June 1, 2023 • 26 mins
Howard Makler knows how vital small and medium-sized businesses are to the economy. But he also knows not everyone appreciates their value. A successful serial entrepreneur and CEO of Innovation Refunds, Howard is working to make sure smaller businesses are no longer ignored. Innovation Refunds helps small businesses gain access to government funding, along with the knowledge, resources, and technology to succeed. Howard started small too—he founded his first company out of his bedroom at 13 years old—and knows that paths to success aren’t always traditional. Bob sat down with Howard to hear how he went from opting out of college to teaching classes at Wharton. Howard also shares what big businesses can learn from small businesses – and why taking care of your employees should be a priority for every company, regardless of size.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Small business generates more jobs than large businesses. I think
that's a surprise to a lot of people, but small
businesses have generated over ten million jobs over the last decade,
where large businesses have generated about eight million. So it's
the backbone of what makes America special.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, and welcome to Math and Magic.
Stories from the frontiers of marketing. Today, we have stories
from a serial entrepreneur. He's quoted as saying I'm a
lifelong employer, never an employee. He's had a special affinity
for opening up possibilities for small and medium sized businesses.
He's the founder and CEO of Innovation Refunds. He's Howard Mockler.
(00:51):
He was early in esports in the early two thousands
and later made it possible for everyday investors to invest
in real estate. He's made the tour growing up up
in Connecticut, starting his career in la and now Miami.
He's been a professor at Wharton's School of Executive Education,
and he has a long history of helping others through
his strong charitable endeavors. And with all that, he still
(01:14):
maintains the passion and energy of a startup entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Howard, Welcome, Thank you, Bob. It's a really pleasure to
be here with you.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Before we jump in, Howard, I want to get you
in sixty seconds.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
You ready, I'm ready?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Cats or dogs, Dogs, winter or summer, Summer, salty or
sweet Sweet real estate or East Sports real Estate, Early Riser,
A night out, Early Riser, California or Florida, Florida. Rock
and Roller, country, rock and roll. All time favorite musical
artist Elton John smartest person you.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Know, my father.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Favorite place to visit, Beijing, secret talent.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
My staff would say, I'm a magician. So I'm going
to say a magician.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
And fine, what did you want to be when you
were growing up?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
A business owner?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Okay, let's jump in. You have a Steve job story
from before Steve Jobs was really Steve Jobs. But it
tells you something about why he was as successful as
he was. Can you tell us that story?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So I was about thirteen when I started my first
company and also acquired my first Apple two computer. It
was one of the very first Apple twos that was produced,
and when I turned it on, every TV in the
house went Haywire. There was no RF shielding in the computer.
It was very early days of personal computing, and so
(02:38):
I was living at the time with my father in
Menlo Park, which is down the street from Palo Alto,
where Apple is based. I picked up the phone and
I called Apple's headquarters and asked to talk to Steve Jobs.
The very nice receptionist told me that he was tied up,
and I offered to call back, which I did. She
put me through and Steve immediately diagnosed what the problem was,
(03:01):
and once you determined it was a unshielded computer case,
he dispatched a technician to my house in Menlo Park
to swap out the computer.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
You always want to be a business person, You were
always thinking about business. How did that experience shape your
view of customers and customer service?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, and I really am crazy about customer service. We
have ninety nine percent five star reviews, and it really
did shape my opinion. My cell phone can be found
on the internet. I don't hide. People can find me
and do and I actually enjoy it when they track
me down. But customer service really is about responding to
the customer, making sure that you take care of their needs,
(03:42):
understanding what went wrong, not making excuses and trying to
cover up for things, but really being transparent, honest and
directly addressing whatever the circumstance is. I think we've all
been really frustrated with poor customer service, and when you
have exceptional customer service, it really tends to stand out.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
You have a history of spotting and opening in the
market or a need and serving that need. You have
an overriding philosophy about providing services to small and medium
sized businesses, giving them sort of the advantages, if you will,
of scale, access and experience. Can you talk just a
little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
What that overview is small and medium businesses are the
backbone of America. And I know we say that, we've
heard that, but what does it mean. It means that
small business generates more jobs than large businesses. I think
that's a surprise to a lot of people, But small
businesses have generated over ten million jobs over the last decade,
where large businesses have generated about eight million. It's the
(04:40):
backbone of what makes America special, and unfortunately small businesses
don't get the kind of service that they need. You
have a lot of folks that have the entrepreneurial spirit,
but they just don't have the training and backing to
really understand, whether it be finances, accounting, marketing technology. When
(05:01):
you talk to non business owners, there's a perception that
the business owner is the wealthy one or the one
that enjoys all the wonderful fruits of life. And that
might be true, but what's more true is that business
owners are the last to get paid. They're the ones
who ensure that payroll is made, rent is paid, and
if there's money left over, god willing, they get it.
