The comfort and challenges of running a family-owned business
Posted On March 6, 2020
There’s something special about a family-owned business. And in many of them, no one knows that better than the employees. “I think when you have a family-owned business, I think you get very close to employees, especially employees that have been around a really long time,” said Brent Barkin, president and CEO of Shoe Station, and our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston.” “Because of the longevity of being a family-owned business, you kind of grow up around these people. I wouldn’t say it’s trite that you starting thinking of them as family,” says Barkin,… Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, What's Working with Cam Marston
Scrap that top-down thinking: Listening to your employees is important
Posted On September 3, 2019
If one were to read a book by a man who built a scrap metal business that includes 77 locations and handles 3½ million tons of recycled metals a year, that book would be about recycling scrap metal. But the book that George Adams, owner of California-based SA Recycling, decided to write isn’t about recycling. It’s about leadership. And it contains some advice that’s important in any business, whether it’s recycling scrap metal, serving hamburgers or building skyscrapers. “A company is a shell until you put people in it,” says Adams, our guest on “What’s Working With Cam Marston” recently…. Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, What's Working with Cam Marston
How a family-owned coffee company is brewing for a new generation
Posted On August 26, 2019
It’s not often that I get to do a radio show with the owner of a company while I’m consuming his product. But in the latest episode of “What’s Working With Cam Marston,” I sipped on some coffee with chicory produced by Baton Rouge-based Community Coffee while talking with the company’s fourth-generation owner and president, Matt Saurage. He shares a brief history of the company with us (including the story behind the house drawn on the package), his goals in running a family business, and why, although its habits are different, the millennial generation is as bountiful a market for… Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, Generation Y / Millennials, What's Working with Cam Marston
The Gospel of Murder Point Oysters: How to build a boutique seafood business
Posted On August 20, 2019
Boutique businesses are all the rage. From craft beer and small batch bourbon to organic produce and specialty cheeses, small operations that reach and build followings among specific segments of the market are thriving in a number of industries. But seafood? How do you build a following for that? Our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working With Cam Marston” knows how. Lane Zirlott of Murder Point Oysters and his family got into the oyster business almost accidentally and have built a brand that is now being asked for by name. Zirlott comes from a successful family of shrimpers… Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, What's Working with Cam Marston, Work
Blind faith: When the business plan is answering a call from God
Posted On April 9, 2019
Marquis Forge is the CEO of Eleven86 Water, but he says that’s just a title. It’s God, he says, who runs the company, and God who started it in the first place. Forge, our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working With Cam Marston,” is a former walk-on football player at the University Alabama who had worked in the automotive industry for two decades. But he’d made a promise to always remember where he came from, the small town of Autaugaville just northwest of Montgomery. And God, he says, showed him the way to keep that promise. He didn’t… Read More
Categories: church, Entrepreneurship, What's Working with Cam Marston
One way to survive lean times: Keeping your operation lean
Posted On February 26, 2019
When the housing market crashed in 2008, Mobile builder Rogers & Willard found themselves in the same situation as pretty much every other construction company in America. After the crash, the company limped through 2009 on only a third of the revenue it had enjoyed in 2008. Times were lean. But fortunately for Rogers & Willard, “lean” is something with which it was already familiar. Our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” Rogers & Willard president Mike Rogers says the company survived those tough years by keeping its operation lean as a matter of principle,… Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, Real Estate, Recession Economy, What's Working with Cam Marston, Work
‘A passion project:’ Varsity Brands not only sells sports gear, but works to create school spirit
Posted On February 19, 2019
With iGen following in the digital footsteps of the millennial generation, having grown up with technology at their fingertips as a primary source of communication, many of us Generation X parents find ourselves desperately seeking outlets that will force them into face-to-face social interaction. And many of us are turning to team sports. Our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” is working to fuel – and equip – this phenomenon. Adam Blumenfeld is CEO of Dallas-based Varsity Brands, a major youth sports equipment distributor that does much more than sell bats and gloves. Varsity Brands… Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, iGen, Podcast, Product Design, What's Working with Cam Marston
Barley, yeast, water and hops: Starting a brewery from scratch in south Alabama
Posted On February 19, 2019
If we could pick any type of business to own, many of us might choose one that allows us to drink beer all day. Our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” did just that. Brian Kane acted on a love for craft beer to open Fairhope Brewery with a partner six years ago. Kane’s dirty little secret, however, is that he’s only ever brewed about four batches of beer himself. “My side is much more on the beer tasting side, if you will,” he says – along with the business and marketing end. So how… Read More
Categories: Blog, Entrepreneurship, What's Working with Cam Marston
Are tariffs a good idea? One economist’s take
Posted On December 26, 2018
We all want to see the economy grow and create jobs. A favored method in the current U.S. administration’s efforts to accomplish this has been to use or threaten to use tariffs against foreign countries to level the playing field for American businesses. We’ve been told they will save American jobs, but our guest in this episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” economist Peter Ricchiuti of Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business, begs to differ. “I think tariffs are insane,” he said. “They’re a prosperity killer. … I think these things sound good on a political stump, but they… Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, Recession Economy, What's Working with Cam Marston
Yes, you can make a living selling popsicles. But it’s not easy.
Posted On December 12, 2018
So you want to be an entrepreneur, but don’t have that big, original idea that no one else has done? What about taking something that’s been done and putting your own twist on it, or simply doing it better? That’s what Octavio and Shannon Arzola did. Some people may have thought our guests in this episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” were crazy when they decided to open a gourmet popsicle stand in Gulfport, Miss. But in updating an old favorite, the popsicle, using fresh, all-natural ingredients, and going all-in to make their vision a reality, the Arzolas’ business has… Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, What's Working with Cam Marston