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Brian Benstock has been the number one certified Honda dealer in the world 16 times and the number one certified Acura dealer 15 times. In this episode of LotTalk, Chris Keene, John Anderson, and Renaldo Leonard get him to lay out the math on the most profitable transaction in any dealership: the vehicle exchange.
Benstock explains why roughly 30% of your service customers can trade into a comparable vehicle at the same payment today, and how that pencils out to as many as 900 additional sales a month at a store the size of Paragon. He also makes the case for cutting your vendor list down to a handful of real partners, paying them on transactions instead of impressions, and refusing to pay a toll to access your own customer data.
Plus: why he sold EVs at $99 a month in Queens, why AI is a force multiplier and not a threat, and why "I can't get my people to do it" is a leadership problem.
Listen at LotTalkPodcast.com.
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Host
What is LotTalk Podcast powered by Lotpop?
LotTalk powered by Lotpop, explores timely topics in the automotive industry with weekly updates and features guests from various sectors of the automotive world. Learn more at www.lottalkpodcast.com
speaker-0 (00:00)
In this week's episode, we find out what made Chris say this.
speaker-1 (00:03)
Who we're about to bring on stage, I would arguably say one of the best disruptors in our industry today, one of the most sought-after people that is a speaker across the world.
And here we go, folks. We are back. We are in full force. We got brother Anderson back. You got Mr. Leonard. I'm Chris Keene, one of the co-hosts. You've tuned in to Lot Talk, powered by Lot Pop. Gentlemen, we got a day, but we got to pay some homage. We got to pay some love. We got to pay some respect. Mr. Anderson, glad you're back, brother. We missed you.
speaker-2 (00:43)
Yeah.
Well it's good to be back, trust me. so I appreciate that. It's it's good to be back in the chair and I'm fired up and I'm ready to go 'cause we got a we got a big, big, big one today. So yeah. Yeah.
speaker-1 (00:57)
It's huge. Ronaldo It's huge. It's huge. It's yeah. I'm go I'm just happy that Peapaw didn't come walking into the room with somebody's ear in his hand. yelling, Who's here?
speaker-2 (01:10)
Baby, come on. Who who
speaker-1 (01:11)
Who's your Yeah. Congratulations. Okay, yeah.
speaker-2 (01:15)
No, hey, listen, I'm fortunate that I remember it. You know, it was a few days ago. I'm fortunate I remember it.
speaker-1 (01:22)
Lord have mercy. Here we go. Well listen, viewers and listeners, you're gonna want to watch this from right now to the very, very end. Because who we're about to bring on stage, a business leader, a thought leader, I would arguably say one of the best disruptors in our industry today, one of the most sought-after people that is a speaker across the world.
And he's one of you. He's a dealer. The number one certified Honda dealer in the world sixteen times. The number one certified acro dealer in the world fifteen times. The man runs marathons. He works out like crazy. Guess what, gentlemen? I took some note on that because the best form of flattery. What is it, gentlemen? Isn't it duplication? Sure.
speaker-2 (02:12)
Absolutely. Yeah.
speaker-1 (02:14)
And I wouldn't mind duplicating this gentleman we're gonna bring on stage. So without further ado, I wanna bring him on stage. Brett.
Let's throw the man, the myth, the legend out there. Mr. Brian Benstock, sir. Welcome to the show.
speaker-3 (02:28)
Thanks for
speaker-0 (02:28)
Thanks for
having me. What an introduction.
speaker-1 (02:35)
You're just lucky he was a little crushed for time, so yeah. His introductions usually go about seven, eight minutes. But he definitely covered all the bases.
speaker-0 (02:43)
I don't know that long a resume, but thanks anyhow. I appreciate it. Yes.
speaker-1 (02:47)
You you get a pretty healthy one.
You know, Brian, thank you, you know, for taking the time and and respectfully, we know that y you're operating two very successful dealerships up there in New York and you're pulled fifty-five million different directions. And for you to take time and join us today, it literally is a treat for us. But I want to get into the context of why you I reached out to you and said, brother, we we gotta hear some insights. You we gotta hear some insights from you about a
post you put out there. I don't know. It was probably a week ago. And I'm gonna read part of it for the viewers and the listeners that might have not seen it. But if you want to read the full post viewers and listeners, jump on LinkedIn, go find Brian Benstock, damn sure connect with him because he's got some amazing content he puts out there that gives back to our automotive community. Some of it you may not like it it'll piss you off, but guess what? That means he's probably reaching you and you probably need to make a change.
But I want to read this. Brian, you said there's a truth in our industry that nobody wants to say out loud. Well, number one, we're going to give a big platform here for us to say this out loud. You said we don't have a product problem, we have an integration problem. You sat through a presentation recently with Steve Greenfield, where he put a slide listing every vendor touching the dealership's ecosystem. I've had our companies. Then you went on to say, I looked at the board and thought.
I'm paying every one of That's a problem. I'm gonna stop there, Brian.
speaker-3 (04:26)
Well, thankfully
speaker-1 (04:28)
That's a problem.
speaker-3 (04:29)
I'm not paying everyone.
speaker-0 (04:29)
Paying
one of them, but I'm I was I am and was too many of them for far too long. Sure.
speaker-1 (04:36)
So unpack that that's a problem.
speaker-3 (04:39)
Absolutely. You know, I have this great imagination in the story. I I'm picturing I was sitting at my favorite restaurant having during the day and in walks Elon
speaker-0 (04:47)
glass of wine and recap
speaker-3 (04:51)
Musk.
speaker-0 (04:52)
and Mr. Musk sits sits down next to me and to my surprise he knows who I am and he says, Hey, how's it going, Brian? I said, hey Mr. Musk, how's it going? I asked him a simple question. I said, I ask him, what DMS are you using? And he looks at me like I'm crazy, right? And with their
speaker-3 (05:05)
And I ask him what CRM are you using over there?
speaker-0 (05:08)
Tesla and he looks at me like I'm crazy.
speaker-3 (05:09)
It would be preposterous, right? Because we know beyond the shadow of
speaker-0 (05:14)
of
a doubt, what they're using there is one integrated system where a customer is that system gives
speaker-3 (05:17)
We're entered into that and it
speaker-0 (05:20)
them everything that's Tesla. And in industry, it's uncommon
speaker-3 (05:24)
It's not
speaker-0 (05:25)
to say, what is the DMS system that you're using? What is the CRM system that you're using? What is the data mining tool that you're using? And all of
speaker-3 (05:34)
These
speaker-0 (05:35)
tools are put together in the
speaker-3 (05:37)
No.
speaker-0 (05:37)
hope that we can better serve and better solve the the difficulties of our clients.
The challenge there is that the data doesn't flow easily from product to product. There's no seamless integration and and and
speaker-3 (05:54)
Quite often.
speaker-0 (05:55)
data our data is locked the total data
speaker-3 (05:57)
quite often we're charging whole to access our data.
