Gordon Logan - Sport Clips
Gordon talks about Sport Clips and the success of the franchise model he built.
David Allen - Getting Things Done
David talks about GTD and how it can help you, your business, and your success.
Chris Babel - TRUSTe
Chris provides great information about online privacy and what you can do for your business.
Feb22
Missouri Star Quilting Company has the largest selection of precut quilting fabrics in the world. Their team has focused on educating people on quick and easy ways to quilt and have grown the largest quilting YouTube channel in order to deliver that vision.
MO: What inspired you to launch a quilting company?
Jan30
The Lano Company was “cooked-up” in 2005 by Miranda Coggins, a new mom with a need for a cure. Miranda suffered from chronic chapped lips and reached for the lanolin, while breastfeeding her daughter. Feeling relief, she began creating lip balm on her kitchen stove. After trial and error, she found a formula that worked and The Lano Company was born.
Specializing in medical-grade lanolin based cosmetics; The Lano Company strives to create beautiful products with natural ingredients that nourish the body, mind and soul.
Gus: What were the biggest challenges you faced when first developing your product line and how did you overcome them?
Jan12
Two sisters, Talia Bahr Goldfarb, a mom and social worker, and Danielle Bahr Eason, a mom and retail industry veteran, joined forces to invent Myself Belts, the belt kids can fasten themselves.
Myself Belts help make a child’s (and parent’s!) school day a little easier and provide children with an “I did it by myself!” moment. Mom-invented, this is a must-have fashionable and functional patented children’s accessory for kids ages 2-12. Myself Belts promote independence and boost self-esteem by allowing children to easily fasten and unfasten their belt on their own. No more falling pants and a frustrating problem has been solved for parent, child and teacher.
Gus: How did you come up with the concept for Myself Belts? How have you and your sister combined your backgrounds, experience and vision to create Myself Belts?
Jan10
For Spas and Hot tubs in St Louis, visit Mirage Spa & Recreation, Inc. an exclusive dealer of Sundance Spas, the Best Built Hot Tubs in the World.
Family owned and operated since 1988, Mirage Spa & Recreation offers high quality Sundance Spa sales and exceptional service operations to thousands of satisfied St. Louis customers.
Gus: What insights did you gain while watching your husband start the company back 1988 at just 21 that you were able to later apply when coming on board in 1996?
Nov27
Kathy Miller lives and breathes events. In fact, after 30+ years and countless projects with Fortune 1000 companies, major trade associations and not for profit organizations nationwide, she still thinks it’s fun. Her exuberance and sense of limitless possibilities are contagious. All who work with her are continually amazed that she never looks for shortcuts or rests on her laurels. She always has her eye out for the next “great idea.” Each new project is a challenge, a puzzle to be solved, a solution waiting to be discovered – or invented. But first, Kathy asks a lot of questions and from the answers, she helps each client determine their event strategy, which will guide every decision throughout the rest of the process.
Total Event Resources, a leading Chicago meeting and event planning company, produces innovative events for Fortune 1000 companies, major trade associations and not-for-profit organizations. Recognized as a PepsiCo Supplier of the Year in 2011 and a certified Woman Owned Business, Total Event Resources has been producing award-winning events around the world since 1995.
Total Event Resources has been recognized with multiple awards such as: ISES (International Special Events Society) Esprit Awards, Gala Awards, NICE! (NACE ISES Chicago Excellence) Awards, MPI (Meeting Professionals International) Awards and the Business Ledger Newspaper Annual Award for Business Excellence in the Hospitality Category.
MO: Can you talk a bit about your entrepreneurial journey of starting Total Event Resources on a limited budget in 1995, building it into an award-winning, internationally recognized event planning company?
Nov14
Heather Hans is a healer and educator connected to intuition and spirituality. She is also a trained psychotherapist, intuitive coach, and business woman. She combines this approach to serve women in fulfilling radiant health, exceptional confidence, and extraordinary love. After her MBA, Heather began her career as a CPA at Arthur Andersen and spent the next decade as a tax consultant in public accounting, the insurance industry, and private practice. She also taught courses in business and accounting at two colleges. Alongside her professional path, she became drawn to various forms of healing and wellness in order to improve her life. Her innate nature as a teacher and nurturer, her own life trials and tribulations, and her drive toward health and self-development, paved the way for a career change to one where she could more fully utilize her capacities. She went back to school in her 30s and got her second master’s degree in social work (MSW). During her training, Heather managed a substance abuse prevention program for Boulder Valley School District, and she received her clinical training as a psychodynamic psychotherapist at the Boulder Institute for Psychotherapy and Research. She has also held several youth-centered volunteer positions.
