Make your business Bulletproof!

If you're anywhere near Southwest Florida next week, I have a tip for you: you don't want to miss the News-Press's Bulletproof Business seminar.

Two of my friends are presenting at this half-day program. Dr. Gene Landrum is the creator of Chuck E. Cheese's. He took that and two other companies from the drawing board to over $100 million in sales as president (Chuck E. Cheese's is now a $1 billion company). He worked with Nolan Bushnell of Atari fame, David Packard of HP, Steve Jobs of Apple.... A few years ago he earned his Ph.D. studying other folks such as himself, the Innovator Personality. Probably no one on earth knows more about innovation and this type of hypomanic entrepreneur than Gene. He has written about 15 books on the subject (I recommend you start with Entrepreneurial Genius, a compendium of 12 mini-biographies of incredibly successful business leaders).

Oh, and at 72 or so, he'll kick your ass at tennis, racquet ball, squash.... He's a much-feared legend of the courts here in Naples and at his summer home in Tahoe.

I met his co-presenter, Scott Robertson, through Gene. Scott used to be a fireman and, like me, a bartender. Then he bought his aunt's insurance agency, and built an empire. At 38, he sold his brokerage business, which spanned the state of Florida, for $50 million. Five years later, he still loves sales, but he takes weekends off from his consulting work to race motorcycles at 200 mph. Yikes.

On June 11th, Scott is going to explain to attendees how to transform their sales organizations so they will thrive in this down economy. Gene will follow with the psychology behind the effort, drawing on his decades of experience with the best of the best.

All this for $99. I told them they should charge a lot more. Maybe next time.

To sign up: http://www.bulletproofbusiness2009.com/