Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Interviews with Strolid CEO and Founder Vin Micciche, BDC industry icon and veteran
good morning good afternoon or good
evening and thanks for tuning in to the
dealer insights podcast where we go
under the hood Bumper to Bumper and just
about everywhere in between discussing
topics important to dealers of all types
and sizes your time's valuable so thanks
for riding along for this episode of
dealer insights welcome back to dealer
insights Sean and Vinnie right we're
back another episode yeah it's football
season Vinnie yes it
is ex I'm pretty it's already that time
of year yeah I'm pretty happy with um M
Jones oh yeah we
lost yeah absolutely that was a good
game it was anyway hey dealer insights
we can talk about football we can talk
about your favorite team we can talk
about Vinnie's favorite team which would
be the New England
Patriots which absolutely broke my heart
when they beat the Seahawks in the Super
Bowl but instead we want to talk a
little bit more about customer service
this is a topic that should never get
old in our industry it should never get
old it just it just shouldn't and we
have a lot of people that have been
talking about it for a long time we talk
about the service experience we talk
about the sales experience we don't talk
enough about the dealership service
experience for the customer but we're
going to get into some that today and
the first place I just want to start
with you Vinnie because you do a lot of
training and prepping people and you've
done it both in retail so all of the
dealers that tune into this all the
people that are interested in what
dealers should do and how they should do
it you've done this both on the retail
side and then you built a whole company
around making sure people are empowered
and prepared just to answer questions
maybe all the questions tell me your
thoughts on that just preparing people
so so that they're taking care of a
customer and the outcome is great
experience yep um so the way I look at
um our business or any business for that
matter is I obviously have 27 years of
experience in the automotive industry I
can expect to hire somebody off the
street and and expect them to have the
same abilities I have to interact with a
customer um so train and on board which
is obviously really really important
part of any business and you give them
that overview and and a a large dose of
training information about what they can
expect and how um you know the business
runs and what their what our
expectations for them are and all that
the challenge with that is that's you
know there's like three different
sections of the brain that's like your
logical section where you're going to
input that information but the
experience comes from the emotional side
of your brain uh where you have failure
and you don't do something right and you
got to you know fix that so that's where
management and training and trainers
where we have trainers and and and
managers that have lots of experience
that can you know sit side by side with
new employees and get them up to
speed uh but you know it's funny because
everybody wants everybody thinks
handling a lead everybody with
experience let's say
has been in the business thinks that
handling a leader call is easy and I can
do it
better uh well yeah you can but you
can't handle a thousand
leads or a thousand phone calls so you
need from multiple sources correct so
the emotions come from I'm talking to
Sean maybe I use my I follow the script
and then you ask me some curveball
question it's like hm how do you handle
that so we we we show them how to
overcome that I don't have that
information in front of me but but I can
have it for you when you're ready and
that customer
experience aspect of it is really really
important so now there's a lot of AI out
there that says that you know we can
replace humans uh the the third section
of the brain so it goes logical and
emotional and then the third section is
like it's at the stem of your brain and
it's it's basically um
for critical thinking and intuition and
stuff like that which you know of all
the years of trade and sales people I'm
not sure everybody possesses that
ability you got to think on your feet
you know um and a lot of situations and
you got to come up with ideas and
solutions for the customer that may not
be something that you've experienced
before or you're new so the challenge is
for dealers how do
you how do you um show patience with
your employees and bring them along the
right way so they become
experts um you know there are certain
people out there that have natural
ability Sean that come in and do well
right away um but finding those people
is really really hard so onboarding is
key in recruiting training is obviously
something I mean again you and I talk
about this all the time some of the
stuff I bring up is like common sense
but it's like there have to be a focus
if you want to be a successfully run
dealership um or company or what what
have you so it's recruiting training
huge importance in training and then
accountability and making sure that you
have a
process that see process can make up for
a lot of uh problems within experienced
employees if you give them a very
well-defined process that they follow
they know when to get somebody with that
experience involved with that customer
and that's how we have it set up here at
strett is we have the recruiting really
well defined we have the training well
defined we have our management team with
the experience to to handle things that