Quite often the the partners that are supposed to serve the dealers have disparate objectives.
speaker-0 (06:07)
It and
speaker-3 (06:08)
And having those disparate objectives are the striction
speaker-0 (06:11)
Fraction,
there's loss of transp transparency, and of course there's inefficiencies. And there's no shortage of products or tools and problems.
which was about two weeks ago, a dozen or so new products there looking for our fifteen hundred to twenty five hundred dollars a month a month to solve a problem that is just another point of friction for the customer, another point of friction for the dealership.
speaker-1 (06:38)
So h how do we combat this?
speaker-3 (06:40)
Well you know, I I think
speaker-0 (06:41)
Think I've got pretty
good voice with the vendor partners that we do business with and I really asked I asked a couple of them to get together for the sake of their client, Paragon, to solve the problem for us. I I sat and watched manager
speaker-3 (06:54)
We a young
speaker-0 (06:55)
Patrick and he's a really good guy. He worked with us for many years, asking a
speaker-3 (06:59)
I watched him dead deal
and I mean, my lord, go through that and he was going screen to screen, product to product to what? To sell a single car.
speaker-0 (07:03)
Do you go through the process and from screen to screen for product product to do car?
speaker-3 (07:10)
And I use this story and sa it's a pretty interesting story. I had the occasion
speaker-0 (07:13)
occasion
during COVID to go food shopping. And I it's not something I do. I go to a supermarket and you
speaker-3 (07:18)
And I I realized yeah.
speaker-0 (07:21)
have to go through every aisle to get what you need. They're smart. They don't you're probably likely to buy in one aisle. They want you to walk through every aisle.
speaker-3 (07:29)
Yeah. And can we through this together?
speaker-0 (07:31)
You walk through the aisles and what do you do? You load up the shopping cart. You go from aisle to aisle putting the items that you want into the shopping cart. Then what do you do? You go to checkout.
And then what do you do after that? You unload the shopping
speaker-3 (07:45)
The shape.
speaker-0 (07:45)
cart and put it on that conveyor belt. Then what do you do? You pay. Then what do you do? You reload the shopping cart. Then what do you do? You go out to your car. Then what do you do? You unload the shopping cart. Then what do you do? You drive home. Then what do you do? You unload the cart. Sort of a with a college professor
speaker-3 (08:03)
as a a project he had
speaker-0 (08:07)
asked us in the class to redesign the shopping cart.
And I drew t two two squares with an arrow going from one to the other. The
speaker-3 (08:15)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (08:16)
other groups that were drawing drew out this beautiful new version of the shopping cart. And when I when I gave this drawing to the professor, he looked at it, he goes, What what the heck is this? And I said, Well it's a redesign of the shopping cart. He's because I I don't get it. Well I said, Well, one is your house and the other is a supermarket and wouldn't it be great if we could just the house could ask the supermarket to ship the food directly to our our homes
And eliminate the whole process. This wasn't, excuse me, this wasn't during COVID, it was pre-COVID, it twenty seventeen. And the professor said, But that wasn't the the assignment. And I said, But it is the solution. And he said, I don't think so. As luck would have it, three days later, Amazon bought Whole Foods. So whatever year Amazon bought Whole Foods, whatever month, that was two or three days after I I drew the shopping cart. I'm not claiming to have created or invented anything, but I said, Perhaps the best redesign of the shopping cart.
is its elimination. And
I think that's that parable is very true for perhaps a redesign of the sales process, perhaps a redesign of the vendor equation. It let's eliminate it and start with what is it we actually need to do? And what we need to do is to be able to quickly give the customer value on their trade and and a proposal on the potential vehicle or vehicles that they're looking for. And shouldn't we be able to do this in a matter of seconds, not in the amount of time
It's taking our team. And it's taking our because of the lack of integration between these quote unquote partners that don't play nice together. And I watch and the solution for us seemed to be
speaker-3 (09:52)
So so the
speaker-0 (09:55)
two or three screens and they have one window with one set of vendors on it and another window
speaker-3 (10:01)
And I could see where does this go ten years from now, you've got twenty genes around you or
speaker-0 (10:06)
Wouldn't it be great if we had one single integrated hub that took all the information that we have available on the customer, all the information available from NHTSA, all the information that we have from the OEM, all the information that we have from the OEM finance sources, put it into an integrated hub and created instead of a DMS, an IMS, an intelligence management system where we could get all that information to solve and serve the customer in one spot. And I I think that's the
the drive for us and that's what we're looking to do.
speaker-1 (10:36)
You know, I was at Vincue Unleashed and I heard you speak around some of those topics right there.
speaker-3 (10:44)
Vam what it wasn't
speaker-0 (10:45)
Good event, wasn't it?
speaker-1 (10:46)
it was great. You know, in all my years, and I said this publicly, you know, I worked, you know, for the other, you know, big software company for ten years and they had a lot of really good events and they had some good event planners and things of that nature and they put on some really good speakers, et cetera. But in all my years, on this side of the industry for the last now almost fourteen years, I've never been to an event as collaborative, educational, thought provoking
Is that VenQ Unleashed event. So yeah, it was a great event. You know, and I want to turn the mic here in a second over to John and Ronaldo, but you said something because in speaking of all these different platforms, but at that event, it would made me think about is you just talked about some AI. Okay. In that event, you talked about and you quoted a Harvard professor about AI and humans and everything else. I know the quote, and I think I even shared it on our podcast.
not too terribly long ago, but will you speak to that again and
speaker-3 (11:50)
We talk about the
speaker-0 (11:52)
A AI will not replace people, that quote.
speaker-1 (11:54)
Yes, yes, sir.
speaker-0 (11:56)
So yeah, the quote is AI is not going to replace people. People that use AI will replace people that don't. When I first
speaker-3 (12:02)
Yeah, that w when first
speaker-0 (12:04)
heard that, it was profound and it's it it was
speaker-3 (12:06)
Quite a wow.
speaker-0 (12:07)
back. I you know, and it was a relief. That
speaker-3 (12:10)
Because
speaker-0 (12:10)
that makes it optional for someone to be replaced by AI, right? If you can use AI, you can not only maintain what you're doing, but you can accelerate it.
and and I think that's really the upside of the story. So to me, I I thought that was empowering that that's
speaker-3 (12:29)
And you know, I and I I I'd ask that we take a look at other
speaker-0 (12:33)
inventions like electricity using hand yet replaced
speaker-3 (12:35)
and you know and and and what what happened? Did the carpenter who's using a hand saw get waste?
speaker-0 (12:43)
by electricity? No. She became much more powerful with this new electric saw. They're able to do more.
speaker-3 (12:50)
Much more
speaker-0 (12:51)
And I would think that if you stayed with the old ways that you would be at a s a distinct disadvantage when it came to competing with this new technology that's out there. I think the same
speaker-3 (13:01)
Same
thing has happened over and over. Coming
speaker-0 (13:03)
Over again, right? Take a look at Uber coming in. Many tax
drivers and medallion owners went out of business. Other people grew their business exponentially by using rideshare and mastering rideshare and the opportunities to serve customers better, quicker, faster. And so I I think the same thing exists with AI. I think AI can really be a a force multiplier for many of us. But there's no tolerance in that system for the
interruptions and going from screen to screen. It's got to be have flow to it. It's got to make it easy. And I think in that meeting that you're at, we use the example of the camera and look at what Steve Jobs do, you know, among other things, this iPhone. And in essence, he turned every one of us into a photographer. And as a result, but by how did he do it? By making it easier. And again, we went through the shopping cart example. If you went through an example of
You look at that process compared to being able to just simply go out and take a thousand pictures in a second. And I think the the math and the data is pretty compelling.
