Infinity here means the car brand the dealership sells. The guest is talking about how selling that brand is affected by today’s tougher market conditions.
Margin compression is when dealerships make less profit on each sale. Even if they sell cars, the profit can get squeezed by pricing pressure and costs.
It’s a sales method where the salesperson follows a set sequence of steps. The guest says they’re keeping the same basic flow but updating how they run it.
They’re using a modified version of ChatGPT that’s set up for their dealership. It helps the sales team answer questions and stay on message.
Term
AI
AI in this context means computer software that helps the salesperson respond to questions. They’re using it to make the sales conversation smoother and more consistent.
Frame rails are the strong metal “backbone” parts under some trucks and off-road-style cars. Here, the speaker means they give the AI those details so it can describe the vehicle correctly.
“Qualifying” is basically figuring out what the buyer actually needs and whether they’re ready to buy. It’s the step where you learn what they want before jumping into numbers.
They mean you shouldn’t start by cutting the price right away. If you do, it can make the customer think you’ll keep negotiating and it can hurt your position.
Warranty penetration means how many customers end up buying warranty coverage when they finance or buy a car. Dealers watch it because it affects both customer protection and the dealership’s profit from add-ons.
Product penetration means how often customers say yes to the extra add-on products the dealer offers. It’s basically a “how many people buy the add-ons” percentage.
A service plan is an optional contract that helps cover repair costs after the original warranty ends. Dealers call it a “bread and butter” product because many customers buy it when they purchase a car.
True cost of ownership is the idea of looking at the total cost of having a car, not just the purchase price. It includes things like repairs and coverage costs over time.
Term
exclusionary benefit
An exclusionary benefit is coverage that sounds helpful, but has exceptions. The important part is knowing what the plan will not pay for before you buy it.
A service contract is like an extra protection plan you buy for the car. It can help pay for some repairs later, so you’re less likely to get hit with a big unexpected bill.
The FTC is a U.S. government agency that watches for misleading business practices. A letter like this is basically a warning or instruction to dealers about how they should clearly explain prices and what’s included.
Advertised price is the price the dealer advertises to you. The point here is that dealers have to make sure the real deal matches what they advertise, and that the fine print is clearly explained.
Transparent disclosure means the dealer clearly explains the details—what’s included, what’s not, and any conditions—before you agree. It’s meant to prevent surprises after you sign.
Term
addendum stickers
Addendum stickers are extra labels on the car that point to additional paperwork or details. Here, they’re used to make sure customers can review and agree to what’s included.
QR codes are those square barcodes you scan with your phone. In this case, they’re being used to quickly show customers the details of what they’re agreeing to buy, and get their sign-off.
Cyber claims are insurance claims related to scams or attacks that happen through technology—like fake emails that trick a business into paying the wrong people.
It means someone sends a fake message telling the dealer to pay a vendor—but the instructions are a scam. The dealer ends up sending money to the wrong person.
This is a type of fraud where someone lies to you and tricks you into giving them a car. It’s not just “someone stole it”—you were persuaded to hand it over.
The Insurance Services Office is a group that helps the insurance industry by creating standard paperwork and guidelines. In this case, they made a form specifically for auto dealers, which suggests dealerships have different insurance needs than other businesses.
This is the insurance paperwork that’s written specifically for car dealerships. It’s meant to match the kinds of risks dealerships face, rather than using a generic form meant for other types of businesses.
An ISO form is a standardized insurance document created by the Insurance Services Office. The point being made is that there are dealer-specific versions, not one-size-fits-all paperwork.
An inside job means the theft or bad act involves someone who works at the dealership (or is closely connected to employees). The takeaway is that hiring and access control matter because insiders can be a major risk.
Risk management just means figuring out what problems could happen to a business and then taking steps to lower the odds or lessen the damage. The idea here is that how a dealership runs day to day can change what insurance costs and coverage look like.
Offloading risk means you’re trying not to take the full financial hit if something bad happens. Instead, you use insurance to share that cost so one big problem doesn’t wreck the dealership’s finances.
A deductible is the part of an insurance claim you have to pay first. If you pick a higher deductible, you usually pay less for the insurance, but you’ll pay more if something happens.
Loss runs are reports from an insurer showing a dealership’s past claims and losses over a set period. Reviewing them helps identify patterns (frequency and severity) so the dealer can adjust deductibles, coverage, or risk controls.
A weather deductible is a special insurance deductible for weather damage. If hail causes damage, you pay that deductible first before insurance covers the rest.
Hail nets are covers placed over cars to help protect them from hail. If they work well, they can reduce how often cars get damaged, which can affect insurance costs.
The premium is what you pay for insurance coverage. If you change things that reduce risk (like deductibles or protective measures), the premium can go up or down.
