#225 - NIADA Convention 2022

You are listening to the Independent Dealer Podcast with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson.

Hello and welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast brought to you this month by Buckeye Dealership Consulting. Today we are talking all things convention. Guys, I'm going to give the disclaimer that this is a very, very time sensitive episode. So this is going to go out. You're listening to this hopefully on the 2nd of June. Yeah, June. You have got two and a half weeks to get signed up for convention. If you're going to pass, then you're going to be too late. You might as well just stop it right now.

One good thing, your plane tickets will not go up because they're already high as heck. So just get there and come see us. Right, Jeff?

Yeah. So to talk about it, we have an old face, a gray face and then we have Janet, a new face. Everybody knows Ben Goodman. Ben, just try to keep the comments to a minimum. Don't get in the way, say anything crazy. But Janice, tell us about you. You're a new face here at the association. What do you do for them? And introduce yourself to the community.

Great.

Thanks so much. Thanks for having us. We appreciate you talking about convention. We're very excited about convention. It'll be my first one. I'm new to NIADA. I joined the organization on March 1st and worked with Larry Dixon for a very short period of time. And I all education activities fall under my realm as the director of education. I actually come from higher education so I was in higher ed for nine and a half years and before that I worked as a paralegal for a law firm. So I've always kind of been around continuing education. I consider myself a lifelong learner, brand new to any of the automobile industry space. So this has been quite the onboarding planning a convention. But luckily NIADA staff there, you know we have so many great and talented staff members that have been guiding me on who are the experts in which content areas to help develop a really robust education breakout sessions for convention as well as building our educational products, our educational offerings for dealer ed going forward. So part of, also part of my charge is to come up with we're looking at learning management systems and developing more hybrid online just in time learning for dealers as well as their staff members. So that'll be coming up in the next six months as well.

Janet, can you go into what all type of education opportunities the NIADA currently has and and actually what they look like class wise and what do we have coming in the future with that.

Hybrid titan learning yeah, and I'm excited.

For Ben to jump in here at any point in time. But so we just finished our, wrapped up our two day in person by here Pay here fundamentals workshop. So it was a very immersive two days in person. We were at the NIADA headquarters in Irving, Texas and that was pretty robust. And you know, our participants walked away with a 250 page guide, Participant guide of basically how to from start to finish, develop or grow their Buy here Pay here dealership.

Yeah, that's a really, really good workshop for folks who have been in the business maybe for a couple years. And it's kind of been more of a hobby. You know how a lot of people start off and it's more of a hobby than it is a business. At first you're just buying and flipping cars to people who are really just wanting to jump into it with a big bank line and really understand the model and how the model works. Fantastic Training, two days training. We spent a lot of time putting it together. I do it with my, with the other Buy here pay here moderator, who's Bill Elizondo. We're going to continue that course. We'll probably have that course at least quarterly for the rest of this year and going into next year. It's a really good starter course and I believe we're going to be able to utilize that course to, to jump start some, some, some other training as well. Some other training needs as well.

Man. Can you, can you go ahead and enroll Jeff into that for the next session list?

I, you know, I tried to get him in this last one and I think he needs it.

Just kidding.

Way more than that. Way more than that. It didn't have to be more than two days. So you guys got training workshops. What else do we have?

Yeah, so we have, we're kind of taking the summer off because the convention, but starting back up in August, late August, we'll start right back into the virtual training. We're doing some also in person. Actually, Ben is going to be at the Ohio IADA doing an in person workshop. We're going to try to incorporate that a little bit more in the next six months. But then closer to the end of the year, probably kicking off at the Superform in November, the Buy Here Pay here Superform. After that we'll start rolling out more of our elearning modules and hybrid learning. We're very excited to start incorporating some of that, especially when we know time is so valuable when you're in the dealership. But could your sales staff could your service staff be upskilling in between clients, in between cars? And how do we make sure that that's readily accessible in their hands when they need it and when time allows.

