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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 MXS Solutions, Fixed Ops, Digital and one Data and Analytics, three two one, Ignissions, Shop, Smart Autos and Due. If you want more
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car guys and car gays and slumire as the car guys. It's froll Lanarks,
our prime hero, and we are still in Saint Louis having some fun over here at the Drive Centric headquarters. And we have another solutionary that we've
roped in here to be able to bruce some solutions with. We have the
one, the only, damn say bro man. We heard some good things
about you. You're the only guy that's ever told no to Steve more than
three times. And I love that you said six, Steve says three.
We'll call it four or five, right, and we'll just say that you have not said no. It's not because you don't believe in the products,
because it just wasn't the right time and I know you're here, you're learning more about it. I love that they invite people who are not even their
clients to come visit and learn and meet with other dealers and crazy guys like the car Guy Coffee crew, or they call us the Coffee car guys, and we enjoy being here, and I know that you are too. Man.
Thank you for being here. Thanks for telling Steve no, because I
know how Steve loves negotiate, has driving the nuts to the point where he talks about a lot. So it's pretty awesome. And we're glad to have
you here because I got to meet the guy who said no to Steve that many times, so it's right awesome. Man's pleasure to have you. Thank
you for joining us, Thanks for having me. Tell us a little bit
about who you are, where you're from, yeah, and how or why Steve just keeps beaten at your door. Just remember, folks so far giving
you a lot of testimonials of people that use drive Centric and or fans of the product and have something great to say. This is a solution that the
last to turn that page yet, so hopefully we can get a little bit of coffee inside of his closer cup and we can go ahead and wrap this up for you all. Drive Centrick. We got your back, but I
want to know why is it or what is it that kind of brought how did we get connected? And tell us a little bit more about where you're
from. So I think this was the final try from Steve, right,
so I think he figured by come down and I see the facilities and I start talking to dealers who are using it, that would be the last thing that pushes me over the edge. But in all fairness, Steve and I
we drove around to all of our stores in our Honor group, and this would have been thousand and sixteen, and because I was looking at replacing our current provider with one of two solutions and drive Center with one of them.
So Steve came down. If we drove two days and we hit all of
our stories, and Steve did a demo and all of our stories. So
I got to know Steve, We're just we're road tripment. And but at
the end of the twenty sixteen, got a call from the dealer In's fire and they asked me to come on board, and that was I've known those guys for years. I ended up leaving and I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna
make a decision on a CRM to the Auto Group and then say yeah, I didn't make a decision the end of the year. So that was the
first no. It was very nice. Yeah, so the but I've been
in the business since two thousand and one, started cradle to grave internet sales at a Honda store and Lincoln, Nebraska and Great Auto Group that I was with at the time did our own deals that were we had a finance box.
It was two thousand and one, one touch process structure own deals for sure. People were in the finance office for ten minutes just doing paperwork.
So part of one of the better known Midwest Honda dealers that was with.
I didn't at the time though that it was that good. I didn't know
what a four square was until I left that store. But but so fast
forward, phenomenal time. A dealer Inspire, the same group that I had
left, called nasked me to come back a couple of years later, and I think the timing was right. We we've been purchased by cars dot Com.
