9:00am – 10:00am

Four Proven Ways to Increase Your Advertising Results

Isaac Knorr, Senior Account Executive, Knorr Marketing

You invest a lot in your marketing, now let’s make sure it really works. Learn four proven new strategies that will increase your marketing and advertising results with integrated online (digital), new media and direct marketing that will increase responses from existing customers and reach and engage a new quality of consumers with your store.

10:30am – 11:30am

Human-Centric Marketing: The Science of Selling Meets the Art of the Lifestyle Experience

Jason Pires, CEO and Creative Director, Furniture Branding

In our fast-paced and complex world, consumers are constantly looking for truly meaningful experiences and connections to complement their day-to-day lives. Today’s most successful brands are going well beyond selling design and products and are creating human-centric and customized experiences to exceed consumers’ expectations, generating a personal connection and sustainable brand loyalty.

1:00pm – 2:00pm

Connecting with the Consumer and Leveraging the Right Retail Technologies

Jesse Akre, President, Retailsystem

Consumers have taken their shopper journey and made it exactly what they want it to be, leaving most retailers struggling to meet those needs. Abandonment is unfortunately a phrase many retailers are learning to cope with as consumers leave with failed expectations. Don’t cope! The right retail technologies can help. Jesse will explore many of the pros and cons of key retail platforms that traditional retailers need to implement in efforts to provide the experience customers expect.

2:30pm – 3:30pm

Clearing the Confusion: Your Guide to Creating the Right Digital Marketing Budget

Ken Widger, Senior Marketing Program Manager, MicroD

One of the biggest challenges retailers face is knowing just how much they should allocate for digital marketing. In this session, we will discover how the marketing landscape for retailers has changed over the last five years and how successfully navigating these changes is critical to your business. You’ll easily learn how to find the right budget range for your digital investment, along with best practices for using that budget to achieve great results.

4:00pm – 5:00pm

We Are All in Sales: How to Become an Extraordinary Influencer

Lorri Kelley, Owner, Lorri Kelley Advisors

Regardless of the position we have, we are called upon many times to lead, set the vision and effectively influence others to see what we see and ensure we achieve all that we want to achieve. Understanding the basics of effective influencing – or selling – capabilities is an important foundation to build our talents and skills upon. This session will provide the seven basic steps needed to become an effective influencer, applicable to everyone, from CEO to Merchandisers to Sales Managers and Professionals.

9:00am – 10:00am

Understanding Facebook & Instagram Posts: Ads and Analytics for Your Business

Fredy Wright, Digital Director, Conquest Digital Solutions

Facebook changes so often that it’s important to stay on top of the latest capabilities to keep your Facebook Business Page prominent. You will learn tips for maximizing your Facebook Business Page, including: When is the best time to post? How often? What type of content works best for your competitors on Facebook? How can you interpret analytics and all the Facebook and Instagram ad types? Plus, what’s new with the whole suite of Facebook advertising platforms including Messenger, Facebook Audience Network and Facebook Marketplace? You will walk away up-to-speed on all things Facebook!

10:30am – 11:30am

Marketing Metrics to Watch That Will Increase Traffic and Sales

David McMahon, Business Analyst, HighJump, Inc.

The purpose of marketing is to deliver a message that produces customer visits to your website and store. This expense is a sizable chunk of a business’ operating budget. If you can become more effective in tracking key marketing metrics, you can fine-tune your program and increase your return on investment. David McMahon, industry business analyst and performance group leader, will discuss how to analyze and increase advertising ROI. Come and join this interactive session.

1:00pm – 2:00pm

Using Today’s Insights, Trends and Data to Engage Consumers to Buy

Chip West, Vertical Marketing Director Retail, Valassis, Inc.

Identifying and connecting with customers in the market for furniture can be challenging for many retailers. This session will highlight insights and trends of today’s furniture consumers, including ways to utilize both online and offline data to better reach and engage your customers with integrated media techniques and tools.

2:30pm – 3:30pm

The Value of eMarketing

Michael Bailenson, President, BailComm, LLC

The marketing landscape has shifted! Consumers have less patience. Most of all, they want to receive information that is relevant to their needs and that will ultimately support their purchase decisions. In this session, you will discover how eMarketing is not only still the cornerstone that drives all other digital marketing, but that email newsletters are experiencing a resurgence due to the onslaught of social media, texts and digital ads. Michael will share the basics of creating, managing and measuring eMarketing with real-world examples.

4:00pm – 5:00pm

Setting the Stage for Success: Best Practice for Hiring and Training

Rene Johnston-Gingrich, VP of Training Development, Profitability Consulting Group

Whether you are a retailer or a designer, one of your biggest struggles is finding and keeping quality employees. In this session, we will dive into best practices for recruiting, developing and retaining outstanding, fully engaged team members and boosting your bottom line. We’ll have a lot of fun in the process!

9:00am – 10:00am

Handling Objections, Maybe’s and No

Joe Milevsky, CEO and Founder, JRM Sales & Management

Whether your sales are mostly generated from a brick-and-mortar location or on-site in your customers’ homes, it’s never fun hearing the word NO! During this session, you will discover the different types of objections, how to proactively prepare your sales team to reactively deal with unexpected objections, what are the consequences of a hidden objection, what is a stall in the sales process and how to deal with it, when it is not appropriate to ask for the sale. You will leave with the tools to change the way your salespeople perceive objections and NO’s.