Groundhog’s Day Report and Happy Valentine’s Day!: By now you know that the Groundhog did not see his shadow, so we are predicted to have an early Spring…and Valentine’s Day is around the corner. So, in the spirit of the season, a few updates from PowerLink:
1. PowerLink companies are not waiting for external predictions of a small, furry animal to help them grow their businesses. They have all been working hard to figure out where they want to be in 10 years (I know, lots of debate about the 10-year vision. But what we learned by putting over 100 companies through the exercise is that it is life-changing. If you can predict where you want to go with your business beyond the short term, amazing things can happen). One of our companies in State College has decided that they want to take their company on a ten-year journey that includes a full one-year sabbatical for all their employees. When I first heard the plan, I had lots of questions. But after listening to the thoughtful explanation, I got it. They don’t care what anyone thinks. They are determined to do it successfully and grow even more when they all come back.
2. PowerLink companies who set a 10-year vision down on paper also realized a few other important things—some do not want to be in their businesses 10 years from now. They want to be on a beach somewhere enjoying the fruits of their labor. To some, that meant deciding to position their companies for sale. For others, it meant shifting to a more passive income strategy. For another group, it meant building a leadership team that could run the business without them. Each company’s 10-year vision was as different as the personalities of each of our entrepreneurs. They each had to turn that 10-year vision into a 1-year plan with quarterly goals (we call them “Rocks” from the book, “Traction,” by Gino Wickman). This month everyone is reporting on their success and obstacles with their first quarter goals. They are also helping each other as well as getting advice from guest advisors attending our CEO Circles (a.k.a. Community Advisory Boards) and advisors from their Custom Advisory Boards (if they have one underway).
3. PowerLink companies who are joining one of the CEO Circles after November 2018 get to join a private session to set their 10-year vision. We have make up sessions scheduled every month at our headquarters in Pittsburgh. The next one is scheduled for Monday, February 25th. Email me if you are interested in joining a session.
4. PowerLink Co-Working space: If you are looking for Class A office space in the east side of Pittsburgh with several conference rooms, lots of white boards, a full kitchen and administrative help, we are now renting space to PowerLink clients. Email me if you want details.
5. PowerLink Valentine: Perhaps the hardest aspect of growing a business is building a team of like-minded employees and contractors who share our vision. Learn a surprisingly easy way to attract the right kind of talent to your company at our February CEO Circles. Click here to register.
That’s it for now. Again, Happy Valentine’s Day 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.
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 statesman chair of our fundraising committee and Linda Dickerson from 501c3(2) for their support of the program.
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