Intentional Success with Tom Stimson

Your management meetings keep getting hijacked by the same kinds of debates. A freelancer billed for airport parking. An employee wants vacation during your busiest week. And now six people are arguing about whether a rule exists and what to do when it doesn't. The problem isn't the parking invoice. The problem is you're running your business on rules when you should be running it on policies. In...

For years, the rental management system sat at the center of every AV business. Every quote, confirmed order, and piece of gear lived there. It worked. Projects have changed. A single client engagement can stretch across months of pre-production, creative development, and multiple sub-events before you ever build an order. Your rental management system can't track any of that. Your CRM can. https:...

Overstaffing is as big a problem as understaffing in our industry, and it's much harder to fix. The more people you have, the more work it always takes. In this episode, I break down the three lies that keep your headcount too high: your pricing is fine, word of mouth works, and everybody's working hard so you must be busy. None of them hold up under scrutiny. Listen now and learn why companies wi...

In the spring of 2001, I was forecasting Q3 and Q4. September was always our second-busiest month. I looked at the numbers and saw an empty calendar. Forecasting gave us that head start. If you don't forecast, you don't get one. This week's Monday Morning Drive walks through three windows into your business that tell you almost everything you need to know about what's coming. https://www.trstimson...

That million-dollar one-off job feels like a win. The $2 million client feels like stability. But if you've built your team and your overhead around windfall business, you're one phone call away from scrambling. In this episode, I break down the three types of windfalls, the math behind why they destroy profit when you overbuild for them, and how to take big jobs without inflating your overhead. W...

What do people see when they cross your threshold? Your office, your warehouse, your show site, your backstage area? Does your threshold make prospects say, "These are people I want to work with"? This week's Monday Morning Drive is about the most overlooked marketing tool you have: your physical space. https://www.trstimson.com/the-best-marketing-happens-on-your-turf/

More inquiries are coming in. Pipelines look strong through 2026. But more calls don't mean more good fits. In this episode, I break down how to slow down your sales process, present your value proposition, meet the buyer where they are, and tailor your proposal so you stop chasing bad fits and start winning better work. Listen now and learn the one phrase that might be the most powerful sentence...

Q1 is almost over, and you're still leaving money on the table. Before we get into the fun stuff you can try throughout the rest of the year, let's talk about the non-negotiables. https://www.trstimson.com/stop-line-item-pricing-av/

You'd spend $200,000 on an LED wall without flinching but lose sleep over a $5,000 trucking cost. That's not a budget problem. That's an emotional reaction disguised as a business decision. And it's the same reaction keeping you from investing in the brainpower your company needs to grow. In this episode, I break down how to use data to kill emotion, replace conjecture with facts, and make the dec...

I've been in this industry for 40 years. At the beginning of every Q1, I reflect on what moved the needle and what's ahead. For most of my career, reflection centered on technology: new projectors, digital video, wireless frequencies, programmable lighting consoles. Each generation of gear required a specialized technician to make it all work. That era is over. https://www.trstimson.com/av-industr...

The words you use every day are costing you money. "Rental" tells buyers to shop around. "Labor" makes your team sound replaceable. "Markup" is fools math. And "closing deals" is a fiction in an industry where nothing stays final. These aren't harmless habits. They're profit leaks hiding in plain sight. Listen to this week's episode and learn the 10 common words undermining your value, why they're...

Economists are predicting steady growth through 2029. Sounds like good news. But a rising tide only lifts boats that float. If your business model has holes, an improving economy won't save you. It'll expose you. https://www.trstimson.com/growing-economy-wont-save-your-business/

You're proud of your customer retention rate. But what if the customers you're holding onto are the ones draining your business from the inside? Bad customers are like impurities in clay. You can blend them in with the good ones all you want, but they don't get better. They just weaken everything around them. Shrinking margins, price resistance, and dangled promises of future work are all signs yo...

People who do shows for a living do shows. People who plan shows for a living keep planning while other shows are in progress. That's the difference between staying busy and actually growing. https://www.trstimson.com/how-planning-evolved/

"Where do I find good people?" I hear it on almost every coaching call. But here's the real question: why aren't good people finding you? Candidates see your team, your freelancers, and your reputation. And if you've settled for mediocre in any seat, the best people already know. Listen to this week's episode and learn why the best hire you'll ever make starts with a firing, what candidates actual...

You know the cycle: crazy busy for weeks, then nothing on the books. Your team is burned out, but you can't stop selling because you don't know where the next job is coming from. So, you chase all revenue equally. You fill your calendar with unprofitable work. You turn down good jobs because you're "too busy" with bad ones. On this week's Monday Morning Drive, I break down how to forecast so you s...

Don't need a bigger warehouse. You need to address the hot mess behind your shelves. Your team is burning time hunting for gear you already own. Cables in milk crates. Adapters hoarded behind desks. Five different homes for the same connector. Listen to this week's episode and learn how to turn your warehouse from a storage disaster into a space that works as hard as your crew does. Visit trstimso...

Most warehouse managers believe show prep is the most important function in their operation. They're wrong. That logic is flawed. https://www.trstimson.com/stop-prepping-shows-a-week-early/

You can't fix everything in your business. And honestly, you shouldn't try. But the effort to be scalable will fix more problems, more quickly, than any other practice I've ever taught. Scalable companies have half the employees of non-scalable ones, and those employees are twice as good. Listen to this week's episode and learn the three tenets of scalability, why project managers are bad math, an...

Right now, as you listen this, do you know what your final revenue will be? Do you know your profit for the year? If you don't, that's because you don't have a budget. https://www.trstimson.com/end-of-year-numbers/

Your rental pricing model isn't honest. Five-day jobs charged as two days. Two salespeople are quoting completely different numbers on the same project. Discounts that exist because "the client asked." This isn't a strategy. It's making it up as you go and hoping customers don't notice. Listen to this week's episode and learn how to build consistent pricing, create one negotiating point instead of...

When sales loses confidence, you stop winning jobs. You start selling on price. You hire cheaper people. Finding the right people to work in your business and on your events is your most important task. The rest is easy by comparison. https://www.trstimson.com/why-av-companies-keep-running-out-of-people/

November is panic season. Owners look at next year's calendar, see nothing confirmed, and start making desperate calls about filling their pipeline in 90 days. Marketing won't dig you out of a hole. But it will keep you from falling back into one. Listen to this week's episode and learn the five conversion points that build a pipeline you can count on, and why getting prospects across your thresho...

You walk onto a show site with a crew you've never worked with, and within ten minutes, you know exactly how the day is going to go. In this week's Monday Morning Drive, I recall my days as a college stagehand, where we routinely outperformed professional venue crews. Here's how. https://www.trstimson.com/five-rules-that-shaved-two-hours-off-every-load-in/

CRM feels like busywork when you're waiting on RFPs. Enter a lead, update a status, log a call. For what? But your projects now span months before you have anything to quote. Your rental management system was never built to track any of that. CRM is where your sales life actually happens. Listen to this week's episode and learn 10 data points that will make your CRM useful for everyone, how to for...