Dave Kerpen is a serial entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, and global keynote speaker. He is the Founder and Chairman of Likeable Local, a social media software company that serves thousands of small businesses, and he is also the Chairman and Co-founder of Likeable Media, an award-winning social media and word of mouth marketing agency for big brands.
Dave is also the CEO of Apprentice, a platform that connects entrepreneurs and the best and brightest college students to these entrepreneurs to help them to grow their businesses. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Remembering Live which creates virtual memorial services, weddings, and office parties. His newest book is titled The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want. Dave also serves as the current President of the New York chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organisation (EO).
John Corcoran, host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, is joined by Dave Kerpen, a serial entrepreneur and the Founder of Likeable Media, to talk about how to manage multiple businesses. John and Dave will also be discussing the reasons behind the founding of Remembering Live and Apprentice and Dave’s strategies for connecting with people.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- Dave Kerpen talks about how he became an entrepreneur.
- Why Dave and his wife chose to have sponsors for their wedding.
- Dave’s secret to being a people person and his strategies for connecting with others.
- How Dave manages multiple businesses.
- Dave shares the story behind the founding of Remembering Live, why he started the Apprentice, and how the platform works.
- Dave talks about the people in his industry that he admires and those he acknowledges for his achievements.
Resources Mentioned:
- Likeable Media
- Likeable Local
- Dave Kerpen on LinkedIn
- Book a schedule with Dave Kerpen
- Fran Biderman-Gross on LinkedIn
- Advantages
- The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want by Dave Kerpen
- Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO)
- Remembering Live
- John Corcoran’s interview with Verne Harnish
Sponsor: Rise25
Today’s episode is sponsored by Rise25 Media, where our mission is to connect you with your best referral partners, clients, and strategic partners. We do this through our done for you business podcast solution and content marketing.
Along with my business partner Dr. Jeremy Weisz, we have over 18 years of experience with B2B podcasting, which is one of the best things you can do for your business and you personally.
If you do it right, a podcast is like a “Swiss Army Knife” – it is a tool that accomplishes many things at once. It can and will lead to great ROI, great clients, referrals, strategic partnerships, and more. It is networking and business development; and it is personal and professional development which doubles as content marketing.
A podcast is the highest and best use of your time and will save you time by connecting you to higher caliber people to uplevel your network.
To learn more, go to Rise25.com or email us at [email protected].
To learn more, book a call with us here.
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Episode Transcript
Intro 0:14
Welcome to the revolution, the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where we ask today’s most successful entrepreneurs to share the tools and strategies they use to build relationships and connections to grow their revenue. Now, your host for the revolution, John Corcoran.
John Corcoran 0:40
All right. Welcome everyone. John Corcoran here. I’m the host of this show. And you probably know my story. I’m a recovering political hack and recovering lawyer. I spent years working in politics including as a speechwriter with stints working in the Clinton White House for California Governor and also spent years practicing law in Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area. And 10 years ago, I discovered the medium of podcasting and I’ve been doing it ever since I get to talk to smart people like my guest here today. And over 10 years I’ve talked to so many different great CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs, all kinds of different companies. And today I’m also the co-founder of Rise25, where we help b2b businesses with the strategy and production they need to create a podcast and content marketing that produces tremendous ROI and connects them with their ideal prospects and referral partners.
And before I introduce today’s guest, I want to give a big shout out to Fran Biderman-Gross from Advantages. Check them out at advantages.net because she introduced me to today’s guest who is Dave Kerpen. He’s a serial entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author and global keynote speaker. He’s the founder and chairman of Likeable Local, a social media software company that serves thousands of small businesses. And the chairman and co-founder of Likeable Media, an award winning social media and word of mouth marketing agency for big brands. He is also CEO of Apprentice which connects entrepreneurs and the best and the brightest college students, to those entrepreneurs to help them to grow their businesses. And also Remembering Live creates virtual memorial services, weddings, and office parties. his newest book is The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want.. That’s out now. And he’s also the president currently of the EO New York chapter. He owes that organization I love which I’ve been active in as well. So first before we get into that, this episode is brought to you by Rise25, which helps b2b businesses to get clients referrals and strategic partnerships with done for you podcasts and content marketing. You’re listening to a podcast right now. So you should have one as well. If you don’t have one, you absolutely need one, I think everyone should benefit from them. So if you want to learn more, go to rise25media.com. All right, Dave. So I’m so excited to talk to you because I’ve known of your work for quite some time and followed your work and I know that you are an entrepreneur and have started multiple different companies but take me back to either your childhood or your use. When was it that you decided that I am an entrepreneur? I’m going to start a company. One day, I’m gonna have a little mini empire that I run.
Dave Kerpen 2:55
Sure, first of all, a lot faster chalk, you could definitely be a New Yorker. Thanks for having me out. You know, I think I’ve always been entrepreneurial, but I had a pretty late start relatively speaking. When I became technically an entrepreneur, while I was in college, I was a ballpark vendor. And that’s actually a very entrepreneurial activity, but you’re only paid based on how much you sell and tips. And so that’s really where I first started falling in love with creating my own destiny through entrepreneurship. I went from selling the worst selling product in the building because I was the lowest person on the Kenyan seniority list to turning the crunchy Munch guy into a thing in Boston and I was making about 1000 bucks a night at my peak in the Boston Garden in Fenway Park selling crunch Munch. While I was cool, that was probably the start. And then a couple years later, when I got married to my wife, we got married at a baseball stadium and created a sponsored wedding promotion called our field of dreams. We sold $100,000 in sponsorships to 100. flowers.com was sponsored by our flowers and Smirnoff sponsored alcohol and entered into sponsored desserts and so on and so forth. And really after the wedding, which was such a great success, we realized, like, Hey, we could do this for other companies, we could create buzz and do the marketing thing. And, and that’s where we started our first company. And I guess I officially became an entrepreneur that was now it was 2006. So it was a solid 14 years ago, but I was already at the ripe old age of 30.
John Corcoran 4:33
So many wives would say, you know, if you approach them, and maybe it’s your wife’s idea, I don’t know. But if you approach them and say, hey, let’s have sponsors for our wedding, they’d be like, what the heck are you talking about? So it was motivated by you just wanting a way to pay for your wedding. What motivated that?
Dave Kerpen 4:46
Yeah, I mean, first of all, it was her idea.
Unknown Speaker 4:48
There you go.
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