are inexperienced people and we don't
have a lot of inex we have a lot of
experienced agents as well but you know
we're growing so we're adding people and
that allows us to scale our business um
you know and giving them
information to answer questions is
another thing we were going to talk
about today but yeah that's critical
well so lots of great stuff in there
it's funny that you mentioned like we
talk about this all the time and it
seems like it's you know 101 but the
truth about this is we we do talk about
things uh more than just one time but
it's kind of like and you and I are both
you know we both have coached our kids
in football and baseball and VAR Sports
you more football me more baseball but
there's a there's a there's something
that happens in uh every sport there's
fundamentals right and I I know those
fundamentals in baseball better than I
know them in football but you drill them
over over and over and over and over and
over when you're teaching a kid to catch
a pop fly you're not teaching them how
to do it with one hand right you're not
teaching them Willie May you know
blazing through the
Outfield uh Fielding ground balls all
these things you know there's a certain
way to handle all these things yeah I
was watching hard KN um on the Jets
recently and one of the coaches was
talking about that the amount of plays
you get in a game it's like 10 times the
amount of players you get in practice in
other words in a week
you you get 10 times the amount of plays
in practice and some some don't even see
the field uh during a game but they're
still practicing to get to that level so
they can be on the field you need that
training ground um you have to have it
otherwise you are not going to be
successful and you're going to be that
person that says my people are terrible
and I wish I had that Rockstar sales guy
that could walk through the door and
help me sell more cars is like well if
he's a rockstar or she's a rockstar
salesperson
chances are they're not going to walk
through your door looking for a job cuz
they got
one yeah you know yeah so you don't want
to be you
know to use another football analogy
somebody criticized Joe burrow of the
Cincinnati Bengals he had a terrible
game first game of the season I know for
all of you people that listen and watch
they don't care about football the point
being is if you're not training if
you're not equipped if you're not
empowered it's not going to happen and
even if you are trained and equipped and
empowered you're going to make mistakes
and have a bad day because nobody's
perfect yeah unless except except for
the robots they can be perfect right
eventually yeah that's what they want us
to believe but that's a good tie in so
we and we this is another topic that
comes up a lot but I think it's
important we are talking about the
service experience the customer service
experience empowering your people to
answer the right questions and all the
questions and this means that you have
to prepare them for questions that might
be unique to the service or the source
that they came from because maybe they
came out of the AutoTrader environment
maybe they came right off your website
maybe they came off of a speci specific
place in your website but there's
another little uh Wrinkle in this that I
think is still very fascinating and
that's digital retailing tools and you
have shared some of these comments with
uh me before where um I think that and I
would not
disagree that you believe that the
digital retailing tools especially
during the pandemic at Mass adoption oh
everyone needs one dealers really didn't
think through the fact that the digital
retailing tools are all using a logic
that it doesn't require any kind of
emotional feeling like it's just
different than the Human Experience I'd
love to get a little bit more of your
thoughts on that part because it does
tie into the experience that people are
having with your store 100% yeah well so
selling is
emotion and so do we remove selling you
know a lot of people give selling a a
negative connotation I I don't I I'm a
sales person you know I'm a I consider
myself to be a good manager I'm process
orientated because of what I said
earlier it's important to have a process
especially if you're trying to grow a
business and grow a team but um selling
is emotion and it's an emotional
withdrawal from the customer to speak to
salesperson uh when a salesperson asks a
question and the salesperson needs to be
able to to understand that emotion you
know if customers upset they want
something you don't get upset about
something unless you want it so to be
able to read that right that again
that's something it's hard to train a
new person that never sold before that's
why a lot of businesses are looking for
employees that have sales experience
because that means that they've had that
experience before and they know how to
deal with those experiences so with that
said um you know customer experience
and and selling both require an
identification of
emotion and um the logic everybody
thinks that logic sell can sell and it
doesn't because why aren't more people
pressing the Buy It Now button because
it's an emotional decision is it's a big
decision and like do I trust this tool
do I trust that everything's going to go
well on the other end you know maybe in
time people become more comfortable with
it like me with Amazon like I buy
everything on Amazon that because I
don't like going into a store but uh
when I'm going to buy a car I call one
of my dealers I always buy from one of
my dealers and like hey I need a car um
