#395 - What Independent Dealers Are Missing (And How to Compete Smarter)
The Independent Dealer Podcast
#395 - What Independent Dealers Are Missing (And How to Compete Smarter)
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It's a low-margin business, and inventory is a silent killer.
And sitting on the wrong inventory and sitting on inventory that's
appreciating is a silent killer of all dealers.
And so the way to win is not to do something fancy.
It's to be very, it's to execute the little things very, very well.
Hello.
Hey, how are you?
Hey, guys.
Hey, buddy.
That's what's so unique about you is you come from that used car side, right?
Like your roots are like in the independent space, which I love when you ask those
questions.
What would you say you'll see?
Do you see independence missing?
Like where are we missing the markers independence now that you've had such an
exposure to the new car, the franchise, the fancy, shiny NADA convention in
world where everything's like top shelf, you know, like, what are the
independence missing?
It really is a very stark juxtaposition when you go from the indie side to
the franchise, because listen, at this point, I've spoken with more
franchise dealers in my life than independent dealers.
I swear to you, I feel like I know the franchise business better at this
point.
I say that like sarcastically, but it's where I spend my time, right?
That's our ideal listener profile is the 32 to 48 year old, even older, I would
say at this point, 36 to like 52 year old franchise dealer with multiple
rooftops.
It doesn't mean that we don't have dealers in their 20s.
And it doesn't mean we don't have dealers in their 80s and 90s and 70s.
We do, but we know who gets the most value out of our content.
And it's that up and coming, typically second or third gen.
They really want to, you know, innovate and kind of be more progressive.
They're looking to learn.
They don't have maybe an established peer group or network as well as their,
you know, their, their fathers or, you know, other people in the industry.
So anyways, but to answer your question, I think one of the biggest
learnings going from being an independent to speaking with franchise dealers
was that it just seems like franchise dealers do a better job of leveraging
data. And I say that like holistically in everything they do, when I speak
to some franchise dealers, there's just a higher percentage or a higher
probability that I speak with someone.
It's again, it's not everyone, but there's just more sophistication,
typically. And it's for many reasons.
I mean, the franchise business is a bit more complicated to run.
You know, you typically need more capital.
You know, there's like a vetting process.
There's also like forcing functions that are embedded into the business.
Right. You've got to submit your financials to the, to the factory.
Like there's other things.
There's these basic controls that are in place that you cannot operate without.
Right. As an independent dealer, I know some independent dealers that
like they just look at the bank account and that's their like pulse
in the business. Oh, yeah.
You know, and like, and by the way, I was there too.
Like I ran a business like that at some point, right?
Before I learned and I grew and all that.
And the point I'm trying to make is I think that.
It's it comes down to education, right?
And being data driven is a part of being properly educated
on the right way to run a business.
And, you know, let's let me give you an example.
I mean, it all comes, let's look at inventory, right?
How are we buying?
Are we are we only using our gut, which is the guts great love
the like love using our gut, but are we are we looking?
Are we properly analyzing data in our markets?
Are we are we understanding really what's moving quickly, what's low?
And what are, you know, what's our return on that on that investment?
Right. OK, so maybe this vehicle moves super quickly, but does the margin
doesn't make sense for us to continue selling this type of vehicle?
And inventory is just one thing, right?
We could talk about website.
How are people interacting with my website?
Do I have 10 pop-ups and my bounce rate is extremely high?
So when someone gets to my VDP, they're just bouncing right off, right?
Is my lead funnel, my my my, you know, vehicle inquiry form, is that extremely
long and people are, you know, it's getting like a 10% submission rate?
Like, I think all these things are things you have to ask yourself
in question and many don't.
And it's like this is how like in this business, success is unlocked at the margins.
It's a freaking 5% business.
Sure, some indies make 10% net and whatnot.
But the point is it's a low margin business and inventory is a silent killer
and sitting on the wrong inventory and sitting on inventory that's
depreciating is a silent killer of all dealers.
And so the way to win is not to do something fancy.
It's to be very it's to execute the little things very, very well.
And what I just described are some examples of the little things, right?
Like, what's the up process of my dealership?
You know, what's my website like?
What's that experience like my virtual showroom, right?
What happens in the FNI office?
Like all these things I just think about, it's like all these little
touch points are so important.
And I think the more you can rely on a combination of data and really
understanding what's working, what's not and it combined out with your gut
feeling and just anecdotal experience.
I think that's where I see a lot of opportunity for independence.
You know, I think you're exactly right here.
I'm going to push back a little bit on this.
It's so much harder for an independent dealer to hire the right employee
compared to the franchise side.
How do you see that and what kind of independent dealer maybe do to hire
better people?
It's the toughest thing in the world.
And I'll tell you something.
I think that a part of the reason I was so driven to start Get A Car,
my venture backed online auto retailer that I launched in 2018 and went out to raise
lots of money for and do all that was because I was just traumatized.
I was like, why can't I attract the right talent?
And what I realized was that the best automotive talent wants to be in a
franchise and I said, well, why?
And, you know, many reasons.
It's the fancy showroom, typically better compensation package all in all, right?
