Car Dealership Guy Podcast Mar 2, 2026

Dell on Inventory Turn, Zombo on Vehicle Shipping, Murphy on Recon Upgrade | Daily Dealer Live

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Term

SAR

SAR is a way to guess how many cars will sell in a year by adjusting for busy and slow times during the year.

Term

floor plan

Floor plan is like a loan dealers take to buy cars for their lots, and they have to pay interest on it until they sell the cars.

Term

FNI process

FNI is a way car dealers make extra money by selling cars smartly, adding extras, and negotiating well, not just by selling many cars.

Term

recon

Recon means fixing up used cars at a dealership so they look good and work well before selling them to customers.

Term

over-the-air update

It's like getting an automatic update on your phone, but for your car. The car gets new software sent to it without you needing to go anywhere.

Concept

hybrid lineup

A hybrid lineup means a group of cars that use both gas and electric power to save fuel. When a company adds more hybrid cars, they are expanding this group.

Car

Kia Telluride HEV

The Kia Telluride HEV is a version of the Kia Telluride SUV that uses both gas and electric power to save fuel and pollute less. It is a newer model coming out in 2027.

Car

Telluride HEV

The Telluride HEV is a version of the Kia Telluride SUV that uses both gas and electric power to save fuel. It has three rows of seats, so it can carry more people, and is popular for families.

Concept

buy center

A buy center is a part of a car dealership that buys used cars to sell them to other people.

Term

used cars

Used cars are cars that other people have already driven. You can buy them for less money than brand new cars.

Concept

inventory

Inventory means the cars that a dealership has ready to sell. They need to keep track of these cars to make sure they have what customers want.

Term

condition reports

A condition report is like a checklist that tells you how good or bad a car is before you buy it, especially when you can't see it in person. It points out any problems or damage the car might have.

Concept

auction

An auction is like a big sale where cars are sold to the person who offers the most money. People bid against each other to buy cars, and it can be different at each auction.

Concept

acquisition

Acquisition means how a dealership gets its used cars, like buying them from auctions or customers trading them in. Getting cars quickly and cheaply helps the dealership sell better.

Concept

merchandising

Merchandising means getting the car ready to show to buyers, like taking good pictures and writing about it. This helps people want to buy the car.

Car

Ford F450

The Ford F-450 Platinum is a very big and strong truck that can carry heavy loads. The Platinum part means it has fancy features and is very comfortable to drive.

Car

Ford Edge

The Ford Edge is a type of SUV, which is a bigger car that can carry more people and stuff. It comes in simple and fancy versions, so some are basic and some have lots of features.

Term

margin opportunity

Margin opportunity means the time when the dealer can sell the car for more money before they have to lower the price to sell it faster.

Term

retail

Retail means selling cars directly to people who want to buy and use them, usually for more money than selling to other businesses.

Concept

transportation fraud

Transportation fraud means people trick others when moving cars from one place to another, usually to steal or cheat with expensive vehicles.

Brand

Volkswagen

Volkswagen is a big car company from Germany that makes many different cars you might see on the road.

Term

GM

GM is a big American company that makes many different cars and trucks under different brand names.

Car

The Hyundai Genesis is a fancy car made by Hyundai that feels more expensive than it really is. It has nice features and is comfortable, so people like it if they want a luxury car without paying too much.

Car

Mitsubishi Got Mitsubishi

The Mitsubishi GT is a small, fast car that can drive well in different weather because it has special wheels that help it stay on the road. It's good if you want a fun car that's also useful for everyday driving.

Brand

Vinfast

Vinfast is a new car company from Vietnam that makes electric cars and wants to sell them all over the world.

Brand

Mazda

Mazda is a car company from Japan that makes cars that are fun to drive and use fuel well.

Brand

Audi

Audi is a fancy car company from Germany that makes cars with lots of technology and good handling.

Brand

Honda

Honda is a big car company from Japan that makes cars and motorcycles that many people trust.

Car

Toyota Camry

The Toyota Camry is a common car that many people use for daily driving and also for rental cars. It's known for being dependable and easy to maintain.

Term

tire tread measurements

Tire tread measurements mean checking how much rubber is left on your tires. This helps make sure the tires are safe and can grip the road properly.

Term

brake measurements

Brake measurements mean checking how worn the brakes are to make sure they can stop the car safely.

Company

auto hauler exchange

Auto Hauler Exchange helps car dealers and transport companies move cars from one place to another safely and quickly.

LIVE

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Daily Dealer Live.

Hi, I'm your host, Sam Darkin.

Thanks for choosing to be here this Monday the 2nd of March.

Welcome to March, and by the way, welcome to a fresh new squeaky clean look to the Daily

Dealer Live show, props to the producers, to Cole, the CDG team, for freshening us up

a bit.

We're always working to level up our game here at Daily Dealer, and well, I hope you'll

like it.

You'll see a bunch of new effects today, and it's fun.

It's fun to get new toys, and we do enjoy that.

So, as we begin March, let's dive into it, let's talk auto industry reality.

You noticed February sales bounced, SAR is pacing around the mid-15 million range, headlines

say stability, some say recovery, but here's the truth no one wants to say out loud.

Well, volume isn't our problem in 2026 in my opinion, profit discipline is, margins

are tighter, affordability is still stretched, EV demand is found steady, not explosive,

floor plan with its elevated interest, well, it's not free, and sloppy inventory decisions

are getting punished, and they're getting punished fast.

Operators who win this year won't be the loudest, they'll be the tightest, tight on turn, tight

on recon, tight on transport, tight on FNI process, because, well, right now the spread

between average dealers and elite dealers, it's not units sold, it's execution.

And on today's show, we're breaking that down coming up this episode, the inventory efficiency

moves that protect net profit in March of 26, the transport inefficiencies, quietly draining

six figures, will cover why recon discipline is a growth strategy and why FNI is still

one of the most under leveraged margin engines in the building.

If you're a dealer, GM or FNI director watching right now, this isn't theory, today's show

is a playbook, welcome to daily dealer life, and first, let's hit today's automotive industry

headlines.

And as we go into that, by the way, as a reminder to everybody, we're streaming across all CDG

social media platforms, post your comments in, we'll bring them into today's show.

First up today, movement on the buy sell front from our buy sell tracker, CDG buy sell tracker,

Asbury's been busy reshaping its footprint.

The public group sold nine dealerships on February 23rd alone, including three South Carolina

stores to Arbium of Atlanta, and six luxury dealerships in the St. Louis market to Mile

1 Auto Group.

They exited that region entirely.

Earlier in the month, Asbury also divested a Stilana store in Atlanta.

Altogether, that's 10 stores sold in February, representing about 610 million in annual revenue

and roughly 210 million in net proceeds from the late month's transactions.

For context, the move follows last year's $1.45 billion acquisition of herb chambers

and reflects the ongoing portfolio realignments, ton of M&A activity.

So props to that in our M&A CDG buy sell tracker.

