Photos by David Finger

PenFest 2024

PenFest 2024 took place the afternoon of Friday, June 14th, from 4:00 – 8:00 PM. The Rochester Professional Consultants Network (RPCN) Board agreed to participate several weeks ahead of time, and our Marketing Chairperson, Melanie Watson, suggested that we have a plan. David Finger took the lead and offered to sign us up for this event. David F., Dave Bassett, Michael Van der Gaag, Sandy Glanton, and Mark Fling volunteered to participate too, to give our booth adequate coverage.

David Finger participated in this event for RPCN in 2023. He knew some of the things we might need, such as his 10’ x 10’ popup canopy, a small folding table, three 8.5” x 11” standup frames, and a small fishbowl for people to deposit their business cards. These items, the banner stand, and the folding chairs that he and Dave Bassett brought, were welcome additions to our booth. It was a warm sunny afternoon outside on the front lawn of the Penfield Community Recreation Center on Baird Road. Dave Bassett showed up early, so he could help David unload his vehicle and set up. David Finger supplied the picture shown here.

PenFest 2024 was the fourth annual event of this nature. There appeared to be a good turnout. Some of the businesses who were sponsors of the event and were featured on the purple tote bag were:

• Advantage Federal Credit Union
• Dance Connection
• Family First Credit Union
• Lisa’s Liquor Barn
• Bach to Rock
• New York Army National Guard
• The DeLand House on Main
• Out of the Office Services
• Geico’s Local Office
• St. Joseph School

I am unsure how many businesses participated. The Penfield Business Directory that was published for this year’s event and handed out in the tote bags has the information in it about the 2023 PenFest and the names of any new businesses who joined the Penfield Business Chamber since the beginning of 2024.

I was sitting at our table most of the time, greeting individuals and groups of people who stopped by. David Finger, Michael Van der Gaag, and Mark Fling went around to the tables and displays and spoke to many of the vendors, however. They also collected the business cards from the tables they visited.

There were a couple of businesses that stood out in our minds, either due to their proximity to our table or our members’ fascination with their offerings. One was the business selling the Frozen Cheesecake Bars with your choice of topping and drizzle. At least two of us sampled their treats and would recommend them to others.

The other business was the Human Slot Machine at the Penfield Public Library booth. David Finger got to see this one in action and supplied this picture to me.

Although the Rochester Professional Consultants Network (RPCN) is unique in comparison to many of the other businesses represented, I think it would be a valuable experience to attend PenFest 2025 and give RPCN a chance to get this type of exposure in the community. Thank you to all who participated!

—Sandra Glanton

What’s Your “Secret Sauce?” Don’t Hesitate, Differentiate

Your Expertise Isn’t Special Enough

Okay, you’ve started a solo consulting business to use your skills to serve clients. Many consultants possess the same expertise that you have, however.

• One example is Management Consulting. There are over one million Management Consultant practices in the USA.
• Many other consultants specialize in Finance, Process Design, Strategic Planning, Project Management, Coaching, Tech Design, Manufacturing, Sales, Supply Chains, DEI, and on and on.
• Wow! With all those competitors, how can you stand out from the crowd?
• Your “Secret Sauce” is the answer.

Secret Sauce

A famous example is McDonald’s Big Mac and its special sauce. This is one of many ways McDonald’s differentiates itself from competitors.

As a solo consultant, you might think you don’t need a “Secret Sauce.” You do need to clearly differentiate yourself from your competition, however. You must grab the attention of your target clients and get them interested in what you offer. This is especially important because you don’t have the marketing dollar-power to compete with the “Consulting Biggies.” Some call “Secret Sauce” a Unique Value Proposition or Competitive Advantage.

Unique Value

Your Unique Value Proposition might be a service you offer that no one else does, or something you do better than anyone else. It can be one feature or a combination. Whatever it is, you must clearly explain the service to prospects and emphasize its unique benefits. A key point: You might think you have a great Secret Sauce, but make sure that your target clients see the value to them.

Examples

Three real-life RPCN Secret Sauces:

• Overnight Service: A Graphic Designer presented at RPCN. He offered Overnight Turnaround for small projects. It’s something most entrepreneurs are unwilling to do. But, depending on your expertise and type of project, you could organize yourself and your resources to deliver results much faster than your competitors.
• Personal Chef Service: A member of RPCN provided meals for busy people. She took meal orders and purchased the food. She cooked, prepared, and packaged custom meals, then put them in her clients’ refrigerators, which is a personal touch unlike the grocery chains.
• Consulting Business Boot Camp: Through RPCN member interviews and surveys, we discovered a learning gap for startup consultants. I helped RPCN organize, design, and present a 5-week, 40-hour RPCN training program to help consultants get started. My Secret Sauce was that I focused on solo consulting. Part of the “Sauce” was a unique blend of targeted topics, highly experienced presenters, participant role-playing, and participants presenting their Value Proposition. The Consulting Boot Camp supplemented basic business training available at SCORE and SBDC. We did seven successful boot camps over nine years until the COVID pandemic.

