Michael E. Gerber
Keynote Speaker, June 27th
Michael E. Gerber is first thought of as a world renowned business author. His New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week best-selling books of all time have touched the lives of millions of readers throughout the world.
But Michael E. Gerber is much more than just an author. He is a true legend of entrepreneurship. Inc. Magazine calls him “the World’s #1 Small Business Guru”.
He started over 40 years ago by addressing a significant need in the small business market: businesses owned primarily by people with technical skills but few entrepreneurial skills, and no place to go to get meaningful help. Over the years, Michael E. Gerber’s companies have provided that help through the delivery of his E-Myth Mastery programs with tens of thousands of small business owners-clients to successfully transform their often broken small businesses into world-class operations.
Michael E. Gerber’s new company, ORIGINATION, currently leads entrepreneurial incubators, called Dreaming Rooms, throughout the world. Let by Gerber’s Certified Dreaming Room Facilitators™, The Dreaming Room awakens the entrepreneur within its participants to discover their Dream, Vision, Purpose and Mission, what Gerber calls the essential four ingredients for the creation of any entrepreneurial enterprise. Michael E. Gerber’s Dream is to transform small business and entrepreneurship worldwide and there is no individual on the face of the earth more likely and determined to do it.
Larry Winget
Keynote Speaker, June 28th
Larry Winget is a five-time New York Times/Wall Street Journal bestselling author. He is a member of theInternational Speaker Hall Of Fame. He has starred in his own television series and appeared in national television commercials. Larry is a regular contributor on many television news shows on the topics of money, personal success, business and parenting.
Susan Baroncini-Moe
Known as “The Micro-Entrepreneur’s Mentor,” Susan Baroncini-Moe has been mentoring entrepreneurs and small business owners for over fifteen years. A veteran of the web industry, Susan has leveraged her unique fusion of business and technological knowledge, her experience in the personal growth industry, and her incredible brainstorming capabilities to transform businesses around the globe.
Specializing in working with micro-entrepreneurs (a word she coined to refer to businesses owned and operated by one or two people) in the service industry, Susan works with clients on four continents and is a sought-after trainer, business and marketing consultant, and public speaker. She holds a Master’s degree in social psychology, was trained by Nightingale-Conant, and is a certified practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming. She has read over 1,500 books on business, entrepreneurship, marketing, branding, sales, personal growth, creative thinking, and peak performance.
She has started successful businesses in both the profit and non-profit sectors, and has worked in academia and corporations. She has interviewed some of the most successful entrepreneurs, bestselling authors, and experts for her podcast, Business in Blue Jeans Radio, and has self-published three books and has been a featured contributor in two books.
Susan’s first entrepreneurial venture was a grape Kool-Aid stand in her front lawn (because everyone else was doing lemonade) when she was six. As a teenager, she ran a nannying and lawn care empire in her neighborhood. Because of how she has structured her businesses, she has traveled the globe and has tried over 100 hobbies and pasttimes.
Chris Brogan
Chris Brogan runs Human Business Works, where he provides strategic business advice to mostly larger companies about developing business via the digital channel. He’s written a bunch of books. One of them, Trust Agents, was a New York Times bestseller. He also plays in the band, D3one3, with Jacqueline Carly.
Bob Burg
Bob Burg shares information on topics vital to the success of today’s businessperson. Bob regularly addresses audiences ranging in size from 50 to 16,000 — sharing the platform with notables including today’s top thought leaders, broadcast personalities, Olympic athletes and political leaders including a former United States President.
Although for years he was best known for his book Endless Referrals, over the past few years it’s his business parable, The Go-Giver (coauthored with John David Mann) that has captured the imagination of his readers.
The Go-Giver shot to #6 on The Wall Street Journal’s Business Bestsellers list just three weeks after its release and reached #9 on BusinessWeek. It’s been translated into 21 languages. It is his fourth book to sell over 200,000 copies.
His and John David Mann’s newest book is another business parable; this one focusing on influence and leadership. Entitled, It’s Not About You, it shows how focusing on others is the best way to obtain stratospheric success in your own life and business.
