Scottsdale, Ariz.—The 2023 Starnet Commercial Flooring Cooperative spring conference kicked off here this week amid robust member participation. In fact, it was the highest attendance ever for a non-anniversary year.
Preliminary registration figures obtained on day two of the conference put attendance at roughly 670 registrants. More importantly, according to Mark Bischoff, Starnet president and CEO, is the participation among member organizations. “We count the attendance by membership to make sure the member population is high,” he said. Membership total right now is 170 shareholders representing 398 locations. “At the same time, our vendor members partners also bring guests to participate in the various functions.”
Bischoff attributes the strong participation to the networking aspects of the event as well as the high-level programming. “We’ve done a better job of staying connected not only with the shareholders but also their associates deeper in their organizations,” he told FCNews. “We continue to work hard to provide content that’s meaningful for folks who are actually running the business day to day both in the field and in the office that aren’t necessarily the shareholders, and we’ve been getting good feedback around that content. The continuation here on the ground at convention is to make sure that those people who are getting those benefits from our ongoing communications and training feel like they need to show up to get more of that in person. Owners like the associates to be more comfortable with Starnet and the concept.”
The value of establishing those connections, according to Bischoff, cannot be overstated. “By attending convention, these folks get to build connections across the country where they can phone a friend if they run into a project that’s challenging or call someone they met at conference to understand how they might solve a particular problem.”
(Look for more on the 2023 Starnet spring conference in upcoming editions of FCNews.)