Chair Excellence Award

I just received another Chair Excellence Award for leading two groups for Vistage, the world's foremost executive organization. It's been my honor and pleasure to work for them for 12 years and to guide two groups of THE most amazing people!

Here's a little about Vistage:

Work on Your Business with CEOs,

Executives and Owners Just Like You 

Since 1957, Vistage has made a difference by bringing together groups of successful executives across a broad array of industries. The goal: more success. Each group is designed to help members help each other improve their businesses and their lives. 

Vistage groups meet once a month to solve problems, evaluate opportunities and work on an assortment of strategic and operational issues. They are confidential forums of experienced executives who rely on each other for wisdom and counsel.

If you want to know more about Vistage and how you can benefit, call me: 312.664.8447 or send me an email for more info mikki@mikkiwilliams.com. 

If I can't be your Chair I can help you find the right one for you anywhere in the country. 

The Art & Heart of Storytelling

I recently debuted my brand spankin' new presentation, The Art & Heart of Storytelling, for Vistage and got an awesome testimonial from Larry Hart. Thanks! It was my pleasure!
If you're interested in presentation skills or you just want more information on this topic, click HERE.

A FIRST-CLASS OUTRAGEOUS EVENT!

Greetings friends, peers, associates, and even those of you I've never met!

I'd like to invite you and/or a friend to join me for a first-class OUTRAGEOUS event on Tuesday, March 19th at 7:30 a.m. (I know it's early, but believe me, it'll be worth your while!) at the luxurious Park Hyatt in Chicago.

But wait...there are a couple of small requirements so let me tell you about this opportunity...

As you may know I facilitate two peer advisory boards for Vistage International, the world's leading executive organization. Well, I'm in the process of building a new group and am looking for CEOs who run $1M-$50M companies in any industry who are looking to grow their business and/or themselves exponentially as opposed to organically.

This is accomplished through seven tried-and-true components which I will share at the event. Companies statistically grow 3.5 times faster after Vistage membership. It's not a networking or social organization (although that is indeed a perk of membership) - it's an invitation-only, selection-based opportunity, and it's not for the faint of heart. It's a place where accountability fuels growth, where you come to get your answers questioned in a "care-frontational" style on a day you work ON your business, not IN your business.

My current CEO group is full, with 100% retention. This new group is already half-filled and I would like to have it completely filled for an April launch. The event is a mini-Vistage experience and is invitation only, from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. with breakfast and a guest speaker. It's an opportunity to chat with me, and learn more about Vistage and the culture I create within my groups, to see if either you or your referral is a mutual fit.

This is where you come in!

If you're interested please let me know. And if you don't live in Chicago perhaps you know someone who does, or know someone who knows someone who does. You get the idea. It's called networking, and I built my first group this way, even before social media! Incidentally, two of my members come from out-of-state specifically to be in my group (one from New Hampshire, one from Nebraska), so distance is only an obstacle if you let it be.

I have been an award-winning Vistage Chair for 11 years, and a top-tier speaker for Vistage for 18 years, speaking to their 16,000 member network globally. It's a stellar organization that you owe it to yourself to investigate.

Okay, I'm done! Now it's your turn...forward this message to anyone you think might be interested, and send me an email if you have any questions, would like to learn more for yourself, or even if you want to find out about a group in your area of the country. mikki@mikkiwilliams.com.

To learn more information about Vistage International and my groups, please click here: more info about Vistage

Be outrageous!
Mikki Williams, CSP
Chair, Vistage International

Dave Nelsen, Social Media Guru

Dave Nelsen is scary smart about social media. My brain's about to explode after he spoke to my two Vistage groups this week! If your company needs help in this area he's your guy.

 

Dave has a column in my Ezine every month. Sign up now to receive my monthly newsletter and never his is freaky-good advice!

New Yawker in Texas!

Sam Jones, Vistage Chair-extraordinaire, held his retreat at the YO Ranch, "Africa in Texas," a 40,000-acre exotic hunting ranch. This was mty second visit to the ranch, and it's not exactly my typical Ritz experience (check out my bed-mate at right!).

I don't attend many meetings where the client yells to the crowd during the meal, "Who wants to shoot after breakfast?"

At the meeting, I had to laugh when I saw koosh balls (that I also have on the table at my own meetings), but these were Texas-size!

I got to go on my own private safari where I kissed a giraffe, goat and camel, and fed a longhorn. I felt like Billy Crystal in "City Slickers."

My Dinner with the Blackhawks!

So I was having dinner with Kristen DaRosa (friend and member of one of my Vistage groups) on Thursday at Tavern on Rush and who comes in to join us for dinner? The Blackhawks! Carrying the Stanley Cup, no less. Okay, okay, they didn't really join us for dinner but they were there. How cool is that?
Can you find the Blackhawks in the pictures? Me either, but they were there...honest!

And here's lovely Kristen with Goldie Hawn. You'll have to ask Kristen about that one. She's just a celebrity magnet, isn't she?