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#DC20 Interbrew Series Day 2 feat. Dale Villar Acelar
#DC20 Interbrew Series Day 2 feat. Dale Villar Acelar
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About this episode
Dale Villar Acelar shares his journey from the entertainment industry to automotive sales, emphasizing the importance of customer-centric communication. He discusses how Drive Centric transformed his dealership's processes, enabling better engagement through video and personalized interactions. The conversation highlights the significance of building relationships, adapting to technology, and maintaining transparency in sales. Dale's insights on effective communication and customer service showcase how a focus on the customer can lead to success in the automotive industry.
Topics:
customer communication
video engagement
drive centric
sales processes
relationship building
technology adaptation
transparency in sales
customer service
personalized interactions
Cars:
Ford Mustang
#DC20 Interbrew Series Day 2 feat. Dale Villar Acelar
Welcome to the #DC20 Interbrew Series recorded during our our time at DriveCentric’s Headquarters during their DC2023 Event in St. Louis. This is series is packed with Dealers, Vendors, and Voices in our incredible industry that are committed to seeing the Upshift and Uplift that we are committed to brewing about! Featured in this episode is Dale Villar Acelar, Executive Sales Director at Mercedes-Benz of Portland, Introducing a new Blend of Customer Service. Enjoy, Let’s Brew!
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
Brew Brought By Our Proud Sponsors At:
www.vincue.com
www.fixedopsdigital.com
www.teammxs.com
www.m1-data.com
www.321ignition.com
www.purecars.com
Welcome to the #DC20 Interbrew Series recorded during our our time at DriveCentric’s Headquarters during their DC2023 Event in St. Louis. This is series is packed with Dealers, Vendors, and Voices in our incredible industry that are committed to seeing the Upshift and Uplift that we are committed to brewing about! Featured in this episode is Dale Villar Acelar, Executive Sales Director at Mercedes-Benz of Portland, Introducing a new Blend of Customer Service. Enjoy, Let’s Brew!
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
Brew Brought By Our Proud Sponsors At:
www.vincue.com
www.fixedopsdigital.com
www.teammxs.com
www.m1-data.com
www.321ignition.com
www.purecars.com
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Ford Mustang
"...lear, but the smell of gasoline and leather and a Mustang is dressed by it American, right. But even then y..."
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Hello, and welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast. This inner brew and
Drive Centrics DC twenty has been brought to you by our friends and partners at MX Solutions, Fixed Ops, Digital and one Data and Analytics three two one Admissions, Shop, Smart Autos and Dinu. If you want more bruised or
you want to find out how to partner with the Car Guy Coffee Podcast, go to Car Guy Coffee dot com. Let's brew what's going on? Hey
guy, that's following our subprime he wrote, and we are brewing solutions on the Car Guy Coffee Podcast in Saint Louis at the Drive Centric headquarters with the one the only day Slow. That's right, man, I'm excited. We
got a chance to really hang out with yesterday, get to know you a little bit and then yeah, you've been so busy running around doing different things.
Yesterday was we want to get him on yesterday. A busy guy,
a lot of education going through yesterday. I know he was busy doing that.
Today he was a speaker. Plus, he was in here doing these
breakout sessions, educating and empowering these dealers out here, sharing what he knows.
He worked for a huge auto group, thinking me a heart of him.
I think they're like everywhere all across this country. Y'all should know themailer
right now. They're in your work, they're in your driveway. What's the
stake, what's the statement day? Driveway? But the driveway is the sub
look out. That's that's the way. That's what it is. Is huge,
that's publicly traded. Right. Wow, that's huge, huge, too
huge, but doing big things. You came out here, could you guys
use drive Centric and it's something that you're interested in, But also you came here to help other dealers see how you're a power user using drive Centric, and so congratulations on that for being a power user. One thing I also
want to bring up is like a superstar, y'all. He was MTV,
Nickelodeon. He hosted a lot of things MTV The Grind, y'all remember that
show Let's Go. I'm tem serious because he took his talents and he brought
it to automotive, which I'm glad you did. I think that we need
a lot of people just like you. I love that it inspires me to
see that. I'm like, man, it's so great. But more importantly,
it doesn't matter what culture I love that. It's like in my DNA
too. I'm not Filipino, but it's in my blood because I have family
all over it. So I feel like we're family already saying we've been We've
been feeling like that since the moment we started talking. Brother, And I'm
glad to have you on the show. Welcome to carganank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you. I'm excited to be here. So it's
a it's exciting to have you on so knowing that there's so much that you are brewing for the industry, so much, so many different the lessons that you've learned outside of automotive that you implement inside of automotive. Now, what
has been some of the fun that you've been able to have making connections with people when it comes to letting them see the potential of the tools that they have, specifically with drive centric how much fun is that? Open up eyes?
