“Dealer Playbook” is the show/brand they’re talking about. It’s centered on practical advice for running a dealership and building a successful career in car retail.
Flex Dealer is an agency David mentions as part of how he’s able to keep the podcast going. It’s connected to helping people in the dealership business.
Paragon is another dealership business the host mentions as being among the best. They’re using it as a comparison point for dealership performance.
Topic
Super Bowl coaches
They’re talking about football coaches and using that as an analogy. It’s not really about cars or car technology.
Company
Publix
Publix is mentioned as a big example in the story about who would own retail stores. The point is about dealership/retail ownership changing over time, not about groceries.
AutoNation is a big company that runs lots of car dealerships. The hosts mention it when talking about how the retail business changed and who ended up owning the stores.
OEMs are the automakers themselves—the companies that make the cars. The discussion uses OEMs to describe one of the big groups expected to control a large share of retail.
Galpin is a well-known U.S. dealership group. Here it’s used as an example of long-running dealer families/organizations that have survived major industry shifts.
Concept
Black Monday, 1987
“Black Monday” is a famous stock market crash in 1987. The host is using it as an example of how big economic events can impact car sales.
A long-term contract is a deal to keep buying something for a long time. If you don’t lock in supply for the long run, shortages can happen and dealers end up with fewer cars.
“Chips” are small electronic parts inside the car. If there aren’t enough of them, car production slows down and dealers can’t get as many new cars.
Concept
polarization in a headline
This means writing headlines that make people feel strongly—either for or against. It can get more clicks and comments, but it can also turn some shoppers away.
Term
contribution of people
They’re saying the results come from what people do—like how the team is organized and motivated. In a dealership, that can mean training and incentives that help salespeople perform better.
They’re using “velocity” to mean speed with direction—staying focused instead of doing random things. In car sales, it can relate to how quickly you turn interest into actual deals.
Term
internal scholarships
This is a program where a company helps employees (or their families) pay for education. For dealerships, it can be a way to invest in training so the team grows stronger over time.
Term
marketing dollars
This just means money spent on advertising and promotions. They’re saying they stopped spending that money and tried a different approach instead.
Company
Wokan
Wokan is mentioned as one of the automotive-related organizations/companies involved in the industry community. The episode uses it as an example of people building support networks.
CPO means “Certified Pre-Owned.” It’s a used car that gets checked and backed by the dealer or brand, often with extra warranty coverage compared with a normal used car.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is computer software that can learn from data and help make decisions. In car dealerships, it’s often used to help with things like finding the right customers and organizing sales and inventory.
“Master” here means a highly experienced mechanic or technician level, not a type of car. The podcast is talking about training and job levels—how service roles can have clear advancement, while sales roles may not. It’s about people and skills, not a particular vehicle.
A “used car” is a car someone already owned and is now being sold again. Dealers make money by finding, pricing, and selling these cars efficiently.
Concept
used to new (9 or 10 to one)
They’re talking about how many used-car sales happen compared to new-car sales—like 9 or 10 used for every 1 new. That sales mix changes how a dealership runs and profits.
Concept
buying 250 cars or more off the street
“Off the street” means the dealer buys cars directly from people in the area, not through a typical auction or brand channel. It’s a way to build inventory faster.
They mention Beaver Toyota as a real dealership example. They’re using it to show how many used cars are available online and what it takes to run a busy dealership.
Bozar Ford Lincoln is cited as a dealership that has rapidly expanded its capacity, going from about 30 service bays to 90+ bays. The discussion uses that growth to explain how difficult it is to recruit technicians and how long it can take to get staffed.
Service bays are the individual garage/work areas inside a dealership where vehicles are brought in for maintenance and repairs. Increasing the number of bays (like from ~30 to 90+) directly increases throughput, but it also requires more technicians to staff those stations.
Term
entry level job
An entry-level job is the first job someone gets when they’re starting out. They’re saying even those beginner roles can be hard to get when a dealership is growing quickly.
Term
recruiting people
In this context, “recruiting people” refers to actively sourcing and attracting dealership employees—especially technicians—through targeted outreach and programs. The speaker contrasts it with simply “looking” for candidates, emphasizing that hiring requires an intentional pipeline.
The Bozar University Development Center is mentioned as part of the dealership’s recruiting and training pipeline. It’s used to show that staffing growth requires structured development programs, not just advertising for candidates.
Term
childcare on site
“Childcare on site” is referenced as an employee benefit used to attract and retain workers. In retail/service hiring, benefits like this can broaden the candidate pool and reduce barriers to taking entry-level roles.
A development pipeline is a structured path for turning new hires or candidates into trained employees over time. The speaker uses it to argue that growth requires moving beyond marketing (“talk”) into real training and progression (“walk to walk”).
