The Catholic CEO Podcast: Recent Episodes
thecatholicceo
How to build a profitable business, build wealth, create great products and service, and act according to Catholic principles, featuring a 52-week case study.
Andrew Flattery speaks about simple ways that Catholics can invest and remain faithful. The topics range from real estate investing to purchasing individual stocks to bitcoin to gold to savings as alternatives to standard retirement investing.
Find Andrew on his podcast The Reformed Financial Advisor and on his website:
https://simplewealthkc.com/
Rick Dennis, owner of Conservative Retirement Solutions, LLC and Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO, talk about the faith and retirement investing. Rick specializes in annuities, which provide fully guaranteed income in retirement versus the stock market, where you could lose all your savings.
Rick also shares his conversion story from the Church of Christ to Catholicism.
Learn more about Rick Dennis and his business here:
https://www.safemoneyhouston.com/
https://safemoneyrick.com/
Henry interviews Bryan Mercier, a courageous disciple of Christ and his Church. As a college student, Christ transformed Bryan from angry, hateful, and depressed, to overflowing with love, joy, peace, and new life. His radical conversion revealed his life’s purpose — to ignite God’s love, light, and fire in people’s lives, and in the Church at large.
Find Catholic Truth here:
https://catholictruth.org/
https://www.instagram.com/catholictruthofficial/
https://www.facebook.com/CatholicTruth.org
Mark Wilson joins Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO, to talk about practical steps you can take to start your own business. Mark has studied the history of Catholic businesses from the middle ages on. He has solid insights into how Catholics can do this today with peace.
Read more on Mark's website: https://ecclesiasticalventures.com/
A faithful Catholic, Jason Poblete is a partner in the law firm Poblete Tamargo, LLP in Alexandria, VA. He formerly worked in government and uses that experience in his practice.
Jason has also started the Global Liberty Alliance (GLA), which empowers victims and supports local communities to confront systemic oppression and foster an international awareness of fundamental freedoms and equality before the law.
See Mr. Poblete's work here:
Global Liberty Alliance
Poblete Tamargo, LLP
Henry has a surprise interview- his daughter, Alexis Kutarna. She is a leader in the sacred music world and is a PhD. candidate. Her dissertation is on Pope Benedict XVI's thought on sacred music.
Alexis' website: chantschool.org
Tom Zordani is an expert on the biblical meaning of debt. His amazing story includes getting out of $125,000+ personal debt to now being debt free.
Tom is an author and speaker on debt in the Catholic community. Find
Tom's work here.
Contact Tom: tomzordani@faithfinances.org
Mark Wilson delves into the history of the creation of Catholic economies. He also shares a few models of how to do this now. The models are Ecclesiastical Ventures and Nicodemus Ventures.
Learn more: https://ecclesiasticalventures.com
Things are not quite right.
With things back to "normal," Catholics have relaxed.
We can't do that! Wake up!
Join our Catholic community in The Catholic Economy Project: https://www.thecatholiceconomy.com/
Get Henry's free business strategies emails for Catholics: https://www.thecatholicceo.com/
Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO, gives 5 quick points of interest for your business at the year end. With a recession looming, your business must be sharp and on point.
Get free business strategies from The Catholic CEO: https://www.thecatholicceo.com/
Create a Catholic Economy- buy from Catholic businesses. Join The Catholic Economy Project:
https://www.thecatholiceconomy.com/
Kate Frantz is the founder of Thy Olive Tree, and the author of My Catholic Keepsake.
Learn more about her faith journey, and her conversion to Catholicism. Learn how she became an expert at self publishing. Kate is now helping other Catholics self publish at the Fiat Self Publishing Academy.
Find Kate here:
https://www.thyolivetree.com
Fiat Self Publishing Academy:
https://www.thyolivetree.com/pages/fiat-self-publishing-academy
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Brian Carl is the Director of the Center for Thomistic Studies and an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at University of St. Thomas in Houston, TX.
Visit the Center for Thomistic Studies: https://www.stthom.edu/Academics/Centers_of_Excellence/Center_for_Thomistic_Studies/
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Jorge Argenti is an entrepreneur and an engineer based in Florida. Learn more about his faith journey, and his years of being a Catholic.
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO talks about the loneliness of being a CEO or business owner.
It's difficult to find someone to confide in regarding your business troubles. What do you do about it?
-It's often not possible to go to your spouse or other family members.
-It's important to find a mentor, if possible.
Ideas to help those who are lonely at the top:
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Set up a PAB (Personal Advisory Board)
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Join a peer group
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Don't overburden your family with business problems
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Start a business leaders group in your parish
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Book a social visit with your business friends
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Go to adoration
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Pray to your patron saint(s) and your guardian angel
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Read the lives of the saints and fathers of the Church
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Pray for solutions
https://www.thecatholiceconomy.com/
Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO gives concrete ways to support The Catholic Economy in the following categories:
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Prayer
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Fasting
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Almsgiving
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Buying
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Selling
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Advising
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Funding
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Hiring
Catholics are complicit in the current culture because we have been silent. We have let the evils of today slowly creep into popular culture. Now is the time to stand up.
We need to create a Catholic culture and economy. Join us in this endeavor.
The Catholic Economy Project website: https://www.thecatholiceconomy.com/
Adam Bartlett is the CEO and Founder of Source & Summit.
In this episode, he shares how traditional music has affected his Catholic faith journey all throughout the years.
Find Adam Bartlett here: https://www.sourceandsummit.com/
St. Joseph, pray for us!
John Cannon is the founder of SENT Ventures, a non-profit social venture that fuels Catholic entrepreneurs to meet their business, personal and spiritual goals with the support and accountability of a community.
Find John Cannon here:
https://sentventures.com/
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Mark Wilson is the founder of the Ecclesiastical Ventures program for homeschooled students and their families. He also founded Curvware, an innovation in cutlery.
In this episode, Mark talks about his faith journey and how God has helped him in his business.
Find Mark Wilson here:
https://ecclesiasticalventures.com/
https://www.curvware.com/
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Sister Claire is prioress of the Queen of Peace Monastery in British Columbia, Canada. They have 6 women who are aspiring to become contemplative nuns at this time.
Henry and Sr. Claire talk about her vocation, the work the sisters do and the business side of running a large property and organization.
You can find Queen of Peace Monastery here.
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Patricia Sison is the Founder of the organization “Centre for Marriage and Family” based in New Zealand.
The organization aims to strengthen marriage and provide support for families to become communities of life and love.
Patricia and Henry discussed:
-Patricia’s Catholic journey
-Moving to NZ and how the organization started
-Spearheading a prayer vigil in NZ due to a new law that was about to be passed that time (2013)
-What the Centre for Marriage and Family does
-The state of families today
-Patricia’s plans for the organization in the future
Find Patricia Sison here:
https://www.marriageandfamily.org.nz/
Joseph Valentic is the President of The Growth Advocate, a company that is passionate about helping people and their businesses grow up to its full potential.
In this episode, Joseph talks about his Catholic journey and how he started his own business in a Catholic way.
Some topics Joseph and Henry discuss:
- How Joseph started his Catholic Journey
- Joseph talks about his conversion and what was it like
- Process of starting and running his own business
- Where does Catholicism come in place to Joseph’s business
- The Catholic culture with Joseph’s clients
- After all these experiences, what advice would you give to a young startup company/ biz
- Young people coming from a culture of having business in their family
- “What are your clients asking you in terms of economic prospects?”
Find Joseph Valentic here: https://www.thegrowthadvocate.com/
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Brian Holdsworth is a Catholic speaker and writer trying to serve the mission of the Church through Digital Media.
He produces his own content that varies from Catholicism to current events, liturgy, art, tradition, and so much more.
Find Brian Holdsworth here:
https://www.brianholdsworth.ca/ https://www.youtube.com/c/BrianHoldsworth/featured
Some topics Brian and Henry discuss are:
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Brian's conversion and story
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Brian's process of becoming a public figure.
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How to attract youth to the Church through the truth and beauty of the liturgy.
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The economy in the near future.
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The Church in the near future.
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Deacon Darrell Wentworth is a general contractor and Catholic Deacon who is passionate about building Christian neighborhoods.
He builds physical structures as his job and builds the domestic Church within neighborhoods as his life work.
Find Deacon Darrell here:
www.ADC.cmax.tv
www.AwakeningTheDomesticChurch.com
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Mark Donnelly and Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO, speak of the faith, music, and business from a Catholic perspective.
Up until 2020, Mark was most recognized for his immensely popular appearances singing the national anthem at NHL games, and was commonly referred to as “Mr. O Canada”. As the Signature Performer of the Vancouver Canucks, Mark had won the hearts of hockey fans and all Canadians from coast to coast by holding the microphone to the crowd and encouraging them to sing along to his solid and unabashedly patriotic version of the Canadian national anthem.
