| 10/17/2012 | ||||
 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm | Registration Open | |||
| 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm | Rise of the Trust Agent Julien Smith Join Julien Smith for an energetic and informative conversation about the business implications of a new breed of business communicator: the Trust Agent. You’ll learn what to do if your message has become invisible in the fray, and you’ve fallen behind in the online aspects of business communication. Discover how your business can take advantage of the relationship-centric tools of the new Web and learn how to make the first moves that will help your business succeed. | |||
| 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm | Welcome Reception | |||
| 10/18/2012 | ||||
| 8:00 am - 8:50 am | Breakfast Roundtables / Sponsors | |||
| 9:00 am - 10:15 am | What's Your Story? Distinguishing Your Firm Through Strategic Storytelling Bill Baker, Principal and Founder , BB&Co Strategic Storytelling In this engaging presentation, strategic storyteller Bill Baker will outline how a firm’s story—once properly uncovered, crafted and shared—can be used to differentiate it in a highly competitive marketplace. He will unpack storytelling for you, helping you understand the inherent power behind this timeless and infinitely familiar craft; how and why it works; what it is, and what it is not. Using anecdotes and real life examples, Bill will explain how storytelling is the ultimate “pull” strategy: drawing on both logic and magic to connect with people mentally and emotionally and, through those connections, creating pipelines through which key messages and relevant information can flow. In turn, you’ll learn how storytelling can be used strategically to help you not only efficiently communicate the value of your company, but also to engage, align and inspire all the employees within your firm. (You’ll also see how you can use storytelling to increase the effectiveness of their communications and leadership.) | |||
| 10:45 am - 12:00 pm | The Tax Game: Keeping More of YOUR Money in YOUR Pocket Martin Kamenski, President & Founder, Rockstar CPA In this session, Rockstar CPA president and founder Martin Kamenski will bring to light many of the toughest business and tax questions that freelancers and small creative businesses face every year. He has built a practice largely on the ability to explain the difficult matters of business and taxes to creatively-tuned brains. Whether you have built up your own practice and now have others working for you , or you’re just getting ready to launch your business, you’ll learn how to make the best of your current situation and what lies down the road ahead. You'll hear about the differences between business and hobbies, between LLCs and S-corps, between keeping receipts and snapping pictures of them, between making more money and keeping more money in your pocket. Walk in feeling like you're a victim of the system—walk out feeling like you're finally in control. | |||
| 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm | Lunch On Your Own | |||
| 2:00 pm - 3:15 pm | Moving from Vendor to Trusted Advisor Sandy Styer, Practice Lead for Trust Diagnostics ™ , Trusted Advisor Associates LLC There are many advantages to being a trusted advisor rather than simply a vendor: your ideas and advice are accepted more readily, “selling to your clients” becomes the less painful “helping your clients,”you get more repeat business and referrals, you really get to know your clients, and…working with clients becomes a whole lot more fun! But how do you get to become a trusted advisor? Sandy Styer will explore the issue of trust and how it’s built, using the Trust Equation to help you understand how to gain your clients’ trust, and what changes you need to make in order to get there. Prior to the Conference, you’ll be encouraged to take the Trust Quotient Assessment, a 10-question self-assessment that will give you some insight into your trustworthiness. | |||
| 3:45 pm - 5:15 pm | Planning the Agency Website That Works Mark O'Brien, President, Newfangled Based on his book, A Website That Works, Mark O’Brien will share a 9-step process that provides a framework for creating website strategies that will help you take the lead on client web projects and plan sites that specialize in attracting, informing, and engaging the right audience. Mark will then conduct a live in-person interview with four small agency principals who have websites that have proven to be effective business generating tools. These principals will share their experiences with their websites, with a particular focus on how they have created and maintained their content strategy and how their sites are used to generate leads, nurture leads, and close business. | |||
| 5:15 pm - 6:30 pm | Happy Hour sponsored by Emma | |||
| 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm | The Live Agency Review David C. Baker, Principal, ReCourses, Inc. Something extraordinary has happened at every MYOB Conference. An agency principal “bares their business” on stage in front of hundreds of colleagues, as creative-business consultant David C. Baker reviewes their financials, their marketing plan, their day-to-day business practices, etc.. In the process, he uncoveres—and shares with the audience—their successes, their mistakes, and opportunities they should be seizing, as well as surprising feedback he gathered from their employees prior to the conference. David will once again conduct an abbreviated agency review at this year’s MYOB Conference. Don’t miss this opportunity to see inside another agency and glean advice that is truly real-world. At this year’s MYOB Conference, you’ll get an up-close and personal look at Deuce Creative of Houston. Thanks, brave Deuce team, for your willingness to learn—and to teach by your participation. | |||
| 10/19/2012 | ||||
| 8:00 am - 9:15 am | Breakfast Roundtables / Sponsors | |||
| 9:15 am - 10:30 am | Attracting, Retaining, Managing & Wowing Gen Y Employees Jodi Glickman The workplace is changing—and so are the rules of engagement. The millennial generation (Gen Y’s), at 75 million and counting, is the largest generation since the baby boomers and has a whole new set of expectations and requirements for making work and life meaningful and fulfilling. As a business owner, you’ve got to know how to attract, retain, engage and wow this powerful demographic in order to succeed. Developing talent, giving continuous feedback, acknowledging work-life balance, understanding social media and it’s impact on the workplace all play into your ability to manage and engage Millennials and tap into their powerful potential and amazing technological expertise. In this session, Jodi Glickman will give you insight into Gen Y and offer tools and strategies for creating a harmonious and productive workplace that allows everyone to thrive—Gen Y’s, Gen-X’rs and Baby Boomers alike. | |||
| 10:45 am - 12:00 pm | Be a Laser, Not a Lighthouse Todd Henry, Founder & CEO, Accidental Creative Effective leadership in today's marketplace depends on the ability to provide clarity of direction even in the face of uncertainty. That means providing the clear vision, resources and framework that will help your team produce its best work. But when the pressure is on, it’s easy to take the most efficient route and sacrifice the true potential of your team. In this talk, Todd Henry will help you gain traction and lead through the uncertainty. You'll learn how the tension between possibilities and pragmatics creates three deadly assassins of organizational creativity, and how the elements of Creative Rhythm keep teams in a place of long-term effectiveness. You'll also discover several immediately actionable methods for helping your team stay aligned and focused on its most important work. Leadership in the create-on-demand world demands a focus on effectiveness, not just efficiency. The strategies you'll learn will help both you and your team be prolific, brilliant and healthy. | |||