More pictures will be taken today, approximately five billion pictures will be taken today, which is roughly ninety two percent of all the photographs ever taken with conventional film photography. Let me say that again. you've got a hundred years worth of photographs is being outnumbered by the amount of photographs being taken in a simple day. And is there a lesson there for us? If we make it easier for people to do business, they'll do much more business and
I think the evidence is pretty clear. Kack didn't quite understand the business that they were in. They thought that they were in the print photography, film photography and developing business. That's how they make
speaker-3 (15:13)
They
speaker-0 (15:14)
their money, but that's not the business that they were in. The business that they were in is capturing memories, right? With photographs. And
speaker-3 (15:21)
Steve Jobs.
speaker-0 (15:22)
happened to do that better than everybody else. He just made it real easy to capture those memories and to send them all around the world, I believe.
What how profound is it if we can put intelligence in everybody's hand? Won't that be phenomenal? And is it possible by doing so we can increase the amount of business we do at scale like we could never dream of, by by having every single person in the dealership be able to scan a VIN and to be to be able to give a customer an equity position on their car. Wouldn't that be incredible? And not have that process back and forth take ten minutes to go through ten or
fifteen tools, but to be able to do that with a simple barcode scam to give them their equity position and what that means in terms of their ability to get out of that current car and into the most likely other replacement car. It could be the same car or a car below that car or a car above that car. What what if we could do that in in seconds? Would we do, could we do multiples of business we're doing now?
speaker-1 (16:21)
Anderson, I know you have I know you guys have I see you over there taking notes. And I know you've read that post 30 times.
speaker-2 (16:30)
Man, I I you know, listen, listen, Brian's I mean, I feel like I'm sitting in church right now. You know, I look
speaker-0 (16:36)
Tell me the brief.
speaker-3 (16:37)
Don't mean to bridge.
speaker-2 (16:39)
You brother, you already you're on the pulpit, man. You're prepared open
speaker-3 (16:44)
Believe or believe in I believe what I'm saying is
speaker-0 (16:47)
True.
speaker-2 (16:48)
Exactly right. Preach, baby. I it's so while Brian was talking, I'm thinking about you know, he's bringing up these company examples. I'm thinking about Blockbuster and Blockbuster and Netflix, right? It's it's it's looking at a situation and and removing all the obstacles, right? And before we came on I
speaker-3 (17:04)
John, think of that. You just hit another one. Blockbuster. Go there, you're dressed like crap, you pray nobody sees you. You got a baseball cap on. You go in there and you're standing in front of empty cartridges.
speaker-0 (17:19)
cartridges and you pick an empty cartridge and you go up to the actual cassette tape, they put it in there and my god for you some goodies remote sitting at home with Netflix.
speaker-3 (17:27)
Yeah and they even offer. And you just compare that with the remote network.
speaker-0 (17:34)
Yep.
speaker-2 (17:35)
Come on. You
know, before we came before we came on, I mentioned to Brian, I you know, I r remember my days of work in a sales desk and I could remember exactly what he was talking about in in his in his article on LinkedIn talking about I watched one of my employees go through that used to be that used to drive me crazy, right? I I had to do and here listen, this is what's this is what's so ironic about him what we're talking about today, because we don't like referring we like referring ourselves to a dealer partner, right?
But we are in this category, right? So so we're one of those tabs. But I've always I've always tried to I've always tried to look at that from a from a manager's perspective in a dealership, right? How many times do you have to go back and forth to get your job done? So I love the fact that, you know, Brian has thrown this out here of man, we've got to do a better job of smoothing this out. And to your point, Brian, and in in your write up.
you mentioned and I'm I'm interested in your comment on this. At Paragon, we're stopping the system we're stripping the system back to what actually matters. And the first two things you mentioned was fewer partners, zero vendors. So I I wanna I wanna throw that out at you. What in your in your viewpoint, what constitutes a partner to you versus a vendor? Because there are differences, but I'm interested to hear your take on that.
speaker-3 (18:57)
Well you know, let's it there's John Ross of Fame
speaker-0 (18:59)
Yeah.
speaker-3 (19:04)
And so y vendors have to have skill
speaker-0 (19:07)
in
the game for too too long, the vendor matter what like it's an attorney pay win or lose, right?
doing well the vendor gets paid less and if we're doing really well they get paid more. Be careful
speaker-3 (19:21)
In essence a alliance and you know you've got to be
speaker-0 (19:24)
saying partnership. Now I'm not partners with these guys, but like our ad agency. Our ad agency gets paid per unit sold, per retail unit sold.
speaker-3 (19:32)
So they've got some skin in the game. If we're not selling cars, they're not getting the same Why just
speaker-0 (19:36)
fee say
fifteen percent or whatever the percentages that people are paying today on top of everything we're gonna pay we'll pay me and I'll show you what I'll do. So if we're gonna pay them for transactions, we're gonna have more transactions. That's what I want. I think the same that me
speaker-3 (19:51)
S
speaker-0 (19:51)
is the differentiator between vendors and partners because most vendors are not interested in that arrangement. They want to get paid no matter what. And partners say, hey, I hey this could be really great if we put our efforts, our shoulders behind you guys and
help you guys do more business and it's quantifiable, then we should get a little bit more. And we're happy to pay a little bit more. What would you pay more for? Leads or transactions? You know, well
speaker-2 (20:17)
Mm-hmm.
speaker-3 (20:18)
But what about impressions?
speaker-0 (20:20)
I love that term. We got you ten million impressions. That's great. How many cars do we sell?
speaker-3 (20:24)
And we'll we'll
speaker-0 (20:28)
All
pay more for transactions, I think. I certainly will. So I think that's the difference. Tech is really
speaker-3 (20:34)
And we got to test who's
speaker-0 (20:36)
with us, you know, because I asked one company, I said, Hey, I I you you guys specialize in this. You guys are the appraisal tool, you have the best information, I think, and to make an educated decision in our market what a car is working and you guys have the best data mining tool.
And I need you guys to work together. You're in no danger of figuring out the other guy's business. But tear and said to Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Gorbachev. Tear down walls. And there's a certain amount of trust that the companies had to have. And I I said, if you do that would be interested in this. And I first started going, I went to VinCue first.
And said, here's the challenge, here's what I want to do. And the team there said, We can do that. And they got back to me about ten days later and said, We need this component to it. Then I went to team velocity and said, Hey, can you give these guys a call? I think they've got some good stuff. I think the guys were playing with the cards close to their chest for a little while, but I think both heads of the the companies had a bigger vision. They saw that this is a industry-wide problem that perhaps if they solved, they can have
more than their fair share of dealers sign on. And I I'm really not concerned so much with that. I'm concerned about our dealership. And this specifically was around sales and service and what it takes to really have a meaningful impact on that service department. I I think you're going to see some really spectacular things coming out of Paragon, February, March, April, as we look at integration to solve pretty big opportunity for us.
speaker-1 (22:17)
That sounds like a tease to me. Yeah, that sounds like a tease to me. One one of the things that that that jumped out at me about what you posted was the fact that you feel like you need to protect the customer, protect the team. And I've always been a proponent of the fact that we've got internal customers and external customers. Removing that friction from those information systems in order to be able to to generate the experience that you've alluded to. At what point do you have to make a decision on
your internal customer or your external customer taking priority over what you're looking for and looking to remove from both your partners and your your vendors.
speaker-3 (22:57)
You know, I I I live by the adage if
speaker-0 (22:59)
It's doing what's right for the customer will always end up being what's right for for us. Right. And you don't I the challenge for the vendors, they're always trying to do what's best for their company and it's not necessarily what's best for the customer and it burns them. They said, No, no, we're in this business, this is how we make our money. We want to protect that. They weren't as interested.
speaker-3 (23:15)
I I think Kodak you know, I I understand they have no no this business how
speaker-0 (23:29)
from my perspective in what's best for the customer. And obviously I don't process film five days. I I'm a marathon runner and I I was and and so somewhat am you cross you get back picture them now. We're in a now
speaker-3 (23:42)
And the finish arm back to your house.
