Advanced Business Retention: Beyond the Basics

Your community's best companies are your competitor's best prospects!

Without an effective retention and expansion program, opportunities WILL be lost. Historically, the R&E process has been tweaked mercilessly with little change in results.

The answer to better R&E is NOT in the process!

April 21-22, 2008

2 Full Days

8:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Chicago, Illinois

Registration Fee: $825

Includes: Breakfast and Lunch
Participant's Guide and Materials

Now, go beyond tweaking the business retention "process". Jump to a new level. Challenge yourself with new perspectives.

This isnt R&E 101.Thats been done. This course is focused on ROI:
increasing the Return On Investment from your R&E effort.
Increasing value!

Advanced Business Retention is the only advanced business
retention course.

What You Will Learn

  • Formulate a True Existing Business Strategy
  • Tap into the Unique Knowledge of Area CEOs
  • Evaluate Effectiveness of R&E Tools
  • Develop Effective Interview Strategy
  • Cultivate "Strategic Information"
  • Client Service Strategies
  • Dramatically Expand Community and Organizational Value

Agenda Highlights

Only 25 participants
for "Advanced Business
Retention"

  A Strategic Approach to Existing Business

  • Retention in A Recruitment World
  • Economic Development Trends and Impact on R&E
  • Business Retention: Evolution & Revolution
  • By Design: Best and Worst Practices
  • Dynamic Recombination Connecting Shared Interests
  • Formulating a True Existing Business Strategy

  First Actions

  • Steps and Actions Before Executive Interviews
  • Rapid Response Capabilities

  Intelligent Relationships & Client Knowledge

  • Executive Contact Program Alternatives and Options
  • Benchmarking R&E Your Current Interview Tool*
  • Executive Interviews, Questions, and Positioning
    • Locked in the Twilight Zone: Powerful Question
    • Survey Design Considerations
  • Launch Strategies
  • Roll-Out Issues: Rural, Urban & Statewide
    • Interviewer Preparation
    • Media and Communications
  • Selling the Visit

  Red Flag Response Teams

  • Forming and Training Teams
  • Red Flag Analysis
    • 14 Early Warning Signs and Drivers
  • Assistance Triage and Management
  • Team Management

  Risk Management and Product Improvement
Take Home Resources

  • Participant's Guide               
  • Program Launch Guide              
  • Interviewer's Guide              
  • R&E Planner's Checklist              
  • Case Studies               
  • How-To Resources              

    • Information, Analysis
    • Persuasive Reports
      • Factual, Descriptive, Predictive,
        Opinion
      • Numbers and Damn Numbers:
        Meaningful Statistics
      • Influencing Decision-Making

     Client Solutions

    • Delivering Services to Existing Businesses
       Business Development, Entrepreneurship, and Job Growth
    • C-Level Calls - Corporate Visit Campaign
    • Funding and Funding Strategies

     A Client Focused Strategy

    • Adding Value: Total Value Array
    • Evaluating Effectiveness
      • Results
      • Outcomes
      • Base Values (5) VS. Total Value Array (6)
    • A Systems View of Business Retention
    • Assembling the Pieces: A Holistic Existing Business Strategy

     Decisions, Decisions

    • The Missing Link: A Vision for R&E
      • Effectiveness: Achieving maximum value
      • Economic Portfolio Management Strategy
    • Becoming an Agent of Change

    Presenters:   Eric P. Canada, Blane, Canada Ltd.

    Optional Planning Track (5:00 6:00 each day)

    • Plan your own R&E program
    • One-on-One Assistance


    * Bring the R&E survey instrument you use to evaluate it against national standards during the workshop.

      Prepare to be challenged!   Prepare to work!   Prepare to excel!

     

    Print/Mail or Fax registration form

    Click here to open and print a hard-copy Registration Form. Complete the form, and fax it with your credit card information to the number shown on the form. Or, you can mail it with check payment.

    Participant's Raves

    "Excellent! Probably the best seminar I have ever attended. The information covered was 100% relevant and over 75% applicable to my job duties."

    "I attended a business retention course... last year which was essentially a series of commercials by the presenters. Frankly, I was offended I had to pay to be pitched! Blane, Canada Ltd.'s Advanced Business Retention workshop is nothing like that. It is an excellent course, well worth the price of admission."

    "They just don't come any better than this."

    "Business retention was almost dead here till you (Blane, Canada Ltd.) threw a rock in the pond. You are exactly right. We had tweaked the process to death and were getting no where. It is time to focus on results. Great solution. Great work."

    "Great session! It has been so long since I have attended a conference that offered the level of substance you provided - thank you!".

    "I'm very sensitive... on how I spend my time and those 3 days (Advanced Business Retention: Beyond the Basics) were the best value of my time in a long time."

    ~~~"I've been in R&E for a long time... This course pushed me to view our approach in a new light."

    ~~~~~~"I'd say it a little differently... What Blane, Canada Ltd. has done is to shift the focus of business retention from data collection to problem solving and service delivery. You have given R&E strategic focus."

    ~~~Strategic approach ... "I was a strategic information officer with a large company before coming to economic development. The concepts you are suggesting for business retention are right on the money."

    ~~~Who rates a 4.5 on a 5.0 scale... for presentation, content, and materials? Eric Canada's October program on "Advanced Business Retention". That score is significant because of the high level of economic development talent among the participants.