The SDADA board of directors will be hosting our annual SDADA Winter Board Reception with Legislators on Monday, February 8 at 6:00 PM at the Ramkota Hotel & Conference Center in Pierre. You are strongly encouraged to attend. If you cannot attend, please consider calling your legislators and invite them to attend.

On Tuesday, February 9, the SDADA Board of Directors will conduct their Winter Meeting at 10:00 AM at the Ramkota Hotel & Conference Center. You are invited and encouraged to attend this event as well.

You can find our preliminary agenda below. We almost certainly will be adding to it. Please look it over. Contact me or any of the board members with your thoughts, questions or concerns. Or better yet, join us for the meeting. ALL association members are invited.

Please feel free email me at dougk@harryk.com.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS AGENDA

10:00 a.m.

Note: During this meeting we will have three presentations with strategic marketing partners, one by DealerPay at 11:00, one by American Fidelity at 11:30 and one by ACV Auctions at 1:00 and a fourth presenter regarding strategic planning by Paul Meyer at noon.

1. Call to Order

2. Review the fact that we operate under federal anti-trust guidelines

3. Roll Call

4. Following our electronic format for disseminating board information, everyone should have received the following:
• Fall Board Meeting minutes - discussion and motion for approval
• 2nd quarter financial statement - (Review of financials - Pam Kolseth via Zoom at 10:15) discussion and motion for approval
• South Dakota Automobile Dealers Association Foundation balance
• Important Upcoming Dates

5. Chairman’s discussion items

6. Membership Reports (SDADA & NADA) - Michelle

7. 2021 and 2022 Convention discussion

8. Scholarship applications & Tool Grant applications are available this month

9. NADA Director's Report - Trace Beck

10. SD & NADA PAC Reports - Karris McKie-Kaiser

11. NextGen Meetings - convention - other dates

12. 2021 Legislative Session and current bills discussion - Myron

13. Marine/boat dealers as SDADA Members discussion

14. Old Business

15. New Business • Elect new Secretary/Treasurer for the SDADA Executive Committee

16. Adjourn

At our SDADA Winter Board Meeting in January, we discussed the progress of our digital SDADA Update after four months. This newsletter is our primary tool for communicating with our dealer members  

Sign ‘em up!

Let me remind you that we want this email newsletter to be relevant to ALL dealerships employees. It is not just intended for the dealer. We are working to include information of value to ALL DEALERSHIP EMPLOYEES. The more our employees know about our industry, the better decisions they can make for us.

We will soon be including columns and info from state regulatory agencies and industry sources that will be of interest to all employees in your store. 

We currently have 304 subscribers to the SDADA Update. We want 1000 subscribers by the end of 2020. We need your help to get there.You can sign your employees up with the link at the bottom of the email.

Send us all your employee email addresses so we can send them the SDADA Update. We will not sell, give away or use these email addresses for any other purpose other than the newsletter.

Extra! Extra!

To make this publication as interesting as possible, we need your help. We need you to send us news that your fellow dealers and dealership employees will find to be of interest. Each of you consumes news from many different sources. When you see something of interest, SEND IT TO US!

This includes industry, statewide, community and human interest news. Share stories about things that happen in the car dealership.

Send us a link to the article or the relevant information so we can share it. We want to know if something good happens to you, your store or your employees. We’ll include it in our next edition.

For example, if your service manager won the state bowling tournament, send us a link or the pertinent information so we can share it. If you or your store is recognized in your community, let us know. If you see some news that will directly (or indirectly) affect the retail auto industry in our state, send us a link!

I believe this newsletter can be a great tool for our association but it requires input from all of you. Send us your ideas, suggestions and news. Help us make your association stronger!

At our Winter Board Meeting in Pierre, the subject of our current SDADA website came up. The discussion that followed lead to a decision that we need to upgrade/overhaul our website. Ryan Junek and Travis Vesely volunteered to lead that effort.

They will be gathering information on developers, functionality options and other factors that will push us toward a better site. If you have any input, please contact them.

While this may require a multi-phase roll-out, we will be start by focusing on several areas we discussed at our meeting. 

First, the website must be mobile friendly. Our current site is not and we know that between 50-60% of users access our dealership website via mobile devices. For many, if they cannot access via mobile, they just won't use it. There is no reason to believe that our association website is any different.

Our website need to be the primary conduit through which our members access our association. We have identified communication as one of the great challenges for SDADA. The website must be a tool for us in overcoming that communication gap and it must be more user friendly. 

