Heartland Conference extends entrepreneurial wisdom to high school students

For the better part of three decades, the Heartland Conference has provided interested parties a little face time with some of the biggest names from the Nebraska business scene. And earlier this month, the 25th Annual Heartland Conference for Free Enterprise — held in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln City Campus Union — extended that same opportunity to high schoolers for the first time.

“This is a trial run for including high school students — the earlier we get them started thinking about entrepreneurship and formulating ideas, the better off they’ll be in the long run,” said Tami Kaschke, outreach coordinator for the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship, who estimated some 100 high school and college students attended one or more of the conference’s nine sessions. “Hopefully, some of them will go on to start their own businesses.”

The Heartland Conference assembled attendees to hear three major speakers — representatives from the Haymarket Arena Project, a University professor discussing UNL’s entrepreneurial resources and a keynote given by the founders of Silicon Prairie News — and also offered six additional mini-seminars. The half-dozen educational sessions were organized into three tracks: technology, culinary and success skills.

Included in the culinary section was Todd Baker, speaking on behalf of Baker’s Candies. Among other things, Baker discussed the importance of ingenuity to the entrepreneur (his father adapted his knowledge of weapons manufacturing to develop the company’s chocolate mass production equipment), and how to tap into Nebraska’s fierce self-confidence.

“Nebraska is unique — people are extraordinarily proud of Nebraska businesses,” Baker said. “Let Nebraska pride spread your product. In 20 years, we’ve never spent a dime on advertising.”

Ashley Werner, a Beatrice high school student attending the Heartland Conference, sat in on Baker’s session because she one day hopes to start her own small business. Above all else, she found Baker’s insistence on cohesion within a family-run company to be most profound.

“The whole thing was very informative,” Werner said. “Especially if you are working with family — you have to respect each other and not step on one another’s toes.”

In the success skills track, Mailani Veney of Kona Consulting shared her tips for getting through to potential customers. Much like Baker’s Candies thrives by marketing itself as Nebraska’s chocolate, Veney said any good sales pitch needs to be personalized in a way that resonates with clients.

“Too many pitchers talk about themselves all the time — it should be an 80/20 division between the customer and you,” she said. “When I’m being pitched at, I don’t want to hear about you. I want to hear about me.”

Dan Bailey, a junior landscaping design major at UNL, attended Veney’s lecture as a requirement for his horticulture entrepreneurship class. Like Werner, he also felt the conference offered pragmatic advice for starting a business.

“(Veney’s session) had a bunch of good examples of how to pitch your ideas to people,” Bailey said. “Changing things up is a good way to get new clients. Each client is going to want something different.”