(05:24):
And it's a very thankless task. So many business owners
end up working very, very hard and end up not
making money. I really behooves all of us to support
the business community and for those of us that have
been successful to try to share whatever we can with
the folks that are coming up so that they too
can be successful and employ more people.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
So you are doing that today with your company innovation refunds.
Talk a little bit about how that came about and
specifically how it's filling that void.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, I'm really proud of it. Little background. I was
the founder and president of a rate, a real estate
investment trust alongside the chairman of CBRE, founder of Tinder,
was one of our partners that ended up getting acquired
by another read and I was looking for what my
next exciting venture was going to be, and I learned
(06:15):
about these government programs. The government has considerable resources that
are devoted to helping businesses, but unfortunately, most of that
aid never reaches the business owners. They're just not aware
of it, and when they are aware of it, they
don't know how to cut through the red tape and
actually apply for these funds and receive them. I learned
about this opportunity and one of my superpowers design how
(06:39):
to create businesses. I've done it many times. I created
the company that was specializing in helping businesses to apply
for and obtain money from programs such as research and
development enterprise zones, and then a COVID program came out
part of the Cares Act. Many businesses got PPP. Everybody
(07:03):
heard of PPP right absolutely well. There was an unknown
brother or sister to PPP called ERC, which many people
now have heard of. I think in large part of
our ads on iHeart My Heart's been great helping us
to get the message out that this employee retention credit
or a payroll tax refund is available. In the last
(07:24):
eighteen months, we've helped twenty thousand businesses receive five and
a half billion dollars that they otherwise wouldn't have received.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You sort of were right place, right time, serving a
defined need. Now that the refunds are working their way
through the system, and you built this infrastructure for serving businesses,
what's next.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
This was designed to be a foundation. What's next is
multiple engines designed to serve businesses. So one engine is
a government incentive engine. It will uncover all government incentives
at a federal or state or local level and navigate
(08:09):
the process of applying and receiving those funds. So a
company essentially comes to our site, they give us access
to their data. We then spend our resources hiring tax
attorneys and other professionals who go through their data at
our expense, and then we match up government programs to
(08:29):
bring them immediate cash. That's one bucket. Another bucket is
helping them to take their accounts receivable and turn that
into immediate cash. And then the last is a marketplace
where we have a number of goods and services ranging
from insurance to helping with marketing technology training. Really a
full ecosystem designed to help the businesses to unlock their
(08:52):
full potential.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
So let's jump to some hot topics. AI it's finally arrived.
Is it friend or foe? And what impact will that
have on small and medium businesses.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Well, it's a bit of both. I saw this cute
commercial and it said AI won't take your job, It'll
be someone who has learned how to use AI. And
I can say in our company, we have a number
of folks that are on the front line of experimenting
with AI. AI is very, very powerful. It's also not
a panacea. I've seen plenty of wrong information come out
(09:27):
of chat GPT, so it's a powerful, powerful tool. If
harnessed properly, it can be tremendously beneficial. I think the
net net for small business is that it will be
a tremendous gain.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
We see in small businesses, especially the difficulties of recruiting
enough employees. And often we talk to small business owners,
they'll say, my business is limited just by the people
I can have. You think AI helps that or is
it a threat to them in terms of eliminating their
whole business?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Oh, it can level the playing field. I think every
business owner should have some young person on their staff
experimenting with how AI can improve and change their business.
There isn't a business in America that isn't ripe for
improvement using AI and your garden variety. Twenty one year
(10:19):
old kid is probably ripe for figuring out ways that
you can do it.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Let's talk about nimbleness. Small businesses are definitely more agile
than large businesses. Why do you think that is and
what lessons can large businesses learn from the small business community.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, small businesses, we make decisions rapidly. We don't get
bogged down in bureaucracy. There are leaders like you, Bob
that are able to cut through that in large organizations.
But generally speaking, I find large companies can't get out
of their own way, where small companies are able to
make very nimble decisions.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Let's talk about culture. You've built this businesses, You've served other businesses.
You watch them all, you're a student of them, you've
been a professor. How do you build culture differently in
a small company than you do in a big business?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
My answer is going to work for whether it's a
large company or a small company. It starts with caring
about your people. That's the number one variable is how
do you care for your people. I give you some stories.
Our headquarters is in Des Moines and there was a
freak kil storm that showed up in July. It's golf
(11:31):
ball size hail, and Bob I stood there at the
window in the office watching hundreds of cars in the
parking lot be destroyed. The hail came and they looked
like egg crates. When they were done, every car destroyed,
The company covered everybody's deductible. That's how you create culture.
(11:52):
It's how you demonstrate that you care. And it's not
about spending money, although it does cost money to create culture.
