Jay Owen is the Founder and CEO of Design Extensions, a digital agency he started at the age of 17 — while still in high school — and continues to run today. His goal is to help businesses grow online, become more efficient through online marketing, and to create a better image and brand for themselves and their companies. Jay is also the host of the “Building a Business That Lasts” podcast, where he interviews other business owners who have over 10-years of experience and want to share their stories to help others.
Greg Gray is the Founder and CEO of Gray Solutions where he is a leadership and business consultant. He has a background in lean methods, project management, strategic planning, business development, operations management, and human capital. Greg and his team specialize in providing mentoring, training, and coaching to people and organizations in the industries of agriculture, manufacturing, franchising, biotechnology, textiles, services, insurance, and network marketing. He is also the host of the new podcast, “Business Owner Freedom.”
Jordan Harbinger has always had an affinity for social influence, interpersonal dynamics, and social engineering...helping private companies test the security of their communications systems. He then spent several years abroad in Europe and the developing world, including South America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, and speaks several languages. He has also traveled through war-zones and been kidnapped...twice. He’ll tell you...the only reason he’s still alive is because of his ability to talk his way into...and out of...just about any type of situation.
Tom Kulzer is the founder and CEO at AWeber, a leading small business email marketing software, where he is actively involved in the company's strategic direction, growth, and evolution. Over the company's 20-year history, Tom has nurtured it from a small start-up to a robust organization serving over 100,000 customers, all without public or venture funding. He laid the foundation for AWeber while working at a computer hardware firm in the mid-90s where he realized sales prospects were falling through the cracks due to the lack of proper follow up. By automating the delivery of personalized follow-up emails to prospects, company-wide sales skyrocketed, and sales associates had additional time to spend pursuing new prospects.
Tracey Wozney is the founder and director of Taking Shape, a non-profit organization whose mission is to grow young leaders who impact others Here, Near and Far. She is the publisher of the STAR Leadership youth leadership curriculum program that is used by over 35 affiliate dance studios, youth clubs, and organizations throughout the nation. Tracey has recently launched a mission camp organization serving children in Port au Prince, Haiti where young leaders serve on a global front. Tracey is also a business owner of dance schools in rural Missouri for over 25 years and is an Enterprise member with Misty Lown’s More Than Just Great Dancing studio owner coaching program...and you may remember Misty as our guest here on Onward Nation for Episode 80 and 544.
Ron Carucci is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent and is a seasoned consultant with more than 25 years of experience working with CEOs and senior executives of organizations ranging from Fortune 50s to start-ups in pursuit of transformational change. He’s a two-time TEDx speaker, a popular contributor at Harvard Business Review and Forbes, and is the best selling author of the book, “Rising to Power.”
Brian Burke is an active owner and president of SellYourMac.com, the world’s most trusted and highest independently rated Apple trade-in company and whose mission is to make it fast, safe, and easy to buy, sell, and service Apple products. His company has served over 100,000 customers, paid out $19 million, and has been featured on USA TODAY, MacWorld, and ABC News.
Paul Spiegelman is the co-founder of the Small Giants Community, a peer-group of purpose-driven business leaders. He is the former chief culture officer of Stericycle, the co-founder and former CEO of BerylHealth and the founder and chairman of The Beryl Institute. He’s a New York Times bestselling author and has been honored with the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. Paul is a columnist for Forbes.com and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and Inc. Magazine.
Good Morning...I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI and your host for Onward Nation.
Before we dive into today’s episode — which is going to be a solocast where it’ll be just you and me spending some time together exploring a topic that my team and I have been watching very closely — I want to make sure you’ve heard about our new Alexa Flash Briefing that we launched yesterday...and how you can get free access to the daily content.
You can activate it with a simple voice command to your Amazon Echo device by saying…“Alexa, enable the Onward Nation Flash Briefing” and you will be all set to receive our daily, short, business building tips and strategies anytime you ask Alexa for your Flash Briefing.
Please give it a try and let me know what you think — thumbs up or thumbs down. Your feedback helps us get better each and every day.
And if you’re asking yourself, “What the heck is an Alexa Flash Briefing?”... during our time together in this solocast...I’m going to share the ins and outs to Alexa Skills and Briefings and how Alexa can impact your biz dev strategy in big ways...and I will share why my team and I at Predictive ROI have been studying the broader category of “Voice” for a while now...and I will even take you behind-the-curtain into the four reasons we felt it was important for us to launch the Onward Nation Flash Briefing.
Full show notes available here: https://predictiveroi.com/podcasts/stephen-woessner-solocast-episode-78/
Elizabeth Engen is an Online Business Strategist and Founder of Premier SEO Ninjas - a digital marketing agency that helps doctors and lawyers grow their practices by creating online strategies that increase their number of clients and boost their bottom line. Premier SEO Ninjas aims to be the leading provider of innovative, comprehensive, state-of-the-art, and results-driven digital and Internet marketing solutions to enable their clients to become successful.
Our special encore guest today is Chris Prefontaine. Chris has been in the trenches of the real estate industry for over 25 years. His company has done over $80 million in real estate transactions. He is a practitioner at heart — which is why his company still buys between 4 to 10 properties each month where Chris and his family practices what he preaches. He is the author of the best selling book, “Real Estate on Your Terms.”
I invited Chris back for an encore because of a fundamental problem that most business owners struggle with -- how to get their wealth out of their business and into other assets -- just in case they don’t have an opportunity to sell the business -- or even if they do sell the business -- awesome -- the diversification of assets can provide a very balanced portfolio. And real estate may be one of those investment strategies to consider as you are building out your plan.
Chad Littlefield and Will Wise are Co-founders of We!™ — an organization whose mission is to create conversations that matter. Chad is a keynote speaker, who has spoken at TEDx and is the creator of We! Connect Cards™, which are now used to create conversations that matter on campuses and companies in over 50 countries around the world. Will has over two decades of experience in custom building leadership programs for corporate and non-profit groups. Together, Chad and Will have launched a new book, Ask Powerful Questions: Create Conversations that Matter, now a #1 Amazon.com Bestseller.
Ron Alvesteffer is the President and CEO of Service Express, a company that specializes in on-site data center hardware maintenance services. Under his leadership, Service Express has averaged double-digit revenue growth year over year and has expanded their geographic footprint nationally. Service Express has been named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing privately held companies for 10-years, but Ron is most proud of their strong company culture which has led to the company being named one of the nation’s Best and Brightest Companies to work for for the past several years.
Stacy Jones is the CEO and founder of Hollywood Branded, a Los Angeles influencer and entertainment marketing and strategy agency. She has over 20 years of leadership experience building global influencer and entertainment branding campaigns for top Fortune 500 companies and hundreds of brands. Acknowledged as an expert in the field, Stacy has appeared on CNN and MSNBC, spoken at conferences around the globe from Germany to Beijing, and has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, and other media outlets.