commonsku (PPAI 552077), a Toronto, Ontario-headquartered promotional products business and sales software provider, held its first virtual user conference, commonsku University Plus, on July 21. The event drew more than 400 distributor users from more than 150 companies, to learn, connect and network, all from the comfort of their own homes.

“Our goal in putting together commonsku University Plus was to educate our distributor users on how to utilize the most powerful aspects of the platform to be as efficient as possible,” says commonsku CEO Catherine Graham. “During these challenging times, this has never been more important, and it was so encouraging to see over 400 distributor users attend the event, eager to improve their business, share best practices and network with one another.”

Throughout the three-hour event, attendees were given a deep dive into the platform’s tools, shown hacks and underutilized features, and heard stories from users who have mastered the ins and outs of the platform. Feature sessions included “Better Ways to Ideate,” “Shops for Sales Growth” and “Client Growth Through Client Portals/Project Portals,” presented by members of the commonsku team; Bobby Lehew, Aaron Kucherawy, Joe Kemple, Catherine Graham and Bre Redmond, and distributor user Russell Bird of The Promo Addict.

Attendees also took part in elective breakout sessions catered to their roles in management, sales or operations hosted by commonsku power-users Wendy Fahle of W.M. Martin Advertising, Inc.; Elizabeth Wimbush of Rightsleeve Marketing; Ruth Verver of Paperclip Promotions and Anna Nguyen of Monarch and Co. The day was capped off with a live hacks and Q&A session with the entire commonsku customer success team, and one-on-one networking time where users could exchange best practices and industry knowledge.

“It was exciting for us as a customer success team to have the opportunity to connect with and educate so many of the distributors on commonsku during CSU+. Taking the event virtual really broke down the typical barriers of the time and expense that come with traveling to a conference, and created an accessible environment for all, even our users in Australia,” says Aaron Kucherawy, commonsku’s manager of customer success.