Business Growth CEO Conference
Friday, November 8, 2024 7:00 a.m. - 2:10 p.m. PST
Virtual Conference Overview
Build a High-Value Business for Your Best Outcome
Creating a thriving business requires a solid foundation, a clear strategic plan and a focus on elements that increase your company’s value. Understanding your business’ worth, maximizing it and leveraging the right resources are essential to achieving the best possible outcomes.
At the Business Growth CEO Conference, you’ll have exclusive access to experts who will help you in building a scalable, high-value business with simplicity.
To boost your learning experience, we’ve designed two dynamic Breakout Blocks, each offering sessions across three tracks:
- Foundation & Preparation: Discover practical tips to elevate your business’s efficiency and bring together the team that forms the foundation for your best results.
- Growth Levers: Uncover strategies to enhance your company’s worth by honing in on the right growth initiatives and exploring fresh avenues to accelerate success.
- Selling & Exiting: No matter where you are in the transaction cycle, learn how to secure the best possible outcome, tailored to your unique vision.
Customize your conference experience by choosing two sessions per breakout block, either staying within a single track or exploring different areas that align with your goals.
Join us for an event that will empower you to make meaningful progress toward your business objectives. Let’s grow, optimize and succeed together!
Event Speaker's Personal Invitation
Get an early glimpse into keynote speaker, Lisa Bodell's presentation and why you should reserve your seat now!
Marc Emmer invites you to attend his presentation and the conference!
Event Speakers
Lisa Bodell
Founder and CEO of FutureThink | FuturistLeading Simplicity – A Roadmap
Embracing simplicity as an operational mindset can unleash the power of people to be their best and focus on work that really matters. But simplicity needs an advocate and leaders who step up to send a message that simplicity is a priority that will reap outsized results. In this presentation, Lisa Bodell delivers real-world tools leaders can use to create a culture with simplicity in its DNA and a bias for action. Lisa, author of the bestseller Why Simple Wins, unpacks stories and insights leaders can use to inspire their people, ignite disruptive thinking, build agility, and turn problems into possibilities. With energy, humor, and revealing online interactive exercises, Lisa shows that simplicity is the catalyst that accelerates innovation, collaboration, engagement, and growth.
Simplicity will create a sustainable competitive advantage because it’s the absolute foundation of resilience in the face of never-ending change.
Marc Emmer
President & Chief Consultant of Optimize Inc.Business Trends for 2025 and Beyond
Entering 2025, small and midsize businesses face an uncertain future. To help CEOs navigate these challenges, Vistage speaker and strategy expert Marc Emmer will recap highlights from his immensely popular 2025 Business Trends series. Joined by Vistage Research Center's Anne Petrik, Marc will update CEOs and owners of small and midsize businesses on key trends for the year ahead and share how SMBs can leverage these insights for a competitive advantage.
Key takeaways for CEOs:
- Evolving trends in wages and employment: Understand the business impact of changing labor markets.
- Impacts from federal deficits, higher bond yields, and interest rates: Navigate the evolving economic landscape.
- Technology and AI: How are small- and medium-sized companies leveraging emerging technologies?
By being aware of these global changes and industry shifts, CEOs can put their organizations in a position to seize the opportunities ahead.
Mix & match your breakout sessions across three tracks:
o Track 1 | Foundation & Preparation
o Track 2 | Growth Levers
o Track 3 | Selling & Exiting
Exclusive, no-commitment meetings with industry experts designed to address your specific business challenges and give you the personalized answers you need. Registered members will be first to reserve their spot.
Exclusive, no-commitment meetings with industry experts designed to address your specific business challenges and give you the personalized answers you need. Registered members will be first to reserve their spot.
Mix & match your breakout sessions across three tracks:
o Track 1 | Foundation & Preparation
o Track 2 | Growth Levers
o Track 3 | Selling & Exiting
Exclusive, no-commitment meetings with industry experts designed to address your specific business challenges and give you the personalized answers you need. Registered members will be first to reserve their spot.
*agenda subject to change
Breakout sessions
8:15 - 9:05 a.m.
