It's been a bit after the Lord Mayor's show this week for me, following on from all the excitement and drama of last Thursday's Service Dealer Conference & Awards.

Rather than attending fascinating seminars and keynotes, whilst celebrating success with our dealer readers, this week I have been back at my desk, readying the next issue of Service Dealer magazine for the printers. The new mag will be with you all for the beginning of the new year, with the issue packed with reports from the autumn shows; a discussion from Laurence Gale with some leading turf professionals on what they want from their dealers; as well as details of all the award winners and a full breakdown of all the day's sessions at the conference written by my colleague Martin Rickatson.

Before then, I'm aware that the immensely talented people at TAP, who run the awards and everything Service Dealer, are editing down all the hours and hours of video footage that was taken during the day and evening into manageable, bite-sized chunks to share with us when it's ready. When that's available it'll be highlighted in this Weekly Update.

Until then, I thought I'd wrap up the coverage here with some results that came out of the conference via the interactive surveying tool that was employed on the day. During the course of the event, Duncan asked the dealer delegates in the room to feedback to a few questions that were posed via a system called Slido, accessed through everyone's phones.

First up was a simple enquiry that no one should have struggled with, asking 'Where have you travelled from to attend the conference today?'. This in itself is quite revealing though, as we pride ourselves on the fact that dealers do indeed attend from all around the country - which hopefully the new central location of the event further helps.

The below word cloud illustrates the spread of attendees this year:

Quite why Dorset was the most popular area of the country to visit from this time around, I'm not sure?

The other word cloud I've been given by the organisers, shows the most used words that were submitted in questions to the Q&A panel that took place at the close of the conference. Returning to the stage were speakers who had presented throughout the day, and the below graphic shows the areas that the dealers in the room were interested in hearing more about.

It's probably no surprise that a word like 'experience' stands out big and bold here, considering that is one of the key ingredients that make up a specialist dealer's appeal to their customer base. Also words like 'brand', 'care' and 'time' also tie into this.

I will admit though, I am somewhat perplexed as to why "pianos" has found its way on to there?! A new innovation to make the showroom experience more pleasant perhaps? Very odd.

The Slido system also asked delegates a couple of brief questions that the team thought it would be good to get a quick steer on, as to how dealers may be feeling this winter.

Firstly it asked 'How confident are you about your business's prospects for 2024?' - with the results showing:

Very confident - 38%

Cautiously optimistic - 37%

Neutral - 13%

Not confident - 12%

It's encouraging to see that most dealers who responded, chose a positive option to describe their feelings. Crucially, zero people selected the 'worried' description that was also available.

Finally Slido asked, 'Which of the following options do you consider to be the biggest challenge to your dealership in 2024?' - which gave the following results:

Economy - 50%

Supply of stock - 26%

Erosion of margins - 24%

Political situation - 10%

There were other options to choose from too, including 'online discounters', 'rival dealers' and 'mass retailers' that no-one chose. Also surprisingly, no one chose 'weather'. Perhaps now the weather is so intrinsically tied in to all that a dealership does, that it's no longer considered a 'challenge'? 

Hopefully sharing these brief stats today gives a little insight into the mindset of how the dealers who attended last week were feeling. From speaking to people and hearing the contributions that were spoken during the sessions, I certainly got the impression that whilst business is, as ever, tough and requiring of huge effort and dedication, there's a palpable positive vibe out there at the moment. 

After the past few years that everyone has endured, long may it continue!