LIVE
Hey
everybody welcome back to another episode of the daily dealer live I'm your host Sam
dark and thanks for choosing to be here with us on this 27th day of May and we've got a pack
show coming up for you three dealership segments we've got a finance manager from heart auto group
on how he's rebuilding sales discipline without losing the fundamentals we've got a mini round
table with the team from high street automotive on why insurance it's the most controllable line
item most dealers treat as fixed it's not fixed and the leadership team from we auto on how they've
built a full internal development ecosystem from the ground up and how it's building culture but
first let's hit today's auto industry headlines and as a reminder we're streaming live across
all cdg social media platforms I know I pulled it out on you producers we're already in the news
block but I gotta tease it the automotive retired guy hello happy hump day Sergio coming in happy
Wednesday everyone and our car dealership guy Taylor and Craig that must be a message internal
message but we appreciate everybody who's watching with us live now back to the news kicking off today
with two dealer surveys out this week both of which are painting a consistent picture here's the
picture which is that the market is holding together but not comfortably first up Cox
Automotive's Q2 dealer sentiment index came in at 43 that's a slight improvement from 41
at the end of Q1 with franchise dealers notably more optimistic than independence the divide makes
sense because independent dealers are serving a more payment sensitive often subprime buyer
who's essentially well tapped out while franchise dealers have more tools to keep deals together
meanwhile Stevens mid-may survey of 100 plus franchise dealers found 18 percent
saying traffic was worse than expected in May with 41 percent pointing to higher fuel costs
and the iron conflict as direct headwinds on customer traffic the top factor holding business back
per 55 percent of Cox respondents is simply the economy a growing number up 5 percent from last
quarter we're also citing the political climate in other news today new IRS data from mid-May
shows 1.4 million filers have claimed the auto loan interest deduction so far this year totaling
2.6 billion dollars claimed under the provision that's a meaningful step up from the roughly 1.1
million filers reported just before the April 15th deadline suggesting uptake is continuing to build
as more returns come in the deduction which is part of the one big beautiful bill allows up to
10 000 bucks in deduction loan interest for buyers of new us assembled vehicles with income phase
outs beginning at 100 000 bucks for individuals what's the bottom line here it's still a niche
tool given the assembly and income requirements but the numbers are moving in the right direction
for dealers trying to use it as a sales conversation next up today over on the product side jd powers
2026 vehicle dependability study is out and the headline finding for luxury dealers is that
reliability is becoming a big differentiator as technology features converge across brands premium
vehicle problems rose eight parts per 100 year over year to 217 driven largely by software and tech
related issues Lexus led all premium brands for the fourth consecutive year at 151 followed by
Cadillac and Porsche Land Rover came in at 274 Mercedes at 235 what this tells us is that as
more OEMs collaborate on shared software platforms the brands that execute reliably on technology
will increasingly stand apart for luxury dealers the service experience and how tech
heavy vehicles are positioned during the sales process is also becoming just as important
as the feature list and finally up today we turn to the car dealership guy m&a cdga cdg
buysell tracker we've got two deals to close on we love our tracker walt massi automotive group
picked up mac hike chrysler dodge g brand in jackson mississippi from mac hike automotive group
renaming it walt massi cdgr jackson and pushing the group past 10 rooftops slanted stores keep
changing hands it's been a consistent theme in the buysell market this year also closing the 18th
jenkins auto group acquired jackson kia in coco florida from jackson automotive group who doesn't
be in florida come on renaming it jenkins kia of coco jenkins recently picked up a nearby
Honda store as well building out a cluster on florida's space coast jackson side was a deliberate
portfolio move refocusing their footprint around core georgia markets presidios president noted
that strong assets in attractive markets are moving fast and this one is a good example of that
as a reminder you can follow all m&a activity across automotive at the cdg buysell tracker
located at cdg buysell dot com and that folks on this wednesday is a wrap on today's auto industry
headlines all right turning to our uh online comments eager case actually villain official
comes in says we auto firefighter fire we're excited to have we auto up in the final block
of today's show and eager case says hello sam hello community just finished my wednesday's
auction day mmr's continue to climb used car market is very bubbled one of these days we need
to actually get eager on the show he consistently posts we'd love to have you on it sometime
let's turn first to an f&i conversation kenneth kris gioni finance manager at heart auto group
ken welcome to the show thank you for having me so hey before we get started we know you're a finance
manager we know you're there at the heart auto group tell us how's biz this may of 2026 as we
were in the final week a two model infinity brand could be right now you know with margin
compression and the market very unsettled but we're we're we're getting through it just sticking
to the fundamentals sticking to the you know the sales process yeah so it's interesting in your
intake you talked about fundamentals going back to a structured six step selling
process but modernizing it for today's market what is modernizing it look like for you on the floor
what changed from what you were doing months ago and what stayed the same it's really the same but
you're putting a new spin on it we're using ai we have a custom chat gbt that we use at the sales
people you know follow the process they could actually ask questions and do kind of word tracks
with the ai as well so we're just trying to time everything perfectly one of the biggest problems
in the industry is when you have a salesman on the first seven seconds tell the customer there's
like an 8000 dollar discount so that's that's step number six so we just try to hold
people accountable being operationally disciplined right now is extremely important yeah so talk to
us about this custom gpt first of all where are you located what state state city so we're in
hartford connecticut we have two nissan stores two infinity stores in the complete the wonderful
trifecta uh Volkswagen store and soon to be a Hyundai store oh nice okay so you've got a wide
variety and which yeah which store are you at or do you direct traffic at i'm hart infinity
in hartford connecticut our sister nissan stores right behind us okay tell me about this custom
chat gpt and how it helps support your training efforts and your process on the floor what is it
how did you program it and who engages with it so uh people thought i was crazy walking around a lot
talking to my phone all the time and my wife thinks i was not to walk around the house all the time
but i basically trained uh chat gbt in a custom chat um basically every piece of knowledge that i
have in the car business and uh then introduced the six-step selling process and just kept on
refining it salespeople could ask questions do roleplay um you know so we use that you know as a pillar
you know here um it's it's super important right now and with a lot of talent coming in going out
and constant turnover which is not good for the industry it's good to kind of uh normalize things
by having a you know a pillar to lean on so how do the sales consultants uh engage with this custom
chat gpt and is there like a standard for engagement and and and yeah what does that look
like practically and i i get how you created it you spoke to it but like how did you set up that
custom instance of chat gpt so we said you know we gave it the the parameters of what the sales
process is uh had to do a lot of research uh throughout the country of what other training
that other big brands are doing and kind of ingest all that information uh i give them a
printout to kind of go over it but they go on to the chat gbt um and kind of lean you know lean
into all the technology and when there's an issue you hear me in the background all the time you
didn't follow step number six or you know you skip you know step two and a half which we have a half
step where you touch desk and you know make sure you're going in the right direction yeah
so in may of 26 where reducing friction is definitely a theme and automotive it's trying
to figure out how do we deliver a great customer experience to that customer with less friction
in faster time um how does having this dedicated process help deliver that or is your intent to
kind of slow it down a little bit and get people back it's kind of to do both it's to slow down
