The How of Business - How to start, run, grow and exit a small business.

Hosted by Henry Lopez

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646

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Oct 2026

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The How of Business - how to start, run and grow a small business - is a weekly show for aspiring Entrepreneurs and existing Small Business Owners. If you are looking for actionable advice, tips and techniques on how to start (including launching or buying your first small business), run and grow your small business, this is the podcast for you! In each episode we either discuss a business topic, or interview an existing small business owner or business service provider. The How of Business is hosted by Henry Lopez who shares the knowledge and experience he has acquired over his corporate and entrepreneurial careers.

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October 26, 2026Episode 62523 min

625 - The Time Value of Money

Time value of money for small business owners: why waiting to pay cash can cost you far more than the interest on the right loan. Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/625-time-value-of-money/ Paying cash for everything is great personal finance advice, but in business, it can be the very thing that keeps you small. Henry Lopez explains the time value of money and why leverage is a key to entrepreneurship. In this episode of The How of Business, Henry goes one level deeper than episode 566, "Good Debt, Bad Debt," into the why behind smart business borrowing. With a simple example, he shows why putting all cash in, or waiting until you have the cash, can give you the worst return, even after paying interest on a loan. Henry starts with a practical test: something is an asset if it generates income, and we should only borrow to build or buy assets. A profitable small business is an asset. He also shares Harvard professor Howard Stevenson's definition of entrepreneurship: "the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled." By that definition, entrepreneurs go after opportunities bigger than the cash they have. The core idea is simple. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future. Henry walks through a $100,000 piece of equipment that produces $30,000 a year in added profit. Paid in all cash, it returns 30% cash-on-cash. Put 20% down and finance the rest at 9%, and the return on your cash rises to 50%, even after the loan payments, while you keep $80,000 for working capital or the next opportunity. Then there's the cost of waiting. Saving for five years to pay cash means giving up roughly $150,000 in profit to avoid about $19,600 in interest. As Henry puts it, "Borrowing is buying time." The biggest cost isn't interest. It's waiting. Key takeaways: - Your personal finance mindset can hold your business back. - Only borrow to build or buy assets that generate income. - A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. - Measure your cash-on-cash return, not just the interest you pay. - Waiting has a cost: the profit you don't earn while you save. - Never borrow to fix a broken business model. - Know your debt capacity: many lenders look for a debt service coverage ratio of at least 1.25. - Be clear-eyed about the risk, including personal guarantees on SBA loans. Before your next growth decision, ask three questions: Am I building an asset? What does waiting cost me? Do I have the capacity to borrow? This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

October 19, 2026Episode 62442 min

624 – Conscious Listening for Business Leaders with Julian Treasure

Conscious listening for leaders: Julian Treasure explains why poor listening costs businesses trillions and the simple habits that fix it. Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/624-julian-treasure-conscious-listening/ Conscious listening is the leadership skill most business owners never practice, and Julian Treasure explains what poor listening costs your team and your bottom line, plus simple habits like RASA and "tell me more" that you can use to listen better starting today. Julian Treasure, author, international keynote speaker, and one of the most watched TED speakers of all time, returns to The How of Business to show small business owners why listening is a skill, not a given, and how to get better at it. Most of us think we're good listeners. Almost nobody is. Julian calls this "the wall of denial." Because we treat listening as part of being a nice person, few of us ever see it as something we can practice. That gap is costly. When leaders don't listen, their teams disengage, miscommunication grows, and good people leave. In this episode of The How of Business, Henry Lopez is joined by Julian Treasure to explore the other half of communication: listening. It's why most leaders, including small business leaders, are not doing it well, what that can cost us, and how to fix it. This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

