The Kitchen Table

A show about business, sales, goals, and the pursuit of personal greatness, all where business gets done. The Kitchen Table.

The Kitchen Table is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 157 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Unknown Host hosts The Kitchen Table, a business show with 157 episodes published.

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  Episode #161

  How Rick Lowe Built a Licensing Empire With Disney, Star Wars & AC/DC

  Sep 25, 202628 min

  ️ Episode Notes Rick's unconventional path: engineering degree → corporate tech job → sales → laid off in the dot-com bust The origin story: selling Space Invaders T-shirts at Portobello Market in Notting Hill Building an international business licensing Disney, Warner Bros., Netflix, Star Wars, and Marvel IP The difference between corporate licensing (Disney/Netflix) and relationship-driven music licensing What "merchandising" actually covers: apparel, accessories, headwear, nightwear, and more Evergreen licenses (Disney) vs. fleeting pop-culture moments (Stranger Things) vs. touring bands Why merchandising is a high-volume, lower-margin business — "license to print money" Rick's biggest music license ever: AC/DC, and why the Rolling Stones' logo is untouchable Writing The Maverick Entrepreneur: turning life lessons and failures into a book The role of tenacity, resilience, and refusing to quit in entrepreneurship Rick's motivation for public speaking and pursuing personal development Working smarter, not harder Rick's closing piece of wisdom: "grab life by the throat" and take full personal responsibility Trusting your instincts and learning from (not repeating) your mistakes Where to find Rick Lowe and his upcoming book  

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  Episode #160

  From Insurance Restoration to Retail: How Jake Huotari Hit Nearly $4M in Year One

  Sep 18, 202636 min

  EPISODE NOTES Guest: Jake Huotari, Co-Owner, Aspire Home Services (Maple Grove, MN) Host: Ken Baden, CEO/Owner of Baden Consulting and Potomac Custom Remodeling Key takeaways Flexibility and a good attitude are core to Jake's leadership philosophy: "Blessed are the flexible, for they will not be bent out of shape." Jake and Josh started at Aspire as a small insurance restoration team. After the 90-day program with Ken, they ended 2025 just under $4M. Jake says retail runs about a 60% margin after commissions, and that insurance claims can move from about 45% to 75% margin using financing and upgrade tie-downs. Retail is a value-based proposition. Your ability to articulate value determines your ability to charge a premium. Retail businesses are worth roughly 4 to 5 points more to private equity and investors, according to Ken. Starting retail doesn't take a huge budget. Begin with one or two canvassers and add as profit allows. Hiring with a personality and temperament profile takes the mystery out of finding reps who will actually close. Jake says that when his team deviated from the scripting in July, their close rate dropped from 34% to 18%. It recovered as soon as they went back to it. Aspire's team now includes 7 sales reps, 8 canvassers, 2 phone staff, a job site coordinator, and a production specialist, which Jake says is a framework for a $15M business. Jake sees insurance carriers squeezing contractors through slow pay and scope disputes. He says fewer than half of last year's roughly 4,000 Minnesota contractors remain. About 3 in 10 roof replacements are insurance-driven and 7 in 10 are for other reasons, according to Ken. Very few roofers go after that 70%. Jake's advice on what made it work: follow directions, and put in the work. Jake's caution: "This is not get rich quick, this is get rich slow." Mentioned in the episode: Blue Collar Baller event (Dallas, 2023), one-sit close, canvassing, DISC-style hiring profile, CRM and cost-per-lead tracking, financing on insurance claims, private equity interest, NLP-based scripting. Connect with Jake: https://www.facebook.com/jakehuotari Connect with Ken: thekitchentablepodcast.net | Badenconsulting.net | DiversifiedRoofer.com | PotomacCustomRemodeling.com

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  Episode #159

  Baltimore Rapper Menace Monroe on Turning Struggle Into Success

  Sep 11, 202643 min

  ️ EPISODE NOTES Menace Monroe joins the show for the third time, discussing his life, music, and business ventures. He details his history in and out of incarceration starting at age 14, including a recent 6-year prison term. Discusses how a drug habit drove much of his past legal trouble, and how he's been sober and focused since coming home. Explains why he sees the music industry as "a business" — artists need consistency and traction before labels will invest. Talks through his growth strategy: he calls it "multiplication" — steadily increasing followers, streams, and income rather than expecting overnight success. Shares the emotional story of losing custody of his younger son during his last incarceration due to an interstate custody case, and how that experience continues to affect him. Credits family — including his brother, who was incarcerated alongside him — as a major source of motivation and change. Talks about his current single "Still My Boo," dedicated to women who've been mistreated in relationships. Discusses his long-term goal of eventually creating music with a positive message, citing Bob Marley as inspiration. Explains the origin of his clothing brand Trap Rob, which began as sketches in a notebook while incarcerated and has since grown into a full merch line (shirts, hats, bags, car accessories, and more) — now trademarked. Gives a shoutout to his brother's brand, Black Heart Garments, known for tactical, concealment-friendly sweatsuits. Wraps up with where to find his music and merchandise, and future goals: 1 million followers and 10x growth within a year.  

