Don’t Think Keeping Up With Current Events Can Help YOU As An Entrepreneur?  Think Again!
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On this  edition of “The Raja Show”, Raja examines a pair of stories that dominated the headlines this week, and assesses the lessons that entrepreneurs and business owners can take away from each, in order to help their business grow and prosper.

-Earlier this week, the Pittsburgh Steelers signed a quarterback to backup their starting QB, Ben Roethlisberger, in order to replace the previous backup, who had been injured a few days prior.   Normally in the National Football League, the collective reaction from a team’s fan base to a move like this would be a yawn….at best.

But what if the acquisition in question was one of the most talented, and polarizing, players in NFL history?

In the past eight years, Michael Vick’s frequent on-field brilliance has been overshadowed only by his controversial off-field behavior.   That controversy has made him a lightning rod for scorn throughout the league’s fanbase, and the teams that HAVE taken a chance on him have experienced a stigma of “guilt by association”, as the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Jets, and now, Steelers are finding out.

But like any good company that is faced with a pending decision that it KNOWS may turn off a portion of its customer base (and judging by recent media polls that clearly indicate that fans are not happy), these teams did the research, weighted the pros and cons, and proceeded accordingly.

But as the saying goes, perception is reality, and for a company that anticipates a public backlash, an effective public relations strategy is a MUST.   On this episode, Raja talks with Forbes Media Public Relations contributor Robert Wynne, one of the foremost public relations professionals in the country. The California-based PR expert will discuss what mindset a company must adopt when embarking on a decision it knows won’t be unilaterally welcome, and how to effectively plan for the backlash to come.

-One day later, the country bore witness….literally….to one of the most unbelievable and deplorable events in recent memory,the live-on-air murder of a Roanoke, VA news reporter and cameraman during an on-site interview.

With the subsequent reveal that the gunman was a disgruntled former reporter at that TV station, the issue of workplace violence came immediately to the forefront, as Federal Government statistics reveal that over 700 people, on average, are killed on the job every year in the U.S, in addition to the millions per year who are affected by workplace violence in some capacity..  While authorities and experts continue to dig in to the potential motives of the killer, many are also wondering what can be done to prevent this again.

On this episode, Raja talks with one such expert, clinical psychologist  Dr. Joel Dvoskin of the California-based Threat Assessment Group, a consulting firm, specializing in the prevention of workplace violence, that consults with Fortune 100 companies,throughout the U.S., including Sony, 3M, Kraft, Facebook, Visa, and many more.  Joel will discuss the causes and effects of workplace violence, as well as the signs that may be a prime indicator of a potential situation, the preventative measures that individuals in the organization, from the top-down, should take to prevent violence, and how to handle a situation in its aftermath.

On This Show, We Feature One of America’s Top Minds In Business, Economics and Policy (……and He’s Talking With Steve Forbes)

All kidding aside, Raja and the staff of “The Raja Show” are very excited to welcome Steve Forbes onto the show to discuss his life at the helm of one of, if not THE, most successful business magazine in America, Forbes Magazine., his thoughts on the current state of business and the economy in the U.S, as well as his impactful Presidential Campaigns in 1996 and 2000, and how all of these have shaped his enormous successes.

Despite being born into great wealth, by way of the family that bore the magazine’s name, Steve definitely did NOT coast on the names of his grandfather (B.C. Forbes, the magazine’s founder) and his father (longtime publisher Malcolm Forbes).   Going as far back as his college days, Steve demonstrated his own entrepreneurial initiative when he, along with two of his classmates at Princeton University, founded Business Today, , geared towards bridging the gap between college students and business executives.   47 years later, the magazine remains the largest student-run magazine in the world.

While at the helm of Forbes, not only did he expand the print magazine’s domain by launching internationally-specific versions of the magazine, as well as a high-end lifestyle version and a version geared towards women, but also jumped into the internet age with both feet, establishing Forbes.com as a leading online resource for business and economic news.    Forbes also launched the wildly popular suite of “Real Clear” sites devoted to news and commentary (RealClearPolitics, RealClearSports, RealClearMarkets, RealClearWorld)

Although Forbes’ business acumen is second to none, the great majority of Americans may recognize him from his Presidential Campaigns in 1996 and 2000,  While he failed to seize the Republican nomination in those campaigns from Bob Dole and George W. Bush, respectively, he didn’t go away quietly, winning primaries in Arizona and Delaware in 1996,and placing very well in other states as well.  His “flat tax” economic platform remains one of his signature contributions to American economic discourse.

Eats, Treats, and Sweets on the Street?……Neat! – A Look At the Burgeoning Mobile Food Industry, and What it Means For the “Traditional” Restaurant Business
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“What’s for dinner?”