the important parts and not skip ahead but at the same time give a very high level of of uh
process to the customer i mean it's even great when you have a customer comparing two different
vehicles you throw it into the chat you could show basically what the differences are and people
believe in chat gbt and all the technologies nowadays so when you're showing it right in front
of them it's actually a good thing so because it's a customized instance is it limited and what it
can do what it can go out and grab externally like or is it kind of limited to what you feed it
then no i just gave it the frame rails and what we're looking to accomplish it goes out on the
internet and you know checks on things a lot of times we use it for a lot of different things we
write our um our uh use card descriptions on there uh goes out there and looks at the google
algorithms uh make sure we're hitting all the ceo um and all the ai you know points so you know you
can give it frame rails i don't want to have it hold back at all you know i would just want the
fair information you know it doesn't need to be weighted i think you know there's enough of
information we bring a lot to the table that you know let let the information stand on its own
so before we jump off process you said you're really focusing on the most important steps
from the perspective of a finance manager trying to deliver the best to every customer
what do you see is the key most two to three steps that most finance managers or sales people miss
in 2026 really the qualifying you know meet greet sit down take a couple of minutes get
to know the customer you'll find out what their their wants and needs are what they're driving
what they're trying to accomplish i mean it's really all basic stuff but it's so important
too many uh sales people skip that step uh you know it's kind of like coviditis everybody just
you know you want the car or not scenario and you know if you just slow it down a little bit
you know be presentable shake the customer's hand look them in the eye welcome them in there
and take a couple minutes to get to know them that's really the basis to it the very very
important one is not talking about numbers or information until you get to ladder in the process
you don't want to discount yourself right by a hello how are you yeah so you've talked in
your intake about off street and service drive acquisition you've said hey that's something a
lot of dealers talk about but not many build a system around how have you made that a priority
at your store instead of just a nice idea which is great question so acquisition is the future uh
you know with the auctions going up and you just you know got outbid 16 times by car max and then
you end up saying i'm not letting them get this car you get it back and needs brakes and tires
we actually are rolling out um a process it's actually heart cash dot com where we're doing
off street purchases i actually made a platform that actually does that what we're looking to do is
get people from facebook selling for sale by owners being able to also advertise it
and then it's going to be locked into our website so when a customer goes it's just not a form
people don't realize that when somebody submits a trade form it's average 42 hours before they
get a response ours is ai driven they get a arranged value and then a hard value of an
actual firm offer within 60 seconds wow ken you're a finance manager what talk to me about
it's interesting you've taken on some responsibility that traditional finance would not take what made
you think hey it's a good idea to help us as a store lean into the off street and service drive
acquisition uh from the finance seat why is that important in 2026 well with with my tenure of 25
years in the car business i'm just getting tired of seeing such bad actors out there not taking
care of the customer not giving them a good process you need to mentor the people that are
coming in so i decided that i was going to make some you know work on some different things so
that's why i'm heavily involved in building a platform for off street purchase acquisition
service lane acquisition customers at home with the vehicle being traded they can go in and put
that information before they get to us so i just get tired of waiting to be honest with you i'm in
a tough Connecticut market that used to be all mom and pops that are converting now over to a lot
of groups so now's the time to move um and just you know time to make things happen and it's it's
the right timing speaking of taking action on a problem that gets frustrating your finance department
has this ability to quote make every deal work you talked about it in your intake form it's a big
part of your focus right now what does that mean operationally to your team what is a finance team
that can make any deal work actually look like in may of 26 versus one that can't you know the
finance department needs to be the skilled position they say it all the time that best sales
persons in the finance department but you need to also be able to put you know put the you know hang
the paper they say get banks to buy it move the customers have a process i from
the moment the customer comes in until the moment that they leave it's the same every single time
and that's really what drives things forward consistency and discipline is what you need
what do you say to that finance manager today that looks at five deals sees two cash deals
coming in and puts the cash deals last instead of the financing the opportunity there is that part
of your frustration whoo people who know me will tell you it is uh you got to change the process on
a cash deal that's a spot bring them in go over everything you'll probably find out there's an
outside lender um you know they're real customers too you know just because your your title has
finance and it doesn't mean that cash isn't you just have to be positive upbeat and customers
if they're paying cash they have they have money to buy products you just got to go over everything
be positive and upbeat eager k comes into the chat says selling value not selling payments also
good on the floor interview before you take the client on the box uh and then Sergio says people
tend to sell out of fear skip the process it's there for a reason Lauren client client says i
agree with Paul Salisman and by the way eager accepted so we will have eager on at some point
it'd be great to have them on the show eager go to my linkedin page dm me and i'll get
you connected up with Hannah and we'll get you uh on um uh eager k comes back says most often i skip
interviewing clients on the floor before you take them into the box but that interview will tell you
so much uh what customer wants and concern with so you can set up your deal better which uh i i you
i agree with so you're can you're running social across facebook instagram and youtube alongside
your inventory push again from the finance seat how do these two things connect are you using social
to drive acquisition or is it more about generating front end traffic so what's interesting is if you
concentrate on use car acquisition right now the traffic comes it's kind of like if you build you
build the field they'll come um so we've been buying off brand vehicles low mileage customers
coming you know uh stayed away to sell us our the car so we're starting to see that you know
kind of come to fruition and it's actually start uh you know moving but you know you just have to
take an acquisition you know direction now nowadays the auction prices are not good
off lease vehicles are expensive um and unfortunately a lot of those cars that we're talking about even
enterprise rental cars they have no scarcity you need cars with scarcity and that people will come
into volume yeah jesse hill says getting involved as soon as possible it changes everything and i
agree with you finding that great use car in 2026 is job number one i think you use car acquisition
and then even retention in the service department props to you for running that charge from the
finance seat where um you're you're exerting a lot of influence in in different areas and we need
more people in the industry that are doing what you're doing i got a question that many
are probably thinking as they're watching this show today why not become a sales manager why not
become a gm is it pay driven ken the uh velvet handcuffs uh probably it's a little bit harder
and connect so i started off very young i was uh 20 years old i was a sales manager in a gsm at a
nissan store i was very fortunate my son at age 18 was in the finance box and my other son
is a controller of two oems in a um in a used car store so it's just it's partially what you
said um and that's really kind of my move right now is i'm getting more involved because i want to
move the needle and moving the needle is very important and i find that this acquisition is
huge so i'm actually gonna take that tool that we're working on and hopefully make it you know
available to other dealers once once it's uh you know going well yeah training and development
made your list too uh how do you keep a finance team sharp in an environment where deal structures
are getting tougher and customers are more informed better educated then i do want to come back to
pay before we exit out but uh talk to us about how that how you view training with your fellow