Action

I hope I’ve ignited your desire to find or develop your Secret Sauce. Don’t hesitate, because your competition is working on theirs. Go forth and differentiate.

Benefits of Engaging with Social Media Posts

It is important to engage with social media posts and here are some of the reasons why.

Making or Strengthening Social Connections

• Liking posts can be a simple way to acknowledge and connect with others who share your interests. It's a virtual nod that says, "Hey, I see you and I like what you posted!" This can be especially helpful for those who feel socially isolated or geographically distant from like-minded people.
• Commenting allows you to go beyond a simple "like" and engage in a conversation with the person who posted or the other commenters. This can lead to deeper connections and a stronger sense of community, especially when discussing shared interests. Exchanging thoughtful comments fosters a sense of reciprocity and can help build genuine relationships with people online.
• Sharing content that you find interesting or valuable can spark conversations and connect you with people who share similar interests. It fosters a sense of community and belonging, especially for those who might feel isolated.

Building Authority and Credibility

• A “like” can be a way to express your opinion on a post without writing a comment. For example, liking a post about a relevant subject or event shows you’re in the loop and keeping abreast of things.
• Well-informed and insightful comments can position you as a thought leader and solidify your understanding of a topic. Explaining something to others often requires a deeper comprehension of the subject yourself. This can be beneficial if you're looking to build your personal brand or establish yourself as an expert in a specific area.
• Sharing content can also lead to discussions and new perspectives. When you share thought-provoking content, it can spark conversations and expose you to different viewpoints, leading to further learning and growth.

Giving Back and Making a Difference

• Liking posts in a group or community setting can foster a sense of belonging and be a source of micro-validations that what is important to others is also important to you.
• Engaging in discussions can also lead to collaborative learning, helping to increase the collective understanding of a subject.
• Sharing positive or inspirational content can uplift not only yourself but also others who see your post. Sharing a tip or a motivational quote might resonate with someone who needed a pick-me-up that day.

—Bob Manard

RPCN Technical Forum

As mentioned in last month’s newsletter, we’ve been thinking of making some changes to the Tech Forum as we kick off our new program year in July 2024. I don’t expect we’ll ever move away from the Tech Forum’s primary focus of helping our members and guests get answers to their technology questions, but we thought we might make the Tech Forum a more valuable resource to our members and guests with some tweaks to it.  To that end, we ended the June Tech Forum with a brainstorming session for ideas on things we might add to it or change it.

Some of the ideas that were brought up for consideration were:

• Starting the forum with a short update on technology in the news
• Including a segment where our participants talk about the technology they’ve recently started using
• Having a program for the 2nd half of the forum
• Having an occasional full-session program about a particular technology-related topic
• Giving individuals an opportunity to submit topics prior to the meeting and then advertising which topics have been preselected to discuss
• Resuming the practice of publishing the questions that were answered in the Tech Forum on the RPCN website
• Including a segment where our participants can tell us about the cheats, or life hacks, they’ve come up with to make the technology they use even more effective for them
• Possibly having a “look back in time” segment to talk about the technology we were using five, 10, 20, or X years ago and see how far things have come in a fairly short time
• Having a theme to what we discuss in a particular month; e.g. one month the focus is on phone-related issues, another it is on laptop/desktop-related issues, and another month the focus is on a particular type of software
• Discussing the pros and cons of a particular phone provider (say Verizon) one month and then a different one (say Sprint) the next month, and so on and so forth

If any of these ideas strike your fancy as something you’d be interested in seeing included in the Tech Forum on either a full-time or occasional basis, please let us know. If you have some other idea that wasn’t covered in the brainstorming session, we’d love to know what your idea is.

There will not be a Tech Forum in July, since we expect most of our members will be enjoying the Independence Day holiday weekend. The Tech Forum will be back on August 2nd at 8 am, both live and in person at the Al Sigl Center and virtually via Zoom.  Please plan on joining us to see what changes we’ll be implementing AND to get your technology questions answered.

As stated earlier, if you didn’t attend the June 7th meeting or your ideas aren’t reflected here, we’d love to get your thoughts on what we came up with on how to build on what we’ve had in the Tech Forum for the past 30 years. Please send your thoughts and ideas to TechForum@rochesterconsultants.org.  We hope you had a great 4th of July weekend!

—Dave Bassett