Moving over to recall activity, ah, we love it.

So you know, we've got to refresh, but some of the classics remain.

Moving over to recall activity, the most recalled OEM, Ford, is rolling out a major software

fix affecting millions of vehicles.

The automakers roughly recalling roughly 4.3 million vehicles in the U.S. due to an integrated

trailer module software issue that can affect trailer brake lights, turn signals, and braking

functions.

Now, Ford says the fix will come by an over-the-air update beginning March 17th with dealership

and mobile service options available.

Stepping back though, this is another reminder that large scale software recalls are becoming

more common as vehicles rely more heavily on electronic systems, which adds to operational

pressure across sales and service.

Also last week, a new study found that keeping an aging vehicle may be costing more than

drivers realize.

According to Synchrony, owners are spending nearly 167% more per year than they expect

to maintain their vehicles, which makes for a $4,565 gap between perception and actual costs.

Fuel and insurance lead annual expenses with maintenance and repairs adding hundreds more.

What's the bottom line here?

Well, delaying a purchase can feel like saving money, but the ownership math may say otherwise.

Next up today, Kia is expanding its hybrid lineup with the 2027 Telluride HEV.

Pricing starts at $46,490 and runs to just under $58,000 across 6 trims, placing it firmly

in the mid-40k to 50k range where many 3-year row SUVs already transact.

Production will take place in West Point, Georgia, marking Kia's first US-assembled hybrid.

What's the big picture here?

Well, while rising vehicle prices remain a real concern for many consumers, there remains

a sizable pool of hiring come buyers shopping for 3-row SUVs in that 50k range.

And the Telluride HEV is clearly aimed at those.

And that's a wrap on today's industry headlines.

All right, so going to the comments here, Tanya B says, hello, hello Tanya.

D&C, wait until gas spikes, it will slow vehicle sales even further.

Many of us saw the headlines over the weekend.

The US launched its action against Iran and oil prices were impacted over the weekend.

And I assume through today, Evan Wright, happy Monday, Sam.

Evan, happy Monday to you.

And Hannah Farmer, our own CDG, Hannah says happy first Monday of March.

So again, post your comments up in today's stream in the comments.

We'll bring them into today's show.

First up today, let's turn to Rob Dell, Vice President of Bob Ruth Ford.

Rob Dell, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me again.

So Rob, you were one of our first guests way back many, many months ago last year.

We appreciate having you back.

You astounded our audience way back then because selling 50 new in a Ford store,

you were selling 300 used a month on average and attributed a lot of that to a buy center.

Maybe for those in our audience who don't know you well,

tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're up to now, Rob.

Yeah, so I'm the Vice President of Bob Ruth Ford, small town of under 3,000 people,

small Ford market, 50-ish cars, but used cars are what we control.

And we look at the data every day to figure out how to get better and keep growing.

Yeah.

So you've talked about that data.

You've talked about efficiency.

What data for you in March of 2026 is driving your decisions as it relates to used car and new car?

Yeah, so we know in dealerships this way, trains are your best source of inventory.

And everybody talks about our buy center that buys 200 cars a month.

And then obviously we buy some auction cars, but it's transaction price, cost,

how quickly it turns.

But you have to take that data and then educate the team.

I could know all of that data, but if I don't teach you that, Sam,

then you're not going to change your decision on making patterns.

So we always say don't fall in love with everything and take the emotion out of it.

Oh, that's good.

That's good.

So where are you getting?

What's the source of data?

And how are you relaying the why behind that?

First off, source.

So the source of data is actually how we transact.

So we track everything from the appraised value, estimated recon,

where we transact at from obviously back, what our cost to market was or price to market was

when we transacted.

And then if you take that information, you just dumb it down.

I want to duplicate the good ones and I don't want to do the bad ones again.

And that changes all the time, right?

And you and I could have a store right across the street from each other

and we would transact differently.

So you have to know your store and you have to empower your team to make good decisions.

So as you talk about those different metrics, how are you digesting that back in front of

your team?

Is there a system or is there a process?

Is it a spreadsheet?

Is it a report that you look at every single day to keep your eye on the price?

So it starts with a spreadsheet is how we track it.

It is nothing super fancy.

But then, yes, you've got to use a tool to put it in front of somebody

that they can relate to.

Honestly, there's plenty of AI tools that you can just dump a spreadsheet into

and it can give you a beautiful presentation that looks way better than what we could make

in a matter of seconds or minutes.

And we're changing that all the time.

Maybe one presentation works for one team and it doesn't work for the other.

But it's constant feedback on that.

And the whole way down to whoever numbers the car, they have to look at it.

The one piece of data I took from last year, we retailed about 4,500 cars.

Our estimated recon versus actual recon, we only had a variance of $30,000 on 4,500 cars.

That's tight.

For the whole year, that's super tight.

Yeah, impressive.

But now break it down and one buyer might be off 100 grand.

The other buyer might be off $50,000 and then you have to look at it by source.

So the auction buyer, whoever can't touch and feel the car,

they're usually the ones that are the furthest off.

The trades, they're always spot on.

You can touch and feel the car.

So that number sounds great, but what are you going to do with it after?

You got to break it down a little further.

So that's an interesting point you make.

When you look at different sources, particularly auctions,

are there particular auctions where you see it's off more than another?

A big debate we've been having recently is the validity of CRs

or our condition reports from auctions themselves and the differing dollar amounts,

the inability to arbitrate on some of those, either because time passes,

it takes too long to get a vehicle on site, or you don't discover the issue until later on

down the road, or the percent is so small, they won't arbitrate on it at all.

So your data, as you're tracking this super tight,

where are you seeing the biggest differences?

Is it a particular auction or is it auctions in general?

I would say it changes is the right answer.

I mean, I'll see it at one auction.

So that was a big change that I made going into 25 as I wanted to track.

You know, we used to just track auction.

Well, that was blanketed, right?

That could be anything, and we're in Pennsylvania.

So I got the big house right up the road, and I was at a sale.

I saw a car that was at a different sale because we have four pretty big auctions around us,

and the CR was wildly different.

So now we started tracking each auction house a little differently to look for those variances

and at least be able to combat them when they arrive, if that makes sense.

If you know you have a problem in one, you just got to help your reconner be more cautious.

All right, you probably don't want to out the one who your data says is the highest variance,

but who has it the best?

Which auction source do you see the least variance?

It's not consistent, to be honest with you.

Okay, it varies.

It varies, yeah.

It's out in, and then it completely changes.

It's like whack-a-mole, it appears somewhere else.

It's not consistent.

So in your experience, where do most dealerships lose speed when you think about the used car

process?

Acquisition, recon, merchandising, pricing, or at the desk?

All the above.

I think acquisition is a big piece, depending on how you're acquiring cars,

how fast you can get them there.

Step one when the car gets here is it gets merchandise.

So that's photos and everything before it goes to detail or to the shop.

But in the shop is another big one.

One big difference here is we broke down the walls.

