Speaking

Available For Speaking

Lars Helgeson, GreenRope's Founder and CEO, is available as a speaker for conferences, networking organization meetings, and educational seminars. Lars is the author of the book CRM For Dummies published by Wiley and Sons, along with numerous articles and whitepapers about CRM, marketing, entrepreneurship, and business strategy.

Lars grew up in Southern California, the son of a science teacher and a social worker. From his father, he learned about science and math and developed a thirst for knowledge, always asking "why". From his mother, he learned the importance of empathy and compassion, and why we must take time to put ourselves in the shoes of others to truly understand them. The combination of these led him to pursue a technical career, while forever striving to incorporate the human element, connecting heart and mind to build stronger relationships. This brought him to strike out on his own after his military service, to find ways to help businesses through software that created efficiencies without detaching from the company's greater purpose.Lars and LB paddleboarding

When Lars speaks to groups, the subject matter is always tailored to the audience. His presentations can be more technical, talking about software, development, and business strategy. Content can be educational, as well as personal, relating the struggles of entrepreneurship and starting a business from scratch, without funding.

The "Why"

There is a movement among advertising and marketing experts to more effectively harness the power of business intelligence. The problem most marketing professionals face is how to gather and use that business intelligence wisely. There are so many solutions on the market that address specific parts of managing sales, marketing, and operations, that it's easy for someone to be overwhelmed and bogged down in a nightmare of importing and exporting data and trying to keep various API's in synch with each other (for example, if you run SalesForce + Constant Contact + BaseCamp + Google Analytics, you have 4 degrees of freedom all moving at their own pace and all storing separate, uncoordinated information).

Using an integrated platform to run a business, what we call "Complete CRM", opens the door for an organization to collect business intelligence from relevant sources and automatically combine the information so everyone who needs that information can use it. Integration goes beyond saving time (not having to import/export or mess with APIs), and money (not having to buy multiple subscriptions and pay for programmers). Integration scales your business efficiently with minimum overhead, leading to growth and greater profitability.

With Complete CRM in place, sales people can see when a prospect visits a website or opens an email, the email marketing team can target event attendees and set up drip campaigns based on contact behavior, and operations has instant access to customer service and other client activities in realtime. This is not a pipe dream - Lars will show you how to create this very achievable reality with the right tools. There are ways to combine CRM, marketing automation, marketing tools (email marketing, mobile marketing, websites, landing pages, analytics), and operations (project management, ticketing systems, knowledge management) in new, elegant and comprehensive systems.

Download the Seamless Customer Journey Cheatsheet

What attendees can learn

How CRM plays a critical role as the centerpiece of marketing, sales, and operations
How to streamline an organization around collecting and using business intelligence
What marketing automation is and how it can be used to efficiently grow any business
Different tools and techniques that scale your business with minimum financial and resource investment

Speaking Experience

2021

Keynote speaker at the International Trade Council’s “Think Global Conference 2021” - April
Maximizing Your Email Marketing Strategies, Podcast with Chris from HeyCMN Listen Now - April
B2B Marketing Strategy and Tactics Virtual Conference, speaking about how to use Complete CRM to scale a B2B-focused business - April
A Conversation with Lars Helgeson of GreenRope by Campaign Genius Podcast Listen Now - March
Maximizing Your Email Marketing Strategies w/ Lars Helgeson - StartUp Podcast Listen Now - March

2020

Passage to Profit: The Inventor’s Show - Customer Relationship Management w/ The Author of CRM for Dummies and Founder of GreenRope, Lars Helgeson - (Ep. 79) - August
CoSchedule Podcast: The Two Things Every Remote Marketing Team Needs to Succeed (And How to Bring Them Together) With Lars Helgeson From GreenRope [AMP 195] - July
Snyder Show-Down Podcast: Business Operations Systems - June
The Gifters: Your Story is a Gift w/ Christopher Kai - (Ep. 520) - June
Starting to Know - Business: Importance of CRM in today’s world w/ Lars Helgeson, CEO of GreenRope - June
Top Entrepreneurs w/ Nathan Latka: SaaS Interviews w/ CEOs, Startups, Founders - (Ep. 1723) - May

2019

November 2019 - WeWork Aventine on Thursday - CRM and Marketing Automation for Early Stage Companies
October 2019 - B2B Expo, Keynote Speaker - Why Customer Journeys Matter
May 2019 - Co-Hosted Webinar - CRM and Branding

2018

Multiple radio interviews on BisTalk Radio, ESPN
Epic Mastermind Experience, San Diego - How To Make CRM Work For You
San Diego Direct Marketing Association - Annual SURGE Event - Panel Moderator, Trends in Marketing
Southwest Veterans Business Conference

