Michael Synk, Owner of In-Synk, presented his popular “Business Book Club”. He discussed the book “The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth” by Fred Reichheld.  The ‘Synk Notes’ are said to “be better than the book. You learn the book without having to read it.”  It is impossible to find the time to read all of the books on our to-do lists, so the In-Synk Book Club does the hard work for you- all you have to do is show up at the Book Club meeting and Michael will share the book highlights with you.

From Publishers Weekly

Almost everyone appreciates the importance of customer satisfaction in business, but this book takes that idea to two extremes. First, it claims that customer satisfaction is more important than any business criterion except profits. Second, it argues that customer satisfaction is best measured by one simple question, “Would you recommend this business to a friend?” Pressure for financial performance tempts executives to seek “bad profits,” that is, profits obtained at the expense of frustrating or disappointing customers. Such profits inflate short-term financial results, Reichheld writes, but kill longer-term growth. Only relentless focus on customer satisfaction can generate “good profits.” One unambiguous question, with answers delivered promptly, can force organizational change, he claims. Reichheld makes a strong rhetorical case for his ideas, but is weaker on supporting evidence. The negative examples he gives are either well-known failures or generic entities like “monopolies,” “cell phone service providers” and “cable companies.” When presenting statistics on poor performers, the names are omitted “for obvious reasons.” On the other hand, the positive examples are named, but described in unrealistically perfect terms. Believable comparisons of companies with both virtues and flaws would have been more instructive. (Mar.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Charles D. McVean is Chairman and CEO of McVean Trading & Investments, LLC of Memphis, TN. McVean graduated with honors from Vanderbilt University in 1965. He began his trading career in the grain industry, first with Cook Industries of Memphis, TN,
and then with the Louis Dreyfus Corporation of New York City, both major international trading firms. Subsequently, McVean spent a number of years with Refco Inc., a large Chicago based futures trading organization. He was one of three principals of the firm.

McVean founded McVean Trading and Investments, LLC in 1986. The company conducts extensive research in three broad and interrelated areas: 1) livestock and meats, 2) grains and oilseeds, and 3) global macroeconomics. McVean is a global organization with foreign operations centering in Beijing, Osaka, and Geneva. In the U.S., McVean Trading is nationally recognized as a leading authority on the beef cattle industry. The company manages investments for over 5,000 clients.

Based on breakthroughs in lithium battery technology, a new McVean company is now introducing its Aerobic Cruiser Hybrid Cycle. The patented Cruiser is billed as “The World’s Most Sophisticated Electric Bicycle,” and “The First Truly Capable Human/Electric Hybrid Vehicle.”

McVean founded what is now The Peer Power Foundation in 2004. The organization’s mission is to prepare socioeconomically challenged youth to be professional, productive, and competitive contributors to our society. The concept is to create and implement new processes based on personal accountability, discipline, competition, and incentives, very much like that of the American Free Enterprise System. Peer Power now operates in eleven schools, employing, for pay, over 150 college and high school honor students to tutor and mentor over 1,000 students a day. The improvement shown by foundation “Scholars” is truly exciting. McVean was also instrumental in the founding of The McVean Learning Center at Christ Methodist Day School.

McVean is particularly proud of two recent developments. The Memphis City Council recognized him with its Humanitarian of the Year award in 2007 for his successful efforts to improve public education. Very recently, in September 2009, the Peer Power program in Shelby, Mississippi was awarded a $600,000 competitive grant from the 21st Century Foundation.

Thursday, April 21, 2011
Entrepreneurs Roundtable Lunch and Discussion with Art Seessel, Former CEO, Seessel’s Supermarkets
Napa Cafe – 12:00 noon

Art Seessel is a founding member of the Society of Entrepreneurs, and he is someone who understands well the concept of entrepreneurship. “A true entrepreneur is simply one who has a vision and the tenacity to pursue that vision.”  The Seessel legacy in Memphis began in 1858, when Henry Seessel opened a meat stall on Market Street in downtown Memphis. The steadily growing operation was passed down through the family, who opened the first Seessel’s Supermarket on Union Avenue in 1941. In 1961, Art Seessel, III became the fifth generation of Seessels to join the firm. Art Seessel sold his supermarket to Alabama-based Bruno’s in 1997.

