Hilary has used her expertise in entrepreneurial and small business financing, growth and strategic development to guide companies toward success for 25 years. She has worked with thousands of business owners at all stages of growth–from solopreneurs to companies with hundreds of employees. During the course of her career, Hilary has facilitated the development of business, strategic and marketing plans that helped clients acquire over $250 million in financing.
Matt Doucet
Matt is the Executive Vice President of Wintrust’s Construction, Engineering & Architecture (CE&A) Group. Mr. Doucet leads the Bank’s national CE&A lending practice, providing competitive financing solutions to the firms who support the Construction Industry. He has spent the last 30 years working with CE&A firms in the Surety and Banking Industry. Matt is an active member of the Construction Financial Management Association (“CFMA”), Illinois Road Transportation & Business Association (“IRTBA”), Surety Association and has been the Treasurer of the Chicago Building Congress for the past 6 years.
Michael Hesek
Mike Hesek is a Senior Software Engineer at ePreop. Michael has been developing custom software solutions for nearly 20 years. Working in over 12 different programming languages, he has assisted companies to develop desktop, web and mobile solutions that are tailored to their unique requirements. Along with developing business solutions he has also consulted and provided training services for businesses looking to improve workflows and identify process gaps in daily operations.
Rita Haake
Rita has been the Executive Director of the Business Development Center (BDC) at College of DuPage since July 2011. The BDC houses programs through the Illinois Small Business Development Center (SBDC), the Illinois International Trade Center (ITC) and the Illinois Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC). These programs are grant funded through federal and state dollars; the BDC has been hosted by College of DuPage since 1985. Her career at the college has spanned twenty-eight (28) years with twenty-one (21) of those years focused on the development and growth of small business in government contracting.
Eric Singer
Eric L. Singer is a construction lawyer, litigator and Partner with Ice Miller, LLP in Chicago and Lisle, Illinois. Eric concentrates his practice in contracts, insurance and counseling for construction and design projects, as well as disputes related to real estate, construction, mechanics liens, mortgages, title insurance, easements and injunctions. He represents architects, engineers, contractors, subcontractors, material suppliers, owners, lenders, title insurance underwriters and others involved in development, improvement and use of real estate. Mr. Singer received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.
Brien Spoden
Brien Spoden is a Surety & Risk Management Advisor at DSP Insurance Services, specializing in establishing and managing contract and commercial surety bond programs. Prior to joining DSP, Brien gained insurance industry experience as a Contract Surety Underwriter with Merchants Bonding Company and as a Workers’ Compensation Claims Adjuster with EMC Insurance Companies. Brien attained his Associate in Fidelity & Surety Bonding (AFSB) designation and is actively pursuing his Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designation. He is a member of the 2019-20 Underground Contractors Association of Illinois Emerging Leaders Program.
Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams is a Risk Management Specialist with DSP Insurance Services in Schaumburg, Illinois. The early part of his career was spent as a Project Manager for a large Healthcare IT company in Madison, Wisconsin. He then spent multiple years as an IT consultant, traveling throughout the country implementing electronic medical records in some of the nation’s top hospitals. Bryan, now in his fifth year at DSP, works with middle market businesses and healthcare facilities to provide Insurance, Surety and Employee Benefit solutions.
Barry Saltzman
Barry Saltzman has enjoyed a successful career as a proven executive who is strategic, results- oriented and adept at anticipating future business trends. He has been responsible for global sales, P&L, business development and leading and managing complex project teams. During Barry’s career, he succeeded in a major financial turnaround of a $60 million dollar privately held business; he grew revenue from $35 million to over $200 million for a large IT services business; and he managed a $535 million dollar P&L with over 1500 technical and sales employees for a large services division of a public company.
Sheryl Van Anne
With more than 20 years of experience in the construction industry, Sheryl Van Anne serves as a project executive in Mortenson’s Chicago office with a primary focus on the higher education market. Sheryl has managed numerous large-scale projects throughout the Chicagoland area, including the College of DuPage Berg Instructional Center & Student Resource Center, the Harper College Wellness and Sports Center, and the North Airfield Project for United Airlines. In 2016, Sheryl was selected as one of Building Design + Construction’s 40 Under 40 and was recently named to Constructech’s 2018 Women in Construction.
Tim Giegerich
Tim Giegerich is a Project Executive with Power Construction. Power Construction’s unique business model and values-based approach means that its leaders are actively engaged, our employees build long-term careers and we foster trade partner relationships that drive customer value. Tim has directly overseen commercial projects across Chicago. He has first-hand experience and knowledge of a large project's preconstruction, construction and close-out phases. Tim is passionate about applying his industry experience towards mentoring young professionals and small business owners on best practices for bidding and managing private sector projects.
