Thank you to Hague Partners for supporting the show.
And now let's get on to our next guest, Jason Villa
from Vanguard Kia of Arlington.
I was telling them a little bit about your background.
You know, we're happy to have you here.
So I want to ask you the trademark question of how is Biz
but before you answer that question of how business is today
in August, almost September of 2025.
Give us a little background on you.
We know you came to the store in January of this year.
Correct?
Where was the store then?
Where is it now?
And you know, what's the current state of affairs?
So the store's been doing well.
They were up quite a bit last year over the year before.
They were, you know, 1100 and then 1500.
And so, you know, things were going great.
I think they just were lacking kind of just
more experienced leadership.
And so I was able to get this opportunity to come on board
and just kind of dial some things up
and just turn it up, take it up a notch.
It's been a lot of fun.
When you say dial some things up,
like what specifically are you looking at
when you come into a store?
And what are the first lever that you're looking to pull
or button that you're looking to push?
Yes, that's a good question.
The first thing I do is I just try to sit back at my house
and take a retail holistic view.
Can I service a oil change appointment on Monday morning?
What car do I like?
You know, do I want to buy it?
Do I have the data I need?
And I found out pretty quickly,
there was just a whole bunch of little things
that weren't being done.
So actually, you know, you've had my twin brother on,
we talk about the business a lot.
And I was like, man, I don't know that this,
I don't know that I want to say it's going to be easy,
but you know, look at this list I've made.
And it's just, it's so basic.
It almost does a disservice to talk about
how basic it is, but it's just a little thing, right?
Photos, we had 390 cars online,
new cars with stock photos,
descriptions and then pricing.
Kia, like a lot of manufacturers has map pricing,
so you've got to play in the rule guideline.
But if you're pushing a stock photo on a vehicle
at MSRP pricing and this major Metroplex that DFW is,
you know, you're not going to get
the most amount of opportunities, right?
So step one was sit my team down,
kind of start with the why, right?
Like show them, here's what I'm looking at.
Here's where we're lacking.
And hey, we got to take 360 pictures today.
So how are we going to do that, right?
And then we'll come up with a plan,
use the whole staff, make a circle around the building,
all that kind of stuff, but get them online,
then spend the tedious amount of time to say,
hey, this car has a third row seat.
You know, so I think it's easy for us car guys
to say every telluride has a third row seat,
but I'm not sure when you're on the cars.com
auto trader, you know, people might not know that.
And so not clicking a button
or not writing it in the description can cost you,
you know, a deal can cost you who knows 100 deals, right?
So it's just a, it's just a culmination of a whole bunch
of the very basic things done every day with intention.
And then, you know, we woke up,
I started last week of January,
store did 104 new and then in February,
we did 146 and then we took that right up to 213.
So it turns out we're sitting on a really good corner.
We've got a great ownership group here.
You know, we've got a great operation.
We've got everything we could need.
We just had to take ourselves to the market really.
I just, I find it so hard to believe that in 2025,
there's still, you know, large players in the market
that are using stock photos.
And I don't mean to disrespect any of our viewership,
but that seems like such low hanging fruit, right?
I mean, if you're telling me step one for you
is just the vehicle merchandising,
making sure that your new cars and new cars
are merchandised correctly.
I mean, this to me is kind of remedial stuff.
How was the, how was the crew when you came in?
I mean, are you looking at the sales department first,
the service department first?
What else are you looking to do?
Yeah, so it was both sales and service, right?
Our service scheduler was broken online.
You know, so I noticed that.
So at the same time, I'm kind of having two conversations
trying to, trying to fix everything at once, right?
Service has been great here.
They're really good.
They perform very strong,
but we've got a big lift there as well.
So, and it's, you know, same thing, right?
It's like, can you schedule an appointment online?
What is our phone call in process look like?
Can you give us some context when you say
the service department's performing well?
Yeah. Oh, sure.
Yeah. So last year they were averaging
559, I'm sorry, 497 last year.
And this year we're up to 559 to fix operations total.
We've had a record month of 603
and then we beat it by 613.
So, you know, I'm trying to find out how high
that bar is where we can set it.
You know, I'm thinking we can,
I'm thinking we can get quite higher than that,
but we're looking to put an extra 790 on the board
this year, if everything stays the same.
So that's pretty nice.
You said something that struck a chord with me.
And I think we talked about it in the past,
setting the bar and resetting the bar.
So I know that you and I are of like mind where it comes to,
hey, great just ends up being normal.
Great is not great anymore.
It's just baseline.
