Monday Morning Radio

Since 2012, Douglas Smythe, founder of Phoenix Shaving, has seen demand for his safety razors, blades, and other related grooming products for men boom. Douglas attributes the success of his business to three main factors: 1.) safety razors provide a more comfortable shave, despite all the hype around 3-blade and 5-blade cartridges. 2.) The replaceable blades cost only a fraction of cartridges. 3.) Men fondly remember their fathers or grandfather’s using a safety razor.

Not for the first time, or even the second, or the tenth: Dean Rotbart’s scheduled guest on this week’s edition of Monday Morning Radio was a no-show. You absentee guests know exactly who you are. Shame on you! The good news is that without a guest, Dean is able to reach into his Reputation Tool Chest and share three self-marketing gems for companies and individuals who seek the attention of journalists and other influencers.

Join guest host Maxwell Rotbart as he counts down the Top 10 Monday Morning Radio episodes of 2018. Maxwell is the 26-year-old son of host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart, and himself an entrepreneur and radio veteran. If you missed any of these ten amazing episodes, now is the perfect time to catch up.

After almost 30 years in business, Roland “Buddy” and Dixie Huthmaker, owners of Huthmaker Violins – one of the finest violin and string instrument stores in the country – faced a choice that many owners do after pouring their hearts and souls into a business: sell it, close it, or pass it on to a willing heir. Fortunately for the Huthmakers, their daughter Anna, a gifted musician and entrepreneur, stepped up, and in January 2019 will officially become the new owner of their beloved shop.

There is much more to business than pursuing profits and earning a paycheck, Jessica Hartung argues. Founder and CEO of Integrated Work, a Boulder, Colorado-based consulting firm, Jessica is an evangelist for purpose-driven workplaces, where owners and employees alike strive to integrate their personal values into their workday.

If Jeremy Dale hadn’t spent the last eight years as a vice president of Microsoft Corp., people might dismiss his new book, The Punk Rock of Business: Applying a Punk Rock Attitude in the Modern Business Era, as a flight of fancy. But Punk Rock and successful businesses have much more in common than you might imagine, starting with authenticity and a refusal to conform. Do you have what it takes be a fast-paced, hard-edged business punk rocker?

Imagine if 95 percent of your marketing messages were opened, and not merely opened, but read within three minutes of you hitting the ‘send’ button. What would you call that kind of turbocharged email? Jim Koch calls it text message marketing – and he built a budding global empire on the fact that while email and social network marketing are now saturated and largely ignored – few people ever ignore their text messages.

The concept of XYZBuys is a good one: to serve as an “online mall” with Amazon, Best Buy, and dozens of other leading retailers as so-called tenants. While consumers may be drawn to the mall by one anchor store, in theory they’ll buy from other retailers – big and small, while they are already there. Will it work? The odds are against it. But after interviewing Dan Thomas, VP Marketing, host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart says that XYZBuys’ audacious business model does offer many innovativ

Host Dean Rotbart is talking trash this week, but even those with delicate ears will want to listen in. His guest is Patty Penke, the CEO of an Omaha estate sales company who has been selling collectibles and antiques for more than 20 years. Patty is the author of “Stop Throwing Cash in the Trash,” a book that shines a spot light on the hidden treasures that so many people, literally, dump in the trash – especially when disposing of the estate assets of a loved one who has recently died.

Tom Czyz is a SWAT team operator and former homicide detective who launched his company, Armoured One, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack in 2012. Joining him in advising business and community leaders on security measures are homeland security active shooter experts, a former Navy Seal Master Chief, a Delta Force team leader, and former FBI and CIA agents.

There are plenty of lessons to be gleaned from the bankruptcy filing of Sears last week, and Steven D. Goldstein is just the expert to articulate them. Steve, a one-time chairman of Sears Financial and member of the company’s executive committee, is an expert on management disengagement and the problems that ensue. Host Dean Rotbart caught up with Steve to get his advice for other retailers and businesses that seek practical recommendations on how they can avoid Sears’ missteps.

Elliott is the author of the just-released novel, A Pawn’s Journey, a motivational speaker, and the founder and CEO of Chess4Life, which teaches sportsmanship, good decision-making, patience, planning, and how to learn from mistakes. Would you like to gain greater insight into your colleagues or rivals? Why not challenge them to a friendly chess match?

Do you think you could find a way to make onions sexy – more than a simple commodity? Shay Myers, general manager of Froerer Farms in Nyssa, OR., did. Hear how this week on Monday Morning Radio as Wizard Academy alumnus Lem Lewis stands in for host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart down on the farm.

Guest host Indiana Beagle interviews host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart about the actionable lessons he's gleaned in the course of overseeing more than 300 episodes of Monday Morning Radio.

Michael Diamond is currently general manager of payments for Mitek Systems. If you’ve ever deposited a check by taking a picture of it with your mobile phone, then you’ve probably used the technology that Michael and his team oversee. Michael is passionate about leadership, and innovation, and this week he reveals to host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart the most valuable – and actionable – lessons he’s learned along his life’s journey.