So think about, think about onboarding new hires and you know, a lot of the, a lot of that type of process that that's going to, we're going to have off the shelf training for that for our members and for our dealers. I think it's going to be going to be fantastic. And some of the training Janet's talking about, it's going to be reconditioning. It's going to be really pre, pre and post sales service work. Sales, sales management, leadership, collections collection management. Again leadership as well there just accounting. We're going to do a pro forma class for a projection model class. It's going to be coming up in the fourth quarter. I hope just a lot of stuff to really kind of help our dealers move into 2023 and wrap up 2022.

What, what type of workshop and things I guess do you have for retail dealers? Because we do have a few of those listening. We didn't mention that.

So Ed Curry is our 20 group moderator and training consultant. From the majority of all of our retail classes. We have both retail sales, retail service, retail advertising and marketing. Those will be September, November and December. They can go. Any of your dealers could just go to our website@niada.com and then look at learn. I am in the process now of adding the final, the second half, quarter three and quarter four courses to that website. So hopefully by the end of this week they'll see the new outline and especially coming off convention when you've just gotten so much new information and you know, matter of vendors matters, subject matter, experts, instructors and feel like, okay, well now I need to figure out how am I going to implement all these things I've learned. You know, definitely look at the courses that we're going to be offering in the second half of the year.

And Luke, to really kind of just think about your question. So we have retailers, we have Buy here, Pay here, we have Lease here, Pay here, we have finance and we have service. So you can think about really all of these classes kind of mirroring each other in each of those different operational functions. So the buy here, pay here classes we're going to offer the same class, we have the same classes offered for retail, the same classes offered for Lease Here, Pay Here and then the same classes offer for finance as well.

Ben, real quick, I want to give a testimonial Here. Do you. I'm going to put you on the spot. Do you remember when my collections girl took your collections class, your virtual training?

I do.

When was that last class? Do you remember?

The month for collections collections was March.

Okay. So I've been trying to be. I figured this out. I keep all my collection numbers, right. And I had a very, very, very steep drop in my delinquency. And I was trying to figure out why. And I didn't put those two things together until just now. I was like, oh, maybe more stimulus money. Oh, maybe I'm repoing more cars. No, but I've gone down into the single digit delinquency March. That's what it was. That has to be it. I don't have any other thing that makes sense. I'm looking at my chart here. I was in like the 20s on my delinquency and now I'm at like 8% delinquency. And it literally transitioned in March. So I mean, yeah, send, send people to the training, train your staff. That's huge. And then to be able to have it virtually on demand, that's huge as well. I'm excited for that.

Lot less cost.

Yeah, yeah, let me transition guys. Cause I want to really, really get this in because it's so time sensitive. We've got all these great things coming from the association. You guys know how to contact them and do your virtual trainings and your, your workshops and your. All these things. Convention is coming. It's going to be big. Janet has been working her little tail off on this for the last two months. So June 20th through the 23rd at the MGM in Las Vegas. It's right around the corner.

Yeah, let's.

Let's talk about all the fun stuff that all of us dealers are going to be doing there.

So Luke, let me tell you this real quick. You mentioned something about flights. Everyone thinks this is crazy expensive. I'm going to tell you that it's not.

That's cause you're driving, Jeff.

I am driving. And I'll may or may not sleep in my own bed each night, but.

I can't even buy first class. I mean, good lord. Yeah, I'm having to fly in the jungle.

Yeah. Have you seen gas prices? I don't know, Jeff, you might be on the back.

Yeah, that's true.

I was going to say he drives a Tesla. Come on.