Thursday, March 10, 2011
Managing Through Tough Times: Survival of the Fittest

Presented by Bob King, Partner, SEACAP Financial
Napa Cafe, 5101 Sanderlin ~ Suite 122
12:00 noon

Virtually every business owner and senior manager now has first hand experience in “managing through tough times”. Many have just weathered the storm. Some have raised the white flag. Others have done it quite well. But, a handful have done it exceptionally well, even taking advantage of emerging opportunities. This last group is composed of entrepreneurial business managers. These are survivors who managed through a troubled economy with determination, an open mind, vision, and integrity. Their companies are the fittest and their lessons are worthy of study. So come on March 10^th and hear tales of these survivors … the most creative owners and managers … the fittest of the fit.

Robert S. King
Bob King, a founding principal of SEACAP Financial, brings over 20 years of experience in mergers and acquisitions to create value for his clients. Bob leads SEACAP’s process-oriented approach to match buyers and sellers of privately-owned businesses. An entrepreneur at heart, Bob has a passion for buying, selling, building and staffing client’s companies. After beginning his career as an engineer with Westinghouse, Bob was President of Senior Achievement, Inc, Marketing Techniques, Inc., and Acquisition Management Services, Inc. Bob received a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Vanderbilt University.

Thursday, February 17, 2011
Entrepreneurs Roundtable Lunch and Discussion with Billy Orgel, CEO, Tower Ventures
Napa Cafe, 5101 Sanderlin ~ Suite 122
12:00 noon

William E. Orgel (Billy) is a native of Memphis and is a graduate of Memphis University School. He earned a BBA from The University of Texas at Austin in 1985. After graduation, he moved to Memphis to work at his family business, Majestic Communications, which he helped build into the areas largest retailer of Motorola two way radio equipment as well as the largest private licensee of 800MHZ FCC licenses. Due to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 there began an emergence of multiple wireless phone carriers across the country, and Billy began to build on his existing portfolio of communications towers by performing build to suit services for these new carriers. His company that he runs with his partners, Tower Ventures, currently own over 400 towers and they have built and sold 280 towers since the company began. Currently, Tower Ventures leases tower space in over 30 states and is the 6 largest private tower company in the country.

Billy is the President of the Board of Trustees at Temple Israel Synagogue and former Co-Chair of their 25 million capital campaign.  In 1999, Billy was selected by the Memphis Business Journal as one of their “Top 40 Under 40″ of local community leaders. In addition, Billy is an Organizer and Director of the First Capital Bank located in Germantown, Tennessee. Over the years, Billy became interested in preserving historic buildings in Downtown Memphis, and to date he and his partners have completed the construction and preservation of 6 buildings that include commercial space and 63 apartments. Billy is also involved in the restaurant business as a franchisee of Ruth’s Chris in Rogers, Arkansas and Lenny’s Sub Shops in Dallas, Texas.

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Meeting Reminder
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Top 10 Tax Traps for Business Owners

Napa Cafe, 5101 Sanderlin ~ Suite 122
12:00 noon
Presented by Chip Marston and Susan Lattimore, The Marston Group

J. Kenneth (Chip) Marston, Jr., CPA
CEO/Senior Member
Chip Marston, CPA, is the Founding Member and CEO of The Marston Group, PLC, Certified Public Accountants and Business Advisors and affiliated entities. Mr. Marston’s practice is concentrated in providing financial, tax and advisory services to closely-held businesses and individuals and includes litigation support services involving complex family law issues, business/shareholder controversies, business formation, growth and exit strategies, private equity, troubled business reorganization, family office services and estate and gift planning. In addition to the CPA designation, Mr. Marston has been granted the Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF™) designation by the American Institute of CPAs and also holds Tennessee Life and Health Insurance licenses.

Mr. Marston has served as a Mediator, Receiver and Special Master in divorce, shareholder and business controversies, and he has testified numerous times in litigated matters involving asset tracing, forensic accounting, income determination for alimony and child support, employee/shareholder compensation, business income, and corporation, partnership and individual tax matters, as well as financial and tax reporting matters.

