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Vin Micciche analyzes the hidden costs of in-house BDCs (staff turnover, tech fragmentation) versus the ROI of outsourcing. Vin breaks down how Strolid’s centralized model reduces overhead by 30-40% while improving lead-to-appointment conversion rates, citing a 12-month ROI case study where dealers gained $18 in profit for every $1 invested. The episode also critiques “budget BDC” solutions that sacrifice customization for short-term savings. Key takeaway: “A BDC isn’t a cost center. It’s a profit engine that pays for itself when aligned with inventory and sales workflows.” Learn more about how Strolid helps dealerships Never Miss opportunities for dealers at https://www.strolid.com.
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to BDC Economics
01:23 - Core BDC Cost Principles
04:45 - Hidden Operational Costs Exposed
09:12 - Staff Turnover Realities
16:07 - Colorado Lead Analysis Case
22:47 - CRM Integration Challenges
29:08 - $18 ROI Case Study
39:09 - Budget BDC Pitfalls
42:00 - Future-Proof Process Design
50:01 - Key Takeaways & Action
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to BDC Economics
01:23 - Core BDC Cost Principles
04:45 - Hidden Operational Costs Exposed
09:12 - Staff Turnover Realities
16:07 - Colorado Lead Analysis Case
22:47 - CRM Integration Challenges
29:08 - $18 ROI Case Study
39:09 - Budget BDC Pitfalls
42:00 - Future-Proof Process Design
50:01 - Key Takeaways & Action
Creators and Guests
Host
What is Dealer Insights Podcast?
Interviews with Strolid CEO and Founder Vin Micciche, BDC industry icon and veteran
good morning good afternoon or good
evening and thanks for tuning in to the
dealer insights podcast where we go
under the hood Bumper to Bumper and 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 dealer insights welcome back to
dealer insights I am your host Shawn
Reigns of course always joined or most
of the time joined by the founder and
CEO of stolid Vinnie machii you can call
him Vin that is if you know you're
friends with him hey Vinnie how are you
good Sean how are you buddy I'm doing
great doing great I'm glad that we're
circling back around on a popular part
of uh BDC conversation sales process
inside the dealership taking this
decision outside of the dealership
there's a lot of things to consider when
dealers um are concerned about the cost
of BDC and so today for the audience
listening or and or watching uh we're
going to explore that a little bit more
so that dealers have a better
understanding really of the value not
just the cost of BDC Services because
wouldn't you agree if you're going to do
it in-house it can add up uh really fast
but also if you're going to choose some
outsourced to do it for you there's a
difference you I mean so we're going to
get into that today and I think the
first place I want to start vennie is
really kind of the
misconceptions around the cost and value
so the first thing I wanted to kind of
just crack the bottle open with on you
is what are some of those common
misconceptions that dealers have
regarding the cost of BDC Services
versus the value of those
Services yeah
so
I guess the best way to start us off I
think is to try to you know go back into
history uh when I started a BDC and then
we rolled it out to our group in New
England to 13
dealerships um that was my idea because
at the time uh I know I'm dating myself
but internet leads were new and I saw a
lot of value a lot of in I I saw a lot
of importance in those leads that were
starting to come in and I knew we need
to build a way to respond to customers
quickly and all that and uh obviously
drive more sales for the dealership and
um over time you know running a BDC or
doing it with a sales team going Cradle
to grave or however you really want to
do
it can be done whether you straw it or
you do it yourself you do a BDC you
don't like bdcs we had a guy at the show
at n say you know he thinks it's like
the third um what do you say third
string quarterback is the BDC is how we
worded it I thought that was kind of
interesting um but what we're really
talking
about is you know the mindset of the
dealer right and what are the
expectations why do they have a BDC you
know what are their expectations for
their sales team what are their
expectations for uh an Outsource BDC and
it's interesting because I have lots of
talks with lots of general managers and
we talk about that usually UPF front and
listen I went to Nada school I ran a
dealership it's like running four
businesses Under One Roof you got to
manage a sales team f actually five if
you include fni fnii team used car
Department service department parts
department and then a BDC so make it six
and then maybe a a body shop make it
seven it's complicated yeah and so
everyone wants that right person in
their organization to help manage that
section of the business right and the
better team you have around you the
better operational you'll be the better
and all that
so we did this for you know large
group um whole east coast and when I was
asked to do it I I I reacted exactly the
way a lot of dealers do was like that's
impossible how are you going to do
that
um you know I just did a meeting with my
sales team about mindset and that's
basically me telling myself it can't be
done which isn't my uh core you know
yeah yeah would you consider one of the
things that I you know when I'm talking
to dealers about BDC when that topic
comes up uh it's it seems like a lot of
times I've talked to dealers who think
they know um approximately what it would
cost to to try to outfit internally um a
BDC like they've not done it but they
start to see the value and the concept
of putting that department in but then
they they kind of have this I don't know
if it's just maybe they've never tried
to hire for that those positions and
then they realize oh my goodness these
people aren't as easy to find as far as
being properly trained uh
reliable um and and I've always thought
that's one of the big things to consider
even if you're able to staff up and
build a BDC internally it doesn't mean
that those people will be as reliable as
perhaps an outsourced selection that
even if those people drop off or a
couple people are sick you'll never know
it on the like with with what you guys
do a dealership would never know if a
person or two was out from the team
because you can you know swarm around
