S2E1: The True Cost of AI in Automotive | Dealer Insights Podcast by Strolid

Host Michael Donovan welcomes Strolid CEO and Founder Vin Micciche to dissect the real-world implications of AI adoption in dealerships beyond vendor hype. Vin argues that AI’s actual cost isn’t just financial; it involves operational trust, team adaptability, and customer experience risks when deployed prematurely. He distinguishes between automation (rule-based workflows) and machine learning (adaptive systems), cautioning dealers against solutions prioritizing labor reduction over relationship-building. A key example highlights how over-reliance on AI-driven IVRs often frustrates customers seeking human connection, eroding loyalty. Critical insight: “AI’s value lies in amplifying human potential, not replacing the empathy required to turn complex conversations into sales.” Learn more about how Strolid helps dealerships Never Miss opportunities for dealers at https://www.strolid.com.

Chapters

00:00 The Cost of AI in Dealerships
03:07 Understanding AI Hype vs. Reality
11:46 AI's Role in the Automotive Industry
19:55 Navigating AI Solutions and Their Limitations
27:24 Key Considerations for Implementing AI
28:23 Understanding AI in Business Solutions
31:34 Evaluating AI's Impact on Customer Experience
36:12 Focusing on Immediate Business Problems
39:39 The Importance of Prioritization in Leadership
44:48 Building Effective Processes for Success
52:08 Adapting to AI Innovations in the Automotive Industry
56:20 The Importance of Process and Results
57:46 Transitioning to Conversational Data
01:00:47 The Evolution of Conversational Data Technology
01:04:35 Understanding Customer Insights through AI
01:08:01 The Role of AI in Modern Dealerships
01:12:34 Navigating the Future of AI in Business
01:17:26 The Human Element in Sales and Customer Interaction

Creators and Guests

Host

Michael Donovan

Michael Donovan is the Vice President of Marketing at Business Development Center (BDC) Strolid, Inc., where he leverages two decades of automotive industry expertise to drive growth through innovative digital marketing strategies and AI technology integration.

Guest

Vin Micciche

CEO Vin Micciche founded Business Development Center (BDC) Strolid, Inc. in 2014 after accumulating more than 25 years of industry experience, including leadership roles at Group 1 Automotive, where his team secured the #1 position in the Wards eDealer 100 rankings for 2011.

What is Dealer Insights Podcast?

Interviews with Strolid CEO and Founder Vin Micciche, BDC industry icon and veteran

The road ahead has never been more
clear. Success belongs to those who take
the lead. Welcome to Dealer Insights,
the podcast that puts you in the
driver's seat of growth. Hosted by Vin
Machichi, industry leader with over 30
years in
automotive. This is where experience
meets innovation. From cutting edge
technology to gamechanging strategies,
we go beyond the surface to bring you
the insights that matter. Real
conversations to help you navigate the
everanging automotive landscape. Buckle
up. Your next competitive advantage
starts
now. AI in the dealership. Everyone's
talking about it. Every vendor's selling
it. But the question that no one's
really asking is what it's actually
costing you. It isn't just about the
line item on the invoice. It's time.
It's trust. It's what your team has to
change and what your customers might
feel if it's not done right. The
industry seems to
be upside down, man, with AI and
technology. you know, recent
conversations. I don't know if you would
fully agree with that, but
I'd love to hear your thoughts. I would
say I wouldn't say upside down. I would
say
um there's a lot of
hype. There's a lot of
unknown. There's a lot of uh
anticipation and
um but at the end of the day, um car
dealers are still just trying to sell
cars.
And I don't think I think that e the um
external
um noise around AI is bigger than what's
actually happening in car
dealerships. That's interesting.
Mhm. From my experience and my talk, I
mean, I talk to lots and lots of car
guys
and they ask me the
same questions around the same core
principles
uh and fundamentals that we've been
talking about forever,
right? How to sell more. Mhm. Hey, you
know, I think you're a pretty well-known
guy in the business. You've done a great
job with the brand and you have
integrity, a high level of
integrity, but there are listeners and
viewers that they might not know, Vin,
like what do you like to do outside of
work or maybe in work?
Like, didn't you just watch the Masters
or Yeah. Let's get to know Vin for for a
minute. We don't need to spend a lot of
time on this, but
yeah.
Um, yeah. I don't I'm I'm a humble
person. I don't like to talk about
myself much.
Um, I like
um golf, my family, uh, my kids, my
friends. Uh, I like to be with my
friends because I'm not uh the head of a
business when I'm around them, you know?
I'm just a guy they grew up with. So,
it's fun.
That's awesome. Yeah. I enjoy um
building
growing the business in a smart
way. Um, I enjoy all the people that
work for me. I like to watch them
succeed. I like to see my dealers
succeed and do
well. And when all that happens, I uh
I'm content and happy.
Well, I appreciate you sharing that and
I can appreciate all of those
things. I I've golfed some pretty nice
golf courses and I've I've golfed some
pretty basic
ones. Uh what's like the the golf
course that you want to golf that you
haven't golfed yet?
Yeah, that's a good question. St.
Andrews. Okay. I got to play at uh
Pebble Beach once. It was great. Are you
serious? Yeah. Oh, that's huge. Yeah.
Yeah, that's in the book. That's um for
a little further down the road. I'm
going to try and visit some places.
Definitely. All right.
Well, maybe we'll play St. Andrews
together. Maybe that would be great.
Yeah. When you as you get older,
uh you know, you want I like
competition.
Um, it's hard to find sports you can
play at a high level anymore. Not that I
play golf at a high level because I
don't, but I can play. What's your
handicap?
It's about a 15. Okay. All right. It's
It fluctuates between 14 and 16.
Yeah, that's I can I can get up and
down. I was never great at it. I think
my best round of golf ever was like an
84.
Yeah. And I was like I was ecstatic over
that. Golf is hard. It is, man. It is.
But it's those it's those couple of
holes per round where everything comes
together perfectly. Mhm. That keeps
you chasing that and coming back. For
sure.
Well, thank God you're better at
business than golf. And same with me cuz
I don't know about that. I think so,
man. Cuz I'm doing my best. It's not
easy. Well, I see consistency, right?
And and decision making. And you know, I
I think that's like an
underlying message that we may want to
convey in this format to any of the
listeners and dealers out there. Sure.
is look, we're going to help you try and
figure out AI and navigating how to make
decisions, how to make determinations,
but ultimately make a decision and
commit and continue to figure it out
because it is a new
thing. What I've noticed
is to your point earlier, dealers want
to know how to sell more. Correct.
They're in business to make money to
sell units. We want to sell more. Yeah.
To capture market share, right?
And there's a lot of solutions that now
have
AI that didn't before. And there's new
solutions that are exclusively AI.
Mhm.
So in a real simple
way, you can ask
yourself, how does this help me achieve
whatever that ultimate goal
is? It could be objective
um based on
efficiency and it could be objective
based
on sold units. I don't know of any
silver bullets out there, but no, it's
it's the buzzword of the
year or scratch that it's going to be
the buzzword of the decade for sure.
It's a big thing. It's a big deal. Every
vendor and pretty much every platform or
every booth at
NADA is trying to mention something
about AI.
uh they're selling you artificial
intelligence, you know, virtual
assistants, predictive tools, and chat
bots and all that kind of stuff and
automated
processes. But the re reality of it is
it's
um it is gamechanging,
but it hasn't changed the game
yet. Um and so it's really a lot of it's
smoke and mirrors.
