TRIB Group ‘Meeting of the Minds’ breaks attendance records in Vegas
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| TRIB Boardmember Shannon Strunk (l) takes an order from Premier dealer Wally Landmesser (#28) while Tony Battaglia of Blue Ribbon Rentals looks on at TRIB’s Hotshow auction Monday. |
Close to 200 rent to own operators are in Las Vegas this week for TRIB Group’s annual ‘Meeting of the Minds’ — a one of a kind RTO brainstorming and educational event – that kicked off today at Bally’s Las Vegas with a day long series of dealer-led information and training sessions that have become staples for today’s independent RTO operator.
The event is co-located with Brand’s Source’s National Convention at the Paris/Bally’s Resorts in Las Vegas August 29 – Sept. 1.
TRIB Group Executive Director Dennis Shields reported attendance at the ‘Meeting of the Minds’ is up significantly over last year with close to 200 registered attendees representing 73 member companies. That represents a 60 percent member company increase and a 90 percent attendee increase.
Mike Tissot of Countryside Rent to Own opened ‘Meeting of the MInds 2010′ to a packed house leading a two hour discussion dedicated to renting and collecting including promos, contests, pricing, calling, hard accounts, and legal issues.
The second roundtable focused on generating new business including online sales, fee collection, new products and pakaging led by Seth Weisblatt of Sam’s Appliace and Furniture.
Other topics included "cutting costs and improving gross margins" led by Terry Beville of Buddy’s Home Furnishings and "human resources" led by Trent Agin of Rent One.
The day rounded out with the TRIB Group Hotshow which generated just over $4 million in sales of specially priced items offered by participating TRIB Group member vendors.
Al Benson of Central File Marketing — a first year participant in the Hotshow — said the fast paced rent to own micro-show was a great opportunity to build name recognition among rental dealers. Benson and Central File sold 100,000 direct mail promo packages in under a minute at the show.
"It’s fun to be able to sell our services here, but its really more important to show our support for the show and for TRIB," Benson said. "We generated a lot of interest here and hope that spills over onto the show floor tomorrow." The TRIB Buy show opens Tuesday at 12:30 at Bally’s and runs through Wednesday.
Brownie Calvin, who operates three Option Rentals stores, said the excitement was especially evident at the Hotshow.
"People get really worked up and you can feel the excitement," Calvin said. "It’s fun to get caught up in it and the vendors who really brought out there best deals you can tell because they sold out. Those who didn’t didn’t. But it’s all part of the show and part of building vendor dealer relationships and that’s something TRIB is really good at."
APRO Executive Director Bill Keese leads an RTO industry update Tuesday Aug. 31.