Live from NAMAD 2025 in Vegas, the Car Guy Coffee Podcast features an engaging conversation with Marc Bland from S&P Global. Bland shares insights on the importance of community in the automotive industry, emphasizing the need for inclusivity and representation across diverse backgrounds. He discusses the significance of data in decision-making and how understanding demographic shifts can shape future strategies. The episode highlights the vibrant atmosphere of NAMAD, showcasing the collaborative spirit among attendees and the value of building relationships in the automotive space.
Car Guy Coffee Podcast Live from NAMAD 2025: Vegas. Special Guest Marc Bland
Welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast. Kickstart your day the right way and join us as we tap into the brightest minds and most passionate voices across the automotive world to bring you the education, motivation, and inspiration you need to thrive. From the showroom floor to the service lane, prepare to Upshift and Uplift your perspective.
In this next episode of our Mini Series “NAMAD 2025 Recap”, Lou Ramirez and Fred Leonard are excited to welcome Marc Bland from S&P Global as we discuss the importance of supporting diverse communities, sharing insights from his parents and the significance of data in driving confidence and decision-making.
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"...I just want to give a shout out to Toyota Lexus okay they won my top of wars today the DBL overall something that everybody..."
Toyota is a car company from Japan that makes many popular cars. They are known for making cars that last a long time and are easy to drive.
Toyota is a Japanese automotive manufacturer known for producing reliable and fuel-efficient vehicles. They are one of the largest car manufacturers in the world and have a strong reputation for quality.
"...I just want to give a shout out to Toyota Lexus okay they won my top of wars today the DBL overall something that everybody..."
Lexus is a brand of luxury cars made by Toyota. They are known for being very comfortable and having a lot of nice features.
Lexus is the luxury vehicle division of Toyota, offering premium cars with high-quality interiors and advanced technology. Lexus is known for its comfort, reliability, and customer service.
"I'll also be remiss if I didn't give credit to General Motors yes they came here deep..."
General Motors is a big car company that makes many popular car brands, including Chevrolet and Cadillac.
General Motors, often referred to as GM, is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, known for brands like Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC.
"...from a luxury perspective Mercedes they came deep oh that came Mercedes and so Mercedes came deep..."
Mercedes is a luxury car brand from Germany that makes high-end vehicles known for their performance and technology.
Mercedes-Benz is a German luxury automobile manufacturer known for its high-performance vehicles and innovative technology, including the S-Class and GLE models.
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Let's brew! What's going on CarGuy's and CarGuy's? We are at name mat and we are having fun. We got
this incredible guy right here with his sweet jacket representing S&P Global, the one, the only
Mark Bland. Welcome to the party brother. What I love is how you've been supporting people we've
been interviewing, you walk right by giving props to our man James, but the other thing you've been
doing is you've been giving props to everybody here, watching you on stage, MCing, honoring people,
giving away awards today, killing it, music was pumping, I love it, I love the brew, I was doing
the vibe. The song you came out to though. Let's go brother, let's go. I've told you many times
before. You kept it real right and I appreciate that so much but no seriously you're a big name
in automotive and a lot of people honor you. Everyone I run into that talks about Mark talks
about how you just have a wealth of knowledge. You bring so much and I watched you literally at
the opening panel and when I saw you on stage I came to you afterwards told you how your knowledge
was phenomenal but your confidence level and what you say is so big what brings that confidence out
of you. Oh man I got to say my late great mother. Oh wow. I am Marie Bland who I lost a year ago
February when she lived with me every day. All the time, yes. I said lost, lost on this earth but
she is in me every day, every minute and my father Francis Bland they both raised me there.
Say what you mean and mean what you say. Okay and if you don't mean to guess what don't say it
but I told the people on the stage I'm blessed to work for an incredible organization S&P Global
which we have I'll say the most complete and accurate data regarding new and used vehicles across
vertically, horizontally, diagonally in the industry. So what I always start with is I'm
going to say everything that I believe that I feel because I got data back every single point of it.