I worked in two separate dealerships and it's a blessing of the curse.
So I worked with Lesia Motors right this will be my eleventh year, but I worked at Mercedy's, been to Portland, went to Mercedes Defense and Beaverton and now I'm back and receiv Spens of Portland, which I'm really excited about working with. They both are on drive Centric and we started drive Centric about
three years ago. And when we did it, of course the transition was
very difficult to do. But what we realized, and I'm a video guy
obviously that I've been on TV and Louis for so long that I've been doing video since twenty thirteen, and when drive Centric has the capabilities of doing video inside their system, I was able to actually train our team to go, hey, we need to sell it, especially in the middle where COVID was happening, and COVID allowed us to open up the doors of communication via video.
And we talked about this a couple days ago, is that everything FastTrack technology FastTrack because of the pandemic, and unfortunately it was a bad scenario to turn into. Now we are in so much faster in our technology technology movement,
moving from how we are communicating digitally and mainly how we've actually now opened the doors of doing zoom calls down and zoom calls in communication via videos.
Comviteros are a big deal and communicating as a deal, and AI is a big deal. But one thing that I've been teaching and been really proud about
is that we have this process called the last Word process, and the last word process. What that does is that it allows our sales team to communicate
last is the customer on a minute by minute basis. Our job is to
make sure that the customers heard and they get their answers, their questions answered immediately. And that's the hardest part when we're in sales because we can have
twenty different customers at once, but one person wants to buy and the other nine are neglected. So we have to always continuously pay attention to every single
conversation that we have on our and our queue. Oh put that your cup
and sip on that, and that is truth right there. It's hard to
do, but it is. But you know what, when you have the
process and it is accounting for and people are understanding and you're seeing the results from that, it's massive. I do I want low hanging fruit. I
want to sell the ones too, but I also want to make sure that as an owner, as a business leader, as a sales manager, general sales manager, general manager, that my staff is taking care of every lead we provide them. I don't want them to just touch it. I'm not
ready today and then they forget about it. No, I want them to
make sure that they follow up with that person, that they show them love.
They send them a video thanking them for their time. With tools that
we have from drive Centric, tools that we have from all these different educators teaching us things, it's silly for us not to use it. It's weird.
I don't understand why people are like, oh, I don't want to take the extra step from my customer. You would want that extra step.
Think about it. If you're sitting in the seat of a customer, you're
gonna be like, Man, if somebody did that for me, not only would I love it, but I feel a little bit more obligated to do business with them, right because they're going the extra mile, So I'm gonna go the extra I'm at least give them the first shot. I'm at least
go in there and try to negotiate a deal that I think will work out because this person's working hard for me. Hey, Dealer's Car Guy, Coffee
podcast and Certified Solutionaries are honored to be part of team. Thank you.
The solutions they've been ruined for you to acquire more vehicles, advertise merchandise, and manage those vehicles. Has made them one of the most sought after dealer
partners in the market. They are one of a hundred percent CGC approved and
when you visit them at inc dot, you'll see a whole hill of beans where the reasons why gee, thank you, let's prove and video brings that out. You can send voice messages, you can send text messages, you
could do all these things. Everybody's doing that. Very few are doing videos
still, and it's something that if you jump in now, you could be the first year dealship, could be the one that's black shipping it in your community. Guess what happens. Everybody started going to your store, Everybody starts
talking about your store, everybody wants to work at your store. It's a
big chain of events that happens by just changing one little thing. You know.
