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Strolid CEO and Founder Vin Micciche discusses leveraging BDC operations as a diagnostic tool for dealership health. Vin explains how analyzing lead volume, CRM consistency, and appointment show rates exposes systemic issues like pricing misalignment, inventory gaps, or marketing inefficiencies. He emphasizes the importance of separating third-party lead performance from organic sources to set realistic conversion benchmarks. Key insight: “A BDC’s data doesn’t just measure lead handling- it reveals whether your entire sales ecosystem is aligned for success.” Learn more about how Strolid helps dealerships Never Miss opportunities for dealers at https://www.strolid.com.
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to BDC Diagnostics
01:23 - BDC as Operational Barometer
04:45 - Lead Volume Realities
09:12 - CRM Consistency Challenges
16:07 - Pricing Impact Analysis
22:47 - Third-Party Lead Pitfalls
31:15 - Inventory Alignment Strategies
42:00 - Service Department Insights
51:20 - Future of Dealership Analytics
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to BDC Diagnostics
01:23 - BDC as Operational Barometer
04:45 - Lead Volume Realities
09:12 - CRM Consistency Challenges
16:07 - Pricing Impact Analysis
22:47 - Third-Party Lead Pitfalls
31:15 - Inventory Alignment Strategies
42:00 - Service Department Insights
51:20 - Future of Dealership Analytics
Creators and Guests
Host
What is Dealer Insights Podcast?
Interviews with Strolid CEO and Founder Vin Micciche, BDC industry icon and veteran
good afternoon or good evening and
thanks for tuning in to the dealer
where we go under the hood Bumper to
Bumper in just about everywhere in
between discussing topics important to
dealers of all types and sizes your time
is valuable so thanks for riding along
for this episode of
welcome back to dealer insights with
Vinnie and Sean today we've got a great
episode Benny had an idea that I think
the visual for dealers is is an easy one
to grasp and that is pressure testing or
stress testing the barometer for your
dealership if you will can very much be
uh your BDC and stroll it very much has
years of experience of being that very
thing for their dealer clients so I
think it's an interesting concept
good idea and we're gonna look at a
handful of different areas where this
makes sense first
is lead volume like what if you don't
have enough leads or your dealership
feels like well we don't have enough
leads how would your BDC how would a
business Like Straw would be able to
help your dealership understand whether
or not that mix is right so I guess my
first question on that would be if any
uh how would a dealer how how should a
dealership go about knowing how many
leads is enough leads
yeah it's a really good question
um we um
my own business we manage leads
um ironically we we probably do a better
job with the dealers than we do with my
own company because we just created our
own CRM and
everything starts
uh with the idea of
you know success but what is success is
it like Perfection I never look at
anything from that perspective nothing
is is perfect right
um
and so I can tell you Steelers crms are
not perfect
and part of the reason is the challenge
that they have hiring training and
getting someone to use their CRM
consistently
um a lot of sales managers gsms
you know they want appointments
um and they'll look at their CRM to see
how many appointments they get
um and oh I'll I'll bet that a majority
of them if you ask them how many leads
do you need to get the same the right
amount of appointments
I don't always get an answer that makes
a whole lot of sense like for example
we'll get a dealer say I want 10
appointments every day yet they get 200
let's say 300 leads
that means I have to get 10 appointments
out of those 300 leads every day at 100
appointment set rate
um so I'm a data guy as you know
um but
you know they're if you look at go to
our website we have a whole page on what
is a lead
um to me a walking customer's lead your
customer base our potential leads
um you got phone UPS you got chats that
come in texts that come in you got lead
form submissions and and most dealers
get about 75 percent of their sales
traffic coming through a lead form
submission
you know maybe some of 60 maybe some are
80 but somewhere around 70 percent
um and so we've done a good job with our
technology to manage that lead so in a
consistent manner
but does that mean that it's perfect no
but it's consistent so what what is the
importance of consistency if you're
going to look at data you need to make
sure that everybody in your team on your
team is is managing in a consistent
manner then you can see where the
problems are
mm-hmm you know so that's why I consider
the BDC to be a great barometer so how
many leads does a dealer need
um you could go out and buy leads
um you could work on your website
uh get more traffic to your website
build your website out so you get better
conversion to a lead those are good
leads
um
and we consider that to be really
important when we look at at leads for a
dealer
um and this is all explained on that
page what is a lead however I'll break
it down really quick uh if you get a
thousand total leads a month what
percentage of those are walk-in
customers let's say it's a hundred they
didn't call they didn't email in and
let's say you get another 100
phone ups and then you get you know
700 800 Lead form submissions it's
probably off it's probably more like 150
150 and and 700 or something to that
effect
the lead quality of the 700 is really
important to understand so
because I've looked at lead data for so
many years we like to see our dealers
above 40 percent
of their lead traffic coming from
organic sources like their website their
chat
um you know tools like trade tools and
and you know other there's a lot of
different tools you can put on your site
to help you engage with more customers
why is it important to get a lead from a
customer
obviously we want we want to have a
conversation with them tell them all the
great things about the dealership and
