I cannot believe the 2018 Distributor Conference is over and in the history books. We hosted 129 customers from 82 distributors in Las Vegas at the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino, soon to be Park MGM. We were able to spend two days talking about our strategy for this year and into the future. We used the rest of the time for networking, building relationships and, of course, having some fun.

The theme of the conference was “Every Step of the Way.” The message was two-fold: we wanted to let our distributors know we are by their side throughout their sales journey while also reintroducing the Seco Way, a theme that epitomizes our corporate values.

Rob speaking on the Seco Way.

In 2017 we started our Distributor Partner Recognition Program awards, a tradition we continued in 2018 with the following honorees:

• Industrial Supply Company (ISCO) - Family Spirit award
• James H. Cross - Passion for the Customers
• L&M Tool and Industrial Supply - Personal Commitment

We also gave out awards for excelling in areas that are strategic focuses for us:

• MESCO Industrial Supplies - Conversions
• BlackHawk Industrial - Digital Distributor

Finally, we unanimously named C4 Industrial as our Distributor of the Year. It was really fun to hand out these awards, and we are very grateful to have such valuable partners. For me, it was the best part of the conference.

C4 Industrial - Distributor of the Year.

We also had a speaker, Chip Eichelberger, who spoke to the group about being more efficient in everything that we do. The goal is to achieve balance by focusing on doing a few things exceptionally well. His talk was very impactful as well as entertaining, and it concluded with a discussion about the mindset you need to accomplish your goals and to do more. Every person in the room got the chance to break a wooden board (which everyone accomplished successfully) that signified the barriers we wanted to leave behind.

We went into the conference with three objectives: 1) have fun; 2) network and build deeper relationships; and 3) articulate our strategy. We hope that our commitment to our channel partners and focus on improving the ease of doing business resonated with the audience. We had the opportunity to dive into the Sales Unit Transformation concept and its benefits to both the distributor and us. I believe that everyone left town on the same page and that we will achieve success by focusing on opportunities together while strengthening our communications. We cannot wait to see what we accomplish in 2018!