#423 - AI vs. Traditional Marketing: Where Car Dealers Should Be Investing Right Now

Your brand is timeless, but where do I put that time investment?

Do I chase a TikTok channel?

Do I chase an Instagram channel?

Do I chase a YouTube channel?

So as a dealer, you have to decide where am I going to invest my money, time, marketing

dollars, energy in, right?

Yeah, because you can't do it all.

You can't, maybe you shouldn't.

Some people might argue you should.

I know dealers who have doubled down on their TikTok channels and are supposedly selling

cars off of that.

And yeah, we've talked a few people.

Yeah, it's hard to know if that's going to turn into the internet of the future.

A lot of people probably looked at Facebook and Facebook marketing and Facebook ads as

a trendy bandwagon that they didn't want to jump on, so they never jumped on it.

Now were they successful regardless or did they miss the boat?

It is a timeless thing that we needed to do.

Hello and welcome to the independent dealer podcast brought to you by Luke and Jeff, Luke

and Jeff.

Luke and Jeff.

Yeah, we're pretty much the only ones that bring you this content weekly consistently,

Luke.

How many episodes are we on now?

423, I think this one will be.

Wow, that's insane.

Hopefully, you guys are still getting things out of this episode.

We look at our viewership both on iTunes and YouTube, but it continues to grow, so we

continue to do stuff.

So I guess if you don't want to listen, stop listening and we'll stop making it.

Please get me away from Jeff.

I'll stop through the way too much.

Yeah, eventually this has got ahead.

But while we still have an audience and we're enjoying this ride, Luke, what I want to talk

about this week is just some of the hot topics that I see because we do go through so many

of these in-depth conversations with vendors and we have topics and honestly, guys, everything

under the sun we've discussed and we've given you a very deep dive into Buy Here, Pay Here,

into retail, into hybrid models, into CAC, into cash deals, all this stuff we've gone

over in depth.

So go back into the history, look at our catalog of information and you're going to find some

timeless information.

Now, timeless stuff.

There is timeless principles in Buy Here, Pay Here and retail and used cars in general,

but there's also, I would say, maybe more timely information based on the world we live

in today and how things are being run.

I look back, I saw a post the other day from one of my dealer friends that was on Facebook

and I think it was some sort of a giveaway that he was running and it basically said,

like, like, share and comment on my post to enter this drawing and I was like, wow.

Yeah, go down.

There's me back.

We had no, not a long time now.

That throws me back to 2015 when it was all about like, sharing and commenting on your

Facebook page in order to get followers.

There's a silver.

I mean, how many times have you asked for a Facebook review?

Oh, no.

Not anymore.

I mean, we used to.

Yeah.

Is that still a thing?

No, it's been, it's been at least a decade since you cared about a Facebook review.

Now, Google reviews timeless.

Timeless.

To this point.

Right?

Yeah.

As long as that's been around, that is still something you need.

So hopefully those people that were putting money and time and effort into getting reviews,

you were getting Facebook reviews.

So this philosophy cuts, it cuts both ways, right, Luke?

Yes.

How many, did you put effort and time into, let's say, Vine?

Did you ever use Vine back in the day?

I don't even know what Vine is, buddy.

Okay.

Let's take us to some other ones.

What I'm digging at is there are timeless investments.

Yeah.

Featureship.

And there are trendy investments, just like in life, right?

And your brand, your brand is timeless, right?

Your brand is timeless, but where do I put that time investment?

Do I chase a TikTok channel?

Do I chase an Instagram channel?

Do I chase a YouTube channel?

Clubhouse.

Oh, there's a good one.

That's a great term.

Remember that?

Oh, my God.

That was awesome.

You told me.

Yeah, you told me and I was like, this is not going to last.

This is terrible.

I think they're so active.

I don't know.

Are you kidding me?

So, as a dealer, you have to decide where am I going to invest my money, time, marketing

dollars, energy in, right?

Yeah, because you can't do it all, because you can't do it all.

You can't, maybe you shouldn't.

Some people might argue you should.

I know dealers who have doubled down on their TikTok channels and are supposedly selling

cars off of that.

Yeah, we've talked a few people.

Yeah, it's hard to know if that's going to turn into the inner net of the future.

A lot of people probably looked at Facebook and Facebook marketing and Facebook ads as

a trendy bandwagon that they didn't want to jump on, so they never jumped on it.

