For those of you dealers who missed the initial announcements here last summer you should check out the North American Trailer Dealers Association website and JOIN NOW.  

Visit NATDA:  http://www.natda.org/

There are other perks as well.  Get on board and we'll see you there! 

Horse Trailer World will be displaying an area that explains internet marketing concepts along with technical support help desk and strategy sessions for online sales and advertising.   Those of you who may be interested in an integrated website with automatic inventory will also be able to get started while there.

We want to thank Equine Media (Horse Trailer World) for becoming the first official sponsor of NATDA.  Dave has been very generous in putting together some excellent advertising perks and programs for dealers that are members of NATDA.  If you are a dealer, and are not currently advertising on Equine Media's family of websites, I encourage you to contact us, or Dave about these advertising programs.  These discounts are only available to NATDA members.

Dave and Equine Media will have a major presence at the 2008 NATDA Trade Show & Convention and will be providing attending dealers an opportunity to tune up their website.  Dave will be speaking to the member base about internet advertising and marketing as well.

The 2008 NATDA Trade Show & Convention will be an event that dealers will be able to attend in order to meet with manufacturers and vendors that are there to earn their business.  The show is only open to dealers that are NATDA members, and will not be open to the general public as the show is geared to better equip the dealers with the right products and services to become more successful.

The focus of the show will be the education seminars.  We are bringing professional speakers that will address the five profit centers of a dealership.  Our goal is for the dealers to leave the trade show with the tools neccesary to increase profits, retain customers and continually improve the overall level of professionalism in the industry.

The highlight of the show will be the truck that NATDA will be giving away during the show.  The bed of the truck will be filled with products from our vendor members, and the truck will be given away to a dealer in attendence.

One program that we are getting ready to release will be a "Trailer Rental Insurance Program"  This should be of great interest to your readers as there has never been insurance programs that would allow trailer dealers to rent trailers.  Many people aren't sure about ownership of a trailer, and especially when it comes to living quarter trailers.  By dealers implementing this program, it will allow customers that aren't sure if they are ready to own, an opportunity to get comfortable with towing the trailer of their choice.  In many cases, a customer may only need a trailer every now and then.  We are very excited to roll this program out, so look for it to be available in early 2008.

The NATDA would like to thank Dave, and Horse Trailer World for their continued efforts and support of NATDA.  For more information on the association, please visit http://www.natda.org/.

We do need to mover forward. We are so far behind the RV industry and it shows. We have safety chains, they don't, we have conflicting CDL requirements between states, they don't. The RV industry has a large lobby in congress, we have some meetings. I was glad to see the NATDA get underway. The trailer manufactures assoc. NATM is doing great things. I hope hundreds of you trailer dealers will come to the convention in August.

We are in tough times, paid $3.79 for diesel yesterday in Texas, paid $3.75 in Colorado today. Accessory sales are up after a tough winter, it's spring, trailer and truck sales are picking up after a tough winter. Horse expo's should be picking up attendance after a slow winter. This could be a good time for picking up bargains. My bank is offering 5% auto loans now. They want auto loans now instead of house loans. It's like stock picking, slow economy means there are bargains out there. We can soften the blow of high fuel by truck and trailer pooling to horse events. Europe has learned to deal with $4 fuel for decades, in 2010 at least 4 truck manufactures will have diesels for their 1/2 tons that will get 30% better mpg. So there is light at the end of the tunnel. Now I need to test trailers to see which tow easier and increase miles per gallon.