The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Transformation Economy by THRESHOLD

In celebration of April 15th, Ron and Ed will explore the history of taxation. All good tax systems tend to go bad, and throughout history tax laws have taken away liberty more often than foreign invaders. As Charles Adams explained in his book that will be discussed on the show, For Good and Evil, The prosperity as well as the decline of nations has always had a tax factor... We will explore the priceless legacy the Enlightenment thinkers passed on to posterity that comprise the components of a just tax system, as well as Adam Smith's four marks of a bad tax system, and what a good tax system would look like.

They say you can't turn back the clock and go back to the good old days. Yet this is precisely what is happening with the total quality service movement, the customer loyalty movement, CRM, and other philosophies that put the customer at the center of the business organization. Millions of dollars are being spent on consultants to relearn what was once common sense, practiced by the great entrepreneurs from the turn of the century to the mid-1950s. This show, the first in our Entrepreneur Heaven Series, will explore the wisdom of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, J.W. Marriott, and Walt Disney. Wisdom is timeless, and occasionally turning back the clock is the wisest course of action. Sometimes history is our best teacher.

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do "Free-Rider Friday." Most of our shows are "topic" driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be "event" driven; whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no advanced knowledge of the events either will bring up. If you'd like to call-in during the live show, the listener line is: 866-472-5790. You can also participate on Twitter at #ASKTSOE. We look forward to having you at our Free-Rider Friday show on March 27th!

Ron and Ed go off on a bit of a tangent on this episode and interview Anthony Clark, author of The Last Campaign: How Presidents Rewrite History, Run for Posterity and Enshrine Their Legacies. As the competition to land the Barack Obama Presidential Library heats up and Chicagoans debate contentious land use issues surrounding it, a new book about the politics of presidential libraries reveals an even more controversial, secret plan to grab thousands of acres from the US Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton to use for the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. Author and former House senior staffer Anthony Clark reveals the plan for the first time, which had been hidden for more than forty years.

Ed and I will have the honor interviewing Robert G. Cross, an absolute legend in the pricing profession. Bob implemented yield management in Delta Airlines, which is fascinating since he's a lawyer by education. He wrote a seminal pricing book about this experience, Revenue Management: Hard-Core Tactics for Market Domination, and The Wall Street Journal called him "The guru of Revenue Management." Folks, you don't want to miss this show, as Bob is a font of pricing wisdom, being among the pioneers who moved pricing into the C-suite of corporations around the world.

One of our all-time favorite business books is The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater and Every Business a Stage, by B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore, which was published in 1999. Dan Morris and Ron Baker developed a CPE course based upon this content, applying it to professional knowledge firms. The book has recently been updated, and we are honored to be able to have B. Joseph Pine on the show to discuss this work, along with his other books: The Laws of Managing and Infinite Possibility. Folks, you don't want to miss this show. Pine's work will cause you to rethink how you create and deliver value to your customers, and what they are really buying.

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do "Free-Rider Friday." Most of our shows are "topic" driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be "event" driven—whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no advanced knowledge of the events either will bring up. If you'd like to call-in during the live show, the listener line is: 866-472-5790. You can also participate on Twitter at #ASKTSOE. We look forward to having you on our Free-Rider Friday show on February 27!

Andy Grove, founder of Intel said, Disruptive threats come inherently not from new technology but from new business models." What is a business model? In this show, Ed and Ron will discuss innovating your business model, a process that is never-ending in sustainable businesses

Ed and I have had the privilege of posing this question to thousands of leaders around the world: Who's in charge of value in your organization? We're usually met with a momentary staring ovation, and then someone will inevitably shout out, "Everyone!" Really? Ron lives in California, where he's told everyone "owns" the Golden Gate Bridge. He would like to sell his portion; unfortunately he encounters what economists call the tragedy of the commons. If everyone owns something, no one does. No one has an incentive to protect and maintain the value of the asset in question. Think public toilet. Pricing is far too important to the viability of the company to be left to mediocre pricers. No other area, not cost cutting, efficiency increases, or growth, can have as large an impact on profitability as does pricing. If organizations are serious about pricing commensurate with the value they create, they need to establish pricing as a core competency.

All prices are, ultimately, determined by the subjective value perceptions of the customer. This makes having a conversation with the customer to comprehend and communicate your company's value essential. Skipping this conversation is similar to a contractor attempting to build a customer's dream home without any architectural plans. The better your company comprehends the customer's value drivers, the more likely you will be able to create maximum value, convince the customer they must pay for that value, and capture that value with an effective pricing strategy custom-tailored to the customer. We will discuss this topic with VeraSage Institute co-founder Dan Morris, a practicing CPA. We'll discuss the five Cs of value,the best opening statement ever spoken for every value conversation, questions you should ask the customer, understanding the customer's seven purchase risks, and how to mitigate them to add more value and knowing your firm's materialist and spiritual value drivers.