He actively helped raise 2 great kids coaching many youth sports along the way.
He helped create over 100 millionaires.
He built one of the nation’s largest marketing firms from scratch before selling it several times.
He then played a leadership role in the sale of the publicly-traded entity for what was at that time an industry record-smashing $2.1 billion.
He positively influenced thousands of individuals to identify and pursue their passions.
He was featured on ABC’s Secret Millionaire where he volunteered uncovering heroes helping their communities.
He’s owned 30 businesses across many industries and sold 26 of them.
He wrote two New York Times bestselling books, Bag the Elephant (Business Book of the Year) and Be the Elephant.
His books are available in over 10 languages and 40 countries around the world.
He built a business into an organization with 1300 employees in 29 international offices.
He received a “Best Musical” Tony™ nomination for the Broadway musical Leap of Faith, starring Raul Esparza with music by Alan Menken.
He recently completed a tour of our nation’s universities helping tens of thousands of students prepare for success.
He is an Executive Producer of the album titled “Chi Town” scheduled for release in through Universal Music Group.
He completed a climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain in the world.
He served on the Executive Committee for EuroRSCG, which set strategy for its 176- company conglomerate.
He ran with the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain.
He travels around the globe speaking to groups on success and achievement.
He is a founder of The Kaplan Family foundation dedicated to helping individuals achieve their dreams by providing resources to help them succeed.
He recently returned from touring Afghanistan where he presented thousands of troops with strategies to get jobs and start businesses upon redeployment.
Steve’s Story
Steve’s first business was a snow shoveling company that he built and sold to a large landscaping company. The sale was for $48 … he was 10 years old. Years later, Steve has become a self-made multimillionaire who has built, bought and sold over 100 businesses and helped thousands more around the world identify and realize their dreams. One of Steve’s proudest accomplishments is the fact that he helped make over 100 people millionaires in their own right.
An average student, Steve wanted to play football, so he attended Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. He transferred and graduated from Bradley University with a major in Political Science before receiving an MBA from Rosary Graduate School. During this time, Steve worked a variety of jobs as a waiter, construction roofer, landscaper, factory laborer, and an adjunct faculty to mention a few.
In his mid-twenties, Steve hit his first big success with a marketing company called SCA. He didn’t have any business mentors or financial backing, so Steve learned on the fly. Possessing street smarts, a ton of passion, a solid work ethic, and of course some luck, Steve lived the trials of the small business owner. With limited resources, Steve used many cash flow conservation tactics such as sleeping in his car versus buying a hotel room, borrowing friends’ cars to take out clients, and more. These experiences along with many others allow Steve to easily relate to people in all walks of life. He knows what it’s like to stay awake all night agonizing over a decision he made 12 hours ago. He also knows the psyche and dynamics of the business owner, their families and employees both on the national and international scale.
Steve quickly realized that if he were going to make it big, he would need to get a lot of business from Procter & Gamble, the biggest marketing spender in the industry, so he set his sites on P&G. He didn’t know anything about big companies, nor did he have any connections whatsoever, so he had no choice but to learn along the way. After many disappointments, Steve landed his first P&G client, a $10,000 order from Scope Mouthwash. Fast forward 5 years, and Steve was working with over 50 P&G brands and billing them over $25 million per year. He was able to replicate his big customer success at many other companies and was on his way. Fast forward a few more years to Steve’s first book Bag the Elephant™ and notice that the forward is written by John Pepper, Chairman and CEO of P&G. Steve was able to build his relationship at P&G beginning with a receptionist and climbing all the way to the CEO level.
Steve built SCA into a leading target marketing/database company before selling it to Snyder Communications NYSE SNC for tens of millions of dollars.
Steve stayed on with Snyder as Group President where he had 1,500 employees throughout the U.S. and U.K. He grew this division 225% in two years by growing and acquiring smaller businesses throughout the US, Europe, Asia and Australia, and then led the growth strategy initiatives for these businesses. This was a large public company consisting of many smaller businesses around the world.
Steve then played a leadership role in selling the public entity (Snyder Communications) to French owned Havas Advertising for an industry record $2.1 billion a few years later.
Steve stayed on as part of the deal as President & Chief Executive Officer of Bounty SCA, the business he started and built to huge levels.