Heather soon discovered that her ultimate calling to reach the world and uplift the loving energy of human kind was beyond the scope of traditional psychotherapy and social work practice. So, she began a business dedicated to the highest form of compassionate healing, combining her professional knowledge, organizational skills, and ethical leadership with her creative vision, spiritual nurturance, sensitivity, wisdom, and intuition. Heather has spent the past 17 years dedicated to holistic health and has been trained by some of the top experts in the areas of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. She offers six and twelve-month transformational packages to assists women in becoming radiant, confident, and magnets for love. Clients who work with Heather are no longer plagued by self-doubt or a need of approval from others. They are aware of and accept all parts of themselves and have a felt sense of being cared for by the Divine. They develop an attitude of gratitude, which continually attracts abundance into their lives. Healthy boundaries affords them a sense of personal power, and they finally know what it is like to receive love, rather than always trying to please others and settle for less than they desire and deserve. In short, Heather’s clients become women of power and influence. For those looking for love, Heather provides mentoring and packages that help clients achieve the passionate, healthy, soulful love relationship that they have always wanted.
MO: Can you talk about your journey from being a public accountant to becoming a holistic health expert? What did your turning point look like?
Nov13
Founded by New York City mom Lyss Stern, Divalysscious Moms was born to bridge the gap between a glam, pre-baby lifestyle and a post-baby life where, well, let’s just say there are more midnight feedings than midnight soirées.
Rather than toss aside her beloved stilettos for strollers, Lyss embraced them both and created a company that keeps the party going (except at nap time).
DivaMoms are fun, fabulous and one-of-a-kind — from trendsetter and career woman to stay-at-home and think-outside-the-juice-box mom. At the Divalysscious Moms events, they get together to experience sensational events, meet new friends, or catch up with old ones – all with no stress! DivaLysscious Moms hosts fabulous events for both moms and kids.
MO: Can you talk about your ‘aha’ moment of having the idea for Divalysscious Moms and the journey of taking the concept and turning it into a reality?
Oct23
CoFounders Lab helps entrepreneurs through one of the toughest and first challenges of launching a new business – finding a co-founder. We help entrepreneurs through one of the toughest and first challenges of launching a new business – finding a co-founder. We do this in two ways.
o Through in-person Co-Founder matching Meetups for entrepreneurs (organized and finely tuned over two years)
o complimented with our online matching portal at www.CoFoundersLab.com (or visa versa). Both components are completely FREE.
We take great care in making matching recommendations. Currently we match on half a dozen criteria; think match.com for entrepreneurs.
MO: Where did the idea for CoFounders Lab come from? How has your background and experience contributed to the development and vision of the company so far?
Oct18
Stephanie Azzarone is founder and president of Child’s Play Communications, the first agency to specialize exclusively in connecting companies with the influential mom market.
Stephanie is the recipient of the Bulldog Reporter 2010 Social Media Innovator of the Year Gold Award as well as the Silver Anvil, the most prestigious award in the public relations business. She is a highly sought after speaker and has delivered presentations on marketing to moms at major conferences across the nation, including BlogHer, Kid Power, SheCon, PR University, Digital Kids Conference, the IIR Youth Marketing Mega Event, BlogHer Business, PlayCon, Marketing To Moms and Marketing to Digital Moms.
Child’s Play Communications is the leading agency specializing exclusively in public relations, social media and word of mouth communications for products and services targeted to moms. With more than 20 years of expertise in this market, Child’s Play offers exciting services to help clients reach moms effectively, through traditional media, online and – increasingly – in person.
MO: What inspired you to create an agency that focuses on products and services targeted to moms?
Oct12
Teri Gault is the CEO and founder of www.TheGroceryGame.com, a website that provides shoppers with a fun and easy way to achieve substantial savings on their grocery and drugstore bills. Members log onto the site to get a weekly shopping list, which helps them to reduce shopping time and money by using coupons at precisely the right time for optimum savings.
A wife and mother of two, Teri began The Grocery Game as a home-based business in February 2000. As an avid saver and coupon-clipper, Teri decided to use her skills to create a list to help identify when to use coupons, based on categorical sales trends, to achieve maximum savings at her local supermarket. Even during her years of economic security, Teri had always looked for the best deals, and when her family needed a financial pick-me-up she realized that she could help others save money, and launched www.TheGroceryGame.com to offer her fellow Southern Californians the opportunity to benefit from her expertise.
MO: Can you talk about the process from having the initial concept for The Grocery Game to developing it into a reality? Did you ever think that it was going to get this big?
Oct11
Within small to medium sized businesses, Heather Cox is an accomplished sales and operations executive with over a decade of experience. Currently, she is Co-founder and COO of Certify My Company, a diversity consultancy. Heather, along with her co-founder, wanted to be able to help women, minority and LGBT business owners, that qualify; certify their businesses to become part of the ranks and privileges that certification brings. To those ends, Certify My Company was born with the goal of inspiring and helping diverse businesses grow while having more fun and time doing it.
Certify My Company, Inc. provides certification assistance, certification training, database evaluation, multi-tier programming, multi-tier program development, training solutions, diverse supplier training, webinars, workshops, diversity consulting, strategy and business development for diverse suppliers . We work with corporations, WBEs, MBEs, VOSBs, SBEs, DBEs and the supplier diversity community as a whole.
MO: How did you come up with the idea for Certify My Company?
