 I've got one o'clock in the Eastern Times. It's a good afternoon for the folks in Eastern Central, and good morning still for the folks in Mountain and Pacific who are joining us today. This is Cece. I'm usually the voice you hear on the phone if you call ISE, and we'll be excited to make my first trip to the ARCSI convention and see the ISE as a show floor for the first time. I've seen it online, and it's pretty incredible. Today we've got their Christmas talk about how to kind of schedule yourself and get it prepared to attend a convention, get the most out of it, and certainly welcoming special guest Ernie Hartung, the director of ARCSI, and they will be looking specifically at some of the events that will be available to ARCSI members attending convention this year and some exciting things happening there. So I'm certainly glad to introduce Derek and Ernie. I'm going to pass it off to Derek, and he'll get us started. Great. Welcome, Derek, with my maid service. I see some names I recognize on the call. I also am currently a member of ARCSI, although only for about three more weeks, and then I'm going to be stepping up and replaced by some new folks. Ernie is our executive director, so go ahead and say hi to Ernie so everyone knows your voice. Hi there, folks. Great. He is the guy who basically runs ARCSI. So theoretically the board provides oversight for Ernie, but Ernie runs most of it for us. So obviously the point of today is to talk about the convention that's coming up in October and give you an idea. ARCSI typically does two conventions a year, one which is in October and November, which is the one that's coming up and the other one is in April. The April convention is what's called the Executive Leadership Conference. It's specifically designed for the people who are attempting to take their company to the next level. We talk about working on business instead of in your business. It's very much normally management topics, things like that. The annual convention tends to be a little bit more hands-on. One thing we have is a trade show floor with over 700 vendors. So while we also have management training going on, there's a lot of technical training. There's lots of opportunities for you to get there and actually see products, touch products. There are different names that get thrown around. ARCSI is the Association of Residential Cleaning Services International. IEHA is the International Executive Housekeeper Association. Those are the people that clean hotel rooms and places like that. And then there's BSCAI, which is the Building Services Contractors Association International. All three of those associations get together along with publications and other people as part of what's called ISSA Interclean. It's a little bit confusing because we're going to be talking about ISSA events and ARCSI events. Think of ISSA as the larger, more overarching organization. When you attend the ARCSI convention, you also get to attend the ISSA convention. So it's sort of a two-for-one deal. Do you have anything else to add to that? No, I think it's a pretty good description. And we've been affiliated and worked with ISSA for probably three years. And again, their members are primarily with the large manufacturers and large distributors and small manufacturers. But they handle the manufacturing and the things as another description. So I think it's been a partnership. And it certainly remembers a lot of things that I'll be quite frank. ARCSI couldn't do on its own. But our partnership with ISSA makes for a great connection with ISSA. We have the housekeepers, the folks who clean commercial buildings, the residential cleaners all together. We get better speakers. We get literally everyone who's anyone in the cleaning industry is there. We did a search earlier because I was trying to show one of my people in my office why I wanted to go. And I pulled up vacuum manufacturers. There are 25 vacuum manufacturers that are going to be at this show. So if you want vacuum you want to buy, there's 25 different people to go visit and get their opinions on. So literally almost everyone in the industry is going to be there. So one of the things we wanted to give you heads up ahead of time is there are a couple of things you may want to download to be prepared. ISSA offers a show for map app for your smart phone, which I have a stupid phone. So I won't be using that, but most of you have better phones than I do. It's a great map because once again there are over 700 exhibitors on that show floor. You can get lost very, very easily. And then ARCSI is going to be doing a scavenger hunt using an application. And I don't know much about this one. So I was going to pass off to Chris if you want to kind of give a little bit of what's going on there. Chris Zimmer, our Director of Communications and Membership here at ARCSI who is the person that really runs the show. And let her explain the scavenger hunt in the app. And we're going to be using the app scavenger. It's the word scavenger without any vowels basically. You can download it on Google Play or iTunes. And once you get to the convention we'll be playing along just things like visiting a vendor and telling us what their giveaway was. Or snapping a picture of yourself in the hospitality suite with your friends. Or giving us your tip of what was your tip of the day that you picked up in the education sessions today. There's about 30 or so opportunities to participate. There's 30 or so tasks that you need to complete. And then the person who completes most tasks on the scavenger hunt will win a $50 Visa card. And we'll have a second and third place as well. I believe those are going to be $25 Visa gift cards as well. And it's just giving us pictures. And like I said, your tips that you'll pick around the convention and the networking events as well. Now hopefully you're going to understand once we're done with this you're going to be very busy at the convention. So downloading these two apps ahead of time is one of the things you can do to get ready for convention. So if you want to download them, have them ready. And then when you get there you can use them. So I also just wanted to point out that anyone who is either not an ARC-C member or a new ARC-C member, there's an ARC-C 101 webinar tonight at 7.30 which is an opportunity to get more information on ARC-C. What is ARC-C? Why do you want to be a member? What are the benefits of ARC-C? That's tonight's 7.30 Eastern stand time, fourth specific time. So not the point of today's call but we have some people on that are ARC-C members. We're going to keep talking