The 2026 Violand
Executive Summit

July 20-22, 2026
Chicago, IL
GET EARLY ACCESS TO REGISTRATION

2

Days of Instruction

12

Advanced Courses

High-Level

Training and Networking

Courses Are Selling Out Fast!

The Violand Executive Summit Experience

Choose 2 intensive sessions from 12 course options designed to provide you with tools you can use immediately to improve your business and professional skills.

Seize the opportunity to interact with other top industry professionals. Participate in informal get-togethers to share best practices and interact with other industry owners who play to win.

Real-world, hard-hitting discussions and lessons about topics specific to management and ownership of home services businesses.

Spend one-on-one time with leading business advisors in the home services industries talking specifically about your individual company.

Choose from a variety of courses so the material covered is specific to your current business needs.

UNLEASH PEAK PERFORMANCE

The Courses

Owners and managers of restoration, plumbing, hvac, and other home service companies will be able to expand their abilities relevant to leading their small businesses. During the 2-day program, you can take high-level training courses in 4 categories.

Leadership

Growing yourself, understanding relationships, high-level courses, change.

Human Resources

Organizational development, team building, creating culture, hiring/developing, performance assessment.

Sales and Marketing

Communicating the value and building awareness of your services to your customers.

Finance

The process of providing funds for business activities, making purchases, or investing.

2026 Courses

Tuesday

AccountMap™ Account Strategy Workshop

INSTRUCTOR: JIM RYERSON

Why do some sales professionals consistently win new accounts while others hit resistance at every turn? The difference is strategy. This workshop introduces the AccountMap™ process—a structured, visual approach to developing and executing account strategies in the trades. Participants learn the common themes behind converting competitively held accounts, expanding existing relationships, and positioning for larger contracts. By the end of the workshop, attendees will have a practical framework for identifying opportunities, aligning tactics, and winning profitable business with intention rather than chance.

Finance for Small Business

INSTRUCTOR: JAMES SULLIVAN, CPA

This course helps business owners and leaders understand how financial clarity supports scalable growth. Participants explore practical approaches to building bench strength, aligning performance standards, and retaining key talent while examining how leadership behaviors shape execution, accountability, and culture. The program emphasizes using financial insight to reduce firefighting, lead change effectively, and reinforce healthy habits that support long-term sustainability. Attendees leave with concrete tools, clearer leadership rhythms, and a focused 30-day action plan.

Leadership II: Scaling Through People, Not Effort

INSTRUCTOR: SCOTT TACKETT

This program is designed for owners and senior leaders who must shift from personally managing work to developing leaders who get results through others. Participants focus on building supervisor capabilities, clarifying decision ownership, and creating accountability without micromanagement. Through real-world scenarios and hands-on practice, leaders learn how to coach instead of rescue, delegate without losing control, and set expectations that drive ownership and problem solving across the organization.

Omni-Channel Content Marketing

INSTRUCTOR: MATT BAILEY

If you’re paying for marketing but still wondering, “Is this actually working?” this workshop is for you. Designed for businesses who rely on agencies or freelancers, the session cuts through jargon to focus on the metrics that truly impact the bottom line. Participants learn how to evaluate performance, spot red flags, ask the right questions, and build accountability into vendor relationships. The result is a clear, time-efficient framework for demanding transparency and driving real marketing results.

Mastering Meetings for Real Results

INSTRUCTOR: PATTY BEARD

Meetings are often the biggest waste of time in business, but they don’t have to be. This session teaches leaders how to design and run meetings that drive decisions, engagement, and execution. Participants learn how to set clear outcomes, structure agendas, improve participation, and eliminate unnecessary meetings altogether. The result: fewer meetings, better decisions, and reclaimed time across the organization.

Negotiating Effectively

INSTRUCTOR: TIMOTHY E. HULL, CR

Every business (and personal) interaction involves negotiation. This interactive course teaches participants how to negotiate effectively, ethically, and strategically while building trust and long-term relationships. Attendees will explore the science behind negotiation, improve communication skills, and learn how to increase margins, close more deals, and navigate difficult conversations with confidence. Known for its high energy and practical application, Negotiating Effectively consistently ranks as one of the Summit’s most in-demand courses.

Wednesday

Building a Business of Legacy

INSTRUCTOR: MARK SPRINGER

This program helps business owners treat exit planning as an ongoing business strategy, not a last-minute event. Participants learn why many exits fail, how to assess readiness, and how to increase company value while aligning business, personal, and financial goals. The session introduces the “3 Gaps” (wealth, profit, and value) and the Value Acceleration Methodology, providing a structured framework to reduce risk, improve transferability, and confidently choose the right path: grow, keep, or sell.