I love when you said that. I love when you said that and that obviously brings you confidence
it's not how you feel it's how you know this is real numbers feelings people thoughts even memories
they can mess us up sometimes but real data is the truth when we look at numbers and we know what
it is you can't think that it's real it's like side dealerships we know what kind of activities
you're doing if you're not doing activities you're not producing so I loved how you brought that up
the other day because it's that's big and I love your confidence up there but beyond confidence man
Naimad what a great event. Naimad is an awesome event so let me take a second to just explain
something I want the whole industry to hear please please listen up listen up regardless of what's
happening in the system right now I've talked to leaders across multiple industries telecom home
goods pharma and automotive and they all say the same thing. They are constantly seeking the best
and brightest talent regardless of ethnic background gender height hairstyle whatever
that can help them produce the best in-class products or services and in this case automotive
cars, trucks, CUVs, SUVs and affiliated services to ultimately sell the food this is a kicker
everybody and so now the second part is Naimad represents a big part everybody they represent
all the black american, asian american, hispanic american, native american, men and women that
is a huge slice of everybody so it's important for OEMs and dealers and agencies and media like
yourself and even me influencers and data and consulting providers to be here because you
represent a big portion of everybody and if you start with the whole concept I'm trying to go
after everybody to sell everybody then who will I exclude? No one no one no one so I think that's
important and I was able to share that message and bring it back to a bottom line growth perspective
which is what I preach every day I've never used the acronym DEI we'll never use it it just
didn't make sense to me I focused on what makes sense for you to understand
grass lawn and build on based on bottom line growth that's never going on a stop and speaking of
there's three things so we never go out of style gross revenue net profit and customers
come on let's go and if you need a fork there's competition for all three of us right I love that
so everybody here got that they understand and they're not more invigorated do what they do because
they have a solid platform on which to feel I'm trying to include everybody to build a great
party to serve the needs of everybody that's right yeah we so we counsel and we train countless
sales pros throughout the country and some of them when we help them work on their actual
personal branding and one question we often ask is all right who do you not want to sell to
and we wait they look at me funny and they're like what do you mean who do you not want to sell to
and then okay great so then we need to talk to everybody we need to outreach to everybody we
need to have an answer for everybody we need to have a direction for everybody and you need to
put your message out there what I do love about being able to speak to everybody is that this
collective group yeah seems to be swelling you put out a stat you put out some data yeah about how
we are going to be the majority and not too long 2045 yes tell us more about that this came out
not my big mouth with us this is real numbers here that's real no what's up collected by the actual
people that 2045 is when they predict that blacks asians and Hispanics will become the majority
population in the united states so here's the key that's right it's going to be really delicious
then that's 20 years now so if you're a strategist you're already trying to put together a plan for
that right and the kicker is I'll add to this from our perspective looking at new vehicle registration
stats there are like 40 markets today where black asians facts are the majority representing
51% or more yeah of the new vehicle buy it so mark plan is gonna say if you have S&P I don't think
you have to wait that long I think it's gonna be late 2030s yeah and so that's right around the corner
and the thing to there I'm not gonna say concern with but it's still I'll say it's motivated by
is if I get in the game now and align myself with these consumers today as part of my everybody
strategy then when they become the majority act like the majority I'm in I'm in hey I'm gonna keep
selling yeah so that I think that's important to know yeah and I love you'll be set up also and
prepared with people in your organization that look like the people that are coming to do commerce
and so much of that is actually developing and building over time but inside of this particular
event where this is our first time being here and I can't believe that it's taken us this long to be
able to make it to an event like this but you all do have this serious collective unit of wanting
to advance everybody together that is unique to any other convention that we've been to now
I know that you've been rocking with name ad for a long time what other events do you go to
and how do you compare those to name ad all right so NADA of course of course CES
the electronic show great show I do things with the black chamber the Hispanic chamber
Asian chamber women's organizations thank you I have been one and this is not biased at all
when you get to NADA NADA is so big it is so big great event represents all 19,000 dealers
but then you get some of the OEM leaders that come through and they'll have entourage oh yeah
so here's the CEO of OEM A but there's 10 rows of folks you can't get in at name ad
you just walk right up and go there's some hey how you doing I'm already playing get to me
matter of fact we have to come and say can I buy you a coffee and you have a conversation with
the key decision makers without a lot of interference so because of that and there's such a cross
section here that I rank this as one of the best because you can really get to people
whether they be more senior your peers or even under and you can learn you understand best
price so one of the best practices that I took from this conference is this term called community
yes because we're all struggling and trying to find ways to express who we are and what we
represent without using certain terms yes sir and I just love the fact that when I was talking
through doing my own thing which I just talked from the heart a lot of time based on what I know
