What a year 2020 has been! We’ve experienced a deadly pandemic, a failing global economy, and a series of civil unrest unlike any we’ve ever seen before. And as we draw nearer to the end of the year, a lot of businesses and entrepreneurs have adapted to the new normal.

We’ve decided to spotlight some of these unique individuals, their achievements so far, and their personal thoughts on running a thriving business in the era we are in today. Let's have a look.

-Alex Quin

Instagram: alexquin

Alex Quin is a full-stack digital marketing expert and chief marketing officer at UADV. He is also the host of the Hustle Inspires Hustle Podcast. Alex specializes in creating revenue-driven omnichannel strategies on paid media to generate profits for his clients.               

Alex has had collaborations & partnerships with Mclaren, Microsoft, Puma, VaynerMedia, ManyChat, Inbound, and Florida International University. His podcast, The Hustle Inspires Hustle Podcast has reached 95+ countries with over 175 million brand impressions across social media featuring guests like Andy Frisella, Neil Patel, Grant Cardone, Randi Zuckerberg, Chris Voss, and Neil Patel.

Given the new shift in social behavior, Alex has developed an omnichannel marketing strategy that generates 6 to 7 figure returns for qualified clients. Most importantly, he's able to generate a valuable customer experience that increases retention and lifetime value.

Alex’s advice for businesses impacted by the pandemic:

  • Those who think forward, keep moving forward.

  • Keep a positive mindset and make the best out of a bad situation.

  • Don’t let negative thoughts influence everything that you do.

  • Dust yourself off and do what you want to do.

  • Fix the things in your life that are holding you back from being the best.

  • Surround yourself with proactive forward-thinking individuals.

Website:  https://www.uadv.net/

-Marina Abrahim

Instagram: _mmarinaa

Marina Abrahim is a mom, brand & business strategist, coach, and motivational speaker situated outside of Boston, MA. Before becoming an entrepreneur, she earned a B.S. in marketing and minored in fashion at Johnson & Wales University. After that, she went on to work for Yahoo!, Tumblr & Yahoo! News, developing digital media campaigns for some of the most recognized global and Fortune 500 brands.

While Marina enjoyed her time at Yahoo, certain factors such as being an immigrant from Egypt, struggling financially as a young child, and at one time a single mom, drove her to accomplish her goals of wanting to create more impact in the world. Marina’s ambitions lead her to start her own company, Empowered Confidence.

Empowered Confidence focuses on providing a safe space that brings females together to build a community, teach them how to make money doing something they love, and give them the ability to make overall better decisions, both personally and professionally.

Throughout her career, Marina has accomplished numerous feats such as working for yahoo which has placed her as an expert in the field of marketing. She’s partnered up with YWCA to speak in front of females from ages 12-60 on how to build confidence & own your personal story. That’s not all, Marina recently launched an extension of Empowered Confidence;  Brand Business Accelerator; a 12-week group coaching program that helps women unpack their personal story, master social media, and create a profitable brand so they can start or grow their own business.

Marina’s advice for businesses impacted by the pandemic:

First and foremost remember that everyone is feeling this pandemic in their way and we are in this together. Be there for your community because they need you, your positivity, and your support more than ever. They will tell you exactly what they need/want, you just have to be willing to be flexible during this time. Think of different ways you can offer your service and remember change & newness does not have to be scary! Welcome new opportunities to grow and learn.

Website: https://www.marinaabrahim.com/

-Darren Kaplan

Youtube: Mrmortgageguru

Darren Kaplan, also known as Mrmortgageguru, is a father and mortgage banker with over 150 reviews on Zillow, more than 3000 subscribers on his YouTube channel and has over 20 years of experience in the mortgage industry. At age 20 he had started in the mortgage business while holding up a family at the same time with a wife and child at home. In an industry that just started to thrive, it took Darren 6 months to learn the business and finally earn a living.

At such a young age, Darren tried to embrace the mortgage industry by working hard, being loyal and trying to be as consistent day in and day out. He was broke,  and everyone told him to quit, but he stayed with it.

