Rebecca Bloomfield of Jerry S Pearlstein Insurance has been privileged to work with the lives of famous women in American history like Abigail Adams and Lady Bird Johnson. She’s also been asked by small communities to honor the lives of women who were important to their beginnings. We have the fortune today of meeting one of these women as Rebecca portrays Elizabeth Meyer. Let me introduce you to Elizabeth. She was born in the southeastern corner of Switzerland in 1818. Elizabeth had a strong de...
Aug 28, 2017•41 min•Ep. 125
Rebekah Wilbur is a custom wedding cake designer and owner of Rebekah Naomi Cake Design. She is also the Managing Editor of American Cake Decorating Magazine. Rebekah dedicates her free time to teaching live cake decorating classes, blogging about cake matters, demonstrating at cake shows, and creating online tutorials. Recognized as a Satin Ice Artist of Excellence, she enjoys sharing her passion for cake decorating with others. Her style is instantly recognizable for it’s stylistic sugar flora...
Aug 21, 2017•48 min•Ep. 124
Matt and his wife, Jennifer started their retail journey 12 years ago in downtown Holland, Michigan with a gift and decor store called HOME & COMPANY. It took a couple of years to get to that “ah-ha” moment when they realized they were focused on all the wrong things. Matt had just opened a second concept store named Tip Toes, when the recession hit. They knew they needed to do something to adapt. Thankfully, by putting in place some common sense practices, recognizing the importance of thei...
Aug 14, 2017•51 min•Ep. 123
Hallie is a licensed speech-language pathologist working full time in the public schools. In her “spare” time, she blogs and creates digital resources to assist busy speech-language pathologists to make their jobs a bit easier. She started this entrepreneurial journey 5 years ago. At that time, she didn’t have a permanent job and used her blog as a therapeutic outlet. Back then she kept her blog anonymous to prevent having issues while finding a tenure track position. In truth, Hallie didn’t thi...
Aug 07, 2017•37 min•Ep. 122
Todd Timmerman is a business lawyer specializing in intellectual property protection. His practice spans a wide range of intellectual property and technology-related litigation and transactional matters. Todd assists clients in crafting sound intellectual property protection and enforcement strategies. This secures and maximizes the value of their critical intellectual property assets. He also handles trademark and copyright registration matters as well as licensing, transfer, and other business...
Jul 31, 2017•33 min•Ep. 121
Katie Wiswald is a commercial and consumer lender at Highland Park Bank & Trust, a Wintrust Community Bank. Katie has spent the last 15 years in Highland Park focusing on community lending and serving the needs of local businesses and residents. She has previously served on the board of the Highland Park Chamber of Commerce as Assistant Vice President and is currently the chairman of the task force for the Ravinia Business District (TIF) Advisory as well as an advisory member for the Ravinia...
Jul 24, 2017•50 min•Ep. 120
Goran Donev has been dealing with computers since he was sixteen. Back then he was building his own computers and helping friends fix theirs. He went on to work in corporate IT departments and saw that something was lacking. There was an absence of quality IT providers who truly understood the needs of small businesses. So he started Safe Haven IT where today, he helps the small business owner with remote management and monitoring, consulting services and installation. Goran says his goal is to ...
Jul 17, 2017•38 min•Ep. 119
Nicole is an income strategist who works with everyday entrepreneurs by applying corporate strategies to help build their businesses. She has worked as a client-facing business executive for Fortune 500 companies in both sales and marketing for over ten years. Everyone from stay-at-home parents to small-business owners can access her affordable and entertaining webinars and private monetization coaching. Using her trademarked Pitch & Pray method, Nicole helps her clients embrace the Monetize...
Jul 10, 2017•46 min•Ep. 118
Getting insurance today is overwhelming. For this reason over 15 years ago, Rebecca Bloomfield and her husband and partner Jerry Pearlstein, decided to use their experience and empathy to open an insurance agency serving the entrepreneur. They provide health, life, long-term care and disability insurance to people who don’t have a company providing these benefits. Rebecca is particularly concerned about women who so often don’t think of themselves. A little knowledge and preplanning can prevent ...
Jul 03, 2017•37 min•Ep. 117
Tuscany Tours is a small business owned and operated by Pam Mercer and her husband, Sam Hilt. They work and live in a small hilltop town near Siena, Italy. It all started with a trip from California to Tuscany just over 25 years ago. Little did they know that this experience would change their thinking and change their lives. Their first official Tuscany tour was in 1997 and they’ve been growing ever since. Pam calls it a privilege to receive travelers and share the beautiful countries of Italy ...
