The Trend Report - Insights on Office Furniture, Contract Interiors & Workplace Design

Send us Fan Mail You’ve likely heard of virtual reality, but what do you know about augmented reality? Boaz Ashkenazy of Simply Augmented is helping dealers and brokers to showcase their products to customers using the interactive tool of augmented reality, and he’s sharing all about it.  So what is augmented reality? It is an interactive experience of a real-world environment. Why would this be i...

Send us Fan Mail In a world inundated with chairs, Tony Mazlish set out to truly build a brand around the X-Chair. He was tired of seeing comfort and style compete for importance with his purchasers, so he created a chair that merged both.  But it’s the way he’s brought the X-Chair to market that has truly helped him to make it a “household” name in the industry. Rather than immediately selling to...

Send us Fan Mail Covid has certainly rocked the contract interiors industry, but something that we ALL need to be thinking about regardless of how everything rebounds is sustainability. It took the downtime that Covid offered for Brandi Susewitz to do more research on the subject but when she did she was shocked. More than 17,000,000,000 pounds of office furniture have been dumped into U.S. landfi...

Send us Fan Mail Paul Holland is going on 37 years in the furniture industry and he has no concerns about whether or not it will continue. The past year has definitely been rocky and numbers are certainly down, but let’s remember that 2019 was a record breaking year for many.  He’s here to chat about changes in the industry as well as how all the players in the furniture business can and will grow...

Send us Fan Mail For many of us in the office furniture industry, we didn’t plan to be here. Instead we found our way here by accident and never left. The same is true for Bruce Platzman, CEO and president of AIS. After finishing college at a prestigious business school, he had an interview with an office furniture company and never looked back.  About ten years into his career, he founded AIS and...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever wondered what it means to be a corporate athlete? Have you ever even heard the term? Believe it or not when it comes to your corporate career, rest and recovery is the key to longevity. Listen as Kibibi Springs shares her tips for rest and recovery and why you should be treating your body as if you were an athlete. It didn’t take Kibibi long in the corporate world to...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever heard of a firm that helps clients figure out how to buy their furniture for a project rather than what to buy? That’s exactly what the ladies from CBRE do and their sole goal is to help clients, dealers, and manufacturers come together and build healthy relationship. Julie, Melissa, and Aileen understand all aspects of the customer buying process from design to purc...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Jennifer have spent their entire lives watching the changes in the furniture industry. Their father founded DARRAN Furniture and now they have stepped up to continue his work. Listen as they share their background, their passion for the industry, and what it’s like running a company together as siblings. It wasn’t just a love of furniture that pushed their father to creat...

Send us Fan Mail 2020 is FINALLY behind us. While it certainly didn’t pan out as expected, it wasn’t all bad. I like to focus on the good things, but it’s important to look back on what went wrong to make sure that you make the right changes. I’m digging into 2020 and sharing my goals for 2021. Just before Covid hit, my family and I took a trip to Europe. We had to cut the trip short by a day, but...

Send us Fan Mail After spending years in sales and managing digital products, Phil Polishook decided it was time to get involved with manufacturing physical products. He had the opportunity to take over DeskMakers and started in on manufacturing office products and furniture. Listen as he shares his story, what it’s like to be a small manufacturer in L.A., and his advice to the leaders of today. T...

Send us Fan Mail What is it called when design meets solving the problems of the world? For Susan Pelcznski this is called design thinking and it is something that she has been doing for her entire career. Creating solutions to problems that make sense from a design and user experience perspective is one of her greatest loves in life. As an example, Susan was called in to help design a space for f...

Send us Fan Mail Professional coaching is valuable in any field. In the past, coaching was seen as more of a mentoring role, but now it is a key way to build skills and network to increase your efficacy in your field. Listen as I share my thoughts on the importance of coaching while being interviewed on the Privacy Matters Podcast with Andrew Vawter. Coaching is the new term for professional devel...