and make sure that everything that's
supposed to be happening for that
dealership happens but doing it
internally one it's usually a big eye
opener of cost and two I think that
they're still plagued with those human
issues because it's a small organization
inside of your dealership in comparison
any thoughts on that yeah so it all
starts with a lead Sean right so um
should salese handle leads absolutely
but are they trained to handle leads
usually not um we hire people we put
them in positions we give them a little
blueprint and we expect results and that
isn't and listen there are lots of great
dealers that have this figured out and
do it well so I'm not I'm not blanket
statement making a blanket statement
throughout the whole industry however um
I have a new um hire coming on he ran
dealer groups um and he also uh helped
fix broken stores and one of the reasons
he wants to sign up with us or or work
with us is because he almost signed up
with us six months ago and the reason
was he knew it was going to take six
months to a year to actually build a
team now if you're if you're pragmatic
about it and not emotional about it he's
right it it's not like you can just snap
your fingers higher some a few people
throw them in a room and then they're
going to do really well so we've been
doing this for 27 years Sean so the
reality of it is we have experience we
have experienced people we have
experienced folks and and the con in the
process that we've been following for
years is very
consistent the reliability we give
dealers is something that they don't
have to worry about building that team
and someone quitting to your point but
then we also you
know we've spent a lot of time on our
technology to allow us to build in the
Integrations with just not just with our
phone system but with the with the crms
to give dealers transparency into what
we're doing uh the challenge is
sometimes the results aren't what they
expect um we had a dealer the other day
tell us that they expected us to get 20
appointments a day we just signed up
with them they only get 500 leads a
month I mean do the math that's 16 leads
a day so how are we going to get 20
appointments so it's like you know a lot
of times people their mindset is oh a
BDC is going to help me sell more
cars but it all starts with a lead and
turning that lead into a showroom visit
which turns into a sale there's a lot
that goes into that a lot more than I
think a lot of dealers spend time
understanding to their defense they have
a lot of stuff they're paying attention
to
yeah all we pay attention to is that
portion uh we did some studies at at at
the large group I was at um average cost
at that time that was 10 years ago was
around5 to $6,000 per BDC representative
right um the other thing we came up with
you need a minimum of three people even
if you're a small dealership because you
need to cover the hours you're G I'm on
the phone right and then someone else is
calling in like or I'm doing followup
I'm responding to a new lead and a new
email or a new text reply comes in so
this is another reason why a lot of
people are turning to AI technology and
I don't necessarily think AI technology
is a bad thing but at the end of the day
a AI doesn't understand
emotion it's not curious it can't tell
stories it can't build rapport it can't
build relationships with your customers
all it can do is kind of put them in a
loop and say hey we we know you
responded and we're going to get back to
you but someone has to get back to them
yeah um now there are some tools that
are actually answering questions I get
that but at the end of the day what do
you want Mr dealer what do you what are
your expectations and so you want it
obviously coste effective no one would
argue that um but if you're only putting
one person or two people in a room
they're not
trained chances are you're not going to
get great results and you're going to
keep going through the motions and
finding new people that replace the
people that left and and there's it it
it's it's difficult unless you obviously
have a store that you selling 300 250 to
300 plus cars per month then you can
hire more than two or three people and
make it run more
successfully that makes sense it does um
something that you mentioned in in that
answer that I think is really
interesting is you know you had you have
a dealer that their expectation while it
sounds like it might not have been
disclosed up front that their
expectation was
20 opportunities a day that they're
working yet they hadn't calculated the
math but they they couldn't have chosen
uh a better partner than you guys
because you guys literally can kind of
uh reverse or forward engineer the math
you could literally ask a dealer a
question like that well is there an
expectation of about how many deals from
all internet sources you'd like to be
working per day and if somebody said 20
at least I know you uh would would say
Okay U how many leads do you guys get
and then you would start basically
digging in on all of the variables that
could potentially lead them to that
number and I think that's important for
dealers to think about is if they have
it in their mind like hey we going to
get a BDC and then we want to be working
10 deals out of the BDC a day uh you
know I guess depending on Market brand
things like that there are a lot of
variables but um this leads me to a
question I want to ask you around when
dealers are trying to
I think accurately uh assess
Roi uh in their BC
investment do you think that one of the
better things for them to do is just uh
look at well how many deals did we sell
um is it you know compare the um you
know the the value of a BDC deal versus
something they do do they do they get
into that where they'll like compare
well these deals were generated through
the BDC and so maybe they were more
profitable or less profitable how do
they dig in on that do you have
recommendations
there yeah I do I mean obviously I get
more in-depth into a dealer's business
than just handling leads right I just
don't want to understate this Sean if
you ever walked into say a Dunkin'
Donuts or Starbucks right and there's
eight people in line and you only have
one person answering uh helping those
customers yeah it's
cheaper to have one versus four or five
that can get through the line quickly
right or you could potentially have
people walk out and you could lose
business right yeah
