Saturday, May 29, 2010

Veteran Owned Business

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Veteran Owned Business

In honor of Memorial Day, Diane has a rebroadcasting of the show devoted to veteran owned businesses with her guest Kyle Blades.

We are seeing an influx of people coming out of Iraq and opting to start their own businesses instead of going down the traditional work route; they are doing this through government backed loans through the SBA's Veterans Loan Program.

In the past we have had the good people at the SBA and our friend Eric Ness, the Wisconsin State Director for the SBA, on the show and we have even featured veteran owned businesses. Today we have invited Kyle Blades, the President and owner of "Time for a Rebel," who has stepped out of Iraq and into his own business, to share his story with us.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Differentiation: It's Not Business as Usual Anymore

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Differentiation

While Diane was away on business, she thought that she would re-air one of her most talked about shows - Differentiation.

Differentiation is something that each company needs to discern for itself in order to stand apart from the rest of the marketplace, create an identity/brand, and develop a marketing strategy around.

Listen in to this popular show and brainstorm some ideas for your own business differentiators!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Wisconsin Politics with Mark O'Connell

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Mark O'Connell and Robert Henken

This week our resident political expert, Mark O'Connell, is in the studio with his guest Robert Henken. Robert is the president of the Public Policy Forum, a non partisan government watchdog. The Public Policy Forum focuses its research on education, tax and economic development policy, transportation, public safety, health, public infrastructure and other quality of life concerns in and around Southeast Wisconsin.

The Forum serves the public, businesses, government and other interested constituencies by spotlighting trends, defining emerging issues and facilitating productive interaction among local governments and the private sector to promote sound and innovative policy solutions.

It tracks and compares performance for more than 250 government units in southeastern Wisconsin and suggests ways to improve their effectiveness.

Robert frequently contributes to the Forum's blog, the Millwaukee Talkie, which can be found at http://milwaukeetalkie.blogspot.com/

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Risk Management

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Risk Management

When we think of risk management, we think of the financial risks a company takes or the risks we personally make in investing; this is a big part of managing risk in an organization. But there is perhaps and even bigger risk in terms of risk management – the risk of not developing and managing your people.

Business owners carefully assess the ROI for most of our business decisions and put in place processes or checks and balances to ensure our business actions provide the greatest return.

What are you doing to ensure that ROI on our biggest cost and our most important asset – our human capital - is being assessed and managed in the same careful way?

Diane invited John Dirkse, Executive VP of Ageis Corporation, to help her listeners understand risk management in terms of human capital and define ways business people can ensure they are minimizing risk.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

The Culture of Riding: Harleys and Business

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Harleys and Business

Summer is right around the corner and the weather is finally behaving as such. When you think of summer in Southeast Wisconsin, some things automatically come to mind: outdoor grilling, boating, water sports, and what many motorcycle enthusiasts consider to be the ultimate sound of summer - the roar of a Harley motor.

In the studio is Kirk Topel, the owner of Hal's Harley-Davidson and he's going to be talking about the business of bikes - riding them, choosing one, trends, laws, costs, etc.

Before Kirk jumps into the world of motorcycles, one of our legal experts, Mike Berzowski, will be discussing another warm-weather topic: dress codes in the workplace.

With the return of warm weather, skirts get shorter, tops show more skin, and both men and women start wearing shorts and flip-flops. As a business, what is an appropriate dress code policy? What can a business actually regulate? And since talking about dress code issues is often uncomfortable for both parties involved, how do you start that conversation with someone who violates the established policy?

Listen in as Diane investigates these timely and weather-related issues!