Unscripted Small Business

About Unscripted Small Business

Our Unscripted Collaborative hosts Keith Bresee, Zaneta Chuniq, Keiron Bailey & 17 year SEO industry expert Jeremy Rivera are having unscripted interviews small business owners, founders and creators across the United States, learning about their challenges, successes and insights into the world of SMBs.

Publisher

Abbey Crane

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

6 Jan 2025

Latest episode

21 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

122 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   21 Oct 2026

   Why Employees Resist AI - Dr. Gleb Tsipursky

   Your gut is the wrong guide for rolling out AI to your team. Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts and author of The Psychology of AI Adoption at Work: From Resistance to Results (Georgetown University Press), tells Jeremy Rivera why owners get excited about AI while their employees get anxious, and how a small business closes that gap. Read the full episode recap. Gleb is a behavioral scientist who runs an eight-person consulting firm and works mainly across the US, Canada and the UK. He opens with the research he cites on why rollouts stall: MIT found 95% of AI initiatives fail to scale, and Pew found 52% of people are more anxious than excited about AI tools, with only 9% more excited than anxious. Owners tend to sit in that 9%. Their teams usually don't. In this episode The empathy gap - the owner shows off a cool demo, and the team hears "this will replace me." Group dynamics over the tool - Gleb points to McKinsey research where 80% report individual productivity from AI, but only about 6% of businesses see a material bottom-line impact. AI workslop as quiet resistance - polished output with problems inside. The Stanford and BetterUp Labs study he cites, covered in Harvard Business Review, found 40% of respondents received workslop in the past month, and each instance took about two hours to fix. Why AI is not a CRM rollout - you can't stand over someone's shoulder or run an IT-led implementation, because each person customizes their own "executive assistant." Three profiles, three fixes - for AI alarmists, commit to growth over job cuts, and make it clear the people who use AI well are the ones who stay. Go slow to go fast with pragmatic resistors - survey the tasks people hate and what blocks the work they love, then build prompts and agent skeletons for those first, the same idea behind a Claude skill that does your pre-work. Leadership modeling for reluctant adopters - talk about your own AI use, open a Slack or Teams channel for use cases, and reward the best one each month. Chapters (00:00) Meet Dr. Gleb Tsipursky of Disaster Avoidance Experts(00:22) His new book and why AI rollouts fail to scale(02:18) The empathy gap between leaders and employees(04:45) Group dynamics, not the technology(06:42) The cool demo that scares your team(07:40) AI workslop as a form of resistance(09:11) Does culture change AI adoption?(11:23) Why AI is not a CRM rollout(13:57) The three psychographic profiles(19:27) AI alarmists: commit to growth and flip the script(22:38) Pragmatic resistors: go slow to go fast(24:57) Reluctant adopters: leadership modeling(27:19) Eating his own dog food(29:05) Ownership mindset and why resistance is rational(33:01) Wrap-up Notable quotes "The leader needs to understand that her or his gut does not lead to the right outcome with AI adoption because their gut emotions, their intuitions are at odds with the emotions of their employees." - Dr. Gleb Tsipursky "AI is showing individual productivity, but the group dynamics is where it's at. And that's not the technology." - Dr. Gleb Tsipursky "It's not by using AI tools t...

2. 