finance managers or are you the only one in the store maybe i'm the only one in the store but i
have a lot of friends in the business and they call me up all the time i have a friend who just
went to a cg uh you know a jeep ram dealer in the area and he's picking my brain on a continual
basis you just have to follow the process you have a blueprint follow it the customer's gonna
want to get you off track you want north and south movement not east west and if you just follow
the process the success happens and it is about value selling uh you know like explanation and
having a good warm personality with the customer all right i'm gonna ask you this question you
don't have to answer if you don't want to we've talked a lot on this show about f and i pay plans
and f and i can't be broken in 2026 and it's tough to hire sales managers and gms in a world where
finance generates so much income and potentially generates so much pay how would you if you had
to fix the problem to create better gms better sales managers how would you fix the problem of pay
in 2026 so that find uh general managers and general sales managers are incentivized to do a
lot of things you're talking about doing training and developing and thinking about retention and
putting in different processes that truly serve the customer experience at the dealership that's
a great question and that's a big problem in our state here a lot of our states during covet
hired less expensive finance managers that had no knowledge or anything and and it was it really
shows now that they need to be in a skilled position have a mix you need to have a you know
percentage of warranty penetration and product penetration um that's really the key i i came
from a store that i was running 70 at a Hyundai store to get to the top tier but the problem also
with that is is you got to be at the right group some of them over pack the the service plan cost
let's just be fair to the customers the employees and everybody and and we'll make it happen but so
my answer is it needs to be a little bit of a hybrid yeah in 2026 what do you think is the most
viable product that we offer in finance and what's the one product that needs to go away now because
it's it's old school and it doesn't truly serve the customer service plans are the bread and butter
i mean if you look at like admins dot com on true cost of ownership they bake in the cost of having
a service plan in there the cost of repair of going up dramatically between the tariffs and
inflation so really that serves the customer best but fellow finance managers please make
sure the customers have exclusionary benefit don't give them stated coverage so just do the right
thing as far as some products that are probably getting on the back burner at this point probably
the the traditional vignette you know if you want to reinvent it use use the uv etch or something
just do something a little bit different but that's probably the one that's kind of getting sunset
especially with the f tc you know pressing on the dealers and stuff but service contract most
important it helps it affordability if they can't afford that $800 car payment now they won't be
able to afford the repair cost when you saw that letter go out to the industry the f tc letter a
couple months ago 97 dealer groups basically warning on advertised price then also fold
completely transparent disclosure did change your thinking about the role of f and i going forward
or has it become more important given the letter it did it did change things a little bit for me
i think it you know compliance has always been an issue for me and and i'm very serious about that
i think it's it's a good thing and a bad thing at the same time it's bad because i don't like
anybody uh you know limiting us of what we can do it's a good thing because unfortunately a lot
of the dealers down south have been off the farm after covid with all these different ads and stuff
and i was in in a state that there was one dealer that was like that and they took a
lot of business from us so it's a good and bad i think a finance manager if you have the process
and you follow it every time and you are compliant you do the right thing you'll do fine in it but
that did also give me some more thought on other things like we're going to be working on a
addendum stickers on our cars with uh uh u p c code i'm sorry with qr codes on it that we could
scan and customer signs off iron clad tightly when they have things that have been on the car that
they've agreed to purchase but i think it's a good and bad but you know good finance managers rise
to the top everybody just keep leveling up your game ken finance manager heart auto group thank you
so much for joining daily deal alive and sharing your perspectives on use car acquisition customer
retention f and i the future of this current state and how to level up your own finance department
ken appreciate your perspectives we'll see you back at the end of the show as part of the roundtable
you got thank you so much for having me all right a lot of great comments coming online eager case
says get higher product pin to be a star over holding high pvr just on reserve but no product
penetration uh Sergio eager is absolutely right those markups essentially serve as a roadmap to
refinancing in a matter of months if not sooner instead focus on offering products that genuinely
benefit your customers and then again what i love is there is a community of daily deal alive
you're having a conversation amongst yourselves a lot of people high-fiving eager looking forward
to having eager on the show at some point in the future and by the way uh paul you're not off the
hook either nor you lauren or a lot of our other listeners all right let's talk about open lane
today's episode is brought to you by open lane once again voted the most preferred digital
wholesale marketplace by dealers learn how you can earn up to $2,500 and buy and sell fee credits
right now at open lane dot com forward slash cdg open lane dot com forward slash cdg and props to
open lane for supporting today's content including that fascinating conversation with ken and his
view and perspectives as finance manager i would hold him up as a standout in terms of his belief
and ability his ability to influence things going on around him even outside of finance to benefit
the store and everyone else around there the automotive retired guy says hello sam hello back
let's go straight into our next guest block uh rich the zone director of business development
at high street automotive and mike keys agency president at high street automotive welcome to
you both hey sam how you doing sam it's good to have you back we had you here a month or so ago
and uh we had a little bit of a technical snafu got a great uh take and perspective from you
on fixed versus variable expenses inside automotive and one of your themes was hey
automotive or uh insurance doesn't need to be a fixed expense it's a variable expense if you get
aggressive at controlling it part of the advice then was to offload some of the items that can
that can create the biggest risk inside your your your policy what uh what's the most dangerous
misconception mike dealers have about their current coverage things they believe are covered
that mike maybe actually aren't yeah thanks sam all right so just real quick you mentioned
that the the acquisition of jinkens in in cocoa and you said who doesn't want to be in florida well
we're living testament to that right you can see that the sunshine behind me right we are beautiful
until the weather hits yeah but yeah don't go outside you're gonna melt but uh you know we're
in melbourne so we're not too far from that cocoa kia so we'll go by and say welcome to the
neighborhood to those guys yeah yeah but uh you have to answer your question as far as misconceptions
right so uh you know dealers that think hey we're covered for that because they see a coverage on
a proposal right so you know if you don't think about the last proposal they saw right a lot of
those coverage descriptions are you know maybe forwards maybe a sentence and reality is right that
those coverage parts are paragraphs it's not pages of the actual policy and so if they actually
haven't had a loss in that area because it's you know low frequency then they haven't really
stressed tested that policy to understand the nuance of that you know that coverage and so
i think you know that's that's really i think the point that i would like to drive home is just that
uh mike give me an example of that what's a coverage that's low frequency that a dealer
may not stress test appropriately in may of 26 yeah so uh i would say like business interruption
coverage right so your your property gets damaged by let's say a hurricane or a tornado or a fire
right and you cannot do your normal operations that's a very low frequency you know in the
grand scheme of things right very low frequency type of claim but gosh it could be very catastrophic
right if it's not set up properly and so that's you know i think why working with you know somebody
that understands the nuances of that is is definitely crucial yeah yeah that makes sense so rich
a dealer watching right now probably has a general commercial agent they've used for years