It was a good purchase, but thanks to just changed I think with the Auto groups, the retail world because once he had that lens, Oh having the vendor lens and that really great experience at Dealers Fire. Coming back
to the retail side to just helpen minds a little bit. Hey, Dealers,
Car Guy, Coffee podcast and Certified Solutionaries are honored to be part of Teamank 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 hundred percent CGC improved and
when you visit them at finc dot com, you'll see a whole hill of beans where the reasons why te bank you, Let's prove so coming back then there was the opportunity again, I think I don't know when in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, but while I was gone in seventeen eighteen, the store had purchased been Solutions at an Adah. And so the irony was when I
was with Dealer ins Fire, I was working with a ton of dealers and I was seeing all these dether dealers CRMs and and the things I thought about any other CRMs I got to see it from a dealer lens and most of these dealers didn't weren't using it right, They didn't know anything about their own CRM. I had GM's given me their log ins because they couldn't figure it
out and tell me how it works, tell me how. And it's just
one of those things. It's a tool. You're not leverage in the tool,
They're all going to be bad. Hey man, they just like like
a metal tool, just end up rusting and falling apart. You're gonna hurt
yourself or it's gonna break, So use tool. Yeah. So the so
I came back knowing, oh, shoot, we made a decision on our current CRUM which I won't name, but I was like, ah, And in the setup, I fell in the lap of our the web developer that I had hired a few years earlier. So the web developer for Auto Group
had to do the cerrum right up. So everything was basically default, and
but we ran with that for a while. Second note, I think Steve
came a little bit after bat because at that point I'm like, look, I just need to wrap everything that kind of fell apart the last few years back. We need process and people first. Before I throw a solution at
it. The solution I'm sure would have helped me. And we had worked
through some other stuff, right, so we spent some time on that, and then the last note really came from we have an enterprise. We run
everything centrally with our auto groups, so a lot of those decisions and processes are centrally managed through the on the corporate side. I needed something that had
a little bit better enterprise lends and at that time, and drive Centric would tell you they just didn't have that at that time, and so it just waited. Sure, so that was probably as the third note and so the
but right now we're at the point and the drive Centric is developed some cool stuff. I went upstairs talked to some of those guys and the things that
were working about, and I hear the word enterprise, so I know that's coming. It's in the it's in the queue. Excited about that. I
think that'll that's the last thing that'll allow me to breathe a little bit with making a serium change phenomenal. It's a shift and the way we think and
approach our customers and how we've work customers an engagement from salespeople. So it's
starts. It's just checked all the boxes at this point. So yeah,
I'm here, haven't signed anything yet. When we lean back, we'll put
the agreements together for hopefully a fourth quarter one that'd be great. And I
would tell you if somebody said yesterday Glen Undy, I believe he says it's gonna suck at first because everyone has to get used to the new way.
But once everybody learns that, you gets educated and encouraged and empowered to be able to use these products, it's gonna be night and day for you.
And I think you know that's why you're making a change, because this isn't an easy change CRM change. Whether your CRM sucks or not sucks, it's
like it's such a hard decision. And then you want to make the right
one because you don't want to just switch and switch you're gonna year later, right, you want to make sure that you put something that's gonna be evergreen for a while, right, something that you know is going to be evolving, something that's going to be touching your customers the way they need to be touched today and tomorrow. Right, Finding that product is key pay dealers,
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dot com back to the show. The other side of this product is the
people. When you talked about Steve, you got to do the right along.
And I know that back then you were this close to probably signing with him even then because you just saw that he's just genuine coming here and seeing that his clients and knowing that it's not just something that he did while he was there with you. And Okay, I've noticed Scout for seven years.
He's always been consistent with his energy the way he does. But now I
see everyone his clients telling me the same thing. So it's not just he's
saying it to me to sell me, because he had sold me yet He truly is that guy, and he actually finds joy that you haven't signed it is. It's rare that people are like usually have a little challenge, but
it's be on the challenge. He found friendship with you, and that's something
that's even cooler for him. He considers you a friend when he talked about
you as my friend. So I think that's great and I think that's really
cool, and that's it's something that's unique in this industry that you don't see in a lot of places that you can build relationships that way over seven years, never did anything but talk really and then but always was there, never went away, And now look how far they've come over those years. Yeah,
And every time I talked to see, the thing I appreciated was he wasn't always just trying to sell us, right. He call and see how
was going, bounce ideas, didn't say are you ready to come over you at not on every call of times. And it wouldn't be right if he
didn't. No, regularly just give the folk. Yeah, and no doubt
about it. Now being able to see the interaction of these other dealers,
these other employees inside of the dealership interacting with with drive having some of their quirk's answer some of the new best practices. How beneficial is it for you
to be able to be at an event by the technology company with a bunch of users studding all around you? How does that help inside of not just
the decision making process but also the confidence build him in this product? How
how has that been helping you? War is it already? It's like I've
been on a lot of demos, like, yeah, yeah, totally different.