How do you keep your team that may not be as stubborn
as someone like us motivated and, you know,
hungry to continually keep setting and resetting that bar?
It's hard, right?
I mean, I've been fortunate the crew we inherited here,
you know, they've jumped on board pretty quick.
It's nice to have the early wins.
So when you have them sitting here writing descriptions,
you know, super late for a couple of weeks,
they start seeing the benefits of that.
And I've been big on you got to celebrate the wins.
You know, we take a minute, you know, pause for a moment.
But then it's like, hey, we've got to go again, right?
That whole hero to zero adage.
Guys like us, we were raised on that, right?
Like, you know what?
You sold 10 cars yesterday.
Okay. Well, what have you done today?
Right. And so with my, like with my fixed ups director,
I was shown the name of a high jump.
You know, so when we were talking about at high jump as a
failure sport, right?
You go tell you knocked that bar down.
And then next time you get up there and you try to get
over that bar again.
And when you get over it, it's like, yeah,
you can flex and you can throw a party.
But meanwhile, there's two dudes that just raised it up.
And you got to walk back there to the starting line and go beat
that number.
Right.
So it's just a resentless pursuit of perfection, right?
Like we, we have to go, man.
Tomorrow's not promised to me.
And so just preaching that to the crew with my sales guys and
gals and the management team.
You know, so the frontline staff has just kind of painted the
picture that like we have this opportunity.
And we're sitting on top of a goldmine here at this corner
that we're on.
It's just, I mean, it's majestic.
Right.
And we have to go get it today because we don't know what's
going to happen tomorrow.
Right.
We could get turned off again.
I mean, it's unlikely, but.
Hey, Jason, I have a question on so.
Jason question on your, on your tech stack as you,
as you've gone through this transition and you've grown
sales, done a great job.
Have you changed any tech and what tech are you using
just like run us for your overall tech stack of,
you know, you've done a great job.
Sure.
So not, not a lot.
We use tech in as a DMS.
I love it.
This is my first time on it.
I love it.
We got drive centric,
which I'll mention in the last segment.
I believe that's the gold standard,
especially from the operator standpoint.
I mean, the way you can sit here and just look at the
workflow and the leads and go ahead and just tag somebody
and drive centric is definitely second to none.
I mean,
you know,
you know,
drive centric is definitely second to none.
Um,
I use rapid recon for tracking,
um,
or use car reconditioning.
And then everything else we get, you know,
route one,
um, we use the auto provision and stock wave.
So I think we're probably pretty basic as far as that goes.
I mean,
we've got the best tools,
I believe and be auto and drive centric and then
tech,
I mean everybody's got their favorite DMS.
I like tech.
Yeah,
and it's easy to get around.
So,
so I know you're,
you're doing some wonders also in the use car department.
I know in your eyes,
you want to do better.
What that's the,
the sickness in us all, right?
But you're doing a 12 times turn,
which is strong and automotive.
Um,
but you were candid offscreen as far as your,
your days to frontline could be better.
I think you had said that you're,
you're five or six days to frontline.
What are you doing right now to,
to try and shorten that up?
I know we want to be, you know, two, three days out
and we can get that turn even higher,
you know, 12 up to 14, 15 times.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's good question.
I mean, we're,
I think we do a great job.
We track it in rapid recon and that's an all in six days.
So we're up online inside of 12 hours.
We do the detail first.
We take a full photo set and then we get it in for inspection
and start that process.
And then after that, we have our onsite,
we'll repair bumpers,
10 touch up just a, you know,
all inclusive deal that we do,
which is included in the six days.
So when, you know,
so six days up front,
but that's a real like retail ready, um,
pure six days,
but it is marketed inside of 24 hours.
I'm real big on, I used to be, you know,
put the appraisal photos up and just pick the good ones
and then let it go through its process
and take the final pictures up.
We still reshoot the car at the end of the process
and we'll shoot around like a bumper repair
because we know we're going to do it.
But, um, but I've switched gears in the last,
I don't know,
probably 18 months to detail photo first
and then let the process run.
Do you have any in-house policy when it comes to,
I think you had mentioned to me earlier
that you're certifying anything that is certifiable, right?
Which I think is smart
and the best way to gain market share there.
Do you have any policy internally
to kind of speed things up in your service department?
I mean, are you giving them a dollar amount that,
hey, if there's a frontline car,
you don't have to ask me if it's under this, this amount?
Yeah, I've toyed with it
and I've got a stud recon manager that he knows what,
he knows what I, what I will and won't do.
So a lot of times he'll just already be doing it based off
of like, I say 1250 on a, on a fresh car,
1400 if it's a little bit older,
you can pretty much autopilot that.