Because they have more employees, they have better benefit packages.
Like, you know, they have more redundancy.
So you have more work-life balance and, you know, you can you actually have
shifts and you're working fewer bell-to-bells to a certain extent.
The point is the franchise dealership just has a better does
a better job at attracting talent in our industry.
And for me, I said, OK, well, what can I offer
to get someone to come work for me?
And the only thing I could do as an independent, or at least I thought,
was I can I can sell a dream of growth, of opportunity.
And so
the first thing I did when I launched my online business and I began, you know,
raising capital, these things was I went to hire and I was able to attract
people that I never would have imagined because I sold them the dream.
So I think the thing that's holding back independence,
the reality is like, if you're not growing, you're declining.
And I think as an independent, if you look at the independence
that are able to attract talent, they're typically ones that are growing
quickly or have reached some meaningful scale and they're able to look at,
you know, Eastern's motors, it's here on the East Coast, of course.
And that's just one example, right?
But the point is like an independent that or like there's a, you know,
like car shop, of course, that's Penske, you have auto lenders here.
Again, I'm talking about East Coast brands here.
But the point is these are brands that have a story, their growth focused.
In many cases, they also don't have some special mode.
I know auto lenders, you know, they had their off lease company.
It's a brand here, an independent retailer.
They had their off lease company.
So they did have a proprietary funnel of vehicles.
But like Eastern's, Eastern's is a phenomenal execution play.
And, you know, but they've continued to show growth.
And I think that's how they've been able to attract good people at that company.
And many independent dealers just don't have that mindset, right?
If you're not going to pay and you're not going to show a growth story,
it's just like, why would someone come work for you?
Like, you have to literally ask yourself that question. Why?
Mm hmm. Yeah, I've been struggling with that for years.
And I asked myself the question of why am I going to work today?
So I have to ask myself.
You know, what I was getting to, it's it's hard to leverage the data.
If you don't have the people that can leverage the data,
it's kind of where I was going to on that.
Well, even the sexy tool, it's extremely hard.
We don't get the sexiest of tools in our side of it.
And if we do, they're they're unaffordable for one of one rooftop owner.
Right. I mean, I can't have some of these buying
tools because I don't have the scale and they don't have a strip down.
I sell 30 cars a month version of that software, right?
So you're 100% right.
Coolest stuff.
We go to NADA to look at all the cool new stuff that we can't afford.
You know, yeah, like, I know.
No, it comes down to like, what do you want to be?
Right? What do you want to be?
Do you want to be a 10? Listen, I think that two stores.
Even maybe three independent stores is like kind of like a pitfall.
Huge pitfall, in my opinion.
I think it's like you either have one or you have like five plus.
And the reason I think about that
from experience is that you want to get it's either you want to keep low overhead
and be, you know, minimalist, just like, you know, take your distributions
and call it a day or you want to get to some level of scale
where you can invest in some and build some operating leverage in your system.
Right. At five stores, you can already start building some meaningful
shared services, right?
You can build, you know, department heads.
You can maybe have a head of variable ops, had a fixed ops at that point.
You probably have your own service center.
Like you can do things like that.
You can build more talent.
You could bring more talent at one store.
You're not bringing any of that talent.
It's you and maybe one other person at two stores.
You're starting to lose control, but you still don't have enough leverage
to bring in enough talent to get you to that next level.
And so I just don't believe as an independent that like,
I think that's a huge pitfall to be at a couple of stores.
I think you really should think like, OK, I'm going to scale this fricking thing.
Like, again, Eastern's Motors is a great example.
I think they have like 10 to 20 stores or I'm just going to stay low overhead,
low fixed call, like, you know, take my distributions.
I don't want to I don't want to, you know, grow my overhead.
It's and anyways, that's my that's my take on that because to your point,
I think you're right.
You know, you don't just don't want to fall in the middle.
The middle is a dangerous place to be.
Yeah, we know a lot of dealers that get stuck in the middle with bloated
overhead and they can't they don't get past that.
So there's no absorption of overhead with two stores.
There is with Favre and that's where you kind of go, right?
Managers and BPs and all this other stuff that comes along with it.
So that's my other question for you.
And I think this leads into it is knowing what, you know, now, say you were
just to like, drop the whole media game and go out and be a practitioner,
be an operator again. Yeah.
Where do you see the most like opportunity or green space that you
would go into with with everything being an option?
I mean, you could buy a Honda store in a big market.
You could pick up a little Nissan franchise.
You could do an independent.
You could do a multi-store buy here, pay here.
Maybe you go back to the online retailing thing.
What from your vision of the future?
Like, where do you think your buck would be spent?
Look, brands, brands are cyclical.
First of all, I would definitely go franchise.
No doubt about it because I think that I just want a more
diversified business with more profit setters or I have service.
Just more opportunities to make money and to and to be,
you know, recession resistant.
And listen, used cars have been on the tear.
It's been a used car, you know, decade, frankly.
I mean, used cars are such a good place.
I mean, every new car, you know, wants to be like is focused on used.
And yeah, but I do think that,
yeah, I mean, used cars is the place to be.
