Tom Stuker

THERE is Peter Costello, the head of the Future Fund and former Australian treasurer who left Australia with $80 billion in the bank; Rod Sims, the crusader from the ACCC who has made it his mission to bother dealers; the federal minister for urban infrastructure, Paul Fletcher, who is responsible for the retail car industry and even David Thodey, the former boss of Telstra; but amongst these luminaries and the 27 other speakers at next week’s AADA Convention in Sydney is one man who holds a record that is unlikely to be bettered in our lifetime.

That man is Tom Stuker, the world-renowned dealership sales trainer and president of Stuker International Training.

Dealers cannot get enough of Tom’s simple message in which he shows sales staff how to sell 20 cars a month on less than 10 quality conversions a day. Given the relatively high turnover of staff in car showrooms, Tom is always required to explain his sales system to a never-ending line-up of fresh recruits.

He is well-known to Australian audiences and in Australian dealerships. After all, he has flown Down Under from his US home base in New Jersey more than 300 times.

Since his first flight from Chicago to San Antonio in late 1970 he has flown 18 million miles (29 million kilometres), which he racked up a month or so ago, and has flown more than one million miles a year on two occasions.

Peter Costello

He is scheduled to fly a million miles this year as well.

Not only has he racked up all those miles actually on the plane, he has done so with the one airline – United.

He expects to make 20 million miles by late 2019 or 2020.

As for the points, his wife, Darlene, travels with him six times a year and he has taken his son around the world twice.

One of the beneficiaries of his points is Bailey’s Day, an Australian cancer charity started by the organiser of the AADA Convention, Patrick Tessier and his wife Kerryn, whose son Bailey died of a brain tumour aged two and a half.

Paul Fletcher

The couple were struck by the lack of funding for children’s cancer specialists to be on hand in a timely way and the funds are used to ensure more specialists are available. So far the support of the motor industry has seen $2.7 million raised.

Tom donates frequent flyer points for Bailey’s Day auctions.

Meanwhile, almost 800 of the retail car industry’s elite managers, dealers principals, dealership staff and the army of people who provide the support services for the car dealers of Australia, are descending on the newly-opened ICC in Sydney’s Darling Harbour next Tuesday for the annual AADA Convention.

The premier event on the car retailing calendar runs over just two days this year in a concentrated program involving more than 30 speakers from Tuesday November 19 to Wednesday November 20 that include must-see workshops on Tuesday night.

A record number of 90 exhibitors have booked space in the AADA Expo which will be open from 6.30 am until 10.00 pm on Tuesday and from 6.30 am until 5.00 pm on Wednesday.

By John Mellor

The annual AADA Convention will be held at the ICC in Sydney’s Darling Harbour from next Tuesday September 19 to Wednesday September 20.