David Siteman Garland

Entrepreneur, mediapreneur, marketer, speaker and author David Siteman Garland is the founder of "The Rise To The Top", The #1 "Non-Boring Resource For Building Your Business Smarter, Faster, Cheaper" and author of "Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business" (Wiley Publishing).  He writes/hosts RISE, a a web show for entrepreneurs, forward-thinkers, business owners and marketers, as well as The Rise To The Top TV show on ABC.
 
David Siteman Garland

His philosophy is simple: Money follows passion and not the other way around.

After starting and stopping several unique entrepreneurial adventures and dabbling in everything from radio to hockey, Siteman Garland became frustrated that he could not find a great resource (that wasn't a snoozefest) where forward-thinkers could learn more about building, marketing and promoting their own businesses by being smarter, faster, cheaper as opposed to dumber, slower and expensive. What was missing was a new kind of TV and web show, one that was entertaining and educational, and that was part of an online hub that resonated with forward-thinking entrepreneurs and others that struck out on their own without multi-million dollar budgets.

Since such a show and website didn't exist, Siteman Garland decided to build it himself by investing all of his savings, time and energy to create from scratch a TV show, online resource and community of entrepreneurs and marketers.

Like many ventures, The Rise To The Top was born through brainstorming in a coffee shop. Siteman Garland shared his idea for the show with friends, successful business owners and creative types, all of whom thought it was a great concept. The Rise To The Top quickly attracted a wide and varied fan base, including not only the targeted demographic of those in their 20’s, 30’s and early 40’s, but also more “mature” viewers.

The show and web resource now has over 100,000 monthly viewers and numerous syndication deals (with zero dollars spent on traditional marketing and advertising tactics) with a big focus on interviews and picking the brain of top entrepreneurs, forward-thinkers and authors including Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library), Chris Brogan (ChrisBrogan.com), Tony Hsieh (Zappos), The Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger, Seth Godin and many others.

He has been featured on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, City TV, My Network Television, as well as on KMOX and in Alive Magazine, The Riverfront Times, Ladue News, and St. Louis Magazine.  He has no idea why he has become a media magnet so early in his career, but he’s certainly not turning down interviews and requests for videos.

Siteman Garland contributes as a writer and business/entrepreneurial commentator to CNN, CBS Bnet, Small Biz Trends, The St. Louis Business Journal, Personal Branding Blog, Speaker Magazine, Small Business Monthly and Great Day St. Louis. He was recently selected by Speaker Magazine as one of the Hot Speakers Of The Year.

He also has guest lectured at Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis University and Fontbonne University.