Jamar Cobb-Denard
Jamar Cobb-Dennard is a sales and marketing expert who creates rapid revenue growth for his clients. Throughout his Hall of Fame sales career, Jamar has produced giant revenue gains for Dale Carnegie Training, Vector Marketing Corporation, and Ryland Homes. Jamar is a fan of personal challenges, and has gone skydiving, white water rafting, walked on Fire with Tony Robbins, and crossed the North American continent by bicycle. Jamar is the author of, The Winning Mind, and has led multiple fundraisers that have raised almost $500,000 for not-for-profit organizations. Jamar was a Rainmakers Rookie of the Year, past President of Rainmakers, a Stanley K. Lacy Executive Leadership Series graduate, and was chosen as a Top 50 Business Connector by the US Small Business Conference.
Ben Cope
Ben Cope is an entrepreneur, web designer, and internet marketing consultant with a background in multimedia project management, instructional technology, and graphic design. A graduate of Kennesaw State University with a B.A. in International Affairs, Ben started his own company in 2003 and is currently responsible for the development and on-going site maintenance of dozens of different client websites around the world, ranging from non-profit organizations to internet marketing professionals and small business owners.
A WordPress expert and Photoshop pro, Ben is known as the “Internet Genius” because of all the people whose websites he has helped to build and make more profitable. Creator of the WordPress Dream Theme, one of the earliest “magazine-style” themes available for WordPress, Ben is an innovator and creative problem-solver whose in-depth knowledge of WordPress has helped website owners around the world understand the simplicity of the world’s most sophisticated blogging platform.
Kevin Eikenberry
Kevin Eikenberry is recognized world expert on leadership development and learning and is the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group. He is the author of the bestselling books Remarkable Leadership and Vantagepoints on Learning and Life, and a contributing author to over 20 other books and #Leadershiptweet – is a collection of leadership ideas originally written and published on Twitter. His newest book, co-authored with Guy Harris, titled From Bud to Boss – Secrets of the Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership, was published in February 2011.
Phil Gerbyshak
Phil Gerbyshak is the chief connections officer who works with small businesses and organizations to increase employee & customer engagement by using social media to create and build relationships. He helps them understand it’s really not about the tools; it’s all about the conversations they participate in and the connections they create and cultivate.
Phil worked in IT for the past 15 years, and has focused his efforts on understanding and leveraging the social media space for over 5 years. His work building relationships using blogs was spotlighted in the 2005 book What Nobody Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting: Real Life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere.
Jennifer Gilbert
Jennifer Gilbert is the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of the New York based special events company Save the Date®. Her nineteen year old company is recognized by the media and a discerning clientele as “the one stop shop” for event planning. Through hard work and steadfast ambition, Gilbert has transformed a company that launched with a single database into a powerhouse amongst her competitors. Catering to Fortune 500 Companies, their families, as well as Not-for-Profit organizations, Save the Date® will generate a staggering $30 million in business this year.
In the early 90’s when corporate America did not have the cash flow to accept the traditional event planning business model, Gilbert foresaw a unique opportunity. She flipped the traditional business model by offering Save the Date’s® services free to clients, and instead, the company is supported by the vendors and venues who feel confident in its referral business. By providing her client’s significant savings, Save the Date® essentially became recession-proof.
It was this business savvy that earned Jennifer Gilbert the “Entrepreneur of the Year” award in 1998, just five years after founding the company. This award was quickly followed in 1999 by recognition in Inc. Magazine as one of the “Great Companies Started” and then in 2001 she was given the Entrepreneur Award of Excellence from Working Woman Magazine.
Since then, Jennifer Gilbert’s name and that of Save the Date® continue to command instant recognition and immediate respect in the industry and are seen as the experts on all aspects of event planning. She is often quoted for her expert advice on everything from meeting to wedding planning in national publications from The Wall Street Journal and Business Week to People and InStyle. In 2010, Gilbert was the key note speaker for the BIZ BASH expo where over 3,200 event planners came to gather in New York City. She has spoken to the Columbia Business School Entrepreneurial class, as well as Fordham University’s Women in Business Leadership Day.
In addition to her ever growing business, Jennifer sits on the boards of women and children’s organizations. She is also often recognized on the street for her brief role as the event planner on Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of New York.”
Her most recent accomplishment is her new memoir, published by HarperCollins, “I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag.” Praise is flooding in and excerpts from the memoir were featured in the May 2012 issue of Marie Claire and the June 2012 issue of Vanity Fair. Gilbert received an outstanding 3.5 out of 4 stars in People and has appeared on the TODAY show and Good Day New York.
Jennifer Gilbert is a graduate of the University of Vermont and received a Bachelor of Science in Consumer Marketing with a minor in Business, and graduated the MIT Birthing of Giants Program. She lives in New York City with her husband, daughter and twin boys.
