The National Independent Automobile Dealers Association is planning a Texas-sized celebration for its 75th anniversary.
The association announced on Friday that it will return to an in-person NIADA Convention and Expo after a year of virtual events due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 75th annual NIADA Convention and Expo will be conducted on Aug. 23-26 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio.
The association explained that it shifted the event from its traditional June dates for safety reasons. According to current estimates cited by NIADA, every American adult will have access to a COVID vaccination by the end of May.
While Texas no longer mandates COVID restrictions, NIADA said it will follow whatever protocols and precautions are necessary to ensure the well-being of convention attendees.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome our members back to the in-person experience that has been so popular over the years,” NIADA chief executive officer Robert Voltmann said in a news release. “This opens up so many education opportunities for independent vehicle dealers.”
The association highlighted those education opportunities will include sessions organized in three tracks — retail, buy-here, pay-here and service — as well as a new offering.
NIADA is launching a series of 20-minute single-topic micro-sessions called the Service Bay, which, Voltmann said, “will allow us to exponentially increase the number of topics we can address.”
As in the past, the association indicated the NIADA Convention and Expo also will include special events, awards and an expo hall featuring exhibitors offering the latest products and services to help dealers operate more efficiently, leverage technology, find finance sources, grow their business and stay ahead of the competition.
Furthermore, NIADA pointed out the convention venue is easily accessible from San Antonio’s famed River Walk and its restaurants and attractions, as well as the association’s headquarters hotel — the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter.
Future updates and more information will be coming soon and posted on niadaconvention.com.
Typically, conference organizers set an agenda ahead of time, but Ignite Consulting Partners tried a different approach and enjoyed great success with its first compliance-training event.
Last week, the firm hosted its inaugural Compliance Unleashed Conference for independent dealers and auto-finance companies as attendees completed a pre-conference survey designed to identify their needs and concerns.
“The idea was to bring compliance personnel together for an immersive learning experience focused on how to be a strong compliance leader,” said Steve Levine, Ignite’s chief legal and compliance officer.
Ignite co-managing partner Richard Hudson added, “Our classes not only focused on critical subject matter, but they were carefully designed to combine together to provide the audience with a clear action plan to make an impact.”
Levine and Hudson began the conference by addressing the importance of projecting compliance leadership within an organization, then presented the survey results and guided the audience with tips in a class entitled, “Building Your Compliance Success Story.” This segment was followed by an interactive discussion between service providers and the audience moderated by Hudson on how to approach vendor management.
Next, there were sessions on collections, credit reporting, preventing and defending lawsuits, building a compliance management system and sales compliance, all of which were crafted to provide critical insight that can be put to use.
To close the event, Hudson and Levine again shared the stage and presented two unique classes, “Action Items to Jumpstart Compliance When You Get to Work Tomorrow,” and “Lessons Learned Here and How to Communicate them within your Organization.”
Hudson said, “We felt it important to provide clear direction and action items.”
Levine added, “We hosted this conference to be an agent of change for how compliance is approached. Our goal is to motivate, educate and empower so that attendees can make an impact on their businesses when they return to work.”
To facilitate that goal, Ignite will include follow-up coaching to the attendees at no extra charge.
“We are sincere in wanting to help build a wave of highly competent and strong compliance leaders,” Hudson said, “and we think the follow up coaching will provide them with an opportunity to customize what they learned for their particular situations.”
“We are thrilled with the response,” Hudson continued. “To be able to bring over 70 folks together for our first event is validation of our approach.”
“Compliance folks we work with share a feeling of isolation in their efforts,” Levine went on to say, “so part of our goal for this event was to assist them with meeting and building a network with other people that share the same experiences.”
Given the enthusiastic feedback, Ignite is already planning a follow-up event next year.
“Just like compliance, our approach to this is to continually raise the bar and provide the industry with needed resources to keep improving,” Levine said.
For more details about the firm and its offerings, go to www.igniteconsultingpartners.com.
