Ken Shilson, president of the National Alliance of Buy-Here, Pay-Here Dealers, reported that more than 50 percent of the surveyed attendees who came to the recent Fall BHPH Conference had never been to an NABD event previously.

Evidently, those operators left Orlando, Fla., as quite satisfied customers.

“Attendee evaluations unanimously indicated that the program will help them succeed in 2018 and beyond,” Shilson said. “Our speakers and sponsors did an outstanding job and made the event one of the most popular conferences in our 20-year history.”

At least one of those attendees appears to be ready to come to future NABD conferences, as well.

“It was great. I found out I’ve been operating in the dark for a few years now. I will never miss it anymore,” said Ivan Tello of Irotema Holdings in Land O’Lakes, Fla.

Vincent Lewis of Crown Auto Sales & Finance of Charlotte, N.C., added, “The NABD Conference organizers truly understand the needs of the dealers. The BHPH business is a very diverse business.”

The three-day event with the theme, “Opportunity Knocks – Best Ways to Respond,” began with a session orchestrated by Shilson and NABD’s Ingram Walters that also featured BHPH Hall of Fame inductions of Rick Potter and Stan Schwarz, who made life-long contributions to the BHPH industry and were inducted posthumously.

The conference included 14 different concurrent workshop Sessions covering inventory acquisition and financing, national reconditioning survey results, ways to increase sales, F&I products for success, GPS collection tools, DMS software solutions, capital acquisition, integrated technology solutions, regulatory protection by state dealer associations, an accounting/tax update, maximizing recoveries, best underwriting practices and collection “hot spots” to avoid.

All these workshops were interactive so attendees could ask questions and get answers on these important topics.

“Great training. I came last year, and it is one of the best, more educational conferences I have attended,” said Kim Frederick of Motory Group in Gainesville, Fla.

“Don’t be good, be better. The NABD will help you and your business be better," said Irma Gamboa of Fresh Start Finance in El Paso, Texas.

Thomas Rainey, of McNair McLemore, Middlebrooks & Co., in Macon, Ga., added, “Very educational and informative. Learned a lot and realized there is a lot I need to learn.”

The event also featured a “first timer” reception with more than 150 attendees.

Another highlight was the charity auction of a customized golf cart donated by Manheim. The proceeds from the auction went to the hurricane relief fund established by the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association and the Texas Independent Automobile Dealers Association for the benefit of victims of these recent natural disasters.

NABD announced that a portion of the conference proceeds will be donated to the relief fund, too.

“The NABD Orlando conference continues to bring important information and training to the buy-here pay-here dealer attendees. As the industry continues to mature, the relationship between vendors and dealers becomes more critical. Thanks to NABD and NIADA for making conferences like this possible,” said Bill Murphy of Collateral Protection Insurance and Associates of Huntsville, Texas.

Conference presentations, photos and more are now available on NABD’s website at www.bhphinfo.com.