What Is NSCA’s Business & Leadership Conference?
The NSCA’s Business & Leadership Conference (BLC) is the trade organization’s signature event. It’s an executive conference that stands out from the more product- and technology-centric events in the integration market calendar.
It’s now structured as a three-day event:
- Day one includes a golf tournament to benefit the NSCA Education Foundation, several orientation receptions and a welcome dinner and awards banquet.
- That evening event, NSCA pays tribute to the winners of its Excellence in Business award winners and its Excellence in Product Innovation award winners.
- Day two and three are packed with keynote presentations, usually by business and thought-leaders from outside the integration market. There are also break-out sessions that tackle more industry-specific business challenges.
NSCA has recently capped its attendance for BLC at 400 in order to maintain a relatively manageable group and facilitate interaction. Still, it would have been difficult to predict the growth of the event during the first BLC in 1998.
The inaugural BLC was at the Saddlebrook Resort outside Tampa, Fla., also the site of the 21st annual BLC which took place February 27 to March 1, 2019. [related]
“I remember that there was about 25 people there,” NSCA executive director Chuck Wilson recalled to Commercial Integrator on the 20th anniversary of that event.
NSCA Board Members made up about half the audience for the first BLC, Wilson recalls, which drove the organization to figure out how to create a conference that would inspire the industry to attend.
It didn’t take long for BLC to establish itself as the leading executive conference for the integration market – and it no doubt had a hand other organizations deciding to launch executive conferences.
The organization decided to position it as a business event, eschewing the technology side which likely come naturally to most of its members.
Commercial Integrator became the exclusive media partner for NSCA at its Business & Leadership Conferences in 2012.
Chuck Wilson Reflected at 20th Annual NSCA BLC:
Why Go to the Business Leadership Conference?
Integration firm leaders will leave BLC with “a new level of business insight, camaraderie and innovation” that will “help them improve [their] sales and leadership skills,” according to the event’s website.
Attendees will learn new and better ways to:
- Increase innovation within your company and create a higher level of demand for your services
- Attract the right types of clients – and deliver on their expectations once you land them
- Enable your team and organization to maintain levels of high performance – even under pressure
- “Play to win” while meeting your clients’ needs and expectations
- Turn everyone into a top performer by implementing new rules for sales success
- Utilize the latest economic forecasts and trends to make solid business decisions
Of course, the value of the BLC is not restricted to the keynotes and breakout sessions. Many attendees walk away with connections to others in the industry they didn’t previously have and those connections lead to discussions about collaborating on future products and projects.
More information on dates, times and registration can be found here
