How RPCN Helps My Consulting Career

RPCN provides many opportunities for networking, learning, and mutual support. One example of this is volunteering for RPCN committees and projects. It’s a powerful way to build trust and showcase our talents as we get to know and interact with members. Volunteering can also help build our networks and reputations beyond RPCN.

With RPCN’s help, I’ve started and built two consulting businesses in the past. They are: Mentoring People to Start a Consulting Business and Facilitating Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Boards. Here are ways that RPCN's involvement helped my consulting career.

Business Forum

This is one of the major RPCN benefits where we learn from each other. I founded the Business Forum to give members and guests opportunities to ask questions of the assembled group in a “safe” environment. The 20-plus attendees focus their brainpower, skills, and knowledge to help one another. The Forum is a valuable RPCN recruiting tool.

Facilitating Business Forum discussions among many diverse individuals sharpens my skills, knowledge, and insight. This makes me more effective as I mentor consultants and facilitate strategic planning.

Consulting Business Bootcamp

I believe that RPCN is a Consultants Business Incubator. This concept resulted in the first Consulting Business Bootcamp in 2012. We held six more Bootcamps through 2022.

The 2012 Boot Camp stretched and rewarded me in many ways.

• I interviewed local Business Incubator Leaders about the Consultants Incubator concept. I gained insight into their operations and made influential contacts.
• People seeking consultants would contact me and ask if I knew RPCN members who could satisfy their needs. I became “that RPCN Consultants Guy” in my network, which was great for RPCN and for me.
• The Bootcamp boosted my reputation. Leaders at High Tech Rochester (HTR, which is now NextCorps) and The Entrepreneurs Network (TEN) encouraged me to start a mentoring business for startup consultants.
• I started my “Consultants Accelerator” to help people build their skills into a consulting business. I was invited to be the first HTR Affiliate Member to receive mentoring for my business. The Bootcamps provided one source for my “Accelerator” clients.

RPCN Strategic Planning

As RPCN President, I introduced Strategic Planning to our Board. I learned how to guide nonprofit Boards to understand their Mission (why they exist), their Vision (where they want to take the organization), and their Strategic Objectives (how to achieve goals).

I also learned that volunteers have unique motivations. They must receive personal value for volunteering. This helped me facilitate strategy sessions for other boards, for example,  Rotary, Coach University, and the Greater Rochester Quality Council.

RPCN helps members to be successful

RPCN can help your career. Volunteer, build trust, and help keep RPCN and yourself successful. Contact RPCN President, Mark Fling, for information about volunteering.

—Bob Lurz

Enhancing Human Capital^SM (EHC^SM)
Lunch-n-Learn Updates

Last Month's Lunch-n-Learn

The corporate world has evolved into a system that practices the exploitation and depletion of their employees and the workforce. This approach can no longer sustain itself.

Instead, companies should be focused on developing and strengthening the workforce. This different approach will lead to environments where employees can thrive and enjoy their jobs.

In September’s Lunch-n-Learn, Devin K. Floyd posed the question, “What are some innovative ways companies can develop and strengthen the workforce?”

• We started out by defining ‘the workforce,’ then we shared examples that people have seen put into practice.
• We then brainstormed new practices that companies, no matter their size, can adopt.

Upcoming Lunch-n-Learn

Oct 19th, 2023 – “Trust & Inspire,“ facilitated by Robert Lewis

During EHC’s October Lunch & Learn session, Bob Lewis will lead us on a journey to explore some central concepts from Stephen M.R. Covey’s new book Trust & Inspire. He begins with these thoughts:

“Stephen M.R. Covey offers an alternative to command-and-control leadership, Trust & Inspire. Covey explains how this approach aligns with modern sensitivities and fulfills the pressing need for effective corporate management.”

In the October 2023, session of Lunch & Learn, Bob Lewis will help us explore some fundamental Covey Concepts, such as:

• Begin with an abundance versus a scarcity mentality.
• Valuing and celebrating our differences as our greatest source of strength and innovation.