Um, and some of it's real, you know,
it's just a matter of how you define AI.
mean, I look at I I always say like I
started in the car business out of
college in '94 selling
cars, the internet. When I was in
college, I had a professor tell me about
this new thing called Yahoo and AOL. And
I remember being kind of blown away by
it. But if I try to put myself back into
those
days, I'm thinking, I had no idea what
this was going to unfold
into. And that's where we're at with
AI. So the idea around AI is um
conceptually, I mean, it's a great
sizzle for the stake, right? But what's
the stake? The stake is what you said.
We sell
cars. How are we going to sell more
cars? How are we going to be more
efficient? How are we going to, you
know, run our business uh and keep our
customers happy and keep our employees
happy and and move more metal and be
more profitable? I I don't I see a lot
of AI tools where they're just trying to
replace
people, which is fine. We're not
anti-bot. We're not anti- AI at Straw.
We just have and we're deep in it, as
you know. Um, we're just not seeing it
work well enough to talk to a customer
yet in all in all situations. Some
situations, you know, that are specific
for auto or or very transactional, it
can work. As a matter of fact, most
BDC's tend to be very
transactional. Um, so there's aspects of
that where AI can come in and help. But
is it going to replace a conversation
like you and I are having right now? No.
Is it going to replace the deal the
other the customer that is upset or
frustrated and needs someone with
empathy on the other end of the line to
listen and to try to help them solve
their problem? No, not yet. Maybe in 5
10 years, who knows? Uh but as of right
now, no. So today we're you know
actually it's emerging
uh specifically for auto because that's
what I'm in but we're now in involved in
a lot of the different
verticals and
um will AI save your
dealership? I don't think so. I know it
won't actually. I Yeah,
it's it's an
interesting topic for sure. It's a hot
and I'm an optimistic guy, by the way.
So, like when I say I'm not I'm not
trying to be negative on it. I'm just
telling you it's not going to save it's
not going to make you uh sell twice as
many cars and reduce your expense in
half tomorrow. It's not going to do
that. I I tend to be overly optimistic
at times
myself. I don't see AI as a silver
bullet. And some of it
is I some of it's just ridiculous, but
some of it is powerful and it can I
think like what are the categories
you're seeing? I don't want to lead in
with an answer and back into a question.
I mean,
well, you know, there's a lot of AI and
then there's a lot of automations and
they're they're different.
Um, so OEMs, for example, have been
using predictive maintenance for a long
time and they're working on autonomous
vehicles and they're researching in that
and their connected car stuff and and
then, you know, you see a lot of
uh siloed widget companies that are
coming out and saying, "Hey, we can cut
your BDC cost by putting in a robot to
talk to your customers." Well, we've had
IVRs for 20 something years now, and
most of these tools are just a a pretty
much a a an IVR on steroids, right? Um,
that's right. So, I'm not putting them
down. I mean, they do it they do they do
they do work for some situations. They
just don't work for every customer or
most of your customers or a percentage
of your customers for whatever that
that's worth. So, you can't just
alienate your customers because you want
to save money. And so, like, can it
respond to leads? Sure. Uh, can it
optimize like your pricing or help you
create ads? Uh, help you create content?
Sure. Um, is it going to do more in the
future? Sure. That's the fun part for
me. Why I stayed in BDC, Mike M,
is I got to play with technology.
And car sales was boring to me. And I
understood the value of a customer
because I I grew up around dealers who
cared about their employees and their
customers. Thank God because I'm I just
grew up in a really good environment
that helped me um or gave me the
opportunity to invest time and and
effort into learning a lot of this stuff
and um and how it all connects.
So yes, there are lots of use cases,
we'll call it, for AI that haven't
completely been vetted out yet. So just
be careful
um handing over your customers to AI
right now because I can tell you I
mentioned IVR. I tell dealers all around
the country for years when I was with a
big group and now that I run
stralet your most underpaid under under
appreciated position in a car dealership
is the
receptionists and we hear all the
nightmares from customers and feel the
frustrations from customers that get
stuck in the I call it the loop of
terror when they're actually trying to
reach a person and the IVR keeps
directing them into different places and
they and put into voicemails and and
then they call us and we actually have
humans answered and they heat it because
they can't get to who they want to get
to. That's not a great customer
experience.
No. And I think that is, you know,
there's there's a tip there, right? So,
if you make a decision and you're going
to try this AI solution or an upgrade
that a vendor is offering you, right?
How is it going to help you? How's it
going to help your people? How's it
going to help your customer and their
experience and interacting with your
dealership? Right?
Don't set it and forget it. It's not a
Ronco rocker. Okay. We're not making
Cornish game hens. You're you're
have to test it. Yeah. I often talk
about my ADD and I don't mean to I don't
have ADHD. It's just it it's just focus,
right? I have to keep my mind busy.
That's why I love the car business
because does AI actually work in the
messy world, chaotic world of car
dealerships? Cuz it is messy and
chaotic. And that's why I enjoy it
because I can help solve some of those
problems. And I know there are a lot of
great companies probably out there
building AI tools and that's their
intention. All I'm telling you is that
it's not a let's not sugarcoat it,
right? every vendor now leads with AI in
their pitch and it's not mobile friendly
or cloud-based like I mean it's the new
mobile friendly or cloud-based it's not
like that that's the buzzword you know
social media then it was pay well when I
first became a general manager of a
dealership I started paying for search
engine marketing and I remember having
general managers in the room going what
are you wasting your money on that for
didn't you cancel like a big traditional
source too Yeah. Yeah. And it was a I
cuz I got it right just like I get AI
right now. I got it that there was
something to paid search cuz I was on
Google a
lot and I figure hey if I'm on Google a
lot I assume all my customers or at the
time maybe half my customers were on it.
Now everybody's on it, right? So like it
evolves. It emerges. It's not going to
happen overnight.
So we we recently put a white paper
together and I I think just mentioning
that that's available.comwitaper.
Okay, that's where we're we'll have our
most recent white paper and the more of
those types of assets that we have um
you know we're going to build a resource
center uh for you and you can go
download and help make sense. But it
doesn't end there either, right? Like
we're here to help. As you can hear, I'm
not speaking for you, but Vin has a a
lot of experience in this
industry and a true passion for getting
into those
intricacies and problem solving at that
that low level, like what's the problem
and how can we fix it?
I'm pretty deep in in my business. My my
job as a CEO or founder or president or
whatever the heck you want to call me is
to find the problems that my people or
my dealers have that are that they
having a hard time solving
for. That's what I spend my time on. And
I'm deep in my business so I can
know at least have a good understanding
of how to approach it to potentially
come up with a solution. not always come
up with a solution. But look for ways
and I I don't like shallow. I don't like
quick I don't like quick fixes if it's a
big problem because it's it requires
thought. Again, something AI can't do
because AI needs my experience to do
that. And I'm not trying to pat myself
on the back. There's lots of car guys
out there that know exactly what I'm
talking about. Running a car dealership
is a very complex thing and it used to
frustrate me and still frustrates me
when people talk about it
like oh you know I hate buying a car.
It's like pulling teeth and you know why
can't they do it better? It it's running
five business four or five businesses
under one roof if you're a general
manager. Exactly. And you want all of
them working seamlessly together and
together is the key word and the
communication has to be good and you
know the understanding of your inventory
and there's just so much I could go on
and on. I don't mean to blur but some
tools are real machine learning and some
are just basic automated tasks with AI
and I think that's what we wanted to
talk about today. So that's that's
defining it is that's how I define it.
