January 2007 Meeting Cancelled. Wes and Kathy ended up on a trip to Vegas to attend the National Concrete Convention and for a little R & R with Wes' folks. Mark your calendars for February 27th, 2007.

The February Meeting, has come and gone. We missed those of you that couldn’t make it.

In short, we have decided to make the meetings a little more formal and to have an agenda for each meeting to help keep us on track. The location was great, even if I didn’t get there early enough to get the prime location. I’m working with the manager to secure the private room in back for our March meeting and will have that firmed up in the next couple of days.

We all got caught up with where our businesses are and where we are headed in the new year. We’ll have more of the Bio’s and Business Resume’s posted on the updated site soon.

Trevor has been named President for the Colorado Springs Customer Service Association (CSCSA.org) and has invited all of us to the next seminar as his guest on the 23rd of this month. If you are interested and are available from 8am to 10am on the 23rd of February, please give Trevor a call (his contact info is in his company Resume) and let him know ASAP. He needs to RSVP for you. I’ll be there and I hope to see some of you there too.

Hope to see you all at the next meeting… date and time to follow soon

March was our most successful meeting yet!

It was Marketing Month for us, so everyone gathered up their best tips and techniques and brought them to the meeting. We had a couple of tips that everyone just couldn't get enough information on. Even those that are just beginning, learned a few new tricks that they could use. If you weren't there, you missed out on some great ideas that could have increased your sales or brought in new clients at next to nothing. 

Lee told us all about 401 page marketing and stole the show.  It was so unique and yet so simple that it amazed everyone there that it was such a secret technique.  If you want to learn more... you'll have to get a hold of Lee Reedy and buy him a cup of coffee some time.  It will be more than worth your time.

Other tips ranged from why your should never give out your business card at a first meeting to how to generate excitement for a product that hasn't even been launched yet.  I wish I had taken better notes.  Even so, I have begun to implement several of the suggested techniques and am already seeing a few new clients to my sites because of them.

I really wish more of you could have made it.  I can't wait till our next meeting. 

Well, May has come and gone... if you didn't make it to the meeting at the Bear Rock Cafe, you missed a great presentation by Cicil Calloway, Associate VP of TAP Oil and Gas LLC.

Cicil gave us some great insights on what's to come with not only fuel and utilities, but the economy in general. 

He's a dynamic speaker and quite entertaining.  This was the first time I can remember that I learned anything about investments or the economy that I was wide awake for and laughing.  I'll have to see if I can get Cecil to do a phone interview for our site in the near future.

July's meeting was a real information fest.  We teamed up with the Colorado Connectors Network group at Panera Bread on North Academy.  While this was most likely the last joint meeting for our group, we had 2 new guests from Waddell & Reed Investments and 3 of our regular members attend.

We spent most of the evening discussing customer service, or lack of it here in the Springs.  All members agreed that less than 1 in every 10 businesses here even make customer service or some form of it a priority.  The horror stories that could have been a real bonus had the business even tried to make the customer happy were in the same ratio as above.  It's amazing how many businesses miss some wonderful opportunities all for the sake of usually less than $5.00 of business income. 

Because of all the great ideas and techniques that were provided by the members present, it was decided to make some changes to our groups meeting schedule and to see what more we could do to support our growing membership.

So, beginning in September, we'll have a new series of meetings format and we'll be focusing more on providing training and local resources briefings to our members.  We'll be moving to provide 1 meeting a quarter as a Mastermind group to assist each other in what ever the major concern is for our businesses or startups.  We'll then follow that with the next month being a briefing/training session and we'll have a set schedule of subjects so we can all prepare in advance.  The last month of each quarter will be a networking/social event and we'll do our best to tie that into other larger business socials as become available.

Michael Harder has agreed to help me out with not only the planning and coordination, but keeping the site and calendar up to date with everything we can find of interest to the group.

His first input in this area was to provide a list of possible subjects for discussion/training and to find other local resources available to us to help.  Michael has done a phenomenal job and here's the list he's developed so far:

Basic Business Topics from Colorado Small Business Development
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Maybe 1 of the future group could attend and/or share if they already attended
group of value.

o SBA 504 Loan Program
o Winning Government Proposals
o NxLevel Business Planning Program
o Funding Your Business
o Planning a Winning Website
o Market Analysis - the 1st step to Business Growth!
o Starting Your Business
o Basics of Bookkeeping
o Understanding Financial Statements to Manage Your Business
o Retirement Plans for Small Business
o Legalities of Starting a Business in Colorado
o The RIGHT Franchise for You
o QuickBooks I: Starting on the Right Foot
o QuickBooks II: Gaining Momentum & Efficiency for Increased Profits
o QuickBooks III: Doing Payroll the Right Way
o QuickBooks: Year-End Procedures


Taking Business to Next Level Topics
===========================================================

Leveraging using Other People Time (OPT) and Other People Money (OPM) idea from
Rich Dad series

Deveopling Franchise Model idea from e-myths where owners develop business
like a franchise

<More to come after reviewing more material>


Calendar events
==========================================================

Cashflow Club - enhance your financial intelligence------------- by playing Rich Dad's Cashflow board or e-game with others

The local Rich Dad group leader said we could post Colorado Springs Rich Dad Cashflow Club - a non-profit organization, but we must clearly denoted that this is NOT a business
in any sense of the word.

There are 2 meetings a month for the group in Colorado Springs.

The first occurs on the first Saturday of each month. The location is the Keller-Willaims Real Estate office on Lake Plaza Drive and the time is from 1:30 until 4:30.

The second occurs on the second Saturday of each month. The location is the Keller-Willaims Real Estate office on 13710 Struthers Rd., Suite 120 and the time is from 6:00 until 9:00.


Pikes Peak Library District's

Minding Your Business @ 8:30 AM on selected dates, upcoming 8/12 and 8/22 in PPLD calendar. Others listed in flyer, but probably best to point PPLD web site.

http://library.ppld.org/CommunityConnections/Calendar/default.asp

Click "Word Search"

Enter "Minding Your Business" in Word Search box Choose "All my words" in Look for: drop down box Click "Library Events Calendar Word Search"

Event Description: Learn about business resources available at the Library by attending a free tour before the Penrose Library opens; registration is not necessary.

=============================================================

Feedback:  If any of you have any preferences as to what you would like to hear first or maybe even help out with by attending some of the training... Let Michael or I know ASAP.  We need to get the schedule set in at least good stiff mud by the middle of August.

Our next meeting is going to be the last next to last Tuesday in November: the 28th at 6:30pm.  We'll be combining one last time with the brand new Colorado Springs Glazer/Kennedy Renegade Millionaires Mastermind group. Join us at the Academy (Best Western) Hotel,  8110 N Academy Blvd  and team up with investors, real estate brokers, business owners and other like minded entrepreneurs and business professionals.

Terry just got back from Atlanta where he met with his VIP Mastermind group. One of the great things that he brought back on this trip was the Formula for Success in 2007.  See the Blog for more details on that one.

We'll be discussing more about the formula and what Terry got from his VIP group at the November local Colorado Springs Chapter meeting.  I hope you can make it.

This is normally a $200.00 a year (or $20.00 per meeting) membership group, but as a paid annual member, I have FREE passes for anyone that would like to join us at our next meeting.

I also have some great FREE gifts from Dan Kennedy and Bill Glazer (founders and planners of the group) for any of you that attend the next meeting.

This is a real opportunity to get to know and learn from those that are more than just making a living here in Colorado.  So, be sure and MARK your calendars and plan to bring a friend.