NAPLES SCORE Helps Cut Costs
and Waistlines at ICAN! WEIGHT LOSS


Mauriann Patterson, founder of ICAN! Weight Loss with her son Neil with
SCORE counselor Ekkehard Grampp in their weekly counseling session

Mauriann Patterson founded ICAN! Weight Loss in 2002 after working for Weight Watchers for three and a half years. She differentiates her program from other weight loss programs in that she both educates and motivates. Her enormous enthusiasm and belief in her work is inspirational to her clients and helps them succeed.

Besides her background at Weight Watchers, Mauriann holds a bachelors degree in nursing, which helps her keep her program healthy.

Over the past nine months, Naples SCORE Chapter counselor Ekkehard Grampp has met every week with Mauriann at a local Barnes and Noble coffee shop to discuss various business issues and to review progress on action items from previous meetings. Ekkehard assists Mauriann with business planning and acts as a sounding board for new ideas to grow the business and save expenses. "Ekkehard has given me great advice and has shown himself to be very knowledgeable" says Patterson. "He has helped me increase revenues while decreasing expenses, which all positively affects the bottom line", she adds.

During some of these weekly meetings, Ekkehard has also involved Mauriann's son Neil, a Business major in college, which has helped generate additional ideas, all while building self-confidence in both Mauriann and Neil. With Ekkehard's help, Mauriann has been able to become more organized, keep better track of and analyze revenue & expenses, and build up her referral business (thus saving advertising dollars). When appropriate, Ekkehard has also involved other SCORE counselors in order to share their expertise.

Mauriann has also tapped into her son Neil's creative talents by having him set up her website www.icanweightloss.com which describes her program, provides testimonials, meeting information, healthy recipes and encourages feedback from clients. Neil was instrumental in convincing his mother to start her own business three years ago.

SCORE's counseling services are all at no cost. SCORE offers counseling sessions on a one-on-one basis as well as workshops. E-mail counseling is offered as well to those who are out of the area, or prefer a cyber-meeting. SCORE is a partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration with close to 12,000 members and more than 350 chapters nationwide.

The Naples chapter ran 13 workshops last year with a total of 303 business people in attendance. Additionally, the chapter counseled 480 clients in face-to-face sessions.

We can be reached by e-mail at score@scorenaples.org or by phone at 239-430-0081. Our Web site is www.scorenaples.org