SEMA News — April 2009

We all are working harder than ever at keeping businesses and the industry alive and moving forward. Your time is at a premium. SEMA knows this. Here are a handful of quick, easy-to-use silver bullets to help your company make progress. Take 60 seconds, and load up.

Recession Survival Series: SEMA now has available the first of a series of web-based seminars to provide immediate help to companies battling the economic downturn. The new program focuses on topics specific to today’s challenges, including managing cash flow, retaining the best employees, managing inventory and leading your company through 2009 into the new business environment. If you miss a live webinar, you can download it for viewing at your convenience. The Recession Survival Series webinars can be found at www.sema.org/survivalseries.

www.SEMA.org Website: Instant Access to Solutions: Regular visitors to our website, www.SEMA.org, may have already noticed the site now has easy-to-access market data, company listings, social-networking features and news feeds that are all designed to help our members get to the content and people that will help their businesses succeed. New technologies now enable us to channel relevant news, events, government affairs, education and research information to our members based on their job function, business type and geographic location. The goal is to direct the most relevant information to the right members at the right time. I encourage everyone who hasn’t been to the site recently to check it out and tell us what you think; we’ll be fine-tuning the effort in the coming months.

Custom Sales Training Video for the Specialty Retailer: In response to member feedback, SEMA has developed an online sales training course for retailers titled, “Focus on the Customer: Introduction to Selling.” This course is a practical and engaging tool for improving sales performance now, when you need it the most. Your sales staff will learn a proven five-step sales process that can help maximize sales success. The course is an excellent training opportunity for new sales people and a great refresher for your veterans; it’s available now, free of charge for SEMA members. The course is the first of many training and development offerings slated for your team as SEMA rolls out the new SEMA Education Institute online, available through www.sema.org/sei. Watch for more information as SEMA makes available top-quality training tools and courses as well as manufacturers’ product training on this new addition to the SEMA website.

SEMA News Online: Many readers may have noticed that SEMA launched an electronic edition of SEMA News magazine in February. The print version is delivered to 30,000 businesses around the world; this combined mix of print and electronic publications now reaches 200,000 readers. This is the first step in an association-wide redesign and integration of our communications efforts. We’re not looking to push information; we’re looking to connect.