why they want to come and and buy a car
from us otherwise you just leave it the
chance
so that breakdown is really important
when you determine the quote unquote 10
lead to close magic you know everyone
wants to get the 10 leave the close well
it's difficult to get there in a
domestic store
um because most domestic stores send a
lot of third-party lead traffic to their
dealers campaign leads hand raisers
lease payoff leads and all kinds of
other things so we we do a great job
here at Strait of looking at all that
ahead of time as a matter of fact we do
a free assessment
no strings attached to analyze that
because
we don't want to walk into a dealership
where they have unrealistic expectations
um we want to let them know what we can
do and whether or not they're doing a
good job or not
do you run up against
um
you know especially when you're
approaching a new opportunities with
dealers
do you do you talk to a lot of them who
are thinking about hey you know our lead
volume do we have enough coming in is it
the right mix
um that's always talking about
perfection though Sean there's no Silver
Bullet every dealership is different you
know they have different images I guess
that's my question is like they kind of
feel that way but they need to be
reminded there isn't a silver bullet
there's not a magic recipe for this no
you have to kind of that's the point of
barometer in each of these segments is
the barometer is going to help you
figure out what those specific
ingredients are that work at your store
your brand your location all those
factors right 100 yeah yeah and so so a
dealer who says well should we just sign
up with another lead provider that
that's not always the uh answer
sometimes it is sometimes it isn't
because I know a lot of them are they
they tend to think
we just need to go buy more leads and I
think you I'm listening to you and I'm
I'm thinking well you guys might say but
that might be helpful but it also could
be helpful if you don't feel like your
lead mix and volume is in line that
there are a couple of things to change
you mentioned hey what's happening at
the website level
um that's
um correct me if I'm wrong in this but
as I'm hearing that I want to break that
down because I think for people tuning
in
your you guys are making recommendations
to help with lead volume lead mix that
come from years and years and years of
experience with dealers and lots of data
very thing fine tuning put the barometer
the pressure test stress testing what's
working so that and that never stops
right it's a constant there's a constant
pressure testing to basically get the
best result right to squeeze all the
stuff out that doesn't really matter
and I'm getting that right you got you
guys are watching all the right is that
yeah I'm looking for
how do I say this so
what frustrates me the most Sean in in
business in general my own business even
is
when something I can't make sense of
something
like I can't understand it so to me the
way you combat that is by
putting a process in holding people
uh accountable to your expectations of
that process as long as the expectations
are reasonable
um you know Tony Robbins isn't going to
get 50 appointment set rate on 100 leads
it's just not going to happen
uh now it would happen if they were all
from your website
potentially
you know
um but you don't always have the right
car you don't always have the right
inventory you know you know you're not
always uh it's it's a competitive thing
Sally right you always want to be the
best you always want to get to that
and there's never a there's no sailing
on on on it but there is kind of you
know and so what I get frustrated with
is
if I have a team of 5 10 15 sales people
and I have
four veterans that are really good
and I got let's say it's 15 right and I
got six
um average performers
and then I got five new people or three
new people and two people that gotta go
right
um how do you get a consistent process
how do you get them to follow leads
consistently
mm-hmm
um and sell cars and deliver cars and
show you know in Prospect and call their
customer base and you know follow up on
lease retentions and all that other
stuff so like we the way I looked at the
BBC a long time ago is you know
consistent process is going to tell you
a lot about how your marketing is
working a consistent process on on
managing this is going to tell you you
know how your pricing is how are you
marketing how are you merchandising
um it and that that's why you know we
decided on the
the topic of a barometer you know
um that's a great point because even in
the even under the not enough leads
dealership feels like we don't have
enough leads we need more leads we need
more leads the the barometer if you will
the pressure testing constantly
um
that might just not be true and the
dealer may not know that because they've
maybe not managed the business in this
way before right there may be things
they're not looking at where it's like
actually you have more than enough leads
and not enough in terms of the
consistency around the process because
it is true
and it's been this way for decades
really since the dawn of Leeds uh where
it can be very easy for a dealership to
fall into kind of a rut of your process
is actually just chasing down the ones
that you know management thinks are the
most lucrative right the cherry picking
if you will and you might not know that
well you have other sources that you
don't think are performing well or you
need more volume but you're just not
actually you said it a minute ago of the
accountability isn't really uh even a
factor with some of those sources so you
don't really you don't know you guys
know that when a dealer signs up and
says hey we want to have you take care
of all these things I think that's a
really important distinction yes the the
challenge Sean is like not if you don't
have enough leads we can tell you why we
can help you make the best decision for
your marketing dollars
um but sometimes there's a marketing
person at the dealership or a marketing
agency
that gets threatened by you know what
we're telling them right or maybe your