This session will ask us to explore these topics and answer these questions:

• Can we figure out how to put that to work by ourselves?
• What if we really put some thought into behaving like that at work?

RPCN’s Enhancing Human Capital^SM Lunch-n-Learns are held via Zoom on the third  Thursday of every month, 11:30 am – 1 p.m. ET. Please join us for the next event, FREE of charge. To get more information about EHC^SM, please see https://RochesterConsultants.org/EHC , or email the EHC team.

Changes to Your RPCN LinkedIn Group

Recently, the status of the Rochester Professional Consultants Network Group changed so that when you post or share some professional advice or small business insight, it now can be discovered by the LinkedIn world. Previously, it was kept just between the LinkedIn Group Members.

This gives you the opportunity to repost your industry tips and knowledge and increases the possibility of more people discovering you and your expertise.

• There is no limit on how much advice and knowledge you can post or share, but we are restricting direct promotions of everyone’s services and/or events.
• Our objective is to create a vibrant area where discussions evolve as happens in our Business and Tech Forums.
• Our goal is to reach 1,000 group members, which is easily attainable if we all contribute to the many aspects of owning and running a consulting or professional services business.
• Very few LinkedIn groups provide this kind of direct education for this audience. Once we gain that kind of interest and participation, we will likely see a marked increase in our events as well as membership.

NOTE: We still restrict posting to only the LinkedIn Group Members. So, if you’re not already a member of our group, click the name (link) above and then click on JOIN. There is no fee to belong to this group and remember that it is a separate entity from your RPCN Membership.

Grow yourself and RPCN by participating.

—Tom Fecteau, Membership Chair

RPCN Video

Watch the introductory video here.

Upcoming RPCN Events

Visit the RPCN website for a list of all upcoming events.

Staying Positive Through Trying Times
Presented by Nancy Roberts
In-Person or Virtually
Friday, October 13, 2023
8:00 - 9:30 a.m.

Enhancing Human Capital Lunch N' Learn
Topic: Exploring Leadership in a World Where There’s
Enough for Everyone
Thursday, October 19, 2023
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Business Forum
In-Person or Virtually
Friday, October 20, 2023
8:00 - 9:30 a.m. 

RPCN Board Meeting
Everyone is welcome to attend.
In-Person or Virtually
Friday, October 20, 2023
10:00 - 11:30 a.m.

Stopping Scammers in Their Tracks
Presented by David Finger
In-Person or Virtually
Friday, October 27, 2023
8:00 - 9:30 a.m.

RPCN Holiday Party!
Joe Gatt's Restaurant, Penfield
Thursday, December 7, 2023
6:30 - 9:00 p.m.

Did You Know?
How to Find a Consultant on the RPCN website

There are many reasons that individuals may look at the RPCN website for consultants.

1. Many visitors to the website want to find the name, phone number, or email address of a particular consultant.
2. They could also be looking for someone with a particular skill set to assist them in their business. Maybe they need advice from an expert in a field in which they are not an expert.

Whatever the reason, the RPCN website provides an easy way to solve the problem.

At the top of every web page, there is a Find a Consultant option.

1. Click on it and a white box labeled Business Focus Search is displayed. Clicking on this box will provide a list of all of the business areas in which RPCN members are involved.
2. Click on any one of them and a list of all RPCN members who have listed that business focus in their profile is displayed.
3. The profiles displayed make it easy to contact any one of those consultants who are listed.

Further down on that same web page where you found the white box labeled Business Focus Search is a search box preceded by three choices.

1. You can use the search box to search by Name, Company, or Key terms/phrases.
2. Whatever it is you are looking for, enter it in the search box and the appropriate RPCN member or members will be displayed.

The Find a Consultant search function should also be important to YOU.

• What if someone is looking for help in an area where YOU are an expert?
• What if your RPCN Profile is not complete or up to date. What then?
• You, your expertise, your business, and money are all going to be missed. You may never know that because your profile doesn’t do a good job of describing you and your business, and you are not found when someone needs you.

The Find a Consultant search function is a powerful tool to help others and to help yourself. Use it wisely!

—Steve Royal

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