Change Your Mindset

Kristen Rampe,  Founder of Kristen Rampe Consulting, returns to the show to discuss how CPE educators can get the best out of their presenters and subject matter experts and a new training tool for those who want to build confidence when speaking in front of a crowd: PowerPoint Improv!   If you want to get better at speaking, this episode is for you.   Kristen conducted an excellent breakout session during the 2018 CPE Educators Conference, in which a group of us discussed how we can get more engagement from our audiences.   One of the things she talked about was giving the different personas in the room what they need – but what does it really mean to know your audience?   You need an understanding of...   Who’s in the room What their background is Why they’re there What they want to learn   If you don’t know who they are and what they want, it’s going to be a lot harder to provide value or engage them. Remember: in any speaking engagement, it’s not about you, it’s about the audience.   PowerPoint Improv  

Chris Loehrer is a right-brain person living in left-brain world, meaning he is extremely creative, has a BFA in animation and film, but currently operates in a leadership role within The Ohio State Bar Association (OSBA)… not exactly what you might expect from a creative type.   In this episode, Chris offers a unique perspective on the topic of leadership, and shares the challenges he faces with getting some of his ideas across and accepted in a numbers-driven, linear thinking business environment.   Chris is the Studio Operations Manager at OSBA. He was hired to create innovative products and services for membership across all departments, as well as communication plans that tell the story of membership benefits and the value of membership.   However, the bulk of his work in recent months has been implementing new and innovative delivery methods for getting those products to members. In the process, he works with many different teams.   When working with different teams, Chris takes a “Minnesota nice” appro

Ted Janusz is a speaker and marketing guru, and he’s here to help you get the most out of your online presence. We discuss how you can set your organization apart from the competition, how to get your clients and prospects spending more time on your website, and what you can do to raise your level of authority to be perceived as an expert in your field.   Marketing isn’t the same as it was even just 10 years ago – or, at least, your marketing shouldn’t look the same as it did 10 years ago.   For starters, everyone has to have a website. “It’s like the modern business card.”   However, just having a website isn’t enough. You also need the right website.   There are two big marketing trends that emerged in 2017: influencer marketing & video. 79% of people who come to your website scan it, rather than read it – so you need to prioritize visual information, especially videos. Your site needs to grab someone in just a few seconds. Otherwise, they’ll move on. The people visiting your site only care about one thing

Mary Foley energizes female entrepreneurs with the clarity, confidence, and tools to attract, engage, and win more clients. She is an author, energizing keynote speaker, business mentor, host of the P.O.W.E.R. Plug Podcast, and a lover of red capes.   On today’s episode, we discuss her book Bodacious! Woman: Outrageously in Charge of Your Life and Lovin’ It! Her sense of humor and positivity comes through on every page of – as it does every minute of this podcast!   This book isn’t just for women, either. Her stories encapsulate the principles of improvisation and the philosophy of Yes, And (which is especially evident when she shares the story of showing up to work without a pair of pants).   If you look at Mary Foley’s website, you’ll see that being “bodacious” is more than something she uses to brand her content – it’s a personal rallying cry.   “I realize that if I want to create the career I want, let alone the life I want, I need to get more bold and more guts – and that’s why the word ‘Bodacious’ becam

Jim Canterucci is a catalyst for growth leadership change. He is the Founder of Transition Management Advisors and Constituent Hub, the author of Personal Brilliance: Mastering the Everyday Habits That Create a Lifetime of Success, and creator of a comprehensive system for for leading change called Change Management Project - The Next Step.   For years, Jim and his team at Transition Management Advisors have been helping their clients develop leadership capabilities to create a championship culture, generate innovation, and successfully lead the resulting changes.   More recently, Jim has focused on automating the process of leading large organizational change. Using Constituent Hub, an enterprise SaaS platform, “organizations can facilitate sound change leadership principles, view and influence change leadership across the enterprise, make evidence-based change decisions, and realize the ROI of change.”   So how does Constituent Hub facilitate organizational change?   Most organizations have change initiati

Laura Stoll is the Talent Development Consultant at Ernst & Young, and she has a fascinating perspective on how you can develop top talent within your organization that is influenced by her background in improv.   Laura studied at Second City, iO, and ComedySportz Chicago. She even has the distinction of being the only student ever thrown out of previous guest (and current husband) Jay Sukow’s classroom!   At EY, Laura strategizes, designs, and consults on large-scale programs designed to improve the value of the internal talent organization, which includes over 8,000 people. Their big focus right now is on the Career Journey.   In every organization, people tend to resist change, especially the kind of large-scale change that Laura aims to create. So change management becomes critical, and that’s where the fundamentals of improv can really come into play.   Improv isn’t about making things up––it’s about planning like mad, and then being prepared to throw your script away to meet the needs of the person you

