We’re still riding the wave of a successful CFSA Bahamas conference. We’re grateful for all of you who took the time to meet with us and we’re excited to implement some of the ideas we came up with together.

Conferences provide a unique learning environment and CFSA Bahamas was no exception. Here are our top five takeaways from the event.

1. Phone and Email Can’t Beat Face-to-Face Interaction

As our VP of Business Development, Gerald Lopez, said after the conference, “It always helps to meet people in person.”

Conferences give us an opportunity to build out new initiatives side-by-side with our clients. Sometimes this can be difficult through phone and email, so we are grateful for the time our business associates afforded us during the conference.

We also appreciated the opportunity to meet with storefronts we haven’t worked with before. Our VP of Client Relations, Sherri Burnett, said that one of her major goals for the conference was to speak with storefronts. She said, “I was able to fully explain our process and why using us to enhance their customer base is good.”

2. Conference Leaders Know How to Motivate

We were pleasantly surprised when Check Into Cash CEO and CFSA founder Allan Jones asked if he could spend some time at our booth. We enjoyed the stories he shared about how he got started in the industry and how he was able to overcome obstacles to get to where he is now. Gerald said, “We can use those examples in the challenges we face in our industry today.”

Our VP of Legal Affairs & Compliance, Cindy-Jo Cometa, appreciated the depth of legal knowledge found during the conference’s breakout seminars. “It’s almost like getting free legal advice from attorneys in the industry whose hourly rates are usually substantial.”

To get a little bit of extra knowledge, Cindy-Jo suggests that conference attendees be willing to go beyond just listening to the speakers. “It’s also important to not be afraid to ask questions or pry a bit more to better understand,” she said.

3. It’s Time to Protect Yourself

One of the major themes of CFSA Bahamas was how to protect your business from the upcoming CFPB regulations.

CFSA’s Compliance School and other seminars taught us how to handle a CFPB audit. We heard predictions from a reputable industry law firm about what the CFPB rule will look like and how it will affect the industry. Hopefully we’ll never need to deal with a CFPB audit, but knowing what we now know, we can move forward with more confidence.

We believe that conferences like these show that our industry has the ability to adapt to new laws and regulations.

4. We Need to Plan a Vacation to the Bahamas

We spent most of our time inside conference rooms, but we were able to enjoy the resort a little. We had a lot of fun on the water slides. One of the slides had us riding an inner tube down a 40 foot drop into a shark tank.

We definitely need to plan a trip back to the Bahamas were we can spend a little more time having some fun in the sun.

5. We Have Much to be Grateful For

We’d like to thank CFSA for hosting another great conference. You really outdid yourselves this year. And a special shout-out to OLA for hosting the first night’s reception, and also to the conference speakers, specifically Patrick O'Shaughnessy, CEO of Advance America; Dennis Shaul, CEO of CFSA; and Allan Jones.

And, of course, we want to thank all of the conference attendees. You helped make it a productive, thriving event. Thank you.