*Holiday Special* Podcast Past, Podcast Present, and Podcast Future!

#67. Welcome to this year's holiday special where we talk about past episode, where it all began, how we are ending season 3 and what exciting new things you can look forward to in season 4!

Recommedations:

Books -

https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/4-must-read-business-books-to-kickoff2024.html

Donald Miller - How To Grow Your Small Business

https://www.amazon.com/How-Grow-Your-Small-Business-ebook/dp/B09831W8S6

https://getjobber.com/academy/small-business-apps/

https://www.wix.com/blog/business-software

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About BBSB -  We are two business owners with two very different perspectives on building business, and the business behind that in order to achieve your goals. One of us built to sell, and will continue on the serial entrepreneurial path, which means your focus and drive should include very particular tools and tips in order to achieve your goal. The other, is building a generational business, one that can go on long after she’s let go of the wheel. This type of business also requires very specific tools and platforms to achieve this goal. Both women have been successful in their own right, but in honesty - haven’t scratched the surface!

Sponsorship Opportunities - Email us to learn about our sponsorship packages!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thebusinessbehindsmallbusiness@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Notice - As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. These earnings contribute towards the costs of creating this podcast and we greatly appreciate your support!

Disclaimer - We are NOT licensed financial experts, nor do we give financial advice. Anything we share with you here on our podcast, whether it be a personal experience or submission, or advice/tips that have worked for us, or that we believe would work for you should not be viewed as either financial, business, or tax advice. We ask for you to do your research, have open and honest conversations with your company’s own support providers and make decisions based upon that. Throughout this broadcast we will share our knowledge and give suggestions and hope you will receive them as part of your overall research to better your own company.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi everyone. Thank you for listening to our podcast. Tiffy and I give our all to this podcast with curating information, researching platforms, and creating a show with the best up-to-date information we can. We have a vested interest in the growth and health of your business and hope you feel the same way about us. Would you like to produce a show? All you have to do is email us at the businessbehindsmallbusiness at gmail.com to express your interest and we will share with you what you'll receive with your investment. You'll have the opportunity to have your name and the name of your business mentioned multiple times during our show and have your company logo on our social media along with details on how to get in touch with you, along with other marketing opportunities as well. Please support us so that we can continue supporting you.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

I don't know why automatically I just want to cheese every time you say that. Without further ado, it sounds a little bit like a PBS commercial. It does, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Hmm. All right, so welcome to the business behind small business. Uh whether you're selling or staying, we are here to remind you that just because you own a business, that don't mean you're a business owner. We are your hosts, Savannah Stone and Tiffany Kow. And we're going to get down into the nitty-gritty to walk you through the more finite details of entrepreneurship. I guess today we're not really doing that.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

No, no, I'm sorry. No. We're starting out. Just like we're doing the rest of it. Just like we threw the room out. Same same thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

No. Today what we're going to do is our special holiday season. Yay. Season. Series. No, episode. That's the word. Okay, episode, that's the word. We got it. Yeah. Anyway. So today's episode is going to be focused on the year thus far and what we might be uh holding for our cute little podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

My cute little podcast is not so little anymore. No, it's not. It was we were in denial. We thought it was still a little infant. It's not. It is not.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

And I'm so excited that we have listeners, I guess, all over the world.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Well, okay, mostly in the US. But we got a couple stragglers out there. You know, I think the farthest from our point is someone in, or not someone, but a couple downloads in New Zealand. Wow. Okay, that's cool. Keep coming back. Yes. Um, but mostly in the US, which is kind of it's still kind of cool though.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

No, I like it. Yeah. I like it. And we have um hundreds of thousands of downloads.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

We do. And there's quite a few on repeat, so they keep coming back, which means there are subscribers. It makes me very happy.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Because when we first started this show, uh, actually when I first started, I it was my it was you, it was you. It was my idea. It was definitely and it was all me by myself, and I was like, I really don't like talking to myself. And then and then um lockdown happened. Yes. And then uh, and then you and I talked, and I was like, hey, what do you think? Maybe we do this together.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

And and I had did I sell by I just sold, yeah. I had just sold the company.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