Dixie Gillaspie
Dixie Gillaspie has been a business consultant and analyst, a firestarter and mentor, a coach, alchemist and general trouble shooter for more years than she cares to admit. (but if you ask, she’ll tell you.)
Her success stories have been featured in books such as Go-Givers Sell More, by Bob Burg and John David Mann, The Referral Engine, by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame, and more than one of the books by “The Nametag Guy,” Scott Ginsberg. She will release her first full-length book, JUST BLOW IT UP: A Practical Process for Eliminating Life-Limiting Barriers, through Sound Wisdom this November.
Dixie says she is blessed to have come to a wonderful convergence where “What I am and what I do is the same thing – I am a coach.” She’s allergic to the word “CAN’T” and her Blast Thru Coaching(TM) method is a process for challenging and even eliminating the word from your vocabulary.
Dixie considers herself more of a “story teller” than a speaker, but she’s shared the stage with the likes of Zig Zigler, Bob Burg, John David Mann, Scott Ginsberg, Mark Sandborn, and Southwest Airlines Emerita, Coleen Barrett.
Dixie shares her home with a 14 year old tom cat who still thinks he’s a kitten, and a 95 pound black Boxer/Lab mix she calls “The Dragon Dog.” Having grown up with cats, dogs, goats, chinchillas, and horses, she credits her years of “mothering” furry cittters with most, if not all, of her emotional intelligence and people sense.
Paul Gillin
Paul Gillin is a writer and content marketing consultant specializing in technology and new media. He advises business-to-business marketers on strategies to use quality content and social media to reach buyers.
Paul is a veteran technology journalist with more than 25 years of editorial leadership experience. He was founding editor-in-chief of TechTarget, one of the most successful Internet media companies. Previously, he was editor-in-chief and executive editor of Computerworld. His award-winning book, The New Influencers, chronicles the changes in markets being driven by social media. His second book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing, was published in the fall of 2008. His third book, Social Marketing to the Business Customer, was co-authored with Eric Schwartzman and published by John Wiley & Sons in January, 2011. He is is also co-author with wife Dana of The Joy of Geocaching, the story of a global game enabled by an Internet community.
Paul is a Research Fellow at the Society for New Communications Research. His website is www.gillin.com and he blogs at paulgillin.com.
James Grierson
VP, Bluehost, Business Development & Affiliate Management
As VP of Business Development and Affiliate Management, James Grierson’s primary goal is to seek out mutually beneficial partnerships with a focus on the acquisition of new customers and ancillary revenue growth. Since starting with Bluehost in 2007, James has facilitated triple-digit growth in new customer acquisitions and revenue.
James has worked with technology and digital marketing for over a decade and has established and managed numerous partnerships with a variety of companies. As a co-founder of SimpleScripts, James also brings extensive knowledge and experience in working with and supporting the Open Source software community. He holds a B.S. in Geography with a minor in Business Management from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
Brian Halligan
Brian Halligan is CEO & Co-Founder of HubSpot, a marketing software company he co-founded five years ago to help businesses transform the way they market their products. Since its founding, HubSpot has accumulated over 6,000 customers. He is a Senior Lecturer at MIT where he teaches 15.S16 “Entrepreneurial Product Development and Marketing.” He is author of two books: Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead and Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs, which is in its seventh printing, has sold 50k copies, has been translated into nine languages, and peaked at #17 overall on the Amazon bestseller list. Brian was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2011 New England award recipient. In his spare time, he sits on a few boards of directors, follows his beloved Red Sox, goes to the gym, and is learning to play guitar.
Dan Handy
CEO, Bluehost – Website Hosting
As CEO of Bluehost, Dan oversees daily operations, customer support and migrations, along with back- and front-end technologies. His high standards and commitment to delivering an outstanding product have been instrumental in helping build one of the most highly respected and best performing web hosting platforms in the industry. Moreover, he has ensured that our brand provides outstanding customer satisfaction, low customer turnover, and consistent double-digit growth.
The former VP of Development for United Online, Dan brought extensive experience in both marketing and technology in the hosting industry to the team when he joined in 2005.
Dan holds both a BS in Management Information Systems and an MBA from Brigham Young University.
Jenn Lim
Jenn Lim is the CEO and Chief Happiness Officer of Delivering Happiness, a company she and Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos) co-created to inspire happiness in work, community and everyday life.