We want to offer additional functionality that our current site cannot. For example, we want to offer you opt-in text alerts or updates for limited legislative and regulatory issues, video resources for both training and promotional purposes, expanded legislative and regulatory information, etc.

The discussion we had was broad and as the meeting progressed, we found other functions with which a more robust website would assist. We will be using other state automobile associations sites as models for ours.

I'm looking forward to this upgrade. I want to thank Ryan and Travis for their leadership with this project. We will keep you updated.

 

The SDADA board of directors will be hosting our annual Legislative Reception and Dinner on Monday, January 27 at 6:00 PM at the RedRossa Italian Grille, 808 W Sioux Ave in Pierre. You are strongly encouraged to attend. If you cannot attend, please consider calling your legislators and invite them to attend.

On Tuesday, January 28, the SDADA Board of Directors will conduct their Winter Meeting at 10:00 AM at Clubhouse Hotel & Suites. You are invited and encouraged to attend this event as well.

You can find our preliminary agenda below. We almost certainly will be adding to it. Please look it over. Contact me or any of the board members with your thoughts, questions or concerns. Or better yet, join us for the meeting. ALL board members are invited.

We are looking to get additional members involved so if you see a topic that is of particular interest, let me know. We would love to have your help!

Please feel free email me at dougk@harryk.com.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS AGENDA

Note: During this meeting we will have presentations from a group that will discuss education scholarship opportunities

1.     Board of Directors Meeting

2.     Call to Order

3.     Review the fact that we operate under federal anti-trust guidelines

4.     Roll Call

5.     Following our electronic format for disseminating board information, everyone should have received the following (we have duplicate packets for everyone)

• Fall Board Meeting minutes - discussion and motion for approval

• 2nd quarter financial statement - discussion and motion for approval (Pam is here and can discuss this financial statement in more detail)

• South Dakota Automobile Dealers Association Foundation balance

• Important Upcoming Dates

6.     Chairman’s discussion items

• SDADA Update - feedback

• Update on dealer contact and spouse information on new car dealer listing

• Drive distraction free campaign

7.     Membership Reports (SDADA & NADA) - Michelle

8.     Convention Committee Report

9.     Employee Recruitment & Retention Committee Report

• Scholarship applications & Tool Grant applications will be available next month

• Build South Dakota Grants

10.  NADA Director's Report - Trace Beck

11.  SD & NADA PAC Reports - Karris McKie-Kaiser

12.  Spring DMV Seminars

• DMV to write a guest article regarding title processing

• DMV to write a column as to how to handle bank requirements regarding perfection of liens.

13. 2020 Legislative Session and current bills discussion - Myron

14. Search committee report

15. Old Business

16. New Business

17. Adjourn

Myron referred to the forum on our SDADA website. Unfortunately, this forum has never been used. As members, we can use this forum to discuss a variety of topics.

In my discussions with dealer-members on my phone calls, several mentioned the idea of using a forum to discuss issues among each other. This is the tool we have to do that.

We can ask other dealers for advice on OEM issues. We can discuss regulatory and legislative issues. We can ask each other for or offer advice on a variety of topics.

You must log in to the SDADA website to use the forum. The link only appears when you are logged in. Only members will have access. 

You start by clicking on the “Create Topic” link and then name the topic. My advice is to be as precise with the forum topic as possible to give others a good idea of the discussion. 

Try to stay on topic with your remarks. If you have something that may be off topic, feel free to start another topic. All members can comment on any topic or on any other comment. You can also upload a file of less than 20 MB.

You can subscribe to the forum to receive notification of new posts. You can receive a daily update digest, weekly update digest or an immediate update whenever there is a new post. 

My single admonition is to remind you to adhere to FTC Antitrust Regulations.

Please consider using this tool to advance our association’s communication. I would suggest that, at a minimum, you log in and subscribe to a weekly digest to know the topic being discussed!

You can do that right here: http://www.sdautodealer.com/page-1042547

Over the past four months, I have been calling dealer/member on the phone to talk about our association. I have been reaching out to simply ask three questions:

1. What does the SDADA do well?

2. What could the SDADA do better?

3. What products or services should the SDADA offer its members that it doesn’t now?

I spoke only to new car dealers and NextGen dealers/managers. I apologize for not speaking to independent, RV, power sports or truck dealers. I wanted to start with new car stores. We really need the feedback from these other dealers as well. 