This is us here twenty two in the auto business, right, so the number of demos can't count them demos. Unfortunately, you get to it's
a one side of piece. You're talking to the sales person. Probably in
the last five years, I don't really ever do demos anymore unless they can pull a dev in on it, because I know the questions I have.
The sales guy is gonna go, hey, let me get back to you on that one, or yes we can, but you find out later no you can't because they want to sell you exactly. Yeah, this is like
the demo of demos. If you're rolling in here and you hear something you
can just turn around and say, is that it's in with the dealers, not just even a dev or another product manage or company. So this not
that I didn't believe Steve, because we've built that relationship, but there's absolute affirmation and just being able to turn to the people around you and saying, is that with your experience and I love the transparency and that's what he's trying to provide for his clients, transparency and education and empowerment. And he's doing
it and that's it's neat. I think that more people could take note on
how to do this with their clients that they can, especially these bigger companies, if they can find ways to get them to collaborate and understand that, hey, look, you don't have to believe me. Talk to the people
who are actually using the product, that are having success for the product, because it may just be the attitude that you have. Maybe you just need
to look at it through a different lend. My prospective shows that it works
this way, and here's how we did it. And also, if you're
right, let me go implement that and it changes 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 serve 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 a dot com back to the shelf.
Let's go. It's hard to really do that as unless you're inside the dealership.
Is even Steve. Steve's not in the dealership right, Steve is here
in this building, His employees are here in this building. Even he has
to hear his clients. That's why he does this too, so he can
hear the input and see what he needs to fix. And that's something else
why they have all those pods So if they have clients calling in, they have somebody to talks to them and says, hey, this is our issue.
Can you fix this? And they all get together and they figure out
a solution for it. I love that and that's powerful. That's there's not
a lot of businesses that do that, but the good ones are and that's why this is a good company. It's actually a great company in my opinion.
And it all starts with the leadership. It's not rotten at all.
That head from that fish. That head on that fish is very fresh.
It's gonna stay fresh. Steve is always going. And I love everyone that
I've met here in executive positions, all the way down to that lady right there picking up everything after us, and she is a hard worker. It
just makes me go, my god. It's places phenomenal when you see that
for little things sets them apart. It speaking of set apart, there is
to us. We've seen so many different curiums. We've seen so many different
technology pieces that are inside of the industry, and we need them. The
technology has to be there. But we've also noticed that there is just something
that's different about drug Centric. So you, as a prospecting customer, what
is it that said drug Centric apport compared to any of the other's Curin said, you don't have to name the others. Yeah, I think the within
the industry and everybody always hears that you've got these large companies that they are grown through acquisition and they've grown in a vacuum. Like a developer said,
I think this would be good your dealer and dealers going what says, you don't know how we work, But I think with the level of transparency, how they've constantly partnered and taken feedback from dealers, it seems like it's on a different level. And the and just the transparency side. We like,
I said, a lot of demos, there's a lot of names that always come up all the time, and now there's this wave of everybody's AI AI.
You've got a company that is running a brand of AI that they're not trying to white label. It's say it's the front runner that we hear all
the time. So it's kind of like, look that to me. The
value that the transparency, how they went about it, and then their approach, which is really this dealer centric approach and their partnerships with some really smart people up to this point too, has been impressed. That's that's probably one
of the things that it's pushing. Yeah, I hear you, and we
would pushed me over the edge. Two. That's consistency, that's ability,
that's all the things that we're looking for. Stability, good 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 Hien Data dot com to see how they can help propel your business forward with the right data insight. Go check them out at mL dot
com. Let's brew. Come on now back to the show. Great partnerships,
great alignment and great education that I can learn about all these different angles.
