Celebrating 10 successful years, the Ohio Growth Summit will take place at Columbus State Community College on June 4-5, 2014. The event will feature six keynote presentations and 14 breakout sessions covering a variety of topics that will give entrepreneurs and small business owners actionable advice to improve their businesses.
“With this being the 10th anniversary we just wanted to take it up to a little bit different level,” says Michael Bowers, Director of the Center for Workforce Development at Columbus State. Two days allowed Bowers to bring in a bigger variety of keynote speakers with a goal of presenting different perspective and thought processes.
“What I wanted to do was bring these keynotes, these national perspectives to Columbus,” Bowers says.
Day one starts at noon and will feature two keynote speakers and two rounds of breakout sessions. Day two starts at 9:00 am and will focus on keynotes, with four presentations and one breakout session.
Jerry Ross kicks off the summit with his presentation titled, ‘Entrepreneurial thinking required!’ Ross is Executive Director of the National Entrepreneur Center in Orlando, FL and will speak to the importance of the high-growth entrepreneur, but also the traditional small business.
Chris Brogan’s keynote presentation will wrap up day one.
“The things that Chris does, the things that he’s doing with building this online and digital presence, the way he’s going about it is just excellent,” Bowers says. Brogan will teach attendees how to manage their digital presence to generate leads and get sales.
Day two begins with an expert panel discussion moderated by Jess Ostroff of Don’t Panic Management.
Up next is sales expert Steve Kloyda. Bowers describes Kloyda’s expertise as, “A really understandable process which he puts forward that small business owners can use to find prospects, talk to prospects, generate business [and] close business.”
Local keynote speaker Heather Whaling of PR firm, Geben Communication will start the day two afternoon session. Bowers describes everything that she has done with her business and the way it has grown as phenomenal. Two successful presentations at previous summits garnered a keynote position.
Jason SurfrApp, founder of IWearYourShirt, will close the summit.
“He’s about creativity and really thinking about ok, what is it that you want to do and how do you go about doing it?” Bowers says. Finding his own creative ways to generate business – like selling his last name which is SufrApp for 2014 – SufrApp will steer business owners towards ingenuity to develop their cause.
The breakout sessions will cover a variety of topics from legal tips to website development.
“The breakout sessions are about how to grow and build your business,” Bowers says. The sessions take a more focused approach to certain aspects of operating a business. Bowers wants attendees to listen to keynotes, then use the breakouts to discover solutions for a specific business problem they might have.
Slated sessions will dive into legal tips, PR for small businesses, networking and Google AdWords. Buckeye Interactive owner Brad Griffith will discuss website SEO, Matt Russo will highlight systems for growth, and Rick Coplin will also give advice on pitching to investors.
Bowers wants everyone who attends the summit to walk away with actionable information they can immediately implement to start or improve their business.
With a broader focus for the 10th year, a new entrepreneur to a seasoned small business owner who wants to figure out how to run part of their business more effectively can benefit from the two-day event.
The small business owner is at the heart of what the summit stands for.
“The reason that I started to put this together and it’s continued to grow is the small business owner,” Bowers says. Knowing that new businesses are responsible for much of the net job growth, he wants this event to focus on the owner who will create two or three jobs versus the high-growth entrepreneur.
Tickets for the Ohio Growth Summit are $95 per day, with two-day passes for $145 through May 11, and $155 from May 12 to June 1. Use promo code METROPRENEUR20 to receive 20 percent off a two-day pass.
For more information, visit ohiogrowthsummit.com.
