A monthly newsletter from the Rochester Professional Consultants Network.
From the RPCN President:
Good Morning RPCN members!!
It’s time to rock and roll, everyone, and I’m very proud and grateful that you have chosen me as your fearless leader. My hope is that I will serve you and our organization well for the next year.
First, I’d like to give a great big THANK YOU and shout out to our immediate past president, Joyce Curran. Thank you for all the work that you did behind the scenes to move our organization forward, Joyce! It has been great getting to know you better personally and professionally.
Next, I’d like to congratulate our Vice President, Devin Floyd! Welcome to the club, Devin. Together I know we can lead this organization the way it needs to be lead so that it grows both within our community and outside in the world.
To RPCN members, YOU are why this organization exists. We can not function without you. We NEED you. We need you to come and attend our events, we need you to give a presentation and showcase your superpowers, skills, and business, and we need you to get involved in any way you feel comfortable.
One of my missions is to get more people involved in our organization on some level, because not only do many hands make light work but because you get out of the organization what you put into it.
Can’t commit to a committee? No problem – would you be willing to help us promote our events and our organization in your everyday conversations? Talk to us, we’ll give you some talking points, ideas on what to say, etc. Would you be willing to make phone calls and contact members to invite them to an event, or simply to check in on them? If you are willing to donate time and a little effort, we’ve got a task for you – just see me.
My theme for this year is all about Connection. I don’t want to just communicate with you – I want to connect with you. Tell me what you want to see in this organization. What events are we not having that would appeal to you? How can we better serve you as a consultant or service business?
I warn you; I WILL listen to everyone’s input – you all have a voice. However, I will only seriously consider the input when it is given to me with a solution that you are willing to assist with.
Notice I said, “assist”. You don’t have to fix it; you don’t have to do all the work; I’m just urging you to do something. Don’t want to make presentations about RPCN because you are shy? No problem. Would you be willing to introduce us to your organization and we can find someone else to do the presentation?
Or would you be willing to call organizations, like chambers, etc. to try to set something up with those that might want to hear from us? I can help you do that to help us.
Ask not what RPCN can do for you, ask what you can do for RPCN.
Connect with me online, I’m on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. Send me an email at tamara@nowdigitalmarketing.us. Book some time with me on my calendar for coffee – I’d love to get to know you. If I can help you, please let me know.
Join RPCN for a night at a Red Wings game on Wednesday, July 31, 2019. Game time is 7:05 p.m.
If you’d like to do some networking with RPCN members prior to the game, we’re meeting at 6:15 p.m. at the picnic tables at the end of the food concourse on the First Base side of the stadium
The cost is $15 per person for Premium seats (closest to the field). Click here to register.
Ticket sales close on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, at the end of the day. NO LATE TICKETS WILL BE SOLD (RED WING POLICY)!
Enhancing Human Capital Event Review
We held the 5th RPCN Enhancing Human Capital (EHC) Lunch-n-Learn on Thursday, June 20 at 11:30 AM at the Five Mile Café in Penfield. Our topic was Building Trust with Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits. We had over a dozen attendees including two non-members and three first time attendees. The discussion was lively and centered around trust and how to understand others better with special focus paid to Covey’s 5th Habit – “Seek First to Understand … Then to be Understood.” We focused on how empathic listening is essential in helping to build trust within a team. The discussion continued into how, by building trust with our colleagues, we can move from viewing them perhaps as competitors or vendors to accepting them as collaborators who may bring skills that allow us to win more challenging, satisfying, and lucrative projects. We also discussed how we can use EHC and Covey’s Habits to gain a better understanding of our clients’ needs and goals and let us “get to yes.”
To get more information about EHC, please contact the EHC team at EHC@rochesterconsultants.org or join us on July 24 at 11:30 (location TBD, please check the RPCN website for location) for the sixth in our continuing series of Lunch-n-Learns.
RPCN Mentors Helped Simon School With Another Successful Simon Vision Consulting Program
RPCN has been supplying mentors to Simon Vision Consulting teams at the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business (Simon) for the past 3 semesters. The Simon Vision program is an effort to increase experiential learning opportunities for Simon’s MBA and MS students. It is a student-run program that has a 4-5 member student team that provides consulting to (typically) a local small business for 8 - 12 weeks (one semester). After the 12 week period is over, Simon may have another student consulting team take over another project for the same company.
Participation in the program is voluntary for the students and is not part of the regular Simon curriculum. There are a couple of faculty advisors who help the students run the program. RPCN supplied mentors to eight student teams in the Spring ’19 semester to help the teams stay focused and complete their project goals. Mentors helped teams serve companies in a wide range of specialties including Food and Beverage Services, Personal Care, Health Care, Marketing and Branding, and Real Estate Management.
Due to the success of the program, Simon and RPCN plan to continue the program this Fall. We are anticipating that up to 15 student teams will be looking for mentors to help with projects, primarily in marketing, general management (financial/accounting planning, etc.) or possibly operations management. There may be additional areas of expertise that the teams are looking for depending on need.
If you have an interest in helping Simon fulfill its motto (where thinkers become leaders!) and also have experience in marketing, general management, operations, or even consulting in general (and we are the Rochester Professional Consultants Network, so you should be good there!) please let us know and we will add you to the mentorship roster. For the Fall program, we are looking for up to 20 RPCN members who would be available to meet with students biweekly over the 8 - 12-week project term.