Whether it's really crazy is that in the past month, I have been doing test leads, and I apologize if I send the test lead directly to you, but I did test leads because I wanted to see, in true real time what is the responses of all these salespeople that are working right now.
Now, I'm also a unique person because I have VIP clients center in the Bees that really want to buy a specific car, but they don't have the time and effort to actually buy that car. So what I do is
I actually contact our internal side of the dealership, and I'm external. Now
I don't judge the internal side, because then it's just how Lizia is.
But I wanted to see how everybody else operates in the world of either tell Yo or Mercedes or even even in four truck kind of country. And I
realize that one of the biggest things that all I'd say, I send a message to twenty dealerships, the fastest one and the one who connects with the video is the one I respond to the first. And it's because they are
engaging with me in some way some form. And I've noticed that anytime I
answer ask a question, they answer immediately, and they're my forefront and number one person. And I want to get to talk to now the other nineteen
or the other eighteen that they didn't talk to, they still have a contact with me. And I'm a car deal and I'm a car deal so maybe
how much are we losing just because we are too busy at the dealership, or we're not paying attention to the people that are in front of you.
Now I'm saying this on a buyer standilin. Now I'm lucky that throughout my
eleven years, I have met very influential, high net worth individuals who can buy of jet playing and very expensive cars, but yet wants to buy something as a Tello to Sekoia or even Afford Broncho, something a little bit different, but they don't want to stand out, but they still want to buy it, but they don't have the time because I know we're going to the individuals that want to call a dealership and trying to find one. Now I'm
that buyer representing them sure through Lithia trying to do that. Now I'm trying
to contact that dealership, and that dealership is not communicating to me. And
I know they have the product, but yet they don't have no form of let's try to do something type of deal It's such a waste because if I know that there's only a small portion let's say I would say less than ten percent of the many dealerships that exists out there, there's communicating that way, you're losing the ability and I'm just one person, one person, and then everybody else that is still searching for cars continuously on a daily basis. Somebody's
car broke down yesterday, somebody got into an accident today. Oh, they're
looking for cars and we're not engaging with them. And especially let's they say
on the way here we have there was an accident. I'm sure maybe it
could be totaled or maybe it's not, but either way, they're looking for a car. And if they're trying to find a car immediately because they need
to go from pointing to point being, they found one today and we're not communicating today, they're going to move on to the next of urgency, sense of urgency communication the personal side. We have AI that does the basic side
to it, but massively we have to communicate as sales is gonna lose business.
Oh you're bringing some great stuff here. I love this. You're speaking
my language. Yes and yes, and I couldn't agree more. It's super
important to be at the pace and set the pace for the customer when they see somebody who's hungry and aggressive but yet excited to help them right, giving them the information that they're asking for and doing it at a time that they need it. Like you said, if they need a car today, they're
not gonna wait till tomorrow. We gotta give it to him right now.
I don't care how busy you are. Have AI helps with that, if
not, pass on team, but it's important that we see those things having a CRM as a leader. My salesperson is working extremely hard. They got
two deals working right now, They have an up that can show up in thirty minutes. Their messing is hey can I come in and they can't respond
to it. I want to go in there myself and be able to say,
hey, yeah, I'm no problems. That is huge. Being able
to act as if you are that salesperson for them so that the customer doesn't feel like that they're being neglected, and you can see that as a leader, or if anybody else that's in there, that that happens to manage that type of information in there, because you could set up different levels of the leadership inside there, who's in charge, who can actually look at where the leads are going and actually move where the leads are going, cancel leads whatever.
If there's so many different things we could do inside the system, but let's tailor for you. But more importantly, we need to make sure like
he's talking about that, they're getting talked to you immediately. The worst thing
in the world is to have somebody that needs your help and actually will buy from you right now, but you don't talk to them, and then it doesn't happen to the next day because it just got left there. And then
the next day you call them and they're like, I want to I went up the street and bought from there. I'm sorry I needed a car yesterday.