I still look at it.
My used car approval bucket and rapid is like 0.02.
You know, so I can,
I can approve those pretty much no matter where I am,
you know, outside of like a call like this, right?
But so I haven't rolled out the full automated there, but.
Give us an approval on there.
Come on, Jason, give it to us.
Yeah.
What's a car that just came through?
1250, let's go.
Let's run through them together.
Jason, you, by the way, just a sidebar,
but you mentioned your recon manager is great.
I've hired plenty of recon managers in the past.
What's the, what's the background of your current recon manager?
I mean, everyone or many people on this platform are launching
their own recon facilities and, you know,
growing their reconditioning operations because their used
department is growing.
So I'm curious what is the background of the person.
Yeah, such a, such a good role.
I was lucky and inherited of this guy.
His name's Enrique.
He's just a, he's just a rock star.
I mean, he handles everything.
He, he's over the photo guy.
He does the, the use car stocking process for the third party
acquisitions so that he can get them written up and get them
rolling real good.
You know, kind of doubles as a lot manager third party recon.
We got, we do a lot of lifted trucks.
So some of that stuff we send down to a local company here
that can help us with the alignments or,
or different shocks and whatnot,
but he's really kind of a catch all.
And then in the auto group,
I was able to bring over a long time guy I've worked
with as well.
And I know his background a little more,
but this guy was a stud sales person,
spent a little time on the desk,
wrote a wrote service and a little bit of service manager,
but more of just kind of a Monday to Friday type desire.
Right.
And so, you know,
you got to find the guy that just totally understands parts
and, and retail and,
and obviously communicating with technicians is kind of just,
it can be a skill.
They're human like anybody else,
but you got to kind of know how to motivate those guys.
And so it's,
it's hard to find the right guy,
but when you find the right guy,
you don't want to lose him.
Jason, I got last question for you before we wrap
and we appreciate you coming out on the show.
It's August 2025, almost September.
What is keeping you up at night as the general manager of Kia
in Van, Vanguard Kia, Arlington, Texas.
Making it back on the daily deal alive.
Yeah, that's a good one.
You know what worries me right now is,
me and my buddies and I was talking to our CFO
or I'm sorry, COO the other day,
it's to not make in the fourth quarter
use car mistake that we make every year.
Right.
Oh, we had a big July.
We had a big August below an inventory.
Let's go fill this wagon up.
Right.
And it's like,
how many years in a row do we have to tell each other this
except for then add in,
okay, there's no use cars coming down the pipe.
MMR is going up.
So do I need to load the wagon?
I mean, am I going to get stuck with these cars
or am I going to make money in January?
And so, you know,
when we spoke about where we're at with you is right where,
you know, we're not where we want to be.
And I could push the needle by putting more cars on the ground,
but we're clean and we're lean.
And it's that it's just so tough, right?
Like, I mean, should I buy another hundred?
So, so, so what is your strategy?
What strategy are you going to do?
I'm, I'm kind of in the middle, man.
I'm, you know, I'm first elected.
We're going to stick it in our core.
We've, we've, we've developed a couple of niches outside.
We do big, we do very well with big lifted trucks.
We're doing good with electric.
Use electrics off-brand.
And so we're kind of stacking those and we're stacking the
core real deep.
And we're keeping everything we can.
And just trying to just trying to stay kind of stay more to
there's no Q4, like let's, let's do the best we can without,
you know, just creating a water for us in January.
So I take that you're not stocking up.
Stan Lee.
Well, I'm not intentionally raising the raise.
Well, we love it.
Well, we appreciate you coming out man and coming on the
show.
Well, we'll have to touch base of the agenda.
I mean, we'll have to, you know,
come out man and coming on the show.
Well, we'll have to touch base of the again in the future and
see how far up you got that turn.
Thank you, Jason.
Thanks, Jason.
Yeah, right on.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me and congratulations.
You guys have done great.
All right, come on.
Thanks man.
Thank you man.
Great spotting.
The second he said like we always made the same mistake
in Q4.
I was like, I know exactly what you're going to say.
But I, I, I, there's many different perspectives on this.
And I'm, especially in the last couple of years,
it was all over the place because of, you know,
increasing prices, which I know is an anomaly.
I am curious to see what people think.
Right.
So if you have a phone on this, send us a DM,
put it in the comments right now if you're seeing it live,
email me.
I mean, you can get in touch with me literally every single
way.
Send me, send a dove to my house with like a letter.
I don't care, but tell me, tell me,
tell me what you think about this, right?
