Get Free Downloads and Recordings from the ASI Power Summit

Monday November 16, 2020 | Filed under:

Going live online with hundreds watching is a little nerve-wracking. Happily, ASI’s very first live Power Summit was pretty much glitch-free, a positive example of the many ways we’re all adapting and using technology in new ways to connect and share our experiences.

You can now access the event material posted to the Power Summit website, which includes downloadable handouts and PowerPoints.

The four-hour Power Summit attracted speakers from Top 40 companies like SanMar, Geiger and Touchstone and covered wide-ranging topics like re-capturing clients and tapping emerging markets, technology, working remotely, pivoting, rebranding, trade shows and events, and PPE. Further, more than half of the Top 40 distributors and suppliers attended, and many had more than one person participating. The audience also included 37 of the Power 50.

I encourage you to browse sessions you may have missed and share the main link with industry friends: asipowersummit.com.

Since we’re already planning our next live events, we’re paying close attention to the feedback we’re getting through the survey we sent out afterward. As much as attendees told us they appreciated the hard industry data and market advice we shared, it’s the human stories that seemed to resonate the most:

  • Touchstone founder and CEO Derek Block describing beating back cancer and the near ruin of his business to running a currently thriving Top 40 distributorship. One attendee said, “The honesty and vulnerability was refreshing.”
  • Keynote speaker and entrepreneur Peter Shankman, who earned high marks for being down to earth as well as enlightening, with one viewer saying, “He speaks my language: Adapt, Improvise, Overcome.”
  • Still others appreciated the candid talk I had with Jo-an Lantz, the CEO/President of Top 40 distributor Geiger, who discussed her personal losses as well as her forward-thinking attitude, saying, “Be optimistic. Optimism is contagious.”

My favorite comment was this, because it captured what so many are going through in these unprecedented times:

“Sometimes during this pandemic, one feels alone, and attending the sessions I was able to attend  brought things into perspective. We are all experiencing some similar feelings, business challenges and struggles. No one has the magic potion to overcome anything – and we are all working our asses off to try and stay afloat, sane and find some sort of understanding of what to do and plan for.”

Altogether, 676 attended – far more than usually attend an in-person, three-day Power Summit, minus the time commitment and costs of travel and hotel. We plan to build upon the success of this event for our next virtual webinars, so stay tuned for more.