ABOUT STEVEN M. STROUM

THE REAL WORK OF SUCCESS HAPPENS WITHIN YOU.

For more than 50 years, Steven M. Stroum has been an entrepreneur, publicity strategist, and independent thinker, building businesses, solving problems, challenging assumptions, and learning from both success and failure.

His two books draw on those experiences from different perspectives. “Success and Self-Discovery” combines the story of his entrepreneurial journey in raw candor, and offers practical lessons about business and life. Whereas “Publicity, Persuasion & Life” draws on five decades of real-world experience in more than 100 thought-provoking essays that challenge conventional wisdom, reveal how persuasion shapes what we think and do, and offers valuable insights to help readers question assumptions, exercise independent judgment, and make better decisions in business and life.

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★ THE MEMOIR

SUCCESS AND SELF-DISCOVERY

An Entrepreneur’s Memoir of Growth and Transformation

Steve’s story is rooted in entrepreneurship, but it reaches beyond business. Success and Self-Discovery explores what it means to build something meaningful while also confronting the personal costs, emotional struggles, and self-examination that success often demands. The book explores entrepreneurship from the inside: the building of a business, the building of the self, and the difficult truth that achievement alone is not the same as fulfillment.

The book provides you with an engaging story, actionable advice, and the inspiration to begin your own journey.

★ ★ ★

“Rather than being elated by his early meteoric success, he became depressed. His experience with depression and self-examination became a turning point in how he understood business, ambition, and personal fulfillment.”

FROM SUCCESS AND SELF-DISCOVERY

A LIFE IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Steve’s career has been shaped by practical entrepreneurship: seeing opportunity, taking risk, making decisions without perfect information, and adapting when reality changed. He understands business as lived experience, not theory. Entrepreneurship, in Steve’s view, is about more than launching or promoting a company. It is about responsibility, uncertainty, persistence, judgment, and growth under pressure. Those lessons became central to his career, his public voice, and ultimately his memoir.

BUILDING VENMARK INTERNATIONAL

In 1976, Steve founded Venmark International with a simple conviction: strategic publicity is the most effective and underused tool in a company’s marketing arsenal. That belief proved right. Within two years, Venmark had grown to serve more than 2,000 clients, validating Steve’s instinct for market visibility, product positioning, sales acumen, and the persuasive power of well-executed publicity. Through Venmark, Steve helped businesses, products, and innovators earn attention, build credibility, and create opportunity in competitive markets.

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★ PUBLIC SERVICE

A BROADER PERSPECTIVE

Before his business and writing career, Steve proudly served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam era, received a medical discharge with a service-connected disability and returned to Northeastern University where he majored in business management and graduated with honors. He also served on the Massachusetts Small Business Task Force and subsequently as a small business advisor to the Governor, reflecting his longstanding commitment to entrepreneurship and the important role that small businesses play in economic and civic life. Steve was also a member of the Norbert Wiener Forum at Tufts University, which focused on studying the impact of technology on business and society.

STEVEN M. STROUM TODAY

Today, Steve is a small business advocate who brings together a rare combination of entrepreneurial experience, publicity expertise, and personal reflection. Through his books, essays, interviews, and speaking engagements, he shares practical lessons on entrepreneurship, product publicity, marketing, sales, resilience, persuasion, and personal development. His work resonates with readers looking for something more substantial than motivational clichés: insight rooted in experience, tested by reality, and sharpened over time.

★ ★ ★

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MY BOOKS

SUCCESS AND SELF-DISCOVERY

A guide to building a life and career with intention.

Success isn’t just about strategy; it’s about understanding yourself, facing your fears, and defining success on your own terms.

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PUBLICITY, PERSUASION & LIFE

Real-world lessons for builders, thinkers, and doers.

A collection of essays about how the art and science of influence shape our businesses, relationships, everyday lives, and futures.

It’s about how the art and science of influence shape our businesses, relationships, everyday lives, and futures.

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STEVEN M. STROUM