Cara Brookins built her own 3,500 square foot house by using YouTube tutorials. After surviving domestic violence, she was faced with stark challenge of providing for her four children, with no one to turn to but herself. In desperate need of a home—but without the means to buy one—she did something incredible. She built one from scratch, while rebuilding her family.

 Brookins’ message helps people do hard things and frees them from the procrastination loop. She uses real-life examples from her unconventional construction site and shows productivity methods to overcome uncertainty. Her tactics of self-empowerment show how to blend an imperfect mix of personalities, talents, and temperaments into a cohesive, unstoppable team.

Equipped only with YouTube instructional videos, Brookins decided to build a house from the foundation up with a work crew comprised of her four children. Convinced that if they could build a house, they could rebuild their broken family, she and her kids poured concrete, framed the walls, and laid bricks for their two story, five-bedroom house. Brookins story is an inspiring blueprint that traces her family’s rise from battered victims to stronger, better versions of themselves, all thanks to one impossible, extraordinary do-it-yourself project.

Brookins offers strategies that apply to every level of your organization and will change the way you live and work. The author of eight books, including Rise: How a House Built a Family, takes you behind the scenes of her inspiring, gone-viral story. She has appeared on The Today Show, CBS, and Inside Edition and had her story featured in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, and Southern Living. Her memoir was optioned for film, Rise, which will be released as a major motion picture featuring A-list actors in 2020.

Linda Clemons is the CEO of Sisterpreneur Inc. She is an award-winning record setting sales producer as well as one of the top sales trainers in the world in the resort/timeshare industry where clients have generated over two billion in sales. She is also a Body Language Expert, trained and certified in Analytic Interviewing and Statement Analysis ™, a process used to detect deception.

Her clients and audiences include Southwest Airlines, National Urban League, Nestle, MGM, Major League Baseball, Wells Fargo, Leo Burnett Worldwide, US Customs, FBI, Marriott, Hilton, Wyndham and Starwood. Her client list includes celebrities, executives, politicians and entrepreneurs.

Clemons has opened for, or shared the stage, with such notables as Oprah Winfrey; President Obama; Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple; Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and Mary Jo White, SEC Chair.

Lisa MacKenzie is a seasoned executive with expertise in marketing, sales, product management and operations. Lisa was instrumental in The Channel Company's evolution from providing traditional media to offering a full portfolio of solutions and services. She brings her proven expertise to The Channel Company's extensive events portfolio - helping ensure that our events meet the evolving needs of our customers. Thanks to Lisa's leadership, The Channel Company attracts record audiences and receives high customer satisfaction scores. Lisa also re-positioned our consulting, research and education offerings, resulting in increased profitability and new product launches.

After spending 25 years as a Microsoft Dynamics Channel Partner, Linda Rose decided to sell it all and retire. Well….almost. Rose has created, bought and sold four companies during her business career. Her sale of her Microsoft Dynamics Cloud hosting company to a Private Equity firm for 100% cash allowed her to turn in the keys to her office and walk out the door 45 days later and begin a 500-mile backpacking trek on the Pacific Crest Trail.

 She has been responsible for leading companies from zero to a 98% recurring revenue model to increase value by 10X, for growing SaaS revenue more than 40% YOY while maintaining a 97.5% customer retention rate, for helping more than 300 companies move from on premise IT platforms to cloud services, and for creating the first “Click, Try, Buy” SMB ERP solution for Microsoft users. Her book “Get Acquired for Millions: A Roadmap for Technology Service Providers to Maximize Company Value” and her Value Maximizer™ Assessment which helps channel partners increase their current market value has hit #1 in multiple categories on Amazon.

 When Rose is not out exploring trails in the wilderness, kayaking on the open waters, or tending to her gardens, she speaks to and advises owners on how best to plan and build company value, so that one day they too can be acquired for millions.