Keynote speakers
When substance matters, BrainTrust works to secure the best speaker for your audience. We have an impressive and growing list of speakers available directly through our speakers bureau. Or we can tap our vast network of business and community leaders, subject-matter experts, educators, and inspirational personalities.

Lunch-and-learns, seminars and CEU programs
Many of our speakers offer educational sessions designed to meet the rigorous educational requirements of accrediting and licensing organizations. BrainTrust works with speakers on your behalf to ensure delivery of sessions that meet your learning objectives — whether it’s a member association workshop, employee lunch-and-learn, or a professional seminar for continuing education credit.

Speaker procurement
For special invitation speakers, tap into the BrainTrust / Weaver Stephens Group network of business and community leaders, subject-matter experts, and inspirational personalities. We have decades of experience and connections in the Atlanta business community.

Custom-designed roundtables and panel discussions
BrainTrust founder and principal Erica Stephens designed and moderated successful editorial roundtables and event panel discussions during her tenure as an editor with the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Great public conversations begin with bright, articulate thought leaders who bring diverse perspectives to the table — and a talented moderator to keep the conversation lively and engaging.

Live and on-demand webinars
Weaver Stephens Group offers full-service webinar consulting: content development, direct marketing, technical training, and production.

Custom presentation graphics and content development
When you want style and substance, BrainTrust editorial writers and graphic designers work together to create beautiful presentation materials that tell a compelling story. We specialize in technical and editorial graphics that reinforce — rather than overpower — your message.

I saw her a few weeks after making the change and asked how she was doing. “Well,” she replied with a smile, “you’d be so proud of me. I took a vacation with my family. I do not go to the office every day. As a matter of fact, I have not been to the office for three straight days.”

“That’s great,” I said, genuinely happy for her.

“No,” she said, “it’s not. I haven’t slept a wink since.”

Engineers, architects and contractors don’t erect a building without a site plan. Surgeons don’t cut into a patient until exhausting every relevant medical test and scan to understand what they face. Transferring your business to top employees requires just as much assessment and due diligence – commonly referred to as a feasibility study.

The feasibility study should review the current situation and assess what it will take to hand off your roles and responsibilities without adversely impacting the business – or you. Consider the following:

• What are your roles and responsibilities today? Which ones do you like and not like? (Most owners hold on to responsibilities they like.)
• What are each of the top employee’s strengths and weaknesses?
• Among your top employees, who aspires to be the next CEO?
• Are there any holes or weaknesses in your management team today? If yes, how will the holes be filled?
• How will other employees, customers, suppliers and lenders react to a transition? What can you start doing now to assure a smooth transition?
• Under what circumstances will you comfortably transfer strategic control of the business?

Innies (owners who intend to pass their business on to an internal group of employees) must address these issues very early in the game. Your team may not be ready, willing and able to buy your business today. Perhaps one or two key positions need to be filled, or you don’t have a successor CEO within the group. One or more major obstacles usually surface when the transition begins. Start planning now, and you can sleep like a baby later.

Technorati Tags: Exit Planning, Retirement Planning, White Horse Advisors

By Claire Kurtz, The Well-Organized Woman

Do you remember your 2009 New Year’s resolutions? Did you stick to them? If you answered yes, you are in the minority. If you answered no, don’t be discouraged. Most resolutions fall by the wayside because we are not adequately prepared to fulfill them. We set ourselves up for failure by thinking that simply resolving to achieve some life-changing goal is enough.

The successful pursuit of any goal or resolution depends on organization. While organization cannot itself fulfill a goal, it provides the necessary framework that you can fall back on again and again when willpower and desire wane. So many of us burst out of the gate in January only to fall short of our goals by March, perhaps it is time for everyone to collectively try some “baby-stepping” to pursue our goals.

Read more: http://www.atlantaintownpaper.com/2010/01/online-exclusive-make-your-new-years-resolutions-stick/

Jon Ford, CFP^®, is owner of CF Financial Planning Solutions Inc. in Mesa, Arizona. He writes a regular “Financial Fundamentals” column for the Cedar Falls Times in Iowa.

Read this book! Dance in the End Zone should be on the bookshelf of every financial planner. It’s about how to stop doing business; and unfortunately many financial planners are considering getting out of the business as a result of the economic crisis. In addition to being a profession occupied by older practitioners, recent sampling discovered that asset managers expect it will take four to seven years to recover from the financial meltdown. Many have neither the time nor the patience in such an economic and political landscape and are looking for an escape route.

Read more…

“I’m tired,” he shared during the meeting, and he looked it.

