{"id":6520,"date":"2025-11-12T07:46:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/?p=6520"},"modified":"2025-11-12T07:46:59","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:46:59","slug":"dealers-tackle-hot-industry-topics-during-niada-bhph-dealer-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/dealers-tackle-hot-industry-topics-during-niada-bhph-dealer-forum\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealers tackle hot industry topics during NIADA BHPH Dealer Forum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Buy-here, pay-here dealers from across the nation converged on Nashville, Tennessee, to collaborate and exchange ideas at the NIADA BHPH Dealer Forum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conversations on best practices and tips to improve dealership operations never stopped, spilling out into the halls of the Loews Vanderbilt after breakout sessions and the dealer roundtables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a great show. You get the chance to drill down on specific topics in BHPH and that really resonates with us,\u201d said Mike Clark, Jr., of Appearance Plus Auto in Pinellas Park, Florida. \u201cI love the dealer interaction. [On the roundtable] every dealer contributed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are five highlights of this year\u2019s Dealer Forum<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dealer-led roundtables<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Matched with dealers of similar size and business model, dealers spent three hours on Monday addressing a variety of issues, including employee management, inventory management, reconditioning, underwriting, insurance, collections, compliance, capital and customer retention. The dealers even came up with their own hot topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a great group. We could\u2019ve stayed in there another nine hours,\u201d said Nathan Smith of Parker Auto Sales in Knoxville, Tennessee, who was one of the dealer moderators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best ideas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The NIADA BHPH Dealer Forum ended with the Best Ideas Contest in the Closing General Session Tuesday at the Loews Nashville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michele Somich of The Car Store in Piney Flats, Tennessee, won a free registration and hotel stay for the NIADA Convention and Expo from AutoZone for presenting the top idea. Somich shared with dealers how they increased sales and profits by offering liability insurance at the time of sale with micropayments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been great for us. It\u2019s helped us close more sales because the customer doesn\u2019t have to leave the lot to get liability insurance,\u201d Somich said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other finalists presenting were Jenne Madrueno of BHFC Financial Services, Thomas Rainey of Rainey Used Cars, Jason Holmes of True Value Auto Sales, Ben Brum of Carsmark, Maria Pericaz of Express Auto Financial and Keely Dishman of iGo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impactful education sessions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nine education breakout sessions provided dealers with the latest information on collections, underwriting and compliance from other dealers and industry experts. Dealer panels shared solutions for the service departments, how to utilize AI and the best ideas from 20 Groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deep-dive workshops<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dealers dove headfirst into three-hour work sessions Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke Godwin of Godwin Motors guided dealers through \u201cBuilding Versatility Into Your Business Model,\u201d including a deep dive into dealerships\u2019 numbers. Doug Turner of America\u2019s Car-Mart led dealers through \u201cThe Heart of the Matter \u2013 Inventory Management\u201d, tackling how to build a successful strategy for acquiring vehicles. NIADA 20 Group Moderator John Dismukes presented \u201cAll the Moving Parts to Moving More Metal,\u201d discussing sales, marketing and lead generation strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapting to change<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The opening session of the NIADA BHPH Dealer Forum presented dealers with solutions to the changing market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Payne of Goatforreal Media and Terry MacCaley of Big Time Advertising showed dealers how to use social media to move from customers scrolling on their phone to picking up a vehicle at the dealership. Darrell Steed of SmartWolf Consulting guided dealers through vehicle acquisition and buying from individuals. Phil O\u2019Sullivan of ID Privacy explained how AI can be utilized at the dealership to handle several tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To close the Dealer Forum, Andrew Street of Dealer OMG gave dealers the script to develop quick, easy and engaging videos for social media to attract customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buy-here, pay-here dealers from across the nation converged on Nashville, Tennessee, to collaborate and exchange ideas at the…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_appearance_grid":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-industry","8":"category-bhph","9":"cs-entry","10":"cs-video-wrap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}