8:40 a.m.

YES Strategy: Yourself, Employees, Sales
3 Keys to a Better Business and a Better Life

YES! Find out how the YES Strategy — Yourself, your Employees, and Sales — offers the key to a better business and a better life. As founder of six businesses, including a three-time Inc. 500 company and a business that was one of Inc.'s fastest growing public companies, keynote speaker Norm Brodsky, Inc. columnist and business entrepreneur, provides real-life, practical techniques that you can use immediately.

You will gain insight into:

• How to treat your employees in the 21^st century (because there will be fewer of them)
• How to treat your customers
• Why are you doing all this — you need a life plan first and a business plan later.

Norm Brodsky's column "Street Smarts" reaches two million people each month. He has also been featured on CNN, CNBC and Inc. magazine.

Business Issues Interactive Workshop

Wish you could confer with others to see how they're dealing with the same tough issues? Learn from your peers in this free-flowing discussion workshop as you tackle challenging questions facing business owners and their staffs.

We Are Always Negotiating
Brian Dickerson, Dickerson Law Group, Columbus, Ohio

Negotiations are not only conducted while entering into a contract. The negotiation process needs to be used continuously, from operations to employee relationships, from client development to contracts. Learn how to evaluate and make the most of the landscape of business operations and opportunities.

Bio: Mr. Dickerson is the author of The Evolution of Free Agency in the National Football League: Collective Bargaining Restrictiveness, published in 1996. He has negotiated his own minor league baseball contract and numerous professional sports contracts, and has represented Nike in its landmark litigation, licensing deals and agreements with the SEC and U.S. Department of Justice.

Technology Tour at JC Penney

JC Penney headquarters, located just three blocks from the Westin Stonebriar, is home to one of the largest media production and distribution facilities in the Dallas area. The facility links to over 1,100 sites nationwide through its IP distribution system. The JC Penney Technology Tour offers a rare backstage glimpse of the technological transformation taking place in the corporate media arena.

Tour highlights include:

• A guided walk-through of the 10,000 sq. ft. studio's stages, control rooms and NLE suites
• Discussion of JC Penney's move to HD production
• A look at the ongoing development of a digital signage content creation and distribution system

Learn a step-by-step process on how to value your business and how to increase its future value. Obtain practical tools and discover how to:

• Package your business to make it attractive to a buyer
• Maximize its future potential
• Increase sales through marketing and market research
• Plan organizationally
• Substantiate goodwill
• ...and much more!

You'll explore the practical aspects and examples of the sale-of-business process; how to transfer a business to family and employees using an ESOP; how to target and attract suitable buyers; and how to negotiate an increase in price on the basis of favorable deal structuring.

Bio:Since 1983, A. M. Oppenheimer, Inc. has performed Business Brokerage and Business Evaluation Services for middle-market companies. The firm specializes in the areas of business valuation, exit planning and sale-of-business for middle-market companies.

Allen Oppenheimer, CPA, is the Founder and President of A. M. Oppenheimer, Inc. Previously, he was Vice-President of Geneva Corporation. Prior to that, Allen worked in management consulting for both Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Company and Ernst & Ernst in New York City. Allen is licensed to perform as a Business Broker and is a Registered Securities Principal. He is a prize winning author and his financially related articles have been published in leading magazines. He holds an undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering and received his Master's degree from Stanford University.

Lunch

Speed is of the essence! You and others are among today's leaders who face increasing pressure to make decisions more often and more quickly than ever. Find out how to make better decisions with real buy-in, enabling implementation and results. Gain new perspectives on the decision challenges you face in your leadership role and how to build broader decision-making skills for yourself and across the organization. Apply robust tools and techniques to real-life issues. You'll walk away from this session ready to make a thorough and multi-faceted analysis of critical decisions to build solutions that rest on solid foundations.

Bio: Patrick Karbon, Ph.D., is a Senior Consultant with Linkage, Inc. with significant practical experience in helping organizations achieve results through improved processes, systems and performance while managing change in a turbulent environment, working extensively in the areas of lean manufacturing and quality management systems. He has over twenty years of experience in identifying necessary skill sets and systematically delivering supporting training in automotive manufacturing, distribution, service and parts. He has conducted training in Cognitive and Performance Measurement as adjunct at the University of North Texas and participates actively in curriculum design/ development for lean manufacturing and operations management. Dr. Karbon earned his BS degree in Organizational Development at General Motors Institute, an MS in Administration from Central Michigan University, and his Ph.D. in Applied Technology, Training and Development from the University of North Texas. He currently serves as adjunct professor in the colleges of Business, Management and Manufacturing at three Michigan-based universities.