The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

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Beecher Flooks Funeral Home: One of Six Businesses Inducted into Westchester’s New “Business Hall of Fame”

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From left, Anthony Justic, chairman of The BCW Board of Directors; William Flooks Jr., funeral director at Beecher Flooks Funeral Home and Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of The BCW.
From left, Anthony Justic, chairman of The BCW Board of Directors; William Flooks Jr., funeral director at Beecher Flooks Funeral Home and Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of The BCW.

Westchester resembled the Great White Way earlier this week as The Business Council of Westchester held its version of the TONY Awards at its annual dinner event honoring some of the region’s most successful enterprises.

More than 600 people turned out to Glen Island Harbour Club in New Rochelle on April 21 for The Business Council’s Business Hall of Fame Awards, which included a Broadway-themed celebration complete with a Playbill styled red-carpet, a Liza Minnelli look-a-like and performances by singers from the Westchester Broadway Theater – all overlooking the scenic Long Island Sound.

As part of the main act, The Business Council inducted a world-renowned technology developer, a leading holiday decorator, one of the nation’s oldest medical colleges, an affordable housing developer, a full-service insurance company and a family-owned funeral home that has operated for three generations.

From left, Amanda Volper, Hillary Volper, Brian Patrick Fontana, Eric Volper and Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of The Business Council.
From left, Amanda Volper, Hillary Volper, Brian Patrick Fontana, Eric Volper and Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of The Business Council.

New to the Business Hall of Fame this year was the addition of Chairman’s Recognition Award as well as announcing the winner of the Ron Volper Family Scholarship Fund for Business Excellence, which was given to Brian Patrick Fontana, who is pursuing an MBA at Pace University. The Business Hall of Fame, which is in its 14th year, has inducted more than 70 Westchester businesses.

“These winners represent all that is great in Westchester’s business community, its economy and its future,” said Marsha Gordon, President and CEO of the Business Council of Westchester. “We have it all here — large corporations, family-owned businesses and leading technology companies. We are pleased to induct these companies into the 2015 Business Hall of Fame, and we’re so happy to help our future business leaders gain the tools they’ll need to succeed.”

County Executive Robert P. Astorino congratulated the winners for joining an exceptional roster of inductees and for their great achievements. He also thanked them for their contributions to Westchester’s economy and its communities. The master of ceremonies was News12 anchor Scott McGee. The event co-chairs were Elizabeth Bracken-Thompson of Thompson and Bender and Thomas Lalla of Pernod Ricard.

The winners in their respective categories are:

Corporate Citizenship: New York Medical College in Valhalla. Dr. Robert Amler, vice president for government affairs and professor of public health, accepted the award.

Entrepreneurial Success: Mindspark in Yonkers. Erik Esterlis, co-president, accepted the award.

Small Business Success: York International Agency, LLC in Harrison. Robert Kestenbaum, CEO, accepted the award.

Women in Business Success: Rella Fogliano, president of MacQuesten Development in Pelham. Fogliano accepted the award.

Family Owned Business: American Christmas in Mount Vernon. Fred Schwam, CEO, accepted the award.

Chairman’s Recognition Award: Beecher Flooks Funeral Home in Pleasantville. William Flooks Jr., funeral director, accepted award.

About The Business Council of Westchester

The county’s largest and most influential business membership organization, The Business Council of Westchester is committed to helping businesses market, learn, advocate and grow. In addition, The Business Council of Westchester is actively involved in reviewing federal, state and county legislation and regulations in order to assess the potential impact on the business community and to influence the outcomes through advocacy when the business community’s interests may be affected. It also acts as an information resource for the business community and government leaders at all levels.

Barbara Corcoran’s Secrets to Business Success

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Corcoran’s talk for The Business Council of Westchester’s KeyBank Speaker Series, kicked off the second-annual GROW 2.0 Conference. GROW 2.0 is the largest gathering in the region for business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals to attend networking, training and workshops centered on business development and strategy. (L-R): Barbara Corcoran, Marsha Gordon, Ruth Mahoney
Corcoran’s talk for The Business Council of Westchester’s KeyBank Speaker Series, kicked off the second-annual GROW 2.0 Conference. GROW 2.0 is the largest gathering in the region for business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals to attend networking, training and workshops centered on business development and strategy. (L-R): Barbara Corcoran, Marsha Gordon, Ruth Mahoney

Or…How a Waitress from Joisey Found her Power—and USED IT!