appointment set rate's too low we could
be effect you know we could be the
effectiveness we we could fix that
um part of the BDC but it could be your
pricing it could be your inventory mix
it could be your marketing and and more
and so uh I feel for BDC companies out
there you know I had a um
one of the first companies we worked
with to help us develop our platform
when I was explaining reporting this guy
who's a PhD at MIT
and he's in think tanks and everything
his name was Andreas great guy
he said to me Vinnie you know when you
explain your reporting it almost sounds
like you're trying to defend yourself
and uh he came up with the idea of uh
narratives instead of you know data uh
type reporting you know uh typical
dashboard type reporting and so the
narrative would be your point your leads
are down and here's why
or you're not getting enough leads from
this Source or you're getting too many
leads from that Source uh and not Vinnie
telling you the data telling you you
know so that's what we've been working
on also internally uh the appointment
set rate is low
everyone wants to say well you know
you're not getting enough appointments
well it could also be a pricing it could
also be your inventory it could also be
your marketing it could also be the you
know the process uh the sales process
within the dealership you know your show
rates too low well it could also be it
doesn't necessarily it's not always the
bdc's fault get here where I'm going
with what Andrea said like I'm trying to
defend myself yeah yeah yeah
you can also leave a hand off at the
dealer or the lack of preparation for
the dealer or the the you know the
whether or not they're confirming
appointments at the dealership
um and we want to be able to point that
stuff out and really good smart business
people and a lot of our dealers
um and a lot of the dealers I worked
with at group one
um
if they're really good at what they want
to do they want to know that information
they don't want to defend it or make
excuses or blame right
um and don't get me wrong we're not
perfect no BDC out there is perfect but
no sales Department's perfect but we
take pride in our ability to you know
really work closely with our dealers and
and be conscientious and listen and be
okay with saying you know what you're
right and we'll fix that you know if
there's something wrong
um we're all car people so we have thick
sins but the close rate for example John
uh Sean it could be a marketing problem
right it could be a training problem in
the dealership
uh our disconnect from the BDC maybe
they're not reading the information that
the BDC put into the into the CRM to
help the salesperson close those deals
yeah you're flying into some categories
here I want to unpack a little bit with
you because you're right these were all
good like the
you mentioned something that I just
maybe give gave some thought to when you
guys are talking with dealers even
around the leads and you've mentioned
marketing a couple of times
um you guys also help dealers recognize
some things that sometimes cost them
nothing but actually the value of it is
a great and I'll give you a couple ideas
um around leads
uh you guys can tell a dealer hey uh
there's a couple of things available
that will just help you just juice up
your website conversion a bit right a
couple of additions I know you guys will
uh Advocate to the dealers like hey
you've got a trade-in tool or you don't
have a trade-in tool you need to do this
because these are good leads when you uh
utilize this the right way hey here's a
you know a discount offer like you guys
do actually make recommendations around
marketing website optimization that I
don't think people always uh think of
like well hey would our BDC company be
making those recommendations so that's
just Kudos awesome you started getting
into appointment set rate talking about
pricing talking about inventory what are
some ways pricing uh can be a effect uh
that appointment set rate both positive
and negative
or maybe a dealer's not thinking about
hey yeah pricing could very much be a
big impact on why you're not setting a
lot of appointments or why you are
studying a lot of appointments sure
yeah and by the way we don't recommend
tools unless our data says that the tool
is working right
yeah which is huge right and so how do
we know it's working well if I'm running
a single point store
I look at one dealership it's worth the
data straw is looking at you know 150
dealerships worth of data and you know
engagement rates appointment set rates
show rates and close rates and um so we
can absolutely I I love the BDC and I
love data for the simple fact that I'm
not that smart and it makes me look much
smarter than I actually am
so at the end of the day
um I don't want to make decisions
that are tough decisions I I feel for
dealers that have to make pricing
decisions for say Toyota and Honda right
now because they've got no inventory and
they're going to maximize their gross on
the vehicles that they have but with
that said it's still a market
so a BDC can't you know as the old
saying goes you can't turn the chicken
into chicken salad you know what I
mean
um and if your pricing is too high and
your competitors aren't taking the same
philosophical approach on pricing as you
are
it's not going to help
by telling your BDC just get them in
it's not going to help you get more
appointments to tell your BDC well you
know you're weak you can't get
appointments you can't get around that
question uh we we've had arguments with
some dealers where they're like you know
we this guy wants to know you know what
we're going to pay them or they want us
to tell the customer that they're three
or four grand over invoice over MSRP
when we shop for them and they're
you know competition is doing things a
little bit more creative
um and so that hurts right that's going
to hurt you and frankly
you know you're playing with your
customer base
and you're going to eventually erode
your customer base which is eventually
going to affect your service department
um and your ability to make money in the
service department and parts department
