The Fire Time Podcast

While we prepare Season 11 of the podcast, Tim will be giving weekly rapid reactions to audio articles from our industry publications. In this week's episode, Tim reacts to an article by Kyle Titsworth titled “3 Warehouse Tasks That Should Shape Your Plans and Processes”. This article was published in the April 2023 issue of The Fire Time Magazine and outlines organizational strategies for your wa...

While we prepare Season 11 of the podcast, Tim will be giving weekly rapid reactions to audio articles from our industry publications. In this week’s episode, Tim reacts to an article from the March 2023 edition of The Fire Time Magazine titled “Retrofits - Maintenance, Upgrades, and Innovations to Installed Wood Stoves” by Noel Putannsuu. A leading authority in clean wood burning, Noel Putannsuu’...

While we prepare Season 11 of the podcast, Tim will be giving weekly rapid reactions to audio articles from our industry publications. In this week’s episode, Tim reacts to an article from the April 2023 edition of The Fire Time Magazine titled “Overcoming the Pain of Sustaining Change” by Jerry Eisenhower. This article talks about overcoming the temporary challenges that come with long-term impro...

While we prepare Season 11 of the podcast, Tim will be giving weekly rapid reactions to audio articles from our industry publications. In this week’s episode, Tim reacts to an article from Phil Connor’s Fire Time Magazine column, “FirePower with Phil Connor,” titled “Empathy.” This article was published in the November 2022 issue of The Fire Time Magazine and talks about the importance of having e...

While we prepare Season 11 of the podcast, Tim will be giving weekly rapid reactions to audio articles from our industry publications. In this week's episode, Tim reacts to an article by Bill Lentz titled, “Competing Without Losing”. This article was originally published in the August 2022 issue of The Fire Time Magazine, and it explains the two measurements needed to compete without cheapening ou...

While we prepare Season 11 of the podcast, Tim will be giving weekly rapid reactions to audio articles from our industry publications. In this week's episode, Tim reacts to an article by Clay Dennis titled, “Improve Employee Performance with Better Job Descriptions”. This article was originally published in the June 2023 issue of The Fire Time Magazine and its simple wisdom is incredible—don't mis...

While we prepare Season 11 of the podcast, Tim will be giving weekly rapid reactions to audio articles from our industry publications. In this week's episode, Tim reacts to the first article he ever wrote for an industry publication: “Your Real Rival”. This was the guest editorial in the September/October issue of The Patio and Hearth Products Report magazine. Hear Tim read this article and react...

While we prepare Season 11 of the podcast, Tim will be giving weekly rapid reactions to audio articles from The Fire Time Magazine. In this week's episode, Tim reacts to “Service—The Dirty Word of the Hearth Industry” by Mark Stoner (Owner, Ashbuster's Chimney Service). To hear more audio articles from our magazine, subscribe to the Fire Time Magazine Podcast: https://www.itsfiretime.com/magazine....

In this episode, we round out Season 10 by answering questions that have come in over the last few months. In this episode, Tim responds to these questions: How quickly should you greet a customer who walks into your showroom? Where do you start if you've never managed a team before? Should a business offer annual service plans and extended warranties to differentiate from their competitors? How d...

In the Southeast US, there’s a noticeable positive difference in how people treat eachother. This difference also positively affects how business is conducted. In today’s episode, Tim chats with Gideon Honeycutt and Kenneth Walker (Blaze King and Valor's southeastern sales reps) to learn more about this difference in how people treat one another in the South. In this episode, you’ll learn: What th...

In Quebec, Canada, electrification happened decades ago. Hearth stores survived this transition and have been selling more than just electric fireplaces ever since because of how they positioned themselves as a part of the solution. In today’s episode, Tim talks with Jean-François Fauteux (Coval Distribution), who believes the hearth business in Quebec has become stronger from electrification than...

If we want to be serious about hiring and inspiring Gen Z, we don’t have to offer more paid time off or higher wages. Instead, we first need to understand the forces that influence young people's worldview, and, second, sincerely connect with them. In today’s episode, Matt Bradley (Partnership Manager at WhyFire) explains how postmodernism plagued Gen Z and what can be done to reverse its effects....

A lot of businesses settle for bad stock photography because it’s what’s available. Producing quality content in-house is much easier than you might think, and its benefits will quickly become apparent once published.  In today’s episode, Tim chats with Johnathan Sanders (Production Specialist, Spark Marketer) about why quality, locally-produced content is so crucial for hearth businesses to flour...

Smoke from indoor cooking fires kills more people annually than AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. These deaths are easily preventable, and our industry is perfectly positioned to help prevent them. In today’s episode, Tim talks with Shelby Curtis and Mike Hatfield of Stove Team International about their efforts in facilitating the placement of low-smoke, fuel-efficient, and safe cookstoves...

Being confident in sales skills is common, but reflecting on and critiquing them to get better is not. This is why committing to practicing sales day in and day out is critical to success. In today’s episode, Tim takes on something we have never done on the podcast before: he has a live sales practice with Curtis Coomer and Quinn Lackey of Barnhill Chimney. In this episode, you’ll learn: The rhyth...

Not regularly meeting with your sales team is essentially giving up on where your business is going. Meetings are the place to make changes in your company, and not having them will keep your business stagnant. In today’s episode, Tim builds on previous episodes of the Building a Framework of Sales Management series by discussing how to run a regular sales meeting. In this episode, you’ll learn: H...

What separates hearth professionals and business people working at Fortune 500 companies is that most hearth professionals were never professionally trained in sales. Far too many hearth companies operate their sales processes as if they are driving by looking through the rearview mirror. To operate effectively, they also need to pay attention to metrics telling what’s happening and what’s ahead....

Many business leaders have expectations in mind and may criticize their team when those expectations are not met. However, until they sit down with each team member and coach them on the specific behaviors they want, a lack of alignment in expectations will occur. In today’s episode, Tim talks about how to coach the right behaviors once a business starts to operate from a sales dashboard. This is...

“Guys, there is over a million dollars of lost business in here,” was all that one of Tim’s former colleagues had to say while cleaning out a wastebasket to make him realize how much money his company was losing by not having a sales dashboard. In today’s episode, Tim explains how to utilize a sales dashboard. This tool will allow you to track opportunities that have not closed in a much more gran...

Do your salespeople have the liberty to sell however they please? While that may occasionally work, having a consistent sales process can regularly work. This doesn’t mean your salespeople become robots; it means they have a flexible framework to solve every customer’s problem. They go from thinking, “This is how I do it,” to “This is how we do it.” In today’s episode, Tim will teach you how to de...

Support The Fire Time Podcast financially: https://www.patreon.com/itsfiretime.

Support The Fire Time Podcast financially: https://www.patreon.com/itsfiretime.

Support The Fire Time Podcast financially: https://www.patreon.com/itsfiretime.

Support The Fire Time Podcast financially: https://www.patreon.com/itsfiretime.

Gone are the days of storefronts for everything. Covid made many industries pivot to finding creative ways to put their product in front of customers at their homes. This movement is not slowing down; it is in our industry's best interest to get to where the market is going. Listen to this episode to learn how to get your products in front of consumers. While we prepare Season 10 of the podcast (w...