But what brand do you love?
Which one would you go after?
Look, it's more of like a personal question because meet on a personal level.
Yeah. You know, when I was when I was I'll tell you, when I was 23,
I went to buy my first piece of real estate with two friends
and I had saved up like $70,000.
And the reason I did that was because the reason I did with partners
and I didn't just buy like a $70,000 cash flow piece of real estate was
because I purse on my personal investments.
I typically like more like blue ship.
I just like to spend more even if my return is lower when I'm already
investing, it's kind of like barbell method.
Like in my day to day life, I take a lot of risk, you know, like even this
business, like it's creative, it's kind of making something out of nothing.
Right. High risk and all that.
Whereas, you know, my prior company, high risk.
But then like when it comes to my investments, I like low risk.
It's very like barbell.
And so the point I was trying to make is like even when that example
as I was a 23 year old, I took that capital and I parked it in like a
very blue chip piece of real estate at the time with two other friends
because that was the only way I could afford to buy into that piece of real
estate. So similarly here,
yes, you could get deals nowadays on like Nissan stores, right?
Because lots of Nissan stores are losing money.
And now it's probably a good time to buy.
I just I would rather go for a more blue chip brand.
Like, I don't know, like a Honda store or something.
Just get something.
You know, honestly, even GM is in pretty good shape right now.
You know, I could probably get into that.
But and then I say probably because I have, you know, had a lot of
opportunities, you know, people reach out to me and operating partners.
Hey, let's do this deal.
So that deal, I haven't pulled the trigger and I think yet.
But the point is, I think I would go for something like that.
Like I'm like, who am I to even say I could get a Toyota or something?
I'm not, you know, there's people that I've been operating for decades
and, you know, have all the relationships and they one does great.
They're in line.
Obviously, yeah, that's the dream.
But I think that, you know, like a good, a good, like up and coming
brand or not up and coming, a good steady brand.
You know, you pay up a little bit more.
Even, even like a Kia is phenomenal, right?
They've been very consistent.
You know, so you're paying a little bit more blue for these brands.
Um, you know, probably twice as much as like a Nissan or something.
But you're also getting a much, you know, higher quality
asset with more stability.
That's probably what I would do.
Um, I would also, well, let me kind of put a pin in that.
But that's from a brand perspective.
I think that's what I would, that's what I would look at.
That's interesting.
What do you think is the challenges?
Like, where do you see the biggest headache coming, um, either
from the franchise or used car independence?
Like, you know, you talked about hiring and getting the right people,
but as independence, like what do you see coming down the road for us
that like we're just completely oblivious to?
Look, we're still in this period of, uh, declining supply,
used car supply.
It's going to probably last from next six months before we kind
of get hit the trophy and maybe start rising.
Um, in general, as an independent, and I still operate
this, like even a car dealership guy today, we're a team of, you know,
part-time, full-time, we're 14 people, roughly half-half.
And, um, I still very much operate with, you know, I, I, I put in a
very lean way.
I, I can't shake that off.
It's in my DNA to be very lean and, you know, in focus on efficiencies,
even though this is a much higher margin business media than a car
dealership is, I just can't shake it off.
And so, and so the reason I bring that up is because I think
as a dealer, it's a tricky time, uh, you know, the economy or at least,
you know, stock markets at all time highs, which is kind of
concerning because what happens, you know, what goes up must come down
kind of like, you know, it kind of goes back and forth.
Um, and again, that's a macro thing.
So let's put that aside.
Um, used car supply is still declining.
So it's getting more competitive and tougher to source.
Affordability is in the gutter.
It hasn't really been, you know, fixed.
And it's just, you know, vehicle, like a vehicle.
Unaffordability has stayed pretty flat here for the last couple of years.
Uh, yes, there's some, you know, OEMs trying to make more affordable
new vehicles and whatnot, but that's going to take time.
We'll see if it manifests.
EV tax credits are going away in September.
Uh, so that's not a good thing because every used car dealer I know
is, you know, eating up every used EV they can to get the, you
know, the tax credit, the $4,000 tax credit.
Um, I'm, I'm personally, if I'm, I found my used car dealer right now,
I am trying to lower my day supply, um, by improving my turn.
Uh, again, it's obviously evergreen advice, but I just think that
it, there's a lot of movement right now.
There's a lot of change and I would just try to, you know, get
a little bit more efficient, operate a little bit more lean.
Um, you know, take a look at my expenses.
Where do I have room to trim?
I, it sounds kind of scarcity mentality, but I just think that
it's important to, you know, always as dealers to continue
hunkering down and, you know, just have made sure we're running
a very, very tight chip and especially as an independent at a
time like this was so much change.
And so also not to mention, as independents were so dependent
on the lenders, right, the banks and, you know, 30 day
delinquencies, 60 day delinquencies are continuing to
rise and they've been rising for like two and a half years,
but it doesn't make our case any better, right?
When it comes to like, how, where's our money coming from?
It's coming from the lenders, right?
Um, where's it?
ACC, the bank I posted about that just went out of business
or they just stopped doing indirect lending.
