With NADA coming up and the Digital Dealer Conference right around the corner, dealers are faced with the question “who do we send?’ Or are they? Does this really ever come into question? Automotive conferences have evolved over the years; many geared heavily toward education. Dealers have the opportunity several times a year to expose their best and brightest to the auto industries best and brightest. I was fortunate to have spent most of my automotive career with a very forward thinking dealer. One who understood that without exposure to information outside of the store, the gene pool would get pretty shallow.
So just what is holding dealers back from sending their key team members to educational automotive conferences? With respect to your advertising budget and the amount of money you will save in the long run, 
the cost of sending attendees from your store is miniscule. In many cases, it’s just been the status quo that conferences have always been attended by dealer principles and general managers. What has changed is that the application of what is learned at these events is not easily translated back at the dealer level.
It is extremely important that the practitioner in your store has the opportunity to learn the latest and best practices and technologies firsthand. For me, it was as much about the networking and relationship building as it was about the instruction. I learned as much, if not more, from my peers than I did from any other source during my career. This still holds true today.
If you are uncomfortable sending your manager alone, then the GM or dealer principle should attend with them. This will most likely turn out to be a very positive learning experience for both of you. In any case, you should set expectations for the attending team member. General Managers should review the conference agenda with the attendee and decide which sessions would benefit their store the most and decide who would attend which session. A review of the vendors who will be there would reveal the ones that have a product or service that you think would be a fit for your store. Set the expectation that the conference would be reviewed once back at the store.
Agreeing on a list of objectives will give you both a clear understanding of what the “take away should be. Give your attending manager a set and fair food and expense budget. This will actually give them more of a comfort level while at the conference, since they will know exactly what the boundaries are. When your manager returns from the conference, schedule a meeting to review the conference and decide which new tools or practices to implement. The education and growth of your team will be the lynchpin to your dealership’s success in the future. Things move much too fast these days to continue to rely on what you already know.
