Rod “Woody” Woodruff, president and CEO of the Legendary Sturgis Buffalo Chip, presented Mike Rabideau with the Spirit of the Chip Award at AIMExpo’s 2 Wheel Custom Showcase on Wednesday.

Do you have the proper insurance for your business? You might think you do, but during the last talk on the Disruptive Thinking stage Wednesday, a few experts cautioned that it’s highly likely you’re not as protected as you may assume.

Douglas Choi, VP of risk management at the Liberty Company Insurance Brokers in Irvine, California, made it clear you’re at risk if you modify a vehicle even slightly.

“So as a dealership you think, ‘Oh, my business is I take a product manufactured by someone else, Kawasaki, Yamaha, whoever,” he said. “And I sell that product.”

But he said most dealers make at least minor modifications. “And so, in a way, you become the manufacturer as well.” For this reason, Choi says, there’s a hazard for dealers who haven’t insured themselves against that kind of lawsuit.

Rick Kallas, Barry Glenn, Sanjay Mehta, Douglas Choi, and Jared Burt

Another hazard, explained by Sanjay Mehta, Risk Management at Liberty Company, is what’s known as risk transfer. That means a claim could come from a product defect, or from customer misuse of a product.

“As a dealer, you’re in a very unique position because you’re between the product manufacturer and the consumer,” he said. “You need to be evaluating the contract and the agreements that you have with your vendors to make sure you understand what risk and what liability am I keeping and what risk and what liability have been transferred.”

No matter what, Mehta said, you have to be insured accordingly, and that includes being certain that your insurance protects you from even being named in a lawsuit.

Choi outlined further liability you might not perceive. For instance, there are dealers that also sell food. Technically, they’re also operating as a restaurant but probably aren’t insured as one.

A different risk noted by Barry Glenn, Human Resources and Benefits at Triada Health in Houston, is the sheer cost of insuring your employees. Glenn sees too many employers offer insurance at zero monthly premium. The flaw is that you’re not nudging your employee to move to a spouse’s plan with a lower rate.

“We changed at our company to (paying) 93 percent of premiums and we’re still paying the vast majority of it,” he said. “But our enrollment percentage dropped by 22 percent. We saved tens of thousands of dollars, with no difference in experience for our employees.”

It might be counterintuitive and a bit out there, but David Savlowitz, CEO and founder of Competitive Analytics, said there’s power in role-playing games, or RPGs. He shared several reasons why during Wednesday’s Lunch & Learn in the MIC Business Center.

The classic RPG is Dungeons & Dragons, and Savlowitz explained how these sorts of exercises, where employers and staff members each take on a character, can be used as icebreakers and for team-building.

“Teams require both logical thinking and imagination to overcome today’s complex challenges,” he said.

Game play, because it’s less stressful than real life, enables employees to bond in a different way. It’s good practice for real-world problem solving and can help cement bonds with staff so they’re more agile and creative at work. RPGs, because they’re not personal – you’re role playing, not yourself – enable people to come out of their shells and more readily connect with each other. RPGs also may be better for more reticent employees who might be less prone to participate in a traditional office retreat.

For employees who work remotely, Savlowitz emphasized that virtual RPGs work just as well, and are far less costly than an office retreat. He encouraged MIC members to get in touch with him for more on building stronger staff bonds.

The second of Tuesday’s panels dove into trends in staff management as well as emerging trends in sales. While the underlying focus was on F&I and PG&A, panel members Jason Duncan, of McGraw Powersports in Anaheim, J.D. Baker of Protective Asset Protection, John McFarland of Lightspeed DMS software, and Zachary Materne, Apiar Commercial Risk Management, also discussed broader learning.

Materne made the strong point that you want your F&I person out on your show floor. Introducing them to the customer as “the person who is gonna help you with financing” and protect the customer’s assets became a theme throughout the discussion. He added that the personality of that F&I staff member needs to be welcoming, emphasizing that when it’s done right, there’s an understanding on the customer’s part that they’re not just the person who takes their money but can be a long-time partner on this machine and the next one.

This conversation threaded through to the bigger point of micro-finance – and Duncan stressed the value of bundling accessories and clothing into single-finance offers.

“You make it easier that way,” he said. “If you have a six-month payment (the customer can afford more), and they’re going for a discount instead of just getting like a jersey and pants.”

McFarland pushed the idea that dealerships need technology that makes them more nimble, especially software that doesn’t just track sales, but also sales-force performance, so you know who’s doing well and who can support them, and can also communicate not just what they’re selling, but what needs to sell better and where the ROI is.

At the end, McFarland stressed that a unique personality, highly developed dealership skills, and closely working with customers isn’t easily duplicated.

“Your competition can copy everything that you do,” he said. But they can’t copy you.”