Our sales team and our service team kind of get paid on a joint pot.

So you don't have pointing the fingers or funneling it through one person that can make

that decision.

That was a big shift we made years ago, but it should never revolve around one person.

And the thing I say in this company is, what if the aliens suck that person up today?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, well, it's the backup.

So there's a team of people in every step of it,

and their pay plan is directly attributed to the speed.

And it just works for us.

So you mentioned photoing, detailing.

Do you do that in-house or do you outsource that with particular photos, photos in detail?

Yeah, so we photo in-house and we do everything in-house.

We don't outsource anything.

But yeah, it's pretty simple process.

It doesn't, there's technology out there that can crop everything out.

You can take a picture of a dirty car and it'll look nice.

Now, if the sides caved in, I would still rather take the picture of the car and re-photo it later.

But without a photo, you're not getting a lead.

We all know this.

Yeah, yeah.

So what's one operational change you've made recently, Rob,

that accelerated turn without sacrificing margin here in March, 2026?

We probably made this over a year ago.

And but whoever buys the car cannot have anything to do with pricing,

because the two of them did not get together.

So, and I said it earlier, take the emotion out of everything because if I go buy a car

and I got 25 plus years of experience, I go, oh, this is a unicorn.

I'm going to tell myself everything.

I'm going to ask too much and the car is going to sit.

And we all know, you know, we track gross return on investment.

And, you know, I had a conversation with one of my inventory managers who does pricing the other day.

And he said, well, we stretched, we ever paid, and that's why I priced it this way.

And I just reminded him the two don't have anything to do with each other.

Yeah.

So that was probably the biggest thing is, and then in the pricing model,

which our pricing window is only for 45 days, and then we get rid of the car.

But there's three different people that have three different segments.

So every two weeks, it shifts person personnel also.

So a different set of eyes can get on it and just get the car out here and turn the money.

So do you ever get.

So you have one person that'll do the purchasing that'll put the buy money on it,

then another person that does the pricing.

Do you ever get the buyer going to the pricer and saying, you're out of your mind?

Like this is not accurate.

And how do you resolve that dispute?

Do they end up winning?

Who wins that argument?

Yeah.

But this is what you can tell you right now.

Our average transaction is at 20 days on use cost.

The average age of the inventory is 14 days.

So when you can show them and look here,

I'll give you another stat that blows everybody's mind.

Of all the auction cars we retailed last year,

we lost $600 on the front of every car on average.

But they still made money, right?

They still went through the shop.

Finance, the shop, right.

Finance, docks, everything.

So is that loss acceptable to you?

100%.

Okay.

52% of those cars have a trade too, remember.

So that's being the acquisition again.

Yeah.

Interesting.

So how quickly can you, using this data,

identify a bad inventory buy?

What data do you look to?

If you make a mistake in an acquisition, the buyer,

how quickly are you able to see that?

Is it the delta between buy and price?

Or what data point tells you that it's a problem?

I would say that we're averaging more than three days.

I mean, because you just paid the wrong money for the car.

You paid too much money.

That one's going to be the same one you can figure out most times.

You know, it could be a reconditioning estimate.

You know, years ago, I had somebody that would just put $750

in for reconditioning when average RO is 1,700 bucks.

You know what I mean?

So you just got to continually look at it.

And, you know, again, I'm going to go back to a lot of AI tools

that you can use if you put a spreadsheet,

and it'll point out things that you're blind to.

So what AI tools?

There's a bunch of AI tools.

Specifically, which one do you use,

and what's the prompt that you enter in to get the output?

I mean, I'll ask anything from chat GPT, a simple question,

to I would go as far as dump a whole spreadsheet into,

like, notebook LLM.

It's a Google product that can make me visuals and everything.

But to your point, you do have to ask it questions.

And depending on what formula or data that you put in there,

it doesn't understand.

You might have to explain it as well.

So just give us an example of a prompt

that you would use to get the information you're wanting,

if you have it off the top of your head.

I think that's fascinating for a lot of dealers.

Yeah, so let's go back to that reconditioning estimate.

So I see this number, and I'm like,

we were off $6 a car for the whole year.

That's amazing.

That's astounding.

Right, and it sounds great.

But then I started asking it by, because I track it by purchaser.

I call that an appraiser.

And then I started seeing these wild differences.

And it was telling me that the guy that was the best

and should teach everybody in the world,

it was telling me his data, well, he looks only at trades.

Well, that's the easiest ones to get correct.

So I would have to ask it a couple more questions.

And then it would start, and some of it,

I still have to use my brain power for, right?

But it was really eye-opening to go through that.

By the way, Rob, I think that's why AI,

a lot of people would say, hey, it's going

to replace a ton of people.

You still have to use thought processes, industry knowledge.

You still have to know the questions to ask, to engage it,

to QC it, and to get the right information on the other side.

Because if you don't, you surrender the value of the tool itself.

It's not going to get you where you want, Rob.

Correct?

It's going to tell me any cheaper cars that sell real equipment,

based on affordability, and they have a high return.

Nobody can go out there and just buy 500 of them.

So you're 100% there.

All right, as we continue through this aging playbook,

actually, before we get into that,

I want to ask you some questions on aging.

But you've got enough data.

You're looking at enough information.

Is there any trends in used cars that began to emerge

over the last 60 or 90 days that give you clues

to what this market in 2026 will look like?

Any data clues to 2026 and winning in 2026?

I mean, I think it's discipline.

And I think that comes down to your average investment,

your average transaction price.

Those are two metrics that we look at every day.

Our average transaction price is around $26.5 on used cars.

And our average inventory cost is usually $23,000 to $24,000.

So that makes sense.

But if that average inventory cost starts going up,

that could be tough.

But if it's 26 grand, people say you sell cheap cars.

Well, there's 80 and $90,000 cars in that number

and $8,000 cars too, right?

So I think it's just keeping an eye on it.

And in my world, I tell people all the time,

certain models will appear as either really hot

and then ice cold two weeks later.

That's the key.

Being able to identify that quicker than a lot of the tools

that are in the market can tell you that for your own store.

Dave Thomas with CDK was recently on the show

and he introduced this idea of there's really,

instead of looking at the average transaction price

and then finding that kind of startlingly high average,

he's saying, look, we need a segment

into two different averages,

one for the upper K economy and one for the lower K.

And he thoughts on that.

Do you think about average price in that middle

or do you try to think about it in terms of the more expensive

side, which you cater to and the less expensive side,

which you also cater to?

Yeah.

I mean, it would be great to separate those.

I think, and he's 100% right.

You know, I think one of the fastest growing segments

this year, in my opinion,

is going to be what I call mid-level luxury.

I think there's a lot of people that buy that.

There's cars that I've been watching turn extremely fast

and they're extremely profitable.

There's not an abundance of them out there to get,

but yes, I mean, you're right.

There's the vanilla Ford Edge and then there's an F450 Platinum

with all the gear.

And those are two totally different beasts.

