Born and raised in Chicago, Mike started his career with IBM in the pre-PC Mainframe era and was classically trained as a Marketing Rep (a fancy way of saying “Sales”) in their 6-month deep-dive intensive Sales Training School of which he graduated 6 out of 66 in his national class. He went on to have a very successful career with IBM who instilled in him many of the principles that he applied later as a software entrepreneur.
Mike has experienced both success and failure as an entrepreneur and lives by the credo Dare Greatly! - Fail to Succeed! Audiences find Mike exceptionally, and vulnerably, transparent and authentic that captures their hearts because of his relate-ability and enthuses the human spirit in his audiences to rise above the norm in realizing their greatest potential.
Mike’s career has truly been uniquely, irrefutably, and intensely focused on effecting meaningful relationships. As a software entrepreneur he developed world-class tools to enable people to realize and achieve more effective, meaningful, real, and connected relationships in both their business as well as their personal landscape of networks.
Mike is best known as the Co-Founder and Co-Inventor of ACT!, the product that literally created the entire Relationship Management software category and global industry and that has been purchased by over 10 million people in the world. Still on the market today after 31 years ACT! has always been acknowledged as the catalyst that created the CRM multi-billion industry.
Mike has spoken to over 250,000 people worldwide as the Keynote Speaker for companies such as Toshiba, Compaq, UT-Dallas, University of Illinois, IDG Publications, the California Professional Women Conference, Singapore Business Expositions, and numerous sales conferences among others as well as speaking on stage with other technology industry titans such as Masayoshi Son, the Founder & CEO of Softbank. Known as The Connection Expert Mike helps people and businesses build substantive and sustainable relationships that enables greater achievement and stronger networks from which all livelihoods depend. Mike can be reached at Mike@MikeMuhney.com.
In January 2015 Mike was recognized in a FORBES article as one of the “25 Professional Networking Experts to Watch in 2015” along with such notables as Tim Ferriss and Keith Ferrazzi.