Shows / Intentional Success with Tom Stimson
Intentional Success with Tom Stimson
Are you looking to take your live events production business to the next level? Do you want to learn from industry experts and gain insights into the latest business trends and strategies? Welcome to the Intentional Success Podcast, where we provide you with the tools and resources you need to help your business grow and scale… on purpose. Hosted by industry veteran Tom Stimson, each episode answers unpacks the best practices and secrets to achieving intentional success. From marketing and…
Episodes
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonThe 5 Best Principles My Clients Embrace
Rental is dead. Marketing is no longer optional. You have to know your costs. Your org chart is a trap. And the fifth principle my best clients follow is the…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Get to "No" Faster
This week's blog post covers the four priorities of consultative selling: getting to no fast, running the feedback loop, keeping pricing unemotional, and…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonThe 5 Principles My Best Clients Understand
Rental is dead. Marketing is no longer optional. You have to know your costs. And the fourth thing my best clients know is that your org chart is a trap. It…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: One Job at a Time Doesn't Scale
This week's blog post walks through the project manager bottleneck, the four-function model that replaces it, the head-of-planning role that ties it together…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonThe 5 Uncommon Sense Updates My Best Clients Use Every Day
You have to understand your actual costs for this job, this customer, at this time of year. In this episode, I break down the three types of costs, why $10,000…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Give Two Answers, Not One
This week's blog post walks through the five objection types, the response that fits each, and why overreacting is what gets you deeper into trouble at the…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonYou Weren't Wrong Before, But Here Are the 5 Things That Changed
Ninety-nine percent of your potential customers have never heard of you. Word of mouth only reaches the 1% who stumble onto you through someone else's network…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Buyers Are Tired of Shopping
This week's Monday Morning Drive walks through when to bring up multi-year in discovery, what to price for three years, how to handle the variable costs, and…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonThe 5 Best Things My Clients Know
I've stood on stage in front of hundreds of people and said it: "Rental is dead." When you itemize every piece of gear, you turn yourself into a commodity…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Stop Using the Word "Upsell"
This week's Monday Morning Drive walks through the three tiers, the test that separates an enhancement from an upsell, and the budget-cut call that comes two…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonHow to Manage Tipping Points So They Don't Become Roadblocks
Last week, I identified five statements that tell me an owner has lost control. This week, I walk through what to do about each one. "Too busy" is a planning…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Hire the Third Role, Not the First
The people you hire determine the weight class your company operates in. Hiring the right team is the lever that moves your company up a class or holds it back…
Intentional Success with Tom Stimson5 Tipping Points Owners Need To Fear
Every owner has the moment where they realize they're not the smartest person in the room. In this episode, I walk through five statements I hear from owners…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Write Every Quote Down
Here's the reality nobody at the salvage yard would say out loud, and nobody in AV wants to admit. All prices are made up. Pricing is a decision, not math. The…
- Intentional Success with Tom Stimson
Post-Event Math
Why don't bigger shows make as much money as smaller ones? You're shorting labor to pay for equipment, and gross profit drops every time the show scales up. In…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Feast or Famine Is a Choice
If July surprises you, that's on you. The same rule applies to whatever your slow month happens to be. You can't call your business seasonal and then act…
- Intentional Success with Tom Stimson
Where Your Sales Team Can Add More Value In The RFP Process
If you haven't sold the job yet, everyone who touches that buyer is a salesperson. In this episode, I break down four ways to add value before you ever write a…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Most Strategy Sessions Aren't About Strategy
Strategy is engineering what you want to happen based on what you think will happen. Tactics are how. Strategy is what…
- Intentional Success with Tom Stimson
My New Favorite Job Title: The Project Coordinator
Project managers look at one job at a time. Planning teams look at all jobs, all the time. In this episode, I break down why a planning team built on project…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Revenue Won't Fix Your Cash Flow
Healthy businesses don't have cash flow problems. They manage cash flow. Building a scalable business starts with knowing how cash actually moves through it…
- Intentional Success with Tom Stimson
The New Era Of Line Item Proposals
Institutional buyers don't actually need your line item pricing. They just think they do. In this episode, I break down why buyers ask for an itemized…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Stop Saying It's Hard. Stop Saying It's Easy.
This week's Monday Morning Drive walks through the responsibility-vs-accountability framing that drives most sales-ops conflicts, the rule that the order is…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonOvercoming Single Level Objections
"That's a lot of money" is surprise, not a negotiating position. Most sales objections are single-level, and one response solves them. In this episode, I break…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Titles Don't Matter. Roles Do.
