Dr. Tony Alessandra helps companies turn prospects into promoters. He is two speakers in one... a professor and a performer, or as one client put it - he delivers college-level lectures in a comedy store format. Dr. Tony offer audiences the opportunity to enjoy themselves while learning practical, immediately applicable skills that positively affect their relationships with prospects, customers, and co-workers. His focus is on how to create instant rapport with prospects, employees and vendors; how to convert prospects and customers into business apostles who will "preach the gospel" about your company and products; and how to out-market, out-sell and out-service the competition. Dr. Alessandra has a street-wise, college-smart perspective on business, having been raised in the housing projects of NYC to eventually realizing success as a graduate professor of marketing, Internet entrepreneur, business author, and hall-of-fame keynote speaker. He earned a BBA from Notre Dame, an MBA from the Univ. of Connecticut and his PhD in marketing in 1976 from Georgia State University. He is also a prolific author with 30 books translated into over 50 foreign language editions, including the newly revised, best-selling The NEW Art of Managing People; Charisma; The Platinum Rule; Collaborative Selling; and Communicating at Work. Dr. Alessandra was inducted into the NSA Speakers Hall of Fame in 1985. In 2009, he was inducted as one of the "Legends of the Speaking Profession;" in 2010-2015, he was selected as one of the Top 5 Sales/ Marketing/ Customer Service Speakersby Speaking.com; in 2010, he was elected into the inaugural class of the Top Sales World Sales Hall of Fame; in 2012, he was voted one of the Top 50 Sales & Marketing Influencers; and in 2012, Dr. Tony was voted the #1 World's Top Communication Guru. Professor La Lopa teaches sales, human resource management, and event & meeting planning courses in the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue University. He earned his Ph.D. at Michigan State University (Go State!), his Master's at the Rochester Institute of Technology, his baccalaureate degree at the University of North Texas, and Associates at Richland Community College. He has taught thousands of students to have extremely successful careers in hotel sales. Dr. La Lopa has a passion for teaching. He was the recipient of every major teaching award that can be bestowed to faculty members at the department, school, and university level in his first four years at Purdue. He was the 2003 recipient of the John Wiley & Sons Innovative Teacher of the Year awarded by the International Council of Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Educators. Dr. La Lopa shares his passion for teaching and learning with other educators by publishing papers, making presentations, and conducting workshops. Not only has Dr. La Lopa worked to improve the quality of teaching at Purdue University through various committees; he has been invited to deliver teaching and learning workshops for hospitality and culinary programs around the world, including Saudi Arabia. He is the originator of Chef Educator Today magazine, which at one point went to every secondary and post-secondary culinary program in the United States. He now does education consulting through the La Lopa Teaching and Learning Initiative he founded in 2012, which you can find on Facebook. He has been happily married to his high school sweetheart since 1990. They have been blessed with 4 wonderful children. You may contact Dr. La Lopa via email: lalopam@purdue.edu