How’s this for role reversal – Gen X and Baby Boomer business owners stand to learn a lot from (…wait for it) – Millennial business owners. That’s the conclusion of a survey of 600 American small businesses conducted for The Principal Financial Group, a Fortune 500 financial services company based in Des Moines.

Amy Friedrich, a senior vice president at The Principal who helps oversee the Index, shares the survey results and her analysis this week with host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart.

They may be younger than their Gen X and Baby Boomer peers, but Millennial-generation business owners are doing astonishingly well and also crushing it when it comes to work/life balance.

When compared to earlier generations of entrepreneurs, The Principal discovered that Millennials are working fewer hours, providing extra and innovative employee benefits, and projecting a higher level of optimism.

An article featuring a partial transcript of Dean's interview can be found on Martin’s Business Milestones at: http://wp.me/p770YJ-dq.

“Millennials are demonstrating they’re a new driving force as business owners,” says Friedrich. “Between working fewer hours, more growth and higher optimism, millennial business owners are a force to be reckoned with.”

Photo: Amy Friedrich, The Principal Financial Group

Posted: March 14, 2016

Monday Morning Run Time: 40 minutes 30 seconds

Want to learn how to turbocharge your personal or business reputation? Schedule a 30-minute FREE phone consultation with reputation coach and Monday Morning Radio host Dean Rotbart: 1-303-296-1200. Limited slots now booking for March and April 2016. 

Celebrity endorsements are not just for giant consumer-products brands anymore. Many small businesses are discovering the sales magnetism of celebrities who talk up their products – whether in advertisements or social media posts.

Evan Morgenstein, president and CEO of CelebExperts, specializes in matching celebrities with businesses – including startups and not-ready-for-prime-time companies. His results have been nothing short of amazing.

This week on Monday Morning Radio, Morgenstein shares with host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart the ins-and-outs celebrity endorsements.

Photo: Evan Morgenstein, Celeb Experts

Posted: March 7, 2016

Monday Morning Run Time: 51 minutes 52 seconds

Want to learn how to turbocharge your personal or business reputation? Schedule a 30-minute FREE phone consultation with reputation coach and Monday Morning Radio host Dean Rotbart: 1-303-296-1200. Limited slots now booking for March and April 2016. 

For decades, Sears stores in Miami stocked snowblowers in their garden centers, even though no one ever bought one and it hasn’t snowed in Miami since 1977.

That, says Steven D. Goldstein, a former Sears senior executive, results from management disengagement – an ailment that plaques many owners and senior executives.

Steve, who has been a top executive at several Fortune 500 companies, is an evangelist for management engagement. His first book, Why Are There Snowblowers in Miami? – due out later this year, details five positive principles of engagement that can prevent boneheaded management actions.

Steve shares those principles this week on Monday Morning Radio with host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart, and answers the obvious question: What was Sears thinking?

Photo: Steven D. Goldstein, Author, Why Are Their Snowblowers in Miami?

Posted: February 29, 2016

Monday Morning Run Time: 37 minutes 33 seconds

Want to learn how to turbocharge your personal or business reputation? Schedule a 30-minute FREE phone consultation with reputation coach and Monday Morning Radio host Dean Rotbart: 1-303-296-1200. Limited slots now booking for March and April 2016. 

Success has killed more than a few companies that had plenty of orders, but not enough affordable funding to finance sufficient inventory.

Sean De Clercq and his company, Kickfurther, solve that age-old problem. Kickfurther is a unique business-funding marketplace in which investors – rather than taking equity in a company – actually purchase a share of its inventory. In exchange, the investors get a potential return on their money that trumps the stock market, mutual funds, and real estate.

Reputation coach and host Dean Rotbart brings his Monday Morning Radio microphone to Boulder, Colorado this week to take his own inventory of how Kickfurther is revolutionizing small business financing.

Video: Watch Dean and Sean in a video version of this week's Monday Morning Radio

Photo: Dean Rotbart (l) and Sean De Clercq in Boulder
Posted: February 8, 2016
Monday Morning Run Time: 39 minutes 10 seconds

Dean Rotbart will next present his popular Reputation Tool Chest Workshop at Wizard Academy on February 16th and 17th. Let Dean teach you to how to build an unparalleled online reputation for you or your business. 