While continuing to sing as a soloist, over the past two years, Mark has made composing and Gregorian Chant instruction the greater part of his musical activity. In 2021, he, his wife, Catherine, and the younger four of their nine children relocated to the United States to facilitate the promotion and work-shopping of his music. Two of his composition were recently recorded by the Benedictine Nuns in Gower, Missouri, on their tenth CD, Christ the King at Ephesus.
Mark is available for a variety of musical and corporate events, as well as choral workshops and symposia.
mark@vocalart.org
markemersondonnelly.com
VocalArt.ca (Youtube)
WonderWe.com/mdonnellymusic
Catholic Apologetics Institute of North America (CAINA): https://cainaweb.org/
CMAX.TV videos of several of CAINA's apologetics presentations: https://cmax.tv/partner/caina
Registration for May 23 Zoom presentation on The Science and Significance of Eucharistic Miracles: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMld-itrDopHNXAYH6l8kqswWxocCZi-JFz
Catholic Distance University's Online Apologetics Seminars: https://cdu.edu/online-seminars/
Steve Hemler's Trilogy of Apologetics Books: https://www.amazon.com/Reality-God-
Laymans-Scientific-Evidence/dp/1618907131/ https://www.amazon.com/Search-No-More-Truth-
Happiness/dp/1505112745/ https://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Stories-Faith-Hope-Suffering/dp/1505118549/
For the past 10+ years, Steve Hemler has been president of CAINA (Catholic Apologetics Institute of North America) The have powerpoint and video based apologetics topics, such as, how do you know God exists, how do you know Jesus is the Son of God, etc. Young people especially need answers to these questions.
Get your free ticket to the Possibility Mom Business Summit April 29-May 1, 2022
Get your ticket to The Catholic Economy Project work session, Building the Catholic Economy: Session One on May 3, 2022.
Henry interviews Mario Kranjac, Wall Street lawyer, mayor, and venture capitalist about the faith, law, government, politics, education, and more.
0:34 Mario is an attorney- transactional business law; general partner in venture capital fund in the life sciences; mayor of Englewood Cliffs, NJ
3:24 What it’s like to be a Catholic lawyer in NYC
-people know he is Catholic and he knows people of other faiths and they get along and honor/respect each other’s faith
-there are Catholic lawyer groups in New York
-works with people with values, no matter their religion- will turn people down if they are not the right fit
7:25- Venture capital in life sciences
-technologies that enable better outcomes in patient care and therapy
11:20 Political world
-what caused him to run for mayor- it was a dare
-his family came from what is now Croatia, but was Yugoslavia then
-he complained that there was a father-son mayors for 42 years in the town where they generated lots of wealth for themselves and their friends– and he was dared to run
-he self-imposed a 2-term limit
-he was hoping other mayors/politicians in NJ would follow suit, but didn’t
-believes that new ideas should be infused regularly with new politicians
-any pressures to do things against the faith
-Mario starts meetings reminding people how blessed they are to live where they do
-he is consistent in following his faith in all he does
-19:30 he believes that being a husband and father are more important than all his “jobs”
-Mario has two sons who are lawyers in NY
22:20- Mario talks about his faith
-his parents attended Mass every Sunday, went to Catholic elementary, high school, university and law school
-grew up as an altar boy
-is a Knight of Malta- the oldest chivalric and philanthropic order in the world
-always took his kids to Mass when on vacation, and got some pushback from them at times
27:26- a few years ago Mario was in China with Newt Gingrich, who recently converted to Catholicism- they sat in the front pew at Mass
29:35- is there a woke culture pressure in his line of work- there are people trying to cancel Mario every day
-The pendulum has swung so far to the left that the culture is about separating people from God, separating husbands from wives, separating parents from children
-Mario believes that the pendulum is starting to swing back, so he sees hope
31:37- the one good thing that came out of COVID is parents seeing what is being taught to their children- created a firestorm
36:30- how can Catholics band together in the light of the current culture
-Mass media is anti-Catholic, so ours is a counter-culture
-Mario believes that the media is no longer reporting, but are lobbyists
-he thinks we need to band together as The Catholic Economy Project is doing
39:16- our universities have been taken over and free thought is not allowed
40:37- what advice would Mario give to Catholic families trying to raise kids these days:
-never compromise on your values
-pay close attention to your children’s classmates and friends and their families
42:27- people are not allowed to participate in government because they can’t step away from their jobs to render duty to their community and then go back to work
44:40- is starting a business a path to independence from the culture
-Mario is willing to help people to start their own businesses
-problem is when those companies become very big is that the government will put pressure on them
-the “administrative state” will outlast anyone running for political office and they will do everything possible to get an “unapproved” agenda exercised
52:00- his elementary school graduation and his wedding Mass were significant moments in his faith life
53:00- his firm is at 30 Wall Street 201-615-6106
Mario's venture fund is Dynamic Capital: www.dynamicfunds.com
Contact Jeff about the free security audit: jeff@halocybersecurity.com
-this is available for families and small businesses
-it is available until April 17, 2022
-Just mention that you saw Jeff on The Catholic CEO podcast
1:30 Jeff speaks about his faith journey
2:46 The difference between Catholic and public school- Jeff grew up in both
10:20 Jeff speaks of the community of Catholics and of filipinos
15:00 Everyone was "family" in the filipino community
16:15 Jeff is homeschooling his kids and relies on families with kids slightly older than his kids for advice and has adapted throughout the years
23:52 Cathedral High School in Houston is a new high school with a classical curriculum- it will help build a more Catholic culture
26:00 Jeff speaks about his work in cybersecurity- how he got into it and how it helps him live his vocation
33:20 There are large corporations that are pushing agendas that have a time box of 2030
-Jeff feels like he can't live out his faith at work.
-having a home business or side hustle can help alleviate it
37:45 Are we in danger of surveillance from big tech, as a cyber security expert? Deep fake is a technology that can be used to put words into someone's mouth
- it is being used in the war in Ukraine.
38:55 Fact checkers can be used to control thoughts. Tech has gone from 1984 to Brave New World
40:40 How the threat works- what social media is doing is creating a digital voodoo doll of you through the content you provide to hack the dopamine circuit in your brain
-FB was created to interact with the dopamine circuit in our brains through the feedback loop of "likes"
-must be aware of what these tools are doing to us in the feedback loop
43:15 Context switching
- thousands of context switches in minutes in social media, which has never happened before
46:10 How does a Catholic family protect it's children- and adults?
- Do an audit of the information you have out there
-consider using protonmail or something like it that is encrypted -there is no free product, if it's free, you are the product
- Install Covenant Eyes on all devices in the home so you can see what your kids are watching
-if they go onto any device and use a platform that has an algorithm, that platform will do all it can to keep your child hooked, even if there's a "kid mode" on it
-be vigilant because only one mistake can be almost irreversible
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Multi-factor authentication is a must
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Hardware solutions like the Wise phone that provide some useful things
-be able to own what goes into our minds, the custody of the eyes
-custody of the eyes is not just about what you are doing on the platform but it's that the platform is reading us - slowly trying to nudge us to use the platform more and more -the more we get these dopamine feedbacks, the more we are susceptible to believing new things
- the algorithms are based on where you live -most optimistic side of these algorithms is that they are trying to get us to think like a thousand other people so they can create a marketing avatar so we will buy from ads on the platform- it's creating a profile, not discovering one
Conclusion of the case study. The business has approximately doubled in size in the last year, in-house manufacturing will soon be the majority of the business, and the successors are preparing to take over.
Read the blog post.
How investment will work in the Catholic economy:
The reason to invest in Catholic businesses is, simply, to build more Catholic businesses. The end result is to support the Catholic family and allow us to engage the culture more on our terms. This can reduce the pressure on those employed in the corporate sector.
There are 3 types of support: grants, loans, and equity
- Grants. Grants should be available to worthy Catholic start-ups and other businesses. People at the parish level, or wider, can contribute to a pool of funds that would be distributed to worthy businesses who had advisors.
Money could be granted with certain parameters and due diligence. Even if it’s a fairly small amount, like $10,000, it would help Catholic businesses survive and thrive. The good ideas would get funded while the poor ideas or the ideas that need more thought, would not.
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Loans. We could have a pool of funds for loans at the local (parish) level or larger (diocesan/city) level available. An example of this is old immigrant parishes had credit unions where they gave micro-loans so other immigrants had some working capital to get going. Why not replicate this model?
