Club E Podcast

Club E will be joined by  Anne Berg, Founder of Vyway® Market & Brand Strategy to discuss  best practices on Brand Performance. 
Effective brand strategy elevates marketplace awareness and eliminates marketplace confusion. 

In turn, this work increases revenue growth and also positions an organization for sustainable profitability. 

If your offering is sound but your prospects aren’t buying, it’s likely because they don’t know, understand or trust your brand. 

Learning Objectives: 
1. Learn why branding matters and the key elements of brand strategy.

2. Understand the value of ownable brand names that are trademark worthy.

3. Connect the elusive dots between branding and marketing / sales.

About Anne: 
Anne Berg celebrates the 25th anniversary as the principal of Vyway® Market & Brand Strategy. Anne offers clients decades of professional experience, including 10 years in the big agency realm. Recognized for her keen sense of business and brand strategy, Anne helps clients accelerate the market performance of their brand and the profitability of their business. Anne Berg is a business strategist, brand demystifier, and impassioned logophile, known for her ability to bring order to chaos.

Club E will be joined by Sven Wehrwein and Jim Zuehlke to discuss perspectives from a professional board member. 

About Sven: 
Broad and deep financial background: CPA, MBA, Investment Banker, CFO, and Audit Committee Financial Expert. Experienced public company board member across nine public companies.

Commitment to board service also encompasses five private companies and ten non-profits. In each case, tapped to be audit or finance committee chair. 
About Jim: 
Jim is the founder of Cardinal Board Services (CBS) and works closely with companies that want to upgrade their Board of Directors.  Jim has been in the Executive Search for 25+ years starting Cardinal Mark and CBS.

Ecommerce skyrocketed in 2020 and it’s off to another record-breaking year. But a lot of people struggle to get momentum because they aren’t looking at the right metrics or they’re too focused on the nitty-gritty but haven’t solved the bigger picture (marketing basics like offer, audience, product-market fit). We can dig into the metrics, the processes, and the roadblocks that get in the way of growth.

Learning Objective:
The basics still matter (stay away from shiny objects).
How to track the right things the right way (so you know how to accelerate).
What pitfalls to watch out for.

About William:
William Harris is the Founder and CEO of Elumynt, an ecommerce growth agency and has been critical to driving growth for multiple startups in ecommerce and SaaS. He has helped to facilitate both sides of acquisitions, and consults for the CMOs of multi-billion dollar Fortune 1,000 companies, all while writing about advertising and ecommerce on Entrepreneur, Shopify, GoDaddy, GritDaily, and many other top publications.


William Harris's Contact information
[email protected]
https://elumynt.com/​
https://twitter.com/wmharris101​
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wmharris/​
https://www.instagram.com/wmharris101/​
Clubhouse - @williamharris

Club E will be joined by guest moderator Sharon Bloodworth to interview Rick Brimacomb about his journey as an investor, mentor and entrepreneur. 

Connect this month to listen to Club-E founder Rick Brimacomb have the interview tables turned on him.   As a life-long entrepreneur and connector, Rick will be questioned on the habits of successful entrepreneurs, what lessons seasoned entrepreneurs never want to repeat, and how you can succeed.  Short cut your path to success as master mentor Rick shares his 32 years of company analysis and entrepreneurship experience and get your chance to learn about the man behind Club E.

Club E will be joined by Sven Wehrwein and Jim Zuehlke to discuss perspectives from a professional board member. Part 2
About Sven: 
Broad and deep financial background: CPA, MBA, Investment Banker, CFO, and Audit Committee Financial Expert. Experienced public company board member across nine public companies.Commitment to board service also encompasses five private companies and ten non-profits. In each case, tapped to be audit or finance committee chair. 
About Jim: 
Jim is the founder of Cardinal Board Services (CBS) and works closely with companies that want to upgrade their Board of Directors.  Jim has been in the Executive Search for 25+ years starting Cardinal Mark and CBS.

Club E will be joined by  by Sue Crockett, Tony Wand, Kurt Uhlir, Kevin Weise, and Tim Foley to discuss ESOPs as an exit strategy. 
Selling a company to an ESOP provides a retirement plan for employees which creates wealth equity while at the same time providing a succession planning tool for the selling owners.  What else does an ESOP do?  There may be favorable tax considerations for you as a seller and also as an ESOP.   Employee owners tend to think differently when it comes to process improvement, cost containment and customer engagement activities which impact the bottom line.  An ESOP’s culture is typically just different, better.  
Learning Objective: 
Understand the power of an ESOP to grow a company and the local economy

Learn how an acquisition by an ESOP creates more employee owners while at the same time providing an exit strategy for a small business owner concerned about their employees well being.