i know i saw that in my own experience uh why isn't that good enough in may of 26 what's the
real cost of not having a specialist but rather a ga thanks i am a pleasure meeting you by the way
last time i met you on the show so yes yeah welcome so you know there's a lot of great
generalists out there and um they do a good job for their clients but i think the big reason
that a specialist is paramount for the dealer industry is because the dealer industry is very
specialized um i think it comes down to two major things uh relationships and leverage and what i
mean by that is the relationships that a specialist has cultivated over decades of doing business in
this industry um is going to be levered to help get the best product and the best result for our
clients um think of this as an example you have a generalist that you know at the high school with
a buddy who now owns a dealership and that's the only dealership that he ensures well a specialist
is probably going to be dealing with underwriters and insurance executives on the daily basis so when
they pick up the phone and make a phone call they're able to get things done where that generalist
is probably dealing with those underwriters and executives you know once a year yeah but rich the
generalist uh he buys a ton of cars and he puts my name aside his name at the baseball field why
isn't that enough especially in a low frequency claim situation well 75 percent of what we do
is behind the scenes and so a lot of times our clients don't understand or at least grasp what's
going on um and what i mean by behind the scenes is we're making we're picking up the phone and making
phone calls with insurance vice presidents senior underwriters that when i make a phone call or other
specialists like me they're picking up the phone they're listening to what i have to say because
there's a trust involved with me being able to put business together with them through decades so if
i'm telling them that someone's a really good dealer and they have their operations in place and
they listen to insurance companies when they say hey are they really mitigating losses um if i say
yes they are it's because i had a frank conversation with my client and they are adhering to our advice
sometimes an underwriter may or may not have that kind of comfortableness with a generalist
if they've only put one deal together throughout the years yeah okay so uh mike what's something
on the horizon there's so many different things in automotive technology that are just rapidly
changing what's something on the horizon dealers aren't paying attention to yet cyber liability
ev risk workforce changes that maybe will affect their insurance in the next few years
mike yeah so i touched on cyber a little bit last time um yeah yeah and and i think you know so
i'd like to stay kind of on that topic just because right something that's really driving
cyber claims is fraud and yeah right i really enjoyed the first segment with ten talking about
what he's doing with chat gpt and his sales process i mean yeah his brain on that and how
to utilize that in my business as a leader on finance which is crazy i mean he's really out
punting his his role as position yeah yeah i'm very surprised to hear what he's got his hands on
for sure but you know so as great as chat gpt and ai tools are to help us right it's doing that
to hurt us as well right and so cyber claims continue to be on the rise right so dealers think
that they're making a payment to one of their vendors lo and behold they're actually making a
payment to right a bad actor who has given them fraudulent payment instructions we continue to
see those claims and that again that fraud ai is continuing to to drive that uh other areas where
we're seeing fraud right this has been around for a while what we call the false pretense claims
right so claims where you know you voluntarily part of the vehicle and you were tricked into
to giving them the vehicle right and so really what that comes into is false identification
and again the bad actors are using you know technology to help them uh become even more
deceptive with that so there's coverage for it my policy would cover it what's the problem
i you know i fall victim to the fraud vehicle stolen i file an insurance claim cars off the
lot i'm reimbursed we move on is that a issue in 26 yeah it's not quite that easy right uh
so and i only say it precessively i know no problem is your your insurance rates go up you
could get canceled like you don't want to use that sort of a thing uh you want to have a plan
more than you want to use the insurance in that case mike right yeah yeah it's great to have as
a backup right but what you want to have is the proper controls in place and looking for those
red flags uh to help prevent these items because obviously nobody wants to have to deal with that
insurance claim and and yeah the impending you know maybe higher premiums or restriction
coverage that may come with that uh so yeah it's about having those proper procedures and looking
for those red flags so mike if i have coverage and a vehicle stolen uh due to you know somebody
calls up pretends there's somebody they're not they steal the vehicle obviously loan gets charged
back do i uh do i submit the claim how do i decide whether or not it's a good idea to turn that in
yeah so everybody's got a different tolerance for risk right so um i mean a lot of it's gonna
depend on how much that vehicle is right yeah how much is it gonna sting you how often it happens
probably as well right like it's a continual thing that coverage will go away and and i mean
exactly right and what's what's your deductible structure you know yeah what's your history been
with been with this in the past right if it's the first time it's happened that's one thing right if
it's been a trend right and then that's that's certainly a conversation to have you know with
your insurance agent to kind of figure out the best way to move forward there you mentioned
in some of the things that are coming up on their highs and workforce changes what are some of the
workforce changes that represent a risk to a dealership insurance policy that could be mitigated
if anticipated yeah so i mean one thing that we do you know in our agency is employee benefits
and we talk to you know dealers about uh right providing competitive benefits packages for employees
and and so right not necessarily p&c insurance but employee benefits which is something that
that we do you know in our business and it's really right trying to make sure that the dealerships
can retain that top talent right there we constantly hear about the the battle for talent
and so right if you have a dealership that's offering competitive pay and benefits right
they may leave to go down the street to work somewhere else right and so you want to make
sure that you're set up uh to retain that top down i've always been curious just in my role
because you know ziggler auto group 41 stores four states 2700 employees i've often wondered
how did how did healthcare become attached to employment and that's probably a broader
bigger conversation but i've never understood like healthcare ends up being dependent on where
you're employed and that ends up determining you know the level and the quality and you know you
work for a good group like ours you've got one level you work for another one you might have
another uh what why is healthcare tied to employment and you don't have to know this
answer by the way this is not this was not in the uh intake but i am curious about that i've
asked people about that every now and again no i mean you're absolutely right but you know when
we all look at our paychecks right i mean there there's no doubt that the healthcare is is a big
expense for all of us personally right and then you know whether we decide to go to the doctor
or the ER so yeah i mean it's it's certainly something that i think employers need to think
about right i don't propose social medicine by the way i'm not saying we need to turn into
canada because i think our our our model uh you know provides some uh innovative and interesting
benefits but it is interesting that it's so tightly uh tied to uh who you work for and how
long you work there and how well that business does so uh rich curious what is an ideal client
relationship look like for you beyond just renewing a policy every year how do you think about that
connection you have with a dealer or someone uh in a business ancillary to automotive well real
quick on your prior question i think it's the economy of scales being able to pool employees
together to uh have a better rate with an insurance company so your 27 hundred person
group is an example you're gonna have a much cheaper rate than if one person went out on their
own to go get their own policies yeah but it's your question about um relationships with your
clients i think um it's it's a it's a poor example to meet with your client once a year um for renewal
right a lot of these businesses are growing and they're expanding and oftentimes through that
expansion they're entering into new states or different regions of the country that have very
important insurance uh questions that go with that so if someone's you know doing business let's say
in a non-cat state and they want to open up a dealership in florida to your example where we are
