Keynote Speaker

Business Strategist

Humorist

Presentation Coach

If you are looking for a keynote speaker, podcast guest, or virtual summit presenter who inspires, entertains, teaches, and leaves your audience with something they can actually use, you have found her.

Shelly is a business strategist, humorist, and master storyteller who has spent five decades building businesses and helping entrepreneurs build theirs.

“Event organizers bring Shelly back because their attendees ask for her by name.”

Shelly doesn’t just speak. She performs, teaches, and changes how people think about their businesses — all in the same hour.

Shelly teaches through story. She connects through humor. She delivers strategy that audiences can act on before they leave the room. Her love for small business and entrepreneurship isn’t a talking point. It’s the foundation of everything she has built, taught, and lived for fifty years.

Audiences feel that immediately. They don’t feel like they’re in a presentation. They feel like she’s talking directly to them, because she is.

Shelly is a Master Certified Business Development and Communication Strategist, a serial entrepreneur, a certified emotional intelligence leader, and an early AI adopter. She has built four businesses across five decades: a dance school, a fitness company, a leadership consultancy, and Small Business Results, her current practice serving entrepreneurs nationwide. That arc is not a resume item. It is the source material for everything she puts on stage.

She competed in MTV’s World’s Funniest Mother competition, has commanded stages across New England and beyond, and has a command of the English language that makes complex strategy feel like a conversation your audience was waiting to have.

She is also a presentation coach. She works with clients to present with impact and clarity, and creates signature programs built around their expertise, their voice, and their audience.

decades building businesses

businesses founded & led

Credentials

Every talk is available as a keynote, interactive experience, or ongoing workshop series — and can be custom designed for your audience.

AI for Small Business Owners — Practical, Not Theoretical

Small business owners are drowning in AI hype and starving for practical guidance. This talk gives them exactly that.

Shelly has been integrating AI tools into her own business and her clients’ businesses since the early days — not as a tech enthusiast, but as a strategist who needed it to work. She breaks down how AI applies directly to the work of running a small business: writing, client communication, content creation, decision-making, and time management. Attendees leave with a clear framework, specific tools, and the confidence to start using them the same week. No technical background required. No jargon. Just a straight answer to the question every small business owner is asking: how do I actually use this?

Business Health Check — You Can't Fix What You Can't See

Most small business owners are working hard on the wrong things. Not because they’re not smart — because they don’t have a clear picture of where their business actually stands.

Shelly’s proprietary Business Health Check framework evaluates seven critical categories: messaging, conversion, email, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, revenue model, and digital presence. In this talk, she walks audiences through each category, shows them how to score their own business honestly, and gives them a prioritized action plan based on what they find. This is not theory. Attendees leave having done real diagnostic work on their own business in real time. The visibility problem is the business problem. This talk solves it.

The Truth About Succeeding in Small Business®

After five decades of building businesses and working with hundreds of entrepreneurs, Shelly has distilled what actually determines success into six non-negotiable principles.

Commitment, Focused Daily Results, Differentiate and Market, Business Relationships, Manage Emotion, and Accountability. This is her signature framework — trademarked, field-tested, and built entirely from real business experience, not business school theory. The talk is energizing and direct. Shelly doesn’t sugarcoat what it takes, but she makes it feel possible. Audiences leave with a clear picture of where they are in each of the six areas and what to do next. This is the talk that generated the book, the practice, and twenty years of client results.

The Communication Gap: Why Good Businesses Stay Invisible

The number one reason small businesses don’t grow isn’t the economy, the competition, or the market. It’s that nobody can tell what they do or why it matters.

Shelly has spent two decades helping business owners close the gap between what they know they offer and what their audience actually hears. This talk diagnoses the seven places where business communication breaks down — from the homepage headline to the sales conversation — and gives attendees a concrete language for fixing each one. By the end, audiences know exactly where they’re losing business to unclear messaging and what to say instead. Actionable, specific, and immediately useful.

Entrepreneurship After 50: The Advantage Nobody Talks About

The business world is obsessed with young founders. Shelly is not. She has spent her career working with entrepreneurs in their 50s, 60s, and 70s.

People who have decades of expertise, professional relationships, and hard-won judgment, and who are building some of the most durable and profitable businesses she has ever seen. This talk reframes the conversation around age and entrepreneurship entirely. It is not a motivational speech. It is a strategic argument for why the 50+ entrepreneur has structural advantages that younger competitors simply don’t have yet, and how to leverage them deliberately. Honest, practical, and genuinely energizing for audiences who are tired of being treated like an afterthought.

Emotional Intelligence in Business: The Skill That Determines Everything Else

Shelly is a certified emotional intelligence leader, and she has watched EQ determine the outcome of more business situations than strategy, funding, or talent combined.