Because here's the argument. So the room rate is 130 bucks. I think I just looked.130. Still have rooms available. Okay. Your Ticket price is how much, if you remember, like six something or 700 bucks. And if you add a second person, you get a discount and then flights. So I googled a bunch of flights this morning into Vegas. If you're coming from Atlanta, if you're coming from Orlando, if you're coming from D.C. if you're coming from Chicago, honestly, you're running like $600 right now. I mean, if you're flying first class on a private jet like Luke is, you're going to be a little bit more. But if you're going just basic coach on Delta or Spirit or whatever these. So all in, you're looking at like 1500 bucks, maybe $2,000.

Yeah. And honestly, it's a deal to get, to get the education you get at convention. $2,000 is, is a drop in the bucket, right, Jeff?

So I want to get that out of the way first. It's not crazy expensive. It's $2,000. You're easily going to take home $2,000 worth of education. You're going to be out of the dealership for three or four days. I get that. That's probably a good thing for your staff. They're going to love you to be gone. Tax time's over. You're heading into summer. It's, it's, it's good for you to get away from the dealership. And I think a lot of dealers forget that. They're like, oh, if I leave, I don't have sales, or this falls apart or that falls apart. Guess what? You guys have got to figure it out. So you've got to go. Not only to let them sink or swim on their own, but also for you to get reset and recentered so that when you come back, you're not a grouchy old guy still yelling and screaming at everybody. You're reinvigorated to be doing what you're doing. So that's my argument.

Excellent.

What are we going to learn?

I was able to find one way tickets and I saved like $400 off my airfare going one way. One way. So. So there you go. Pro tip.

You're not just staying in Vegas.

No, I am staying in Vegas, but I got permanently.

You also got permanently to get home.

No, I'll be really. I'll be in Vegas from Friday to Thursday. That's entirely too much time to spend in Vegas.

That's the appropriate amount of time in Vegas, that is.

But it's actually a good time because it's not too hot yet. So you'll be fine. Yeah, everyone should go. Guys, what are we going to learn there? What are some of the highlights of the week that we want to point out? Hey everybody, real quick, pastime gps. These guys will be at convention, they do have a presenting session. Don't remember what day that was on, but you will want to go and talk to these guys, quiz them on all things GPS and how you can use them at your car labor.

Yeah, that session. Actually I think we probably already heard that session once, Jeff, and it's really, really informative about some of the older devices and how there's some sunset coming on and really talks about the technology behind everything. So Passtime is a leader in technology when it comes to GPS and to me they're the best out there. So if you want to protect your assets as in accounts or you want to protect your assets on your lot, you should have part time GPS installed.

Well, like, like we said earlier, Janet, Janet's done a fantastic job I think of, of, of really organizing this and getting with the subject matter experts for all of the courses. I'd like for her to maybe walk through what, you know, the events and who we're going to hear from and how we're going to do it. You know, this is always the premier event for dealers every single year. There's just, there's just a ton of, a ton of industry leading experts and just, you're going to be able to get a lot of great advice about your business and there's always new technology to know and industry trends and to review and just great vendors in the expo hall and it's going to be a fantastic, a fantastic convention I believe. I'm really excited about this one. And all the, all the prep work Janet's put into this and Jeff, I'm going to say this, the number of dealer panels we have, not only are you going to get to hear from the subject matter experts, but you're going to get to hear from the actual dealers. The guys who are on the front line. The guys and young men and women who are on the front line, who are actually doing the job, how they're doing it. The real life stuff, not just the instructional, this is how it should happen, but what's really happening. And you're going to get to hear it from people who are, who are just experts in the industry in those particular areas. I'm super excited about that.

Yeah, so Ben says that you guys. Because you know, I'm a vocal opponent, proponent, opponent of vendor pitches at convention. I dislike that I made it vocal on the page. When I saw the agenda come out the first time, I was kind of upset with the amount of vendor to dealer ratio because, again, I feel like the dealers. That's how we learn. People that are doing it before we did it bigger and better, the ones we want to emulate. But give me the argument for subject matter experts.

Vendors, in other words.

Vendors. Why?

