2019 Williamsburg Wrap-Up

Williamsburg Wrap Up 2019

The Southern’s 96th Annual Meeting was held at the Colonial Williamsburg Lodge in historic Williamsburg, Virginia. It was another great week of catching up with friends, conducting business, gaining new perspectives and enjoying the rich history of Williamsburg. This year for our Meetings with a Mission initiative, we partnered with the Avalon Center. We are proud to announce that we collected over $3,000 in cash (in addition to a $1,000 check from The Southern). Thank you to everyone who supported this great cause!

Our Southern Annual Golf Tournament provided a great day for networking with customers and prospects, as well as some friendly competition. This year it was held at Williamburg’s beautiful Gold

en Horseshoe Course. Thank you to our sponsor ITG Brands and Craig Leiker for your continued support of this event and The Southern.

It was standing room only for this year’s education sessions. Adam Burke with Nowsight, showed us how to quantify business inefficiencies into actionable information and bottom-line performance. Next Colin Gallagher and Kelly Michols, with Solari, helped distributors gauge risk vs. reward in the emerging category of hemp and CBD that most predict has extraordinary market potential. Then John Register, CEO of Inspired Communications, provided attendees with the necessary tools to strike a healthy work life balance, in a compelling session on hurdling adversity. Jonathan Havens,

co-founder of the Cannabis Law Practice at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP, ended the week’s education sessions with a session on the legal aspects of the explosive Hemp and CBD category.

This year’s Ten-2-Profit was an overwhelming success. With over 600 individual meetings occurring during this event, the room was a-buzz with excitement before, during and after. The House of “Deals” on Friday was a great way to end this very historic week.

None of this would be possible without the continued support of all of our sponsors. We salute them for their commitment to The Southern each and every year. n

SAWD Education Fund

2019 SPONSORS

Altria Group Distribution Company Burdette Beckmann Creative Data Research Dot Foods The Hershey Company ITG Brands Jack Link’s Protein Snacks Lil’ Drug Store Matrix Brokerage National Tobacco Co.

Nestlé USA ProCat Distribution Technologies RAI Trade Marketing Services Republic Tobacco SAWD Education Fund Scandinavian Tobacco SICPA Smokey Mountain Snuff Swedish Match Swisher International