It’s February 7, 2012…Now what?
Imagine it’s the day after NADA…the flurry of NADA activities, meetings, demo’s, and appreciation events are now behind you. All the planning before-hand has left you overwhelmed with action items. As you sit at your desk, you pull up your conference notes and after a quick glance say to yourself, “Where do I begin?”.
If you’re like me, the reasons you attend a conference is to learn, connect and apply. And, how do you organize all those presentation notes, business cards, marketing brochures, meeting notes and follow up action items? In follow-up to an article I read that Eric Miltsch posted on DrivingSales, I started thinking about “after” NADA. As you plan and schedule now, keep these three things in mind for AFTER:
As I sit at my desk AFTER NADA:
1) Create a summary of key learnings (all those highlights and notes you made) to forward to your leadership team (if they were there, keep it for yourself). This will serve as your working document and easy to decipher notes for use in strategy. If you had to write it now, what would you include?
2) With your goals outlined from "Before NADA" (which should align with the dealership strategy), list two action items for each of those listed in "before".
3) Expand on each with "how" each will be accomplished.
NOTE: Keep these three things in mind as you attend each event which will help organize actions into buckets along the way making the "after" easier "now".
An example check list to consider:
3 "must visit" companies:
1) Company A will help accomplish X 2) Company B will help facilitate X 3) Company C is new and I want to learn X so I can do X (personal development)
3 "must connect with" peeps and why each is important:
1) Peep #1 2) Peep #2 3) Peep #3
3 impacts I want to make in my dealership/s when I return:
1) Impact #1 (immediate application, high impact effecting goal X) 2) Impact #2 (<short term> action item, high impact effecting goal X) 3) Impact #3 (<long term> action item, high impact effecting goal X)
"Lead the Way" when you return and have a short, concise action plan detailing 2-3 deliverables for each goal, get the right people at your dealership on board (buy-in, involved), set realistic deadlines and ensure follow-up with each new connection.
Close the loop on your conference experience.
Check out this article where Todd Smith of ActivEngage is mentioned with his 2012 marketing trends that will have the biggest impact. How do your goals relate to these top 3?