Well, I don't necessarily. Well, first of all, I would say I don't necessarily think of vendors as the subject matter expert in the room. The subject matter expert in the room is going to be the person who, who. Who has done the research, has, has. Actually, you know, there's so many different aspects to our business. Right. Look at, I don't know, let's just look at technology for, for, you know, scanning. Scanning license plates. Right. Well, I'm not developing that technology. Somebody's developing that technology, and that person is a subject matter expert who's developed the technology and understands that technology better than I do. I want to hear from that person on what's available and why it's important and how it helps us in our business. But that's all I want to hear from them. Then I want to hear from the guy who's using it and has put it into practical purposes. Right. And understands how it's being utilized in the business in order to help you drive profit. So, Jeff, that's, That's my thought. And I think you're spot on early on when you, when you posted your comments about. About not having enough dealer involvement. Well, we just hadn't put that out yet at that time. I can tell you the plan all along had been to have dealer involvement in this, in this meeting because it's important. Talk about 20 groups. Why are 20 groups so, so important to dealers? Well, they're important to dealers because you're leveraging the experience of other dealers in the room. That's where. That's where we really learn. Right. It's people who's actually doing the job. But there's going to be those people who invented. Who have invented or have developed the technology, and we need to understand that piece of it and then the practical purposes of it.

That would be my argument onto that. I'm sorry, I was just saying.

So, Ben, that's the, that's the benefit of having dealer panels maybe led by a vendor. Is that what you're talking about?

I think so, Luke. Yeah. And again, not necessarily a vendor. Maybe a vendor, but whoever that subject matter expert is that we've kind of decided, you know, based on proposals for that particular area.

So we have a lot of our partners, our corporate partners that are going to be presenting. Let's take the sales and marketing track. So convention has five tracks, right? We've got sales and marketing, buy here, pay here, lease here, pay here, retail service, and then HR and ops. Well, sales and marketing, you know, we're hearing from folks that this is, this is what they do for a living. This is what pays, this is what puts bread on their table, is drilling really down into what are low cost strategies, what are no cost strategies. How do you reach your audience? We, you absolutely have to have those companies talking and sharing best practices because that's what they do, that's their business. And so you're going to take away as a dealer. Okay, well, this is how I reach a greater audience on Facebook. This is how I use TikTok to my advantage. This is how I can take really good videos as I'm walking around a car and showing a car on Facebook. So we need that, we definitely need that information. And it's always education first. And because I'm the one that's been reaching out and inviting our speakers and vetting and talking with them, they know it's, it's absolutely education first, Jeff. And there's not going to be a pitch, but when you're looking at analytics and how to evaluate data in your business, you want to hear from those folks that this is what they do for a living and this is what they know. But then how you go back and apply it to your dealership, that's where the networking and talking to your peers in those hallways and in between sessions and go, okay, well, I understand what they're saying, but then what do you do in your shop? Share with me what you do. And that's the real value in the ROA you're going to get when you, when you leave convention and we get.

A, can we get a way to text you if a vendor starts going off on.

So one of the cool new things we have this year is the app, which we're going to be rolling out here in about a week or so, we'll announce it. There's, you know, so everything that's in the agenda on the website is also in the app. A couple of cool things about the app because I've been doing the input. Not only will you have direct access to Whoever's speaking, their LinkedIn page, their email, their website, but there'll be a chat feature. So you absolutely can share at that moment. Okay, well, this session Wasn't that great? It didn't meet my expectation. I wish you would have rather done this. But then you can also communicate with each other, and we will all be policing that and reviewing that. There will be an NIADA staff member in every single session. So you can walk right up to me after the session and go, okay, Janet, you missed the mark on this one. And we want to hear that, but we also want to know where we did well as well. So. Yeah, absolutely.

I feel like, Luke, like you were saying, it's like the phone number they have at baseball games, like report unruly fans, you know what I'm saying? And there should be like a report and then like during the session, if it reaches some sort of a threshold, the microphone turns off.

