With impressive growth in dealer attendance, 30+ presenters and even two 20 Clubs on hand, the National Powersports Dealer Association was a big deal as dealers converged on Columbus, Ohio, September 21–23. During the past 4 decades Lenny Sims, VP of business development & strategy at J.D. Power Specialty Valuation Services has attended, presented, exhibited at and partnered with trade shows ranging from the giant NADA automotive events to 30 years of anchoring the Dealernews Dealer Expo. He has been described as “thought leader who drives growth and innovation for the industry…. His extensive experience with growth, pricing and go-to-market strategies, as well as deep understanding of digital direction and data/analytics lead the brand to the forefront of the digital data/analytics movement…” So what did the thought leader think about DealerConnect. What is the valuation guide expert’s ‘value’ of a start-up event put together for dealers by dealers?
Dealer Connect is not a trade show, it’s a networking event. What are your impressions?
Well, I was unable to make last year’s Connect, so this is my first one, but it is unique, and I will say I’m extremely surprised. The energy level has been great here! Obviously, all the attendees are NPDA members and 20 Club participants, so it’s an elevated level of dealers. In my opinion, but they’re active. They’re involved. They’re getting some great seminars and presentations on excellent information that is very helpful. So overall, it’s extremely valuable.
You were drafted to lead a panel. How did that go?
It went well. We had a highly engaged audience, and there’s a lot of note taking. There’ was a lot of good information passed back and forth between the audience and the presenters. The panel I was moderating had three very good speakers providing different information on different aspects of the market. I asked the audience some questions specifically regarding items that they wanted to learn about. Thanks to panelists it seemed to address some very real concerns.
And then there’s been some forward looking presentations… The information that Jim Woodruff presented from NPA and using MIC data and some of your J.D. Power data, it looks like we’re in for some headwinds, but by 2030 we’re fully recovered, and we’re stronger than ever in the powersports category?
Yes, that was something that I had focused on, the way we’re looking at 2030 is continued growth annually by 5%. This will get motorcycles up to $30 billion as an industry — and that’s a specific segment. As Jim mentioned in his discussion today, there’s an overall outdoors category that powersports is part of, and that is significantly greater. There are headwinds headwinds across the board,
in the economy for the whole country, regardless of the business you’re in. But as we saw, a little blip downward in interest rates last week and i do see powersports rebounding quicker than many other segments.
I think overall, the market should stay fairly flat. If it’s down, it will be very slight. I think 26 can be a positive year, especially if interest rates continue to decline going into Q2-Q3 and as you know, it’s these smart, engaged dealers that are going to weather that storm and slingshot ahead.
So there was the Sam Dantzler’s Garage Composites presentation using the football analogy. D you want to be below average, average, good, great or elite? We all need to aspire to that elite level. And this show provides an opportunity for you to get to that elite level
100% Sam does a great job. He provides analysis from a different angle that average person will understand much better than a college course, right? But the ultimate message is that average is okay, but is that what everybody wants? Do you wake up in the morning saying, “I’m going to be average today.” If you talk to dealers as much as we do, you know there will be some doom and gloom from some but why is it you talk on the phone the very next guy is talking about having a great year, right? It’s just some folks are aggressive. They don’t take no for an answer, and they’re in business, and they’re trying to grow a business. For every dealer that’s not interested in achieving growth, there’s one down across town that’s willing to take that business to the next level.
I would say it’s a dog eat dog world, but we’ve come together at DealerConnect and I haven’t seen a lot of dog fights in the aisles here! It seems like a pretty convivial group. This group, as I said, is all NPDA members, and if you’re buying into NPDA, it’s because you have a belief in increasing the strength of the powersports industry via the dealerships, because that’s where it all starts. Everybody is here to learn. You know, look at the bulk of the guys that are here. As far as dealers go there, most of them are in 20 groups, and you’re sharing very detailed information about your store, and there’s no one holding back anything, and it’s all in an effort to take that guy who says he’s above average and make him him elite. So the big takeaway is from dealer connect, we are better together!
Dealers, the dates for DealerConnect 2026 have dropped… We will CYA in CBUS, again
Get the holeshot on DealerConnect III
Sept. 20-22, 2026
Hilton Columbus Downtown
Columbus, Ohio