I should say after like 30 years, right?
It's, um, like there's just a lot of change.
So I don't know, unless you're really aggressively thinking
like, Hey, I want to grow super aggressively and you're
kind of putting on all on the line as an independent man,
I'm, I'm trying to lower my day supply and just be lean.
Be trying to focus on how I can remain lean with my fingers
on the pulse and kind of get through these next three,
four, five months of the year.
Yeah.
And we've seen that, uh, expenses have been crazy
since about 2022, right?
And, um, after COVID, everybody got bloated interest rate
shows and I see that more and more with, with independent
dealers, their expenses are totally out of whack.
They got too many people.
They're, they're spending money haphazardly.
They're spending money on interest.
So, uh, we've been preaching that as well.
Yeah.
Expenses is a huge issue.
And look, you're going to see, I do think one thing we
didn't talk about is that I think from a technological
perspective, um, I have this thesis that like the DMS is
someone will build a DMS from the ground up only using AI.
Like, okay.
So talk to like the smartest tech people and they say
everything will be rebuilt from the ground up using AI.
Like AI first AI native.
I'm not talking about a company that's already existing and
is in, you know, injecting AI or, you know, replacing
some workflows with AI.
I'm talking about building something from the ground
up a DMS with AI.
Someone's going to do it.
I am telling you, someone's going to do it.
It's going to happen.
It'll be some like celebrity auto tech entrepreneur.
It'll be someone with deep pockets.
Someone will do it.
Um, question is when the reason that's really big
deal is because I think you're going to start seeing,
I think we've hit, we've hit peak SaaS platforms in dealerships.
I really do.
Like, I think today the average that dealers spend to
franchise their spend on SaaS platforms is like 29,000 a month.
I think that's from Steve Greenfield, uh, stat.
And I think that what we're going to, I think we've
hit the peak in terms of quantity of platforms, not spend,
but actual numbers of platform.
And I think we're going to start declining now.
And I think that's going to happen is we're going to see
consolidation driven by AI.
And I think that if you, if you landed on planet earth today
and you could do anything you would want, and the car
business existed and you said, okay, how am I powering the
sale of a car from acquisition to disposition?
I feel like the way you would do that is you would build
a new product, you know, from AI that does everything in one
place, like it tells me the inventory that I need and how
much I should pay for it.
Like, you know, the auto, it gives me the option to buy it.
Right.
Auctions or, you know, dealer, dealer marketplaces.
It gives me the option to price it.
It gives me the option to communicate with the customer.
Like these things are going to consolidate.
I know, I know they will.
Yoshi, it's, it's consolidated inside manhunt.
I mean, you know, manhunt, um, do they have it?
I mean, don't they have, don't they have everything
you just explained?
Why can't they do that?
Well, first of all, they're not powering the DMSes, right?
Reynolds, CDK, right?
You know, Techian, like they're not, they don't own them.
Um, they do have VIN solutions, right?
But it's not like these things are still very siloed.
I think we're going to see these things start to combine.
Like I said, a symbol, something as simple as, um, you know,
just imagine your website and like a V auto being combined.
This is an example.
And your CRM, like I feel like we're going to get to a world
where everything is more consolidated under one application.
It's not going to happen at once, but, you know, it's going
to happen over time.
We're going to just see these things combine.
And ultimately it's going to make a, it's going to make it
easier for the dealer to manage their business because you
will have everything in one dashboard and things will, I
think, I do think things will be easier when you have all
you're exposed to all that data on.
You can control it from one centralized location.
I totally agree.
We, Jeff and I have talked about that many times.
We talk about it all the time.
Dealers will spend $500 a month on 15 different widgets, you
know, new used car dealers, independence, but they won't
spend $5,000 for one system that could handle it all.
Right.
Because all the 500 ones don't work.
Some little, and they don't communicate.
And that's maybe where I would say the, the immediate
solution to this is that these softwares, as they all
start stepping on each other's toes, these sassas, because
we know our CRM is starting to get a booking tool and our
booking tool is starting to get a customer communication
platform.
They're all overlapping.
They're all overlapping.
They're all starting to step on each other's toes.
So if they can't play nicely, because none of them have
open integration APIs, right?
If they would just have an open API system and talk
to each other, then dealers, yes, we could all
a cart our stack, let it all talk to each other and
simplify our own lives.
But I think yes, he's right.
I mean, AI should be able to fix all this.
You would think, right?
It really is crazy.
Um, and you know, one thing we didn't mention is that
in many cases, not always, but in many cases, the
vendor has conflicting interests with the dealer,
meaning these widgets, right?
These widgets are every widget you add on your
website, gives the vendor more data, gives them,
you know, more success attributed to their
tool, sure, but it harms the customer experience
for you.
It's one more thing that I have to X out.
If I don't use it, it's blocking my view.
Like it's annoying.
And so you really have to protect your virtual
showroom as a dealer, right?
Dealers protect their physical showrooms, but
like what about your virtual showroom?
If I go to your website right now and there's
10 pop-ups, that's an issue.
I don't want to shop there.