about ARC-C. If you don't know what I'm talking about, this is a great call to attend. So like I said, not the point of the call but wanted to point out that it is available. I'm sure if you shoot us an email or ask a question at the end we can get you details on that call. The ARC-C SSA show, it is running from October 15th through the 20th so we have just two weeks left so we're basically pending a nervous breakdown right now. It's a joint convention like I said with the residential cleaning group with our specific training as well as access to ISSA and other education events. There's going to be over 20 associations and populations that come together for ISSA and then we've got the website, cleaningconvention.org, which I'm going to jump to in here in just a second to give you some idea of the schedule and what's going on. One of the major benefits of ISSA is the show floor. One of the core things is a trade show. So it's on Wednesday at 1, then I think it's 8 to 5 on Thursday and then on Friday until 1 the trade show floor is open. There's about 700 major exhibitors there with all the major cleaning related supplies, software publications, insurance, everything you can almost think of either. It's a great opportunity to head to trends and see things that are coming. We saw chemical free cleaning there four or five years ago before we started to see it in more places. You can chance to try new equipment and try some chemicals hands-on. You can also negotiate great deals. A lot of the vendors at the show have trade show specials. Those of you who may not know my history, before I started my maid service, I actually worked for Procter & Gamble for 12 years. So I used to work this very well as one of the guys in the booth. So I want to know a little bit about what the guys in the booth are trying to accomplish. The trade show is always very busy when it first opens on Wednesday. There's normally a pretty huge line. Friday has to be the slowest day of the week. What I recommend whenever possible is that you ask to arrange an appointment for a demo at home if you're serious. Once again, this is where it comes in good that I've been there before. There are a tremendous amount of freebie hunters at the shows, and a lot of the manufacturers have kind of burned out on it. So if you just ask for a sample, a lot of times they're going to say they don't have any, and that's just because they've given out cases and cases and cases of samples and nothing happened. If you say, hey, I'm really interested. I'd love you to come by and do a demonstration at my business. They are much more likely to either do a sample right then and there or demo back at home and come out salesperson. A lot of times they'll go with you to a job site and actually demo the product on the job, bring you a case of product for free. So if you're really interested, ask them to schedule an appointment for a demo at home. Most manufacturers will pull the schedule right on the spot and get it for you or get you the phone number of a guy back home for you to call. If you do want a sample, one of the best things for you to do is to talk to them ahead of time and then ask to get it on Friday. What you need to understand is these guys pack up the trade show on Friday and have to ship it all home, and most of them don't want to do it. So if you have a demo, a sample they can give you on Wednesday, and those are if you go back on Friday and say, hey, you're packing up your booth right now, I'm just wondering if I could get a bottle of that product I talked to you about on Wednesday to take home with me, they'll probably go ahead and give it to you. But right now you don't have to take it home. If you took a flight and it's more than 30 ounces of liquids, you're probably going to have a problem. So think ahead. Once again, one of the best ways is to just ask for a demo when you get it home. Another recommendation that we strongly recommend is that you plan ahead. One quick correction. The show floor open at 10 a.m. on Wednesday? Oh, okay. Normally it was one. Sorry. This is a map of the actual show floor. Like I said, it's pretty massive, and the link to this is in the presentation that I just shared. Also, if you download the app, it's there. But what I recommend you do is plan a little bit ahead and figure out who you want to visit. I've been to this show and I've actually tried to walk all the booths. Even if you use all three days, chances are you're not going to be able to do it. If you're serious about something like you get interested in a product, you're probably going to spend 30 or 40 minutes just talking about that product. You can do an alphabetical list of exhibitors. There is a list of exhibitors by type of things that they make. There's also this show floor map, and it's clickable that when you click on it, details such as the website of that company pops up so you can see what they make. I strongly encourage you to plan ahead and have a plan for who you're going to hit. I don't think you need to hit everyone who's there, but I would recommend you have sort of a top 10 list of who you want to visit and what you want to talk to them about. And like I said, you've got exhibitor lists. You've got product categories, lists where you can pull out a category, and see what, for example, I told you guys earlier, if you're a vacuum manufacturer, I did this earlier because I was demoing to somebody. I said I want information on vacuum cleaners. It shows people who sell or manufacture vacuum on the floor. As you can see to some extent, ISSA tries to help you. They try to cluster people together whenever possible, but this guy probably registered late, and that's why he's way over here, because all the booths close to that area were taken. So it's a great feature and helps you plan ahead. You know, I'm looking for steam cleaning equipment, and all the companies that make steam cleaning equipment. So now when I go to the show floor, I'm not wandering 25 aisles, trying to figure out who makes steamers. I can go straight to the people that I know make steamers and go from there. So I highly recommend this. It's a fantastic application. It will help you plan ahead and get the most out of convention. If you plan ahead, you're going to have a much, much better experience. I'm going to read that on the internet. No, I didn't start it, but you're right. It is a massive thing when you get there. It's several football fields. Now, one thing is, and we may be just ahead and you're maybe going to cover this, Derek, if you're presidential credentials, it's on the same floor as the show level, only