At our company, we have a full time well being
program Ignite Heart. We have a full time facilitator and
she is available to the entire staff of the company
(12:13):
to talk about anything that's bothering them, whether it be
there just having a grumpy day or something is very
serious in their life, providing them some guidance and some help,
and all of it feeds back into culture because the
people in the company know that the company cares about them,
and we devote resources to show them that we care
(12:34):
about them. And that's the really the way you create culture.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Let's jump a little bit brand. How does a small business,
medium sized business build a brand, and is that different
than a large company building a brand.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
The core is the same, it's consistency of behavior. Brand
is a fingerprint of your behavior. If you want to
create brand, it's going to be a mirror of how
you act as a company. And really I find that
that starts at the top. The leaders end up determining
(13:10):
what that brand is going to be like and how
the company is going to react. I know, iHeart cares
about their people and their customers. You care about everybody,
and you act that way, and that's the way we act.
And I don't think it matters if you have a
small automobile repair shop that's in a small town, where
you own a very large business in a big city.
(13:32):
I think at the end, it's all a representation of
how you treat your people and your customers.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I want to keep going with the lessons, but first
I want to get some context on you by going
back in time. You grew up in the seventies and
eighties in Connecticut. Paint the picture of that time and
place and the family life you grew up with.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So grew up product of divorce parents who I think
like a lot of divorces were tough on the kids,
tough on the parents, and getting shuffled back and forth
between mom and dad. Ultimately, at thirteen, I started my
first computer business. I was doing about one hundred thousand
(14:14):
dollars a month in sales by the time I was fifteen,
and I ended up moving to California. I actually got
out of high school early. I think, like I don't know,
maybe like a lot of entrepreneurs, got out, took some
college classes that interested me, and started my second or
(14:34):
third company by then.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
So were you a good student?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I was a good student when I enjoyed learning, and
then I got bored of learning in school and I
was no longer a good student. I wanted to learn
in business.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
What impact do you think your parents had on you
that still affect you today?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Well? Huge. My mother was a good mother. She wanted
to do what a mother does to take care and
to protect and to provide comfort. My father was an
entrepreneur as well and a business owner. So he was
the one that bought me that Apple computer at thirteen
years old, and at a time when he wasn't doing
all that well. It was a real stretch for him. Actually,
(15:16):
he really went out on a limb to be able
to afford to get me that computer. He felt that
it would materially impact my future, and it did.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah, I'll say, so, let's talk about college. Did you
go to college? Nope, and ever have a desire to
go to college.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I spent fifteen years teaching a day class at Wharton.
I think college is really about teaching you how to learn.
And if you're an entrepreneur, you probably figured that out.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
So although you're a business junkie, very clearly since in
an early age, you've been very committed to helping the
world you live in. You're on the board of the
Skyhook Foundation, that was a charity founded by Kareem Abdul Jabbar,
and many more charities. How do you think about nonprofit
work as part of your life.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Probably the most proud work I did was a hospital
pastor for boy I don't know, maybe eight years or so,
over a thousand hours. I think it's really important that
we give back, and it's especially important because our lives,
our troubles all seems so important to us. And when
(16:25):
we can get outside of ourselves and be a help
to somebody else, it provides great perspective in our own
life as well as just being incredibly healing. So I
think everybody should experience what it is to give back.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
More on Mathemagic right after this quick break. Welcome back
to mathem Magic. Let's hear more from my conversation with
Howard Bckler.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
You've had a.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Lot of interesting businesses. I won't recount them all, but
when esports was just getting started, you had Howie's game
Shock in Orange County. He had it for about fifteen years.
Can you explain what that was? You were extraordinarily early here.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, and that was great. My partner in that was
a great guy named Joe Dason, and we sat around
and this is really, I think provides a great blueprint
on what it is to be an entrepreneur. We like
to play video games in that time, and so we
would get together with maybe a dozen of our friends.
Everybody would bring their PC to the office and we
(17:32):
would make a network connect everybody together, and inevitably, of
the dozen computers, one wouldn't connect, and everybody'd be frustrated
and we would all sit around saying, gosh, we need
a place where we can all play games and have
pizza and drink monster energy. That was the era. Many
people talk about things or dream about things, But the
(17:55):
way I dream is I take action. And so we
ended up drawing what this could look like, and within
six months we had built the largest computer game center
in North America. We ended up opening seven of them,
which connected over two thousand computers. This is before online gameplay.
(18:16):
I had literally two thousand people playing computer games against
each other before there was online gameplay.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Let's jump a little bit to you as educator. You
were not college graduate and go to college, and yet
you wound up teaching an advanced course on leasing at
the Wharton Executive Education. Why did you want to teach
and what did you get out of teaching?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Well, I love giving back and that program was part
of a program that was designed by Wharton and the
trade association that represents shopping centers called the International Council
of Shopping Centers, and it gave me an opportunity to
each to folks that were in the retail shopping center
(19:04):
industry to really perform better. My second business that lasted
for fifteen years, was the largest company that disposed of
surplus real estate for retailers. So whenever Walgreens or CBS
or Kroger or AMC would close the store, we would
represent them and find a solution for that real estate.
