Last week I had the privilege of attending RSPA Inspire in Curacao. In my nearly 20 years of attending and covering industry events as a press member, I’d rank this Inspire as one of the most rewarding. Not only was the education top tier, but the networking opportunities yielded powerful new connections and rekindled old ones. Additionally, the RSPA team knocked it out of the park with the venue. Added together, I left Inspire 2025 with a notebook full of ideas, a contact list of friends and allies, and a heart full of inspiration.
Following are some takeaways from my notebook day 1:
- 241 registrants made this Inspire the biggest in RSPA history
- More than 100 different companies were in attendance
- 90+ VARs
- 40+ ISVs
- 15% of attendees were there for the first time
- The theme for this year’s event: “To help VARs and ISVs better compete against the margin-obliterating, 800-number, VC-backed, one-size-fits-all POS providers.”
- “One idea. One connection. One relationship. One gold nugget you get from this event can make a significant impact on your organization or your customers.” – Jim Roddy, CEO, RSPA
Inspire education followed a format each day. First, there was a 30-minute panel discussion with some fantastic speakers. Then, each attendee worked with the people at their table to discuss a question or two related to the earlier panel discussion. After 20 minutes of discussion, a spokesperson from each table shared their key takeaways with the room. As a result, everyone could hear dozens of best practices and mistakes to avoid.
Morning Session 1
Leading with purpose. Best practices for employee engagement and retention.
- “We want to hear about any ideas our employees have that can better our company. If we’re fighting a battle with arrows and there’s a machine gun available, let us know!”
- “We provide BBQ supplies for a company-wide lunch every two weeks throughout the summer.”
- “We do something as a company monthly to build rapport and team building.”
- “Involving the spouses or the significant others of our staff has been probably the number one key focus because most times the spouse or the significant other doesn’t get recognized for looking after the family or home during the overtime, after-hours calls, and out-of-town installs that the employee is handling for us.”
- “We conduct ‘Stay’ interviews [as opposed to exit interviews when it’s too late] to learn why employees are staying.”
- “Document training and make it accessible to employees.”
- “Good retention starts with a good hire. We all use job descriptions when hiring. However, we include a section ‘this job is not for you if…’ to eliminate people that shouldn’t be in the role. You get the people you want and don’t waste time and energy.”
- “Conduct performance reviews every 6 months rather than once a year. You might give smaller pay increases since it’s twice a year, but by doing it more frequently, you can stay on top of potential issues and employees know that there’s always a review and potential raise around the corner.”
- “We identified high-stress tasks within the company that drag employees down and then outsource them to keep morale high.”
- “Hire for what they know, fire for who they are.”
Morning Session 2
How leadership styles shape organizational success.
- “I had a mentor who put a lot of trust in me and let me learn by making mistakes. He taught me that accuracy and attention to detail were important. After years, I was offered another job and I felt guilty for wanting to leave. My mentor told me that his job was to help me grow as a person and become better at what I do. He supported me leaving. Today, I try to make sure my employees understand their value in our company and I try to make sure they understand that I want them to succeed in their life. This has led to tremendous employee retention.” – Brett Bennett, president, POSitive Technology
- “Avoid the blame game when bad things happen. I try to own the issue and then find the right team members who must be involved to solve the issue. I make sure I full confidence in their ability to resolve the crisis.” – Brett Bennett, president, POSitive Technology
- “Failure is a mindset. Failure only occurs when you give up. I’ve never failed because I never accepted defeat. I may not have achieved the goal I wanted, but I never give up.” Tyler Young, CEO, Tonic POS
- “I sit down, especially with those innovators in our organization, at least twice a year, but some of them quarterly. It’s one-on-one. If they’re remote, it might be a video call, but most of them are over lunch or over breakfast or over some meeting. For the hour and a half that we’re together, we’re talking about them. We’re talking about what they’re interested in. Hopefully, I’ve found a connection and I can talk to them about something that is meaningful to both of us. And then the last 10 or 15 minutes, he expressed how excited he is about the technology we’re using, the direction we’re going, the things that we’re able to accomplish. So that provides the innovation. And yet it also provides stability because, you know, one employee told me, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.” – Brett Bennett, president, POSitive Technology
- “Balancing innovation in our company starts with identifying the working geniuses of our employees. Where do they thrive? Where do they get energy? And where do they spend it? And a few people in our organization started to show that they truly love research. They truly love looking at everything new and it may not be in their day-to-day job description, but it was their individual passion. And that’s the type of individual you have to identify that really wants to drive impactful innovation within the company.” – Tyler Young, CEO, Tonic POS
- “I think the top down needs to drive the stability, because I think employees want to know what’s a stable company to work for. But the innovation can come from anybody, anybody in the organization. We use EOS within our business, so we have meetings that allow all of our employees to post issues and post opportunities.” – Tyler Young, CEO, Tonic POS
- “Be a good listener, learn from our mistakes, be steady and consistent, lead by example, and be responsive to employee needs.”
- “I think it’s a common pain point to have repetitive, long meetings that don’t go anywhere. Something new for me is called Level 10 Note Structure. A way to run the heavy meetings that are goal-oriented, have a focus on actions and outcomes, and actually build accountability across this team. For me, it’s a great takeaway to think about how we can use people’s time more efficiently and get something out of every meeting.”
- “You can’t lead people and help them grow if you don’t allow them to fail. So don’t sit over their shoulder, telling them exactly what to do. Make sure they know what the outcome should be and what your goals are, and then allow them to fail and lead through that.”
- “Leadership is communication. We can’t communicate with every person the same way. Some people are motivated by tough feedback; others are motivated by coming alongside them and encouraging them.”
- “Communication needs consistency. Even when you’re not communicating, you’re still communicating. So by lacking action, by not visiting, by not talking, you’re still communicating something which often is that you’re not important.”
- “There’s no substitute for a competent leader getting close to people or a situation.”
The above quotes are just a handful of the many pages of notes I took during the four hours of panels and table discussions. If you missed this Inspire, I highly encourage you to save the date for next year’s event (February 1-4, 2026, at The Royal Sonesta Kaua’I Resort).
