About Us

Chris Williams, CEO, leads the Wide Awake Business team in supporting business owners to achieve big breakthroughs. Since 2008, she’s guided more than 6,900 clients in growing their revenues by a combined $9.46 million. She’s also a respected speaker and the co-author of three best-selling books focused on making business easier, simpler, and more profitable.

Chris’s approach is grounded in 30 years of business success. At Xerox, she trained over 1,000 salespeople and led a team of 300 to Baldridge Certification. Later, she built her own company from a 4% to an 18% market share and grew it to $4 million in revenue.

That experience fuels the results-driven programs she’s developed at Wide Awake Business including the Leadership Cohort, Winning Sales Techniques, and Revenue Modeling. Chris is known for helping business owners create practical strategies and stick to them to produce measurable, lasting results.

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Wendy Watkins is a consultant for Wide Awake Business, where she provides leadership development through coaching relationships and training. With a focus on helping leaders expand their impact with clarity, confidence, and joy, Wendy empowers ambitious business owners and executives to grow themselves as they grow their businesses.

A seasoned coach and engaging speaker, she has worked with visionary entrepreneurs who feel called to achieve more but need the tools and mindset to realize their potential.

Wendy teaches a Mind-Body-Business approach to creating a juicy, sustainable, and successful business and life. She was one of the first million-dollar saleswomen for Aveda and is the author of The Joy Factor Recipe Book – A Common Sense Approach to a Delicious Life.

Dinyah Rein is a Business Development and Sales Consultant specializing in empowering business leaders to identify and neutralize their barriers to success. Her decades of experience include 7 years in marketing at Apple as well as time running her own businesses. She has provided coaching, training and consulting in business development, leadership and communication. Dinyah is gifted at distilling complex situations and ideas into clear, compelling insights and actions that propel her clients forward.

Andrea Feinberg President of Coaching Insight, LLC, delivers marketing and coaching services on behalf of Wide Awake Business and is proud to have had a measurable, positive impact on more than 1,000 business owners. With over 30 years partnering with entrepreneurs to radically accelerate revenue while building businesses that contribute to a happy, abundant life, 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 earned recognition as one of Long Island Business News’ Top 50 Influential Women and is a Certified Strategic Business Leadership Coach. She has published and contributed to six books, including “Time Junkie: 101 Tips for Biz Owners to Get More Time NOW,” “The Essential Coaching Book,” and “Productivity.”

Terry Gassaway, Jr. has a passion for learning, innovation, and overall helping businesses improve, whether that is processes, sales, marketing, business development, team, or clients.  He leverages his expertise in strategy, business development, culture evolution, customer relationship management, and finance to help clients achieve their growth goals. Terry has decades of experience in various sales, account management, marketing, and consulting roles across different industries and products.

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.

Kelz Morris-Dale is the Operations and Client Liaison for Wide Awake Business, bringing more than 20 years of global experience in operations, human resources, and systems design across industries including real estate, travel, and communications. She’s worked in a wide range of roles—from executive assistant, HR consultant, and event organizer to COO of a real estate investment firm—giving her a deep understanding of how to build efficient systems and support growing teams.

Originally from New Zealand and now based in Reno, Nevada – Kelz holds certifications in small business management and Reiki. She’s also an international best-selling co-author of three books, with another releasing soon.

Sonika Tinker is an Executive Business Coach who supports leaders in bringing their business visions to life by applying compassion, clarity, structure, and strategic focus to their growth. She empowers business owners to clarify goals, identify critical success factors, and break through limiting beliefs.  Sonika is well versed in all aspects of running a six-figure business from start to finish.  

Since 1991 she has delivered more than 20,000 hours of customized coaching and training focused on improving leadership skills, resolving conflicts and increasing productivity. She is masterful at identifying what isn’t working, what could work better, and co-creating a plan of action to build a business that is easier to run, more profitable, and more fulfilling to lead. 

Chris Thompson is a coach and consultant for Revenue Modeling services at Wide Awake Business. Chris has over twenty years of experience in accounting and finance in the areas of financial statement preparation, tax planning and preparation, management consulting, process improvement, and budgeting and forecasting. He served as CFO within the KJohnson Enterprises family of companies and owns a financial consulting firm providing fractional CFO services, accounting and operational guidance to start-up, family-owned service companies, and educational non-profit organizations.

Tarra Jackson is a former C-Suite Executive and Training Manager who understands the learning and development needs of staff. She serves as a fractional COO for Wide Awake Business and select clients by coaching leaders and staff to help them reach performance and organizational goals. She takes care of operational matters to lighten the CEO’s load and help them focus on achieving long-term leadership goals.

Tarra leverages her experience and education to train teams and provide insights to develop innovative business strategies. She delivers results through Training Assessment, Strategic Planning, Performance Improvement, Organizational Development, and Change Management.

Andria Taylor consults with mid-sized, high-growth businesses to develop their leadership bench. Regardless of the industry, strong leaders are the key to any organization’s success.

Andria understands the challenges executives face in keeping their top talent and ensuring leaders are ready and equipped to effectively lead teams. Her goal is to ensure her client companies have the right people in the right roles at the right time.

With over 15 years expertise in developing exceptional leaders and leadership development programs, Andria has worked in the US and abroad in a variety of industries including healthcare, hospitality, insurance, construction and not-for-profit.

Tomi Cunningham is a Senior Consultant offering Revenue Modeling services as well as our Success By Design™ consulting program. Tomi has over twenty years of experience in various accounting and finance roles including financial planning, pricing analysis, process improvement, and budgeting and forecasting.

Her work at Peat Marwick and in large Silicon Valley organizations has led her to a strong focus on efficiency. Tomi also has intimate experience with the entrepreneur’s journey. In the past ten years, she took her own restaurant from concept through startup, survival through the pandemic, profitability and successful sale to a new owner. Tomi has a unique ability to distill business issues into clear, actionable, and results-oriented plans that position her clients for success.

Kari Gras is a fractional CHRO for small businesses who offers effective solutions to soften and streamline core HR operations and tasks for any company.

Kari and her team manage all foundational HR procedures, employee responsibilities, and hiring strategy. They make sure your systems are compliant, up-to-date, and working efficiently.

She offers expert guidance in talent recruiting, employee handbook development, and benefits administration.

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.

Tim Petree provides tech-savvy virtual support for Wide Awake Business and our clients. Tim specializes in email and video marketing. A two-time EMMY® award winning director, Tim combines content and technology to create compelling stories.

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.