In 2005, she created the first Culture Book for Zappos – now on its 7th edition – and has produced them ever since. In 2009, Zappos was sold to Amazon.com in a deal valued at $1.2 billion on the day of closing, and in 2011, Zappos was #6 on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list. The Culture Book has become a global symbol of how companies can successfully create cultures based on happiness and be profitable at the same time.
In 2010, Jenn led the launch and management of Tony’s first book (Delivering Happiness) which sold over 220,000 copies internationally and hit #1 on numerous bestsellers list (including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today). It was voted one of the best business books in 2010 by NPR, Inc. Magazine and the Wall Street Journal, has remained on the New York Times list for 27 weeks and has been published in over 17 countries/languages because of her efforts.
With the success of the Culture Book and Delivering Happiness, she’s spoken at companies, universities and organizations such as Twitter, Pixar, Stanford, UCLA, the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, NAWBO and the American Marketing Association. Prior to becoming CEO and Chief Happiness Officer, Jenn consulted in a number of industries, including the internet, branding, writing and graphic design.
Today, she’s dedicated to growing the social venture of Delivering Happiness to spread and inspire happiness, day by day.
Sean Malarkey
Blogger, Chocolate lover, Living a dream by living PT in Argentina, Retired Real Estate Investor. Husband, Dad, Good friend to many.
Mitch Matthews
Mitch Matthews is an elite business coach, author, entrepreneur, as well as the co-founder of the BIG Dream Gathering™.
He is a leading authority on innovative thinking, human performance and goal achievement… but frankly, he’s best known as the “big dream guy” due to his freakish pursuit of helping people to get clear on their dreams and go after them.
Mitch’s BIG Dream Gatherings started in his family’s living room in 2006, but now have inspired people around the globe to dream big again!
Mitch passionately works with organizations like NASA, Principal Financial Group, Inc. and the Farm Bureau on what he calls the “Science of Dreaming Big.” But he’s most excited about helping individuals to get clarity about their big dreams and equipping them with compelling strategies to make those dreams a reality.
Rowdy McLean
Like you, Rowdy Mclean has always wanted better outcomes and better results. He has seen great ideas, visions, and strategies get swallowed up by the busy world we live in, lost in bad attitudes, lack of motivation and poor execution. Do we take on too much? Are our goals too big? Or, is there a different story?
Rowdy challenges the average and interrupts the status quo. He loves the game of business and life! Possessing a steely determination to succeed, he has spent years researching the key drivers of success, achievement and outstanding results, and knows what works. Changing attitudes, providing the motivation to achieve results and getting people to execute effectively are the things he does best.
Unlike many presenters, he makes the complex simple. He tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear, that’s what gets real results. His clients describe him as “comfortably confronting”, a mixture of “can do” “how to” and “follow through”, they value his down to earth, practical and real approach, no hype, no hugs, just good solid ideas and tools that work. Rowdy shows individuals, teams and organisations how to change the game, how to achieve more, be more, do more and have more than they ever thought possible.
Playing a Bigger Game is Rowdy McLean’s life story, overcoming adversity and challenges to achieve remarkable results. He has played professional sport, ran marathons and climbed mountains. At 24 he started his own communications company, and retired 10 years later. As a CEO he has engineered company turnarounds and as a successful entrepreneur, he now runs 5 companies of his own. He works with organisations across the globe, thousands of people attend his seminars each year. He is the author of several books including the internationally acclaimed “Play a Bigger Game”
If you want to smash your targets, get great results and play a bigger game. Rowdy is the person to get you from where you are to where you want to be!
Michael Michalowicz
Mike Michalowicz (mi-CAL-o-witz) is the entrepreneur behind 3 multi-million dollar companies and the author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. With a popular website by the same name, he is a globally recognized entrepreneurial advocate. Mike is a small business columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and hosts the business make-over segment on MSNBC’s Your Business.
Sean Moffett
Sales excellence and sales success are Sean Moffett’s passion. Developing those traits in others is Sean’s mission. Through years of dominating the marketplace in his fields Sean has identified the three things individuals and organizations do to force themselves into sales mediocrity.
Sean is a proven sales expert spending the last 20 years honing his sales skills in the marketplace through 2 recessions representing many world-renowned brands while leading, training, and motivating his teams to achieve award-winning results.
Amongst Sean’s many honors he has been recognized as the National Sales Champion for BMW Canada, a 40 under 40 business award winner, and is a featured Gold Status contributing writer at EvanCarmichael.com. While excelling in the marketplace he set his sights on building and growing a multi-million dollar real estate investment business which he successfully achieved within 3 years of inception. Having achieved great personal success, Sean found himself driven by the desire to see other professionals and executives trained, motivated and empowered to become better than they ever imagined.