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to hear from you. Go to the teams dot com. Back to the
show. One of our breakout sessions that we did is that we were looking
at some of the dealerships that were actually have a strong communication. There was
one that was twenty two hours, and it's the small details that's within the communication. So the salesperson's communicating, the customer was communicating, and then the
customer finally rights on, you know what, I found a car at X dealership. Thank you so much. Now I broke it down, going what
has found me doesn't mean they bought and they found it doesn't mean that they gave up. So we have to keep looking at it. And most managers
what they do is they oh, they just yeah, it's just a little word. So by the example, and it was my very first session,
may have the example, I said, okay, is this a foul car or is a bought car? And I said who the which dealership? And
they pointed up, what are we gonna say here? Then I'll engage,
So they engage, going is it certified? The other dealership cannot sell certified.
So they jumped in and they were able to sell certify. Now the
conversations ongoing out Now, I obviously don't know what the outcome will be, but I honestly do know that if you don't pay attention to the small details of what the customer does say us personally say, we have to dissect what they are saying to us so we can make that deal for them. And
it has to be not generalization. You can't just say, Okay, I
bought a car, thank you very much. You can go beyond that,
going okay, you bought a car, did you buy it yet at that deal? Or you bought the car you're driving away with it. Hey,
you have a new referrals you continue to see, keep going so your business keeps going. I mean, in the our side, we don't make money
or we don't make it. We don't increase our business if we don't sell.
And I don't care what industry you are, real estate, car sales, even selling sales and sales. You have to communicate. And the number
one thing that beats everything about this is customer service. Is this customer service,
it's customers and its own its own detail is to paying attention to the customer and making sure the customer is extremely hurt and I say extremely hurt listening to every emotion that they said by either their voice or their text or their email. You have to pay attention to every one of them and what you
do, and they know that you listen, they know that you care, and caring turns of the empathy. Empathy turns into a sale. Wow,
that's service. That's how you want service to flow. I mean, that's
called relationships. That's relationships. And that's why I'm saying, like I said,
I've I've been blessed in so many different parts that I don't think and I can say this in the level of confidence arrogancy, is that I know for a fact that I'm a good salesman. I'm great, amazing salesperson.
Okay, But I also believe also in the parts that I'm true when I say I'm going this is not the car for you, even though I would lose the sale, because I know for a fact that I can truly tell them that, because I know it's right and it's the way that I feel personally. Now, maybe they won't buy that car today, but I know
for a fact they'll come back in about a month or two. Hey,
my brother, amen, because me it shows not that turns that customer service side into now you are a friend. Now, it's a relationship. Now
it's a good moves on And what we've trained, and what we've talked to salespeople to do is that these are individual people that have you have a relationship.
Now, if this is your business and this is your job that you want to do for the rest of your life, you do it. You
continuously push it. And then most of them, I, like I've said
many times, like nobody grows up and says, hey, I want to be a car salesman. When I get car person, when I grow up,
it's either you're into it, push into it, or you fall into it. I'll wait, I have a quick story, and then I'll move
on to the dome. So okay. Cool. When I came back from
the Philippines, I bought a bar. And then when I had the bar,
I grew up in the Mercedes Ben's world. In other words, when
I was ten and eleven, I had two dogs. One was saved,
the other one with Ben's I Love my Dad. When I was sixteen,
I got my dad's car way which was a four fifty Sclay. When I
graduated high school, I got a Mercedes and I went to the Philippines and I was in a Mercedes. When I came back, I got the bar.
Facebook did something with Mercedes and said, hey, tell us about your history with Mercedes Benz and we'll give you some money in the car. And
I was like, okay. So one night after work, I did a
quick video it's on YouTube actually, and I wanted and I picked it up at the dealership and the GM at that time said, hey, you should work here, and I was like, no, I don't want to be I don't want to be a the old person. I don't want to be
a car We're going. I'm like, and I'm still arrogant in the marketing
I used to you know what I used to do. And then then it
just led me back in there because then I had I bought a service contract, which I'm an advocate of service contract, so of course I used us that the service contract. Because it was a really hot outside of the AC
went down on my Mercedes. I went back there, and then of course
the service advisor said he you should work here. Then the sales manager said,
used your work and I'm like, oh, this must be a calling.