so I would ask dealers what do you want
there's a lot of leads coming in do you
want an RO or do you want all those
customers responded to answer to quickly
and professionally and obviously asking
for appointments and and all that kind
of stuff because a lot of times dealers
would just throw more and more people
into the mix and they don't have enough
people to actually do the job properly
so we've designed it internally very
efficiently different sections of our
business that handle certain things plus
client success plus trainers that train
our people and hiring and recruiting and
all those kinds of things are in place
at
stald you know to me it's a no-brainer
to use stald but um obviously if you
have all those pieces in place in your
dealership then clearly you'd want to
try it in host and I wish you the best
of luck and I'm we're the type of
company we'd even give you advice and
help you like because frankly we're not
here to just say oh we need your
business just come we're going to double
your you know appointments and all that
kind of stuff like I'll give you a quick
example my my dad as you know works for
me and and does listens to lots of phone
calls I I have a conversation with them
every morning on my way into work I've
been going to the gym a lot lately on so
I I I I I leave the gym and I call my
dad right and so he's telling me about
one of our
clients who is really trying to get
their engagement rate up meaning we want
to connect with more customers well what
he found by going through the data was
that a large majority of that it's an
independent so they're selling used a
lot of their clients are from way out of
his their
market so he's focusing in on show rate
percent percentage a lot of people go
lead to close oh I want to be 10% lead
to close
well if the show isn't there then you
know it's on the BDC if the appointments
aren't there you could push point to the
BDC but if they're not closing deals in
the showroom you're never going to get
to 10% right but his point was we're
seeing about a 20% show rate that means
out of 100 leads 20% of them are coming
into the dealership instead of
appointments percent and I love the way
he put it because it wasn't some I never
looked at it that way and he goes and
then we have have this other store where
at 35% show on leads I mean 35 that that
that means we got to be getting more
than 35% appointments and he's saying
that's what we really should be
measuring and so when we know that the
show is low he start diving in and my
people will dive in and they start
recognizing that nine out of 20 uh leads
are outside their
Market interesting yeah you know so like
like what are we really trying to
accomplish here yeah we want to respond
quickly professionally follow up all
those things that a BDC does well but we
also do you really want to understand
what's going on or not that's what I'm
trying to say yeah and that's what what
I've always been
after um to try to help dealers
improve you know I think that's really
of just saying we just handle eats and
we'll just get you appointments because
that that's that's obvious but yeah
there's you're right though and there's
so much more to it and I one of the
things I get on Roi that I think dealers
really need to pay attention to I can't
speak for other BDC Services I know
yours better than any others in the
marketplace and of course I have
experience working with dealers that
have had bdcs or have bdcs in in that
they built
internally but I will tell you one of
the things that I have always advocated
to dealers around well what's the return
on my
investment I can tell any dealer that if
they're using stald that um what a
dealer does in creating demand that's
all their marketing like hey we got
interest rates Galore we got whatever
they're doing to attract demand is uh
not cheap right they spend a lot of
money as they should but what dealers
don't realize is that if they don't have
great internet salespeople salese
internal BDC or outsourced BDC that the
return on investment of capturing that
demand is absolutely oftentimes in the
negative for dealers because they don't
have people who are capturing them the
demand and putting that data CRM
oftentimes in the right places so that
even if they don't sell that customer on
the first attempt they've got the data
and they're building the blocks the
foundation if you will for that either
short medium or long-term followup with
people that they people expect these
days and I can tell people and of course
you know this you filt stald but stald
does that so a dealership spends a lot
of money creating demand well instantly
if you hire staled stald helps you
capture that demand and get the very
best out of it and it's kind of an
interesting thought process because if
you were to comp compare what uh stald
does perfectly well almost nobody's
perfect because it's humans but but
nearly perfectly and in an ideal format
and compare that to almost any other
model I guarantee you there would be
misses that aren't found within STD's
process because of that seriously
important capturing of that demand
really really the meat of the
conversation that we wanted to have
today is cost First value so I just told
you it's five to six thousand to hire
person right yeah let's say you need
three people you you're talking
somewhere in the neighborhood of f 15
grand a month roughly um yep first first
and foremost we're half of that
typically right uh obviously volumes
make you know change the pricing and so
forth but we typically come in you know
2/3 half to two-thirds of what it cost
you to run a BDC internally so that
that's out the window um then I would
say we have a recruit we have someone
that's focused on recruiting new hires
and we have a whole process around that
our hiring process is extensive and we
came from a from a public group right so
we have all the HR training and
background around hiring properly and
recruiting um secondly we go we put them
through two full weeks of
training um third they don't actually
handle a new lead until we feel they're
ready by making we' have them make out
long-term follow-up calls and things
like that when they're ready we move
them into the BDC and we have seven
trainers on staff that sit with and
watch and monitor new Pires constantly I
just mentioned we have my dad listening
to call who he he knows everyone in the
company that that who's good who needs