They’re sharing a statistic about who buys their cars—women make up 60% of purchases. The takeaway is that knowing your customer mix matters for how you run the business.
That phrase means electric cars that can drive themselves more than a normal car can. It’s a big deal for car businesses because it affects how the cars work, how they’re supported, and how companies sell them.
Concept
AI
Here, “AI” means computer technology that can learn from information and help make decisions. In car retail, it can be used for things like targeting customers, pricing, and managing inventory.
“Fine print” is the small text in an offer or contract that can include important conditions. In car buying, it can be where the deal’s price only applies if you meet certain requirements.
Dealer add-ons are extra add-on products or services a dealer may tack onto the deal. They can make the final price higher than the number you first saw.
“Commission breath” means a salesperson seems more focused on making money than on helping you. It’s basically the vibe that they’re pushing because they want their commission, not because it’s the right thing for you.
GMAC was a company that helped finance car purchases. The host is saying that special financing deals from GMAC helped boost car sales during tough times.
GM Financial helps people buy or lease cars through loans. The point here is that GM Financial offered very cheap financing to encourage more people to buy cars.
0% interest means the loan doesn’t add interest charges for the promo period. Dealers and lenders use it to make buying a car feel cheaper and easier.
Concept
jumpstarting the industry
Here, “jumpstarting the industry” means giving the market a boost when sales are slow. The host is describing how incentives can get people to buy again.
“Cash for clunkers” was a government program that gave people money to trade in older cars for newer ones. It helped dealerships sell more new cars for a while.
A tariff is a tax on imported products. If cars or parts cost more because of that tax, prices at the dealership can go up too.
LIVE
Your keynote at a SoduCon, which is coming up here shortly,
I posted about this on LinkedIn.
Somebody commented and said,
to do what David did in his store
with all of the achievements,
high net profit dealer, 20 years, no attrition,
all these sorts of things is one thing.
To be able to teach other people
to do the same thing is quite another.
I wanna turn it over to you and say,
what can we expect in your keynote?
And what would you say as a retort to someone
who has maybe a skeptical comment like that?
A couple of things, number one.
One of the things that I enjoy most about
producing the Dealer Playbook is hearing from you.
The messages that I get of people
who are getting so much value out of the podcast,
applying it to their day-to-day workflows
and finding a thriving career right here
in the retail auto industry.
It means the world to me.
And you know, one of the ways that we make
doing this possible is through my agency Flex Dealer.
And of course, in the spirit of providing value,
I think this is a perfect time to head over
to www.flexdealer.com to show even further support for you,
my beloved DPB gang.
Right now, if you go to my website, flexdealer.com,
you can get a full free PDF
of my number one bestselling book, Don't Wait Dominate.
And the reason I think it's so special
is that a lot of the topics that are discussed in this book
are even more relevant today than ever
with this surge in popularized AI.
And people wondering, well, what can I do next?
How can I have a competitive advantage?
Well, that's all here in this book.
And so I'd love to be able to offer you a free copy of this.
If you go to flexdealer.com,
it would mean the world to me
because that is how we continue to produce this show for you.
I'm here with David Spezak,
alumnus of the dealer playbook.
So glad to have you back.
And I want to get right into it.
I'm so excited.
Your keynote at a SoduCon,
which is coming up here shortly,
I posted about this on LinkedIn.
I said, I'm so excited.
I've gotten to know David over the years,
the breadth of experience and wisdom.
And you never cease to amaze me
with what you have locked in here
that will come out just so casually.
Which to me is so important
because I really believe you know what you know
or you don't know
and you can tell what people are faking it.
Somebody commented and said,
well, to do what David did in his store
with all of the achievements,
high net profit dealer, 20 years,
no attrition, all these sorts of things is one thing.
To be able to teach other people
to do the same thing is quite another.
I want to turn it over to you and say,
what can we expect in your keynote?
And what would you say as a retort to someone
who has maybe a skeptical comment like that?
Well, first of all,
color me a bit of an optimist or a positive human.
But I kind of looked at that comment, I saw it
and I thank you for your post.
It's very humbling to be asked to be a keynote
just because this event is different.
You know from the inside out, it's different.
This company is different.
Their intentionality is different.
This isn't just another industry event.
This isn't a nuts and bolts
and a bunch of exhibitors that are showing off
the typical stuff.
There's a lot of unique innovation
and things that touch on areas of dealership operations
that we don't often see.
There's conversations that happen at a SOTUCon
that you don't hear at any industry event.
So perhaps I'm overly positive,
but when I read that comment,
I thought he was saying, hey,
it's one thing for you to do it.
It's another thing for you to teach it.
And I was kind of hoping maybe he's somebody
that I've run across and maybe I've helped him
and I have taught it to him or to somebody.
And the reason I think that is because,
you know, honestly, Michael,
from the outside for as maybe staggering or impressive
some of those things were about
what was accomplished by my team at that store, who cares?
