Learning How To Run A Successful Dealership and Do It Better! Review of the Pros Elite Group’s IDEA Class What does it take to run your dealerships successfully if you are an independent dealer? How do you know if you are successful as a dealer? What metrics should you use? What are the things that other dealers are doing that you need to learn? Is there a better way of doing things than what you’re doing now? How do you stay on top of the best practices in this continuously changing environment? If you’re a dealer principal and actively managing a dealership, then I bet you’ve asked these questions many times. The Pros Elite Group has partnered with Todd Johnson ( Strategic Associates) and Mitch Morgan (Growth Achievement Partners) to deliver the training program specifically designed for office equipment dealer principals and top executives.  They call the program IDEA which stands for the Independent Dealer Executive Academy. Its mission is to teach dealer executives how to manage all functions of their business execute to the 100+ benchmarks in the industry model.   I was delighted to be invited to monitor the first IDEA training class and spoke with the creators of IDEA. How did Pros Elite Group come to the decision of creating the IDEA class? Jerry Newberry: After working with over 100 independent dealers past few years, we saw there was a lack of any extensive President/GM training offering similar to what Global Imaging offered for all company Presidents. Training that didn’t just focus on benchmarks but covered key execution strategies to over-achieve all benchmarks. What did it take to prepare the IDEA training course? Steve Rolla: It took about 6-7 months to pull together an offering this extensive. We polled 10-15 of our Pros Elite group of company presidents on what they felt would be beneficial information and met with leading industry specialists to ensure we had a “world class” presentation for each module. After conducting the first class what are your afterthoughts?   Jerry Newberry: We were very pleased with the flow of the class and the extremely positive reviews that showed we laid the curriculum out in the manner planned, and it was perceived as a very positive experience. We requested any changes the attendees would like to see and received a couple of great ideas that have already been incorporated into our next class! The classes were conducted by Todd Johnson, Jerry Newberry, Jeff Kelly, Steve Rolla, Jeff Way and Mitch Morgan - all exceptional presenters and top notch experts in their field through experience gained from managing Global, IKON, Xerox and large independent dealerships. The course is filled with information on what to look for, how to execute, how to quantify, must do’s and don’ts, tactics to achieve benchmarks, and best practices in all aspects of running a dealership and strategies to incorporate MPS and MNS practice to grow and transform the business model in the changing environment. It’s an excellent course to measure your dealership’s overall performance and capabilities and to learn the best industry practices in all major areas of running your business. So much useful material was presented that it is easy to be overwhelmed... but in a good way. Some attendees were so inspired by the class, they wanted to go back to their dealership and implement what they learned right away. In fact, I think the real challenge is to focus on the few critical items for your particular business style and dealership, rather than trying to implement everything that you’ve learned. The attendees were very focused on learning and absorbing, asking great questions, and making the class experience interactive and lively. One thing I learned for sure after the class - you need to be very comfortable with many reports and numbers, and understand where all those numbers are coming from and what it means to your bottom line. As one of the attendees (who is a current PROS Elite 100 client) said afterward, he’s familiar with about 80% of the concepts and is already executing about 80% of what was presented. He still found it worthwhile to be there to learn about the other 20% to help drive his growth.   A few of my distinguished classmates at IDEA were kind enough to share their evaluations. My classmates were attentive, earnest and energetic participants. Their focus in the program made me understood why independent copier dealers always manage to not only survive but thrive through many challenging circumstances. Kudos to my classmates! “I wanted to give you a brief note about the IDEA class I attended along with the senior management from Northwest Office Technologies, Inc.  The class had a tremendous amount of information where you did not want to miss one second of the class.  We came away from the class with more knowledge than we could apply and much more than what we thought we were going to learn going into the class.  There was so much information that I would tell anybody that plans on attending the week long class that they should make it mandatory for all of their senior executives to go! It was an outstanding class and I highly recommend for any Office Imaging executive! Thanks again for teaching the class.” Rick Wickham, President & CEO Northwest Office Technologies, Inc. “Pros Elite Group’s IDEA training provides great all around education on how to run your business from some of the Industry’s finest. From benchmarking and accounting, to sales and service operations, to leadership, goal setting and strategic planning; you will undoubtedly pick up some ideas that will make this training pay for itself.” Kevin P. McCarthy, President & CEO Modern Office Methods “The IDEA Training covers every function of the office products industry and is an essential tool for executives to form an in depth understanding of our business from A-Z. This training is a road map to success for executives who take this information back to their respective companies and apply it to their business operations. This is a must for executives looking to not just grow their business, but prosper in the future.”   Matt Schuler, Director of Service, Administration & Operations , GFI Digital Inc “Being blessed with the opportunity to attend the IDEA training by the Pros Elite Group is like finding out you have been tapped to attend an executive’s “Top Gun.” Start to finish, you are in the trenches with the best of the best, getting exposure to best practices from every angle and by veteran industry experts. The class is worth every cent. I would highly recommend it to any executive, no matter what your background is. Those executives that don’t think you will find value, call me and let me know what market you are in....” Tyson S Johns, CPA, CFO Corporate business Systems, Springfield, MO u Contact Ryan Smythe (Ryan.smythe@ProsEliteGroup.com) or Jerry Newberry (jerry.newberry@ProsEliteGroup.com) for more information about the upcoming class.