The first speaker was Lesley Francis, a fellow Brit, experienced PR entrepreneur and entrepreneurial fellow of the Center for Entrepreneurial Learning and Leadership.  Lesley focused on the objective of any marketing effort and explained, “You need to use a rifle not a machine gun”.  The way to get value from any marketing effort, Lesley explained, was to set clear objectives and identify the exact audience you are hoping to influence.  Only once you have done that should you decide which marketing method to use.  Lesley went on to discuss how a small business should manage their marketing partners and amused the audience with her tale of a ‘healthy sex/condom’ campaign that her PR agency led in London.

Next to speak was Lynn Lilly.  Lynn is the founder of The Lilly Group an advertising and marketing communications company based in Statesboro and she is also an entrepreneurial fellow of the Center for Entrepreneurial Learning and Leadership.  Her talk focused on how to develop a focused message and a unique sales pitch in the market.  She argued, “…there are eight turbo-boosters that will give you an unfair advantage”.  Discussing each in detail Lynn explained a number of campaigns and activities that she had been involved in and used these to explain how each of the turbo-boosters can work to ensure value for small businesses.

The last speaker was Dr. Trey Denton, Georgia Southern University’s Professor of International Marketing.  Trey focused his talk on how to keep customers once you have them and many of the audience found his presentation of, “…the marketing funnel” to be particularly valuable.  The audience also enjoyed Trey’s anecdotes of poor customer service and his advice on how to avoid such situations.

The E-Zone Forum was once again a great success and we would like to thank the speakers (Lesley Francis; Lynn Lilly; and, Trey Denton) and the sponsors (Dabbs, Hickman, Hill & Cannon LLC and Sea Island Bank).

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The Venture Concept Exhibition allows students to present venture ideas to students, faculty and the community that they have been working on in their entrepreneurship classes. The students come up with an innovative idea, undertake some basic market research and think through the business concept. They are then invited to pitch their business idea for 5 minutes to a panel of ‘prospective investors’ and develop a trade show stand that demonstrates their business concept. The trade show typically carries on for 2-3 hours and the students are expected to draw people to their stands and engage in conversations about their businesses.

We are once again grateful to our judges Lynn Lilly (The Lilly Group LLC), Andy Kimbell (Advanced Veneer Technologies, Inc) and Phillip Jennings (Phillip Jennings Turf Farms LLC).

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This year two sections of the entrepreneurship class taught by Jim Williams (Entrepreneurial Fellow & Chair of the Center’s Advisory Council) took part and presented a diverse range of businesses, from GPS fitted arrows to a mailbox suction device designed to bring your mail from the mailbox to your house automatically. 

Once again we are very grateful to our judges.  For the stadium pitch we would like to thank Frank Goforth (Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering) and Ron Medinger (MRC Associates LLC and Entrepreneurial Fellow) and for the exhibition we would like to thank Lynn Lilly (The Lilly Group LLC) and Mark Anderson (Joiner-Anderson Funeral Homes).