EXPERIENCE THE FUTURE

New this year, LBM Expo will kick-off with an opening session designed to educate retailers and exhibitors on a topic of relevance for everyone.

Our late-morning kick-off event – 125 years in the making – will bring together retailers and exhibitors, providing insight on the future of our industry. At the event, you’ll hear from amazing speakers, and learn what’s new at LBM Expo, and some tips to get the most value from the show. Learn more about Building Retail 2025

Join us as the floor opens for lunch with retailers and exhibitors on the show floor.

The LBM Expo 2019 Show Floor is open. Come and meet with more than 200 exhibiting companies, explore our demo zones, and find new products to make your business more profitable.

Strength and durability are the goals, but not at the expense of comfort and low energy bills. Read more…

First impressions are just that. You get one shot at it. An outdated showroom has some significant costs as people walk by and not engage with the sale staff. If that display looks closely at what they are wanting to replace then they will move on to someone else. Showing off discontinued cabinets, colors, and wood species pushes your staff to make excuses for things your purchaser can’t get. If they can’t get it why is it there? We will jump into this discussion so that you can update that showroom and keep it there without spending all your budget. There are some significant tricks that I will share that will give you that agility in your showroom to stay on the trends without an annual major remodel.

How not to have the deck you sold end up on the 6:00 news.

Despite advanced building codes, faulty ledger flashing, poor connections to the house, and wobbly newel posts are move common that you think. But specialty hardware, fasteners and flashings are all on your shelves right now to make the job easier and to avoid that dreaded phone call. Read more…

The smart home is no longer a futuristic concept. In fact, most national builders include smart home products as standards in every home, 100% offer smart devices as an option to differentiate their new home sales from existing homes. Big Box retailers like Home Depot and Lowes dedicate significant endcap and isle space for smart home technologies. If your builders aren’t buying these technologies from you, they must be spending their dollars with the big box retailers. We will spend 30 minutes exploring what is being sold today and why. We will have some hands-on products to help demystify what all the hype is about, talk about how you can curate solutions for your builders. Finish up with resources that are available to you for assistance to get going!

Experts agree on the importance of super-insulated walls, but not on how to build them.  It’s not a simple wall anymore, it’s one component in a whole-house system.  Is a perfect wall achievable? Learn more about this session

As the battle for talent continues to wage on, organizations are looking for new creative ways to complete work.  Robotic Process Automation (“RPA”) refers to a set of modular software programs (or “bots”) to complete structured, repeatable, and logic-based tasks by mimicking the actions taken by existing human staff. When leveraged alongside a business’s core enterprise applications, RPA works to mitigate reduce the manual intervention necessary to facilitate defined and structured processes improving business efficiencies. Developed bots are capable of interacting with and integrating disparate enterprise applications, databases, and files to limit the business need to develop custom, application specific integrations. Bots are capable of automating aspects of the supply chain from reducing the need to perform manual invoice verifications, monitor fluctuating commodity pricing and generate reports to assist in pricing management and freight costing, and can even provide real-time analytics on inventory throughput as orders are fulfilled.  In this session, we’ll introduce RPA, some of the common uses cases and see a quick demonstration of a leading RPA software.

Avoiding the #1 Reason for Construction Litigation.

Modern products, such as flashing tapes, make it easier than ever to stop water intrusion, but they must be installed correctly. You can help your customers avoid lawsuits and lost profits by selling them the right product for the application and making sure they have the information to install it right. Learn more about this session

For Kitchen and Bath showrooms, changing styles can be a six-figure problem each year. Design trends change on a dime with the Internet, HGTV, and Pinterest. How do you keep up? I will show you the virtual showroom. Sounds expensive right? WRONG! This will save you in your showroom replacement expenses as well as help you lock that customer in with expectations that can kill your profit margin at the end of the job. We will discuss how inexpensive this process is as well as how to design your showroom to get the most out of it. Plus, you will provide a service that those big box stores won’t compete with and make you a design leader in your community.

Without the right design, components and assembly, your builder will lose the battle against rain, cold air and ice dams. Learn more about this session

Make plans to join us at on Wednesday, at 4pm in Demo Zone 3, as we honor our longtime friend and industry-supporter, Joe Burgoyne.

Cheers! Come on down to the show floor and have a drink with your fellow retailers and exhibitors.

What can you do at the lumberyard to help your customers avoid drywall problems? Well, for one thing, you help your customers understand the benefits of engineered studs. They may not be more expensive, once you factor in the callbacks. And that’s just one thing you can do. Join us for this lively discussion that dives into other ways to solve this problem. Learn more about this session

We know you are early risers, that’s why we are bringing back Business Connect before the show floor opens. This event brings retailers and exhibitors together for one-on-one discussions and received excellent reviews last year.

How productive could you be if you were able to meet with exhibitors before the show floor opened? In the NRLA’s version of “speed dating” you’ll be matched with exhibitors for a chance to meet quickly and hear what they have to offer before you do business with them on the show floor.

We bring the exhibitors to you

LBM Expo Business Connect is an innovative appointment style event designed to bring retail attendees together with exhibitors before the show floor opens. Exhibitors will meet with you to discuss your needs and spark your interest, maximizing your valuable time and resources.

The LBM Expo 2019 Show Floor is open. Come and meet with more than 200 exhibiting companies, explore our demo zones, and find new products to make your business more profitable.