it's across the concourse. It'll be easy to find. So we'll talk about that maybe a little bit out on the internet and how to register and find out about that. So those are my tips for the show floor. I plan ahead. There are a few other generic tips at the end, but a lot of people really want to get samples and stuff at the show once again as a guy who's worked for the manufacturers. If you're serious, the best way to get samples is to ask them to demo it at home. If they don't want to do it, they'll give you a product on the spot. If they want to, they'll do it at home. And you're really going to learn more about the salesperson on-site cleaning something with him than you are on the show floor where they're doing some demo with a piece of glass that's been cleaned 65 times. Everyone does these demos with the same piece of glass that they've cleaned 65 times. So it comes clean. I like to get the sales guy out at one of my customer sites and point at the floor and go, you clean that. You can get that off. I'm impressed. So that's what I recommend you guys do. If you're serious, you're serious. Okay. ASA has a lot of education going on. One of the things Scott Deming is giving a lecture on one team, one brand. Tom Broca, who is someone that we could never afford on our own, is giving a speech about being the voice of a generation. And then Friday, Janelle Britton is giving another lecture on the vision behind customer-focused culture. These call really heavy, heavy hitters in the industry. You pull up their bios on their website and get some more information on it. And once you have a link to it to show you, that's our website. So this is the ISSA schedule. And it includes all the speakers on it. This is a clickable schedule. So if you see something like a speaker and you're curious about who they are, you can click on it and it will pull you up a link about that per bio and one team brand, the bio and what it's about. So that's what I recommend you go to this schedule. There is also a tremendous amount of ISSA education going on. I'll warn you, some of it does have an additional cost. So when you click on it, you may see it. But you can go to any of these ISSA education events. They are typically aimed at commercial cleaning, but sometimes there is some things that cross over pretty well. You know, things that you're selling but are your customers buying. That's aimed at commercial cleaners, but we sell too. And, you know, purchasing, how to get what you need from manufacturers. These are all open to you. So not only do you get the ARC-C education events, but you also get the ISSA education events. In my experience, most people who go to the show don't tend to go to these events. And I think at the stake, because some fantastic speakers, you've paid for it by all means you should go. So when you look at this, look at both the ARC-C events, but also look at the ISSA events, because you may want to attend one of their speakers. You know, these things sound really good to me. Innovation and entrepreneurship, the right marketing mix. And you can read what he's going to be talking about, et cetera. So far, Ernie? No, I think I don't think of it. But again, we've got, you know, just some excellent ISSA things as I mentioned. If you register with us, you are eligible for all of their free events. Again, some of them have additional costs like the IICRC hard floor training and that kind of thing. And you have to register for those through the ISSA website. So if you want to look at the ISSA education, and I would recommend you go to the keynote speakers like Tom Brokaw. Everyone gets invited to that. If you get there early, you can be in the front row. You're not allowed to get that close to these type of people and meet them at almost any other venue, especially not for the couple hundred dollars that you're paying. Now, instead of retyping the whole ARC-C website, we're just going to run through the schedule on the ARC-C website. This is conveniently enough. Click on convention.org. And I've just gone to the schedule tab. On Tuesday, we are teaching the IICRC house cleaning technician program offered by ISE. This is a certification program based on the Science of Cleaning and teaching you about the Science of Cleaning. It's applied through IICRC, which is the same organization that does fire and water restoration certification, carpet cleaning certification, mold remission certification. So it's a fantastic training program. It is an additional cost because it starts before the convention, but if you're interested, I'm sure we'd be happy to get you signed up. One of the things is when the main convention starts to come together. The ARC-C members lounge opens up, and the ARC-C members lounge is a room that's set up for informal networking and also just for you to take a break. If there is an ARC-C event going on at the McCormick Center, which is the convention center, the lounge is going to be open during those times. If the floor is open, the lounge is going to be open at those times. The lounge is a great place to meet people if you want to meet for lunch. It's a great place for you to go print out things. Ernie's going to have a couple computers set up where you can print out a plane ticket, check and make sure your plane's not delayed, things like that. It's also just a great place to sit down and rest if you've been walking all day. So we're going to talk to the ISSA speaker, and then we lead off with the 1030 session with Steve Ritter from the Time Clock Institute about building a great office team. Steve Ritter is actually used by one of our members, Gosha Barron, and she speaks very highly of him, says that they have an absolutely fantastic program. And then the show floor opens up like Ernie said at 10, although hopefully you'll be at that education session, so you'll be hitting the show floor right around lunchtime. Now, tonight we're going to be back at the Hard Rock. That's our hotel. And at the Hard Rock that night, we're having a welcome reception. As part of the welcome reception, Ernie's going to tell you about news. We're going to tell you about the competitions and contests that are going on. And I believe there's normally food. Am I not? Am I correct, Ernie? There are four derbs on Wednesday evening. And one thing that isn't on this schedule also that I want to report, are new members, first timers, or even old timers and fresher at 6 p.m. at the Hard Rock. We're going to talk about new members' orientations. It's going to be sort of this webinar, actually, and kind of walk people through how to get the most out of your