2017

Small Business Web, how a reseller strategy can help grow your business - Watch Video
Podcast - High Level Wisdom - Listen to the Podcast
Consumer Information World Seattle - Using consumer data effectively in your CRM
Inbound 2017 - Proven CRM strategies that work
Podcast - CRM Talk - Listen to the Podcast
Podcast - Sales Lead Management Association - Sunday Musings: 5 Most Important Things
Bizdojo Auckland, NZ - CRM for Small Businesses looking to scale
Petridish Dunedin, NZ - Using CRM effectively for any size business
Consumer Information World Paris, France
Marketing Automation Conference Zurich, Switzerland
Podcast - Interview with the Game Changer Network

2016

Interview with Lars Helgeson and MIXERGY - Video Interview
Junior Achievement, Career Day speaker
San Diego Direct Marketing Association, one hour presentation on CRM and Marketing Automation
Real Office Centers, panel on building a great sales team
Vistage, 3 hour presentation on marketing automation
Startup Week San Diego, Growth Marketing workshop (200 attending)
Video interview on Business Rockstars
Startup Grind San Diego, interview and live video feed

2015

Panelist, MIT Enterprise Forum, Discussion on distributed, virtual teams (120 attending)
Speaker, Getting in the Driver's Seat with Marketing Automation, San Diego American Marketing Association (50 attending)
Moderator for panel of 4 speakers, Discussion on marketing and IT working together, San Diego Direct Marketing Association SURGE (100 attending)
Interactive Day San Diego Make Your Leads Flow and Revenue Fly with Marketing Automation
EnterConf, Belfast Ireland, Driving Success with CRM and Marketing Automation (100 attending)
San Diego State University, guest lecturer, marketing entrepreneurship class
California State University San Marcos, guest lecturer, senior marketing class
AITP San Diego, 7th Annual Cloud Conference, one hour presentation about leveraging IT assets and personnel to ensure success with integrated CRM implementation

2014

San Diego American Marketing Association, Art of Marketing conference (30 attending)
Arizona Computer Technology Conference (40 attending)
SCORE mentors meeting (30 attending)
California International Business University (20 attending)
California State University, San Marcos, guest lecturer at several classroom presentations in marketing classes
Lunch Keynote, International Women's Hackathon, San Marcos (80 attending)

2010-2013

Monthly in-classroom training seminars to GreenRope end users (classroom of 25)
Monthly webinar to VIP and reseller clients (average attendance 50)
Annual GreenRope Users Conference (average attendance 150)
San Diego Chamber of Commerce Breakfast series (150 attending)
Six Degrees panel on entrepreneurship (200 attending)
Chapter meeting, American Society of Interior Designers (80 attending)
Renaissance Executive Forums (several presentations, 10-20 attending)
MIT Enterprise Forum, San Diego Chapter (200 attending)
FORRETNINGSsystemer 2013, presentation in integrated marketing, CRM/ERP Conference, Copenhagen (50 attending)

Speaker Bio

Lars Helgeson has been in the Internet marketing space since 2000, when he co-founded one of the world's first email service providers, CoolerEmail. As a pioneer in responsible email marketing, he grew CoolerEmail to a global software company specializing in marketing communication with over 1,500 clients. In 2010, after spending several years designing and implementing a more comprehensive way to meet the needs of small and mid-sized businesses, he launched GreenRope. GreenRope is the world's first and only Business Operating System, a cloud-based platform that simplifies and consolidates a company's sales, marketing, and operations. GreenRope currently provides technology solutions to over 3,000 companies worldwide.

In 2017, Lars published CRM For Dummies, part of the globally acclaimed "For Dummies" series of books. In the book, he covers strategies and tactics that make a successful CRM. At almost 400 pages in length with 200 charts and diagrams, it is both comprehensive and easy to read.

Lars earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. He also has an MBA from the Robert Anderson School at the University of New Mexico. He served in the United States Air Force for 4 years, working in the Air Force's space test program, Air Force Research Laboratory, and Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. He enjoys travel, stand-up paddleboarding, mountain biking, and ice hockey, and practices yoga whenever the forces of the universe are not aligned to keep him at his computer. This information is also available on Lars's Wikipedia page.

In the past several years, Lars has been a finalist multiple times for the San Diego Business Journal's Most Admired CEO and Information Technology Executive of the Year, and a finalist for San Diego Magazine's Top Tech Exec Award. Helgeson has also been named a Top Ten Most Inspiring Leader in Sales Lead Management Software by the Sales Lead Management Association for the second consecutive year. Fine Magazine also featured Lars and GreenRope in a 2017 issue.

"You provided great material and showed our members how their clients must strive to have an integrated customer relationship management system if they are to compete in today’s changed landscape. I received many unsolicited comments on how good your presentation was and how important the topic is." - B. Pope, SCORE