SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS, WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS

joe photo speakingSPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

Socius Business Advisors have been the keynote speakers at conferences, workshops, company meetings and training sessions.

Contact Socius Business Advisors  to discuss availability for your next program.

SEMINARS – Examples of Seminarsseminar Training

  1. Success is NOT an accident. ‘Success is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from successes and failures, but nobody says those failures have to be yours.’If you are like most of today’s business owners, you are facing many complex issues that are disrupting the normal course of business at an accelerated rate: the economy, mergers and acquisitions, new regulations, breakthrough products, disruptive technologies or competition from new areas, to name just a few.  Dealing effectively with these challenges may require an organization to re-imagine its underlying business processes, employee engagement or even its business model — in essence, to transform the business. Growing a business is hard work. Don’t go through it alone!
  2. Successful Business Succession is one of the most important challenges for a business is ensuring the successful transition of the enterprise to the next generation. Succession Planning can do just that. While publically held businesses commonly have a clearly defined hierarchy and hiring process to fill open positions, family enterprises often don’t have a plan for handing power to the next generation, leading to conflict and divisions. Conflict, whether passive or active, can delay or even derail succession plans. The very fear of conflict can keep stakeholders from making timely decisions in a productive manner. Implementing a succession strategy is a complex process involving trust, thoughtful planning, and specialized approaches that address sensitive issues and critical factors for the business. Some of the priorities this succession-planning seminar will cover are: • Identifying the next generation leaders and developing their skills to lead • Making sure stakeholders have an aligned vision for their family and their enterprise • Structuring governance for effective oversight, mentorship, and conflict management • Developing organizational structure to accommodate the needs of next generation leadership • Managing conflict and expectations within the family business • Identifying actionable ways for the family leadership to support the business succession plan
  3. The Art of a Turnaround– Thousands of small-mid size businesses are still trying to recover from the hole left by the recession and grow.  Learn the 5 steps to turnaround your company.  Fix and grow your company.
  4. Transition & Succession…A path to success. You’re finally ready to “transition” out of your business. Maybe you’ll sell. Maybe you want to pass your business on to the next generation. But are you ready? “…over 60% have neglected to position their companies to attract the right buyers to take advantage of the best possible price, and only one in 8 have done a good job of preparing the next generation to be successful”  The seminar includes: Actionable strategies for planning an exit of  successful transition. Building a strong  business to maximize your exit.  Real-world transition experiences .Business owners need answers to important questions about succession planning and securing their personal retirement. This seminar is designed to engage owners and advisors in a conversation about these topics. If you are an owner within 7 years of retirement, this seminar is for you.
  5. Start Communicating, Increase Sales & Grow Your Business– Harvard Business school reveals that 87% of ability to succeed comes from communication skills.  Though we are talking more, we are not communicating.  This seminar helps identify issues getting in the way as well as gives you actionable tips on better communicating.
  6. “Why healthy companies are – or at least should be – highly curious to understand the lessons that can be learned from fixing a distressed company.”  This has become one of our most sought after seminars. A mid-sized business is humming along, then  two poor management decisions in a 60 day period drove a healthy company into crisis.  Learn how to prepare for life’s curveballs and avoid problems, and how to fix and grow your company.
  7. Are you a Manager or a Leader?  Have you wondered why a leader can accomplish things that other positions can’t. Leaders possess unique qualities and traits which prevent them from being molded or classified as simply a supervisor or manager. This seminar is geared to show you the differences and help you become a better leader.