I don't go on the website and build out
a tool now with that said you know a
friend of mine the other day said you
know if you want to get a good value on
your trade go to carvana CarMax or
whatever and and he's right and I think
dealers really need to understand that
information they're making it easier for
dealers to for customers to get which is
one of the reasons why they're
successful why aren't your people
empowered to have that same information
why are we still trying to give somebody
three grand for a trade when CarMax is
you know because it has a blown engine
and CarMax is giving them 10 grand for
for the same
car because you know we think we got a
captive audience and we don't you know
this thing uh 20 years ago came around
called the
internet it gave people more information
so the logic's out the window uh because
the information is
everywhere except for in the
salesperson's hands unfortunately or the
BC person s uh so how do we how do we
transition that information to our
people just like the digital retailing
tools have um and believe me when I tell
you I'm not making light of this because
I know there's lots of obstacles with
even with digital retailing tools that
dealers have fits with because but if
it's a machine giving you information
about a car that's available or not it's
different than if a human being says
that that like I'll give you an example
we made a mistake the other day one of
our people told a person that they could
give um that they that they that they
could co-sign for their
17-year-old which isn't true you you
need to be 18 to get a contract so we
messed up luckily the dealer caught that
on the to I mean on the confirmation U
they weren't happy with us but like we
made a mistake kind of like Joe Barrow
the other day you know um but yeah what
what are the chances that that mother
was on um line and you know I guess the
system when he put in the date of birth
would probably rejected it or something
I don't know but like that's that's
those are one of the nuances that
somebody with experience would be able
to answer really quickly whereas a
digital retailing tool it would take you
to go through all these steps to find
out that you can't get
that yeah know what I'm saying and there
there are always anomalies you know I me
you you already said it just a few
minutes ago um you know the world isn't
perfect people aren't because people are
in it right it's like right uh so
everybody makes mistakes but interesting
that's gu I guess that's a good question
though like I don't want to get too deep
on you but are is that what we're all
after as Perfection like I like
imperfections I like that people are
different um I I think and relative to
the customer experience and I want to
you know don't get me wrong want a bad
experience but I'm just saying that like
different experience is what is what
life's all about yeah I think that's an
interesting question for people to think
about do you want things to be perfect
or do you want them to be you know good
enough like what's your what's your
standard and why is your standard what
it is I do want to say I I'm really
excited for a digital dealer on October
just a Shameless plug because you're
going to be on my panel along with Jason
Brandon and uh Austin from Merchants um
that's going to be a great panel and for
those that tune into the episode here uh
you don't want to miss out at Digital
Dealer because we're actually going to
unpack a bunch of stuff and they don't
all know what questions I'm going to ask
them but relative to some of the stuff
and I would love to see dealers in that
audience that participate in some of the
questions as well but I think one of the
things I'd like to ask uh both Jason and
Austin about too is what I want to ask
you on is what is a customer looking for
today I don't think it's Perfection I
but I do believe from my when I think of
myself as a consumer in the last car
purchases I've bought like just the last
several cars I've
bought um I do have an expectation
around how like that instant
gratification world that we live in so
if I can I have it when can I have it if
you tell me it's going to be x y and Z
and then it's x b and Z like that's
going to make me mad does it have to be
perfect it doesn't have to be perfect
but it has to be if if you are setting
expectations whether they're set by your
website you're the dealer and my website
kind of sets some expectations for you
Mr or Miss customer uh if the your
salespeople in dialogue in any kind of
communication doesn't matter what form
of omni channel right any form of
communication if they're setting
expectations with me I just want to be
able to trust that and any compromise to
that trust that's that's
essentially uh increases with um
fulfilling those things to the customer
but it it's compromised if you
don't do you think that I mean you and I
talk about it quite often but are
dealers thinking about that enough and
I'll be curious really to see what you
guys say on the panel are dealers
thinking enough about what what is the
customer really wanting today because I
feel like a lot of vendors are the ones
often times dictating what we're trying
to chase as customer
experience they they have to um but
ultimately they're trying to sell and
Service as many cars as they can
efficiently right and yeah as cost
effectively as they can so the breakdown
becomes you know dealer is like a small
business they can't afford to just hire
a giant staff to do everything perfectly
or have segmented experts in each each
area um because it costs money to have