So I think, you know, putting that in mind,
right, like how are you protecting your virtual
showroom and just future proofing it to make
sure that it's a good experience and that that
customer will be able to get the result they want.
Remember, every online funnel is just how do I
get someone from point A to point B?
And it just so happens to be that your website
is in the way of me getting what I want.
Think about this, right?
I want to buy a car and you are the
dealership that I've identified.
Your website is just an obstacle in that course.
I need to get to actually buying the car.
And so make it easy for me.
Like I don't want to deal with your website.
I want to buy a car.
Your website is what I have to go through to buy that car.
Make it easy for me.
Don't don't make it complicated for me.
That's the key.
So what do you think?
I mean, does the online retailer have that
figured out then like a Carvana?
Like their website is supposed to be smooth, easy, fast.
I can buy it all from start to finish
right here on my desktop.
I mean, is that is that what you're talking about?
I think Carvana has solved many things, not all of them.
I think that they have proven that they could
build an incredible mousetrap.
I mean, their tech and their experiences, in my
opinion, is the best in the industry.
There's just no doubt about it.
You know, when you it's you you click on a car there.
I mean, you get all you have all the information, right?
They have me, but listen, they have all these data
scientists and engineers crunching every little tidbit
and A.B. testing the pictures of this to that.
I mean, they're smart and they have the resources, right?
So they're able to do it.
Look, I think there's a lot to learn from Carvana.
I don't think Carvana is the only way.
I think that, you know, not everyone wants to buy
wants to purchase a car that way.
Carvana doesn't have every type of car.
You know, they at the end of the day,
they're a private company with, you know,
a finite balance sheet.
Like they don't have unlimited capital.
Like they're just not they still have, you know,
I think like a couple percent market share,
which is meaningful, but it's a couple percent, right?
And in a big industry.
So the point is it's not, you know,
Carvana is a great company to learn from.
I do think, you know, looking at their website,
shopping them, mystery shopping them,
trying their experience is a good use of dealer's time.
I personally have done it many times,
but it's also, you know, they're not local, right?
They don't have a local place a customer
can come back to if they need to.
You don't really have like, you know,
an in a rep that you can deal with in person,
assuming it's someone good in a dealership,
of course that can be preferable for many people.
You know, you don't see the car before you're purchasing it.
You know, you couldn't send it to a vending machine, I guess,
but it's the kind of like you purchase it,
you can return the car,
but it's not like you can go, you know, see it as a,
so I think it's, you know,
it's slightly a different value proposition.
But I think that aside, they have a very,
they've done a very good job at the user experience.
Their virtual showroom is extremely well done.
So I think that's what every dealer can learn from.
Yeah, I agree.
I've always told Luke, I'm like, dude,
if I could get their website,
I want the ability to have a beginning to end transaction,
but with a physical location, right?
I don't want to push everyone online,
but I want to have a more smooth start to finish there.
Well, yeah.
Yeah, she was talking about,
and I never even thought about your website
being a barrier, you know, between the transaction.
Think about it.
Yeah, I've always thought about that.
I don't want to deal with your website.
Your website is an obstacle for me to get to what I want.
But Corvana, that is how you get what you want.
So you switch the narrative.
Yeah, well, exactly.
And so you just got to make it easy for me.
Make it as easy as possible, you know,
and so that I can ultimately get the reward
as quickly as possible without much friction.
That's ultimately what you're trying to solve.
Yeah.
And we don't need to get in the weeds any further on it,
but I just start thinking like, well, the friction is
having to come off, you know, going to my website
and then having to come off my website
and call someone or talk to them or text a salesman
or get in contact or show up at the store.
Like I would argue that then the website
should have all that stuff built into it.
Like I want to know exactly what my payment is
and what I'm approved on before I even step foot
on the law, maybe.
So I can see that.
And this is the power of like, yeah,
this is the power of, you know,
kind of vertically integrating like you have, right?
As a buyer pay here, where if you are the lender as well,
you have more control of that process
and that sale and that experience, right?
Cause you can show the right, you know,
the exact interest rate and other things, you know,
to a certain extent you have that ability.
And so that's the thing with this business, right?
Where it's been built over so many decades
and we've kept layer on these, you know,
additional pieces, but many of them, you know,
you have the, you have the manufacturer
of your franchise, you have the lender,
you have the dealer, right?
You can show all these different pieces
that, you know, they are a part of the car,
the vehicle buying and selling experience.
And ultimately your job as a dealer
is to make sure they all sink and work
as best as possible.
Cause at the end of the day,
it's going to impact your customer.
And so, you know, I spent a lot of time
trying to figure out like whatever I talked to,
whatever I talked to, just the smartest dealers.
They're, they're always, you know,
like I spoke to one independent dealer the other day
who does something, I believe it's with Mannheim, right?
Where, you know, right as they purchase the car,
it's right away, it goes on their website
and this happens.
Like everything is quick, it's integrated,
it saves them time, you know,
it saves them their days online.
And so these things, it's, you know,
that's the more you can integrate,
you can just create a better experience,
improve your profits, just be a better dealer overall.
Interesting.