and and reselling those people again is
hard you know I ran a dealership
that was that was a new Point meaning it
didn't exist I started running it when
it was three years old I felt bad for
the two general managers who ran it
before me
because they they struggled why do you
think they struggled they didn't have a
customer base their customer base was
someone else's customer that they had to
steal
conquesting yeah I mean because because
right you rely on your customer base for
referrals and repeat business and and
all that kind of stuff so the bigger
your customer base the better you know
another thing is your inventory I
mentioned Toyota Honda struggling within
inventory well inventory is what
converts you know customers today do not
need to go into a dealership and get
sold on a vehicle that they don't want
um they can continue to look you know I
was talking to uh Papa the other day my
dad and one of the things he said was
you know I've gotten some questions from
some of the manage from some of the
directors about
one of our teams
um their appointment set rate is low he
goes but man when I tell you I go in and
listen they're doing a great job
you know he's like I'm like so what's
the problem and he said the problem is
you're getting calls from all over the
country on certain Vehicles you know
these dealers won't sell out of their
market and no one's really looking hard
at that data
to understand that okay you're getting
leads but
you're not getting appointments for more
reasons than just a weak BDC
you know why do you think I like organic
leads so much on
because they convert High it makes us
look better yeah yeah you know they're
local customers that are converting on
your website that are asking questions
and we're answering them fast and and
we're being responsive and professional
and all those kinds of things
um and we're just not getting we're
getting the results on those but we're
not getting results uh for dealers that
are struggling with new car inventory
you know when you guys do your
complimentary audit or assessment I
guess is what you guys call it
um when you do that do you look I'm
guessing that the answer is going to be
well if they'll if they'll provide
access to this much visibility but do
you guys look at where the Dealer's at
on appointment set rates yeah show rates
and close rates and givers okay
when we look at follow-up on leads we
look at their Cadence we look at their
workflow we give them a whole uh rundown
on what we think we can do to improve I
think I told you this before but I have
a dealer that wants to do business with
me because he's a friend of mine and I
looked at his stuff but I told him like
the last thing I want to do is come in
and mess up what you got going because
it's working yeah is it perfect no but
if I come in and give you similar
results or maybe a little bit better
results uh but they're doing a good job
it it doesn't make a whole lot of sense
I'm not saying we we only work in
dealers that are doing poorly because
that's not true either I mean
and you've shared it in the context too
of like well listen if if you if the
dealership thinks you hey we want to use
you guys and you're thinking
traditionally we'd use you for you know
inbound calls and uh leads from all
sources and we'll kind of help you on
the sales side that you've identified
when dealers are like you're actually
you don't probably want to disrupt
what's going on it's good your
assessment can tell you that but then
you might say to the dealer what we
really could help you with is your
service BDC you need help there
um maybe outbound right yeah because you
guys cover all of that which I think to
me
um I think uh we'll talk about it too we
gotta figure out how to promote even
more heavily uh a complimentary
assessment like that because usually
dealers think there's a string attached
like what's the string what's the catch
um there's no catch it literally is the
process that you guys utilize to help
identify where you can best help a
dealer uh where you may not and like you
just said if it's not hey we you don't
need us then we also tell you you're
doing good and we'll reinforce here's
the stuff you should keep doing that way
and if that falls apart then you can
call us back that's right that's
extremely valuable because the dealer
can actually trust that you're just
going to tell them the truth yeah we can
help you and here's all the reasons why
or you're doing really good so keep
doing these things and yeah first of all
you know funny funny little uh side note
we we couldn't possibly do this for 18
000 dealers nor do we want to
um so not everybody needs our services
but I like I spoke to a guy yesterday uh
at a Honda dealer in Chicago
great guy I thought I was talking to
myself that's the kind of guy I want to
do business with
you know what I mean like because he
knows the struggles of what it's
you know how to keep a BDC intact to
keep them trained to keep them motivated
to keep quality people in the mix
um and the turnover and yada yada but
he's a data guy and really what he's
saying to me is all I want is a
consistent approach to this so I can run
my business and not have to worry
constantly about whether or not things
are being done consistently so it
accountability is is a big deal for me
um my I grew up in a under a one of our
leaders who was a tremendous
um disciplinary but accountability was
big but he was a great guy too at the
same time but everything had to be done
um from a process standpoint and I can
tell you
um
I woke up
with everyone that came out of that
group has been successful
so the recipe is what
consistency it's not Perfection it's
consistency it's trying to be as
consistent as you possibly can and
follow a process the best you can
obviously critical thinking emotion and
your sales ability helps you get better
results and those people are special I
get it
um
but at the end of the day everyone uses
one tool on the sales side from an
accountability standpoint and that one
tool is a CRM
and unfortunately if you're not managing
the functionality of the CRM properly
