Dealers love hearing from other dealers. You can tell that every time there’s a gathering of car dealers. The volume rises to rock concert decibel levels, and they squirrel away here and there, networking and sharing industry views and insights. A little sharing about their latest OEM disputes always seasons the conversation.
At this year’s CADA Summit, held last week in Toronto, Ontario, a record number of dealers attended and a record number also took part in the sessions. Many said this was the best event in its 13-year history, and the insights from frontline dealers were a big part of that sentiment.
The day started with journalist Jason Stein interviewing three prominent leaders of large Canadian dealer groups: Christian Chia, CEO of OpenRoad Auto Group; John Hairabedian, President and CEO of H Gregoire; and Laura Zanchin, Principal and Executive Vice President of Zanchin Automotive Group.
Rounding out those interviews was Zeeshan Mayeenuddin, Vice President & National Market Leader, TD Auto Finance, the event sponsor, who offered some economic and other insights.
Laura Zanchin said car dealers, while dealing with their own anxieties and concerns, have to work doubly hard to calm down and reassure their nervous car buyer customers. “They’re more apprehensive about everything, interest rates and inflation and all of that are still affecting them,” she said.
“We’re just trying to calm them down as best as possible. Right now everybody seems to be so uncertain and it doesn’t help when you listen to the news during the day. Every minute of the day there’s something new happening. At the same time, I will say I was very nicely reminded last night at dinner, that it’s still good to be in the car business. So we have to keep reminding ourselves of this in spite of all of the chaos that’s surrounding us.”
In terms of added pressure on dealers, they were asked about the at-times onerous demands of their OEMs for updating their facilities through mandated factory image programs. John Hairabedian said it’s much different in Canada than the U.S.
“Compared to the U.S., basically we have to do the image programs every 10 years. Where sometimes you go to the U.S. you’ll see a dealership that looks like a Tiki Hut. Right? And why does that dealership look like a Tiki Hut? Well, it’s because of the franchise laws they have there,” said Harabedian. “It doesn’t help us run our business. When we do an image program, what that really means is we need to sell more cars or make more money per car. And if you want to provide a great customer experience for our customers, we can’t feel like we have to squeeze every dollar from every customer.”
For his part, Christian Chia maintained a positive outlook, while addressing the challenges dealers are facing. “I think there’s a lot to look forward to. I think there’s a lot of pent up demand. I think there are plenty of new models that are coming to market. It’s back down to basics. Attracting, recruiting, and developing the very best professionals in our industry,” said Chia.
Later, Niel Hiscox, President of Universus Media and publisher of Canadian auto dealer interviewed one current chair, and one past chair from an OEM Dealer Council. Joining Hiscox were: Andy Caletti, Chair, Lexus Communications Team, Michael Crosby, and Past Co-Chair, Volkswagen National Roundtable. They were joined by Tim Reuss, CADA’s President and CEO.
“We have to maintain our ability to stay independent and our ability to be unique within the marketplace, while trying to satisfy OEM requirements in many different areas,” said Caletti. “We know our guests best when they’re coming into our store and how to take care of them, and it’s working that balance with our manufacturers on how to improve on that guest experience in a way that we know it’s going to work in the market.”
For his part, Crosby said for a well-functioning Dealer Council, the OEMs need to provide materials ahead of time and dealers need to do their homework. “I think having a good structure first, and having a planned agenda that you both have mutually decided the things that are important for you to talk about is important,” said Crosby. “It’s challenging for the dealers. They have to be engaged and in touch with their teams because the manufacturer is looking for information about their customers, how are they reacting to certain things, what strategy may not work, what they want to implement. We have to come prepared to bring that.”
For his part, Reuss made the case for the important role that Dealer Councils play, and why more dealers need to step forward to get involved. He said many times issues are discussed there before CADA is aware they are becoming an issue for dealers.
“I think the biggest challenge for Dealer Councils going forward is just the growing complexity of the issues themselves,” said Reuss. “All of that just points to the fact that if you are thinking as a manufacturer to change something, or develop something, the sooner you involve the Dealer Council, the easier it is.”
Finally, later in the afternoon, Hiscox moderated another session featuring three 2024 CADA Laureate Award winners: Peter Heppner, Preston Chevrolet Buick GMC Cadillac, Langley, B.C.; Alexandre Saillant, Groupe Saillant, Québec, Quebec; and Dean Cooley, Dean Cooley Motors, Dauphin, Manitoba.
“Leaders need to pivot and adjust to turbulence,” said Cooley. “There will be turbulence. I think there’s some understanding of what we’re going to go through that is going to take some hard work. At the same time, we’ve seen many times in history where we’ve gone through different things like the pandemic, the chip shortage and come out the other side really quite strong. So we have to have a little faith but we’ll get through it,” he said.
For his part, this message was promoted throughout the event by dealers and other speakers: dealers need to focus on what’s within their control. “We can only control what we can control and that’s where we live as dealers in the here and now and in the day to day. So I think we have to focus on what we do best,” said Heppner. “I always marvel at when we get together on these association boards, all these key competitors can sit down and we have so much more in common than we have business together.”
The third Laureate on the panel, Alexandre Saillant, said dealers have been very adaptable in recent years. He said some brands still have product shortages and others surplus inventory. “I have some brands that now have inventory and their goal is to maintain the gross. So that’s the biggest challenge,” he said. “All the salespeople that we hired during the pandemic, they don’t know how to sell. So we have to go and focus back on the key aspect of selling the vehicle and taking on new customers. This is where the revenues are,” he said, adding that leaders can still control and boost service department revenues even if vehicle sales sputter.
TD Auto Finance is the exclusive sponsor of the CADA Summit.