With that being said, even if I'm selling the luxury

or the higher end extremely fast,

I'm still going to be cautious on the amount that I carry

in my market.

If I was in a metro market, it might be completely different.

All right.

Something you said a minute ago, it landed with me.

And we've got to ask some more questions.

Aging, you said at 45 days, it's gone.

Walk us through your aging strategy in order,

price pack, marketing, wholesale.

What happens at those 30-day, 45- and 60-day marks?

So, okay, the car comes in.

One of the inventory managers handles pricing

for the first two weeks.

And I call that the margin opportunity,

is what I call that.

At day 15, somebody else comes in

and their job is to try to get rid of it by day 30.

So as you can imagine, the margin starts going away.

At day 31, and really it's at day 25,

the used car director comes in

and he's going to have an exit strategy by 45 days.

The entire team knows it, the sales team knows it,

every manager knows it.

With that being said, retail is greater than wholesale.

So we want to retail everything.

And it was a shift I made last year.

We do not, if it's a frontline car that we do well with,

even if it didn't sell, I'm not going to wholesale the car.

One time, I will write the car down and I will re-age it.

And I'll let it go through the cycle one more time.

The price can't go up,

because here's what I found out, tracking all this data.

I wholesaleed the car, nothing good happened at the auction.

And at the end of the day, bought the same car

and ran it back through my shop and got the same result.

But yeah, so it's just like, look, can I have a car?

Well, here's a prime example.

Today's the first of the month, the second, right?

Yep.

We have 300 used cars in stock.

12 of them currently are over 45 days old.

So I got 12 cars.

I got to figure out if I'm going to wholesale

or if I'm going to write them down.

And so you'll allow it to go to 90 days.

And then what happens at 90, if it's on its second 45?

You force it to wholesale, right?

It is gone.

It cannot live a second time.

Yeah, interesting.

All right, let's talk fixed ops before we let you go.

And then we are going to have you back at the end of the show

for our traditional roundtable,

which we've started just a few weeks ago.

Again, another update we've made to the show format.

So what's one fixed ops adjustment you've made in the past many months

that has improved your used car gross or turn?

I mean, there's been a lot of fixed ops.

And I'll start with, I've been here seven and a half years.

And I remember telling the fixed ops team,

we were going to double the fixed ops gross for the department.

And they almost all quit.

And since then we've tripled that number almost four times that number.

But it's no different than a sales team.

I grew up in the sales world.

First off, fixed ops in my mind is real easy.

It's just math.

There's not as many feelings involved in it.

But you can, if you build a team,

so like we have an internal team of technicians,

there's eight techs on that team, there's a team lead,

just like you'd have a sales manager or sales people, right?

They have a team bonus that they hit.

So if a car comes in the shop, you write the estimate,

you're off tomorrow and the parts come in,

I can hang the parts for you.

It helps both of us.

So just breaking down that wall and realizing,

look, technicians are probably your hardest

in the industry to hire and retain.

When you have a robust used car operation,

you have an endless supply of work.

We've never run out of work in seven and a half years.

Treat them as though they should be.

And I can tell you, the only reason we can't hire techs

right now is we need more bays.

Just take care of them.

But the used car machine will definitely help you feed that.

So if a GM watching, last question up,

if a GM watching today wants to improve inventory turn

this week, right now, what's the first thing they should do

that GM wanting to improve inventory turn this week?

They should go look at their inventory.

They should analyze it and then go listen

to whoever's managing the inventory.

Because I guarantee there's two different strategies

or there's a motion involved.

I like it.

Align the strategies.

Rob Dale, Vice President, Bob Ruth, Ford.

Thank you so much for being on the show.

We'll have you back at the very end for the round table.

Thank you, Rob.

Thank you.

All right.

Let's talk Great America.

Today's episode is brought to you by Great America.

Great America finances, buildouts, and remodels,

including service equipment, collision and repair,

body and paint, EV charging,

car washes, signage, and software.

Upgrade your dealership without draining cash.

Learn more at GreatAmerica.com forward slash dealer build.

Again, GreatAmerica.com forward slash dealer build.

And to Great America, thanks for supporting today's content,

including that great conversation with Rob Dale

on used car discipline in 2026.

I'm fascinated by how he's able to track the variance

between projected recon, actual recon,

and then track it by different sources

and help use that to better execute in 2026.

Also, I love their discipline on inventory and turn.

Just some fascinating ideas brought up there.

So thank you, Rob Dale, for being on.

And thanks, Great America, for supporting today's content.

To the comments, a bunch of comments.

Supervisor Dan says, love the new look.

Thank you.

We love it too.

Yoga car says there will be two types of people,

people who use AI to think deeper,

and people who use AI not to think.

And yoga cars, I agree 100% with you.

I was at an event with Chase,

as their CEO summit many months ago,

and they had an economist on.

And he said, look, there'll be two types of people

in AI in the new marketplace in the next several years.

There will be people who are servants to that AI,

not really understanding it, not knowing how it works.

And then there will be those that are executing

and becoming better as a result of it.

And I think we're beginning to see in 2026

that component today now more than we've ever seen it.

And I think it's going to continue to realize itself out.

So a reminder to our daily dealer live audience,

if you're watching the show live, post your comments.

If you're not watching, thanks for watching the podcast

in the car, wherever you may be.

But check out our live show, Monday, Wednesday,

Friday, 1 PM Eastern.

We love the comments.

We love the feedback and the conversation

that you help us have as part of your participation

in the show.

And we jump straight into our next guest, Frank Zambo,

vice president of sales at Otto Haller Exchange.

Frank, welcome to the show.

Hey, Sam, thanks for having me.

I appreciate it.

Frank, it's great to have you back.

You've been on the daily dealer live before.

You've also been on the industry spotlight, I believe,

with me.

And that was a heck of a lot of fun.

Tell, for our audience that doesn't know you,

tell us who you are and what you do out there, Frank.

Yeah.

So my name is Frank Zambo.

I'm the vice president of sales at Otto Haller Exchange.

We are strictly a marketplace that gives our dealers

the ability to post their shipping opportunities directly

to our network of vetted carriers.

And then, really, technology and my operations team

take care of everything else.

So it's a way for them to post their direct price,

carriers see that price, check it out,

and everything's handled from there.

Frank, there's a lot of dealers out there today watching

the show that say, hey, transport is just

a cost of doing business.

You say it's a profit opportunity.

Convince us.

Yeah.

I mean, I think people have been stuck in their old ways forever,

and they just kind of go with the flow of handing it over

to a third party or a middleman that's

going to give you a quote and then post it

on some of these large boards.

And you really never know what type of rip

they may be making off of it.

But when you actually look at what a carrier is getting paid,

and we want to give carriers what they need to stay profitable

so they can move these vehicles from A to B

in the most efficient way possible,

when you actually look at that, and then you have the analytics

in front of you to see how much you can save from the old model

to a new model.

Kind of like how you may have seen the efficiencies from moving

from a taxi cab when you're in New York,

but then using Uber, right?