you're not going to see it clear enough
to to understand you know and that's
what we try to bring in we say we're
going to use that CRM we're going to
manage it
really well like our people can train
and manage and set up a CRM as well as
the CRM companies at this point
and then once it's in use and it's and
and it's flowing
um now we can start looking at the data
and start making really good decisions
and put in some training where it's
needed and understand where our process
breakdowns are and all that kind of
great stuff to help you
make your business A Better Business
which is what I hope every owner and
general manager wants
um
you know unfortunately a lot of crms are
are gamed
um to make you know their numbers look
good
it's a joke interest interesting little
tidbit I don't want to bury the lead on
that another thing that you guys do
which to me is a massive Value Point is
your team has so much experience with
all of the top crms that they could
literally probably train it into the
dealership we do all the time around
with our own dealers and and think about
and and I know from my own experience
some of the companies I used to work for
that had big CRM tools the amount of
training uh extensive training
um it's different when you're a trainer
of that CRM from the CRM that doesn't
actually you still aren't a dealership
employee working that tool on that side
of the fence that's a different
experience but you guys have exactly
that experience you're not the CRM
company you're literally a pressure
tested stress-tested team that
understands how those things work and
you're bringing that experience and that
helpfulness to a dealership that's to me
one of those other kind of intrinsic
maybe deeper level value points of
bringing in somebody like you guys that
I don't think a lot of dealers consider
especially think about the turnover
wheel you've got new people we've talked
about this before training retraining
training retraining training retraining
higher rehire like that constant machine
that's always going on especially on the
sales and BDC side of of car dealers
if you could Outsource that to a team
it's like we know all these crms usually
better than the CRM companies themselves
to me that's really really huge
I want to say better but we have people
I know for a fact that work for me and
we've been doing this for nine years
that have used have have been involved
with these crms longer than some of the
people that they send out to the dealers
to train them at their own company so
like that's what I mean like we have a
lot of experience with a lot of these
crms and you know art we're going to do
another podcast on our new tech but our
new tech is coming out it's going to be
an accountability tool that's tamper
proof why is tamper proof important just
what we're talking about uh when you're
measuring conversations in and outbound
and you're measuring emails in and
outbound and text in and outbound and
you're actually measuring it
outside of the CRM
is what we're doing and we're feeding it
to an AI system to tell us what's really
happening and it's going to tell us
what's really happening and we're going
to make that tamper proof meaning you
can't say oh let me delete some of this
so it looks better
or or whatever you know what I'm saying
like so
uh
long story short everyone wants to get
that 10 lead to close well
um there's a lot of reasons why you're
not a 10 lead to close you know
yeah and it's not just the bdc's
inability to get appointments
yeah yeah and so you want to look at
that holistically not just from a one
kpi which is a 10 lead to close yeah and
make it make a judgment on all your
employees because of your fixation on
one kpi there should be multiple kpis
you're looking at you know like
engagement rate engagement rate's a big
one uh I told the dealer yesterday if we
are engaged with a customer we're going
to get an appointment 60 of the time
the problem is we're engaging with some
of these third-party leads 20 percent
15 10 and it's like okay so 10 of on 100
leads 10 of 100 is 10 and if I get 60
percent appointments is six
if if you close two of those that's a
two percent lead to close ratio
but we called all the other ones we
emailed them all we texted them we
called and we called them we called them
yeah what why is it is it is it the BDC
uh the the third party lead companies or
the ad agencies that are selling
Facebook liens and other things like
that will tell you oh you're just not
following up enough it's like okay
who are you gonna believe you're gonna
believe them or someone that follows up
for a living like us
right well several years back now I
would love for some of them to take some
leads and call them themselves and make
some appointments for Christ's sakes
yeah well several years ago when you
told me
uh hey this is what I'm doing astrolid
and I started to learn a little bit
about what he had built and your
approach one of the things that until
still to this day is my favorite thing
is a value point for dealers
um
if I'm a dealer and I bring you in I am
going to know because of the work the
consistent follow-up and work that's
being done but also because of the fact
that you guys do have and have had uh
technology behind you like your system
like facilitates all these things to
make it fast in communication of
multiple sources but it also has an
insights
uh output it's what I've always called
kind of it's the uh it's the data
exhaust if you will it's the stuff that
comes off of all of that activity and
for the dealers and everyone tuning in
specifically what I mean is if you're
astrolid uh dealer you can see in an
insights report
here's where all this stuff's coming
from uh and it will break down uh who's
really doing well or not and when you
have the ability to answer yes to the
are you
applying a consistent process to every
single lead Source right
uh when you can answer yes to that
question then you can go in and say well
now we know a little difference about
this provider doesn't quite
do as well as we want it to because
it's all been applied equally fairly and
not enough dealers do that on their own