work and so forth and so on and so we
have that in place and then we have our
modom team that responds to emails 24
hours a day seven days a week and my
challenge would be can you do all that
and if you can
great Do It um if you have all that in
place then you'll be successful BDC if
you don't you're going to struggle and
so we have the modom team that does the
chats 247 and the lead response 247
which gives my BDC team the ability to
pick up the phone and call the customer
right away by the way is much better
than an AI response uh because and I
proof of that with data that you're
going to connect with more people by
speaking to them on the phone than
waiting for an email reply text on the
other hand has become a big deal and and
we do respond quickly to texts so we
have our technology integrated with
these crms to push that email out to the
customer and into the CRM we also the
ability to call it quickly put notes in
and we have more stuff coming that is
involving AI by the way but we're
feeding AI data instead of asking it to
do our jobs and then we're feeding that
data back to our agents so they can
personalize conversation now can you do
all that that would be my challenge can
you do that and if you can good luck and
and if you don't have problems with
turnover because from a reliability
standpoint we don't quit um we're there
every day working you can go to bed and
rest assure that you're you're um going
to sleep well at night right that that
all this is being done from a
transparency standpoint we work out of
your CRM and one thing I would warn a
lot of dealers is a lot of new um and
other BDC companies that do all this
work outside of your CRM so I took the
general manager approach to this what I
I no offense I'm I'm a little cynical
Bostonian I guess but I don't trust
people like I want to see it
we timestamp we we to deals to them
directly we we communicate through slack
right we we have all of this data so if
the dealer of says hey this didn't get
done we can easily see whether it got
done or not um and so we have all of
that figured out and it took us 10 years
to figure that out so it's not like uh
this all was stuff we were doing five
years ago right but and we're continuing
to improve and to get into AI but from a
consistency point of view and process we
got that down hiring training recruiting
lead handling all that from a
reliability standpoint we got that down
we don't quit on you and from a
transparency standpoint not only do we
have it down but we're going to enhance
that so if you can do all that
internally then you shouldn't consider
Outsourcing a BDC would you say that
sometimes dealers need to consider I
mean all that you just shared I mean
that that's a you know decade plus I
mean that's not even factoring all of
your personal experience in retail first
and when I first met you I had never SE
I had seen a lot of bdcs I had never
seen one at the size and scale that you
had built and were operating uh there
out of the Northeast it was I mean and I
think you probably had that experience
I'm not the only one probably a lot of
people that met you back in those days
would say oh my goodness like some sort
of awesome profanity to you know
articulate what they were like
experiencing like
holy you know what I'm talking about and
so not not for nothing that's really
important too experience as I always say
is probably the biggest differentiator
but now you're 10 years in on the stolid
side of being able to provide this
service to anybody really that would be
interested but do you think dealers um
that they appreciate when you're talking
cost versus value do you think they
appreciate the fact that there's so much
value in what you've already found
operational efficiency train
consistency transparency working in the
CRM I think that's probably a big
challeng with Car Guys Car gals Sean the
challenge with carg and cargal is when I
tell them these things they because
they're entrepreneurs especially the GMS
and the owners of these dealerships well
if you can do it how can you do it
better than me I can do it I'm a car guy
like I can do anything and that's great
and I love them for that and I'm
probably the way I am because I spent so
much time I spent 17 years in retail the
challenge
I would challenge that and say why do
you want to do all that when we can do
it all for you and so they can say well
it's cheaper and my salespeople should
be handling leads okay great I don't
disagree with that but they know as well
as I do that the sales people aren't
sitting at a CRM all day long and that
replies are coming in and texts are
coming in and replies are going back and
texts are going and emails are going
back and phone calls are coming in and
they're trying to sell
cars so I always knew from the time I
started this that this was an expense
for a dealer but when you talk about
cost versus value how much are you
losing by not spending money to make
sure up this part portion this critical
portion of your business how much are
you losing so that's a cost verse value
statement and I would challenge anybody
on that um you know we had a dealer try
to give us cancellation and um it was
was a cost thing because I understand
dealers are under a lot of pressure
right now expense cutting and all that
and so I told the I told the dealer I'm
like listen we' have only been with you
60 days and it's new to them too right I
said did you know that we scheduled 90
more appointments and 67% more shows in
the last 60 days than you did the
previous 60 days before us not to
mention you sold 180 cars for the first
time in a while in January when everyone
was in trouble
dying and then he's you know he's like
well it's not my decision my my team
felt like they could do it themselves
and I hear that from time to time and
he's like why don't you talk to the
general manager because I was talking to
the owner and see what he thinks so I
call the General general manager and
he's like what are you talking about I
love you guys like I don't want to
cancel a rogue GSM or something yeah so
oh it just kind of comical but I think
the owner when I told him that he wasn't
really paying attention to that
right he was being told nobody and I
love the guy the guy's a great guy I
think he was just being told by maybe
some of his management team right oh
we're not seeing that much of a lift
it's like okay yeah here's some data
