This session will help you find that palpable intersection between your skills and your passion - wherein lies your superpower. We will discuss how to identify and cultivate your superpower so that your life, your work and your minutes spent - are purposeful, meaningful and incredibly influential.

Warning Signs. What happens when we see a “Wet Paint” sign? This session is a discussion of warning signs in business that we don’t see or we ignore. Shrinking profits? Constantly cutting costs? Trouble raising prices? Staff turnover? Low retention? Anxious? Are you going to stick your finger in the paint or are you going to turn those signs into opportunity and growth?

Would you like to pay your key employees more and maintain your net margin even in soft years? Most small business owners claim that their goal is to give raises that outpace the cost of living. A wonderful notion, but dangerous practice. Conventional raises are a one-way street that rise up and stay up - even in the soft years. Kids First has developed a brand new elastic compensation system that pays department leaders better, protects the company’s net margin and is loved by all parties.

These are the voyages of an amazing children’s center. Our mission is to explore awesome new concepts, seek out new ideas and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no business has gone before! We will take aim at aesthetics and function. We will study square footage, layout, traffic flow...signs, storage, seating, trash cans, cubbies in the hallway and single use spaces. We will challenge communication, noise, silence, ceilings, electronic ticker tapes, bulletin boards, lights, and surfaces. Then we will elevate every option with incredibly creative, progressive uses and designs. Your building can be more than a floor and four walls! Let’s make your facility a star attraction!

Whether you have a $500 marketing budget or $500,000 to spend, we all want to get the most value for our marketing dollar. This session is about low cost marketing ideas that have high return value on the investment. Learn how creativity, technology and personableness can lend to strong marketing results. Discover some new ideas for special campaigns that yield special results! This is a fun session that will give you lots of tangible ideas you can implement right away!

Taught by the most revered teacher of teachers, this session is a lively discussion (and demonstration!) of the importance of demonstrating while teaching. We will explore how being shown helps children learn. Successful demonstrating is part science, part shameless theater and part creativity. Arguably the most underused tool in our teaching box, it’s time to shine a new light on this essential teaching strategy.

This session is about finding and channeling hopes and dreams into action based behaviors that drive you to achievement and success. We will explore the psychology of ambition and learn how to use ambition in positive, purposeful ways. We will discuss what hinders our ambition and our execution so that we can re-direct our intentions and actions in ways that move our dream forward. Of all the work that is done for others, this session is about you, your dreams and your ambitions. This is happening!

In 2005 Ron and Jane Sciarro partnered with Paul and Heather Preston and created Aqua Tots Swim Schools, a franchise business model that has been replicated in 85 locations throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Ron will share the strategic planning, attention to detail and focus on excellence that enabled Aqua Tots to grow to the successful worldwide company that it is today. Whether you want to increase your sales by 5% in one location or expand to multiple operations around the world, learn how Key Performance Indicators can help you achieve your goals.

Is your business tethered? Circling along the same course year after year, tied to redundancies? Every stage of business presents challenges that impede creativity, encumber possibilities and suppress growth. Come learn how to recognize the signs of stagnancy in business and in our personal development. Explore the psychology behind staying tethered and join us as we commit to new challenges with confidence and competence and create and embrace new opportunities for ourselves and our business!

Procrastination is the most expensive invisible cost in business today. This session will discuss the effects of procrastination including disruptions in delivery, turnover, underperformance, weak culture, poor work flow management, overscheduling, crisis desensitization and distraction. Learn the step by step plan that you can implement with your team to eliminate, automate, delegate, consolidate and park tasks so that you can free yourself and your team of the inefficiencies of procrastination and get on a path of accountability, productivity and relief!

Superstar athletes, celebrated heroes and eminent entrepreneurs do not have an exclusive copyright on the IT Factor! The IT Factor lies within all of us and can be called upon to help us be the dynamic leader we were meant to be! There is a simple magic sauce that gives us the power to lead people to success. This session will inspire you to start each day with a renewed focus on positive energy, passion and enthusiasm for what you do and how you do it. You will leave excited to help your team build their talents, channel their energy and reach their goals in 2018!

A penny saved is a penny earned. Get your penny rolls ready because we are going to learn how to earn over 30 million pennies! This session is a blend of smart, essential... some easy, some sophisticated... ways to SAVE and EARN more money. Tried and true and some brand new, this will be eye opening!

Join us as we learn 15 essential tips to keep your 2017 tax filings neat and TIDY! The US Tax Code is 74,608 pages long! That is 74,608 reasons to get the Cliff Notes from renowned CPA and business strategist, Tom Ahlstrom. Tom will discuss new tax laws, common errors in reporting, most overlooked deductions, audit red flags, changes in health care reporting, the PATH Act, new filing deadlines, sales tax exposure, automobiles, meals. home offices and more!

One of the greatest joys of being a leader is building a great team. This session outlines the system, strategies, time-line and resources you need to build your team in 2018! This step by step outline will guide you through finding the right staff through unique hiring methods; on-boarding; building individuals and the culture of the team; ongoing training; mentoring; communication; staying organized with the help of technology; tracking progress and working toward success to significance with a positive impact on your community and beyond!

The US Department of Justice reports that each year, 300,000 children get temporarily lost for at least one hour. We all bear the risk of having a child ‘disappear’ from within our facility. Whether it is a 30 second gasp from stepping away from mom, a 3 minute panic throughout the building or a soul sickening search that goes on for too long, we all face the risk of a child getting lost or disappearing from within our child based businesses. This session will provide an outline for creating an action plan for a missing child crisis.

How many times have you heard someone say, “Our managers need to stop managing and start leading!” Or, “today's leaders need to be stronger mentors!” Leaders, managers and mentors play separate and unique roles – none more important than the other – each essential to our success. This session will explore the essential roles of leaders, mentors and managers. Learn how to motivate, inspire and manage each of these important positions within your company so that everyone is thriving and contributing.

Child based businesses are notorious for being sweet operations with strong emotion based service practices. We are classy, warm, creative and caring. Our success depends upon our ability to convert leads into enrollments and we can benefit from being sales savvy! This session is about being able to close the deal! Learn the strategies for understanding and satisfying your customers’ needs through processes that are sincere, mutually beneficial and focused on forging long term relationships.

We strategize. We incentivize. We set goals. We create contests. We make charts. We discipline. We Michelin. And then we try something else. There is one universal praxis that rises above all others. Of all the ways we seek to motivate our team, edification is supreme. Edification is that sustainable movement that turns employees into family, converts competency into leadership and transforms ready into able. Edification is the most essential key to inspiring and influencing our employees.