By Grace Bennett

Real estate mogul and ‘Shark Tank’ celebrity Barbara Corcoran opened a talk at Westchester Community College in May opining about the one person who may have figured as her most prominent influence: Her mother.

“My mother ran our household like a boot camp. You didn’t dare cross her,” Barbara said, also pointing out her “phenomenal organizational abilities” managing a family of ten children in a modest, two bedroom apartment in New Jersey.

Barbara also related that her mom was uncanny at “nailing” each of her kid’s “gifts,” including dubbing her brother as “the kid who could dance.” Noted Barbara: “Tom is now a ballet dancer for Alvin Ailey.” As for Barbara herself, her mom aptly declared her daughter’s gift: “a wonderful imagination.”

Another pivotal figure was an older (by ten years) and charming fellow named Ramon Simon who showed up at a Jersey diner one day where Barbara was waitressing (after receiving straight Ds in high school!) Apparently girlfriend hunting, “Ramon chose me over another waitress, ‘Gloria,’ a stacked dead ringer for Dolly Parton,” said Barbara. “Men would line up to catch a glimpse of her.” The experience taught Barbara early on that “men are just as attracted to the great white virgin as they are to the bombshell.”

Barbara Corcoran with the co-communications team.
Barbara Corcoran with the co-communications team.

Ramon and she ran off to the city–causing a major rift with mom…“She hated him; it broke my mother’s heart,” she said. For seven years, Ramon and she worked building up a business until mom’s intuition bore fruit. Barbara said Ramon announced he was leaving Barbara for their secretary. Barbara was devastated. The breakup, she said, and Ramon’s own cruel declaration, “You know, you will never survive without me,” steeled Barbara to prove him wrong and employ the imagination her mom was so clear about. “One day, I found my power,” she said, and set up an office with a meager $1,000, calling it, simply, “The Corcoran Group.”

Through the ups and downs of the market, Barbara would adapt accordingly. “I would just think of Ramon laughing at me.” She proved him dead wrong when she sold the company for a whopping $66 million.

A key wisdom gleaned from years of successful real estate selling and marketing: “Perception creates reality.” On a hunch, in the Corcoran Group’s early days, Barbara sent her now landmark “The Madonna Report,” to media outlets, hungry, she said, for facts and figures in a record low NYC market.

“I knew nothing about Madonna,” she laughed. Still, a producer invited her to appear on TV as an expert right away. From that point on, Barbara’s name, as she put it, “rose to the top of the food chain…If you can be the person churning out the numbers on a constant basis, they will call you their drug supplier!” Another secret to Barbara’s success was differentiating between “expanders” and “containers” at work. She looked for the ying to her yang, and found it in a woman named Esther, a clear “container,” who kept Barbara on task 
and organized.

Barbara Corcoran and Grace Bennett
Barbara Corcoran and Grace Bennett

She advised attendees to also get better, not just at hiring, but also at firing, and warned about the dangers of “dead wood” to any company’s bottom line. But showing a softer edge too, Barbara added that she also prided herself on personally coaching fired individuals on careers they were perhaps better suited for.

Finally, she described a culture of sheer fun in her company “that made us the company you wanted to be in.”

“Fun is the most underutilized tool in business,” she said, and builds camaraderie “even amongst the most competitive real estate agents.” To that end, she would routinely organize outings, “the wackier and more shocking, the better,” she said.

Barbara’s final pointer was encouraging hiring persons who are “great at failure. I look for the people who can take a hit and get up again. They don’t spend time feeling sorry for themselves.” And there you have it…a condensed version of Barbara’s secrets to success. The gathering ended with many hungry for more, and lining up to purchase a copy of her hot, new book, Shark Tales.

Grace Bennett is Publisher and Editor of The Inside Press, Inc., dba Inside Chappaqua and Inside Armonk 
magazines since 2003. She has spent the last four years successfully publishing in a down print market.