(19:26):
And I found that I was able to mentor a
lot of young people that were coming into the retail
real estate industry. And for literally a decade plus, I
would bump into these people and they would share how
much they received out of this class. And I always
tried to have tangible takeaways from the class. So I
(19:49):
really didn't want the class to just be where you
attend and then you don't find anything usable. And when
I received feedback over the years of how helpful that
was to people, it really inspired me to do more.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
So one of your secret powers, I think, is how
you build a team. How do you think about hiring
people and retaining people?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Thank you, It is one of my superpowers. I have
almost no turnover in the company. People almost never leave here.
We treat people right, We make them feel that they
are heard. We go out of our way to be
transparent and honest with all of our people. We flow
(20:34):
information like water, and we really treat them as valued
members of our community. It's little things, whether that means
they don't have to pay for water or snacks, Those
little items, whether it be the Ignite Heart program that
we provide. If you really want to create a high
performance team, you're going to have to treat people like adults.
(20:58):
It's a commitment to treating your people the best possible way.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
I can't let you be on this episode without really
dig into something that's very current today and especially as
it relates to small and medium businesses. Community banks have
a very special and key relationship with those small and
medium banks. How have the difficulties with these regional banks
affected these businesses and how does that relationship change? Who
(21:28):
fills the hole?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Thank you for asking that. So I have one group
of investors in this company, and that is a group
of community banks. They're my only investors. They've been with
me since the very beginning, so I'm really very close
to the subject. This is a really, really tricky one
because every business owner that I know is looking at
(21:52):
their bank balances making sure that their money is secure.
Picking the right bank is really really important, and the
large banks provide a valuable service, but the community banks
are also really really important. Unfortunately, over the next few years,
(22:12):
we're going to find a little bit of a desert
for businesses, and we're already seeing it. In the financing side,
small businesses are having a much harder time and likely
are going to continue to have a hard time finding
good banking solutions. And I would just warn everybody watch
those limits over two hundred and fifty thousand. You're not protected.
(22:34):
Banks have something called Interfi, which will essentially spread your
deposits out over a group of banks, and that's a
really important service that business owners utilize. There's a lot
of uninsured money out there that really scares me.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
So let's jump to some advice. If someone wants to
follow a path like yours, serial entrepreneur, business after business,
what advice could you give.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Them get a lobotomy? Well, first of all, if somebody
really has this in their heart, nothing will stop them.
Entrepreneurs can't be stopped. What I would encourage them to
do is to focus on their spreadsheets. Focus on the numbers.
Ideas are great numbers are where it comes together, kind
(23:21):
of like the name of your podcast, right, magic is required.
Without magic, miracles don't happen. But without math, nothing happens.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
If you could go back in time and give your
eighteen year old self some advice, what would that advice be.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Get a better CFO. If I had the CFO that
I have today at my previous companies, I would have
been much more successful. I've been successful, but my current
CFO is a rock star at the highest level, and
I see how important it is.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
We end each episode of Math and Magic with two shoutouts,
one to the greatest person you know on the math
side of business, somebody, as you pointed out, who runs
things by the numbers or data. The other is the inspired,
creative think or the magic side of the business. Who
are your two shout outs?
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Well, the math is going to be the CFO I mentioned.
His name is Chad Sinclair and he's really a wizard
with math. He's the best I've ever seen in my life,
So shout out to him on that. On the magic side,
it would be Steve Jobs. He always said people don't
know what they want, You have to show them what
they want, and he really was a magician that could
(24:37):
pull out of his hat the most amazing products.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Howard, you have had a remarkable life as a strategist
and an entrepreneur. Thanks for sharing your lessons and your
insights with us today.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Thank you, Bob, really was a pleasure being here with you,
and thanks to you, and thanks to iHeart.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Here's a few things I picked up in my conversation
with Howard. One. Prioritize customer service. Great customer service helps
your companies stand out. Respect your customers by not making excuses,
by being honest and transparent, and by directly addressing their issue.
You'll be surprised how much it will help your reputation,
your bottom line, and your brand.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Two.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Focus on employee wellness vocal sources to making sure your
team knows your care. It costs money to create good culture,
but it doesn't cost anything to show your people that
you care about them. Whether it's a program dedicated to wellness,
or maybe it's just a thoughtful gesture. Taking that extra
step can be the backbone of a successful business. Three.
(25:39):
Your brand reflects your actions. You can work toward building
the brand you want, but ultimately, your brand is a
mirror of your company's values and behaviors. Create consistency, show
you care, and your brand's imprint will be stronger for it.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
That's it for today's episode.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Thanks so much for listening to Math and Magic, a
production of iHeartRadio. The show is hosted by Bob Pittman.
