spilled on the topic of Generation X, Y, Z, etc. One reason is there are more generations interacting in the workforce today than in the past. Another is life expectancy. The average knowledge worker today will outlive their employer, with an average active work life of approximately fifty years compared to the average organizational life of thirty. This translates into the average worker today having many more jobs, and even careers, than those of their ancest...

This Friday, Ron and Ed will profile Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992), one of the most prodigious classical liberal scholars of the 20th century. He won the 1974 Nobel Prize in economics, published 130 articles and twenty-five books on topics ranging from technical economics to theoretical psychology, from political philosophy to legal anthropology, and from the philosophy of science to the history of ideas. The focus of our conversation will be around the essays published in the free eBook entitled,...

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

Over the years, many fellows at VeraSage Institute have coined various laws, such as Baker's Law: Bad customers drive out good customers. In this episode, Ed and Ron will explore more famous, and infamous, VeraSage Laws.

In an ironic twist on Karl Marx’s idea of the proletarian revolution, in today’s capitalist society, labor trumps capital as the chief source of all wealth. According to The World Bank, 80% of the developed world’s wealth lies in human capital. Today, knowledge workers themselves own the firm’s means of production, in their heads. This is a seismic shift in our economy, the ramifications of which we are still trying to comprehend. Thinking in terms of human capital investors lends dignity and re...

In 1997, Ron attended Disney Institute’s professional development program: The Disney Approach to Customer Loyalty: Creating Service that Keeps Your Customers Coming Back. How does Disney create superior value for its guests? They have a foundation that is composed of three components: core competencies, core offering, and core customers. Here was the Walt Disney World Resort promise to its Guests in 1997: “We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment to people of all ages, every...

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

Request For Proposals have become more commonplace as competitive bidding has replaced negotiation for price buyers. It is as if dysfunctional buying practices have arisen to counter dysfunctional selling practices. It is important to judge the seriousness of potential buyers going out to bid, as a lot of the RFPs are, in reality, nothing but hammers used against incumbents to obtain price concessions. That said, many firms have to do a certain amount of RFPs. If you do, you should be well verse...

Ron and Ed interview for a second time Father Robert A. Sirico, the president and co-founder of the Acton Institute and the pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, both in Grand Rapids, MI. A regular writer and commentator on religious, political, economic, and social issues, Rev. Sirico's contributions have been carried by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Times, CNN, ABC, CBS, NPR, and the BBC, among others. In his recent book Defending the Free Market: The Mo...

Back by popular demand, on Friday's show Ron and Ed will interview Tim Williams, a noted author, international speaker, and presenter for major advertising associations, agency networks, universities, and business conferences worldwide. Tim is author of the books, “Take a Stand for Your Brand: Building a Great Agency Brand from the Inside Out,” ranked by Amazon as one of the top ten books on brand building; “Defining the Agency Brand,” published by the American Association of Advertising Agencie...

Hourly billing is deeply entrenched and has been widely used for decades, which proves is has some advantages. The case against the billable hour is not that it is not a profitable pricing policy. Rather, it’s that hourly billing is suboptimal (if profitability and value creation is your goal), and its disadvantages outweigh its advantages. It has become, to borrow a term from the medical profession, an iatrogenic illness, that is, a disease caused by the doctor. Time is indeed precious; it's wh...

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

Companies use personality tests for a variety of purposes, such as employment screening, assessing leadership potential, fostering corroboration and teamwork, etc. The most widely used is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), created by Pennsylvania housewife Isabel Myers. This particular test is utilized by 89% of the Fortune 100, given to 2.5 million people each year to identify strengths and enhance teamwork. The Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory (MMPI) was developed in 1946 to sor...

This Friday, Ron and Ed will profile Ludwig von Mises, an economist, author, and one of the founders of the “neo-Austrian school” of economics. Mises told his future wife: “If you want a rich man, don’t marry me. I am not interested in earning money. I am writing about money, but will never have much of my own.” The focus of our conversation will be around the works published in the free eBook entitled, The Essential Ludwig von Mises, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, along wit...

There are only three pricing strategies: Skim, penetration and neutral. Price can be an effective way to compete for some companies. Think of Wal-Mart, Southwest Airlines, Costco, Dell Computers, or Timex watches, all use a penetration pricing strategy. All of these companies have used price as an effective competitive differentiation and have relentlessly driven out needless costs from their operations, passing the savings on to its customers. On the opposite side of the spectrum there is Apple...

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

Do you know anyone who was motivated going into, or coming out of, their annual performance appraisal? Most organizations and employees are dissatisfied with the performance appraisal process, so it remains a curiosity why this methodology continues to exist. Performance appraisals don’t improve performance and they don’t drive careers; they are an incidental effect of other dynamic systems. In essence, appraisals are the paper-shuffling ritual that sanctifies decisions already made. Ed and Ron ...