Jun 26, 2017•47 min•Ep. 116
Rae uses creative expression to nurture self-worth, resilience, healing and social change. She found her passion after overcoming some serious life events and now makes it her mission to assist others. She helps both individuals and organizations create powerful visions that transform their lives. This is achieved by building a problem solving culture and fostering growth and change through her Creative Visioning Training. Rae is the author of Art from My Heart and the award winning book Creativ...
Jun 19, 2017•41 min•Ep. 115
Carmi has years of experience designing gift and home decor for retailer, big box, and global distributors worldwide. He learned naturally that having product stories attached to his gift designs results in big business. He is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Smashup Studio, a cutting edge design studio. They specialize in marketing original re-purposed Gifts and Home Accessories and are involved in all aspects of design, startup, manufacturing and marketing. Carmi newest venture is takin...
Jun 12, 2017•46 min•Ep. 114
Robin Walker, a former elementary school teacher, has been building businesses from home for the last 14 years. She owns and runs Zainey and Zoe which offers made to order cheer bows through their website and on Etsy. Robin also connects and supports women business owners through her Women’s Business Workshop. She is the author of the Summer Survival Guide for Work at Home Moms and this past March, hosted a 2 day conference for women business owners looking to grow their businesses. Robin’s Stor...
Jun 05, 2017•35 min•Ep. 113
Andi Malone is the owner of Infinity Gifts, Baskets, and Balloons. She started her business 11 years ago and is a professionally certified designer and the winner of numerous awards within her industry. Infinity Gifts’ services include custom gift baskets for all occasions as well as balloon design to make events unique and exciting. When her son and daughter were young, Andi held auctions at their baseball events to raise extra money. Her gift baskets were a huge success and over time, she reco...
May 29, 2017•41 min•Ep. 112
Morgan Sutton is the Director of Operations at Susan B. Zimmerman Enterprise. With a Master’s in Engineering Management, she directs all business operations, logistics, and online automation systems for social media educator, Sue B. Zimmerman. Since the company’s start almost 5 years ago, she has been a core driver of the development of Sue B.’s popular brand and online education courses. As a certified Ontraport consultant, Morgan is responsible for the back-end operations of SBZ Enterprise. Sh...
May 22, 2017•38 min•Ep. 111
Jonathan is the author of Brand vs. Wild: Building Resilient Brands for Harsh Business Environments. He is an engaging and authoritative speaker on shaping a brand that can survive and thrive, in today’s tough uncertain world. As partner and strategy director at McKee Wallwork + Company, Jonathan led his firm to be recognized by industry purveyor Advertising Age as a national leader in branding and marketing. They were also named the Southwest Small Agency of the Year, and received the national ...
May 15, 2017•37 min•Ep. 110
Sue. B Zimmerman is an insightful social media educator, energetic speaker, and in-demand business coach. Her blog is ranked as one of the top 10 social media blogs in 2017 by Social Media Examiner and Huffington Post recently named Sue as one of the Top 50 Must-Follow Women Entrepreneurs in 2017. Whether she’s taking the stage at an industry conference like Social Media Marketing World, or working one-on-one with her clients, Sue B. is driven to help business owners leverage the power of Instag...
May 08, 2017•44 min•Ep. 109
Shenia Smith started her business, Lula’s Bath and Bombs, just one year ago. As you may have guessed, she sells homemade bath bombs and also handmade soap, sugar scrubs, bath salts and lotion bars. Selling online only through Facebook and in person at craft shows, her business is exploding – just like her bath bombs do! A typical weekend event will result in the sale of two to three thousand bath bombs. And to think, this all started from selling donuts. I know this doesn’t make sense. But it wi...
May 01, 2017•44 min•Ep. 108
Lisa started Earth Sticks five years ago. By her own admission, it was a fluke. She wanted to help out a friend, and before she knew it, she was launching a website and her first product. Earth Sticks are hand-blended essential oils made into a solid stick, each with a different purpose. These essential oils are nature’s way of promoting emotional, physical and spiritual healing by targeting specific body parts and systems without the use of chemical additives and toxins. Today, Lisa’s line has ...
Apr 24, 2017•43 min•Ep. 107
Max is one of the creators behind the wildly popular game Cards Against Humanity. He is also a co-founder of Blackbox which is a shipping company that helps independent artists send physical goods to their customers. Max is also the guy behind several attention-grabbing media stunts. Have you heard of “Digging the Hole to Nowhere?” Or the 30 second SuperBowl commercial featuring a potato that simply says “Advertisement?” We’ll get the scoop behind these events and their results. Max has been fea...
