Carbon Based Business Units

Happy Valentine’s Day! Today, [insert husband name] is very much in love with [insert wife name] even though there is much talk of second wives and same-sex lovers. That’s all I’ll say about that, so if you really want in on the joke you’ll have to listen. Jessica Evans Makes An Introduction Ralph loves being in the middle of the drama, so when he recently received an apparent spam email from someone named Jessica Evans, introducing him to someone named Donna, he decided to play along. Jessica assured Ralph that Donna provided excellent services and would be a great fit for him. He knows neither of these people, but of course the email was phrased in a way that implied he knew Jessica, who was doing him the huge favor of introducing him to Donna. He responded to Jessica and asked for an introductory call. When he received another email of the apparent auto-generated variety letting him know that she was on maternity leave, things took on a life of their own. Suffice it to say, Jessica, Ralph and Donna exchang

In Which I Take Issue With Chris Curran Our loyal listeners may have noticed that our opening drumbeat, courtesy of our good friend Chris Curran, features Ralph’s name. But I want to know why Ralph gets top – and only – billing? Is this the Ralph show? I think not. So I issued a challenge to Chris to work my name into a drumbeat. Creatively. Let’s see what we get. Another Apology Last week Ralph apologized to various people and today I have to issue my own apology, to the great nation of the USA. In last week’s episode I mistakenly mentioned the Whopper as being an item you could eat at Mc Donald’s. Travesty! Are there enough mea culpas? I wonder. In Which We Admire Chris Curran After I expressed my demand for a drum track with my name in it, Ralph mentioned something that Chris did with his businesses that was very clever. Chris has a couple of businesses. One is called Podcast Engineering School, which teaches people how to professionally record, mix, master and engineer podcasts. The school is for people w

Apologies And Statements Ralph has a few things to clear up before we jump into this episode, and it begins with apologizing for mispronouncing the name of one of the co-hosts of Social Media Unscrambled. Of course, next week he will apologize for calling it “Social Media Scrambled” in this episode. He also takes umbrage with Janet Johnson, one of the hosts of Business Growth Time, whose marketing campaign had a typo, but who didn’t respond when Ralph pointed it out. Mostly, he wants to know: whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? Finally, SuperFred and friend Nadia Bracken let us know that we may have used the a-s-s word too many times in last week’s episode, especially since her mom listens, too. We apologize profusely because we’re just so happy to hear that her mom listens to our podcast! Traveling On A Budget. Or Not. Last week, Ralph asked me to tally up the expenses of our 11-week cross-country road trip. So I did. On this episode we disclose the amount we spent. But why? It’s important to let you know that we’re not “life

The best podcast on earth is back on air! We’re talking about Social Media Unscrambled, hosted by our friends Chris Curran and David Deutsch, masters of the mic and all things unscrambled. They were on hiatus for a long time but it’s great to have them back. You know, hiatus. A thing we would never do around here. Except for that first one. And then this last one. Well, we’re back too, after several months and a 10,000-mile cross country trip during which we planned to podcast and never did. So what happened? Creative Block We went through a phase where we started scripting this podcast and that started getting less and less fun. We had an idea in our heads that it would help us stay more focused on a topic and have a higher quality show. In the end we struggled to make a scripted show sound anything but scripted and sort of lost our mojo. So we ditched the script and went back to having fun. Lesson learned. When We Last Left Our Heroes… We were on our way to Podcast Movement in Anaheim, one stop of many on o

First, Housekeeping. We’re actually, really leaving for California in a week! And we’re taking two weeks off from podcasting to get there and attend Podcast Movement. We’ll be back with lots of new stuff and hopefully some good travel stories soon. In the meantime, would you be kind enough to leave us a rating and review on iTunes or Stitcher? We had some great feedback on the Web.Search.Social podcast but those reviews didn’t come with us when we switched to the new feed. We’d love and appreciate your reviews! So You’ve Quit Your Job And Started A Business! Now What? The subject came up during lunch with our business partner Michael last week. Until recently he had a “day job”. A 9-5 work-at-a-desk job. But he had enough freelance clients that he decided to strike out on his own. When he asked us what he should be thinking about in terms of starting a business, first, we poured the cocktails. Then we came up with this list. It’s not an exhaustive list, but put it in the “what we wished we knew” category of s

Our Trip, Plan B. Or Maybe C. A few weeks ago we said we'd be leaving for California. Yet here we still are, and probably not leaving for a few more. Why? Business decisions, that's why! We've made some bad ones, and that has led to a lot of mistakes. But we rethought, reworked and figured out a better way so that we can keep moving forward. The most important thing is launching our Podcaster's Toolbox product. And on further reflection, we realized that spending four weeks driving cross-country on our way to Podcast Movement was not only risky but costing us time we could be spending working on our app. So the new plan is to spend only one week driving out, then seven or eight back at our leisure. We also have a backup to our backup plan - if things go really, really south then we'll fly out, attend Podcast Movement where we'll launch our app, fly back, THEN drive to California! In the end we decoupled "trip" from "launch" which means we can do both - with a lot less stress. Let's Make Mistakes! Admittedly t