You can see that when I did get in touch with dealers, they were very generous with their time. Calls averaged 27 minutes which far surpassed the 8-10 minutes I expected  

I attempted to reach dealers through their company switchboards  I didn’t leave a call back number because I had a specified period of time in which I would call and did not want to start telephone tag  I would just attempt to call back later  

I compiled the feedback I got into word clouds. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the responses that I got. 

I presented this info to the board at our meeting in Pierre. They are using it to give some direction going forward. 

You can see the results below. I invite your feedback on this info. 

As you probably know, the SDADA board of directors will be meeting at 10:00 AM on Wednesday, November 13 at the Clubhouse Hotel & Suite in Pierre. I have included the agenda for our meeting below.

Please look the agenda over. Contact me or any of the board members with your thoughts, questions or concerns. Or better yet, join us for the meeting. ALL board members are invited.

We will be looking to get additional members involved so if you see a topic that is of particular interest, let me know. We would love to have your help!

Please feel free email me at dougk@harryk.com.

1. Call to Order

• Welcome to all
• Review the fact that we operate under federal anti-trust guidelines
• Roll call & introduce Lyle Magorien, from Chase Auto and RV in Ft. Pierre (newly appointed member filling the second non-franchised dealer position and the franchised RV Director’s position)

• Have Doug sign lobbying forms
• Have Executive Committee for SDADA and Services Board Directors sign

Resolutions

• Presentations during this meeting (Dealer 1-2-1, Derc Teschler and Federated Insurance, Ben Cox)

2. Everyone should have received the following by email - as requested, we have duplicate packets for everyone

• Winter Board Meeting minutes - discussion and motion for approval
• 1st quarter financial statement - discussion and motion for approval
• South Dakota Auto Dealers Association Fund balance
• Important Upcoming Dates

3. Chairman’s discussion items

• Dealer feedback from phone survey
• Convention
• Newsletter feedback
• Strategic planning
• Legislative visits
• Dealer District representatives responsibilities
• Arizona Titling service
• Bank contracts RE: production of negotiable title

4. Membership Reports (SDADA & NADA)

• NADA PAC 54.28% of our 2019 goal with 10 contributors so far
• SDADA PAC current balance is $12,393.74

5. Member Services Report

• ACV Auctions
• Ally
• 9clouds
• Dealer 1-2-1
• Vitu Company

6. Tool Grant Program (Handouts and discussion)

7. Non-refundable Deposit Receipt/Agreement

8. Upcoming legislative session

• County Treasurer fee bill
• Display of 25 plus model years old vehicles for sale in another county
• Rates for warranty parts and labor on refrigeration units and auxiliary power units
• Collection of tax and etc. at dealership

9. NADA & SDADA PAC Director’s Report

10. NADA Director’s Report

11. Old business

12. New business

13. Adjourn

Welcome to the new SDADA Update!

Every trade association I know of struggles with communication. That means both sending information to and receiving information from their members.

Our SDADA Bulletin, in its current printed form, is not an efficient mode of communication with our dealer members. Certainly a quarterly publication no longer qualifies as “news”.

So we are taking a page from the playbook of many other associations, inside and outside the auto industry, and going to an electronic newsletter. We don’t want to jam up your email box up so we will start with a semi-monthly (1st & 15th of each month) publication and adjust from there.

We want this email newsletter to be relevant to ALL dealerships employees. The more our employees know about our industry, the better decisions they can make for you. You can sign your employees up with the link at the bottom of the email. Send us all your employee emails so we can add them!

To make this publication interesting to all, we need your help. We need you to send us news that your fellow dealers and dealership employees will find to be of interest. Each of you consumes news from many different sources. When you see something of interest, SEND IT TO US!

This includes industry, statewide, community and human interest news. Share stories about things that happen in the car dealership.

Send us a link to the article or the relevant information so we can share it. We want to know if something good happens to you, your store or your employees. We’ll include it in our next edition.

For example, if your service manager won the state bowling tournament, send us a link or the pertinent information so we can share it. If you or your store is recognized in your community, let us know. If you see some news that will directly (or indirectly) affect the retail auto industry in our state, send us a link!

I believe this newsletter can be a great tool for our association but it requires input from all of you. Send us your ideas, suggestions and news. Help us make your association stronger!

“The art of communication is the language of leadership.”  -James Humes

Welcome to the official blog of the South Dakota Automobile Dealers Association. We are a non-profit trade association that represents the interests of dealers across the state.