Angela Szafran began her career in the financial services industry back in 2003 at M&T Securities and in 2011 joined Alliance Advisory Group as a Financial Specialist. Understanding that planning for a secure financial future can be difficult and confusing for many people, Angela works closely with her clients through each aspect of creating a plan to help them reach their goals and seize the opportunities that present themselves. She helps her clients gain clarity and confidence in their financial lives to empower them to achieve financial freedom. She is so dedicated to educating others because she knows all too well what could happen if you do not have your finances in order and properly protected. In her spare time, she feeds her tremendous love for the stage and theater and tries to perform in as many shows as she can.
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Kevin Harrington has been a successful entrepreneur for over 40 years. He is an original member of the cast of ABC’s hit, Emmy Award-winning TV show, “Shark Tank.” Also known as the “Inventor of the Infomercial” and pioneer of the “As Seen On TV” label, he co-founded the Electronic Retailers Association (ERA) and the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO). Kevin has launched over 20 businesses now worth over $100 million in sales, been involved in more than a dozen public companies, and launched over 500 products generating more than $5 billion in sales worldwide with iconic brands and celebrities such as Jack Lalanne, Tony Little, George Foreman, and the new I-Grow hair restoration product on QVC.
Kevin got his start as a young entrepreneur in the early 80's when he launched Quantum International with $25,000. Entrepreneur Magazine has called him, “one of the top entrepreneurs of our time.” As a business thought leader he is often featured and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, CNBC, Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, Fortune, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Morning News, The View, Squawk Box, Fox Business, and more. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and Inc.com and has published acclaimed books like, “Act Now! How I Turn Ideas Into Million Dollar Products” and the best-seller, “Key Person of Influence.”
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Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), with over 12,000 members worldwide, and chaired for fifteen years EO’s premiere CEO program, the “Birthing of Giants” held at MIT, a program in which he still teaches today. Founder and CEO of Gazelles, a global executive education and coaching company with over 200 partners on six continents, Verne has spent the past three decades helping companies scaleup. The “Growth Guy” syndicated columnist, he’s also the Venture columnist for FORTUNE magazine. He’s the author of the bestseller Mastering the Rockefeller Habits which is translated into 9 languages; and along with the editors of Fortune, authored The Greatest Business Decisions of All Times," for which Jim Collins wrote the foreword. His latest book Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) has won eight major international book awards including the prestigious 2015 International Book Award for Best General Business book. Verne also chairs FORTUNE Magazine’s annual ScaleUp and Growth Summits and serves on several boards including chairman of The Riordan Clinic and the newly launched Geoversity. A private investor in many scaleups, Verne resides in Barcelona, Spain, with his wife and four children and enjoys piano, tennis, and magic as a card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.
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Kandia Johnson is a Communications Strategist with a sweet spot for helping people turn their knowledge into influence, impact and income. She's helped her clients launch global campaigns and events, get booked on TV shows, and featured in print and online publications.
She also teaches corporate leaders and business professionals how to stand out from the crowd and communicate to win at life and work.
Kandia has an M.S. Ed. in Secondary Education and B.A. in Communications. When she’s not working you can find her traveling around the world in search of the best crème brûlée and 4 inch heels.
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As a millennial himself, Javier Montes has spent his entire entrepreneurial journey working almost exclusively with a millennial workforce. He has built a successful event entertainment company in South Florida and now he is sharing how he experienced such success with a team of millennials.
Javier is on a mission to bridge the gap between Gen X’ers and Millennials in the world. He writes and speaks regularly on this topic, and recently published his first book “Millennial Workforce: Cracking the Code to Generation Y in Your Company.”
As one of the most dynamic speakers on the planet, Javier’s passion, drive, and excitement is obvious from the moment he takes the stage. His energy is highly contagious and he has an uncanny ability to engage and connect with his audience.
Javier currently lives in sunny Miami with his wife and 2 gorgeous daughters. On his free time, he enjoys almost any activities that involve water. He is a pizza connoisseur and enjoys networking with other like-minded entrepreneurs. Javier is a proud member of the EO South Florida chapter and currently sits on the Board of the Accelerator Program.