Special Thanks to Sidney Rosenbloom for booking and wrangling our
wonderful talent, which is no small feat our editor Emily Meronoff,
our engineers Jessica Crincitch and Bahid Fraser, our executive producers
Nikki Etoor and Ali Perry, and of course Gail Raoul,
(26:27):
Eric Angel Noel and everyone who helped bring this show
to your ears.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Until next time,
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Small business generates more jobs than large businesses. I think
that's a surprise to a lot of people, but small
businesses have generated over ten million jobs over the last decade,
where large businesses have generated about eight million. So it's
the backbone of what makes America special.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, and welcome to Math and Magic.
Stories from the frontiers of marketing. Today, we have stories
from a serial entrepreneur. He's quoted as saying I'm a
lifelong employer, never an employee. He's had a special affinity
for opening up possibilities for small and medium sized businesses.
He's the founder and CEO of Innovation Refunds. He's Howard Mockler.
(00:51):
He was early in esports in the early two thousands
and later made it possible for everyday investors to invest
in real estate. He's made the tour growing up up
in Connecticut, starting his career in la and now Miami.
He's been a professor at Wharton's School of Executive Education,
and he has a long history of helping others through
his strong charitable endeavors. And with all that, he still
(01:14):
maintains the passion and energy of a startup entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Howard, Welcome, Thank you, Bob. It's a really pleasure to
be here with you.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Before we jump in, Howard, I want to get you
in sixty seconds.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
You ready, I'm ready?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Cats or dogs, Dogs, winter or summer, Summer, salty or
sweet Sweet real estate or East Sports real Estate, Early Riser,
A night out, Early Riser, California or Florida, Florida. Rock
and Roller, country, rock and roll. All time favorite musical
artist Elton John smartest person you.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Know, my father.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Favorite place to visit, Beijing, secret talent.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
My staff would say, I'm a magician. So I'm going
to say a magician.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
And fine, what did you want to be when you
were growing up?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
A business owner?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Okay, let's jump in. You have a Steve job story
from before Steve Jobs was really Steve Jobs. But it
tells you something about why he was as successful as
he was. Can you tell us that story?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So I was about thirteen when I started my first
company and also acquired my first Apple two computer. It
was one of the very first Apple twos that was produced,
and when I turned it on, every TV in the
house went Haywire. There was no RF shielding in the computer.
It was very early days of personal computing, and so
(02:38):
I was living at the time with my father in
Menlo Park, which is down the street from Palo Alto,
where Apple is based. I picked up the phone and
I called Apple's headquarters and asked to talk to Steve Jobs.
The very nice receptionist told me that he was tied up,
and I offered to call back, which I did. She
put me through and Steve immediately diagnosed what the problem was,
(03:01):
and once you determined it was a unshielded computer case,
he dispatched a technician to my house in Menlo Park
to swap out the computer.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
You always want to be a business person, You were
always thinking about business. How did that experience shape your
view of customers and customer service?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, and I really am crazy about customer service. We
have ninety nine percent five star reviews, and it really
did shape my opinion. My cell phone can be found
on the internet. I don't hide. People can find me
and do and I actually enjoy it when they track
me down. But customer service really is about responding to
the customer, making sure that you take care of their needs,
(03:42):
understanding what went wrong, not making excuses and trying to
cover up for things, but really being transparent, honest and
directly addressing whatever the circumstance is. I think we've all
been really frustrated with poor customer service, and when you
have exceptional customer service, it really tends to stand out.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
You have a history of spotting and opening in the
market or a need and serving that need. You have
an overriding philosophy about providing services to small and medium
sized businesses, giving them sort of the advantages, if you will,
of scale, access and experience. Can you talk just a
little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
What that overview is small and medium businesses are the
backbone of America. And I know we say that, we've
heard that, but what does it mean. It means that
small business generates more jobs than large businesses. I think
that's a surprise to a lot of people, But small
businesses have generated over ten million jobs over the last decade,
where large businesses have generated about eight million. It's the
(04:40):
backbone of what makes America special, and unfortunately small businesses
don't get the kind of service that they need. You
have a lot of folks that have the entrepreneurial spirit,
but they just don't have the training and backing to
really understand, whether it be finances, accounting, marketing technology. When
(05:01):
you talk to non business owners, there's a perception that
the business owner is the wealthy one or the one
that enjoys all the wonderful fruits of life. And that
might be true, but what's more true is that business
owners are the last to get paid. They're the ones
who ensure that payroll is made, rent is paid, and
if there's money left over, god willing, they get it.
(05:24):
And it's a very thankless task. So many business owners
end up working very, very hard and end up not
making money. I really behooves all of us to support
the business community and for those of us that have
been successful to try to share whatever we can with
the folks that are coming up so that they too
can be successful and employ more people.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
So you are doing that today with your company innovation refunds.
