New Year’s Resolutions…Kept: about this time of year that any promises made on New Year’s Eve are being put to the test. For PowerLink clients, it is a bit easier. We all went through a goal-setting exercise in 2018 that helped us see much more clearly what we need to accomplish this year in our businesses and are holding each other accountable for those goals through our CEO Circle meetings. It is easier not to waver when you have shared your primary goals with others. (If you want to join our “Traction” goal-setting program, it is not too late….Make up class for goal setting is Monday, February 4thfrom 2-5 pm at PowerLink’s offices in Pittsburgh. Let me know if you want to sign up through an email request).
Expansion and New Direction:As of today, we are now officially helping 134 companies to grow profitably through a PowerLink Advisory Board and/or PowerLink CEO Circle. We added a few more clients to our groups and we are excited about the year ahead. We now have a regular team of Executives-in-Residence (EIR) who are leading Advisory Boards and CEO Circles. They are managed by Harry Edelman, our new Regional Director in Pittsburgh (and one of our most experienced PowerLink EIR’s). Our goal for 2019 is to be helping 160 companies in this Western Pennsylvania and Central Pennsylvania market. We are also opening the Southcentral PA market with a target of serving 160 companies in that market over the next two years. Our Regional Director in that region will be Jayne Huston. Many of you know Jayne from her administration of the eMagnify program at Seton Hill University. She also administered the PowerLink program when it was housed at Seton Hill. We are glad to be working with her again.
Athena International—For more than 30 years, Athena International has brought their leadership programs into hundreds of cities across the US and around the world. Athena Pittsburgh has one of the largest leadership programs and awards programs in the country, run by the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance. We are pleased to announce that we are partnering with Athena here in Western Pennsylvania and across the state to offer the PowerLink program under the Athena/PowerLink brand. We are hoping this will help us to continue to recruit high quality advisors statewide for our PowerLink Advisory Boards and PowerLink CEO Circles. The program will run for the next two years as a Pennsylvania Pilot. If it helps us successfully grow the PowerLink program in Pennsylvania, we will launch Athena PowerLink programs nationally under the administration of PowerLink out of our Pittsburgh headquarters (the founding city for the program).
CEO Circles (a.k.a. Community Advisory Boards):Since our model for gathering our PowerLink clients once per month into a confidential setting with a few guest advisors who also serve on our custom advisory boards, we are changing the name of our CEO Circles to Community Advisory Boards in 2019. You will see the name change over the next three months. This is a new program for PowerLink that was funded by PNC Foundation to help us launch eight community-centered meetings of PowerLink clients and facilitated by an Executive-in-Residence who had successfully built a company from “scratch” to at least $1-$10 million in annual sales and was willing to help our PowerLink clients achieve their business goals as well. The program was very successful. But when we started adding guest advisors who also sit on our Custom Advisory Boards, it totally changed and improved the effectiveness of our meetings. We were finally able to replicate the sound advice from our advisory board pool every single month for all our clients. It was very exciting to be a part of and we are thankful to Mike Labriola from PNC Foundation, Dick Fitzgerald, our senior statement chair of our fundraising committee and Linda Dickerson from 501c3(2) for their support of the program.
Fond Farewell to two of our PowerLink advisors:When you work with as many outstanding business people as we do (both our owner/clients and our pool of advisors), you can sometimes take their experience, dedication and commitment to your organization for granted. It was with a sad heart that we bid a final farewell to two of our PowerLink advisors: Joyce Query was one of our first PowerLink clients. She and her partner built a successful technology services company and then Joyce began serving as an advisor to other PowerLink companies. Always kind and wise, she made technology easy to understand and helped our clients look at their technology as an important tool while helping them hone their business skills. She served on more than a dozen PowerLink Advisory Boards over the years and passed away in November 2018, too soon at the age of 67. Ronnie Savion was so generous with her time and talent and her office became the host site of one of our PowerLink Advisory Boards. The co-founder of Elias Savion, she was willing to host and give our advisory board the advantage of her marketing and advertising expertise until she was unable to join the meetings. Ronnie’s business skills, generous spirit and sense of humor will be missed. She also passed away too soon in October 2018.
That’s it for now. Again, Happy 2019.
Anita Brattina, CEO, PowerLink, January 21, 2019 (anita@powerlink.org)
PowerLInk’s Core Values: We believe most business ideas have possibility for enormous success and profitability. We believe it is easier to build a well-run, profitable company when you have access to advisors who have solved your problems before you and are willing to teach you what they learned. We believe that founders of companies are brilliant visionaries who sometimes need to have their ideas challenged and modified in a private and confidential setting with experienced advisors and CEO’s who have “been there, done that.” We believe that PowerLink provides a haven for entrepreneurs who are ready to be humble and want to have their ideas tested in a non-judgmental forum. We believe that PowerLink founders will achieve financial success and profitability faster with PowerLink (two-three-four-year engagements) than any other organization in America. We believe that PowerLink founders and advisors are the most dedicated group of entrepreneurs and executives in the world and it is our privilege to work with them.
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