Being that you want to director of sales development for the auto groups short for you have to look for those tools and there was a reason why you're in that position. And you have to always be fulfilling. Right If this
sales doesn't say the same every every month almost it changes everything from even the financing companies they change their program and so in the vehicles that we buy the cost of them, the value of these cars, the I can keep going, but it's always a constant. Look. So having tools and people that
can connect you with the right people too, that's the thing I love about dry Centric. Listen, not only do we do this, but whatever else
you need, we have connections for you and we can always align you with those folks and you can have great conversations. And what's cool is that they
all want to give free information. Glen Lndy, like you said, came
here to give free education, Jonathan Dowson, to give free education. You
got to actually came here to get free if so many amazing Carlo Dale, they are all here share their dealers, giving out information to other dealers, and there's our secrets there. You go, let's grow because it's good.
It's good, there's plenty. I always joke it's true though. There's seventeen
thousand plus franchise dealers out there, and there's probably hundred of thousand independent stores out there. There's plenty of room for everyone to grow. Now you look
multiply that into customers. There's millions of people for us to sell. I
can't sell all millions. I want to, but I can't. As a
dealership. I just want to sell my market share. What I'm supposed to
do and where I'm at. I want to get what is right from my
people so everyone can survive and grow but I But more importantly, I want to make I'm sure everyone those clients getting experience and it gets spoken to the way they like to be spoken to, and man, that builds trust, trust speeds up time, and it builds more money one hundred percent of time.
So it's that's the key here. It's building trust and building not just
trust in what they're saying, but in trust that I'm going to be communicated with. I don't have to work about sending a message and not being responded
to. AI is powerful with that. I don't like to be spoken to
by AI a lot. I'll be honest, but when I need something really
quick and they can respond, I love it. So if there is a
love hate with it, it's just that when I really want the nitty gritty, I want to talk. And that's what this tool can help you is
get to that spot. So they want to communicate real quickly, they can.
But when they need the nitty gritty, somebody can actually pick up the phone callum ye. Powerful great stuff And at any point on your cell phone
you could be a Mexic party. I wouldn'tcommend your party and to do that
to a customer, but I'm just saying, if you're somewhere and you still want to build a book, a business, you could do it anywhere in the world if you have Internet connection for your business. Right, so so
true. Speaking of being in business, everybody, we want to make sure
that we keep stretching out these arms that are flying to new heights with all these solutionaries that will be are connecting with. My man has been ruined solutions
in his own neck of the woods, and because he's still looking for the right solution in his CRM, he's out here trying to brew solution for his dealership, his people, himself. And it's awesome that somehow or another you
find your way to the cafe with a couple of car guys. They're just
trying to keep everybody excited about it. But with that, we do implement
the f bombs that don't offend the models, and that's to forgive focus and flies and keep growing. Okay, So with that, we're going to do
that for the camera and make sure that we are loud and proud. Oh
man, Dan, go ahead and put your hands on your shoulders and on three forgive focused fly with the camera one two three forget give focus, Fly and keep growing, keep growing. Let's go baby that appreciation for joining us,
folks. We are having fun over here at DC twenty. You all
need to make sure you make the next event. I guarantee we're gonna be
here. There's gonna be a lot of other amazing solutionary sharing knowledge just like
he got. He's not even a client yet. He came here though,
and guess what he's leaving here feeling like this is the spot for me, this is my home. It could be the same for you, folks.
I love it. I'm Frollin Arts the Subprime Hero, and I'm lu Vermeer
as the Car Guy. And you've been ruined solutions on the Car Guy copy
podcast. You can't wait to see you again and he brewin solutions. Blow
up Dan. Let him know that you appreciate him, reach out to him,
tell him that you appreciate his candor and him just keeping them field folks, right, Okay, he's just keeping a gal with just far guys trying to do with business. And dam we appreciate you again coming on here and
run some solutions without you. Will see the rest of you later.
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