Register Now For The July Webinar

Register Now For The June Webinar

Join us for our June webinar focusing on:

ARA’s Complaint Log System
presented by ARA’s John Morgan and Dave Kennedy of First Credit Resources
 

Wednesday, June 24, 2:00 p.m. CST / 3:00 p.m. EST

or

Thursday, June 25, 11:00 a.m. CST / 12:00 p.m. EST

 

ARA members must register online for the webinar with individual email addresses to receive a certificate of completion. If computer sharing is necessary, please provide a list of employee names and email addresses in an excel spreadsheet to tricia@americanrecoveryassn.org.

 

American Recovery Association provides a free continuing education webinar series for recovery and remarketing professionals. The one-hour webinar offers education about the latest recovery laws and regulations, compliance policies and industry issues.

 

This webinar will be open to managers and business owners.We are also excited to announce that the state of Louisiana now recognizes all ARA webinars as part of the eight hours of continuing education that is required to renew state licenses.

If you have any questions or feedback about our continuing education webinar series, please contact ARA Home Office at 972-755-4755 or homeoffice@americanrecoveryassn.org.

Register Now For The May Webinar

Join us for our May webinar focusing on:

How To Use A Routing Software To Benefit Your Business
presented by Justin Zane, founder of Clearplan
 

Wednesday, May 27, 11:30 a.m. CST / 12:30 a.m. EST

or

Thursday, May 28, 2:00 p.m. CST / 3:00 p.m. EST

 

ARA members must register online for the webinar with individual email addresses to receive a certificate of completion. If computer sharing is necessary, please provide a list of employee names and email addresses in an excel spreadsheet to tricia@americanrecoveryassn.org.

American Recovery Association provides a free continuing education webinar series for recovery and remarketing professionals. The one-hour webinar offers education about the latest recovery laws and regulations, compliance policies and industry issues.

This webinar will be open to managers and business owners.We are also excited to announce that the state of Louisiana now recognizes all ARA webinars as part of the eight hours of continuing education that is required to renew state licenses.

If you have any questions or feedback about our continuing education webinar series, please contact ARA Home Office at 972-755-4755 or homeoffice@americanrecoveryassn.org.

The Recovery Agents Benefit Fund

RABF has made distributions to over 50 families who called on the fund because of falling on exceptionally hard times due to debilitating injury, illness or death. This includes times when the fund was called upon because families did not have the money required to pay the expenses to complete their loved one’s burial.

RABF is available to anyone in the industry regardless of their trade group affiliation or insurance provider, whether they are an owner or an employee. Requests for disbursements are reviewed on a case by case basis.

http://www.recoveryagentsbenefitfund.org/

Member Highlight: Luke Smith

This month’s member highlight is focused on MVRecovery’s Luke Smith. Luke has been nominated by the Illinois chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) as a candidate for their very prestigious Man & Woman of the Year fundraising competition.

Luke’s goal is to raise as much money as possible to help improve the quality of life of patients with leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease or myeloma. We are very proud of Luke’s accomplishments within our own industry, but also for the passion that he has shown within the LLS community. For more information on how you can help Luke, click here.

Future of Auto Repossession is the Video Game Generation

Photo courtesy of BellesLink.com

This is a guest blog post by Paul Kulas. The original post can be found HERE.

Howdy Everyone:

North American Repossessors Summit (NARS) 2015 was by far the best I’ve attended. There was great energy, and I think the industry is finally starting to adopt co-opetition. The repo industry is going to boom again. My big takeaway from this year is a thought that came to me while hanging out with two good friends, John Lewis and Michael Eusebio. John, Michael and I have been to numerous NARS events together, and I always leave with big ideas—because I went to NARS and because I was hanging around others with big ideas.

{Warning! Shameless friends and family promotion.}

Photo courtesy of BellesLink.com

John and Mike are friends of mine; they are family. They’ve collaborated on really cool software called RepoRoute. If you don’t know it yet, check out RepoRoute here. I’ll let them tell you all about it. But the short story is that it tells your driver where to go each day. It looks to me like it’s going to be a great innovation to save fuel and time. John was also there talking about masterQueue. I’ve talked about this software here before; BellesLink is integrated with it. Call John and have him talk to you about masterQueue. You won’t be sorry.

{End of shameless promotion.}

The Video Game Generation

The theme of NARS was the building blocks of success. This is my idea connected to this theme: The repo industry needs to be attractive to the video game generation, young people, Generation Y.

Young people are all over social media. Regardless of what you think about it, Gen Y grew up sharing their lives online, and they share what they love. If they love working for you, they’re going to talk about it in their social networks. That’s free advertising that you can’t buy. Who are your best salespeople? Your customers — and your employees!

Photo courtesy of BellesLink.com

Young people are coming out of college saddled with student loans. They’re heavily in debt. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting young people not go to college. I’m suggesting that the repo industry is going to boom, and therefore it’s a lucrative opportunity for young people to make good money and even pay for their college. But young people aren’t even thinking about repoing cars or coming to work for you because of all the stereotypes. They think repoing cars isn’t cool. To some degree, they’re right. The repo business and you the repo company owner need to change this. In fact, it’s key to the industry’s growth.