That was when you told me you sold your company.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Yeah, I was like, oh, okay. And I was like, well, I'm gonna have more time now. Perfect timing. What am I gonna do with all this creative energy now that I have a company to run? Thank goodness, because we would have known the lockdown's gonna go on that long.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Oh my gosh, I know. And the more that we talked, the more we found we had to talk about. Uh both of us are very invested in in businesses, and you know, obviously we both are in the in the service industry, I guess. And both of us work with small businesses. We're we're completely business to business, yeah, or were business to business uh businesses. Um but what we also realized was how much uh we were invested in growth and support. Um and the more we discussed the more we found subject matters that we thought were very important to growing businesses.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

So I mean a lot of it from like commonly asked questions we get from our clientele, even though like at that point I think our client base was a little bit different, although now probably much, much more similar, but like still it didn't matter. Like we still had the same type of questions, we still saw the same not-to-do's when you get the insight into the inner workings of a company, and I think that's what it is for me. I think it's fascinating the inner working of a company. It's like the back of like the restaurant, the kitchen side that nobody gets to see, but really is what holds up the heart, the engine of the entire entire enterprise. Um, but we get a unique insight into that doing what we do, um, doing all of the account, well, you accounting, HR, uh bookkeeping, thank you, admin and admins. Oh, but she did it a lot more than I did. I just dealt with just the accounting piece of it all. But we got to see the day-to-day, and when you get that unique perspective of seeing hundreds of companies and all of their kind of back office operations and inner workings, you see patterns and you get to then that's what we start talking about. You know, this company did this, that company did that, and yeah, and here we go. Now we're like, well, why don't we just put it online since it's a lockdown, we have nobody else to talk to. Totally besides each other. Totally.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

And then we went from we used to be in our individual uh spaces when we were first uh doing it.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

I was in my bedroom.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Yeah. What were you? I was here. I was in my I was in this in this space that we currently have. That's your office, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

My office. I didn't even have a separate office at that time when we went into lockdown because we had a physical office that we went to.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Did you? Okay. I might have just moved in because in 2020 my daughter was a freshman in college and all the college students had been told to go home. Uh, but she had a new uh new place to live in June. She was gonna be moving in in June anyway, so she was only with me for three months. And at that point, um I moved the rooms around and because I knew she wasn't gonna be moving back in, and this became my office, and then I just started recording from here, and then we started recording out of your office, and yeah, became physical office.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Physical office. That was like a while later though. I think that was like a year later. Like a year later. I was one of those people who thought the lockdown was gonna be only like two weeks, so I didn't bother to create a home office really until finally the the Nile went away. Yeah, and then a year later, you're right. So then after you know, all the lockdowns finished and anyway for 2021. Was it 2021? Uh no, it was 2020. Twenty two before. So it was actually two years in before we moved, like, okay. Yes, and then I went back and got a physical office because I am not staring at my wall in my in my place by myself the entire day.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Um, and then we moved there, and then now we're here. And now we're here. And so we've been evolving, and you know, the more it's kind of like you know, like a regular business. Your business evolves, you grow, you learn things, and hopefully you get better and you perfect it.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

And that's where and we went into an area like we weren't really that familiar with either, right? Like we knew the subject, of course, and the content and stuff, but I mean, with the podcast, like as far as the technology, the editing, the the sound, the equipment, like all this stuff. Like if you were binging our podcast from season one, you will hear all of the mistakes along the way. Oh, yeah. That was us trying to figure out how to do this while doing our full-time thing, right? Like, like literally trying to do our full-time thing. I still remember, I still remember the first edit of the first episode, like to edit everything. It took me the entire weekend, like literally like 16 hours because I was like, How do you use Audacity?

