< PreviousGET TO KNOW YOUR CONGRESSWOMANMICHELLE STEEL48th Congressional District includes Aliso Viejo, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Midway City, Newport Beach, and Seal Beach, as well as portions of Garden Grove, Santa Ana, and WestminsterFavorite Quote: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”- Ronald ReaganBiography: Congresswoman Michelle Steel is serving her first term representing California’s 48th District. Born in South Korea and raised in Japan, Michelle immigrated to the United States to build her own American Dream. She is one of the first Korean American women to ever serve in Congress.After fleeing North Korea during the Korean War, her parents met and built a life in South Korea before moving to Japan. Her father, a diplomat, encouraged Michelle at a young age to move to the United States to become fluent in English. Her mother and younger sisters joined her in America, where they opened a clothing store in downtown Los Angeles.After seeing how difficult it was for her non-English speaking mother to navigate the tax laws and state regulations, she ran for the State Board of Equalization - the nation’s only elected tax board – where she represented more than nine million residents, including all of Orange County. At the time, she was the highest-ranking Korean American elected official in the United States.Michelle later served her community as Supervisor and Chairwoman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors. She continued her work fighting for California taxpayers, while working to protect the Orange County coastline, and helping families and businesses fight back against the COVID-19 pandemic.Personal: Michelle has been married to her husband Shawn for 39 years. They have two adult daughters and reside in Surfside, California. Steel.house.gov(714) 960-648317011 Beach Blvd., Suite 570Huntington Beach, CA 926472021California Clean Fuel Reward Gives Your Customers Up to $1,500 Down The California Clean Fuel Reward is now available and designed to make more EV sales. Customers can receive up to $1,500 off the purchase of an eligible vehicle at participating retailers. Enroll your dealership to participate at https://cleanfuelreward.com/ev-retailers to take advantage of this program!POINT-OF-SALE ELECTRIC VEHICLE REWARDThe California Air Resources Board and California electric utilities are teaming up to offer the California Clean Fuel Reward of up to $1,500 off the purchase or lease of an eligible new Battery Electric (BEV) or Plug-in Hybrid (PHEV)* vehicle. The Clean Fuel Reward can be used on the hood (itemized on Line 6(f), Other).AVAILABLE TO ALL CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS This new reward is available to anyone who purchases a new EV in California with no income or MSRP restrictions, but the vehicle must remain in the state of California. It applies to any eligible new vehicle transaction in the state, regardless of customer utility territory, and can be combined with existing post-sale federal, state, and some local incentives. MARKETING AND TRAINING SUPPORTThe program also includes marketing assets, product training, and support including:• Online EV marketing support kits for use by dealers.• Web-based and virtual instructor-led training on the CCFR program, including how to submit claims.• Contact Marlot Stubb at marlot.stubb@maritz.com for in-person instructor-led training on all electric vehicle incentives, tax credits, and utility programs. CNCDA has been very involved for the past few years in the planning and rollout of this exciting new rebate. California dealers are an integral part of getting more electric vehicles to consumers and we have appreciated our close partnership with CARB, electric utilities, and OEMs on this important program that aims to get more EVs on to California’s roads. Dealers are encouraged to reach out to Alisa Reinhardt with any questions at 916-441-2599 or areinhardt@cncda.org.You can also find out more about the program at CleanFuelReward.com or call 1-800-880-0320 Monday – Saturday from 6:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. 