Out of his passion, Sean launched The Moffett Company – a company focused on showing professionals how they can achieve the highest results by employing his proven training called 3E: Expertise, Execution, Experience. As a top tier communicator, Sean provides practical training, real-time examples, and relevant insights for success in today’s marketplace. Corporate clients, business executives from Fortune 500 companies, professional athletes, and the world’s largest charitable organizations all look to Sean for his expertise, execution, and experience to develop their excellence. Sean is renowned as a master communicator, blogger, writer, and electrifying speaker. In 2012 Sean has made it his mission to use social media to take his message worldwide with tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, as well as hundreds of thousands of views on his YouTube Channel. Sean’s message of sales excellence connects and inspires and will take you and your team to the greatest levels of success as well.
John Michael Morgan
John Morgan is known as the Chuck Norris of branding and is the author of Brand Against The Machine. With his popular blog (www.JohnMichaelMorgan.com) and being an in-demand public speaker and consultant, he is a globally recognized authority on branding and digital marketing.
Michael Port
Michael Port has been called “an uncommonly honest author” by the Boston Globe and a “marketing guru” by The Wall Street Journal.
He is the author of four bestselling books including Book Yourself Solid, Beyond Booked Solid, The Contrarian Effect, and the New York Times Bestseller, The Think Big Manifesto.
Michael blogs for the Huffington Post and has written monthly columns on sales and marketing for Entrepreneur Magazine and American Express Open Forum, is a regular guest on MSNBC, and receives the highest overall speaker ratings at conferences around the world.
Michael didn’t start out as an author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He began as an actor so he knows his way around a set and how to create the conflict necessary to create dramatic and compelling coaching situations. Sometimes dropping the hammer as hard as possible is the only way to get a hard-headed, stubborn, tough-guy to breakdown so he can be built back up.
Diverse in his personal life as well, Michael has twenty years of training as a martial artist, holding the rank of black belt in Aikido and blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He’s also a competitive pistol shooter who achieved expert classification only 8-months after first picking up a gun.
With all this success, his most significant accomplishment and responsibility is probably just like yours, the job of being a devoted parent, son, friend, and citizen.
Erik Qualman
Called a Digital Dale Carnegie, Erik Qualman is the author of Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. Socialnomics made Amazon’s #1 Best Selling List for the US, Japan, UK, Canada, Portugal, Italy, China, Korea and Germany. His latest book Digital Leader helped earned him the selection as the 2nd “Most Likeable Author in the World” behind Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.
Socialnomics was a finalist for the “2010 Book of the Year” awarded by the American Marketing Association. Qualman produced “Social Media Revolution” the most watched social media video series in the world and it has been used by NASA to the National Guard. Fast Company Magazine listed him as a Top 100 Digital Influencer.
Qualman is a frequently requested International speaker and has been highlighted in numerous media outlets including: 60 Minutes, The New York Times, WSJ, Mashable, USA Today, ABC News, Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, CBS News, and The Huffington Post. He has been fortunate to share the stage with Julie Andrews, Al Gore, Tony Hawk, Sarah Palin, Jose Socrates (Prime Minister of Portugal), Alan Mulally, James Carville & Mary Matalin and many others.
Qualman is an MBA Professor at the Hult International Business School. For the past 18 years Qualman has helped grow the digital capabilities of many companies including Cadillac, EarthLink, EF Education, Yahoo, Travelzoo and AT&T. He is the founder and owner of socialnomics.com, which PC Magazine ranks as a Top 10 Social Media Blog. He sits on the Boards of Manumatix, Bazaarvoice Inc,, and WannaBeeSocial. Qualman holds a BA from Michigan State University and an MBA from The University of Texas. He was Academic All-Big Ten in basketball at Michigan State University and still finds time to follow his beloved Spartans while living in Boston with his wife and daughter. In 2011 Qualman was honored as the Michigan State Alum of the Year and in 2012 he was selected as one of the Top 50 Professors in the world.
Chris Reimer
Chris Reimer is an award-winning social media strategist and brings a unique background to the world of social media. He is VP of Social Media at Falk Harrison, a design agency in St. Louis, MO that specializes in branding, design and social media. He graduated from Marquette University in 1993 with a B.S. in Accounting, became a CPA in 1995, and then served as Chief Financial Officer of several organizations around St. Louis. In 2007 he started a funny t-shirt company called Rizzo Tees, and began marketing his shirts (and himself) on Twitter. A Facebook fan page soon followed, and then two blogs. The lessons learned by marketing Rizzo Tees exclusively via social media allowed him to make the improbable leap from CPA to ad man.