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Oh, yeah, we've come along. It doesn't take that long. We've definitely come along. Uh, and you know what? We do still do all of this ourselves. Oh my gosh. We do all of it ourselves. So if it feels a little homemade, it's because it is. Uh, you know, which is why it would be great if you really love us for you to show us your love with your da-da-da bills, y'all. Um because then we what she said. Yeah, then that way we can bring even better, you know, better content. If you want it to sound better, then psh.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Well, part of it was also, I felt like, you know, we didn't have we didn't really have anything to give yet, right? Because we were just starting up. And then plus, like, because we did this a little bit, not like we didn't go into this going, oh my gosh, we're gonna be the podcast that everybody listens to, right? We'll be just right on the tails of Joe Rogan. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, we did not. We were kind of like, nobody's gonna listen. Whatever, it'll be fun. Maybe it'll be something new to learn. Let's just, you know, have a creative outlet with all this crazy COVID shenanigans going on, right? And then here we are now with actual repeat listeners, with actual feedback from people, and we're like, oh, oh. Okay, okay, okay, okay. So now when we say marketing opportunity, there actually is marketing opportunity. We're not making that up. No.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Well, and you know, why shouldn't we have great listeners? And why shouldn't we have repeat listeners? Because we do spend a lot of time in providing the things that we think are very important for your business's growth. Yeah. I mean, we do spend a lot of time on this, and she's right. Like, I I I with my clients, every time something happens, I'm like, ooh, I gotta write this down because this would be a great podcast. You know, and I do do a lot of research.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

And we research, yeah, we write a lot of research, we script you see, uh, somewhat script. We outline it. We script differently, but we outline it. But it it does require thought before every single episode and the planning of what we're gonna do next, what makes sense, what's important. Like there's quite a bit of that, but it's fun.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

And I think that we had, I think this year, our third season, we definitely branched out a lot more and we grew, I think, exponentially.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

And 2024 is going to provide you with I think we found our voice, our thing. Well, you've already had your voice for a while. I was finding my voice. You'll know what I mean when you go up to earlier episodes of what I mean by how it's sometimes you literally can't hear my voice.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

I have to speak so low, like I'm on MPR. Because this is this is not a good thing. It's such a nice, I like warm, deep voice she has. I have to I have to really hold back with my voice. So when you hear me, you're like, oh, really? It gets louder than that.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

It does. My poor listeners aren't like turning on their volume, turning down their volume, depending on who's talking. No, no, no, we're not doing that. But next year it's gonna be exciting because we are going to grow again. Yes, we are. We're gonna grow a lot. Yes. So you should I'll start with what it is for what's going on next year, right? So in the DMV area, so for our listeners who happens to be in the DMV area, which is the DC metro area, Washington, D.C., so Northern Virginia, um, Southern Maryland, and also just DC proper. Um, we are launching with a very good friend of mine. And um, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to drop his name yet, so we'll see. We'll drop his name someday. You'll see him, actually, if you ever tune into the video next year. Yes. But uh a friend a good friend of mine and I got together, and after circling around this idea for like two years now, all these different elements, it's finally coming together. And the creation is essentially a business incubator in a DMV area, which will be focused on the growth and the support of what we like to call the everyday entrepreneurs. So if you look at incubators, most people associate that with like high growth tech type of like companies, which is great and very exciting. But at the same time, like, you know, I feel like the the man or woman who wants to start like the food truck and the restaurants and their own consulting business, and they want to, you know, do some like coaching or you know, those kinds of businesses. Yeah, the everyday small businesses also need a lot of support, not just in education, but also in funding, financial aid, and also just opportunities and mentorship and guidance. And so we essentially created a business incubator that will be in Tyson, will be based in Tyson's Corner for now, but really serving this greater area, and we're also gonna have virtual events that's gonna be launching in January. And so with that, our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Hey, yes, the business behind small business will be involved. Will be involved, and you will have an opportunity to. I mean, if you come to these events, you'll have the opportunity to be on our show. Yes. Um live interviews, get ready for the camera. Yep, interviews, and I'm getting antique roadshow here, but it'll be it'll be just as exciting and thrilling as Anti Roadshow.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Why not? Why not? I love that. I don't know why that show is so addicting. So just imagine it'll be something like that. It'll be very like homely and very um wholesome, I guess, in a sense, but all business focused. So it's gonna allow us to do a lot more live events, live uploads. Now, like I said, we also have virtual events too, because we understand for people who are not immediately in this area and for people who live in this area, let's just admit it. Like, if we're gonna do anything at five o'clock, there is no way we're taking from Maryland and making it here and making it in Virginia in time because that traffic is not gonna happen. So we're gonna do a mix of everything, but you know, for the for the stuff where we're doing just in person, then you know, business behind small business will be there, and then you'll be able to kind of see that virtually or see pieces of it virtually. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Yep, so they'll be more more like a show. It'll be more like a show. Whereas yeah, live show that will will be on the podcast and live streaming. Um, and then we'll also have more. We've we've had some guests, but I think next year we'll feel more comfortable with having more guests. Yes. Uh, and we're also planning out what our shows are going to be about, and um, we're bringing you even more. Uh what we are also doing is revisiting our season one episodes because I think when we were doing season one, obviously we didn't have the great, you know, great Mike. Um we didn't have we didn't have a great setup. I mean, we're we're better now than we were, but I think that since then we have learned a lot more, and so it it it it caused it it it would be we would be remiss if we did not revisit some of those shows.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

