Last Update: Thursday August 28, 2008

Open Letter

Changing the Way We All See Business
1. National media's negative portrayal of business
2. Lift up more positive role models
3. Drive local ratings up
4. Reward the good; ignore the bad.

Changing the Way We Work Together
5. Lead the 24x7 convergence
6. Collaborate after every broadcast
7. Use this website as your own
8. Let no business fail for lack of help.

Changing Ourselves:   Everybody is a Producer.
9.    Provide even more value for members
10. Get involved with your PEG and PBS stations
11.   Open a local small business index.
12. Help Create sustainable businesses

More letters... Index.... Presentation's homepage ...

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We believe there are 400 such areas that can be mapped within the USA and a list of 400,000 businesses becomes the working list from which businesses are selected by one of the producing groups for PBS, PEG, and even VOA broadcasts.

Early letters discussed this filtering process.

To narrow our selection process to find the most inspirational stories in the world, even in uncommon and relatively unknown places. We are also introducing several new episodes based on the working title, "$0-to-$1-a-Billion in less than a lifetime."

Another major focus of our episodes will be the importance of the ethical and moral character of the people (and nations). We have done several episodes that focus on it. This episode provides an excellent foundation for many more.

Although we release a new episode each week, each station chooses which episode to air. There are often more than 40 different episodes airing in a given week! With so many years of weekly television behind us, there are stories from virtually every industry type and from every business size. We even did one business that was a multi-billion business still being run by its founder as a family business.

We are emerging with a database of the finest, strongest 400,000 small businesses in the USA and we are encouraging every one to work more closely with their CPA, essentially saying, "Ask them to teach you how to read your financials and to track your key critical ratios."

One of our episodes focused on succession planning. Most small business owners do not do it. Too many of us liquidate when we should be getting liquid. We should get on an inexpensive audit path so that we can more readily leverage the equity within our business through an M&A, ESOP, or DPO, or by selling slowly into the private equity capital markets.

We are always open to your ideas and suggestions.

Warmest regards,

Bruce Camber and Hattie Bryant

TO: Chambers of Commerce
FM: Bruce Camber and Hattie Bryant
RE: Objectives

Dear friends:

We are at an important juncture in our work. We have been working on episodes of the show since 1994. Hattie has interviewed well over 400 business owners. Each week an episode of the show goes to the satellite. Today, every one of them makes up the very basic infrastructure you see on the web.

We have listened carefully and learned a lot from our small business owners who have been on the show. Several episodes focused on people who were at the end of their business cycle. They were compelling.

Planning the last chapter is as important as planning the first chapter. So we are working with the stations, our national sponsors, and our many other business partners to develop a succession plan whereby the show not only lives on, but grows substantially beyond the two people who started it.

The Private Business Population. There are 25 million businesses in the USA (IRS, SBA and US Census data). There are as many as 40M people involved with a small business startups where that income is reported as personal.

The American Dream is every person's dream of starting, running and growing a business. Our working premise has been that 2% (or 500,000) of all small businesses would be worth our time to study.

The founders apply best practices every day; they are givers and not takers; they are role models for good citizenship.

Our potential viewers. We also believe that 10% of all business owners would be interested in watching these stories if they knew when and where to watch the show. That would be 2.5M people. We also believe 10% of all people who work in small businesses would want to watch such a show if they knew when it was broadcast. With over 50% of the 138M workforce within small business, there could be an additional 6M viewers of the show.

Of the unemployed and underemployed, potential investors within small business, and general population interested in their local small business, we believe there are another 6M viewers. All these numbers taken together would place this show among the most-watched television in America.

Results. So many people think that people pay to be on this show. Nobody has. Nobody. You have to be selected and that selection process is the beginning of a fundamental change in television -- rewarding the good and ignoring the bad.

There have been few television shows that encourage good citizenship. Most do not last long. But this show is about the American Dream. The subject is us. The supply is endless. The interest is abiding.

1. We encourage people to be their best. Most people on the show are very good. Not only are these people good citizens, they are making money and sharing it with the world. They are creating a legacy. They are answering some of the most basic questions about meaning of life and work.

2. The people who are profiled get even better. Once an episode airs, it sets a benchmark of expectations. They see themselves in a new way and even demand more of themselves. The community begins to see the deeper-inside qualities of these people and they often affirm that goodness. Positive reinforcement helps every one to stay on the straight and narrow.

Selection process. If every area of the country with a population of 100,000 businesses were to have a working list of 1000 business to be profiled, many businesses will attempt to get on that list. The list becomes an excellent reference of good businesses. If no one organization is responsible for the generation of that list, but has some influence on its unfoldment, no one organization can get into trouble with its membership regarding favoritism.

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