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Founding member Dan Hedberg still going strong
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Interview by David Powe, write-up by Ruth E. Thaler-Carter
 RPCN charter member Dan Hedberg celebrated a milestone – turning “75 years old or young” – on the day he responded to a request for his recollections of the founding of the organization 25 years ago.
“Five to seven of us, mostly early retirees from Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch and Lomb, met at an event at the Industrial Management Council (IMC) and got to talking about the number of early retirements that were occurring and what would be happening over the next few years,” Hedberg recalled. “Most of us were looking to make connections and look into other kind of work or service.”
An organization started to emerge. “We did some strategic planning and put together some information about ourselves. Each of us started to apply our expertise to the newly formed organization called the Rochester Professional Consultants Network (RPCN).” Having worked as an organizational development consultant at Kodak, Hedberg focused on training packages to help those who wanted to go into consulting work. He was very active in the early days. As his business picked up, he slowly phased out of RPCN.
Hedberg has had a lengthy, successful career as a consultant. “Over the past 25 years, I formed, launched and operated my consulting business as Monad Associates and worked as a leadership consultant in the Rochester area,” he said. Nowadays, Hedberg is slowly cutting back on the consulting business. “I’m playing more and more golf, traveling to different places and spending time with family and friends,” he said.
To read the rest of the article, including Hedberg's advice on the key to success and who his gurus are in the leadership field, visit this page on the RPCN website.
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RPCN celebrates 25 years, 1990–2015
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By Dave Bassett, RPCN President
RPCN has been helping people thrive as consultants for 25 years. What were you doing 25 years ago? With the broad diversity of members we have, I’m sure some of you were well established in your careers and some were just starting out. A handful of our members were likely just out of diapers! I was finishing up a master’s degree and getting ready to get my career started.
Thankfully for me (and all RPCN members), one of our recent speakers and long-time members, John Foote, was working with a handful of other former Kodak employees and starting a group we’ve come to know as the Rochester Professional Consultants Network (RPCN).
We have a lot going on this year to celebrate this milestone. The celebration begins this month with Bob Lurz running our third RPCN Consultants Boot Camp, which is a great way to learn and develop skills you’ll need to run your business. See details below.
We’ll follow that up on April 7 with the full-day Small Business Success Conference, designed to help you improve your small business. We have a large roster of speakers, including Dr. Bruce Katcher, author of An Insider’s Guide to Building a Successful Consulting Practice. The topics will be beneficial to consultants and small service businesses. Whether you are just starting out or have been established for many years, our three tracks will provide something both useful and interesting. There also will be several opportunities for sponsorship, advertising and exhibit booths. So there will be many ways that you can attach your business and name to the event to promote your services.
Although all the speakers will be excellent, I’ve got my eye on a few talks to help my business. I’m particularly looking forward to hearing our own Laurie Enos talk about marketing and social media, since I plan to add new marketing channels to my own business this coming spring and that talk will be extremely timely and helpful. Bob Lurz and Barb Moore will expand on a presentation they gave at one of our recent Friday morning meetings which will provide, in a very entertaining context, the right way (and some wrong ways for contrast) to speak with potential clients and define your value to them. Jerry Seward has many tricks and tips that will help you cost-effectively determine what tools you need to set up or update your virtual office. I expect that one will help me improve my efficiency. Having a background in engineering and not directly in sales, I am always interested in hearing new techniques and ideas on closing a sale, so Tracy Jong’s talk on getting clients to “yes” should be very helpful.
We have several large classrooms at MCC and are hoping to fill them all. We’ll need your help to do that. In addition to attending the conference, please help us get the word out to your networks to make this event a smashing success. Use this link for a PDF flyer with more conference information and mark your calendar now. Registration will be available soon. We will also have a dinner with Dr. Katcher on April 6 for those who sign up for the conference and want a chance to spend some additional time with him.
That event will be followed by our RPCN Entrepreneur Wall of Fame Gala on April 21, which will double as our 25th anniversary dinner. We will present five awards that night – see below for details on how to submit your nomination for an award.
With all these activities, plus several others going on behind the scenes, it’s a busy time for RPCN. It’s also fun. If you’d like to help, contact me at president@rochesterconsultants.org or check out the website for the contact info for the particular committee you’re interested in. Please also feel free to contact me with your thoughts on how we’re doing, what you think we’re doing well and what you think we could do better. Thank you for your support!