Sweet Rene – The Good Enough Mother’s Next Chapter

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Rene Syler living dreams she never imagined. Photo by Craig Salmon
Rene Syler living dreams she never imagined.
Photo by Craig Salmon

When Rene Syler first graced the cover of Inside Chappaqua magazine in May 2007 she was embarking on a new chapter in her life. She had just lost her job at CBS’s The Early Show and published her book Good Enough Mother, a humorous look at modern motherhood.  Syler was on course to reinvent herself and did just that via the internet. Fast forward to May 2013 and Syler, who celebrated her 50th birthday in February, has given new meaning to the saying, “there is beauty in imperfection.” Her career proves that great new beginnings are possible at any stage of life. “I’m almost another person,” says Syler about the changes in her life since 2007. She has shown that dreams you may never have imagined can come true. A social-media dynamo as well, these days Syler is busier than ever.

Since she was fired from CBS in 2006, Syler has been through difficult times. “It was like a tornado ripped through my life. I lost a job, lost my breasts ( a preventive measure) and lost my hair.  All that loss shaped me to find myself and who I am.” Syler says she was down to the studs, but her foundation was the same: “I had to be true to myself.” Syler’s website, www.goodenoughmother.com, like Syler herself, has grown and transformed in the past six years. Serving up tips on parenting, home and family life, health and fitness, the site has migrated to Social Media: Facebook and Twitter where Syler’s audience has increased and her fans span the world.   Good Enough Mother’s mission is to improve lives through the shared parenting experience. Spreading her message of ‘perfect imperfection,” she speaks from her authentic voice. “When people come to Good Enough Mother, they are comforted by learning that they are not alone,” says Syler, whose goal is to uplift and empower her followers which include a significant number of men too.

Syler says a big part of her story is the amazing shift in how business operates today. “I built an empire using a MAC.  I went from a blog to having two paid staffers. One started as an intern and became a freelancer.  The other, her assistant and producer Ella Rucker, saw Syler on television and asked her to become her mentor. Syler told her she was too busy and Rucker asked if she could help her. She told Syler she didn’t need to pay her and that she wanted to write. They have been working together for more than a year, and Rucker has made amazing strides. “Since I am on the road two weeks out of each month, Ella Rucker and I have a virtual office using skype and all the tools of modern business.”  Syler loves the fact that Rucker took a chance on Syler and that Syler took a chance on Rucker.

“People ask me, ‘How many hours are you online? How long do you write? Aren’t you ever off?’” says Syler. Her response is that she is always connected. “I write all the time, when I’m not on my laptop, I’m writing in my head.” She asks them: “When was the last time you saw anyone build an empire putting in three hours a day, five days a week? Make an effort or make excuses.”

In her posts online, Syler has written about her family life from time to time, so her daughter Casey, 16, and son Cole, 14, have become part of her Good Enough Mother brand.  “Like most kids they are tech savvy so it’s a part of life,” says Syler. Now that they are older she is more careful about what she writes about them. But they enjoy the perks of her new business, including her affiliation with Disney, Nike and Quaker Oats. “Sometimes I take them with me and that part they like very much.

Syler has made guest appearances on such programs as The Nate Berkus Show, The Wendy Williams Show, The Doctors, and has taken over for Joy Behar as her guest host on her CNN primetime show.

Syler makes many public appearances and was a headliner at Disney’s 2011 Social Media Moms’s Conference.  “One of the fun things is to go to Blogging conferences and meet up with the people I’ve connected with online,” says Syler.

Host on “Sweet Retreats”

Her current hosting gig on Live Well Network’s Sweet Retreats came about on a circuitous route. Peggy Allen, an executive at that network saw an article about Syler a year ago in More magazine and contacted her about another project she had in mind for Syler.  Sweet Retreats, on Sunday evenings at 7:30PM, highlights a new trend in which people on vacation rent apartments or houses instead of going to a hotel. On the show, Syler takes a group or family to various locations where they examine three possibilities and  get to choose one.

Syler says the best decision she has made in her life was to marry the right person. Syler and her husband James “Buff” Parham, an Independent Media Consultant, have been married for 19 years. “Buff and I have built a life together. He’s steady Eddy and I’m emotional. I couldn’t do what I do without him.”

“I’m a multi-media brand,” says Syler who has come a long way in the past six years. Syler says the most gratifying aspect of her work is to have the opportunity to have an intimate dialogue with the people who follow her. “It’s talking back and forth,” says Syler. “If I hadn’t left network news I could never have done this.” Syler is happy for the relief she offers women today. “Women put too much pressure on themselves and live life on other people’s benchmarks.”  Doing it her way, Rene Syler is, by her own example, so much more than a Good Enough Mother in 2013.

