The Fink Tank

Cam and Col Fink
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The Fink Tank

A podcast for people dealing with the weirdness of running their own small business. Brothers Cam and Col Fink chat about work, life, and the confounding idiocy of themselves and others. They've been brothers for 45 years. You get to pick who's older. Col helps people run successful small practices, and is an expert public speaker and trainer. Cam is an event producer and freelance videographer, and loves helping people bring their best selves to video.

  1. 1 DAY AGO

    Ruining parrots lives

    First there’s the buzz and excitement of a new community. You “find your people” and the world is full of possibility. Amazing things happen. The sparkle evolves and matures, and then…. fizzes out. Either the whole thing implodes or it’s time for you to leave. Friendships can be for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Communities too. Why does this happen? What can you do about it? How do you cope? In this Friday Fink Tank Col and I discuss this over parrots.

    7 min

  2. 13 FEB

    Whats the point?

    We’re both hypocrites. You probably are too. We’re doing exactly what we’re advising against, by recording something we said we weren’t capturing, and publishing it somewhere we say doesn’t matter. Regardless, this episode might be all the evidence you need it's possible to be both rampantly hypocritical and still make a decent point. Welcome back to The Friday Fink Tank for 2025! Col and are delighted to be here. How’s everyone doing out there?? What standards are you applying to others but not yourself? What principles do you staunchly believe in and happily ignore??

    4 min

  3. 26/12/2024

    Seasons change

    Wrapping up season 2 of the Fink Tank!

    6 min

  4. 19/12/2024

    World class? More like world arse

    Do you aspire to be “world class”? Col thinks you should. I think that’s bollocks. Please enjoy some friendly sibling fireworks on what “world class” means, and whether it’s a useful or realistic aspiration. We started with Col’s interesting idea that people will forgive *one* element of something being a bit crap. But not two. I immediately warmed to this idea, and could recognise its truth. - If you’re a great presenter but you have crap slides, you’re still a great presenter. But if you’re ALSO dressed poorly? Trouble. - If you’re a bit scruffy but your speech and slides are immaculate? You’re quirky. We then plunge into disagreement about being "world class", and whether trebuchets are the superior siege weapon. What say you? Have at it in the comments!

    7 min

  5. 12/12/2024

    Don’t shave that yak!

    We’re probably all guilty of shaving a yak when we’ve lost sight of our original goal. If you want to see THE classic example, skip to the last minute for some Bryan Cranston gold from in Malcom in the Middle. Allow me - through a 2005 Seth Godin blog - to explain. Paraphrasing Seth's example, Yak Shaving is the last in a series of steps toward something you want to do. “I need to drive to a meeting across town” “My car’s broken down, but I could borrow my neighbour Jill’s.” “But it would feel awkward asking because I still haven’t returned her Mongolian pillow” “I haven’t returned her Mongolian pillow because my dog chewed it and I need to get some authentic replacement stuffing” The next thing you know you’re at the zoo shaving a Yak, just so you can borrow a car. In this Friday Fink Tank Col and I compare our Yak Shaving potholes. Col reveals his strategy for avoiding the Yak Shaving, using an unsurprising strategy involving an imaginary Peter Cook. What your version of Yak Shaving?

    7 min

  6. 05/12/2024

    Baby Licence

    New rule: you have to have three kids before you're allowed to have kids! Today's Fink Tank starts with an admission from Col that despite having three kids, as a parent he's just making it up as he goes along. All new parents share this realisation (I've heard!): there's no amount of study or research that will truly prepare you for parenthood. The only real preparation is the act of parenting itself. This insight turns out to be true of nearly every challenge we face. The real preparation is found in the doing.

    7 min

  7. 28/11/2024

    A face for radio

    Lehmo repeated himself SIX TIMES in 12 minutes. Here’s why that was great. Lehmo and Sam Lane had me and Tony as guests on their show Summer Grandstand on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). We were there to talk about our new film Ange & The Boss. Expertly guided, we shared the funny and interesting stories in (and about) our film, AND immediately sold lots of tickets to an eventual sellout premiere at the Astor! We left the segment with all the warm fuzzies. In this Fink Tank Col and I chat about what made it a great experience. Lehmo and Sam did these three things, in this order: 1. Elevate others (us!) 2. Build audience rapport 3. Repeat important details Because they’d done such a great job of getting the best out of us, Lehmo repeating the session details SIX TIMES felt like a favour to the audience, not a distraction or intrusion. And it worked. We sold heaps of tickets! We left knowing we’d been in the company of true experts, even though they did nothing to talk themselves up. Their mastery did all the heavy lifting. — If you’d like to see our film Ange & The Boss, there’s a couple of opportunities left this year. Wednesday 4 December - Astor Theatre This is a South Melbourne Hellas club night (the subject of our film!), and is sure to have amazing energy. Thursday 5 December 7:45pm Thornbury Picture House SOLD OUT Saturday 21 December 4pm Thornbury Picture House 18 seats left

    7 min

  8. 21/11/2024

    Hungry Hungry Algos

    Dermot Crowley once posted a blog which got exactly zero likes or responses. Months later, it started a conversation that landed a huge contract. Someone read it, resonated with the message, then did absolutely nothing. On visible metrics the blog scored a fat zero. Then, after a chance real-life encounter in a lift, it delivered on THE metric. Money. Most of us face some version of this dilemma: - Content that grows your following is less likely to bring in business. - Content that appeals to paying customers will likely reach fewer eyeballs. There’s usually an inverse relationship between popularity and monetisation. Alex M H Smith wrote about this last week (after we recorded this episode) with a sexy graph that neatly illustrates this idea. He makes the dubious claim of having limited growth himself AND HAS 96K FOLLOWERS, but we'll chalk that up to the English sense of humour. His stuff is great. https://lnkd.in/g-Tjwh3E For those of us an order of magnitude behind, it’s helpful to be clear about what you want. What are your measures of success? Col and I aren’t empirical about what we’re looking for, and we’re not crunching big numbers. There's no fancy sales funnel. We like having a laugh and prompting conversation between ourselves and others. We like making friends we might one day meet. Sure we'd like a bigger audience. Who wouldn't?? But we don’t mind if the link between The Fink Tank and paying clients is indirect. Building relationships with stories and sibling silliness is fun. And the inbound leads are healthy. Do you know what you’re looking for?

    5 min
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About

A podcast for people dealing with the weirdness of running their own small business. Brothers Cam and Col Fink chat about work, life, and the confounding idiocy of themselves and others. They've been brothers for 45 years. You get to pick who's older. Col helps people run successful small practices, and is an expert public speaker and trainer. Cam is an event producer and freelance videographer, and loves helping people bring their best selves to video.

Information

  • Creator
    Cam and Col Fink
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2025
  • Episodes
    70
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Cam and Col Fink
  • Show Website
    The Fink Tank

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