Talk a little bit about how that came about and
specifically how it's filling that void.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, I'm really proud of it. Little background. I was
the founder and president of a rate, a real estate
investment trust alongside the chairman of CBRE, founder of Tinder,
was one of our partners that ended up getting acquired
by another read and I was looking for what my
next exciting venture was going to be, and I learned
(06:15):
about these government programs. The government has considerable resources that
are devoted to helping businesses, but unfortunately, most of that
aid never reaches the business owners. They're just not aware
of it, and when they are aware of it, they
don't know how to cut through the red tape and
actually apply for these funds and receive them. I learned
about this opportunity and one of my superpowers design how
(06:39):
to create businesses. I've done it many times. I created
the company that was specializing in helping businesses to apply
for and obtain money from programs such as research and
development enterprise zones, and then a COVID program came out
part of the Cares Act. Many businesses got PPP. Everybody
(07:03):
heard of PPP right absolutely well. There was an unknown
brother or sister to PPP called ERC, which many people
now have heard of. I think in large part of
our ads on iHeart My Heart's been great helping us
to get the message out that this employee retention credit
or a payroll tax refund is available. In the last
(07:24):
eighteen months, we've helped twenty thousand businesses receive five and
a half billion dollars that they otherwise wouldn't have received.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You sort of were right place, right time, serving a
defined need. Now that the refunds are working their way
through the system, and you built this infrastructure for serving businesses,
what's next.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
This was designed to be a foundation. What's next is
multiple engines designed to serve businesses. So one engine is
a government incentive engine. It will uncover all government incentives
at a federal or state or local level and navigate
(08:09):
the process of applying and receiving those funds. So a
company essentially comes to our site, they give us access
to their data. We then spend our resources hiring tax
attorneys and other professionals who go through their data at
our expense, and then we match up government programs to
(08:29):
bring them immediate cash. That's one bucket. Another bucket is
helping them to take their accounts receivable and turn that
into immediate cash. And then the last is a marketplace
where we have a number of goods and services ranging
from insurance to helping with marketing technology training. Really a
full ecosystem designed to help the businesses to unlock their
(08:52):
full potential.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
So let's jump to some hot topics. AI it's finally arrived.
Is it friend or foe? And what impact will that
have on small and medium businesses.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Well, it's a bit of both. I saw this cute
commercial and it said AI won't take your job, It'll
be someone who has learned how to use AI. And
I can say in our company, we have a number
of folks that are on the front line of experimenting
with AI. AI is very, very powerful. It's also not
a panacea. I've seen plenty of wrong information come out
(09:27):
of chat GPT, so it's a powerful, powerful tool. If
harnessed properly, it can be tremendously beneficial. I think the
net net for small business is that it will be
a tremendous gain.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
We see in small businesses, especially the difficulties of recruiting
enough employees. And often we talk to small business owners,
they'll say, my business is limited just by the people
I can have. You think AI helps that or is
it a threat to them in terms of eliminating their
whole business?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Oh, it can level the playing field. I think every
business owner should have some young person on their staff
experimenting with how AI can improve and change their business.
There isn't a business in America that isn't ripe for
improvement using AI and your garden variety. Twenty one year
(10:19):
old kid is probably ripe for figuring out ways that
you can do it.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Let's talk about nimbleness. Small businesses are definitely more agile
than large businesses. Why do you think that is and
what lessons can large businesses learn from the small business community.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, small businesses, we make decisions rapidly. We don't get
bogged down in bureaucracy. There are leaders like you, Bob
that are able to cut through that in large organizations.
But generally speaking, I find large companies can't get out
of their own way, where small companies are able to
make very nimble decisions.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Let's talk about culture. You've built this businesses, You've served other businesses.
You watch them all, you're a student of them, you've
been a professor. How do you build culture differently in
a small company than you do in a big business?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
My answer is going to work for whether it's a
large company or a small company. It starts with caring
about your people. That's the number one variable is how
do you care for your people. I give you some stories.
Our headquarters is in Des Moines and there was a
freak kil storm that showed up in July. It's golf
(11:31):
ball size hail, and Bob I stood there at the
window in the office watching hundreds of cars in the
parking lot be destroyed. The hail came and they looked
like egg crates. When they were done, every car destroyed,
The company covered everybody's deductible. That's how you create culture.
(11:52):
It's how you demonstrate that you care. And it's not
about spending money, although it does cost money to create culture.
At our company, we have a full time well being
program Ignite Heart. We have a full time facilitator and
she is available to the entire staff of the company
(12:13):
to talk about anything that's bothering them, whether it be
there just having a grumpy day or something is very
serious in their life, providing them some guidance and some help,
and all of it feeds back into culture because the
people in the company know that the company cares about them,
and we devote resources to show them that we care
(12:34):
about them. And that's the really the way you create culture.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Let's jump a little bit brand. How does a small business,
medium sized business build a brand, and is that different
than a large company building a brand.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
The core is the same, it's consistency of behavior. Brand
is a fingerprint of your behavior. If you want to
create brand, it's going to be a mirror of how
you act as a company. And really I find that
that starts at the top. The leaders end up determining
(13:10):
what that brand is going to be like and how
the company is going to react. I know, iHeart cares
about their people and their customers. You care about everybody,
and you act that way, and that's the way we act.
