Join SME for their April dinner meeting which will be held on Tuesday, April 2 and will feature a panel of three local entrepreneurs discussing sales and marketing from a small business perspective. Serving on the panel are Jessica Horton, Clinical Services & Designer of Heart & Home Design Services, Michael Odupitan CEO of Omni Circle Group and Jeremy Poling Owner and Digital Strategist of Top Fuel Digital. Scroll down to read more about each speaker. Our own Rick LeJuerrne will be the moderator for this lively panel. Register below for the April dinner meeting.
Jessica Horton is the Clinical Services & Designer of Heart & Home Design Services. She is a communication professional with over 15 years of working in customer experience across multiple creative industries. Jess started her marketing career in the retail industry serving clients from international couture houses to a strategic marketing specialist at a billion-dollar footwear brand. Always a student of the customer, Jess moved into working at a full-service marketing agency where she was the Vice President of Client Services for Sprout Creative. Jess served a wide variety of clients there touching hospitality, healthcare, and economic development industries. With such a wide variety of clients, Jess and her team worked to hone in on how to differentiate themselves from other service providers, and how to continually improve the very delicate relationship between contractors and companies. After working at Sprout for 8 years, Jess had a health scare and decided that she wanted to pursue a lifelong suppressed dream of being an interior designer. Armed with her knowledge of customer experience, Jess proposed a local kitchen designer take a chance on her and teach her the ends and outs of the construction business. Today, Jess works for Heart and Home Design Co. working to build knowledge of functional design while deploying her lessons in the customer journey for a new demographic of clients. She is also currently remodeling her kitchen, so she has a case study in the pressures of a large-scale construction project.
Michael Odupitan is the CEO & founder at Omni Circle Group. A non-profit organization whose mission is to unite and strengthen communities, while promoting personal and professional development to promote achievement and preparation for global competitiveness. With two decades of experience working in Social Services, helping members of the “underestimated” community, he has connected hundreds of families to resources and opportunities to meet their basic needs. Michael is a specialist in the work of developing people and acting as a community navigator. By focusing on the development of people, Michael serves on a number of different boards to be an advocate for minorities across Topeka. Over three years, Omni Circle has slowly become a pillar in the community through its volunteerism, personal and professional development and business development services, even gaining some recognition by Forbes Magazine. Michael may spend a large portion of his days at Omni Circle but it’s the joy of seeing people become a better version of themselves and living more to their human potential that gets him up in the morning. When is not at Omni Circle, you can find him spending time with his family or tucked away somewhere reading a good book.
Jeremy Poling is the owner and lead Digital Strategist for TOPFUEL Digital, a Digital Marketing Agency located in Topeka Kansas. He is also an Adjunct Marketing Professor at Washburn University where he shares the latest strategies with the next generation of business owners and marketers. After spending over 20 years in the corporate environment, Jeremy started helping local businesses and non-profits with their online presence. Today, he has worked with hundreds of businesses and organizations doing things like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-per-click (PPC), social media marketing, email marketing, website design, and more. He is passionate about helping locally owned businesses with the essential online resources and digital tools that they need to succeed online.