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Equity. It would include angel investors and venture capitalists. We should have a pool of funds where investors would purchase equity in Catholic businesses. This can happen at the parish level.
There can also be a pool of several people who are willing to invest. This would be a willingness to lose their money, because there’s a risk with investing. But it can benefit Catholics without means to start businesses
These investors could have non voting shares, voting shares, seats on boards, etc.
How would we do this? Let's focus on 3 types of people: the entrepreneur, the investor, and the advisor.
- The entrepreneur. This is a person who wants to start a business, expand, or improve a business. He would need a place to run the business. If it’s a brick and mortar business, it would need investing or private capital to acquire the building.
Some businesses only need a co working space, which is just internet and a desk to work. Can this be done in a parish building? There might be tax implications for this, so it will need to be explored as a possibility. But it should not be a detriment to the parish.
The entrepreneur will need ideas. How do we get ideas and input? We would bring in speakers and experts who can give advice. Advisors who have experience running businesses can help avoid common mistakes businesses make in the early stages.
Part of the process of the entrepreneur is identifying people who have entrepreneurial talent within the parish, and helping them.
- The investor. Angel investors come in right after the founder uses their own finances to start up Investors don’t have to be professional investors.
Investors want deal flow, which is pre-screened deals presented to them. This process would require mentoring and coaching. It could be groups and boards of advisors within the parish, diocese, or city. The advisors would have a screening checklist for the investors. Then the investors could give grants, loans, and invest for equity.
- The advisor. People within the parish/diocese would sit on advisory boards. They would help people who want to start a business with all the problems that someone would encounter as a start-up. Also, existing businesses could get help from the advisory board.
These models already exist, so they can be done on the parish level and diocesan/city level. Why not do this to help Catholics run businesses?
Do you want to help us form a Catholic Economy? We are not just talking about this. We are doing something about it. Find out on The Catholic Economy Project website.
The penultimate week in the case study where the client gives some thoughts on mentoring, growth, and the future of the business. The Catholic CEO: small business mentor.
Read the blog post.
Henry interviews Grant Crowell, owner of The Urban Foresters in Houston, TX. Grant's company is a tree service that is quite labor intensive. It's not an easy business to run because of the number of people needed, but Grant sees it as a way to help more people strive for virtue while working hard.
Grant speaks of his faith journey from being a cradle Catholic to a crisis of faith in college to St. Josemaria Escriva’s “The Way” leading him to start his business.
Grant has a degree in forestry. Foresters manage forests in rural areas. They manage trees to be harvested mainly for the paper industry. It’s like long-term farming.
He began tree trimming with a company when he was not sure what to do, and because he had a forestry degree. He worked there for 5 years, then the company sold out to a private equity firm. He didn’t like the new company and the buy-out of the company. So he started soul-searching when this happened because the new company wanted him to sign a non-compete and other problems he had with the new company. In 2010, he got married, started his business, and started his family.
He considers the Catholic component of his business as focusing on the attainment of human virtue. They try to help his employees to be more courageous, prudent, temperate, and just- the cardinal virtues.
The reason the company exists is to make the people who work for them holy. In order for them to pursue holiness, they need to make a profit and return to shareholders so they stay in business.
Every member of the leadership team deeply believes in the mission, that through our ordinary lives we demonstrate our faith. His leadership team members are offering their lives for their co-workers. This vision goes hand-in-hand with good business practices.
Grant believes that work is the means and the environment by which you practice your highest ideal.
His faith and his family have given him the strength to build this business. He has a lot of hard workers in his family lineage. Finding the spirituality of Opus Dei and bringing this spirituality into his daily life is foundational in his business ventures.
The Urban Foresters are interested in commercial and residential tree service in the Houston area and commercial projects in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. They will need people- operations, logistical, fleet, workers, marketing, sales, business development. People are what they need most- people who want to grow in virtue and holiness.
Visit The Urban Foresters website
Today the client and I discussed a singular moment that only happens about once a year – that special moment of high frustration where you just want to pack it all in and sell the whole thing to someone “this afternoon”!
I discuss with my client the 4 methods of valuation of a business. It is good to know the value of your business when it's time to sell.
Henry interviews Paul Mladjenovic, who was born in communist Yugoslavia, in what is now Croatia. His experiences as a very young boy in a communist country formed him into the pro-capitalist he is today.
Paul is also a devout Catholic, so he incorporates his faith into his work life. He wrote "Stock Investing for Dummies," and several other titles dealing with investing for the Dummies series. He was a certified financial planner for 30 years. He has given over 2500 seminars throughout the years, but he does them mostly online now.
Near the end of the interview, Henry asked Paul what the average Catholic (or anyone) should do with their money in the next 5 years. Paul had three points:
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Assess your current situation and convert items you have that you don't use into cash. In other words, declutter your home. Then invest that money. Sell things that are depreciating in value and invest them into things that are appreciating in value.
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Assess the things that you love to do and are skilled at. Turn that into a side hustle, like a course, coaching, or tutoring.
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Loot at your portfolio and see if it makes sense. Some easy tweaks could make your portfolio more safe in unknown times. Look to convert more risky investments into stocks that are supplying human need and paying a dividend. Stocks with dividends tend to recover faster than other stocks because when they decrease in value, the dividend increases to make it more attractive to investors.
Visit Paul's website.
A business is like a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces change shape and color and where the table on which the puzzle sits rotates around the room.
Read the blog post.
Tony Warren is a true Catholic intellectual. He is an inventor and businessman who survived a plane crash that began his journey back to the faith.
His background as a ski racer brought him to the Latin Mass. After practicing the Catholic faith for a time, he met the priest in a ski shop on Christmas Eve. This priest, Fr. Sumich, is a great skier and was the pastor of the FSSP parish in Calgary, Alberta, where Tony lived at the time. Love for skiing and faith brought Tony deeper into Catholicism. He was able to ask Fr. Sumich about Catholic things on the chair lift and answered them beautifully, which brought him to a greater faith.
Henry and Tony also speak about logic, German philosophers, French post-modernism, and how the people educated in these schools run many institutions now. Tony believes that truth will eventually win over these falsehoods, but there is much work to do and faithful Catholics must band together to fight these false ideologies.
Tony speaks about homeschooling and universities. He had difficulties in his university studies because of his learning disorder and the poor training he had in primary and high school.
What does the Catholic family do today?
Tony's advice: be Catholic, parents must have a good toolkit to teach their children. We need to use our power as Catholics as a big group to affect change where we teach critical thinking, not critical theory. The way to fix teaching is to fix teachers unions and the power they have over the curriculum. Teach your children how to live their faith, forgive each other, love each other, love God. When you are interacting with the world, be honest, learn to think, don’t be too judgmental.
We’ve had positive feedback from people on the idea of a Catholic economy. Most of this has come from Henry’s podcast appearances on The Catholic Gentleman, The Catholic Canuck, and LifeSite New TV, and a LifeSite News article.
One objection I have heard is, why would we want to start a Catholic economy when we should be trying to change the economy, not start a parallel economy?
We believe that we should be pushing for development of a Catholic economy, not to create a parallel economy, but to influence the culture and to make positive change.
The Catholic economy can be accomplished in the family, in the parish, and in the wider community.
Arguments for creating a Catholic economy: Even if one argues that there's a parallel economy that we're trying to create, what's wrong with that?
Let's take a look at some examples:
- The Catholic church. As, you know, invented the university system. The university education system is an actual invention of the Catholic church.
- The hospital system, the Catholic church invented the hospital system where we care for people in a facility that's centralized, and that has expertise.
- The Catholic church invented the parochial school system where you provide. Religious education and secular education.
And so the point is it's possible to influence the culture.
Some things in the Catholic economy that we could actually do. * Capital: we could lend money to each other or invest in each other's businesses or give grants to each other. What's wrong with creating this in our parish? * Banking: Will we create a parallel banking structure? Maybe Catholics will band together and form an actual bank and conduct lending practices in the normal way. * Marketing: We're all very aware of how exploitative the marketing system is. We exploited people. We exploited images. We cause people to be manipulated. * Sell to Catholics: I'm not suggesting that we should only sell to Catholics.No, but if we, in groups, marketed our efforts as Catholic businesses, holding to a certain standard of better production than average, better quality services than average, etc.. Couldn't we then create some value? And of course, if we sell to other customers who are not Catholic, we could be selling products as a Catholic business that behaves in a Catholic manner. We would have a seal of approval of some kind of a code between and among Catholic business owners that we would sell. And in order to be able to sell in this group, we would have to achieve certain standards and hold to certain standards. * Business principles: If we are Catholic owners of businesses, but the businesses only behave according to certain secular standards, what's the point of that. But we need Catholic standards of running Catholic businesses where we're not afraid to follow ethical and moral principles. * Hiring: Would we hire only Catholics? Well, not necessarily, although that would be a good place to start, because if we hired Catholics, we would then be supporting fellow Catholics who need income and who need jobs. * Buying and selling groups: We could really make significant progress if we got together, even at the parish, family, or regional level and made our purchases together. * Advising: We don't advise each other well enough. When people start a business, they may get advice from their professional service providers, like their lawyers, their accountants, their attorneys, their bankers, their tax people, etc. But what's wrong with having the accumulated body of wisdom in your parish, sitting down once a month and listening to somebody who's starting a business and advising them costs nothing except time?
