Glinkonomics, life this week on WSB radio, Ilyce and four guests give advice on how to build your business in a tough economy. 

The government shutdown profoundly affected small, medium and large business owners, as well as the overall economy.

Today, knowing how to build your business is crucial because many owners either don’t have the passion or don’t take it seriously. Guest, Darlene Ziebell, President of Ziebell Enterprises said, “All businesses start from passion. As an owner you have to know what you’re selling, who your customers are and what value they’re going to get from you.”

One of the biggest mistakes small business owners make is getting free advice from people with irrelevant experience. Ziebell recommends learning how to build your business from a mentor who will give you the techniques and the mechanics on what to do next in order to help build your business.

Guest, John Kobs, CEO and co-founder of ApartmentList.com, said it’s extremely important for owners to understand that vision has to be revolutionary. Meaning, figure out how to keep resetting the bar and reinventing your business as time goes on to help it grow.

Aside from business owners, the economy also took a hard hit the past two weeks.

Guest, Jed Kolko, Chief Economist and Head of Analytics for Trulia said, “If we really had hit the debt ceiling, it probably would have created havoc in financial markets.”

So much of what happens in financial markets depends on fears and expectations of something happening. So even if it hasn’t happened yet, like hitting the debt ceiling, the fear that we might and the growing expectation that we could can be enough to raise interest rates, and cause other issues.

Economics is always a balance sheet. For every action there is a reaction. We tend to focus on the action and pay little attention to the reaction, said Jack Ablin, Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer of BMO Private Bank. And right now the action is productivity, technology, investment and growth. But the reaction should be ramping up the skill set of those displaced workers so they can add new value in the new productive economy.

WSB Radio’s Ilyce Glink Show – October 20, 2013

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Click here to learn more about guests, Darlene Ziebell, John Kobs, Jed Kolko and Jack Albin.