TLMI Puts on the Ritz

Published: April 01, 2007, By By Yolanda Simonsis, Associate Publisher/Editor

NAPLES, FL — Accommodations certainly made the listening easy as the Tag & Label Mfrs. Inst. (TLMI) staged its 2007 converter meeting February 25-28 at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, where members focused on how a culture can encourage a company to reach its potential and “make culture pay.”

As company leaders, attending members learned from keynote speaker and author Jerry Haney of Visionomics Inc. how to piece together a corporate cultural model that is committed and effective. Effective corporate cultures really do pay, Haney said in summary. Cultures can be learned, measured, and improved, he pointed out, and most important of all, cultures must change constantly.

Also of prime concern to the largely entrepreneurial audience was the subject of “Valuing your business for sale, succession and taxes.” Speaker Mike Henning of Henning Family Business Ctr. (www.mikehenning.com) offered valuable tips that included when a family business should sell, how to approach a company's valuation and net worth, considerations of tax issues for both the seller and buyer, and negotiating and closing the sale. Henning also moderated a “Kid to King” panel discussion that included second-generation leaders who shared their experiences and difficulties in assuming their administrative roles.

Speaker Ross Shafer, Center for Strategy Execution (www.RossShafer.com), talked about how to create lifetime customers. He advised: “To stay on your game, ask yourself if you're still relevant. We all need to keep reinventing ourselves.” He also reminded attendees that emotions drive every purchase decision (see PFFC, March '07, Editorial, p6). It's the pleasurable part of doing business that makes a customer repeat the experience.

Winners of TLMI's Eugene Singer Best Managed Company Awards were announced at the event: Stixon Labels, Albuquerque, NM, won in the small company category (sales less than $6 million); Luminer Converting Group, Lakewood, NJ, was honored in the mid-range company category (sales from $6-$14.9 million); Consolidated Label, Longwood, FL, in the medium company category ($15-$35 million); and Belmark, DePere, WI, merited an award in the large company category (sales over $35 million).