here's some information so the reason I
bring that up is
because value and cost are are the you
know they're both important I mean I run
a business so I I don't want to it's
funny Sean I don't like spending money
unless I see I like I'm getting value
but I have no problem spending money
when I'm getting value so he just wasn't
seeing the value because he wasn't
looking at the CRM of the data and stuff
like that he's the owner um so but the
general manager saw it right away you
know yeah so like it's all it's it I
just did a training on this perception
versus perspective
right um the perception of Outsourcing a
BDC um to some
might be you know unusual un unorthodox
you know I need to have my own team
internally but at the end of the day
we're delivering a a consistent
professional approach to your customers
every single day on every single lead
and on every single callon on every
single followup and you can see all that
in your CRM plus reporting plus insights
you know plus reliability plus
transparency so it's just that's why you
know if I talk to dealers whe they sign
up with us or not they always leave
conversation with us saying wow sounds
really really good I've actually had
dealers say that sounds too good to be
true you know yeah I there well I I
think that there's so much that's easy
to talk about at the surface of this but
I don't think people always start to dig
and go a little deeper and one of the
things I also wanted to get your
perspective on because I think it's
really important relative to outsourced
BDC Services is understanding uh service
levels and the cost implications there
and so you know to give you a little I
guess more um specifics you know can you
share some thoughts on how costs can
change when there's a difference between
say we did one answer of a phone call or
maybe just form submission um versus you
know you guys can do that but you also
offer like a full service kind of the
whole bad Manama Jama which is every
type of communication doesn't matter if
it's a Facebook message a text a a form
fill a phone call but then also you can
tell a dealer yeah we'll touch it once
or we'll you know work with that
multiple times over a long period 90day
period or whatever and that obviously is
going to have cost implications are can
you share a few thoughts on that because
I think dealers need to that so I mean I
think it's safe to say that we can all
agree that when a lead hits a
CRM any owner general manager partner
Group
whatever wants that lead responded to
quickly yeah stop the clock okay yes
stop the clock right but what is the ROI
for responding to a lead quickly right I
don't know but like do you question your
receptionist and what you pay the
receptionist or the title clerk what
you're paying the title Clerk or you
questioning what's the ROI on the title
CLK
Sean right cuz because I always I've
struggled with this uh the the CEO of
the group I used to work for asked me
one time he
said if we were to unplug the
BDC how many car sales would we lose and
that's it's very very difficult question
to
answer but I know they would lose sales
but the answer I gave them was wouldn't
you want all of your customers that are
reaching out to you to be answered
quickly professionally and responded to
quickly and professionally in a
consistent manner and he liked that
answer because that's really what we're
talking about right the data that comes
through I love sharing that with dealers
because it gives valuable insights but
it's not what're Prim our primary job is
but we get to see all that coming
through we get to see the appointment
set rates the engagement rates and and
and our Effectiveness to an appointment
and all that I would challenge any
dealer out there other than the ones
that are running super really you know
super well-run bdcs already I would
challenge them are you seeing that that
kind of data that type of consistency
that type of process we we sell a sales
process Sean it's not a BDC we tie in
the management team we tie in in
everybody so that's the sales side now
we can also make sure that they don't
miss any service calls yeah yeah sure
there's technology that can schedule
appointments for you but I can promise
you I know more dealers right now they
yanking it out because customers are are
complaining and upset because they're
getting put into that Loop of Terror
right where that that thing isn't
answering them so now they're getting
switched and it goes to dead air how
much business could you potentially be
losing there I don't know and don't get
me wrong I'm not make we're in AI like I
said I'm just telling you that um we
answer calls what kind of value do you
put on that where we can actually
schedule an appointment with somebody
that wants to do business with you and
what happens when you don't answer the
phone you're basically telling the
customer or you do put them in the loop
of Terror as I call it you're telling
them they're not that important to you
yeah my dealers are very important to me
they can call me anytime and their
customers are very important to me and I
know they don't have to believe that um
but our whole company's been and we have
tenure we have have people that have
been together for up to 22 years you
know working for us working together and
so we got that inbound service now you
can do outbound campaigns like how many
dealers are consistently touching
customers on whether it be a CSI call or
a lost customer call and service to
generate more business or a recall
campaign that you want to generate more
business or an equity call uh and
actually touch your customers at a time
when they um need a
call not all the time right like I used
to tell dealers all the time when I was
doing e-commerce for that group like I
handled all the the the the digital
marketing it's like you don't want to
hit your customers with an email a
column all the
time yeah for sure and out you know when
you talk about you know caring for and
your dealers can call you anytime um not
everybody knows that you know maybe some
people that consume the podcast know you
uh know me know us maybe a lot of people
don't I can tell you because I have been
in dealerships that use your company um
I think probably the most impressive one
was when we went to Baton Rouge and and
spent a whole day with Matt Bowers
which he didn't have to give us as much
time as he did but in about a 2hour span
