As the automobile industry appears to be improving, the National Automobile Dealer Association is getting read for its annual automotive convention. With car and truck sales predicted to be between 12-13 million cars it should be a big year for manufacturers and dealers. I personally think annual sales will exceed even the most optimistic expectations. But the winners will not be those that depend on the economy's recovery but rather those that depend on great processes, great execution and great people.
Car and truck dealers and manufacturers nationwide have been gravely impacted by the economic crisis, reducing sales of new automobiles from seventeen million to under ten million annually. Thousands of car dealerships were closed resulting in tens of thousands of lost jobs at the retail level not counting those lost because of cutbacks at the manufacturer level. Just retail auto dealers are responsible for over 1 million jobs in the U.S. so their solvency is critical to the US economic recovery!
Founded in 1917, NADA represents more than seventeen thousand new car and truck dealers, both domestic and import, with more than 37,500 separate franchises. More than 91 percent of U.S. new-vehicle dealers are NADA members and a large majority is expected to attend the day event in San Francisco.
I am working with NADA again this year to deliver automotive sales and management training workshops that will demonstrate exact strategies that automobile dealers must employ to get their part of the upcoming recovery. While people will be returning to car dealerships in the upcoming year, increased competition is forcing dealers to be better at the customer experience.
In addition to providing sales and management workshops for their annual convention, NADA is very active on Capitol Hill supporting its members. I aggressively worked with NADA in its most recent victory passing the Brownback Amendment which excluded auto dealers from the White House's bank reform bill. This would have limited dealers ability to provide financing to car buyers and gravely impacted the dealers' viability and limited financing choices for automotive consumers.
The Nada Convention 2011 is being held in San Francisco, CA Feb 5-7.
Grant Cardone, NY Times Best Selling Author, Automotive Sales Training Expert