A Puzzling Mystery Solved In our last episode, we talked about how right before we went on hiatus from podcasting last year, the official Web.Search.Social puzzle was left in the hands of Alisa Meredith. So we called on Alisa to get back in the game and start recirculating the puzzle among listeners again. And then we heard from Alisa. Turns out, at the same time that she got the puzzle, she also adopted a stack of kittens. And it appears that in the game of Kittens vs.Puzzle, kittens win. Alas, the puzzle is no more. But fear not, Carbon Nation, we'll find another, and if all you can think is, "OMG, I want to be in on the game and do the puzzle too!" Then let us know and we'll add your address to the recipient list! Dumb Marketing Strikes Again We've talked about "follow the leader" marketing before but since it's not going away, today we bring up an email that I received recently where the subject line was "Please unsubscribe." We know this hustle. It's the "I'm cleaning my list and if you're not going to b

Get Back In The Game! Long ago and far away when Carbon Based Business Units was the Web.Search.Social podcast, we had a jigsaw puzzle that we started to circulate among listeners. Each person solved the puzzle, took a photo then sent it to another listener. Then we went on hiatus, and somewhere around that time, very sexy friend of the show Alisa Meredith took possession of the puzzle. And there is disappeared. We assume she’s not actually holding it hostage, so Alisa, it’s time to get back in the game, solve that baby and send it on its way! And if you, dear Fred, would like in on the traveling puzzle, shoot us a message in the comments, on social, or via email and we’ll add you to the list! Traveling Begins Soon In about two weeks we’re starting our two-month road trip to Anaheim California, where we’ll attend Podcast Movement and launch our newest product, Podcaster’s Toolbox. We’ve talked a bit about it before, but today we’re diving a little deeper into what Podcaster’s Toolbox is, where we are, how we

Get Your Fizz On! Today we've got lots of good takeaways about how to start, grow and scale a business. We talk with Jessica Rhodes of Interview Connections, a company that helps people find guests for their podcasts or get booked as a guest on other podcasts. At the time we recorded this in February, Jessica had just moved into a new and bigger office. As she was in the middle of the move, running her business, raising her kids, and taking care of her family, we saw her at Podfest where she was both selling and speaking and still making time to get to the hotel gym. So basically we wanted to know how the heck she does it. Turns out it's about hard work, commitment and being smart about how you imagine and grow your business. It's also about making time for yourself and taking care of yourself, which is something we all know yet so rarely do. Competition Gets Real Jessica refers to her company as a "premier guest booking service". When she started her company, she was the only booking service. But now a bunch

Politics, Religion And Sex That’s what today’s episode is about. Yes, it’s safe for work! This is one of the episodes we recorded in February at Podfest and it’s with Daniel J. Lewis, host of the Audacity to Podcast. The conversation was precipitated by a controversial Facebook post where Ralph called out Daniel, who is a Christian, and asked him to explain how it’s possible to reconcile President Donald Trump’s behavior with Christian values. That wasn’t the controversial part, though. In the Facebook post, Ralph mistakenly said that Daniel had endorsed Trump, which he didn’t. So Ralph apologized for the error and the rest of the conversation was amicable. The controversial part comes in when other people jumped onto the thread to denounce Ralph for “attacking” Daniel, and in turn Christianity. Nothing of the sort happened. But people reacted. So today’s question is: why can’t we have a conversation about faith or politics without everything turning into – or being perceived as – an attack? Daniel says this

Our First Mobile Podcast Yes, we’ve been mobile podcasting for a bit, but this episode is actually our first official one. We recorded this back in February as we drove down to Podfest in Orlando. We recorded a bunch, actually, and we’re finally ready to start releasing them. This one was recorded with Jennifer Crawford, host of the JellyVision Show and organizer of DC Podfest, and her husband Thor, who is an up-and-coming podcaster. We recorded in the lobby of the Hyatt where we were staying, sans script, but when has THAT ever been a problem? Let’s start! Should It Be Illegal For A Woman To Refuse To Take Her Husband’s Last Name? Yes, that’s how this episode starts. Jennifer read an article that surveyed women who suggested it should be. And we all think that’s pretty nuts. Jennifer and Thor have a solution: name swapping! A woman takes her husband’s name, and he takes hers. Paperwork all around! Why Podcasting? We want to know: what makes Jennifer tick? One day she wasn’t podcasting, and then she was. So,

