The Fire Show

Thomas Umstattd (http://www.thomasumstattd.com/) (@ThomasUmstattd) is a lot of things. He's an entrepreneur - as CEO of AuthorMedia, a company helping author get more sales with their books, through providing web design and marketing services. He's a podcaster - the co-host of Novel marketing Podcast, a podcast which dives deep into the art of promoting a novel. If you're an existing or spinning novelist, check it out. He's an author, having written and released Courtship in Crisis, a book about dating habits in the US. He's also not helping me edit and polish up my podcast, so I know he's listening. If you're a podcaster needing some production help, reach out to Thomas. Most importantly, he's a friend whose opinion and perspective on technology I really wanted to pick. This is what the episode is about. We talk tech, consumer's expectations, and what the future of media may look like. Thomas can be reached at http://www.thomasumstattd.com/ or @ThomasUmstattd.

Surprise! There's 1 more episode for the mini-series Tech Journalism. It's with my friend, Ellen Chang, who I met during Startup Week in Austin. She is not a tech reporter, but a journalism who writes for The Street, US News and World Report, and more. She's written about stocks, entrepreneurs, personal finance, energy, cyber security, and has been mentioned in CBS News, Yahoo News, MSN money, and more. We talk about her starting in journalism is highschool, the difference between tech and finance journalism, Austin, and more. She's obviously a good reporter, because she also prompts me to talk about my day job as a Engineer, which I don't talk about at all.

This episode is about exactly what the title says, and the cut down audio version of a video done by my friend Sujan Patel. For reference, Sujan Patel is a serial entrepreneur who's running 4 companies right now. He's a marketer, author, writer, speaker. We're working on videos about marketing tactics together, which you can check out on YouTube Page Sujan Patel. Now, I will shut up. Enjoy.

This interview is with Mike Cronin (@michaelccronin ), Technology Reporter for Austin-American Statesman. He's an award-winning investigative journalist with two decades of experience across beats including technology, startups, finance, growth and economy, cybersecurity, science, space, government, higher and K-12 education, the military and religion. Honors include the Peabody, the duPont Gold Baton, the duPont Silver Baton, a Murrow and others.

Following up on last week's episode with Melissa about how Marketing Consultants work, today I'm bringing to you the audio from a recent video from Sujan and I, What To Ask Marketing Consultants before hiring them, i.e. making sure you're investing your money in the right agency or consultant to get the most results. You can check out this video and future videos with Sujan and I on his YouTube Channel, Sujan Patel.

Melissa Huisman (@mk_huis) is the Founder of Diamond Block (https://diamondblockcreative.com/) , a creative agency that works with small business and startups to clarify their marketing strategy, fine-tune messaging and positioning, and then developing on-brand assets, including visual identity, websites, and engaging content.

In this episode, we talk about her perspective as a professional - What brands miss in their marketing campaigns - How entrepreneurs in general can get too attached to their ideas and take feedback from the market way too seriously, or not at all -Why it's important to take a step back and look at the story you're telling before going into and just create create create

If you enjoy this, let me know @notthatmoby on Twitter or @mk_huis on Instagram.

Next week, it's a special episode with me and Sujan Patel, Author, Entrepreneur, Speaker, and we discuss the next level of Marketing Consultants. What do you ask someone you're hiring to help you on marketing before hiring them?

Stay tuned.

Art Markman, is a professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas at Austin and Founding Director of the Program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations, a new set of the interdisciplinary curriculum at the University of Texas.

His research focuses on how people perceive things to be similar, and the psychological processes involved in decision making, catheter learning, and analogy comparison.

Art has written six books on psychology, leadership, and organizations change, with another on the way. His latest one is Brain Briefs, Answers to the Most (and Least) Pressing Questions about Your Mind, where he along with Bob Duke PhD, answers questions such as:

--Why do we love kitten videos so much? --Does time speed up as we get older? --Should we play brain games? --Can we make ourselves happy?

Others include:

--Smart Change. (14) --Habits of Leaderships (13) --Smart Thinking. (12)

Outside of books, he is a regular contributor at:

--Fast Company --Scientific American --Psychology Today

He is also the Host:

2 Guys on Your Head, a radio show as well as a podcast about psychology and how humans make decisions.

I met Art at a panel he was on and connected with him shortly after.

There was a period in which I wanted to do an episode on decision-making, but I thought the concept of writing a book was more interested at this moment. Who knows? We might record another episode sometime!

Alright, so this episode is about writing a book. Specifically, tactics on:

--The process of writing a solo book --What's the difference between writing a research-based book, whether that's first-hand research or second-hand research --How to get started --What you need to sell. Hint: it's a lot

You can connect with Art by:

--Twitter: @abmarkman

--Read his stuff on Fast Company, Scientific American. Ad Psychology Today.

--Listen to his podcast 2 Guys on Your Head, whose Twitter is @2GoYH

Remember when the beard wasn't a thing? That is when Eric Bandholz, along with his kickass cofounders Lindsey Reinders and Jeremy McGee, started Beardbrand.

It started off as his solo project, one of many, then became a collaborative side-hustle, and then a full-time business that is now a prominent name in the men's grooming space.

It's been quite a journey for Eric, his team, and BeardBrand, from starting this up in Spokane with $30, to finding his co-founders, being featured on NY times, to being on Shark Tank, and amassing more than 58M views on YouTube.

I met Eric at a conference in the summer, and wanted to learn more about how he and his team used content, bootstrapping, and community engagement to build a successful brand. In this episode, we discuss:

--The value of content when it comes to a brand, since BeardBrand has more than $58M views on their YouTube channel --How he met his co founders at a startup weekend --How influencer marketing works and what to do / not do --How relationships should be long-term. Don't always try to make the sale --The value of a distributed marketing strategy --What he would tell himself when he started his entrepreneurship journey My biggest Lesson: Surround yourself with people who get it - your wins and failures. And I don't mean, the dumb Rick and Morty circle-jerk in which people tell each other how great they are because they do XYZ when they're the same as everyone else, but because you want people who understand what you went through to get that one small win. Find Eric at: Twitter: @bandholz Find Beardbrand at Beardbrand.com Twitter, YouTube, Instagram: @beardbrand

Born in Chicago, and raised in Memphis, Vernice wanted to be a cop since she was a young girl. She did that by taking a break from Middle Tennessee State University and joining the Nashville police department - becoming the first female african-american motorcycle police officer in Nashville.

Returning to graduate, From there, she served as a police officer in Arizona, and then joined the US Marines and subsequently joined the Naval Air Station in Florida, where she was #1 in her class as a combat pilot.

Not only that, but she crushed it at the Marine camp she was at before being deployment - she was named Camp Female Athlete of the Year, twice won the Camp's annual Strongest Warrior Competition, and was a running back for the San Diego Sunfire women's football team. Later, in Iraq, she became Vernice became America's first African American female combat pilot. And now, after 14 years in the military, 2 delopments, 8 awards, she is a Professional Speaker as well as a Speaking Coach. In 2011, she wrote her book Zero to Breakthrough: The 7-Step, Battle-Tested Method for Accomplishing Goals that Matter. Today, she's sitting with me. I had the chance to sit down with Vernice and discuss. Well, a lot.

Her journey from being in the military to becoming a speaker The concept of Deliberate Practice and how you can be good at what you don't know anything about Where passion and guts come from The idea of working for free at what you want to do and then charging for it. I'm doing this right now btw. How not making a decision is actually a decision How to connect with Vernice: VerniceArmour.com Twitter: @VerniceArmour YouTube: Vernice FlyGirl Armour