Machine learning is generative AI. It's
LLMs and and all that where it can
actually absorb data and learn from
it. Um a lot of automations are exist
today right within your own CRM like
setting up a workflow. Yeah. Setting up
email templates. Now could you improve
on the email templates? Sure. Yeah. And
you can use AI to do that. It's great.
Um, but it's just not a it's not going
to fix all the problems all all at once.
It's not going to do that. It's not
going to it may fix a small problem or a
a part of a problem,
right? So you you know you also have to
understand that any AI solution that's
being presented to the dealer to you the
listener that was developed and
trained
and I think asking those questions can
help like what data was it trained on
uh who built the model that's a great
what type of experience do they have in
our industry? Yeah, I'm geeking out
lately on AI. Yeah. And
um I I go to I go go at it with a chat
GPT when it gives me answers that I
don't agree
with. The scary part for me is that
people are going to start using AI and
thinking that it's real just like the
media, just like social media is. Like
you got to be, you know, you you can't
just believe everything that you read.
Um because all all chatbt and claude and
Genesis and all these other tools are
doing
just scouring the internet. It's running
out of data, believe it or not, right?
That's why I'm so excited about what
we're doing here at Stallet is because
we're creating new data every day,
conversations that customers are having.
So with that said, you're going to AI
just the more content that gets put out
on the internet and and and as much it
can read and ingest, once it's ingested,
it's done and whatever that information
was is what it's going to regurgitate.
So, you're not going to get
necessarily, you know, the ability to
um, you know, question it or or argue
with it or debate it because it that's
all it knows.
That's right. It doesn't reason. How
about that? Well, and they're coming out
with better ways where it's reasoning
now, but um, it's just not a human brain
is so amazingly complex.
It really is. That's why I believe in
God. There's no way that there isn't a
creator in my opinion. Now, I'm sure
there's a lot of people listening that
don't agree with me, but no, I that's
why I wear my cross and I thank God
every day for everything that I got. Um
because at the end of the day,
um I'm just blessed to u be able to
continue to learn and grow and all that.
And you know, the idea that knowledge
could potentially become worthless is
scary. We talked about that before, you
and I. We have
and you
know, so so if we unpack that for a
minute and in a recent conversation we
had, we peeled a couple layers back. So,
so knowledge is exactly uh what you just
said. It's a, you know, you can go
learn in now a different
format and it's consolidating and
scraping information from everywhere and
bringing it back and giving you cliff
notes at times on whatever topic. You
know, you want to know what it actually
takes
to go through open heart surgery. AI can
tell you every step how long it's going
to take to heal. and it's based on the
information that's out there. Doesn't
mean that you're going to go perform
open heart surgery. So, don't get ahead
of yourself with it. I think that's a
dangerous thing. I'll give you an
example, Michael. Ask the United States
of America, the population of the United
States of America, who they voted
for. Half said one, half said the other.
So, who's right?
AI has to be right. Has to be because
it's data driven. I mean, again, I don't
know where it's going. Maybe eventually
it'll argue with you. I I've heard some
crazy stuff about
AI, which scares me a little that some
of these bots are starting to have egos
and they're starting to get competitive
and they're starting to get upset.
the the the uh the founder or CEO of
OpenAI supposedly walks around with a
blue backpack with a computer that has a
button that he can destroy it if it
starts getting crazy.
Sounds good in theory. Yeah, it's almost
becoming like science fiction, like a
science fiction movie. But at the end of
the day, right, I'm not It's just like
anything. I mean, if you go back to the
70s, they were telling you we were going
to be underwater by now with climate
change. And so, like, if you listen to
all the
hysteria, you know, you're going to turn
yourself into a, you know, you're going
to have bouts of anxiety and worry and
all that. Like, right,
that's not how I live my life.
So, think think about that though. you
went back to the 70s, but go back to at
the very first dealership and
uh Henry Ford optimizing the the
production line and right, imagine if
you could go
back and try to and and your mission was
to try and convince people that like
this would be a thing. They would think
you're
Yeah. you'd have a tough time doing it.
So, to your point, use that as an
example all the time is like imagine if
you told somebody in the early 1900s
that they'd be walking around with a
phone uh that could take pictures and
and answer questions. They'd be like,
"What are you you from another world
planet?" Like, right? They put this
person in a crazy house, right? Because
there's something wrong with this
person, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's what
makes it exciting though that you know,
not I know not everybody thinks like I
do, but I'm like I'm excited to see
what's next. Not worried about it cuz I
think we're as human beings, we'll
handle it. If it goes goes the wrong
way, we'll we'll adapt.
Ultimately, it's here to to help us,
right? And if that if it starts to go in
a different
direction then yeah I think we'll
collectively as as a race we'll do
everything and anything you know we are
very resilient beings and so I have
three three uh areas that I'd like to
touch on on this right because I know a
lot of dealers are confused about AI or
wondering about it or maybe haven't
spent any time on it or maybe spent a
lot of time on it so it's all over the
place. But you really got to ask
yourself the right questions, right?
That's number one. And don't buy into
the hype. And then just watch for hidden
costs. Those are the three things. So
ask the right questions. Don't buy into
the hype. Make sure it can solve a
problem for you. And then what are the
hidden costs? So asking the right
questions is is it real AI or is it just
a rule-based system that you know like
an automation? So, so as we defined that
was AI actually is machine learning. It
actually learns from data. It doesn't
just it's not just a rule-based kind of
ask a question, answer a question, ask a
question, answer a question. That
stuff's been around forever. And people
are packaging that with a like a they're
putting a label on it that it's AI and
it's not real AI.
So, can dealers identify that by like
looking at it and saying,
"Yeah, if it does this, then this
happens." So, watch out for those if
then arguments. Well, that was where I
was going to go next. So, okay, does it
actually learn over time, right? Can it
integrate into your current, you know,
tech stack and work within your
processes? Um, but don't, you know, buy
into the hype.
buy into the
outcomes like what business problem is
it solving and how are we going to
measure that? Is it saving time? Is it
improving the customer experience? Is it
driving gross profit? You know, can sh
can can your vendor show real results or
are they just giving you a bunch of BS
um because they are salespeople trying
to sell it?
I have a really good BS detector and I
give all the credit uh in the world uh
for that for being in the car business
and being around some of really slick
sales people. I mean like really really
good people people and they know how to
read people. They know how to negotiate
and vendors hated dealing with me when I
was at that big group cuz I handled all
the digital marketing for the Holy G
Coast cuz I didn't I questioned
everything and if they didn't they
couldn't give me a good answer. I knew
they were full of
[ __ ] you know? Um and I knew what kind
of questions to ask them. So like
anyway, you need to make sure it's
solving a problem and then is it is it
just a surface problem or is it is it is
it does it have substance? So what do I
mean by that? Well, having a bot answer
calls and schedule an appointment solves
a problem, but what you're forgetting
about is the hidden costs that it might
reduce labor, but is it creating more
opportunities? Number one. Number
two, you know, do they create new
complexities that you didn't think
about? Like who trains it, who watches
it, what happens when it makes a
mistake, what happens when your
customers are
frustrated with
it. So yeah, you just saved the small
surface problem, but you're not getting
to the root problem, which is your
customer
experience, maybe. And again, I I'm sure
there's vendors out there if they're
listening to this that sell those tools
are going to be like, "Oh, he's wrong."