like a delivery department that does a
you know wake glove delivery so I know
some dealers do that but it it costs
money to do that right or have a big BDC
you know one of the things dealers turn
to us for is because we have a a solid
process and um and we follow it really
well and they can sleep better at night
and all that whether it be answering an
incoming service call making a call or
handling uh inbound Sales and Service
opportunities in a consistent manner
because and at a cost effective way
because at the end of the day um if you
bring stald in they expect to see a lift
in sales I you know I talk to Josh and
my client success team about this all
the time are we selling more U now that
we're engaged and why not if we're not
what are the challenges we have and
let's identify that bring that to our
dealers so they understand what they
need to do either on their end with
their marketing or what we need to do
frankly sometimes to adjust on our end
to to improve results and that's really
what what if I'm working with a dealer
that that their goal is to you know
continuously improve uh we have a great
relationship if they're looking for
magic pixie dust to sprinkle on stald to
to double their sales we're not the
right company for you you know uh
because it takes teamwork it takes us
working with their team it takes us
looking at a lot of data and trying to
understand all that kind of stuff so the
customer experience part that's where it
starts Sean you know um if you don't get
I mean it's like the old saying you know
you don't have a a second chance to make
a good first impression um and that's
what we do we try to give that quick
immediate response to your customers
give them that first good impression
however the challenge becomes like we've
seen over the last three years there's
been challenges coming out of everywhere
with pandemics and uh you know you can't
go to the showroom and then leads are
piling up and then we're selling like
crazy then the inventory's gone and uh
it's just been a roller coaster ride um
for dealers uh the good news for dealers
is for the past couple of years they
were making and some of them still are
making really good gross profits um the
challenge is the inventory is starting
to pile up now um I was talking to a
good buddy of mine the other day that
average day supply has gone from like 25
to
51 um which is getting back to the old
days you know you're going to start
having to see incentives and stuff but
there is still there more about half of
the manufacturers out there are starting
to really pile up the other half some of
them like Toyota Honda um leus and BMW
and stuff still have low days Supply
so um it's interesting what's going on
in the world then you got a big flood of
electric cars coming in so like all this
adversity um requires you to empower
your people and give them the right
information like we we it used to be
really easy to run a BDC you get a call
or an email and you call and you try to
stay appointment yeah the car is always
available because if it's not on the lot
we'll go find it that that hasn't been
the case so we got like we had to build
in a um a portal into our call into our
phone system that pops up for each
dealer that we handle that tells us all
these rules like don't schedule an
appointment for XYZ car that is still
showing up on the website because it's
not available and all kinds of different
like rules and and and and and we are
empowered where we're not empowered um
you know is bad day up to be quite
honest with you um inventory feeds that
continuously go out to AutoTrader
cars.com and other companies that aren't
haven't been available in a long time or
they're still showing up on the the's
website and they're not available and
like get because right now availability
is a big thing right um and I think
we've gotten a little well we've changed
I don't know if the old days were better
I don't want to sound like that crust
the old guy but um it used to be dealers
were like just get them in so I can sell
him a car nowadays they're like don't
bring them in and un it's like we have
it and it's like so that's affected
appointment set rates and stuff like
that but we as a company um in in the
same on service inbound service I mean a
lot of dealers and manufacturers have
capacity issues uh the you know that two
three we had a deal it was a month out
for service oh wow yeah and and you know
then there technicians
or um some of it's not some of it is
just people are holding on to their cars
and service in the more nowadays so so
um I mean we have dealers that uh would
prefer to only service their own
customers cars first you know we have
dealers that don't want to work on off
make cars which is kind of crazy unless
they sold it of course um from as a used
car but um so we have all this
Intel and you know I just find it hard
to believe that AI can understand all of
that right now and maybe in the future
it can cuz we're having in trouble just
Gathering it all and putting it in the
right places so our people are empowered
to actually have the information to
answer questions for customers and give
them a a much better experience you
know yeah I I was reading um something
yesterday and uh just listening to you
right now made me think of this phrase
that really stuck out to me that was
about how the complexity of measurement
um has outpaced um a lot of people's
knowledge
and it's not just the complexity of
measurement which can be applied to your
the the sales and business development
of your dealership or your company that
