Oct. 20-22, 2024 Columbus, OH
 

​Sunday, October 20, 2024

10:00 AM to 4:00 PM   

Registration — Sign-in and receive all your meeting materials, including your Rollick-sponsored lanyard.

(second floor of the Sonesta Hotel)

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1:00 PM to 2:00 PM

Bonus Session — Rob Hefner, president and CEO of Rider’s Advantage, provides a primer on starting a reinsurance program at your dealership.

( Muirfield Room)

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2:00 PM to 3:00 PM

Bonus Session — Bob Lettis, Senior VP of Business Development at 700Credit, goes behind the scenes at combating driver's license fraud and other compliance concerns.

( Muirfield Room)

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4:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Kickoff Session- Garage Composites trainer and partner Jordon Schoolmeester, helmed under the tutelage of GC co-founders Sam Dantzler and Tony Gonzalez, brings deep roots to this interactive presentation that will both engage you and make you smarter about how to make your dealership better in 2025. Dantzler and Gonzalez both trained under the late, great Ed Lemco, whose Updates are part of industry lore. With Schoolmeester now taking his turn to help dealership owners provide exceptional retail experiences, it's a new take on the Update - and one that you'll want to experience. Update will provide a chance for you as an NPDA Dealer member to get an up-close look at the nitty gritty details at the retail level from GC data. Whether you have been attending 20-club meetings for years or you've never considered joining one, this session will provide business operations metrics across all departments and offer talking points that will help you learn more about the potential of your dealership throughout the course of the next two days at Dealer Connect. Join us to take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead — and prevent you from "putting a screen door on a submarine," as Lemco would say!

( Muirfield Room)

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5:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Cocktail & Hosted Reception — Spend time with and get to know NPDA Sponsors, Exhibitors and Board Members. Drinks and hors d’oeuvres will be served.

(lobby area of  Muirfield Room)

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Monday, Oct. 21, 2024

7:00 AM to Noon

Registration — Say “hello” and sign-in for all your meeting materials, including your Rollick-sponsored lanyard.

(on the second floor of the Sonesta Hotel)

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7:00 AM to 8:00 AM

Hosted Breakfast Buffet— Get your day started with a hosted breakfast and good company!

( Pinnacle Room)

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7:00 AM to 8:00 AM

Networking Room Open — Visit with our exhibiting Partners and find out about event specials.

(Networking Room/Sciota)

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8:00 AM to 9:30 AM

Industry Leadership Summit — Join us as we reveal groundbreaking major announcements aimed at growing your customer base, improving staff retention and so much more! Meet your NPDA Board of Directors, discuss how the NPDA is benefitting our Members now and offer suggestions for the future. Also, learn from NPDA Board Member and Harley-Davidson Council Member Don Meyers about how effective NPDA Councils can be for those Dealer members who are willing to put in the time an effort. Pro tip – get your seat early!

( Muirfield Room)

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9:45 AM to 10:45 AM

Education Session – Garage Composites partner Jordon Schoolmeester will brings his session on "Accountability, Expectations, and Progress Tracking" to life. Take a look at how accountability shapes our team, the importance of setting clear expectations, and effective strategies for tracking our progress. We’ll explore what accountability means in both personal and team goals, learn how to establish realistic goals, and discover some tools for monitoring the "score.". Giving very defined expectations, holding them accountable and driving the team to win with through monitoring the progress. 

( Muirfield Room)

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11:00 AM to Noon

Education Session– Join your fellow dealer peers as you team up to learn how to improve your trade-in valuation skills in this session titled: “The Trade-In Valuation Process: How to make your pre-owned business more profitable.” Mike Murray, VP of Sales at National Powersport Auctions (NPA), will provide tips and tactics on how to make the most of your valuation process. Then dealers will split into small groups to come up with their own valuation of vehicles on site at Dealer Connect, using a variety of tools. After each group shares its insight and price that they would offer for the trade-in, the conversations will continue about how and why each group came to their conclusion.

( Muirfield Room)

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Noon to 1:30 PM

Hosted Lunch Buffet— Enjoy this hosted lunch with friends or sit in with one of our Partners, Board Members or Speakers.

(Pinnacle Room)

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1:30 PM to 2:45 PM

Education Session— Tom O’Connor from his namesake Sales Academy will get you and your staff dialed in on overcoming price objection. Too often, sales people lose control early in the Sales Process due to their inability to handle a price objection from a customer. In this session, titled “Overcoming the Price Objection – How to handle price on your feet and in your seat,” Tom will share 20 powerful and effective word tracks for handling price both in the showroom and during follow up through voice, text, and email.