most of them don't but when you have the
ability to do that I love and I've
always loved the fact that I can use you
guys and I will know who is very best
among all of my lead sources and that
can help me make a decision to say uh
hey this bottom three I'm gonna move
them out and the budget that I spend on
them and I'm going to take half of that
budget and try something new because for
me I'm always thinking marketing and
sales but Marketing sales and that is a
massive win for you guys but mostly the
dealers that you're working for because
you could be not only telling them
here's your purest sources for lead
volume close quality but if you look at
BBC data properly it's almost like
cheating
hire you guys and now I got all this
inside baseball which is really your own
data off of doing it the right way which
is really one of the right way right
it's hard for the dealers I mean they
constantly have pressure something going
on but it's hard for us I'm not going to
tell you we have some magic pixie dust
we just work hard we have really good
trainers that care that are passionate
we have managers that have been with me
a long long time like nobody's perfect
in any of this stuff like that's the
problem right when I talk about basic
fundamentals I break it down to this
Sean we don't hire people and train them
to be nice we hire nice people that's
step one
right yeah it evolves from there now the
training comes in and we train them then
we watch them then we sit with them then
we look at their numbers and we listen
to their calls and we get them better
and and we do it in a way where the
employee knows we're trying to get them
better everyone sees you know
opportunities with growth and things
like that where where bootstrap company
so we're not like we have lots of room
for opportunities and growth and things
like that and people see it and and they
appreciate our approach I think
employees personally always no matter if
it's at a dealership or at stroller or
working at a bank or or a hospital
everybody wants to know what is expected
of them and then they want to be
recognized for doing it the way that we
ask them that to do it
yeah it's not rocket science I know I
always make things sound like really
simple but to me it is simple treat
people well obviously if you're not cut
out for the job we're going to tell you
knock it over the job
and not to be a jerk it's just like
we've been working with you and you're
just not getting it you know
um we have a process for that where we
talk to employees and then you know we
talk to them again and then we write
them up and then we
terminate like I I hate that Automotive
stuff like that but that's the reality
of what we do but it starts with your
employees and hiring the right people
and then having a process and a set of
expectations that they can follow
and not ask too much of them
you know I mean there's a very small
percentage of us in the world and I
consider myself to be one of them that
you can load a ton of work on
um if you're paying me I'm gonna get it
done
oh
yeah but not everybody's like that yeah
you know unfortunately most guys that
run dealerships are like me uh and then
they hire people and expect all their
employees to be like them it isn't
possible yeah yeah yeah it's not
possible
um the consistency following a
consistent process and all that will
give you the data that you need to
understand whether or not those people
are actually capable or competent enough
to do the job that you'll understand
your marketing you'll if you listen to
what they're telling you or you're
listening to the calls you'll understand
that your pricing might be too high or
that your merchandising isn't working if
you look at your website analytics which
we look at with our dealers all the time
because we're we're bringing up the fact
that they're not converting enough leads
from their website so let's look at your
website and we get on calls with with ad
agencies and we do all these different
pressure points as we've been calling it
to try to fine-tune your business help
you fine-tune your business we don't
we're not here to just collect the check
and say we'll handle your calls and
leads and get you a ton of appointments
it doesn't work that way I know there
are a lot of BDC companies out there
that say oh yeah we're gonna load you up
with appointments it's like I'm not
going to go out on a and say that right
unless I do an assessment and I think
that they're really performing poorly
and I know we can make an immediate
impact and I would tell them that you
know yeah yeah as a as a marketer for
for me and I'm a broken record on this
that type of stuff especially of lead
harvesting like mqls on that consumer
side it's the easiest thing to do you
can literally go and buy 500 leads today
if you want to and your team will or
your BDC will waste a whole bunch of
time and you'll sell nothing
um or you can put all the things
together where you're making smart
decisions about who are the providers
what are your best sources consistency
consistency consistency and you're gonna
find out oh this is how you do it I
wanted to ask you a little bit on show
rate so by the way rich on just so you
know advertising buying leads all that
stuff is essential I'm not trying to say
it's bad yeah you need it but you also
need to be able to handle that lead
actually the first thing you need is the
right inventory and Merchandising it
right or the advertising isn't going to
work and then you need the advertising
to show off all the merchandising and
great reasons why they buy a car from
you and all the branding and all that
and then what happens next the customer
connects with you you need a consistent
process to handle that
yeah and then a lot of those customers
come in and you need a consistent
process to handle that and then and in
terms of in customer expectations one of
the things we do really well is we set
the deal the customer up with the
understanding and the idea that when
they come in this is going to be
painless experience it's going to save
them time so if our dealers aren't
connected with us and that doesn't