I can't think of waiting for somebody to bring a cassette or a film canister and
speaker-0 (23:54)
waiting
a a week or two weeks or three weeks, you want that information. The information is coming so quickly at us today that we have to adjust.
speaker-3 (24:04)
Challenge for me is I'm the guy that's that they're
speaker-0 (24:05)
set up that system for using out there.
speaker-3 (24:08)
they're doing all the things I want what was important to me. Data. So they'd have to enter information.
speaker-0 (24:10)
wanted because to us to me getting the information
into one platform and then they'd have to over to another
speaker-3 (24:19)
Transfer that information over to another
speaker-0 (24:21)
platform and push it. And maybe platform is gonna be
speaker-3 (24:23)
That other person charge a a fee
for your own data. I want to use my data. Well, you gotta pay the toll. whether it's a monthly toll, weekly toll, it's my
speaker-0 (24:31)
What and it's a we
speaker-3 (24:35)
frickin' data. I want my data. Data is the edge that the customers that we have today over the Googles and the Amazons and everybody else. We have that PI
speaker-0 (24:46)
I
speaker-3 (24:47)
and we've got to be able to access it. And we've got to be able to access it cleanly, quickly.
And w without fear of that information that data
If you're a DMS provider and you can't
speaker-0 (25:02)
Do that for me, kick rocks. You know, I it's our data. We're we're paying you a
speaker-3 (25:04)
It it's that's our
speaker-0 (25:08)
a king's ransom for that. And then
speaker-3 (25:10)
You get it.
speaker-0 (25:11)
charges fees on top of that. And and then the the firewalls in between companies to protect us, we have to charge you. What no?
speaker-3 (25:19)
No.
speaker-0 (25:21)
And not charges extra on top of that.
speaker-3 (25:24)
Every day.
speaker-1 (25:26)
It pisses me off because here's the thing. I mean we we we talk about it's our data. Yes, it is. So Mr. Mrs. DMS company, it is our data. Here's the biggest key that they forget. They didn't pay for to get that data. You paid to get that data.
speaker-0 (25:45)
I'm we're
speaker-3 (25:45)
I'm gonna
speaker-0 (25:46)
we're probably gonna hear from some really sharp cats in your audience so they're gonna say the customer's data is the customers. It is the customers data and we are the custodians of that data. But we have access to that data to better serve the customers. We we've not subrogated that right to the DMS, CRM and and everybody else. That we we should be able to access the data and be very mindful of how we use that data.
But we we should be able to use that data to to quickly assist the customer. Can you imagine you've got a a porter scanning in a car in the service lane and he scans in the car and he scans it and all of a sudden pay a prompt goes off, show me and and and the the I
speaker-3 (26:27)
Money, money, money, money.
speaker-0 (26:31)
got one. I got one. And and what do you mean you got
speaker-3 (26:33)
What do you mean?
speaker-0 (26:34)
a customer that's in equity you can take out of their current car, put it into a new car, and lower their monthly payment. And what if you had about thirty percent of your customers
inequity in service every month. And and that's the data that we have that shows about thirty percent of the people I use the term inequity. It's probably not an accurate term. Use whatever definition you want. My definition of inequity is we could take them out of the current car, put them into a similar car for around the same payment. I don't care if they're upside down or not upside down. People are getting so hung up on that crap right now that they're tripping over dollars picking up pennies. I
speaker-2 (27:12)
You
preach, preach, yeah.
speaker-0 (27:15)
If you ask
speaker-3 (27:15)
You L.
speaker-0 (27:16)
somebody, I'm and I did this a thous a thousand times. You go to an audience and I'm blessed to be able to speak. I'm not a public speaker, I'm a car guy, but I I do some speaking. And when you go up to ten people in an audience and you say, I I can what kind of car are you driving? They give you BMW X five. Okay. If I can take you out of that current X, get you the brand new one and keep your payment about the same, are you interested? And maybe you'll get a no, and maybe the next guy will say no.
But you can't get through ten people without at least one of them saying, I'll do that.
speaker-3 (27:48)
I'm in.
speaker-0 (27:50)
Can
approach 100% of your customers and get a 10% take rate. Do you know what that looks like in a store the size of Paragon? Well, I I do. I'll give you the math. We have about 170 service customers a month. 10% first blush would be 17 sales a day. A day. Right? But there's more. Let's just say of the 170, you sold to 17, you've got 153 customers that you missed. Well, is it possible that going through
And following up with those 153, you could coax, persuade Vince another 10% to say, you know, I'll do that.
speaker-3 (28:27)
Do that.
speaker-0 (28:27)
I'll do that. Yeah, yeah, I'll definitely do that. That's another 15 sales. So 15 plus 17 would be 32 sales a day. 30-day month? That's 900 sales a month. That's at a 10% closing ratio, which is terrible. 10% of customers.
That know and service with you drive your product that you're making an offer to to get out of the current car, get into a new car, and keep their payment about the same. And and so today, I believe we have the technology and the integration to do that. And and so I'm resetting the bar, Parag and my guys are not real happy with me. I'm saying, there's nine hundred among sitting in the service department. Nine hundred sales a month sitting in service. We'll get We'll get
And they think they think I'm crazy.
speaker-3 (29:19)
This is great.
speaker-1 (29:20)
But you know, Brian, you bring up something and you know, especially for old Peapaw the call, you know, I I haven't been in the business as long as him, but since nineteen ninety four, this is what I've been taught. People shop by price, they purchase by payment. And that's exactly what you just talked about.
speaker-0 (29:38)
Well yeah, I I didn't want you know,
speaker-3 (29:39)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (29:40)
I I hear all these man, I'm gonna be rude.
speaker-3 (29:43)
All these idiots. Affordability. The average price of fifty three thousand Well, you're not selling
speaker-0 (29:50)
The average price, you never sell. What percentage of customers finance? It's about 90% forever. So $53,000
speaker-3 (29:57)
Who's paying fifty?
speaker-0 (29:59)
per car, nobody. It's the monthly payment. We have an affordability problem because we had interest rates go up. We have an affordability problem because the OEM started during COVID making only the most expensive cars. And so now we we've got to bring it back. It's the price. It's the price. It's the price. And I still think today's vehicles offer increasing.
incredible value. You know, we had a a a real concern here in Woodside, Queens, when we were given a hundred EVs to sell at Paragon. There's no place to plug them. We're in we're in Metro New York, right? There's no no place to plug. We've got apartment buildings mile high, no par in no garages with these chargers. And I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to sell the vehicles. Well what did we do? We came out with a spectacular release
That was unbeatable in the marketplace. And we said, let's see if we can sell these at ninety nine dollars a month. Let's see if the market's there.
speaker-3 (30:53)
Sure enough, sure enough, the market was there. The car, the truck was a fifty-six thousand dollar truck. I didn't talk about fifty-six dollars, I said ninety-nine dollars. And you know what? For ninety-nine dollars a month, you know what the customer did? They found a place to plug the car.