Letting technology kind of be that middle thing,

that middle conduit to connect you direct to the source.

And yeah, our dealers are seeing obviously a huge savings

in time and money.

All right, before we get into the economics of that,

you've got a fan out there in the comments.

Law Cocktail says, Frank used to sack QBs in the NFL

in addition to shipping cars.

Tell us about that just for our audience.

This will be fun.

Yeah, awesome.

Yeah, back in the day, in a path of life,

I was in Wisconsin in Kansas City,

played three years in Green Bay,

was lucky to win a Super Bowl in 2010 with the Green Bay Packers,

and then brought my talents over to Kansas City

and was there for six years, had some really great years.

Bad thing for me is I missed out on the whole,

my last season was 2019, so that was from there.

But I was extremely proud of the guys I played with

and those coaches.

I'm still in great contact with them.

And then the good thing for me is a lot of Wisconsin-based

dealerships use auto hauler exchange,

Kansas City-based dealerships.

So when we were starting out, it was a good way,

a good ticket into some of those dealerships

to give us the try and then it spread from there.

All right, predictions for Green Bay.

Since I'm in the Midwest, we have stores, Ziggler does,

and Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.

So we're always watching the Detroit Lions,

Green Bay Packers, and obviously the Chicago Bears.

Of those three, who has the best prospects coming into 2026,

then we'll go back to transportation.

Yeah, I'm so focused on transportation.

It's tough for me to follow all that stuff still.

I'm more concerned of making sure my kids aren't wearing

too much lion stuff around the house.

There you go.

I'm not a good fan, but the Lions have been good lately.

But Matt before I knew him from my college days,

he was actually a grad assistant out of Central Michigan.

So I'm a huge fan of, you know, they trusted in me,

so I'm always going to be a huge Packer in Kansas City fan.

And then they got just great,

there's a reason why they're good every year.

They got a great culture over there.

And yeah, rooting for those guys, both of them will be equal.

All right, so back to transportation.

What are dealers feeling most right now in transportation?

Costs, speed, reliability, fraud,

what are the biggest pain points most dealers experience?

I think you listed all of them.

I mean, all four of those are what

dealers are focused on.

Cost number one in speed are the two most important by far.

I think it's just a luxury to have the transparency

into every type of load that you're moving,

whether you want to be able to locate that vehicle,

know exactly where it's at, when it's arriving.

So, you know, GPS locator on every vehicle you have.

And then the price you're paying,

the price you're going to get to the carrier,

the price that, you know, obviously,

I don't have to stay in business,

so we have a cost to do in business.

And then carrier phone numbers,

we want you speaking to the carriers if needed.

Obviously, we have a team that's managing to make sure

ETAs and standards are being met,

but we want you to talk to carriers if needed.

And we don't, you know, a lot of times with the other model,

you know, they're trying to block that

because they don't want you to really know

what you're paying the truck and what the rip is, you know.

So, it's just a completely different model

and more transparency, speed, money,

and saving money, and that's what we're proving with this.

So, I was going to ask you about that,

and you sort of answered this already,

but we, in our auto group, we've seen a lot of fraud.

I'm going to have Carrie Ann Thomas,

she's our head of security on here in a few episodes,

I think next week or week after next,

but she's going to come on and talk

about transportation fraud and theft, and it's rampant.

These bad actors that are coming into auctions

and they get notification about vehicles to be shipped,

they see high cost vehicles to be shipped, $100,000 plus,

they fraudulently pretend to be someone they're not,

they steal the vehicle and they're off and at it.

In March of 2026, what advice would you give to dealers

that would help them to better secure

and better protect their inventories and their shipments?

Yeah, I mean, I know there's other ways out there right now

that dealers can post their shipping opportunities

direct to a network of carriers.

I don't know if that network has vetted the correct way,

so there's a risk into doing that.

Then there's a way you can go have a broker

and hopefully if you're using a good broker

that they are vetting those carriers and monitoring that.

And then with our way, you're kind of being able

to post it direct to the carriers with your rate,

but you're getting that same kind of oversight.

So we're kind of right there in the middle of the tube

with a way for you to get cheaper transportation faster

and more reliable.

But yes, one of the questions in the pre

were what's changing here?

And I would say fraud is definitely way up

and making sure you have your checks and balances in place.

Whether if you're using a broker or you're doing it yourself,

make sure those checks and balances are in place

to prevent fraud because it is everywhere.

And I like how you encourage direct contact

with the trucker, with the shipper,

because establishing that direct line of communication

also reduces fraud because you know

who's going to go pick that vehicle up.

And you've got communication all the way through,

not just when it becomes a challenge.

So speed is also an issue in shipping today.

We've seen that if it takes longer to ship a vehicle,

for groups that are buying vehicles all across the country,

you can go outside of arbitration timelines

and then that impacts your reconditioning costs

and everything else.

How does your method increase the speed to ship?

And how does that help with arbitration

if that needs to happen later on down the process?

Yeah, great question.

I think it's really twofold.

One, when I don't give a quote

and then I try to make a large rip in between

and I just give the carrier what they need now

to pick up that vehicle,

instead of having me with that carrier

and trying to low ball them to make a bigger margin,

there's speed right there.

And then a lot of times, lane data is very hard

to be accurate sometimes with.

And if you are misquoted on a unit,

that's coming from New York down to Orlando, for instance.

And now it's sitting for a month

because that broker were misquoted it.

Maybe that carrier just needs a little bit more

to pick up a heavy unit that's coming out of the North, right?

So it gives you the ability to not just be stuck to one price,

that you can move that price and give carriers based,

give them what they need.

You'll see through our system that they're able to,

carries will place bids.

And if it's above what you posted it for,

then you can increase it to give that carrier.

If they can pick it up tomorrow,

I'm okay with paying them an extra 50 bucks.

But that third party might not be okay

with $50 cutting into their margin.

Their margin.

Again, more of a transparent model

that is giving the carriers more

freedom to bid and give you what they need to stay profitable.

But coming into the comments,

Vajran says,

finding the right transportation partner

has a direct impact on your dealership's profitability.

The right partner doesn't just move cars.

They improve speed to market,

which is a big metric we look at.

Speaking of metrics, if I'm a GM,

what three metrics that are transportation related

should I review every Monday?

What are the top three metrics?

Yeah.

Price, like maybe it'd be like price per mile, right?

I would probably be right around like that 80 cents a mile.

I would say days from when you purchased it

from the auction, you maybe posted or gave it to your,

you know, to whoever your transportation company is

to the time of the lives to your lot.

And then I would make sure that they have insurance

that the carriers that are touching your load

because in case something does go wrong,

falls off a truck or does get stolen,

just make sure that you have all that insurance information,

COIs and FNCSA scores readily available

if you need to access those.

So it's the best practice thinking about transportation

in the dealership environment.

Who should own transport inside a dealer group?

Is that a used car manager functions

or looking to move inventories at an inventory manager?