Susan Payne Lattimore, CFP^®, Enrolled Agent
Senior Manager
Ms. Lattimore is a Senior Manager at The Marston Group, PLC. She has more than 15 years of experience working with closely-held businesses and high net-worth individuals. She has taught numerous tax seminars for continuing professional education and accounting principles seminars for entrepreneurs through the Memphis Chamber of Commerce.

Ms. Lattimore’s areas of concentration are tax planning, tax return preparation, business consulting (selling and purchasing of businesses, efficiency of operations, efficiency of entity structuring for tax purposes and employee benefits), succession planning, retirement planning, estate planning, consulting, compliance services and family wealth planning for closely held businesses, individuals and charitable organizations, wealth transfer planning, including estate and gift tax strategies and compliance.

Thursday, October 21, 2010
Lunch and Discussion with Harold Gwatney, Chairman of the Gwatney Companies

Harold Gwatney started his automobile career in 1942, sweeping floors and washing parts at his uncle’s garage. In 1944, he went to work at Critz Chevrolet in North Little Rock as a mechanic’s helper and by 1946 was a certified mechanic-all of this prior to High School Graduation! After graduation from high school in 1947, Harold Gwatney held several positions at different car dealerships and in the Arkansas National Guard. On November 7, 1957, Chevrolet approved a franchise for Harold Gwatney Chevrolet Co.

Throughout the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, Gwatney started a variety of business and ventures; including, an apartment complex, a national bank, Harold Gwatney Realty Co., Jacksonville properties, Dalco Enterprises, Inc., Consolidated Insurance Co. and Financial Properties Insurance Co. At the same time, Gwatney held a variety of ranks in the Army National Guard, he was promoted to Major General in 1981 and retired in 1989.

In June 1989, Gwatney moved to Memphis to help his son, Russell, in their second Chevrolet dealership purchased in 1988. Shortly after moving to Memphis, he purchased a third Chevrolet dealership and broke ground on one of the first original Saturn dealerships in the nation. In 1993, he purchased the Ford dealership in Millington. In 1994, he built his second Saturn store known as Saturn of Germantown and in 1998 he built his third Saturn store, Saturn of Jackson in Jackson, Tennessee.

Throughout his career, Harold Gwatney has been very involved in the community including serving two terms on the North Little Rock City Council. Gwatney was also active in the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce, and many other civic and charitable organizations.

R.E. Linkous is originally from Blacksburg, Virginia and grew up there in a family of general contractors. R.E. came to Memphis in 1970 to build multi-family structures for the Alodex Corporation. Later, he managed operations for the Norfleet Construction Company and for the Memphis division of Vanco Construction Company. In 1983, he founded his own Memphis based construction company, Linkous Construction Company. The company has grown to 130 employees and performing annual work in excess of $100 million.

R.E. has been joined by his two sons and son-in-law in managing the business. R.E. would attribute his success to his entire team at Linkous Construction. In addition, one of the aspects of his firm he is most proud of lies in the fact that annually over 75% of his business is completed with repeat clients. As R.E. reminds all of his employees on a regular basis, “The key to achieving success in this business is simply to do what you say you are going to do, when you say you are going to do it.”

Linkous is very involved in the Memphis Community; he has served on the Board of Habitat for Humanity, Boy Scouts of America, Epilepsy Foundation of West Tennessee, the Regional Chamber and many others.

Thursday, August 19, 2010 – The Society of Entrepreneurs presents a
Lunch and Discussion with David Wedaman, President and CEO of ReTrans

In 2002, David Wedaman and a handful of employees started ReTrans. ReTrans is an intermodal marketing company that moves freight throughout the United States, with a primary focus on intermodal transportation. In less than seven years, David has grown his company to 32 offices and 250 employees with revenues exceeding $250 million. He is highly profitable and his integrity in the marketplace is unmatched.

David’s charitable work includes, but is not limited to: Board of Directors of Lifeblood Foundation; Advisory Board for Catholic High; Past Chairman of the Intermodal Association of North America; Past Board member of Youth Villages; Board of Directors for CMUST, Catholic Memphis Urban School Trust and the Board of Directors for the BlueStreak Scholarship Fund.