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Anthony Lee Witt is the founder and creator of The Champion Entrepreneur. He has spent his life looking for how he can create and provide value for others and their business. In short, this is exactly what The Champion Entrepreneur is all about; providing valuable information and resources to help others become the champion that they know deep down inside they are. Like most entrepreneurs and individuals in this life, Anthony has had his fair share of struggles. He believes that no matter who you are there have been one or two struggles which have held you back from becoming the champion you were made to be. He helps others overcome these struggles because we are all made with unique attributes and strengths.
Focusing on strengths is one of the ways Anthony has become a Champion. He personally has been blessed with the inability to properly take the written word and make sense of it in his mind. This is more commonly known as dyslexia. This disability or more appropriately, this weakness has plagued him his entire life. From determining how he would be able to pass a driving exam to ordering food at a restaurant or even being able to spell his children’s full names. By looking at the negatives for years, Anthony held himself back and his ability to help others and provide value for those he came in contact with.
Because of this weakness he has developed a keen sense of understanding and an ability to connect with people, helping them find their true calling. By focusing on strengths and not weaknesses he has been able to analyze situations and develop practical and usable plans for overcoming what holds you back. Converting weaknesses to strengths and focusing on those strengths has made a world of difference in his personal and professional life. Anthony absolutely loves helping others do the same in their lives.
He is a father, a husband, a brother, a son, and an entrepreneur. In all, he strives to be a Champion one day at a time.
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Christine Gritmon is 36 and on her fourth career. After Vassar, she spent nearly a decade in the corporate beauty industry which taught her a lot about marketing and branding. She then went back to study graphic design at Parsons and when her son was born became a freelance graphic designer, local lifestyle journalist, and creator of funny Photoshops for a comedy website. When her daughter was born, Christine became a full-time journalist with The Journal News which broadened her horizons exponentially and helped her become a real fixture in the community. She also learned a LOT about social media from our newsroom audience analyst, and after supplementing that with some education (training programs, lots of reading, etc.), she decided to combine her love of social media and small local business and become a social media manager.
She’s also the proud wife of Greg (like everything else in her life, she found him online), mom of two great kids plus a cat and a dog. She’s also become something of an activist recently.
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Yvonne Stafford, a consummate entrepreneur, was born in Harlem. Her broad experience includes owning Stafford Realty Group, a commercial real estate firm for the past twenty years among other business endeavors. She is a holistic health advocate, public speaker, and author of the book: From Fast Foods to Slow Foods: How to Wake up Laughing. She produces the annual Natural Living Film Festival and Community Forum, now in its 5th year at the Maysles Cinema.
Ms. Stafford graduated New York University with a Master’s Degree in Theater. She is a former Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ) small business Board Member, and Harlem Business Alliance Secretary.
Ms. Stafford is the 2016 recipient of the Woman of Substance Award, given in memory of the Hon. Theresa Freeman-Timmons, for excellence in leadership and public service in the 70th Assembly District, Part A.
She is a friend of the NYPL Schomburg Center, an avid reader, tennis player, swimmer and mother of six. Ms. Stafford holds a Master’s Degree from New York University.
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Laura Cheek is the Founder and Social Brander of Insperience It. Insperience It is a social branding agency specializing in branding and social media management for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Laura leverages social media to build irresistible brands and consumer bonds in various industries, from Professional Service Providers to Restaurants and Lifestyle Brands. After 6 years of grassroot efforts and experiential learning, Laura has developed a technique to social branding. Since the launch of Insperience It, Laura has since developed another business, Social Brandr. Social Brandr is an online community and resource center where online entrepreneurs can go to learn how to build a strong brand and exploit social media to better their business using Laura's technique.
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Billee Howard is Founder + Chief Engagement Officer of Brandthropologie, a cutting edge communications collective specializing in identifying the most powerful collision point of culture and commerce for each client to create captivating stories that are consumed, shared and drive meaningful and measurable engagement. Billee is a veteran communications executive in brand development, trend forecasting, strategic media relations, and C-suite executive positioning. She has a book dedicated to the study of the sharing economy called WeCommerce released in December 2015 as well as a blog entitled The Brandthropologist dedicated to curating the trends driving our economy forward. She is also a regular contributor to Forbes and HuffPo on the topics of marketing, storytelling and the collaborative economy.
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Mitch co-founded Timeslips Corp, which grew to become the largest time tracking Software Company in the world before it was sold to Sage PLC in 1998. Then Mitch went on to join long-time friend Chet Holmes as President, later to join forces with Tony Robbins and together created Business Breakthroughs, International with nearly 300 staff and about $25M in sales.
