DrivingSales Executive Summit 2015: Day 2 Recap

Here are some of the highlights from Day Two of DSES 2015.

Day 1 Recap

Day 3 Recap

“Planning for 2016” was the theme of Jared Hamilton’s address and welcome to attendees at Day Two of the 2015 DrivingSales Executive Summit. Hamilton is the Founder & CEO of DrivingSales and the progressive summit for auto dealers takes place each year at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

“We are flush with cash right now as an industry and our income statements look good,” he said. Although SAAR has reached a record high and the profit for the average dealership in the country was a net of just shy of $1.1 million, margins are completely stable at a narrow 2.2 percent net to sales.

Hamilton went on to review the fundamental economics of net profit, before he dropped the bomb statistic: dealership salesperson turnover is 66 percent annually and the people piece of dealership expenses is $58.1 billion annually. The message: dealerships need to optimize their human capital to remain relevant to customers and grow their business in 2016.

The fast-talking redhead made a compelling case for dealers to improve human capital management by balancing labor & technology, aligning teams for greatest impact (including responsive selling), and lastly managing labor costs.

“Labor rates do not equal total labor costs. Your total labor cost is not on your financial statement and your total labor cost is not on your 20 group composite,” he said; urging the dealer audience to consider the high cost of turnover.

He left the group with the plan he’ll implement in his stores in 2016:

• Lock in any variable interest rates
• Implement Responsive Selling
• Lower labor costs by 10 percent (Training up/Turnover down)

Next up on the main stage, Leif Babin and Jocko Willink utilized combat leadership principles to encourage auto dealership leaders to take personal responsibility for the success of their teams. The duo drew on their experience from building and running SEAL leadership training for their co-authored book, “Extreme Ownership: How Navy SEALs Lead and Win.”

Decentralized command is core to the laws of combat and extreme ownership; and it’s the opposite of micromanagement. “Everyone on the team is a leader,” Willink said. According to the two, trust and confidence between leaders is core because troopers must understand not just what to do, but why they are doing it.

The message “leading up and down the chain of command” resonated within the room and on social media. Attendees tweeted their take-aways using #DSES:

• “Buy in comes from understanding and embracing strategy and goals”
• “You must own your own role plus those ABOVE and BELOW your position”
• “Control everything in your world; own both success and failure up and down the chain.”

The afternoon keynote by Robert Rose proposed the idea that experiences are the next era of marketing. Rose is the Chief Strategy Officer for the Content Marketing Institute and Senior Contributing Analyst for the Digital Clarity Group.

Rose began by identifying differentiation and effectiveness as the major challenges that face marketers in the automotive retail space and proposed the question “what do you really do?” He went on to guide the audience through the evolution of marketing to where it is today; an environment where the consumer has adapted but marketing hasn’t.

He utilized perspectives from outside the industry to build a case that a marketer’s responsibility in driving purchase and loyalty is in developing “anticipatory delight” in awareness experiences, nurturing experiences and loyalty experiences. So, what do marketers really do? They create remarkable experiences.

Around mid-day, three dealer-judges and five finalists hit the stage to pitch their solution as the Most Innovative Solution of the Year in the Innovation Cup vendor competition. Representatives from AutoMotion, DealerVault, AutoPoint, RevolutionParts and VirtualDeal presented a five-minute pitch for their product followed by Q&A. Winners will be announced tomorrow.

The final speaker of the day aligned with insights from Jared Hamilton’s morning keynote. Hamilton shared that while marketing spend captures $8.4 billion dealership-dollars annually, the effects of more spend do not scale.

David Amerland, a Web expert that applies a scientific perspective to traditionally intangible feelings-based concepts and branding on social media, said scale begins with trust.

“Trust is a journey from low risk, low assurance to high risk, high assurance,” he said. The caveat, Amerland says, is that trust is relationship-based. In the new faceless environment digital presents, market share will be gained in making in personal, making it personable, and keeping it real.

The structure of DSES includes breakout sessions throughout the day with dealer-selected instructors with deep tactical expertise in areas across the dealership. Over 30 sessions took place today with about 1,100 dealership professionals and vendors in attendance.

While themes were tailored to attract leadership from across the dealership: people process was a common thread throughout the breakouts. Ron Henson, delivered “Responsive Selling: 101 Empowering Salespeople.” The message, “hire for attitude, train for skill, process, and product. Jonathan Ord, attracted over 100 attendees with his four key components to transforming employees into brand ambassadors.

Another popular breakout session featured the dealership’s fixed operation. Jonika Hoomes from Google teamed with Denim Simkins, DrivingSales fixed ops director, to quantify the opportunity and help dealerships “pan for gold” by streamlining the digital experience of the service department.

DSES kicked off yesterday and DrivingSales News will continue coverage of the event until it concludes tomorrow. Dealership professionals can follow event highlights by following #DSES on social media.