The companies known as Small Giants have a message for every person who sets out to build a business, and it’s an important one: If the business survives, you will sooner or later have a choice about how far and how fast to grow. No one is going to warn you about it, or prepare you for it, or tell you when the moment arrives. Most people, in fact, will be encouraging you to grow as fast and as far as you can. But you don’t have to do that, and the payoff for choosing the less-traveled path can be huge. It can affect every aspect of your business – from your relationships with the people you work with, to the control you have over your time and your destiny, to the impact you have on the world around you, to the satisfaction and fulfillment you get out of your professional life.
    Jay Goltz’s Small Giant is The Goltz Group in Chicago, including Artists’ Frame Service, the largest independent framing business in the country. He was a natural-born entrepreneur who had been named a business whiz kid, or “biz kid”, by Forbes magazine when he was still in his 20s, and he’d spent most of his adult years trying to live up to the billing, eagerly pursuing growth – until he decided he didn’t want that kind of life anymore. In this session, you’ll learn how he came to that realization, and how his life and his business changed as a result.

    Our Speaker: Jay Goltz is the CEO and founder of The Goltz Group, comprised of Artists’ Frame Service Inc. (AFS), Jayson Home & Garden, and Chicago Art Source. Jay started the company right out of college, after receiving an accounting degree from Northern Illinois University. Through innovative management and marketing techniques, AFS went from $70,000 in sales in 1978 to over $13,000,000 in 2005. Jay is also the author of The Street Smart Entrepreneur. www.goltzgroup.com