in cocoa um there's a hurricane exposure there so they may want to have a they may have a question
regarding hey how is my insurance policy going to perform here so we want to be in the room when
they're having those conversations because i think when we exceed our client's expectation
expectations consistently um when we do that we're viewed more as a partner than a vendor
and that's kind of the uh standard or goal that we set for ourselves uh for all of our clients
how do you set that expectation right because some dealers just like you don't want to meet
i don't know what the frequency is but like you know insurance ends up being something you need
when you have a claim and you've got to use it so the higher frequency you probably want to meet
more your best clients probably set up forget it and probably have to be pushed a little bit
to have that meeting right because it's working i don't want to jinx it well how should i be thinking
about that rich in may of 2006 that's a great comment and a lot of truth is in that statement
uh i would think oftentimes owners of dealerships or dealer groups think when we're speaking to our
insurance agent there's an issue right there's a claim we're working through a claim there's a
coverage issue um what i like to say to them is look if you're expanding your business you're
hiring new people you're going to different territories it's important for me as your agent
to be involved that way when you actually pull the trigger on that new location and the loan
goes through and you're making it effective july 1st i'm not finding out about it you know june 13th
i've known about it since february 1st and we're getting the policy in place to ensure that your
coverage and the continuity of your coverage is set versus trying to jump through a bunch of hoops
and have a big fire drill within two weeks of when you're going to open up that new location
yeah yeah you know speaking of those relationships and and the conversations on a regular basis
and anticipating changes many industries have projected you know things going online and being
digitized and ai'd and insurance it seems to be garagekeepers in particular is one of those that
just hasn't not nearly to the extent maybe technology could have allowed it why do you think what
what's preventing that from becoming more online and automated and still requires that interaction
is it just too intricate a decision to to fully automate well i think that the policy and the
industry itself when we kicked off this conversation is we're unique um there's a lot of ways policies
perform in what we call main street business um in the dealer world it's different so i think you're
always going to need an agent having a face-to-face conversation with an owner to kind of work
through those intricate pieces of the policy i mean over time you'd have to think part of this
will eventually be i don't want to say taken over but we'll say subsidized by ai but it's
going to be more of a tool than i think a takeover it's going to be an agent that's able to use ai
to uh better what they're trying to bring to a client versus ai removing the agent all together
yeah yeah yeah well sam it's interesting yeah mike you know just to speak about how unique
auto dealers are right so yeah the insurance services office just a few years ago came out
their own form right called the auto dealer coverage form so if that doesn't speak that the
insurance industry understands how unique auto dealers are right they created a form just for
auto dealers and other automotive related businesses that's interesting yeah yeah so the
official i'm trying to remember what the forms i used to have all these licenses it's going to
take me a minute but it's a iso form so there's a new iso form that is just for auto dealers
yeah i mean i want to say a few years ago what i mean it's it's maybe eight to ten years old now
yeah but you know relatively recent yes yeah very cool eager k comes into the chat says data
shows most thefts that the dealership happened from people who worked or still work at the dealership
inside job or inside job connected higher better quality people screen your staff better and that
is a big challenge but we have any business particularly larger businesses is uh truly
validating verifying that might be a good question for our next block as part of we auto but that's
great comment eager yeah um all right mike uh if every dealer takes one thing away from this
conversation what would you like that to be today yeah so i think it's just a reminder right that
insurance isn't just a cost right it's a reflection of your operations right and the better your
deals your operates the better your outcomes are going to be from that risk management and
insurance standpoint yeah right and so just a little bit of a you know high street automotive
right so our goal is to be the ultimate resource for dealers right and so it's not
just the garage liability the work comp it touched on the employee benefits right it's
it's effective you know we have aviation experts we have you know uh life and disability experts
on on our team and so we're here really to be the complete insurance provider right for
for dealers and so if anyone wants to continue that conversation you know definitely feel free
to reach out to us directly and we're more than happy to have that conversation with with all the
dealers yeah you know so your last time here on the show you talked about offloading certain
risks to help protect that core policy maybe just walk us through i think we've only got a couple
minutes left what are some of those key coverages that a dealer could consider offloading to protect
the policy again turning a fixed expense into a variable expense and protecting the
viability of the policy from a significant loss of one of those line items yeah so i i think you
know use the term offloading and i'll say like offloading risk right not and not necessarily
offloading coverage um and so you know one of the first places that we always go to is deductibles
right and so i mentioned it earlier how much tolerance for risk does the dealer have right
i think the the the first couple things to look at is let's get your loss runs right how you
performed what your claims look like and then also right um your operations to your operations support
making these changes and so right it may be um a weather deductible right so um we have plenty
of dealers in the midwest where hail is a major concern what do you have in place to help protect
in case of hail right is it is it weather alerts do you have hail nets do you have a parking
structure where you can protect that inventory you know and and take on that higher deductible
or uh you know help reduce the premium right so there's many different levers right that you can
pull deductibles usually the first place that people look at mike and rich both of high street
automotive thank you so much for sharing your perspectives on daily deal alive on all things
risk and protecting the dealership business so thank you both for being here thanks sam thanks sam
and lots of comments coming online in fact i don't want to take away from our last guest so keep
the comments coming we'll continue to bring them in again eager uh dmi i'll get you hooked up with
hannah and then also we need to have paul on and i feel like maybe we need to do like a round table
of frequent guests because uh our audience provides such great color commentary on the show it's fun
to watch all the comments that get uh messaged in next up on our final block dana winds director
of training at we auto and valerie uh oh my goodness valery i'm going to be in trouble here
neeter mire director of community relations at we auto group uh welcome to the show thanks for
having us sam thanks for having us how did i do did i get the last name right valery perfectly
oh thank you thank goodness so you both work for mr spiegel who we it's been an incredible
guest on the show many times he's come and talked about chinese vehicles uh execution discipline
and automotive um what tell us something about mr spiegel that most people don't know and we automotive
we want like a fun fact or yes fun fun fact yeah it's a fun fact he has a massive sweet tooth
his favorite candy is all enjoys oh that's a good one i like that all right massive sweet
tooth we'll have to remember that for our next uh show all right you're here to talk
about some things you built out so we auto is built out what sounds like a full internal
development ecosystem you call it we auto university which by the way i love that because
ziggler we have ziggler university you have a service manager development program a league
before we get into the specifics give us the 30 second version what problem were you trying
to solve when you started building out all this data yeah we were in a really big need
training um internally you know i started in sales here about four years ago and i just saw
lack of kind of processes we were going through a change with ownerships um and so there was
just a need for training it was when you talk to people well they you know they don't know what
they don't know so you can't hold them accountable until you tell them what you need to expect out
of them and so we thought hey let's just handle that let's create you know a training program
