After their highly successful Social Media boot camp event in February, the Trillium Automobile Dealers Association (TADA) is organizing a series of Digital Dealer events across Ontario in September.
Organizers say there are still spots available for all three Digital Dealer II events, so there’s still time to register.
The speakers are leading thought leaders who can help dealers and their staff better understand how to get a handle on the evolving and rapidly changing world of social media and digital marketing.
The first event takes place in Toronto (Vaughn) on September 25, followed by an event the next day in London and the event wraps up in Ottawa on September 27th.
Here are the dates and details:
Toronto – Sept. 25, 2012: 9 a.m-5 p.m.
Hilton Garden Inn Toronto/Vaughan
3201 Highway 7, Vaughan, Ont., L4K 5Z7
London – Sept. 26, 2012: 9 a.m-5 p.m.
Hilton London Ontario
300 King Street, London, Ont., N6B 1S2
Ottawa – Sept. 27, 2012: 9 a.m-5 p.m.
Holiday Inn & Suites Ottawa Kanata
101 Kanata Ave. Ottawa (Kanata), Ont., K2T 1E6
Topics include: The Do’s & Don’ts of Building and Leveraging Online Reviews, Building A Successful Internet Dealership and Inbound Marketing Strategies for 2012, and much more.
The TADA says the event is targeting a range of people throughout a dealership including: Dealer Principals, General Managers, Internet Sales Managers, e-Commerce Directors, BDC Managers, CRM Managers, Pre-owned Managers, F&I Managers, and Fixed Operations Managers and Service Managers.
Speakers include:
Jeff Cowan – The Truth About Express Services: Jeff Cowan’s experience comes from being in the trenches. He is in his 26th year of doing business and has spent the greater part of that time standing on service drives, side by side with Service Advisors, successfully training them in the art of Selling, Customer Service, Customer Retention, and Communication Skills. He has visited over six hundred automobile dealerships throughout the United States and Canada and is generally recognized as North America’s authority when it comes to training Service Advisors. Jeff has earned numerous selling awards from various retail companies, numerous Dealer 20 Groups, other automotive associations. Additionally, Jeff has over thirty years of sales experience and he is one of NADA’s top three speakers at their annual convention.
Shaun Raines – How Stuff Works: Building A Successful Internet Dealership: Shaun Raines is the Executive Director of DrivingSales University. Known for speaking the truth, he is truly an internet car guy. Shaun studied automotive service and sales management at the Professional Automotive Training Center in Shoreline, Washington. In 1998, he began working with Reynolds & Reynolds on a team that launched and supported ground-breaking products such as Microsoft’s CarPoint.com, CarsDirect Connect, Yahoo! Autos and Reynolds Web Solutions. Beyond Shaun’s 20 years of automotive experience, he is one of the most honest and engaging speakers in the automotive industry. Audiences have described him as authentic, approachable and real.
Sean Stephens – Everything Changed with the Internet?: Sean Stephens has never had a real job. In fact, he is currently between jobs – one as CEO of Treefrog Interactive Inc., a world renowned website development agency based in Newmarket Ont., and CEO of LassoSoft Inc., a popular website programming language which runs millions of websites worldwide. Sean’s teams – the Frogs and Rhinos – have themselves built thousands of websites since the early days of the web. During this time, Sean has become a recognized website development expert in the principles of website sales philosophy, web usability, white-hat SEO and the principles of online business strategy. If you need perspective on how to make an effective website, he is your man.
Heather MacKinnon – The Do’s & Don’ts of Building & Leveraging Online Reviews: Heather MacKinnon has served as the Vice President of Sales at DealerRater for the past four years and during that time has worked to bring over 4,300 dealers onto the DealerRater Certified Dealer Program. Heather has been offering online Automotive Solutions to Dealers for the past 10 years and has worked in key positions at Autotrader.com, DataOne Software and Citysearch. Heather is passionate about bringing long-term solutions to dealers to help them grow their business.
Todd Smith – Inbound Marketing Strategies for 2012: Todd is Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of ActivEngage Inc., the automotive industry’s leading live chat service provider. He has over 20 years of successful industry experience and has worked in every facet of dealership operations, including spending 2007 as the general manager of a Chevrolet dealership. Todd has developed some of the most cutting edge eBusiness, BDC and showroom sales strategies and solutions for a variety of clients including Ford, Ford of Canada, AutoNation, Budget Car Sales, Maritz Inc, Mazda North America, Toyota Motors Sales, ADP AutoTrader.com and over 1,500 dealerships across the U.S.
Tim Wilson – Digital Marketing. Are Your Realizing Your Potential?: Having recently joined Google in May 2011, Tim manages two sales teams (or ‘pods’) out of the Toronto office – Automotive and Local/BIM/Government. His teams focus on delivering digital marketing solutions across a variety of platforms (search, display, video and mobile) in order for his clients to exceed their business and marketing objectives. His online career has spanned over 15 years starting with a website that he and a colleague developed in 1996 to take on Auto Trader (autoguide.net).
The event also features special guest speakers. For the Toronto event, it’s CTV and TSN sportscaster Rod Black.
Rod Black’s knowledge, versatility and enthusiasm have earned him a reputation as one of Canada’s most recognized and distinguished sportscasters. In his 24 years as a sports journalist, Rod Black has been involved with a variety of different events and competitions, fitting into each role with ease. Black’s extensive sports resume includes play-by-play commentating on TSN for Blue Jays Baseball, CFL, golf and figure skating, hosting duties on TSN for the NBA, and anchoring CTV’s coverage of the Canadian Open, MasterCard Skate Canada and Canadian Figure Skating Championships. Rod Black has also covered the Olympics, including the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer and the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona.
At the Ottawa event, Cyril Leeder President of the Ottawa Senators, will speak on behalf of Sens Foundations. The Sens Foundation, Roger’s House is an eight‐bed pediatric palliative and respite care facility offering children and their families a full service program with elements of outreach, residential hospice, pain and symptom management, grief and bereavement counseling and research.
For more information, visit: www.tadaevents.ca