So you laugh about that at nada. They have a. The past couple times I've been. They have a number on the wall, and if that vendor even mentions the company he works for, you can text it, right? Then they will, they will shut him down. And he wouldn't.

Yeah. Or maybe some sort of scorecard in the hallway that's like, here's the sessions that happened and here's their rating so that that vendor has like a real time feedback on, like, hey, I'm. I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be put out in the public or shamed if I go. And it's kind of unfair sometimes because you bring a vendor on and they're like, hey, you know, I'm going to talk about how to get the best video for your vehicle listing with my little widget. And it's like, well, the whole subject is how to get the best video. And I'm going to tell you how to get the best video. But guess what? You have to have my little widget in order to get the best video. So sometimes it's set up in a way where they're already, you know, they're set up.

Yeah, but you're, but Jeff, you're. You're spot on with that. But the thing. Here's what should happen, right? We have a vendor exhibit hall for pitching the vendors products, their little widgets. That's where that should happen in the classrooms. It should be all about education. It should be about, why does this matter to the industry? How does this help the industry? You know, what are the various technologies that are out there? What are the various thought processes that are helping our dealers, you know, en masse? Not because you're using my widget. And, and I think. And that's really kind of what you're talking about Luke. Right. Just making sure these things are educational. You know, we're, we're trying to police that. I, it's always, it's probably, you know, I mean, let's be realist. It's a little, it's a little difficult to do it, but, but we're going to need to get constant feedback from our dealers because at the end of the day and our members. This is your convention at the end of the day. Right. We want to make sure that this convention is, is up to par and you're getting what you need out of this thing.

If I could just offer a perfect example of a balance. Bill and Ben are going to be doing a. On Thursday. Thursday they're doing a finding capital session. So they will have corporate partners up there that are talking about different ways that you could utilize or leverage their resources to create more capital. What they're also going to have is a dealer partner who is utilizing their resources and they're going to talk about their experience. Experience. So you're going to have the representation from the company talking about what they do 100%. But then they're also going to have a dealer there saying, okay, well, this is what I do in real life and this is when I've reached out to them and this has been my experience. So then you can ask the dealer those questions. Is that helpful?

Well, I mean, that's the way it should be, honestly. And let's move to the, to the expo hall because I believe there's so much education in the expo hall and dealers sometimes don't know how to utilize that. Ben, you've been to a thousand of these conventions. Can you speak to how dealers should go about walking the hall?

I can. You know, I think there's a lot of different approaches. First of all, every dealer, every dealer that comes to the convention and every dealer that doesn't come to the convention, we all have our challenges, right? Everyone's, Everyone has some area of opportunity right now. What I would recommend first is that you decide what your areas of opportunities are and you seek out those vendors that are going to be subject matter experts or at least be in that space where you're, where your area of opportunity is. Maybe it's marketing. Okay. So you want to seek out your marketing and your advertising vendors that are going to be there. Maybe it's, I don't know what you pick. Pick your poison. Maybe it's your DMS isn't providing you, you know, everything that you need. So you're going to work on software. Right. I think you go there first because there's a lot of vendors in this hall, and if you just tried to hit every single one of them, it's going to take you quite a while. Right? So pick your poison first. Go where. Go where you need to go from there. I like to walk the hall and. And I like to see, hey, what's new, what's cool? And let me go learn about that, because there's. Every single year the. Think about the innovation that we have right now. Think about what your business looked like five years ago. Right? Think about what your business looked like 10 years ago. Can you guys remember the first time someone walked in with a smartphone? Right. The technology that is out there and how it's advancing every single year, man, you. This vendor exhibit hall is perfect for that. You walk these aisles, you see what you don't know about, and you go in there and you learn a little bit about it and then you move to the next one. Get a business card, then move to the next one. And. And you'll take home a lot of things with you that you want to follow up on. So many that you won't be able to follow up on them.