We had a lot of great topics, that's for sure, right? Because it was our first year, um, and we really thought through a lot of the inner workings of a business, like behind the scene business topics that we went through that were really, really good. And of course, like you know, the idea is when you create the show, you don't you don't want to repeat. So, like for the season two and three, we never repeat it, but those are great topics. Then we were still trying to find our voice. And so there was just a lot of perspective that I think we kind of didn't have a chance to give because we were still feeling ourselves out of what how we want to create the show and what's that what the vibe will be and how the the the bantering is going to happen. And so now that we're in the same room in the same space, yeah, we're gonna bring bring a lot of those great topics back.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

Yeah, we'll bring them back and then uh we'll also have um a different uh perspective on it. And you're right, just being in the same room changes everything. Yes, it does. So and I don't think any of those were on YouTube, were they?

SPEAKER_01 15:55

No, we didn't do video that no, well, that's because you would have looked straight into my bedroom, you know, because I just wasn't set up for it. And I was like, well, I'm gonna show you people the backside of no. So yes. So I think I think if you if you happen to be somebody who listened to season one, not I'm saying you need to, but if you did, I think you'll you'll see the growth over time with us, and just at least for me, like learning how to speak better. Yeah. I don't know. It's weird. Like you get enough practice explaining things that you just get better at it. It's just public speaking. It's just being being better at public speaking. Yeah, but I feel like on the podcast is a little bit different than like I feel like standing up in front of the audience, I'm good. But then like with the podcast, I was like really nervous the first season.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Because you don't know how the you don't know how they're receiving you in.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

That's what it is. Like you don't see the look in their eyes, like you can't feel the vibe in a room. And so you feel like you're just throwing out your voice to empty space. Um who knows what people were thinking.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

And it also sounds a little more mechanic because it's not conversate, it's not as conversational. Because uh, you know, since then I've I I write I still write a script. I write a script, I write everything down because I have a horrible memory. And that's just what I do is I write everything down. And um at that time I used to read it word for word, but then as I got more comfortable with uh, you know, the intercommunication between us and with the camera, I started to just kind of pick pick around and I'm like, oh, okay, this the don't forget to talk about this, don't forget to talk about that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Because it's a lot more natural, a lot more conversation fluff, right? Yeah, yeah. And so I think like adding the element of having like a live show, I think it's gonna just take that to another level. But I think we're ready for it now. Absolutely. We're ready for it now. Actually, kind of excited about it though. But it's all about like bringing the information to all of you, right? So that's why we keep saying, you know, don't hesitate to engage us on social media, on email, let us know what you want to know, right? Because I mean, we can guess all we want, but if you let us know exactly, we can just answer it for you.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

And we're happy to take uh if you have a suggestion, a show suggestion, we're happy to uh accept it and explore it.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

And it will research the topic and then we'll be able to like speak on it. And yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Because in the end, uh I think the reason I that well, what drew the two of us to one another is I think our inner need to help people. At least that's what I think it was. Um and then the other thing is I think there is that and and the both of us have helped one another in our own individual businesses.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yes, but especially when you're a solo business owner on your own. You can drive yourself a little crazy by living in your own echo chamber. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