you know complexity of measurement is
also relative to marketing conversations
advertising conversations I mean it's
all over the place everything is going
so fast and it just keeps getting faster
the AI stuff digital
retailing digital retailing really
didn't blow up quite as fast as I think
the people that were building those
tools hoped for but then they got the
pandemic and all of them were like yeah
great it's a gold
rush but I I think you hit on something
really important that dealers I think
really need to be thinking about I think
this needs to be talked about in Twin
groups I think it needs to be talked
about in you know weekly um staff
meetings and that
is who in the dealership is actually
keeping at least somewhat close to Pace
of all the things technically that
affect the business because you even and
We've joked about this many times before
uh The Internet's been with us for a
little while now why are you guys you
know and it's not just the car business
you know we love dealers and so
sometimes it feels like we're being a
little critical of them but it's more
meant out of encouragement like we we
love dealers and we want them to win all
the time but boy the faster and the
bigger that the waves come of all this
new stuff and now it's all the AI stuff
and everybody wanting to tell
I love you're talking about yeah yeah I
love what you're talking about because
um it's polarizing right for dealers now
with data there's just so much data
coming at them what do you do with it
all so like I try to you I have ADD as
I've told you before so I I I'm always
like squirrel squirrel
squirrel you're not the only one don't
it's not a bad thing it's like I got
that from you by the way
squirel I am very keen on and perceptive
to what's urgent
right um and prioritization of the data
I'm I'm a data geek cuz because of you
know I used to my teachers used to say
that I was lazy when I was a kid it
wasn't that I just got bored with stuff
that didn't I couldn't get an answer to
or I had to spend a ton of time I like
to get the answers quickly I don't want
to waste hours and hours to learn
something I can learn in five minutes
and so with that said data does that for
you if you read it right and if it's
easy to it's easy to access the
challenge dealers have today is all this
data is sitting in all these different
places and then you got these customer
data platforms and all they're doing is
really mapping out all these clicks and
all this other stuff which is just way
too much frankly for a car dealer to
want to in digest and understand they
want to know key um you know uh
performance indicators right they don't
want to look at it all
yeah so for example one of my buddies I
was talking to yesterday owns a group we
have and I told him 10 of his cars um of
his 350 didn't have
photos and he's the owner of this group
and he was like are you kidding me I'm
like no and he's like cuz they have that
somewhere in some system that tells them
that you know I'm not going to name all
the systems because I don't want to put
any of them down but it's another login
and another place for somebody to go and
look at and like unless you have a
really well-defined like process every
morning to go all right I got to check
my photos I got to check my notes I got
on the cars I got to check my pricing I
gota and you do for that but then you
got a whole bunch of other data like
marketing data Google analytics are over
here and your lead data is in the CRM
and like I I kind of understand and and
empathize with dealers in that regard
so um Shameless plug we're working on a
dealer portal and I'm trying to think up
with AI right so we have vcon and
conservators and we're taking all the
conversational data we're getting
sentiment analysis all that kind of
stuff but what I like about it is we're
ingesting a lot of information into AI
that now I can tell AI this is what I'm
looking
for yeah show me when something gets out
of whack show it to
me yeah that's what I want as an add
person I don't want to have to log in to
go find didn't and spend you know I just
did an analysis for a dealer in New York
that um took me an hour not because I'm
slow it's because I had to go into
different systems to find data to put
the information together and piece it
all together so I think you're a spot on
um and I think that that's what I'm
hoping AI can do for me versus answer
her phone and talk to a customer that is
so impersonal like that that just really
scares me for the future of our our
world yeah if we're going to go that far
where we don't I don't want to talk to a
customer because you know the emotional
bag you know it's going to cause me pain
because they're going to reject me or
they're going to hang up or they're
going to be mean to me and let's let a
robot do it or it's going to be
cheaper yeah and don't get me wrong Sean
I don't know maybe there is there is
definitely place for automations there's
definitely place for for for tedious
things like you know cleaning up data
and and and and things like that but to
talk to a customer I mean gosh that's
really scary yeah that's a whole another
episode my brother because I'm telling
you that this uh device uh in the hands
of uh all of our children you know you
and I have you know kids that are out of
the nest you still have one in the nest
um but um you know our kids grew up in
this internet age and I'll try to not
make this full episode within the
episode but that that very much concerns
me too because the younger Generations
have been taught to find companionship
through this kind of thing and and then