October 12, 2026Episode 42848 min

R428 – How Language Shapes Business Perceptions with Daniel Hieber

The way we speak, from formality and filler words to conversation styles and accents, shapes how customers, employees, and job candidates see us, and linguist Daniel Hieber explains how small business owners can recognize those perceptions and communicate more effectively. Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/r428-daniel-hieber-language-perception/ Research linguist Daniel Hieber, founder of Linguistic Discovery, shows small business owners how the way we speak shapes how others see us, and how to use that awareness to lead, sell, and hire more effectively. Every interaction in your business runs on language: a sales call, a customer complaint, a new hire's first day, an email to a client. How formal we are, how we take turns in a conversation, how direct we are, and how we sound all send signals. Most of us read those signals without realizing it. For a small business owner, a misread can strain a customer relationship, create friction on a small team, or cost you a great hire. In this episode of The How of Business, Henry Lopez is joined by Daniel Hieber to look at linguistics, the study of human language, as a small business topic. Henry calls it "a completely different topic than I've ever addressed over 400-plus episodes." Danny got hooked on languages as a kid. He learned Spanish, Latin, and Swahili, studied abroad in Kenya, and found linguistics in a William & Mary course catalog. He knew right away: "That's what I'm doing with the rest of my life." He spent five years with Rosetta Stone's Endangered Language Program, earned his PhD at UC Santa Barbara, and works today with the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana to revitalize their once-dormant language. Danny opens by rejecting the idea that language works differently at work and in social settings. "Business is a social context," he says. All day long we move between formal and informal registers, adjusting to the person, the relationship, and even the room. Problems start when two people read the situation differently. A small business owner may keep things casual to welcome a new hire, while that new hire, nervous on day one, is actually looking for structure. The same thing happens with conversation styles. High-involvement speakers jump in to show they're engaged. High-considerateness speakers wait their turn. Each can read the other as rude or disengaged. Even filler words have a job: they signal you have more to say. Henry shares how his direct South Florida style came across as brusque to customers in Texas, and how he learned to "speak toward" the point. Accents raise the biggest blind spots. Danny cites studies in which people were turned away based only on how they sounded, often by people who didn't realize they were doing it. He reminds us that everybody speaks with an accent, and that an accent says little about education or ability. The conversation closes on writing, which Danny treats differently from speech. Standard written conventions matter for credibility, and they can be taught. As Danny puts it: "Your attitudes about the way people speak are never really attitudes about language. They're always attitudes about people." This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

October 5, 2026Episode 62337 min

623 – From Home Kitchen to Seven Figures with Addison LaBonte

How Addison LaBonte launched Sweet Addison's - a desert brand specializing in gluten-free and dairy-free cookies and brownies. Addison shares how she built an audience before launching her first product, bootstrapped without giving up equity, and grew her brand to seven figures in its first full year. Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/623-addison-labonte-seven-figures/ Many entrepreneurs start with the product and hope the customers follow. Addison did it the other way around. She spent years building a following online and becoming a trusted authority. When she finally launched, she already had customers asking for her product. That approach isn't required, but as she puts it, "If you have it, you're going to get a jump start, for sure." In this episode of The How of Business podcast, Henry Lopez is joined by Addison LaBonte to explore how she launched and grew Sweet Addison's. They cover audience building, an MVP launch, pricing, landing wholesale accounts, and the mental toll of the startup years. Addison never expected to become an entrepreneur. She majored in mathematics, worked in finance, and planned to follow her mother into a CFO role. After college she was a Division One soccer player at the University of Maine. While training for her first marathon she was diagnosed with compartment syndrome. Within three days of going gluten-free she could run normally again. She started the Instagram account Organically Addison to share what she learned, and then her "25 Days of Christmas Cookies" series went mega viral, and people all over the country started asking to buy her cookies. She spent 2023 getting ready to launch. That September she was unexpectedly laid off, which she calls "the biggest blessing in disguise." She launched Sweet Addison's in January 2024 with one product: a chocolate chip cookie that took 27 recipe variations to get right. She took an MVP or iterative approach, listening to that feedback and then adjusting. Her audience asked for brownies, so she launched them in month three, and they quickly outsold the cookies. Addison bootstrapped the business, still owns 100% of it, and has cash flowed from day one. She didn't write a business plan. She studied competitors' price per ounce and worked back from her cost of goods sold. Most of her wholesale accounts have come to her as inbound leads. For founders trying to get on shelves, her advice is to be "relational instead of transactional," and to remember that "no one is going to be a better salesperson than the founder." The hardest part wasn't physical. It was the mental battle of 18-hour days, and there were months when she didn't even see the sun. What kept her going was taking the emphasis off herself and putting it on the customers she serves. This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