And so we've both also been very good at, hey, what do you think of this idea? Or hey, I need your advice on on something. So we've been really good at that over the past 12 years. 12. Oh my gosh, why do you have to put a number to that? I'm so sorry. Since we were 10 years old. Um and then, you know, from there, our own businesses also individually has grown and too and changed. And in your uh adventures that you've been on. That's what I would call it an adventure. Adventures, you're they've all had that component of help, of assisting, of supporting. And my company is supporting and helping and growing. And then it's like the theme of who we are as people, yeah, who our businesses are, what we're attracted to, what our podcast is about. So that's why we don't want to just speak into the ether. We also want to know what it is that we can do to help and support you, which is why we're involved with the nonprofit next year, which is why we will be more involved in shows and live and live events. Yeah. It all comes back to helping, growing, supporting, because if we help your business, if we help grow your business and we help support your business, and we give you ideas and we give you advice that you're able to use and utilize and keep you in business, then what are you doing? You're part of the circle of the econom economic life of your area. Yes. And which is, I mean, the most important thing, I think, to uh, you know, civilization. But anyway.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Well, I mean, to be quite honest, like this even this incubator idea really started on the foundation of you know, paying it forward. Because if anybody knows, and for all that listens to other who have a business now and are still like running their business, especially if you're on your own, you don't do it by yourself. You get help. You get help from friends, you get a village mentors, informal mentors, you get help from other business owners and things like that. And when you, you know, when you get to when you achieve success, which I would like to say we both have, like the success that we are looking for, the success we set out to do when we're still going beyond that, you kind of reflect and you go, like, my gosh, how lucky, how lucky was I to like to have all this like help? And I know that sometimes like business always seems like it's a war and competition and very cutthroat. And by the way, that's only on TV, right? Like we don't live in a world of secession and stuff like that, right? Right, but real business that's done well is actually a win-win for everybody. Everybody walks away happy, you pay it forward. People don't, yes, you'll run into people who's gonna hoard information, but there's also an equal amount of successful veteran business owners who don't want to hoard information and are more than happy to share what their experience is so that you get a perspective to help your to to deal with in your own business. So it's not that much of a selfish endeavor, to be quite honest. It's very, it should be very business done right should be very generous and all everybody wins. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Yeah, completely agree, which is why we're here and which is why we're friends. And so uh closing out our season three and uh going into season four, uh, you have an idea of what we're looking for and what we're going to be doing. So, as you know, you can always reach out to us. Also, um, this is where I'm going to, you know. In the commercial break. No, let's take a commercial break. Hey.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Okay, so in one in these live events, eventually what we're gonna do is we're actually gonna cut over. It'll be a different like view. You'll be like, oh, there you are. Okay, just so should I come out of the screen and then like go out of the in the screen? Yeah, yeah, just okay. Over the camera. Yeah, okay, fine, guys. We know we can do this by editing, but just excuse us because some of us will whatever.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Look, we like to keep it raw and real.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Yeah, so you get to see all of the Savannah Shit exit and just come back. Show you how it's really done behind a scenario. You know, those listeners. We try not to hide anything. I really need to watch. Please don't turn us off right now. There's still more to come.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

There's so much more. Um, wouldn't it be great to hear that hear the sound of us promoting your business? For you right here on our show. You can have that and more by producing a shower show's any my glasses now. Jeez, I keep thinking that I can do this without my glasses. What are you looking at? I'm such an old lady. All you have to do is email us at the businessbehind small business at gmail.com to express your interest, and we will share with you what you'll receive with your investment. You'll have the opportunity to have your name and the name of your business mentioned multiple times during our show and have your company logo on our social media along with details on how to get in touch with you, along with other marketing opportunities as well. So please support us so that we can continue supporting you. Actually, that's act that's a good thing to remind me. See, this is why I don't have these things written down and I forget, which is why I'm forgetful, which is why I always have to write this stuff. Anyway, what do we forget? What social media. So we're going to we're I I know I talk about this all the time, so forgive me. No, seriously, now we are going to be better with our social media. Um, because someone else is gonna die.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

So part of the crowd. Don't worry, somebody else will be editing in the future too, just not today, which is why we can't cut to commercial. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

Um, but you know what? We're we will we will be more um we will be on social media more.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Plus our live streams will be on social media too, probably either Instagram, YouTube, uh LinkedIn Live, maybe I don't know. We haven't figured it out yet, but it's gonna be on social media. So follow us while you can so that you'll get notified.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