About Sue: 
Sue is the Executive Director of the MN Center for Employee Ownership (MNCEO) a non-profit organization created to educate business owners, advisors, community leaders, and members of local and state government entities on the benefits of employee ownership via Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), Worker Owned Cooperatives, and Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs). It is the mission of the MNCEO to turn the state of Minnesota into a place where every working person can also be an employee owner.



About Tim: 
Tim brings over 25 years’ experience in Sales, Marketing, Business Development, and Engineering of engineered electrical products. He has worked within several large manufacturing companies including General Electric, Rockwell Automation, and Danaher Corporation. Customer satisfaction in all our business lines and the growth that results are his primary focus. He has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and a MBA from Indiana University.


About Kevin: 
Kevin joined the First International Bank & Trust (FIBT)  Enterprise Retirement Solutions Team in January 2020.


Kevin has over 40 years of retirement plan / institutional trust experience, prior to FIBT, Kevin was at Bremer Bank, where he was the Institutional Trust Group Lead for 14 years.


About Kurt: 
Kurt Uhlir, founder, principal owner and President of Standby Power System Consultants, Inc. from 1997 until its acquisition by HM Cragg Co. in May 2017.  Kurt now serves as Business Development Manager and Senior Technical Advisor for the Company.  Kurt received a BS in Electrical Engineering and Technology from Southern Illinois University in 1981.  For the past 40 years, he has specialized in stationary battery, dc power system and energy storage design, installation, maintenance and testing for electric utility, communications, industrial, UPS, mission critical sites and renewable energy applications. 

About Tony: 
Tony was a CPA (inactive) by trade.  Big 8 public accounting in the 1980’s with KPMG.   CFO, COO and now CEO in distribution, consulting, manufacturing and civil engineering companies over a 36-year career. Focus on process improvement, information reporting and strategic growth.

Club E will be joined by John Arms, Co-Founder of Voyageur University to discuss how you can go the independent career route while still being able to sleep at night. 
We like our eras in America. The agrarian era. Industrial era. Tech era. Cloud era. Next up, the gig era. We are in the final stages of where gig work takes off for professionals. Phase 1 was the covid shotdown, where America learned that remote work works just fine. Phase 2 was the covid layoffs, where professionals got a taste of freedom from the corporate grind and aren’t giving it up. Phase 3 is now, where businesses are learning that hiring fractional talent gets the workers they need  at a lower cost, and without bearing the cost of their healthcare and 401k contributions. Proof of concept: LinkedIN just got into the gig game, going head to head on Fivvr and Upwork.
Learning Objectives: 
1. Why is the gig economy growing and why should you care.
2. How to get in on it as a professional.
About John: 
John Arms is co-founder of Voyageur University, an online community dedicatated to helping stuck professionals go independent. John is the guy who helps the spark come back into your eyes when it comes to your career. He is an entrepreneur at heart, with three businesses in his portfolio at the moment. In addition to his business pursuits, John is a dad to three wonderful sons, husband to an amazing wife (He truly outkicked his coverage there) and has a serious addiction to fishing and a darn fine cigar.

Club E will be joined by Neil Littman, Founder and CEO of Bioverge to discuss investing within the startup and private markets. 
Investing in the venture capital asset class is now more accessible than ever.  For the first time, retail investors can now invest in high-growth and high impact startups working to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.  
Learning Objectives: 
• Learn about the benefits of diversifying your portfolio with alternative assets

• Learn about the latest innovations in the life science and biotech space

• Learn about how you can construct your portfolio with VC-style investments
About Neil: 
Neil Littman is the Founder, CEO and General Partner of Bioverge, a highly curated impact investment platform exclusively dedicated to healthcare. Previously, Neil was Vice President of Business Development at Notable Labs through the completion of the company’s $40M Series B.  Prior to that, Neil was a healthcare investment banker and worked on transactions totalling over $1 billion. Neil has a Master’s in Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins and an BA in Molecular Biology.