I mean, honestly, who cares?
I think anytime anybody talks about anything
that we've done, who cares?
If it doesn't impact somebody,
if we can't take what we've learned,
what we feel like we've mastered and pass it forward,
pay it forward, whether you do it for money
or whether you do it, you know, altruistically,
and I prefer the latter in most cases,
that's really ultimately what matters.
So, you know, I can tell you the,
a couple of things.
Number one,
the things I'm proudest of in my 46, 47 years
in this business is not genuinely anything
that I've accomplished.
It's what I've been able to teach people to accomplish.
It's finding a guy that was helping me
at a member circuit city.
I walked into a circuit city, I needed batteries.
My kids had gotten a remote control toy
and I'm wandering up and down looking for the batteries
and there's a young kid there named Tag Ben
and he says, hey, he says, well, what are you looking for?
I can help you.
And I said, I just need some triple A batteries
or double A batteries.
And he says, okay, wait a minute.
He says, do you have kids?
I said, yeah.
He says, is this for a remote control toy?
I said, yeah, he says, come with me.
He says, have you ever looked at rechargeable batteries?
And I said, I haven't.
He says, well, you're gonna go through these batteries
like nobody's business.
He says, you know, they're gonna leave the toy on,
they're gonna come back and you'll be dead
and you're just replaced or replaced.
He says, you see this thing, you plug it in the wall,
you buy four of these rechargeables,
you put them in there.
Then you buy a second set, recharge those
and then they put those in the car.
When they go dead, pull the other ones out
and you just rotate.
You never buy batteries again.
And he takes me through the whole thing.
Michael and I was just frankly astonished.
It was such a surprise.
So much so that my Wednesday morning meeting
at my Mercedes store, I told my guys,
and I didn't do it in a negative way.
I said, guys, I just, oh, I have to share with you.
I was at the circuit city, I'm looking for batteries.
This young guy gave me a better presentation
on rechargeable batteries that cost 20 bucks.
And I hear sometimes out that we're delivering
on a $50,000 car and it matters.
It really matters.
I went back to make sure just to see if it was a fluke.
This time I thought I'm going to buy something
far more exciting, Michael.
I'm going to go for toner.
I don't get the guy all jacked up.
So I hang out in the toner section, I see him there.
He comes over, he says, hey, he says,
I helped you with the battery.
I said, you did, it was fantastic, thank you.
He says, what are you looking for today?
I said, toner.
And he took me through, he says, what do you know?
And he takes you through the same thing.
I stopped the guy, I said, I got to ask you something.
I said, I apologize for asking about how much
do you make an hour?
He said, about $8 an hour.
I said, well, I have to tell you, you're remarkable.
You're very uncommon.
And I believe that with your skill set and your personality,
you ought to be selling cars.
Have you ever considered that?
You'd make a lot more money, have a lot more fun.
He says, no.
I said, listen, we have a Ford store right over there.
Literally a five minute drive.
So I invite him over, we interview him, we hire him.
Okay, shocking Disney movie, salesperson of the year,
following year, salesperson of the year,
moving to F&I, top F&I manager,
moving to sales manager, top sales manager,
all the way up, Michael, and I got to watch him
move from position to position.
Not one time was he ungrateful.
Not one time did he feel like he got there.
Not one time did he take his foot off the gas.
Not one time did he forget to do what he was doing
with kindness, respect, consideration.
A so-to style, more than car style.
You know what, that guy retired before he hit 50.
He retired in his 40s.
Wow, as the chief operating officer
of one of the best organizations,
the car organization, Norm Reeves Honda.
No offense to my friend, Brian Benstock, Paragon, number one.
Okay, and they are number one, let's be honest.
Kings of the world, at different level.
But, come on, to go from selling batteries to that.
How does that not make you feel greater than anything else?
When I was involved with the 49ers
for those 12 years on the board,
you know, it was like, I felt like I was forced gump,
like a fly on the wall, and I first met Bill Walsh
and got to spend time with Bill,
and got to see a little bit of training camp,
and from the inside out, what made Bill Bill,
why did people respond to react to him?
And as great as he was, legendary Hall of Fame coach,
I think what's far more impressive
that nobody talks about, is somebody look up one day,
how many coaches, how many head coaches,
how many Super Bowl coaches, came from the tree of Bill Walsh.
When you think about Pete Carroll,
when you think about Bill Belichick,
when you think about Sam Weisch,
when you think about Mike Holmgren,
I could go on and on.
It's just like, this is a who's who of coaching.
They all came up, and I guarantee you,
as much as Bill had pride in what was accomplished
from the 49, I guarantee you that his best days,
his best thoughts was man.
To see that happen, what's better than that, Michael?