September 28, 2026Episode 62227 min

622 – Getting Started with Claude Code & Agentic AI

Getting started with Claude Code and agentic AI doesn't require a technical background, as Henry Lopez and applied AI specialist Colin Rhoades explain the shift from AI chatbots to AI agents that complete tasks for your small business. Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/622-claude-code-agentic-ai/ You don't need a technical background, or to have ever written a line of code, to get started with agentic AI. Henry Lopez is joined again by his son-in-law Colin Rhoades, a corporate AI and data analytics specialist, for a primer on the shift from AI chatbots to AI agents that can actually get work done for your small business. Most business owners have tried ChatGPT, Claude Chat, or Gemini by now, and those tools are genuinely useful. But there's a newer, less familiar layer: Agentic AI, tools that don't just answer a question but go do the work to implement it. Understanding the difference, and knowing how to take the first step, matters right now, because the businesses that start experimenting are the ones that will get the leverage first. Colin's analogy captures the shift well: chatbot AI is like having a very smart consultant or research assistant at your fingertips, while agentic AI is more like giving that consultant a desk, access to your tools, and an assignment to go do. An AI chat gives you answers. Agentic AI gets things done. The clearest example in the episode is Henry's daughter Makena's business, Final Curtain Finishing, a needlepoint finishing service with a Shopify ecommerce site. Native Shopify isn't built for configured products, so the site needed custom HTML code. Makena has no coding background, but using ChatGPT and then Claude Code, she generated that code herself with plain English instructions. This was work that otherwise would have cost thousands of dollars in outside development. Now that Claude Code is connected directly to her Shopify account through a connector, it can read the site's configuration and make changes on its own based on her instructions. That connection is the real unlock: Agentic AI plugged into or connected to your systems (a CRM, email, a Shopify store, QuickBooks) can do its own lookups and extracts instead of you exporting reports and pasting screenshots into a chat window. Colin saw this firsthand the first week he connected Claude Code to his company's CRM: the manual process of finding a report, exporting it, and cleaning the data disappeared, and he could go straight to deciding what the data meant. But getting started doesn't mean diving in blind. Henry and Colin both stress starting with controlled access and a human in the loop, the same way you'd onboard a new employee, and expanding autonomy only as trust builds. As Colin put it, "the goal isn't AI can do everything, it's having an AI that you can trust to do one defined task well." And getting started is simpler than it sounds: pick one repetitive task you already understand, document it (even just by speaking it into Claude), and teach the AI that one process first. This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

September 21, 2026Episode 62114 min

621 – 5 Reasons NOT to Start a Small Business

Five common reasons not to start a small business yet, from escaping a bad boss to fearing sales, give aspiring entrepreneurs a readiness check before they quit their job and put their savings at risk. Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/621-5-reasons-not-to-start/ Part of helping you start a small business is helping you decide if and when you should start one, and these five reasons not to start a small business yet will help you go in with your eyes wide open. The reality is that about one in five new businesses with employees closes in the first year, and about half are gone within five years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In his years of coaching aspiring business owners, Henry has found that those who struggle most very often started for the wrong reasons, or before they were ready. As he puts it, it's best to know before you take that leap, before you make that investment and sacrifice, rather than end up completely frustrated or even financially ruined. In this episode of The How of Business, Henry Lopez shares the top five reasons not to start a small business yet. Each one comes with a question to ask yourself and what to do instead. "I'm not here to talk you out of starting your first small business," Henry says. "I just want you to go in with your eyes wide open." Five Reasons NOT to Start a Small Business: 1) You mainly want to escape your bad job or your horrible boss. Am I running from something or toward something? 2) You're following your passion. Is there a business here that customers will pay for, or is this just something I love doing? 3) You can't afford it yet. Do I have the runway without risking my family's financial security? 4) You can't handle uncertainty or pressure. How do I really react when things are uncertain and it's all on me? 5) You hate or you're afraid of selling. Am I willing to ask people for their money? This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

