Wide Awake Business

Founded in 2004 to deliver the unmet needs of smaller businesses and family-owned companies, Wide Awake Business offers specific, practical, and actionable marketing and sales services that attract new customers, reconnect with former clients, and grow businesses.

WAB has demonstrated its ability to grow companies and get more customers through its work with over 6102 businesses increasing their revenue by $731 million dollars, improving processes and systems, building team and coaching CEOs and executives. We have delivered business growth services to customers around the globe.

In 2012 the company’s founders, Martha Hanlon and Chris Williams, entered the Amazon Best Seller list with their book, Customers Are the Answer to Everything. Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of marketing exclusively for small business and the best-selling author of Guerrilla Marketing, wrote the forward for the book, and has called Martha Hanlon and Chris Williams, “…one of the foremost authorities in how to get and keep customers.” WAB’s team of consultants and specialists now has grown to 15, including project managers, business development assistants, copywriters, CRM systems experts, public relations specialists, website developers and graphic designers.

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Chris Williams is Co-Founder of Wide Awake Business. Since 2008, nearly 5,000 business owners have relied on her sales and marketing expertise to boost their sales by more than $731 M. Chris began her business career as a teenager, working in her family’s multi-million-dollar San Francisco Bay area company. After earning a degree in Marketing from the University of Oregon, Chris joined Xerox Corporation. In her 13 years with the company, Chris trained more than 1,000 sales representatives, successfully launched 48 new products, and led her team to the prestigious Malcolm Baldridge Certification.

Chris knows the challenges of small business ownership first-hand. After leaving Xerox, she opened her own company. She built a team of 13 sales personnel and other support staff that grew market share from 4% to 18% and overall revenue to $4M.

As a sought-after speaker, business coach, and best-selling author of 3 books, Chris applies the sales systems and strategies she developed in her corporate career to support small to mid-sized businesses in a wide range of industries around the globe, resulting in more customers and higher revenues.

Wendy Watkins is the Vice-President of People for Wide Awake Business. In this role, she works with new consultants and team members to set them up for success and filling in the blanks, whether it is sales, coaching or consulting skills. As a business coach and speaker, she has worked with ambitious business owners who are called to do and be more with their business, but who are not quite clear on how to achieve this lofty goal. Wendy teaches a Mind-Body-Business approach to building a juicy, successful and sustainable company. Wendy was one of the first million-dollar sales woman for Aveda and is the author of The Joy Factor Recipe Book – A Common Sense Approach to a Delicious Life.

 

Carrie Burggraf is a Business Development and Sales Consultant with more than 20 years’ experience in growth strategies for small to medium-sized businesses. As a nationally certified Physician Assistant and Certified Care Manager, Carrie brings a unique blend of clinical and business expertise to the table in her coaching and consulting work. She specializes in building effective teams that consistently maximize revenue opportunities and continuously improve performance.

Dr. Ruth Mannschreck coaches Wide Awake Business clients who are dedicated and determined to grow their businesses.  Ruth has “hands-on” small business experience as she owned, nurtured and sold a private dental practice and other businesses over the years.  She coaches and mentors small business owners to stretch and achieve higher revenue goals by focusing on more impactful marketing, targeting sales, delivering a more passionate client experience and developing a client-first culture, in complete alignment with our Wide Awake Business values.

Paul Meinardus joined us in 2014, delivering process and technology improvements to the Wide Awake team and its small business and family-owned companies. He is the lead coach and consultant for our Revenue Modeling services. Paul offers over twenty-five years of experience in process improvement and metrics, technology, strategy, governance, management, consulting and operations.  He has served as a CIO, business analyst, program and project manager, as well as a senior manager with Deloitte & Touche.

Gail Dixon is the lead copy writer and brand positioning specialist for Wide Awake Business. A Speaker, Best Selling Author, Coach and Consultant with more than 30 years of experience, Gail specializes in guiding people to name, frame and claim the verbal expression of their brand identity and core messaging.  Her extensive experience combined with her unique gift of listening between the lines positions Gail as a top expert and trusted authority for creating compelling and authentic brand and personal messaging.

Andrea Feinberg delivers marketing services on behalf of Wide Awake Business and is proud to have had a measurable, positive impact on over 1,000 business owners. Andrea has over 25 years partnering with business owners to radically accelerate revenue with a business that contributes to a happy, abundant life. A frequent guest of radio, business summits and conferences, Andrea specializes as a business development coach using strategic marketing initiatives. She is a graduate of New York University’s Stern School of Business (Marketing), Coach University’s 3-year advanced training program, and a founding member of Coachville, the world’s largest coach-training body. Andrea has also published and contributed to 6 books, including “Time Junkie: 101 Tips for Biz Owners to Get More Time NOW”, “The Essential Coaching Book” and “Productivity.

 

Kathy Henry is the Director of Operations at Wide Awake Business, keeping processes moving forward for our consultants, coaches, and business clients.  She is also a WAB Revenue Model consultant and works directly with clients to monitor and understand their financials in order to grow and support their businesses. She created the WAB Compensation Model for business owners to dig into the details of their human resource structure, looking at profitability per employee, billable vs non-billable costs, and the impact of new hires and pay raises. Prior to joining the WAB team, Kathy enjoyed a 25-year career in marketing and audience development in the magazine publishing industry. She was responsible for $30 million+ in revenue and allocated department a budget of $8 million for a staff of 60. Other experience includes: strategic customer-focused marketing, process improvement, customer retention/improvements, collaborative staff development, database management, and insight reporting on marketing programs.

Tim Petree is the technology and automation specialist for Wide Awake Business. Tim specializes in Infusionsoft by Keap® marketing automation, landing pages, email, and content marketing. A two-time EMMY® award winning director, Tim combines content and technology to create compelling stories.

Mary Martin is the Business Development Manager for Wide Awake Business. Over the past 25 years as a business systems, sales and marketing specialist, Mary has brought her passion and skills to companies in the hospitality, financial and home care industries. Mary has developed a successful and creative approach to generating new business that leads to a consistently high rate of leads for our sales team. She has also contributed to utilizing best practices for creating a system for onboarding new hires at Wide Awake Business. As a member of the Marketing team, Mary focuses on strategy and systems that ensure maximum visibility and impact for our business.

Master Coach Emeritus, Martha Hanlon founded Wide Awake Business in 2004 with the desire to deliver to small businesses and family-owned companies the type of insights usually available only to large corporations.

After years leading product management and marketing divisions for AT&T, British Telecom and MCI, Martha became the Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing at Blanc & Otus Public Relations in San Francisco, working with CEOs to build business plans, thought leadership platforms, and market-recognized corporate brands.

Martha has an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. from Duquesne University. She is a sought after writer, speaker and trainer.

She is the primary author of Amazon Best Selling books Money-Making Marketing, Customers Are the Answer to Everything, Customertopia, and Rise Up, Leader.