Affiliated to host second annual Catalyst

MIAMI—Affiliated Monitoring is bringing its Catalyst conference, focused on PERS sales and marketing, to Turnberry Isle here for its second year, May 15 through 17.

“We already have more people registered to attend at this point in time than actually attended last year. So, we are expecting it to be much larger by every measurement than 2016,” Daniel Oppenheim, Affiliated's VP, told Security Systems News. All of Catalyst's sponsorships are sold out for this year's conference, he noted.

“Catalyst is a practical conference; it's about helping PERS companies grow their business and run their business smarter,” he said. In line with this theme, the keynote presentation will be a conversation with Ken Gross, founder of Connect America, Oppenheim said.

“[Gross] stepped through every phase in size—he went from having zero customers, to having one customer, to having a thousand customers, to having hundreds of thousands of customers,” Oppenheim said. “I believe that a PERS company, no matter where they are in their size, or their growth, or their trajectory, will be able to learn from him.”

What is the one thing that you hope attendees of Catalyst 2017 walk away with? “If there's one thing that I would like them to walk away with is the appreciation for how exciting it is to be in the PERS industry right now,” Oppenheim said.

“Number two, I think I'd like them to walk away with a personal relationship with someone who is like them, and has the same challenges—someone that they can reach out to and collaborate with,” he continued. “Number three is ideas; actionable things to go home and try.”

Affiliated hosted Catalyst 2016 in Naples, Fla. The session topics included sales technologies available, building a multi-channel PERS business, and the trend for mobile PERS technologies.