The Business Record recently spoke with Brad Baumler from the Des Moines chapter of the Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization. The invitation-only networking group has been available to business people in Greater Des Moines for the past four years and is seeking to further build its membership. A global organization, YEO was founded in 1987 and has grown to more than 4,700 members worldwide. Graduates of YEO are encouraged to join the World Entrepreneurs’ Organization, an affiliated program.

Q: What are the qualifications to become a member?

A: You have to be under the age of 40; be a founder, co-founder, owner or controller of a business and have gross annual sales exceeding $1 million. Currently in the Des Moines chapter we have 26 members. It’s not limited in regard to industry, we’ll take more than one person from a particular industry.

Q: How does the chapter operate?

A: The group is broken up into forums, which consist of anywhere from five to seven people each. It’s almost a mini board of directors that helps you with issues, whether it’s business, family or whatever. Each month, a person presents on a specific topic they may want help on. The power of it is you have some pretty sharp cookies giving you free advice. … I think the real quality of our group is that besides our forums, we have learning events each month. We try to have a mix of events, including social cultural and educational events. For instance, we might have a professional such as an accountant speak on a particular topic. We also have an inventory of skills to tap the network of skills within our organization. One of the most powerful parts of it is we have an international presidents’ organization, (World Entrepreneurs’ Organization), where we have people like Marv Pomerantz mentor us in an open forum. That’s a great benefit.

Q: How large would you like to see YEO grow to in Des Moines?

A: I think it’s realistic to have double (the current membership) about 50 people. I think one of our best recruiting tools has been word of mouth at this point.

Q: What’s the cost to join? Has there been much attrition?

A: The cost is $2,000 per year in membership dues. We’ve seen very little attrition rate, once they get in and see the benefit of it. If we lose them, it’s usually because they lose their status by going out of business. But most of our companies are pretty stout, the average revenues are about $9 million. In total, our members have $390 million in revenues and 600 employees among their companies.

For more information about the Young Entrepreneurs Organization, contact Brad Baumler at 202-4666, or visit www.yeo.org.