So you'll see, I'm going to wrap this up
with getting a little personal here.
So CDG, you guys have got a lot going on,
you've got the job board, you've got the daily podcast,
you've got the newsletter, which is really great.
Guys, if you aren't signed up for that,
that's super informational.
I love what you've done with it recently.
You saw the redesign.
One other thing, what else?
Did you see the redesign?
Did you notice that?
Yeah.
I like it.
We changed the entire aesthetic, yeah.
It was just made it cleaner, more modern, so.
Yeah.
Listen, I care about design.
I really care about design.
I think that there's a guy that said this once
and I agree with just like,
design in a business shows people that you care.
And I really, I'm a huge believer in that.
Like when I receive a newsletter
that's like under design or ugly,
I'm just like, they don't care, why should I care?
I hate that.
Like, I literally hate it.
Steve Jobs, I think,
designed the box of the Apple iPhone, right?
How important it was.
And I mean, it's hugely important.
So yeah, yeah.
So what do you guys have coming up?
What's next for your brand?
What do you got going on?
So, a lot.
Well, so first of all, our mission is,
we are focused on transparency in the car industry, right?
So as I mentioned, it's very simple equation.
The more dealers know the better they are,
the more money they'll make
and the better experience they will offer,
which will lead to a better customer experience
that everybody wins.
It's a rising tide lifts all boats.
Okay, so win-win positive some game.
Now, the vision is we say like,
we wanna be in every dealer's pocket,
which just means that I don't care
how you consume my content.
You listen, you read, you watch, right?
You do like, you know, telepathy.
I don't really give a shit.
Like ultimately, I want you to get some value
and you can consume however way you want.
And it can be five minutes a day,
30 minutes a day, an hour.
I mean, it's up to you.
And my favorite thing is when I meet a dealer
and they're like, oh, Cardio, what is that?
I haven't heard of it.
Like, I love that.
And you'd be surprised.
It still happens.
And we have an insane reach at this point,
which you clearly know and see,
but you still meet people that haven't heard of you.
And it's the best feeling
because you know there's room for growth.
So what we did was to give you context
before I tell you what we're doing next
is we spend the first, you know, call it two years
really building the breadth of our platforms, right?
We had social channels.
We expanded to additional social channels.
We had the podcast, we had the newsletter,
the news site, our news site just got picked up
by Google News.
So now all of the news we're writing.
I noticed that.
Shows on Google News, which is huge.
It's huge.
I mean, you're next to Wall Street Journal.
Yeah.
It's massive.
Most recently we launched Daily Dealer Live,
which is our live show.
And the funny thing, the story about that
is we launched that because we said
our podcast is amazing, but it's also more timeless.
And you know, our pipeline is booked out
for like two, three months at a time.
And so we didn't have a platform to bring on people
for real time in the moment action news insights.
And so we solved that with our live show.
We said, let's go all in
and let's bring all at least three guests per day or so.
And we're gonna do live segments.
And truthfully, the straw that broke the camel's back there
was during the tariff mania.
When I was freaking out because I said, wait,
we don't have slots available to air tariff news.
And we need to do this now.
How do we solve it?
We solve it with another segment.
So we launched Daily Dealer Live.
It's now auto's largest and most engaged weekly show.
It's also the only live show as far as I'm aware
that happens on a recurring basis.
You know, we bring top CEOs,
we bring single-pointed dealers.
I mean, we bring everyone.
For me, the goal is continue to identify
what are the biggest problems for dealers.
And then ask myself, is this a media and content issue?
Like, is this a knowledge gap
or is this a service business
or some other type of business that needs to be,
you know, is this a problem that needs to be solved
via content media or through a service?
Then I say, if it needs to be solved through a service
or, you know, with actual hard work,
and I say that sarcastically,
but like not with content or media,
because, you know, again, I don't want to,
I don't want to dismiss the work order.
We're doing extremely hard work or anyone on our team.
But the point I'm trying to make is like,
like, you know, non-media work.
Then that's a business that I will not personally
do myself, but I will invest in someone that does it
as a partner and let someone else run it, right?
For example, CDG recruiting, right?
Dealers were coming to us, guys, we need talent.
And we know you have access to talent
because you have hundreds of thousands of followers
who are dealers and all that.
And so I said, okay, I said, how do we solve that?
Well, we solve it by, you know,
launching a recruiting practice,
which is CDG recruiting is doing a phenomenal job,
you know, it's a seven-figure business.
It's been around for about a year.
And it's a great, you know,
Steven Adrona is the operating partner
and all we do is recruit talent for dealers.
CDG recruiting, okay.
Then we said, dealers were coming to us and saying,
hey, you're very good at social media.
Can you help us with our social presence
to drive more traffic to our stores?
And we said, can we do this here?
No.
And so we partnered with a company called Nomad.
It's trynomad.co, nomad content.
And what they do is they work with dealers
in order to help them create their social presence
and drive more traffic.
And it's again, been a phenomenal success,
seven-figure business.
And again, and all these businesses I'm mentioning
is I'm a partner, but it's not the full-time gig, right?