In 2015, Mitch published his #1 Amazon Bestseller: “The Invisible Organization” which is the CEO’s guide to creating a fully virtual organization.
Now Mitch is building certification & licensing programs which companies use to generate insane profits while exploding their sales.
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Products mentioned in this podcast:
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About a year ago, Corey was lying awake at 4 am for the fourth or 5th night in a row wondering what had happened to his life.
He was almost 50 years old, dead broke, in a contract to purchase a piece of land that he couldn't afford, the bank had turned down his loan 3 times, his wife had lost her job, he was renting a home where they were living and had a home for sale that wasn't moving, and he was facing a huge income tax bill. Corey was embarrassed, humiliated, and scared. How could he have let this happen? He was so anxious that his wrists just shook and ached with tension. He could easily draw a line in his mind directly to homelessness.
Corey felt like Jimmy Stewart in "It's A Wonderful Life." He did have great life insurance, and he "knew" that he was worth more dead than alive. Or, was he? As Corey began to trace the ending of "It's A Wonderful Life," he began to examine the reality he had created in his mind and suddenly seven small words popped into his head: "MY FAMILY NEEDS ME TO BE STRONG!"
He’s here to tell you the rest of the story…
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George Athan is one of New York’s top business growth experts who has successfully consulted for companies in 75 different industries and niche markets. He specializes in helping B2B companies create predictable and scalable systems to achieve rapid business growth.
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Karen Benjamin is the co-founder and co-owner of Worldleaders, a sales training and outsourced sales recruiting firm focused on helping small to medium sized B2B technology companies to improve their sales results. Karen leads the outsourced sales recruiting practice.
Prior to launching Worldleaders, Karen was a Vice President at Ciber, an international Information Technology consulting firm leading Sales, Recruiting, and Technology Services Delivery in Upstate, NY.
Karen serves on several boards and committees in her local community including: Vice President for the Small Business Council, Former President of Digital Rochester and Vice President of Membership for Infotech WNY. She was recognized as an up and coming executive in her community during 2003 by the Rochester Women’s Network, IT Woman of the Year by the Association for Women in Computing in 2004, and Distinguished Alumni by RIT in 2008.
Karen holds a B.S. in Professional and Technical Communications from the Rochester Institute of Technology and a M.S. in Management from Roberts Wesleyan College.
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Mark Babbitt is the co-author of the Amazon bestseller, A World Gone Social: How Business Must Adapt to Survive. An in-demand speaker and mentor, Mark has been named as a “Top 100 Leadership Speaker” and a “Top 50 Leadership Innovator” by Inc.com and one of the “15 Twitter Accounts Every Entrepreneur Should Follow" by Business News Daily.
Mark serves as CEO of YouTern, a community that enables young talent to become highly employable by connecting them to high-impact internships, mentors and contemporary career advice. Mashable calls YouTern a “Top 5 Online Community for Starting Your Career” and Forbes has repeatedly named YouTern a “Top Website for Your Career.”
Mark is also President of Switch and Shift, a site that champions social leadership, creation of an optimistic workplace and human-centered business models. Switch and Shift has been named a “Top Leadership” site by many publications and news agencies, including Huffington Post, ServetoLead.org, Leadership Insights and The Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness (CMOE).
His newest community, ForwardHeroes.org, will launch in 2017 to help our military veterans transition successfully into civilian careers.
When not working to help clients from start-ups to Fortune 100 clients embrace the Social Age, Mark writes and appears for outlets such as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Inc.com, Huffington Post and Bloomberg News. He also serves as a Futurist in IBM Social Business’ think tank designed to help organizations understand what the future of work might look like a decade from now.
Mark is the father of five children and two Labradors. He and the woman who tolerates him (barely) call the mountains of Colorado home.
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Linda Hollander has been featured by Inc. Magazine as the leading expert on corporate sponsorships. She is the author of book, Corporate Sponsorship in 3 Easy Steps: Get Funding from Sponsors, Even if You’re Just Starting Out. She is also the CEO of Sponsor Concierge and the Sponsor Secrets Seminar.
Her sponsors include Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Dun & Bradstreet, Epson, Citibank, Fed Ex, American Airlines, Staples, Health Net, Marriott, Southwest Airlines, Los Angeles Business Journal, Wal Mart, Bank of America and IBM.