Installing headers, beams and structural ridges means understanding the load path. Many builders look to their lumberyards for basic engineering services. Learn more about this session

Let’s dive into the details of the virtual showroom. I will show you the secrets for shopping for technology elements. We will discuss what the key parts to this process and what you need…. and more importantly what you don’t need. This is not just about gadgets, this is about getting the right tools to close more deals, add more to your gross margins, and eliminating those mistakes that can make a department bleed money with every sale.

The majority of callbacks can be traced to framing issues.

Many framers are specialists who don’t see the big picture. You can win their loyalty  (and their business) by helping them understand how the right product choices and the right installation will minimize drywall problems and ease cabinet and trim installation. That means more work and more money for everybody.

PlayWerk provides industrial VR solutions using gamified environments that redefine how companies screen, train, and inspire their workforce. The company’s first product, the world’s first VR Forklift-Simulator, is now used by leading companies such as Prologistix, DSC, DHL, GE, 3M and BMW as well as many government agencies and schools to enhance safety programs and motivate employees. www.forklift-simulator.com

Read more…

Protecting a house from the weather and making it airtight are two different things.

In the old days, you just covered the walls and roof with heavy felt paper, today it’s more complicated.  You need to help builders choose the right system for their project and make sure they understand the installation details that lead to long-term durability.  And no, they can’t just use whatever tape is the cheapest. Learn more about this session

Kitchens are the center of the connected home. With appliance companies fully embracing a connected kitchen as a retailer this gives you a great opportunity for additional sales.

Let’s discuss how a connected kitchen and a connected home works so you can understand what products will be hot moving forward so you can have the right solutions for your customers.

These new products can give your new home builder something to market that sets them ahead of their competition while still staying on budget.

Airtight, super-insulated walls improve performance but complicate flashing.

Airtight walls with lots of insulation are the way of the future for high-performance homes. But many builders can’t get the flashing right in a simple wall, so now they really need your help. In this demo, we’ll go over window and door installations, pipe and vent penetrations, as well as electrical boxes; detailing the do’s and don’ts. Learn more about this session

Builders really want things to be affordable and easy. Sometimes easy is the most important part of the equation that people miss. A builder will most likely pay a little higher margin if they have the service and quality they are looking for. We will discuss how we mesh the virtual showroom into the building process that can even provide all the approvals and sign offs that the builder needs for construction.

Can you imagine if your builder is selling his spec homes with your virtual kitchen design on their website? There is so much to cover here but we will dive into how this is a win for the builder and the Kitchen and Bath department. Plus, you build a loyalty that can develop into a very long-term relationship.

Why keeping the sheathing warm and dry on a house is not just preferred – it’s necessary.

The key to a house’s durability is keeping it dry and temperature controlled.  It’s like putting a windbreaker over a wool sweater – it makes sense.  While this is fairly easy to achieve on the inside with heat and AC, what about on the outside?  In this session we will discuss the components necessary to achieve this goal. You can help builders understand why it’s worth it (more referrals, fewer callbacks) and which products will be work best for them. Learn more about this session

The builder always blames the lumber, and the lumberyard always blames the builder. But all of the issues are easily avoided if the builder and the lumberyard work together to choose the right products and make sure they’re installed correctly Learn more about this session

The Annual Meeting of the SILBA Membership will take place on Thursday, February 7, 2019 from 1:30pm until approximately 3:00pm.

Kitchen and bath showrooms are places in your business that can make or break your business plan. Using the right software for your designers can limit mistakes and with many manufacturers allow direct ordering of cabinetry right from the program. That can eliminate many of the simple errors that can cost you thousands of dollars on an order gone wrong. There will be an open discussion with the world’s leading program 2020 Design and discuss what this CAD design program can do to help your clients visualize and your designers order the right products.

With the variety of underlayments, shingles and flashings available, builders need your help making the right choices and understanding the critical details. Learn more about this session

They may be simple structures, but there’s a lot that can go wrong.

For builders, the first hurdle is finding the right products to do the job, whether it’s a specialty hanger or a form for the piers. If you the right stuff on your shelves, that helps, but installing these things correctly is no guarantee. You also need to arm your customers with the most important tool: good information. Learn more about this session

Come to the NYLE Annual Meeting! Meet the new officers of the Northeastern Young Lumber Execs (NYLE), review the past year, and plan for the future.

The CHIPs award will be presented to an individual who has been instrumental in promoting the professional and/or personal development of young people involved in the lumber and building material industry.

We’re celebrating our 125th Anniversary so of course, we needed a big name headliner. Join the LBM industry in celebrating 125 years of the NRLA and enjoy an evening of dinner, and a show by the legendary comedian Jay Leno. Learn more about the NRLA’s 125th Anniversary Celebration!

Matthew Whitbeck, a builder and industry-educator, will discuss how building material suppliers can reap the rewards of helping their customers address challenges facing the construction industry and expectation of the current DIY market.

Whitbeck will give a look at actions your lumberyard can take tomorrow to be more profitable, as well as some of the key concepts you need to be aware of for the next 5 years.

From business practices addressing the shortage of labor to relevant technology, to creating a concierge-style delivery and pickup program with the potential use of an online ordering system, Whitbeck’s “Delivering to Builders” session has it all.