We Get An Autoresponder After sending Nick Snapp an email and getting an autoresponder back, we decided to critique it. Couple of reasons… First, Nick is a big productivity guy. And he’s big on accountability. On his podcast, the Make It Snappy Productivity Show, he asks his listeners to hold him accountable. So in the interest of holding him accountable, and sharing some insights into auto emails in general that everyone can learn from, we decided to rake him over the coals and tell him how he’s completely ruining the internet… I mean, provide constructive criticism. Here’s the email in full. Hi - Thanks for your email! Just so you know, I have joined this group of crazy people who think they can get more done and make a bigger impact by only checking email twice a week (which is why you’re receiving this autoresponder)… Like you, I get a lot of email, and for my personal sanity and better productivity, I’ve decided to create a schedule to review and respond to emails…I know…I know…imagine that. Here’s how

Podcasting From The Car We just got out of a business meeting where we closed a new client and decided that we’d podcast our way home. So we hit record and, in spite of having a script, ended up doing what we do, which is talk. A lot. About stuff that isn’t on the script. So next time we tell you what we’re going to talk about on the next episode, don’t listen to us. Closing The Deal With Confidence In a prior episode we talked about a new electric toothbrush that we got and how it’s made a tremendous difference in how white our teeth are. During the business meeting, as I was talking with our prospect, Ralph noticed my shining white smile. He also noticed how awesomely I closed the deal, but apparently my teeth were the highlight. And in a way, the teeth mattered! A few years ago I did Invisalign because my teeth started to migrate to their post-teenager-with-braces place. Before doing that, I wasn’t happy about my smile, so I tried not to use it. Then afterwards and with a bit of whitening, I felt a lot mo

Nothing Is Certain But Death And Taxes We were going to talk about Carbon Based investing today but decided to record a short episode because we recently lost a friend to a heart attack. His name was Ed, and in addition to being our friend, he was a doctor, avid cyclist and husband. So today we wanted to talk about the thing that nobody ever really wants to talk about – death. How Much Runway Do You Have Left? In the startup world, “runway” usually refers to how much time you have left before you run out of money. But what about your own runway? If you run out of time, will your business survive? Are you prepared for catastrophic loss? Can your business function without you? As entrepreneurs our businesses are often our babies. We invest ourselves in them as the face and brand, but what happens when we’re gone? There comes a time when we’d do a better service to our businesses, clients and families if we detached a bit so we weren’t so central to the business. Are you the only person who knows how things run?

Genius In A Bottle We started this episode with an overview of the few things we wanted to talk about. But before we jumped in I had a brilliant idea to share with Ralph that I wanted him to hear for the first time while we were on mic. The other day as I was working out on the elliptical and listening to the Make It Snappy Productivity Show with Nick Snapp, I noticed that Nick refers to his listeners as “Snappy Nation.” And that’s when it struck me that you, Fred, are rulers of a very special domain. And yours is called… Carbonation! Get it? And don’t you love the idea of being fizzy and zesty and full of energy with a total excitement for life? My genius on full display. I’m so proud of myself for this little revelation that it’s kind of embarrassing. Nick Snapp Throws The Gauntlet Back On our first episode of Carbon Based Business Units, otherwise known as episode 181, we challenged Nick Snapp (he’s getting pretty famous at this point, don’t you think?) to tell us why he always says that he wants to grow h

Greeting Carbon Based Humans! Also known as Fred… It’s an exciting episode today because we’ve added our first official Carbon Based Title to the roster. It goes to Nadia Bracken, who is now officially our self-designated Carbon Based Critic. She emailed us after last episode to let us know that our intro wasn’t quite chipper enough. Not only that, but we also noticed that we made an egregious error by failing to mention YOU, Fred. For shame! So we re-recorded it and hope you like it. Knowing us we’ll redo it another six dozen times before we’re sort of happy with it, so by all means, share your thoughts! Lisa Gerber Is Sexy Fan of the show and prior guest Lisa Gerber has a podcast! It’s called the Gear Show and we think it’s pretty great. If you’re an outdoors-y kind of person and you like getting your gear on, this is a great listen. She’s also a pretty amazing marketer whose blog articles continue to inspire us. And she agreed that we should have started Carbon Based Business Units at episode one, which ma

Welcome to the first episode of Carbon Based Business Units! Also known as episode 181, but we’ll get to that in a minute. If you’re joining us from the Web.Search.Social Podcast, we’re so happy you’re back after our extended hiatus. If you’re a new listener, we’re equally happy that you’re here and look forward to meeting you. If you haven’t listened to the last episode of the Web.Search.Social Podcast, you can do that here. It will provide some context for this next phase of our journey. Web.Search.Social ran for 180 episodes and here we are continuing with episode 181, but rebranded as Carbon Based Business Units. Why? Well, because we wanted to talk more about business and entrepreneurship, less about web, search and social marketing. That doesn’t mean we won’t talk marketing, but we wanted to broaden our conversations to include all of work and life. What it’s like to start a business. What it’s like to run a business. What it’s like to succeed and fail in business. The challenges we’ve faced, the joys w