Highlights of DealerTalk 2016
This year’s edition of Kijiji’s DealerTalk went down at the Allstream Centre on Tuesday, September 20. One of the changes for this year was having two streams that attendees could attend; one for sales and marketing, and the other for the executive level. I personally thought this was a great way to provide attendees with the flexibility to attend what mattered to them most.
The day opened with an inspiring keynote from Georgian College Alum, Olympic Gold Medalist and TV personality Jon Montgomery. Jon is definitely a charismatic and fearless guy. Who else flies head first down a sheet of ice at 140km/hour? Or just hands his golf medal into a crowd and says: “I’ll get it later”?
After Jon Montgomery, dealers were invited to head to their first break out session. Due to the fact that I can only be in one place at a time, I cannot give you a break down of all the sessions, but if you are looking for a bigger breakdown check out the site: https://dealertalk.ca/.
I checked out Alan Dickie’s presentation on how he uses video and Facebook for his business and how car dealers can do the same. Alan is definitely an energetic presenter. He opened with asking everyone in the room to go to Facebook and put in their status “if I can guarantee you $3,000 over what your vehicle is worth would you trade it in?”. Towards the end of the session he asked the brave souls who did it what happened. It definitely generated some buzz.
After Alan I checked out Susan Seto’s data driven presentation on what motivates Canadians to buy a car. This was a jam packed session with a lot of charts. Having just attended Google’s Think Auto event, I was interested in seeing what Susan had to say. It’s important to note that Think Auto samples 5,000 individuals while, to my understanding, this data was based on 1,800 individuals. Biggest difference in my mind was in the data on most important sources used when buying a car. There was a little bit of overlap, but while Google says Search, OEM Sites, Dealer Sites and Reviews are where customers are looking, Kijiji – surprisingly – placed classified sites on the list and did not have a single mention of dealer websites. Seems a little convenient, but then again, I sell dealer websites and Kijiji sells classified listings. You’ll have to decide for yourself or trust Google!
After lunch I checked out Kyle Costa’s presentation which focused on some fundamentals that you need to get right and then some next level initiatives you can work on when you have the foundation laid. I agree with Kyle’s mentality that other industries are being disrupted and our industry is ripe for the picking. Companies like Carvana and Beepi are making an attempt to change the game and if you don’t step up, they will succeed. Kyle provided real examples straight from the trenches that are working for him, not just ideas a consultant dreamed up and has never tried.
Kevin Graff closed the day with an afternoon keynote which was very impressive considering he had only 30 minutes. Kevin had everyone agreeing that we can all sell more and provided us with five foundations to do this:
- Focus on Goals – if I called anyone in your store would they know their target?
- Share Results Constantly
- Accountability for Success – people play the game different when they know it matters
- Ongoing Training and Coaching – do you train every week?
- Make it Worthwhile
Overall, I thought that the day was well put on and well received by the attendees. I also really appreciate the sweet K-Way jacket from Kijiji!
