Review the newest ACT! Version and see live a demonstration: 

Learn the top 10 new features in ACT!s latest version: ACT! 2011

The ITA Monday Morning Meeting (MMM) provides a forum for start-up and second-stage companies to gain strategic insight and wisdom through the collaborative counsel of the community. 

In alternating months, 2 companies present their business, market overview, and the top 3 key needs to an invitation-only consul of industry executives.  The counsul includes up to 12 executives and leaders of the technology industry in Illinois and cover a broad range of disciplines. The goal for the presenting companies is to be able to leapfrog their growth projections though the collective knowledge and experiences of the consul.

For Richard Abraham, selling in its most developed form is not about taking; nor is it about persuading.  Selling, believe it or not, is about giving and relationships.  The good sales person starts by listening and then developing an understanding of what people really need, not just in business, but in life itself.  A good sales person gives more than he takes.  People trust him because he is passionate about their interests not his own.

 

Richard has developed an approach to selling that represents a composite of the most successful sales people in America.  Come to hear him explain what he has learned about the best strategies and tactics for selling, combined with sensible street smarts.  Selling is like breathing, he believes.  When done well, it is easy and natural, and no one even notices that it is happening.

 

Richard Abraham is a speaker, writer and consultant widely sought after by many Fortune 500 companies. When not consulting or writing his syndicated column, he conducts workshops and seminars and speaks on the topics of relationship selling and maximizing the sales encounter. Richard supplements these speaking engagements with his publications, including the highly acclaimed book, Mr. Shmooze: The Art and Science of Selling through Relationships.

Research shows that an amazing 60-90% of our communication is nonverbal. So just what is it that others are telling us with their gestures, expressions and other body language?  What are we conveying to them?  And how can we use this information to better manage our clients and colleagues? Researcher and trainer Dr. Anne Beall will teach us the basics of reading others and show us how to interpret several elements of communication that are often overlooked in professional interactions. 

The mission of BNC is to bring together Chicago’s top business professionals, facilitate the development of their personal networks through our diverse groups, and promote the growth of business in Chicago.  We are committed to helping you develop mutually beneficial win-win relationships with the people who can make the biggest difference in your career and life.

We are excited to announce new changes at the monthly BNC After Hours event.  Beginning in September, we are adding more activities and having nationally-known networking, social media, business, entrepreneurship and innovation experts speak in the Main Room.

The BNC Venture Capital Group introduces exciting investment opportunities to professional investors (angels, early stage venture capitalists, and private equity firms seeking add-ons) and fosters the growth of entrepreneurial activity. Len Bland, CEO of Concept Equity, and David Carman, CEO of Business Network Chicago, lead the BNC Venture Capital Group.  We will review three entrepreneurial opportunities.  Each presentation lasts 10 minutes, followed by a 15 minute Q&A.

Sales 2.0 focuses on aligning steps in the sales cycle with those in the buying cycle by leveraging technology, process improvement, and sales knowledge to effectively collaborate with the most appropriate individuals (internally and externally) and doing so in the preferred format of each.

Sales 2.0 does not necessarily change what salespeople do; it changes how they work to become more efficient and effective. The essence of Sales 2.0 is:

1. Increased communication and collaboration between sellers and buyers and within selling teams. The Sales 2.0 environment is heavily dependent upon technology (including Web 2.0 offerings) to do everything from routine contact and account management to increasingly sophisticated opportunity management and prospect collaboration.

2. Proactive and visible integration of knowledge and measurement of the buying cycle into the sales cycle. These two dimensions of technology-enabled communication/collaboration and buyer behavior integration change the way salespeople sell and buyers buy.

Presented by Scott Taback of T Shape Solutions. Scott has a passion for helping companies develop and implement innovative solutions that drive results. He spent 10 years at IBM working with many Fortune 500 companies providing critical business and IT advisory services. Scott was responsible for managing $80M in revenue leading the IBM go to market strategy and a team of 20+ at several fortune 500 companies including United Airlines, Kellogg's, Hyatt, WW Grainger and Archer Daniels. He also served as a Web 2.0 Ambassador at IBM advocating the use of collaborative technologies throughout the company. 

Kevin Callahan, consultant and founder of the COO’s Bulldog, recently spoke to an entrepreneur that was exceedingly frustrated, I am very good at what I do, but I have a very hard time explaining what I do to other people. When I talk about my business, I feel as if I am scaring them away!

After finding out that the entrepreneur knew his business so well that he was bombarding his potential clients with a level of detail that was highly intimidating, Kevin spent some time with the entrepreneur distilling a very precise set of information: what were the ways that his customers would benefit from his services. Once he had distilled all his information into a short story that contained all the elements of a story, a main character, conflict (drama) and resolution he found it much easier to explain his business.

During this interactive session, we will spend some time exploring the technique used to interpret stories about you and your business into the "Story" of your business.  After the workshop each participant will present a story to the group. Most importantly, you will take away a technique that you can use to continue refining your business’ story as your business evolves.

Join the MIT Enterprise Forum Chicago on Sept. 15 for a program focusing on the state of entrepreneurship today. We’ll provide data on the types of industries in growth, demographics on where entrepreneurship is thriving, and information on any government changes that are coming that may have an impact on small to medium sized businesses. 

The program features a panel of experts from education, government, industry, and local organizations to uncover what types of entrepreneurs exist in the U.S. and locally and what is on the horizon that may impact the success of an entrepreneur today.

This series provides an opportunity for our invited guests to interact with Chicago's most legendary and experienced business owners in an informal and off the record environment. Our third installment in this series will feature Troy Henikoff.

Troy Henikoff has almost 25 years of running early stage businesses under his belt, has been an advisor to dozens of startups and has made a handful of seed stage investments as well.  Additionally he teaches Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University, is on the board of the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center and is a founder and director of Chicago's new incubator, Excelerate.