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Suggest who benefitsThis Is What It Takes to Build a Business, Vol. 3, Part 2
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Suggest questionThis week, we take another look back at the conversations we had over the past year, highlighting some of our happiest, smartest, and most insightful exchanges. We discuss whose advice is worth taking, whether any business can be remarkable, which businesses should try EOS, why family businesses can be so vexing, what to do when big businesses refuse to pay small businesses, the challenges of pricing services, the backlash against diversity, and finally the remarkably moving story of the moment that propelled one entrepreneur first to get fired and then to launch a remanufacturing business that would hit $60 million in revenue in less than five years.
There aren’t many places where you can hear entrepreneurs talk about the real-life problems they are confronting right now, today, as they happen—with no guarantee of a happy ending. But those are the conversations I have every week with Shawn Busse of Kinesis (https://www.kinesisinc.com/) , Paul Downs of Paul Downs Cabinetmakers (https://www.custom-conference-tables.com/) , Jay Goltz of Artists Frame Service (https://www.artistsframe.com/) , Mel Gravely of Triversity Construction (https://www.trivc.com/) , Jennifer Kerhin of SB Expos & Events (https://discoversb.com/) , Liz Picarazzi of Citibin (https://citibin.com/) , Jaci Russo of BrandRusso (https://brandrusso.com/) , Sarah Segal of Segal Communications (https://segalcommunications.com/) , William Vanderbloemen of Vanderbloemen Search Group (https://www.vanderbloemen.com/) , and Laura Zander of Jimmy Beans Wool (https://www.jimmybeanswool.com/) . They come from a wide range of industries and geographies and experiences, but they all share a willingness to talk about not just what they get right but what they’ve learned from getting stuff wrong.
About 21 Hats
The proponents of employee stock ownership plans can make them sound like the greatest thing ever. A business owner can take a big chunk of money off the table—or even all of it—while still getting to run the business. And there are some pretty great tax breaks. Oh, and it will also solve income inequality in America. On the other hand, if ESOPs are so smart, why are there so few of them?
Jim Kalb of Triad Components Group in San Diego and Jeff Taylor of Crafts Technology in Chicago have both implemented ESOPs. Jay Goltz of the Goltz Group in Chicago has reached his 60s without a succession plan, and he’s considering his options. In this 21 Hats Conversation, you get to listen in on a street-smart discussion of the pluses and minuses of ESOPs from the business owner’s point of view.