About the Author/Speaker: "Give me one hour with your people and I will show them how to harness their true differentiation to totally obliterate the competition!"

Michel Neray has a science undergraduate degree from the University of Waterloo, a second-degree black belt in Karate and an MBA from McGill University. He's married with three children, two dogs, two canoes and one motorcycle.

He also has over 25 years of experience as an award-winning copywriter, an Internet pioneer, a tradeshow pitchman and a senior sales and marketing executive.

Michel has worked with major corporations including Honda, Volvo, Upjohn, Alias-Wavefront, Nikon, The Royal Bank, The Quaker Oats Company, Marathon Brokerage, Guardian Mutual Funds, Mackenzie Financial and many, many others -- big and small.

An online pioneer, Mr. Neray was one of the first marketing professionals to embrace the Internet by building websites as early as 1993. In 1994, Michel co-authored a book entitled “The Great Crossover: Personal Confidence in the Age of the Microchip”, which made it to Jack Canfield’s Achiever’s Recommended Reading List.

Michel founded Portfolios.com in 1995, the world’s first online source directory for creative professionals and one of the first websites based on community generated content. Since creating The Essential Message® in 2003, Michel has helped thousands of independent professionals and entrepreneurs as well as growing corporations find a better way to differentiate, position and brand themselves.

In 2005, his chapter, "Everything Starts With A Conversation" was selected as the lead for the book, "Sales Gurus Speak Out" and re-published in 2008 for 'Awakening The Workplace Volume 3'. He is also a co-author of "In the Company of Leaders" (2008) with 40 top North American leadership experts and authors.

For a longer list of publications where he has been published and clients he has worked with, please visit Michel's speaker website.