CEO Guest Speakers

• Mr. Bill Hughes, Owner & President

It’s pretty crazy everything we’ve been working on all year has just come to an abrupt end. We spent every work day discussing potential ideas and how we’d get things. So much time and effort was put into every little detail at the event. It feels like that was the final exam and the class is supposed to be over now but we still have much more to do. I’m interested to see how the class is going to change now that we are working for ourselves and not each other. Anyways, as far as the event itself goes, I believe it was extremely successful and very well put together. I don’t think anything went wrong and everybody had a good time. I’m pretty sure we made a lot of money which was the primary objective. The only failure I see in the event was attendance. We might have filled up 50% of the seats, but that’s pushing it a little. It’s sad to see such a great event have poor attendance, and it’s our own fault for maybe not pushing ticket sales early enough. Other than advertising for ticket sales earlier, I’m not sure what else we could have done. It was all over a bunch of websites, in the newspaper, and I know I personally called and emailed tons of businesses, I think It’s just because if you don’t have a connection with the person you’re reaching out to, they won’t come. Overall, it was a great experience and a fun time, I’m sad it’s all over.

Bill Hughes came in the day after the event and he was awesome! He probably has the most genius business plan ever and I’m so jealous of what he does I want to take his business over one day. If he would have spoken to us earlier in the year we might have considered letting him speak at our event because he gave us the most inspirational quotes I’ve heard throughout this journey. My favorite quote from him was, “Go beyond what is expected of you”. This is so important because doing more than people expect of you is a sure-fire way to get a promotion or build trust or really anything good. If you only do what you’re expected to people will respect you and like you, but if you do more than that they will want to help you as much as they can. “If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”, said Mr. Hughes. Mr. Hughes was also generous enough to buy the whole class a book calledThe Power of Positive Thinking, and that act is an example of someone doing more than what is expected of them, and I greatly respect him for that.

Michael Lassman
Friday, February 10, 2017Learn More About Michael

Another week of CEO has passed.  This past week was by far the busiest week this year.  Our trade show and conference was this past Tuesday night.  I am very excited to finally have the class business over after many months working on and planning this event.  Overall, I think that the night went well, but once the financials come in we will see how successful we were.

We started off this week with two full days at the Scottish Rite.  We worked all day to get last minute preparations for our event.  We spent a lot of time organizing tables, booths, and silent auction.  Also, we made last minute calls to people trying to sell tickets.  Tim and I nailed our script for the event.  We also finished last minute things like the pamphlet and slide show.  Jaylen took care of music as well.  We also ran last minute errands to get all of the little things that we missed.

Tuesday night came very quickly.  We were full of excitement and nervousness.  Our event started at 4, but there were only three people there when it started.  That hurt the moral a little bit, but more people started coming at about 4:30.  Because of this, I decided to push our speakers back 15 minutes.  I was amazed with Ben Glenn's performance. He is a fantastic entertainer, and his chalk drawing was amazing.  He told a great story, and made people laugh.  I think that he turned our event around.  Our trade show aspect seemed to go over well.  Many people rushed to fill out their cards.  A few vendors asked if we do this every year, and said they wanted to return next year if possible.  If I could change one thing, I would have made the event an hour shorter.  The timeframe should have been 4:30-7:30 rather than 4-8.  With that being said, you live and you learn. 

Stephen Waltrip
Friday, February 10, 2017Learn More About Stephen

It finally came. After weeks upon weeks of preparation, dedication, hard work, discussions, advertising, the list goes on. We persevered as a class and it paid off. We worked day in and day out to make our event as successful as it was and personally I believe if we would have generated more ticket sales we would have had a huge hit for the whole city to remember.

On Thursday, Bill Hughes from US Agri-Services Group came to speak to us. His company is based in Freeburg, Illinois. Mr. Hughes's first big advice tip of many was no matter how old you are or what you're doing you can always seek improvement. Mr. Hughes was born in Okawville, Illinois. At a young age his parents didn't have much money so he knew he needed to be able to get it himself. He obtained an Associate’s degree from Kaskaskia College in Centralia. He then moved on to floating around to quite a few jobs but didn't like what he was doing. He started a construction company but eventually he ran out of business. He finally decided to go back to school but at this time he was married and has his first child. Fresh out of getting his degree he then got his first farm management job. From there on it was only a matter of time before he took all the knowledge he had to create his own farm managing company. Mr. Hughes was very knowledgeable and gave us many tips. Learn from those around you. Know what to do and what not do and know what to say to people and not to say to people. Everyone's job is important, from working the register at Taco Bell or being the CEO of Taco Bell, you have a role and you're important. There were so many tips I couldn't even get them all, but Mr. Hughes was definitely quite a wise from all his years of experience. Back to our actual event, it was really an eye opening experience. We succeeded in a LOT of areas, yet where we lacked most, cost us the greatest. Attendance. If we as a class would have advertised and followed up with people more, we could've really got some pretty big numbers in. The people who did come were amazed by how much we as young business people accomplished. All our booths were great with amazing products/services. I even found myself looking and purchasing wares in my free time. Our chocolate fountain was the biggest hit of all in my opinion and we owe it to Mr. and Mrs. Dunnigan for being generous enough to allow us with it. All in all we had a great event and I'm proud of our CEO class for making it happen.