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RPCN Boot Camp helps you start your business
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 By Bob Lurz
Independent consulting offers a way to be your own boss, leave the hire-fire-job search scene and follow a satisfying career path. If you are planning to start your own consulting business, or want to improve an existing one, sign up now for the RPCN Consulting Business Boot Camp, which starts on Tuesday, February 3, and runs for five weeks at High Tech Rochester. I will lead this series of presentations, workshops and panel discussions.
Ian Cox, a graduate of the 2014 Boot Camp, said: “The key thing for me was that the Boot Camp allowed me to be in an environment of other people attempting to do the same thing, and I learned a lot and accelerated my business by being in that environment. One thousand percent better than sitting at home trying to go through this solo.”
In addition to getting practical advice from experienced consultants on topics ranging from choosing your consulting service, identifying clients and legal issues to marketing strategies and social media, you'll also present your value proposition to a panel of business-savvy evaluators and get immediate feedback.
Highlights of the 2015 Boot Camp include presentations by:
- Mike Riedlinger of High Tech Rochester, who will give an overview of his consulting journey
- Lawyer Jon Lazenby, Esq., who will review the major factors (liability, taxes, etc.) in choosing a legal business entity
- Bruce Katcher, author of the Boot Camp textbook, An Insider’s Guide to Building a Successful Consulting Practice, who will join via Skype with an overview of choosing a business model, marketing and selling
- Workplace Communication Coach Beth Sears, who will talk about managing your image as a consultant
- Strategic Marketing Consultant Deborah Mourey, who will show us how to build business through social media
- A panel of successful consultants, who will reveal marketing methods that work for them
Click here to register now! And for a full day-by-day listing of the presentations and topics, click here.
Questions? Contact Bob Lurz at RFLurz@ConsultantsAccelerator.com or call 585-544-2387.
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Submit your nominations for the RPCN Wall of Fame
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 By Michael Van der Gaag
In our 25 years of existence, RPCN has invited many people, both members and non-members, to present to us on various topics of interest. Some presenters helped us make our businesses better; some gave us hints on how to better present ourselves, be better listeners, better partners, better at what we do. We’ve also had presenters on economic development opportunities, advances in technology, how to use Microsoft Office, marketing, sales, etc.
As part of our celebration of our 25th year, we have decided to create a “Wall of Fame” in honor of all the influencers who have contributed so much to our organization and to our members’ growth. If you have one or more favorite “influencers” (an author, another consultant, an entrepreneur or anyone you think has contributed to your growth or the development of RPCN or the Rochester area), this is YOUR opportunity to influence who we will recognize.
You do not need to be an RPCN member to nominate someone; just tell a good story about why those you nominate deserve to be recognized. Feel free to provide supporting documentation. You can nominate more than one person in one or more of the categories – just fill out a separate form for each nominee.
For 2015, we have identified five categories:
- Consultant’s Consultant
- Community Champion
- Entrepreneur of the Year
- Dave Young Dedicated Service Award
- Linda Halliburton Friend of RPCN Award
To learn more about the qualifications for each category and to access a ballot, use this link for a RPCN Wall of Fame nomination form. Thanks for your participation.
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Where were you 25 years ago?
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By Janice Hanson
As RPCN celebrates its 25th anniversary, we will be including stories from RPCN members about where they were and what they were doing in 1990, when RPCN first started. Here’s one from Steve Royal of Royal Associates (and RPCN webmaster):
“In June of 1990, I celebrated my 26th anniversary of working at Kodak. For all but the previous eight years, I had been directly involved in the manufacture of photographic film. Then, unexpectedly, I was asked to become a facilitator in the supervisory training department. I loved training supervisors on how to deal with everything from difficult people to quality management. I had found a second career. Little did I know in 1990 that I would be leaving Kodak in 1991. In 1990, I trained hundreds of Kodak people in the skills needed to increase productivity and make their lives easier. I also became an expert in training techniques. I didn’t know it, but I was learning how to become a consultant.”
Dave Bassett, president of Bassett IP Strategies and also RPCN president, shared this: “In 1990, I was living in Houston finishing up my MS in chemical engineering at the University of Houston and also working at Texaco.”
To share your story (125 words or less), please email editor@rochesterconsultants.org.
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25 years ago...
In 1990, RPCN had its first meeting as an organization of consultants and the World Wide Web (www), Internet Protocol (HTTP) and WWW language (HTML) were created by Tim Berners-Lee.
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 RPCN Program Chair Michael Van der Gaag gives Rick French a three-month honorary RPCN membership to thank him for his recent presentation.
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We want you!