speaker-1 (31:09)
They figure that shit out real quick.
speaker-0 (31:10)
Show.
speaker-3 (31:11)
So, you know, and E Vs are not for everybody, but it and it was an ex
speaker-0 (31:14)
experiment
and you know i it was one of those we stripped out everything where we'd make nothing.
speaker-3 (31:19)
Let's
see let's see is there a d can we create
speaker-0 (31:22)
Create
some demand and we were able to create some demand and customers
speaker-3 (31:26)
And by the time
speaker-0 (31:28)
figured out what what they wanted to put down. It wasn't quite as much as the he had called for. We ended up with a payment that was about a hundred and ninety-nine dollars a month for fifty-three thousand dollar and the customers thought it was a great value. And we were like number one or number two in the nation in EV sales for both Honda and Paragon Acura.
speaker-3 (31:48)
Here in Queens, New York. No, not the con conservationalists in Oregon, not the wheat eating guys out in California. Woodside New York was selling more EPs than anybody else because we had a plan with us and
speaker-0 (32:01)
We had a process and
we figured out, you know, it's the price, the payment. I mean, it's a payment. And you know, I think those are really great lessons for us when we pay attention to what's best for the customer and there are there are dealerships in the market that just said, Hey, I you I don't want these cars, I'm not gonna take these cars, they're not gonna sell and I think they missed a big opportunity. And again, respectfully, dealers have the right to stock and sell what they think is best. But, you know, I think Hunter was relying on us to be a little bit of a lighthouse dealer.
And we said, let's see if we can do it with E Bs and and we did.
speaker-1 (32:34)
Two questions, but one of them I want to save toward the end. And it's a million dollar question we've asked every dealer principal, general manager that's ever been on our show with us, and it's about your people, but I'm gonna ask that one at the end. But one around the same thing John was talking about a minute ago, where he asked you about the top two where you were talking about stripping the system back to what actually matters. Yeah. When you talk about no duplication.
how are you determining? Because you you could look at multiple different solution offerings, if you will, that one provider does, that another provider does, that another provider does. And there are three different offerings, but it almost seems like on some of these, this one doesn't have everything you need, that one doesn't have everything you need, and that one doesn't have everything you need, but you really need something from all three of those. But still, how do you determine what to strip back?
speaker-0 (33:27)
First of all, you it only makes a difference if you're running a full efficiency. You know, it's if if Tiger Woods went to Sears and what Sears and Robock golf clubs and I had the best golf clubs in the world, I'm in no danger of beating him. You know, and so the there's nuances between one vendor and another. I'm not saying all vendors are alike. you know, take take the vendor that you've got and master what you're doing and before you start looking for another vendor, because you know, if you're not gonna master one, then the other vendor's probably not gonna be a big
help for you. But when you do get to that mastery level, then those little nuances for your store and for your market and for your team become very, very important. You know, I know what we want. I like to stick with vendors had the same ad agency for I gosh, fifteen years. We were with V Auto for I you know since their inception, made a a switch recently, that was really more about the Dale Pollock resigning than anything else. I mean Dale was Dale to me is V Auto, will always be V Auto.
He's it's just a a genius. you know, I there's none there's none smarter. Dale is he's I consider him a friend and I I would not have made that switch until Dale had resigned. You know, he's he's my my rabbi and put me on the map when it came to used cars. but but you know, I learned a lot, in that what what's important in used cars, what what do we want to do? We want to have access to data. I think that they were a little slow on some of the AI initiatives, right? I
You don't need a person to price your cars. You can use AI to price your cars. You have to feed the AI the information you want. And there's somebody No, you don't. No, you don't.
speaker-3 (35:00)
Yeah, but I know the market better. You may have those aberrations.
speaker-0 (35:05)
That's that one car, that one setup, that one age that i you're gonna get a little bit of extra money above and beyond. How about we sell the cars for market value? How about we sell them for slightly under market value and own the market value? Let's get that turn going in the dealership. And I think AI can help us along
along those lines. In addition, who has my data? Who is managing customer behavior? And we have a a team that does that at Apollo at team velocity. I think right now does it better than anybody else. We get to see a customer journey from STEM to stern. And so I I think those two being able to integrate it's the first integration I've ever seen like that. And some of the other big DMS players have purchased each of the components and they have them under their portfolio.
Yet after X amount of years, they're still not playing nice together for whatever reason. And who suffers? The customers suffer. There's a guy over at CDK, Mike Stahl. And Mike's a really, really good guy. And we were working on some workflows. And Mike took a folder and he said, Okay, I'm a folder. Let me follow this folder through the dealership. And I thought it was a really great way to learn the hideous processes that were in place at the time. And it's funny.
My partner, Michelle Singer, she's a veterinarian, and she said when she was going to veterinarian school, she had to be a red corpusal or white corpusal and pretend going through the the body to see what the functions were. And she said it was a really great way of learning the functions. Well, I when you looked at what happened to a folder at this dealership, it was as ridiculous as the film example, as ridiculous as blockbuster, as ridiculous as market. That folder
everywhere. And what did that have to do with
speaker-3 (36:51)
Do
speaker-0 (36:51)
the customer journey? Nothing. What what what benefit did all those different pit stops that that folder makes help how did that help the customer? Not at all. So we we really tried to streamline that. And one last example, they say when Apple was in Deep Weeds and Steve Jobs came back, they they had 140 products being sold all over the world. And I as the story goes, he told them all the managers to cut that down to ten. And they
No, we can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We said, well then you're gonna be fired. Okay, they did it. They cut it down to ten pro ten products. And I believe he told them, now cut it down from ten to four. It may be six. I'm not I don't remember. I think it's either ten or four. And they they went to the core products and they got rid of all the waste. And all of a sudden that's where Apple was able to grow from the nine hundred million dollar company to the three trillion.
dollar company that it represents now. So less is more quite often. Less is more. And we're we're working on Steve Greenfield's hit list up there. We're gonna one by one, we're gonna cross out those five hundred vendors till we get down to the meaningful two or three or four that we need to operate our business.
speaker-1 (38:04)
John, you look like you got something you look like you got something you want to unpack with.
speaker-2 (38:08)
No, I I I'm just I'm enjoying every bit of this. I you know, I Brian, Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers. Have you read that book?
speaker-0 (38:15)
I have.
speaker-2 (38:16)
Without a doubt, right? You're an outlier. So I let me let me ask you this question, 'cause for the dealers that are watching this, and I look, one of my frustrating things that I go through on my side now as a part of the as opposed to the dealer side is the word I can't. I can't I can't get my people to do that. I can't
get this done, I can't get that done, right? It drives me it drives me freaking insane. Yeah. So you you've talked about a lot this morning and especially addressing the article that you wrote and w what we've asked you. And so what I would a for the for a for a dealer out there that's listening to this and having saint the same struggle in their store, what would you say to them from a perspective of where they should start?
