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Sweet marketing music

Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?

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by Andrew Tellijohn
Nov-Dec 2022

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Stern pens insights for family business spouses

As the daughter of a family business owner, the former director of the Family Business Center at the University of St. Thomas and the founder of Family Business Minnesota and The Sage Pages, Sara Stern has seen her share of conflict amid family business. 

Stern, who also owns a local EOS Worldwide franchise, has set a goal of helping 60,000 family businesses be healthier by the time she’s 60. One step was penning her recently released book, “Married to the Family Business: A Handbook for Spouses of Family Business Owners.” It puts some of her findings down in writing for families to use as guidelines for working through their challenges. 

Stern shared some of her observations with Upsize.

Tellijohn: You’re a second time author now, what led you to publishing? 

Stern: This all came together really, the first book and especially this one, because I’ve had so many of the same conversations with family business owners. Over the years I thought, ‘I’ve gotta write this down, this has to be out here more.’ Mostly because what I find is consultants and academics like to make it seem more complicated than it already is. And it’s certainly complicated. So, I wanted to simplify it for people. 

Specifically for the spouse book, I see a lot of spouses pushing for the owner of the family business to make decisions because the spouse thinks they’re doing something good for the family, but what they’re really doing is causing problems for the family. 

I think most of these spouses don’t realize when they say things like, ‘You’re not allowed to fire my kid,’ for example, that that’s just incredibly destructive to the business, where I think what they’re thinking is, ‘This is good for my kids, this will be great. I’m taking care of everybody.’ I’m deeply passionate about that being the wrong thing to do. 

Tellijohn: Did you grow up in a family business? Where’s the passion come from? 

Stern: When I was growing up, my dad and his brother ran an auto repair shop and my mom and my aunt helped there. So, I was kind of in the mix with that. None of my siblings or cousins took it over, so we didn’t do the generational transfer, but I was in the mix in that business. It was my job to keep the bathroom clean and me and my cousins all had different random things we helped out with. 

But then I also was a coach for quite a few years and it turned out that a vast majority of my clients were running privately held companies and working with family members. So that kind of started piquing my interest. And then of course it was my time at St. Thomas. And now, as an EOS implementer, I’ve become the person people call when they have sticky family business issues. So, I’m getting lots of different calls from other implementers around the country and around the world with questions about how to help their family business clients. 

Tellijohn: So, the EOS implementer piece has gone that direction as well then? 

Stern: Yeah, 80 percent of my clients over the last seven plus years have been family owned. 

Tellijohn: Have you always had the author bug? 

Stern: I guess there’s two things that prompted me. One is in EOS language we say there are visionaries and there are integrators that run companies. And I’m a little more on the visionary side, meaning I’ve got, always have new ideas that I just have to do something about. The other thing is I got a degree in English as an undergrad and I just have to write. So, I’m putting the visionary and the English major together. I’ve got two more books in my head I’m working on too. So, this won’t be the last one. 

Tellijohn: Where can readers get the book or reach out?

Stern: https://www.thesagepages.com

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Andrew Tellijohn

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Arms offers advice to those pondering going fractional

The use of fractional executives — those hired by companies on contract to work a fraction of the hours at less cost than full-time hires — has been on the rise for years.  That accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. John Arms, co-founder of Voyageur U, helped establish the organization to help educate free agents on what it takes to make it as a fractional executive.  He’s now put that knowledge into print, recently releasing the book “Consult Your Way to a Full-Time Job.” Arms joined Upsize Minnesota Editor Andrew Tellijohn to talk about how the book can help potential fractional executives carve their new paths.

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