0:00 / 0:00

Car Guy Coffee & DriveCentric presents “Live at Drive for #DC20” feat. Joe Brown & John Vincent

Car Guy Coffee May 07, 2024 18 min

0:00

About this episode

The Car Guy Coffee Podcast features a lively discussion with Joe Brown and newcomer John Vincent at the Drive for #DC20 event. They explore the importance of networking in the automotive industry, sharing insights on maximizing customer engagement and leveraging CRM tools. John reflects on his eye-opening experiences at the event, while Joe emphasizes the value of partnerships over vendor relationships. The conversation is filled with motivational anecdotes and practical advice aimed at improving dealership performance and fostering a culture of growth and accountability.

Topics: networking customer engagement CRM tools partnerships dealership performance growth culture motivation accountability

Car Guy Coffee & DriveCentric presents “Live at Drive for #DC20” feat. Joe Brown & John Vincent

DriveCentric and Car Guy Coffee are excited to continue our new Web Series "DC20 Unlocked". We are live at “#DC20 2024”. In this episode we talk with Joe Brown, CMO at Frank Leta Auto Group & John Vincent, Director of Business & Development at Auto Genius. Let’s Brew!

Don’t forget to share and subscribe!

Brew Brought By:

www.drivecentric.com

Select text to request an explanation

Hello, and welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast for the DC twenty Unlocked series, brought to you by drive Centric. For more information or to get

signed up for the next DC twenty event, go to drive centric dot com.

Let's prove what's going on. Car Guys in Cargays, Welcome back to

the Car Guy Coffee Podcast. This is moving the rede of the car Guy.

This is Frelenard's subprime hero and as you can see, we are gonna do a little double fist action right now. So we do have somebody who's

not new to an intergroup and somebody that's as green as him be inside of this car Guy coffee scene. And we are excited that each and every one

of you are here. But Fred, what do they gotta do? Tag

a car guy, tag a car gal and share. Get this out there,

folks, because we have two solutionaries in the building, Like you said, one it's been here before, another one super green. Right, But

it's gonna be really fun and we're gonna make sure that you guys get a floated show full of fun, inspiration and things that are happening here at the DC twenty. So to make sure you come back and come to the next

one, I should say, now, come back, and if you've been here before, yes, come back. We want to see you. We

want you to be here. If you've never been interviewed, comebin and see

us. Just like this guy right here, mister John Vincent himself. I'm

excited to learn more about you, John, since you were new to it, tell everybody a little bit about yourself, John Vincent, director of Business Development, which aka director of everything. And I've been in the automotive business,

retail side for ten years before that, four years over a vendor and yeah, love what I do, love where I work, and just looking to grow every day. Oh yeah, yeah, welcome to the party.

Usually when you're the first time on this show, when you have that opportunity to be in here, we got to be loud about it. So let's

make welcome to the car back call. That's right, for the first time

ever, and it's almost like you're like an honorary post like that. Yeah,

he's the third host. Today's building everybody. Oh no, Joe Brown,

it's Hollywood himself, right, we have in here, the one, the only John Bendit said, welcome to the part. You're in the building

now, man, we appreciate you so much. N we know that you're

short on time. You got to take off and get out of here really

soon. He's got a literally, he has a vehicle that's gonna be picking

him up in about twenty two minutes, right, So we're gonna make sure that you guys get as much information from him as possible over the next twenty two minutes. While we're over here sipping on some coffee, so you can

see, we've got somebody over here at the fancy class, right, he's excuse me, let me get a sip of this. But we all know

that Joe loves his coffee. He is literally a cup of Joe. I

like that. So let's go John Man, how have you liked DC twenty

so far? It's been really eye opening to see someone who can you know,

you think you're good, and then you go talk to a store that sold eight hundred cars last month, and then you're like, holy cow, there is like so much more I could be working on there. You think

you're at the peak of the mountain, but really all you just reached was just a valley and there's a whole other class. Oh, you got to

go get I love that man, So yeah, that's love talking to those people. But the person who's at eight hundred has somebody that they're doing that

with too, you know what I mean, And that's what's so awesome man.