Whether it's our kids,
whether it's people that we bring into the business,
you know, whether it's people who are fortunate enough
to mentor or work with,
and even people like, you know, if you take you,
you're in a different position.
You've been doing this longer than anybody,
the dealer playbook, you do a fantastic job,
you always have, and I appreciate what you do
for the industry, but what people don't see,
you know, we see your posts,
they always have humanity in them,
they always have a desire to learn from somebody else,
but I don't have to ever be on a call with you
or with a client that does business with you
to know that it's the very same thing.
It's not about selling a product,
it's not about selling tech,
it's not about making more client acquisition.
It's about, my God, I get an opportunity,
somebody's literally paying me
to help make their life better.
What's better than that?
So, you know, I hope I really can't say anything
and you'll find out when you hear the keynote
about specifically what I'll be touching on,
but I can't tell you it's rooted in all of that.
I can't tell you that this business,
I've seen it since 1981 go through so much.
I've seen a million times that people said
we're gonna go the way of the dinosaurs.
I've seen people seemingly like lynch mobs,
calling out dealers as being charlatans and crooks
and crooked and dishonest,
and never once pointing out the dealers
that for years, for decades,
have a reputation and a legacy
and a commitment to their communities
like no other business in those communities.
I've seen our manufacturers try to replace us.
Ford at one time had the Ford retailer network.
Their idea, their concept,
General Motors did something similar,
was that they were gonna get into our business.
So think what you think back,
when you remember when cell phones,
you would buy a cell phone from some mom or pop shop.
We had one called Parrot Cellular out here for years,
10, 12, 13, 15 locations, super successful.
You could walk in, Michael,
you could buy any phone, any model,
hook it up with any carrier.
One day, the guys at Parrot Cellular look across the street
and it's interesting, there's a new store
on across the street.
It's AT&T, it's Sprint, it's Verizon.
Wait a minute, these are the guys
that I've been selling their product
and making them money, bringing them customers.
And now the manufacturer set up shop across the street
knowing full well, I don't have their bank account,
I don't have their advertising budget,
I don't have their processes, I'm a small business.
Well, we know how that movie ends.
That went on like Alexander the Great conquering land,
now at a time.
The Parrot Cellular's of the world,
it didn't matter that they serve customers,
it didn't matter that they gave many options,
it didn't matter that it was one stop shop.
Gone, unceremoniously, gone.
Well, that happened and you know what,
I remember distinctly, Michael, and that happened,
there was actually a prediction
from some incredibly well-known,
seriously respected people that literally put out,
this is what the new retail landscape's gonna look like.
Dealers were gonna own 15% of all the stores in the country.
Big Publix, this is before AutoNation came along,
we're gonna own a big chunk,
and then the other massive chunk was gonna be the OEMs.
Huh, how'd that work out?
We're still here, the Publix did come along,
and the Publix do some really good things,
but we still represent over 80%.
It's still people like Liza Borges, right?
People like Brian, people like the Bachmans over at Galpin,
people like Stampak, people like the Maclaurdees,
and others at some of which who have been in business
for over 100 years, seen it all, survived it all.
Black Monday, 1987, that was gonna do it,
Uber coming out, ooh, that's the end of new cars,
driver's licenses, autonomous is gonna be everywhere
by 2020, oops, that didn't happen.
And here we are, oh, a biblical plague,
let's throw that in the mix, right?
And maybe a poor decision by an OEM going,
you know, I don't think we need a long-term contract
for chips, we just wanna buy them three months at a time,
only to find out that that set us back,
well, so it is back pretty nice,
in a way that probably created the greatest rewards
in the history of being a dealer.
So, you know, this industry is like no other,
resilient like no other, allows people with no money down,
no college education, possibly not a high school degree,
to become a dealer, allows people to come in
that didn't speak the language, you know,
like Alex Flores that knows, you know,
now you turn around, the guy owns stores,
it's like no other and you know this.
So, you know, I hope to do something
that reminds everybody in that room,
who we are and why we matter.
That's really what I hope to impart.
I mean, obviously we're both in media,
we both produce content, we know the power of polarization
in a headline and, you know, how it stirs up commentary,
but you know, everything that you've shared up
to this point resonates deeply with me,
because it's rooted in the things that truly matter,
this idea of people and the contribution of people
in a meaningful and strategic way.
I love the word velocity,
because it implies to my mind speed with a focus,
not just sporadic all over the place, chaotic speed,
but with an intense focus.
In your experience over the, you said 46 or 47 years,
all of the youth now heard six, seven in that,
that's all they heard.
You know how old I'm gonna be this November?
Six, seven.
No kidding, you need a trophy.
There's a meme in there somewhere.
Oh my gosh.
In all of these 47 years though,
I mean, the first time you were on the show,
we talked about how you did things in an unorthodox way,
that you created internal scholarships,
and you got rid of marketing dollars,
but it's always been rooted in community and in people.
