On a snowy Wednesday mor ning that turned the land scape around the Heritage Club in Farmingdale into a snowy field, several dozen business people united for a Schneps Connects breakfast event, meeting each other and hearing from the leader of one of the region’s largest accounting firms.
“Thank you all for braving the storm and showing up, it shows your commitment to growing your business,” said Schneps Media Sr. Vice President of Events Elizabeth Schneps Aloni.
Schneps Connects is Schneps Media’s more intimate networking group, bringing together people who want to meet like minded executives, gain insights from industry leaders and gain visibility for their business.
“My life is not stopping because of this weather,” said Mitchell Goldberg, president of ClientFirst Strategy, a wealth management firm in Melville. “I reconnected with someone from Jericho. We have common friends. I met various people.”
Louis Grassi, CEO of Grassi Advisory Group Inc., one of the largest accounting, consulting and tax firms in the nation, was the speaker at the February 25 event following past speakers such as 1-800-Flowers founder Jim McCann.
“I had to learn every step and I didn’t want to learn every step the hard way,” Grassi told the group of how he learned from other business people. “I wanted to listen to go the route of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), selling to employees who would become owners.
“What was more important to me, money or legacy?” he told the group. “I chose legacy.”
With 35 ESOPs as clients, Grassi said he knew the space before choosing to go that direction. He in 2023 sold half the firm to employ ees in a deal financed by TD Bank (a Schneps Connects member) and plans to sell the remainder.
“I was always a hard worker, a hustler,” he said. “I loved interacting with people. I knew that was something that I had to have in my work.”
Grassi later decided to launch his own business, capitalizing on peoture, but within it give people freedom,” Schneps Aloni said as she interviewed him. “It’s important to have consistency and flexibility.”
Grassi has grown the firm to about 650 people and offices from Philadelphia to Palm Beach, as well as Long Island, New York City, and the New York metro area.
If experience matters to clients, it also matters to employees. “People stay in an organization, because they love people they work with,” he said. “When you give, you get. You need to give your people the best working environment.”
Grassi had a casual, relaxed air as he recounted lessons learned in nearly 30 years of business as employees became fellow entrepreneurs, how they got here, find out the problems they had getting there and take that back.”
Grassi said he became a student of success, finding out what others did right, asking what worked and didn’t.
“I was always picking everyone’s brains,” Grassi said. “I was the person at this breakfast 40 years ago that wanted to know everything about what everyone did.”
Schneps Connects unites people from many industries in small groups, so they meet, learn from one another and do business.
“That’s exactly what Schneps Connects does for business leaders,” Schneps Aloni of the connection and community the group provides. “Create an intimate and insightful gathering.”
Grassi talked about how on New Year’s Day of 2021 he decided to ple skills and accounting prowess. “I said I’m going to invest in the stock market or I’m going to invest in me. I said I’m a pretty good bet,” he said. “I took that money and I invested in people.”
Grassi talked about how he provided leadership, while listening to others, organizing retreats to look at the business rather than simply conducting business.
“You have to have a tight structure.”
For business leaders who are tired of large, impersonal events and ready for something more meaningful, Schneps Connects is worth the early morning. The conversations that start over breakfast here have a way of continuing long after the plates are cleared.
To learn more or become a member of the Schneps Connects Club, visit Schneps Media.com