The Q4 use car, are you stocking up?
Are you staying, you know, lean and on just,
you know, normal buying cadence.
I am curious to see what people are going to say if their
strategies have shifted, especially this year,
as we've kind of are approaching the trough of,
you know, the use car shortage in terms of
off lease supply re-enter in the market.
So again, even this year from a use car perspective is
going to be a bit different.
Yuli, we're about to wrap up.
I did want us to touch on a quick industry polls.
Saw this interesting comment on LinkedIn and it was
from a gentleman named Jason Barber.
And he wrote public service announcement.
If you as a GM don't have authorization to spend
$10,000 for anything in the dealership that will
make the business money.
The company isn't having you operate as a true GM.
You're doing busyness, not business.
Kind of got me thinking of the Michael Murray
episode on Friday.
By the way, and this was not related to that.
I'm pretty sure he posted this before that episode air.
So completely independent.
What did you think?
I think it's a, it's a strong stance.
And I think it's justified.
I mean, to Michael's defense, when Sam had pressed him on the
question, I mean, he's still encouraging his GMs to bring
or and platform VPs to bring the ideas to him.
I think ultimately he wants final say where the money is
flying, which I don't see anything wrong there.
But I mean, I got the impression at least and maybe
this is anecdotal.
I got the impression that he is giving that flexibility
for one of his employees to bring him.
Hey, we need this.
And he'll sign off on it.
But yeah, I think it's right.
And I think that I think the biggest challenge here is
or the biggest difference maker is your group size,
because I think the bigger the group.
The, you know, you might, you might say, Hey,
there's this $10,000 investment that we can
actually test out in 10 different stores and maybe
get a significant discount.
And there's all these different incentives in play.
And so I don't know the move here is to not give autonomy.
Maybe it's some control in the process where at least,
you know, you get the benchmark with other stores or,
you know, it's always good to get perspective.
So I think this is a, you know, he definitely took
a stance here.
He picked one side.
And I think he's coming from this gentleman.
I don't know him.
He's coming from a good place.
He's just trying to say like, you know, empower your team,
which I fully agree with.
But I think that I'm being practical and different size
groups, right?
Different incentives.
What might be good for one store might not be good
for the entire group.
And that's where it comes into play where you have to
have a little bit more discretion and ask yourself, okay,
sure, maybe you can recommend something that will be
approved 90% of the time, but let's see,
let's showcase it to the entire group.
And maybe while you're going through that signup process,
we get a package deal.
So just thought.
Yeah.
Thank you spot on.
So that wraps it up, Yuli.
That was a fun show.
Always a fun show.
So thank you everyone for watching Daily Dealer Live.
You had us as a co-host or backfilling here for Sam,
who's not with us today, but is back Wednesday.
So that's always great.
And of course, as always,
we bring down the biggest moves in the car business as they happen.
Don't forget to like, subscribe, follow the show, share it,
fill in our guest request sheet at CDGS.com as we mentioned
earlier in the show.
And that wraps it up.
We'll see you on Wednesday.
We'll see you next time.
About this episode
Yossi Levy and Yuli DiMartino host a lively discussion featuring industry expert Cliff Banks and Jason Villa from Vanguard Kia. They explore the impact of private equity on auto retail, the challenges posed by tariffs, and the evolving landscape of vehicle sales, including the potential threat from companies like Carvana. Villa shares insights on turning around his Kia store, focusing on improving vehicle merchandising and service operations. The episode highlights the importance of adapting to market changes and maintaining engagement with customers to drive sales.
Today's show features:
Jason Villa, General Manager of Vanguard Kia of Arlington
Cliff Banks, President & Founder of The Banks Report & AUTOVATE.org
This episode is brought to you by:
Haig Partners – Public retailers cite it. National media trusts it. Dealers rely on it. The Haig Report® sets the standard for dealership M&A data and trends in auto retail. Read it at https://haigpartners.com/Haig-Report/.
—
Check out Car Dealership Guy’s stuff:
CDG News ➤ https://news.dealershipguy.com/
CDG Jobs ➤ https://jobs.dealershipguy.com/
CDG Recruiting ➤ https://www.cdgrecruiting.com/
My Socials:
X ➤ https://www.twitter.com/GuyDealership
Instagram ➤ https://www.instagram.com/cardealershipguy/
TikTok ➤ https://www.tiktok.com/@guydealership
LinkedIn ➤ https://www.linkedin.com/company/cardealershipguy/
Threads ➤ https://www.threads.net/@cardealershipguy
Facebook ➤ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077402857683
Everything else ➤ dealershipguy.com