But I'm not wrong. We we we have
customers coming at us saying, "Our
customers are complaining because they
can't talk to a
human." And that's the way it is today
in some cases. It will it be different
in 20 years when this new Z generation
emerges and doesn't want to talk to
people and just wants to talk to robots?
Maybe. Who the heck knows? Like that's
what I mean. You can't say that it's not
going to evolve or emerge into something
bigger. You can't. It may is may may
very well do that. It's just not doing
that right now.
You know, look
at we've all had the
situation where we've called to make a
reservation, make an appointment,
uh try and get in touch with some type
of support or concierge or whatever.
And to have to wrestle an
IVR or uh I can understand full
sentences. Great, but I really just want
to talk to the person and someone who
has empathy. Some of these tools work
great though, Michael, too. Um it's just
again, do you have the right data and do
you have the right have you trained it
properly? And think of it this way. This
is what's going to be very very
difficult for these new emerging AI
tools. Just like digital retailing had a
problem. The data is there to build a
digital retailing tool before co we were
actually talking about building one. And
I'm so happy we didn't because within 3
months of co there were about 45 digital
retailing
tools. And guess what? We knew at straw
it just like I'm saying with the the
bots answering
calls. I mean they're nice. They're
helpful to the customer but they weren't
selling more cars, right? They were
creating some more leads. Some of them
were forcing customers to create leads
or some of them creating multiple leads
and duplicate leads and all this other
stuff because the customers just playing
with your tool on your website, right?
It's no different with these these these
these bots. There's going to be a [ __ ]
ton of them enter into the market. Some
of them will make it, some of them will
fade out. How many digital retailing
tools are there now? I would probably,
and I said this five years ago when I
knew there was 45 of them. Yeah.
In 5 years, there'll be
10. And I'll bet you I'm right. It's
around that. Yeah. But it's the same.
Don't just don't rush into
this. Everybody's trying to figure it
out. Everyone's trying to learn. I'm
learning. I've looked at lots of um AI
agentic agents and um I've found a
couple really good ones, but they
weren't really good a year ago because
the technologies changed so fast in a
year that now they're getting better.
That's right. I mean I you have some
first I'm glad I didn't build a bot
because frankly a bot two years from now
might be I might have wasted all my
money on uh software development
building something that becomes you know
obsolete in a year or two.
I I think that's super interesting
because with these LLMs, right?
So the the way that you interact with uh
generative AI is is with natural
language and and that's what makes it
more accessible to people like us and
dealers like
you compared to 2017
uh IBM Watson, you know, reading uh call
transcriptions, you needed to have like
a full dev team to to leverage that,
right? So, this natural
language, generative AI, and these
LLMs, none of us have
insight into the road map of what Chat
GPT is is working on. And I watch their
their updates. They usually live stream
their updates. And I I can't tell you
that I've been disappointed in not a
single one that I've watched and been
very impressed. Like that all makes
sense. So you can kind of tell the
trajectory and the direction uh to a
degree, but I mean we could be a week
away or a day away from a a major
disruption in the ability of those
tools. And to tie it back to
automotive, it's people. Can I just stop
you real quick there because you just
said something really and I don't want
to forget what I was gonna say, but um
if you want to be an entrepreneur or run
a car dealership, which is very
entrepreneurial, you can't think like
you're thinking. You got to think about
how do I solve today's problems, this
week's problems, this month's problems,
and like what happens happens like that.
You you should prepare yourself. No
question. But you can't just get
yourself all worked up about what might
happen because it might not happen. As a
matter of fact, there's a guy I went to,
um, a convention um, not a convention, a
show um, Autovate, bunch of dealer
investors and stuff like that. And
there's a guy gets up every year and
does his talk about
predictions. You know what's very
interesting? Like 10% of everything
that's predicted comes true.
Okay? And you know what stays the same?
He goes through that, too. Did you know
that the average car salesperson
averages nine car sales per year? And
that's been that way for 35, 40 years,
maybe even
longer. It's never
changed. So, all this technology, all
these CRM, all this disruption that
you're talking about, it hasn't had a
major impact in car sales, uh, from a
car salesperson per car sale. And that's
a good KPI to pay attention to, right?
Because if you can drive that from nine
to 15, you just saved yourself a whole
bunch of money, training, all that kind
of stuff. Like employees going to be
happier. I I have a theory on why it's
nine um because of the turnover in a car
dealership. So you're averaging the in
the people that don't make it past 60
days and never sell a car. So there are
obviously sales people there that sell
15 20 cars per month and stuff like
that, but how do you drive more sales?
That's what we're talking about, right?
Like, and so I wanted to just point out
what you just said and just focus on
that for a second because I don't worry
I worry about the problems I can solve
today, right? That can make an impact on
my business. That's why I said like when
you ask them a question, one of them
should say one of them when you ask
questions, the answer should be what
problem is it solving for me? Right? And
how do I measure that problem? Because
if you're not measuring
it, you're in trouble trying to run a
business. I can tell you that.
So, how I was going to tie that back is
is actually to to your point, don't
worry about that. just know that there's
a an evolution and the
high
likelihood of a
revolution in our industry. So when
you're buying, what problem does it
solve? And by experience,
by experience, the vendor, the the
agency, the whomever, you said nice
thing. you said some nice things about
me um to start off this podcast and I
appreciate it, but not here to toot my
own horn, but I can tell you this,
Michael. Um I never, it's called
imposttor syndrome. I never feel like I
know enough and I'm always thinking
about getting a competitive edge and
trying to figure out problems before
they become problems and all that. So
like I live that world, but it's not
worrying about disruption.
to worrying about my business today and
I pay attention to my competition and I
pay attention to trends and the markets
and I try to prepare myself best I can
for what's coming uh in the near term
and over time you build a successful
business when you do
that it you can't just come out of the
gate and build a successful business. It
takes takes time and and and and if you
take your eye off the
ball, you have a opportunity to go out
of business or lose customers and and so
forth. So, and it's not easy, believe
me. I mean, paying attention to all the
stuff can be remember I I told you this
the other day actually. I focus on
what's critical.
Yes.
And then I try to put myself in quadrant
three every once in a while and spend
time thinking and researching, looking
at data and trying to plan. But most of
the time it's like what can I work on
today that's most important to the
company. You know the quadrants uh that
that was it's not that I I didn't have
the ability to prioritize but that was
really enlightening to me. Me too. So I
I appreciate you turning me on to that
and
uh I mean it's fully integrated in
marketing, right? What is that, Michael?
It's a basic fundamental. It's
organizing it. It's not it's not
disruptive. It's not some disruptive
technology. It's something that we just
as humans need to understand how to
prioritize. Yeah. You if a dealer calls
me, I answer the phone. If an employee
needs me, I I talk to them. I don't put
them off. I do my best to communicate to
the whole company and I do my best to
communicate to anyone who reaches out to
me at any time, anywhere, any place. It
upsets my family sometimes when I pick
up the phone on a weekend, but whatever.
Like, that's who I am. And um all the
most successful people I've ever been
around, the one thing I all have in
common is if I'm important to them, they
take my call.