Jon Petz is born to be on stage – so much so that he left his highly successful career as a corporate vice president to fulfill his purpose and passion by helping others laugh louder, perform better, and achieve more. We discuss how he evolved from a corporate executive to a business magician to an opening keynoter and MC, and how you can better engage your audience in any situation (plus, we laugh a lot along the way).   As a speaker and MC, Jon engages and energizes his audience using his amazing art of performance, inspiring stories, and the unique “It’s Showtime” performance philosophy to bring home the belief and genuine desire to create greater impact in what we do and with the people we do it for.   According to Jon, it’s at this point we begin to demonstrate and achieve the sense of significance and making a difference.   Jon doesn’t just talk about the importance of significance – he walks the walk. Moved by a moment in his own life, Jon and his wife created the Miracles & Magic Program with one simp

Jody Padar, AKA The Radical CPA, is a leader driven by a passion to foster real change in the accounting profession. She represent the next generation of accounting professionals, leading the vanguard for both digital CPAs and future-ready firms.   Jody returns to the show to discuss her new book, From Success to Significance: The Radical CPA Guide, which is a practice-proven roadmap to a new business model for CPA firms. If you’re looking to change and you’re not sure how to begin, this lays out the steps of creating change through practical strategies, tools, tips, insights, guest experts, and case studies.   So what does the New Firm look like?   Technology is part of the core of the firm, and is used to facilitate closer client relationships. The business model transforms: instead of doing every kind of work for every kind of customer, they’ve niched down. They productize everything offered, so they don’t track or bill by time and, instead, offer everything they do at a fixed or value price.   There’s

Marilyn Sherman is a speaker and author who has spent years motivating and inspiring audiences to get out of their comfort zone and get a front-row seat in life, and this is the perfect time of the year to check in with her because she has tips and techniques anyone can use to stay focused on their goals (and New Year’s resolutions).   It’s the end of January, so some of you may have broken your resolutions already – and that’s okay! Listen to the entire episode, apply Marilyn’s tips, and then you’ll be able to resurrect those resolutions for the remainder of the year.   If you want to do a little extra homework and really blow your goals away, you should check out Marilyn’s new book: Is There a Hole in Your Bucket List? How to Overcome Obstacles That Keep You from Achieving Your Goals. (Plus, if you order it through her website and mention the podcast, you will get a free book on wine from Marilyn’s husband!)   Marilyn wrote this book because even successful people tend to sabotage their own success, in some

Keith Harmeyer is all about ideas! He is an expert in innovative thinking, creative problem solving, and idea generation who spent over two decades coming up with great ideas for some of the world’s best known and most successful companies (such as JPMorgan Chase, Disney, Conde Nast, and McDonald’s).   Now, as a Founding Partner of SmartStorming and co-author of SmartStorming: The Game Changing Process for Generating Bigger, Better Ideas, Keith is providing other organizations with the expertise, structure, skills, and proven idea generation techniques they need to develop their own ground-breaking ideas and innovate.   What exactly is innovation?   Keith defines innovation as “the introduction of something new or different that provides greater value or benefit.” If it’s different just for the sake of being different, that’s novelty.   We tend to think of innovation in big terms, on an organizational level, but it all starts with the individual people within an organization.   When the people within an orga

Today’s guest, Merle Heckman, truly understands the power of storytelling – and why it is needed in all aspects of business today.   You see, Merle works with engineers, but he’s not an engineer (he’s the Manager of Organizational Development at Regal Beloit). And when engineers give presentations, they can be dense with jargon and hard to understand... not unlike when accountants give presentations.   Merle wanted to know how individuals within his organization could give better presentations, so that the people listening could better retain and use the information being presented.   So, for his doctoral degree in Educational Leadership, he performed a study and wrote a dissertation titled, "Intentional Storytelling: A Potential Tool for Retention and Application in Business."   The research was fairly simple: There’s a monthly divisional meeting at Regal Beloit. Every other month, Merle coached the speakers on incorporating storytelling into their presentations, and they did this for four months. So the fi

I’m really excited to introduce you all to Antonio Ocampo-Guzman, an actor, director, author, and theater teacher originally from Bogotá, Colombia. He is an Associate Professor at Northeastern University, where he teaches all levels of acting, voice, and improvisation – but not just to theater students.   Antonio has developed a number of courses for non-theater students to help people develop their “soft skills,” or interpersonal communication skills – but, as listeners to this podcast know, those skills can be very hard to comprehend and practice.   “When you bring people back to playfulness in theater, they rediscover a childlike sense of innocence, playfulness, winningest, and generosity – which makes life much easier.”   Antonio designed the first one of these courses about five years ago, for the business school. Shortly thereafter, Dean Carla Brodley asked him to design a similar course for the computer science program.   After a short pilot period, it became a required class for every single undergrad

Happy New Year! To celebrate the beginning of what is sure to be another interesting year, I’ve gone through every episode from 2017 and pulled out a quote that I found impactful.   Inspired by one of these quotes? You can find an image to download and share for each one by clicking this link.     Resources: Connect with Pete and listen to previous episodes of the podcast at improvisnojoke.com --   Production & Development for Improv Is No Joke by Podcast MastersLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tim Sinclair is the Industry Consulting Director at the accounting firm WebsterRogers, and he has worked with more than 350 companies across the U.S. and in a variety of industries. He is passionate about helping business leaders advance and grow their companies so they can, in turn, improve the lives of their employees and their local economy.   We discuss the skills you need to develop a business, how he helps the team at WebsterRogers sharpen their business development skills, and the role improvisation plays in this process.   Business Development 101   You need to know what makes you unique and different, and why someone should do business with you – and you need to be able to succinctly articulate that to a prospect or client. Active listening is a critical skill; be engaged in a conversation and curious so that you can understand what another person struggles with, what their needs are, and how you can help. Consider the whole experience of each meeting, and make it a unique and memorable experience.