The Catholic economy does not have to be isolationist. It does have to be big enough to influence the culture, to change laws, to change attitudes, to push back against the culture. But if we did so we could influence the economic system directly. We could become an economic powerhouse and change the economic system.
In the future, I will talk about how we run our businesses successfully, according to worldly standards, but also the ethical and moral principles of the Church. Much of it will revolve around us being able to analyze in very great detail the costs of our financial transactions with spreadsheets, where we can do forecasting and simulations to the greatest level of detail, because that's how we're going to figure out whether we can add a cost to our structure such as an additional benefit or some additional days off to reflect feast days and family events.
We will still make money, build wealth, create opportunities for employment, for capital, for buying, for selling, for advising, for investing, but using our faith as a guide.
If that's a parallel economy, I'm all for it. We need Catholic businesses which are visibly Catholic and visibly different from the rest of the world. It can be done.
You can be Catholic and successful in business, believe it.
Henry interviews Jonathan Conrad, founder of The Catholic Woodworker. They speak on many topics, including struggles in the faith, spiritual warfare, building and running a Catholic business, and much more.
See the ministry and products at The Catholic Woodworker website
4 ways to transition your family to a Catholic economy The point of these four ideas is to create a Catholic economy where Catholic families can operate as independently as possible from the culture.
In a Catholic economy, Catholics would operate as an economic block and cause some change in the culture. These four ideas for actually sequential steps that you could take inside of your family to transition from the old economy, which is kind of a wage economy where one of the parents or both of the parents are out working in corporate culture. They would then move to a traditional Catholic family model that is more poised for the way the world is increasingly looking.
If you're working in the corporate world, you understand that the culture is gradually pressing in and it's causing inconvenience and concern for Catholics. At some point, we're going to see that it will become impossible to remain Catholic and stay in your job. You're going to have to choose.
Step 1: create an entrepreneurial spirit in the home Just like we create a prayerful spirit. We're all trying to be holy as heads of families, mothers, and fathers. We're trying to get our children, our spouse, and ourselves to heaven. That's the ultimate goal.
- talk about business- create a positive atmosphere to discuss what's going on in business.
- talk about the ethics, the morals, the principles of certain business activities that go on. Do it at the dinner table.
- study business at home. We could actually assign children. Let's say young children, teenagers study a particular business.
- have your kids join investment clubs at an early age under the guidance of somebody that knows what they're talking about. Hopefully someone at the parish, rather than out in the secular community where you can introduce Catholic values and kind of sustain the Catholic principles while teaching investment principles.
- If someone has an aptitude in the family, it doesn't hurt to have them develop the actual expertise, in a course of study
- visit businesses
Step 2: train your children to be entrepreneurs through work * for a a teenager, the classical method has always been snow shoveling, lawn cutting, yard maintenance, gutter cleaning, window cleaning, etc. * have them start their own business and they actually take their skill and apply it. They can even hire their colleagues, their friends, and they make a little bit of money and they can pay their way through a university.
Step 3: start your own business * schools emphasize getting a job. They're going to train your children to be participants in the wage economy in a certain sense. * I'm not against that principle, but if we're truly wanting to be Catholics independent of the culture and moving towards a new Catholic economy, we're going to want to avoid training for a job and starting our own businesses.
Step 4: start a multi-generational business * This creates permanent independence from the culture. It is just like families did historically where generations upon generations worked on the farm on the land or in a trade. * I'm not saying return to primitive approaches. Use the technology, use all of the conveniences that have been developed. * these businesses should respond to times, respond to changing conditions, be smart, pivot properly, use all the conveniences and the modern tools
Join us in creating a Catholic economy.
Topic covered in this mentoring session:
- Packaging issue
- Route driver situation is getting settled
- How my client is handling the current economic situation.
Read the blog post.
What do we do at the parish and community level to build a Catholic economy?
I speak about 5 different areas to accomplish this:
- How we should buy from Catholics and Catholic-owned businesses
- How we should sell to Catholics and Catholic-owned businesses.
- How we should employ Catholics- as employees, contractors, and suppliers
- How we should invest in Catholic businesses
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Providing business advice so more people can build businesses
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Buy from Catholics
-We can create Catholic networks.
-Create buying groups, such as painting, landscaping, HVAC, etc. among parishioners.
-Set up specific industry groups within the parish or wider Catholic community.
-ex: all the Catholic plumbers in an area would need to buy all their supplies.
-they would work together to get a better deal on supplies
-Buying from Catholics doesn’t require extra money because these are products or services you would use anyway.
-It would be a resource for parishioners to buy from other parishioners, or from Catholic businesses from other local parishes.
-Maybe this could be a business for a parishioner where that business buys for the group.
- Sell as Catholics
-Band together all the Catholic businesses and create a marketing club.
-They would go to trade shows together, do social media together, etc.
-Identify Catholic businesses and set up a set of standards so that when we are selling, we have a gold seal, for instance.
-The seal will then attract buyers and customers.
-Most Catholic businesses are doing marketing on their own, or doing no marketing.
-They can pool together the products and services, and sell them jointly with sophisticated marketing, good social media, etc.
-This would get a powerful message across that we have quality products and services to sell, and we pool our resources to do this.
-We could then create growth, have new business start-ups, etc.
- Employment
-Some people object to employing Catholics because they see it as affirmative action, but it’s not. It is about looking out for fellow believers.
-The idea is to pay charitable and just attention to our fellow Catholics.
-We ought to create Catholic job boards, worded carefully so they don’t exclude others, but it can be created in a sophisticated way to attract Catholic candidates. But we still hire the best overall candidate.
-We should have networks of Catholic candidates. Start in the parish, then work outward.
-This could end up being a powerful employment network
-It already goes on in other communities, informally.
-It would still need to be merit-based with high quality, professional employees.
-We could create a lower unemployment rate than the larger society.
-We could influence wages, moving closer to a just wage or living wage for employees.
-We could create employment stability and family-friendly workplaces.
- Investing in Catholic businesses
-Catholics have varying degrees of funds to invest, so we could set up a pool of capital in a parish where it would invest in Catholic-owned businesses.
-Start-ups need advisory boards.
-What if every parish had a select group of business advisors who were experienced business people who could advise start-ups and existing businesses?
-People could then bring their problems to the board.
-A good way to set it up would be to survey/scout the parish for 5-10 people who could be an advisory board.
-On a larger scale, what if 10 Catholic parishes got together and they create an accelerator or incubator?
-Here Catholic business owners or start-ups would get some training, mentoring, advice, speakers, courses, etc.
-Another idea is to create a co-working space at the parish physical plant where they can have access to advisors. Maybe if a school closed it could be there.
- Advising
-Peer advisory groups are very successful in the secular business world. Leaders of businesses come together, usually non competing businesses, and they improve each other’s performance through facilitated monthly group meetings.
-A parish could have a SWAT team that problem-solves for Catholic businesses.
-Or there could be special teams that identify opportunities in the parish or local community.
-A parish could have an entrepreneurial team who looked out for promising young people who may be good entrepreneurs.
-They would also look for good businesses that could be better if they solved this or that problem in the community.
-Find people to solve problems at your parish.
-One example would be a family business with no successor in place. The team could find someone to take over and train the new owner in running a business.
Join us in creating a Catholic economy.
In today’s work session I saw that the client has used his road trips (due to the resignation of a route driver and the corresponding challenge in finding new employees in a timely fashion) to think back about his dual strategy of investing in “in-house manufacturing” vs. investing in “service expansion through a second location”. He is putting his business model into practice.
Read the blog post.
Michelle Dunne is a Catholic Strengths Coach. She helps people know themselves- the way God created them- and how to best live your vocation through knowing how God created you. She can help you discover what you ought to do with your strengths.