He was recently named 2010′s Most Influential Twitter User in St. Louis by STLTweets.com, beating out over 500,000 local Twitter users. Other awards include the The Riverfront Times 2011 Web Award for Best Twitterer in St. Louis, the 2011 BMA-TAM “Best-in-Class” award for Falk Harrison’s “Save Pratzel’s” social media campaign, and the 2012 Riverfront Times Web Award for the Pratzel’s campaign. Entrepreneur Magazine named him one of the top Twitter users in the world to follow if you’re new to the service. His Twitter community continues to grow and is now over 56,000 followers. Chris sat on the Board of the Social Media Club of St. Louis during 2010 and enjoys speaking to groups about social media and the impact it has had on his life. Off-hours, he sips a glass or two of red wine, watches any sport in hi-def, and enjoys chasing his two daughters around the playground at Francis Park.
James Reynolds
James Reynolds is the CEO of Incredible Incorporated, a group of companies focussed on helping business owners and entrepreneurs drive sales and increase the overall responsiveness and profitability of their online marketing.
Incredible Incorporated provides both done-for-you services and strategic coaching for business owners. Its brands include; WebReactivators, SEO Sherpa, Incredible Fan Pages, Breakthrough HQ and Unlimited Power Online.
James arrived in internet marketing from a business background in early 2010 and has already achieved a great level of recognition in the field. His main area of knowledge is business strategy, previously having taken a relative start up photography company to a multi- million dollar earning business, in just 2 years. This experience, plus thousands of hours of study in business and internet marketing techniques have led to ‘big picture’ thinking and an understanding of the hurdles that business owners and net-preneurs must overcome before rocketing to new levels of growth.
His secondary specialism is generating traffic and search engine optimization. He has a deep practical knowledge of ‘traffic’ having driven millions of leads to his own and client websites, and has a way of making the subject simple to the novice marketer.
His techniques focus on core fundamentals that work.
Travis Robertson
Travis Robertson is a business strategist, peak performance coach and professional speaker on topics such as personal performance, business growth and leadership.
By the time he was 30, Travis had watched his life crumble around him. After a decade chasing money in an industry he hated, he was diagnosed with two stress-induced auto-immune diseases, nearly lost his marriage, and found himself $850,000 in debt. Physically sick and emotionally exhausted, Travis knew he had to escape this life he had created for himself.
Travis now coaches business owners, executives, leaders and entrepreneurs on how to create lives and businesses they don’t want to escape from. His clients range from entrepreneurs to multimillionaires but all of them have one thing in common: a desire to create a career and a life they are excited to live out.
Travis can be found sharing his principles on life on one of the top blogs in the personal development niche at www.TravisRobertson.com
Lon Safko
Lon Safko is a remarkably creative person. He is the creator of the “First Computer To Save A Human Life” as coined by Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc.. That computer, along with 18 other inventions and more than 30,000 of Lon’s papers, are in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. He has created numerous hardware and software solutions for the physically challenged, developed the first CAD software for civil engineers, designed the archetypes for the Apple Newton & Microsoft’s Bob Operating Systems, and is also responsible for those handy little Tool-Tips help-balloon pop-ups!
Lon is the founder of 14 successful companies, including Paper Models, Inc., which developed Three-Dimensional Internet Advertising and Virtual-Electronic-Retailing “V-E-Tailing” for business, promotions, and education, for which Lon holds three United States Patents.
Lon has been recognized for his creativity with such prestigious awards as: The Westinghouse Entrepreneur of the Year, Arizona Innovation Network’s Innovator of the Year, The Arizona Software Association’s Entrepreneur of the Year, twice nominated for the Ernst & Young / Inc. Magazine Entrepreneur of the Year, The Public Relations Society of America’s, Edward Bernays, Mark of Excellence Award, and nominated as a Fellow of the nation’s Computer History Museum. Lon has also been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, PC Novice, Inc. Magazine INC., CFO, Popular Science Magazines and the New York Times just to name a few. Lon was even selected by the Smithsonian institution to represent “The American Inventor” at their annual conference.
Lon is an author of remarkable breadth, writing nine innovative best selling books, which have shown corporations how to master social media marketing, how to Fuse traditional, digital, and social marketting, how to train managers to think creatively, detailed the secrets of launching a successful on-line business.