Now were they successful regardless or did they miss the boat?

Is AI a timeless thing that we needed to do?

Yeah.

You know, I actually, I asked Chat the other day, the best place to buy a pre-owned car

in Columbia, South Carolina, and it said Goblin Motors.

Wow.

I don't know how that happened.

Wow.

No, I have no idea.

So, that was through Chat, John Gemini, so it wasn't a Google review situation.

It was probably a general web search.

Yeah.

You get the same results when you just type that into an incognito web browser?

I don't do that.

That would be interesting to see where you rank, how your Chat GPT ranking compares to

just a regular web browser, you know, Google search or Bing search or, you know, you think

that your Google search would match up with the Gemini AI search, that those would be

very similar.

Yeah, you would expect that.

I'm not.

But is that the search of the future?

And we talked about it a little bit in a previous episode that places like Chat are

now allowing advertising.

So do you want to learn the rules and jump through the hoops to get your dealership set

up on Chat GPT as an advertiser?

So when someone does ask Chat, hey, where do I go buy?

You're not just reliant on the organic, but you're actually going to be showing up as

a paid ad in Chat.

What's funny is I just did what you said with the incognito.

And it doesn't give you an answer.

It just gives you just gives you a bunch of ads.

It just it doesn't give you an organic results.

It does not.

It lists a bunch of people.

But it doesn't it doesn't say, hey, and maybe maybe it's that we're getting used to this

this Chat, this AI type of of thought process that Google might be leaving

our mind, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So actually, at that point, I went to AI mode and at AI mode, it actually gives us top rated

dealers and GABA motors, definitely.

And of the one, two, three, four, five people listed, GABA motors is in there.

Oh, boy, yeah.

And that's an AI mode, AI mode, but not on a regular Google search mode, Google search

incognito.

And you know, it has the AI mode or the all.

OK.

I clicked the AI mode and that came off.

There you go.

I'm I'm a regular mode.

I'm ranked down in a lower I'm in the maps because I show up very good for my Google

listings, my Google reviews, my business listing shows up really good.

I have an ad campaign running, but apparently not strong enough for these other people.

And I show up third in AI mode, which is about the same as the map.

It looks like I don't know how these guys beat me out.

That's nonsense.

Um, so what it tells me is I need to go in and look at their websites and I need to

see what they're doing that is causing chat to have their dealerships rank above

mine when I type in some of these generic terms.

Um, what I'm trying to drive at, Luke, is where and how are you finding time and

energy to chase these things?

And how do you vet them to say, yes, my instincts tell me this is a place I should

put my energy into because of the long term payoff?

Yeah, I don't know.

It's OK.

You know, it's going, it's talking to other dealers, talking to other businesses,

you know, as Cardinals, we kind of sell ourselves into we're all Cardinals.

They're saying, we talk about cars, right?

I was talking to somebody the other day that is looking to invest in roofing

companies and then I have a cousin that owns a roofing company and I was talking

to him about it and he's like, essentially, we're just a marketing company.

There's three crews in Columbia, South Carolina, that in Richland and

Lexington County, South Carolina, that do all the routes.

And so no matter if you hire A, B, C roofing or X, Y, Z roofing, the same

set of guys are going to be putting the shingles on your house.

That's funny.

That's my boy, right?

It's so.

So it's just a marketing company.

And so the more you think about other businesses and how they relate, I think

the better you are to incorporate those type things into what we do as Cardinals,

not limit yourself to talking to other Cardinals, but to think outside the box

and outside of the echo chamber that we're in, like, oh, cars are too high,

so we shouldn't buy cars or, you know, oh, that's the slow ones.

We're not going to sell cars.

I think you just have to think differently.

And when you think differently, you get new ideas to market better or to

build your business differently or whatever it is.

There's businesses that have been around a long time that are car businesses.

So let's emulate kind of what they're doing.

Maybe they're on the front.

Maybe we aren't anymore.

I don't know.

But there's a way to do it that we aren't thinking about maybe.

Hey, sorry to break in real quick, but make sure you guys know about Buckeye.

Long time, awesome sponsor of the podcast and who I use for all my reinsurance products.

I can't thank them enough for teaching me so much about reinsurance over the years

and coming up with new products and new ways to get my portfolio secured.

My customers have options of warranties and service contracts, gap.