Contact Michelle:
Book and appointment with Michelle
Principles of a Catholic Economy: 1. Catholics can freely evangelize the world without repercussions from woke culture in an ideal state of affairs of a Catholic Economy. The ability to freely evangelize would be a hallmark of a Catholic economy. 2. The Catholic economy is where the family is supported. This means that the father and mother can fulfill their roles in the procreative and unitive aspects of their marriage, and educate their children, to get everyone to heaven. The Catholic economy would especially help those families that are not intact because they will need more help from the outside. 3. Jobs and training are available to fellow Catholics. If you want to work for an overtly Catholic-run business, you could find such a company and they would exist. There would be a job board for such businesses. You can find fulfilling work in a business run in a Catholic manner. 4. Business start-up advice and mentoring would be available. There would be a network of advisors. The Catholic CEO is part of it. 5. Financing and capital are available. This isn’t to replace the banking system, but there are Catholics who have significant capital to invest. Even if there was a small start-up micro-loan available locally, such as at the parish level, it would be beneficial to a Catholic economy. Many groups have done this in the past. People gather together through common interests, common belief, common origin, common background, common work, etc. They usually produce good economic results banding together.
How would it work? 1. Catholics would buy from each other. If you’re going to follow Catholic principles, you could help others doing the same by possibly paying more for their products or services. If we could buy from each other, we would be a greater economic powerhouse. We could then get better deals. If we went to our suppliers en masse, we could get better deals from them. 2. Catholics could sell to each other. Other Catholics would pay attention to Catholic-owned businesses. Customers could distinguish a Catholic business from others. These businesses would have clear marketing and other such things to tell who they are. 3. Treat employees better than the minimum requirement. We could get the same productivity and pay a living wage. Catholic businesses could pay more than the market, which would be a step toward the ideal of a living wage where one breadwinner would make enough to support the family. 4. Display your Catholicism in your business, even if you serve the public. Let the world know you are a Catholic-owned business.
Who will start to pay attention if we have a Catholic economy? 1. Legislators. We could become influential in the sphere of politics with economic power. 2. Corporate marketers. If Catholic consumers would be coordinated in our efforts to buy from wholesome companies, perhaps the corporate marketers would change. If we had principles and economic power, we could change the face of corporate marketing in our world. 3. Financial and banking system. They do not currently pay attention to Catholics. They pay attention to women, small business owners, minorities, and other categories. They have a very detailed segmentation process from which they try to attract customers. Angel investors, private equity, etc., would start to pay attention if a group of Catholics came to them as a group. 4. Suppliers. If we asked our suppliers to supply products with fair trade principles, we could influence better treatment of workers and others make the workday better for people around the world. 5. Families. If Catholics were an economic powerhouse, our families would benefit. Maybe the father would not need to leave the home for 10-12 hours a day but would have a business in the home. It would benefit the children to see their father at meal times and see him work. Children would see the toil, effort, and problem-solving of a man at his work.
What is the next move? 1. Start businesses. Consider leaving the corporate world. Move to a part-time job or get a side gig while starting your own business. If you do the calculations, you could see how little income needed to be replaced. 2. Start locally. This is the doctrine of subsidiarity. Start a pool of capital in your parish. Start a co-op at your parish. 3. Start now. Think carefully, pray, be sure your life is balanced, but why wait? If you are called to start a business, why continue to work in the corporate world that is inimical to the Catholic faith in many ways. 4. Start small business groups, like our St. Joseph forum where we solve business problems in real time. There are many other models that would work also. If we start a Catholic economy, we can fight back. We don’t need to be negative and despairing. We can change the culture through our work.
Join us in creating a Catholic economy.
The client loses a salesman/delivery driver. As is normal with the small business owner, the boss is the next man up.
Instead of complaining about someone quitting without notice, the client uses this time to connect with customers on the route and uses the windshield time to think about the business on several levels.
Read the blog post.
Jesse Weiler is the host of The Liturgy Guys podcast and director of The Liturgical Institute. In this interview, Henry and Jesse discuss a variety of business issues that Jesse has encountered in his work life, including working within the structures of the Catholic Church.
Jesse specializes in communications and marketing. His projects include creating the online courses for The Liturgical Institute and starting The Liturgy Guys podcast.
Learn more about The Liturgical Institute.
The Catholic CEO recently held a workshop for people who have lost their jobs, or may soon lose their jobs, for conscience reasons.
The workshop had 3 tracks.
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Stay and Fight -The speaker was John Carpay, president and founder of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
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John gave practical steps people can take to fight for your conscience rights in the workplace.
- He also gave some hope to the participants through his wisdom and experience in these matters.
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Visit the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms website.
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Find a New Job
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Speakers were Donna Crombie, coach, mentor, and career counsellor; and Michelle Dunne, Catholic strengths coach.
- Donna gave insight into how to tap into the hidden job market, where most of the jobs are available. She also gave tips on interviewing and resume building. -
- Get help from Donna:
- Michelle helped people to transition into a new job by offering a way to help people know their strengths and weaknesses.
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Get help from Michelle
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Start Your Own Business
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Speakers were Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO, and Joseph Mastrangelo, owner and roaster at Zelie Beans Coffee.
- Henry gave some practical steps to start your own business.
- Joseph shared his journey as a Catholic business owner who does not sell a Catholic product. He also shared how he lost his job amidst starting his coffee roasting business.
- Visit Zelie Beans Coffee
Join us in creating a Catholic economy.
St. Joseph, pray for us!
At this meeting, which took place just before Christmas I asked the client two questions:
- What were the main 2021 highlights in your business?
- What will be your main goals and priorities in 2022?
Read the blog post.
Who is Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO?
In this podcast:
A few principles to inform your business decisions and some typical tests that businesses use, with a Catholic focus.
Catholic Business Principle 1: Truth vs. Profit
Catholic business owners need to think about the truth of every word and action of the business. This is not relativism, or "my truth," but it is THE truth. Your words and actions in business must be true. A Catholic business owner, or employee, can not sacrifice truth for profit. By profit, we mean wealth, competitive advantage, pricing, profit, etc.
Catholic Business Principle 2: Integrity vs. Profit Integrity is related to truth, but slightly different. It is that every word and action of the business are consistent with each other. How you make, design, market, guarantee your product or service must be reliable, honest, and stable. People, customers, and employees alike, must be able to count on you doing what you say you will do. It is Christlike- to be the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow- in business.
The above principles govern the pro tips. These tips assume that you have some very basic business knowledge and some acquaintance with Catholic teachings.
Catholic Pro Tip 1: A Cost-Benefit Analysis
Every decision you make in business requires a cost-benefit analysis. As a Catholic business owner, you make a cost-benefit analysis between heaven and hell in your business decisions. Or you can think about it as choosing between truth and lies. Will you be tempted to make claims that are not 100% true regarding your products? A typical cost-benefit analysis produces a number, such as 60/40. If it's 60% in my favor and 40% not, I will do it because the 60% benefit outweighs the 40% cost. A Catholic cost-benefit analysis will claim that it must be 100/0 regarding truth vs lies and heaven vs hell. There is no compromise when making business decisions that may break commandments.
Catholic Pro Tip 2: The Sanity Test
This is a test businesses use regularly. It's very simple- if an idea makes no sense, don't do it. The Catholic sanity test is also simple- if Our Lord would not respect the decision, don't do it. We are Catholic in our business as well as on Sundays.
Catholic Pro Tip 3: The Legal Test
The business decision must be legal in my territory, state, country, municipality, or I can't do it. This is the due diligence businesses must do before implementing decisions.
For the Catholic business, we must take it a step further. Some laws of the state are unjust according to God's law and the natural law. Our legal test has a higher authority than the state. If it is legal but immoral, we must not do it.
Join us in creating a Catholic economy.
This week the client has developed the real estate bug!
Is this good?
Normally I’d say not because it introduces a new specialty knowledge requirement and can take an entrepreneur off focus. But in this case it’s good.
Read the blog post.
How to price your products as a Catholic business:
- There has been some predatory pricing recently with inflation and hoarding of certain products. Predatory pricing is setting prices so low that you drive your competition out of business. Do I price my products or services to attract customers and improve my business by offering a better value, or am I trying to drive my competitors out of business? We must avoid practices designed to eliminate our competitors- it’s aggressive and unjust.
- There are many just strategies that we can adopt to improve our business while avoiding predatory pricing. The Catholic business owner needs to properly price his products in a way that is fair and demonstrates, to his advantage, the goodness of his products or services, but avoiding the predatory pricing that is designed to drive your competitors out of business.
How to treat our employees as Catholic business owners:
- Many companies offer flexible start and finish times with core hours the employee needs to be present, so their employees can attend to family matters, like dropping off and picking up kids at school. What if we went further, depending on the cost of it with your spreadsheet analysis so you can stay in business? We can have time off for feast days, birthdays of children, spouse, or baptism anniversary, grieving the loss of a family member. In short- go beyond the minimum time off mandated by law and be charitable to your employees.
