Big Talk About Small Business
Hosted by Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Our Mission is to inspire, empower, and equip entrepreneurs with the knowledge and insights they need to succeed in their ventures. Through engaging conversations with industry experts, seasoned entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, we aim to provide valuable strategies, actionable advice, and real-world experiences that will enable our listeners to navigate the challenges, seize the opportunities, and build thriving businesses.
Episodes
149 episodes
Survival Comes First: Flipping the Script on Business
The absolute priority for any business has to be basic survival before achieving a lofty vision. Right now, founders are drowning in complex growth strategies while neglecting the foundational habits that actually keep the lights on and the doo...
Stop Endless Planning: Start Sweating Now with Mason Edwards
Endlessly fantasizing about business success over coffee won't get you anywhere. The modern service industry rewards action and execution over perfect business plans and venture capital pitch decks. We sit down with Mason Edwards, founder of Ed...
Speed to Market: Prototyping Physical Goods Fast with Garrett Peters
Entrepreneurship is a war zone, and isolation is the fastest way to become a casualty. As digital channels blur together and third-party knockoffs flood the market, relying entirely on borrowed audiences is a massive vulnerability for modern br...
Engineering Efficiency: Redesigning Workflows for Growth with Matt Lewis
Hitting a production ceiling in your business isn't a lack of effort; it is a lack of altitude. Navigating the brutal transition from daily tactical operations to high-level strategic planning is the only way to break through plateaus and scale...
Owner Dependency: The Exit Killer with Renee Russo
Selling a business shouldn't cost you your identity. With shifting markets pushing more founders to step away, preparing for the sale is just as critical as preparing for the day after the money clears. Business coach and exit planning expert R...
Slow Growth Secrets: Why Raising Capital is a Trap
Raising venture capital is an absolute profit trap for 90% of small businesses. When founders prioritize immediate micro-trends and massive funding rounds over organic market demand, they trade sustainable growth for crushing, artificial overhe...
Best of Big Talk: Finding Purpose in the Hustle
A business plan will never replace the messy reality of execution. In a landscape increasingly obsessed with automated solutions and theoretical strategies, raw effort remains the true separator of successful ventures. This episode breaks down ...
Shark Tank Secrets: Turning Big Ideas Into Tech Realities With Dmitri Love
Venture capital is a relentless game of adaptation where overnight disruption can wipe out years of systematic progress. Relying on single points of failure in a highly regulated ecosystem will eventually expose vulnerabilities, no matter how m...
Check Your Ego: Building a Global Franchise from a Frat House Kitchen
Downtime is a profit leak, but over-complicating your systems before you even prove your market is an absolute cash killer. Many aspiring founders stall out because they believe the modern myth that you need an elaborate pitch deck, automated t...
Management vs. Leadership: The Truth About Scaling
Scaling a business from $1 million to $10 million is where most founders hit a wall that feels impossible to climb. The "missing middle" is a profit-killing gap where passion no longer substitutes for systems and middle management often becomes...
Marketing Or Die: Why Specialized AI Wins
Revenue decline is rarely a mystery; it’s usually the result of silent marketing and a refusal to adapt. Many business owners watch their numbers drop by 40% while claiming they’re "too busy" to post on social media or engage their community. I...
Debt as Leverage: Scaling Without Running Dry
Running a business is statistically a bad idea, yet entrepreneurs dive in anyway because of a necessary, often dangerous level of optimism. This optimism is a double-edged sword: it provides the drive to start but can blind a founder to the mat...
Earned Media: Why Relationships Aren't Strategy with Ronica Cleary
Most people buy PR the wrong way: they ask “who do you know?” and hope connections turn into coverage. We sit down with Ronica Cleary, founder of Cleary Strategies and a former TV journalist who covered the White House, to talk about what actua...
Wagyu Wealth: Cracking the Vertical Integration Code
A lot of business advice sounds clean on paper until you’ve lived through thin margins, messy partnerships, and the daily grind of managing people. Mark sits down with serial entrepreneur Dave Dreiling to talk about what actually holds u...
Community Rounds: Beyond Traditional Crowdfunding
Most founders try to raise money by pitching people who don’t understand their market, don’t share their mission, and still want control. We sit down with Read Ezell from WeFunder to explain a different option: a community round, where your cus...
Economic Engagement: Beyond Open-Book Management Basics with Bill Fotsch
Big companies can hide behind layers of reports and still survive. Small businesses don’t get that luxury, so we brought on Bill Fotsch to talk about what actually works when you’re trying to grow profitably with a lean team and real constraint...
Sell Through Trust: Building Real Relationships
Sales is the part of business most people want to outsource first, and it’s also the part you can’t afford to ignore. We get real about why founders have to sell early on, even if they’re introverted, technical, or allergic to the “salesy” ster...
Fighting the Slop: How to Win the War Against AI Garbage
Most small businesses think growth comes from squeezing margins. We’ve learned the opposite can be true: lower prices, ship more, and let volume create the learning, leverage, and momentum that higher prices can’t. That idea kicks off a wide-ra...
Chicken in the Box: Why Your Business Model is Broken with James Hatfield
Speed decides who wins. That’s the hard truth we unpack with James Hatfield, the blue-collar builder turned Chief Revenue Officer at LiveSwitch, a video-first AI platform that helps small businesses bid faster, reduce truck rolls, and turn phon...
Your Anxiety is Killing Your Profit with Abi Harmon
Ever feel like your brain is running a marathon while your body waves a white flag? We sat down with Abby Harmon, ex-Amazon leader and founder of House Harmon, to unpack how entrepreneurs can stay fast without frying their circuits. Abby lays o...
Kill the Hobby: Why I Risked My Family's Future for YouTube
What does it take to walk away from a thriving family restaurant and bet your future on YouTube lawn care tutorials? We sit down with Travis, whose winding path runs from TV weather to co-founding Feltner Brothers, to teaching digital media, to...
How to Lead When Everything is Falling Apart (Lessons from a Lt. Colonel)
Cities don’t become great by accident, they get there when people from every corner of the built environment share a clear purpose and a practical playbook. We sit down with Wes Craiglow, executive director of ULI Northwest Arkansas and founder...
Ep. 124 - Cash Flow Runs Franchises with Nolen Hughes
Cash flow, quality, and quiet scale: that’s the real story behind building a B2B service franchise that most people never see but everyone relies on. We sit down with Nolen Hughes, president of Jan Pro of Arkansas and the Ozarks, to unpack how ...
Ep. 123 - From Chick-fil-A to Cityscapes: Building Without a Safety Net | With Cameron Clark
The empty building at the corner isn’t an eyesore, it’s a question waiting for a brave answer. We sit down with developer Cameron Clark to unpack how a mid-century church becomes a walkable hub and why “public art with a P&L” might be the m...
Ep. 122 - Myths About Small Biz Funding | With Levi King
Revenue that covers costs beats any term sheet. That’s the thread running through our conversation with Levi King, founder of Lendio and Nav, who lays out a practical, no-BS roadmap to funding a small business without giving up control. We talk...