When seemingly every path to funding is closed to business owners, entrepreneurs, and inventors, Kedma Ough – a national award-winning small business champion – helps them find the money and resources they seek.

Kedma, a fifth generation entrepreneur, learned the secrets of business funding the hard way – by having countless doors slammed in her face. Now, after helping more than 10,000 individuals to get the funding they thought they could never qualify for, she’s written a book – Target Funding: A Proven System to Get the Money and Resources You Need to Start or Grow Your Business – detailing a wide range of alternative funding options.

Too many great concepts never see the light of day, Kedma explains to host, author, and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart, because they can’t find the necessary funding. She’s on a mission to change that.

Photo: Kedma Ough, Target Funding
Posted: July 1, 2019
Monday Morning Run Time: 49:19

On a special edition of Monday Morning Radio, to mark the launch of its 8th season, host Dean Rotbart flew to Austin, Texas, and, in the inner sanctums of The Tower at Wizard Academy, brought together two of the world’s marketing legends: The Wizard of Ads, Roy H. Williams, and The Digital Marketer, Ryan Deiss.

It’s no exaggeration to say that a one-hour private consultation with either Roy or Ryan would easily command a king’s ransom from their legions of fans. Put Roy and Ryan together, combining their expertise, and no small business owner or entrepreneur can afford to miss the priceless insights they deliver.

But put away your checkbooks. Dean’s exclusive conversation with Roy and Ryan is available right now, for free, compliments of MondayMorningRadio.com.

Photos: Roy H. Williams (l) and Ryan Deiss; Overhead view of The Tower at Wizard Academy
Posted: June 24, 2019
Monday Morning Run Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

The June 9th episode of Monday Morning Radio features a full-length interview with Richard Kessler, co-founder of Kessler’s Diamonds.

This is an excerpt featuring Host Dean Rotbart.

Joanne Lipman has had a storied journalism career, serving as the first woman to become a deputy managing editor at The Wall Street Journal; founding editor-in-chief of Condé Nast’s Portfolio magazine; and most recently as editor-in-chief of USA Today and Chief Content Officer of its parent company, Gannett.

Yet during her 35-plus-year career, Joanne never felt that the professional playing field between her and her male colleagues was level. And, as she found out, millions of women in the American workforce share her on-the-job frustrations.

Rather than berate men, in her bestselling book, That’s What She Said, Joanne aims to help men – especially managers and owners – better understand the obstacles that women face in the workplace and why it’s in everyone’s interest to strive for gender-equal work environments.

When listeners hear the insights that Joanne shares with host Dean Rotbart, the women will applaud her for finally expressing what they’ve been thinking and feeling for years; and the men will wonder how they could possibly have been so tone-deaf to the circumstances of their female coworkers.

Purchase your own copy of That’s What She Said by clicking here.

Photo: Joanne Lipman, Author 
Posted: June 17, 2019
Monday Morning Run Time: 1 hour 4 minutes

Richard Kessler was the diamond engagement ring “King” in the state of Wisconsin for 35 years. His ubiquitous radio commercials, created in conjunction with Roy H. Williams Marketing, were legendary in the state, and not only were his Kessler’s Diamonds’ stores extraordinarily successful, Richard also became a well-known local personality and philanthropist.

One of the first and most popular guests ever on Monday Morning Radio, Richard recently retired from the jewelry business and is now on to other pursuits. But the techniques he used to build Kessler’s Diamonds – including instituting an employee stock ownership plan – remain invaluable gems.

For flawless entrepreneurial advice, clarity, and value, host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart assures listeners that his latest conversation with Richard is pure gold. 

By the way, if you’d like to hear Dean’s full interview with Richard back in July 2012, all you need to do is click here.

Photo: Richard Kessler, Founder, Kessler's Diamonds
Posted: June 10, 2019
Monday Morning Run Time: 49:40

In his new book, The Gift of Struggle – out today from Bard Press, Bobby Herrera tells the true-life story of how the hardships he faced as one of 13 children in a Mexican migrant family, provided him the drive and backbone to make possible the impossible.

