Carrie Perrien Smith

Speaker, Author, Entrepreneur, and Business Consultant

Strategic Planning, Performance Improvement, Training, Public Speaking, Professional Speaker, Motivational Speeches, Business Articles

Carrie Perrien Smith is a publishing, communication, and training industry veteran. As professional speaker, published writer, business owner, and community volunteer, Carrie partners with successful organizations to achieve their peak performance through teamwork, communication, and execution. Carrie’s corporate career spans 15 years, split mostly between Texas Instruments and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Her experience includes employee publications, technical manuals, books, corporate intranet, and computer-based training. She developed and taught a hybrid writing style that merged the best practices of the technical and business communication worlds to meet the needs of today’s business readers.

Carrie launched her company, Soar with Eagles, in July 2003. Designed to collaborate with successful organizations who want to achieve their peak performance, Soar with Eagles focuses on teamwork, communication, strategic planning, and execution. Services include a professional speaker bureau, training, publishing, and consulting. Her association with speakers and trainers around the country enables her to locate the right program for any organization. Experienced in the corporate, small business, and nonprofit arenas, she is proficient in the set of skills necessary to assist organizations on their quest to reach their greatest possible potential.

She works with organizations of all types and sizes but most clients are faith-based companies and nonprofit organizations. Because nonprofit organizations are more successful when they operate using solid business principles, she often works with them to improve their operational practices. She developed the strategic planning process she uses in her consulting practice to master the variety of publishing roles she handled over the years. She has found the process adapts well to any project in any industry.

She speaks and writes on topics that improve business results such as building you business referral network, communication, and organizational leadership. She was a featured speaker in 2003 at the Northwest Arkansas Business Women’s Conference and Women in Networking, in 2004 for the Small Business Development Center at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and at civic clubs in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

She publishes an e-mail newsletter called Effective Strategies. It provides information and ideas that give business owners a competitive edge. She is the author of Networking Zone: The Business Referral Network Construction Guide, and is finishing a new book on business communication.

Service to the community is a way of life for Carrie. She has worked in a variety of volunteer leadership roles with organizations like the American Red Cross; the Cancer Challenge; a micro-enterprise mission project at Fellowship Bible Church of Northwest Arkansas for a ministry in Bangalore, India; SCORE, Counselors to America’s Small Business, Creative Referral Network (a successful group of free networking clubs that she helped launch); and her local chambers of commerce. She is also active in Women in Networking, Professional Women’s Network, the National Speakers Association of Oklahoma, and NOARK, Northwest Arkansas’ human resources organization where her activities are focused on member recruitment and marketing. She has a strong commitment to building solid teams and is committed to connecting the right individuals with the right skills to the right organizations. She actively participates in projects that help her stay close to emerging trends in small business.

Her 2005 volunteer activities include chairing a motorcycle fund-raiser for the Cancer Challenge, counseling small business clients through SCORE, working on the Bentonville/Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce membership drive and Champion Committee (the membership level that serves the needs and interests of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club suppliers), and supporting the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce small business initiative. With her well-established network of contacts, she is recognized as a first-stop resource for nonprofit organizations that need connections to volunteers, sponsors, resources, and contacts for their activities.

Beside speaker, author, consultant, and volunteer, Carrie’s roles in life have included professional woman, single mom, stay-at-home mom, devoted wife, mom, and friend, corporate employee, entrepreneur, traditional and non-traditional college student, health and fitness fanatic, serial home renovator, person who always said “yes” but now knows how to say “no!” Her life experiences led her to the realization that you can’t have it all without sacrificing your purpose here on Earth. She focuses her time where it will make the greatest lifelong impact — service to God, family, and others — and inspires others to do the same through her roles as speaker, author, consultant, and volunteer.

A native of the Tulsa area, she earned both her Bachelor of Science and Masters in Business Administration at John Brown University, a private Christian university. After many years in Dallas, she lives in Rogers, Arkansas with her husband, Tom, her teenage daughter, Darcie, and fur children, Snappy, Speckles, and Jazmin.

200-Word Bio

Carrie Perrien Smith is a publishing, communication, and training industry veteran. As professional speaker, published writer, and business owner, Carrie partners with successful organizations to achieve their peak performance through teamwork, communication, and execution. Carrie’s corporate career spans 15 years, split between Texas Instruments and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Her company, Soar with Eagles, offers training and consulting services and a professional speaker bureau.

She publishes an e-mail newsletter called Effective Strategies. It provides information and ideas that give business owners a competitive edge. She is the author of Networking Zone: The Business Referral Network Construction Guide, and is finishing a new book on business communication. She speaks on networking, communication, and organizational leadership.

She is an active volunteer in SCORE (Counselors to America’s Small Business), Creative Referral Network, her local chambers of commerce, and the National Speakers Association of Oklahoma. She also chairs a motorcycle fund-raiser for the Cancer Challenge.

A native of the Tulsa area, she earned her Bachelor of Science and Masters in Business Administration at John Brown University, a private Christian university. After many years in Dallas, Texas, she lives in Rogers, Arkansas with her husband, Tom, and her teenage daughter, Darcie.