Podcast goes behind the SME scenes

While most of the interviewees on Profit. Power. Pursuit. are US-based, the podcast still offers valuable insights on how entrepreneurs and new small business owners made it.

Tara Gentile is the host of Profit. Power. Pursuit., a weekly US podcast which interviews successful entrepreneurs and small business owners. Courtesy Sean McMullin

The podcast Profit. Power. Pursuit. is like getting an hour-long coaching session from a new mentor every week for a small business owner – who, after all, need as much help and support as they can get.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of most nations’ economies: in the UAE, they account for 350,000 businesses, 86 per cent of the workforce and, by 2021, 70 per cent of GDP, according to Sultan Al Mansouri, the Minister of Economy.

Profit. Power. Pursuit. is a weekly US podcast which interviews successful entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Host Tara Gentile is the founder of CoCommercial, a digital community for small business entrepreneurs running since 2015. She is also a business instructor at CreativeLive, an online video education company and the producers of the show. She ran a Borders store for five years before setting up shop from home when she became a mother.

She is passionate about small businesses, particularly digital entities, and wants to help make them the “economic powerhouses of tomorrow”.

Profit. Power. Pursuit. is a simple one-on-one interview format that Ms Gentile says makes her "incredibly proud", as she is "flexing her expertise" to ask penetrating questions.

From tarot card readers to authors, writers, illustrators and textile designers, Profit. Power. Pursuit. goes through each company's revenue streams, how they build and manage teams and how they market and promote themselves.

In one episode, Josh Kaufman, author of The Personal MBA, recounts how he learnt to develop his own site from the bottom up and why he stopped one-on-one coaching to focus on writing.

Interviewees tend to come from a digital and creative background and to be connected to either Ms Gentile or to CreativeLive – which means they are US-based too. The show still has dollops of insights on offer in every interview. If you want to dip in, try some of the “from the archive” episodes.

q&a in pursuit of fine balance

Podcaster Tara Gentile gives Suzanne Locke more insights into Profit. Power. Pursuit:

What would make your ideal interviewee and why?

It’s not someone who wants to talk about their big idea or pet project. Instead, it’s a business owner who is willing to pull back the curtain and show us inside their company. Ideally, they will have innovated in a particular area: marketing, messaging, management.

Do you follow a particular format?

My goal is to ask the questions my listeners wouldn’t have even known to ask and, at the same time, make sure I always dig into the nitty gritty.

Why should a business choose to podcast?

Podcasting is the most intimate form of media. We take it with us wherever we go and the sound of the podcaster’s voice goes directly into our ears. Any business seeking a closer, more direct and more intimate relationship with their customer should consider podcasting.

Which of your three Ps is most important to the average entrepreneur?

Most people may think that entrepreneurs start businesses to get rich. But in my experience, that’s not true. Getting rich might be a nice side-effect, but it’s really the pursuit that gets businesses started. Entrepreneurs become obsessed with their missions or ideas, and that obsession turns into a business. The ones who can continue to balance that with the need for financial and structural stability are the ones who truly succeed.

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