But no, that is all possible. It doesn't matter how small your

market. Glen Lendy, he's a guy that did that with the store he

was in his town. We're from Kentucky. I know exactly where a store

was, a store that was doing if they had the best month ever, it would be two hundred cards, right. He came in there eight hundred

percent of that place and just completely change the way that even people in Kentucky thought about how we can sell cars. So when you see things that become

possible, especially when someone does it, it makes you all start to want to do a little bit more, but also makes you go, what am I doing wrong? And I don't think that's necessarily the case here. I

think it's just having the belief now it's okay, it's possible, So now it's time for us to stretch ourselves a little bit more. So what are

you going to take from this and go do? That's different? Got to

reach out to those engaged customers. There you go. So you've got a

customer that's talking to you on the phone, and then you let ten minutes, ten days go by from when they asked you a question. What are

you doing? Said that? When I can hop aside the CRM now and

just see this, just here's all these conversations, we're just like just dropping the ball. We're just leaving money on the table and just being able to

go back to the store and be like, here's the money that Just go pick it up. This fruit isn't like low hanging, it's on the ground,

bro, go get it right. I've ever heard that before. This

fruit isn't low hanging, it's actually on the ground. Just go pick it

up before it gets rotten, seriously, or somebody else goes and picks it up or just or just gets into the ground and regrows, instead of taking that time to actually eat the harderst that you deserve to eat. So folks,

don't let stuff sit there. Leaders, to his point, leaders go

in there and inspect what you expect. Right if you if you're not doing

that, then you're really failing your people. And then you can't blame them

for not doing their jobs, because no one's telling them to do their jobs.

No one's making sure that they are doing their jobs, because people will do what they can get away with. Bottom line, we try to take

the path of least resistance. That's human nature. And I hate that because

I think that if you the majority, I think people who are sitting here, we don't do that. We look for ways to go against the grain,

or ways to get better, I should say, and and a lot of times it is going against the grain. So that's awesome that you took

that, and you see that, and you see how easy it is to pull that data, how easy it is to see it right there, to be able to make sure your salespeople have lead date. You don't have anybody

call. Here's a ton of people to call. Let's make sure that stuff's

happening right now. I think a lot of dealerships are tightening the screws on

their budgets. Sure everybody's trying to go put everything under the magnifying glass,

the microscope. And if you don't have to spend an extra dollar to go

get a sale, you can just go right into that pipeline, just go work. You already spent money, you get that customer the CRM. They

just gave you their phone number, they just gave you their email. What

are you doing with it? Just go out there and get it. And

just seeing people at this event that have been able to just put that in their culture and not have to crack the whip. They just that's just the

culture. You just do it. That's right, that's the culture. I'd

like to try and implement it all four of the stores of that before, because that's it has to become something that's habitual for the worker, for the climate. And like you said, this is just how we do it right.

It's we're not reacting and trying to do something because it sounds good.

No, this is how it's done here. Your people come in and understand

that. That's when you start to see your business progress because they have a

culture of adjusting. They have a culture of challenging himself and pushing forward.

You're no newbie to these events over here. Joe and I gotta say I

love Joe's jacket. He's swagging out today. I'm telling you, every time

I see Joe, he's more swaggy. I swear. I'm like Joe picking

up your swag game. He was always well dress. Yeah, he's getting

swaggy now, I'm starting to see that. But he's also an Autogenius right

where I was gonna go because some of the stuff that you're saying is it's simple and it doesn't take a genius, even in Auto Genius, and you all are part of the Auto Genius. Tell Us a little bit Joe about

I love the Auto Genius and how you know it is that it is progressing the boss that we all really get encountered with when we see the tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, I always describe it as a

virtual twenty group, but some of the brightest minds in automotive across the country.

This is actually the first time John and I have met in person, but we've interacted quite a bit on a Slack channel with Auto and there's a handful of other Autogenius members that are at this conference. But being able to

reach out to your peers who are dealing with a lot of the same frustrations that you're going through and sharing best practices and really just leveraging that network to what rising tideles all ships, right, that's the philosophy of it. Man.

I love that and I think it's a great thing that you guys are part of that. And like he just said, here's the first time they've

met. But yet they know each other, right, yet they've learned from

each other. Yet they push each other and they encourage each other. Find

yourself people like that, even if it's local. You don't have to be

nationwide. But it is nice to be able to know that, Hey,

my market's the only one. It's not the only one feeling this mine.

Oh, your market has that situation too. Okay, it's not just my

store, it's all of us. Everybody's having this not necessarily issue, but

going through the same thing, right, So it's powerful. It's also a

testament to where if somebody is doing something using a great product like Tribe Centric and being able to utilize that tool and then being able to talk about their best practices. Hey, this is what we did last month. Here's how

we found more leads. Here's how we were able to get ourselves. People

to not just sit there twiddle their thumbs and just mark off things inside the CRM. They're actually doing the work and actually harvesting tons of fruit, not

just ones that are on the ground, not just a low hanging but also reaching up and getting the fruit that's a little bit harder to get. You

can learn to do all those things. Man, that's a powerful thing.