22ASKALISONThere’s a natural surge of employee benefits communications around open enrollment (OE), but they shouldn’t stop there. Expanding your communication plan to help employees make the best use of their benefits throughout the year is a must – even more so in the current benefits climate.Q: Do you know what your employees don’t know?A: Conduct a brief employee survey to understand in what area of benefits your employees are least educated. During open enrollment, most employees spend considerable time reviewing their medical benefit offerings but most probably don’t know they have an Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) or that there’s a rollover feature for their dental plan. Maybe your dealership offers a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) and not many employees are taking advantage of this tax savings benefit. You will have a better idea of what topics to include in your communications plan by starting with a survey. Q: How do I engage my employees?A: Do your employees understand that their pay is just a small part of their total compensation? A Total Compensation Statement lays out the big picture for them. This is a great opportunity to show employees the value of their benefits and what they may be missing out on.Q: How do I best communicate all of our benefits/programs and their value to our employees?A: Be repetitive and consistently communicate to your employees. During open enrollment, employees may be overwhelmed with benefits information. Reminders about benefits like telehealth, health savings account (HSA) usage and the importance of preventive care and wellness are best communicated outside of the open enrollment window when employees can more readily absorb and digest the information. Email campaigns are great but can get sometimes get lost in the shuffle. Simple lunchroom posters or a payroll stuffer keeps the message short, informative and constant.Insurance and benefits can be confusing. Keep it light. Communications don’t have to be boring. Keep your employees’ attention with a conversational tone – not insurance or benefits speak. Analyze what worked. Have you previously executed a year-round communication? What worked and what didn’t?EPIC’s Communications & Engagement team has developed and tested best practices over many years of experience. EPIC can help your dealership create a comprehensive, thoughtful plan for year-round benefits communications. EPIC ranks among the top 15 retail insurance brokers in the United States and is the largest insurer of auto dealers in the state. Alison McCallum has been in the employee benefits industry for over 20 years and personally works with more than 50 Southern California Dealerships. She is a Principal with EPIC insurance Brokers and Consultants, the only CNCDA licensed broker. With this partnership EPIC offers unique services available to OCADA dealer members at no cost. If you have questions or would like further information please feel free to contact her at (949) 417-9136 or alison.mccallum@epicbrokers.com.BENEFITS COMMUNICATION – NOT JUST FOR OPEN ENROLLMENT•••23Dealer VictoryIncreased Funding Approved for OCATT to Continue Fighting Vehicle Fraud & Thefts OCADA’s members secured a unanimous vote from the Orange County Board of Supervisors to increase funding for the Orange County Auto Theft Task Force (OCATT). OCATT is the multi-jurisdictional law enforcement program designed to investigate, arrest, and prosecute criminals responsible for auto thefts in Orange County. OCADA has worked collaboratively with OCATT for decades and has seen firsthand the tremendous work they do to protect dealers and citizens in Orange County from the growing challenge of auto fraud and theft.Until December 2020, OCATT was stuck to a static budget for more than 25 years and the underfunding put the taskforce at risk of disbanding. When OCATT was formed it had 23 officers fighting auto theft and today it has only 8, which is just a third of their original staffing and obviously affects their ability to fight fraud and vehicle thefts. Additionally, since the pandemic began there has been a 44% increase in vehicle theft, so it was imperative that OCATT be adequately funded to continue their great work. Thank you to the many Orange County dealers who supported OCATT by sharing with your County Supervisor the important role the taskforce plays on our industry. MAKE SURE YOU TAP INTO OCATT RESOURCES:VEHICLE THEFT OCATT Detectives work alongside local Police Departments to locate stolen vehicles from a dealership lot. In many instances, OCATT is able to recover stolen vehicles and return them to a dealership unharmed.FRAUDULENT PURCHASES OCATT specializes in finding the more sophisticated criminal who tries to disguise fraud transactions as legitimate. The officers have experience to approach these types of investigations with the mindset of a finance manager AND an auto theft detective/investigator. SIGN UP FOR THE iPAS PROGRAM This opt-In program for Dealers is designed to alert you when law enforcement has identified an organized group and/or individual who is targeting car dealerships for fraud. The alert will notify your dealership contact person of the possible name(s), photographs and scams used by the identity thieves to carry out the theft. Contact Crime Analyst Carla Castro of the OCATT at Carla.castro@da.ocgov.com to sign up.SupervisorLisa BartlettDistrict 5SupervisorDoug Chafee District 4SupervisorDon WagnerDistrict 3SupervisorAndrew