convention experience. Yep. So as you attend those, they're always great. Coming up with new things and adding new things to this convention schedule. In fact, there's several things that aren't on it, because we've added it. So attending that welcome reception is a great chance for you to get that type of stuff. If you've not had a chance to get over to the McCormick Center and register, typically Chris will be there and able to get you your registration packets and things like that at those welcome receptions. And that always is a little more comfortable. But starting on Tuesday, buses will be running from the Hard Rock to the Convention Center, and they run pretty good all day long. There's going to be some stage that will explain where you get those buses. They start at 7 in the morning, Darren or Derek, and then they run until one hour after the show closes. So Thursday, obviously the members' lounge is open, the ISSA trade show floor is open all day long, and you'll lead off with Tom Brokaw at 8.30 in the morning. The bus ride probably takes about 20 to 25 minutes. So if you want to hear Tom Brokaw, I recommend you be catching the bus at about 7.30. So just realistically with walk time, and you never can be quite sure the bus is right there when you step out. I would plan on catching the bus at 7.30 if you want to catch Tom Brokaw. At 10 a.m., we kick off an education session with Kathy Calhoun. She's the president of North American Operations for Weber-Shanwick Public Relations. She's going to be teaching a session about building and protecting your business in a socialized world. Now a lot of times we throw around these names and folks don't know who they are. Kathy is a major, major heavy hitter. This is an arch-the-only event that means at most there's going to be 200 people in this room. So you're probably going to get to ask questions and interact with her. She is the president of North American Operations for Weber-Shanwick, which is the largest PR organization in the world. They have won nearly every award for being the best PR organization in the world. That's the website I just pulled up. They won, you know, the Pearsley's Award, the Holmes Report Award, the Scouts Award. One of the scientists is Procter & Gamble, where I used to work. So they're advertising agencies. She is not some peon or someone who works in a random department. She is the president and sort of one of her career-making moves is she was the person who headed up the team that came up with the Got Milk campaign. So she's a heavy hitter. You're not that much better when it talks about PR and public relations than her. This is a major event that you don't want to miss. So I don't know if I can be much clearer on that one. At 11 a.m., we've got two tracks going on. So you're going to have two education sessions to choose from. D.A. Otto owns a company called Online Marketing Muscle. He taught last year at our Executive Leadership Conference, and maybe it was two years ago. And people liked him so much, they demanded that he comes back. So he's teaching a class Thursday at 11 called Finding the Recipe for Marketing Success. It's a great question. And Debbie Sardone, who a lot of you know from Cleaning for a Reason and her maid coach consulting business, is doing a class on building a million-dollar cleaning business and the things you need to do to achieve that. So those are both great sessions. Just pick the one that you think is best for you, where you're going, and you've got a company, you've got a company that is there. Multiple education stops at lunchtime, but there are a couple other things that are going on that aren't on the schedule. There are some software user groups at 1, 2, and 3, and I'll show you that in a little bit. And then that night, once again, hard rock, all of the night events happen at the hard rock, we're going to have the ARCSE annual meeting, which is once a year, ARCSI has to do a vote of members of some things like ratifying the bylaws. We update you on membership and financials and things like that. ARCSE is a membership organization, and this is your chance to know what's going on with it. And then we do roundtables and ask the experts. Roundtables are always one of our most popular events, because what happens is we get together and we break into small groups, and these are the topics for this year's roundtables. And how many sessions are we doing this year, Ernie? We're going to have 10 roundtables. There'll be 10 roundtables and there'll be five experts. And we're going to do three sessions. There are about 45 minutes each. We take a little break and then switch tables. And so you'll be able to, you know, sit in three different topics over the course of the evening. So we're basically sitting on three of these topics. If you want to get ahead, you can go ahead and look at this now and figure out where you want to go. Ask the expert sessions are just like it sounds. That's where it's going to be one person. You're going to get to sit down and ask them their opinion of things. I thought about doing this. I'm thinking of doing that. Here's how I do this. What do you think? Roundtables is more of a group setting where you get together and share. This is how you deal with this. How do you do it? How do you do it? And there's going to be both of those going on. You can pick the sessions you want to go to. So think of it as bonus education sessions. You have 15 topics to choose from, so you've got more than enough. In fact, probably more than you know than you can possibly do. So hopefully you can bring in more than one person to fill it up and figure out who's going where. Roundtables is always one of the most popular events. It is at night. It's 7.30. So sometimes first timers miss out on it because they think all the education is during the day. You don't want to miss the roundtables at 7.30. Okay? Okay. The members' lounge is open until 1. And the trade show floor is open until 1. We've got a lot of education going on Friday morning. We've got to show me the money, how to start turning a profit by John Schwere made easy on track one. And then we've got getting a grip on safety with a gentleman whose name I can't pronounce from Liberty Mutual Insurance. So John's going to be talking to numbers, how to pull reports, how to understand the numbers that drive your business. And the gentleman with Liberty Mutual Insurance is going to be talking to you about how to get control of your safety and risk management. Running a business, you've got a lot of exposure that you may not realize. It's a good chance to sit down and hear about