And I don't think it matters if you have a
small automobile repair shop that's in a small town, where
you own a very large business in a big city.
(13:32):
I think at the end, it's all a representation of
how you treat your people and your customers.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I want to keep going with the lessons, but first
I want to get some context on you by going
back in time. You grew up in the seventies and
eighties in Connecticut. Paint the picture of that time and
place and the family life you grew up with.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So grew up product of divorce parents who I think
like a lot of divorces were tough on the kids,
tough on the parents, and getting shuffled back and forth
between mom and dad. Ultimately, at thirteen, I started my
first computer business. I was doing about one hundred thousand
(14:14):
dollars a month in sales by the time I was fifteen,
and I ended up moving to California. I actually got
out of high school early. I think, like I don't know,
maybe like a lot of entrepreneurs, got out, took some
college classes that interested me, and started my second or
(14:34):
third company by then.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
So were you a good student?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I was a good student when I enjoyed learning, and
then I got bored of learning in school and I
was no longer a good student. I wanted to learn
in business.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
What impact do you think your parents had on you
that still affect you today?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Well? Huge. My mother was a good mother. She wanted
to do what a mother does to take care and
to protect and to provide comfort. My father was an
entrepreneur as well and a business owner. So he was
the one that bought me that Apple computer at thirteen
years old, and at a time when he wasn't doing
all that well. It was a real stretch for him. Actually,
(15:16):
he really went out on a limb to be able
to afford to get me that computer. He felt that
it would materially impact my future, and it did.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah, I'll say, so, let's talk about college. Did you
go to college? Nope, and ever have a desire to
go to college.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I spent fifteen years teaching a day class at Wharton.
I think college is really about teaching you how to learn.
And if you're an entrepreneur, you probably figured that out.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
So although you're a business junkie, very clearly since in
an early age, you've been very committed to helping the
world you live in. You're on the board of the
Skyhook Foundation, that was a charity founded by Kareem Abdul Jabbar,
and many more charities. How do you think about nonprofit
work as part of your life.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Probably the most proud work I did was a hospital
pastor for boy I don't know, maybe eight years or so,
over a thousand hours. I think it's really important that
we give back, and it's especially important because our lives,
our troubles all seems so important to us. And when
(16:25):
we can get outside of ourselves and be a help
to somebody else, it provides great perspective in our own
life as well as just being incredibly healing. So I
think everybody should experience what it is to give back.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
More on Mathemagic right after this quick break. Welcome back
to mathem Magic. Let's hear more from my conversation with
Howard Bckler.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
You've had a.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Lot of interesting businesses. I won't recount them all, but
when esports was just getting started, you had Howie's game
Shock in Orange County. He had it for about fifteen years.
Can you explain what that was? You were extraordinarily early here.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, and that was great. My partner in that was
a great guy named Joe Dason, and we sat around
and this is really, I think provides a great blueprint
on what it is to be an entrepreneur. We like
to play video games in that time, and so we
would get together with maybe a dozen of our friends.
Everybody would bring their PC to the office and we
(17:32):
would make a network connect everybody together, and inevitably, of
the dozen computers, one wouldn't connect, and everybody'd be frustrated
and we would all sit around saying, gosh, we need
a place where we can all play games and have
pizza and drink monster energy. That was the era. Many
people talk about things or dream about things, But the
(17:55):
way I dream is I take action. And so we
ended up drawing what this could look like, and within
six months we had built the largest computer game center
in North America. We ended up opening seven of them,
which connected over two thousand computers. This is before online gameplay.
(18:16):
I had literally two thousand people playing computer games against
each other before there was online gameplay.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Let's jump a little bit to you as educator. You
were not college graduate and go to college, and yet
you wound up teaching an advanced course on leasing at
the Wharton Executive Education. Why did you want to teach
and what did you get out of teaching?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Well, I love giving back and that program was part
of a program that was designed by Wharton and the
trade association that represents shopping centers called the International Council
of Shopping Centers, and it gave me an opportunity to
each to folks that were in the retail shopping center
(19:04):
industry to really perform better. My second business that lasted
for fifteen years, was the largest company that disposed of
surplus real estate for retailers. So whenever Walgreens or CBS
or Kroger or AMC would close the store, we would
represent them and find a solution for that real estate.