  8. Think Like an Entrepreneur – Addresses effectual and linear thinking, giving examples and exercises to develop the type of effectual thinking demonstrated in successful serial entrepreneurs.
  9. Entrepreneurship in the Context of Your Life – A reality check on becoming an entrepreneur, including impact on work-life interlocking, risk / reward, motivations.  Describes how to design an entrepreneurial venture that meets your personal profile.
  10. Managing Risk – Describes the continuum between risk averse and risk seeking, the concept of maximizing reward with affordable risk with industry specific examples.
  11. What Would the Lazy Person Do? – Uses the concept of the value of being lazy to change the way people work.    The seminar takes the theories of six sigma and lean and teaches them through the use of easy everyday examples and the analogy of a lazy person.
  12. Everything I Know About Leadership I Learned From a Vacuum Cleaner – The seminar uses an analogy to weave a story about leadership that gives the audience ten key leadership traits and how they relate.
  13. The Yin of Sales-The Yang of Marketing —Role clarity for leaders of Sales & Marketing.  Promote mutual understanding & appreciation: Formalize more interaction and mutual dependency; Coach Sales leaders for more “tomorrow” and strategy:  vision and a plan for improving sales effectiveness; Coach Marketing leaders to deliver value to Sales “today” and have more direct touch with customers; Joint responsibility for New Business Development; Model Yin and Yang vs. Either/Or
  14. The Zen of Stuff: A Practice in Creativity –The seminar uses context changing examples and exercises to retrain the brain to think creatively.
  15. Exploding Creativity – An interactive seminar that demonstrates how mindful deliberate practice leads to innovation.
  16. Pitching to Angels and VCs – A how-to seminar on presenting information to an angel group or to a venture capital group to obtain funding.
  17. Ready, Set, Innovate, Go – How to prepare yourself to recognize and enhance your own innovative genius.
  18. The Business of Non-Profit Organizations –Addresses key business strategic planning concepts that non-profit agencies should incorporate.
  19. Organizational Evolution- Breaking through the barriers both structural and personal.
  20. Build A Stronger Salesforce …Build A Stronger Business!   
  21. Save 10%,20%, 30% on Health Insurance AND Improve Your Employee Experience .- This seminar explores ways large companies are using new procedures/ programs to lower their insurance cost by 20%, 30%, 40% without reducing employees benefits from your current program.
  22. Gender Issues in Entrepreneurship – Addresses the myths and realities of the entrepreneurship gap.
  23. Demystifying Millennials in the Workplace- How To Attract, Engage And Retain the Millennial Workforce.
  24. The Steps to a Successful Exit (aka Preparing for a successful sale and a successful life)– The scenario may be familiar. A business owner works his/her whole life building a business and expects to get the most financial benefit from that exit. There are two key problems with this scenario. First, just like running your business…things don’t just happen.   Putting a business in the best position for a sale takes planning and action. 88% of the time they are successful. AND Remember, it’s not what you sell the company for; it is what you get to keep. Done wrong and Uncle Sam may get more than half.The second problem is that one year after selling their business, 75% of business owners wish they hadn’t sold. Not because of money, but because they failed to build something of significance beyond their business.This seminar touches on the key points needed to address both issues. [Our four-hour workshop (see below) goes in to more details to prepare you for the 20+ years you’ll likely have after retiring]
  25. Framework for a Purposeful Life-It’s been said that money will not make you happy. Neither will poverty make you happy. We need something more than money. What is that? One thing to remember is that life is not linear or predictable. Life is filled with positive and negative surprises and change.The purposeful life is what gives meaning, contentment, fulfillment and real success. To have a purposeful life we must first figure out our purpose in life. This framework of living can be applied in all aspects of life: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual , financial, etc. And such a purposeful life filled with personal principles and specific, measurable, attainable, meaningful goals and the attitudes of being flexible, having margins of safety and grace to accept when things don’t go as planned can only lead to success in its truest sense.