We are also looking for additional RPCN members who could provide specific subject matter expertise should the student teams require it. We are anticipating that the program will begin at the end of September and the projects would begin soon thereafter. The target for project completion is the end of November. Last semester the project managers met with their teams for about an hour 2-5 times. We anticipate that project managers would meet with their teams 3-6 times (most likely 4-5 times) this semester so the time commitment on the part of project managers should only be about 10-20 hours over the course of the semester. We’ll be sending out a call for mentors in late August or early September; so please be on the lookout for that.
Are you making a presentation or leading a workshop? Are you aware of a presentation that would be valuable to other consultants? Have you written an article to be used in a local publication? Are you aware of a consulting job looking for an expert?
If you can relate to any of these questions or know of some other event or publication of interest to consultants AND if you are a member of RPCN, you can publicize it on the RPCN website.
Start by logging in, and then let your cursor hover over “MEMBERS ONLY” from the main menu. Choose “Opportunities for Consultants.” A screen will come up that will let you create your own opportunity topic.
Click on “Create Topic.” Your name appears at the top. Below it, enter the subject of your opportunity. Then click on the box below the shaded area. Write your text here. This is much like writing an email or a Word document. The options for bold, font, italic, left, center, and right, etc. are all there. Images are not an option here.
There is also an icon for “link.” It looks a bit like a backward S. If you want to link some text to a website, highlight the text you want. Next, click on the “link” icon. Then “Insert Link.” A box will appear where, in the upper left corner, there is a place to enter the URL for the link. You can also enter an email address.
When you have completed the text and links, go to the bottom of the box, where there is an option to “Insert Link.” Click on it and your opportunity is published. All members (who have subscribed to this option) will receive notification the following day that your opportunity is available for viewing.
Not taking advantage of this member-only feature would be a “missed opportunity.”
RocGrowth Candids
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
3 City Center
FREE. Register to attend.
New books in the RPCN library:
Barnes, Jeffrey A. Beyond the wisdom of Walt – life lessons from the most magical place on Earth. Success strategies for dreamers and doers. 2017
Barnes, Jeffrey A. The Wisdom of Walt – Leadership lessons from the happiest place on Earth. Success strategies for everyone. 2015
Bywater, Liz. Slow Down to speed up – lead, succeed, and thrive in a 24/7 world. Human resource management and organizational behavior collection. 2018
Chan, James. Spare room tycoon – succeeding independently. The 70 lessons of sane self-employment. 2000
Gebhardt, Linda M. Having it all or not – Goals, Plans, and Messages work! A thrilling story of why having a plan works better than not having a plan, 2018
Healey, Stephen J. Mid-life re-creation – how to escape corporate or unemployment hell and create prosperity with passion, purpose and honorable profit! 2011
Hemphill, Paul L. Why you’re already a leader. Gettysburg stories that prove leadership is in your DNA. 2006
Mager, Robert F. Preparing instructional objectives, 2nd ed. 1984
Schuster, Randy. The Power of habits – how to become a rainmaker. 2004
Sukenick, Ron. 21 days to success with LinkedIn – business social networking the Gnik Rowten way. 2015
Marketing for consultants:
Attorneyatwork.com is a must-read for solo practitioners and firms of all sizes. Whether you are a first-year associate or the managing partner, you can learn something new from every issue.
A recent issue included: Stepping up to marketing success – Volunteering to help a partner or be a fill-in could give you great exposure, by Sally J. Schmidt.
This article is applicable in any industry – but especially to consultants.
Would you like to promote your business at RPCN meetings? You can do this by sponsoring an RPCN meeting. As a meeting sponsor, you will choose a Friday to bring donuts (or other morning goodies) for 30 people to the RPCN meeting of your choosing. RPCN will provide the coffee (included in your fee).
Benefits of being a Meeting Sponsor:
• The sponsor will get up to 3 minutes to talk about your business to the audience before the presentation starts at the RPCN meeting.
• Your logo will be on display at the refreshment table to acknowledge your sponsorship.
• Your logo will be displayed on the page of the event that you choose to sponsor. Your logo will have a link back to your website.
• With enough advance notice, we will also place your logo on the RPCN calendar ad sheet next to the date you chose. The RPCN calendar ad sheet is distributed to all attendees at each of our weekly meetings.
Click here to register at least 2 weeks prior to the date you want to sponsor.
Program Ad Sheets
At every RPCN meeting, and at our events and tradeshow booths, RPCN distributes the Program Ad sheets.
Ads are inexpensive and support RPCN. The cost for members to advertise is $20 for 2 months. For non-members, the cost is $40 for 2 months. The deadline to get your ad included in the September/October 2019 calendar ad sheet is August 16, 2019. Sign up for your ad here.
Not an RPCN member? You can join RPCN now to receive great benefits, including free admission to RPCN presentations, a listing in the RPCN Member Directory, and discounts to RPCN events. Click here for more information on joining RPCN.
We want your news!
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 to newsletter@rochesterconsultants.org for inclusion.
It’s time to rock and roll, everyone, and I’m very proud and grateful that you have chosen me as your fearless leader. My hope is that I will serve you and our organization well for the next year.
RPCN has been supplying mentors to Simon Vision Consulting teams at the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business (Simon) for the past 3 semesters. The Simon Vision program is an effort to increase experiential learning opportunities for Simon’s MBA and MS students. It is a student-run program that has a 4-5 member student team that provides consulting to (typically) a local small business for 8 - 12 weeks (one semester). After the 12 week period is over, Simon may have another student consulting team take over another project for the same company.