Post-Election Viewpoints on Policies and Their Tax Implications
Presenter: Lawrence Leaf, CPA, PFS, ABV, National Estate & Trust Leader, NJ Managing Partner / Tommy Lee, CPA, Partner-in-Charge, Restaurant, Franchise & Hospitality, Strategic Tax Advisor / Jeffrey Gershen, CPA National Tax Co-Leader, Tax Partner | Aprio
Track 1 | Foundation & Preparation
Topic: Tax Preparation
Join a lively discussion with four Aprio business and tax experts as they explore the post-election implications on taxes, including both the tax burdens businesses face and the opportunities that arise.
8:15 - 9:05 a.m.
How to Create a Culture of Accountability
Presenter: Shelley Woodrow, Certified EOS Implementer® | EOS
Track 2 | Growth Levers
Topic: Business Operations
People problems are almost always the biggest challenge for businesses, yet solving them is transformational. With advice and strategies from Certified EOS Implementer® Shelley Woodrow, this webinar provides the tools for leaders to create an intentional People Component in their organization using simple and proven tools to create a thriving workplace.
8:15 - 9:05 a.m.
Accelerate Growth Through Non-Control Minority Equity Investments
Presenter: Brian Friedman, Head of Private Capital Markets | William Blair
Track 3 | Selling & Exiting
Topic: Deal Types
Seeking outside capital to accelerate growth but don’t want to give up control or take on debt? Discover the power of minority equity investments and how they can accelerate growth of a founder-owned business. Join us for insights into the advantages of non-control transactions and how they solve a founder’s liquidity objectives. Takeaways include:
- Success stories of growth equity investments with founder-owned businesses
- Benefits of deploying capital to fund tuck-in acquisitions or fueling strategic growth initiatives
- Characteristics of non-control investments and the flexibility they provide to founders
9:10 - 10:00 a.m.
Optimize Your Financial Plan for Your Business
Presenter: Paul J. Brahim, CFP®, AIFA / Managing Director, SVP - Financial Advisor | Wealth Enhancement Group [Vistage Member]
Track 1 | Foundation & Preparation
Topic: Estate Planning & Tax Optionality
Do you have the freedom to walk away from your business without selling it? In this session, you’ll learn invaluable tools and strategies to optimize your financial plan, increase your options and freedom.
Learn from the firsthand experience of a Vistage member who successfully created optionality in a 60-year-old family business using integrated tax, estate, and investment planning strategies.
9:10 - 10:00 a.m.
Moneyball for Business: Process Mapping & Data-Driven Excellence
Presenter: Derrick Mains, CEO | The Process Fixer
Track 2: Growth Levers
Topic: Business Process & Analytics
Just like Moneyball transformed baseball through data, businesses can improve efficiency by using process mapping, data-driven decisions, and control charts to track performance. By identifying key metrics and monitoring process stability, you can drive consistent, world-class results—with the team you already have on the bench. Creating a pennant-chasing powerhouse of optimization and competitive advantage. In this session you will learn:
- Better ways to measure fundamentals.
- A proven method to control variation.
- A clear map to achieving your pennant-chasing objectives.
Join Derrick Mains as he walks you through the playbook for transforming your business in the race for operational excellence.
9:10 - 10:00 a.m.
Turning Buyer Interest Into Strategy: Business Insights for Owners
Presenter: Brenda Spencer, Strategic Partnership Director | Benchmark International
Track 3: Selling & Exiting
Topic: M&A Rediversification
Buyers are looking for proprietary deal flow, which gives them an advantage during the acquisition process. Arm yourself with the knowledge and strategies for when you are approached directly by a buyer. Join Brenda Spencer as she dives into the dynamics of unsolicited buyers and reveals how to manage and leverage these interactions to your benefit effectively.
- Explore the landscape of today’s diverse buyer’s market.
- Uncover why your business attracts buyer interest and the timing behind it.
- Learn actionable strategies for engaging and negotiating with potential buyers.
12:00 - 12:50 p.m.
