Michelle Villalobos
MICHELLE VILLALOBOS teaches business concepts and skills to professionals in a fun and entertaining way. Her programs have been delivered collectively to over 120,000 people worldwide.
Her passion is delivering those "a-ha!!" moments that audiences love.
Her favorite topics: how to sell, market and promote yourself in a way that draws in business organically - getting high-quality referrals and clients.
Michelle’s client roster features names you’ll recognize. She’s delivered her trademark “never-boring” programs for Burger King Corporation, Gibraltar Private Bank & Trust, Frito-Lay and Lexis-Nexis, while Summit sponsors include Constant Contact, Brooks Brothers and Blue Cross Blue Shield, among others.
Michelle’s speaking style is casual and fun, and she regularly busts out a rainbow assortment of Sharpies to illustrate points using everyday, attendee-appropriate examples (she recently constructed a price-value matrix for an all-woman audience using her shoe collection - they loved it). (testimonials here)
Media Inquiries
For media inquiries or to schedule an interview with Michelle Villalobos please contact:
Jessica Lurie
jessica@mivistainc.com
(888) 531-3830
My Process - A Quick Overview Of Methodology from Michelle
Why? Because:
→ People are naturally resistant to change (and resistance can kill a new project)
→ Adults are easily bored in lectures - but love interactive, hands-on learning.
→ People need to "buy into" programs before they will participate whole-heartedly.
I have experience in fields ranging from sales, marketing and business management to teaching, writing and the performing arts (like improv theater), I combined the relevant (and sometimes the seemingly irrelevant) elements of each to develop a unique approach to corporate education, workshops, management, team building and learning.
What I do is get people to actively participate in whatever experience I create so that new knowledge, behaviors and skills "stick." That approach, together with my background in business, psychology and learning, makes me uniquely qualified to create and deliver programs that generate results – guaranteed (all programs are satisfaction guaranteed, always).
In developing MIVISTA, I drew from both traditional and newer learning and behavior theories, including Deep Learning, Experiential Learning, Andragogy (as opposed to Pedagogy), Myers-Briggs Type Theory, Enneagrams, Evolutionary Psychology, Behaviorism and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). I use the Socratic Method throughout all programs, which contributes to making learning an active, engaging process.
Testimonials
Here's what some of Michelle's clients, partners and audiences have to say about Michelle and MIVISTA, her consulting firm.
MIVISTA'S Strategy Workshops are a grounding experience. It does not matter how smart or successful you are in your field, the fact is that you need to constantly realign and reassess your business mission, goals and principles, especially in today's ever-changing world. Not doing this is like never getting a physical. You feel great and nothing seems wrong, until one day you find out you're not as healthy as you thought you were. It's about preventing, anticipating, adjusting and reacting. It gives you vision. For me it was like "de-fragmenting" the hard-drive of my business. We were able to organize all of the fragments of my enterprise and helped me reassemble them and position my company on the right track!"
– Eduardo Cofresi, Founder & President,
Cofresi Group Real Estate Sales & Marketing
Hired MIVISTA to conduct a Strategic Realignment Workshop
"[Michelle Villalobos] developed a program that helped to solidify our company vision and generate buy-in among employees. She created company-wide workshops and department-level workshops that ultimately focused the company around the common principles that we believe will make us successful and profitable in the long run."
So what's the deal with the Sharpies?
If you know me well, then you know that I always carry a handful of Sharpies and a blank book to draw mindmaps, take notes, and explain things using diagrams and drawings (it's the ex-math teacher in me... but that's a whole 'nother story).
So what happened on the day of my headshot photo shoot (with Gio Alma) was, after we'd taken several very serious, professional, traditional "headshot" type pictures (see below), I wanted to take some fun pictures just for me. So I grabbed a a bunch of Sharpies from my bag and started hamming it up. Gio played along and snapped away.
So I asked the audience, "raise your hand if you agree with her?" Almost every single one raised her hand. I swallowed my pride and went back to the drawing board. There was no way I was going to do a whole new photo shoot, so I pulled out all the proofs that Gio had sent me.
And I came across those Sharpie pics. I started playing with them and I found one, ONE decent one that I KIND OF liked. I cropped it (cropped my roots out!!), put a frame around it, retouched it a little around the eyes, beefed up the color... and voilá! (See the transformation I created with Photoshop, below.)
Note that some people HATED (and still HATE) it, but I continue to use it in spite of that. Why? Because it's memorable, and it's aligned with who I am - the colors, the smile, the authenticity (I truly love of Sharpies and other office supplies), and it's memorable - and that's the purpose of a good headshot for personal branding.
Sure there are some people who don't "get" it. Guess what? That's quite all right. Those are not the people for me... The right people are the ones who love it. It's actually quite a good filter.