Seller-ship & Building a 2000-Person Public Company with Ben Ward

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Ben Ward is a passionate leader with over 20 years of experience in sales leadership, and executive leadership training and development. From a career start in direct sales as a door-to-door salesman, he quickly advanced to senior management in one of the fastest-growing companies in America.

At age 26, Ben built and managed the highest producing sales region at Firstline Security, an INC 500 company. He became the #1 highest producer in the company—of over 2,000 sales representatives nationwide—and generated over $37 million in revenue with sales teams. There he earned his first million dollars in sales commission. Ben then went on to co-found Elevate Inc. an IP-based company offering bundled phone, Internet, digital TV, security and home automation services. The company recruited thousands of sales representatives nationwide and went public in 2010. The company experienced a ton of success and ultimately came crashing down and Ben lost everything. Ben looks back on this experience as the most valuable learning and growth period of his life up to that point. Ben picked himself back up and became a CEO / administrator of a Plum Healthcare facility where he spent four years focused on leadership development and growing and developing people as he lead a team of over 200 healthcare professionals.

In 2016, Ben took on the role of Executive Director of Leadership, Culture and Sales at LuLaRoe, where he helped more than 80,000 independent retailers and 2,300 internal employees with leadership development and sales growth. There he helped to develop a company culture built on a TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves More) framework. He participated in the generation of over $4 billion in sales within the company’s first five years as an organization. Ben founded Forward Leadership as a result of his personal obsession for continuous improvement and passion for helping others grow and develop. In his own words, Ben says, “I am continuously striving to grow into be the best version of myself. I want to show up in life present and equipped to make a difference in the lives of others.” This is the foundation of Forward Leadership and Ben has the unique experience and ability to inspire and teach others to become their best.

Ben's a devoted husband, dad and loves to play ping- pong! He has been playing ping-pong ever since he was in diapers and has consistently played throughout his life.

Follow him on LinkedIn.