2002 Expo Keynote Speaker

Michael Ciresi

Michael Ciresi is the managing partner and Chairman of the Executive Board of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, L.L.P. Mr. Ciresi’s trial practice and consulting is focused in the areas of product liability, intellectual property, business and commercial litigation. Some of his more visible cases include the State of Minnesota and

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Minnesota vs. Phillip Morris Inc., Dalkon Shield litigation and the Government of India vs. Union Carbide. In 2001, Mr. Ciresi was named best product liability attorney in America by Corporate Board Member magazine. He is also coordinating a group of local investors attempting to purchase the Minnesota Twins to keep major league baseball in Minnesota.

Michael Ciresi grew up in St. Paul. His roots are in small business as his parents owned a neighborhood grocery/liquor store. Mike will share his insights about the pressures of small businesses competing in difficult financial times, the risks and rewards of small business and its importance both locally and nationally. It’s an honor to have him join us at Expo 2002.

Strategic Partner

KCCO AM 950

Supporting Partner

Zurah Shrine Center

Platinum Sponsor

Minneapolis Consortium of Community Developers

Gold Sponsors

getwork.com
Employment Weekly

The Minnesota Entrepreneurs

Northbear Business Cards

Silver Sponsor

• Leveraging Information for Business Advantage 
• Marketing From Here On Out; How Marketing Has Changed for the Small Business Owner 
• Boost Your Bottom Line With Technology! 
• Pricing Strategies For Self-Employed Creative People
• Guerrilla Marketing, Yes!...But Not Just Any Guerrilla Will Do: How to Design, Buy, and Use Marketing Media 
• The 10 Notorious Tax Mistakes Small Business Owners & their Accountants Make; Discover How to Stop Overpaying Your Taxes and Increase Your Cash Flow
• Strategies to Get More Business in a Recession
• Leadership - The Formula for Success
• MarComm Detective Academy - Turning Target  Research Evidence Into Sales Leads
• Plotting The Course During Tough Times

2001 Expo was co-produced by:

• Minnesota Homebased Entrepreneurs Association
• Hale, Page, Diamond Lake Business Association
• Business Women's NETWORK

2001 Expo Keynote Speakers

Elsom Eldridge
President, The International Guild of Professional Consultants

How To Do Everything You Do More Profitably

A fast-paced and informative session which will get you more excited about your business and its unlimited possibilities. You’ll learn strategies for generating creative ideas, and how to recognize those with the greatest potential This power-packed session will empower you with practical methods and techniques that you can use the very next day, enabling you to take your life and business to the next level.

Elsom Eldridge, President of The International Guild of Professional Consultants, is an entertaining and informative keynoter, seminar leader, author and business consultant. He brings relevant perspective to our day-to-day and minute-to-minute challenges, blending a rich reservoir of personal experience (hard knocks and rejections as well as wins and victories) with contagious enthusiasm, clarity, down to earth humor, and magic.

As a speaker, Elsom has given over 6,000 presentations in virtually every major city in the United States and Canada. He has authored more than three dozen books, audio and video learning packages, research reports, booklets, and co-authored with Dan Kennedy The Ultimate Home Study Action Course For Maximum Success in the Consulting Business. As a consultant, in the past three years alone, Elsom has worked with clients in 49 different businesses, industries and professions, focusing especially on individual entrepreneurs, start-ups, and small and home-based businesses.

Bobbi Govanus
Founder, For Your Instructors, Inc.

From Wonder to Thunder; Personal Travails From a Real Entrepreneur

Hear Bobbi’s true life story with hows, whys and you can toos! Pitfalls that you can avoid on your own quest for success. Decide what you want to be when you grow up. Bobbi will share her thoughts on:

Expo Sponsors

Firstar Bank

Minneapolis Consortium of Community Developers

MN Sun Newspapers

getwork.com
Employment Weekly

NEXTEL

Walser Automotive

Zurah Shrine Center

Lillie Suburban News

2001 Educational Seminars

• Marketing Magic: Grow Your Business,
  Make More Money and Have More Fun!
• Networking Tips & Techniques
• Financing Your Business
• Converting Propects into Clients/Customers
• The F-Word in Small and Home-based Business
• Using The Internet as a Marketing Tool
• Viral Marketing—How to Create Great Word of Mouth
• Starting a Business—A Tax View
• Legal Issues For The Small Business
• Getting In Touch With Your Market
• Selling To The Government - Panel Discussion
• 45 Minute MBA In Profit and Sanity
• Plotting The Course
• Are You An Inventor, or Do You Just Have an Invention? Getting Your Ideas to Market
• Don’t Whisper if You Can Roar! Marketing Communications on a Small Business Budget
• More Marketing Magic: Strategic and Tactical Marketing For Exponential Growth
• Debunking the 10 Most Common Tax Myths: Why 97% of Small Business Owners Are Overpaying Their Taxes and How To Stop!
• Profitably Pricing Your Products and Services
• Developing Your Management: How to Delegate Authority, Retain Control and Grow Your Company
• Mind Your Books, Mind Your Business
• How to Pilot, When We Were Raised To Be Stewerdesses!
• 12 Secrets To Breakthrough Marketing & Sales
• Customer Obsessed: Service Rules For the New Economy
• Marketing Tips & Pricing Strategies For Artists and Self-Employed Creative People

2000 Expo Keynote Speaker

Curtis A. Sampson
Chairman, Canterbury Park Holding Corporation
President/CEO, Communications Systems Inc.

Think Big...but be a Good Small Business First

Curt explains how he grew up and got his start in business...and how he became one of Minnesota's most sucessful entrepreneurs. Meet this real Minnesotan who is sharp, funny, sincere, community-minded, and very successful.

Curt Sampson was the seventh of ten children from a family where the mother eventually became the breadwinner by operating a greenhouse and flower shop. He grew up in Hector, Minnesota, where all businesses were small...except one which tried to be a big business before it was a good small business—and failed. He was a newspaper delivery boy by age 10 and ran a trap line to make a few dollars.

During his last two years at the University of Minnesota, he managed a cooperative restaurant gaining valuable small business experience while majoring in Accounting and Business Administration.

Sampson joined the Hector Telephone Company in September 1955 and helped it grow to become a successful public company...so successful it was acquired by a predecessor of GTE in 1970. Curt then launched Communications Systems, Incorporated, with financial support from Hector investors who each have reaped over $5,000,000 from their original $25,000 investment. CSI has made a number of acquisitions and spun off Hector Communications Corporation in 1990.

In 1994, Curt bought Canterbury Park, which had closed in December 1992, from Irwin Jacobs. The new management has resumed live racing and simulcasting of other tracks around the country. It has hosted snowmobile races, trade shows, two hugely successful craft shows each year, concerts, and while making Canterbury truly a family destination during live racing.

Curt Sampson has served on numerous boards and advisory committees including the SBA, Carlson School, Hands Inc., banks, small business ventures, school and church boards, Kiwanis, Chamber of Commerce, and more. His first love is building businesses as evidenced by Communications Systems, Inc., Hector Communications Corp., and Canterbury Park, employing over 2,000 employees in Hector, Minnesota, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Wales UK, and numerous other points throughout Minnesota, the United States, and abroad.

Expo Sponsors

Associated Bank

StarTribune