On October 9, 2007, Lisa Toenniges, CEO and President of the Innovative Learning Group, came to speak to the entrepreneurs of Bizdom. One thing I liked about the talk with Lisa Toenniges is: Instead of telling us about what the Innovative Learning Group did, she told us about the principles that got the ILG were they are today.  When asked for recommendation and advice on how to become a successful business owner, Mrs. Toenniges began to tell us her story, and what advice helped her along the way.

Mrs. Toenniges started by giving us a valuable lesson in bootstrapping, telling us how the ILG started out in her basement. She then gave us a lesson in the importance of identifying our business concepts; when she was asked the question: “What do you do?” she knows that the Innovative Learning Group performs “Performance Analysis”. Mrs. Toenniges even knew her company’s strengths, which are a diversified clientele base, and the valuable relationships they have with this clientele base. Mrs. Toenniges has a clear vision for the ILG that consists of profitable, steady, growth. Lisa Toenniges knows her business like the back of her hand, a direct result of this knowledge of her business is the tremendous growth that the innovative learning group has seen. The ILG is approaching the $3 million mark in company worth after only three and a half years of being in business. Is that progress or what! Mrs. Toenniges even went so far as to giving us a couple of tips on being a great manager. She suggest to always set expectations, and to always give feed-back.

Lastly, we were left with this very applicable quote:

“One thing doesn’t get you where you are going; it’s a number of experiences.”- Lisa Toenniges