Back to car dealership guy,
whatever something is a knowledge gap
or is like a content issue, that's where I come in.
And I say, okay, dealers want more surveys
of other dealers.
Boom, we can solve that right away.
Dealers want a platform for live news
that is relevant to them.
Boom, we launched Daily Dealer Live.
Dealers want a newsletter once a week about this topic,
about that topic.
They wanna know what's moving in the market,
what are best practices,
what are the events happening in the industry, right?
What should I care about?
Yeah, the tariff tracker, our buy-sell tracker,
what dealerships are being sold and bought,
our recall tracker, right?
What vehicles should you bring
into your service department
if you have one, if you're a franchise dealer?
So the point is I'm on a crusade
to solve the knowledge issue in our industry.
I think that we can create a generation
of the most well-trained dealers,
the most well-educated and knowledgeable
and well-resourced dealers through our content
and our education.
That is what I focus on.
Anything that is not in that lane is a distraction.
I don't want anything to do with it on a daily basis.
I will gladly partner with someone
and either invest in them, incubate with them,
but I will be a partner,
I will support them with distribution,
but I have zero time to be focused my brain.
I'm not focused on that day-to-day.
So that's sort of how I am solving problems,
but doing it in a way where I'm staying in my lane.
And this is what I did not do as a dealer.
I did not stay in my lane.
You're not the only one.
Exactly, because we can't, right?
The service manager quits,
you gotta become a fucking service manager, right?
Cool, you want your GM to go do it?
Well, guess what?
You have no one on the sales floor.
Like you're under-resourced, right?
And so you're always, you're a generalist.
You're doing whatever the hell you need to do
to keep the ship afloat.
And today, again, I'm running a business,
I'm still a generalist, right?
Obviously, I mean, I'm still kind of doing
many, many different things,
but today I've learned that I am good at media,
at content, and I'm creative.
Like I am staying in my lane.
I don't want to run a recruiting practice.
I don't want to do any of these other things.
Other people, I'll partner with them
and I'll compliment them,
but that staying in your lane is so frickin' key, right?
Know what you're best at.
Are you the best dealer?
Are you great at the desk as a dealer?
Is that where you feel most comfortable?
Where do you get your energy from, ultimately, right?
Are you great in the lanes?
Like I went to the lanes for years.
I didn't love the lanes.
Like I was, I think I was pretty good at it.
I mean, I did well, I mean, we made a ton of money,
but I didn't enjoy it.
I didn't give me energy.
Whereas like my father, like he loves the lanes.
I didn't be in the lane all day.
Like find the deals and all that great.
That was not me.
So I think today I'm much more about doing what I'm great at
and off-loading what I'm not great at
and what I don't enjoy.
And I think that's how you build a really great business.
Yeah.
I find myself off-loading everything
and then nothing gets done and I have nothing to do.
So I think-
I think you're doing pretty well for yourself, my friend.
I think you're doing pretty good.
It's not good, but I love that.
And let me ask one more question.
Cause I just got, I'll get a regret if I don't do it.
Personally, what's going on with you, man?
You got braces.
That's super exciting.
What else, man?
Like you guys moving or you upgrading
like you're a big fancy, like so deep.
Does your family know you're famous?
Like, does your wife know that like people know you?
It's care.
Like, how has fame-
The funniest thing is going, yeah.
It's going to NADA and like suddenly NADA it's like,
lots of people are like saying hi and all that.
Or take a photo.
Yeah, yeah.
It's funny at NADA.
I mean, it's, you know, I'm,
I have a lot of humility.
It's just my faith.
You had your own booth.
Come on.
No, no, no.
I mean, that was in partnership with someone, right?
And it was a sponsored booth from them.
So like, meaning we didn't pay for that, right?
But I, first of all, like the more,
the more this platform grows,
I don't consider myself like anything special.
I really don't, I'm just consistent.
You know, I'm doing it day in and day out.
I'm doing my best.
Some days are great.
Some days suck.
I just try to like, you know, be consistent
and continue putting out content.
You know, there's days where the content doesn't do well
and like, you're like, oh, I suck.
I'm irrelevant.
No one cares.
There's days when everyone and their mother texts you
and they're like, dude,
this is the best podcast I've ever listened to.
The content business is like, you know,
there's these crazy ups and downs
because, you know, you're constantly seeking affirmation
from people.
Like that's how you kind of measure the success
of the content.
And so the first thing is like, I'm, you know,
there's like a line like, I ain't shit.
Like I don't, I'm just, I'm just a guy that, you know,
is trying, I'm trying to do my best
and I'm not better than anyone.
I'm just really trying to learn every single day
and get a little bit better.
And I think that keeps me grounded
because listen, there's, I've, I've had, you know,
nice financial success from this business
in a very short period of time.
I've had, you know, just, it's been personally rewarding.
I remember when I closed my last company,
I have this like constant fear in my life
where I always, I'm always scared to run out of money.
It's like a subconscious.
Like it's just, I can't like no matter what I'm scared.
I could be like right now, you know, I'm telling you,
I haven't been a billionaire, but like I could be
and I still would be scared to run out of money.