Ben's exactly right. Here. Dealers that are listening, make a list when you walk in of things that your company actually needs, your points, think.

Of your pain points at your dealership.

And then interview several different vendors doing the same thing because the first one may not be the right one for you. So, Ben, that's some great advice. Janet, you may know how many actual vendors are going to be there. How big is the hall going to be? Can you give us some numbers there?

I actually don't.

Oh, gosh.

I'm not in charge of vendors, I can tell you that. All sold out in record time.

Well, I think a lot of them are anxious.

I have a very small niche and I'm thrilled just to have my one niche.

Well, I can share a number with you guys. So the expo hall is sold out and there's. There's going to be roughly about 500, I think, vendor vendors registered. So if you, if you just do the math and say that maybe there's an average of a couple people registered per. Per vendor. You know, you're. You're looking at over a couple hundred vendors that are going to be there. Yeah, it's going to be a really full event.

And that's kind of what I was getting to. That is, that is why it's so important to have a strategy when you go to the Expo hall we because if you walk in there, you're going to be distracted by all these shiny things that make your website do different things that you probably don't need. So make sure that you have a plan and you work the plan. Janet, how about the big speakers? We always, we're so lucky that some of the partners provide us with some great speakers. And in the past, Michael Urban I think was the last person we had Captain. The captain that was on that ship one time spoke to us. So we've had some, had some really good speakers who we got this year.

Yeah.

So John Taffer is our keynote. We're super excited to have him. And you guys may know him from Bar Rescue I think is his most prominent TV show. But he's a huge personality. He's going to be great in just talking about, I think how to effectively run your business. Right. I mean that's what, what he does, that's his expertise. So we're super excited to have him. You know, when we start we kick off our open session, open general session, you know, with our new leadership, you know, with Joe McCloskey, we're gonna Scott Allen there, you know, Bob Boltman, our CEO, they're all going to present. And even before that, you know, we have our first timers reception. I think Jeff alluded to that earlier. On Monday we have the annual membership meeting which is super important. If you are an NIND member, you want to come to that. But then in that open session when we have the new leadership taking over and talking to their members, Jonathan Dawson from psychology, he's going to be providing a sales training. That's how we kick off that first day. We have awards and then we have a CPO360 presentation from Lou Tedeschi. We're super excited about that. It's going to be a real high level overview of what's new within the certified with the CPO program. So we're excited about that. Scott, maybe from next year is going to be kicking off our Wednesday session talking about how just today's opportunities for dealers, especially independent dealers, and how you can capitalize on that. So we're excited about that session as well. You know, we have 60 breakout sessions, educational breakout sessions. We talked about this already. We have 50, 15 dealer panels or dealer speakers. So I feel like we really tapped into the information we were getting and the concerns. So 15 of those sessions are dealer panels or dealer speakers. We have another 15 sessions that are either moderated or we have speakers that are NIADA staff. So you know, We've got our experts. Brett, our VP for regulatory affairs, he's got three different sessions on, you know, the cfpb, the ftc, new safeguard rules. So we're definitely hitting all of that.

And those are great when it's nap time.

So those.

I'm really looking forward to that.

We try not to put those. Yeah, we try not to put those right after lunch.

Brett will know. He knows. Sorry, Brett, I know you're not listening to this, but don't beat me up when we get there.

And then for sure in the buy here, pay here category or track and again, that app, what's so cool about the app is you'll be able to go, okay, this is the track I want to, I want, I can filter by the track and, you know, provide you with the sessions that are, that you're looking for. Ben and Bill are doing a collections best practices. So they're going to have dealers up there or finance managers at dealerships up there talking about what they do every day and their best practices. And also with underwriting and the 20 groups. And then you're also doing a hot topic session which is going to emulate a 20 group session. So all of those are going on. We also dedicated four sessions to diversity, equity and inclusion this year. Super proud of this work. We actually have Damon Lester from the national association for Minority Automobile Dealers coming and presenting a session. Tony Caldwell, who's a dealer in an Ohio IADA board member, is doing a session on his upbringing in the dealership space from washing cars for a dollar a car to owning seven dealerships. And you know, what he's been able to do. And then we have a woman owner panel and they're going to just be talking about the challenges and how it's different for women entrepreneurs in this, especially in a majority male dominated space. So we're super excited about that session as well. So we're very proud of the work we've put into this convention.

