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On Wednesday, October 23, Small Business Monthly will hold its FREE Expo & Business Growth Conference at the St. Charles Convention Center! There will be 17 Business Building Seminars occurring throughout the day, relaying business owners, managers, and vice presidents valuable knowledge that will help their businesses thrive in today’s competitive market.
The seminar schedule is as follows:
Kickoff Speaker, 10am-11am, Rooms 104-105
KICKOFF SEMINAR
60 of the BEST Marketing & Sales Ideas in 60 Minutes
Join the area’s top marketing experts as they share their top marketing and sales ideas. Walk away with strategies, techniques and ideas you can implement immediately. Bring your own best ideas and don’t forget about the Lightning Q&A Round, where our experts will take your questions.
Grow Your Business Lab (Rooms 104-105)
Sales—Winning Sales Strategies
11:30am-12:20pm
25 Proven Ways To Drive Sales Growth
It can be said in sales you are either pushing forward or falling backward. A proactive approach is required to achieve forward movement in your business. Avoid the slump and uncover 25 ACTIONS that will drive sales growth. Identify sales slump Causes
• Learn how to overcome factors that contribute to sluggish business growth.
• Takeaway 25 tangible ACTIONS that are proven to drive sales growth.
Presenter: Katheryn Hunt, Cornerstone Solutions
12:30pm-1:20pm
Improve Sales Performance through Data, Technology, Analytics
Many business leaders today are facing increased pressure to expand and manage revenue growth while continuously improving sales performance. In response, new functional areas are being explored, funded, and established related to Sales Operations, Sales Enablement, Sales Effectiveness (SOEE). The goal of these newly created areas……improve sales results.
The new challenge? Defining the vision, strategy, and tactical responsibilities of each interdependent function. Alignment and coordination of the SOEE operating model, requires precise planning and execution. High performing Sales Teams leverage data, analytics and technology to provide strategic insights that align marketing and business development. Creating a high-performance sales model requires purposeful design, focused execution, cross-functional teamwork, and continual transformation.
By reviewing practical examples and common challenges, this workshop will provide a baseline foundation for evaluating your internal sales and business development framework. In addition, the session will offer new perspectives on sales leadership, CRM technology, and tactical application of SOEE performance modeling.
Presenter: Michael Mohr, Mohr Advantage, LLC
1:30pm-2:20pm
Funny Business: Increasing Your Sales With Humor
Topics To Be Presented:
• Effective humor in marketing
• Content that demands attention
• Future sales trends and humor
• Strengthening relationships with humor
• Creating a culture of success
• Using humor in business social media campaigns
Presented by Todd Schowalter and T.J. Schowalter
2:30pm-3:20pm
Building a Sales Structure for Superior Results
Attendees will learn the top 10 reasons why sales are not increasing as planned and the actions that must be undertaken to create the foundation for dramatic sales growth. Learn what may be holding you back from your goals as a business owner. This isn’t just a PowerPoint presentation –we’ll share real-world best practices and ideas on how to tackle these sales issues. If your sales team or sales volume is at a point a frustration, you need to attend this seminar! Does this sound like your company? My sales have been at the same level for years and I can’t get to the next level. My sales compensation package doesn’t incent the desired behavior I want. I can’t find the right sales people-how do I stop the revolving door?
Presenter: Marc Metz, Optimus Sales Group powered by SalesXceleration
STAGE 1
Marketing—Winning Marketing Techniques, Strategies
11:30am-12:20pm
Turn Your Expertise Into Quality Content Marketing
Are you fully leveraging your company’s knowledge to grow your brand into an industry thought leader? Matt Kamp from Influence & Co. will be sharing the playbook for turning your team’s expertise into quality content marketing that translates into ROI.
Matt’s session will cover how to execute effective content strategy, creation, distribution and maximization. Influence & Co. has worked with Fortune 500 marketing teams (Microsoft) to small business owners (Zapier), and the firm’s experience from publishing thousands of articles with clients has led to the methodology showcased by this presentation. Influence & Co. works with 1,500+ online publications, and Matt will be outlining data-driven strategies for getting your content published in top sites using input directly from their editors.
If you need to build your company’s brand into an industry thought leader — and drive inbound business — you will walk away from this session with strategies to start implementing the next day.
Presenter: Matt Kamp, Influence & Co.