with him he went through like without
hardly taking a break or a sip of water
like two hours of examples of um how
what you've been doing for a long time
makes huge difference and his people I
mean I think we even captured some of
this on uh the video that we were
shooting with him where he said every
single one of his people that come on to
run a store that are going to advance in
their own careers they all end up saying
Hey where's STW bring them in and the
store that we were in uh a chryler Jeep
Dodge Ram Store in Baton Rouge the whole
staff there was uh very tuned in and
familiar with stald and super
appreciative and I remember uh that the
GSM the day we were there was just over
joyed because it was actually uh when
inventory levels were kind of uh still
compromised pretty significantly and
they were still absolutely delighting
their
customers and selling more vehicles uh
than any other you know competitor of
that those Brands anywhere near their
market and they were attributing all of
that to how well things work with stald
which just I mean it didn't blow my mind
because I know get it and you said this
just a few minutes ago I I would love it
if the whole industry would compare or
think about the the things you do as a
sales process solution versus let's call
it BDC because we get so entrenched in
acronyms but you're going to have to get
people's attention by saying those three
letters BDC but the truth is my
experience in that bad and Rouge store
as well as I know other dealers it's the
same thing what they're saying is our
sales process now makes our customers
happy it collects all the data that we
should be responsible for and it makes a
a significant difference because they're
not having to worry about policing maybe
a lazy salesperson the things that
really bring the pain and the problems
to dealers you guys are pain relievers
and problem solvers around sales process
yeah it's hard to put a it's hard to put
a dollar figure on that I know you can
but the value to me is far exceeds the
cost
you know if I was going to tell dealers
one thing about stald um that's really
really important um if they were to
consider working with us it's that we
don't we don't um take away all their
pain they have to work with us for this
to work sure um and my people are really
conscientious and they work hard and
they they they own it like everyone
fails it when if we make a mistake for
example um and we're transparent arent
and we're reliable and you know we're
consistent and we follow a process and
that sales process is an extension of
their sales process inside the
dealership so we do become part of their
team and we do expect them to do things
on their end like respond to us when we
need their help we expect them to
confirm appointments because we're
setting up the customer expectation that
they're going to come in and meet with a
manager it's a very manager Centric
process so at the end of the day um what
I would tell dealers is if you don't
want like a really professional sales
process uh in place that treats your
customers well and then that that
extends into your dealership then don't
call us it's that simple like because
it's not going to work and I have I have
referrals dealers will ask me for
referrals and I'll say call I have a few
of them that I I sent to and they'll be
like yeah sure send I have no problem
giving you guys a reference but here's
what I'm going to tell them it's not all
on staled
like we all have to work together that's
huge Sean and and and so when we talk
about cost versus
value yes there's a cost obviously is a
cost but look at all the the value we
bring and how much we do that you don't
have to try and find people and hire
them and train them to do all these
things we do all that for you to that
point right and then you got to give
them a good presentation and
representation and and welcoming of that
customer when they show up at the
showroom or service department uh and so
forth yeah for sure I don't think
sometimes when I talk like I have this
imposter syndrome one of the things
straid does really well Sean is we don't
brag about like all these things um I
mean this is the most I do bragging is
on these podcast and I don't even
consider bragging I feel like we always
are just having a conversation we hide a
lot of the value of the things we do
because it's hard to explain and it's
important to understand that most of our
business came from relationships
well it's it's also if if dealers yeah
Matt's a great example Matt's the one
that that uh when you uh open the hood
and you want to see what's really going
on it's fantastic when you have
successful dealers like him his his own
personal story is amazing and the fact
that he attributes stett as such an
important partner to their success is
watch story and you know he's the guy
he's a guy who told me he was going to
dealership someday and he did it and now
he's got his own little dealer group
yeah it's so impressive I mean I I'm
very very I've always been Frank Master
veto is another one that um I met him
when he was 25 he told me he was going
to own a dealership this kid put himself
through NADA school didn't didn't get
sponsored a dealer there said hey here's
my financial statement you can use mine
because he didn't have
one and the guy and he owns one of the
most successful dealerships in New York
right now like in terms of how can work
and I work I love I love love those
stories I think
it's um a question I think um this could
be a short or long answer but for
dealers who you know they're like
listening in and they're thinking hm
okay I do want to choose an outsourced
partner like I they already know that
doing this internally is like that
they're not going to be able to pull it
off for whatever reason so they're
considering outsourced players and you
know I mean the market there there may
be other people that are ideal for
somebody but when a dealer's trying to
choose an outsourced partner what are
some of the factors that dealers should
think about not just the cost but
there's a lot you know because there's
there are people out there that offer a
BDC service but they're not exactly the
same and so what would you tell a dealer
who's kind of thinking I'm going to go
Outsource but what should I be looking
for yeah well it's a very good question
um I personally uh don't know a lot
about my comp I I know a little bit
about them but I don't know enough about
