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By Dave Bassett, RPCN President
 I hope everyone’s holidays went well and I wish you a prosperous new year. We ended the year with a holiday dinner party at the Towpath Café that was well attended and quite festive. It was capped with the presentation of the Linda Halliburton Dedicated Service award to three extremely friendly and helpful colleagues from the Rochester Public Library’s Business and Social Sciences Division – Linda Halliburton, Carolyn Johnson and Jennifer Byrnes. These three have been tremendous friends of RPCN for many years and great advocates for us. I look forward to seeing and working with them in the coming year. We also were treated to the musical talents of our very own Janice Hanson and her husband Craig.
(Photo by Janice Hanson. View more photos on the RPCN Facebook page.)
2015 should be an exciting year for RPCN as we are now officially celebrating our 25th anniversary. We have many events planned for the coming year. It starts off in February and March with the third class of the RPCN Consulting Business Boot Camp, which will run every Tuesday in February and the first Tuesday in March. If you sign up by January 16, you can get an early-bird discount on attendance.
We’ll follow that up on April 7 with a full-day conference to help you improve your small business. We have a large roster of speakers and will present topics that will be beneficial to consultants and 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 and promote your business and name at the event.
That will be followed by our 25th anniversary dinner on April 21. We’ll be introducing our RPCN Entrepreneur Wall of Fame and handing out five awards that night. We need you to make nominations. Click here to open a PDF of the nomination form. Nominations will be accepted through March. Details about the award and a web-based nomination form will be posted on the RPCN website at a later date. We hope to have a couple more surprises lined up for that night, so be sure to check the newsletter for details in the coming months.
We will also hold another TrendTalk in the late spring. The focus of this one will be the public sector/local government. Our first two TrendTalks went very well and we expect this one to be just as informative and fun.
We expect to end the 2014–2015 program year with a canal boat ride in the early summer.
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, we’d love to have you contribute. All of our committees are actively looking for volunteers to help out. To get involved, just check out the website for the contact info for the particular committee you’re interested in or contact me at president@rochesterconsultants.org.
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. The members are the lifeblood of RPCN, and we look forward to your enthusiasm and continued participation. Thank you for your support!
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Early discount deadline extended for RPCN Consulting Business Boot Camp
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By Bob Lurz
The $50 discount for early registration to the 2015 RPCN Consulting Business Boot Camp has been extended through January 16, 2015. Join RPCN when you register and save another $70. The Boot Camp starts on Tuesday, February 3, and runs for five weeks at High Tech Rochester.
As advertised, the Boot Camp is a unique set of presentations, workshops and panel discussions. The major focus is on helping you understand the service you provide, the clients you serve, the value you bring to your clients and how to market yourself as a consultant.
Highlights of the 2015 Boot Camp will 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 to overview 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
The Boot Camp high point will occur when participants present their value propositions to a panel of evaluators and get immediate expert feedback.
Click here to register now! And for a full day-by-day listing of the presentations and topics, click here.
Questions? Contact Bob Lurz, leader, RPCN Consulting Business Boot Camp at RFLurz@ConsultantsAccelerator.com or call 585-544-2387.
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RPCN founding member Bob Boser found business value in membership
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Interview by David Powe; writing by Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, RPCN Communication Committee
 Bob Boser, one of the founding RPCN members, recalls that “RPCN grew out of a Kodak reduction in force. Several professionals left together with the idea of building a business with their professional skills. They realized that they did not have all of the requisite skills and decided to work together to build those skills. The intent was to learn together, network and provide a supportive environment for each other.”
No longer a consultant, Boser is currently director of Business Excellence at Janssen Supply Group, LLC (part of Johnson & Johnson) in the Greater Philadelphia Area.
Being involved with RPCN helped Boser in his career in a number of ways. “It taught me simple communication skills for business,” he said. “In the early days of email, with no websites or social media, I learned collaboration and RPCN provided a support network. It taught me about business structure.”
To read the rest of the article, including his advice for today’s RPCN members, visit this page on the RPCN website.
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Where were you 25 years ago?
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By Janice Hanson
As RPCN celebrates its 25th anniversary, we are planning to include stories from RPCN members in upcoming newsletters about where they were and what they were doing in 1990, when RPCN first started. To share your story (125 words or less), please email editor@rochesterconsultants.org. I will get it started:
In 1990, I started work as office manager for the renowned landscape architect Dan Kiley, whose office was in a renovated farmhouse just south of Burlington, Vermont. A colleague of architects Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei and Richard Meier, he was quite a character. I remember asking him when I interviewed what kind of job security there was, and he replied, “None!” But he did take care of his employees. A few years later, when he closed the office and laid everyone off, I took the time while on unemployment to decide what I really wanted to do, and ended up working in marketing at a performing arts center, which led to a career in marketing, editing, and proofreading.
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Making your business better
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According to RPCN member Tracey Aiello, hiring older workers often pays off as they choose personal satisfaction over career advancement and do not often jump ship when a higher-paying job comes along. Tracey's article "Choose Seasoned Employees" was selected by the Democrat and Chronicle for a Nextpert column. Click here to view a PDF of the story.
What's on your list of must-read books for starting a business? Check to see if any of your titles made it on this list: 5 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read.
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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit...”
– Aristotle
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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 February newsletter by January 15.
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Upcoming events
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Technical Forum
Facilitated by Steve Royal
Friday, January 2, 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.
Annual Tax Update Seminar
Presented by John Foote, Expert Tax Group
Friday, January 9, 2015
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Brighton Town Hall - Downstairs Meeting Room
In this presentation about federal and state tax law changes, you will learn how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) affects consultant businesses, key tax details for consultants for 2015 and how recent congressional actions affect consultants. He will also talk about retirement options for consultants, and offer tax tips.
Business Forum
Facilitated by Bob Lurz
Friday, January 16, 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, January 16, 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.
Living Authentically: A Business Strategy
Presented by Rick French
Friday, January 23, 2015
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Brighton Town Hall - Downstairs Meeting Room
Take part in an interactive and stimulating conversation about using your passion and your authentic self to be more fully alive and effective in your work and life. This is an exploration of how to more closely tie what we do with what we believe. Adventurer and mountain climber Rick French of Pack, Paddle, Ski – who leads treks to Mount Everest and Kilimanjaro – will share how to tap into passion in what you do, the importance of being present in your work and the importance of fun (or, if it’s not fun, why do it?).
Click here to hear him talk about his upcoming presentation in a video recorded at High Falls.
RPCN “Surprise Thursday” Social
Thursday, January 29, 2015
6:00 PM
Location TBD
There is no RPCN meeting on Friday, January 30, the fifth Friday of the month, so if you are beside yourself for what to do, or want to get to know your RPCN colleagues in a more informal setting, come to this social gathering (location TBD). Cost is $5, with appetizers provided; cash bar. Bring friends, colleagues or clients.
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Marketing with the Internet of Things: IoT (the Internet of Things) is a hot topic in the news, but is it really affecting consumer behavior? From a marketer’s perspective, we need to understand how these devices will change our lives and how we can use them to reach consumers in unique ways. Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 7:30 AM; Rochester Museum and Science Center. For more information, visit the Digital Rochester website.
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RPCN welcomes the following new members.
George Vito
Deborah Pearce
Not an RPCN member? You can join the RPCN now to receive great benefits, including free admission to RPCN presentations, a listing in the RPCN Member Directory and discounts to RPCN events such as the conference and TrendTalk. Click here to join the RPCN.
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