Ronni Diamondstein, owner of Maggie Mae Pup Reporter is a Chappaqua based freelance writer, PR consultant, award-winning photographer and a School Library Media Specialist and teacher who has worked in the US and abroad.

How Stacey Cohen Made Co-Communications Soar

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Stacey Cohen

Hint: A Can-Do Attitude and Great Heart are her Best Trade Secrets

By Vicki de Vries

What does a committed entrepreneur do for fun? If she’s Stacey Cohen, Founder and CEO of Co-Communications, Inc., it’s likely reading an historical novel.  Not exactly what one might expect from someone used to negotiating contracts and high-powered PR and marketing campaigns for a five-star, full-service public relations and marketing agency with satellite offices in Hartford and Manhattan.

Then again, Stacey Cohen is accustomed to breaking molds, ever since starting her first business at age 14. When she and a girlfriend decided that babysitting did not pay so well, they created an at-home waitress service.

“We really learned a lot from that experience,” said Cohen. “We placed an ad in the local PennySaver, set up at clients’ homes, served guests, and cleaned up.” Wearing white shoes and uniforms, the girls made a lot more money than they could have from 
babysitting, which they still did on 
off-weekends.

The Building Blocks of Business

Business is definitely in Cohen’s blood. “Both of my parents were serial entrepreneurs, and I saw how hard they worked,” said Cohen, who has fond memories of her family discussing business issues around their dinner table in Brooklyn. When her father started a women’s sportswear company, Cohen enjoyed creating a logo for the new company.

Her father, who had lost both of his parents when he was a teenager, vowed that his future family would have it easier than he had. When he was able to move his family from their tight apartment to a roomy house in New City, Rockland County, Cohen and her two sisters, one of whom is her fraternal twin, were thrilled. After high school, Cohen attended Syracuse University and majored in family and community services with a strong focus on field studies.

“Working with all kinds of people–from young to old, poor to wealthy, emotionally stable to unstable–was a tremendous experience,” said Cohen. That kind of exposure to people and needs would become a vital ingredient in her future success.

After graduating from Syracuse, Cohen worked at an advertising agency in Manhattan, followed by several years in the international marketing department at CBS/Fox, then the world’s largest home video company.

Sensing the need for further education, Cohen enrolled in Fordham University’s evening MBA program. CBS paid 100% of the tuition, and she applied basic theory to her day-to-day business activities. In particular, her business policy course, which explored the real-life challenges and opportunities of various industries, gave her the added confidence to be a risk taker–
basic to Entrepreneurship 101.

The next step in Cohen’s odyssey was “chance”–meeting the woman who had been the head of the PR department that CBS/Fox had just eliminated. She had started her own agency with CBS/Fox as a client and made Cohen an offer she could not refuse: “Please come work in my new venture as a senior account executive.”  “I helped her start her business,” said Cohen, “and we made everyday, as well as long-term, decisions together. I learned first-hand at age 27 how to build an agency. It came naturally to me.”

Since learning what not to do can be just as important as knowing what to do, Cohen is grateful for a freelancing project during the mid-1990s that involved writing an annual report for a biotech company going public. The only hitch: no direct client contact.

Instead, she had to forward questions to the agency. That indirect form of communication struck Cohen as out of sync with maximizing service to a client.

The next logical career step for Cohen was starting her own business– Co-Communications, Inc., in December 1997.

In the early days, one of Stacey’s clients asked if she could run an advertising campaign, and her response was “Of course!” Lacking the experience, she sought help from a friend who was a New York Times ad rep and taught her all about column inches and frequency rates. Her moxie paid off.

And right from the beginning, Cohen involved her family in the business–just as her parents had years before. While her husband, a practicing attorney, reviewed news releases, their two daughters stuffed bags for special events. “I made sure the kids were part of the experience,” said Cohen, whose office soon moved to 295, then to 344, and finally to 332 Main Street in Mount Kisco.

Cohen worked long hours often starting at 7:15 a.m. and, during heavy event seasons, ending at 10 p.m. “My incredible husband pitched in, shared household and childcare responsibilities and even did the cooking!” Not about to sacrifice her close family to the corporate gods, she tackled her biggest personal challenge head on: creating boundaries for her work life and home life.  “I realized I could get lost in the process of running a business,” said Cohen. “I couldn’t wait to get to the office, but I also enjoyed playgroups a few times during the week. It was all a matter of finding the right balance that would work for me and my family and the growing business.”

