EXPERT ON:
◉ Motivation & Mindset
◉ Work-Life Balance & Focus
◉ Sales & Persuasion
◉ Entrepreneurship & Innovation
◉ Inspirational Life Story
EXPERIENCE:
◉ Built success from nothing, overcoming childhood adversity, early independence, and single motherhood through a relentless work ethic and self-belief.
◉ Founder of LK Marketing, a nationally respected B2B sales and lead generation firm built without investors, loans, or safety nets.
◉ Shares hard-won lessons on building sustainable success, leading through chaos, and choosing happiness as the ultimate measure of achievement.
Liz Sem never had anything handed to her, and that’s exactly why she’s become a master at building something from nothing.
Raised in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Liz grew up in a household dominated by her mother’s untreated severe mental illness. As a little girl, she taught herself to iron her one school blouse each night after hand-washing it, simply because no one else would.
By 15, she was working as a carhop at the local A&W; by 19, she’d bought her own (beat-up) sports car, dropped out of college, married young, and soon found herself a single mother in a tiny upper flat, waitressing again to keep the lights on.
One afternoon, guest speaker and respected journalist Ron Legro delivered a line that rewired her life:
“Why are you waiting? Never wait for something; go get it now.”
She took it literally.
Days later, she maxed out her first credit card on a professional suit, visualized herself succeeding, and landed a sales position at Waste Management—one of the few women in a sea of men—driving her own company car with a car phone (a big deal in the early 90s).
She outlearned and outworked everyone around her, met the love of her life in the process, and never slowed down.
When three young sons made the corporate grind unsustainable, Liz started LK Marketing from her kitchen table. No investors, no loans, or safety net; just business cards, a website she built herself, and the same relentless focus that had carried her this far.
More than 25 years later, LK Marketing is a nationally respected name in B2B sales and lead generation, proof that a business can be profitable, sustainable, and joyful all at once.
Married 36 years with three grown sons and three grandsons, Liz now shares the lessons most self-made entrepreneurs never talk about: how to build success without sacrificing sanity, how to parent through chaos and still win, and why “happy” is the ultimate metric that matters.
Her message is simple but hard-won:
You don’t need permission, a perfect past, or another tomorrow. You just need to decide that now is the time.
