CCA Global Partners Retail Group’s Connextion conference opened today at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, with a day of education for Carpet One Floor & Home, Flooring America, Flooring Canada, The Floor Trader, and International Design Guild members.

The full roster of 44 sessions—many member-led with others led by industry leaders—includes topics from training, hiring, policy, employee retention, installation, leadership, and products.

Education Day highlights include speaker Matthew Luhn, a director, storytelling consultant and inspirational speaker with more than 25 years experience and credits including the Toy Story flms, Monsters, Inc., Ratatouille and more; speaker Gina Schaefer from Ace Hardware on creating a winning culture; and speaker Robert Varden on Installation.

“These sessions are tailored to have impact on our members’ business, their teams and their future. Our members consistently give us feedback that one of the biggest benefits of attending the annual convention was the depth of knowledge they brought back to their businesses to help them improve and grow,” said John Gilbert, president of Carpet One Floor & Home. “That’s why we designated a full day to education sessions for 2024. Today’s agenda is back-to-back sessions on hot-button issues and our most requested topics from finding and keeping employees, leadership and culture, training and operations.”

Many sessions are at capacity, including the highly anticipated topics Business and Personal Documents You Need Right Now; and The Definitive Guide to Standard Operating Procedures Margins & Profitability. 

 “Education is one of the biggest components of our annual convention. We understand how difficult it is to get away from their business to attend convention, but we also understand how important it is to provide invaluable knowledge to help our members gain an edge in a competitive marketplace,” said Keith Spano, president of Flooring America, Flooring Canada, The Floor Trader, International Design Guild, and NISI. “Our members return from conneXtion with new ideas, fresh inspiration and tons of new information and education that they can put into practice immediately.”