His best selling book with John Wiley & Sons “The Social Media Bible,”, which hit #1 on Amazon in both their Marketing & Business categories, unlocks the mysteries of the hottest new Internet wave, Social Media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for business. This book is transforming corporate, government, and non-profit marketing strategies and how they use these new media to reach their desired audiences with powerful messages and efficiency and is now in it’s second edition, which hit #1 on Amazon in both Business & Marketing categories. Lon is also a professional blogger for FastCompany, appointed the first Amassador for SCORE, and the USATday CEO Advisory Board.
Lon’s newest bestseller, The Fusion Marketing Bible, published by McGraw Hill will truly change the way we do marketing and sales. Along with Lon’s other invention, The Safko Wheel Marketing Toolkit, this concept will leverage your existing marketing to make it significantly more effective, while adding to your company’s bottom line!
Lon is a professional speaker, wowing audiences in a hundred cities nationwide every year with his insights into innovation, creativity, and how to be a successful entrepreneur / intrapreneur in this global digital age. Said one executive of First American Title Insurance, “This is the best presentation I’ve been to in 25 years.” Teledyne said Lon’s presentations are “Informative and entertaining, packed with useful information.” And the U.S. Postal Service called Lon “Inspiring and Motivational.”
Lon privately coaches companies on harnessing Innovative Thinking and social media strategies to create higher productivity and profits. Lon’s presentations are personalized to help corporate, government, and non-profit executives improve their operations and performance by capturing their innovative potential. As Lon says, “When you see your world with a different perspective, you see new ways to do everything!” Lon Safko sees the world in a new way every day.
David Meerman Scott
David Meerman Scott is a marketing strategist, bestselling author of eight books including three international bestsellers, and a professional speaker on topics including marketing, leadership, and social media.
David serves as an advisor to emerging companies including HubSpot, Eloqua, VisibleGains, Speakerfile, GutCheck, and Newstex, as well as nonprofits including the Grateful Dead Archive at UC Santa Cruz, HeadCount, and Nashaquisset. Previously, he was on the board of directors of NewsWatch KK (sold to Yahoo Japan) and Kadient (merged with Sant).
He is a recovering marketing VP for two U.S. publicly traded technology companies and served as Asia marketing director for Knight-Ridder, at the time one of the world’s largest newspaper and electronic information companies. David has lived and worked in New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. He currently lives in the Boston area.
Felica Slattery
Felicia J. Slattery, M.A., M.Ad.Ed., is a speaker, communication consultant and author of 21 Ways to Make Money Speaking, Cash in on Communication and the forthcoming Kill the Elevator Speech. Felicia works with small and home-based business owners, experts and entrepreneurs to help them more effectively communicate their messages in order to get more prospects, more clients, and more cash flow while building and maintaining strong relationships locally, nationally, and virtually using the Internet and public speaking.
Felicia lives her life with energy, passion and enthusiasm because she realizes each moment is precious. After nearly losing her life during childbirth in 2004, a little more than a year later she began to put her communication and public speaking talents to use to create a positive impact on the world. Felicia holds two Master’s Degrees: one in Adult Education and Training and another in Communication. Her enthusiastic passion for communication is contagious because she knows that one important message delivered with power can transform a life. A Mom to two young daughters and wife to an entrepreneurial husband, Felicia knows what it takes to build a successful and fun business that feeds your soul in the midst of a busy life.
Pamela Slim
Pamela Slim is a seasoned business coach, author and professional speaker who helps frustrated employees in corporate jobs break out and start their own business. Her blog, Escape from Cubicle Nation, is one of the top career and marketing blogs on the web. A former corporate manager and entrepreneur herself for more than a decade, she deeply understands the questions and concerns faced by first-time entrepreneurs. Her expertise in personal and business change was developed through many years consulting inside corporations such as Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Charles Schwab, where she coached thousands of executives, managers and employees.
Pam’s book Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur was named Best Small Business/Entrepreneur Book of 2009 by 800CEORead and Editor’s Choice and Reader’s Choice for Best Small Business Books of 2009 from Small Business Trends. Pam is frequently quoted as an expert on entrepreneurship in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Money Magazine and Psychology Today. Pam is certified as a master life coach. She is married with three kids and lives in Mesa, Arizona.
