Episodes

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...

We are honored to have the opportunity to interview George Gilder, writer, economist, technology advocate, and co-founder of the Discovery Institute. Mr. Gilder released a monograph entitled: The 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money. His 1981 international bestseller, Wealth and Poverty, advanced a practical and moral case for supply-side economics and capitalism during the early months of the Reagan Administration and made him President Reagan's most quoted living autho...

Thousands of business books are published each year. Some are worthless, others have merit, fewer still have lasting value, but a handful possess the ability to transform your business (and possibly, your life). Yet with today’s busy and demanding schedules, do you feel you don’t devote enough time to reading and absorbing new ideas? Then this show is for you. Ed and Ron will explore the best business books ever written, selecting their favorite all-time business books. If you want to share your...

Welcome to 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 advanced knowledge of the events either wi...

Innovation and creativity always take us by surprise. Experts rarely understand this, which is why so many have made false predictions throughout history. Join Ed and Ron as they take a humorous and fascinating journey through some of the most mistaken predictions ever made, all by the experts.

Ron and Ed interview Jennifer Warawa, Vice President and General Manager for Sage Accountant Solutions. Jennifer's passion is to partner with consultants, accountants and bookkeepers to provide solutions that make a difference in their business or firm, and support them in delivering an extraordinary experience to their clients. Prior to working with Sage, Jennifer owned her own firm for 12 years providing accounting, bookkeeping, and consulting services, software training, as well as business/ ...

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. This episode of our Entrepreneur Heaven Series,...

NOTE - This episode was missing from the catalogue. It is eleven years old. We are posting it only in the interest of completeness. You can safely ignore unless you want to enjoy the trip to the past. Ed's Topics Uber delivers a passport and launches a "De Blasio Feature" in New York City, which shows what your wait would be in the absence of Uber. How about Uber for flights? Cato Institute: One idea for how states could effectively end the federal income tax: Texas could refund everyone's fed...

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 show, Ed and Ron will explore this law and some other infamous VeraSage Laws.

Ron and Ed interview Greg Tirico who is responsible for Advocacy Solutions and Services at Sprout Social. He has spent the majority of his career leading digital marketing initiatives in Fortune 500 organizations. Today we will speak to him about Mary Meeker's annual Internet Trends report. Greg's insight when added to Mary's will guide your social strategy for the next 12 months. Personal note on Greg: When not espousing the benefits of employee advocacy, he can be found searching for the perfe...