Is it the controller, CFO?

Who should be making these decisions

and making the transportation movements?

What I would say really, it changes.

I have, you know, we have hundreds of dealers

in our network and it's all different.

You know, I have owners who are in charge of transportation.

I have used car managers, inventory managers,

general managers that have just kind of always done it

and they like to have their hand on it.

But I really, I think maybe it depends on the size

of the dealership group or the size of the dealer ship

that who has a hand.

But there's all folks, mostly I would say used car,

but it could be the owner, the dealer principal,

anything could be, I've seen a metter in our platform.

All right, Frank, as we wrap up,

and I think you have some data you were going to share with me

because I know we've got a couple of stores at Ziggler

that do business with you.

But before we get to that,

what transport inefficiency is quietly costing dealers

six figures?

We tease that at the top of the show.

What transport inefficiency

is quietly costing dealers six figures, Frank?

I think low-balling carriers is probably

the biggest inefficiency in our space

because we don't want carriers going to bump a dock for Amazon.

We want to keep the good carriers in the space,

even if you've got to give them a little bit more.

So again, I feel like with our business model,

we're able to give that carrier a little bit more

because we don't have as many touches,

we don't need as many people monitoring everything

when you have technology that can kind of handle that.

So let's give these carriers a little bit more

to keep the good ones in the space

because eventually we're always going to need to move vehicles.

They're moving all the time.

I mean, one vehicle can move probably 20 times in its lifetime.

It's truly amazing how much money is spent

on vehicle transportation.

So let's keep the good ones in the space.

So yeah, the lowest paid carrier

is not always the best option, I'll say that.

Yeah, it is interesting.

There is in some areas a race to the bottom,

price-wise, expense-wise,

but there are areas where it makes sense to spend a little more

to make sure you get a quality product at the other side.

So Frank, as we wrap up here, you had some data for me.

Share it.

Yeah, I mean, I got to get shout out to Jaden

over at your Honda Racine store.

He's been a great customer of ours

and partnered with us for the last two years.

But yeah, I mean, he's averaging four days

from posted to delivery.

He's running around at 80 cents.

I was kind of digging into a few of his loads

that posted on February 9th, delivered on the 12th.

And that was out of Houston.

And he was all in for $700.

And he posted that one himself.

And I wish I had to actually check in with Jaden.

I don't hear from him often.

He kind of is taking it as his own.

He's on autopilot.

So I almost check in with him to see how he's doing,

but I don't hear from him much.

And that's what we want, right?

It's your way to approach these carriers directly.

If you need help, we're here.

And it'd be tough for you to have a missed call from us.

I'll tell you that.

Yeah, the fascinating part about your story,

I remember on the industry spotlight

was the owner of the company,

the guy who developed this technology, was a broker

and essentially ran himself out of business

creating this type of a structure.

So it's absolutely fascinating.

Frank Zombo, Vice President of Sales at Auto Hauler Exchange.

Thanks for being on the show and contributing to the content today.

Thanks for being here.

Appreciate you, Sam.

Yeah, transportation, super important right now.

We're going to have Carrie on Thomas on.

She's head of security for Ziggler Auto Group.

And we've seen theft and attempted theft

in that transportation pipeline lately.

And it's a challenge.

You know, the bad actors out there are becoming better.

They're becoming more creative using AI

and other technology that's available.

And they're getting away with things that, you know,

they shouldn't be getting away with.

And it just occurs to me as Frank talks about their way

of doing business.

I think it's fascinating because you actually

do have a direct line of contact with that trucker,

with that driver.

And it seems to me that could reduce instances of fraud

and theft as you're in direct communication with that driver.

Lindy Singer comes into the comments

as average of four days from posted to delivery.

Very cool to hear real world stories of HX in action.

I'd love to hear more.

You know, I didn't mention this to Frank,

but that Honda store is one of our highest volume stores

across the Ziggler Auto Group.

So they do a ton of transactions in use.

So definitely very cool to see them winning.

All right, next up, John Moore Murphy,

used vehicle director at Huller Classic Automotive Group.

John, welcome to the show.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

So John, your first time on the show.

So thrilled to have you and get your perspectives today

as we go through it.

For those that don't know you,

tell us a little bit about yourself and tell us what you do.

Yeah.

Well, again, thank you for having me.

And first time, really enjoyed the first two guests.

But a little bit about me,

spending the car business 24 years or so, I guess, formally.

First job was Valet at a Volkswagen store,

your neck of the woods, North Chicago area.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Which Volkswagen store, by the way?

It was at that time, Randy Rormann Volkswagen and Gurney.

Gurney.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So they have Gurney Volkswagen and they've got a Hyundai store,

both the same GM, good guy, GM right now.

So yeah.

Yeah, yeah, fun story.

I think I got a tour stuck in a snow bank,

had to go up to the GM's office, tell him about that.

So sorry for anybody listening over there.

But, you know, bona fide car guy,

true car guy, grew up in a family of gear heads.

And my father was a general,

or my grandfather, excuse me,

general manager and partner of a dealer group there in

Chicagoland.

Well, you know, my dad obsessed car collection, etc.

So I really have a home life, which is surrounded by cars.

And it was only natural for me to get into this business.

And really, really took a passion.

And, you know, where my skills are is the used vehicle.

Yeah.

So how many rooftops do you have in the Hauler classic family of dealerships?

Yeah.

So we currently have 13 and we're growing.

So we're proud of that.

Our newest acquisition was a Ford store here.

So Hauler Ford, right.

And nicely situated right across them,

our large Hauler Hyundai and Genesis North Orlando dealership.

Yeah.

So you're in the Orlando marketplace.

That's a busy market.

You've got Mitsubishi.

You've got Vinfast, which is interesting.

We'll dive into that in just a minute.

But a lot of different brands,

including Honda, Mazda, Ford, Audi and whatnot.

So you came into the group and standardized recon across

franchises and used super stores.

Most groups struggle with that.

What forced the change of standardizing that?

Yeah.

Well, it was needed.

I'll use that kind of cliche phrase scale, right?

So as we're looking at scale and volume,

having so many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak,

we just touched on the number of dealers we have.

And of course, there's guys on here with much larger dealer groups

and managing much more rooftops.

But very, very large import footprint here in central Florida.

But you have really great operators acting and speaking

and talking differently across all those rooftops

and all have opinions, right?

And those opinions translate into

how they're treating the used car.

Also, with scale, seriously, you take used cars, right?

We have the benefit of having a Honda store,

two Honda stores, right?

So talk about dynamite trades as you talk about your Honda store.

Getting those trades in and people feasting on them

in the wholesale market, or if you pitch them to wholesale,

that really hurts a guy like me.

I just cringe when I see that, right?

So I want to, everything we take in,

I want to give an opportunity for retail,

obviously with some extreme exceptions,

a total loss vehicle, et cetera.

But that standardization really stems from scale and scalability.

