About Steve Olson

Steve Olson is a leading authority on franchising. He is Publisher of Franchise Update Media Group, an industry resource for over 2000 franchise organizations. He has recently authored the book, “Grow to Greatness: how to build a world-class franchise system faster.”

With nearly 30 years in franchise consulting, sales and executive management, Steve specializes in accelerating expansion for emerging and established franchise brands. He has served on franchise boards and is a frequent columnist and speaker on the subject of franchising.

Our guest on this segment of the Smallbiz Brain was verrrry thirsty. Seth Goldman was continually in search of the perfect drink to quench his thirst after a run, a game of basketball or between grad school classes. This thirst for the perfect quench paralleled his path to co-found Honest Tea. That was about ten years ago.
Today, Honest Tea can be found in tens of thousands of stores across the US. The company has applied its passion for social responsibility to initiatives in the environment and to creating partnerships with the growers, cultures, and communities behind the teas.

Our guest on this segment of the Smallbiz Brain is a master on the subject of leadership. Kevin Cashman is a senior partner at Los Angeles based Korn/Ferry International —a premier global provider of leadership and talent consulting services. Mr. Cashman is also the author of Leadership from the Inside Out.

Our guest on this segment of the brain formed his company following a simple, yet powerful observation—-Mark Schiavone discovered that small and mid sized companies buy many of the same products & services in their daily operations but usually have little purchasing & negotiation leverage with suppliers.

Following his 23 year management career in the Cable and Satellite Television Industry, Mark Schiavone founded The Member Savings Program, Inc. His company is focused on assisting small and mid sized companies maximize their purchasing power and collective cost savings on everyday operational expenses with a unique, turnkey Membership-based solution.

Our guest on this segment of the Brain is changing the way customer relationship management is done. David Schenberg is the Founder and CEO of Busy Event, an Event Customer Relationship Management platform that directs the flow of meetings and events and the people and data associated with them.

In this segment I visited with Dave Scammell, he’s the CEO of Sohonet—-the company provides connectivity for the feature film industry and has an international presence.

Our guest on this segment of The Smallbiz Brain left the corporate world to pursue her dream of coaching fellow-entrepreneurs toward redefining their visions so they too can make a “big splash” in their lives and businesses.

Lorin Beller Blake is the founder of Big Fish Nation, a year-long business development program that leads entrepreneurs toward maximizing their lives and business goals. She’s also the author of the book, From Entrepreneur to Big Fish: 7 Principles to Wild Success.

Since 2004 she’s has been fulfilling her own dream—to share her Big Fish principals with thousands of entrepreneurs nationwide through her innovative program which as been promoted nationally as ‘a Zen approach to business.’ Big Fish Nation and Lorin Beller have been nationally recognized by Investor’s Business Daily —She was named one of the Top 30 Female Executives of 2004 by Female Entrepreneur Magazine.

I’ll be producing no less than 30 Blog World and New Media Expo interviews into a podcast series within the next few weeks.

This segment features Eric Keiles & Mike Lieberman, co-authors of Reality Marketing Revolution: Transform your business into a money making machine!

Ron Mattocks is passionate about building financially sustainable nonprofit organizations. His lifetime of service in the nonprofit arena has focused on all aspects of enhancing fiscal viability through business development, marketing, fundraising, and expense management.