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  Episode #158

  The Truth About Call Centers & Cold Calling for Roofers with Peter Roth

  Sep 4, 202648 min

  ️ EPISODE NOTES Peter Roth returns for his second appearance on The Kitchen Table Podcast, this time bringing detailed numbers and frameworks. Scalify specializes exclusively in human-driven outbound cold calling (AI cold calling is illegal) for booking home service estimates — no inbound, no lead reselling as a primary offering. Scalify builds fully-managed, client-owned call centers: the client owns everything, pays agents directly, and can cancel the management contract month-to-month. The "funnel" framework: bottom-of-funnel leads (people actively shopping) are few and expensive to fight over; top-of-funnel prospects (not yet problem-aware) are a much larger, less-contested pool — which is where cold calling and canvassing ("digital door knocking") come in. About two-thirds of Scalify's clients are insurance restoration roofers, one-third retail. Private equity buyers favor companies with proprietary lead generation because it reduces "de-risking" concerns tied to weather-dependent insurance work. Standard agent ratios: roughly 3 call center agents per 1 closer (assuming an empty calendar); similar to the 2-3:1 canvasser-to-closer ratio in door knocking. Cold callers speak to ~250 people/day with a sub-1% booking rate (1-2 appointments/day); door knockers speak to ~8-10 homeowners/day with higher lead quality but far lower volume. Average show rate on cold-call-booked appointments is around 40%. Typical roofing cost-per-acquisition via traditional marketing is ~$25 (on a great day); Scalify's clients typically see cost-per-acquisition around $900-1,000 — but with a call center, one deal's profit usually pays for the entire build-out (~$8-10K to build, ~$8-9K/month to run). Real client case study: a door-knocking-only operator spending $25K/month saw 1.5x ROI; switching to a call center model produced 6x ROI. The "secret sauce" of a call center isn't the agents, script, or dialer — it's the management team (a 4-person management team is often needed to run just 3 agents). Hiring "green" (untrained) reps and training them from scratch tends to outperform hiring "seasoned" reps with bad inbound-lead habits, because outbound sales requires creating urgency the prospect didn't have before the call. Case study: Victor Rencore, a well-known HVAC operator with 17 companies, deliberately avoids "replacement call" leads (price-shopping, bottom-of-funnel) in favor of top-of-funnel outbound leads. Power Home Remodeling's business model is built almost entirely on canvassing, allowing them to charge premium prices because their leads aren't price-shopping. Live transfers explained: the cold-calling agent does all the qualifying and rapport-building, then transfers the live call to a rotating pool of sales reps' cell phones (random or ring-all), rewarding "speed to lead." Live transfers can increase appointment volume by 25-60% because agents get back on the phone faster, and pre-built rapport improves show rates and close rates. Scalify stays a specialist in outbound cold calling only — Peter refers clients elsewhere for inbound, live transfer add-ons from other sources, canvassing, and SEO rather than trying to do it all.

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  Episode #157

  I Learned This the Hard Way: Scaling Past $10M in Insurance Restoration | Ken Baden

  Aug 28, 202624 min

  Episode Notes Why Ken loves doing solo episodes — using the platform for pure value, no guest filter The "lean and mean" strategy that worked great... until it didn't The complacency factor: why sales reps unconsciously coast once they hit a comfortable income The fix: going all-in on recruiting, scaling from 5-7 reps to 15-20 across two offices Why team leads need to be physically in the field with new reps, not managing from afar Ken's decision to personally handle Day 1 onboarding and training for every new hire The "zone of genius" concept (credit to his coach Brandon) and why some things can't be delegated The math behind the growth goal: 15 reps per office, 4 contracts/week at $20K = $1.2M/week Two biggest lessons of the year: never forget the complacency factor, and live in your zone of genius Insurance restoration sales: why too many reps avoid confrontation and big-ticket conversations Setting proper expectations with homeowners at every step (ACV checks, timelines, next steps) Who's actually responsible for what: the insurance carrier's job vs. the contractor's job Why avoiding potential problems creates bigger problems down the line Office revamp, personal branding, and the morning mantra that's shifted team energy What's coming up next: guests including a musician/entrepreneur and Ken's recruiting team

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