Member Since July 2020
About
Lisa Collum is a CEO, author, educator, and mother of four with a remarkable history of working to improve students’ lives both inside and outside the classroom. Lisa owns and operates two educational companies, Top Score Writing, Inc. and Coastal Middle and High School. Top Score Writing, Inc. is a company that specializes in writing curriculum for grades 2nd-12th and is the ONE and ONLY program specifically designed to prepare students for the state writing assessment. During her time working in a Title I school where most of the students struggled with basic writing skills, Lisa knew there was an immediate need to create a structured writing curriculum that had daily lessons built in such a way that each day had its own progressive sections. Knowing the common errors made by students in the classroom, she developed lessons that were user-friendly for teachers and super easy to follow and understandable for students. Year after year, students that are taught using this curriculum show a significant improvement in their writing skills. It is the most simple and effective approach to learning basic writing skills that you will ever find. As a result of the significant increase in student achievement using Top Score Writing, this curriculum has been adopted nationally by hundreds of public, private, and charter schools and several homeschool organizations positively impacting tens of thousands of students. Due to the trailblazing success of the Top Score Writing curriculum, Lisa is now sought out across the nation as an expert in writing and a dynamic professional development speaker. She travels the country helping students, teachers, administrators and district leaders create individualized actions plans and delivers energetic presentations incorporating strategic approaches to improving writing using her cutting-edge print and digital curriculum. She has the unique experiences of achieving a 100% pass rate with her students on the state writing assessment two years in a row, speaking at educational conventions and conferences, leading professional development in some of the largest school districts in the nation, and continuously providing teachers with the direction they need to successfully teach writing to students. Lisa’s educational journey began at Florida Atlantic University, where she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education. She added another milestone to her educational resume by earning her Master’s Degree in Education from Nova Southeastern University. When Lisa is not diligently working with her two educational companies, she can be found on the sidelines of her children’s sporting events cheering them on, relaxing at the beach, giving back to the community, brainstorming creative ways to educate today’s youth in writing, and spending quality time with her husband and four beautiful children.
Lisa Collum
Published content
expert panel
Business plans are often considered an essential tool to help set a new entrepreneur up for success. This document typically encompasses the vision for your company, including your mission statement, while also pinpointing your target audience, sales projections and growth goals. If you're a new entrepreneur, developing a business plan can be intimidating and you might not know where to start. You may also be prone to making some common errors that business owners tend to make on their first plan. To that end, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share one mistake new entrepreneurs often make in their business plans and what they should be doing instead.
expert panel
Social media management is a career field filled with limitless opportunities in our increasingly digital world. More companies than ever before are searching for tech-savvy social media managers who can uplevel their social media content and reach wider audiences. In a competitive, trending industry, it's critical to know how to stand out and put your best foot forward. For professionals just starting out as social media managers, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members offer their best advice below.
expert panel
Getting customers through the sales funnel can sometimes be an arduous task. It can also be difficult to juggle multiple prospects at different stages of the funnel, which is why it's important to automate what you can. Automating your sales process doesn't have to be complicated or expensive, either. Installing chatbots on your website to answer questions or reusing email templates for cold outreach are easy-to-implement solutions that can speed up your operations. Below, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council leaders shared their best strategies for how to save your sales team time and effort in the short and long term through automation.
expert panel
In every career, there are things to be thankful for—things like meaningful moments with co-workers, the opportunity to learn and personal growth that can put the challenges and difficulties in perspective and help you find a renewed sense of purpose at work. Reflecting on their careers and business journeys, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council each have their own moments to be thankful for. Below, nine of them shared what they appreciate most about their careers thus far and highlighted the lessons they’ve learned that can help other leaders succeed.
expert panel
Competition between businesses gets fierce during the holiday season. This means your marketing game needs to be on point if you want to steal the spotlight from your competitors and attract more customers during this busy time of year — especially if you're a small- and medium-sized business operating on a limited budget. To help get you started, 12 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answered the following question:
expert panel
Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share strategies for making your sales pitch over Zoom more effective. It’s a generally understood rule of sales that your sales pitch and technique should always adapt to the individual client or business you’re selling to. To be a truly effective salesperson, however, you must also adapt your technique to the environment in which you’re pitching. Increasingly, the sales environment of choice has been over Zoom or other video conferencing tools. Because you don’t have your usual in-person strategies to fall back on, you’ll want to consider these 10 steps recommended by a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members if you want to nail your next pitch.
Company details
Top Score Writing
Company bio
The one and only program specifically designed to prepare students for the state writing assessment. We offer writing curriculum in print and digital for students in 2nd-12th grade.