It'll it'll be somewhere. So um even though we're not doing a uh quote unquote like normal show today, I still have some famous examples to share. And and I have is it historical? Uh yeah, kinda. Oh I even knew one. Yeah, kinda. Uh so you know that we do we're kind of fiscal year with our show, I feel like. We usually start now. Yeah. We're kind of fiscal year, and part of the reason why is because um one of the things that we used to do is um well, we used to uh record a bunch of shows ahead of time because my busy season is December, January, February. Yeah. And uh now, well, we've just we've become so busy in our own lives and in our own work that we haven't been able to really do that. So uh, and it has kind of pushed our season from what it was, which was March to Yeah, it was some odd like March or April.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Like March or April to the following March of April.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Yeah, and now we're January to December, so which is why season four will be starting again some point in January.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Uh and in any case, um so now if you're listening to us, we are in uh the thick in the throes of the holidays. And so in my research, I found a perfect article to share with you guys, and we're going to link it in the show notes. Um, I did borrow heavily from this uh article. So my hat's off to Nicole D'Angelo and her article on how holiday marketing built the holidays, the story of our commercial Christmas. So uh I I've always I know some of these things, and it's so fascinating how much marketing has to do with our current traditions. Gosh.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Why am I not surprised?

SPEAKER_02 26:14

I know, because until the mid-19th century, um most Americans didn't celebrate Christmas at all. Really, New Year's was like the it uh see um holiday, not Christmas. Christmas was like, we'll make a roast, like a Sunday roast. It was a Sunday roast, and you just had your own personal family and that was it.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

No, no, for some cultures, New Year's still it for the whole year. Yeah, the biggest holiday for the year.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Yeah, that's true. Uh the Puritans who settled New England outlawed Christmas. And in other parts of the country, Christmas was mostly an excuse for the upper class to throw rowdy feasts uh with hardly any holly or mistletoe in sight. So as America became more industrial and more urban, it caused a bit of nostalgia in the American people for simpler times, as well as an esta an obsession with establishing traditional family uh traditions as a refuge from the industrial world. Because you know, our world really did change in the US from 1860 to 1940, well, maybe even to 1960. Unbelievably, we we changed incredibly. And so Americans began adopting old world European Christian tradition, Christmas traditions, such as uh the Christmas trees that were copied from the tradition of German immigrants, and uh Santa Claus that was originally brought over by the Dutch. Yeah. So um one big driver of Christmas was a woman's home magazine that had uh a picture of Queen Victoria and her family and the king in front of a Christmas tree inside of the house. Uh-huh. And Queen Victoria was like the it girl for a really long time. Yeah, she was. She's the reason why we wear white wedding dresses. She's she's behind lots and lots of things. So she was behind us bringing Christmas trees inside of our home. Interesting. Okay.

unknown 28:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

So um this time period, uh now I'm moving on to ornaments. This is actually a really cool um story. Um, so during the age, this was also during the age of department stores. Department stores started to become a real thing. And they saw an opportunity in Christmas gift giving. Uh so they began decorating their stores for Christmas and using creative marketing tactics to draw in shoppers. Much of the aesthetic that we now associate with Christmas was spread and um created by department stores.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Not surprised. What? Right? Macy's I mean.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Many time-honored practices were actually the inventions of entrepreneurs, such as the Christmas card. Christmas card was begun by a German printer named Louis Prang, who wanted to create a market for his newly invented color printing technology. Christmas cheers, uh Christmas trees got their classic sphere-shaped ornaments when department store owner Woolworth, F. W. Woolworth, anybody else remember going to Woolworths? Yeah, there you go. Decided to mass produce them in Germany to sell them at a bargain. Uh, holiday marketing impacts Christmas traditions and aesthetics, such as uh Christmas stories and characters. And the most famous Christmas character of all, Santa Claus. Naturally. The Dutch tradition of Santa Claus was first popularized in America by the 1822 poem, a visit from St. Nicholas, that is now more popularly known as the Map Before Christmas. At that time, there wasn't really any broad consensus on him. They just kind of looked at him as a bigger, fatter elf. In 1841, a Philadelphia store created a life-size model uh to kind of bring in children into the store. It was a marketing tactic. Uh, this led to a trend in which you could see real live Santa and it cemented Santa Claus as part of our holiday shopping habits.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Ah, and that's the reason why we see Santa on the mall and pictures.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Macy's became the first to have a Santa inside their store in 1862. Wow. I did not know it was that long ago. I thought that this was all in the 20th century, but apparently no. Santa's appearance and personality also was not what it is now. The most popular images of Santa were that he were a small F-like figure. But the Santa that we all know were from the marketing efforts of Coca-Cola.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Oh okay, I wouldn't have guessed that, Coca-Cola.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Yes. Okay, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

