Making Waves at C-Level: Business Tips for Executives, Leaders, and Entrepreneurs

As a business leader or entrepreneur your long-term success is tied to your top performers (and your whole team) meeting long term and short term goals. Sales goals are great, but they are just potential. Sales activities and sales quotas are important, but without the right actions they are just hopes and dreams.  Hoping and dreaming is not a sales process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Tom Gimbel is the General Manager of the KLRU television show - Austin City Limits.  Austin City Limits is the longest running music show in American television history, the only television program ever awarded the National Medal of the Arts, a certified Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Landmark, and in 2012 the recipient of an institutional Peabody Award celebrating “37 years of excellence in televisio...

In episode 456 of the "Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do" podcast, host Thom Singer talks about momentum and how it leads you closer to your potential.  Thom works with companies and sales teams to help them focus on the actions needed to cross the gap between potential and performance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charlie Burgoyne is the founder & CEO of Valkyrie Intelligence, a consulting firm with domain expertise in applied science and strategy. Charlie is also a managing partner for Valkyrie Signals, an AI driven hedge fund based in Austin, as well as the Chairman of the Board for Valkyrie Labs, an AI product company. Charlie leads a team of highly trained scientists and strategists to implement advance...

Jonathan Mendonsa is the co-founder of the ChooseFI podcast. ChooseFI started in early 2017 out of Jonathan's living room with co-founder Brad Barrett; since then ChooseFI has been downloaded millions of times in over 190 countries and spawned hundreds of ChooseFI local groups with ‘in real life’ meetups in 20+ countries across the globe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoi...

Brock Blake believes so deeply in the American Dream that he made it his life’s mission to help small businesses across the country fuel their own aspirations. As Founder and CEO of Lendio, the largest online marketplace of small business loans in America, he has helped thousands of business owners access more than $1 billion in funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoic...

Thom Singer showed up at a comedy open mic night in March 2018 (at age 51). Nervous as hell, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. A friend, who is a comic, pushed him to give stand up a try. When he was younger Thom had wanted to do stand up, but never had the guts to try it. But in his 50s his motto is "Try New Things", so when invited to accompany Drew Tarvin to an open mic in New Yo...

Laura Gassner Otting inspires people to push past the doubt and indecision that keep great ideas in limbo because her presentationsmake listeners think bigger and accept greater challenges that reach beyond their limited scope of belief. She delivers strategic thinking, well-honed wisdom, and perspective generated by decades of navigating change across the start-up, nonprofit, political, as well a...

Are you asking yourself the right questions on a daily basis? Thom Singer shares his list of "Curious Questions" on episode 450 of Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do. This episode is about finding you way toward better performance. It is so easy to get stuck in a rut and never take the necessary actions to reaching your potential. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ryan Santwire is a born and raised Northwest product, growing up in the greater Seattle area.  He truly loves the Seattle area, calling it one of the greatest cities in the country, with so much to do and everyone has something in common - dodging rain drops and mud puddles.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Damian Mason speaks on the two subjects he knows best: Business and Agriculture. Since 1994, he has spoken to nearly 2,000 audiences in all 50 states and 7 foreign countries.  Damian is a graduate of Purdue University. He also studied comedy writing and improvisation at The Second City – Chicago. Damian is a member of the Screen Actors Guild and the National Speakers Association. He is one of only...

John Del Bello of Capital Strategies LLC is an active member of the Austin Technology Council. This episode is co-produced in partnership with the ATC, the largest tech industry organization in Central Texas that empowers members by using insights, resources, and connections their members need to succeed and thrive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

April 1, 2019 marks ten years since Thom Singer became a full time professional speaker. He was laid off from his corporate marking job on the first day of April in 2009 (the bottom of the Great Recession), and he has never looked back. The journey has been difficult. When he was let go from his job he knew there were not many opportunities in marketing available, so he decided to jump in full tim...

Scott Walker and his family founded Screenmobile in 1980 in their garage in Glendora, California. The Walker family started by converting a tent trailer into the first mobile manufacturing unit for screens. This trailer allowed them to measure, manufacture, and install all of their product offerings on-site at the convenience of the customer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/ad...

“The American Dream is dead” were the words said to me by a 50-year-old entrepreneur in talking about Millennials and Generation Z.  Thom Singer disagreed. In episode 444 or the “Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do” podcast Thom shares his opinions of what potential lies ahead for business professionals of all ages.   Thom chose this topic to speak about on this episode because of three conversations he...

Antonio Grahm and Daniel Cline are the co-founders of Krystal Luxury Transportation, in Austin, Texas. Check out episode 443 of the "Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do" podcast to hear their story of entrepreneurship.   Krystal is a family and friends owned and operated chauffeur company founded in 2013. When the two young entrepreneurs arrived in Austin, Antonio and Daniel noticed one big issue with th...

The Spring is time for live events. If you are in business, the odds are you will be attending meetings in your industry sometime soon.  Local events for groups like a chamber of commerce or national multi-day conventions seem to all clump in the fall and spring (winter and summer have other challenges that make many associations and companies hold their gatherings in these time frames).   This ep...

Brian Scudamore is the founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?. He is also the author of "WTF?! (Willing to Fail): How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success"   Brian started his business in Vancouver, Canada at the age of 18, and later went on to franchise 1-800-GOT-JUNK? as a way to expand operations. Today, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? has 1000 trucks on the road throughout some 180 locations in Canada, the United S...

While at the SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas, Thom Singer had the chance to meet author and speaker Laura Gassner Otting (author of Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life).  She started her SXSW presentation with a powerful statement:   "You can't be happy living someone else's dream"   Boom.  That stuck in Thom's mind for the last few days, and when prep...

This episode is co-produced in partnership with the Austin Technology Council, the largest tech industry organization in central Texas that empowers members by using insights, resources, and connections their members need to succeed and thrive  Join Underminer Studios CEO, Alex Porter and CTO Timothy Porter for a look into their startup company and how Austin has played a role in their growth. The...

All businesses should be creating some sort of content marketing. In the age of the internet, content has become more necessary than ever in history.  But dropping a blog post onto your website and hoping for millions of views is not realistic.   So what is a entrepreneur or business leader to do?  In episode 438 Jill Schiefelbein and Thom Singer talk about how to repurpose content.  Jill has live...

Michael Smerklo is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Austin-based venture capital firm Next Coast Ventures. NCV provides early-stage capital to high-growth startups in ‘Next Coast’ markets, using macro trends and themes to guide their investment strategy.     Michael has been in the technology industry for almost 20 years as an operator, investor and board member/advisor. Michael currently s...

Most surveys show that the New Year's Resolutions we set are abandoned by the end of February.  People set goals, and then the routines of their life set in and we fall into the same path we have been walking for a long time.   Thom Singer believes in goal setting and New Year's Resolutions.  While he knows that most people never do much with working long toward their goals, for those who do, it c...

Let’s Talk Funny   Nothing is less funny than a podcast interview about comedy.  Episode 435 is an interview with comedian motivational speaker Garrison Wynn. This conversation covers a lot of ground about his career and what makes things funny.   Garrison got into stand up comedy early, and it has impacted his whole career. He has seen a lot of things between the world of comedy, the Fortune 500,...

Leaders must have followers. You cannot set up to set the pace if the other people behind you don't care what you think and do not respect you. To be a good leader, you must begin by leading yourself in a direction of more success.  Thom Singer takes this episode of the "Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do" podcast into the explorations of self leadership. If you are living as a fraud, others may not kno...