they find out that really it comes with
a big big big package of loneliness and
they don't know how to deal with it and
Solitude is uncomfortable for them and
I'll I'll cap it with this and we can
carry on but this is relevant dealers
should be listening to what you were
just saying here I was
on you know my road trip with the wife
through this uh summer and we went into
sorry people I eat Taco Bell once in a
while we were somewhere in Oklahoma I
think anyway we were like starving so we
pull in I walk into this Taco Bell and
there are no people there are no
customers eating there is no one behind
the counter there's just two kiosks for
me to and I'm sure people have seen this
now because all these big corporations
it is about how do they make more money
if they've been forced to implement a
minimum wage that's too hard for them to
pull off in that particular area there
there's a lot of different business
decisions to be made but I want to talk
about the experience it was impersonal
and for a person who's now in the early
50s I hated everything about it I did
not see a human being until I had used a
giant one of these to say I want a taco
and I want a burrito and you know I want
a Pepsi
and uh then they bring out my items and
that's it I don't even know if this if
this gal said anything to me I don't
didn't it felt so other planet other
world to me and I hated everything about
it because I believe that we as human
beings we are we are literally made to
connect with people there's there's this
you don't have to be friends with every
single person no
it's human con is is a is a human
need not something we can live without
it's not look what Co did to our kids
when they were stuck in the house during
school and stuff it's all kinds of
depression and drug use and all kinds of
stuff came out of it like this I feel
like the last three years we're in this
giant social experiment you know like
because yeah can artificial intelligence
do things that human can't of course it
can ingest a ton of data excuse my
French and and make sense of it faster
than a human can that's good um but
what's not good about it is when you
start replacing human beings and you
know I I know there are people listen to
this going oh this guy's company's in
trouble because he's not going to get on
board and he's going to be like
blockquest or video and he's going to go
out of business I'm not saying I'm not
paying attention to do it and I'm not
saying we're not using it and I'm not
saying I don't want my business to be
more efficient um what I'm saying is I
would never want a robot talking to my
customer straight and simple like and if
it's a digital retailing tool and a
customer wants to use it all I think
it's like still 4% of people actually
hit the Buy It Now button and buy it
online and you're talking about a lot of
Teslas and stuff like that human beings
don't want it but they'll do
it yeah so where is customer
satisfaction going then if we're just
saying this is the best we can give you
as a robot to do do the work that a
human being used to do and could do that
could smile to you and ask you how your
you know how your day is going and stuff
like that and and have a real
conversation with and a connection with
a real human being that to me is what
Ira Rosenberg did for years when he ran
the IRA group up here in Boston he came
up he kissed babies and shook hands and
smiled to everybody and he wasn't you
know an easy guy to work for but when he
was out there talking to employees and
talking to customers you know you
thought he was like Santa Claus you know
what I mean so like those kinds of guys
I admire um and I've been around a lot
of them and and and it's because they
have this genuine
n to them to to connect with people and
connect with the communities and connect
with you know their business and their
business partners and all that kind of
stuff and like we're going to hide from
all that and just let robots do it all
for us God bless us if that happens I
mean God it's it's yeah and uh I think
that's like the essence of life you know
I mean there are some people that I've
met that are larger than life you ever
hear that comment Sean Larger than Life
and so those people I'm atted
to not sexually but I'm attracted to
them personally like I I think their
Dynamic and they're you know and it and
it's
like that that could be gone in the
future well so you're unwrapping a bunch
of stuff that I love to yeah so what
you're talking about in getting to know
a person right and these attributes of a
personality these uh the body language
you know all these different signs you
know facial expression all these things
um people and I just saw a thing on
LinkedIn somebody somebody that we both
know talking about you know something
that sounds cliche but it's true people
hate to be sold but they like to buy
things and then when you make it easy
for people to buy things what what's
usually a part of that formula AR Sean
is but the argument is dig retailing
making easier for people to buy things
however listen it's it's simple I I said
it earlier I like digital retailing
tools I think there's a place for them I
like AI I think there's a place for it I
think there's a lot of with all this
mounds of data it's too much for a human
person to but the human connection can't
go away and some people probably listen
to this saying well I hate talking to a
salesperson those people make up about
12% of the population they're C type
usually Engineers or or someone that's
like highly compliant I mean if you ever
done the dis profiling you know 60% of
