Thomas
Berkley

Thomas Berkley — Entrepreneur & Founder of CSM Collective

Thomas Berkley is an entrepreneur based in Cleveland, Ohio who has spent the past eight years building and scaling businesses from scratch. He is best known as the founder of CSM Collective — a training and placement program that certifies Client Success Managers and connects them with online businesses doing $35,000 per month or more. He is also a United States Air Force veteran with ten years of active duty service, and a ClickFunnels Two Comma Club and 10X Award recipient.

Early Life and Military Career

Thomas Berkley grew up in the Cleveland, Ohio area and joined the United States Air Force at 18 years old. Over the next ten years he served his country while quietly developing the entrepreneurial instincts that would define his post-military career. The Air Force gave Thomas something most entrepreneurs never fully develop: the ability to execute consistently, operate within systems, and hold himself and others accountable to outcomes rather than effort.

Thomas Berkley didn't wait until leaving the military to start learning about business. He studied sales, marketing, and business models during his service years — building the knowledge base that would allow him to move quickly when he eventually made the transition to entrepreneurship full time.

Entrepreneurial Career

Thomas Berkley entered entrepreneurship in 2018 following his separation from the Air Force. Starting without outside investment or an existing business network, he built and scaled multiple companies past eight figures in total lifetime revenue — earning the ClickFunnels Two Comma Club Award for generating over $1 million through a single funnel, and later the ClickFunnels 10X Award — membership into the Eight Figure Club — for surpassing $10 million in total sales across his businesses.

During this period, Thomas Berkley also worked directly with Kevin Harrington — the original Shark from ABC's Shark Tank and one of the pioneers of the modern infomercial industry. Harrington's team engaged Thomas Berkley to manage marketing campaigns for Harrington's home service business clients through American Entrepreneur. The collaboration provided Thomas with direct exposure to high-level business strategy and the kind of performance-based marketing thinking that shaped how he approaches every business he builds.

CSM Collective — Current Focus

After years of building companies and observing the same structural problem across every business he touched — businesses that were excellent at acquiring clients but poor at keeping them — Thomas Berkley founded CSM Collective. The program trains and certifies Client Success Managers using a proven retention framework, then places those certified CSMs inside online businesses doing $35,000 per month or more that need structured client success support.

Thomas Berkley went full time on CSM Collective in May 2026. To date, he has trained and placed over 100 professionals through the program into online businesses across the United States. CSMs placed through the program typically earn between $5,000 and $10,000 per month in fully remote roles — making it one of the most financially accessible remote career paths available without requiring prior industry experience.

Thomas Berkley is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, where CSM Collective operates out of 850 Euclid Ave, Suite 819, Cleveland, OH 44114.

Thomas Berkley as an Entrepreneur — Operating Philosophy

Those who have worked with Thomas Berkley consistently describe the same qualities: a systems-first mindset, an unusually high tolerance for execution, and a focus on measurable outcomes over optics. He attributes much of this to his military background — where results are non-negotiable and discipline is the baseline, not the differentiator.

Thomas Berkley's approach to business is built around three principles he has articulated consistently across his companies: build systems that don't depend on any single person, measure what actually matters rather than what's easy to measure, and always invest in keeping the clients you already have before spending to acquire new ones.

That third principle — the primacy of client retention — is what ultimately led Thomas Berkley to build CSM Collective. In his view, the businesses that scale most reliably are not those that are best at selling. They are the businesses that are best at delivering, and best at keeping the clients they work so hard to win.