specifically designed around inspiring people to grow making our family's team and community proud
that's our mission statement here at we auto and so we've really just lived up to that the last four
years and it's taken us monumental um you know mount we've moved mountains as far as creating that
and making sure people are you know up to speed with where they need to be dana you're getting
comments in the chat here let's grow rev ops as good get to work and joshua ockerman 1360 we auto
and multiple exclamation marks eager also coming in to say great tool so valory you're approaching
culture from the community angle both internally and externally what does it actually mean that
we auto to treat those two things as connected culture and community rather than separate
i'm going to challenge you because culture is a buzzword we've seen a lot on this show if you
meet the bar of what culture is but how do you treat those as connected rather than separate
so first off we need to kind of start on creating a good internal community and culture right
because we all work with each other between our antarbor campuses we have over 200 employees
and we want it to be an enjoyable place to come to work the best way we found to create deeper
and more meaningful relationships amongst our team is by giving them opportunities outside of work
where they can connect with one another you know maybe get to know that paintball flag football
games we have a seer point trip this summer video game tournaments halloween costume
contest like the list goes on and on and that gives everyone an opportunity to not focus so much on
work because we're at work most of the time and find out that hey we have kids the similar age or
we have a hobby that we're both interested in and that kind of breaks down the walls to get everyone
to get to know each other a little bit outside of being a salesperson or a technician or a general
manager and that makes it far more successful to get team members to want to involve in the
external community which would be you know volunteering and all of our philanthropy
so valerie what's the video game of choice for those internal video game competitions so we are
a little divided right now okay we have done call of duty tournaments in the past i think our next
one though is going to be a little more all-inclusive and we will do a mario car tournament all right
i got a suggestion for you this is just an idea coming from me uh ziggler we sponsor nav car we
have the ziggler car we need to have like the ziggler car in the week we auto car and we'll do
like a a video game competition group to group that would be awesome so okay um we'll put that
together uh dana we auto university is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this walk us through
what what it actually looks like is this structure curriculum is on the job coaching
certifications what makes the university a university and not just a training program
outside of what valerie is talking about with the events off site which i think is awesome so
yeah we have so in the we auto university we have six pillars we have leadership sales service
culture finances and wellness so any class we run in we auto university comes from one of those
six pillars um when you're talking about training oem training um maybe specific training internal
a lot of it's coming from our gms too and our sales people i'll walk around and say like hey
what are we struggling with what do we need to know um where's the team you know are we
having trouble closing deals this week are we do we need some more product knowledge classes
and we'll run some even on the fly or pop up classes um but basically we run classes um the
middle two weeks of the month um and you know they range from closing and handling objections
product knowledge um creating a thriving culture um and then we have a couple of external things
that we do outside of the university as well it's still considered part of the we auto university
but we have our we auto league which is a competition between subaru and toyota um they have the sales
managers are the coaches the finance managers are the assisting coaches and then we have a draft day
where we draft team team member players in february and then we basically run it like the nfl league
um i was trying to come up with some fun and creative ways that we could get people involved
in training teach them you know something that they could learn in the classroom but then directly
go out to the customer and learn as well and apply it immediately and so inside there we do
walkarounds we do hype videos we do presenting numbers and the pencil disclosure um and then
all throughout the year they compete earn points and then they get to go on the company trip at
the end as the grand prize when they win the super bowl in december so dana there's probably a lot of
people watching in in automotive that are like hey that's great but you're going to get that cross
section of your employment base that says i don't want to do this i don't want to participate i don't
want to go to these events how do you deal with that that employee that just is stone cold not
seeing the benefit of it and doesn't want to participate and forced fun they may call it yeah
i think so our mission statement here at we auto is we inspire people to grow making our
families team and community proud so we don't service cars in an arbor we don't sell cars in
our we inspire people to grow making our families team and community proud um there always is that
one thing i've had tons of practice right off the tip of your tongue um so there's always someone
you know and and it's a it's bigger than that you just have to ask that person why why do you
feel that way do you not want to grow as a person do you not want to help your team members grow
you know what do you want out of life what are your goals your six months goals your goals three
year goals um find out a little bit more about them because sometimes it's just not as service
level as people think it is it's a little bit deeper so dana paul salzman comes into the chat
and says something i think is maybe on everyone's minds as well he says how do you balance events
like this with a retail schedule ownership never wants to be closed and i know at ziggler and we
share a state part of our geography you know the first few times we had what we call ziggler speaker
series we'd bring in all of our employees somebody like jim craig or a tom iso or someone
who would speak to us and i would look around the room and i'd be at at first not at the end but
at first i'd be like everybody's sitting around nobody's selling anything nobody's selling service
cars like we're all together for this period of time and it made me nervous at first now i got
there but tell us your answer what how do you balance being open with doing events like this
and activities yeah i'll shoot this one to valerie for sure so i'll say that you know talking
about um the training the events the the people that don't want to get involved we do a lot of
team member surveys to try and find the opportunities that they're passionate about yeah because we
don't want to spend time and resources putting on a pickleball tournament if no one wants to play
pickleball um as far as the scheduling question goes we primarily schedule our events outside of
business hours so it's friday nights it's saturday nights it's sunday afternoons or you know sunday
mornings super doing golf um and we never expect everyone to be there but that's why we do a variety
of different recurring events so that hey this isn't your passion or your strong suit you know next
month is going to be something right up your alley um and there have been instances where we
survey in the past too of hey you guys want to do a soccer game what day and time works best yeah okay
what's the most surprising feedback you got in terms of an activity or an event where you said
i never would have thought of that but a an individual contributor suggested it and actually
took off in a way that served the team uh well there's been some interesting suggestions that we
haven't uh haven't done yet yes like a drifting event um we did recently do a fixed stops fishing
trip so they went over to lake eerie and did some walleye fishing and they had a great time no one
brought me back any fish though i was a little disappointed but um you know most of them aren't
that crazy though we have some new events this summer that we haven't done before um where we
live in michigan river floating is very popular so we're gonna do a team river float in august
and we'll see how that goes it's usually a little bit of a cluster but i think they'll have fun
so valory you said you want to quote meet the team where they are when it comes to this
to community involvement so transitioning from those team events to community involvement
what did you learn from listening to the feedback the team feedback were the things the team wanted
that surprised you as it relates to community involvement i i don't think anything surprised
me you know some of the questions we ask because when we talk about culture we have to think about
it starting from the top right it starts with our leadership um and so we've had some varying
responses as far as team members feeling like they're getting the support from leadership to