September 14, 2026Episode 62023 min

620 – The Trust Factor

How to Build Trust Fast. Trust runs every small business relationship. One simple formula, the trust equation, shows small business owners how to earn it faster without faking it. Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/620-the-trust-factor/ On this short episode Henry Lopez shares his thoughts and experiences related to why trust matters so much in business relationships, and one variable or technique that can have significant positive impact on how quickly people trust you. People don't buy from, partner with, or make deals with people they don't trust. That's often true even when you have the better product or the better price. Most small businesses don't have a big brand name doing the work for them. The owner or a key employee is the face of the business, and word of mouth and referrals, the lifeblood of new opportunities, depend on trust. The challenge is that trust takes time to build. You often get only one sales call, one first meeting, or one negotiation to start. In this episode of The How of Business, Henry Lopez explains the trust equation from The Trusted Advisor by David Maister, Charles Green, and Robert Galford. Henry taught this book throughout his sales training and enablement career. He also covers the one variable in the equation that can speed up trust more than any other. The formula is simple. Trustworthiness equals credibility plus reliability plus intimacy, divided by self-orientation. Credibility asks, "Can I believe what you say?" Reliability asks, "Can I count on you to do what you say?" Intimacy asks, "Do I feel safe sharing my real problem, budget, and concerns with you?" Self-orientation asks, "Whose interests are you really focused on?" This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

August 31, 2026Episode 36143 min

R361 – Start and Grow Without Investors with Tyler King

How to start and grow a small business without investors. Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/r361-tyler-king-without-investors/ Bootstrapping a software business without venture capital or angel investors lets you grow on your own terms, and Tyler King, co-founder of Less Annoying CRM, shares how he built a profitable, sustainable SaaS company by staying disciplined, customer-focused, and true to what he actually wanted from the business. Tyler King, co-founder and CEO of Less Annoying CRM, joins the show to share how he bootstrapped a profitable software company. No venture capital, no angel investors, no exit plan, and no rush. He shares what small business owners can learn from building a company on their own terms. For anyone who assumes a software startup requires millions in funding and a race toward an IPO, Tyler's story is a useful counterpoint. He grew a sustainable, profitable SaaS (Software as a Service) business slowly and deliberately, proving that discipline and patience can be advantages rather than limitations. Tyler didn't grow up dreaming of running a business. He was a programmer at a venture-backed startup when the 2008 downturn hit and nearly everyone was laid off. Everyone except the five cheapest employees, which happened to include him. With the bosses gone, he spent a year unofficially playing co-founder, and discovered he loved entrepreneurship. In 2009 he and his brother Bracken started what became Less Annoying CRM. The idea came from real frustration. Tasked with setting up Salesforce at that old job, Tyler (a computer science graduate) spent a month and couldn't make it work. At the time, roughly half of the CRMs companies paid for went unused. So rather than build something with more features, he set out to build something people could actually use. From there, Henry and Tyler dig into the practical realities of bootstrapping: funding the business from savings and side-job cash flow, why banks won't lend to software companies, and how limited money forces healthy discipline. "How much money did we make this month? That's how much money we can spend," Tyler explains. He shares hard-won lessons on shipping a minimum viable product (MVP) fast (his first version was "minimum, debatable whether it was viable"), using intuition over thin data, and building a company that can survive any one person (what he and his team call the "hit by a bus" test) which is the same discipline as building to sell. They also cover his unusual culture choices: separating raises from performance, giving everyone "20% time," and recruiting almost entirely from a pool of interns. Perhaps most striking is how Less Annoying CRM's biggest differentiator - customer service - happened by accident. Tyler put his own phone number on the contact page, and when it rang, the caller was stunned anyone picked up at all. This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