Now here we are, you just mentioned all of the things
that were supposed to interrupt or disrupt
that have actually built grit
and made us stronger over the years.
Now here we are in a moment of uncertainty for some
with advancements in technology,
artificial intelligence, not knowing the impact of it.
How do we adopt it?
How do we evolve into it?
And it seems like where most people
would have started with that conversation,
you still started with being deeply rooted
in the human experience of it all.
What are the topics outside of all these polarizing headlines
and the things that the industry loves to provide narrative
and commentary on?
Outside of what we've already discussed,
what are the things that you're just like,
man, enough of talking about that stuff,
we should actually be talking about this over here.
What is that thing for you?
I know there's more than one.
There is, and I'll just touch on them briefly.
There's some great organizations out there like Wokan,
like Women in Automotive, Veronica Dunford,
of course, Kerry Wise with Wokan and Patricia and others
that have put together these great organizations.
We've had NAMAD around for years.
Do you know that as it pertains to minority-owned dealerships,
we're roughly the same percentage now
as we were 20 years ago?
Damon, last year, lugging that rock like Sisyphus up the hill,
year after year after year, it's pretty thankless,
but incredibly worthy and noble cause that he did it.
He did it for a reason.
I'm completely confident that that wasn't for personal gain,
that it was for trying to move us forward.
Why would we not want our dealerships
to be reflective of the communities they serve?
When I've gone to Paragon Hunt and I've been there
more times than I could ever count,
one of the things that was just so obvious
that hit you in the face,
it wasn't the fact that, oh, there's just something magical,
this feeling of why they were number one CPO
on Hunt Acre store in the world year after year.
It was why.
And it was, you're in this community in Queens
that is such a cultural melting pot.
And you could be from any one of those backgrounds,
any socioeconomic culture or whatever,
and you're gonna find it in Paragon Hunt, okay?
You're gonna find every language, okay?
You speak the, oh, okay, we got that, but we got that, okay?
It wasn't systems.
I remember at Smythe, when we started moving up
from a million to three to six to eight to 12 to 16 to 24,
and so, oh, what kind of light toward that?
You just put in your lot.
Hey, what system did you just put in?
It's not the system, it's not the technology.
It's the people, it's always been the people.
So, as far as these subjects, here's the thing,
AI is not AH, it's not artificial humanity.
It's artificial intelligence, and by my measure,
I think sometimes it comes up kind of short on the eye.
Plenty of artificial, not a lot of AI sometimes.
So, I think that we have to stop talking
about developing people.
We have to stop talking about coming up with a better way.
Our people all went to Disney back then
to learn from Disney.
By God, who does it better than Disney?
They're bringing people on.
There's people are paying minimum wage.
They're wearing a freaking hot Winnie the Pooh head
of all around sweating their God know what off, right?
And they couldn't be more proud.
You know what's crazy?
I had a young woman named Laura Tanaka
work to my parts department, okay?
You know what her part-time job was?
She was Mickey Mouse.
Mickey Mouse, yeah, the dude, ears.
She would work certain times the year down at Disney.
She was so prideful of that, and why would you not be?
Right?
Why would you not learn from these people?
Do you know that if you look at the turnover
and the training, the organization, the process,
the development, you know,
some of the companies around the world, it's astonishing.
Why do we have to have salespeople come in
and we actually think, why would this person
not want to be a salesperson for the next 20 years?
Listen, I don't know a single leader
that wants to be in their position.
They're in right now one year from now,
much less five or 10 years from now.
Why would we think our people are different?
Why can't we take an approach, Michael, like technicians?
You know, I have an entry-level tech, right?
And then I've got a level two and a level three
and a level four and a master tech.
Why can't I do that with salespeople?
Why can't I give them a path
that gives them that source of pride, accomplishment
and movement, you talk about velocity.
Who doesn't want velocity in their income, right?
So one of them is development.
Can we please, please stop talking about
how hard it is to find people?
Because it sounds an awful lot like it's so hard,
David, you don't understand it's so hard to find used cars.
Yeah, it is for you, using the approach you're using today.
In fact, from your vantage point, it's unimaginable.
But yet we got the Rob Russo of the world
in a town of 2,600 people selling 400 cars
at nine or 10 to one used to new.
Buying 250 cars or more off the street.
You know, our friend Patrick,
a bad over there in Cummings, Georgia.
Okay, well, that is Manhattan compared to
Dillsburg, Pennsylvania population 2,611 as of today.
Right.
He's got a whopping 9,000.
Okay, go and look at Beaver Toyota's website
right now today, 450 used cars on it.
You don't understand how hard it is to acquire people.
I mean, how hard it is to acquire cars.
You don't understand how hard it is to acquire people.
Really?