step off the sales floor to step away from their um you know their tools and stuff so that's something
that we're always conscious of and you know we hear a lot dana and i both of what we do is like
well we're always busy you know when the day comes that we're not too busy like we have bigger problems
than volunteering um and so we need to remove that word yeah yeah we've had to get creative and
providing you know outside of work opportunities a lot of team members do like to um volunteer
during work hours but some people would prefer to make their money while they're at work and go
volunteer on an evening shift or a weekend which is fair by the way yeah yeah i'd be the same way
yeah yeah and we've even met our service department where they're at with doing some on-site volunteer
shifts in our conference rooms like packing up non-perishable lunches to donate to local clinics
or homeless shelters so they're sacrificing you know a portion of their lunch break but they're still
getting to give back in a way that makes more sense than pulling them out of the store for
several hours at a time does it sometimes surprise you at team members desire to do things that give
back it seems to me and i don't know if this is true but i have a theory it seems to me that
that younger generations now want to be tied to something full of meaning and giving back and
tied to something where they can help change the world and we do it through work because we spend
so much time here and if you give them that method i'm always a little bit surprised at how often
people run towards those opportunities i would say given our culture it doesn't surprise me
you know we have some team members that have been here long before the buy sell and so we have
some team members a little stuck in their ways but i think in the four years that i have been in
this position the growth that we have seen and the mindset shift for you know our core values and
the culture has been inspiring you know i've had technicians playing rock paper scissors over like
who gets to go to a certain volunteer shift um so those i wouldn't say it surprises me um
it reminds me why we do what we do yeah yeah so does the does the term team tough mutter mean
anything to you michael spiegel came into the text and he said team tough mutter
tell us about that yes so michael texted me one saturday in january a screenshot of one of our
sales manager's registration for a tough mutter 15k which happens to fall on my 30th birthday next
month and he said you in and where is this it is uh in oakland michigan okay all right
i spread michigan it's maybe an hour from here for me and our group um and i wanted to do a tough
mutter for years not necessarily a 15k uh and he caught me on the right day i thought about
being like let me let you know monday let me think about it and i just said screw it i'm in
and we have a group of maybe seven or eight of us um primarily managers that are gonna go
hopefully not stroke out at this tough mutter next month that's awesome a mutter 15k well we
need you back to tell us how that went and did it end up being a team building it is interesting
how some of the best team building happens both at work when we overcome adversity tough things
but also when we're at play right and and you you do something tough together that you've always
wanted to do and you do it together law cocktail who i think maybe jay law says sam's a tough
mutter so we'll have to look at the dates maybe i'll maybe i'll come over and join you so data as
we wrap up for a dealer principal watching this who wants to build something like we auto university
but they don't know where to start what's the one thing they need to get uh right before anything
else and in doing what you've done and creating what you've created yeah i would say just a
passion for the team development go talk to your people if nothing else go grab a book the energy
bus um good to great um you know go grab just a book and start a book club we run a book club here
every month um where we buy team members a book we meet once in a once a week for one hour and you
will be surprised the vulnerability that people come into in that book club and like you said the
younger generation want to become part of something more and they want to feel included and so it's
been a it's just so easy to do that buy a book for your team host it once a week um go through
you know the book and make sure you finish don't stop because it's busy don't you know you the show
must go on in the training world the show must go on so i think that's just the best way just go
talk to your people and ask them what they want and actually so i'll give you that it in this effort
to like create this as part of your culture giving back team events um training and development
how long would you say it takes before it actually starts to stick because i think in
automotive historically decades ago we were infamous for starting something and it's like
you know what not everybody wants to go play baseball not everybody wants to do the mutter
not everybody wants to log in and do training and so it kind of collapses because it doesn't
get consistent enough valerie how long would you say it takes for this to become a habit and
part of culture at we auto or anywhere else in automotive i would say as one of our guiding
principles that it takes about three years to become great at anything um so to get to a point
where you're getting over 50 percent buy-in i would say about three years you know from the time i
started four years ago to now it's been slowly building year over year um and i think it's important
to have the right person in the seat to lead that and and your leaders because like i said it starts
from the top so they need to be bought in on what it is that you're trying to do whether it's
training or getting your team members involved with the community and i think that's that's the
biggest thing is having some patience knowing that it's going to start small but if you stay
consistent you stay disciplined you set up your processes um you'll be really proud to see how
far you've come over the years data and valerie we auto thank you so much for joining daily dealer
live today we normally do the round table but we're flat out of time because we had such a
great conversation with you and our other guests today so thanks for sharing your perspectives
on all things culture building and development training and pouring back into your employees and
first uh holding that standard you know what shoot me over information on the Tough Mudder that
might be actually i have a lot of fun for this host to come do with y'all so thanks for being here
thank them yeah so i love this we got a lot of great comments the paul saussman says the
go giver is a great book for people who don't like reading and i'll bet you 10 bucks is probably
available online eager k coming back in listen to your team first and see what concerns them so
you can have more consistent training programs he says training is a must automotive industry evolves
all the time and training is a must to keep up with the changes which i agree with 100 to you
thanks for being here we'll be back friday if it's friday it's fixed ops friday but for today
thanks for watching daily deal alive we break down the biggest moves in the car business as they
happen don't forget we are here live every monday wednesday friday 1 p.m eastern so if this is your
world hit like hit subscribe turn on those notifications so you never ever miss a beat
thanks for being here everybody see you next episode fixed ops friday coming up
you
About this episode
Dealers and finance leaders break down what’s squeezing profitability and reshaping operations: margin compression, unsettled markets, and how teams are using AI to tighten sales process discipline. J.D. Power’s 2026 dependability findings highlight reliability as a differentiator as software-driven issues rise. The show then pivots to liability and insurance realities—FTC disclosure pressure, cyber-enabled fraud, and why coverage outcomes depend on controls, deductibles, and long-term underwriting relationships. WE Auto closes with how “university” training and community culture build accountability through ownership change.
Today's show features:
- Kenneth Criscione, Finance Manager at Harte Auto Group
- Rich Stazzone, Director of Business Development at Highstreet Automotive
- Mike Keese, Agency President at Highstreet Automotive
- Dana Wines, Director of Training at WE Auto
- Valerie Niedermeier, Director of Community Relations at WE Auto
This episode is brought to you by:
OPENLANE – OPENLANE brings easy, intelligent digital wholesale to dealers across the country, and was once again voted the most preferred digital wholesale marketplace by dealers.
If you’ve never used OPENLANE before, or it’s been a while since you have, you’re eligible to earn up to $2,500 in buy or sale fee credits. Learn more at https://openlane.com/cdg.
Highstreet Automotive – Highstreet Automotive specializes in insurance solutions for automotive dealerships, working with operators across the country to help manage risk, control costs and protect long-term profitability. Explore solutions at https://carguymedia.com/432QKkG
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