MINNEAPOLIS – Organizers of the Marine Dealer Conference & Expo announced today that it will feature an all-new series of Pre-Conference Workshops at the 2013 event. This offering is designed to give marine retailers access to hands-on training sessions by leading educators, where they’ll explore and ultimately create new opportunities for their businesses.
Featuring seven individual workshops, the new series will be scheduled for the morning of Monday, Nov. 18 and will offer attendees the option to take-in either a single three-hour workshop or up to two 1.5-hour workshops. These pre-conference sessions will feature in-depth strategies and expert advice on the most critical issues facing today’s marine dealers.
“We have created these workshops in response to requests from MDCE attendees, who have been looking for deeper, more interactive educational sessions,” explains Liz Walz, Director of Membership & Marketing for the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, which co-produces the event with Boating Industry. “Attendees won’t just be sitting still, listening to the speakers’ insight and advice. They’ll be working alongside some of the best trainers out there to craft customized tools, processes and strategies they can immediately bring back to their dealership and implement. These workshops take MDCE’s dealer education to a new height.”
While the specifics of the pre-conference workshops will be announced in the coming days, these sessions will feature limited seating and be focused on topics such as leadership, sales, customer loyalty, and the service department, as well as digital marketing efforts, such as apps, social media and SEO.
“The beauty of these pre-conference workshops is that they will allow dealers to build a plan in specific areas of their business while they are at the MDCE,” explains Jonathan Sweet, Editor-in-Chief of Boating Industry. “Then, when the three tracks of educational sessions start the following day, attendees can enhance the plan they have created with the ideas, best practices and solutions that they pick up during the rest of the MDCE. That’s a formula that will prove to be very effective for anyone looking to maximize their return on investment at the MDCE.”
The MDCE is scheduled for Nov. 17-20, 2013, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. It has attracted an increasing number of dealers every year since 2007, and this year, the event attracted more than 250 registrants prior to the May 1, a record for the event. The most registrants the event has ever accumulated prior to May 1 was 92 in 2012.
The full educational line-up will be announced soon. Visit MRAA.com/event/MDCE for more information.
About the Marine Dealer Conference & Expo
The Marine Dealer Conference & Expo is the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas’ annual conference and member meeting. As the marine industry’s only dealer-specific educational conference, the MDCE features an in-depth line-up of educational topics, a full-featured expo hall, and a series of fixed networking opportunities, all of which are designed to help marine dealers connect with and learn from others who can foster their success. The MDCE is co-produced by the MRAA and Boating Industry, and it offers a keynote presentation, three tracks of educational content, and more than 20 sessions in all. It will be held Nov. 17-20 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. Learn more at www.mraa.com/event/MDCE.