Leadership in Progress: Elevating Entry-Level Employees to Management

INSTRUCTOR: JOHN MONROE and KELLEY DOLAN

Developing entry-level employees into capable managers is a critical growth lever for any organization. This session focuses on how to coach, train, and guide team members through leadership progression. Participants explore practical tactics for performance improvement, structured training, and leadership development that strengthen internal pipelines and support long-term organizational stability through promotion from within.

Leading Past the Founder Stage: When the Business Grows Bigger Than the Founder

INSTRUCTOR: CHUCK VIOLAND

This program is designed for founders who recognize that the leadership style that built the business may now be limiting its future. Participants explore the leadership evolution required when an organization must function beyond any one individual. The course addresses delegation, succession, control, and identity challenges in practical, business-grounded terms—especially in family enterprises. Leaders leave with greater self-awareness, clearer role definition, and actionable insights to reduce bottlenecks, burnout, and over-dependence on the owner.

Money in Motion: How Elite Companies Turn Numbers Into Momentum

INSTRUCTOR: JOSH BACHMAN

This advanced, hands-on workshop teaches leaders how to use financial data as a practical operating system for profit, cash flow, and growth. Participants learn how to diagnose financial performance, engineer margin, optimize labor capacity, and build predictive scoreboards that support confident decision making. Through real-world examples and exercises, attendees leave with a repeatable financial rhythm and a clear roadmap to drive sustained performance.

Systemize the Close: Building a Scalable In-Home Sales System

INSTRUCTOR: SHAUNA PARSONS

This half-day workshop is designed for business owners and managers frustrated by inconsistent in-home sales results and personality-driven selling. Participants learn how to design a repeatable, trainable, in-home sales system using the Engage Sales System framework that focuses on improving close rates, average ticket, and customer experience. This is not a motivational talk. Attendees will actively build and pressure-test their sales system through role play and leave with clear tools to begin training and implementing immediately.

The Decision Blueprint

INSTRUCTOR: JOSH BACHMAN

The Decision Blueprint explores the transformative power of data in guiding decision-making processes throughout the business cycle. Attendees will learn the importance of leveraging analytics, metrics, and insights to make informed choices that drive efficiency, innovation, and success. Through real-world examples and best practices, discuss how to collect, interpret, and most importantly, act on data, empowering business professionals to mitigate risks, identify opportunities, and create value. By the end of this session, participants will have a clearer understanding of how to integrate data-driven strategies into their workflows to achieve measurable outcomes and make decisions based on tangible data and empirical evidence rather than intuition, opinion, or tradition. 

  • Increase accuracy with decisions that are more likely to reflect reality since they are based on concrete evidence
  • Enhance accountability through a clear trail of data and reasoning, making decisions easier to justify
  • Provide continuous improvement as new data and evidence emerges allowing decisions to be updated and refined
  • Reduce risk by using methods to help identify and avoid potential pitfalls

Instructors

Timothy E. Hull, CR

President

Violand Management Associates

Matt Bailey

SiteLogic LLC

Jim Ryerson

Founder & Chief Acceleration Officer

Sales Octane, Inc.

Lisa Waite

Owner

Waite Executive Development

Scott Tackett

Director of Organizational Development

Violand Management Associates
Michael Bowdoin

Attorney-At-Law

Patty Beard, PCC, BCC, SPHR

Managing Partner, Chief Coach & Consultant

Infinite Purpose, LLC

Chuck Violand

Founder

Violand Management Associates
Stefan Agamanolis

Next Milestone Innovation LLC

John Monroe

Director of Consulting

Violand Management Associates

John Weston

5A Leadership

Josh Bachman

Business Development Advisor

Violand Management Associates

The Certificate

You have the opportunity to receive a certificate in small business management.

To graduate with a certificate in small business management, you must complete one course from each of the categories plus four electives of your choice. You are welcome to fill your elective options from whichever category, or combination of categories, you choose.

Leadership

1/1
100%

Finance

1/1
100%

Sales And Marketing

1/1
100%

Human Resources

1/1
100%

Electives

4/4
100%
Custom Built for Businesses in the Trades

University-Level Professional Development Program

Since 2005, Violand Management Associates has developed the Violand Executive Summit, the only university-level professional development curriculum specifically for leadership and management of businesses in the restoration, plumbing, HVAC, and other home service industries. The Violand Executive Summit is modeled after business retreats used by Fortune 500 companies for developing the leadership characteristics and the skills required for innovative management in the 21st century.

By attending The Violand Executive Summit, owners and managers of businesses in the trades will be able to expand their abilities relevant to leading their small businesses. These include high-level training in sales and marketing, profitability, leadership training in today’s work climate, hiring top-level employees, increasing and understanding the value of emotional intelligence, and innovative ways to overcome challenges specific to our industries.

Our team of facilitators includes highly respected leaders and nationally recognized business experts that provide you with practical, actionable concepts and skills to create a learning experience that directly benefits the bottom line of your business.

Elevate Your Skills and Unlock Your Potential

The 2026 Violand Executive Summit