Well, I'm sure it's going to be, it's going to be great. They're always great. What they went over is wonderful. But the networking that you'll, the benefit of the networking you'll get probably outweighs it all. Don't take that as a hit there, Janet. But it's just the things you learn from the dealers while you're sitting around talking, it's wonderful.

I couldn't agree with you more. I haven't been to a convention in this area in this industry, but obviously I've done a lot of conferences Back in my prior tenure. And I agree with you, especially like that first timer session. You know, you want to connect with someone who's going to become your friend, your colleague throughout your lifetime in this industry and that's really important. As well as meeting folks who are best in class. Right. And really pulling them aside and saying, how can I learn from you? How can I connect with you and instantly make those, you know, social connections and get engaged?

Yeah. For me, I think convention is probably 50% hall, room or hallway conversations and after hour conversations with vendors and dealers. 25% education, 25% expo hall. I think that's typically kind of how mine breaks down. But I am really, really excited for all of Bill and Ben's sessions. I mean, nothing to pitch other than joining a 20 group and being an association member. Just education, education. So be sure to be at all the, the, the bnb. What do you guys, you guys have a tag name?

Bill and Ben. Ben, Ben and Bill. I like Ben and Bill.

Ben and Bill's Excellent adventure. We'll get your T shirts made.

First time in there somehow.

Bill and Ben. Bill, Bill and Ben.

Ben, Bill and Ed.

Bill, Ben and Bill.

And then do we have we announced who's up for election for board members? Do they have that short list?

It was sent out yesterday.

Hey, one more time. Buckeye Dealership Consulting. They are a sponsor, presenting sponsor of this podcast and have been for quite a few weeks. Great guys. The place to go for your reinsurance products. We've talked about it before and we hear it time and time again. Hey, what company are you guys using for your warranties? Who are you using for your service contracts? Who are using for your gap? Who are you using for this? Stop using other companies. Use your own company.

For sure. And that's. I tell you, we've been doing it for 10 years. 11 years now. 11 years. And it really has changed the direction of our business and reinsurance is the only way to go. And they will be at the convention. They will be at the convention hall. So stop by and say hello to Sean and Jason and Brett and all the good folks at Buckeye.

Who made it through. So we are going to be voting, right? I mean that's a voting session for members.

Yeah.

The people who were added were Chris Mayer senior, who's old friend of ours, Quality guy Bentley Nolan, which is a good friend of ours. Those are the two. Those are two out at large spots. And then Guy, honestly, the poor guy that I don't even know, Zach somebody, last name Zach maybe Greg Zach, does that sound right? That I do not know. That I do not know. So those are the two new people. Three new people coming on. And that will be voted on at.

Okay, so they went through the membership meeting. Yeah, they went through the selection committee of previous board members and presidents. Those are the three that are going to be brought to the general membership to be voted on. We have three board spots open then, huh?

Yes, you had James said to Stevens leaving. And then you have the two at large spots are actually new. The bylaws have to be voted on before that.

That can be voted on to open those up. And no, no, no candidates from the floor.

Not that I know of. Now that might change. But you never.

But is that an option? Yes, even in the new bylaws. Okay. So it could get spicy. You might want to be there on Monday. Make sure you set your flight so you're there on Monday Evening. Afternoon, whatever that is. So sorry to plow along with that. Education sessions. Be there. Who do we need to bring? So as dealers, let's just wrap this up with. The education is going to be for dealers, general managers, sales managers, collections managers, shop managers.