When Darren was 20-years-old, he dropped out of college to work at a new mortgage company Global. Global, priorly owned by John Faracco and Billy Alvaro. In February of 2000, the world was just accepting the internet as a new form of interaction. No social media or smartphones; Darren remembers how appraisers would paste the photo of a property on a piece of paper and send it to them and how the fax machine was one of the most prestigious pieces of equipment.

Working at Global was an eye opening experience in regards to his career in the mortgage industry. It was there he had learned to work in and enjoy the mortgage industry. He also met many people in the industry nationwide. He purchased his first home at 21 and got married all in the same year while working there.

Fast forward a few years later, Darren moved from Global to Precision Financial in 2005. Precision Financial is a mortgage bank owned by Ira Zimmerman and Mark Rosenbloom. Darren and his team thrived in the market until the financial crisis of 2008 brought everything to a stop.

In 2012, Darren joined United Mortgage in the Hauppauge Branch, run by Keith Cullen(which was owned by the former Precision Financial owners Mark & Ira). He worked with this firm for several years and left in the summer of 2017.

In August 2017, he met Thomas Bepko III, the Executive VP of Sales of Total Mortgage and CEO of YB Realty. Thomas was someone who had the same vision of being modern and old school at the same time so it was easy to form a partnership that would take the mortgage industry by storm.

Darren has now adapted on how to utilize many different social media platforms. He provides daily educational content on his YouTube channel and is the host of his own podcast “Can your banker do this,” videos for his viewers. Darren currently has a platform for realtors that utilizes technology and modern marketing which can be found at startspotlight.com.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkXiaXGMdUAjWSyJ53FPrsg

-Gabi Garrett

Instagram: iamgabigarrett

Gabi Garrett is a dynamic entrepreneur who owns an innovative ghostwriting firm that works with some of the world's leading brands. A couple of years ago, Gabi was stuck in the corporate world with nothing but her dream of becoming a world-renowned writer.

Not letting her situation at the time get the best of her, Gabi set out to become the person she is today by mapping out her plans on a poster board and speaking into existence the version of herself she had in her head.

Today, Gabi has gone farther than being the multi-talented writer she imagined. So far, her story has been featured in one of the most coveted publications in America, USA Today. Gabi has also achieved a host of other amazing feats such as teaching yoga in Belize central prison, mentoring with Sharran Srivatsaa, and most recently, working with Coach Micheal Burt and Tim Storey’s team.

Gabi Garrett is currently working on a “Passive Empire”. She reveals plans of creating modules from side-hustler in training, to in-the-thick entrepreneurs, to those ready to do PR on a big level.

Right now, lots of entrepreneurs are experiencing losses or going through the process of recovering from it all. Gabi experienced this too. Her advice for all entrepreneurs is to forget all the bad times they’ve had these last couple of months and just focus on moving forward. This will help them focus on the tasks at hand and think up new plans to grow their brand.

Website: https://gabigarrett.com/

-Craig Landon Siegel

Instagram: @CraigSiegel_CLS

Craig Landon Siegel started his career on Wall Street. He was having a ton of success from a financial standpoint but he found himself unfulfilled and craving something deeper. He always had a strong ability to communicate and inspire people to want to become their best selves. Amid the global Pandemic, while most people were contemplating the future of their business and struggling to maintain their income stream, Craig decided to make a paradigm shift and completely alter his destiny.

He pivoted from his steady and reliable business and went all-in on his passion project, Cultivate Lasting Symphony (CLS), which is a play on his initials and is his purpose in life, to help people. To inspire and elevate people’s state so that they can transform and manufacture BIG breakthroughs. Craig believes that people’s stories can have a completely different ending, no matter how old they are, or where they are at in life. By revamping your mindset, you change your map of the world.

This led to Craig launching and selling out back-to-back programs in the height of a Pandemic, coaching people to make big changes. His program, The Moonshot Masterpiece Experience, is the hottest and most sought after program in the industry. Simply put, it is the most effective and unorthodox experience of its kind.

So far, Craig has achieved a lot, such as launching his Moonshot Masterpiece program and selling out in the first two days. However, Craig is someone who doesn’t place a high value on money. He shares that his biggest accomplishment is seeing his clients change their lives and manufacture gigantic breakthroughs in all facets of life.