I think it's just been great, Jeff.

It's absolutely been a great way for me to build wealth, put away some money.

So if you are a buyer, pay here, lease here, pay here or retail dealer,

it works for all dealers.

You can set up a reinsurance company.

You can ensure your own stop giving money to those third party providers

that aren't going to cover your stuff.

Anyways, keep it in-house.

Call the guys and girls over at Buckeye risk services and get set up ASAP.

Yeah.

And that leads me to think of the ones that don't survive because we do see dealerships

that have kind of hit the skids over the last, you know, six to 12 months.

And we've documented this quite a bit with the perfect storm.

We feel like of raising, rising repos, rising cost of cars,

rising cost of the race, fences, rates going up, sales slowing down all at the same time,

you know, for whatever reason.

Are there things those guys and gals could have done to stay out of that situation?

It's yes.

The longer the shorter that answer is yes.

And it's how you run your business and how you engage in your business.

So many businesses are under capitalized and people don't know or over-expensed, right?

You could be under capitalized and over-expensed and you're going to die really quickly,

or you could be under capitalized with the right expenses and you don't want to involve

yourself enough and you just slowly bleed to death.

I think that the biggest reason people go out of business

is because they don't treat your business as a business.

Oh, really?

In that it's a hobby or in that it's a...

It's a second thought.

People get bored.

Hey, I'm living proof that these things happen, but I recognize quickly that

maybe it was time just to move out.

I mean, we were still very profitable, but it's like

sometimes you get bored and you take your off the ball.

And so you need somebody to bring you back to reality sometimes.

And it's easy to do, especially when you've been doing the same business for 20 years.

If you don't have good management, you don't have good processes and procedures in place,

it can go off the rails really quickly.

And if you haven't saved a lot of money and reinvested in your business,

you could be out of business real quicker.

Yeah. And I think what you said there is really crucial in that as dealers that are

listening that have been at it a really long time, there's a handful of you that

still have a deep passion for the business and enjoy getting up to work every day to

take one penny and turn it into two pennies by shining it up and putting a new set of

brake pads on it.

But some of us get a little bored with that hustle.

And so what I want to draw the connection to is to wrap it all the way around to our

first part of the conversation of those new, those new things in the industry that you

can chase that might pay off long term, might not, but what it does do in the near term is

it gives you a new passion for the business.

Yeah, it gives you a reason to be behind the desk every day and say, hey, I'm going to

learn AI this week and how to make my dealership better through AI integration,

whether it's automation, whether it's silly graphics or videos that I'm going to use

through social media, whether it's I'm going to build my own CRM, I'm going to just

vibe code a CRM and kick this expense out completely because I want to have my own

system that I own, I control, and it's going to cost me a fraction once I have it built.

It might take me six weeks to do it.

So those types of things I think are areas that some dealers that are maybe in that

you know, kind of like burnt out phase, let's say, I don't know, burnt out, maybe

just burned down, worn down, worn down on paper thin rotors, you know, you can see

both your both sides of them.

We've seen those just to put a little more tread on the life, you know, because

that's for me, what does it?

And I say all this because the variety in my side of my dealership and the other

things I have going on.

Now, the other things I have going on can be a distraction.

I get it.

I could chase the podcast.

I can chase, you know, whatever else and get myself distracted to take my

off the prize of the dealership.

But if I can find things to keep me interested inside the dealership, you

know, there is probably, you know, there's probably a way to be made there.

Yeah.

Now I'm keeping my eye on the ball, but maybe I'm just really, really focusing on,

you know, how I'm going to help my shop use AI to diagnose cars better.

Yeah.

What you don't want to do there when you were talking about timeless and

family type things is you don't want to go down a path where you, you're just,

you're spending all your time chasing things that, that aren't going to work.

Right.

You still have to run your business and you still have to be engaged.

These little, these little side, John, we'll call them, they're okay.

Don't get, don't get too far down a rabbit hole.

Yeah.

I would argue that it could be an 80, 20.

And I say 80 side quest, 20 core, because of this, because I think you

need to delegate the middle 50 to somebody else.

Okay.

I think you've got the middle 50 of the jobs that you're doing, the 50% of tasks

that you have on your daily play can be delegated to someone else at a cheaper

per dollar rate or just to free up your brain space.

And you spend more time on the innovative cutting edge.

