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ASPPA Women Business Leadership Forum this June!

The ASPPA Women Business Leadership Forum (WBLF) will be held in New Orleans June 6 through June 9 at the Ritz Carlton. The WBLF is a gathering of some of the best, brightest and most innovative women business owners and managers in the compliance consulting and retirement plan service industry.

The WBLF is a premiere event designed to offer business leaders new ideas for growing their businesses and making them thrive in an ever-changing industry. How? Through presentations from nationally recognized presenters and breakout sessions where participants share openly in a noncompetitive atmosphere about their ideas and experiences as leaders of their firms.

The WBLF is a small, intimate conference which offers the opportunity for all participants to get to know one another and develop relationships that extend far beyond the days of the event itself. It offers the opportunity to develop contacts with leaders in our industry who can be called upon for ideas, assistance and sharing of information well beyond the conference.

Each business represented at the conference differs from the others. They include:

  • large regional TPA firms;
  • small local firms;
  • large daily record keepers;
  • balance-forward only firms;
  • firms that only work with vendor platforms and partner with daily record keepers;
  • producing and nonproducing firms;
  • CPA firms that offer administration;
  • CPA firms that specialize in auditing plans;
  • firms that primarily do defined benefit work; and
  • firms that only do defined contribution work.
But even though the firms come in different shapes and sizes, each firm leader has unique ideas and solutions for managing their firms and growing them — and those ideas and solutions are shared with other attendees.

This year the sessions will cover:

  • How to Say Anything to Anyone: Setting Expectations for Powerful Working Relationships
  • Washington Update
  • Human Resource Trends and Best Practices
  • Build, Grow and Ignite Your Business
  • Leading at 90 Below Zero
  • Ethics for the Business Owner
For a detailed description of each session, please download the conference brochure here.

Attendees also will have the opportunity to take a haunted ghost and vampire tour on Monday evening. The conference sponsors will treat all attendees to a fabulous dinner on Tuesday night where the conversations and sharing can continue. Finally, on Wednesday night the attendees can participate in a group cooking class at the New Orleans School of Cooking. They will be divided into teams where they will have a private hands-on class that will prepare a part of a four-course meal for everyone to share together.

I do not have enough room here to mention all of the benefits I have personally received from attending this conference each year. It is amazing that every year, year after year, I am able to take away multiple ideas that have helped me to improve and grow my business. I have developed relationships and friendships with peers in my industry that I may not have had the opportunity to meet or develop at a larger conference. It is a unique experience that cannot be found at any other conference. The openness that people share with, the welcoming attitude of all of the attendees and the smaller more intimate environment make this conference one that I never miss.

If you are interested in attending, please do. Once you attend you will never want to miss it again. Take a few days away from the office to work on your business instead of in it. You will reap the rewards long into the future. Remember that space is limited so you should register soon before it sells out.

More information about the ASPPA Women Business Leadership Forum is available here, or send an email to [email protected].

Shannon M. Edwards, ERPA, QPA, QKA, APA, APR, is president of TriStar Pension Consulting.