So as you went in and standardized it specifically,

what does standardization mean?

And what was the first non-negotiably you implemented

as part of that standardization?

Oh, great question.

So I'll touch on the non-negotiable at the end,

but standardization is really,

how do I take something you touch, feel, and see?

And I think all of us know that in our business, right?

Vehicles, and especially the used car,

there is a difference between the fleet used,

the rental Toyota Camry and grandma's Toyota Camry, right?

But standardization is, and how we implemented it here is,

A, we have an identity, right?

We're nearly 90 years old, five generations.

You know, we're a staple here in Central Florida

and a trusted dealer.

So there is an identity.

So a guy like me coming from the outside,

I had to understand what that identity was

to even begin to talk about standardizing the process.

And standards really translate to,

what am I looking for on that car?

And how do I bring that car to a level

that is both acceptable to our customers

and our internal customers, our employees too, right?

Comfort in selling that car.

So it's putting black and white

measurables on a highly subjective thing,

which is test driving the car, seeing a car, smelling a car.

So tire tread measurements, brake measurements.

How do you look at hail?

How do you think of hail?

What's high visibility?

What's low visibility?

When you map it out and have that kind of uniform look

at the car and data entry on the car,

now it makes sense to go to the go-no-go.

And the gatekeepers, like the service advisors

at the dealerships or at the recon facility,

I like to refer them as the gatekeepers.

They know our standards.

They have our standards, which we wrote down,

the measurables on the car.

Do we greenlight that car or do we not?

So do you have one system or process

you use in your fixed ops departments

as your reconning used vehicles?

I assume you do it at each store,

or do you have centralized recon somewhere?

So we actually, it's a hybrid.

So we have, we're lucky to have in those rooftops,

we have two driver smart locations.

That's a used independent stores.

They're super stores at this point.

They're very large and proud of that.

But we do have reconditioning facilities located there.

Those facilities will touch some cars,

i.e. coming from auction, to go to a new car franchise.

That staff is better equipped to handle arbitrations.

You touched on that, transport damage claims, etc.

So we want to make sure that the car we bought online

or in the lane somewhere is the same car that showed up.

But we do have reconditioning facilities.

We also have, obviously, our franchise dealers,

our new car dealers.

They'll take in sparingly offsite purchases,

but they'll definitely process through their trades.

Systems all act and walk and talk,

two years on to a little more than two years

of me joining the organization.

They all walk, talk, look the same,

with the exception of maybe one or two stores

that have some manufacturer specific

softwares and programs.

So is there like a rapid recon

or some sort of a program that you use across the group

consistently, as you standardize that?

Or does everybody have their own program based on OEM?

Yeah, not at this time.

And we talk about that scale, right?

So sometimes, and I heard your first guest,

he talked about simplifying things, right?

Dummy it down.

We track very stick and rudder, but we need to.

We want high ownership there.

So when a car comes in, it's tracked both centralized,

a department located at our home office.

Here, there's a team of buyers.

There's a general manager of that group, right?

That handles wholesaling, interstore buys and sells

and transfers, but they're tracking it manually

and the stores are tracking it manually.

And of course, using the systems

that are in place at those dealerships.

Okay.

What's your speed to frontline target?

So from acquisition to frontline ready, ready for sale?

We're rocking and rolling if we're sub five days.

So standardization goes a lot more than,

what am I measuring?

What am I looking at?

What am I feeling on the car?

Okay.

Now it's green light.

I am reconditioning the car.

There's checkpoints in there, right?

So I like to use the word compass, right?

I like to take a measurement,

thumb in the wind sort of speak.

So if it's slotted for body work, right?

I want a time in zone that I'm raising my hand

when it hits that day, right?

But if we're rocking and rolling under five days,

which for example, the recon centers

will do that consistently,

then we're in really good shape.

I think acceptable is seven and under.

And then we start to raise the red flag

when we have any location that lists towards 10, 10 or more.

We even measure time to kick.

So time is money.

I think we talked about that with Frank for sure.

Time is money wholesale as well.

So our organization will also not only measure

the journey of the car transport,

the journey of the car from original RO open

to when it's done in Q seed,

and then equally time to kick

because I need fast response time

to get it to auction to maximize the value.

What's your, in 2026,

what's your time to transport on average?

So it depends on where we source, right?

But I think if you take an average look at it,

it's going to be right around that four day metric.

And we do leverage Frank's company as well,

auto hauler exchange.

And I second that high control.

That's always nice to look at.

Yeah.

Has that helped with fraud theft

and attempts to steal inventory in the transit process?

Yes. That's the short answer.

It's just high visibility to the movement of the car

and the type of unit that we can sometimes move.

But also think about last mile, right?

What's happening at the sales desk?

We really want to have, you know,

part of our process is trust transparency.

That translates immensely out to, again,

a five generation company like ours.

When you're at the desk

and you're quoting a last mile or a home delivery,

you know, as much transparency

as you can possibly give that customer

and feeling of control to the dealership really works.

So thinking about the used market

coming into this first quarter here, 2026,

thinking about like the last 90 days

and what your data has showed you

as you've standardized all these processes.

What's a trend you're seeing

and what's one operational change

you've made in the last 90 days

to better capitalize and put your best foot forward in 2026?

Yeah. You know, another great question.

I think the best way or the change that we made

or implemented over the last 90 days

that helped us as we're scaling, right?

We have two years of immense used car growth.

You know, well, in excess of 15% year over year

each of the first two years.

And again, a lot of used cars

going through our reconditioning centers

was really tracking the live cycle.

So we talked about that a little bit with the first guest.

45 day look at the car,

punt on the car, so to speak, at 90 days.

But measuring and being highly involved

in what we're doing in the life cycle of that car,

equally with recon as well.

I think the recon car can tend to get lost.

So if you're going to put hard turns or hard looks

in your inventory, in your live inventory, right?

You want to also have that in recon.

And I think that we added that upstream layer, right?

That standardization.

What vehicle standard are we bringing this to?

We've added the touch points.

We better understand our speed cycle

in terms of transport and time to market.

Now let's better understand the journey of the car

as it's live. And that's really helped us.

Yeah. Yeah.

If you acquired a new store tomorrow as part of the group,

what are the first three things

when you think about standardizing and getting used cars

just crushing it in 2026?

What are the first three processes

you'd install into that new store immediately?

Well, immediately I would think of appraisals, right?

Obviously the most profitable used cars we all had,

you talked about margin compression.

That's a reality here.

So want to immediately touch and work to standardize appraisal,

appraisal process.

We have a robust appraisal process here.

We touch a lot of metal and we're proud of that.

We're proud of the accuracy of our appraisal process.

The next thing I would do is absolutely go into the back,

figure out who's touching and who's the internal rider

on the used vehicle and immediately standardize that journey.

Understanding that once it's standardized,

you're going to have more vehicles being tried,

tested through that process.

And then I would absolutely, when it comes to used cars,

I'd absolutely want to cap off, I think,

the top three hit with how we're merchandising the car.

