Planning and Peer Groups: Theresa Fette's Influencers

Trust Provident CEO Theresa Fette joined Smashing the Plateau yesterday to share a few of the lessons she learned along her path to business success. In her discussion, she described how she was able to achieve exponential growth with her first entrepreneurial endeavor through the coming-together of planning and luck. She has also had some help and advice—here are are some of the books, people, and resources that Theresa looked to along her way:

1. Scott Fritz, author of The 40 Hour Work Year, was an influential business coach to Theresa at the start of her career. She describes how his book introduced her to fundamental business concepts and helped her develop a decision matrix to empower her executive team to make key decisions.

2. Verne Harnish assisted Theresa in developing her company’s very first strategic plan. Verne’s website www.gazelles.com specializes in business coaching and implementing strategic plans for growth.

3. Entrepreneurs’ Organization (www.eonetwork.org) connected Theresa with a peer group that helped guide her along her entrepreneurial journey. She describes how “this group has genuinely changed my life.”

4. Rich Scaglione of logistics group Warehouse and Logistics Las Vegas was another early mentor to Theresa. She credits his advice on living within one’s means and keeping out of personal debt with keeping her financially healthy and able to fund business growth.

5. Ryan Neal helped advance Theresa’s business to the next level by employing metrics and helping to answer questions such as: what to measure, how, and for how long? His company Blue Print Consulting Services is based in Seattle.