- You can be flexible where you don’t necessarily give more days off, but make up for it later on, like having a banked hours policy where an employee has a pool of hours from which they can draw down.
- Performance pay can have several levels. You can have team, individual, and company performance pay, or unite them into a single package. These three can be valuable to promote living wage.
- Living wage is where a single breadwinner, usually the father, earns one income and supports the family. A Catholic business can make movements toward paying a living wage, which engenders loyalty and honors the traditional family concept.
- You can do things that promote stability, such as having the same workstation every day, so the employee can have pride of workmanship and pride in keeping it well-maintained. This is opposed to a trendy concept of “hoteling” where the employee just grabs a workspace when he shows up to work.
- Have fixed hours of work (core hours) that are flexible before and after the core hours. This creates stability without creating inefficiencies. It also creates a culture of trust between team members and employee to employer and vice versa.
- Input from employees is often only given lip service by many companies. A Catholic business can have advisory committees of employees who advise on quality, production, efficiency, office management, marketing, sales, troubleshooting on emergency situations.
These ideas I mentioned in this video may cost upfront, but may also reduce costs in the long run. You can come up with other creative ideas to treat your people as unique individuals, created in God’s image and likeness, as real Catholic business owners. As usual, you can simulate these things through spreadsheet analysis. Even though they often have an up-front cost, they tend to lead to increased productivity, offsetting the cost.
Create a Catholic economy with us.
We hit a goldmine! I heard some classic observations “from the heart” from my client – after years of struggle and toil. It was amazing!
Read the blog post.
The main topic this week is inflation. What to do about it?
A big debate going on now is whether the current inflationary pattern is caused by monetary policy OR by money flooding into the market over two years of a pandemic.
Don’t be fooled by that dilemma. It’s a trap. The problem this is creating for a business is the same in either case – shrinking margins.
Read the blog post.
When you do several acquisitions the fun part usually is the deal making, the prospect of the future revenue stream, and the excitement of doing something new and bold.
The not so fun part – but equally necessary and probably even more important than the fun part—is the tedious fine-tuning, the equipment refurbishment and set-up, the juggling act of moving equipment from location to location, and all the small stuff like wiring, storage, production line efficiency, supervision of remote locations, etc.
This is the unseen, unglamorous part of doing these deals. But it’s the most satisfying because you are seeing it through to the end. You are doing the other thing entrepreneurs do besides think big and bold. You are doing the fine detail stuff that makes the difference between success and failure.
And, best of all, you are putting your stamp on the whole thing.
THAT is what makes business so much fun!
Read the blog post.
What do we do, as Catholics, when the state or culture tries to force us to promote things not in accord with Church teaching? It may cause us pain. We may be fined, charged, canceled, attacked publicly, if we overtly display or live our faith.
Some issues we need to be strong on because they are non-negotiable.
- End of life issues- Euthanasia is the killing of a person before their natural end. Catholic business owners must oppose it. We may be asked to support it by join buying groups that require your support. It is essential to properly vet all organizations you work with. We must support life until its natural end. What happens if you not only resist, but promote Catholic culture? it’s difficult, but the Catholic business owner must do this.
- Beginning of life issues, including abortion, contraception, and illicit procreative technology. Regarding a business, we can’t have insurance for employees with abortion care and certain fertility procedures that are inimical to Catholic teaching. The Catholic business owner must be courageous to be able to resist these cultural influences, and to fight them. Catholic business owners must fight this, rather than to be silent or complicit.
- Alternative lifestyles.How do you accept the public into your place of business without promoting these aggressive groups who want you to do even more, by promoting their lifestyles, if only with a sticker on your window? There’s a way to be welcoming to everyone while promoting your faith. If you own a business where you would need to deny someone your services or products, it is even more complicated because there may be a price to pay for it.
Some things you can practically do:
- Lobby to influence government, opinion leaders, and trendsetters, and to promote your causes to the public. You don’t need to be rash or condemning in your lobby efforts. You do need to promote your rights as a person of faith in the constitution of your country. We can do this in a way that reaches the person without immediate dismissal or, even worse, the wrath of that person/group. I am not speaking of appeasement, but careful and overt statements of our faith.
- Instead of a mission statement, can we have the Ten Commandments, or an overtly Catholic mission statement, or at least one that promotes Catholic values, in our boardrooms, or physical plant?
- Have Catholic activities in your workplace, such as Catholic feast days off to all of your employees.
- If someone in your company makes a statement supporting a contraceptive mentality, you can simply say that we don’t believe in that as Catholics. It doesn’t need to be a long, drawn-out answer, but just stating the fact of what we believe.
- If you have a business that everyone is Catholic, maybe have a priest come in to talk, or offer Mass, or confession, or counseling, during work hours. This can be complicated but it supports the evangelical mission of the Church
- In your supplier arrangements, don’t support suppliers who support causes inimical to the faith. We should look for other Catholics that can supply our business. This is also part of creating a Catholic economy.
This “empire”, this group of shops, is now complex and interwoven! Because of this we will begin to see great efficiencies and internal advantages for shifting equipment, people, and, of course, capital between and among locations.
The LESSON today: More locations = higher market response + efficiency + strength.
Read the blog post.
How to visibly demonstrate, by your actions and decisions, that you are a Catholic running a Catholic business:
- During the workday- have some quiet time available- if everyone is Catholic at your business, have prayer time at the beginning of the day.
- If there are people of other faiths, have a quiet time, prayer, reflection time, etc.
- It is better and takes more courage to actually say that we start our workday with prayer.
- Bible study- during a break or lunchtime, have a bible study
- Challenge for Catholics is that we use authority to interpret the bible
- We need to know what we’re talking about or invite someone who knows what they’re talking about, like your parish priest
- Display of religious art
- People are sensitive to this, so many business owners hide their faith
- It would be powerful if someone walked into your place of business and saw an icon or a crucifix or some other Catholic art
- Put a Catholic symbol on your packaging or products, such as AMDG or Chi Rho, etc.
- Set aside a room or space for prayer- a chapel at your business
- You then encourage prayer and even giving time for it
- Have “open hours” for your chapel where anyone could drop in and spend some time there
- Child care- we respect and honor the family
- Traditional family has one spouse working (traditionally the husband) and the other staying home, but it’s not always possible
- For those where it’s not possible, have onsite child care
- Find out what it would cost
- Could be a homeschool coop
- A place where a priest or sister could teach catechism to the children
- At the very least, you could have a Catholic atmosphere at your onsite child care
- Donations- businesses often ask businesses for donations
- Donate to the causes your employees support, if they do not contradict Catholic teaching, and especially if they are Catholic
- Donate your services
- Mass stipends- offer Mass for the intentions of your employees, their spiritual and physical good
- Gifts on special occasions- give gift cards to your employees from businesses owned by Catholics
- Acknowledge the sacrifices your employees make for your business- in writing or verbally
- Honor and mark the Catholic occasions in the families of your employees- baptism, confirmation, ordination, etc.
- Have events for your employees and their families- if all your employees are Catholic, you could have a Mass at your events
See the video on YouTube.
In today's podcast:
While continuing along with the acquisition of that new shop located just outside a major metropolitan area – the one where the current owner was in the process of buying it from the previous owner and where the current owner has some IRS tax trouble, and has actually stopped making payments – another deal fell into the lap of my client. I’m not kidding.
Read the blog post.
One of the biggest challenges in business is the analysis you need to do for an acquisition.
I’m speaking of financial simulations, margin calculations, pricing policy, inventory and cash flow, invoicing and collections policy, and so on.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not at all criticizing the use of analysis and good spreadsheet simulations.
These are very valuable and you can’t really do good business without them.
But the lesson that came zinging back to me today was the old one about using your gut feel and your rules of thumb that you have honed and perfected over the years.
Read the blog post.
An ethical dilemma is a temptation to deviate from charity, truth, justice. It’s an apparent choice from an action that is true, just, or charitable versus one that is opposed to truth, justice, or charity.
If we make the wrong choice, we sin, either venially or mortally.
Therefore, if we are Catholics who want to get to heaven, we must do the right thing.
Every action we take in business must be measured and clarified against a simple question: does this help me to get to heaven or not? If it does, proceed. If it does not, why are we doing it? Life is complex and the enemy is always at work, so we need to pray and think about our business decisions.
