Nashville—As debuts go, the inaugural Synergy Convention & Expo, the uniting of four flooring trade bodies, virtually guaranteed there will be an encore performance, as more than 400 attendees packed into the conference room here at the Sheraton Music City Hotel.
Billed as “one industry, one expo,” Synergy is the outgrowth of the joint CFI + FCICA convention that was expanded to include Flooring Consultants and Inspection Training Services (FCITS) and FCB2B. “This event is about training, trust and transformation,” said Beth Brown Sorrell, executive director of FCITS, the certified flooring inspection group.
For years, Certified Flooring Installers (CFI) and Flooring Contractors Association (FCICA) operated independently, hosting their own trade shows. Seeing a need to collaborate, CFI and FCICA held a combined trade show two years ago, with great success. FCITS and FCB2B, both under the auspices of the World Floor Covering Association (WFCA), were added this year.
“For too long the industry has operated in silos rather than coming together,” said Scott Humphrey, WFCA CEO.
In recognition of this coming together Humphrey awarded former FCICA executive director Pat Kelly with the Circle of Excellence “Challenge Coin,” an honor bestowed to only a handful of flooring luminaries; the coin recognizes people who have done “unique and special things.” Kelly was instrumental in forging the alliance to bring the disparate groups together. The result is a conference that drew a crowd roughly four times the size of previous events. “This is amazing; it’s so great to see this turnout,” Kelly said.
The general session kicked off with an entertaining keynote address from Dan Thurmon, author and president of Motivation Works Inc., who spoke to attendees about rediscovering their inner greatness, navigating change and taking bold action. “If you limit yourself to what’s comfortable you deny yourself what’s possible,” he said.
Thurmon, who encouraged attendees to “lean into the uncertainty; stay positive and committed to ongoing improvement,” illustrated many of his points with stunts—including riding around on a unicycle, juggling several objects and doing a handstand on the lectern, a nod to his prowess as a gymnast at the University of Georgia.
(Look for more on this event in the Sept. 22 print edition of FCNews.)