But having other people who are going through the same situations, going through the same rigmal role that we all go through every single day. It's nice to

know that you've got a partner in crime that could be never meet, but finally get to already feel like family. It's like their instant family. That's

just the way it goes down. And they're proud. There's a bunch of

autogenius members here right, there's a handful of them, and they're all really great people that man, when I see them, they're all since I've known them all, they're all just growing individuals that are always looking for ways to get better. So that is what a genius really is. Somebody who's not

necessarily the smartest person, but always looks for ways to get better. That's

a genius. Speaking of boys to get better. If you alluded to the

mountain metaphor of you've seen it, there's different piece. And really what we

love is that people come out here to actually get with other people. When

you do reach a pinnacle inside of your own business, to then say, Okay, from this vantage point, I can see there's higher tops because down in the valley everything looks ridiculously to all. I'm a short guy by nature.

The chairs are not really proportioned, right, I'm sitting up, but everybody looks tall to me, right, just like a child. Everybody looks

like a giant right until they grow up and then they're like, whoa, no they I'm called to my mom. Now that's empowered for now, my

dad, whatever the case is. I didn't anyway. But when you get

to that pinnacle in your own business, you then get to notice there's other heights, there's other levels to go to. But that also means if you're

gonna go to that height, you're gonna have to see the valley again.

You're gonna have to dig a little deep. You're gonna have to get off

of your church to be able to go down, dig in and do the grind that takes you up to the next level. True. So with that

there is the inspiration then implementation side. So from here you can get very

inspired hearing new things, finding out that there's new ways to stretch yourself and new levels to go to. Going back to the store. What is it

that you feel would have to be done to start making those changes? When

you do get back, that gets everybody as inspired as you are to reach for that next level. The Monday morning sales meeting with all the sales managers

is the spreadsheet I bring is about to go in the trash? Yeah,

okay, that daily activity report that I print out and show, like, hey, is anybody in the green? Did they do their daily minimum activities?

If those activities ain't producing the results that we want, I don't care.

If you're in the green, you're not making the green. Right,

you're in the green, but you're not making us in your green. So

true. I want to go get I want to just basically pull up the

CRM in front of all the sales managers. I'm just going to start scrolling

through anything that has a stock number tied to it and then just be like, look, there's five grand Engross just sit right there. There's three thousand

right there, and then a couple of scrolls, there's one hundred k right here. Let's just go get it. Go make your teams go get it.

Yes and yes, but not just do in drive centric you have mentioned, not just be like at Joe. WTF I call this person, it's

going to be at Joe. Come to the desk. Let's go find a

solution to get John in this car. High five on that. That is

exactly how you do it. Just that second what you just said there,

come to the desk. We're going to find a solution together. But I

want to make sure the managers understand that it's on them. They need to

be the ones that I agree when you're at a certain seat, you can only manage certain people. If it's the leadership that needs to be managed,

then everything it's on them. It doesn't matter. It's their job to excel

X amount of cars. It's their job to make sure that their team executes

the CRM, that they actually complete all their tasks, not just clear them.

That's their job to make sure at the end of the day that they have their reports and everything ready to go. It's their job to make sure

the doors are locked before they lead. It's they're sells people. They distribute

the details too, but at the end of the day, if the doors are unlocked, it's on that's manager. It's not on the salespeople because it's

they have to expect, inspect, what they expect. Leaders lead, Leaders

don't tell people what to do. So you do that. You've got to

do it that way. And I love that you're talking about that. And

if you, folks, when you get back to the store, if you're watching this and John gets to the store and he's trying to help you, he's not trying to get you to do more work. He's actually going to

show you how to do less work. Yeah, because when you're inspecting people

and they know that and they expect that you're going to they're going to do the work, which makes it that much easier, makes it that much more pure. We do that with our children, We do that with people we

love, and if you love your staff, you do the same for them.

It's the bottom line simple. That's the purpose of being out here is

to be able to get yourself better at what it is. How much has

it been kind of enlightening to be able to just see behind the curtain of a software that you all use inside of your store. What is it like

the first time coming to an event like this? Tell you what? When

I went to go talk to my support pod that I've been talking to for four years, they like they're like Oh my god, it's John Vincent.

I was like, there's humans behind there's humans that I've been interacting when they are not just behind a chat screen. They're like they're real people love that,

and so being able to make that physical face to face connection just made us more of a partner on a vendor because we have way too many vendors in this industry that because I signed checks, I signed that check to them versus someone that I can go and just be like, no, you're a partner in our growth and that that's something that how good does that feel?

