Buying group Azione Unlimited held its first conference this week, resulting in what its president Richard Glikes says were enthusiastic reviews from attendees.
One of the Azione Unlimited roundtable discussions
The St. Louis, MO, conference, titled “Building the Foundation,” was attended by 80 individuals, including both dealer and vendor members.
“We are all in this together,” said Glikes, who formed the buying group last year after parting ways with HTSA. “Our number-one goal is to deliver profits to members and that means dealers and vendors.”
Glikes reported that the conference was interactive and engaging with a series of roundtable discussion, open discussions, and vendor and member presentations all designed to fulfill the conferences’ second goal of providing a vehicle to share and promote execution excellence.
Topics included, “How to Make Money on Labor,” “Using Apple Low-Margin Products to Make High Margins,” “Increasing Profitability and Decreasing Cost Centers,” and “Which APPS Should We Be Using?”
“How to Market to the Luxury Client” was the subject line of a marketing panel discussion that included Jamie Sasser of Netsertive, Kevin Souers of Revenew, and Tom King of 23K Studios. Both vendors and members rotated seating arrangements, to enable new acquaintances to form and to build team spirit, Glikes reported.
Eric Thies, president of DSI in Southern California, stated, “I’ve got 30 ideas written done and another 12 in my iPad. I am anxious to get back to my office and start implementing them. This has been great.”
Glikes added, “We have an amazing group of smart, talented custom retailers, and integrators that now have shoulders to lean on and friends to share ideas and seek solutions from. We’re also fortunate to have awesome vendor members that ‘get’ where we are going and believe in Azione Unlimited.”
