NADA2026 Las Vegas

The recent NADA was one of my best in the past 15 years. Walking the expo and attending the workshops, I see and feel that the time I invested in people and content pays off in new friends, partners and new ideas that you only get to see behind the scenes. I am aware that I am privileged to be able to do this, but I am also glad that I made the investment myself to get to know all those relevant Americans. Personally and professionally.

Higher level

There was one meeting that stood out! It took place in the presidential suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Las Vegas. It was a gathering with several CEOs, founders of new and existing online automotive companies and their investors. A world I obviously knew existed, but being there, and also being recognized and acknowledged, gave me a boost. It still helps that I made a (modest) exit with Nieuweautokopen.nl to eBay. That gives you the respect and credibility to be there, so I felt quite something…

Until that moment came…

Once I was there, I realized how many levels there are in life. Personally, financially, but also professionally. In a conversation with one of those investors, I thought I had a good idea and some kind of leverage. Fifteen minutes later I woke up. Woke up in the reality of the big leagues. Because in those fifteen minutes I was very respectfully taken apart and told how things really work, and that business in America is played at a completely different level than I do in Ede. I was drenched, cold and hot at the same time, as if I had been through a washing machine. Did I come away with a bad taste? No, definitely not, I enjoyed that reality check! This is the level I want to reach, this is how I need to think and act. Only then do you keep developing and learning, even if I felt small…

Is everything better there?

No! In online automotive America it is all about AI and apparently every problem in automotive retail is solved by AI, which means customer privacy goes out the window… You see that in many areas we in Europe are not behind at all, especially not in terms of mindset. And by that I mean Western Europe: our country, the Nordics and the UK. That is why it is so nice that I will be giving presentations again in Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy. Just because it is fun to keep learning, even if you think you already know everything… After Vegas I know that is not the case.

NADA to the Netherlands and Belgium!

So do you also want to experience what a NADA is like? Then come to our #DCDW event on March 31 in Brussels and on April 1 in Houten! Our keynote speaker Russell Richardson is coming to talk about how to sell cars using social media. Without AI, by the way…