them so I would never put down the
competition um but I know what it took
us to
get I know what we did for 17 years in
retail and then I know what it took
us the past 10 years to get to where
we're
at and so everything we've been talking
about whether it be consistency an
actual sales process
implementation uh training hiring
recruiting the way we do it um whether
we the reliability Factor the 24/7
response to email text chats um the
transparency that we work out of your
CRM make sure that's a big one because
I've heard a lot of dealers come to us
after leaving other companies and say we
didn't know what they were doing you
know they would schedule appointments
but um none of the notes nothing was in
the rcrm they were doing it in some
other system that's which I think is
crazy um make sure that they're not just
you know I mean there are Boiler Room
type companies out there that will just
pound on your customers constantly I've
had a lot of dealers call me on those
companies and
say they were upsetting a lot of my
customers because they would call them
five times a day like on the first day
or two and it's like you know you got to
be realistic everybody you know car guys
they want appointments they want to sell
more cars I get it and girls and um we
do that and if we thought there was
success and calling a customer five
times in a day and by the way the other
complaint I heard of that same company
was not only they calling them a lot but
the different people calling all the
time so the customers getting confused
we work we we build a profile for each
of our people into your
CRM they they're no don't get me wrong
we do help them out when they're off or
out and answer their responses answer
their leads but we usually have a
manager doing that or a team leader
doing that kind of stuff so like I know
I'm getting into the weeds here a little
bit but go back to what we said and what
we've been talking about on our
marketing stuff like we are we are
deliver consistently delivering a
process around hiring training or
recruiting hiring training um sales
process we tie you in your store we we
do a great onboarding that's another
thing we we meet your team your
management team your sales team we go
through the whole process thoroughly is
that important reliability and
transparency I mean it you know when
you're talking to them and if it comes
down to it you know shame on you if it
comes down to price and I'm not saying
whe they're super expensive cuz very
competitively priced but if you pick
them because of the price yeah you're
going to get what you pay for yeah yeah
well there are some there are some
companies out there that are
commoditizing this this type of thing
and and they can't do all the things we
do uh and do it for some of the prices
I've heard out there but good good luck
and by the way AI isn't free either so
yeah to important to and I'm going to
get I got a couple things that lead us a
little bit to the future but couple of
things that you're mentioning there I
think are really important one I always
like to remind uh people in our industry
but especially on the retail side on the
dealer side is that bdcs are not call
centers and if you are using a BDC
internally or you're looking at
outsourced ones as we need a call center
that's when you get like the round robin
of whoever gets it in their rotation is
making a call it's never the same person
they're building no Rapport and
everything that you've done if you think
Old School Road to road to the road to
the sale or relationship and Rapport
building is out the window because call
centers often times don't have much if
any industry
specialization they're just uh basically
doing the rapid fire on the phone and if
they get into the digital written
communication back and forth as well
it's usually awful it's atrocious and it
can have catastrophic consequences to
the relationship or more importantly the
uh um reputation of the
dealership and I've told too many
dealers you can't sacrifice your
reputation for what you think is going
to be the convenience of like a call
center don't be looking for a call
center where it's not
1978 like it's it's it's what's happened
with sales process Solution Services
which yours would be easily described as
that not just
BDC that's very different than that old
school mindset of decades old call
center activity which is I would never
recommend a dealer does that I think
that's really um if you yeah if you want
a sales if you
want someone to handle the beginning uh
beginning portion of your sales process
that's what it is it's a sales
process um our people are trained on
models makes um technology
how to handle objections all that kind
of stuff that's why we is the reality
Sean is we can't take on every dealer in
the country so I don't the competition
doesn't scare me at all I want the right
dealers to work with I don't want every
dealer some of them just you know don't
they want the lowest price guy go good
luck um and and and um I want to do a
good job yeah and I'm not saying again I
don't want to make it sound like we
super expensive it's just that
like it it
when I was when I was with that big
dealer group I'm I I did a a lot of work
with the CFO about cost around what the
centralize BDC cost and his point to me
was if you can
get um a
BDC to produce sales or be involved with
generating sales uh and you can get the
cost under $200 per sale generated it's
worth every
penny so we we have some dealers that
are down in the low 100s we have some
that are well over 200 because they have
bad lead quality mhm um and so we can't
control their marketing or what they're
paying for third party leads and all
that yeah it's a volume kind of deal but
we know that and we can talk through
that with you I don't think a lot of
these other companies would even
consider talking to you about that they
just want to say it's cost you this and
we're going to get you loaded up your
showroom with appointments and then
that's it and the dealer like okay
that's what I want and they sign
up good point yeah that's a really good
point something that I've you and I've
talked about a lot and um I know I think
some people are uncomfortable maybe
talking to the dealer or or helping the
dealer at least think through this when
it gets down to personnel and how much
how many people do you need on your side
if you were to bring in a really robust