it. 9.30, we're doing a panel, Stages of Growth. We're going to have, I believe, three ARC-C members on this panel. Correct, Ernie? Correct. Well, I'm going to come in, Edith Shepard and Sean Kirkpatrick. Three different stages of growth of their company. And they're going to talk about sort of the experience of what it's like to be like in each of those stages. Particularly, there are obstacles and hurdles for each stage. There are several of them. You can tell you that it's not going to be easier when you get bigger. It's just different. You have a different set of problems. And that's what they're going to be talking about. What type of skills do you need to develop? And there's normally a barrier for each stage. There's something, a wall, you need to climb over. And that's what they're going to be talking about in a panel setting. And what stages of growth they went through, what were the opportunities and risks they got in each of those. At 9.30, we're doing a fantastic session with a gentleman called Mel Kleinman of Humetrix called Huff Manage Easy. I'm going to jump over to Mel's website once again because you see the names on here and you guys don't always know who's who. Mel Kleinman owns a company called Humetrix. He's a pretty heavy hitter in the world of HR. And particularly in the world of HR, what I like about him is he specializes in companies that have employees like ours. He consults for companies like Applebee's, Quick Copy, Circle K, Cracker Barrel, folks that operate the trade associations for grocery and convenience stores. Daily meetings. We're talking about fast food convenience store type folks. Mel knows how to manage and motivate our type of employees better than just about anyone in the industry. So I highly recommend Mel's session as well. Sometimes people say Mel Kleinman with Humetrix and you don't know when somebody is a well known heavy hitter speaker. Mel is very well known and was rather expensive to book so I'd recommend you attend. Okay. We have two education sessions at the Hard Rock Cafe Friday afternoon. The trade show closes at one so we got to get out to Convention Center and head back to the Hard Rock. So at 1.30 we are having organizing for action, what to do with all this information that you learned. Sharon Berg is going to basically be teaching a session. You just learned all this stuff at Convention. How are you going to implement? How are you going to take all that stuff you learned, take it home and do something with it? Also at 1.30 we are going to be doing an optional event with Dean Murphy. He's going to be doing website and social media hot seats. He did the executive leadership conference when he spoke so if you've been to your audience, you've probably seen this before, but if you haven't, he's going to go to your audience to come and sit down and go, Derek, you're on my maid service. Let's pull up the my maid service website. I want you to talk about what you're doing good and what you're doing bad. So if you volunteer, he's going to take your website apart in front of the rest of the room. But it's a good experience because you're basically getting free coaching while he's there. And he's also great to sit and listen because you're going to pick up advice as you see him take other people's website apart. You're going to be saying, oh, I do that on my website. Maybe I shouldn't do that. So I've got a question for you to go to. One thing that's not on here, Ernie, is actually we're going to be doing some walking tours of the show also. Wednesday at one and Thursday at one where we're going to meet, give you some advice on the show floor and then take you into 10 booths or so, give you some advice on how to select a chemical manufacturer, how to select a vacuum manufacturer. Not currently on the website. Like I said, we're adding things all the time. That's going to be both Wednesday and Thursday at 1 p.m. So sorry about jumping around. I just realized that wasn't on here. And then at 7 p.m. at night, we are having the president's reception. This is basically our awards session. We're going to be giving off our awards. We have both a raffle and a silent auction. Normally there are some fantastic items in the raffle and silent auction. So I highly recommend you attend that. Ernie, anything to add so far? I've flown through a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff in a quick period of time. I think Derek, you're doing a great job with it. I just want to say that those awards include the professional cleaner of the year, a woman by the name of Brenda Winters with Best Maids out of Frederick, Maryland. And then we have our president's award, which is for the inside person who isn't out there cleaning, and Jessica Yanley with San Diego Pro Cleaning in San Diego, California. And then we have the new cleaning company of the year, which is Better Laid Out of St. Louis, Missouri. And so along with our Best Website, Best Logo, Best Uniforms, Best Vehicle, Best Newsletter Electronic, Best Newsletter Print, and a couple of other things. So it's a great time for us to recognize members who are doing a great job with their companies out there. We have a full day of education. Saturday at 9 a.m., we have employee law, which you need to know with Greg. Greg Ockett, ELC. He was a last-minute addition, and I think only had 30 or 45 minutes, and there was an overwhelming demand from the room that he was one of the most captivating speakers we've ever seen and that they wanted him back. This is a gentleman who is a lawyer who specializes in employment law. It sounds like a really boring topic, but he was very interesting and very relevant. He told us very quickly and in a way you can understand the things you need to know about when you manage employees and risks you need to know about. For example, if you let your cleaners do their own laundry, you could potentially be at some point in the future for not paying them wages while they're doing their laundry, and that is a risk you need to know because it only takes one person to figure that out and round up the rest of the employees for you to have a real problem. So fantastic sense. I know employment law sounds like a yonor, but I can give you example after example of companies that have been taken down for not doing this right, and when else do you get a couple hours of free advice from one of the best lawyers in the industry? Thank you very much, Derek. Go ahead. Be on your own. Lunch is included in the price of your registration. We have a company called Pocket Apprentice directly out of Chicago. You may also know them as Open Chime. Have