Right now, two huge developments are coming very soon. For the first time, Craig is officially announcing right here, right now, at this very moment, his Podcast: The CLS Experience. This show is aligned with his values and it is something that has been in the works and has been a big surprise for quite some time. Craig speaks to highly successful and recognizable people and dives deep into their journey. But most importantly, he discusses how they overcame their struggles on their way to achieving massive success.

It is raw, it is real, and it is extremely valuable to anybody struggling in any area of life. Secondly, CLS is in the middle of building a foundation to help underprivileged kids get inspired and mentored at an early age, along with an abundance of positive reinforcement because at an early age, it is so important to have role models and inspirational figures supporting you. This Foundation is in the process of being assembled as we speak, one of the many surprises to come shortly for CLS.

Craig’s advice for businesses impacted by the pandemic:

Simply put, be adaptable. If this Pandemic has taught us anything, it is that life and business can be unpredictable. You need to be able to improvise. The most concrete businesses are ones that can make adjustments and be flexible to these uncertain times. There is always an audience.

Always a customer to your product. You have to find them and find out how you can help and be of service to them. There is always a move to be made. Standing still and not adjusting is the one mistake I see a lot of businesses making right now. This is the perfect opportunity to get the creative juices flowing. Change generates fresh ideas and forces you to think outside the box which is something I take great pride in. You must always be willing to recreate yourself. Be confident and assertive, don’t wait for things to happen, make things happen.

Website: https://www.cultivatelastingsymphony.com/

-Samantha Ubani

Instagram:@samanthaubani

Chinazom S.F Egbo popularly known as Samantha Ubani is a former beauty queen and entrepreneur, born and raised in Nigeria. When she moved to London a little over a year ago, she was jobless and struggling with generating a stable income.

While speaking with one of her friends, she learned about forex trading and Network Marketing and immediately decided to try her hands at it. It was not long before she was able to completely transform her financial story and raise her income levels.

Today, Samantha has achieved wild levels of success way beyond her expectations. She has built a successful business online through network marketing and forex trading that gives her the freedom to work from home. She has also coached and mentored over a thousand individuals from different parts of the world, helping them to achieve the same levels of income and financial freedom.

Samantha is currently working on helping more people, especially young ladies create a sustainable income from home. She thinks it is crucial for young women to have financial freedom and build legacies, and she is tailoring her future plans towards helping them achieve that.

It is possible for businesses to thrive amidst the uncertainties the economy is facing at the moment. Samantha’s advice for such businesses is leverage on the internet. Traditional methods are giving way to e-commerce, and it is now possible for anybody to successfully launch a business online. If you are in business, e-commerce is no longer the future. These strategies can help you make massive profits and run your business comfortably.

Website: https://im.academy/corp/cjoin?enroller=Samanthaubani

-Liam Hadall

Instagram: _liamhadall

Liam Hadall is a 22-year-old day trader in the stock market. Liam has been a trader for over 2 years now and it's his main source of income. As a trader who relies mainly on technical analysis, Liam utilizes his charts to tell him when to make a move and when to stay away from the markets.

Asides this, Liam teaches people how to day trade so that they can obtain financial freedom and forget the traditional "9-5" lifestyle. To achieve this, Liam created a course where he teaches his students everything they need to know about stocks.

He currently has 80+ students who collectively generate $100,000+ weekly. His work days last for 2 hours daily as he and his team focus on quick trades that last no longer than 5-30 minutes. Before he started his trading journey, Liam was an employee who made 5 figures a year in a job he didn't like. Today he's had multiple 5-figure days.

Liam’s advice for businesses impacted by the pandemic:

A big part of my success is from my adapting. In this day and age, the most powerful thing you can possess is the ability to adapt to situations.

Sadly, life will throw curveballs at you as you know. You can never count on things getting better but what you can do is make do of what you have and capitalize on opportunities that are in the moment.

Website: https://latrading.teachable.com/p/la-trading

-Adam Timleck

Instagram: _adamtimleck

Adam Timleck is a former semi-professional hockey player turned day trader. Growing up, Adam played hockey his whole life. By the time he was 19, he was introduced to the stock market, and shortly after that, he fell in love with it.

