The ATD Convention & Expo offers dealers a rare chance to meet face-to-face with executives of major truck manufacturers and features hundreds of exhibitors showcasing the latest equipment, services and technologies and dozens of workshops with the industry’s best trainers.
The 2017 ATD Convention & Expo will take place Thursday, Jan. 26 through Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017, in the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and will be held in conjunction with the NADA Convention & Expo.
The following is a list of workshops that will be held on the final day of activities, Sunday, Jan. 29. The list does not include those that are more “auto-centric” as part of NADA activities.
Workshops to be held on Sunday, Jan. 29 are:
- Effectively Targeting the One Percent with Digital Video, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
According to Google, the best way to gain brand recognition is by leveraging video pre-roll. Another key stat is that sixty three percent of the new car automotive intenders actively engage with video content. by Learn how to leverage video in pre-roll ads, email campaigns, personalized email lead responses and enhanced landing pages
- Moving the 60 Percent: The Secret to Creating a Powerful Team and a Dominant Business, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Too often poor team results are due to over-dependence on top performers. See how, by focusing on the middle 60 percent, you can get these consistent performers to increase performance, leading to more long term success Learn step-by-step review, coaching and follow up techniques that have helped dealerships improve and retain performance over the long term.
- Top 5 Keys to Successfully Managing Any Dealership, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Learn to use a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis to better understand your current positon and where you can be for peak performance. Participants will leave with strategies to attract the right team members and educate and motivate them by clearly communicating expectations and effectively holding accountable.
- The 20-minute F&I Transaction, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Today’s customers want a faster F&I transaction, and dealers struggle to reduce the time while remaining effective. The 20-minute F&I Transaction allows customers to self-educate, implementing a more efficient process. Learn effective techniques for F&I website content, how to use technology and a sequence for a shorter transaction, leading to faster transactions, increased F&I productivity, higher profits and satisfied customers.
- Marketing Opens the Door: Closing Seals the Deal, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Acquiring customers through digital marketing is only half the battle; sales must still be closed. This highly interactive workshop will share keys to identifying and eliminating objections from today’s tech-savvy buyer. The result will enhance the salesperson’s confidence and increase closing ratios while preserving gross profit.
- Regulators Attack Dealer Aftermarket Product Selling: How to Protect Your Dealership, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
The workshop will review federal and state regulatory enforcement actions against dealers for aftermarket product selling, which are expected to increase in the future. Risky practices are predictable; learn to protect your business against UDAP, discrimination and other charges. The session will address traps in aftermarket product selling and provide ways to be compliant without sacrificing revenue.
- Turn Millennial Price Shoppers into Loyal Customers, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
There are 80 million-plus millennials in the U.S. They’re not a trend, they’re your consumers of today and tomorrow. This workshop presents a selling process adapted to today’s buyers’ habits and requirements that will generate the units and ROI dealers need to compete and addresses the skills salespeople must master to sell more vehicles, and maintain exceptional customer satisfaction.
- Build and Retain a High-performance Team to Win Your Market, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
In this fast-faced and data-rich session, learn how a strong dealership employment brand combined with a consistent hiring process leads to higher performance, higher gross, reduced costs and dramatically lower turnover. New research drawing on HR practices across thousands of dealerships will be discussed, and attendees will be able to benchmark themselves against top-performing peers.
- Federal Excise Tax: Update, New Developments, and Risk Reduction, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
The Federal Excise Tax continues to be a menacing subject for heavy-duty truck, tractor and trailer dealers. An intricate and outdated set of laws and statutes has created a confusing tax terrain of unknowns and gray areas resulting errors that risk costly IRS-levied penalties. Get clarity, insight and tips for FET compliance that will help minimize your tax and related penalty exposure. The speakers will also cover recent guidance on glider kits and other FET-affected transactions.
- Increase Service Profits by Increasing Proficiency, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
A stall can only produce overhead; it takes a productive technician to produce labor sales and profits. See how increased technician proficiency and stall utilization can help you maximize service profits.
- Don’t Be Kicked to the Curb: Define Your M&A Process, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
This presentation will focus on the transaction process and include observations and guidance from real-world transactions related to buy-and-sell due diligence. After diving into high risk areas, valuation concepts, closing procedures and post-closing recommendations, we will provide knowledge necessary to manage a heavy-truck transaction through the buyer and seller lens.
