Attending the NADA Show is a must for many Canadian car dealers, but it can be a balancing act to manage speaker sessions, workshops, and dealer meetings with browsing exhibition halls loaded with new products and technologies.
For Bob Verwey, President of Owasco, Inc. in Ontario, having a game plan can make all the difference — and part of that game plan is ensuring rules are drawn up and followed by all the team members.
First, everyone follows a curfew to ensure all team members have the energy to get the most out of their day. “We have really strict rules, where we are gone and to our room by 10:30 p.m. We do not stay up until 11:00 p.m., 12:00 a.m., and you know the late, late hours of the evening. We are working there. If we want to party, we party at home.”
Verwey said his team will have fun at the end of the day, from 4:30-9:00 p.m., attending events and afterparties, but everyone is back in their room by 10:30 p.m. — and that, he said, is a very strict rule. “You don’t like it, you can’t come.”
When it comes to managing speaker session and workshop attendance, Verwey’s team prepares in advance; they get together and decide which person will attend which class. Sometimes the class is repetitive, in the sense that the dealer has already heard the information before, but these can be equally helpful.
“The classes are extremely important (and) how you attack (them) is important,” said Verwey. “You never sit up front and you always sit near the back. Within the first 15 minutes, if the class doesn’t go the right way, you leave the classroom and go to the next (one). Never as a group do you go to the same class together.”
Booking in advance is one of the solutions that came out of the team’s post-NADA meeting in Ontario, along with preparing the questions for the provider in advance.
On the show floor he suggests booking your appointments in advance. He knows the importance of doing this first-hand, as they did what he calls a “Mickey Mouse” version of this in 2019. He intends to do a better job next year. Booking in advance is one of the solutions that came out of the team’s post-NADA meeting in Ontario, along with preparing the questions for the provider in advance.
“We’re going to actually book a time just with SERTI, with all the general managers there, but we’re going to send them all of our questions in advance,” said Verwey. “We didn’t do this with SERTI last year, and we are right at the end of the show and we were talking to them, and we just ran out of time — and that’s not going to happen (next) year.”
Verwey said each manager prepares questions in advance, and is responsible for putting it all together and reviewing everything before sending the questions to the provider.
The NADA Show 2020 is set to take place from February 14-17, 2020 at the Las Vegas Convention Centre in Nevada.