So I applied, got the job. The GM who hired me got
fired. They put a new GM in and the GM said, hey,
we're gonna put you on the floor and I was like, I can't do this. And three days later, honest to God, that comes in tell
me about this car and passion. I told him everything I knew about the
car and he bought the car from me. And I can tell you from
that day forward, I knew that the way that your car sales is not just because of a book of training and how you do. It's personal relationship.
It's passion and how you carry yourself with your position. And I'm proud
of what I do. And that's why I hear all the time car sales
people are sleazy. I'm like, you make it sleazy. You turn into
the sleazy person. And how do you turn into this lazy person? By
not being treatful, not being transparent, not being the person that you would be treated to. The golden rule to be true. Right, So if
you're buying something and you see a dent, who they see a dent, you have to find a way to make sure you make that customer happy.
Your don't sell this car sale. The car deal doesn't have to go through
confind a way to work around it. And that's the thing I loved you
talk about dent Mercedes World. They don't want them. There's no doubt they're
gonna want that repair. But in most ways, it's not covering it up
by standing in front of it. Yeah, it's by letting it be there.
Hey, listen, here is is it there? But at the end
of the day, we price these vehicles according to the way they come in condition, so we are able to give you pass on the discounts to you.
We also pay for them that way. If you want us to repair
it, the price of the vehicle does have to go up because the cost of the vehicle is going up. It's up to you which would you prefer
to do. Now, that's sometimes the customers. Okay, great, that's
transparent, it's truth, it's honest. That's not some rigamarolla bullcrap that people
give them right by hiding fund of it, trying to make sure that they don't see, and I want them to see. I would actually point that
out. That's actually a feature. This is part of the inconvenience package.
We don't charge extra for this, that's free, right whatever. You have
fun with the customer and you let them know that you're there to help them.
And the reason why it does have this because one it is preoned, but two. It's savings. If there was nothing, no scratches on it,
you would pay a higher premium for this vehicle. Is that we would
have to we would pay a higher premium for it. But this is more
of This is a perfect vehicle to help you get established or help you get from A to B. You say you just need a car to get to
work. Whatever it is, that's how you do it. We know you're
doing the show so far. We just wanted to quickly remind you about our
partners at fixed Ops digit and how they are automotives premier service marketing and technology company not only the crowd sponsors of the Car Guy Copy podcast, but they also served as your dedicated point of contact for all your online service marketing related needs servicing dealerships throughout the US and Canada. The mission is to create a
better online experience for your service customers while using data intelligence to drive more fixed operations revenue. If you want to take your service marketing efforts to the next
level, go to fix ops Digital dot com. Back to the show,
let's go. I love what you're talking about here. Now, seriously,
you're you're speaking on language you obviously there's a reason why we connected. It's
not just because we look like I think that we should go beyond just a car sale. I think that beyond a transaction, right, because if you
think of it just as a transaction that you just sell the card and you move on, you're missing the grandest point of this whole thing is that you can create a book of business and make this a career that lasts you long time because it carries us forever. I think this. I love the car
business because I think even in this environment, I love that I can speak the language that people understand. And if I stepped outside of this network and
go to a different one and speak the same way, people look at me as I'm speaking gibberish and somebody said PDI, what's PDI? And what's UBI?
And what's ACV of that car? Certain people don't understand that unless in
the business, and which is really good for us, because then I can talk to a salesperson and the salesperson is right in front of the customers, right there, and I talked to him exactly how I know. And we
should make allow this one we have an this is our ACV, and make sure we go through UBI first and the customer because I have no idea what we get said, but a great for you, I was great for you.
We're taking care of you. But it's just inside of that that you're
taking care of me. Yes, you're taking care of me. I can
trust that you're taking care of And that's relationship. And anytime that we are
fusing together and understanding that does trump for our revenue. That if we keep
our relationship over revenue, we are CONSI instantly merging together the things that keep business going, because without people taking care of people, business doesn't keep happening.