DoDistrict1Past-SupervisorMichelle SteelDistrict 2Thank you Supervisors for your unanimous support!24As a member of the leadership team for your dealership, you are constantly juggling numerous tasks, working long hours and wearing multiple hats. In my work with dealerships, I’ve noticed that it’s very difficult for any dealership to manage and evolve relationships with their 15+ marketing vendors efficiently and effectively. With that in mind, I wanted to help and provide some questions dealers should ask your search, social and 3rd party partners to ensure you are spending your advertising dollars efficiently and maximizing the ROI from each partner.Dealerships have mountains of data that they accumulate across numerous CRM, DMS and advertising platforms. It’s very difficult to keep track of it all. More important than the data itself is the ongoing monthly analysis of that data.SEM/SEARCHMost dealers spend a significant percentage of their marketing spend on search so you must make sure you get an ROI. At your next meeting with your search partner, ask them a sample of these questions:1) Within Google Analytics, do we have Goals set up around key actions on the site that we want to track (max 20)? If so, is there a value assigned to each of those goals? (If the answer is no, ask them to set it up asap. If yes, ask them to review it with you)2) Based on the data your search partner presents to you each month, ask them - how many leads did you drive through search?(they probably can’t, but should be able to provide an estimate based on VDP volume)3)What search experiments have you performed to optimize our SEM campaigns in the last few months?(bid strategies, copy change tests, display ad tests are examples of experiments that can be performed)4) Do you leverage learnings from your work with other dealerships into your work with us? If yes, can you give me an example? If no, why not?Another platform securing a dealership’s incremental digital dollars is social, and while potential customers on Facebook or Instagram may not be displaying the intent they show by googling ‘F150 near me’, analysis and measurement of spend and data equally applies. To help you dig a little deeper, here are a few questions to ask the next time you are in a monthly review of your social spend.SOCIAL1) Can you provide monthly matchback reports identifying the ads associated with sold VIN’s?(Some vendors provide this, some don’t. If they do, you will get a true view of your ROI)2) Should I be spending incremental marketing dollars on Search or Social?2a) Should I take money from one and put it in the other? What is the reason/rationale around that statement? (The industry trend is leaning toward social but I would want to hear their reason and then you do a test…)3) Do display or video ads drive more VDP views?By Tim Wilson, Founder/CEOTips to Effectively Manage Your Digital Vendors and Maximize ROI254) If I had an additional $5,000 to spend on advertising, where would you spend it?And finally, there are the numerous 3rd party vendors that you work with. Not as many questions to ask these providers but it is very important to get the answer - it determines a strong or weak ROI.3RD PARTYFrom a data perspective, these partnerships should be the easiest to assess from an ROI perspective. There’s only one question to ask - 1) How many leads did your platform deliver this month?Knowing these companies are lead generators, simply divide monthly leads into monthly cost to determine cost per lead (cpl). If that cpl is <$50 on average over a 3-month period, this partner is delivering a strong ROI. If not, you may want to reassess that partnership.One more thought on 3rd parties...If you have multiple relationships with lead gen partners, ask yourself - do I need them all? I’ve worked with clients who had 3+ vendors in this space and once we did the analysis, they reduced it to 1 or 2. Something you may want to review.Dealing with the pandemic, every dealership has transformed the way they operate, who they work with and how the day to day work gets done. It has been constant evolution and, with limited hours in the day, some areas may have decreased focus. If you haven’t had the time to dig deeper into your marketing spend and/or asked your partners how they are helping deliver ROI for your dealership, I hope these questions provide a good starting point. And if you are looking for some additional help in this area, send me an email - there are more questions to be asked.Lance, Soll & Lunghard, LLP | CPAs & Advisors | lslcpas.com | (714) 672-0022BreaSacramento“We have a fantastic relationship with the LSL team. They keep our interests top of mind and maintain a positive reputation in the industry.” Santa Ana -Craig Whetter, President, David Wilson Automotive Group (relationship since 