What new product am I going to bring into the dealership?

What new system am I going to fix?

What new this am I going to do?

Am I going to get a set up on an Instagram, TikTok account and come up

with a marketing schedule for that?

And then 20% is core, core, core tasks that I will never give up.

Right.

Maybe for you, that's buying the parts.

Maybe for you, that's the accounting.

Maybe for you, that's, you know, picking up cigarette butts because it's therapeutic.

I don't know what it is, but I would say that'd be the mix.

Maybe that's wrong or too strong.

You need to find it, but it goes back to previous episodes we talked about where

list out everything you do in a week, in a month, put everything on a spreadsheet

and then look at the core items that are only yours, that give you excitement

and passion and find a way to delegate all the rest, either your existing employees

or if you need to hire someone, it's probably worth the money.

Yeah.

And just remember, AI agents, you could build them to take a lot of the

aggravation off, you know, off yourself.

Yeah, some of your stuff, you know, we talked about my Google review of AI

agent that automatically responds to the Google reviews.

Now I've got one I set up that takes all my happy customer photos.

So when we take the picture at the end, my salesman now just upload

that photo to a Google drive, it grabs the photo, writes a little caption

and then posts it to my Facebook page, a little caption with a happy customer

photo.

So I've automated that Facebook posting process.

I've done that also with the Google reviews.

It won't let me post to Google business.

So that is a hurdle I'm trying to figure out a workaround for because.

I wonder why that is.

Yeah, it's really weird.

You can take it from Google business and you can post a review, but you

can't actually post a photo through AI agents or through zappy or integration.

Google business doesn't allow you to automatically integrate a photo.

Anyways, so, so we're doing those things to simplify, but there's a million

other areas, there's so many other areas.

If I could get the data from my vendor, or if I could find a way to get the

data out in an easy fashion and load it into AI and then kick out some data

that's now actionable, not just data for data sake, you know, sometimes it's

like junk in, junk out, or you get stuff out and you're like, okay, cool,

what am I supposed to do with this?

Or, wow, I got all this data.

Now that just created a shit ton more work for me.

You know, like, I don't want to do that, but I want it to be actionable data.

Yeah.

It's who are we?

I was talking to somebody talking about having a chief data officer, right?

Yeah.

And, and I think AI is your chief data officer for, for people like us.

And you should build a GPT that does that for you and points out the data

that some blind spot to you.

I was reviewing some repo files of the day and, and I had a blind spot,

total blind spot of it.

And I said, Hey, I see this.

What else am I missing?

And all of a sudden it goes, these payments are really hot.

And I go, Oh, okay.

Well, that makes sense.

But it's, it took somebody else looking at the data.

You know, anyway.

All right, Jeff, sorry to break in, but we got to talk about putting

money in the bank and how do we do that?

I do it through Blitz pay.

The guys and girls at Blitz pay are great, amazing, attentive on top of it.

I have had little to no issues since I switched over from that other company.

For sure.

They, to me, they're probably the best services when it comes to answering

phone calls and taking care of things that I've ever seen a vendor.

And the back in automation, I've actually been working with that for

a couple of dealers here lately and going in and changing up these automated

texts that go out super simple, they work, uh, the customers click and pay.

It's fantastic.

And also they got this AI thing, Jeff, pretty cool.

Yeah, I'm stoked.

They got the audio AI, the phone caller, and hopefully very soon the texting

version of that.

So it'll help my collector be way more efficient in the future.

Um, I'm super stoked to see the AI get integrated into the collections

process and Blitz pay is on the cutting edge of it.

So if you're taking credit cards at all, whether you're by here, pay

here, lease here, pay here, even retail dealers can take advantage of this

and use Blitz pay for their credit card processing, incredibly competitive

rates, super easy interface, call the team over at Blitz pay and move

your credit card processing today.

Your PTI was too high for those, those repos that came back.

It picked out that common thread like, Hey, these, these payment incomes

were maybe too high and that could have been the cause of repo.

And it really wasn't the PTI was it?

I'm going to go down a rabbit hole real quick.

PTI can line up.

Okay.

Because your customer makes, let's just say, let's just say your customer

makes a net of $4,000 a month, Jeff, and a 20% PTI is 800 bucks, right?

Yeah.

Who in the buyer pay your space needs $800 a month.

Yeah.

Your body, right?

