APHA Member, Todd Gralla, is One of the Keynote Speakers at Equiery’s Business Seminars on Friday in Maryland

Time is money. Every business owner – barn owners included – look for ways to streamline, to increase efficiencies, and to minimize labor costs. And if you are NOT doing this, and are wondering why your bottom line doesn’t look better (or your accountant is wondering why), then you need to attend The Equiery’s Business Seminars this Friday, January 17 at the Maryland Horse World Expo in Timonium, beginning at 12:30 p.m.

The Equiery Business Seminars are different than the usual seminar. Instead of academic experts talking about how something could or should be down, our panelists are successful industry professionals who speak from hard-earned success. And instead of just one person talking for an hour, our sessions each feature three experts, often with different opinions or approaches, ensuring a dynamic discussion as well as rewarding educational experience for the attendees.

Each session will also feature door prizes! Door prizes will include business books and barn books and a variety of other gifts – so be sure to bring a business card to throw into the jar!

What are The Equiery Business Seminars about?

There are two components to having a profitable business, and most business owners tend to focus on increasing their revenue streams, often ignoring or procrastinating finding ways to minimize their costs and expenses.

While we will have one session on marketing and growing your revenue stream utilizing social media, the primary crux of The Equiery’s Business Seminars will be the often neglected part of the balance sheet: your costs, overhead and expenses. Whether your own or are thinking of owning a boarding or training facility, developing an event or show facility, already own or are thinking of launching a retail business or service business, you will learn something at The Equiery Business Seminars that will help you run a better business.

Controlling overhead (labor, utilities, etc.) starts before you even break ground on your new facility, so we will start seminar there. In “Designing Your Barn & Farm Part 1, Design to Minimize Costs, Maximize Enjoyment & Profit” The Equiery is pleased to present three of the equine industry’s leading facility designers as our keynote speakers: John Blackburn, Todd Gralla and Daniel Glick. This is a rare opportunity to hear these occasional rivals discuss their secrets and their proven methods for helping their clients design beautiful yet cost efficient facilities. (And during the course of the day, you will learn the answer to “How many stall muckers does it take to strip-clean 1,060 stalls in 12 hours?” The person who comes closest to the correct answer will also win a prize!)

The designers and builders will be immediately followed by three local facility (boarding/lesson/training stables and an event facility owner) who have “done that, been there.” In “Designing Your Barn & Farm Part 2, If I knew then what I know now…” our panelists will share their real life experiences in building their facilities from the ground up, how the advice of the experts played out, what things about their facility work, and what things they wished they had done differently.

In the next sessions, we move from creating your facility to actually managing it. Labor and equine health care costs are two of the biggest line items in the operating budget of a business. High employee turnover increase those costs. In Business Management Part 1: our panelists will discuss the secrets to Finding, Managing & Keeping GREAT Employees and in Part 2, you will learn that you do not have to be at the mercy of unpredictable health care cost in our session titled Major Equine Health Care Costs & Your Business – You DO Have Options.

Our last sessions will focus on marketing your business, for the purpose of ultimately (albeit not directly) increasing your revenue.

In Business Marketing Part 1: we will discuss Leveraging Social Media Marketing for your Horse Business. We will tackle that thorny buzz word “social media.” Not sure what “social media” even is? Facebook? Facepage? Tweeter? What? Is this stuff really how you will grow your business? How on earth will you find the time? This intro will help you start to navigate the process.

We will wrap up our Business Marketing sessions, with Creating a professional-looking portfolio of photos.

QUICK FAQs

Is there a schedule of Speakers for The Equiery Business Seminars? Yes, you can click here: http://www.equiery.com/HorseWorldExpo/EquieryBizSem.html

Do I have to register in advance for the Seminars? No.

Is there a limit on how many people I can bring with me? No.

Is there more going on at Horse World Expo than just seminars? Yes, hundreds of vendors and regional, national and international clinicians. For the complete and official Horse World Expo Program, visit www.equiery.com and click on the image of the January Equiery in the upper right hand corner.

Is there a fee to attend the Seminars? No, but there is a $10 fee to enter Maryland Horse World Expo. For more information, click here: http://www.horseworldexpo.com/MDmain.shtml