It's a simple fundamental, right? But we
overlook those things because we want
these shiny, you know, tools. What is
straw? We take your call for your
customer so they know that they're
important to us as a team. That's what
we do. It's a core fundamental. Quickly
responding, quickly responding to an
email, quickly responding to a text,
quickly answering a phone call. It's a
core that tells your customer that you
care about them. That's why IVRs drive
them crazy because it's like you're
putting me in this loop. You don't
really care about me. That's the message
you're sending. Whether you it's
indirect, but it's still the
message. It's it's very true, man. And
it it when when you were mention or
talking about that, it made me think
about a call that I made back in
October.
um to somebody that I I I had known for,
you know, quite some time uh but hadn't
talked to in a
while.
And it couldn't have been more than just
a couple of
rings and they and they answered the
call and and that was you and here we
are.
Yep. That's pretty funny you bring that
up. I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I have a b I have a guy who's very
very successful and um mentor to me and
if I call him, if he doesn't pick up, he
texts me, says, "I'll call you later."
Right? And he's running a Fortune 500
company right now as a CEO. So, like I
wonder how he got to that position.
H wonder. It's not again, it's not
anyone who tells me people make it
because they're lucky. It it goes
through me like a warm knife through
butter. It's like, you got to be kidding
me. You have no freaking idea what
you're talking about. None. And and I
can't I just can't surround myself with
negative people. Those are the two
things I try to do. Be positive around
everybody around you, especially in a
leadership role. And do me a favor and
don't complain about everything. Please
don't.
Nobody wants to hear that. No, I
complain to my leadership team. That's
it.
Hey, we we all have to uh we all have to
vent from time to time. And you know, as
a a leadership team is is like,
you know, we're in the front lines
of of our specific areas of
responsibility.
And
sometimes the things, you know, I'm I'm
guilty of it. Everybody is. Everything's
important to me in my world and you know
and believe me buddy I'm far from a
perfect human being. You have every
area to pay attention to and you know
it's it's interesting. So it's
interesting. So think about that. We
talked about prioritization. Yeah. You
prioritize what's important to you. So
my the three things that are important
to me at Strawlet are my employees are
happy, my dealers are happy, and we're
making money. And if I take my if I
spend any time outside of any of those
three things, I'm not doing what I
should be doing as the, you know, leader
of the company. So, and and so those are
priorities. So, when a customer has a
problem or employee has a problem or
we're, you know, having problems making
money, I'm in. You can count on me. The
technology, like I have Thomas, we have
a CTO, we have a whole dev team. Like, I
love them. And I love Thomas. He's one
of the smartest people I've ever met in
my life. Like he's already talking about
quantum stuff that's going to wipe out
AI in the future. And I'm like, "Oh my
god, we haven't even started on AI and
you're talking about quantum." Uh, but
with that said, I just told you CRM were
invented probably 40 years ago. Have
they helped us sell more cars per
salesperson? No. So, it's not the
technology necessarily,
right? So, so how all of this relates to
AI is is the number one, you know, ask
the questions and right and how is it
going to help you? That's it. And if you
can't figure that out, you can go to the
white paper and if that doesn't help you
and you have even more questions, then I
had a dealer try to cancel us about six
months ago and I'm like, why? And he
said, I just feel like we need more AI.
like, but what exactly do you think you
need with AI? What's it going to do?
Right? What are the outcomes you're
looking for? That's how I would handle
that. Uh, he didn't end up leaving us
because I don't I can't even remember
why, but it was like, I'm not trying to
talk you out of it. If it's if you
really think it's going to improve your
business exponentially, we have dealers
that will call us, they're they got a
ton of crappy leads and they want us to
take them from a 10% appointment set
rate to 30. It's like I just tell them
straight up we we don't turn chicken
[ __ ] into chicken salad. Like you got to
work on the marketing and the and the
efforts to drive more traffic. We're
here to make sure we take care of your
customer and we respond to them quickly
so they know you're important. They're
important to you, right? That's our job.
And our job is to schedule appointments
with people we can talk to. The problem
with most of those crappy leads is we
can't talk to them. We can call them and
call them and call them and call them.
We can email them and text them. If they
don't
reply, nobody Tony Robbins couldn't get
them to 30%.
Grant Cardone couldn't get them to 30%.
Correct. It's not happening. Not on
shitty traffic. Now, if it's good
traffic, we can talk about that. We can
help them, you know. So, that's that's
part of that's part of the uh hi, which
is human intelligence. There we go.
Yeah. You know, and understanding the
car business and inventory, pricing,
lead volumes. That's what we do really
well here at Stalled. So like, God bless
an AI agent that wants to try and
understand all that and be able to
converse to a general manager or dealer
principle about how they can help them
with their business.
So, I'd like to switch gears, Finn, and
talk about just some generalizations in
AI that that dealers might be seeing
and it could be having an impact on on
their results. So,
Google started doing the AI preview. The
what? AI preview in the in the search
results. Yeah.
So, they're kind of given a summary and
then any references where that
information came from, they'll park that
off to the side so you could go to the
original source easily. Mhm. Now, we've
experienced a significant increase in
our impressions overall. And I'm not
going to put our specific stats out
there, but uh from a from an SEO
perspective, we've actually had growth
on impressions.
Mhm. But though that doesn't with that
AI preview, the result
is they don't have to click through to
the site to read it. Ooh.
So, as we're evolving and the AI is
evolving and it's that's a great um
point. I never thought of that. So, we
have to have the Google's going to
figure out how to get you to pay for
something there otherwise they're going
to hurt their business. Well, so that's
a really good point
and I don't know what they're working on
in in that regard, but I can tell you
that that dealers are probably feeling
that to a degree as well where they were
expanding their search terms and
reaching into peripheral markets, uh,
broadening the spectrum of their search
terms. terms around popular models or
all of the models. Do you know how I
looked at at at Google back in 2006 when
I was the GM and I cancelled the Boston
Globe and saved myself 15,000 start
paying for search? That story? Yeah. I
looked at it. I used to tell people this
a long time ago. It just dawned on me.
Google is the new yellow pages is what I
told them. Yeah. And because at the time
the yellow pages were still a thing.
Yeah. Remember? Yeah. No, but I'm just
saying that's how I kind of So, what
what what you're saying
is, you know, is Google transforming
into an AI? Uh, I use chat GPT way more
than I use Google now. For those of you
who are listening, get into chat GPT.
It'll blow your mind. I I I know I'm
better at prompting now than I was a
year and a half ago or two years ago
when it first came out. I know how to
grill drill down, continue to push it
back, push back, push back until I get
it to do what I want it to do. There's a
lot of work that goes into um how AI
gives you some kind of you know uh
information if you want to put your own
thoughts into it. But Google has to
compete with that because I can ask it
show who are the local dealers to zip
code 03079 and who who's got the best
ratings and which dealer should I go
visit? Who who has this in stock maybe
even? I haven't tried that one, but like
so why do I need Google?
So, I can relate to all of that and my
prompting has
expanded and very similar to what you've
shared on your methods on how you engage
with chat GPT is is not taking that
initial response like and it's not to be
combative with it. It's to challenge and
really get down to the core absolute
best output and result. Correct. So what
the point I was going to make Vin is as
these as these tools are evolving as
these platforms are introducing their
versions and iterations of AI that we
have to pay attention and we may have to
also adjust. Okay. Don't be set in your
ways. Be open to the innovation
and think about people don't like
change. So if we're up I know but that's
my that's kind of my I love it micro
message here is is if I that could be a
whole another topic for a whole another
day but I learned from a guy called Lu
Tis back in 2001 on how to set goals and
the only way you're going to reach
achieve goals is by changing your ways.