Steps. We'll be our lunch and sponsor on Saturday, so lunch will be provided so you don't have to rush out of the hard rock and rush to get back for the afternoon session. Lunch will be included with your registration cards. There's no additional charge. Great. The attorney is constantly signing up new vendors, new education, so even two weeks out we're adding some things. Our last education session at the hard rock is actually going to be myself and Liz Trotter. We're teaching a three to three and a half hour session on creating a place where people want to work. If you've never met Liz or heard of Liz, she has a very energetic culture. It's probably the best way I can describe it. They have a lot of fun. Liz is probably one of the most visible members in ARC-C, from everything from the crazy clothes she wears to just her personality. We're talking about a culture that is much, much more corporate. Yet we've gotten together and figured out things that we have in common. We both have employees that stay with us for three, five, six, seven. In this case, I think her longest is 15. We're going to talk about the 12 things that we've discovered, even though our companies are different, that are actually the same. We both have 12 things in common and we're going to talk about those 12 things in a way that's actionable and you can take home and use. And it's not modest, but we're hoping it's going to be the single most exciting convention. It's the entire convention and blow you all away. So just... We have low standards for ourselves. Saturday at seven is an optional dinner cruise. There is an additional expense for it, but it's going to be a chance for you after the education is over to go out, have some fun, relax, go out on the beautiful lake and see Chicago from the water, which is absolutely amazing. So that's all the ARC-C formal education events. Ernie, what else do you want to chime in before we jump on to the next section? Yeah. I mean, for those of you who are Saturday education, it's scheduled to end in the 4-4-30 ballpark. So those of you that want to save an extra night's hotel room and catch a plane home on early Saturday evening, I did check a bunch of flights going both east and west out of Chicago. And if you're going east, you can get home before midnight in most cases. And if you're going west, you get home at a reasonable early evening time. So if you plan on doing that, you'll be able to do it. It's about, I'd say 30 minutes, plan on 30 minutes getting from the hotel to Midway a little longer if you're going out of O'Hare. But that option is available there if you don't plan on staying over on Saturday night. But if you have time to stay, Liz and I are going to try to make it worth your time and effort. There you go. All of the events that are going on related to ARC-C and ISSA and the other trade associations, a lot of other people hold events at the convention. We have many cleaning companies together and we want to offer alternate, or not alternate, but additional education opportunities a chance to get in front of people. IE, which is the organization I'm with, has a bunch of activities going on at the convention. Obviously, in the HCT classes we talked about on Monday and Tuesday. One of our members is actually going to be speaking at IEHA. And on Wednesday, we've got some education going on in the member lunch. I'm going to be helping with the show floor, too, as well. We're going to be doing some webinars. We're going to be sending out some information on various things related to this. But IE's got some education events that we're going to be doing at the convention throughout that you're going to be invited to. When you get there, your show bag is going to have a schedule that you can see in more detail. There's going to be a lot of opportunities for you to get some ISE education while you're there. For a reason, which a lot of you know, is actually having their appreciation event Thursday at 5.30 at the Hard Rock Cafe Hotel. And then there are other vendors often offer events. They haven't told Ernie or I what yet. But typically, Brian, Debbie, Sharon, Timberg, Sharon Cowan, and the Hanson's will all have various things. For example, Renee and Sharon Cowan for several years now have offered an event where they talk about how to sell your cleaning business, which I've attended as a great event. So try to watch out for those. I've volunteered to put those education events from third parties on your, on his Arcsy convention if they get to him in time. So when you get your event schedule, it's going to have some additional education opportunities that by all means I would recommend you take advantage of everything that's there. So that's a privilege that not everyone may realize. This is easy to get lost, but Thursday at 4.30 there is a happy hour. And there's a happy hour on the trade show floor. And then you have a cover band called 16 Canals. I did stream this earlier and it didn't work very well. But if you go to the link that's in there, I think I must have closed it. There is a video playing of this band and they're actually really, really good. They're a 1980s cover band. So if you want to have a little bit of fun on Thursday, I highly recommend that maybe you attend that happy hour that's going to be on the show floor and hear that band. Our members' lounge is a secret. A lot of times people don't go there, but almost whenever there's something going on at the McCormick Center, the lounge is open. Once again, informal networking opportunities, some computers with internet access. And then I know ISE on Wednesday is going to be running education events almost all day Wednesday in the lounge. In conjunction with Moody's, we're offering an education event on Friday in the member lounge. Erin Tinberg has the lounge on Thursday. I'm not sure what she's doing, but no, Erin, she's probably going to be. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I was going to put in a plug for my sponsors. Tuesday and Wednesday. The lounge is actually, we're going to open early for those of you that are coming on Tuesday. The lounge will be open on Tuesday. And Tuesday and Wednesday, Advanced Vapor Technology and the Ladybug folks are our sponsor. On Thursday, Debbie and Steve Simone and the Clean Team Catalog will be our sponsor. And on Friday, Moody's will be our sponsor. And as Derek mentioned, he's going to be doing some things in conjunction with both Advanced Vapor Technology and with Moody's. Well, Erin typically does stuff on Thursday as well. So it's a good idea to stop by the member's lounge and see what's going on. We're not going to publish their schedules yet, but I guarantee you something will probably be going on with Debbie on Thursday as well. Now that it wasn't on the schedule is the software user groups. Thursday at 1, we're doing Made Easy. Tuesday at 2 o'clock is Service CEO and 3 p.m. is Thoughtful Systems. These are the people from the companies that make this software. They're going to do user groups and small group setting where you're going to get to sit down with a CEO or a representative from these companies, ask questions about the software, see new demos, ask about where it's going. So for an hour, you're going to get to meet face-to-face with the people who make the software. If you have one of these applications and you've got questions, it's a great opportunity. If you haven't picked an application yet, you can sit down and meet the people in a three-hour block and see all the major software applications and pick one. So it's a fantastic opportunity that we recommend you take advantage of if you want some more information on software. It's a little bit of a secret because it's not one of the ones that is normally really well known. On the ArcSeed booth, whenever a trade show is open, ArcSeed has a booth on the trade show floor. It's a great place to stop and sit down if you just need to get off your feet. There's some education events that happen there. I know we are actually streaming an ISE webinar at one point. Are you guys doing the coaching this year or anything like that, Ernie? We haven't got that finalized yet, Derek. We're going to try to do some coaching although it's a little thing where we've got so much going on and so many other places. We're not sure what's happening with the coaching at this point. So we have the ability to vote on the awards, image awards. We let the folks attending the convention actually cast a vote for their favorites and you can do that both in the numbers lounge and in the booth during the Wednesday and Thursday. We close that voting when the trade show closes on Thursday. So we'll do that. And some of our vendors will have products in the booth that you'll be able to pick up. So it'll be a lot of activity in the booth. So, Ernie, show booth. It's not one of the 40, 356 of the ARCF side booth numbers. Okay. Our last couple of events that Ernie recommends you don't miss. Ernie, these are yours. So go ahead. Well, I think we spent a lot of time talking about Kathy Calhoun and as Derek mentioned, she was the person that our team were behind that milk campaign. But she talked a lot about brand your company and also deal with the world of social media. And I think it's something we're all struggling with, whether it's Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, you name it. How do you deal with those negative reactions? And if you're not careful, things can do serious harm to your business and your control. So, again, as Derek mentioned, they are the world's largest public relations firm. Kathy has spent a lot of time thanks to our convention air person, Jeff Lang, who happens to know Kathy and ask her if she would speak at our convention and she would be happy to do so. So that would be, I think, a don't miss session. The Dean Mark, on your marketing, Dean's done several webinars and teleconferences for us. And it was an absolutely great job. And the session I'm going to take is just going to blow folks away and really make your convention experience great. It's a great afternoon session at the Hard Rock with Sharon Tinberg. I don't believe the consultant in our industry, when it comes to holding people accountable and developing those action item lists for you, that you can take back and implement things. And I think what Sharon is going to do with regard to organizing all of this taking place at the convention so you can take it back home and immediately starting into action what you learned will be an absolutely great session. And that's one I certainly would not miss on Friday afternoon. Some events that I recommend. Greg here on Employee Law. I heard this guy at ELC once again, Employee Law sounds so very, very boring, but if you don't do it right, you will lose your company. We're doing all this blood, sweat, tears, and stress trying to build something and you're one lawsuit away from losing it. So I highly recommend you attend not to be terrified, but if you know what to watch out for, if you know how to cover yourself, it makes your life so much easier. All of these things are just preventative. If you do them ahead of time, you'll never have a problem, but you need to do them ahead of time. Also Saturday is Liz and I session. I'm pitching my own session, but in all seriousness, Liz and I have been meeting every other day to plan this. It's going to be fun, but it's also going to be very, very educational. It's probably going to run a little bit late, Ernie, but that's okay because we're going to try to talk about the 12 things that you need in place to create a place that your people actually want to work and we'll have employees that work for you three, four, five, once again, 12, 15 years in some cases, and have your turnover happier, more dedicated, engaged employees. And we're not just going to sit there and talk about how great we are. We've spent a lot of time talking with each other about how I do things very different than Liz, yet when you look at it, we both have systems and we both have a checklist of, yeah, I do this, now I do it this way and you do it that way, but we both have it. So we're going to leave you with that checklist so you can go back and figure out how to do that in your business, and we're going to talk about Liz and I do it, so you can get ideas. I also think Mel Kleinman is incredible. Those of you that don't know, I spent a lot of time with Tom Stewart. I think Tom Stewart runs one of the best cleaning companies I know of in the industry. He's probably one of the largest cleaning companies in America and it's in one of the smallest cities, Charleston. And when Tom Stewart Mel Kleinman was coming, he's like, oh, Tom, Mel, Mel's great. I've hired Mel as a consultant before. He's one of the best guys in HR in the industry. So Tom's impressed, I'm impressed, and Tom said Mel's fantastic. So I will be in Mel's class and I recommend you be as well. And thank the folks at Saga Job who were very generous in their sponsorship and bringing Mel to us. Yeah, I'm free. We had to pay for him and Saga Job paid to bring him to us. So to someone that would cost you a couple thousand dollars to get at your business. So please attend. General advice, bring