But um 1931 things changed. There was an illustrator named Haddon Sunblom who created an image of a wholesome Santa to use in their ads. He went to a jolly figure described in the night before Christmas as his inspiration. He used whatever he had read in there and used it as his inspiration. They were already using live Santas, and you know, that's how we that's Santa, that's how Santa was born. Um now, the most famous reindeer of all.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Rudolph's not real? I know. I know.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

It's like a rip in my universe. Rudolph was created as a content marketing play by Montgomery Ward.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

No idea who that is. The departments for Montgomery Ward. Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

What?

SPEAKER_01 31:49

You never went to Montgomery Ward? I always is this before my time in the country of the United States? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Montgomery Wards probably closed their last Montgomery Ward store. No, they closed in in the late 2000s or early 2000s their last uh store.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Maybe Montgomery must not be a Virginian store then, because I've been in Virginia my whole life. I've never heard of that before. Maybe Montgomery Ward's more Midwest thing. It might be a Midwest thing.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Oh, I don't know. Man, did I love going to Montgomery Wards? That's where I got the all the tires for my car. I got TVs there. I got everything at Montgomery Wards. No, there's a Montgomery. There wasn't Montgomery Wards here. It was at Fair Oaks Mall.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

I didn't move into the area until 20 years ago. How am I supposed to know? It's definitely not down south. Definitely was here when I lived here. I know, but I really definitely.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Because the candles that I have in my windows, uh, I got that was what I got when they closed Montgomery Ward.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

I mean, it is kind of low brow, maybe that's why you didn't. Anyway. Uh okay, so the company's my words. Uh the company traditionally bought and distributed coloring books to lure children into its stores, but in 1939, they decided to save money by producing something in-house. Company execs turned to Robert May to write an original children's book. He created a rhyming tale about an outcast reindeer with a shiny nose that instantly became a hit. It paid off for Montgomery Ward. They gave out 2.4 million copies of the book, and Rudolph's storybook was then revived again in 1946 when Montgomery Ward, so five years, seven years later, Montgomery Ward handed out an additional 3.6 million copies. And in 1949, May's brother-in-law wrote a song helping Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer go down in his story. Yeah, that song. Marketers. Well done.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Sales and marketing.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

By the way, that was not the end. Uh-huh. The 1964 claymation movie that we all love was paid for by GE. The electronics company liked the idea of Rudolph having a light bulb-esque nose saving the day to help sell more light bulbs.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Very much so.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

No wonder the Puritans were like, no Christmas for you and your marketing ways. So what do you think of those? Pretty cool, huh?

SPEAKER_01 34:31

I think that um apparently Christmas is all made up. Yes. It is. It is. Yeah, it's working. It's like Valentine's Day. It totally works. You can see my tree. At least all the extra stuff. Not Christmas, the religious like communication behind it. All the extra stuff.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

All the essences is going to be made up. Mm-hmm. But it's okay because the influencers influence.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