This talk is not soft. It is a direct, no-nonsense look at how emotional intelligence shows up in the decisions business owners make, the relationships they build, and the culture they create — often without realizing it. Shelly covers the EQ competencies that matter most in a business context, shows audiences where low EQ is costing them money and relationships, and gives them practical tools for raising their own. Available as a standalone talk or as part of a leadership development series.

Shelly is a natural on audio and video. She prepares, she listens, and she knows how to give a host exactly what their audience needs — without overstaying her welcome or underselling the conversation.

She brings five decades of entrepreneurial experience, a clinical eye for what’s broken in small businesses, and a storytelling style that makes complex strategy feel immediately accessible. She is direct, funny when the moment calls for it, and genuinely interested in the people she talks to.

She Speaks To

Small business owners and solopreneurs at any stage
Entrepreneurs in the 50+ demographic navigating reinvention or growth
Leaders and professionals building personal brands or second acts
Any audience that needs a straight answer about what's actually working in business right now

AI and the small business owner: what’s real, what’s hype, and what to do Monday morning

The Business Health Check: the seven areas where most small businesses are losing money without knowing it

Why the 50+ entrepreneur has advantages the business world refuses to talk about

What five decades of building businesses actually teaches you

Emotional intelligence as a business strategy, not a personality trait

Shelly does not treat a virtual event like a lesser version of a live one. She has developed her virtual presence with the same intentionality she brings to a live stage — because she understands that the format is different, not inferior, and that an audience watching on a screen deserves the same quality of experience as one sitting in a room.

The humor lands. The stories hold the room. The strategy is specific enough that attendees are writing things down. In a format where most speakers lose the audience in the first ten minutes, Shelly pulls people in and keeps them there.

She brings the same preparation, wit, and audience connection to a virtual keynote that she brings to a live stage — and she knows how to work the format rather than apologize for it.

If your summit or conference serves small business owners, entrepreneurs, or the 50+ business community, she belongs on your main stage.

“Her sessions blend humor, real stories from five decades of building businesses, and concrete strategy that attendees can act on the same day.”

Ideal For

Virtual summits & online conferences

Podcasts — business, entrepreneurship, AI & leadership

Coaches and consultants

Entrepreneurs 50 and over

Women in business events

Baby boomer & 50+ communities

Association keynotes & breakout sessions

AI adoption & communication training

College entrepreneurship programs

Shelly is not just a speaker who talks about business strategy. She built the frameworks she teaches.

01 The Truth About Succeeding in Small Business®

A trademarked six-principle framework covering the non-negotiables of small business success. Available as a keynote, workshop series, or the foundation for a full leadership program. Built on five decades of entrepreneurial experience and field-tested with hundreds of clients nationwide.

02 Business Health Check (BHC)

A proprietary diagnostic framework evaluating seven critical business categories: Messaging, Conversion, Email Strategy, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, Revenue Model, and Digital Presence. Available as a standalone workshop, interactive keynote, or a full audit engagement.

03 Concept to Customer

A step-by-step framework for bringing a business idea from concept to paying customers. Designed for early-stage entrepreneurs and those launching new offers. Covers defining the offer, building the messaging, identifying the right audience, and creating the infrastructure to convert interest into revenue.

Available for keynotes · virtual summits · podcasts · workshops · panels · breakout sessions

Book Shelly

Shelly Berman · Newton, MA · smallbusresults.com

International Coach Federation New England

Center for Women & Enterprise

Nat’l Assoc. for Asian American Professionals

Nat’l Assoc. For International Appraisers

Babson College

Massachusetts Association of Realtors

Constant Contact

CIO Global

Coldwell Banker Brokerage

Prudential Financial

Boston Rotary

Society of Professional Consultants

Boston Women Connect

eWomen Network

Newton/Needham Chamber

New England Women Business Owners

New England Business XPO 2010 & 2011

New England Boomers & Seniors EXPO

Combined Jewish Philanthropy

Int’l Council, MA Assoc. of Realtors

Listen to Business Strategist Shelly Berman

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“Shelly understands modern business development strategies and can communicate these ideas better than anyone else I know. I have seen firsthand her ability to jump start a variety of businesses and get them on track to visibility and profitability. Shelly is an indispensable resource.”

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“Working with SBR is the best investment you can make to grow your business quickly and sustainably. Her analysis of where you can make improvements is generally spot on, and her advice is both practical and achievable. I’ve known Shelly for many years, and I continue to be in awe of her drive and success in whatever she undertakes.”

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“Having worked with Shelly for over a year now, the results are in. Words such as outstanding, remarkable, valuable, engaging, fantastic. all come to mind. We started out with no marketing and no way to contact our customers electronically, and now with regular newsletters, and specials, we are growing and expanding. Thank you Shelly, for all the awesome work and ideas”

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