one snack. Food at the Convention Center is obscenely expensive. We're talking like $5 bottled water. So I know you're a captive audience, so I recommend you plan ahead, bring some food and snacks with you to save money. So it'll save you time because especially around lunchtime, the lines can be obscene. You want to wear comfortable shoes. The show floor is massive. It has several football fields in size. And you're going to want to be comfortable when you hit the show floor. Don't worry about judging you. I normally go in jeans and a MyMade service t-shirt. Don't worry about looking good and to look comfortable. If you're in a convention hotel whenever possible, there's a lot of formal networking opportunities. But in addition, the buses run from the hotel, the educational events stay at the hotel. Some people stay at other hotels because it's cheaper. But the problem is you end up having to get there. And it just creates a lot of physical difficulties for you. For, you know, I've heard from people who are like, oh, I switched this hotel. I'm saving $25 a night. For $75, you should probably stay at the convention hotel. I'm not going to get out of this disclaimer here. Go ahead. Because as much as you want people to stay there, we have been telling people since June to make their hotel reservations at the Hard Rock. And I'll be honest with you, we may hold out there. I think that we're having great difficulty getting additional rooms. And because, one, we're getting a major crowd that we anticipated in Chicago, which is a good thing. But if you get a hotel reservation at the Hard Rock, contact the HR CSI office and we can hook you up with one of the other ISSA hotels. And so you get the busing and all that kind of thing. And they're relatively close. And if at all possible, you bring some type of rolling luggage or bag to the show, ARC-C is going to give you a bag as well, but sometimes you want to have even more. People are going to give you free samples, pens, sales literature, et cetera. It is a massive show for, and anything that makes it easier for you to carry that stuff around, that's going to help. Also a good place to keep your water in snacks. So I just recommend you bring something to carry all the stuff in that you're going to get because you're probably going to get a lot of stuff, not just from the show floor, but normally when you attend educational events, there are handouts, sometimes full binders. So you're going to want to have a place to put those and carry them around. And if you're worried about security, normally there is a room we can secure a room in for you. Okay. I guess that's it. Do you want to wrap up for questions, actually, instead of doing the normal chat? I've gotten in early, but I will go ahead and do it now and I'll respond to her later. When will, or can people get their badge number early? And the reason for the question is the SSSA app required you to enter your badge number if you want to save favorite vendors you don't want to forget to go see and things like that. Is there a way to get that badge number early? I think the best thing to do is call here. And I think, Chris, we just actually got some of them today. We don't have all of them. If you registered after September 17th, we won't have your badge yet. We won't have that until we get to Chicago, which is a glitch in the SSSA system, quite honestly. But if you want to get the app, call here. Chris Zimmer can look up your badge number and we can give it to you so you'll have it to download the app. And hopefully folks have heard that we're going to try to open this up for verbal spoken questions. And if you're in an area where you've got some noise around you, how about go ahead and mute your own phone. We're going to go ahead and unmute everyone and see how this works. If you're live, everyone on the call can speak. Don't go and I'll talk at once. But if you want to please announce yourself, tell us who you are and what your question is. If you're not registered yet, can you still register? Yes, you can. You can register literally on site at the convention. Obviously, we'd prefer you're registered in advance and just help us with our planning for the meal functions and things like that. As I mentioned, Derek, the President's reception on Friday night, I mentioned that Wednesday reception is light hors d'oeuvres. The Friday reception is heavy hors d'oeuvres. We'll have a couple of carving stations. And I wouldn't call it dinner, but some of you might. So we have a little heavier selection for folks on Friday night. Okay. Any other questions? I see we've got a couple of alumni on the call. Stephanie, Liz, any of you have anything you'd want to add? Any advice you think we left out? It can be cold sometimes. You don't have much temperature control when it's football. It's going to be a little cool in the evening. It's going to be a nice typical fall Chicago week looking at the long-range forecast. But it could get down to the high 40s, low 50s in the evening. So if you're going to be outside in the evening, it could get a little chilly. The perfect thing is bring like three times as many business cards as you think you'll need. At least three times as many because you're going to go through way more than you think you're going to need. Any other questions or advice? If not, we can wrap up the call. It's been almost a full hour already. So I don't want to keep full just because I said it would be an hour. So go ahead. It's been great. And we can certainly continue taking questions. I'll remind everybody that we have recorded this call. And shortly after we conclude, we'll be making this available to Arcsy to share on their website. It'll be available through the ISC website. We'll make some links to post out on Facebook. So hopefully if you take care of how to leave early, you'll check out the full print and be able to share this with other colleagues. You know, will be with us. Or I've been thinking about joining us in Chicago for these great, great collection of events. The other thing on the badge number for the app, if you just email Chris Zimmer at chris.arcsi.org, that might be easier than calling. Just send her an e-mail. She can e-mail you back with your badge number. Okay, great. And we'll add that to our post when we put up some of your questions online so folks can share their information. Okay, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been incredible. And I cannot wait to meet everybody that I've spoken to over the past few years in Chicago for the first time myself. Cool. Thanks, everyone, for attending today. Thank you.