David "Siteman" Garland

David "Siteman" Garland is a real mover and shaker in the world of social media. Check out his interview as well as his site: www.risetothetop.com. His philosophy is simple: money follows passion and not the other way around. After starting and stopping several unique entrepreneurial adventures and dabbling in everything from radio to hockey, David became frustrated that he could not find a great resource (that wasn't a snoozefest) where forward-thinkers could learn more about building, marketing and promoting their own businesses by being smarter, faster, cheaper as opposed to dumber, slower and expensive. What was missing was a new kind of TV and web show, one that was entertaining and educational, and that was part of an online hub that resonated with forward-thinking entrepreneurs and others that struck out on their own without multi-million dollar budgets. Since such a show and website didn't exist, David decided to build it himself by investing all of his savings, time and energy to create from scratch a TV show, online resource and community of entrepreneurs and marketers. Like many ventures, The Rise To The Top was born through brainstorming in a coffee shop. David shared his idea for the show with friends, successful business owners and creative types, all of whom thought it was a great concept. The Rise To The Top quickly attracted a wide and varied fan base, including not only the targeted demographic of those in their 20’s, 30’s and early 40’s, but also more “mature” viewers. The show and web resource now has over 100,000 monthly viewers and numerous syndication deals (with zero dollars spent on traditional marketing and advertising tactics) with a big focus on interviews and picking the brain of top entrepreneurs, forward-thinkers and authors including Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library), Chris Brogan (ChrisBrogan.com), Tony Hsieh (Zappos), The Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger, Seth Godin and many others.