the people they just want to be able to
trust the person they're talking to so
when I think about that I
think whatever I mean you you can
believe me or not but my sole goal is to
help dealers and to help my employees
and if you've been around me long enough
you know that that's genuine and true
and so that's why we have referrals and
that's why we have repeat business is
because I try to go out of my way to
help as many people as I can at some at
some points as we grew our company you
know it gets harder for me there's no
question however that's still in my core
of who I am and you get you know that
when you're talking to certain people so
some people are bad there are bad
doctors there are bad attorneys there
are bad salese there are bad teachers
there are bad you know athletes um you
know and
so you can't say well we because there
is some bad we want to make everyone
perfect because we don't want to deal
with that bad yeah like as far as I'm
concerned Taco Bell could go out of
business I can't even remember no
offense but I I can't remember the last
time I've eaten at one of them but if
they're that stupid were they going to
put kiosks into their into their uh
business uh to replace human beings I
mean you know maybe that's how they get
down to a 99 cent burrito I guess right
they have to pay yeah and not just them
McDonald's there's other fast food
restaurants started doing that where the
humans are gone and you go in and you
just you've been taught thank you Apple
and Android you've been taught how to
use this now we put a giant one on there
pick taco pick burrito I I know that uh
we've just got a few more minutes on
this episode and I want it I've known
you so I know what you were just
describing about how your you know
approach and what matters to you I very
much know that about you if you were the
person if I had an opportunity and I was
going to work with somebody to deal
dealership their digital retailing tool
or Vinnie's my guy right whether you're
the GM or you're salesperson I'm gonna
be like I want to talk with Vinnie man
he's a Boston dude he's a totally like
died in the wool Patriots fan like I
gotta talk to this guy I am a car guy by
the way I'm a car guy too like I was
spent totally a car guy and have been
for decades been told by a bunch of
people like you know
um you're you're not a car guy anymore
like yeah I am like I I feel the I
empathize I feel what dealers go through
every day I know what it's like to be up
against the number that you're trying to
hit and having the manufacturer and you
know big groups I work for a big group
have them breathe down your neck make
sure you get to these numbers like it's
stressful you know and and I want to try
and help them that's really what the
goal is so you literally built a
company because you're a car guy for car
guys and GS and that's that's why your
company exists and I would say that even
things we're talking about in this
episode um the technology has come so
fast since the dawn of the internet
which I always say I know this isn't
technical to Industry terms but I always
felt like that's like Okay internet was
1.0 version of massive change the
fastest and the huge biggest change that
you're going to see in the car business
2.0 for me was social media because it
blew open the doors of transparency
right and I don't know what human
connection through a phone but it was
human connection yep and and then now we
have all of the the digital retailing
and we have ai coming
in the point I used to and I still say
this sometimes in presentations dealers
have been dealing with this uh
technology lasagna for for years and
years and the you know they just keep
layering the same stuff you know meat
cheese you know pasta sauce meat cheese
pasta sauce layer layer layer and after
a while they don't even know that they
have duplicate and trip of things they
don't even need because it's so hard to
keep up with and you absolutely are a
car guy because you care about the car
guys and gals that are dealing with that
and let me just say this and I know it's
Shameless plug but whatever this is our
podcast we do what we
want you're in this isn't a lie like
call me out on the stuff that I've lied
about to dealers your company and I'm
not saying that to you I'm saying that
to the audience no I get it yeah so your
company staled literally
simplifies a whole list of it literally
makes me think you know what I'm going
to actually prep a podcast episode for
that because think about all of the
things that dealers like how do I get my
head around all of these things that are
coming in because so many of these
things are attached to the customer
experience yes but in more detail the
sales experience the variations and
Nuance within the sales experience where
did the lead come from are they off the
phone off the phone from what source did
they come in through direct message what
source did they come in off the website
well what was it a tradein lead was it a
they came off the SRP where the there's
so much variation and the dealers are
really good at what they do but
sometimes and all of your dealers I bet
would say we got to a point where we
realized we needed this help and it
doesn't just help us have a better much
more consistent sales process which
helps of course all of your sales effort
your service effort but it also gives
them people that understand how to work
through some of these technology
challenges that are very very difficult
very diff funny and so that's I'll just
use this last few minutes to speak about
some of the technology we're working on
