Marketing Strategist
Business Consultant
Keynote Speaker
Recruiter/Sourcer
What qualifies Jeff as a recognized expert in small business:
- Director of Sourcing Services, Diverse Recruiting Experts, a stakeholder 2.5 years
- Senior Member Success Coach, Seven Figure Agency, a stakeholder 2.5 years
- Former Chief of Operations, No Joke Marketing 7 months
- Former President, Local Child Care Marketing & MarkUBiz (Sold to No Joke Marketing) 9 years
- Former Owner Reno Lawn & Landscape 12 years, 100 + employees, 53 trucks and 325 pieces of equipment with an engine just waiting to take your fingers off.
- Former Operations Manager, Dial One Mountain Steam 3 years
- Retired Lieutenant Junior Grade, United States Navy 14 year service
- Former Glazer-Kennedy Independent Business Advisor 2 years
- Former Trainer for The Business Builder Course by Kaizen Consulting 2 years
- Former Senior Consultant Kaizen Consulting 2 years
- Student of The Strategic Coach Program – 9 years of study on entrepreneurship
- Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, University of Arizona
Since so many people ask where and how it all got started, I created this extended bio. I keep adding to it as memories pop up. I look forward to getting to know and work with you.
I began my life as an entrepreneur before my teens when I owned, what we now affectionately call, a fish bait supply company. I trapped leaches and sold them to a local bait shop. I also trapped pocket gophers to supplement that income.
I have had many successful ventures along my journey, I have learned first-hand what it takes to build a profitable business. I spent 12 years building a local landscape business. After selling that business over 14 years ago, I began my digital marketing business.
In 2017, with 140 clients, it was time to move on again. I sold my agency and stepped into a passion of mine coaching small business owners. Today, as the Senior Member Success Coach, I am responsible for helping over a 1,000 digital marketing agency owners achieve their dreams.
Finally, in July 2018 I joined my best friend of 30 years in his recruiting agency. He had stepped out of corporate America and started his new recruiting business. Since joining, Diverse Recruiting Agency, I have been rapidly learning the recruiting business, managing a team of 13, and training a diverse workforce. We connect great people with great companies.
Almost everyone that I have worked with will tell you I am overflowing with creative ideas. There is not a day goes by where I do not see a way to fix something. It has been proven multiple times that in a one-hour consulting session I provide more implementable ideas than most small business owners can accomplish in a year.
My friend and former business partner Meg Fitzgerald says:
“It sounds like an oxymoron to be both creative and technical right? This is until you have met or worked with Jeff. I think in his entire life, he has yet to meet a problem he does not have one creative solution for (and often times MANY). And oh my, how he LOVES applying technology, widgets, wing nuts, and plug-ins to issues that seem insurmountable. He always thinks outside the box to facilitate others’ dreams and reach their potential”.
I am and have been a board member of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce, and a member of EDAWN (Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada). I am the proud past-chair of two organizations close to my heart–both the Northern Nevada Chapter of the American Red Cross, and the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce Leadership program. I graduated from the University of Arizona in 1988 with BA in Business Administration.
According to my lovely bride, Sheri, of 14 years, I am also “continually (almost obsessively!) learning, increasing and refining my knowledge and skills of recruiting and coaching…. as “my lifelong passion for helping others” is deeply ingrained by my small town upbringing in Parkers Prairie Minnesota.