uh BDC Service as an Outsource solution
and I've always tried to tell dealers
that are you know asking my opinion
about it it's like do you have the
stomach to perhaps let some of your
staff go that are your underperformers
from a sales perspective that you don't
need when you find out that a company
like stald uh
outperforms people like that and I know
that's tough but I I do want to make
sure that in the episode that that's
something that dealers you know even
though it's kind of me saying it I don't
know how you feel comfortable about it
but when you're thinking cost value cost
value if you're retaining Underachievers
and it's just the man I just it's hard
to let people go like you don't like
doing that it's an uncomfortable part of
managing a business but you got to
separate those personal decisions from
business decisions and so it could mean
that if you're going to do an outsourced
Source especially like your company that
you might have to evaluate what people
get to stay on the bus especially in
those lean times because it's not you
can't make it personal it has to be all
about keeping the lights on keeping
customers happy moving metal servicing
metal all of that has to be a priority
and it does factor into cost versus
value if you have people that cannot
provide the same level of value in your
sales process as say stald could then
they may not be long in that seat on the
bus or on the bus in you know completely
on the bus so that's always a factor for
people to to be able to think of it's
not fair to blame a very capable
solution or a company that you've chosen
because you don't want to get rid of
people that really give you a quick
example I lost a deal to a guy overprice
um and I was talking to him about like
how do we save you money which I'm sure
none of these other companies or most of
them don't do it the way I do it but I
look at their lead quality so if it's an
oem thirdparty lead that we know is
notoriously terrible like let's not
handle those leads the way we handle all
the rest of them cuz because it's going
to cost you money for me to to labor
right it's like a labor chart so like we
dive into that we dive into that when
we're pricing pricing stuff out whereas
the other company's like oh no no you
know we'll handle them all and we're
going to get you lots of appointments
like I want to be realistic about it too
like we see data I am an optimistic
person but when I know that we have you
know we handle 150,000 conversations a
month in here Sean and we track the data
so when we know a lead Source isn't per
Performing
why am I going to charge a dealer money
just to handle them yeah and we do we'll
do them like on a one touch on one day
or two day or whatever um we don't we
just don't follow up with them long term
because we know it's feudal um yeah and
there's not much in there anyway we do a
lot of examination on that kind of stuff
so when it comes to cost versus value
Sean um the one thing I would love
dealers to understand is we respect that
and understand that we are we have spent
the last few months reducing a lot of
our dealers prices because their lead
volumes have gone down uh and instead of
going out buying more leads they're
they're smart they're like you know the
Market's just not there and we want to
adjust with them we want to be a partner
right like yeah you can't do that you
know if you took the three people I said
you need right let's just do a little
math here real quick you need three
people in a BDC and let's say it cost
you 15 grand a month with taxes and
insurance benefits and all that included
um you need to sell 75 cars for it to be
under that
$200 per car per sale that expense is 15
grand a month it could you could add
more onto it uh but let's just use 15
you have to sell 75 cars so if you're a
dealer selling 100 cars a month and you
got three people in there there's a bad
Roi yeah yeah you know whereas stald
might come in at half that price yeah
that's a great
you know and they're we do recruiting
training hiring and do all these other
things so to me that's why it's like a
no-brainer so if a dealer wants to
understand cost versus value you know if
you got one person you're losing
business if you're using salespeople I
love salespeople I am a salesperson but
you're going to lose business because
they're not as organized they're trying
to sell cars they'll get in there
they'll cherry pick they'll find the
leads that they want to work and then
and the leads that are responsive but
they're not going to you know bang the
like like a BDC can um so you're going
to lose some business frankly and you
know and if you're going to use a
BDC um you're potentially going to lose
business if you don't um you know pot
potentially you know have the right
people in place and and you got to train
them and they're not good at it and so
forth yeah and so where's the value
there Sean I guess is what I'm saying
like where's the cost versus value there
you know I don't we don't have a long
enough show to try to dissect like what
they're losing and how much but I mean I
think we can all agree that there's
opportunities missed yeah and I you know
I there's there's also room for things
we don't we're not going to get into
today but um you know
the because we've done a couple episodes
on this in fact you probably saw this
but um somebody called out one of our AI
related episodes because I was going to
talk a little bit kind of future of of
things happening in BDC and uh i l the
fact that somebody on LinkedIn said look
at this article and they reference then
our one of our recent episodes so for
the audience we the runway is clear so
we're going to land the plane but
there's also a lot of future stuff too
that brings a way higher level of value
into this consideration when you're
thinking about you know cost versus
value that um you know keep your eye on
the future of of what you could do
internally but also what these Outsource
Solutions can provide because there is
no question that uh Vinnie with what you
and St are doing you're so far ahead of
that Mark so Hey listen I I say that's
the great place to you know Park the
episode if you like it you love it none
of the above you you've heard it we love
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can also always drop an email to info@
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strong and solid and you'll never miss
thanks
he
he