Mentoring Roundtable

Have you recentlystarted your own business? Having trouble growing it? Are you a manager in need of some mentoring? Don’t know who to turn to for advice? Attend the Mentoring Roundtables to discuss hot topics, share ideas, and discover solutions for your business challenges with industry veterans who have been in the trenches. Ask questions, get feedback, and find answers at this unique and exclusive opportunity for green industry business owners and managers.

Presented by Weedman and Wisconsin Green Industry Federation.

Schedule

Wednesday, January 18 and Thursday, January 19, 2012
Two 50 minute sessions at 9:45am and 10:45 am

Have you recently started your own business? Having trouble growing it? Are you a manager in need of some mentoring? Don’t know who to turn to for advice? Attend the Mentoring Roundtables to discuss hot topics, share ideas, and discover solutions for your business challenges with industry veterans who have been in the trenches. Ask questions, get feedback, and find answers at this unique and exclusive opportunity for green industry business owners and managers.

These roundtables provide a unique, intimate environment to discuss issues and potential solutions with mentors and other industry leaders. Preregistration is required and space is limited to 10 people per roundtable session.

What’s in Your Manager’s Toolbox?
Mentor: Bill Vogel, CEO, Spring Valley Turf Products
Takeaway simple “toolbox” solutions for managers in their daily work life. We’ll discuss the value of setting up and using a financial dashboard, ideas for managing your employees, and a few key financial numbers you should monitor and why.

Women in Horticulture: Developing Your Career
Mentor: Kathy Swingen, Inventory Control Manager, The Bruce Company of Wisconsin
This is designed to create a supportive network opportunity for women to focus on their careers. We will share insights and focus on useful skills, techniques and creative strategies for developing and maintaining a successful career in the green profession.

Coaching the Team in the Game of Business
Mentor: Terry Kurth, Weed Man Lawn Care
It all begins with attitude and your business culture. The business owner sets the tone and the bar for the rest of the company personnel. We discuss getting the proper people in the right places within your business, challenging them and making them accountable. Explore the opportunities with leader who has built multi-million dollar businesses.

Developing Listening Leaders within Your Company is Crucial to Working Effectively with Clients
Mentor: Chris Kujawa, Owner, Executive VP Sales and Marketing, KEI
Listening skills and understanding the client’s perspective and problems are necessary to finding solutions your clients seek. You can always meet your contractual obligations, but what the client is really looking for is for you to solve his or her problems. We'll discuss ways to discover those needs and how to see your work through the client’s perspective. We’ll discuss how and why developing listening leaders are crucial to the success of you and your company.

Buying or Selling a Business?
Mentor: James D. Mello, Merger and Acqusition Specialist/Business Broker
Finding the right buyer and selling your business on favorable terms will require both planning and hard work. Finding the business to buy and negotiating terms does as well. Do you know the value of the business? A seller needs to understand the sales process, prepare your company for sale, set a price, seek potential buyers, negotiate and prepare a sales agreement and other documents, and close the deal. If you are buying you must consider a franchise or an independent business, know how to find a business for sale, how to know whether the asking price is reasonable, and how to research the business's history and finances (what lawyers call doing "due diligence").

Credit Card Processing: Tips to Save you Money and Add Profit to your Bottom Line while Avoiding Credit Card Processing Headaches!
Mentor: Brad Palubiak, Owner/President Cornerstone Processing
Cornerstone Processing is the official consultant and processor for WGIF and IGIA, working with our Green industry businesses to insure you are receiving the best rates, equipment, service and agreements in the marketplace. Tired of credit card processing companies and their specialist disappearing? Do you own your equipment? Is your current processor really costing you money? Can you get out of your current contract? Need an analysis of your current processing statement without obligation? We’ll give you money saving tips for processing credit cards.

Workers Compensation Costs; How to Manage and Lower Costs
Mentor: Matt Cruise, Robertson Ryan Insurance Agency
Controlling your workers compensation costs; loss control and preventing the claim from happening are key to a healthy bottom- line and workforce. We’ll discuss understanding the WC modifier and how it impacts your premium and “Early Return to Work” procedures.

Strength, Stability and Support in an Ever Changing Economy: Roadmap Your Financial Future
Mentors: Brian Anderson and Dick Drews, Thrivent Financial Group
We're a Fortune 500 financial services organization with the strength of more than $73 billion in assets under management. If your objectives haven't changed, then it may not be prudent to react too quickly to short-term swings in the market. When things are uncertain, it's hard to stay focused on long-term goals. History shows that investors who flee the markets during these times run the risk of missing comebacks.

Taking your Company to the Next Level; Identifying and Overcoming Barriers
Mentor: Tim Bolton, Pregis Corporation
Tim will explore the barriers preventing business owners from taking their company “to the next level.” Planning, focus, marketing, change, meddling and misspent time, objectives, financial strategy and poor controls. Pregis Corporation is a leading global provider of innovative protective, flexible, and foodservice packaging and hospital supply products. The specialty-packaging leader currently operates 47 facilities in 18 countries around the world.

How to Lead your Employees and Develop Leaders within Your Company
Mentor: Bliss Nicholson, President and CEO, The Bruce Company of Wisconsin
Does your company have a comprehensive plan for developing people? What are the benefits you would receive from having an effective leadership development program? What are the estimated costs in turnover, lower productivity, and lower morale to not having one now? What would a successful leadership development program look like for your company? How much time, energy, and money are you willing to invest to develop one? We’ll discuss how and why leadership and developing leadership is crucial to the success of you and your company.

Landscaping Entrepreneurs; What Can I do to Replicate Success?
Mentor: Christy Webber, President, Christy Webber Landscapes
“How in the world did she do this; how or what can I do to replicate this success in my business. In 1988, Christy Webber began cutting her first lawns. With determination and hard work, she took that small business from her kitchen table to what is now one of the largest landscape companies in Chicago; over 250 employees and an impressive fleet of trucks and equipment. Maintaining some of the most prestigious Chicago landmarks, such as Millennium Park, she was recognized for her entrepreneurial achievements and lasting impact on Chicago’s business community through induction into the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame. Her company is included on Inc. Magazine’s Inner City 100 list of America's fastest-growing urban businesses.

Selling is Not Really Selling; Learn How to Increase your Sales Closings *Wed Jan 18th only*
Mentor: Richard P. Farrell, President, Tangent Knowledge Systems.
Rick stresses a non-selling posture that allows the sales person to play the role of a “change agent” rather than a product-centric transactional sales person. "Rick Farrell’s selling methods helped open the eyes of our sales people to fully understand how they could change their old “selling” approach to a “non-selling” posture and by doing so increase the close rate on the relationships they were trying so hard to establish." Mr. Farrell has worked with a range of companies; from Fortune 500 companies to start-ups, helping them optimize their performance by assessing their sales people, sales processes, management structure, and strategies.

Incorporating Social Media into your Marketing Strategy; Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, etc.
Mentor: Shane Fell, VP Sales and Marketing, Top Floor Technologies
Learn how social media like Facebook, Twitter, etc. can be used as a part of a marketing strategy. Keep up with cutting edge technology and utilize these social media platforms to increase traffic to your business. Shane has helped many companies successfully plan their on-line marketing -advising them in areas of website design, search engine marketing, conversion strategies, and ROI measurement in the use of social media.