This week's Monday Morning Drive walks through the five primary roles in the selling sphere: account executive (strategic, client-facing), account manager…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonAn Important Trend That's Already Affecting Your Pricing
More buyers are asking for multi-year agreements because they're tired of shopping and tired of unpredictable pricing. In this episode, I break down how to…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Thriving Companies Start at "No"
The hardest word in business is no. We don't like saying it. I can't say no to revenue. I can't say no to my employees. I can't say no to my customers. I can't…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonThe Do's and Don'ts of Successful Upselling
A customer asks for a screen, and you're already pricing dress kits and scenic surrounds. That's upselling, and it favors you more than the buyer. In this…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Stop Wasting Three Hours on Production Meetings
This week's Monday Morning Drive lays out the full structure: the two meetings, the three categories that belong in planning, the magic question that…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonWhen Punching Above Your Weight Makes Sense
"Punching above your weight" usually means taking on a show that's bigger than your company. But the more important version happens when you hire people. Hire…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Stop Writing Proposals Without Answers
This week's Monday Morning Drive walks through the four questions, the three priorities that replace "fast, cheap, good," the three different proposals that…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonQuote Faster, Quote Smarter
All of your prices are made up. The question is whether they're made up based on what you can verify in the marketplace or what you've always charged because…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Slow Down Your Show Prep
If you're missing stuff on show pulls, that's on you, and it's fixable on a faster timeline than most owners think. Operations is where you actually get to set…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonThe Myth of Seasonality
It's July. You're slow. And you're acting like this has never happened before. In this episode, I break down the three choices you've always had for your…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Stop Building a Rental Company
This week's Monday Morning Drive walks through the two paths into this business, what to own and what to outsource, how to price for services instead of gear…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonWhy We Do Shows
Sometime in the 1980s, I did a small show in Destin, Florida. The beaches were empty, the restaurants were closed, and the audience was maybe 100 people. The…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Good Freelancers Get Work. Great Ones Get Called Back.
This Monday Morning Drive is a love letter to freelancers. Some of you are good. Some of you are great. The gap between the two isn't technical expertise. The…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonCan You Afford the Luxury of Thinking Strategically?
Strategy is engineering what you want to happen based on what you think will happen, and most businesses never get there. In this episode, I walk through a…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Stop Writing Rules
This week's Monday Morning Drive covers the squeaky-wheel problem with rules, the vacation-in-May example, the truck-loading rule we all know, and why adult…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonWhy I Love Outsourcing
Your team would rather stay up all night flowing gear across the country than pick up the phone and order a screen. That's job cost mentality, and it's killing…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: The Three Lies Keeping You Overstaffed
Overstaffing is the quiet problem nobody wants to talk about. This week's Monday Morning Drive names the three lies, shows how to spot them in your own team…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonWeak Cashflow Is More Urgent Than You Think
Cash flow is the number one conversation I have with clients, and the instinct is always the same: I need more revenue. But revenue is a band-aid. If your…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Every Windfall Is Lying About Your Size
A reliable, flat revenue stream isn't normal for our industry. It never will be. So we chase windfalls: big, one-off jobs that look like manna from heaven on…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Slow Down When the Phone Starts Ringing
This week's Monday Morning Drive walks through the filter, the value proposition, and what to do with the price shopper who won't give up the line-item detail…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonThe Ongoing Battle Between Sales and Operations
Operations says everything is hard. Sales says everything is easy. Neither is helpful, and both are at the root of why your teams can't communicate. In this…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Manpower Won't Fix a Brain Problem
This week's Monday Morning Drive is about the three inputs that separate owners who move forward from owners who stay stuck: data, facts, and decisions. The…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonTitles vs. Roles in Your Selling Organization
Your account executives are taking orders. Your sales director is managing accounts. And your $2 million company has a CEO. Titles matter to the outside world…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: 10 Words Costing You Money
When I started in this industry, I was a freelancer looking for gigs. I'd stop by rental offices, talk to the rental manager, and find out where their trucks…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonThriving Is Much Harder Than You Imagine
The hardest word in business is no. So we say yes to everything and figure it out later. Thriving companies do the opposite. They start every opportunity as a…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Stop Retaining Bad Customers
Growth doesn't have to mean piling on more business. It can mean improving the quality of the business you already have. This week's Monday Morning Drive…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonThe Weekly Planning Meeting
Your weekly production meeting is probably three hours of redundant updates, hijacked conversations, and circular debates that end without a decision. That's…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Why Nobody Wants to Work for You
Recruiting is marketing. If top freelancers and strong hires aren't lining up at your door, the problem isn't them. It's what they see when they look at your…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonThe High Priority Questions to Ask Before Ever Writing a Proposal
When you don't ask enough questions, you don't exclude enough from your proposal. You include too much, overshoot the budget, and send a document full of…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Your Warehouse Is Lying to You
Walk out into your warehouse on the busiest day of the year. All the gear that earns money is out on shows. Take a look at what's left. Ideally, you'll find a…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonSlow Down So You Can Save Time
You're missing stuff on show pulls. Everybody's pointing fingers. And you keep telling yourself it's human error. It's not. It's a process error. In this…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Scalability Fixes More Than You Think
You can't fix every problem in your business. And if you tried, you'd never have time to run it. Rough edges are fine. The question is where to put your…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonRemaking the Technical Production Model
If you were starting a technical production company today, what would you do differently? Whether you came up as a freelancer with gear or a technical producer…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Your Pricing Isn't as Honest as You Think
Years ago, I sat having drinks with an account executive after a big medical convention at the Anatole in Dallas. I had 40 or 50 crew members there from my…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonHow to Spot a Great Freelancer
You keep saying you can't find great freelancers. But do great freelancers want to work for you? In this episode, I break down what separates good from great…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonMonday Morning Drive: Marketing Won't Dig You Out of a Hole
Every November, I get the same call. A business owner stares at next year's calendar, sees nothing confirmed for January, and panics. The conversation is…
Intentional Success with Tom StimsonPlease Don't Make Any More Rules
Your management meetings keep getting hijacked by the same kinds of debates. A freelancer billed for airport parking. An employee wants vacation during your…