happen that can affect results too
you know yeah on appointment show rate
how important is like the communication
at the dealership or hand off with the
dealership between BDC sales all that
how critical is that part of my problem
Sean is
I can't determine what's more important
it's all important you know what I mean
um and it makes I'm kind of a I'm kind
of fanatical about it like I'm like
like like I told you I get frustrated
when I see things that are outside of a
process because I understand that that's
going to cause missed opportunities yeah
um yeah but handing it off to the dealer
we have dealers that are unbelievable
that work with us that like are when we
to a deal they're on it uh they call and
confirming appointments and they
appreciate everything that we do and
then we have some that it's like hard to
get them to even acknowledge our to is
like we turn over a customer that needs
someone from the dealership to speak to
them
um because we can't get an appointment
unless certain questions are answered uh
that type of communication we do
regularly uh on the you know we
communicate multiple times throughout
the day to our dealers and our
management teams at the dealership we're
a manager-centric program so we we focus
all of these appointments and or
um hot leads I guess you could call them
or you know Tios uh to the management
team
uh you know some have like someone like
an internet type manager uh but most of
the time it's going through the GSM or
the GM
you know we're talking a lot about
barometer and sales we do the same thing
on service Josh just found out the other
day well I didn't just find out we've
known this but now part of our our our
assessment for service is to look at
their scheduler because a lot of the
service scheduling tools are basically
saying they don't have availability when
they do
and the dealers don't even know that's
happening you know just things like that
that we we we focus on we have an eight
page uh assessment
um
onboarding form eight pages now it
started with like three or four pages
now it's up to eight of detailed
information that we want from the dealer
prior to launching so we know how to
answer questions when customers call so
we don't have to bother them
you know
um it's huge yeah it is huge and it
works really well and the service guys
love us
um knock on wood it's like one of our
you know
service the service department they want
appointments clearly
um but their phones are ringing and
they're dealing with customers and
they're running around the shop looking
for parts and all that other stuff and
like I know it sounds simple but still a
majority of people call for service
I mean there's a lot that could be
learned just from the phone calls right
relative to low service deployment rates
I mean
what are people saying on those calls I
mean how many dealerships do you think
listen in on
because the volume of service calls is
so high how many of them do you think go
in and actually inspect the what's the
tone what's the question you know did we
answer like oh we're our bays are full
we can't take anybody how many dealers
do you think really going to listen to
those conversations not many
um how I know that is I've been in the
BBC world uh for 27 years and one of the
biggest problems in a sales BDC is they
get service customers that call the
sales line because no one's picking up
on the service department
you know that that's been a a fight
we've been fighting forever
um Josh has figured out a really good
system around ivrs which is like press
one for this and that that we install
when we go into a dealership I mean you
know we could we could talk and we
probably should have Josh Anna uh and
talk about all the stuff we do to
onboard a dealer
and what we try to do when we onboard a
dealer
is not bother them much
we do ask that they will get their team
on a launch call
so we can cover the process with
everybody including sales people
managers we do that in the service
department with service advisors and and
service managers
um that way there they know what we're
doing so they're not confused
um and but all the technical stuff that
we go through testing their scheduler
testing the CRM setting up workflows
setting up uh templates and and and
making sure that old workflows are
cleaned out and testing it to make sure
that all of our systems are connected
with their systems and we do work out of
the dealer CRM on the sales side in case
any dealers that are listening to don't
realize that we don't we have a platform
but it's kind of mirrors the CRM in a
way
yeah instead of trying to be a separate
completely separate um system
yeah I don't know that all dealers when
they're thinking BDC that enough of them
are thinking
um about the
sales side versus the service side
versus also using BDC for
mining your own data coming up with
outbound campaigns for brands that are
rebounding the inventories come back
you know in some manner that you know
like you've mentioned Toyota and Honda
and I'm a Toyota guy so I see it at my
local Toyota store all the time meaning
no inventory
um but for brands that that's you know
come back with that that may be a really
big factor is you consider like oh we
we're starting to pick up with sales
that's working dialing in service
um how many dealers do you guys talk to
where they you feel like they have a
really good grasp of the mechanics and
getting the best out of especially both
the variables opside on sales and
service like they both get yeah a lot of
dealers are addressing both yeah on the
service side right
it's it's called fixed operations for a
reason because their profit margins are
fixed and um really what they're selling
is time in service so they're selling
capacity they're selling how much room
they have available and how much time
they can make based on that availability
in that capacity that they have if they
have any if you're lucky enough to be
with say BMW there's like a two-week
wait to get into service but when I went
to GM school I learned um how to Trend
I'm sure they have more technology I
remember when I went to gym schools oh