Suraj Sodha
Suraj Sodha is an in-demand international speaker and Internet entrepreneur from London, England, with ambitious ideas and results-oriented solutions to start and grow businesses online. Suraj is known for his extremely focused expertise and access to a respected network of entrepreneurs and marketers around the world.
He is the founder of the popular Rapid Leverage Forum for entrepreneurs and online marketers, which has hundreds of members from around the world. He has also created authoritative products such as the Networking Ace Masterclass where he brought together business experts to talk about winning clients from better networking.
Suraj started his Internet marketing agency initially to create a second income whilst working as a trainee lawyer in London and he soon realised the potential of running his own business full-time. In 2008, mid-way through his lawyer qualification period in the UK, Suraj decided to leave his job so he could focus his time doing what he was most passionate about, growing his small startup business. Today, 5 years later, Suraj is an in-demand international speaker on business and Internet marketing topics such as blogging, social media and affiliate marketing and has spoken in front of over 5,000 people in 7 countries. He has built up his business to boast a worldwide client base ranging from startups to billion dollar corporate companies. During this time, he has personally trained and mentored over 400 entrepreneurs and businesses, teaching them how to implement core Internet marketing strategies into their business in order to increase leads, sales and profits.
Suraj made a name for himself in the industry by delivering practical and ‘no nonsense’ workshops for business owners about how they could implement online marketing strategies into their business in order to attract more clients and increase their online revenue. With Suraj’s support, advice and in-depth knowledge, many of his clients have gone on to generate tens of thousands of pounds in extra profits. In early 2011, Suraj was part of a joint venture with a UK training provider to offer online marketing and social media workshops through Groupon. This was a huge success and generated £100,000 of revenue in 24 hours whilst also allowing Suraj’s expertise to be shared with thousands of new clients.
Today, Suraj offers personal mentoring to entrepreneurs around building businesses on the Internet. He is passionate about affiliate marketing, SEO and blogging and these are where his core expertise lie.
Mike Stenger
Mike Stenger is a full-time Social Media Specialist with a huge passion for helping brands and businesses with the amazing things that social networks have to offer.
Scott Stratten
Scott Stratten is the President of Un-Marketing. He is an expert in Viral, Social, and Authentic Marketing which he calls Un-Marketing. It’s all about positioning yourself as a trusted expert in front of your target market, so when they have the need, they choose you.
Formerly a music industry marketer, national sales training manager and a Professor at the Sheridan College School of Business, he ran his “UnAgency” for a nearly a decade before solely focusing on speaking at events for companies like PepsiCo, Adobe, Red Cross, Cirque du Soleil, Saks Fifth Avenue and Fidelity Investments when they need help guiding their way through the viral/social media and relationship marketing landscape.
He now has over 114,000 people follow his daily rantings on Twitter and was just named one of the top 5 social media influencers in the world on Forbes.com. It’s the only time he’s felt comfortable being compared to Ashton Kutcher, P Diddy and Justin Bieber.
His book “UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging” became a national best-seller before it was released, and recently a Globe and Mail #1 Business best-seller, National Post, Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon UK best-seller. It was also just named one of the top business books of the year by 1-800-CEO READ and one of the top 10 books by Under30CEO.com. The paperback version was just released to be followed by his second book in the Fall of 2012.
His passion comes out most when speaking on stage, preaching engagement and becoming one of the most sought-out speakers on the subject.
His clients’ viral marketing videos have been viewed over 60 million times and he’s recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, USA Today, Entrepreneur Magazine, CNN.com, Inc.com and Fast Company and was just named one of “America’s 10 Marketing Gurus” by Business Review USA. That plus $5 gets him a coffee anywhere in the world.
Robert Wimer
Robert Wimer is a vocal specialist who teaches speakers to build and maintain their speaking voices, something most speakers ignore or don’t even know is important. Using a unique methodology that he created, “The Natural Artistry of Speaking,” Robert works with speakers to build strength, beauty and longevity in their voices so they can speak hour after hour, day after day and not worry about getting tired or hoarse.
Born and raised in a small town in Missouri, Robert got his first taste of music at a very early age when he was exposed to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar.” He attended Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, MO where he majored in music with an emphasis in vocal performance.
In addition to his work with public speakers, Robert is also a highly sought-after voice teacher whose students range from hobbyists to professional singers and a vocal soloist who performs extensively, singing the national anthem at various venues, and acting as the principle tenor soloist for Handel’s “The Messiah,” among other pieces. He has put out several popular albums in various genres, including classical, jazz, Christian, and adult contemporary.