Board of Advisors Podcast

Inside a $500M Commercial Real Estate Playbook | Robert Creamer & Dillon England

Commercial real estate can feel like a black box until you hear how deals actually move behind the scenes and what can blow them up at the finish line. We’re joined by Robert Creamer of Seven Streams Commercial Group, a commercial broker with 21+ years in the business and over $500 million closed, to break down what he’s seeing right now and what investors regularly misunderstand. We talk about how Robert built his business by chasing relationships instead of living on cold calls, and why being the “commercial referral person” for residential agents can create a steady pipeline. From there, we dig into the current commercial real estate market: interest rates, cap rate expectations, why down payments often need to be 35–40% today, and what “opportunistic value add” really means when you’re stress-testing risk. Then we get practical about commercial real estate investing fundamentals that matter in the real world: disclosure differences versus residential, Texas non-disclosure and how it affects comps, and due diligence issues like environmental Phase I/Phase II reports that can turn a property into something uninsurable and unloanable. We also cover leasing versus buying for business owners, the value of having a full team, and why choosing the right person matters more than the company logo. If you want a clearer, safer way to evaluate commercial property and build a smarter portfolio, listen through and take notes. Subscribe, share this with a friend considering their first commercial deal, and leave us a review with your biggest commercial real estate question. About Board of Advisors Board of Advisors is an invite-only community of entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors, and executives dedicated to helping one another grow personally and professionally. Through quarterly events, strategic introductions, peer-to-peer mentoring, and a culture built on giving first, BA creates an environment where leaders can solve problems faster, build meaningful relationships, and unlock new opportunities. When you're in the right room, anything is possible. Subscribe for more conversations with members of the Board of Advisors community as we continue releasing exclusive interviews recorded live from our Q2 Dallas event. #BAPodcast #BoardOfAdvisors #BACommunity #Entrepreneurship

How to Build a "Relationship Machine" | Dillon England & Jimmy Ralph

A 70% revenue drop can either end your story or sharpen it. From a Ritz-Carlton hallway during our Board of Advisors quarterly meetup, we talk with Dylan England, founder of 313 Media Company, about the leap from commission-only B2B insurance to building a podcast agency that runs on relationships, trust, and consistent referrals. Dylan breaks down how knocking on doors for employee benefits taught him grit, then how COVID slammed the business right after he signed an office lease and hired help. That pain sparked a new direction: podcasting as a way to tell the truth about entrepreneurship, not the filtered “wins only” version. He shares the surprising moment when long-time contacts who never referred him in insurance started sending multiple introductions after he featured them on his show, simply because he gave them a real platform. We also get practical about what makes business podcasts work. Dylan compares podcasts to websites: low-effort audio and messy production quietly signal low standards, while clean editing, strong structure, and a guest-first approach build credibility fast. He walks through his four-step interview framework (credibility, story, advice, audience call to action) plus the importance of aligning titles and opening moments so listeners don’t bounce in the first minute. If you’re a founder thinking about B2B podcasting, relationship marketing, lead generation through trust, or building a brand that people actually want to share, you’ll leave with a clear playbook and a reminder that the hard seasons can set up the best pivots. Subscribe, share this with a business owner who needs a fresh approach, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. About Board of Advisors Board of Advisors is an invite-only community of entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors, and executives dedicated to helping one another grow personally and professionally. Through quarterly events, strategic introductions, peer-to-peer mentoring, and a culture built on giving first, BA creates an environment where leaders can solve problems faster, build meaningful relationships, and unlock new opportunities. When you're in the right room, anything is possible. Subscribe for more conversations with members of the Board of Advisors community as we continue releasing exclusive interviews recorded live from our Q2 Dallas event. #BAPodcast #BoardOfAdvisors #BACommunity #Entrepreneurship

The $1.7 Trillion Retail Mistake | Jabeen Zaidi & Andrew Pierce

Most brands are still shouting into the void with more ads, more screens, and more generic product pages, then wondering why customers tune out. We sit down with Jabbeen Zadie of Spring AI to talk about a different path: treat experience as the real product, and use AI to make it personal, fast, and measurable. We unpack Glass, Spring AI’s “phygital” experience layer that lets shoppers generate an AI version of themselves using the product in a real-world context. That sounds playful, but it targets serious business problems: attention, engagement, and conversion. Jabbeen shares why personalization is no longer optional, how customization can drive 4.2x higher conversion, and why the buying moment is really about aspirational identity. If customers can see themselves as the character inside the brand story, confidence goes up and hesitation drops. Then we follow the money: missed experiences that don’t convert, add-on sales unlocked by showing the full look, and the hidden margin killer that rarely gets enough airtime: returns. We talk about how interactive experiences can make customers far less likely to return items, how smart sizing reduces friction, and why retail teams often hesitate to adopt new tools even when the upside is obvious. We close on how brands can start small, run a trial, and use analytics to keep optimizing the experience over time. If you care about retail innovation, AI personalization, virtual try-on, and real conversion lift, subscribe, share this with a retail leader, and leave a quick review telling us what brand experience actually won your loyalty. About Board of Advisors Board of Advisors is an invite-only community of entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors, and executives dedicated to helping one another grow personally and professionally. Through quarterly events, strategic introductions, peer-to-peer mentoring, and a culture built on giving first, BA creates an environment where leaders can solve problems faster, build meaningful relationships, and unlock new opportunities. When you're in the right room, anything is possible. Subscribe for more conversations with members of the Board of Advisors community as we continue releasing exclusive interviews recorded live from our Q2 Dallas event. #BAPodcast #BoardOfAdvisors #BACommunity #Entrepreneurship