Um, and so or changing your thoughts on
how you look at things. And so that's a
great point in my opinion. What you just
said is like it's look, we we build a
portal. We can't get our dealers to log
into it. That's a fact. We're trying.
Yeah.
They already have a process. They they
come in, they do a job every day. We're
basically saying, "Here's more work
and another login." Yeah. So, we're
trying to work. We we have a solution to
that. It's coming very quickly. Yes. But
we're listening to our dealers and we're
not just going, "No, you have to use
it." Or, "Oh my god, this is the
greatest thing. Make sure you use it.
Use it every day. Use it. Use it. Use
it." They I know I can't, you know what?
Frankly, our management team here at
Stro is the same way. They have a job to
do. Get
appointments and do their job. When you
start throwing curveballs at them, um
that's when they go off off track, you
know.
Right. So process, right? If you're if
you're bringing that AI product in and
and you're sold on it and you bought the
experience and you can see there's
transparency and the data is flowing
from a reliable, viable source,
it make sure Yes. Thank you, Finn. I
mean, I I I know you mentioned imposttor
syndrome and um and I'm not trying to,
you know, boast your abilities and ride
off your coattails.
However, anyone that can do what you've
done understands the critical importance
of process in business. Sure, that's a
fact. Process um makes average
performers above average. makes above
average great if you follow a process.
Um,
and there's two types of people in the
world,
Michael. People who can build engines,
which is process, and people who can run
engines. Actually, three people. And
then the other the other people, the
people that don't really know what's
going on. They just kind of float
around. But like running an engine is
like a manager. Building an engine is a
leader.
and having a leader build the engine and
make sure people it it if it affects
their people and their customers in a
positive way and then make sure you hold
them accountable to that process. It's
all you really need to do to be
successful.
That's it. And you need people you trust
obviously you need good customers cuz
not every customer is a good customer.
You know, Jason Brandham, our new CRO,
and I have had a conversation. Not He
said that Audi used to say they don't
want an Audi in every driveway. And I
told him, "We don't want to put Strawlet
in every dealer." No. Cuz we we you
know, we know that that waters down
um what we do. And it and it actually
makes my people upset when they're
dealing with a poorly run dealer that
doesn't have very good process and
doesn't appreciate what we do. So yeah,
that's a fact. There's plenty of dealers
to go around. So like I'm if my
competition's here and there, they're
like, "Great, Vinn's turning away
business." That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying like we go into a sale and we
tell them, "Listen, if you want to work
with us, this is how it will work and
this is how it won't work."
Right? And if they push back and say, "I
don't want to do it your way." Great.
We'll just
gladly, you know, agree to disagree and
move on. Yeah. Not, it's not about being
for everybody. It's not a
one-sizefits-all. No, it's matter of
fact, there's some great dealers out
there with great BDC's that do a great
job running it internally. I did it.
Yeah. I mean, I I'd be a fool if I said
you can't your solid is better than
running it internally. like argue. If
you tried to argue with that with me
when I was running this at the group I
was running, I'd be like, "Yeah,
[ __ ] There's no
way. It's not a silver bullet, ladies
and gentlemen. It's hard work. It's
process. It's leadership. And
ultimately, when all of the dust
settles, it's none of these vanity
metrics on the activities. It boils down
to one thing, the result. That's what
you get from Straw. Strong. I mean,
strong strong process, solid results.
That's what Strawid stands for. So, you
never miss summed it up ever.
Yeah. Hopefully. I I don't know. Um,
sometimes when I do these podcasts, I
don't know if we're um exciting enough.
Maybe this is, you know, sometimes the
most exciting, the most important things
aren't very
exciting to do and to pay attention to.
Well, I could give you a little
intermission here.
Uh, let's
see. It's the Super Summer Sizzler
savings sale. Christmas in July. Lowest
prices ever. Come on down and spin the
wheel. Take a left at the 80 photo
gorilla. Right. Free hot dogs. Free hot
dogs. Bring the kids. Family fun day.
Yep. This weekend.
Yep. There we go. We got our excitement
in. Let's get back to the good stuff.
The meat and potatoes is what Dealer
Insights is all about. There you go. Uh,
you know, I I really enjoy doing this.
Uh, I I I
wanna I want to switch gears one more
time.
We we've had extensive conversations. I
have learned more than I ever thought I
would have about conversational data.
Mhm.
And
what's what's
uh interesting, I think I've shared this
with you, but back in 2017,
um I went home one weekend and you know,
we had we had a a pretty big group
and they had given
us kind of a major task. They were
trying to get all of their information
in one place, right? And we had a
reporting mechanism and a very basic
dashboard. And I sat in my I had my my
basement set up as like a man cave
hanging out with my dogs. I was in the
basement all weekend with my computer
and I outlined a
UI, sketched it out, and I brought it in
on
Monday and it had everything. It had
reporting, it had specials, it had trend
analysis, and we had Twilio. That's how
we would do our attribution with call
tracking. And Twilio was baked in. So
dealers could provision a number. We had
our numbers provisioned. If they wanted
us for full call tracking, we'd do it.
And I was I was keeping an eye uh as an
admin of the the Twilio account. I would
get their notifications and this thing
popped up IBM Watson and we could
integrate it, but it was an arm and a
leg. Yeah. Right. And but what was
powerful is the dual line transcription.
So we would be able to know what the the
dealer was saying and what the customer
was saying and then we could measure uh
tonality, sentiment and and have Yeah.
So and and that goes back to that like
machine learning, right? Um but that was
the the beginning of my interest and I
never got to act on it. And fast forward
eight years
later, we
reconnect at a perfect time. I join an
awesome team to find out
that that you have
this badass conversational data machine
built. Like I don't mean to get super
animated and excited about it, but like
I have been thinking about something
like what you've done for such a long
time that I'm just blown away every day.
Yeah. Can you tell us about it?
Yeah. So what are you trying to do when
you were looking at all those
conversations? You were trying to
understand your customer. So again, go
down to the core of what it is that the
problem you're trying to solve, right?
Um and what what are your motivations to
solve it? Like and so mine was that I
have my dad who's semi-retired but had
been in the car business forever. By the
way, when I got in the car business, he
tried talking me out of it, but I saw
that he was making a lot of money in it.
So I decided to try it. I hated it.
Tried to get out of it, but I ended up
with the BDC stuff and the data and the
marketing. So that's what kind of kept
me in it. And I am a I turned into a
pretty good salesperson. But yeah,
so I would I would ask my dad like, "How
are we doing?" He listens to phone calls
all day. That's all he does. He's
retired pretty much, but he works
full-time because he's I probably get
that from him. He just likes he keeps my
mother sane by working still. He can't
sit still. No. And he's in great shape.
and mind sharp and all that. And uh he
gives me the best information of anybody
in the company on which agents are doing
well, which dealerships are doing well,
which dealerships have problems, which
agents have problems. Yeah. And he feeds
that information back to us. So I said
to Thomas when four years ago and told
him four and a almost 5 years ago now,
he said, "What do we work on first?" And
I said, "How do we scale
him?" That's a true story. like we can
potentially talk about
uh all this great tech and you know
generative AI and all that but that's
how it happened here and so Thomas went
on a quest
um we we have a pat a patent now
approved on a product called a ether
phone
um and when he was building out the
patent and the idea around the
etherphone he found out and realized
there was no structured data format for
conversational data
So he came to me and said, "I want to go
to this IETF meeting," which is the
people who approve actual standards for
the internet.