Douglas Voegtle
Doug has served as the “Idea Stalker” and strategic marketing lead for international, national, regional and local brands in virtually every industry. His portfolio of marketing experience ranges from writing TV commercials for Pepsi and the Principal Financial Group, to facilitating name development for biotech companies and microbrew products, to designing qualitative online research for marketing to millennials. Doug is also a guest teacher and speaker on marketing, creativity and communication at UW-Madison School of Journalism, Loyola University Chicago, Old Town School of Folk Music, and CADCA’s national conference on drug abuse prevention.
Sue Winkler
Sue Winkler brings over 30 years of experience in Human Resources and Safety to HR Source. Sue is the Director of EngageHR and leads the team of HR professionals providing on-site HR support, partnering on special projects and providing recruiting assistance. As a previous business owner and executive of a manufacturing company, Sue brings a unique perspective to human resources. Sue directly supports members through working on EngageHR and consulting projects, organizing safety initiatives, supporting membership development, investigating strategic partnerships, and coordinating briefing meetings.
Angela Adams
Angela Adams has over 20 years of experience in the human resources (HR) industry. She consults with clients on affirmative action issues and a variety of HR topics. Additionally, Angela provides training services in human resources and management for member organizations via the HR Hotline.
An 11-week Business Accelerator Program
Strengthen your access to industry expertise and build your business's competitive advantage. Sales, Project Management, Contract Bid Process and more!
Participate fully—leave your cell phone at the door
Create an Accelerator Strategic Action Plan
Complete an initial assessment and follow-up assessments
Recommended Eligibility
You must be a construction business owner
Business Criteria: 2+ years in operation $200,000 revenues in the most recent fiscal year 2+ employees (owners may be included in this count)
11 Weeks
Schedule
Entrepreneurial Leadership Development & Delegation
Knowing who you are as a leader, your strengths and weakness will be the basis for developing a growth mindset and moving from working in the business to working on the business.
Perfecting an effective elevator pitch
Understand your personal BOSI DNA and how it impacts your performance
Understanding employee’s mindset and intrapreneurial skills
Improve your own personal performance, develop personal objectives
Creating effective delegation strategies, including monitoring and performance management
Planning and Strategy for Growth
Review the foundation of your business, mission, vision and values, & SWOT
Understand scalability and how it impacts your business
Identify methods and opportunities for growth
Develop skills to create an effective strategic plan for growth
Examine current business plan, business situation and organizational structure for best fit with your business model
Human Resources
Growing companies require people. They are the most expensive resource most companies will have so hiring decisions are amongst the most important and potentially costly decisions a business owner will have to make. In this session we will be looking at the HR function and understanding how it impacts business growth.
Understanding and creating the company culture for your business and how it can impact growth
Appreciate the legal background to employment activities
Identify critical issues related to Human Resource function and the potential traps for business owners
Assess current workforce situation
Develop appropriate job descriptions, policy manuals and compensation plans
Developing an effective management team
Understanding generational issues, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace
Understanding and Using Financial Information to Manage Growth
Established businesses have a CPA to create financial statements and manage tax reporting. Growing a business however, requires review of company financial data as a tool to manage day to day business transactions for growth and profitability.
Know how to use financial information from your accounting software to manage business growth, effect change and improve performance and profits
Appreciate the value of budgets, costs and pricing strategies to manage people and processes in the business
Understanding break even analysis and ratios and how they are used to plan growth
Identify cash flow bottlenecks before they arise and know how to resolve them if they do happen
Understand what lenders look for to make financing decisions
Content & Communication
Going beyond the normal concept of marketing to evaluate the importance of developing and managing strong marketing content and solid methods of communicating your marketing message to your clearly identified customer base.
Understanding how your purpose and your customer’s needs interact
Know how to create and use meaningful value propositions to increase sales
Understand how buyers make purchase decisions
Determining appropriate media for your market
Create effective communications for use in a variety of media
Understand how digital and traditional marketing approaches interact to get the best out of both in a changing business environment
Sales & Lead Generation
No sales, no business. In this session we will be building on the content and communication session to create a plan for the development of a solid pipeline of sales leads and how to implement the plan to maintain the pipeline and close sales.
Tools to develop a sales pipeline
Procedures for tracking leads and secrets on how to act on those leads
Techniques for opening and closing a sale
Methods for delivering exemplary client care and generating repeat sales
Creating an effective sales and lead generation operational plan
Internal sales or an external sales force, what are the factors that need to be considered
Contract and Contract Bidding
Learn how to pull together all of the information and documentation from construction estimation into a professional bid proposal for a range of contractors.
Requests for Proposals (RFP’s)
Getting bid opportunities
Types of bidding, bid lists and markups
Winning more … while maintaining margins
Project Management
Discover the steps needed to develop a proper construction plan, and learn how to transform that plan into a schedule. Learn how to inspire a sense of shared purpose in a team, and how to manage projects from beginning to end using proven project-management techniques.