Why "Sales Cures All" is a Lie | Cruz Gamboa & Kris Dehnert

If your revenue is climbing but your bank account feels tighter every month, the problem usually isn’t hustle, it’s math you can’t see yet. From the Board of Advisors Q2 Summit near Dallas, I sit down with Cruz Gamboa to talk about the one skill that instantly exposes what’s real in a business: understanding the numbers in context, not just staring at reports. We get into the uncomfortable truth behind “sales cure all.” Selling more can actually make a cash crunch worse when working capital gets out of control. Cruz breaks down how accounts receivable, accounts payable, and inventory quietly drain cash even when the P&L looks fine, and why one bad ops month or a runaway ad spend can tip a fast-growing company into desperation. Then we zoom in on unit economics and the metrics that matter to owners and investors alike: CAC, LTV, AOV, ROAS, and the efficiency gains that show up when the equation works at scale. We also draw a hard line between growth and scaling. Growth is revenue up. Scaling is revenue up while profit expands faster, supported by better fundamentals, clearer accountability, and a financial model you can actually run the business from. Finally, we tackle AI in finance: where automation helps, why asking the right questions still wins, and why the best CFOs become more powerful when AI handles the busywork and humans deliver judgment, strategy, and translation. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share this with a founder who needs better cash flow clarity, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. About Board of Advisors Board of Advisors is an invite-only community of entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors, and executives dedicated to helping one another grow personally and professionally. Through quarterly events, strategic introductions, peer-to-peer mentoring, and a culture built on giving first, BA creates an environment where leaders can solve problems faster, build meaningful relationships, and unlock new opportunities. When you're in the right room, anything is possible. Subscribe for more conversations with members of the Board of Advisors community as we continue releasing exclusive interviews recorded live from our Q2 Dallas event. #BAPodcast #BoardOfAdvisors #BACommunity #Entrepreneurship

Building A PR Career That Lasts | Cheryl Snapp Conner & Hugo Jimenez

A PR career can look glamorous from the outside, but the real story is usually built out of sharp pivots, hard boundaries, and a lot of grit. From the BAQ2 convention near Dallas, we sit down with Cheryl Snap Connor, founder of SnapConnor PR, to unpack how a love of writing turns into a front-row seat in tech, then into a 20-year run building communications for startups and growth companies. Along the way, she shares the moment she leaves a corporate role and triples her income overnight, plus the mindset shift that makes that leap possible.  We also dig into what founders rarely say out loud: partnerships can be the biggest accelerator or the biggest threat. Cheryl walks us through a painful share buyout scenario and the lesson her attorney gave her that still holds up today: “There is no contract on earth that is stronger than human nature.” We talk about toxic dynamics, why collaboration becomes her leadership brand, and how those experiences shape the way she protects her team and designs a better path forward.  On the practical side, Cheryl explains how her agency has evolved into a fractional communications team supporting a small number of key accounts, with equity stakes that change the economics beyond hourly PR work. She shares how remote leadership became possible after the pandemic, why Boise and Utah can both work when the team is strong, and what succession planning looks like when you actually care about the people who helped you build the business. If you’re navigating PR strategy, founder leadership, equity compensation, or an agency transition, this conversation delivers real-world clarity.  If this resonates, subscribe for more founder stories, share the episode with a business owner who needs it, and leave us a review so more people can find the show. What part of Cheryl’s journey hits closest to home for you? About Board of Advisors Board of Advisors is an invite-only community of entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors, and executives dedicated to helping one another grow personally and professionally. Through quarterly events, strategic introductions, peer-to-peer mentoring, and a culture built on giving first, BA creates an environment where leaders can solve problems faster, build meaningful relationships, and unlock new opportunities. When you're in the right room, anything is possible. Subscribe for more conversations with members of the Board of Advisors community as we continue releasing exclusive interviews recorded live from our Q2 Dallas event. #BAPodcast #BoardOfAdvisors #BACommunity #Entrepreneurship