I mean, yeah, Jeff, to summarize that, I would say obviously principal owners should be. Should be in the rooms. But. But this, these classes are designed for your leadership. The folks that are on your. On your sites, in your dealerships, leading your stores, leading your operations, those are the people who really boots on the ground. They're going to get a lot out of these classes now. Now, you know, you don't want to shut your entire dealership down and bring everybody, but I would bring your key people, the people that are on, you know, on the floor that are actually leading your operations. Those are important folks bring.

And to that point, man, is a great reward for your staff to take something like this.

Absolutely.

And it sure is. We use it. Our collections manager will be out there. You know, one of her things, she's always want to go to Vegas. Well, guess what? She gets to go to Vegas on my dime. So it's really, it's. She's going to get education. She's going to be working, but not working. And you know, it's a great thing. You should bring as many people as you can afford to do and. And keep your office still running.

Yeah.

Underestimate. Sorry. You cannot underestimate the value of professionally developing your staff. Anybody that works for you as an owner, it's in what, regardless of the industry you're in, it shows that you value them and it shows that you're invested in them and they will work harder for you because of it. The worst thing to do is not to professionally develop your staff. And then the risk is, well, what if they learn all these new things on my dime and then they leave? Well, what if they learn nothing and they stay?

But that, that is so true. So true.

Yeah.

Well, and think about, think about it like this. You know, to the listeners out there, think about it like this. How you may have been to a hundred of these things and it may be old hat for you, right? But remember back to the first ones you attended and how excited you were when you came back to the dealership and how motivated you were to oh my gosh, these, there's so much, there's so much opportunity out there. There's so many things I could be doing differently. I want to do this, this, this and this. Right. And that's going to be threefold. When you bring back your, your staff, when you bring back your leaders in your dealership, it's going to be one of their first meetings. Maybe it's, maybe it's their dozen meetings, but they're going to come back with a lot and they're going to be so motivated, feel rewarded. To Luke's point, it's a great idea to bring your people with you.

And the one thing I'd like to. Go ahead, Janet, I want to share too, just real quick about the convention. So on Thursday, there's always a car auction, the Mannheim car auction and this benefits foundation. And I think this is a really important thing to share to everyone that's attending, to be part of that, because that I had the privilege and the honor of reviewing the scholarship applications. NIADA gives out four scholarships for the four different regions to high school students going on to college in an automotive related program, whether it feels sales, marketing, service management. And I got to read the essays and it's very impressive. What are you. The amount of. And a lot of them are, you know, they come from a history of families that have been in the automobile industry or they have a really awesome idea that they feel like would help the automobile industry, whether it's from engineering and some sort of technology. So I think that's really important that we talk about that and the benefit of that for those students. And then there is a $10,000 award that is given the Cox Automotive Scholarship with Northwoods University. And that person will actually be present. That student will be present, either be a junior or senior at Northwoods currently. And that really will help them get over the hump of their senior year at Northwood. So I think that's really important that we all share.

Yeah, that's awesome. Jeff, you got anything else?

That's it.

I'm excited to see everybody in two and a half weeks. Of course, Luke and I will be there. Come up, say hi, introduce yourself to us and Janet and Ben and just get involved, you know, do all the funny little games in the expo hall. Win yourself a yeti cooler that won't fit on the plane. Do all those kind of fun things that you do that it just makes it enjoyable. Talk to dealers. Strike up conversations at lunch. You know, approach people in the hallway. Just get out there.

Yeah, please come talk to us, because if it is your first time or you feel like you don't know anybody, you probably know us, and we would love to speak to you and introduce you to other dealers that we know that maybe you should know. So please come say hello and we'll see you there.

Janet, Ben, thank you so much for your time. We'll see in a couple of weeks.

Jeff and Luke, thank you. Thank you guys very much. Good seeing you guys again. I'll see you soon.

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