In this podcast, I will talk about 3 things
- The customer
a. Don’t short your customer. It can be a gain in inventory while you have charged the customer for it, but a Catholic business will be fastidious against this.
b. Do we have a service based on time? It’s easy to pad the timesheet. It’s a form of shorting the customer. Is it objectively sinful? If done intentionally, it is.
c. Sending a known defect. It is a lie.
d. Warranty rigidity. Many products are sold with the claim of getting your money back. Many companies will respect the warranty claim. Lifetime value of a customer is worth being reasonable in a return policy. From a Catholic view, we’re honest. If the customer doesn’t like it for a legitimate reason, take it back. If the customer is cheating us, it’s tricky. To avoid making a mistake, it may be a good idea to swallow the loss. It may be more humble to do so, rather than arguing. Warranty rigidity is not the way to do it. We should be flexible, we should be honorable, we should be reasonable, and we should be clear.
e. Accepting prepayment. I have seen companies accept prepayment, knowing that they will shut down a certain line or product. It’s unethical and can be illegal. Accepting prepayment is not unethical, if we fully intend to deliver the product or service. Accepting prepayment with no intention of delivery happens in the real world. It is not something a Catholic business should ever do.
- Sales & Marketing
a. Exaggeration, manipulation, and lying are commonplace in sales and marketing.
b. How does an honest Catholic businessman compete in a crowded marketplace?
i. Avoid manipulative techniques
ii. Don’t use immoral or manipulative imagery
iii. Don’t exaggerate claims of your product or features, but still give the positives of your product or service. Exaggeration is not quite lying, but it’s manipulative.
- How do we treat people in our business? Today the focus is on staff and contractors a. Contracts are legal instruments that set out the responsibilities of the parties. Once both parties agree, it’s a contract. It legally provides the rules of the game.
i. Contracts can be one-sided. Be sure our contracts are fair. We should protect our interests. We also need to be sure our contracts protect the interests of the other parties, in a fair way.
ii. Example: pay and benefits. We pay near the market. The ideal is to pay a living wage where one income earner can support the family. This would be the best way to have a Catholic pay structure.
iii. Try to pay above market. Pay for other things for families. Build inflation protection into the wages. Give more generous benefits, don’t do the minimum. Create a golden handcuffs fund- a dollar figure that could be drawn down over the years that they could use when the inevitable happens- large car repairs, braces, roof replacement. It is a fund that could be built up over the years and can be drawn from by the employee over time. This is to support Catholic family life.
b. Make a family policy in your company. What is your family-oriented benefits policy? Can you do short-term sick leave beyond what others provide, but is not abused. It’s a way to get into an agreement situation where people promise to do something in response to your generous benefit package. If a round of the flu hits a family and the employee has to miss 4 weeks and you only give 2 weeks sick leave, they would work extra at a later time to make up for it. You don’t force them, necessarily, but it’s an agreement, or even a contract, you made with them so you can help them in times of need. It’s family-friendly.
Visit our website.
More about the various acquisitions that have taken place and that are currently in the planning phase.
Set up and planning is going on now for in-house manufacturing. Interesting thing: This is about a $2.0 million investment and will take about a year to accomplish! The machine set-up, acquisition, linking, and a whole host of other steps are now clearly in mind.
Read the blog post.
This week we discussed:
- Some continued acquisition possibilities, including machinery and entire shops.
- Now that the last acquisition is in the books, my client has turned his attention back to the possibility of a new building for the original plant.
- Continued work on the succession plan by helping the successors to learn the difference between working the hours vs working until the job is done.
- The fantastic German engineering of one particular machine that has had extensive use.
Read the blog post.
Have you lost your job due to conscience reasons or do you think you will soon?
If you want to start your own business, here are some options we have to help:
In this video:
Parishes often have large budgets and thus economic power. If the parishioners would start businesses around the needs of the parish, this could trigger a parish economy.
Some ideas to start are to supply the parish with some of its needs from its parishioners, rather than outside vendors. Some of these products and services are candles, vestment and vestment repair, wine, altar breads, charcoal and incense, painting, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, drywall and structural materials, roofing, design and engineering, alarm systems, security monitoring, food service, catering, event planning, babysitting, childcare, teaching and tutoring services, transportation services, etc.
It is critical to remember that there are many volunteer services happening at parishes also, so we do not want to create businesses that would replace volunteer services with paid services.
A parish economy like this would allow parishioners to supplement their income, gradually growing their businesses beyond the parish to other parishes and/or other businesses. The businesses created by a parish economy could grow to replace an income from a job. The point is to replace work income with business income. These businesses then can expand to provide employment to other parishioners and those in the community. This is not to start an insular community. We are called to be in the world, but not of the world. We are beginning this to focus on helping each other formally, better than we have in the past.
Help us build a Catholic economy.
Cash Flow From the Recent Acquisition: At this point in the case study, six weeks after the date of acquisition, we see that cash flow from the acquisition is starting to appear on the books – mainly because the deal allowed receivables to remain with the vendor.
Early Stages of Running the Acquisition There is another interesting action item that my client has learned over the years. “Keep the old brand in place until six months or a year later.”
Other Acquisition Possibilities NOW, my client can look to another acquisition potential – a shop south of a major metropolitan area that is suffering from some complicated challenges – but which could be picked up in a straightforward deal.
My client has a rule of thumb that he calls the “$100,000 revenue per employee or don’t do the deal” rule! The point is that you should have your own rule of thumb as both a test for your own business strategy and as a check on the more sophisticated analytical tests you may run on your own – or that your bank will run for you as their own “test”.
Our focus today was an update on various acquisitions and acquisition plans – it’s a vast chessboard of options and scenarios.
This is exactly what makes the art of business so exciting and – honestly – so complex!
Key Lessons Learned in this Session: The financing options are all multiples of revenue compared to the cost. These are all small shops with a variety of good and “less good” operating patterns and histories – but they are all actually good acquisition options.
This high earnings multiple thing is a rare factor. But it needs to be acted upon immediately because the historical circumstances that brought them about may not come back for a generation – or even EVER!
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This week the client and I discussed the kinds of surprises you might find when you first take over a business you’ve purchased.
The top of mind issue today was the shortage of steel and thus the delays (and costs) of obtaining “blanks” for in-house blades.
Read more about Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO
This is the situation today. We took a two-week break because of family visits to the home of my client – family that included “the marketing brother” and his family. This meant that a lot of good behind the scenes business discussions were going on. So the break from this case study was fine.
If I were to specify a theme for today’s update, there would be three points (see below) that I would summarize as:
“Be patient; Be conservative financially; Delegate more.”
Or, to give a bit more detail:
*THINGS ARE ON TRACK BUT MOVING SLOWLY. PATIENCE IS STILL A VIRTUE, PARTICULARLY IN BUSINESS!
*BANK IS SUPPORTING THIS ENTERPRISE. WHY? LOTS OF REASONS BUT ONE IS A LONG HISTORY OF PRUDENT OPERATIONS!
*THE OWNER STILL DOES THINGS THAT NO ONE ELSE KNOWS HOW TO DO. LET US HOPE THAT NO ONE GETS HIT BY A BUS UNTIL THIS IS SOLVED!
Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO, delves into what it takes for a Catholic to be successful in business. First, he lists the standard business metrics that make a business successful. Then Henry walks you through the specifically Catholic aspects of business that makes one a successful Catholic business owner.
Standard Metrics for Running a Business:
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Cash flow analysis
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Forecasting
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Debt and line of credit analysis -the difference between these and equity capital investment
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Social media and SEO knowledge and expertise
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Margin analysis- two key features -knowing your margin -protecting your margin
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Profit analysis
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Market share
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Sales growth
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Customer satisfaction
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Accounting ratios
Catholic Business Index: how Catholic is your business? -What do we do that is different from conventional businesses?
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Prayerful approach to business.
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Catholic version of the "Plus-Delta:" an analysis tool for what to keep (Plus) and what to change (Delta).
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Respect- be different from corporate culture
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Truth- every business decision must be analyzed against the truth
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Follow Catholic teachings- in every aspect of business, you must ask if this is taking everyone involved closer to heaven.
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Pricing- do we price fairly? -don't hide fees
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Return policy- is it fair?
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Wage policy- do I pay fair wages? -Can a Catholic business owner pay a living wage these days? It is a serious question to ask. If you are a traditional Catholic, can you provide a wage so your employee can be the sole income earner in his household?
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Marketing strategies- are you honest? Do you use appropriate imagery?
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Family-friendly
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Product integrity- good quality products, good customer support, fair trade practices
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Dignity of the Human Person
To be a Catholic business: Make deliberate policies in your business to be Catholic in practice- to go beyond what conventional businesses do.
Here is a summary of our talk on how to create weekly metrics on business performance in a “dashboard” style report.
Today’s topic is the “fireside chat” every founder should have with successors.
It happened when I asked a few questions about how the client really felt about the readiness of his successors to take over the business – even with an orderly, well-planned transition.