six so like it was like a new computer I
had which I thought was cool and I you
know I understood spreadsheets and stuff
like that but we did Trend analysis in
our financial class and I still do that
I use that Trend analysis on a lot of
different things aside from Financial
trending like website traffic
I Trend it out every month and now I
know is my traffic up or down
call Traffic into a service department
is the other calls up or down
and you watch those Trends and that's
when you go in and tweak your marketing
if you're trending down you want to go
look and see why you're trending up good
good thing you know that's good
um and it's that simple like again I
I try to keep things as simple as
possible I had to manage 60 dealerships
at group one so I had to figure out a
way to pay attention to what was
important and uh at the ground at the at
at the core level
your traffic is really important so how
many service departments to your point
look at inbound calls that they get
every month versus you know
um and and we have a disposition report
so it'll say you know stroller handled a
thousand calls
200 of them got transferred to a service
advisor
um 50 were escalated
you know
um we scheduled x amount of appointments
uh we rescheduled x amount of
appointments we transferred to Parts
this many we transferred to service this
money and they get a whole so like when
they at the end of the month they can
say okay these are all the calls that
came in and this is what happened with
them
and now you can start getting
appointment set rates out of that
um but you want to clear away all the
stuff that was impossible to get like we
have one dealer a bunch of dealers do
but one of our dealers specifically has
uh
um uh you know you don't need to call
for an appointment for an express lane
uh Express Loop so but we get calls and
we just tell people oh yeah that's an
Express Lube you don't need to make an
appointment just come right in
so that goes against us on the
appointment set rate right because we're
not actually setting the point but we're
still taking the call and stuff like
that and so we get so much data and
detail that we can look at it and
compare it to other dealerships compared
to the previous month to the previous
year and started helping the service
departments as a barometer as well
yeah I think that's super uh critical
um do you ever
um
catch things from a pricing perspective
service related that can be helpful for
dealers
yeah no question as a matter of fact one
of my buddies is a fixed director for a
large group and when I started putting
this together by the way one of the
reasons we started doing service BDC is
because of the calls that we're getting
for service we knew that that our
dealers needed help
um but
um he told me make sure you get the top
services that the dealer sells and get
pricing on them if you're going to do
this right
um so we do that's part of our eight
page onboarding form is to get top 20
services with pricing and that's all
built into our software so we're our
agents when they take a call they get
you know someone asks the price for an
oil change or a 15K or a 20K or or with
a 30k or whatever and we have all that
information from us so yeah that's
that's huge I mean that's that's really
really big another thing I was thinking
about with service is
you know uh dealers are still uh you
know dying for great technicians right
it's not a not uh like it was you know
back when you and I were younger was
like man there's a lot of guys who are
you know wrenching and you know that was
yeah a popular pathway and now that it
isn't as popular and dealerships are
dying for really expert trained tax
um I'm guessing that comes up as a
factor sometimes too when people are
like man or you know service department
either you know appointments are low or
whatever it's like well
maybe you need to fix your personnel
issue and your service department so
you've got enough people they're getting
another barometer right like that we
could tell you you got enough business
you just don't have enough people
overall Sean
um dealers are running a dealership is
not easy I'm blessed to have lots of
experience to have been around a lot of
great dealers
um and have a lot of great dealers as
customers to to constantly try it
um and listen to what they need and to
try to figure out solutions to some of
their problems that's kind of what
selling is all about you know you can't
sell something unless you have a
solution to a problem like a pizza shop
solves the problem of hunger
you know what I mean
um look at me
um but anyway
um I think that's probably a good place
to um Park this deal
yeah I think that is a good one to to
park on this episode a lot of great
stuff uh for the audience uh this is
kind of one of those topics where for me
is as we're going through this one
Vinnie it was kind of refreshing to be
reminded of all these extra I mean even
just talking about service you guys are
bringing in these other value points
that are it it's probably stuff that you
it's so back of hand you're so used to
it that you forget about how valuable it
is for a dealer to know oh my goodness
like you guys are going to help me see
that I've got more than enough volume
and interest and appointments and I
don't have enough people right and you
guys can see that from a sales
perspective and a service perspective
um that to me is like hey I got I got
somebody helping me make sure that the
experience that I'm providing my clients
is awesome but I also have somebody
that's telling me when I'm imbalanced a
little bit it's it's like another layer
of assistance to help me operate my
dealership in the best way possible and
that is uh that's huge when you're
considering
all the different places where you might
spend money in your dealership
um well
all those extra value points of bringing
somebody like Charlotte to me is
a no-brainer anyway with that said hey
uh we'll park it here if you like it you
love it none of the above we still want
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foreign
thank you
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