Wrapping NADA

The NADA show is over and it was a pretty worthwhile endeavor, save for the last day when traffic to the booth slowed to a crawl. The Moscone Center was not an ideal place for the show because it was held in three separate buildings and we were no where near the car companies, so that had an impact on the number of dealer principals that wandered by our booth on their way to see Toyota, Ford, GM and others. Still, we had a good number of dealers that wandered by, stopped to look at our booth and then said: "You sell GPS?"

I will say that most dealers now "get" the difference between GPS navigation and GPS stolen vehicle recovery. I can only think of one dealer who asked me, "where's the screen?" In fact, most asked the question: "How does your price compare to Lojack?" (The answer, of course, is: "Price is beside the point...let's talk about the important thing: Your dealer profit and your customers' vehicle security -- both will be better with Guidepoint than with Lojack.")

At any rate, we secured lots of interest from dealers and distributors in markets where we do business and many where we don't have a strong presence yet. Based on the response at the show, that situation will begin to change in the next few months.

Subprime...coming into its prime?

One of the things we're noticing out here at NADA is the rise in dealers interested in finding a unit that can help them with their subprime business...that is, cars sold to people with poor credit. There seems to be an increase in the subprime end of the business for car dealers right now, and one of the biggest catalysts seems to be the collapse of the subprime loans in the housing business. "A lot of middle and lower-middle class people have had their credit damaged by the subprime mortage mess," one dealer told me, "and those people still have to have a car to get to work."

The result is that some people who would have traditionally qualified for traditional loans are now falling into the subprime -- or "nonprime" as it's sometimes called -- category. They're buying used cars and paying higher interest rates, and the dealers are all looking for devices that can help them track and monitor the vehicle if there is a default. Of course, you can't just slap a GPS device in the car and start tracking your customers' whereabouts. Along with the privacy issues, there are also disclosure requirements (ie, you have to tell them it's in the car) and fair lending concerns (e.g., do you put a device on every car you sell or just the ones with reaaally bad credit). For the companies that can navigate those tricky obstacles, though, this will be an emerging opportunity.

It's all about the relationships

One of our best dealership customers stopped by the booth today, a gentleman by the name of Ernie Boch, Jr. He operates several dealerships in England, including Boch Toyota and Boch Honda. The latter was recently named the #1 volume Honda dealership in North America, a fact that we acknowledged with an ad in Automotive News.

I'd only met Ernie once before, at NADA in New Orleans a few years ago, and my meeting with him yesterday left me with the same impression: He's a good guy. He was very gracious about Guidepoint and very complimentary of our expediter in Massachusetts (Micorp) that provides product, installation and service to his Boch dealerships. Actually, he complimented Frank, who works for Micorp and "handles" all things related to Boch for Guidepoint. In my humble estimation, it's cool that a guy like Ernie Boch, who owns dealership and auto-related businesses valued at more than $1 billion, not only knows who Frank is, but that he makes it happen and that he's a good guy (he is!) That's the thing about car dealers -- unlike a lot of companies and industries, car dealers still "get" that business is about relationships, and that it's important to get to know the people you do business with. We're having many good reminders of that out here in San Francisco.

2008 NADA Show

Time to get blogging again. Guidepoint is exhibiting at the NADA Show, which is being held in San Francisco this year. We're at Booth #2649W in the Moscone West Hall.