- Driving Sales at Full Throttle in the Digital Age, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Make online sales programs more profitable than traditional initiatives, including the showroom floor, using scalable methods that are practical for any dealer, regardless of size.
- Cyber Attacks: Silent But Deadly, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Dealers and executives will gain a greater awareness of their dealership infrastructures’ susceptibility to cyber attacks; identify cyber-related weaknesses in internal controls; assess their dealership’s overall risk of cyber attacks; employ immediate takeaways/action items to implement various cybersecurity measures and mitigate cyber threats.
- Turn Your Dealership into a Customer Experience Machine, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Customer experience is mission critical, and every interaction your staff has with a customer can make or break it. From an Internet inquiry to a service call to your sales team, everyone in your dealership must be trained to offer world-class customer care.
- Effective Strategies to Cultivate Business with Your Local Customers, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Cultivate business relationships with local customers with a promotional strategy focusing on: identifying local prospects are; structuring your local sales force to grow volume; using you CRM to optimize local sales; effective advertising budgets; loyalty programs; and leveraging your dealership presence to build relationships with local customers.
- Five Strategies to Dominate Your Market, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
How has the retail marketplace changed for you over the past 10 years, five years– or even the last year? Discover five key areas to excel in to grow market share and increase profitability. Redefine “why buy,” leverage consumer insights to grow sales, build a better team and apply and innovation strategy used by Fortune 500 companies to gain competitive advantage.
- Eyes Wide Open: Financial Management Methodology, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Financial statements are report cards for your organization. You should be able to easily gauge in 60 seconds whether your dealership is winning or losing. The timeliness, accuracy and clarity of financial statements are indicators accounting department effectiveness, which indicates how well a business is operated. Does your financial management methodology measure up?
- Finally Get a Positive ROI on Your Digital Marketing: Insider Secrets Revealed, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Cut through the lingo and get straight to the strategies that successful dealers use today for the best return on their digital marketing spend. Learn an integrated strategy using organic search, paid search, GeoFencing, social media, mobile marketing and more, resulting in measurable units sold.
- Dominate with Data; How to Use Google’s Free Tools to Sell More Cars, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Google has been changing faster than ever over the last year, tweaking their local search, creating new ad platforms such as Customer Match and creating and improving their free marketing tools. Learn to use these new tools, data and product updates to increase vehicle sales, improve service retention and dramatically boost website and digital marketing ROI.
- Fixed Ops Marketing in a Mobile First World, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Effective digital and mobile marketing strategies can profitably increase service appointments, repair orders and dollars per RO. Learn to use Google and Facebook advertising to directly target your existing customer database online, and get a playbook for increasing fixed-ops website traffic, increase the conversion rate for that traffic and transacting parts sales online.
- Secrets to Getting More & Better Lender Approvals, 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Learn how to use today’s cutting edge technology along with tried-and-true sales techniques to get more deals approved and delivered at higher grosses and increase the quality and quantity of your subprime deals. It begins with a detailed analysis of your dealership’s performance among customers in different credit tiers. Leverage technology and maximize your inventory to target the right consumers and the right vehicles.
- Socialnomics: 5 Leadership Habits for Success & Happiness in These Digital Times, 1-2:30 p.m.
Leaders today are made, not born. Leadership takes many forms, there are five habits all successful leaders practice to achieve success and happiness in our hyper-paced and hyper-connected world. Embracing these habits will help you become more productive, reduce stress and drive automotive sales. This session will show you how to win hearts, wallets and minds in these challenging times. With pioneering video-storytelling techniques, this motivating message from is entertaining, educational and, most importantly, empowering. Erik Qualman’s Socialnomics has been featured on 60 Minutes and ABC News and in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times and Forbes. His diverse client list includes Chrysler, ADP, AutoTrader, Facebook Google Starbucks, Cartier, Polo, UGG, the National Guard and NASA. His book Digital Leader propelled him to be voted the 2nd Most Likeable Author in the World behind J.K. Rowling. Qualman is a sitting professor at Harvard & MIT’s edX labs. His books are used in over 200 of the world’s top universities. What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