Right. you've got such a good grasp on this and and you're leading this charge and and you know, for lack of better terminology, you're sitting at the mastermind table. A lot of these guys aren't, right? A lot of these guys are trying to figure out how I can get through the day to just get my people to call my freaking customers. Right? Y you know, for that average guy out there that's trying to that really wants to improve and and and what you're seeing is resonating, what what would you tell them to start on their path?
speaker-0 (39:32)
I you know, I I without knowing what the dealership's difficulties are, it's it's difficult to answer that. But I'd I'd say, you know, where do you start? You start right where you are with what you got. You start now and you start today. I like to run a drill through my managers, what's your most valuable transaction in the dealership? And they'll say it's a finance, or they'll say, No, no, no, what's holistically what's the most valuable transaction in the dealership? Let's quantify that.
by f putting a dollar amount. What's the front end gross? What's the back end gross? And then let's find out how we can get more of those. And for us, and I think for most of yours, the most valuable transaction is a vehicle exchange. The customer that's driving your car, servicing with you, comes out of that car and gets a new car. When you when you put that together for the value of the new car transaction, the value of the used car transaction, the repair order for the new car, the repair order for the service for the used car.
And you take a look at that, you you and you put the upfront gross, the back end gross, the f upfront gross, the back end gross, and the repair order on a certified car, you come up with a number. And some dealerships that number's eight thousand dollars and some it's fourteen thousand. Now, I'm saying that when you add the total new car gross on the sale, front back, hold back, and total used car sale when you sell that used car that you took in from that customer and the repair order.
And we call it E equals PO squared, you know, a an exchange equals a profit opportunity squared. And what I really love about that transaction, gentlemen, is that it feeds all the profit centers in your dealership. Feed the new car department, the used car department, the finance department, service department, the parts department. And and so I I think that's one of the maximum ways of profitability. If one transaction feeds all five profit centers and there are other sub profit centers, and it feeds a couple of them multiple times, like the finance department, service department, parts department.
Then then that's really good for the dealership's overall profitability. In addition to that, it's really good for the OEM's profitability because they get to sell a new car, they get to set sell a used car of their brand. So it's two more UIOs. they get to sell a bucket of their parts. they get to sell we believe in using Honda's products for VSC and other and for maintenance. We think that's really good, you know, for the team. but they get so you get to sell those products at
also have retention qualities to bring the customer back in. And we think that's a very important transaction. If that's an important transaction, if that's the most important transaction, what does your plan look like to go out and get more of those? Would automotive news be excited to print your plan on the cover? Hey, this is John Smith's plan for increasing the profitability of his dealership. Here's a step by step way that you can start today. And if not, then you have to ask yourself, why not? And what can we do to do that? And so
I would ask the dealer always to start with right where you are with the existing customers. Everybody's got a service department. Most everybody has customers in that department that are in equity and let's just start talking to them.
speaker-2 (42:30)
And a follow up to that, Brian, when it comes to the smooth and seamless working partners within your store that you're doing with, do i is it do you feel like it's more important to focus on what's happening with us internally as a dealer so that we understand the foundation of who we are and what our identity is as a dealer, and then using that for the external focus, or is it
Is it vice versa in your opinion? And what what I I guess what I'm getting at is 'cause I I literally will I will literally sit on and and and again, this is not dealer bashing, I this is reality. I'll sit on a call and ask about a a specific vehicle to a dealer and they don't have any idea where that vehicle's at. But yet they want to talk about the the marketability of that vehicle. I so I mean is it you've gotta understand what's happening at your store in order to go to
these resources, these vendors, partners, these partners that you have in order to understand how I want to smooth it out. What what what's the connectivity?
speaker-0 (43:33)
John, I think what you're talking about is vision. And I think I think that's at this point in my career, I think that's my my biggest job is what's the vision that I see for the dealership, what's the direction? And then, you know, rallying the troops behind that. For us, it's to create frictionless transactions. And I think that's aspirational. You can never remove all the friction, but the core identity is that it should be aspirational. And it's it's it to be frictionless.
And then the outer ring, if that's a your epicenter, the outer ring is going to be to have less friction in transactions. Well, that is not aspirational. That's actually possible. And I think as we start to remove the friction from the transactions and make it easier for people to do business, they'll do more business. And then how do you structure everything around that? So I you know, I we talked to our team internally. How do we make it easier? How do we make it easier? How do we make it easier? And Toyota in the Toyota way talks about a stream flowing.
And if there's a rock, even if it's a smooth rock, creates friction. So I guess in that metaphor, we're constantly looking in the stream to pull out the rocks to make it easier to do business. And I think that's the examples that we've used before here today, the shopping cart, the b blockbuster, I think the Kodak. I think these are all really good examples of somebody said, Why why are we doing it this way? We used to hire we still hire young people and they'd come in
And they say, I don't understand why it takes four hours to get a car. And then we we'd have this two-week training program or three-week training program and we'd show them why it takes four hours to get a car. That we've switched that. Now we start listening to them saying, You're right, why does it take four hours? It doesn't make any sense. And what would what how can we make that happen quicker? And I again, we're making the same mistake, not we not all of us certainly, but we're making the same mistake that Kodak made. We assumed that the way we make profit is
what we do, right? And so all these road to the sales steps are in there to ensure our profitability, but that's not what we do. What we do is we provide a transportation solutions to customers whenever, wherever, and however they want to consume those solutions. you know, we we create transportation solutions for customers whenever, wherever, and however they want to consume those, right? We're really managing depreciating metal.
And the better that we do that, the more customers we can serve. And the profitability will be there. You know, if you can do a transaction instead of in four hours, in you know, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, well your your your profitability per hour per transaction seems to go through the
speaker-1 (46:12)
No, no. I I I'm tempted to take it to a different realm of conversation. And I know that we're here to kind of provide some some guidance for dealers in the automotive industry. And I really like to focus on your leadership style and everything that motivates you. I mean, I hear clarity, I hear urgency with everything that you're driving there in the dealership. What was it that
In you in your makeup that brought you to the point where this is what I'm gonna do, these are the people I'm gonna do it with, and this is how we're going to do it earlier on in your career from a leadership perspective, so that dealers that w are gonna hear this message will
speaker-3 (46:58)
Kind of
speaker-1 (46:58)
cross that line and step into that high performing zone, the outlier status, because I feel like that's what we're really missing in the industry.
speaker-0 (47:06)
well it's a very big compliment. Thank you. Thank you. I you know, I d I just think I'm I'm driven by the fact the fact that there's more there there and that drives me crazy. You know, w and and nothing's good or bad till it's compared. There's a a DSM from Honda many years ago, he doesn't even know he did this to me, but he started sharing reports on the national sales figures heretofore, his name is Jonathan Wood.
Herefore we were only getting the district and the zone standing. So we were comfortable being whatever, fifth place in the zone, sixth place in the zone, first or second in the district. And we thought that was good. And then we saw the national reports and I'm gonna make it up. We were fiftieth. And I looked at the other fifty dealers that were ahead of us and said, Well what what could we do to get ahead of them or to catch up? And we started wheeling them in one at a time and you know, and and it was like that you know, Rocky movie when he was getting punched.
Ain't so bad. It ain't so bad. A and you know, and I have tremendous I have tremendous respect for all dealers. But especially those dealers that were are ahead of us doing the job. There's nobody at the top ten of Honda or Acura. There are no weak dealers. They're fantastic. So it's like every day is the final four. And and I think that that really motivated me because, you know, I'm not a I'll never be a basketball player. I can't shoot. I can't jump and I'm not tall. Other than that, I'm fine.
