Hilary Birkinshaw
Sue Winkler
Angela Adams
DAVID K. GAY
RITA HAAKE
MARK HEINTZ
MICHAEL HESEK
JEAN LIN
BARRY SALTZMAN
DOUGLAS VOEGTLE

Hilary Burkinshaw

Program Director
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.

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.

David K. Gay

David previously served as Director of the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at College of DuPage for 21 years. Throughout his career, Dave was advisor, counselor, coach and trainer to thousands of businesses throughout Northeastern Illinois. He established a reputation as a trusted advisor in the business community with particular expertise in small business financing, business planning, franchising, acquisitions, government resources for businesses and economic development. In 2013, David founded InSight Business Advisors to continue his work with small businesses.

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.

Mark Heintz

Mark Heintz is an experienced executive entrepreneur with a proven track record of creating value for a wide range of businesses, from startups to well-known consumer brands. He has a generous understanding of business operations and how to use analytics to create a value-driven strategy for top tier companies. Mark has organically grown product lines and brands through new product development and implementation of fully integrated marketing strategies. Leveraging his knowledge and experiences, he launched several award-winning entrepreneurial businesses.

Michael Hesek

Michael Hesek 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 and needs. 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.

Jean Lin

Jean Lin is an ITC (International Trade Center) program manager at College of DuPage and is dedicated to helping small to midsize companies make their entry in the global market. With years of international business experience in multiple markets, Jean brings valuable trade knowledge and diverse cultural insight to help her small business navigate international trade hurdles. Her background includes expertise in strategic planning for exports, international regulations, sales, product development and distributor management. Jean is passionate about coaching small businesses to be successful in international sales and imports/exports.

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.

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.

Owner-2-CEO

Grow your business leveraging expert guidance. Sales, Finance, Digital Marketing and more! Scholarships funded through Sikich, US Bank and Innovation DuPage.
Starting January 2022
Date
Apply Now

Recommended Eligibility

  • Business Criteria:
    • 2+ years in operation
    • $200,000 revenues in the most recent fiscal year
    • 2+ employees (owners may be included in this count)
    • 1,000+ followers on a social media platform

Commitment

  • Attend regularly
  • Out-of-class assignments will be required
  • Participate fully—leave your cell phone at the door
  • Create an Accelerator Strategic Action Plan over the course of the program
  • Complete an initial assessment and follow-up assessments
9 Weeks

Curriculum

Leadership Self & Style

Know who you are as a leader. Your strengths and weakness are the basis for developing a growth mindset and moving from working in the business to working on the business.
  • Perfect an effective elevator pitch
  • Understand your personal BOSI DNA and how it impacts your performance
  • Delve into your employee’s mindset and intrapreneurial skills
  • Improve your own personal performance & develop personal objectives
  • Create effective delegation strategies, including monitoring and performance management

Strategic Planning

  • 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.

Management in a Digital Environment

Irrespective of the type of business we operate, there is no escaping the impact of technology in almost every aspect of running our businesses. Whether it is accepting payments, managing the financials or using the full gamut of social media options, technology is a critical part of business growth.
  • Plan your digital environment, knowing what processes should and could be digitized
  • Market your business in a digital environment, when to use social media, what to use and how to monitor the effectiveness of your marketing efforts
  • Handle financial transactions in a virtual environment
  • Understand how to develop automations that allow your systems to communicate with one another

Content & Communication

Go 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.
  • Understand how your purpose and your customer’s needs interact
  • Know how to create and use meaningful value propositions to increase sales
  • Learn how buyers make purchase decisions  
  • Determine the appropriate media for your market
  • Create effective communications for use in a variety of media
  • Discuss 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.
  • Leverage tools to develop a sales pipeline
  • Review procedures for tracking leads and secrets on how to act on those leads
  • Learn techniques for opening and closing a sale
  • Use methods for delivering exemplary client care and generating repeat sales
  • Create an effective sales and lead generation operational plan
  • Consider an internal sales team vs an external sales force. What are the factors that need to be considered?

Human Resources

Growing companies require people. Employees 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. Look at the HR function and understand how it impacts business growth.
  • Understand how to create the company culture for your business and how it can impact growth
  • Appreciate the legal background to employment activities
  • Identify critical issues related to the Human Resource function and the potential traps for business owners
  • Assess your current workforce situation
  • Develop appropriate job descriptions, policy manuals and compensation plans
  • Learn how to develop an effective management team
  • Receive insights into generational issues, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace

Financing a Growing Business

You will need to finance the business at some point it you haven’t already. Learn from a commercial lender.
  • Discuss what banks are looking for when they make lending decisions
  • Learn what criteria they use to evaluate a business for lending
  • Prepare to present yourself and your company to a lender
  • Develop an understanding of how to present your company’s financial information to make the lending decision easy

Understanding & Using Financial Information for 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
  • Understand 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

Growth Market Opportunities: Government Contracting

The US government is largest purchaser of goods and services in the USA making it a perfect business expansion opportunity. It’s a complex marketplace and this session focuses on the opportunities it presents and how to access them.
  • Understand how to navigate the maze of government contracting
  • Learn how to maximize your opportunities
  • Find methods of maximizing your exposure to government agencies and large corporations
  • Know how to access, research and respond to government contract opportunities

Using and Managing Social Media Platforms

We hear a lot about social media and their value for growing business. The key to success is know which, what and how and how to manage and monitor results.
  • Using social media platforms in your overall marketing strategy (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc)
  • Social media tools overview (Hootsuite, Buffer, Later, Agorapulse, Sprout Social, Sendible, etc.)
  • Curating content and creating a content calendar
  • Understanding social media analytics and the KPIs for each platform
  • Advertising

Driving Business Decisions with Data Analytics

Customer engagement is only as good as the data that is gathered. Understand how to leverage tools that can better inform business decisions.
  • Introduction to Google Analytics (GA) and Google Tag Manager (GTM)
  • Understanding the GA/GTM Interface
  • Setting up conversion goals and events
  • Monitoring KPIs and interpreting reports
  • Creating actionable steps based on reports

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