What came out was not only interesting but also foundational for a succession plan win.
Features today – a lot of “pleasant-ness”: * Pleasant surprise: A competitor goes out of business and asks my client to buy the equipment and the customer list. * Pleasant news: The bank agrees to everything. * Pleasant news: The acquisition deal can finally close.
Read more about The Catholic CEO, Henry Kutarna.
In today’s work session we spoke of two exciting trends in this family business:
- Growth
- Objective Performance Measures
Why do I call it exciting?
It’s because what’s happening is something we often see in a business that is based on a good solid foundation. This business is not built on sand. It’s really built on a solid rock foundation!
Solid foundation businesses grow in step-wise fashion. They rarely grow on a steady percentage increase in sales every year. If that were the case for most businesses we would see ordinary organic growth resulting from ordinary, steady activities such as sales, product improvements, or gains in efficiency.
Rarely have I seen what I am about to tell you today.
Hang on to your hat! This is a very rare combination of factors. For these factors to come together at a single point in time is not only exciting, but also sure to create a very attractive business.
Halfway through the case study, The Catholic CEO reviews the lessons learned so far. Catholic business mentoring program. Catholic business coach.
+Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO, gives a layman's 9 point checklist for being more fully Catholic, in business and life in general. If you are a serious Catholic business owner, you will want to live your faith to its fullest.
+The 9 point checklist for living more fully Catholic:
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Read sacred scripture.
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Read magisterial documents.
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Read encyclicals.
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Listening to good sermons/homilies.
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Read good books.
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Study different Catholic topics/subjects.
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Pray- Daily & Sunday Mass, Rosary, etc.
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Learning the important issues of the day, especially the issues that are inimical to the Catholic faith.
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Get advice from external advisors- confessor, mentor, etc.
As the economic picture improves the news is full of commentary about hyperinflation, supply chain troubles, government money printing, and people saving their own money at a high rate because of all the free government money, etc.
For the small business owner the fear of inflation and tax increases in this kind of scenario is a big deal.
In the end, the cost of money (i.e. interest rate) is so low that investment decisions likely will not be strongly affected. Some acceleration of capital spending will occur.
And there will be a boost in consumer spending as the pent up demand for certain products and commodities picks up.
So, not surprising – either on the concern or on the reaction to the concern.
It’s the typical small business thing – we worry about inflation and taxes and government policy. But then we thread the needle and navigate our way through the concern and keep on building our businesses! It’s not fatalistic to say – what can we do? Let’s just keep moving.
Estate Planning was the key topic today – the kind of topic that eventually comes up in a family business. Some topics discussed regarding estate planning:
- models for tax efficiency
- family trust model
- estate freeze
- corporate structure model
- kinds of shares
- various kinds of insurance policies
This podcast will give you the basics of the approach of The Catholic CEO. How can you, as a Catholic, escape the pressure of the woke culture? Start a business of your own- that's the answer given by long-time investor, business owner, business mentor, and traditional Catholic , Henry Kutarna, The Catholic CEO. And The Catholic CEO is here to help you start your own business.
Become independent of cancel culture today. Start your own business, rooted in Catholic principles, such as subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is the principle where decisions are made at the most local level possible. Your family and work decisions should be made within the family, the fundamental cell of society. It will help you be a better Catholic, and help your family fight the lies of our woke culture. You can be Catholic and successful in business. Believe it!
Today the main topic of this work session is about building sales capacity:
- Route building software
- Market research to support sales people
- Finding great sales people
- Anticipating how to find great sales people who can sell to the next generation of customers
Today the main topics of the working session included:
- How to integrate the newly acquired business into company operations.
- How to position the deal as a merger to inspire and satisfy customers.
- How to brand/rebrand the acquisition and accelerate revenue growth as it transitions to the main business.
With the distribution deal off the table, my client decided to take matters into his own hands and manufacture the product himself. A real entrepreneur.
Read the blog post.
Rather than continue pursuing the seemingly dead distribution deal, the client will start his own line of blades with a test run on equipment he already owns. Read the blog post.
The Catholic CEO has mentored many family businesses and runs a family business. Through these years of experience, he knows the pitfalls and has specific strategies to help negate the negative effects of them.
This session also has a segment on an offer to purchase mistake to avoid.
This week we discuss strategy for social media and dealing with competitors. There are also some serious concerns about the European product distribution deal. Read the blog post.
In this case study, The Catholic CEO looks into handling the frustrating issue of the distribution business owner who wants to sell because he is too busy with his other business, but is also too busy to respond to inquiries. Read the blog.
Some topics covered and lessons learned:
- The problem of low interest rates.
- How to actually write a blog post.
- The current business climate.
Read the blog post.
This week: in depth discussion about the European distribution deal, marketing, and succession plan. Read the blog post.
Today was a wrap up meeting that coincided with the end of the year 2020 and the Christmas Season. Since this series is coming to you on a delayed basis, some months after the fact, you’ll understand why the meeting was a year-end wrap up and a final, take-stock discussion.
Read the blog post.
The biggest issue that came up in today’s mentoring session has to do with the labour shortage – the challenge of finding people willing to work in this environment with a shop full of machinery and the noise and dust/dirt/grime of a manufacturing facility.
In another development, a long time customer just announced it is moving from 1 shift a day, five days a week to 3 shifts a day, seven days a week.
Read the blog post.
The cap table (capitalization table) reveals a great many things to savvy investors. This week I studied three different cap tables to discern situations and discover facts. This led me to muse about past cap table lessons.
The discerning investor can tell the following trends and signals about your business by studying your cap table. Even in the absence of a financial statement, minute book or business plan, the cap table speaks clearly.
Tony Warren is a practicing Catholic. He has a breadth and depth of knowledge in business, philosophy, psychology, and theology. His business endeavors include industrial sales/marketing, manufacturing, software design, mergers/acquisitions, and many more.
Tony uses critical thinking using logic and understanding of how humans think to arrive at epistolic knowledge; defined as justifiable true belief. He believes that an understanding of a secondary human need, that of belief in things that are beyond knowledge but within truth, is essential for human existence. These things create morals and ethics and help to provide for justice.
He is a truly remarkable man. Listen to find out how he believes that you can be Catholic and successful in business!
A wide variety of business topics were covered in this week's family business case study, including marketing and sales:
- Packaging can be used as marketing, more than just your logo on the box
- Website is a marketing and sales tool
In todays family business mentoring session we spent valuable time on three topics – the acquisition, the distribution deal with the European manufacturer, and the new distribution center.
The QUESTIONS this week are:
- Should he go ahead with the acquisition deal?
- Should he push for that distribution deal?
- Where should he locate the first distribution center?
- Is a social media strategy that important?
In this week’s working session we mainly covered social media issues.
The social media strategy is focused on driving traffic to the website – where the catalog and product listings are ready for immediate sale and shipping.
Developed by The Catholic CEO, this 25 point diagnostic will help you evaluate every aspect of your business.
This week’s work session covered serious talk about:
- The importation of the European product
- The staff development program.
A nutshell guide into the various steps to take to review your business, taking into account the unique situation of the previous year. Including business plan review, 12-month average trailing analysis, etc.
This week’s work session covered a lot of general territory – staff development, progress on the acquisitions, tradeshows, discussions about representing a manufacturer in the US market, where to locate a distribution center, how to finance inventory, and social media.
Business lessons are sometimes learned easily. Sometimes we learn the hard way! There are business rules of thumb.
The Catholic CEO delves into the reasons family business fail is their succession. He advises the client of the need for a succession plan with a schedule, training, performance measurement, and giving successors responsibility.
8 ways The Catholic CEO can help you produce a strategic plan to increase the value of your business. From the work from home small business to the CEO of a large corporation, The Catholic CEO has the experience to mentor you to greater success.
The Catholic CEO continues his year-long mentoring of a small business. This week: capital sources, marketing, ecommerce pricing, and new hires.
Continued mentoring of a family business. This week we cover targets for acquisition, expansion timeframe, market size for new products. Read about it in my blog.
Today we feature the third working session of 52. In this year-long project I mentor a mid-west USA based, family owned, service business that intends to transition to a manufacturing business.
Featuring the second working session of 52. In this year long project I mentor a mid-west USA based, family owned, service business that intends to transition to a manufacturing business.
7 Accounts Receivable Strategies. Business leaders ought to upgrade accounts receivable (AR) skills. It’s a growing problem.
Today we feature the first working session: #1 of 52. In this year- long project, I mentor a mid-west USA based family owned service business that intends to transition to a manufacturing business.
This is our very first episode. The Catholic CEO launches with the main question. "Can you be Catholic and successful in business?"