Jerry L. Esselstein specializes in strategic planning, implementation strategies, personnel development, and performance measurement for private company owners, executives, and other senior management groups.   Jerry has an extensive leadership background, and our conversation focuses on the critical leadership skills needed in the modern business landscape. Although we are discussing the future of the accounting profession, you don’t need to be an accountant to enjoy this episode because this information applies to many professions and businesses.   How can professionals prepare for (and adapt to) the new and changing business environment?   Many professions, including CPAs, will have a much more limited scope. (i.e. CPAs will likely still be giving assurance based on historic performance, but who will be involved in forecasting, advising, growth?).   Technology such as machine learning and blockchain will do a lot of grunt work faster and better than any human will ever be able to – so a professional’s a

Boyd Search is the President & CEO of the Georgia Society of CPAs. Our conversation centers around how he approached changing the organization’s corporate culture, and the impact that the George Society is making on its members, associates, and the profession.   On Boyd’s first day as CEO of the Georgia Society almost seven years ago, I was actually his first new paying member – and I am still a member because his changes haven’t ticked me off yet!   So how (and why) is Boyd transforming the culture in the Georgia Society of CPAs?   Boyd’s first action as CEO wasn’t actually a big change or initiative – he took time to learn about the stakeholders in the association so that he could better make a plan for the future.   “As the world has changed, and as time becomes a more precious commodity, associations have, by and large, become more staff-driven.” The association hasn’t increased their staff, but existing staff positions now have new responsibilities, which means they’ve had to hire new staff or learn n

Ryan Parker is the President & CEO of Endicott Clay Products and the newly installed chair of the Nebraska Society of CPA’s executive board.   Our conversation focuses on the process of adding value to your organization as you grow your career, what you should be thinking about if you aspire to be a leader within your organization, and the challenges of replacing a seasoned CEO.   How can you add value to an organization & grow as a leader?   Some work is necessary, but doesn’t add value. “When you’re in a public accounting role, the trick is to really become an advisor. A consultant pays the pills, but it doesn’t generate revenue.” When you turn that corner and become an advisor, in any industry, you start to create work for your organization.   Many people in technical professions understand their job, but they don’t necessarily have a comprehensive understanding of the business or industry: sales, marketing, human resources, regulations, and daily operations all matter. You need a complete understanding

Jay Sukow believes that the world would be a better place if everyone took just one improv class – and I agree! Jay is trying to make that world a reality as the Founder of Today Improv, where he teaches improv to actors, businesses, and everyone else all over the world.   Jay is also on faculty at M.i.’s Westside Comedy Theater and The Second City Hollywood, and co-host of the ImprovCast with Jay and Landon.   In the 80’s and 90’s, there wasn’t a lot of understanding about what improv was. However, after years of people like Jay working with the public and businesses, people are starting to accept and understand why improv is so beneficial in both business and life.   “Be the improviser that you want to play with; be the person in your business who you want to work with.”   When Jay and his ensemble go to work with a business, they don’t claim to be business experts – but they are experts in communication, working together, being part of an ensemble, focusing on the team first, and using information.   His

Colin Blalock, a shareholder with Jones and Kolb, is a CPA with a very unique set of skills: Colin has developed a talent for understanding the nonverbal messages that people are saying. That's right – He has developed the ability to read body language, and he has delivered a number of conference presentations on this topic.   The importance of reading body language is underscored when you understand how people are interpreting your message: 7 percent is what you say, 38 percent is how you say it (the tone of your voice), and 55 percent is silent body language.   But a lot of us don't take the time to think about our own body language, and that limits how effectively we can communicate with others – or understand what they’re really communicating to us.   Colin’s Challenge & Body Language Cheat Sheet   For the next 30 days, when you get up in the morning, read this cheat sheet – the 13 keys of body language – and try to identify these things during your day. What you see, and learn, will absolutely blow you

Dr. David Brobeck (AKA The Problem-Solving Professor) is a professional speaker and a professor of graduate education at Walsh University. His current academic focus is researching various means to enhancing teaching and learning based on neuroscience. Regardless of the endeavor, David believes learning should be fun – and I agree!   In this interview, Dr. Brobeck shares tips and techniques we can use to make learning fun in order to increase the audience member retention rate, whether we’re presenting, teaching, at work, or at home.   Dr. Brobeck starts every presentation with a slide saying, “If you're not a fun person, you may hate the session.” He then goes on to explain that, even if you’re not fun, you might want to fake it because the brain can't tell the difference – and we know people learn more and retain more when there is humor involved.   If you look at the traditional lecture style of speaking, there’s no engagement. It's just boring data. It's just not connecting with them, and it creates bored