Meeting Minutes Meeting June 5, 2008

In attendance: Roy Innella, Susan Shute, Joe Davison, Ron Bridge, Josh Isler, David Luce and Carolyn Luskin

Absent: Paul McCabe

Susan was once again a gracious host at her new position:


1. New Horizons:

Susan Shute: VP Bank of America, Consumer Real Estate:
TEL: 610-225-8034
CELL: 610-564-1904
susanshute@bankofamerica.com


Roy Innella: Investment Advisor Representative
The Wealth Advocate Investment Group
Tel: 610-977- 2422
roy@yourwealthadvocate.com


Carolyn Luskin: Keller Williams Main Line Real Estate
610-520-0100 ext 6611
Cell: 610-585-1301
carol@CarolynLuskin.com


Congrats to Roy and Susan on there new associations……Welcome aboard Carol, who has a diverse background in both commercial and residential real estate, as well as other entrepreneurial endeavors.
Carol appears to be a solid addition to the group and is most welcomed.

2. Carolyn introduced herself, as a professional commercial/residential real estate broker, with IT experience and retail operational experience in a gardening center with her husband. Consensus was if she is willing to commit, group enthusiastically endorses her membership.


3. Group Size and Specialties: The continuing concept is to grow the group to a working maximum of 10 to 12 committed individuals. With Carolyn’s acceptance we are now at eight strong. Roy is bringing Michael Brown, a CPA, as a potential member to next meeting. Members’ consensus is that diversification of experience and professional skills should be the goal as to rounding out the core group.

4. Ron led a discussion on business promations possibilities. He explained how his company had placed advertising with adjunct articles in the fairly new Chester County Life Magazine which is targeted at a high end demographic market. Cost was @ $1500 an issue, yet it has seemed to promote business. Ron has used the republished articles in promotions with his client base. This led to a roundtable of generic thoughts on promotions from the group, highlighted below:

· Book “Good to be Great” authored by Jim Collins was a recommended read.
· Strong emphasis on need to nurture existing client base (most felt 60 to 85% of business was based on repeat clients/ referrals from same.
· David stressed the value of “brand awareness” and utilizing endorsement from
satisfied customers.

· Josh was a strong advocate of the “Strategic Coach Program”, with emphasis on referrals and the common sense use of courtesy and manners when dealing with prospects and clients
· Joe and others specifically mentioned the need to always be prompt and always responsive to clients, as well as the need to constantly diversify your own professional network of contacts….”get out of the rut, and back on the highway”.
· Someone mentioned sport team schedule refrig magnets as an example of 90% of marketing is exposure meeting opportunity.


The group felt as a whole each meeting should have a portion devoted to a specific topic to roundtable such as this, and that the need for more formalized “working agenda” would be useful in maximizing all of our limited time, rather than bouncing from one spontaneous topic to the next.

A discussion was had concerning what we really are trying to accomplish with this group with no real answer provided. Some saw the value of Partnerships of Diverse Skills, others spoke to natural synergies such as David and Paul, and Susan and Carolyn as far as coordinated project efforts. Roy mentioned his concept of enhancing referrals of a more serious and continuing nature based on the collective experience and maturity of the group. When typing these minutes, I personally saw a key value of the group as serving in the role of a de facto Board of Directors for each of our individual businesses, in providing different perspectives to concepts and problems we might encounter day to day yet do not have a sounding board to bounce them against.

The idea of having a guest speaker or attendee was again raised and Ron was going to follow-up on that topic with the editor/publisher of Chester County Life magazine…..as of this writing Ron has confirmed that Kevin Dooley will attend our next meeting.

The thought was advanced to see if we could get some publicity via magazine or newspaper article for the MLBT. Roy and Susan were to follow up on this idea.

8 . Next meeting: Tentatively schedule for Wednesday, July 9 at Patty Macs in Berwyn at 7:30 A.M.

9. Agenda suggestion for next meeting: Intragroup communications……I am a blog and blackberry dummy….WE NEED A CENTRAL PLACE TO COMMUNICATE…..rather than this round robin email merry-go-around…Roy is in charge of this topic.

Again, thanks to Susan Shute and Bank of America for their hospitality.

Duly submitted,

Joe Davison