Send us Fan Mail Our industry has a select few publications that speak to the actual business of furniture. After spending a career in writing a daily newspaper, Rob Kirkbride decided it was time to create just that. He created The Business of Furniture Magazine and he’s sharing all about his inspiration and the drive he feels to inform our industry. Rob has always had a foot in the furniture indu...

Send us Fan Mail Designing functional contract furniture with style isn’t always easy, but it is the passion of both Jeffrey and Lindsay Braun. This husband wife duo has been designing and building furniture for 13 years and their passion is evident. Listen as they share more about their background, how they got into the contract space, and why they love this industry. Jeffrey and Lindsay met at a...

Send us Fan Mail In the last decade, there has been a 208% increase in the overall use of the internet in day to day life. That means that the majority of Americans are on the internet each and every day. Are you capturing those leads with a targeted digital strategy? Part IV of creating a strategy in a post-Covid world is all about harnessing the power of digital marketing to connect with your cu...

Send us Fan Mail I think we can all agree that this year has been one for the record books. For so many in our industry, layoffs have become a reality rather than a fear. The good news is that there are still people hiring who need amazing candidates in their applicant pool. This is why I wanted to take a minute and chat with two of our own who were laid off at the beginning of this year, but who...

Send us Fan Mail No matter what area of a company you work for, you are intrinsically tied to the sales team. Every single customer facing position is selling the company as a whole. So how do you hire the right team to represent your company and the right leaders to inspire them? Andrew Vawter of MPS has focused his efforts on building cohesive teams with dedicated leaders. Through various person...

Send us Fan Mail The climate of sales has changed dramatically in the past several years and even more so this year. Buyers are more savvy to the typical sales tactics, and while no one has ever liked to be sold to, people now are much more likely to realize they’re being sold. How does this affect your sales strategy? Well, the most important thing is to create a sales enablement strategy. What d...

Send us Fan Mail We’re moving into part two of creating a post-Covid sales strategy. In many ways, now is the time to be more invested in customer service and relationships, but also to invest in your learning! Think about interior designers. They’re constantly learning and growing because they’re required to take continuing education classes to keep their licenses. We may not be licensed, but why...

Send us Fan Mail Your workforce is the number one expense in your business. It doesn’t matter if you’re an entrepreneur, a CEO, or a manager, the most money you’ll spend in your business will be on the people who work for you. Why aren’t more business owners talking about workforce management? That is the question that Regan Donoghue has been asking herself for years. After working for a variety o...

Send us Fan Mail When someone asks you what you sell, what do you say? For many of us, we immediately think of the actual products that we provide to our customers. However, have you ever stopped to think about the reason behind the products you sell? I firmly believe that what we’re actually selling is change. When companies want to improve the quality of work and environment for their employees,...

Send us Fan Mail There isn’t an industry on the planet that hasn’t been hit by the pandemic, but there are many businesses that are now thriving despite the turn in the economy. Why is that? Why have some businesses flourished while others have floundered? Frank Bucher joins me to discuss how Formaspace has transitioned their business to have better reaction times and amazing customer service allo...

Send us Fan Mail There is one thing all the experts can agree on and it's the fact that the workplace is changing and changing rapidly.  It was my pleasure to welcome Kay Sargent, Director of Workplace at HOK to today's podcast!  Kay shares some really insightful information during our conversation and I'd encourage your to listen to it carefully and take notes - this is a great epi...

Send us Fan Mail Today's episode is another installment of our CEO Chat Series!  I'm excited to welcome Rick Arnold, the CEO of Broadview Product Development to the podcast!  During our conversation, Rick shares his perspective of being in our industry, but behind the curtin, as well as thoughts on innovation, leading a company during this time and how to creating diversity is allowing t...

Send us Fan Mail Connecting our community in a powerful way, by creating an organization that allows us to give back - that's INDEAL Cares!  In today's episode, Dave Bloch, the founder of INDEAL Cares shares who they are, what they are doing and why this is an important initiative for our industry to get behind!  I hope you enjoy this informative and powerful conversation!   Be sure to f...