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The RPCN newsletter welcomes news, success stories, tips, resources, events and other items that would be of broad interest to consultants. Submit a newsletter item by email to the Communication Committee. RPCN members also may write articles for our website; submit articles here. In the newsletter, we'll highlight submitted articles aimed at helping consultants make their businesses better.
If you have newsletter questions or suggestions, or ideas for how RPCN could improve communications, contact the Communication Committee:
Janice Hanson, Chair
Barbara Moore
Ruth E. Thaler-Carter
Steve Royal
Collin Paran
Sheryl Rhodes
Please send articles for the March newsletter by February 15.
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Upcoming events
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RPCN Consulting Business Boot Camp
Led by Bob Lurz
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
8:00 AM - 12:30 PM
High Tech Rochester (HTR), Lennox Tech Center, 150 Lucius Gordon Drive, Henrietta
This is the first of a five-week series of presentations, workshops and panel discussions designed to help you learn how to start and improve your consulting business. Additional sessions on February 10 and 17, 8:30 AM - 12:30 PM and February 24 and March 3, 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM.
Technical Forum
Facilitated by Steve Royal
Friday, February 6, 2015
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Pittsford Community Library
An informal, facilitated roundtable discussion of any technical issues that consultants encounter in running their businesses, including computers, the Internet and phones. Wondering what kind of questions people are asking? For a list from recent forums, click here.
The Domain Name System – What It Is and How It Works
Presented by Jerry Seward
Friday, February 13, 2015
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Brighton Town Hall - Downstairs Meeting Room
Your domain names are your personal “real estate” on the Internet. They brand and define you. Hundreds of new top-level domain names are sprouting up all the time. You need to protect and have full access to your chosen domain names.
Business Forum
Facilitated by Bob Lurz
Friday, February 20, 2015
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Pittsford Community Library
An informal, facilitated roundtable discussion of issues regarding starting or running a consulting business. Wondering what kind of questions people are asking? For a list from recent forums, click here.
RPCN Board Meeting
Friday, February 20, 2015
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Pittsford Community Library
RPCN’s monthly board meeting begins at approximately 10:00 AM, after the Business Forum. Everyone is welcome to attend, but only board members may vote.
Refining Your Business Etiquette
Presented by Cynthia Ely
Friday, February 27, 2015
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Brighton Town Hall - Downstairs Meeting Room
Cynthia Ely of The Refinement Studio will start with meeting etiquette and go on to discuss topics of interest to the audience, such as how do you get a colleague to stop hogging the show, how to clip off those annoying side meetings, and the like. If you have questions you would like to see addressed, please send that to RPCN Program Chair Michael Van der Gaag at programs@rochesterconsultants.org.
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Making your business better
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Hannah Morgan explains how to build a community, find your niche and break through the noise of social media in her recent Democrat & Chronicle blog post Entrepreneurship.
Expanding your repertoire to include new skills – and continually developing and improving those skills – can lead to new opportunities. RPCN member Ruth E. Thaler-Carter writes about her own experience developing a skill in A Love of Editing, a recent “On the Basics” post at her colleague Rich Adin’s An American Editor blog.
In 5 Tips to Creating a Creative Culture in 2015, Sitima Fowler suggests that you challenge rules and policies on a regular basis and embrace quirky ideas. Read her blog post to find more ways to help you take risks.
Building your mailing list, establishing reserve accounts and providing stellar customer service are three of the seven tips Rhonda Abrams lists in Strategies: 7 Tips to Make the Peak Season Last. Read her article to discover the other four tips.
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Super Bowl Ad Review: The Rochester chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA Rochester) gives a play-by-play of Super Bowl ad winners and losers, featuring a lively panel of marketing experts. Tuesday, February 3; 4:30 PM; The Distillery, 3010 Winton Road S., Henrietta, NY. For more information, visit the AMA Rochester website.
Small Business Procurement Opportunities: Certified Business Advisor Carla Vazquez presents a program at the Rochester Central Library on how small businesses can participate in selling to government agencies, procurement resources and more. There will also be a presentation by Paulette Birch of the Monroe County Finger Lakes Procurement Technical Assistance Center. Wednesday, February 4; 10:00 AM: Kate Gleason Auditorium, Central Library, 115 South Avenue, Rochester. For more information, visit the library website.
Winning Strategies for Small Business Marketing: Led by Julian Yudelson, PhD, this workshop is designed to help small business owners understand time-tested marketing principles that can be applied to help you increase revenue. Thursday, February 19; 8:45 AM; Rochester Business Alliance (RBA), 150 State Street, Third Floor, Rochester. For more information, visit the SCORE website.
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