12:30pm-1:20pm
How to Use Email Marketing to Find More Prospects and Close More Sales
Email Marketing expert Tom Ruwitch will share tried-and-true, easy-to-implement strategies and tactics to help you identify your most qualified prospects and generate sales more quickly and profitably.
Presenter: Tom Ruwitch, Marketvolt
1:30pm-2:20pm
Hiring a Business Developer – How Any Company Can Hire Superstars
Any small business can attract and hire the industry’s top business developers. Many companies, especially small businesses, hire business developers that fail to win contracts. It’s frustrating. It’s expensive. If you have ever wondered how your company can afford to hire the strongest and most capable business developers, this session is for you. Business developers fall into one of three groups – average, stars, and superstars. One group will increase revenue by 10%. Another will increase revenue by 100%. The right interview questions will enable you to immediately identify the strength of any business developer. We will cover key topics including common challenges; setting expectations on what you should expect from a new business developer; in-depth discussion on how to interview with an outline of the key questions you should ask; and then we’ll close with how to craft a compensation plan, that any small business can afford, that will attract and keep the industry’s most accomplished sales professionals.
This session provides award-winning tactics and strategies that have directly helped companies win more than $2 Billion in government contracts.
Presenter: Joshua Frank, RSM Federal
2:30pm-3:20pm
4 Marketing Techniques Guaranteed to Grow Any Business
Avoid profit-stealing price cutting and sales events and simply focus on these four proven marketing tactics: 1. How to Retain Your Current Customers 2. How to Encourage Customers to Buy More Each Time 3. How to Motivate Customers to Buy More Often 4. How to Solicit Customer Referrals This session gives real-world examples of each of the techniques, and helps business owners and sales managers start thinking of ways they can apply the tactics to their own firms. Then watch your business grow…from larger sales per order, increased repeat business, greater customer loyalty, and a flow of top-quality prospect leads.
Presenter: David Voracek, Lindenwood University
STAGE 2
Winner’s Circle
11:30am-12:20pm
How To Market Yourself – And Your Business – By Creating A Message That Sells
Presenter: Tim Burt
12:30pm-1:20pm
How I Got 30 Million views on one Facebook post for FREE
Presenter: Mindy Hart
1:30pm-2:20pm
How to Get You – And Your Business – On TV
Presenter: Bruce Servin
2:30pm-3:20pm
How I Went From Prison To Becoming A Top Podcaster
Presenter: Zachary J. Babcock
STAGE 3
Growing Your Business
11:30-12:20
Proactively Surviving a Ransomware Attack: Practical Strategies for Defending your Data.
Technology has helped streamline and automate many functions that used to be more labor intensive in the professional world. The advancement of technology has also brought forth the added risk and exposure of cyber attacks. This session will review some of the risks faced by businesses and will arm you with best practices on how to safeguard your data while ensuring your employees have the access they need to be successful.
Presented by John Quatto
12:30-1:20
Overcoming Challenges And Succeeding in Business
Dr. Greg Sanders lost two children in 2018, and has dealt with significant grief and hardship. He was also just voted Entrepreneur of the Year in 2019 by the Small Business Association of Southern Illinois. His innovations in the “digital business card” arena are helping businesses to become more profitable, networking groups to become more successful, and non-profits to raise more money. In addition to keeping his eye on the goal in business, and in life, Dr. Sanders is a pastor and spiritual leader, and has something on his heart that he would like to share with those who are “in business,” but may be struggling, who may be discouraged or disheartened. In this session, people will receive wisdom and inspiration to keep their focus on the mission, and their eyes on the prize, even when life’s tragedies and setbacks threaten to derail a business, or other plans for your life. You will find out how to reach out to God, and depend on others – their love, skills, and resources, even when you feel totally alone. The key message is – “Keep trusting, believing, and loving. Refine the art of collaboration. It ain’t easy, but you can do it!”
Presented by Greg Sanders, EZcard
2:30-3:20
Overcoming Engagement Gridlock with Teams
Managers and the teams they lead have the most influence in any business. You want to retain good people, engage employees, and produce value for your company? Start by providing managers with the strategies to engage teams and build productive relationships. This program empowers managers to shift gears and create the environment to foster employee engagement, improved performance, and retention.
During this seminar, you will explore:
• How leaders at all levels can produce the environment to foster employee engagement, improved performance, and retention
• The role of direct managers in employee engagement
• Strategies and techniques to maximize productivity
Presented by: Pam Weston, Progress Partners LLC
MM&E
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