She has over 20 years of experience as a small business owner and she is the only person to be featured in both Entrepreneur and Female Entrepreneur magazine in the same month. She has also been on NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX Television, Bloomberg Radio and Remarkable Women.
She started out worse than broke. She was buried in debt and couldn’t find a way out of the poverty trap and abusive relationships. But that’s not what really bothered her. It was that she was short and had frizzy hair to boot.
She and her best friend, Sheryl Felice, used their girl-power to the max. They launched a packaging business which sells custom-printed shopping bags to leading-edge companies.
Despite her shyness, she devised a sales and marketing plan which made the fledgling business profitable in a very short amount of time. As revenues for the company increased every year, she met entrepreneurs, understood what motivates them and how she could increase their success. By the way, she is still short with frizzy hair. Hey, some things you just can’t change.
Disney, Cisco Systems, Mattel, Universal Studios, Nissan, Yamaha, Sony, Revlon, Dunn Edwards Paints, Sanyo, Avery Dennison, Columbia Tri Star, CBS, City of Hope, Union Bank, ASCAP, Kaiser Permanente, IBM, Variety, Ocean Spray, Sears and Infiniti are some of her sponsors and clients. Her passions are business, sponsorships, marketing, promotion and packaging (she is a “Bag Lady”, after all).
Linda Hollander owes her success to the wonderful people in her life: Her parents, Bob and Blossom Hollander, Rhoda and Howard Goldie and her best friend, Sheryl Felice. She lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband, Leslie Greenfield, and their various rescue cats.
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Cameron Herold is the mastermind behind hundreds of companies' exponential growth. Cameron's built a dynamic consultancy - his current clients include a 'Big 4' wireless carrier and a monarchy. What do his clients say they like most about him? He isn't a theory guy- they like that Cameron speaks only from experience. He earned his reputation as the business growth guru by guiding his clients to double their profit and double their revenue in just three years or less.
Cameron was an entrepreneur from day 1. At age 21, he had 14 employees. By 35, he'd help build his first TWO $100 MILLION DOLLAR companies. By the age of 42, Cameron engineered 1-800-GOT-JUNK?'s spectacular growth from $2 Million to $106 Million in revenue, and 3100 employees- and he did that in just six years. His companies landed over 5,200 media placements in that same six years, including coverage on Oprah.
Not only does Cameron know how to grow businesses. but his delivery from the stage is second to none- the current publisher of Forbes magazine. Rich Karlgaard, stated "Cameron Herold is THE BEST SPEAKER I've ever heard ... he hits grand slams.”
When Cameron steps off the stage, he doesn't stop teaching. He is the author of the global best selling business book DOUBLE DOUBLE - in its 7th printing and in multiple translations around the world.
Cameron is a top rated international speaker and has been paid to speak in 26 countries. He is also the top-rated lecturer at EO/MIT's Entrepreneurial Masters Program and a powerful and effective speaker at Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer leadership events around the world.
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Resources:
Marketing professional, speaker, and writer Don Osmond focuses on authentic marketing to help businesses develop sound branding strategies. Widely regarded as a marketing and communications thought leader, he works with clients to develop the genuine narrative of their companies, which becomes the foundation for their branding and messaging. Son to international entertainment icon Donny Osmond, his approach to marketing incorporates lessons from the entertainment industry. After years of education and experience, he knows firsthand that good marketing requires truth-telling and invitation, not spin. Don believes that authenticity is the only true value proposition that a company can offer, so he serves his clients by developing genuine story-based marketing and authentic marketing strategies. Don lives in Austin, Texas with his wife Jessica and two tiny storytellers-in-training, Truman and Leo. He loves hiking, biking, and camping, all of which are easily accomplished in this city full of green spaces.
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Zach Obront is the Co-Founder of Book In A Box, a new type of publishing company focused on allowing busy experts with important messages to share to create their book without the usual barriers.
The Book in a Box process allows busy experts and thought leaders with important messages to share to create the book they've been fantasizing about. No more arguing with publishers over creative decisions or sitting in front of your computer battling writer's block.
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Alberto Riehl is a serial entrepreneur with an insurance background. He’s a Certified Consultant for Bob Proctor and part of his inner circle.
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As a speaker, podcaster, and author, Joel teaches people how their focus, confidence, and path. He’s the guy people call when they’re feeling stuck, under-challenged or overwhelmed.
Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Joel earned his undergraduate degree at Texas Tech University, an MBA from Amberton University, and a Master’s in Counseling.