1983) Donald Slater, CPA Automotive Services Partner donald.slater@lslcpas.comMike Mangold, CPA Automotive Services Partner mike.mangold@lslcpas.comDavid Myers, CPA Automotive Tax Partnerdave.myers@lslcpas.comTim Wilson has worked in the digital sales/marketing since 1996 and led Google Auto (Canada/US) for 6+ years. Originally from Toronto, he moved to LA in 2015 and most recently founded digitalfootprint.biz, a consulting firm to help dealers improve their digital footprint with a laser focus on ROI. Contact Tim at 650-889-8150 or tim@digitalfootprint.bizMike Stanton became NADA’s president & CEO on January 1, 2021. He previously served as NADA’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, working on strategic and operational issues and the development of new business opportunities. “Mike is a proven NADA leader,” said Peter Welch. “He has worked many years gaining vast experience and building key relationships and partnerships throughout the automobile industry and beyond.”BIOGRAPHY As Executive Vice President and COO, Stanton oversaw the information technology and economics and data analytics departments as well as NADA’s affinity programs. From 2015 to 2017, Stanton was vice president and general manager of J.D. Power’s Vehicle Valuation Practice, formerly the NADA Used Car Guide, which was acquired by J.D. Power in 2015. Before the acquisition, he was vice president and COO of the NADA Used Car Guide. Prior to 2015 at NADA, he was the executive director of industry affairs, and before that was the national sales manager for the NADA Used Car Guide. Prior to NADA, Stanton worked for two auto manufacturers, primarily assisting dealers with their sales and service operations.REPRESENTING DEALERSA new era of leadership begins at NADA as Mike Stanton takes the wheel as president and CEO. However, the association’s mission remains the same, Stanton said: Working hard for auto dealers. “We have a wonderful team of dealers, a staff that is second to none here in D.C. and we’re very well positioned to overcome any of the challenges that lie ahead,” Stanton said. “NADA is here, we’re your insurance policy. Get more engaged with us. We’re just a phone call or an email away.” CONTACTMike StantonPresident and CEONational Automobile Dealers Associationmstanton@nada.orgOffice: 703.821.7101Mobile: 571.228.90968484 Westpark Drive, Suite 500Tysons, VA 2210226MEET NADA’S PRESIDENT & CEO Mike StantonNADA's mission is to serve and represent the franchised new-car and -truck dealers of America, their management and employees.NADA's two main goals are:1. To promote and enhance the franchise system and effectively communicate dealer views and concerns to all branches of the federal government, to manufacturers, and the public; and2. To strengthen the financial position of members as retailers through professional programs and services that improve the business skills of management personnel and the technical capabilities of non-management employees.AutomotoHR.comPost job opportunities to AutomotoHR and they will automatically be listed on all of the top job post sites.Manage all of your Hiring, Onboarding, Employee Management and Compliance legally required documentation electronically.Hire to Retire Talent Management Platform: Government compliance forms and data all in one place, with a single secure log in.•••Recruit, On-board, and Manage all of your Employee Compliance in one place.Steven Warner • (951) 385-8204 • Steven@AutomotoHR.com“AutomotoHR has been the most effective way to fill our recruitment needs.” - John Oh, Lexus of Westminster3737 Birch St., Suite 220 Newport Beach, CA 92660— Answers support calls 24/7— Chats and shares screensduring business hours— Regularly checks in with yourdealership— Works with you to minimizeerrors and penalties— Analyzes and corrects DMS Fees— Audits each deal for accuracyand compliance— Scans deals for easy accessin DMVdesk— Sends audited bundles to DMV— Mails plates, registration andstickers directly to your customers— National title & registration takescare of your out-of-state buyers— Run inquiries (KSR, NMVTISand more)— Create and print Temp Tagsand Reports of Sale— Oer customers free vehicleregistration renewal reminderswith Vitu Driver— Finalize and submit eFiletransactions electronically— Prepare and mail bundles toVitu for auditing— Send errors to SPU forprocessingTakes the stress off of your staffDMVdesk is built with your dealership’s security and compliance in mindDMV COMPLIANCEAWARD-WINNING SUPPORTPositively impacts your CSI scores!Translates into real Cost Savings!For you remaining 20% of non-DMVdesk users, discover what a true partnership means.Visit dmvdesk.com or call 877-368-3375 to learn more and schedule a demo.WHY DO 80% OF OCADA MEMBERSTRUST THEIR TITLE AND REGPROCESSING TO DMVDESK? orange countyNext >