And what we've been trying to preach to anybody that would listen in the auto industry is that we lose if we lose our customers. It's because we
lose our people inside of the store. And if we lose our people inside
of the store, our customers are not hinged to us the way that they would be if we don't connect all of the dots that have us completely sold out on. My leader wants what's best for me, This environment wants what's
best for me, and inherently because we want what's best for each other, the customer falls into that environment that knows this place want what's it's best for me. They're setting me up for success. Whatever tool they gotta do,
I trust them. They got me. I'm following. I'm gonna get my
call fore you tell me when my car's ready, I'm gonna go get my callfee tell me abo my PaperWorks ready, I'm gonna go check on this over there, and you know, and they have the relationships within the building, within the network because the dealership is a little piece of the community. When
which is really I think that even outside of the United States, it doesn't have the same same culture of the automotive side we have. It's part of
the American way. I can tell you right now it is. It is
the smell I can I'm an electric car user, just so we're clear, but the smell of gasoline and leather and a Mustang is dressed by it American, right. But even then you still have that It's part of every part
of this country. We all are. Everybody buys a car some way,
somehow, everybody does something. It is. Yeah, it's part of our
culture in the United States. And so I think that no matter what,
the auto industry will still be there, no matter what type of car, electric or gas it'll still be exaesting and we still have to create a new way of doing things because the old way does not work anymore. The transparency,
the reviews, the way that we communicate with people, and the way that that we become a successful dealership and department and salesperson and manager is because we are truthful and transparent to our customer, which then again comes back to the basic thing is the referral and book of business, and you have to be flexible inside of that plot, a trustible because the customers would be so long inside of our business. The customer had to really adapt to us,
yes, until we got told you can't sell them the way that you were used to. That's not going to work anymore. And then we had to
adapt to the customer, which was a part of our light speed run towards adopting the technology that most people have been ignoring until they add to use it, until it became a musk, and then when it became a must.
Now all of our customers understand they can buy it a different way. They
can buy it their way, and one way or another, we all know they're going to buy. And if they're going to find a way to buy
they have to find somebody to trust to do so to help them go through that and that may bring that kind of right back to certain home as the only way to really do that trust and in a digital world is video, phone and text and email. You have to go full circle. That you
have to do all dot com. So a little quick, just a little
bit off subject because you are a little things, a little whid So what was the very first commercial that you did do? Quick question? Do you
know what smart pixel two point zero location IQ and audience i Q haven't coming?
You know? I do. They are solutions that our friends and proud
sponsors and one Data and Analytics are brewing for automotive And once again you're right, my friend, and we want to invite all of our audience to go to m one hyphen Data dot com to see how they can help propel your business forward with the right data insight. Go check them out at m one
data dot com. Let's brew. Come on now back to the show.
So I did about fifteen commercials in the Philippines and I and what actually I can name up a bunch even Wendy's I did KFC. But the one that
I really did was a Pepsi commercial in the Philippines, and then that actual commercial failed New York and then the director said, hey, we have no more budget and we need you to do this commercial. It's a very low
budget and it's a very simple script, but it only focuses on you.
We already bought the airtime, but if we put it on there, you'll be well known. And I was like, my manager said, just do
it. I'm like, no, I just do it. I don't really
care to be honestly, if I remember correctly, if you put the dollars together where it's like twenty bucks, twenty bucks. But it launched the career.
Yeah, yeah, it launched the career of what I did. And
I did that for fifteen years. I actually was able to. I then
started on movies. I was on a TV sitcom and then I think I
did a total of about fifteen movies, and I was on a daily shows like Monday through Saturday from eleven to one o'clock and did everything that every single Filipino actor on TV did for a very long time until I go I don't know if this is the life for me, but I still kept on doing it, and I think I the last leg of it was in two thousand and six where I had a TV show called Celebrity Single and when it was a ten episode of me trying to search for the love of my life quote unquote, oh day and the first episodes on YouTube, which is really crazy.
