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Podcasts for entrepreneurs, business owners, and leaders. These messages are brought to you directly from CEOs and business thinkers to help build healthier companies, better businesses, and better lives for both you and your employees.
 

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Not Sold on ESOPs? There's A New Alternative

Loren Feldman


Introduction:

This week, two special guests who have built highly successful companies talk about what they ultimately plan to do with those companies. Ari Weinzweig is co-founder of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, a collection of mostly food-related companies that are an iconic part of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Brad Herrmann is co-founder of Text-Em-All, a software firm based near Dallas that helps organizations deliver personalized, informational, and emergency messages by text and by phone. Both Zingerman’s and Text-Em-All consider themselves purpose-driven. Both practice open-book management. And so, not surprisingly, the founders of both companies took a hard look at selling to an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, in the hope that the cultures they’ve created might live on. But both companies, independently, soured on the notion of creating an ESOP, one after spending more than $200,000 and coming within a week of closing the deal. And now, both have settled on a little known alternative, what’s called a perpetual purpose trust. So far, only a handful of companies have tried to create a purpose trust for this purpose, but Zingerman’s and Text-Em-All are taking the leap. As both Ari and Brad acknowledge, they’re kind of figuring it out as they go.

— Loren Feldman

The Hard-Nosed Business Case For Employee Ownership

Loren Feldman

 

This week, Jay Goltz explains how he got interested in selling a percentage of his business to his employees and why he quickly lost interest once he started reading books, attending seminars, and talking to accountants and lawyers who specialize in employee stock ownership plans. To Jay’s ear, they all made ESOPs sound expensive, complicated, and risky. This was not something he needed to do. So why go to the trouble? Why take the risk? But he kept asking questions, and over time, he sensed that many of the problems he was being warned about didn’t have to be problems. As of now, he’s pretty much concluded that an ESOP could help him secure retirement for his employees while generating more profit for his business. In fact, he says, “I’m confident I can make more owning 70 percent of the company than I am now owning 100 percent.” But he still has a few lingering questions, which is why we invited Corey Rosen to join the conversation. Corey helped draft the legislation that created ESOPs, he’s the founder of the National Center for Employee Ownership, and he literally wrote the book on how the plans work. All of which led to an inevitable question for both Jay and Corey: If ESOPs are so great, why are there so few of them?

— Loren Feldman


Corey Rosen on the Future of ESOP

The Great Game™ Team
Corey Rosen, Founder and Senior Staff Member of NCEO, talks about his new book, Ownership, Reinventing Companies, Capitalism, and Who Owns What, and discusses what the future of employee ownership looks like. 

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The Future of The World's Supply Chain

Suranga Herath, Founder and CEO of English Tea Shop , discusses Sri Lanka's most unprecedented economic and social upheaval in its history, and the future of the world's supply chain with social and economic inequalities worldwide. 

Positioning Your Employee-Owned Company to Attract Talent

Prairie Capital Advisors
Hillary Hughes and Tom DeSimone from Prairie Capital Advisors discuss the cultural aspect of an employee-owned company, using an ESOP to build wealth for your people, and how to position an ESOP as a benefit that attracts employees.

Anne-Claire Broughton on ESOPs, Co-ops, and International Players

Anne-Claire Broughton
 In this episode, Steve Baker highlights Great Game Coach, Anne-Claire Broughton's work with her international client Chillibreeze. She shares about their initiatives to provide financial literacy training, their own signature "Inspire" course on their company values, culture and work ethic, and how they maintain up to 15 impactful MiniGames at once.

EOX State Centers

Steve Storkan

Steve Storkan, Executive Director at EOX, outlines what it means to be an employee owned company, and what an EOX State Center can do for owners considering employee ownership.

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Pros and Cons of Employee Ownership

Victor Aspengren

Victor Aspengren, Employee Ownership Consultant, talks with Steve and Rich about the pros and cons of employee ownership, and how employee-owned companies can more than double the wealth share of the bottom 50%. 

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Can an ESOP Improve Your Company?

Tim Garbinsky

Tim Garbinsky, Communications Director at NCEO, talks with Rich and Steve about the 40-year legacy of NCEO, the impact the current political climate can have on employee ownership, and why employee-owned companies either thrive or fail.

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EP 24 - January 26, 2021

Snakes, Bullies & Weasels and How they are Holding Back your Success!

Merrill Crawford

Merrill Crawford, President/CEO of Charlie's Plumbing, Inc., talks about her journey to where she is now. Crawford also shares how to spot the snakes, bullies and weasels so they do not stop you from being successful. 

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About The Podcast

GGOB + 21 Hats-1

The Great Game of Business has partnered with 21 Hats to bring the 21 Hats Podcast to all entrepreneurs in The Great Game of Business community! Hosted by Loren Feldman, this podcast offers real-world business insight. Tune in to stay up to date on today's business issues, hear real stories about organizational challenges leaders are facing, and take away strategies CEOs are using in the business world today. When you subscribe, you'll receive a weekly email notification of this podcast. Plus, receive a message any time a new podcast episode is published on The Great Game of Business "Change the Game Podcast."

 

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