because I don't want to make it sound
like I'm this old school guy that
doesn't believe in technology because I
mean I have a six-person engineering
team and CTO and we're building
Tech um what I'm trying to do is exactly
what you're saying Sean and I know
others have tried it with dashboards and
things like that but how do I feed my
dealers critical information at the
right time and you can do that with AI
by ingesting all these different data
points that are on all these different
places but it takes somebody that
understands the industry to build it in
a way that it's going to give them the
information that they need to see at the
right time not all of it at once or
forgetting to look at it like you know
something that pops up and says hey you
need to take photos of your car
yes because you know there's a used car
manager like I'm buried over here and I
got this guy my owner yelling at me
because some stupid BDC company told him
that I only had 110 photos but he
doesn't understand me and all this other
stuff well it's funny I'm going through
this with my own team
internally how much can one person
handle we neglect things because we're
typically overworked and we have too
much on our plate and so some of the
stuff we neglect is looking at the
data y because it's not urgent it's
important but it's you know I do the
four four quadrant training with my
management team all the time it's
important but it's not urgent that's
quadrant 3 I try to spend as much time
now in quadrant 3 as I can instead of
quadrant one so Josh would be a great
example of someone in quadrant one all
the time right that works for me and you
know sha I'm trying to pull her out of
quadrant one a little bit more and you
know um and Thomas and we have
leadership calls and meetings because
that stuff's important too is to
actually examine what you're doing
instead of just running around like a
chicken with your head cut off yeah so
how can we do that faster there's so
much data in just I just told you it
took me an hour to pull up enough
information to show the a dealer some
information that I needed to share with
them how do I get that information
quicker and you can do that with our new
technology we have all the
conversational data coming in and out
now we have email data coming in and out
text Data coming in and out all tied to
a customer now we can kind of understand
did that go well was the customer happy
was the customer
frustrated you know we can ingest all
the inventory and say you know your
inventory levels are lower than they
were last month your you know your your
lead volumes are lower than they were
last month which correlates with the
inventory level you don't have photos on
your cars which might boost the phone
calls and all that kind of stuff that's
going on in the dealership all day long
it's impossible to pull all that data I
don't care how good a dashboard is if
you got 12 of them to log into yeah it's
like brain damage and I'm not saying
we're going to be successful at every
problem that a dealer has but we want to
be able to give our dealers information
that we can give them that's actionable
that they don't have to go and find in
you know six or seven different places
so that's our goal with our technology
and we're using AI even though we're not
replacing humans we're using AI to give
us information maybe even like for I'll
give you a quick example we can
summarize a conversation Sean so instead
of my people typing the information into
the CRM very shortly probably in the
next quarter we're going to be able to
push that conversation right into the
notes section of the
CRM yeah that's it's huge it's huge
because that's time that's someone's
time type it plus they don't even type
as good as the summarization is they're
not going to put all that information in
there so it that's a huge win for us so
we're looking for AI to do that kind of
stuff for us instead of and we're
feeding AI we're not building a robot
there's a lot of them out there it's
kind of like digital retailing tools if
you're building a digital retailing tool
right now I'm sorry but you're you
shouldn't be because there's like 50 of
them and only you know only maybe a
handful of them are going to succeed
maybe a 10 or whatever but why build a
robot we got the data we can feed it to
any robot yeah yeah well I know that
you're uh I know that your company's
already built on technology I know you
said about building on technology in the
first place and you're still doing that
I don't think a lot of people understand
that about your business so it sounds
like you you guys are more than happy to
be right there where the new stuff comes
around the corner and you guys are
getting ready and prepared for that
stuff we're going to dig more into that
on our panel session at the Digital
Dealer which is going to be great this
is a perfect place because I see a
parking spot right up close to the
building which is what we're always
looking at so we're gon to pull into
that one on this episode yeah a lot of
for future episodes potentially so yeah
for sure if you like or love or none of
the above we hey great we still want to
hear from me this is the dealer insights
podcast it gets better when you give us
comments and questions and feedback and
recommendations so some people will drop
them in the comments especially on the
YouTube piece but if you don't over
there you can always send an email to us
at info std.com that's St r l d until
next time stay strong and solid you'll
never miss I'll see you next time Vinnie
see you
Sean
he