Apr 17, 2017•46 min•Ep. 106
Nina Nsilo-Swai has always had a passion for helping others and spent a decade doing just that in non-profit organizations across New York City. After moving to the suburbs with her husband and two sons, Nina combined this passion with her entrepreneurial spirit and formed rahababy®. The goal at rahababy is to bring joy to the daily rituals of parenting and make room for “raha” (joy in Swahili) in homes across the country. Her first product is the pee-kaboo reusable potty training sticker. These...
Apr 10, 2017•42 min•Ep. 105
Starting in 1968, Village Common is a dream three generations in the making and spanning over 40 years. Ben and Blake create handmade, natural apothecary goods, kindled by their family history. They bring to us this new installment of family traditions blended together and thereby continue the legacy of the Village Common. Take a look at their website and specifically their Our Story page and you’ll land upon an entertaining history lesson of mid 1900 retail. The Village Common Previous generati...
Apr 03, 2017•39 min•Ep. 104
Calley is the owner of Fat Toad Farm located in Brookfield, Vermont. Fat Toad Farm is a family-run business that produces a Traditional Goat’s Milk Caramel Sauce. Their award-winning sauces are based on the Mexican confection cajeta, and are meticulously hand-stirred to velvety perfection. Calley has spent the last nine years mastering the art of goat’s milk caramel making, focusing on traditional cooking methods and using a small number of simple, all-natural ingredients. The result of this pro...
Mar 27, 2017•45 min•Ep. 103
Brigitte has a fine art and graphic design background and has been in the advertising industry for over twenty years. Astonishingly, within 12 years, Fabscraps has grown from what started off as a small venture in a loft by 2 sisters, into the largest craft and fabric manufacturer in Africa. Fabscraps factory employers are predominantly from the Kwa-zulu Natal region, and many are single parents. Since 2005, Fabscraps has strived to transform the lives of many of these men and women by providing...
Mar 20, 2017•41 min•Ep. 102
Sheila was laid off from her corporate job in 1992. So at the age of 42 she decided it was time to do what she loved – baking. Sheila took a treasured family recipe for brownies and launched a little brownie business. There were many ups and downs over the years, and it wasn’t until 2011 that all the hard work and sacrifices began to pay off. That was when she created a product called Brownie Brittle. By the end of that year, they had approximately 200,000 bags of Brownie Brittle on store shelve...
Mar 13, 2017•36 min•Ep. 101
Wow! 100 episodes and almost two years have passed since the very first Gift Biz Unwrapped podcast went live … it doesn’t seem like that long! I feel fortunate to have interviewed so many impressive business owners and service providers to our industry. Over time, the audience has become defined as people who are Gifters – Bakers – Crafters – Makers. People who create or sell handmade products and are in the process of, or already have started their own business out of their hobby or craft. I ha...
Mar 06, 2017•37 min•Ep. 100
Hailing from the land of Paul Bunyan, wooded trees and lakes for miles, Tena’s big personality + aptly given nickname ‘Tena-talks-a-lot’ sent her searching for more. After spending some time in the big city with a “big girl job” Tena quickly realized that the cubicle life wasn’t for her. With a little nudge from her husband she founded tena.cious, a social media + graphic design firm, and effectively launched herself as a brand with a career that makes room for all her passions. Despite starting...
Feb 27, 2017•47 min•Ep. 99
Alex is the owner and farmer of Lifegarden Farm. He established Lifegarden Farm in 2013 with plans to grow some of the hottest peppers in the world right in the heart of Florida. History has shown the health benefits of peppers and Alex wants to share them with all of us. Lifegarden Farm’s team nurtures these peppers with love and good intention and pays strict attention to detail in the natural growth and feeding of their crops. Today, just three years later, they have created a variety of prod...
Feb 20, 2017•44 min•Ep. 98
Mike was born in Rwanda and immigrated to the United States in 2010 where he launched his business. Rwanda Bean Company supplies specialty coffee products in the U.S. and abroad. In turn, it supports coffee producers by investing profits back to the farms. The company began as an importer of raw coffee, and has recently started selling its own private label, roasted coffee products to wholesale and retail customers in Maine. Aside from running the business, Mike is studying for an MBA and enjoys...
Feb 13, 2017•39 min•Ep. 97
Bear Creek runs through the pasture of Jeff and Teresa Perleberg’s property in North Dakota. They raise sheep, cattle and chickens. It’s the sheep from her property that provide the wool for Teresa’s business, Bear Creek Design and Felting. Teresa has been selling her one of a kind needle felted art online since 2006. Two years later she opened her Etsy shop. As her business continues to evolve, Teresa has designed several beginner and advanced needle felting kits so others can learn her techniq...
Feb 06, 2017•37 min•Ep. 96