It's, it's just how, yeah, you know, you know,
and listen as dealers, it's, it's, it's,
we're, you know, we're always living under pressure,
but I am growing up, you know, there were periods
where, you know, we did not have money.
And I, I just, I hated, dude, I hated those.
And it's not to say I lived in the street,
but you know, we got some donations and stuff
when I was really young at certain periods of time,
circumstantial, right, my parents went to a divorce.
I remember like having to cut my own hair.
So I went and bought clippers as like a 12 year old
and like, I didn't know how to cut my hair.
So I just like buzzed it off.
And I, and that was when I started doing buzz cuts.
Like, there's like little moments like that
in your life that define you.
And I never want to be there again, ever.
I didn't like, you know, be, I didn't like that,
but it does define you.
And I think that, so you ask, you know, personally,
so like I said, I always have this fear
of running out of money.
It's just, you know, in the, but I also
have you sprung on anything?
Have you like?
So dude, I'm, again, I'm going to disappoint you here,
but the other, the other thing with me is like,
I got a nice, gently used Toyota Sienna, right?
Well, no, the more successful this business has become,
I like the more simple I've become and it's,
it sounds crazy, right?
But like it's all, it's almost like, it's almost
stupid, but like all my clothes, like, you know,
I barely, I very rarely wear like logos anymore.
I just like, it's kind of like,
you know what you know, you can buy many things
or you can afford many things.
It's like, you don't want it anymore.
Like I don't wear a watch.
I used to wear a watch.
I don't wear a watch anymore.
When I was a dealer, you know, I drove like,
I don't know, like an M6 or whatever, like for fun,
you know, it was a demo, like we sold it.
I didn't cost pay anything from the pocket,
but it was inventory.
But the point is, you know, today it's like,
I don't really care what I drive.
Listen, I'm not,
you're not trying to prove it.
Yeah, I'm not trying to prove anything.
I look, I kind of like want to splurge on something.
We just rented, we rented a second home next to my dad.
So like, I think that's like some form of splurging.
It's not something crazy fancy or anything,
but you know, it's something that I wouldn't have done
in the past.
So, listen, long story short is,
I just want to build this business.
I want to continue becoming just the dominant voice
in our industry.
I think there's a lot more growth for us ahead of us.
I think there's a lot of change in our industry.
I think dealers need this type of platform
and just continue iterating
and just doing better, putting out more content
for the industry.
That's kind of what I, what I focus on.
I have kind of connected with my faith
a little bit more recently.
I think just being thankful
because closing a business,
letting down my family, investors,
it was really difficult mentally.
I was like, fuck.
I was like, maybe I shouldn't do this business stuff.
Maybe I should go be a farmer.
I swear to God, I had these thoughts.
I told my wife, and my wife was amazing.
She's like, listen.
She's like, I, she's like,
we could go to a two bedroom, like I'm with you.
My wife also grew up with very modest means.
She doesn't need a lot.
And so that was very reassuring, right?
As a father, as a husband, as a provider,
I really believe that's our job as, you know,
like we're the providers, right?
Like it's like, you know, you're scared,
but she instilled a ton of confidence in me.
And I mean, you know, it's been great since then.
So, you know, just staying very positive.
Well, you're doing a great job
and we appreciate you being on here.
I appreciate you guys.
Thanks so much, man.
I look forward to all the great things
that are coming, man, every episode.
I mean, as a guy who does podcasts,
there's like two or three that I actually listen to
because like you said, some are just like so full of it.
You're like, this is not like that food of time, man.
Love it.
I appreciate your time.
Yeah, thank you.
Thanks, Gents.
This was super fun.
About this episode
Independent dealers face unique challenges in a low-margin business, particularly regarding inventory management and talent acquisition. The discussion highlights the need for data-driven decision-making and effective execution of basic operations. Notable insights include the importance of leveraging technology and understanding market dynamics to attract talent and optimize inventory. The conversation also touches on the potential for AI to revolutionize dealership management systems and the necessity for independents to streamline their operations to remain competitive in a changing landscape.
Original notes
In this episode of The Independent Dealer Podcast, the boys sit down with Car Dealership Guy to tackle the biggest challenges facing independents today—inventory management, hiring talent, scaling operations, and preparing for the future of AI in automotive retail.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
💡 Why inventory is the silent killer and how to protect your margins
📊 How franchise stores leverage data—and what independents can do to catch up
🚗 The talent gap: why it’s tough to hire as an indie and how to sell your growth story
⚡ The “dangerous middle” of 2–3 rooftops vs. the leverage that comes at scale
🤖 How AI could reshape DMS, CRM, websites, and dealer tech in the years ahead
Whether you’re running a single lot or planning to expand, these insights will help you stay lean, recruit better, and future-proof your dealership.
👇 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more strategies from industry experts!
#independentdealerpodcast #CarDealershipGuy #DealerTips #CarBusiness #UsedCars #AutomotiveStrategy #IndependentDealer
Thank you for listening. We hope you learned something new. Let us know what you think.
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The Independent Dealer Podcast
Jeff Watson & Luke Godwin
0:00
45:42