(19:26):
And I found that I was able to mentor a
lot of young people that were coming into the retail
real estate industry. And for literally a decade plus, I
would bump into these people and they would share how
much they received out of this class. And I always
tried to have tangible takeaways from the class. So I
(19:49):
really didn't want the class to just be where you
attend and then you don't find anything usable. And when
I received feedback over the years of how helpful that
was to people, it really inspired me to do more.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
So one of your secret powers, I think, is how
you build a team. How do you think about hiring
people and retaining people?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Thank you, It is one of my superpowers. I have
almost no turnover in the company. People almost never leave here.
We treat people right, We make them feel that they
are heard. We go out of our way to be
transparent and honest with all of our people. We flow
(20:34):
information like water, and we really treat them as valued
members of our community. It's little things, whether that means
they don't have to pay for water or snacks, Those
little items, whether it be the Ignite Heart program that
we provide. If you really want to create a high
performance team, you're going to have to treat people like adults.
(20:58):
It's a commitment to treating your people the best possible way.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
I can't let you be on this episode without really
dig into something that's very current today and especially as
it relates to small and medium businesses. Community banks have
a very special and key relationship with those small and
medium banks. How have the difficulties with these regional banks
affected these businesses and how does that relationship change? Who
(21:28):
fills the hole?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Thank you for asking that. So I have one group
of investors in this company, and that is a group
of community banks. They're my only investors. They've been with
me since the very beginning, so I'm really very close
to the subject. This is a really, really tricky one
because every business owner that I know is looking at
(21:52):
their bank balances making sure that their money is secure.
Picking the right bank is really really important, and the
large banks provide a valuable service, but the community banks
are also really really important. Unfortunately, over the next few years,
(22:12):
we're going to find a little bit of a desert
for businesses, and we're already seeing it. In the financing side,
small businesses are having a much harder time and likely
are going to continue to have a hard time finding
good banking solutions. And I would just warn everybody watch
those limits over two hundred and fifty thousand. You're not protected.
(22:34):
Banks have something called Interfi, which will essentially spread your
deposits out over a group of banks, and that's a
really important service that business owners utilize. There's a lot
of uninsured money out there that really scares me.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
So let's jump to some advice. If someone wants to
follow a path like yours, serial entrepreneur, business after business,
what advice could you give.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Them get a lobotomy? Well, first of all, if somebody
really has this in their heart, nothing will stop them.
Entrepreneurs can't be stopped. What I would encourage them to
do is to focus on their spreadsheets. Focus on the numbers.
Ideas are great numbers are where it comes together, kind
(23:21):
of like the name of your podcast, right, magic is required.
Without magic, miracles don't happen. But without math, nothing happens.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
If you could go back in time and give your
eighteen year old self some advice, what would that advice be.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Get a better CFO. If I had the CFO that
I have today at my previous companies, I would have
been much more successful. I've been successful, but my current
CFO is a rock star at the highest level, and
I see how important it is.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
We end each episode of Math and Magic with two shoutouts,
one to the greatest person you know on the math
side of business, somebody, as you pointed out, who runs
things by the numbers or data. The other is the inspired,
creative think or the magic side of the business. Who
are your two shout outs?
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Well, the math is going to be the CFO I mentioned.
His name is Chad Sinclair and he's really a wizard
with math. He's the best I've ever seen in my life,
So shout out to him on that. On the magic side,
it would be Steve Jobs. He always said people don't
know what they want, You have to show them what
they want, and he really was a magician that could
(24:37):
pull out of his hat the most amazing products.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Howard, you have had a remarkable life as a strategist
and an entrepreneur. Thanks for sharing your lessons and your
insights with us today.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Thank you, Bob, really was a pleasure being here with you,
and thanks to you, and thanks to iHeart.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Here's a few things I picked up in my conversation
with Howard. One. Prioritize customer service. Great customer service helps
your companies stand out. Respect your customers by not making excuses,
by being honest and transparent, and by directly addressing their issue.
You'll be surprised how much it will help your reputation,
your bottom line, and your brand.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Two.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Focus on employee wellness vocal sources to making sure your
team knows your care. It costs money to create good culture,
but it doesn't cost anything to show your people that
you care about them. Whether it's a program dedicated to wellness,
or maybe it's just a thoughtful gesture. Taking that extra
step can be the backbone of a successful business. Three.
(25:39):
Your brand reflects your actions. You can work toward building
the brand you want, but ultimately, your brand is a
mirror of your company's values and behaviors. Create consistency, show
you care, and your brand's imprint will be stronger for it.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
That's it for today's episode.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Thanks so much for listening to Math and Magic, a
production of iHeartRadio. The show is hosted by Bob Pittman.
Special Thanks to Sidney Rosenbloom for booking and wrangling our
wonderful talent, which is no small feat our editor Emily Meronoff,
our engineers Jessica Crincitch and Bahid Fraser, our executive producers
Nikki Etoor and Ali Perry, and of course Gail Raoul,
(26:27):
Eric Angel Noel and everyone who helped bring this show
to your ears.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Until next time,
Host
Bob Pittman
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