The big party is on today in Lexington, Nebraska, as the town and nearby residents gather to celebrate 65 years since local farm radio station, KRVN, began broadcasting. There is no other radio station in America comparable to KRVN, which is owned by more than 4,000 Nebraska farmers and ranchers.

How in this day and age a rural AM radio station that concentrates on commodity prices and weather forecasts has survived and prospered holds ample lessons for all business owners and entrepreneurs. As reputation coach and host Dean Rotbart discovered, knowing your customers and working hard each day to serve them is a winning formula – both down on the farm and in major metropolitan markets.

You’re invited to join the anniversary festivities today on Monday Morning Radio, featuring interviews with KRVN general manager Craig Larson and station manager Tim Marshall. Be sure to save room for some homemade anniversary cake.

Note: On this week’s episode, Dean is joined by Dr. Charles W. Martin – “Charley” – the founder of Martin’s Business Milestones – an unprecedented nationwide campaign just getting underway that is designed to showcase and honor small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Martin’s Business Milestones - which you’ll be hearing a lot more about in the coming weeks and months - is dedicated to celebrating those businesses that have demonstrated the tenacity, agility, creativity, know-how, loyalty and experience that are required to tackle the challenges that bring down so many other small businesses. Businesses such as KRVN.

Be sure to visit the Martin’s Business Milestones Twitter page at: www.twitter.com/milestonecos

When most Americans think of doing business with China, they think of outsourcing American manufacturing jobs. But that’s not the big opportunity according to Mark Matsumoto. “Why buy from China when you can sell to China?” 

Many small and mid-size businesses today are making jumbo profits by exporting products and services to China and other Asian Pacific markets. Thanks to modern technology, it’s easier than you might think. According to Matsumoto, who has been doing it for 25 years, all you need is a smart phone and some common sense. 

You can buy his book – Exporting in the Connected World – or you can hear it straight from the expert himself as Matsumoto is interviewed on this week’s edition of Monday Morning Radio by host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart.

p.s. Do you remember when Roy H. Williams, the Wizard, and his co-author Michael Drew, talked about this very topic in Pendulum?

Robert Gerlach, a global expert on organizational creativity, has taught companies such as Microsoft, Samsung and BASF the fine art of inspiring creativity.

Based in Stuttgart, Germany, Robert’s company – iQudo, recently conducted a landmark survey in the U.S. to discover the secret ingredients of company-wide creativity. The results were not what anyone expected.

This week on Monday Morning Radio with reputation coach and host Dean Rotbart, Robert offers some of his best tips on how to inspire your business to be more creative.

Photo: Robert Gerlach, iQudo
Posted: January 18, 2016
Monday Morning Run Time: 31 minutes 39 seconds

Dean Rotbart will next present his popular Reputation Tool Chest Workshop at Wizard Academy on February 16th and 17th. Let Dean teach you to how to build an unparalleled online reputation for you or your business. Registration is limited, so don't delay.

Each year, Stratfor – which is based not far from the Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas – issues its much-anticipated predictions for what we can expect in the coming year on a geopolitical front – and how developments in areas such as the Middle East, Russia, and China will affect global economics. That includes the impact on commodity prices, the value of the U.S. dollar in global markets, and consumer consumption. 

By placing global events in a geopolitical framework, Stratfor gives its clients a strategic advantage as they strive to be better prepared to seize opportunities and avoid risks.

This week’s guest on Monday Morning Radio, Sim Tack, is Stratfor’s director of analytical support. While the battlefields in Syria and Iraq, and the general political stability in Africa, may feel like there are light years removed from the day-to-day concerns of most American business owners and entrepreneurs, they are anything but.

As Sim explains to host and noted reputation coach Dean Rotbart, what’s happening a world away from Main Street USA – in our increasingly connected world economy – will impact every one of us in 2016.

Photo: Sim Tack, Stratfor
Posted: January 4, 2016
Monday Morning Run Time: 33 minutes 56 seconds