( Muirfield Room)

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2:45 PM to 3:30 PM

Hosted Afternoon Break— Stretch your legs and grab a beverage or snack while you talk with our exhibiting Partners.

(Networking Room/Sciota)

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3:30 PM to 4:30 PM

Education Session – Is your Parts department operating at optimal speed? Is the department contributing as much to your dealership’s overall performance as it should be? Join dealership management veteran Patrick Weekley from NCM Associates in this session titled “Buying Better in Parts by Focusing on Inventory Categories” that will focus on using Categories to improve Parts department performance. Whether you currently use 0, 8, or 100 categories, Patrick will provide insight on tips for more profitability in 2025. Attendees will receive a prepared list of Parts and Accessories categories and be shown tactics for implementation to take back to their dealership.

( Muirfield Room)

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4:30 PM to 5:30 PM

CBIZ Cocktail Hour — Head over to the Networking Room to get to know our Partners from CBIZ and be sure to tell them thanks for the drink!

(Networking Room/Sciota)

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5:30 PM to 7:00 PM

Hosted Dinner and Networking — Join us alongside longtime dealer friends, NPDA Partners and attendees over dinner (3 minute walk from Networking Room)

 

Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024

7:00 AM to 8:30 AM

Hosted Breakfast Buffet — Enjoy this eye-opening, hosted breakfast to get you off to an energetic start. Don’t forget to wear your lanyard from Rollick.

(Pinnacle Room)

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7:30 AM to 3:30 PM

Exhibitor Area Open— Stop by to start or finish those important conversations with our exhibiting Partners.

(Networking Room/Sciota)

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8:30 AM – 9:45 AM

Education Session– Join dealership management veteran Patrick Weekley from NCM Associates to learn how to make your Parts department more profitable in 2025. Titled “Reset and Renew - Aligning Your Parts Inventory Management to Today's Environment,” Patrick will offer expertise in a variety of profit-building areas, from vendor negotiations to obsolescence, returns and more, get a step ahead in Parts with one of the most trusted professional sources in the industry.

( Muirfield Room)

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10:00 AM – 11:15 AM

Education Session– National Powersport Auctions (NPA) CEO Jim Woodruff offers a behind-the-ropes look at the pre-owned space in 2024 and where it’s headed in 2025 in this session titled “How to Make 2025 Your Best Year Yet in Pre-Owned Sales.” Woodruff will provide insight on the year that was in pre-owned, and how dealers can capitalize on more than two decades of NPA pre-owned sales data to build their used bike business in 2025.

( Muirfield Room)

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11:15 AM – Noon

Education Session– Opportunity is knocking on your digital front door – how you answer is the key to more transactions and vehicle sales. Longtime dealer principal John Greene, who now also calls LeadHelm home, will take us behind the ropes of all things digital lead management, and how this ever-growing responsibility can add to your profitability in 2025.

( Muirfield Room)

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Noon to 1:30 PM

Hosted Lunch Buffet— Lunch and Learn with new and existing friends. Pick a table that will feature a built-in conversation topic, from digital lead management to F&I, and service department to social media to NPDA insights and more.

(Pinnacle Room)

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1:30 PM to 2:15 PM

Education Session – Tom O’Connor from his namesake Sales Academy will offer insight on how to take your sales team to the next level in 2025. Habits are formed through repetition and Sales Managers, like all human beings, can get stuck in a rut. This session, titled “Sales Management in Uncertain Times: How do I from good to great?,” will force Managers to re-evaluate what they do and how they do it. When they return to their dealership, every attendee will have a fresh perspective and renewed vigor as they become better at managing people, process, and profitability.

( Muirfield Room)

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2:15 PM to 3:15 PM

Education Session – Longtime industry trainer Jeremy DeFelice from Jackson Dawson will provide insight into “Sales and the Customer Experience.” The session will show attendees what a great sales experience looks like, how to diagnose their own sales experience, and create an action plan attendees can take back to their dealership for implementation. Among the topics - Review what makes the powersports retail experience unique; Identify customer shopping trends that are changing how dealership sell; Establish key customer experiences that lead to buying decisions; Complete a self-evaluation of the sales experience; and Document an action plan for improvement.

( Muirfield Room)​

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3:15 PM to 3:30 PM

Wrap-Up, Review and Closing Announcements

( Muirfield Room)

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