His latest book, Finding your Voice, hit the #1 spot on Amazon for success and in the self esteem categories.
His podcast, ReLaunch, was named by Podcasters’ Paradise as “Best Overall” podcast of 2014 and “Most Inspirational” podcast for 2014 and 2015; and has passed passed the one million listens mark.
He is a contributor to Networking Times, Huffington Post, and Success.com.
Joel and his wife Pei live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and have two dogs; a Golden Retriever retired therapy dog, Bubba, and a Golden rescue, Happy.
Joel can also speak openly and with authority on:
Joel has been a guest on 85-plus news programs, and has had packages run nationally.
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Tara Christopher has been in the health industry for 30 years. She started as a competitive AAU swimmer at the age of 5 swimming five days a week and completed her first swim-a-thon at age 9. She continued swim-a-thons annually to raise money for different non profit organization. At 12 years old was the first 20 mile walk-a-thon. The understanding of the power of her own body to help others and be grateful for health began at a very young age.
Tara began teaching Aerobics and was part of a team that opened a health club at the age of 17. While opening the new health club McDonald’s was trying to incorporate the veggie burger and Tara hosted the McDonalds commercial to launch the idea of a healthier choice. Always one that was up for the challenge, she did her first sprint triathlon at 21 years old. She was featured on the cover of Triathlon program as the cyclist.
After moving locations to teach weight training and classes she was invited to speak at the corporate office of Anheuser Busch inspiring a room full of upper management and executives to educate them on exercise and better nutrition. This was the first of many engagements to teach health and wellness.
After she received her degree from Hunter College, she launched a successful career at a highly demanding gym on 57th street in NYC. Her strategy was to develop a roadmap for individuals to reach their goals based on their own health needs. With her rapid growth and success she launched her own business on 57th street at Lift gym NYC. In the process of launching her business she finished the NYC marathon. Since then, she has completed many endurance events including the Ford Ironman.
Throughout her career she was featured many national publication, was in an exercise layout in fitness plus, wrote a TV clip for Life Time Live and featured in the episode, was chosen to represent a book Baby to Bikini traveling to many news morning shows. In 2012 she was on Dateline NBC as “the coach”, After the showing, the clip was featured on TMZ and the O’Reilly factor. With social media and the changing format Tara was inspired to reach to many people with her message. This lead to her passion to spread the word Just Keep On Movin!!!
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Kelly Hatfield is co-founder and CEO of Enginuity Advantage, Advantage Staffing Group, Enginuity Virtual Recruiter, Impact Real Estate Real Estate Group based in Everett, Washington and hosts the Absolute Advantage podcast. She has been in the recruiting and HR field for over 20-years and loves serving others. Kelly and her business partner have built three successful companies with the purpose of helping others succeed and delivering remarkable results. Kelly and her team strategically align themselves as “The Partner of Choice” with clients and strive to be the first place clients call when they are looking for extraordinary service, quality, and reliability. The resulting outcome has been an outstanding referral network that has built and continues to build their companies.
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Steve Gissin is a highly strategic user experience consultant who guides senior leaders of Fortune 500 companies in the study and improvement of their products.
As a professional facilitator, Steve has provided research solutions for some of the top e-commerce companies in the US as well as internationally. During his 15+ years of experience, he has managed and moderated thousands of focus groups, ideation sessions, individual interviews, usability lab sessions, and eye tracking research for a variety of clients across many industries.
Steve has guided venture-funded startups, by providing strategic research services, as they launch their initial online products and services.
Prior to founding OneSpark, Steve was co-founder of a national interactive research firm as well as a former Director of User Experience for a national interactive design firm. At OneSpark he sets the overall vision, while managing client relationships and providing them with strategic user research consulting.
Steve holds a bachelor's degree in English from the State University of New York at Brockport. He is also a certified Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI) facilitator.
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Amy Anderson is the creator of Transformative Writing for Non-Writers, founder of Anderson Content Consulting LLC, and former senior editor of SUCCESS magazine. She’s an Emmy Award-winning writer and producer, content strategist and ghostwriter who has worked with clients like John Addison, Todd Duncan, John Assaraf, and Darren Hardy, as well as companies like Advisors Excel, Ryan and Dell. Today, Amy has turned her years of experience toward helping experts, coaches, and consultants write with confidence so they can build connection, inspire action and change lives.
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