The Pursuit of Enterprise Value: 12 Key Factors to Attract an Outsized Valuation
Presenter: Zane Tarence, Managing Director and Partner | Founders Advisors [Vistage Speaker]
Track 1 | Foundation & Preparation
Topic: Business Valuation
Given today’s economic climate and dynamic M&A market, business owners need a candid market perspective on what drives enterprise value.
Join us to learn:
- 12 key attributes to outsize your market valuation
- How to keep operational focus aligned with value creation
- Top 5 dealbreakers & seller missteps
- The importance of having your own private “ticker symbol”
- A 10 minute industry specific solution to assess your company’s “investability”.
12:00 - 12:50 p.m.
Unlock Working Capital Now to Position Your Business for Growth
Presenter: Chaun Powell, President | Elevate by Principal
Track 2 | Growth Levers
Topic: Wealth Strategies
Learn about a compelling way to unlock capital and orient your business toward growth. Chaun Powell from Elevate by Principal will discuss tips and ideas focused on reinvesting in your business to better position it for the future, including:
- Uncovering savings on everyday expenses. Learn how group rate discounts can free up working capital you can invest back into your business.
- Determining your current business value. Find out about a quick and easy way to determine how much your business is worth.
- Aligning savings toward business growth. See a way to leverage savings to increase the value of your business.
12:00 - 12:50 p.m.
Your Optimal (+) World
Presenter: Allen Parker, CFP®, CPWA®, CEPA®, Financial Advisor | Edward Jones
Track 3 | Selling & Exiting
Topic: Deal Teams
In your optimal world,
- Your goals - financial, estate, philanthropic, etc - are precisely defined,
- You have a process for achieving your goals, and
- You know how your dream team of experts can help you achieve your goals.
In this presentation, you will find out exactly the extent to which you are addressing each of these essential elements in your own life. You will also discover the importance of one of those essentials—client-centered discovery—in achieving what is most important to you. And perhaps most important, you will have the opportunity to pinpoint exactly what you could be doing to create your team and accelerate your success right now.
12:55 - 1:45 p.m.
3 Secrets to an Incentive Plan that Boosts Performance and Increases Shareholder Value
Presenter: Tom Miller, CEO and Joe Miller, Vice President of Product | VisionLink
Track 1 | Foundation & Preparation
Topic: People
In this presentation, you’ll learn from two experts who have designed over 1,000 incentive plans for private businesses. Get answers to key questions, including:
- What are today’s top employees expecting in a variable pay program?
- How are successful plans constructed and communicated?
- What are the secrets of differentiating your pay offering from your competitors and locking down your key talent?
12:55 - 1:45 p.m.
The CEO's Guide to Strategically Scaling Sales
Presenter: Frank Niekamp, Managing Partner | SalesStar
Track 2: Growth Levers
Topic: Sales & Customer Engagement
Unlock the secret to scalable, measurable, and predictable sales growth in this exclusive session designed for CEOs. Learn how to build a strategic sales system that drives consistent results and empowers your sales force. Attendees will leave with actionable takeaways:
- Proven methodologies to streamline sales processes and drive consistent results.
- Strategies to leverage data for better decision-making and measurable outcomes.
- Insights to achieve sustainable growth and elevate your company's performance.
This session is for CEO's who want a clear path to building a strategic sales system that is scalable, measurable, and predictable.
12:55 - 1:45 p.m.
Turning Buyer Interest Into Strategy: Business Insights for Owners
Presenter: Brenda Spencer, Strategic Partnership Director | Benchmark International
Track 3: Selling & Exiting
Topic: M&A Rediversification
Buyers are looking for proprietary deal flow, which gives them an advantage during the acquisition process. Arm yourself with the knowledge and strategies for when you are approached directly by a buyer. Join Brenda Spencer as she dives into the dynamics of unsolicited buyers and reveals how to manage and leverage these interactions to your benefit effectively.
- Explore the landscape of today’s diverse buyer’s market.
- Uncover why your business attracts buyer interest and the timing behind it.
- Learn actionable strategies for engaging and negotiating with potential buyers.
Sponsors
National
Breakout