More importantly, Bobby shares specific life-changing lessons about leadership that turns conventional wisdom on its head. It is the formula that Bobby used to launch Populus Group in 2002 and build it into a $500-million-a-year HR services company – one of the fasting growing such concerns in the United States.

What makes Populus Group a role model for many businesses – large and small – is not its size, but its culture. As Bobby details in The Gift of Struggle, after a rocky start as CEO, he learned to foster a sense of purpose, mutual trust, and community among his employees.

Bobby is an evangelist for compassionate leadership. A key characteristic of compassionate leaders, he tells host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart, is recognizing that everyone struggles – from the migrant workers of rural America to the silver-spoon babies of the Ivy League – and that at the end of the day, we all – more or less – strive for the same thing: to believe our lives matters.

Rotbart, who doesn’t just read the books of guests who appear on his program, he devours them, says he scribbled notes throughout The Gift of Struggle, including on many pages that provided him actionable steps.

Bobby, soon to be a bestselling author, is only the latest in a long line of popular authors published by Bard Press, headed by the incomparable Ray Bard, and deputy publisher Todd Sattersten.

Among Bard’s best-known titles:  The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan; Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling; Nuts! – the story of the legendary Herb Kelleher and Southwest Airlines; The Wizard of Ads Trilogy by none other than Roy H. Williams, and Fired Up Selling, Ray Bard’s own collection of wonderful quotes designed to inspire, energize, and succeed.

It is so common in life to conclude that our struggles are what hold us back. Without them, we tell ourselves, we could accomplish so much more. But Bobby explains that such thinking is erroneous. Adversity, properly harnessed, can become the rocket fuel of personal and professional growth.

Purchase your own first-edition of The Gift of Struggle by clicking here.

Photo: Bobby Herrera, Populus Group
Posted: June 3, 2019
Monday Morning Run Time: 50:37

Terry H. Monroe has been the owner of more than 40 businesses, and helped to facilitate the sale of more than 500 other companies.

So when he offers no-nonsense advice on how owners can be certain to get the full value for their businesses or professional practices, he knows what he’s talking about.

Terry who condensed all the wisdom he’s gained over more than 30 years establishing, operating, and selling businesses into a new book, Selling with Certainty, tells host Dean Rotbart that the very best time to learn the lessons he teaches is before owners ever even considers selling. That way they can bypass the costly errors that prove so aggravating to others.

Photo: Terry H. Monroe, Selling with Certainty
Posted: May 20, 2019
Monday Morning Run Time: 39:02

Question: Can a business ‘tiger’ change its stripes?

 An excerpt from Monday Morning Radio with Host Dean Rotbart.

Brett Vance is a veteran combat and military test pilot who has flown F-16s and commanded the 514th Flight Test Squadron.

But he admits that no battle has tested his mettle like working to produce and distribute Jet Jockeys, his educational and inspirational docu-reality video series that showcases aviators and aviation feats, and targets the large potential audience of aviation enthusiasts.

He and his wife, Sherri, the program's creator and executive producer, join host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart this week to share their flight plan for entrepreneurial success.

Photo: Brett Vance, Jet Jockeys
Posted: May 13, 2019
Monday Morning Run Time: 45:40

Monday Morning Radio Host Dean Rotbart confesses that he doesn’t know who his guest is on this week’s podcast. 

It’s not that Dean doesn’t have a fascinating guest, or that the guest’s book – “Undistrupted: How Highly-Effective People Deal with Disruptions” – isn’t a valuable business read; it’s just that Dean literally does not know who wrote the book.

The author, who lives in The Netherlands [Dean phoned him there], uses the pseudonym John Vespasian and has written ten books.

What Dean also knows is that this week’s mystery guest is a well-read student of global history [think Russian industrialist Savva Mamontov (1841-1918), and 12th-century French statesman, Abbot Suger], and draws excellent insights from bygone eras that we all can apply to our lives today.

So Dean assures us that his guest has plenty of good advice to dispense; he just doesn’t know who he’s talking to.

Illustration: The author known as John Vespasian
Posted: May 6, 2019
Monday Morning Run Time: 32:45