QDIS Blog

AIIP Conference 2007 Friday

by Ed Vawter @ 9:02 pm. Filed under Asides

Here are some of my reflections on Friday program of the 2007 AIIP conference.

Awards
Eiko Shaul, Presidents Award
Ed Vawter (your truly), Sue Rugge Memorial Award
Jan Davis, Connections Writers Award
Jothi Nedungadi, Myra T. Grenier Award

Keynote Speech
ichael Roby - Motivational Speaker | Sales Trainer | Keynote Speaker | Sales Coach

Becoming the Best… and Getting Better

A very good keynote talking about how small changes to increase productivity can lead to large increases in income. He use the example of Tiger Woods who earner 10 million from PGA tour (not including endorsements) and another player earner $570,000. But Tiger Woods was only 4.2% better in terms of strokes not 17 times better if you base it on income. The take homer lesson; small changes can have a large impact.

6 keys to Critical Success Factors (CSF’s)
1. Business Plan
2. Marketing
3. Selling
4. Service
5. Continuing Education
6. Administration

multiply each CSF on scale 1-3 gives dramatically different results

A business plan is your road map to success.

basic components
a. objectives,
b. SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
c. strategic plan,
d. tactical plan

Give 3 touches per month, email, phone call, direct mail for A client list.
When people think of me they think of X, but more importantly, when people think of X, they think of me.
This is a different way to think about who you are and what you do.
Check out Growing Your Business! for Mark LeBlanc’s book about growing your business; 45 min to read and a lifetime to master.
Another good book What’s your brand? by Oren Harari

Marketing is selling to the masses, selling is knee-to-knee; asking for that order by leading your client to a logical conclusion.

Service
keeping promises by giving them more than they pay for.
fixing problems
finding solutions
up-selling / next selling
DEFINE “Excellent Service”

prompt response phone calls and correspondence
prompt response to request for proposal
coming in on time and on budget

Give excellent service to all and exceptional service to some.

Continuing education
product/process knowledge
process knowledge of how you run your business
entrepreneurial knowledge
people knowledge

Administration
RYBLAB: run your business like a business
Stick to your expertise
Out-source
Systems & Processes
not in the information business, you’re in the peoplwe business!!

How do you measure up on the 6 CSF’s?
What areas can you improve and how can you improve?
How will you benchmark progress?

How much is your business changing?

there were several concurrent session in the afternoon and here are the ones I attended.

Medical Insurance for the Self-Employed
William Lehnertz
TLC Financial Inc.

Gave brief background and history of employer proved insurance from WWII

Basically said to get health insurance with high deductible from a private carrier and use health savings account

He gave some excellent resources and health savings account information which will be on the members section of the aiip site.

The Latest & Greatest Developments in Legal, Medical, and Government Information.
Ruth Balkin, Peggy Garvin and Cliff Kalibjian

All three gave a good overview of changes and new information in their relevant fields.

Beyond Maps
Wendy Cobrda

Gave a good intro to geographical information services.
Geo info can reside in information such as telephone numbers.
Geocoding software is a tool to take address information and turn that into spatial coordinates
Explained what geocodes are; similar to say a Dewey decimal system
What can you do with the coding? Summarize data, relate it to other spatial objects.
Wendy gave several interesting examples.
There is a lot of information that is spatial oriented and can be very useful!

Entering the SPY-ders Web; What Would YOU Do?
Arthur Weiss and Dee Richardson
The attendees worked thru scenarios dealing with various ethical situations. All the situations were based on true real life situations.

Table Top Tips.

Amelia Kassel and Mary Ellen Bates had a roundtable discussion on marketing Mark Goldstein and I did one on technology issues. We basically sat around and discussed technologies and answered folks questions about a variety of subjects. Both were well attended and seemed at least in my opinion to go very well. Hopefully folks came away from it with some useful information and got their questions answered.

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