   19 Oct 2026

   Building an Organic Tequila Brand With a Mission - AgaveLuz

   Pamela Maria De La Luz spent twenty years selling tequila before she got tired of watching big brands cut corners, so she built AgaveLuz, a certified organic tequila made with two ingredients. Her rule for anyone launching a product: "We don't wanna do things right now. We wanna do things right. So everything takes time." Pamela is from Mexico and has worked in spirits sales for over two decades, in direct contact with the people who buy the bottles. She watched mass producers rush the process with additives, colorants and sweeteners, and decided to make the tequila she remembered. AgaveLuz uses only organic agave and water - no yeast added, open fermentation, agave grown seven to eight years - distilled by Las Americas, a family of organic farmers in Amatitán, Jalisco. Getting certified organic took passing over seventy tests. The full conversation is written up in the episode recap, and you can watch the full episode on YouTube. In this episode Three years to launch - labels, bottle design and approval of every word by the CRT, plus a bottle nobody wanted to make. Standing out among 4,000+ tequila brands in Southern California without competing with the celebrity labels. Giving back with every bottle - Pamela has rescued and cared for street cats in Los Angeles for years, and AgaveLuz donates to local animal rescues in California and Las Vegas. Why cause partnerships open doors - Jeremy on nonprofit marketing budgets and co-branded community cleanup events. In-person tastings and demos, with the founder working the table like a regular demo person. Genuine marketing versus AI slop, and why people are leaning back toward human connection. Las Vegas as a launchpad - partnering with the city's biggest rescue led to menus, out-of-state requests and new stores. Pet-owner influencers - a bottle and a doggy toy, and creators who make videos because they want to be part of it. Chapters (00:00) Pamela Maria De La Luz and AgaveLuz(01:48) Two ingredients and certified organic(03:17) Why mass-produced brands cut corners(05:17) Three years to launch: labels, the CRT and a bottle nobody would make(06:16) 4,000+ tequila brands in Southern California(07:07) Animal rescue and giving back with every bottle(08:39) Partnering with nonprofits for reach(15:25) In-person tastings and demos(16:20) Genuine marketing in the age of AI(17:55) New generations making smarter decisions(19:02) The real challenge: getting to the people(21:05) Las Vegas and the rescue partnership(22:21) In-house marketing and pet-owner influencers(23:40) Advice: do things right, not right now(27:07) Build it with love, not for a quick exit Notable quotes "The same the words is very easy. But to actually prove it and actually doing it, that's different." - Pamela Maria De La Luz "So we are with the biggest rescue in Las Vegas. That has been our key to open so many big doors." - Pamela Maria De La Luz "Starting a business thinking that you're gonna be a millionaire in the next few months and the next year and then sell...

3. 

   19 Oct 2026

   Rich M. Smith - Growth Is Not an Accident or a Black Box

   Most buyers decide on emotion and justify it afterward. Rich M. Smith has been chief marketing officer of seven companies over 25 years, and at Rich M. Smith Growth Studio he helps founder-led businesses grow in a predictable, systematic way instead of by luck. On this episode of Unscripted Small Business, Rich and Jeremy Rivera get into why behavioral science explains so much of marketing, how to turn "web traffic is up" into a number a CEO cares about, what Rich learned as CMO of AIG Bank during the 2008 financial crisis, and why AI engines now work as your outsourced customer service and your outsourced sales team. Read the full recap: Growth Is Not an Accident. More from Rich on his blog. He also hosts The Revenue Science Podcast. In this episode Emotion first, logic second. Rich trained in classical economics and rational-actor theory. Behavioral science, and the 188 cognitive biases he cites, says people decide on emotion and rationalize later. More on psychology-based marketing. Framing is not manipulation. The ground beef test: 10% fat or 90% fat free. Same product, honest framing. Speak CEO. Swap "web traffic is up 15%" for "we increased potential demand by 15%," then talk about conversion. Rich wrote it up as think like a marketer, talk like a CEO. Attribution you can defend. Controlled regional tests, a multi-channel attribution model built on tested assumptions, and why you should give paid some credit for organic. The AIG Bank decision. Keep a tarnished brand everyone knows, or rebrand to one nobody knows. Rich kept it, and the bank was back to profitability within 18 months. Authenticity equals credibility. Never make up an answer. Say what you're going to do, then do it. AI as outsourced sales. Why third-party mentions, reviews, local press and podcast appearances carry more weight with AI engines than your own website. Answer the problems customers already have. The HubSpot example, and what a Nashville pool company should be publishing. Chapters (00:00) Rich's 25 years and seven CMO seats (01:13) Why people decide on emotion and rationalize later (05:47) Is marketing manipulation? (07:02) Translating marketing-speak into CEO-speak (11:38) Attribution when you can't see everything (17:52) AIG Bank, 2008, and the rebrand decision (23:54) Authenticity equals credibility (27:22) The ground beef framing test (28:08) AI as outsourced customer service and outsourced sales (33:50) Third-party validation and what AI engines weigh (36:15) Answer the problems your customers already have (39:08) Growth is not an accident (41:22) Where to find Rich Notable quotes "We make emotional decisions and then we rationalize them later and we tell ourselves that those are rational decisions." - Rich M. Smith "What is being said about you, what you put...

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 29 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

57

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

0

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