CEOtoCEO participant awarded National SBA Young Entrepreneur of the Year

I recognized that confident smile immediately.  It was CEOtoCEO Breakfast participant Dan Price, Co-founder of Gravity Payments.  Dan was recerntly recognized as the National SBA Young Entrepreneur of the Year.  Dan's company works as an intermediary between merchants and credicard companies, has 50 employees and more than 5,000 customers.

I asked Dan to share his experience with the rest of us.  Congratulations and thanks for your thoughts Dan

"It was awesome," said Price of his meeting with Obama. "It was the coolest thing I've ever done."

I am just very proud to be a part of the Gravity team. Even though it is technically an individual award, it was clearly presented because of the accomplishments we have made supporting small businesses as a team. I was afforded 45 minutes in the Rose Garden with President Obama, two Governors, and members of congress. I found everyone engaging, open to my ideas, and appreciative of our work. The President emphasized that he sees small business leading out of the recession and recognized that 2 out of 3 new jobs created come from entrepreneurs like me.

In the meantime, not a lot changes…we still need to focus on providing merchant processing at half the cost of competitors, keep our focus on transparency and honesty, and continue to provide world class customer service. It was a great award, but full steam ahead…we haven’t quite arrived yet!

Congratulations Dan.  Look forward to seeing you at the CEOtoCEO.

Corporate Citizenship: From the inside out

As business leaders we are approached by a number of community organizations to help support their cause.  Most provide worthwhile services that benefit the communities we do business and the needs have escalated over the past few years.  The “asks” are made from members of numerous charitable organizations, our employees, clients and trade partners. 

You can’t say yes to everybody and it doesn’t feel good to say no to anybody.  Scott Harrison, CEO of Barclay Dean Environments shared his company’s corporate citizenship strategy at the May CEOtoCEO Breakfast Rather than reacting to every request made for assistance Barclay Dean uses proactive approach by incorporating corporate citizenship into the company's strategic thinking and planning.  The company corporate citizenship focus is children, health and education.

The results of Barclay Deans approach speak for themselves.  The company has been selected as the 2009 Corporate Citizenship of the Year Award for consistently supporting over 20 non-profit organizations each year.  In addition being actively involved in corporate citizenship allows Barclay Dean to build valuable relationships with other businesses in the community.