16 of the World's Sharpest Entrepreneurs Are Speaking at Converted 2016. Get to Know Them Here.

The Founders

Clay Collins

Who he is: Clay is the CEO and cofounder of Leadpages, so naturally he’ll be returning to host Converted 2016. An entrepreneur since age 15, Clay’s been a blogger, educator, coach, and copywriter in addition to founding and running software companies. What to expect during Converted: Last year, attendees got a first look at a slew of exciting updates on new Leadpages features and future product developments that have since become reality. If you’re in the crowd during Clay’s presentation this year, you can expect another look into the future of Leadpages and digital marketing in general.

Rob Walling

Who he is: Rob is the co-founder of Drip, which was recently acquired by Leadpages. This isn't the first time he's started a company, though, he even wrote the book on it: Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup. What you can expect from him: Rob is going to present with Clay and reveal the new directions in the works for Drip this year. He's already unveiled a $1/month entry-level plan for Drip, so you know this one's going to be good.

Converting Web Browsers into Traffic for Your Site

Pat Flynn

Who he is: Another returning speaker from Converted 2015, Pat Flynn is a longtime advisor to Leadpages. He’s best known for the Smart Passive Income blog and podcast. What he’s been up to lately: In February, Pat published Will It Fly?, a guide to testing and validating new business ideas that quickly soared up the Wall Street Journal’s nonfiction bestseller list.

Steve Kamb

Who he is: Steve Kamb combined his years of trial-and-error fitness training with his love of video games and comic books to create Nerd Fitness, a community that turns the slog of getting fit into an invigorating game. He recently refreshed his flagship course, the Nerd Fitness Academy. His advice for beginning entrepreneurs: I asked Steve what he wished every new marketer or business owner knew. His reply:

“Make sure you build a solid foundation, otherwise the rest of it won't matter. Your logo, your brand, your social media, split testing, segmentation, and marketing won't matter until you're clear on what specific problem you are solving in an unique way for your audience. If you are serving your customers and making their lives better, it makes all of the other tactics and tips infinitely more effective and valuable.”

David H. Lawrence XVII

Who he is: Fans of NBC series Heroes know him as The Puppetmaster, but Lawrence is a much more benevolent presence in real life. In addition to his varied career as a screen, film, and voice actor, he’s helped fellow thespians get off book by creating the Rehearsal app and break into the voiceover field with the training site VO2GoGoFun fact: The number at the end of Lawrence’s name refers not to the number of ancestors bearing his name, but the number of other David Lawrences in the Screen Actors Guild at the time he registered.

Amanda Holmes

Who she is: Amanda Holmes is the CEO of Chet Holmes International, the sales empire named for her father, which she took over following his death when she was only 24 years old. How she stepped up her father's game: Amanda brought this old-school sales company into the digital age and increased conversions 1100%.

Converting More Traffic into Leads

Andrew Warner

Who he is: Andrew Warner is the founder of Mixergy, which, in his own words, “is where the ambitious learn from a mix of experienced mentors through interviews and courses.” To date, the site has logged more than 1,000 interviews and 150 courses with the people behind companies including Basecamp, Intercom, and Leadpages itself. Before founding Mixergy, Andrew got a crash course in business in his early 20s when he and his brother founded Bradford & Reed, a $1-million-a-month company that began as a marketplace for online greeting cards. What he sees around the bend: Andrew anticipates a shift away from email as marketers' top tactic over the next two years. "People I care about are increasingly using messaging apps to reach me: iMessage, FB messenger, Snapchat, etc.," he told me recently via email. "I think that's how our customers are going to prefer to hear from us in the future."

Brian Massey

Who he is: Brian Massey’s official position at the company he founded is Conversion Scientist, but when he’s not optimizing clients’ sites with Conversion Sciences he’ll also claim the title of “Conversion Optimization Evangelist.” In other words, if your focus is your conversion rate, you’ll want to take detailed notes during Brian’s Converted 2016 presentation. What he’s interested in now: I asked Brian what he sees in the future of marketing that’s grabbing his attention at the moment. His response:

“We are interested in machine learning for testing and personalization. With the neural net technologies available to us now, we can let the computer try a larger number of things across many pages to find the right content for the biggest percentage of visitors. One day, not to long from now, we may laugh that we did manual AB tests at all.”

Laura Roeder

Who she is: Laura Roeder’s passion is what she calls “scalable social media consulting,” which encompasses everything from online courses to Edgar, a software service that handles your social media posting for you. Another form of scalable consulting: her presentation at Converted 2016, certain to leave audience members buzzing with new ideas to improve their social media efforts. Best way to learn more: In addition to blogging and running her businesses, Laura sends subscribers a free “weekly marketing to-do list” called The Dash.

Converting More Leads into Customers

Derek Halpern

Who he is: Derek is the founder of Social Triggers and uses his blog, Youtube videos, and webinars to teach his clients what he’s learned in years of building and marketing businesses online. What he's working on now: Derek co-founded Zippy Courses,which is expanding from a Wordpress plugin to an all-in-one course creation platform.

Ryan Deiss

Who he is: Ryan Deiss is the founder and CEO of the Digital Marketer, and heads up the popular Traffic & Conversion conference in addition to his packed schedule as a speaker and consultant. What else he’s up to: Ryan is also the founder of Native Commerce, a company that takes a content-first approach to building thriving e-commerce businesses.

Melyssa Griffin

Who she is: Melyssa is a course creator and Pinterest expert who creates lessons and content to help small business owners reach their goals. Only 8 months after starting her blog, she was able to quit her job and work on her passion project full time. Where she got her start: Melyssa lived in Japan for 2 years, teaching English, which is where she started her online business as a personal solution to the lack of in-person community she felt.

Tim Paige

Who he is: Tim is the host of our very own podcast, ConversionCast and he's a voice actor. He also hosts our “Triple Your Conversions” webinar, so you’ve probably also seen him in our sidebar...he might be there right now. What he's talking about at Converted: As Senior Conversion Educator here at Leadpages, Tim has hosted more than 750 live webinars (and 500 of those in the last 2 years). He and Melyssa Griffin are a webinar powerhouse pair, and they’ll be sharing the best strategies to turn your leads into customers with a killer webinar.

Converting More Repeat and Lifetime Customers

Noah Fleming

Who he is:Noah Fleming is a consultant who’s helped startups and multibillion-dollar businesses alike discover hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from overlooked places. What’s next from Noah: In November, Career Press will release Noah’s second book, called The Customer Loyalty Loop: The Science Behind Creating Great Experiences and Lasting Impressions—so it’s a fair bet you can expect to learn some invaluable customer retention tips during his presentation at Converted.

Ezra Firestone

Who he is: Ezra Firestone founded the Smart Marketer community to share his remarkable wealth of e-commerce expertise. And he walks the walk: he runs massively successful campaigns for brands using still-new techniques such as Pinterest advertising. His newest venture: This year, Ezra dove deeper into the technology that makes e-commerce possible by founding Zipify, a company that builds apps to use with the Shopify platform.

David Cancel

Who he is: David is the CEO of Drift and the former Chief Product Officer of Hubspot. He also co-hosts Drift's Seeking Wisdom podcast. Wrapping it all up: As the final speaker at Converted 2016, David will offer a forward-looking view of maintaining great relationships with customers, while looking back on his experiences as a serial entrepreneur. To learn from all these speakers in-person, grab your ticket to Converted 2016 below. Click here to choose your tickets: [cta-box] Who are you most excited to see at Converted 2016? Tell us in the comments!