As CEO of Maui Wowi Hawaiian Coffees & Smoothies, Mike Weinberger helped build the chain to 500-plus franchises, and then oversaw the 2015 sale of the brand to a global leader in the quick-service restaurant industry.

Mike is back, this time as COO of Unity Rd., a Denver-based cannabis dispensary franchiser that is a leader in the rapidly expanding $30 billion legal marijuana industry.

As Mike tells host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart, today’s cannabis marketplace is teaming with the type of potential - as well as risk - not seen in the U.S. since prohibition ended in December 1933. Listen in as Mike spells out the unique challenges and opportunities that today’s dispensary owners face.

Photo: Mike Weinberger, Unity Rd.
Posted: August 31, 2020
Monday Morning Run Time: 47:51

Carrie Melissa Jones is a master-builder of so-called “Brand Communities,” which go way beyond common social networking and online forums to cement a life-long sense of belonging among core customers, employees, and even vendors.

Done right, brand communities can dramatically enrich the success of both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. The devil, of course, is in the details.

Carrie is co-author of “Building Brand Communities: How Organizations Succeed by Creating Belonging.” As important as who successful brand communities seek to attract, she tells host Dean Rotbart, are who they consciously choose to alienate. 

Pick up your own copy of Carrie’s book here.

Photo: Carrie Melissa Jones, Gather Community Consulting
Posted: August 24, 2020
Monday Morning Run Time: 49:22

You're sitting at an outdoor café and an important client of yours spots you. He comes over and extends his hand in greeting. Do you shake it or do you risk offending him by saying that you’re adhering to social distancing rules?

Likewise, you’ve scheduled a video conference with a prospective customer. You’re both working from home. What do you wear? Business casual? Business dress? Shorts and a t-shirt?

The rules of business etiquette in the coronavirus era have had to be rewritten, which is just fine with etiquette expert Maryanne Parker, who observes that since the days of Louis XIV of France, what is and isn’t appropriate has been an ever-evolving standard.

Maryanne, an author and owner of Manor of Manners, joins host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart to address a variety of common, modern etiquette dilemmas that business owners face.

Be sure to pick up a copy of Maryanne’s latest book, Posh Overnight: The 10 Pillars of Social Etiquette.

Photo: Maryanne Parker, Manor of Manners
Posted: August 17, 2020
Monday Morning Run Time: One-hour, one-minute, and 37-seconds

TikTok is the seventh most popular social-media app worldwide, with 100 million users in the U.S. alone.

TikTok celebrities, such as Chef Vivian Aronson – with 20 million-plus likes on TikTok – have used the short-video platform to become highly successful internet entrepreneurs.

But Chinese-owned TikTok is facing political headwinds, with India already banning the service and the United States threatening to do likewise.

The future of TikTok is unclear. It might be acquired. It might be shut down. Or it might find another resolution to the crisis it is facing.

In June, host and award-winning reporter Dean Rotbart hosted an invitation-only briefing — “Understanding TikTok and How It Can Turbocharge Your Sales” — featuring Vivian and other TikTok cognoscenti. 

On this week’s podcast, Dean shares a replay of that invitation-only panel and provides an up-to-the-minute postscript with Evan Morgenstein, a social media rainmaker and CEO, of multiple companies, including The Digital Renegades, The Food Renegades and CelebExperts.

Whether or not you “TikTok,” this week’s podcast will prove invaluable when it comes to understanding what it takes to be a successful social media influencer and how companies can turn to TikTok and similar platforms to, indeed, turbocharge their sales.

Don't miss our June 15th podcast, The Emerging Cold War Between the United States and China Explained, with guests Lingling Wei and Bob Davis, reporters for The Wall Street Journal.

Photos: VIvian Aronson and Evan Morgenstein
Posted: August 10, 2020
Monday Morning Run Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

INTRODUCTION A: On this week’s podcast, host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart interviews the co-founders of surefoot, a boutique agency offering an experienced, nimble team of strategists, designers, developers, and data analysts obsessed with growing companies like yours.

INTRODUCTION B: On this week’s podcast, host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart and his guests, the co-founders of surefoot, a boutique agency that has run more than 4,200 strategic A/B tests resulting in dramatic improvements turning online visitors into paying customers.

Whichever introduction you prefer, you’ll hear Wizard Academy alumnus Brian Schmitt and his partner, Laura Stude, explain their uncanny ability to boost online sales of clothing, gadgets and dozens of other product categories and services.

Brian, Laura, and their team at surefoot are conversion optimization gurus. They use A/B testing and other sophisticated analytical tools to determine how improvements to their clients’ websites – colors, content, graphics, placement, and functionality – can boost sales.

In their experience, they report, clients get back nearly ten times as much as they spend with surefire. That’s a staggering ROI.

Photos: Brian Schmitt and Laura Stude, surefoot.me
Posted: August 3, 2020
Monday Morning Run Time: 50:18