But Bozar Ford Lincoln,
they haven't looked for a technician in years.
They've gone from 30 bays to 90 plus bays.
And there's a two year waiting list
to get an entry level job there.
And when you do get a job there,
I want everybody in my code to go to Bozar Ford Lincoln,
look at the website and look at the website
where the recruiting people,
university, the Bozar University Development Center,
childcare on site.
You know what I mean?
So we have to go from talking the talk to walk to walk
when it comes to development.
When it comes to making our, creating opportunities
so that we do find, you know, 60, we talked for years,
decades, 60% of our cars are purchased by women.
Less than 10% of leadership executives
are women in these positions, right?
So I'd like to see, you know,
I'm getting up towards 70, won't be long.
It's a blink of an eye.
I would love to see all of the humanity,
the good things we do in the communities,
the great things we do to create jobs, meaningful jobs.
I'd like to see that it'd be amazing if we could,
despite the fact that autonomous EVs
and our AI dominate, you know, the conversations,
I'd love us to get to the point to where you know
we realize, what if we take all of the good things
we've done as an industry?
And what if we, you know, do elevate ourselves
to the point to where we go from talking about it
and great intentions, but making it actionable,
holding ourselves accountable,
figuring out how do we measure
if we're going down the right path?
Because at the end of the day, you know this,
the greatest organizations on the planet,
you had Wogadara, the great Wogadara from 11 Madison,
number one restaurant in the world.
Does anybody think, you know, I'm part of a restaurant group
as you know, four-star, five-star restaurant group,
we all serve great food?
Right.
If you go to the top 500 restaurants in New York City,
it's all spectacular food.
If you go to the top 500, 500 in the world,
they're all world-class food.
There's hundreds if not thousands
of Michelin star restaurants.
What made Wogadara's number one,
interestingly, wasn't the food, it was the people, right?
And that's the message he came across.
We need unreasonable hospitality in our industry.
We need to do an unreasonable job
in terms of elevating our ability to attract great talent
and then make a commitment to develop those people.
If we do that, we are gonna continue to be an industry
that doesn't just survive, doesn't just, you know,
make it to the next ledge,
but actually is going to get better,
is going to become more successful,
more sustainably successful,
and frankly, more impervious to anything external,
possibly damaging this industry
and the great people that we're lucky enough to work with.
The takeaway for me here is stop talking about the hard
and do the hard, hard is the difference.
Like we just spend so much, oh, new regulation,
it's going to be so hard, you know, like new, oh, AI,
it's too hard, hospitality is too hard,
but it's to your point, you've named it.
FTC.
Do you know, Michael, FTC regulations,
they're going to make us do the right thing.
But it's so hard.
I've been working for years so hard
at remembering everything I told somebody, you know,
we've mastered advertising that was slippery.
And listen, I'm not talking about the 80 or 90%
of the great dealers, honest dealers, transparent dealers,
I'm talking about, you know who I'm talking about,
those hidden behind the fine print,
those who, oh, yeah, that price is only if you finance,
otherwise it's a grand more.
Oh, that's if you have a trade,
otherwise it's two grand more.
Oh, that price didn't include these add-ons, right?
I'm talking about you guys, okay?
You're going to have to put in the work
and the industry is going to be better for it
and every buyer is going to be better for it.
You know who else is going to be better for it?
Every one of the honest, high integrity,
transparent dealers who have suffered,
no different than the consumers, you've taken business,
you've taken their ability to work with people
that were looking for dealers like them,
but never found them, never had an opportunity
because you sucker punched them
and you hooked them with false advertising.
That's over, the great dealers out there,
they're not worried about the FTC, not in the least.
You don't have to when you're on the right side.
So yeah, I think it's time for us to just continue
to not settle and I love what you said.
I have a nine-year-old who'd be 10, Jagger,
and Jackson's going to be 12 later this year.
And if you ask them, ask them.
They've said, you've heard from me,
I don't know how many times.
Do what you need to do so you could do what you want to do.
If you have a choice in your life
between choosing hard and choosing easy, choose hard.
Hard now, easy later.
Easy now, oof, hard later.
And those things may sound cliche and maybe they are,
but I've come to find in my nearly 67 years on this earth
that cliches are cliches for a reason.
They're true, they've stood the test of time.
So when Michael Cirillo says, choose hard,
hey, let's choose hard.
It's for the good of all of us.
This is kind of my last thought here,
which is hitting deeply.
I think one of the greatest gifts we have as human beings
is our ability to choose, our agency.
But our agency means we are agents
and agents have a responsibility.
And so to tie agency, the ability to choose,
to being an agent who has a responsibility,
I love what you're teaching your kids
and what our industry needs to hear.
If you have agency and you are an agent with responsibility,
then choose hard.
You want to hear some irony,
is what's the single most uttered word these days
when it comes to AI?