August 24, 2026Episode 61939 min

619 – Presentations That Close Deals with Dean Curtis

Increase Close Rates with consistent, professional in-home sales presentations for home improvement and home services businesses, and Dean Curtis of Ingage shares the principles and tools that help small operators win more deals at the kitchen table. Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/619-dean-curtis-presentarions-close-deals/ SPECIAL OFFER: 10% OFF the Ingage Pro when you use the code "HOWOFBUSINESS". For home services businesses, the sale is often won or lost at the customer's kitchen table and Dean Curtis, CEO of Ingage, joins the show to explain how a more consistent, professional in-home presentation can dramatically improve close rates, with client case studies to back it up. If you sell at the customer's home (roofing, windows, doors, siding, gutters, baths, etc.) then you're trying to convince a homeowner that you're the right person to solve their problem, and that process is highly educational. Too often the materials salespeople bring to present are off-brand, out of order, and different for every salesperson. That inconsistency costs deals. When the content is consistent, on-brand, and matched to a proven sales process, close rates go up. In this episode of The How of Business, Henry Lopez is joined by Dean Curtis to explore why consistency, trust, and preparation drive home services sales and how the right content levels the playing field so even a one-person shop can look and perform like a 100-person company. The discussion opens on consistency. In the replacement remodeling market, the same products are sold over and over, the objections are common, and the more consistent a rep's approach, the higher they close. But consistent doesn't mean rigid. Dean uses a bingo-board analogy to explain why the best sales reps move dynamically to answer whatever the customer raises. As he puts it, borrowing from Mike Tyson: "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." From there the conversation turns to trust, which Dean breaks into three drivers: brand (a homeowner judges you within a fraction of a second), personalization (put the customer's own house and name on the first screen), and education (be the guide who makes the homeowner the hero). "No one cares what you can sell, what you can install if they don't trust you," Dean explains. Dean then shares what separates the teams that win: they train, they practice, and they coach. They don't hand sales teams content and wish them luck. Instead, they build a feedback loop, using analytics to see what's working and coaching reps without it feeling like Big Brother. He also cautions that content is a tool inside the conversation, not a replacement for it. The episode closes with two grounding reminders for any small business owner: do the same thing every time so you can actually learn what works, and remember that technology is never a silver bullet — start with the problem, not the shiny object. Or as Dean sums up trust: little deposits in the trust bank go a long way. This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

August 17, 2026Episode 61824 min

618 - Buyer Due Diligence

Buying a Business? Do Your Due Diligence! Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/618-buyer-due-diligence/ Buyer due diligence is your primary protection when purchasing a small business, and on this episode Henry Lopez walks through a practical checklist to verify the financials, uncover hidden risks, and avoid overpaying for or buying the wrong business. Get your FREE DOWNLOAD: Buyer Due Diligence Checklist – from the show notes page for this episode. Buyer due diligence is the single most important protection you have when purchasing a small business. And skipping or rushing it is how buyers end up owning problems they never saw coming. Buying an existing business can be one of the fastest paths to successful ownership. You inherit customers, cash flow, systems, and employees, ideally in a proven, profitable model. But things are not always as they appear. A business that's always busy or generating strong revenue isn't necessarily healthy, and you may be inheriting problems that aren't obvious at first glance. Due diligence is how you find those issues before closing, not after. In this episode of The How of Business, Henry Lopez walks through his buyer due diligence checklist. This checklist includes the key areas you need to investigate, the mistakes that trip up first-time buyers, and how to make sure the business you're paying for is actually the business you think you're buying. Whether you're preparing to buy or getting ready to sell, this is the framework for looking under the covers with confidence. Henry frames the whole process around an old proverb: trust but verify. A good seller isn't lying to you, but it isn't their job to protect you either. They'll naturally highlight what's great and will likely remain quiet on what's broken. Verification is your job, along with your team of advisors: a business coach, a CPA, and an attorney working together. He explains why due diligence must be a written condition of your letter of intent or purchase agreement, giving you a defined period and the legal right to walk away. Never waive it, and never buy a business "as is" the way you might buy a used car. He also reframes the three possible outcomes of the due diligence period: 1) the deal is confirmed, 2) the price or terms get renegotiated, or 3) you walk away. He covers deal structure (why most small business deals are asset purchases and why that's safer for the buyer), and how to validate earnings using seller's discretionary earnings rather than revenue. Because you're not buying sales, you're buying verified profits and the assets that produce them. He shares the typical one-to-three multiple range and warns against buying an unprofitable or owner-dependent business, where you may simply be buying yourself a lower-paying job. Henry then explains the core investigation areas: legal (good standing, who actually has the right to sell, and the lease traps that can quietly kill a deal), financial (three to five years of statements, reconciling the real flow of cash, and treating unexplained errors as red flags), operational (systems ownership, owner and customer concentration, key-employee retention, and worker misclassification), plus market and risk factors like insurance, regulatory triggers, SBA loan conditions, and franchise approvals. His closing reminder says it best: "A no that you discover in due diligence is far cheaper than a yes you regret." Slow down, demand complete access, and the deal you clearly understand is the only deal worth doing. This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

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