One of the father-daughter activities myself and said daughter enjoy is listening to music on car rides, specifically anything in the 1970s-1980s genre. Apparently, my daughter is a teenager going on 40 years old.

Her tastes range from The Carpenters to Twisted Sister and Vanilla Ice. Like father like daughter. As we were listening to a recent Motley Crue song, she indicated the band had a lot of hidden gems on B-sides of albums. Who would have known? That a today’s teenager knows what a B-side album is, now that’s impressive. “Too Young To Fall in Love” is one of my favorite underrated Crue songs, though I’m not sure if that was a B-sider or not.

Speaking of hidden gems, there are a ton of them within your ASA membership just waiting to be unlocked.

For starters, the work that ASA Chief Economist Dr. Chris Kuehl does is something else. Where to start? ASA members have access to his company’s monthly ASA Economic Advisor document — nearly 20 pages of economic trends, analysis and statistics. It’s housed in the MyASA section at www.asa.net and gets blasted out to membership at the beginning of each month.

Dr. Kuehl also hosts a free live economic update webinar for members on the third Wednesday of each month. It’s an ASA member favorite (always 2 p.m. Eastern start and runs for an hour). And on the weeks he doesn’t do his live webinar, he drops a 5-10-minute podcast that zeroes in on issues of chief importance to ASA members.

Furthering the business intelligence theme, each month ASA produces the ASA Monthly Sales Report that benchmarks how ASA member distributors perform on a monthly basis in close in a bevy of different financial categories. A neat new feature with this report is a comments section where ASA members give their thoughts on how business has been for them over the last month — candid analysis from those playing the game. Again, this report is free to ASA members and is housed in the Business Intelligence section in the MyASA portal.

For our industrial PVF members, last year ASA started the ASA Commodities Twitter feed that brings members up to date on the latest company price increases, plus commodity report analysis in nine different metal and plastics categories, written by ASA Industrial Piping Division members. Head over to @ASA_Commodities for a gander sometime.

Two of ASA’s newer and highly important initiatives include PROJECT TALENT and PROJECT VITALITY, both part of the association’s long-term Building One Future strategic initiative aimed at preparing our members to compete and succeed long into the future.

PROJECT TALENT is helping address the labor conundrum in our industry currently through a two-pronged approach. ASA members can post open jobs on SupplyIndustryCareers.com (for ASA members only). That website is then targeted to key online social media and hiring platforms. Members can also take full advantage of a recruitment toolbox filled with free marketing assets to help in your hiring journey. If you want to try your own social media campaign, the recruitment toolbox contains templates that can be used in getting that up and running.

The key ingredient in PROJECT VITALITY is the growth assessment survey tool that will help ASA member companies assess their readiness for growth and the ability to compete into the future. The confidential survey is positioned so both senior-management team members and employees can answer specific sets of questions. Each company that takes the survey is then provided with a free confidential growth assessment report. Who knows, the survey results could provide that one strategic nugget to help propel your company even further forward.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I could get into (and will in the future) the massive benefits members receive through our A-plus education and advocacy efforts as well, not to mention the next-level networking opportunities available throughout the year both in-person and virtually.

There has never been a better time to be a member of the American Supply Association. If you are an ASA member, take full advantage of all ASA has to offer and get even more of your team engaged with the association.

If you are not an ASA member distributor, manufacturer, rep or master distributor, it’s time to join.