Making Repoing Cool

Video games and repoing cars have many similarities. Both are about software and solving the puzzle — unlocking doors, moving to the next level. Kids in their 20s can hop in a repo truck and make, what, $60,000 to $80,000 a year repoing cars? Yes, they can. But for this to happen, the repo company owner must open the door for them. How? By appealing to their inner video game persona.

Make the inside of the truck their console, their online world. The repo truck needs to be new, equipped with a laptop, mobile phone, tablet hookups and a headset. And it has to have a good stereo. Now they’re spending most of their time in an environment that’s highly appealing to them, because it mimics the world they grew up in. They feel like a rock star. And if they’re feeling it, they’re making you money.

Now that you set up the truck as an extension of their world, the software needs to be cool. No one in their generation wants to use clunky, stale software. They want to use cool software. Software like RepoRoute, masterQueue or BellesLink. The BellesLink mobile app is going to be ready soon. It will be way cool and way useful.

They have a cool truck and cool software. They’re making money; you’re making money. They can use the money they make to pay for college.

Making It Work

I get it; all of this is expensive. Raise your rates. But you can’t just raise your rates for no good reason. So you need to connect your clients to your vision. Show your clients that by paying you more, they’re actually going to save money and have less risk. Show your clients that for you to represent their business in the best light, young people are going to want to work for you.

A fancy truck and software won’t do you any good if you don’t deliver. Your repo people need to be able to make money; they need to feel great about coming to work for you each day.

If you follow the vision I laid out, it won’t be long before your drivers are promoting your business to all of their friends on social media. Before you know it, their friends will be knocking on your door asking if you need any more help. And when was the last time that happened?

A Building Block for Success

Here’s the takeaway: NARS was about the building blocks of success. A building block of success is to make your business appealing to young people. Build your business to appeal to young people, the video game generation. Give them everything they need to succeed and more. Connect your clients to your vision. When you do, your business will go viral.

Big ideas happen when you’re constantly thinking about investing in your business. You’re reading this because I’ve invested in NARS and got inspired by hanging around others with big ideas.

Go to NARS!

Register Now For The April Webinar

Thanks For A Successful NARS 2015

Commander Rorke Denver

The 7th Annual North American Repossessors Summit proved to be the epitome of unity within the recovery and remarketing industry. This year’s summit hosted more than 500 attendees, an all-time high for NARS attendance. All sponsorship and exhibitor spots for the summit were filled, allowing a plethora of networking and marketing opportunities. The impressive speakers, thought-provoking discussions and unfaltering support from the recovery and remarketing community made this year’s summit the best one yet.

A highlight of NARS 2015 was the boisterous presentation by Commander and Navy Seal, Rorke Denver. Denver shared the lessons he learned from SEAL training to inspire industry professionals to lead and perform at their highest level. By sharing clips from his movie, stories from his adventures and leadership lessons learned from his past, Rorke had the audience mesmerized and enchanted.

Insightful and educational, John Messiha and Tom Haas graciously shared insight into the world of compliance. Questions from the floor were responded to with honest and helpful advice on how best to modify businesses to meet compliance standards.

Mac Fulfer proved to be a real treat for summit attendees. Fulfer explained stranger’s personalities and characteristics by reading their faces. Fulfer shared his knowledge of face reading with his NARS closing session, Facing Success. The session explained how to enhance communication with others by reading facial expressions.

Presentations by Tim Hamilton and Adam Boyd were informative and exuberant. Both focused on the road to success and illustrated different practices to help business owners obtain their success. Greg Crabtree provided data to help illustrate how much it really costs to work an assignment, allowing businesses to charge clients accordingly. Michael Eusebio presented on how technology can be utilized to improve profits, both speakers allowed attendees to get a more firm grasp on how assignments are effected financially.

The summit also featured roundtable sessions led by influential speakers. Paul Kulas, Alex Price, Dawn Psaromatis, Michele Ball, Doug Duncan and John Lewis led roundtable sessions and were able to talk with attendees on a more intimate level allowing for a more engaged conversation tailored to the attendee’s specifics.

In addition to the high quality of speakers, the summit offered networking opportunities at the DRN Sponsored Cocktail Party and network room, which became a breeding ground for discussion on hot topics occurring in the industry.

Attendees were given the opportunity to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club of Collin County while networking with other professionals. The third annual NARS golf tournament hosted by ARA and Capital One Auto Finance and sponsored by MVTRAC and Recovery Manager Pro, raised $5000 for the non-profit. The tournament took place at the beautiful Luna Vista Golf Course where golfers were able to bid for exclusive opportunities to team up with Capital One Auto Finance employees.

The camaraderie shown during NARS provides a beacon of hope for our industry and its future. Many have declared this the best NARS the industry has seen and it is our goal to set the bar even higher for next year.

Sincerely,

Jerry Wilson
ARA President

ARA February Webinar Registration Now Available

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