Agents.
Agents.
Here's the difference.
Those agents seek data, not opinion.
So those agents are all in all day, every day.
Not just the last week of the month.
Those agents have a pure intention
to complete every task
and to accomplish a goal, not to get noticed,
not to get credit for doing what we should be doing anyways.
Oh, I took care of that customer.
Thank you.
I know their name.
Thank you.
I mean, the last three customers,
when I saw you smack them behind the head,
I thought there was no hope for you.
But you're saying this time you didn't insult them,
this time we respected their time,
this time we took care of them,
this time we were more concerned
about their outcome than our income.
That's what we're supposed to do.
We have to be concerned about their outcome
more than our income.
I coined a phrase back in the 80s
that I used all the time in teaching my salespeople.
It was called commission breath.
And I wanted it to be like a punch.
I said, if you ever had somebody come up to you
and have commission breath,
I mean, it reeked that all they cared about,
they didn't see my face.
They saw money, right?
And they wanted to convert this into money.
I was a transaction, right?
Not an opportunity to help solve a problem, right?
So I think that when we consider those things,
and I love the fact that you talk about jurisdiction,
you know, we're responsible for this.
It's not Honda, it's not Ford, it's not Mercedes.
One thing that's curious to me being a data freak,
a data fanatic with a terminal disease called curiosity
is that if you look back in time over the last 20 plus years,
you can't find a successful new car period,
new car sales period
that was not enabled by external circumstances.
After the horrible tragedy of 9-11,
GMAC, GM Financial came out with the first 0% interest
of all time as a way of jumpstarting the industry.
And it did, it exploded.
When 2008 came along and, you know, we've learned
it wasn't smart to sell houses to people with no jobs
and no money down,
who would have thought that wasn't gonna work out?
And the entire economy started to implode
and companies had to be bailed out like the airlines.
You know, we had cash for clumpkers.
It exploded new cars.
You know, when you looked at the chip shortage
and the pandemic, what happened?
You know, bam, best results ever.
Profitability went through the roof.
What happened March 2nd last year, Michael?
Donald J. Trump stood up at a,
stood up to the turn and he said the word,
there used to be a show, by the way,
a game show when I was a kid.
And I'm trying to desperately remember the name of the show,
but they would give a word, right?
There was like the $10,000 pyramid of those.
And the word is tariff.
It's a password.
Yeah, password, right?
Yeah.
And they'd always go like this and you'd lean in,
like it was an EF Hutton commercial, right?
And the word is tariffs, tariffs, tariffs, what?
There's a sign, right?
Hey, we're gonna put tariffs on Zambabwe, right?
They're buying like $100 of stuff.
But every country from China to Europe, whatever,
you finally said, listen, enough,
you're taxing and doing the crap out of us.
It's time to level this up.
Whether somebody likes Donald J. Trump or not,
the dude knows how to negotiate, right?
He got people's attention.
If that guy doesn't know how to do a first pencil,
I don't know who does, right?
Because he got countries to bounce off the ceiling, right?
So what happened is everybody ran in, Michael.
Do you know that in February,
our SAR was 15.8 last year.
In January, it was 15.8.
15.8 January, 15.9 February.
You know what it went to?
17.9.
Thanks to Trump getting on camera, 17.9.
You know what happened to Gross's?
What happened when that were out?
We went back to being us, right?
We went back to when the clock struck 12
and everybody went back to normal.
The new car department,
we've become too reliant on things on the outside
and we forgot the power we have on the inside.
And yet there are people like Ali Reda,
people like Frank Croniti,
people that all over this country
sell 30, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 cars.
Frank Croniti works four days a week.
Ali Reda works five, but he goes home at six,
three of them, works till eight on Tuesday, Thursday.
Nothing interrupts their business, Michael,
because it's not reliant on OEM or an incentive
or advertising or the economy
or how much credit is, you know, how easy it is.
It's reliant on one thing, relationships.
And that has protected them, buffered them
from anything external.
You see, they've learned
that being the internal force of nature crushes,
supersedes, overrides, and outlives anything
that's an external force of nature.
External, my friends, is temporary.
Internal, when you're the force of nature,
that light doesn't go out.
This is the year of the human.
That's the hashtag for Soducan.
You're the human, you're gonna be our keynote speaker.
We're so excited to have you.
And I'm so grateful anytime I get to share with you
and learn from your depth of wisdom.
How can those listening well into the future?
How can those listening and watching connect with you
and learn more about what you do on the daily?
Come by my house.
I'm kidding.
Come by your house or come purchase your house?
Man, I believe I might be
one of the most accessible people in this industry.
I mean, I haven't gotten to the point
to where I'm writing my own phone number
on the walls of public bathrooms,
you know, the stalls, but come on,
people can reach me like, when I give my phone,
they think I have one of those community phones
or burner phones or something like I'm Jack Ryan.