But but I can be a good business person. I can learn more. you know, I'll never be the fastest person. so you know, but but I can learn what others have learned and we can teach that. And I look at the examples of Roger Penske or Mr. Hendrick or Rita Case, Rick Case, or Ernie Bach. You know, these are people that I you know, they're there many of them, John Staloopy, John Brizzati, these are these brilliant, great.
business people from all walks of life. Some graduated high school, some graduated college, but they're all incredibly successful. And is that possible for us to do? You know, I th I think it is. So if that's possible for us to do, why not me? Why not us? Why not here? Why not now? And I I think we just started asking better questions there because if they can a couple of the guys I know that they they're not college educated, y yet they're they're really successful by any means that any of us would measure. And
I started asking our team different questions. Why are your kids looking up to basketball players, football players, hockey players, singers, musicians? when when very few of them have ever reached the B pinnacle in their career billionaire. Yet I I probably know a dozen car dealers that in a single generation have generated over a billion dollars in in wealth. And wh when I grew up I was a ho I liked hockey. I played hockey and I had pictures of goalies. I was a goalie taped, glued
So my my closet door of my room. When when my parents sold the house, they had to replace the door. You know and
speaker-3 (50:00)
If I could play it again I'd have pictures of I'd have pictures of automobiles They're the ones doing the average hockey players
speaker-0 (50:04)
Dealers. They're the heroes. They're career's
seven, eight years. I mean these dealers seem to be able to do it. You know, I mean Mr. Stalupi, I don't know, he's in his late seventies. He's still out buying stores, Fred Beans, he's still out buying stores. And I said, Man, you go guys. I mean it it it's pretty fantastic. I love the industry and that's what keeps me going. There's more there, there. And who the heck am I to stop now? A lot of the stuff I've talked about, I haven't pulled off yet.
I'm working on it. I'm working on it. So there's more work to be done.
speaker-2 (50:37)
Awesome.
speaker-1 (50:39)
Yeah. And I'm just trying to peel back a layer to get to that situation or how you choose people that are in your inner circle to execute the plans that you have and that you formulate, things that you see that are possible. The people that you have around you, no doubt you've had with you for a while. But when it comes time, what are the things that you look for in those people? Because we do come in contact with dealers every day that
Their number one complaint. I cannot get my people to do this. I cannot get them to buy into this.
speaker-0 (51:11)
You were
speaker-3 (51:12)
I did say that.
speaker-2 (51:13)
No, no, no.
speaker-3 (51:16)
can't get my people that's a you problem. It's not a problem. My l
speaker-2 (51:21)
Thank you.
speaker-3 (51:23)
So I I would I would stand to that inter
speaker-0 (51:26)
Introduce me to the guy that hang your
name is on the building. I thought you were the GM. If you can't
speaker-3 (51:31)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (51:32)
get them to do it, it seems like it's a problem with your leadership. Why won't they follow you? Do you you know
speaker-2 (51:40)
It's
speaker-0 (51:41)
you know too many people don't understand the job that they're in. Leadership is it's not an you don't ask them, you tell them hi my inner circle of the bunch of the bravest guys and and gals in the world, because it sucks working for me. It's not easy. I'm up at a
I'm up at four o'clock in the morning sending texts and reports and or videos. I'm giving them a good kick in the backside. And it some people say it's old school. I see that com that old school stuff coming back a little bit. There's been a resurgence of of of the simple truth that if you want to be one of those people that's leading an industry or leading anything, it's not a five day a week, eight hour a day job. And plenty of people are gonna Yeah, well, I get it done. Well, great, good for you. I can't get it done.
The people that I look up to, whether it be an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or yes, Donald Trump or or other successful people, they're always at it. There's no off switch. And people can tell me, Well, there's more to life than that. Well that that's that's okay for you. I've got a young man, Matt Del Janan's been working for me since he's seventeen. He's now thirty-four, and he is he's he's a killer man. That guy is smart, that guy is sharp.
None, none, none of the bad habits that you would associate with people in business. He's he's got n his egos in check, his finances are in check, family guide, great dad, no drinking, no gambling, he's just a straight arrow, a real leader of men, somebody other people can look up to and say, I'd like to be like that. So he's taken on more of the right hand man duties for me here. Jason Graciano.
is my partner at White Plains Honda. I bought White Plains Honda in twenty twenty three. we've had a fantastic two year association. Jason worked for me for nearly twenty years and started with me working was a chicken he used to grill chicken at his father's restaurant and he came selling cars and his first month he sold twenty cars and selling twenty cars at that time in Paragon put him in dead last place. But he was
Good. And our guys our guys saw he was good and they did everything they could to trip him. And he wanted to quit a thousand times. He said, They only they're only breaking your shoes because you're good, Jay. I I and I kept coaching him and he kept trying to quit. And then finally at one meeting I said, You guys
speaker-3 (54:04)
Keep trying to ch trip Jason. I got his back. He ain't going
speaker-0 (54:07)
Anywhere from that moment on, bam, he ran. Took off. He he he left, you know, AMSI promised him stars of moon in the sky. And he he tried that out for a little bit and that didn't work the way he wanted it to work. And I had an opportunity to grab him and a bunch of people asked, Why'd you take I I said, You were d I wasn't done with this guy. I got twenty years in this guy. You know, there are no endings, just new beginnings and you know, it was great to be able to call the play up there. I was I like the quarterback.
speaker-3 (54:36)
I I y I knew where he was gonna be. I threw the ball to where I knew he was gonna be. And he caught it and said, throw it a little fast, throw it a little from you know, sixth place in the district.
speaker-0 (54:44)
A little faster and the store went to
s third place in the district to number one in the district, top fifty in the country. Little store up in Westchester, New York. So damn proud of the things he he's been able to do. My buddy Joe Slim Shady Schuster. Joe worked for me for a bunch of years, went out to California, got himself a Honda deal, went out there and bought it for I don't know, a couple of million dollars and sold it for over a hundred million dollars. Man, damn proud of that guy.
He's still out there at the game, doesn't want to retire, not retire. My buddy Teddy Besson, you know, he's he's in the mix. Super great guys. These are people that inspire me. you know, I my friend Ted sold his Nissan store. I can't mention the number, but it was one of the highest numbers at the very top of the market. And what did he do the next day? Went to work. To
speaker-3 (55:35)
What
speaker-0 (55:35)
work. Nothing changes. No, it's just it's it's beautiful. So these are the guys I admire and and
There are other guys that like to go on vacation and sit at the beach and that that's okay too. So not right now.
speaker-1 (55:46)
Brian.
So I got one final question. Then at the end of every show, you know, I like to recap some of the things that I took note on that arguably John and Ronaldo, they probably took the same notes because we we just we we hunger for this stuff to be able to spread the gospel across you know the nation. You know, when we're you know, as it says right here, as we are working the facts.
You know, whether it's with one of our dealer partners or somebody that just calls us for advice or opinions because we get a lot of those calls too.
speaker-0 (56:22)
Chris, well you know, I I I hesitate to mention 'cause it she's very private. My business partner, Edith Singer, is in her mid eighties, still working. And
she needs more money like a fish needs a bicycle, right? But she she's still at it. She's still what's what are we doing?
speaker-3 (56:39)
She's happening here. What's gonna happen there?
speaker-0 (56:43)
And it it
speaker-3 (56:45)
Man, man.
speaker-0 (56:46)
I'm like a kid still and you know, how how do I you know, I I'm looking forward to being in my eighties conducting the orchestra of these young guys that'll be mature enough to run their own gig. So I'm sorry for interrupting, Chris.
speaker-1 (57:00)
No,
no, you're fine because I love that because that's that's kind of down the road of this final question I have for you. You've brought a lot of people in through through the Honda store, through the Acura Store. You've had extreme successes, but it's not always rainbows and unicorns. Okay. What what is your course of action when you've brought one in? You've coached them. You've had clarity, you've had vision, you've coached them, you're very clear.