It’s an inevitable question that many adults and college students, many of whom may not have the time, the means (or let’s face it, the ability) to cook for themselves, find themselves asking once late afternoon rolls around.

But it can also be one of the hardest questions to answer.    Do you go with the usual takeout or delivery options, the “been there/done that” of fast foods and chain restaurants, or that favorite local place of yours that may have started to run its course?

In recent years, aspiring entrepreneurs have set out on a journey to redefine the experience of “eating out”, simply by hitting the road….literally.

The mobile food industry has taken off in past years, thanks in large part to changing tastes in the marketplace, as well as a tacit collective desire to turn the nature of competition upside down, in order to work together to create a unique, grass roots experience for its customer base.  Many of these food trucks and carts, instead of butting heads to ensure that individual trucks attract as many customers as possible, will instead seek to complement each others’ strengths, as well as those of the traditional brick and mortar establishments.  Patrons of a coffee shop that doesn’t have its own kitchen can look no further than the truck that is parked 50 feet away for the food to go with their beverage.

These ventures, operating separately from the challenges and opportunities facing traditional restaurants, have attracted a new breed of entrepreneur.  These are folks for whom social media mastery and relationship building are MUSTS.   For the former, using Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter (among other social media sites) to get the word out about where you are right now, and where you will be tomorrow, as well as to foster the word-of-mouth “micro-viral” buzz to drive your customer base is essential.  And for the latter, many trucks, especially in the food realm, are required by the laws of the cities in which to set up shop to own their own (or associate with another) established brick-and-mortar location in which their food is to be stored.

But the goodwill and freedom that an entrepreneur earns in taking his or her venture to the streets can make the hurdle-jumping worth the while.

On this edition of “The Raja Show”, Raja examines the burgeoning mobile food industry in Western Pennsylvania, as he talks with a pair of entrepreneurs, James Rich of PGH Taco Truck, and Mike Baughman of Rolling Cones, about their respective ventures..  They’ll discuss how their ideas came to be, how they got their ideas (ahem) rolling, how they get the word out, the legal challenges and ordinances that stand in their way, and how they plan to grow their ventures.

It will no doubt be a discussion that will pique your entrepreneurial spirit, if not your appetite, and one that you won’t want to miss.

Plus, we’ll feature some of the recent highlights from The American Entrepreneur Expo, held in June of 2015 at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland.  This celebration of entrepreneurship featured a special look back at the life and legacy of “The American Entrepreneur” Ron Morris, including reflections from Ron’s radio listeners, students from his time as Founding Director of the Entrepreneurial Studies Program at Duquesne University, his wife, Karen Rak Morris, and his children, Jaxon and Lexi Morris.

11,000 Passing Yards…..60 Touchdowns……..2 Super Bowl Rings……1 Successful Entrepreneurial Venture:   A Look At the Evolution of Charlie Batch, From Locker Room To Boardroom
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Domestic Abuse

Performance Enhancing Drugs

“Deflategate”

Take a look at the headlines surrounding the NFL these days, and what you see may paint a pretty grim picture.   But what about the stories that DON’T make headlines?

What about a quarterback, born and raised in the Pittsburgh area, who dominates the college game at Central Michigan University, gets drafted by the Detroit Lions, leading them to their one of their rare playoff appearances during his tenure there, before returning home to his beloved Steelers and solidifying himself as a wildly popular, stabilizing presence for a team that enjoyed two Super Bowl victories in three tries, then calling it a career with 15 years under his belt?

What about a man who never lost sight of what was truly important in life, the need to help others, and the need to give back to the community, by establishing a foundation in his name, providing opportunities for kids to have a safe place to grow and develop their minds and bodies, earning the acclaim of the rest of the league, as well as his NFL peers, who awarded him the Byron “Whizzer” White NFL Man of the Year in 2013?

What about Charlie Batch?

On this edition of “The Raja Show”, Raja talks one-on-one with Charlie Batch, and while we may sneak ONE question about how he thinks his former team will do this season, the focus will be on Charlie’s transition from being a full-time quarterback to a full-time entrepreneur.  Since establishing his Best of the Batch Foundation in 1999, Charlie has taken a hands-on role (yes, even during the NFL season) in ensuring that his organization is a pillar in the community where dignity and respect are held above all else in the growth and development of the boys and girls that it serves.

His efforts, and the success of his venture, have not gone unnoticed.  In addition to the “Whizzer” White Award (as voted on by the NFL Players Association), he was recently hailed as one of the recipients of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards for 2015 in the Western Pennsylvania region, in the category of “Social Ventures”.