By COLlive reporter
Photos: Shmuel Amit/COLlive
In an elegant conference center buzzing with fresh ideas, hungry minds, and an entrepreneurial spirit, close to 1,000 frum Jewish businesspeople gathered at The Rockleigh of New Jersey on Wednesday for the sold-out LTB 2017 Summit.
Now in its 4th year running, the Summit, presented by Ptex Group in collaboration with Roth & Co., has been hailed as the Orthodox Jewish community’s premier business education, networking and career growth event. COLlive.com was a proud media sponsor.
“LTB,” which stands for Let’s Talk Business, is a platform founded on the belief that great things begin with a handshake and a quality conversation. There were certainly plenty of those happening at LTB 2017.
From a lineup of keynote speakers discussing leadership and business, and network opportunities galore, every detail of the all-day event was carefully designed to motivate, educate, and inspire participants to think bigger and achieve more—in their businesses and in their lives—and to help them work on their businesses, not just in them.
Highlighting the event, emceed by Charlie Harary, Esq, was the impressive roster of world-renowned business speakers and thought leaders.
In a standing-room-only ballroom, “world’s #1 small business guru” Michael E. Gerber shared his wisdom on entrepreneurship, reminding the crowd that business is not about a to-do list; it’s about a vision.
Internationally renowned financial and leadership expert Chris Hogan electrified the audience with his keynote talk on how to be a successful leader—and how a leader is very different from a boss.
Business maven, serial entrepreneur, and bestselling author Mike Michalowicz forever changed how people view their cashflow with his “Profit First” Formula, a behavioral system that ensures permanent profitability.
JP Morgan’s Mark Horowitz taught how to hone and develop self-motivation. And Meny Hoffman, founder of the LTB platform, spoke about the reality of work-life balance—and how it doesn’t always mean what we think it does.
Plus, online and Amazon sellers enjoyed their own track, featuring big names like Ed Rosenberg and Jeff Cohen dishing out tips on how to maximize sales in the ever-evolving e-commerce space.
In a climactic end to the day, attendees, and those watching live from all over the world, voted for the winners of the inaugural LTB Awards. In the weeks leading up to the event, hundreds of nominations poured in, and they were boiled down to two finalists per category before the start of the Summit.
The first of its kind in the Jewish world, the LTB Awards recognized businesses and their leaders who are achieving remarkable success and making an impact on their companies, communities, and industries. The LTB Award for Business Growth was awarded to Monsey Trails; the Award for Innovation to Book Like a Boss; and the Award for Leadership to Brokers Central.
“Throughout the day, hundreds of attendees kept coming over to me,” said Charlie Harary. “They were thrilled to have a professional business conference to call their own, where they could hear corporate America’s biggest names dish out real-world business advice in a heimishe environment. From a fully-catered kosher lunch, to mincha minyanim between speeches, to an enthusiastic crowd of like-minded yidden who are uniting to grow in both business and life, LTB 2017 was designed from the ground-up for the contemporary Jewish businessperson.”
An attendee of the 2017 Summit, Michael Kalisch, remarked, “This was the most inspirational and practical event I’ve ever been to. Some of the concepts that were spoken about are ones I’ve never heard before, but they’re exactly what my business needs to get to the next level.”
LTB, however, is more than just a once-a-year event. It’s a game-changing education platform that is boldly reshaping the Jewish business landscape.
“Over the past four years, besiyata dishmaya, LTB has grown from a seed of an idea into a flourishing community of visionaries, innovators, and doers,” says Mr. Hoffman. “It’s become nothing short of a movement, enabling countless entrepreneurs and businesspeople in the Jewish community to learn, grow, and succeed.”
Beyond the Summit, LTB offers monthly Leaders Forums (a one-day leadership training for business owners), a Leaders Momentum one-on-one coaching program, corporate trainings, webinars, online resources, and more. Those interested in year-long business learning opportunities can visit www.ltbhub.com.
“At Ptex, we call ourselves ‘champions of the beating entrepreneurial heart.’ Everything we do is aimed at helping growing businesses and leaders flourish—and the LTB platform is a crucial part of that,” says Mr. Hoffman.
The Jewish business community has always had the strong work ethic, enviable talent, and unstoppable ambition that every entrepreneur needs. But now, LTB is giving them unprecedented opportunities and tools to learn, grow and succeed like never before.
