The Greater Charlotte Hospitality & Tourism Alliance (HTA) has been the premier voice of our region’s hospitality & tourism industry since it was established by the leaders of the industry in 1994. Over the years, the HTA’s leadership has been vital in efforts that have made our region a premier destination. They are proud to have been a major part of developing the Charlotte Convention Center, Spectrum Arena, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, $200 million Arts & Cultural Complex, the

Commercial Carolina brings wisdom, creativity, and innovation to the process of commercial real estate brokerage, investment, and development. Their goal is to offer a solution to your needs while exceeding expectations and deepening your relationship. They strive to achieve the best possible outcome in all endeavors and expect to be judged upon their results. Their firm utilizes up-to-the-minute technology including analytics software, wireless on-the-go connectivity, and cl

Tabbris focuses on innovation and technology, and they want your company to grow with them. Because of the nature of what they do and the expertise they have, Tabbris offers space to early-stage companies with the potential to scale and innovate within their market. Often, this ends up being technology and software companies, but it’s not limited to them exclusively; however, if you’re a realtor, attorney, or consultant, you might want to look elsewhere. Why? Because they’re

Let It Ride is a new DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports) app and website launching soon that was created behind the efforts of former Panthers receiver and North Carolina native Brenton Bersin. It is soon to hit the app store. Let It Ride is an easy to use sports gaming platform for everyone. The platform focuses on the most exciting sports games: including player prop parlays, along with other picking pool competitions. With a competitive spirit, gamers can compete against the house

My firm, WIMS Consulting, has been providing CRM implementation services since its inception (and personally I’ve been leading them for 15 years now). We have been platform agnostic (we work with all of the primary platforms, including Salesforce.com, Zoho, Hubspot, Microsoft Dynamics, and Insightly among others); however, the firm has recently taken measures to beef up it’s partnerships and team in order to deepen its focus on delivering more large scale enterprise level Sal

There is just something about transition, a new decade (even though January 1st seems like it was already another decade ago), and a new mission to undergo a massive scaling of one’s company that requires a bit of a shakeup. Huge transformative shifts force all involved to level up and evolve for the better. They demand a heightened sense of commitment to excellence and discipline. As they say, the things that got you here will rarely get you there. The first 6 years of WIMS

The WIMS Guide Video Edition is Back! I’m in Cali for the next two weeks. We came out here to close out my wife’s maternity leave with a little business and a little pleasure spending time with family and friends. Today’s video I mainly focus on where I’m at her in Cali with a call to action for any potential meetups, introductions, connections, etc. I’ll be in Southern California until Sunday, February 23rd so please feel free to reach out! The other topic is the Charlotte e

Whelp I broke the streak! After literally 14 hours straight with a client firm there was a moment when I got back to the apartment around 10pm where I could’ve made the right decision and be Superman…but didn’t. Ugh! Nothing like that bitter taste of blowing it to motivate you get back on track. Often it can derail someone and they spiral but I’m just going to shrug it off and get back at it. Especially considering that overall, yesterday was overwhelmingly positive and a maj

It’s Miami Monday!! Just arrived in the Magic City and I have an action packed week on deck. Meetings with investors, clients, prospects, referral sources, friends, etc. Planning to hit a few networking events as well with the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and Miami Finance Forum among others as well. Not too mention have to keep up this routine and the gym streak. It’s going to be absolute chaos in the best way. Industries I’m working with and targeting: Legal, Commercia

Getting this in a little last minute today but keeping the streak alive nonetheless! Still in the mountains of Banner Elk, NC and wrapping up Day 14 of the fitness streak (only 90 more to go yet to meet my goal). Again taking a bit of a detour with something that I make more of a thing going forward: Call to Action Friday. Wanted to shout out that I’ll be back down in Miami all next week. The schedule is already packed with client meetings, prospect meetings, networking event

Today we’ve gone mobile, shooting from the mountains of Banner Elk, NC! It’s appropriate for today’s theme (we’re still drilling deeper into CRMs) about the mobile side of CRM. Ideally, whatever platform you decide (or chose) will have a great mobile application as well. It can truly make a major difference with not only efficiency, but also with maximizing the program’s value. My go-to’s have great mobile apps of course (Zoho, Salesforce.com, HubSpot) but plenty of others do

If you’re following along (if not that’s ok too) today we’re talking about what you do as the next step in launching or redeploying your CRM. You’re going to focus solely on the A players for now. The main thing that is going to create momentum and keep you using the system is achieving ROI as quickly as possible. That’s the main benefit you want out of this and thus its the primary goal. The quickest way to get there is prioritizing the A players first, aka your best clients

Wow! You’d be surprised how fast you can get a solid streak going. Seems like just yesterday I started on this (ok so it wasn’t THAT long ago but still) and already we’re on the 5th video. I also completed day 11 of my fitness streak today too. There’s definitely something to be said for just starting where you are, and taking massive action. Before you know it you’ll have some serious momentum to continue building off of. Today we talk about the CRM ABC’s. This is the next s

Today we’re going to cover a brief intro to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for those who don’t know what it is, and for those that do, I just go into some quick initial steps to consider taking if you’ve been apprehensive thus far. I know it can be tedious to set up and maintain but the ROI is incredible if deployed correctly. It’s really mind blowing to me how much resistance there still is out there. Frankly, it’s like turning down a superpower. If you want a little

I’ve been harping on the importance of CRM programs for about a decade now (here’s the last time), yet it still hasn’t caught on the way it should. This is the year that changes. Like with most technology, competition, economies of scale, and innovation have driven costs down significantly. Not only are they cheaper, but the functionality and value has simultaneously increased dramatically. Now, you can even get basic versions of a CRM program for free. It’s why acquiring and

The brewery and winery industries have been fortunate to have experienced a major boom in public interest along with media attention over the past few years. Just opening a new location has been a major event that has typically generated a lot of buzz and received coverage by every Business Journal and local social media influencer alike. That’s not to say that marketing breweries and wineries has been easy of course, far from it. Once the grand opening has passed, and the no

If you’re an entrepreneur, a sales professional, work within your city’s start-up ecosystem, or are a follower of one of the dozens of personal/professional growth coaches, chances are you’ve seen or heard of “10X”.  This has become a hot term in the last half-decade, and I wanted to break down my interpretation of what this means, and how it’s meant to be applied to your efforts.  It started as a way to describe the “best” engineers who are 10 times as productive as their “w

Chambers of Commerce have been the primary civic organizations that I’ve chosen to be deeply involved with for about 8 years now. First it was with the Greater Miami Chamber, and now with the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. I started as a general member four years ago when I first moved to Charlotte. I knew it was a great place to start to help with getting acclimated to the business client, and to meet and network with local professionals. For the past year and a half, I’ve b

After a nearly decade long recovery period, it’s starting to look and feel like the time for an economic contraction is on the horizon. It likely won’t come for another year or so yet (if we’re lucky), but based on the history of our country, it’s certainly inevitable at some point. A lot of the experts, economists, and pundits are starting to sound the alarm already. Things like the student loan debt crisis, 2018 interest rate hikes, the collapse of retail, and the toxic pol

While I’m fortunate that my business often takes me all over the country, every now and then it’s crucial to do a deep dive into my own HQ city, Charlotte, NC. I’ve made a lot of progress with growing my network here, but it’s still far from where I want and need it to be. And I don’t have nearly the client base that I’d like here yet either, and building it is one of my primary objectives for 2018. Over the next couple weeks (while simultaneously continuing to run the busine