At St. Paul’s University Club, E is for entrepreneur, every month - St. Paul Pioneer Press

At St. Paul’s University Club, E is for entrepreneur, every month - St. Paul Pioneer Press

Since 1913, St. Paul’s members-only University Club has drawn the business elite to its stately dining rooms overlooking Summit Avenue and the Mississippi River. The modern era has seen the once-exclusive club become a bit more relaxed — monthly student membership rates now start at $49, and family rates at $99 — but entrepreneurs still gather regularly to break bread and share trade secrets, thanks in large part to Chum Struve.

The former accountant and corporate recruiter now specializes in employee benefit sales as an independent associate with LegalShield, which offers prepaid legal plans. Struve, of Woodbury, has another passion, and that is bringing people of varied business backgrounds together to talk about innovation and entrepreneurship, even if they’re already gainfully employed.

Chum Struve

Every third Wednesday of the month for the past four years, Struve has hosted “Club E” (as in “E is for entrepreneur”), a networking luncheon and speaker series at the University Club that tends to draw mid-to-late career professionals. Struve, a daughter of Vietnamese restaurant owners, said networking — as a learning tool, a routine and an essential business priority — turned a corner after national recessions in 2002 and 2008.

“Most people would agree now, you cannot know enough people. So many people have friends in their network who have been laid off, or when they’ve been laid off have finally been able to start their own companies and businesses,” Struve said. “Our goal is to help small businesses — to support business leaders as they start, grow or continue to grow their businesses.”

“When you work for yourself, you can do things that are more holistic,” she added. “When you work for a company — and I was in sales — they really drive what you do. They tell you your job is to really drive sales for them, and you have less time to build a community. I wanted to support networking because I believe in it.”

Over the past year, speakers have run the gamut. Terry Wu, a neuroscientist turned marketing executive and owner of two companies, delivered a lecture last January on “neuro-marketing,” the intersection of biological science and technology or product marketing.

“Facebook and Twitter, they’ve hired a lot of neuroscientists and psychologists to make their apps more addictive,” said Wu, during a recent luncheon. “This is an up-and-coming trend in the field, not just based on guesswork. It’s more of a science. The public needs to be aware of it. It’s really about decision-making.”

On Oct. 16, Suzanne Murphy, founder of the Abeo Consulting Group, talked about how business managers manage change in their industry, in consumer preferences, in their workplaces and in their own lives — recognizing the difference between personal transitions and company transitions.

Jason Voiovich and John Arms recently delivered a presentation on their training platform for sales and marketing professionals transitioning from full-time employment for a particular company to self-employment as part-time consultants. They call marketers who hang their own shingle “fractional professionals” because they sell fractions of work-weeks to employers.

Voiovich recalled his own departure from the 40-hour-plus corporate workplace. “I’m a Gen-Xer, and when I left I realized I could fight for an ever-shrinking slice of the pie of executive-level positions or I could compete with younger people for less money,” he said. “I didn’t want to drive for Uber, and that’s what people (mistakenly) think the professional gig economy is.”

Justin Bieganek, a strategic management consultant and founder of the Mercury Creative Group, participated in a panel discussion this year on how he took his company through EOS — the Entrepreneurial Operating System — a trademarked set of concepts and tools aimed at improving shared vision, accountability and teamwork throughout a company.

Bieganek, whose early training included both communications and studio arts, is the man behind the “M” logo for St. Paul’s Minnesota Museum of American Art, as well as the Burnsville Convention and Visitor’s Bureau “Experience Burnsville” marketing materials. For Meals on Wheels, “they had 36 different sub-brands, and we took them all and unified them into one,” he said.

Struve said it’s been fascinating to peer into different business practices, even those that don’t directly apply to her line of work. “With Justin, I’ve never done EOS, but I wanted to know more about it,” she said. “(Some of these skills) don’t apply to me right now, but they apply to my clients, people I know, business leaders that I meet.”

“There’s been speakers that talk about mindset, and narrowing down your niche,” Struve added. “It’s nice to talk to someone who has already done it and has an expertise on the topic, and that’s what networking is all about — learning from other people on a regular basis, not just sporadically.”

On Nov. 13, perhaps fittingly enough, Struve has invited Dan Prosser — a four-time business owner and author of “Thirteeners: Why Only 13 Percent of Companies Successfully Execute Their Strategy — and How Yours Can Be One of Them” — to deliver the keynote lecture on how billionaires perceive the world. Lunch is $35, or $45 within 24 hours of the event.

On Dec. 11, Struve has invited a panel of bankers, tax specialists and international commerce experts to host a session called “Opening Your Business to the World,” aimed at helping small-business owners understand how to sell to overseas markets.

Struve said she can’t take full credit for Club E, which was started in Minneapolis 12 years ago by venture capitalist and investment adviser Rick Brimacomb. His Club E meetings are held at the Minneapolis Club, near Hennepin County Government Center, on the first Thursday of the month.

She attended one of his luncheons and had also met him through mutual contacts. A networking connection was born, and a fruitful speaker series blossomed. “He offered to help me, and work with me to start Club E St. Paul, and we did it together,” she said.

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2019-11-10 11:55:00Z
https://www.twincities.com/2019/11/10/at-st-pauls-university-club-e-is-for-entrepreneur-every-month/
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