No, it's my phone number.
I've had the same cell number, Michael, for over 40 years.
510-6040308.
You can get me also by hitting me at David at DGSglobal.com,
David at davidspeasac.com.
You could hit my own website at davidspeasac.com
or the DGSglobal site.
You could find me on LinkedIn at least three times a week,
typically trying everything I can
to give back to this industry that's given me so much,
given us so much.
You could DM me there, a lot of people do.
And by the way, I had somebody ask me,
hey, who responds to all your DMs?
I do.
Who responds to all your comments?
I do, not AI.
I don't have an agent.
I'm the agent.
So if it's early in the morning before my kids get up
or if it's in the light at night after they go to bed
and my wife goes to bed, that's where you'll find me.
If somebody was kind enough, I say this,
if somebody's kind enough to like your TikTok
or your Facebook, do you know what that's the equivalent of?
Hey, good job.
Be like me waving at you and you walking by, okay?
If somebody comments, that's somebody saying,
you know what?
You really impacted me positively.
Well done.
Or hey, thanks for starting my day off right.
I wrote a couple, a number of those over the weekend.
Somebody has shared that they did 10 year anniversary
of the loss of their brothers at the Graponi family.
Great, great auto family.
And I, I don't know Amanda,
but man, I was really touched by that.
There was another one about a guy that said,
end of an error, my daughter's going off to college.
I look back at all the countless road trips, plane trips,
you know, watching games.
And I said, I just responded to them just as earnestly,
genuinely as I could, it's just like,
thank you for putting this up there.
What a tremendous reminder of what a great privilege it is
to be a dad and how incredible is it to see everything
that you've poured in manifest into this incredible person
that you're seeing today.
And he just said, hey, thank you so much.
That means a lot.
What did that cost me?
Nothing, you know, it's humanity.
It's just taken a few minutes.
So I think the year of the human, you know,
despite the fact that we're hearing about agents and AI
and yep, humanoids available today at Walmart.
By the way, Walmart had a humanoid, $20,000 humanoid.
This is no joke.
You could look this up.
Had to be six months ago.
Somebody screwed up.
It ended up in Walmart's online,
where you could buy this robot from China,
$20,000 and then somebody posted
and then that thing was blown out of the online store.
But it's not AI guys.
It's not humanoids.
It is the year of the human.
I only hope every year remains the year of the human.
That's really what makes us great.
And that's what makes us, I think,
uniquely positioned to continue to serve people
doing what we love, hopefully from now on,
till we have cars on Mars.
David Spezak, the one and only.
Thanks so much for joining me here on the dealer playbook.
Pleasure, you know, again, I genuinely appreciate Michael.
I appreciate everything you do.
I really appreciate who you are.
I hope people come by your house.
Hope people seek you out
because to spend an afternoon with you,
to hang out with you, your calm, your patience,
your consistent desire to serve
reeks just like commission breath.
But oh, is that breath magical, Michael?
So hopefully I get close enough to get a sense of that
when I see you at a So2Con.
Looking forward to it.
Thanks so much for joining me.
Thank you, all the best.
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About this episode
David Spisak makes a case for automotive retail as a people business, not a technology story. He reflects on mentoring, career growth, and why teaching others matters more than personal accolades. From dealership resilience and community representation to AI, transparency, and FTC pressure, he keeps returning to one theme: choose hard by building better paths for people, measuring progress, and leading with relationships and accountability.
Are you tired of hearing the same old talk about how "hard" automotive retail is? Everyone acknowledges the challenges, but few are willing to roll up their sleeves and actually do the hard work that creates real, sustainable dealer growth. This isn't about avoiding difficulty; it's about making deliberate choices that set your dealership apart.
Here's what you'll get from this episode:
Reframe how you view challenges in automotive retail, understanding they are opportunities for real differentiation.
Discover why investing in people and fostering internal talent development isn't just "nice to have," but essential for dealer growth.
Learn why embracing "unreasonable hospitality" can elevate your car dealership above the competition.
Identify immediate, actionable steps to transition your team from just "talking the talk" to "walking the walk" on internal development.
Understand why the inevitable changes, like new regulations, are ultimately beneficial for high-integrity car dealers.
David Spisak, automotive consultant and keynote speaker, brings decades of experience leading top-performing dealerships and developing industry talent.
Timestamps
00:00 Keynote Skepticism Setup
02:08 ASOTUCON Keynote Preview
05:18 Circuit City to COO Story
09:03 Bill Walsh Coaching Tree
11:23 Dealers Resilience Through Change
21:14 Develop Talent Like Techs
26:17 Unreasonable Hospitality Standard
28:17 FTC Rules and Choosing Hard
38:44 Year of the Human Close
43:18 Final Thanks and Outro
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