DrivingSales Executive Summit 2014: Day 1

Earlier today, the 6th Annual DrivingSales Executive Summit 2014 kicked off from the Bellagio, Las Vegas. Before DSES began, there was a Canadian Breakout session and a Cox Automotive Panel, which was available for DSES dealers. On the DSES main stage, there were two keynote presentations given in the Bellagio Ballroom of the illustrious hotel by Florian Zettelmeyer and Brian Solis. Also marking the day were 6 breakout sessions, Best Idea Competition and fireside chat between Jared Hamilton, Jonathan Ord and Mitch Golub.

DrivingSales Founder and CEO, Jared Hamilton, started the day by paying tribute to Courtney Cole. Courtney is co-owner of Hare Chevrolet and finalized her last cancer treatment. Hamilton wanted to send a message of encouragement to her by making a video “selfie” of the entire ballroom. Hamilton held up his iPhone, hit record, and said, “Courtney what’s up its Jared Hamilton here at DSES and we just wanted you to know that your automotive family is supporting you and congratulating you on beating cancer.” He went on to say,” …in life and in the auto industry, I want you to know that you have a lot of support from us here in the DrivingSales Community.” Hamilton then turned his phone to the Bellagio ballroom crowd, which responded with a loud standing ovation.

As he opened up the conference, Hamilton explained, “This year we have greater depth in the agenda than we’ve ever had.” Hamilton was referring to the 30 breakout sessions broken down into six categories allowing dealers to easily build their own custom agenda according to their needs. This led to the introduction of Professor Florian Zettelmeyer who is Director, Program on Data Analytics at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Hamiltion noted, DrivingSales “wouldn’t exist if not for Florian.” Zettelmeyer’s address centered around Data Science and why dealers should learn about this important topic for themselves rather than attempt to hire their way to a data solution. Zettelmeyer’s keynote mentioned a previous DSES speaker, Billy Beane — GM of the Oakland A’s. According to Zettlemeyer, everyone gets the Billy Beane story wrong. Part of his address noted that many business executives didn’t understand Big Data until the Moneyball story about Billy Beane became popular. It made the importance of Big Data simple and explainable using something as easy to relate to as baseball. Reffering to Beane, Zettlemeyer said Beane, “had the courage of putting these ideas to work even though the social group that he wanted to be validated by didn’t stand behind him.” He went on to explain what it takes for dealers to gain a working knowledge of data science to improve their store. There is so much noise and confusion on big data and Florian was able to bring clarity to the subject for dealers and what they should be paying attention and how to manage their data in house.

Brian Solis’ keynote sought to help dealers look ahead to the future. Solis spoke on the need for dealers to change with a rapidly changing business climate or go the way of businesses such as Kodiak and Blockbuster. Solis featured a YouTube video in which a little girl was able to master an iPad, but struggled with the stationary non-digital nature of a magazine. He said this lesson is important because it doesn’t matter if it was a baby or thirty-year-old who struggled with the magazine, “that person grew up digital and they make decisions digitally first.” He talked about how important is for dealers to understand the group of consumers they’re dealing with. Earlier today, Solis, in an exclusive interview with DrivingSales News said “most websites suck.” He felt this was tied to how websites looked in the 90s, that perhaps, many just feel this is what a website is supposed to look like. Solis certainly sought out to inspire and entertain dealers into innovating so they won’t be left behind.

Be sure to check back with us tomorrow evening for a recap of DSES day two.