Born and raised in the Philippines, Margarita McClure spent a good part of her life thinking she would end up with a career or a business in the food service industry. She graduated from the University of the Philippines with a degree in Hotel & Restaurant Administration, then received an Associate Degree from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco where she graduated at the top of her class.

Chris Talis is my guest in this episide of The Smallbiz Brain. We discussed some of the legal and financial considerations particularly for start up projects.

In my interview with Michele DeKinder Smith, founder of JaneOutOfTheBox, she talks about her progression from researcher to entrepreneur. Michele has created a wonderful entrepreneur-personality-typing system to help women celebrate their strengths and work on their weaknesses in business.

Our guest on this segment of the Brain is a marketing consultant and the author of 7 books on various subjects relating to business and non-profit organizations. In 1985 Shel Horowitz published the first of five books on low-cost, high-impact marketing. His client list now includes accounts in Europe, Asia, and all across the U.S.; his books have sold to dozens of countries, one of them has been translated into Korean, and another has been sold to publishers in India and Mexico.
Shel now offers not only copywriting and strategic marketing planning, but also speaks on affordable, effective marketing to national audiences.

In this segment, author and consultant, Gary Harpst talks about what the incoming Obama administration will need to do to help small businesses across America. Gary feels we, as organizations, are not really very good at planning strategies and executing against them.

All businesses need to consider motivating their employees to keep them happy by creating incentives to encourage them to deliver great performance on the job. Our guest on this segment of the Smallbiz Brain is an expert in creating programs that help companies do just that.

Sam Horn is an award-winning communication/creativity consultant who has a 20 year track record of results with an international clientele including Fortune 500 Forum, Young Presidents Organization, Hewlett-Packard, NASA, Kaiser Permanente, National Governors Association, KPMG, Boeing, Intel and Capital One. She was selected ( along with Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Tim Ferris and Michael Gerber) to be a featured speaker at INC Magazine’s annual convention for the top 5000 entrepreneurs in the country.

In my interview with Dr. Ritch Sorenson says that family businesses make the some of the most most important contributions to the American economy. He also is a true believer in the success of family businesses.Dr. Sorenson holds the Opus Chair in Family Enterprise at the University of St. Thomas- Opus College of Business’ /Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. In that role, he integrates family business concepts into the broader business school vision, serves as a family enterprise ambassador to the larger business community and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses.
Sorenson’s work has been published in many journals including Family Business Review, Journal of Business Venturing Group and Organizational Studies, The Leadership Quarterly and Academy of Management Executive.

Our guest on this segment of the Smallbiz Brain has 30 years of managerial experience in line and staff positions in Fortune 500, entrepreneurial, and educational contexts. Since 1989, Bill Monson has been in leadership roles in executive education at the University of St. Thomas first as Director of the Executive MBA program and now as Director of the Center for Family Enterprise. Prior to these positions he managed a start-up venture, was the Manager of Corporate Management Development at Medtronic, and was Associate Dean for Graduate Programs in Management at the College of St. Thomas.

Our guest on this segment of the Smallbiz Brain has owned retail businesses, restaurants and consulting practices. Today Mary Pat Kavanagh’s specialty is teaching her clients to create strategic, profitable, long-lasting relationships using social networking.