And so it's just those little things that for some reason, if you look at

the PTI, it says it's fine.

But then when you start looking at the actual payments, you go, Oh,

the PTO, Oh, the PTO payments to other options.

And then the customer says, wait a minute, I'm paying $800 for this.

100% I just saw them advertise a hum day.

There are 600 a month.

Or, or they actually advertise it for two, nine, nine a month, which

they'll never get that.

But let's just say they get four, nine, nine a month.

Yeah.

And again, the nights are in your car.

So anyway, AI is your friend.

AI is your, your chief data officer.

Um, and that is really where people need to be spending time in the data.

It's my opinion.

Yeah.

I like doing my annual inventory audit where I upload all my vehicles and all

the data of like what I paid for them and where I bought them from and what I

paid for recon.

And then I asked AI to sort that out.

And it tells me, you know, on average, cars you bought from

Mannheim cost you X amount of recon.

And on average, cars you bought from private party cost you this.

And here are the highest making model for your recon costs, you know.

And, and so you kind of look at that and you think, Oh man, I really thought

that these cars were great, but they're really not the best source for me.

So I'm paying over, plus I'm paying more.

And then I'm paying more for recon.

Like I got to avoid that auction all together.

They're, they're just the cleaners.

Yeah.

Well, just thinking you had multiple buyers.

And yeah, I paired against.

Yeah.

Oh, I thought this power is doing a really good job.

He's actually costing me a lot of money.

Yeah.

And what's so great is you get that in the matter of five seconds

instead of 50 minutes doing it yourself.

Yeah.

Very, very interesting.

Yeah.

Um, cool.

Luke, anything else in closing this week that you're excited about?

Um, I'm excited that you and I are going to be going to Buy Your Pay Here United soon.

Yeah, we absolutely need to make sure everyone, guys, if you are not signed up

for Buy Your Pay Here United, you need to be right now.

It's going to be in Las Vegas again.

It's at the Caesars.

Am I right?

At the Caesars.

And what's cool?

It's our friend, Steve Levine at Compliance Aliche.

And it's our friend, Tim Lawrence from LHPH Capital.

And it's Buy Your Pay Here United.

Like they mix it all together.

I like that.

It's easier to get everything done and there'll be so much to learn.

So many good people there.

I can't wait, bro.

Yeah.

And I've been on the, I'm on the board or whatever they call it, the

dealer advisory board for the education sessions.

And this is going to be top notch Buy Your Pay Here education.

So every single session has been meticulously crafted.

The presenters have been handpicked.

The garage sessions are going to be great because they're going to be hands

on workshops where you're going to get AI and accounting and selling the car,

walk around and GPS install advice.

And I'm physically taking a car down there so that they can install a GPS

and they can do a walk around on it and poke holes in it.

So we're not going to cut this one in half.

Yeah.

Not like last year.

So it's going to be, it's going to be great, man.

So, so definitely sign up.

When is this going down?

It's like a 19th, April 19th through the 21st.

Yep.

In Las Vegas.

So, and then there's a myriad of other conventions going on through the summertime.

So start getting those on your calendar.

Obviously, if you're near Utah or in Utah, there's Utah's statewide convention,

April 13th, it looks like Florida is doing a great combined one as well.

That, that should be really exciting.

Yeah.

That's it.

It's Florida.

Alabama, without the one in April was like Florida and, and automotive

remarking is doing one and then Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee,

I think you're doing one in the other time.

Yeah.

Miramar, Florida, like on the case, it's going to be good.

Yeah.

And then we've got, of course, buy here, pay here, dealer forum going on at in Denver.

That's NIADA.

NIADA.

So a lot of great education coming up.

Yeah.

I think it's going to be a good spring and summer.

There's a collections boot camp happening.

I mean, in Atlanta, May 12th, May 14th, May 14th, May 14th, that I'm putting on.

Let's pay and it Iran are going to be there.

And yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be fun.

It'll be tolerable.

All right.

Lou, good talking to you.

Catch up with you next week.

All right, buddy.

#423 - AI vs. Traditional Marketing: Where Car Dealers Should Be Investing Right Now

About this episode

reinsurance

gap

warranties and service contracts

dealership financial challenges

brake pads

paper thin rotors

AI to diagnose cars

Blitz Pay

PTI

annual inventory audit

recon

Mannheim

private party

Buy Here Pay Here

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