 

 

WORKSHOPS- Our Workshops get participants fully involved in the learning process: small and large group discussions, activities & exercises, opportunities to practice applying the concepts that are presented.

Examples of workshopsworkshop

  1. Take a Strategic Snapshot of Your Business- This ½ day workshops is a facilitated discussion and hands on exercise participating in a S.W.O.T and P.E.S.T analysis of your company.  Consider what policies, procedure, initiatives and damage control should be implemented.  When complete, you and your company should be better positioned for growth.
  2. Strategic Planning  – These workshops are designed to facilitate a strategic planning effort for a for-profit or a non-profit organization.
  3. Writing a Winning Business Plan – This workshop goes beyond the basics of writing a business plan to cover strategic elements that win funding.
  4. Envisioning – This workshop is designed for entrepreneurs and helps them to focus on writing their personal vision and mission statements, their business vision and mission statements and taking steps to effectively mesh them.
  5. Scientists as Coaching Managers – Most scientists become managers much later in their careers than managers in other types of business so they face unique challenges in developing an effective style.   The workshop guides scientists through a series of exercises to developing coaching as an effective managerial style.
  6. Entrepreneurial Leaders as Coaching Managers – The unique set of personal traits that characterize an effective entrepreneur are frequently in contrast with the traits that make a good manager.   The workshop guides entrepreneurs through exercises to develop coaching as an effective managerial style.
  7. Work-Life Interlock – Work-Life balance is a myth.  Work –Life Interlock, a three-legged race, is the new paradigm.    This workshop addresses the challenges of designing career and personal life paths that maximize satisfaction.
  8. The Yin of Sales-The Yang of Marketing –Role clarity for leaders of Sales & Marketing.Expanded version of the seminar with more examples and hands on learning. Promote mutual understanding & appreciation: Formalize more interaction and mutual dependency; Coach Sales leaders for more “tomorrow” and strategy:  vision and a plan for improving sales effectiveness; Coach Marketing leaders to deliver value to Sales “today” and have more direct touch with customers; Joint responsibility for New Business Development; Model Yin and Yang vs. Either/Or
  9. The Art of a Turnaround– Expanded version of the seminar with more examples and hands on learning. Thousands of small-mid size businesses are still trying to recover from the hole left by the recession and grow.  Learn the 5 steps to turnaround your company.  Fix and grow your company.
  10. Start Communicating & Grow Your Business– Harvard Business school reveals that 87% of ability to succeed comes from communication skills.  Though we are talking more, we are not communicating.  This workshop helps identify issues getting in the way as well as give you actionable tips on better communicating. Expanded version of the seminar with more examples and hands on learning.
  11. Mindfulness – Interactive exercises to increase mindfulness to enhance creativity and leadership.
  12. Pitching to Investors – An interactive, hands on workshop with a small group of participants to hone the elevator pitch and presentation.   Be prepared to convince us
  13. Girls Just Wanna Succeed – Business still has “man’s rules”, especially in senior management.    This workshop focuses on the subtle ways that women can hinder their progress, how to recognize them and avoid them.
  14. The Steps to a Successful Exit- In this workshop you will roll up your sleeves and walk through exercises to prepare you and your business for sale.   Done right and you’ll ride off into the sunset with money and a meaningful life.  Done wrong, and there is a 75% chance you will regret it in less than a year. The scenario may be familiar. A business owner works his/her whole life building a business and expects to get the most financial benefit from that exit. There are two key problems with this scenario. First, just like running your business…things don’t just happen.   Putting a business in the best position for a sale takes planning and action.  88% those businesses with a solid plan are successful, but for the 84% without a plan they are successful only 12% of the time. AND Remember, it’s not what you sell the company for; it is what you get to keep. Done wrong and Uncle Sam may get more than half.The second problem is that one year after selling their business, 75% of business owners wish they hadn’t sold. Not because of money, but because they failed to build something of significance beyond their business.  Only sign up for this workshop if you are ready to discuss real issues and are ready to plan for a successful exit. 

Workshops are generally 10 to 14 participants, range from one half day to two days in length, and are very interactive and collaborative.  For larger groups we require breakout sessions.  Workshops are held at your location, or a location arranged by your organization.

Contact Socius Business Advisors at sociusba.com/Contact to discuss availability for your next program.

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Socius Business Advisors is a leadership coaching and consulting firm headquartered in the greater Chicago area, with advisors in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Denver, and Hong Kong and serving clients around the globe.

Strategy, Planning, & Execution

Executive Coaching & Executive Peer Groups

Executive Team Alignment

Business Assessments

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Workouts

Manufacturing Solutions

M&A &Post Merger Integration

Domestic & Asian Procurement

Family Business Center

Workshops & Seminars

Succession Planning & Exit Planning