You have the expectations. You've coached them. You've done everything in your power, but you still can't get that person to do it. What's your next step?
speaker-0 (57:37)
Dehiring is one of the most difficult parts of the job. and I think Jim Rowan said it best, you gotta pull the weeds out of the garden or they'll take the garden. And it's it's a very difficult thing to have to do. We've we've had some changes that we've had to make because people just weren't coming along with the program. You know, I I and I and I take some heat I've taken some heat from those people. Hey, how could you do this? I was with you ten years, eight years, thirteen. Hey, you know, we're we're growing your knots and
You know, I I don't wanna be cold and callous. you know, but you gotta be growing or you gotta be going because things are changing. We we haven't talked about any of the major threats coming to our industry, like the battery electric vehicles coming out of China and that competition, and it and it's coming, some of the other difficulties that we may face. And we really need people that are students of the game, 'cause the game is changing, the players are changing.
And we have to adapt. And some people, you know, the saying is the only person that likes change is a wet baby. Everybody else doesn't like it, but it's really necessary. It's really necessary. So I'm up at four o'clock in the morning, not because I like it, but there's I've gotta spend specific time learning about specific things that I'm not aware of today that impact our business. I can't learn everything, but certainly as it relates to AI management rules and what's going on globally.
to get some insights to what's gonna happen here locally. I think it's is it's my job as a captain of the ship.
speaker-1 (59:11)
That's strong. That is absolutely stronger than nine robes of garlic right there. I love that. I absolutely love it. So, Brian, you know, Brett, we tell him, but we can do this for eight hours. And he sits there like, I do not want to edit eight hours worth of a podcast. But we could do this all day long because especially when we have, you know, somebody of your caliber on the call, because you're just bringing so much insight in viewers and listeners. If you had to jump off, jump back on.
Or if you want to capture this again because of the insights that Brian's brought to us today, as always go to Lotttalkpodcast.com and you can find this episode again. There is so much fruit inside this. And I'm gonna do my best to kind of get through some of this recap here. You know, redesign might mean elimination. So you might have to eliminate some things to get in the position.
To leverage the data that you have, not for your game, but to take care of the customer. And I kind of wrap that up with our core values that we have here, Brian. You know, our number one core value is dealer first. And then internally we also look at it as if we take care of the dealer first, the company second, we as an individual will automatically be taken care of. So that's that was something that you put out there that I I really kind of
piece that together with us. AI is designed for efficiency, guys. You know, for y'all that are getting on this AI bandwagon, it's not designed to replace anything. It's designed to make the person more efficient. Think about the analogy that Brian used today about the carpenter with and without electricity. I thought that was a great one. Make it easier for customers to do business with you. Intelligence in everyone's hand within your dealership.
You know, make sure they know how to use that intelligence. Dealers first, see using customer data. I wrote this down like three times. Using your customers' data to do better serving the customer. That would that was a huge one. See this one. Master a product or a solution that you have before you ever consider jumping ship. How can you go improve if you don't even know how to use what you already have? So switching a solution not necessarily means that it's going to give you a master.
certification in what those solutions provide. So make sure you've got those things mastered. And then one last final one that out of the big list here, but this one I want to make sure that we echo out. Constantly working to reduce the friction to transact within your dealership. But I also took that two places constantly working to reduce the friction to transact in your dealership. One for the customer, but two for the employee.
Don't make it hard for your employee to complete a transaction. John, kick it over to you. Any final thoughts from you? Because I want Brian to be able to close this out.
speaker-2 (1:02:15)
Just ultimately, Brian, thank you very much for your time. I know your time's very valuable and we appreciate you spending it with us and and helping dealers. And and the only thing I'd recap is everything Brian talked about and you heard him you heard him say it multiple times. It's all about the customer. It's all about the customer. That's where it all flows, right? And whether it's B to B, right? Because if you're a business and you're doing B to B, you've got a customer. So that's where it all flows and that's where it all everything you do, you should think you should forward thinking about how does this affect our customer? Is it
Is it a positive effect and does it make their whatever transactions happening easy for them?
speaker-1 (1:02:50)
Resaldo, over to you. Gosh. Resources are important. The one resource you'll never get back is time. So I want to tell you how grateful I am that you've cut out a little piece of your time today to share with dealers and to spend time with us and ask you a question because you said that you're not a public speaker. But the first golden rule of being a public speaker is always leave them wanting more. For those people who were able to listen to this and they want to get a little bit more of your insight.
And your availability out in social or public speaking. How can someone do that? And if you could share that, I'd appreciate
speaker-0 (1:03:27)
I'm I'm on LinkedIn, I think is probably the best business area area. You know, I I I look at LinkedIn as a a big twenty group, you know. I've we've got a I've got a really great yeah group of people that we interact with and you know, I pick up more than I give at this point. It's 'cause there's so many different people that you can learn from. And I think, you know, join me in that discussion, you know, shoot me a message or I I tend to answer most of the things in that are in question form in
posts there. I I don't have an AI agent doing it. I I tend to do it late at night or early in the morning. You know, th this there's so many opportunities that have come up out of that for us to learn from each other. You know, 'cause s somebody in Boise, Idaho's figured out a way to do, you know, a a certain number of cars and said, wait a second, that's as you're selling as many cars as the population. He goes, Yeah, pretty much. So wha what what are the insights there?
my good friend Glenn Lundy, when he was in Kentucky, Paris, Kentucky, there was like eight thousand people there and he was selling seven, eight hundred cars a month. You know, if I was doing that same job here in New York, that would be like ten thousand cars a month I'd have to sell. The same
speaker-3 (1:04:38)
To do the
speaker-0 (1:04:39)
job. Yeah. I like I said, that that's why when you when you know that math, how can you relax? 'Cause there's so much more there. You know, I don't need to go out and buy another franchise to make more money, just pick up some of the more there that's there.
speaker-1 (1:04:51)
Love it. Love it. So again, Brian, you know, I share the same sense sentiment that John, Ronaldo, and probably many of the viewers and listeners share. Thank you a ton for spending the time. It's it's been a delight. It really has. And obviously, we would love later on down the road, we have another subject pop up or we find something really awesome that you threw out there on on LinkedIn. We'd love to have you as a guest again if you'd be open to it, sir. We'd appreciate it.
speaker-0 (1:05:21)
Be my pleasure. It's always good to remind myself of these things too. So thank you very much for your time, guys.
speaker-1 (1:05:27)
You're
very welcome. Well, listeners and viewers, it's been a treat today. I hope you took lots of notes. I hope you take some of these things inside here to just make that first step. You gotta make the first step. Yeah, you have to be Stephen Covey. You gotta begin with the end in mind, but you can't get to that end result until you make that first step. So, on behalf of Mr. Brian Benstock, Mr. John Anderson, Mr. Ronaldo Leonard, everybody on our Lop Pop family.
We thank you for tuning in to season three, episode number four of Lot Talk Powered by Lot Pop. We wish you all the success and we will see you next week, same bat time, same bat channel. We out.