Jeremy had sold his business three years earlier to his long-time minority owner Dale. Dale had tried his best to carry on the business, but Dale either was not prepared or not capable. Dale fell so far behind in the payments that he was forced to return the business to Jeremy. Now Jeremy was rebuilding just to get the business back in the black, and he had no idea how long it would be before he could try to exit again.

Employees usually have little cash and little ability to raise cash on their own. Innies (business owners who plan to exit by selling to employees) usually need to help their employees buy the business, either by taking paper at sale (commonly called owner financing), pledging the business as collateral against a loan, or both. The risks are clear. If the business falters after exit, the employees (who have become the owners) may be unable fulfill their obligations. If the business fails, financial freedom and the business legacy may be lost.

A low or zero Exit Magic Number (the value one must extract from the business in order to achieve financial freedom) reduces financial dependency on the business, which increases the flexibility to balance an owner’s wishes against the business’s capacity. For example, if an owner wants to sell to employees, but that owner has relatively little wealth outside of the business, he probably needs to get paid a large amount up front. This strains the company’s cash flow, potentially to the breaking point. With some wealth outside the business prior to exit, one is free to consider options that accommodate the business’ financial resources. Reducing taxes can reduce default risk because fewer dollars are sent to the government. An orderly transfer of control potentially smoothes transitions and increases everyone’s confidence of success.

Technorati Tags: Default Risk, Exit Planning, Retirement Planning, White Horse Advisors

The New Four P’s of Marketing – Pharmaceutical Executive

Until relatively recently, pharmaceutical marketers “owned” the relationship with the Four P’s: product, placement, price, and promotion. It was straightforward: Develop a product, place it through a direct-to-physician distribution channel, set the price, and promote it via high-dollar physician events.

But these P’s have shifted their nexus. While product development may still be in the pharmaceutical company’s hands, the other P’s are not. Regulatory constraints have taken placement out of the pharmaceutical marketer’s control. Price is under pressure from managed care and comparison shoppers. And promotion is no longer “directly” anywhere … it’s directly everywhere. Pharmaceutical marketers have lost control.

Read more…

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President and CEO of Integrative Logic John Gardner, is a strategic visionary with more than 17 years of experience in customer relationship management, database marketing and business intelligence. He is the driver and architect behind numerous multi-channel relationship marketing efforts, as well as an expert in measurable data-driven marketing initiatives and consumer segmentation, models and profiling.

Gardner specializes in blending technology, business intelligence and marketing into cohesive, measurable, results-oriented initiatives. His skill set also includes developing extensive multidimensional relational databases and managing closed-loop analytics, including statistical modeling, database reporting, web analytics and interactive reporting. In addition, Gardner is an expert at defining and ensuring the capture of Key Performance Indicators.Prior to co-founding Integrative Logic, Gardner was with Southern Progress Corporation, the largest regional magazine and book publisher in the country. He also served as director of business intelligence for imc2, a full-service interactive agency. Gardner received his undergraduate degree in political science and history from the University of Alabama and his MBA from The University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is a Microsoft Certified Professional, as well as a recognized speaker and consultant.

Technorati Tags: Atlanta speakers

As president of Weaver Stephens Group, a boutique business-to-business PR and marketing communications agency, Erica understands the importance of delivering content that engages your audience and keeps them coming back for more.

A former editor for the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Erica has an extensive background in print and broadcast journalism. In 2001, she became the Strategies Editor for the Atlanta Business Chronicle, and in 2003 she launched the newspaper’s first homes and lifestyles magazine, Living in Atlanta. In addition to her tenure as a print editor, Erica worked in broadcast news, reporting for the Atlanta Business Chronicle Report on Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Prior to joining the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Erica worked as writer and editor for a wide range of business journals, newspapers and trade publications including the Savannah News Press, QSR Magazine (serving the quick service restaurant industry), Healthcare CIO Report, Healthcare CFO Report, Savannah Business Journal, Business to Business magazine and Atlanta Jewish Times. As a business journalist, she covered a variety industries including healthcare, technology, banking and finance, human resources, law and accounting, commercial and residential real estate, small business, hospitality, marketing and advertising, and media.

In 2004, Erica left journalism to pursue a career in public relations. She began with an account management position for the William Mills Agency, the largest independent public relations firm serving the financial and transactional services sectors. In 2005, she founded Weaver Stephens Group, where she manages and directs strategic planning, client relations and account services.

Erica serves as vice chair on the board of directors for The Extension, a Marietta-based comprehensive residential recovery program for homeless men and women.