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LEAP Update

Upcoming Events

The LEAP program will host a free social evening for LEAP participants and those interested in the program on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 from 5:30 to 7 at 2300 South Park Street, in the Villager Mall [more….]

Business panels promote success of women entrepreneurs

(Posted: 02/10/04)
Dennis Chaptman

With the help of the School of Business, a program is working to make women entrepreneurs more successful by providing them with customized business advice and mentoring. "It's invaluable for young businesses that have very little business experience to have an advisory board to help make key decisions. That's gold," says Larry Cox, director of the school's Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship. "It's the Wisconsin Idea - bringing what's going on at the university to the people."

Called LEAP, for Launching Entrepreneurial Advisory Panels, the program sets up and supports volunteer advisory panels of experts who can advise women business owners in specific areas. LEAP advisers come from accounting, marketing, consulting, finance and other backgrounds, and are often entrepreneurs themselves.

Cheryl Vickroy, principal consultant at the Bachner Vickroy Group and a member of a LEAP advisory panel, says the advice can help take the businesses to the next level.

"It's like having a board of directors that doesn't cost you anything," says Vickroy, whose Madison firm does small-business consulting. "As an adviser, it's great to get out in the community and use your business skills to help women-owned businesses grow."

Program participant Linda Remeschatis, president of Wisconsinmade.com, says the experience has helped her business become more profitable and focused.

"They helped me tighten my financials and gave me lots of marketing ideas," says Remeschatis, whose four-year-old Madison-based business is an Internet food and gift store featuring state-made products. "We did a detailed business plan that helped them understand my business better and helped crystallize in my mind where I was going."

Started four years ago at the business school, LEAP has created advisory panels for 23 women-owned businesses in the Madison area. More than 100 business people have served as LEAP advisers.

To participate, a business must be owned or co-owned by a woman, be an existing business and not a start-up, have employees or plans to add employees, have under $2 million in gross revenues, and a potential for growth, improved profits and positive changes. Some of the businesses in the program are owned by man-woman teams, with the woman playing a principal role.

Marian Walluks, who coordinates LEAP, says the program helps growing businesses make contacts in marketing, banking and finance that they normally wouldn't have. And, she says, the volunteer advisers gain new perspectives, too.

"When a question about banking comes up, they don't just turn to the banker to answer it. They all learn about how to solve problems as a team," Walluks says. "Participants get different things out of it. Some do major, in-depth business plans, while others use the panels to get over the hump with a specific marketing or finance problem."

Cox says studies have shown that a small percentage of people who start small businesses seek help from outside professionals.

"It's a way of getting the perspectives of people who have been there and are experts in their field to fill in the knowledge gaps," he says.

LEAP is a collaborative effort supported by the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship and the Women in Business Council. The program's chief corporate sponsor is the law firm of Cullen, Weston, Pines and Bach, with additional support from the QTI Group and CUNA Credit Union.

Walluks says LEAP is always seeking volunteer advisers and entrepreneurs to participate in the program.

LEAP Recognized as Community Partner

2003-UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley is shown with LEAP coordinator Marian Walluks at an event honoring initiatives that have fostered healthy community-university relationships.

Upcoming Events

The initial year of the program was funded by a grant from the Coleman Foundation and in-kind support from the UW Business School’s Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship and the Women in Business Council.

In July, 2002, the law firm of Cullen, Weston, Pines & Bach, LLP became the first Major Sponsor for the second and third years of the program and The QTI Group signed on as a 2 year Supporting Sponsor. Carol Grob of Cullen, Weston, Pines & Bach and Susan Haines of QTI also serve as LEAP Advisors. The Weinert Center has agreed to continue its in-kind support for the 2002-2003 academic year and has extended its support to include funding for the part-time Graduate Assistant for the program.

Although LEAP continues to have a very conservative budget, further funding will be needed to continue the program, both this year and into the future. Additional Major Sponsors are currently being sought and grant applications for both internal and external funds to continue and expand the program have been submitted. If your organization is interested in becoming a LEAP Partner, sponsoring an event, or providing support in other ways, please contact Marian Walluks at (608) 262-3828 or mwalluks@itis.com.

LEAP phone number: (608) 262-3828
Email: leap@bus.wisc.edu