Best of Show 2012/Big W awards: Co-Communications Captures “Best of Show” at “Big W” Advertising Club Gala for a Recordsetting Third Time Left to right: Elizabeth Crenson, Account Coordinator, Co-Communications; Barbara Wollenberg, Senior Account Manager, Co-Communications; Stacey Cohen, President, Co-Communications; and Corinne Zola, President, Westchester Children’s Museum Board of Directors gathered together to show off the
Advertising Club of Westchester’s 2012 “Best of Show” Award for Co-Communications’ work on the Museum’s “T.A.G. You’re It!” Campaign.
Photo by Cathy Pinsky, Pinsky Studio

Looking back over the early years of her business, Cohen is so grateful her gamble worked out. “Our daughters are independent with a can-do attitude,” she said, in a justifiably proud tone, “and most important of all, they have great heart.”

Pinpointing resources and an attitude of constantly learning, along with a strong focus on excellent staff, creative strategies, unique solutions and superior results, would eventually lead to Co-Communications winning numerous industry awards.

To date, Co-Communications has received the “Best of Show” award by Gannett/The Journal News (2002, 2010, 2012), 48 Advertising Club awards and five Gold PRSA Mercury awards, among others. To Cohen’s delight, the company was also awarded the 2006 Forbes Enterprise award and was inducted into the Westchester County Business Hall of Fame in 2008. Westchester Magazine’s 914 Inc. recognized Cohen as one of Westchester county’s Most Accomplished Women Entrepreneurs.

Accolades aside, Cohen defines success as “a matter of constantly improving ourselves. Client success translates into our success.” The full-service agency has been able to attract and retain a diverse client base from a wide variety of industries–education, hospitality, IT, professional services, real estate and not-for-profits.

Clients as Partners

People often assume that the “Co” in the company name is from Cohen’s last name, but it’s actually from the Latin prefix meaning “with, or together.” The whole thrust of the company revolves around working with clients as partners. “Developing a true partnership takes time, but it’s worth it.”

A born optimist, Cohen believes that “in an economic downturn, there is opportunity. After all, in the depths of the Great Depression, the cosmetics industry was born!”  During the recent recession, Co-Communications was down only 5% in terms of client retention, an enviable percentage Cohen does not leave to chance.

“We have great client retention, because we invest in our clients.” Given the current economic state of affairs, resiliency and a dedicated staff of fifteen professionals have also greatly contributed to the company’s ability to retain “client-partners.” Last but not least, Cohen said that understanding the current environment and innovation are key: “We work closely with our clients to develop innovative, hard-working marketing tactics that produce bottom-line results and bring them closer to their target audience. Fresh ideas lead to growth, so we continue to break out of our comfort zone and try new approaches.”

By the same token, the ideal client “sees us as their partner, not as a vendor,” said Cohen. A major focus of Co-Communications is helping companies see marketing as an investment, rather than as an expense. “We help them create a company-wide marketing culture. The company’s brand needs to be promoted internally, and the entire staff, who is often on the front lines, must play a role in marketing the company.”

Cohen family in France (Beaune) April 2011

Not-for-profits, such as the Boys and Girls Club of Northern Westchester, have brought Cohen a great deal of personal satisfaction: “They were our first client, and I’ve been blessed to have an ongoing relationship with them for fourteen years! In many ways, we’ve grown up together. I have enormous admiration for the Club’s dedication and positive impact on the youth and their families in the community.”

Cohen is also very pleased with helping the “Build the Bridge Now” campaign to raise awareness about replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge with a New Hudson River crossing, the largest public works project in state history. Working with the Construction Industry Council, the Business Council of Westchester, Rockland Business Association, and local/national media, Co-Communications has been instrumental in setting up press conferences, social media, and the website www.BuildTheBridgeNowNY.org.

What does the future hold for Cohen? “I want to create the agency of the future that will continue to be innovative and collaborative. The groundwork has already been laid, but we will continue to work hard to find new and different ways to help our clients grow and prosper.”

Spoken like a seasoned entrepreneur.

Vicki de Vries is a writer/editor/educator living in Westchester “country.”