I said hey you know what these black Asian Hispanic Native American and all women
they represent communities that they know near and dear because they were born into it
especially this take ethnicity off the board women gender that's me and we can talk about it
because they were married to one in my case and we have daughters or mothers or whatever
we've never lived it no a woman can stand up here because her cultural background to go hey us
women believe that's their community yes and so I like that term and I've used it I appreciate
I think you want to hear a lot more people using that term community dealers community efforts
because it really sets the tone for what community you represent and how can you help
me better engage because I want to set everybody but your community is part of everybody that's
right and that's you and him and her so I think that's the big one I want to point out that I think
it's the one that's going to resonate as community and how it can be read representative dealers
representative of cultural folks gender etc I love that community is a great word I think that it
feels home oh yeah it's so non-threatening it's a good way to be able to talk to people and make
them feel like hey I actually care about your community see just use it I love it I'm going to
be using it a lot so I'm still in that mark I'm telling you right now and I absolutely love that
word because it is what it is I'm Asian so when I'm in my community I know my community one of my
favorite thing is when my community will come in but I knew how to help them no doubt I'm going to
keep going with it right now watch this hey I'm out of here I'm good because I'm gonna stay I'm
staying but no but no seriously mark you're an amazing speaker you're what you say and what
you're bringing out does resonate with so many people inside this room and beyond this room
people are going to be watching this on our show and they're going to be going wow I need to be at
namad because of things like this and people like you are speaking we we've had a few great
interviews so far we've had some really great people walk by and just talk to us the day we
walked in this room the very when we're setting up we had booth members people who look like us
coming up to us and just say hey what do you do yeah and that never happens at any other
event okay we show people like oh you're cool car get coffee but it's never about the way that they
wanted to be combined we team up right away we've literally had people want to partner with us and
I've never had that happen at an event like this and I do believe it's because we are in the right
community right now yeah so I want to add one more thing before my time is up I think that's
important for everybody to listen to hear if you want to get something done and have it be sustained
so that's the key if you want to get something done not just today but have that be sustained
next week next month next year three five years from now you have to put a person or persons in
charge of it you have to give them all time to do the job yes one more time give them the monetary
resources they need to execute on all their strategy and I just want to give a shout out to
Toyota Lexus okay they won my top of wars today the DBL overall something that everybody
their car these cars are beautiful anyway
they came up on stage at the very end and they brought 60 executives on stage to the point where
I almost jumped off the stage I was like there's no little bit but the whole point there is
there is a lot of strength and numbers and I'm just going to share this
before I give props to some of the other OEMs one of the GM's executives came up there and said Mark
winners win I won't repeat that for your camera audience he said simply put
some of the secret to our success is we firmly believe that winners win winners don't make excuses
they just win and they send the people here in those numbers so they can be everywhere all the time
learn right give back share and do some about what they learned on and that's why they can be the
win I'll also be remiss if I didn't give credit to General Motors yes they came here deep they put
about 40 people up on stage that from luxury for Honda came deep Nissan Ford and from a luxury
perspective Mercedes they came deep oh that came Mercedes and so Mercedes came deep and they
won a stage a few times they took some awards so it's about a simple thing and I'm going right
time we started this interview you said where do I get it from I just repeat a lot of times from
my mother and father put in me and one of the simple things they told me was you can only expect to
get out what you put in so if y'all got an idea you guys are great and Mark what you got on it
nothing and this thing turns out to be the biggest thing I can't come like I say where's my share
I put nothing in nothing out that's right so Toyota, DM, Ford, Nissan, Mercedes and others
they're putting a lot in and you can expect and better believe they're gonna get a lot out that's
awesome you're talking about these numbers the they're floating around with their own community
oh I like that bringing it around but these communities are all connecting together and
making us all have one common union man I'm ready for some communion up in here you know what I mean
they're really gonna get us unified but seriously you guys have heard it you got the data from a
data guy he hit it right on the mark and he knows exactly what he's talking about car guys car
guys make sure that you reach out find out what Mark's brewing I know that he's all about helping
out but make sure that you actually reach out to him find out how to actually get more involved
follow us make sure that you reach out be a community contributor that is basically what we
want to make sure that we're doing because community contributors always find some time
to collect around the coffee pot get you some of the good beans we are on a quest to brew it the
best and today you brought no less so we are excited to have some fun Mark we have one thing left
that we got to do to be able to fly on out of here we got to forgive focus and fly so we
can keep growing all the time so help us go through the moves let's do it hands on the shoulders
we're gonna forgive focus on three ready let's go one two three forgive focus yeah
thank you so much everybody for tuning in we've been having some fun we've been brewing solutions
with the one the only
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