Adam learned everything he could about the stock market and dived into day trading. The excitement and competitiveness of the stock market reminded Adam about hockey.

Ever since he started, Adam has gone on to teach over 80+ students. He has a full course that teaches each of his students where to buy and sell, and how to identify various patterns that occur in the stock market. Adam also ensures that he educated himself on the stock market each day to keep a competitive edge.

Adam has achieved a lot in his trading career. From an individual who worked a job he hated, he's provided multiple individuals with the opportunity to learn a high-income skill. Adam's goal is to help 500 people become profitable traders by the end of 2021.

Recently, Adam and his team released a new trading course that is packed with information that teaches you the in and outs of the market. The course also provides access to coaches and weekly zoom classes.

Adam’s advice for businesses impacted by the pandemic:

Make sure you are innovating and keeping up with the world around us. You see a lot of it heading online and into e-commerce now, all my businesses are ones I can run from my phone or laptop anywhere in the world as long as I have wifi.

Now, of course, I know not everybody has the luxury of doing this but what I’m trying to say is that we need to make sure we’re staying ahead of the curve and the competition, constantly looking for new ways to improve, innovate, and show people why your business is the best and that it solves a problem for them.

That is the most important factor if you have a solution to people's problems you no longer have to ‘sell’ them on it as they know they need it, all you have to do is show them why they need it!

Website: https://latrading.teachable.com/p/la-trading

-Jasmine Stith

Instagram: jastheprettyplug

Jasmine Stith AKA The Pretty Plug | Faith & Business Coach is a digital nomad helping Christian entrepreneurs launch brands and businesses that God has placed in their hearts through faith and business coaching.

While she was in college, Jasmine found her life's purpose after going through a heartbreak. She went through a lot of pain but at that moment, she realized that God was trying to get her attention. In a recent interview, she shares that the words that stuck by here were " Walk by faith". Jasmine realized that her life's purpose was to help people inculcate the habit of doing things by faith in their professions and daily life.

Jasmine graduated in 2017 from Prairie View A&M University as an electrical engineer where she then immediately started working on wall street as an Engineering Product Manager. However, she left her 6-figure job at wall street to pursue her goals of leading people by faith.

So far, Jasmine Stith has achieved a lot, such as helping launch over 1000+ faith-based businesses into action by creating a viral piece of content during the chicken wars between Popeyes & Chick-Fi-La. Jasmine has also had the opportunity to be spotlighted with Celebrities such as Stylist J.Bolin.

Apart from this, Jasmine Stith created the Walk By Faith Podcast, which has

generated over 80 episodes filled with faith-based business acumen from college students, entrepreneurs & industry leaders who keep God first in their business which has led to their success.

Currently, Jasmine is making plans to launch her faith and business coaching program to help Christian entrepreneurs & Creatives with the strategies they need to overcome fear and launch their brand/business on social media while keeping God first. She's also going to be speaking at various events to uplift kingdom entrepreneurs & creatives.

Jasmine's Advice for businesses during this pandemic

Get Active on Social Media ASAP.

Your Customers, Clients, & Audience is now all online.

  • Avg Time Spent on social media: 2hrs & 24 Min Source: www.Review42.com

  • Avg time spent on the internet: More than 6 hours a day Source: www.digitalinformationworld.com

In the past, we could rely on meeting people at conferences, events, meet-ups, and happy hours. We now enter spaces with our mask on with very little need for interaction with other people due to the pandemic.

-Luke Cervino

Instagram: lukecervino

Luke Cervino is the founder of A1A Media; a digital marketing/ sports agency that provides athletes and influencers with marketing campaigns, PR, and social media growth. In summary, he works with brands/businesses to help market themselves through athletes/influencers.

This in turn, drives traffic to their website and social media, and ultimately converts sales. Luke's firm has run over 150 Athlete/ Influencers campaigns with multiple brands. He represents top tier brands and works with A-list athletes such as Kendrick Perkins.

Luke’s advice for businesses impacted by the pandemic:

Just like everything else in the world we always have to learn how to adapt and learn how to stay creative and be efficient in business.

Research, read, and always keep learning new ways to elevate your business, your services. The pandemic has given business owners the time to reflect and focus on plans for elevating their business.