Tonight the good folks at WalkerInformation of Indianapolis (walkerinformation.com) and Lore Systems (lore.net) co-sponsored an “Execs Night Out” at Zola Wine and Kitchen in DC.
It was Power Networking at its finest. We put a couple of dozen regional business leaders together and it was magic. The group included Luis Fiallo, Managing Director of China Telecom Americas; Steve Graubart, Managing Director of University of the District of Columbia; Frank Walker, Managing Director of Baker Tilley; Matt Curry of Curry’s Auto Service; serial CFO David Samuels; Rob Klingensmith, SVP of The Washington Group; Paul Innella, CEO of TDI; Colin Eagen, CEO of EGroup; angel investor and mentor Glen Hellman of Driven Forward; Co-Hosts Steve Walker and Jackie Ross of WalkerInformation; and Patrick Binsol, Dwight Fischer and Laurie Freeman of Lore Systems. New connections were made, old ones nurtured, and it was great to see deals being done!
The focus of the event was “Customer Challenges” and each attendee shared what they felt was their top customer challenges. Terrific insights, and the interesting thing was that, despite the disparate industries and businesses represented, we all were saying the same thing: The consensus theme was that we absolutely MUST bring real value for our customers today. They are more demanding than ever, and have more choices than ever. It’s no longer enough to do our jobs well. We need to go above and beyond merely delivering our actual solution sets. What’s this mean? In order to win and retain business, we need to help our clients achieve their goals, whatever they may be: strategic, financial, political, efficiency, operational, governance-related, etc.
This is the correct approach to business today in the new reality of the hyper-competitive marketplace, so the Winners will be those companies who keep practicing this habit well into the future, long after we recover from this recession.
The food and wine were great also, so yes, this is an endorsement for Zola Wine and Kitchen.
WINNING IDEAS - Tien Wong's Blog 
Very cool and thought inspiring post…..in one of your first posts you spoke about creating a venue for employee innovation; every company should also have some system for client expression and a way for clients to feel (borrowed from Steve Dorfman at DrivenToExcel.com) smart, important and valued.
Companies need to listen. To do that, they need to show up where their clients are. ie: Social Media! Those that don’t have an on-line presence are putting out a message that they’re not going to hear their clients. It’s like not having e-mail 10 years ago!
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