Um, and got up on stage and presented it
and he got selected because as one of
the CEOs of that company said to him,
it's one of the most obvious things that
no one's ever thought of is actually
having a structured data format for
conversational data. So that's what a
VCON is.
There's security and compliance around
it. It's immutable. There's all kinds of
safety reasons because AI is in a safe
place. So, another reason why the IETF
is behind VCON is we're able to not only
capture conversational data, but feed it
to
anywhere in a safe way where we can
delete it. We can redact customer
information and keep it private and keep
it really secure. So, that's what we we
have. We have a a conserver now that we
plug in communication channels into and
it spits out
vcons and and can be fed to generative
AI in a safe way or
anywhere. Um, and now we have a lot of
interest throughout the telecom and
enterprises and and all this other
stuff, but we're still early. Uh, but
we're the we invented it. Mo Thomas, you
know, is the author of it, one of them.
So, we're in a good situation in that
regard. I'm trying to figure out how do
I use it for car dealers right now.
So, we So, Strawlet is a captive office
and if you don't know what that is,
basically we're building
technology to solve
uh everyday real
problems for us, which is ultimately
solving those problems for automotive.
As Vinn just mentioned, we have the
horizontal play in other
verticals, which is great in other
industries. Well, it's a communication
layer of it's a deep layer of AI
technology is what we have. Um, it's a
it's like an operating
system in a way. And so that's what's
exciting about our future here. Now,
with that said, we're taking that data,
we're feeding it to our own. And it took
us a year. I thought I thought maybe we
just feed data into chat GPT and it
would tell us anything we wanted. It
doesn't work that way. No. So, we've
been working on it, working on it,
training it, working on it, working on
it. Now, we finally just released our
GPT, which now a dealer can say, "Show
me customers that said that your price
was too high or show me customers that
wanted to trade a car
or were shopping other dealers or out of
market." These are all this is all
information my dad used to feed me. like
they're getting killed on pricing. Every
time I listen to a call in this
dealership, they say that the price is
too high. So, we would feed that back to
the dealer. Now, we have a system where
the dealer can see that right at their
fing, see the whole conversation, see
all the transcripts. Captive meaning you
can only get that if you're a Stral
customer. So, we're working on a hosted
version where we can sell it, but we're
not there yet. Um, and that's where
we're at.
It It's super impressive.
It's also a level of
insight. There's no
question what your customers are saying.
And you know, if we go up a
level and we want to identify trends,
for example,
we're able to do that. And a recent
example that I can give on that is the
first three weeks in March.
uh very very small percentage of the
total sum uh but it was our baseline on
customers that were mentioning the word
tariffs in
conversations the first four days in
April it had gone that number had
increased 800%.
Mhm. The 800% again a a small percentage
of the total
sum, but relative to the the frequency,
pretty significant increase. Mhm.
There's no way we could have known
that had we not had the
the challenge is what I said, right?
Well, this is a SE astrology. This this
conversation is for the dealer principal
and general manager, right? Because the
sales managers for the most part and the
sales people, they're just doing a job.
Yeah, this is more work for me if you
just keep giving me more things to log
into and all that. But if you truly want
to be
better, then you want to listen to your
customers,
right? And you want to try and solve
problems for your
customers. the the days of, you
know, selling a car to a customer and
hammering them over the head and trying
to gross and all that. Don't get me
wrong, there's still opportunities to
gross, but like the old days were bad,
frankly, in the '9s for car for
customers. They're not bad anymore for
customers. It's very transparent, and
it's been that way for a while. I mean,
there are some dealers that push against
it. And then we had COVID. COVID was
just a giant roller coaster ride where
prices were up and down and sideways and
then there was tons of inventory. There
was no inventory. Now there's tons of
inventory again. So the pricing has been
very erratic. Um but for a long time
um it was very
competitive, you know, and you needed to
listen to your customer and you can't
get upset that you had to take shorter
deals if you wanted to move more cars
and things like that. But it's all it's
all perspective. It's all about the
dealer's philosophy. We don't tell a
dealer that you should price your cars
lower, but we tell them here's what
we're hearing.
It's
ultimately uh now we don't even have to
tell them that because they have GPT to
tell them that. Yeah. And it's GPT.
Yeah. It's the insight, right? Mhm.
Think of it as uh business intelligence
or
advanced analytics. It it's it's just
it's opening up. Yeah, we're going to
get better at it too and it will it will
evolve um with us and it'll emerge um
with different things that we're we
already have in the pipeline and we've
been talking about. And so that's why I
don't worry about sharing all this. Like
people say, "Oh, don't share all your
secrets. Don't tell everybody." Good
luck. I gotta hire all these people and
make sure I have the right people and
make sure that they they work hard and
make sure that they can develop. Um, you
know, we we had a dealer that was on
Microsoft Teams and we we're on Slack
and so they want I thought there was a
simple integration and they wasn't. So I
went on chatbt said how do I integrate
these two? It freaking wrote the code
for
me to do the integration.
I mean, we use that all the time. I I
want to say, yeah, it's the it's the
three 30 chat GPT 30 mini. But how do we
know that code's right? Remember I said,
wow. Who trains it, who manages it, what
happens to it? That's where the jobs are
going to be in the future around stuff
like this is and and what worries me is
that if the younger generation doesn't
get the experience to be able to review
that code, we're in trouble in 20, 30,
40 years. That's where I see the
problem.
when knowledge becomes worthless because
the computer can do everything but who's
checking on the work
with a lower or no value on knowledge or
who's I don't you know I don't know if a
a computer's going to go okay here's the
code but I think there's two or three
other ways I might want to look at
this you know what I mean
that's where it's going to get
interesting
so in in like a subjective way where you
know is it giving you the best or is it
giving you the easiest
or do they happen to be the same? I I
don't know. Over a year ago I took a
course at MIT for a artificial
intelligence because Thomas was really
Thomas was calling what we have robot
food before chatbt came
out and I'm like I don't understand what
you mean by robot
food. And he's like well we're turning
conversations into data then we're
feeding it to the robots. I'm like I
still don't get it. Then ChachiPT came
out and I'm like,
"Oh, now I get it." Yeah.
Yeah. It's actually kind of scary the
amount of information we're given we can
give a robot with conversations because
it can it's going to get much better if
you use our data than if you use a
siloed company that just does
appointment scheduling with a
robot because we're hearing what the
customers actually say and the computer
and the AI can learn from those
conversations and handle things
differently maybe instead of just one
singular way one uh fixated way you know
what I mean? Yeah. and and our
processing power, right? So, the
conversation's going to a conserver and
and what comes out of the conserver is
the VCON and it's real and that's real.
That's helpful and that's but none of it
is magic.
No, no, it's useful. It's powerful. It's
not magic. No, it's not magic. But it's
not hocus pocus. every if I if I was a
dealer right now, one bit of advice, I
would say to them, take a deep breath
and relax. You're not missing out on
anything. Just take care of your
customers and take care of your
employees and and and look for problems
that you can solve for. And if AI can
solve that, then try it out. That's it.
It's nothing. Don't freak out about it.
I have too many dealer I have too many
friends and dealers in the industry that
freaking out about AI. It's nothing to
freak out about. And if you try it out,
back it with a process and inspect what
you expect. you know, put a process in
place. I've been very reluctant to call
Straw it an AI company. And you just
heard what we're doing in the world of
AI. If anyone should be saying they're
an AI company, it should be us. But the
problem is the the the stereotype AI
term is that it's a robot that answers
phone calls for you. That that's not AI.
