2025 NAED National … “Workman-Like”

Last week’s NAED National Meeting brought the NAED senior leadership meeting season (regionals and national) to an end with the next meeting scheduled being the NAED Western next January. The remainder of the year is NAED’s “niche” meetings – Women in Industry, LEAD, the Marketing Summit and its participation in IDEA’s e-Biz.

The conference, which attracted 596 people to Marco Island (again) perhaps could best be described as “workman-like.”

It was a productive couple of days but seemed short with people focused on going from business meeting to business meeting and little “energy” or talk / excitement about specific topics.

Attendee Analysis

Of the 596 attendees,

• 210 were distributors, representing 35% of registrants. These individuals were employed by 59 distributors of which only 44 are independent distributors. (This also means that only 5-7% of AD members attended.)
  • The success of NAED meetings is tied to the involvement of AD members and them seeing the value of connecting with the manufacturers who represent their non-AD COGS as well as re-engaging with their AD manufacturers.
  • Alternatively, insightful / informative topics that will drive sales and/or profitability (or productivity enhancements) need to drive meeting demand.
• 293 were manufacturers, or 49%
• 79 were service providers, or 13%

The remainder were associations, marketing groups and “others.”

Little to no chatter was heard about break-out sessions except from the plethora of service providers that attended the conference and populated the hotel lobbies while distributors met with manufacturers in meeting rooms. The one-on-one booth area consisted of only 20-24 modular booths for manufacturers AND service providers. Some manufacturers shared that they declined to participate in the booth experience due to the cost, and hence ROI in the sense of expense vs the number of meetings that they would be able to book.

With the day pattern starting on Tuesday rather than the more typical Monday, defined as “when the welcome reception is held” (outdoors in 90-degree heat … it is May!), the event was compressed and seemingly “hurried.”

General Sessions

There were two general sessions. Neither keynote speaker was memorable. Day 1 had about 40% of registrants attend. Day 2 had less.

• The first, Roy Spence, spoke on “purpose-based marketing”, with significant storytelling from his career. The most important aspect was his discussion about the need to market to students and his Make It Movement which helps market careers to students. The essence is that companies / associations should market to students, in their formative years, to influence career choice and a “higher purpose.” He suggested that the electrical industry could promote “Power America … The American Dream” (which could also be phrased as “Power America, Power Your Dream” to personalize the concept, which is important to the current / future generation.” The end-message was good, but it took 45 minutes to get to it. A number of people commented afterwards about the message but that, perhaps, there was a lost opportunity as it could have been culminated with the introduction of a multi-association recruitment initiative to robustly market to schools with a financial ask to manufacturers and distributors (similar to the recent technology-driven capital drive.)
• The keynote on the day 2 (Chrisa Pagitsas) also did much story telling (seemingly we’re now into verbal resume sharing) and her focus on sustainability and integrating that with finance to create Green Bonds. She’s written a book called “Chief Sustainability Officers at Work.”

The key takeaway from her session, is:

• Know your priorities
• Invest in pilots
• Forge new partnerships

After a homerun speaker at the NAED Eastern, NAED whiffed on the speakers at the Annual. Too much story telling versus thought-provoking, or actionable, insights or industry opportunities / information.

Other elements from the general sessions were:

• NAED developed, and distributed, its Impact Report, a booklet that highlights its achievements over the past year, and Wes briefly shared highlights. More is to be shared on the “Where’s My Stuff” initiative in mid-June and then an RFP is to be released for technology companies to consider, and a 5-year workforce development plan was presented to the NAED board.
• IDEA’s Patrick Knight introduced the industry to Data Whisperer, a new service of IDEA that shares “bite-sized” customer / sales insight to salespeople to make them more effective. It makes analytic information actionable.
• NEMA shared its new certification process for “Made in America”. The initiative is currently available for low voltage products and wire / cable with three other product categories in development. Five companies are currently certified, many more in the queue, and there is an online registry. This helps give clarity to BABA, which requires 55% domestic content.

Oh, and NAED again had Meggie Palmer as emcee for the two sessions. While she’s energetic, many asked “why” and “why invest into an emcee.” Nice person but …

Heard Around the Conference

Topics of discussion were:

• Tariffs (as you’d expect) however, essentially resignation of “they are what they are and we’ll deal with it.” Much energy has been expended implementing price increases. While no one expects most manufacturers to retract increases, there are some that have reduced, others that have announced that they would but have delayed implementation and plan to adjust appropriately once there is more clarity, and a couple that have reduced. All expect that there will be negotiations, or targeted, project-specific negotiations, at the appropriate time. This is where companies with more professional purchasing departments who use information and analytics will be able to gain an advantage.
• Second half outlook is “muddy” but more optimistic than it was in March. Q1 was slow / down for many but business improved the second half of April and was good in May. Data center, infrastructure, and industrial segments are looking good.
• A couple of manufacturers shared that Graybar has been implementing a line review process that was structured by Deloitte so that they could claim “recommended by a third party.” Unfortunately, it seems that the districts have not received the memo and that there is little buy-in.
• Lots of talk about AI.
• Many commented about the number of technology service providers at the conference. The sense was that NAED is has significant tech service provider membership objectives.
• At the same time, there was a nominal number of independent distributors, which creates a disparity for service providers (a number of them commented about their disappointment in arranging meeting and “sales prospects.”)
• The awards dinner, reportedly, had good attendance with some long, mostly short, acceptance speeches.
  • Many also commented that the registration fee is getting expensive and paying $200 for the awards dinner was much. If it wasn’t for corporate expense accounts, many would not have paid that much for a hotel dinner. In fact, a number of distributors chose to go to dinner, outside the hotel, with manufacturers.
• The “events” did not receive much commentary. The 505 was held at a country club. While reportedly nice, it only had 100-150 attendees. The Atkore welcome reception was outside, but it was hot, and many did not stay (and in some manufacturers were outside for an hour before at a Winsupply reception.) LedVance had a post-Awards reception that reportedly had 100 or so attendees, however, it was not as well communicated as the Robroy dessert reception was in prior years (and Robroy unfortunately did not continue the tradition this year.)

Feedback from all was that the meeting was productive as they had good meetings / “it met their expectations”.

If you attended, what is your feedback.