Lead a lot more in the industry. That's what it is. We need

partners, we don't need we don't need vendors, we don't need businesses that supply to men things. Any people who partner and have the same type of

like, when my business is down, they feel like their business is down.

When my business is up, they feel like their businesses up because it is all of us doing it together, and it's it's a crucial part of everything. I know Dry Centric their pods in particular especially, And then I'm

sure you're whoever sold the product, and I've got you guys on boarded, love you all and they want to make sure you're taking care of it.

There's no doubt we go up there. We have the blessings to be able

to come here at least once a month to come say hello to this team.

And each one of them is always so excited to help whoever they're dealing with. They're on the phone with somebody, even if it's a customer having

an issue with the product. They're happy to help. And that's what I

love about them the most. Joe, you've been with them for a long

time. You come to these events, but it's almost like you have your

own desk here. But so talk about partnership. But you're blessed because you're

in the same town as this place. But at the same time, you

would probably still go to those events even if they were out of town because you understand the value of that partnership and you feel the value of the partnership.

Not only do they provide you this, but they'll come and help you with the marketing and they want to come do videos with you. They'll help

you be creative because they enjoy you as a person. So because they know

what you care about, they want to help you get all that stuff accomplished.

How is the partnership with draft Centric ben for you and why is it so important to maintain it and come to these types of events for you?

Yeah, I joke around, I've got residency here at I know, dude, he sits in here like call later, I'm gonna sit in one of their offices and still a little hour long conversation there. But they're a great

team to work with, Steve Jenna, the whole driy Centric team, our support pod invaluable to our business of course, and just being it. They've

they've actually come to our dealership, which we've got an accurate store about two minutes down the road, shot some content in our showroom over there. It's

great. So it goes both ways, right and true partnership one percent in

you embody that man, You're they love you. Every time they talk about

you. They get excited when we get come in town, you come have

lunch with us. But you were part of the dry Centric experience for even

us. So when I think dry Centric, I think Joe Brown, I

think John Vincent, I think about so many like Carlow, I think about so many amazing Chip Chip that is amazing too. So many amazing people inside

the dealerships that come here and then they share their knowledge, they help, they are part of dry Centric. They literally turn the people that they do

business with into part of their business. They have them speak, they have

them shared, they haven't encourage others to use the product in a better way.

Wow, that's powerful. Do it. Everyone should be doing that.

I think it's fantastic that they do that. And I'm so glad that you

guys both came in here today and sat down and talked with us and shared y'all's experiences here. I know Joe's been able to do it a few times.

John, I'm glad it was your first. Hopefully we didn't scare you

off. And doing more in the future. Yeah, hell yeah, this

is awesome. Yeah, you need to do more than you did really well.

And obviously you know what you're talking about, and more people need to hear about what you're doing. You guys do auto genius and it's good to

have your group. But I tell you it's okay to shirt with everybody if

you do. Just like horse, not all horses can drink that water,

but you can show them and your job as a leader as a human, as a to me as a neighbor is to bring people to water and tell them how great it is. But it's not your job to make them drink

it right. Most wont trust me, So it's okay to tell everyone because

you're doing the right thing. It's a great job, brother, great job

with that. If you need any help in getting your people to do what

it is that you need them to do to bring that inspiration that turns into the implementation, you can call the Certified Solutionary a simple thing and give us a help. You dealers, organizations, businesses, if there's a level that

you want to go to, that's what we do, you know, to brew the solution for you to go to the next level. We want to

do that for you. And that's exactly what was happening on the show.

Since we've been here at the headquarters of Drive Centric, this DC twenty is still going on. There is still sessions that are happening, there's still education

that's going on. And he's got a night, but he got here until

we forgive focus. Before you can fly, you got to forgive focus.

So let's do this together. So in doing that, we wipe off the

weight of unforgiveness. We get focused on wherever it is that we're going.

We're going to reach out and reach out, all right, so let's do it together. So on three one two, three, forget it, focus,

fly, and keep growing, keep growing. That's right, So much

for tuning in. Everybody's staying with us. There are more into ruts to

come. We are at DC twenty and we are having some fun with our

incredible honorary host over here, Joe Brown. You'll see Joe moret I guarantee

you, guys. We might even make him a co host on something.

Maybe we'll figure that out, especially the way he does his commic. You

gotta have on show the only job. I'm right, everybody appreciate you.