Episodes

Paul Kennedy, along with the late Paul O'Byrne, founded O'Byrne and Kennedy, Chartered Accountants, in Goffs Oak, United Kingdom. It is one of the most innovative Chartered Accounting firms in the world. The story behind how they got there is fascinating, and will be the topic of discussion in this interview with Paul Kennedy. We'll discuss strategy, firing customers, innovation, value pricing, operating without timesheets, knowledge management, and the OBK MBA. You don't want to miss this show ...

John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker and best selling author Duct Tape Marketing, Duct Tape Selling, The Commitment Engine and The Referral Engine. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing System and Duct Tape Marketing Consulting Network that trains and licenses small business marketing consultants around the world. He frequently consults with small and mid-sized businesses helping them create marketing plans and organized marketing systems that smooth the way for steady growth.

Ed and Ron will discuss Milton Friedman, who was one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century. He received the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Science in 1976, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988. He served as an unofficial adviser to presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and Presidents Nixon and Reagan. The author of many best-selling books, including Capitalism and Freedom, Free to Choose (with his late wife, Rose), among others. His PhD dissertation, written in...

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...

Continuing our discussion on the Richard and Daniel Susskind book, The Future of the Professions, Ron and Ed will be interviewing three Australian lawyers, two in practice, and one consultant to the profession. David Wells, Managing Principal of Moores in Melbourne, and Matthew Burgess of View Legal in Brisbane. John Chisholm is a consultant to the legal profession, and a Senior Fellow at VeraSage Institute. What should firms be doing in response to the future changes posited in the book? How sh...

The stability of any project is found in the initiation of that project. Like the foundation of a building it is often barely seen, but without it even the most well-built structure above it would be weak. Initiation launches a project by the establishment of authority and responsibility for the project. Unfortunately, in many organizations initiation is done on an informal basis if at all. This then leads to poor project results. In this episode, we will explore the possibility that making proj...

Why do tall people make more money? Why do dry cleaners charge less for men’s shirts than for women’s? Do companies really plan for obsolescence? Why is the population of the USA getting fat? Why do men spend less on health care than women? Join Ed and Ron for a fascinating look at these and other everyday economic questions in this new series: Economic Puzzles and Paradoxes. We will strive to follow the wisdom of the great economist Frederic Bastiat: “There is only one difference between a bad ...

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...

Join Ed and Ron as they explain the Trading Game, where participants learn the subjective nature of value, how increasing the availability of goods and services your company offers leads to prosperity, happiness, and a higher standard of living for all; and why the trade deficit doesn't matter. The real wealth of nations is in the availability of goods and services, and by trading with the world there's more abundance to choose from. You'll come away with a deeper understanding of how business i...

We will interview Mark Koziel, Vice President – Firm Services and Global Alliances at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He oversees the development, ongoing improvement and delivery of services to members in PCPS/Firm Practice Management as well as International relations with various CPA related groups. Mark will give us his take on the future of the accounting profession, as well as the Richard and Daniel Susskind book, The Future of the Professions (see our show from Jan...

Are the professions going to be dismantled in the next two decades? In “The Future of the Professions” Richard and Daniel Susskind argue that they will. This was the best book Ron read in 2015, as we discussed on our December 4th show. On this episode, we are honored to interview Daniel Susskind, one of the authors. If you are a professional of any kind, you will not want to miss this thought-provoking, evocative, and challenging discussion on the future of the professions.

Are there any business lessons embedded Charles Dicken’s famous Christmas classic? Tune in to our show on Friday, December 18 as Ed and Ron explore the economics of Ebenezer Scrooge.

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...

Best Business Books of 2015

As you may know Ron Baker is a founder of the VeraSage Institute, a think tank for professional firms; and that Ed Kless is a senior fellow. The Institute holds a biennial conference during which the fellows and some friends are invited to gather share their knowledge in a symposium atmosphere. The latest of these events took place in Boston in October 2015. This episode is a recording of a session during which Ron and Ed as well as VeraSage Fellows, Kirk Bowman and John Chisholm, had a conversa...

Comedian Louis CK has a great routine which ends with him saying to his daughter Just shut up and eat your french fries. While this bit is hysterically funny, it is sadly repeated by some business leaders to people within their organizations. In his book, A More Beautiful Question, Warren Berger writes, Great products, companies, even industries, often begin with a question, yet few companies actually encourage questioning in any substantive way. There are no departments or training programs foc...

Project management is critical for any business, since it allocates resources into the future. Many businesses, especially professional firms, are beginning to recognize one of the gaps in their competencies, in addition to pricing, is project management. In this episode, project management expert Ed Kless will define what a project is, the difference between goals and objectives, The Triangle of Truth, what is Quality and who defines it, the elements of a scope document, and the elements of a C...

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...

By its very nature, cost accounting is a historical function, but what is important for pricing are planned costs, not past costs. As Henry Ford pointed out, no one knows what a cost should be. Yet, cost accounting has held hegemony for far too long over the pricing strategies of businesses everywhere, embedding the conventional wisdom that costs determine price. Cost accounting does not deserve to be the apotheosis of pricing, let alone running a business. No doubt, it has its role in any organ...

Many business owners lament they sell a commodity, or the “market” sets their price. Yet empirical evidence proves otherwise. Most customers have a range of acceptable prices they’re willing to pay. How do you search that range? What’s the most effective pricing strategy to capture the value from the high-end, and the low-end, of that range? Ed and Ron will discuss two specific strategies on this show: Peter van Westendorp’s Price Sensitivity Meter, and the Barron Joseph von Neinbach Model.

Clarence Darrow once said, I have never killed anybody, but I have read many obituaries with delight! With that schadenfreude in mind, join us for a look at some of the funniest, poignant, and insightful last words spoken by famous, and infamous, people throughout history.

They say you can’t turn back the clock and go back to the good old days. Yet this is precisely what is happening with the total quality service movement, the customer loyalty movement, CRM, and other philosophies that put the customer at the center of the business organization. Millions of dollars are being spent on consultants to relearn what was once common sense, practiced by the great entrepreneurs from the turn of the century to the mid-1950s. In this episode of our Entrepreneur Heaven Seri...

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 will discuss ten factors of price sensitivity that all pricers should consider before establishing a price. Price sensitivity is far more predictive than demand elasticity studies, which simply show changes in overall revenue in response to various price changes. Price sensitivity is far more granular, allowing pricers to analyze the particular drivers of value at the customer level. Analyzing price sensitivity is an important exercise for any business that wants to capture more of th...