Royce Payne
Friday, February 10, 2017Learn More About Royce

This week we finally had our big class business! After all of these months of planning, we finally put it all together to have a great business conference. Although most of the week was focused on our class business, we also met with Bill Hughes who talked about his farm Management business.

On Monday and Tuesday we had all day work days. Monday we spent most of the day setting up, finishing decorations, and running last minute errands. Tuesday we did run through and finished all last minute projects. It got a little stressful a few hours before the event, especially when a few booths didn't show up! It was all okay and we worked out any issues to pull off a great event.

Around the Fountain: A Belleville CEO Experience was on Tuesday night and I'm very happy with how it turned out. Overall the whole project was a lot of work but it taught me more than I thought it would. I think the event would have been better if it was shorter. People seemed to either show up on time and leave early or show up late and stay till the end. Because the event was so long, I felt like some people missed out on a lot of the great things we had. Planning this event was truly eye opening.

On Thursday we met with Bill Hughes and learned about farm management. One of the very first things he told us was there is always room for you to improve. This really meant a lot to me, because I've always thought this myself. I am always trying to be the best me possible. I also felt like our class business had a lot of room to improve. Overall, it was a great and successful event, but being successful does not mean you can stop working to improve.

Another thing Bill told us is that, hard work is rewarded. He told us this and then told a story of a time when he didn't get a job. It was his dream job which he got an interview from, but he didn't get the job. However, he kept working hard and he was offered another job and got it! This really showed me how important it is to stick with something and to not give up.

Tim Donaho
Friday, February 10, 2017Learn More About Tim

On Monday, our class had an all day class day to begin setting up for our class event at the Scottish Rites.  We had a long list of preparations to finish with some people still running around town completing errands.  I stayed at the Scottish Rites and helped arrange the tables and chairs.  I was also in charge of placing signs at all of the booths.  There was a lot of debate about where to put the vendors that purchased multiple booths for their display, but we eventually worked it out.  We also scattered the tables to allow for more people to be able to see the speakers when the event took place the next day.

On Tuesday, we had another all day class day to finish setting up for the event.  We decorated the hall and made sure small details were worked out.  Our class also ran through the itinerary for the event and helped vendors set up as they showed up to decorate their booth table.  I learned that working as a team can create extraordinary results.  More people showed up than we predicted, and we had a fantastic turnout!  I also learned that events like this are useful when trying to network and connect with other people.  It was interesting to see that all the adults did not treat us as inferior because of our age.  They treated us with the same respect as another adult.  I really appreciated this because during the start of planning this event, many people turned us down because of our age and inexperience.  It was amazing to see all the people who supported us and what the CEO class is about.

On Thursday, our class met Bill Hughes at Precision Practice Management.  Mr. Hughes had interesting things to say..  I have never known much about agriculture, but in a short hour and a half I felt as though I learned quite a bit.  One aspect Mr. Hughes covered very well was the business side of agriculture.  I did not know that some people buy up land for farms and depend on people like Mr. Hughes to find the land for them.  Mr. Hughes has an excellent business, and his story was very inspiring.  He pursued his passions and created a successful business about it.  Mr. Hughes also taught me never to keep a client waiting.  It is okay if I do not know all the information a client is asking about, but it is important to find out that information as quickly as possible and get back to them.  I also loved that Mr. Hughes has a strong faith.  I am also very close to my faith, and I enjoyed hearing how starting a business does not hinder practicing his faith but rather has deepened  his faith.

Kaitlynn Borik
Friday, February 10, 2017Learn More About Kaitlynn

It was fun getting to see everything we have spent so much time and hard work on finally coming to life. Those that had stayed for the whole event said that it was surprising how well it turned out and they were very impressed and really enjoyed themselves. I wish more people could have stayed the whole time but I understand that we did it on a Tuesday which can conflict with some schedules.

Then we had Bill Hughes come and speak to us which was a really cool experience. He was very inspirational, at least he was to me, he has a rags to riches story but has not left the rags part of his life behind. He still lives it and uses it to stay humble. It was crazy to hear how he could talk about multi-million dollar purchases and sales like I talk about spending a couple of dollars. He also gave us a book to read (The Power of Positive Thinking) with a challenge to write and essay for a chance to win a $100 target gift card. The book is really insightful on how to stay positive and be the most productive and successful a person can be but it is not possible without having faith in both yourself and God. I even talked with him after he spoke and he said I could stop by his office and he would show me around and what all he does. I am definitely excited to see even more of what he does and how to be a little more like him.

Carson Gamboe
Friday, February 10, 2017Learn More About Carson