In a recent SmartTan.com poll, more than half of salons said the aspect of the annual Smart Tan Downtown trade show and conference they enjoy most is the educational seminars.

“We go every year,” says Lori Angstadt of Baja Beach Tanning Club. “We love the educational aspects of Nashville and have done some different breakout sessions for marketing, vitamin D, and improving salon incentives for employees. We always go back for more!”

The educational conference has long been the cornerstone of the world’s largest indoor tanning expo, with workshops engineered to help your business thrive in the future of the indoor tanning market. Session schedules are redeveloped yearly to provide new information, reflect the latest trends, and prepare you for new challenges that the industry will face in the coming year. And everything is covered, from management, sales, and marketing topics that will improve efficiency and give your bottom line an immediate boost, to industry-specific topics involving politics, science, legal issues, trends and strategies.

“Everyone should go to the trade show – we certainly get a lot out of them,” says Brian Hibbard of South Beach Tanning. “If you get one thing out of a session, it’s worth your time. If you do that five or six times in a trade show, you got your money’s worth.”

Instructors, speakers and panelists at Smart Tan Downtown are always leading tanning industry experts, including Smart Tan executives with 20+ years in the business, successful salon owners who have experienced everything first-hand, and consultants with extensive experience in the industry. Even presenters who are widely respected outside the industry, like Kizer & Bender, “Two of Retail’s Most Influential People” know exactly how to tailor their advice to salon owners after working with the industry for years.

“I love Kizer & Bender! I sit through their classes every year and I’m still implementing ideas that I learned years ago. It’s important to learn something new to make my business successful,” says Teresa Ledford-Burnette of Le’ Tan Tanning Salon.

Stay tuned to SmartTan.com for information on the 2014 Smart Tan Downtown conference and trade show in the coming months.