Advocacy is one of the pillars of the American Supply Association. When the association was founded more than 50 years ago, the need to advocate on behalf of the industry as a whole with a unified voice was paramount and the need remains today.

Last month, the room at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, Florida, was brimming with more than 100 volunteers representing multibillion-dollar international companies, regional independent companies, and maybe the lifeblood of the industry, multigenerational family businesses.

Every quarter the first thing I do to put together that report is to pull down the most recent ASA Monthly Economic Report and Monthly Sales Report from (both are readily available in the Business Intelligence section of the MyASA members' only portal at www.asa.net).

Nothing gives me better insight to the state of our industry and where the industry is headed.

While much uncertainty in the economy is ahead, we know we’ve been in this position before and we know we can weather any changes ahead. It will be increasingly important to harness the power of not only our industry trade association, but also the power of the organizations across our industry working together collectively, cooperatively and complementary as buying groups, adjacent industry organizations, and regions to support our overall industry strength.

I have been fortunate this past year to have traveled the country as ASA president and was able to speak to many different groups. Each time, I talked about what I call the base case for what ASA delivers to its members, which is impressive on its own.

Knowledge is power. And knowledge is powered by data. Access to real, actionable data is one of the most important tools for any leader in today’s rapidly changing business environment. The ability to analyze, manipulate and act upon real-time information is not only a need but increasingly a requirement for success in business today.

I am not, nor do I want to be, in the business of telling other business owners how to run their businesses. If they don’t want to be a member of an association, that is their choice and their right, and I don’t feel it’s my place to try to change their mind.

Knowing these are the expectations we all put on our work travel, we pushed hard to create a conference at this year's NETWORK that we believe is worthy of your very valuable time.

It was clear after attending the ELEVATE conference that connecting women professionals who are building strong careers in the PHCP and PVF industry is enormously valuable.  And having a robust women’s group is something that ASA is already leveraging as we look to attract more women to our teams.

You cannot read a newspaper, turn on the news or even have a casual conversation at one of your counters without hearing about the struggle every business is having to attract talented people today.