Advance 2007 wraps up today with Independents Day, a training event for independent bookstores.

“We're looking forward to it because we want to be refreshed and renewed,” said Julie Gornall, manager of the Bible Book Store in Vincennes, Ind. “It's always good to find out what other independents are going through and their strategies, which can help us in our day-to-day ministry at the store.”

Bible Book Store owner Chad Tevebaugh said he's expanding his store this year and was interested in the session called The High-Performing Gift Department: Things Every Store Should Do.

“It will be good to get ideas from that,” he explained. “I would like to improve and use more floor space for gifts.”

The session titled State of the Industry 2007: The Annual Survey of Christian Retail will feature comparisons of Christian retail channel performance to the general market, as well as store and consumer trends and statistics.

Another highlight of Independents Day is The CBA Initiative Tactical Plans: Crucial Retail Actions for Growth in 2007 and Beyond, in which bookstore owners will have an opportunity to “further investigate the new channel-wide challenge and learn practical steps” they can take to make it work for their stores.

For the session titled The Extraordinary Store Experience: What Fish and Coffee Mean to Christian Retail, Joseph A. Michelli, a co-author of When Fish Fly (Hyperion) and author of The Starbucks Experience(McGraw-Hill), will use the stories of Seattle's Pike Place Fish Market and Starbucks to “show how Christian retailers can excel and foster loyalty in their customers.”

The keynote address presentation, Creating Customer Evangelists: Building a Volunteer Sales Force, will help attendees “discover how to turn your best existing customers into an effective 'volunteer' marketing team by viewing your customers as a means to growth.”

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