It's learning from data is what AI is,
right?
Not it's extracting it's going through
mountains of data that a human can't go
through in milliseconds to produce
results that would take a human hours
and hours and hours. That's what it's
doing.
And and just to give a point of
reference, I got some numbers from
Thomas uh when we put
strawid.ai site together.
We can process 15 million
VCOons every 90 seconds.
Think about that. Now that that doesn't
mean we get like every uh cliffnote back
on on the conversation, but if we can
process at that volume and speed and and
in a secure
environment, if there's anything we want
to know, if there's anything I'm not
worried about, Michael, is Thomas's
ability to figure out how we scale this
thing.
Like
again, that's a detail
that I I can't be spending my time
thinking about. Um, and I just hope
Thomas is the right person and he is to
handle that when it expands, right, and
knows what to do and he's got that
experience. I don't. Um, I know what I
would want from it as a dealer and as a
business owner. Um, and that's why we
have a a team uh like Thomas and and
Gordon and Von and Sergey and Matt and
Holly and her team like they they all
know you know the limitations of it and
all that kind of stuff.
Um, just like with the marketing like I
think now that you and I have been
together a while you realize that I that
is my imposter syndrome. I keep thinking
I need a marketing guy but I know a lot
about marketing. Right.
There you go. I don't know as much as
you and I don't want to know what the
Adobe certifications are and all this
other stuff that you've been through.
Like I I you know that's why you're
here. That's right. And you know I got
Jason now doing a great job of client
success and sales. Um and
like he knows I'll jump on a demo and
talk to a dealer anytime or help out a
dealer if they have a a problem, but I
don't have to do all of it.
and know every little detail about
everything that's going on. And in
operational, you know, um Shauna doesn't
let me in the operational side of things
anymore. She tells me to beat it. So,
and I mean, I built the a BDC from
without technology 25 years ago, right?
So, I know how to do her job, but I I
don't get in her way. So, that's the
good part about our company. We have
trainers and we have, you know, we we
that have been with us a long time and
we have
um really good people. So that that
again think of the three things I focus
on. Making sure we have really good
people that that I'm taking care of my
dealers and that we're making money.
That's it.
Absolutely. And you know, it's a it is a
great culture. Uh you know, David, Joe,
uh Jason, I mean, yeah, didn't even
mention David. Um David's
He's on a tear. He's, you know, seems to
be gaining his bearings and uh
Joe's been a good addition to us.
Everybody, the reality of it is um when
you're a small company, you can't afford
to add all these people, right? So, you
wear a lot of hats. That's right. And
luckily, I have always worked hard and
didn't mind jumping in wherever I was
needed. It's actually great that I don't
get asked to jump in all the time, but
we are getting, you know, we have grown,
so it would have been impossible for me
to do
anyway. So, I I just want to circle back
on kind of
wrapping I don't a conclusion I guess
you would say
on on
conversational data.
So historically
uh your dad
Yeah. would listen to calls, identify
trends, opportunities. My dad, I mean my
my managers, my trainers, uh they do
too. It's just that he not only listens
to calls, but he shops dealers for us,
too. He uses his fake Italian accent and
calls dealers and tries to get their
best price. It's pretty funny. He loves
doing it. He's really good at it. Like,
but the point is
Everybody listens to calls. He just
happened to be somebody obviously he's
my father so I trust him. Yeah. And he
doesn't [ __ ] me. But when he talks
about how good certain people are, he
does it with genuine excitement about
how good they are. Like he's happy
they're good. Do you know what I mean by
that? I do. And he's happy when we're
kicking ass in the dealership. and he
gets frustrated when an agent isn't
doing so well or a dealer is causing us
problems. So like that kind of loyalty
and trust obviously it's my father this
goes without saying but is impossible
for me to
um replicate that a lot right um but the
AI can replicate that in a way and it
can identify heat cases it can identify
customers that are upset it can identify
customers that were uh you know shopping
from out of state we have we have a lot
of dealers that don't realize how many
customers they have that shop out of
state. And I have dealers that tell me,
"We won't sell out of state." It's like,
"Okay, but you're turning business away.
Is there a way we can put a process in
place?" See, problem solving, right? Uh
to to maybe try and transact more out of
state, but they won't know the magnitude
of that if you just tell them once in a
while that it
happened. It could be happening three
times a day. They don't know that,
right? And now we
can present that. And and so that was
that was kind of my point
is
historically if if your dad was able to
listen to calls for 24 hours, he would
only be able to listen to 24 hours of
calls. And he has extensive automotive
experience. you know, was a retail great
silly like he's always been a people
person, right? You you would never know
if he liked you or didn't like you. He's
always smiling. So So just breaking down
like our natural I'm not a natural
salesperson. He's a natural
salesperson. He gets the tonality, the
questioning, you know, his rapport. Like
he'll tell me, "Hey, this person we
have, she doesn't follow script at all,
but man, does customers love her." I'm
like, "Great, leave her alone." Right?
Like that's half the battle. Like as
long as she's getting appointments and
customers love her. I don't care if
she's following script. Like it's
scripting is another like topic we could
talk about. Yeah. Because I've never
been a script
guy and u most of these robots are
scripted. I would much rather have a
person that understands naturally how to
build rapport with a customer, how to
listen, how to active listen, how to ask
for a sale or ask for the appointment.
And it doesn't have to. That's I just
explained what selling is, right? Yeah.
It's a
structure. You got to build rapport.
And how do you build the road to the
sale? Yeah. Like we could do a whole
topic on that which is fine if you want
to because the fact is that that's my
core is like how you know human
interaction is really really important.
We have a saying at Straw Mike Michael.
We don't hire people and train them to
be nice. We hire nice people.
That's right. If we get the intention
that if we get the slightest indication
that you're uh an [ __ ] you aren't
going to get a job with us. I don't care
what your resume looks like
cuz you can't tell. We want to see
people smiling. We want to see people
happy. We want to see people excited
about wanting to come work here. Those
are the people we're trying to hire.
Yeah.
And and when you
have when you have that core team of of
you know high quality good people then
that bleeds into the culture and the
fabric of the company and ultimately is
a building block in driving the results
right it's always always about the
results. It's not magic. It's not magic.
It's it's solid. Yep.
This has been great. Constantly working
on it. Constantly.
Vin, what a great conversation.
How can how can dealers, how can viewers
uh connect and and you know find you? Um
obviously strait.com.
Where else can they find you on social?
LinkedIn. Yeah. I don't know. Straw.com
would be the best place. Yeah. see all
the information that we we now have
straa.ai which is a separate website
that talks about vcon and conservers and
all that. You may have seen a lot of my
posts um personally
um and what Michael and team are doing
around, you know, what what we're trying
we're trying
to we're trying not to get away from the
core of what we are and who we are, but
we want to kind we're trying to like
fold in the technology piece
without confusing our customers. How
about that? Right.
So, LinkedIn, um, you know, give a
follow, reach out, any questions, we're
here to help. And don't forget the white
paper. It's a great little guide. Has a
lot of what we spoke about. Something
you can download and print and that's
stralet.comwitaper.
So really
appreciate all of the time that you
provided for this episode of Dealer
Insights and we'll catch you on the next
one. Sounds good, buddy. Thank you.