Our Next Fish Bowl: 'We've Never Done Any Marketing'

On November 14, we'll gather on Zoom to help A.R.E. Manufacturing brainstorm—and to record a podcast.

This is the main image on A.R.E.’s website.

We will record our next Entrepreneurial Fish Bowl with Chris Hutchinson on Wednesday, November 14 at 1 ET. As most of you know, these Fish Bowls are virtual gatherings where one person presents a challenge, and Chris leads us through the process of asking probing questions, breaking into smaller groups to brainstorm, and then offering our thoughts and suggestions. We also publish the conversations as podcasts. For example, in this episode, we helped Baleigh Waldrop think about whether she should buy her family’s furniture business.

For the next one, our guests of honor will be Alvin Elbert and his daughter, Megan Perona, whose family business, A.R.E. Manufacturing, is based in Oregon and makes machined components using high precision CNC equipment. Started as a side hustle in a garage by Alvin in 1980, the business had its best year ever in 2022. But for a variety of reasons, business has fallen off since then, and Alvin and Megan have concluded that A.R.E., which traditionally has relied upon word-of-mouth to drive sales, has to attempt its first real marketing ever.

And that’s what Chris’s Fish Bowl brainstorm will focus on. As always, the hope is that these exercises will give us all the opportunity to learn a few things while also giving back to someone who would like to draw upon the wisdom of the 21 Hats crowd. Plus, they’re just fun. Please join us.