But what was really turned into about halfway through the season was they didn't really care about me when they cared about how do other men and women communicate in single times. Now, this was in a long time ago. I
don't even know what I may age myself A two thousand and six was a long time ago, and in the buildings he didn't have dating apps yet, which I wish that I got into the idea of doing that right. But
then they were like, how do you start with an open Why how do you communicate? How do you do that? And somehow everything turns back to
what I do now. Every single thing that I've done has gotten to me
where I am. Now. That's so crazy, but it is. It's
a beautiful skills. It built confidence inside you. It showed you a world
that you can never imagine. It built a good taste of lifestyle that caused
you to get into a business that can still suffice for that and you were able to achieve that because when you do it once, you could do it again, right, So it's it's a phenomenal story. I think it's great,
you know, I really I love that. I love the whole thing.
I love everything about what you talk about. So I know the hardest
part is that in the difficult which is oddity is that I've usually told us to maybe some people at the dealership and somebody has brought it up. But
just search my name, the first two names, Dale, Laar, he'll come up. It's right there, till come up. But one of the
things that I do, and I'm know I'm going to share this with the people in the Philippines too, is that I do miss that that that business, and I do miss that culture of being there. It was really one
very important pimp of like part of my life. But it also was the
stepping stone to where I am today. And your brother, we're all still
young enough to where you never know, you never know, never know.
It's what's so beautiful about the world today. Never count yourself out on and
then never because it's a stepping stone. But even this is a stepping stone
to whatever's next. And I can't wait to see what's next with you.
Dale. It's gonna be amazing. Brother, You're a shining star over here,
not just because what you've done in the past would, because what you're doing right now more impartment, brother, because right now what you're doing is amazing and you're definitely showing the lights a lot of people for us. We
appreciate you so much. So before we get out of you, we want
to go ahead and make sure that you do get the chance to give the last word on this podcast on what it is that drive Centric is actually done for your dealership. Oh okay, So in twenty twenty, when we actually
transition are the store that I was at was a not a very profitable store.
Then when we switched to drive Centric, we then change our processes to be actually customer centric. We focus directly on the customer and we and drive
Centric allowed us to do that through our open conversations, through our text messaging, to our video and we had it was a hard pull to bring our management team together, our sales people together, and literally work together as a group to go Okay, Now we focus on the customer and we pay attention to every single conversation that comes in and we communicate with them in every single way, sometimes by impersonation and sometimes we just actually try to go directly to the deal and sometimes we just go, hey a manager, I'm the manager.
Let's come in for the appointment. Let's just drive the car and really
go for the just go straight to the point. That allowed us to launch
into where we wanted the award for best of the Best for Mercedes Benz for that year, and then we were the only dealership in the Pacific Northwest to win that into a store that had a rotating seventeen GMS and was losing year after year until that time. So I've said this multiple different times. Drive
Centric was the is the point. I believe was a point, the team
was the point. It was all of this coming together, but it ultimately
came down to us paying attention to the customer and that was a major part to our success, and drive Centric really allowed us to do that. We
go, that's a big ups for drive Centric right there, I'm telling you, And that's truth, and I believe that. I know that's what you're
talking about here, and that's what he's preaching here as he's been speaking up here in front of all the crowd or educating and doing the breakouts. It's
all about that folks. Get to be customer centric and it will change your
life. And drive centric helps you get there in the digital world way faster,
way easier, and at their pace. So get after y'all ww dot
drive centric dot com. And just so you know, we're already just doing
that on a personal level, are us tap back on messages, us communicating as with an emoji? We're already doing that profession for personal last word,
the professional side, we neglect to forget about it because that's what makes this even way stronger, because that small little detail makes the saleve it love.
It's so important to make those personal relationships ring to business relationships. Yeah yeah,
if it's a relationship is that's awesome everybody. Well, we know what
to do inside of any good relationship. We got to make sure that we
drop f bombs, okay, and that's to make sure that we do forgive, focus and fly. And now that Dale has had the opportunity to grow
some solutions with us, we want to make sure that we do send them off right with a little forgive, focus and fly. So go ahead and
get your hands on your shoulders with us real quick, and we're gonna go forgive focus and fly on three Loud and proud one two three yeah, okus, fly and road baby, let's go. That's right. Everybody's so excited
to be here at Saint Louis. I am a little mirrors department and I'm
frellin art sub prime. He Road four Guy called the podcast the one,
the only, damn
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