Make the Connection

A few weeks after September 11, 2001, I met with five other business leaders in Kansas City to form ACG Kansas City. We certainly didn’t know what to expect. The world was in turmoil and all of our businesses were confronted by new problems. Now, five years later and with an additional 180 members, we’re at the proverbial crossroads where we’re asking, “What do we want to be when we grow up?” As the current President of the Kansas City chapter, in order to be able to answer that question I have had to examine what I’ve gained from my involvement in ACG. As we were forming our chapter, I was acutely aware of the influence ACG could have on a local business community. I was covering Denver in the late 1990s for Bank of America and had seen the successful start-up of the chapter there. I had also attended several ACG St. Louis meetings and had witnessed the excitement that built in the community around each breakfast meeting. I saw how capital flowed and how more business was done because of the relationships that resulted from ACG bringing people together. I compared those with Kansas City where, in my view, deals and business were done more by accident than as part of an integrated community. I entered the formation of ACG Kansas City with the hope that construction of the chapter would result in more business being done “inside” Kansas City than by those who periodically traveled to and mined Kansas City for opportunities. I can honestly say I’ve never completed one piece of business solely because I’m a member of ACG. Unbelievable, I know! But no one has ever called me and said, “I see you’re a member of ACG and think we should talk about our situation.” I have yet to hear from a prospect that they’re accepting my term sheet because I’m a member. And no one has ever said, “Since you’re a member, we know this is a good deal.” But all is not lost. I’ve built new relationships, and stronger relationships than I believe I ever would have had I not been a part of ACG. Because of those relationships, I’ve successfully completed new business and will assuredly do so in the future. If you view your ACG membership solely as a channel to new business opportunities, you’ll miss out entirely on what I’ve discovered to be the true value of the organization. ACG is an unbelievably unique assemblage of “intellectual capital.” Each member has a distinctive background and set of experiences, and each time we interact, we have a chance to obtain someone else’s intellectual capital and apply it to our own situations. Learning, sharing ideas, growing, and deepening relationships is the true value of ACG, I believe. Cultivating that environment, expanding it over time, and integrating all members into it provides everyone with the ability to achieve new levels of success in their own businesses. Phil Worden Senior Vice President Bank of America Business Capital (c) 2006 Mergers and Acquisitions Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.majournal.com http://www.sourcemedia.com