It's okay. So it can take a lot of business lessons out of it. I'll just get some ideas.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Oh my gosh, there's this one. Um anyway, no, I'm not gonna talk about it right now. Okay, I'm not gonna talk about it right now because it's gonna be an episode, and I will talk about this off air. Okay then. Okay, so um just look forward to a really great episode next season, along with the rather others. Okay, so uh since uh Christmas time, you like to you need to have some time to unwind. A lot of times people take January as when they're going to take their company to the next uh step or stage or whatever it may be. Yes. So I have some uh recommendations for books, uh, some apps and uh software platforms, what have you. We also have links to those. Those will all also be uh linked into the show. Uh I really highly recommend that you take a look at all of these because these are some great articles with some great um information. Uh some of them uh I'm actually gonna try out myself because I really like I hadn't heard of some of these that I was like, ooh, I want to see what that does. So um here's four books. This article will go into in more depth than I am. I'm just gonna tell you what the names of these books are. Okay. What you got? Um So there's poor Charlie's almanac, The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. Uh Possible, How We Survive and Thrive in the Age of Conflict. Okay. Strategic, the skill to set direction, create advantage, and achieve executive excellence, and career forward uh strategies for women who've made it. And these articles are uh from Inc.com, and they do go into more depth about what the book is about and a little bit more about why they chose those books as the it books for 2024. Um off ofgetjobber.com, uh I found small business applications that you should be using in 2024. Uh there are operations management apps. There's so many apps that I'm not even gonna name them off. I'm just gonna tell you what they focus on. Okay. So there's client relationship, CRM man, uh CRM apps, um, accounting and bookkeeping apps that aren't QuickBooks, uh scheduling apps, invoicing apps, uh payment processing, payroll, project managing, and um marketing.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

So all the apps to support the business behind.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

Yes, exactly. So if you're if you're struggling with trying to find the right app or platform or software for your company, take a look at these and see if any of them um inspire you.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Or if you're looking to put a little more automation in in 2024, right? Like if you're doing some stuff still manual, there probably is a tech solution for it. And you know, beginning of the year is a good time to start implementing something kind of new.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Absolutely, absolutely, and so uh moving on to the best business software for 2024. Uh, this link is from Wix, and um, of course, Wix is the first on the list.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Huh, it's not self-serving at all.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

At all. Uh anyway, but I thought it had some really good ones too, like it has Trello and Asana, um, what they think are the best uh software for you to use for your business to take it to the next level. Um, Stripe and Wave, uh, Salesforce, MailChimp. It just goes into more detail about why they chose those. But they're they're really great articles. Uh, and like I said, definitely read these articles because they will they will help you plan for not just your next uh year, but at least for your first quarter.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Okay. Well, the only one thing I would add to that is um it's something I kind of came across recently. I'm like a fan of you've heard those um the book Story Brand, right? How to Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep. I have. I can't remember if it's called How to Tell a Stor How to Story Brand Your Business, or I don't remember what the actual title of it is. Something story brand. Anyways, it's by Donald Miller. So Donald Miller this year, maybe last year, had a book that's literally called How to Grow Your Small Business. And so I started reading that because I love the fact that anybody who can break down complicated information into simplified ways and certainly growing your business is that way. I'm interested. Show me more. So yeah, I read it and it it's great. So if you want something that it's a quick read, by the way, it's a tiny little book, which is amazing. And it breaks down your business into six different functions, like six different um areas that for you to focus on. And it shows you how all of those are interrelated. And it shows you where to focus on what. And again, like I said, it's a quick read, and I think it's it's a it's a nicely packaged way for you to think about how you want to grow your small business. So I think it's a great read for somebody going into 2024. And you know, for me, I feel like you always got to refresh the basics, even if some of the stuff in there you feel like is basic. But again, he explains it in a pretty novel way, which is kind of which is good to read. Um, but you know, foundations of business doesn't change. So a lot of times you grow the business, you probably overcomplicated in your mind, and you just have to go back to the basics and remember the fundamentals. And I I just finished the book, I like it a lot. So again, Donald Miller, how to how to how to grow a small business. Just link it on the I will link it so that others can uh get it as well.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

All right, so um please show us your support by following us on your preferred podcast platform, social media, and YouTube. Uh, we'd love for you to also share our episodes. I'm so excited for season four. I cannot believe I just said season four.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Well, you know, these platforms, the way they work is the more you engage by sharing, liking, you know, all those things, like that's how they continue to promote our platform, like our podcast, right? That's how they get the you know, the automation to figure out oh, people actually like this podcast. We should help it grow more. So, of course, if you can cohorse the friend sitting next to you to tap that five stars, be great. Thank you. Thumbs up, yes.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Until next time, mind the business behind your small business. See you in a new year. Yay! All great businesses start soon. Bye bye, bye bye.