I think you touched on pictures, detail, quality of car.

Again, we all...

Anybody you're using on the photo side?

So we actually use multiple vendors that support our organization.

It's really important the photo quality.

So if you go to our website or look at any of our dealer groups,

they're going to be slightly different.

Some rooftops look the same.

Some rooftops look different to their sister store.

But we do outsource that.

Essentially, if I'm not processing any cars through,

I don't want to be paying for that.

All right, John Murphy, used vehicle director,

Holler Classic Automotive Group.

Thank you so much for being on the show.

Hang tight with us because we're going to actually go back

to the beginning of the show, bring Rob Dell back on to join us.

As part of the little round table,

this is a tradition we've started past few weeks.

And it's just a little bit of fun at the very end,

ask some questions and see your individual perspectives on things.

So we kind of just go through rapid fire here.

Anybody can take this.

And welcome back, by the way, Rob.

Good to have you.

So what's more dangerous right now?

Slow recon or overpaying at acquisition?

What say you both?

Slow recon.

Yeah, slow recon, 100%.

Yeah, yeah.

So you can overcome getting it wrong in the payment process.

Or you can fix for that, but slow recon will kill you.

What's the biggest myth in used car profitability today,

March of 2026?

That you can make money on the front of the car.

Front and margin.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In fact, that was interesting, Rob.

I was fascinated by that, the average loss per new on auction vehicles.

But then you make it up with the trade and everything else.

I mean, we're operating on tight margins.

I think it's interesting.

People come on this show and they're like,

automotive has incredibly tight margins.

It's true, particularly in used cars.

Is it not?

Yes, very true.

If you had to choose one KPI to improve for 90 days,

what would that one KPI be?

We got to get it from both of you, Rob.

You first, Benjohn.

I mean, the biggest KPI is your gross return on investment.

What do you turn in that investment into?

And that's a multiplication problem of just not problem,

but an opportunity of how fast you're turning in

and what your return was on it.

And how do you make it higher?

I mean, we manage money.

Some people say we manage metal, but it's money.

Yeah, John.

I think the deal quality at the desk on the showroom floor.

Being large volume used car players and choosing that pathway

and all those challenges, if we're going to have best price first

and you're getting an incredible deal,

let's make sure our customers are protecting their investment.

And that deal quality translates to FNI.

Okay, Rob, going back to the GROI you just talked about,

what's the fastest way to increase GROI in today's market?

Just sell it faster.

I mean, that's it.

Like you can sit there and say you could buy it cheaper

and get a higher return, but if it still sits there for 60 days,

you won't get the multiplier that if you sold it in 15 days.

Is price the biggest lever to selling it faster or is it marketing?

What's the biggest lever to selling it faster and getting that GROI?

I mean, I think when you talk about even with John's store, it's everything.

We sell cars very fast, but if we have a cog in the wheel

and our time to front line gets slow, customer will deflect.

And we take deposits all the time and tell them,

hey, we're still putting it through the reconditioning process.

So it's got to be merchandising.

It's got to be recon.

It's got to be price.

It's got to be everything.

It's got to be your staff.

Yeah, thoughts, John?

Yeah, I second that.

The car has to, I go back to that look,

feel good, smell good, right?

Look good, drive good, smell good, I should say.

As a mentor of mine once said, but great pictures online.

Do we merchandise it right?

Does that consumer know that this car has those options, all that stuff?

And again, price is a big lever, lever, of course,

but it's getting the eyes on the car on your inventory.

You know, both of you talked AI a little bit,

and both of you in one way or another said,

ChatGPT manual entry to ask questions or another AI tool.

Is that the best AI tool and use cars for today?

Or is there another tool that's better?

What's your best favorite go-to AI tool?

Starting with John and then Rob.

Oh, man, putting me on there.

I mean, you know, ChatGPT is great.

We definitely leverage it.

We use it.

But I really like what you said, the nuances in the automotive world,

the used automotive world.

There's instinct, there's training.

You know, you have to deviate.

And I actually like that better is, you know,

you can have something do 90% of the work,

but force yourself to put that input in,

force the system to change.

But, you know, we have some vendor partners.

You know, we're a thank you user as a dealer group.

You know, there's some pretty cool stuff.

I mean, NADA this year, buzzword, right?

AI, there's some pretty cool stuff that's there already

and stuff that's coming down the pipe to leverage and use.

I'm excited about it.

But I just want to caution that still has to have, you know,

the manual touches.

Yeah.

Rob, any thoughts as we wrap up?

I mean, I think you just got to play with it

and see what works for you.

I took a MIT class for eight weeks or something like that

to try to understand it.

Oh, interesting.

The big thing that I'm seeing in the industry,

if we're talking about with a lot of tools,

is they're not customizable yet to your own store.

And I think that's what's going to be missing.

I think when, if I want to build an agent,

I want to do it a certain way.

I don't want it to do it the way everybody else does it.

Rob, you took an MIT class.

You went to MIT, took a class on AI.

What's the class called?

I can't remember.

It was business application for AI.

You can do it online.

Yeah.

I mean, you had to do homework.

It was like going back in the past, but it was.

Was it worth it?

It was.

You will not learn how to build anything or be a programmer,

but it will give you a really good understanding of just

what could be possible.

And it'll make you think a little bit different,

in my opinion.

Rob Dell, Vice President Bob Ruth Ford,

and John Murphy,

used vehicle director,

a Haller Classic Automotive Group.

Thanks to you both for being on the show today,

sharing your perspectives.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

And the comments are abundant online.

Paul Salisman says,

photos are so important and often not given enough attention.

Samira says,

John and Haller Classic are doing amazing things.

And then Paul Salisman says,

outsource recon are all in house,

including detail.

We didn't get to that point,

but we will in a future episode.

Hey, that's a wrap on this first episode

with the new format.

We appreciate the producers,

Cole, everybody that went into putting this together.

And to you, our daily dealer listening audience,

thanks for being here and watching Daily Deal Alive,

where we break down the biggest moves in the car business

as they happen.

Don't forget, we're here live.

Every Monday, we'll be back Wednesday,

1 p.m. Eastern and Friday.

So if this is your world, as always,

hit like, hit subscribe,

and turn on those notifications

so you never ever miss a beat.

And we'll see you next episode.

Thanks for being here, everybody.

About this episode

The discussion centers on the critical importance of inventory efficiency, transport cost control, and recon discipline for car dealerships in 2026. Rob Dell shares insights on using detailed data tracking to optimize used car acquisition and turnaround, emphasizing education and teamwork. The episode also covers industry headlines including Asbury's dealership sales, Ford's large software recall, and Kia's new hybrid Telluride. Listeners gain practical strategies to improve dealership execution, focusing on tight operations rather than volume to protect profits amid market challenges.

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Original notes

Today's show features: - Rob Dell, Vice President of Bob Ruth Ford  - Frank Zombo, Vice President of Sales at Auto Hauler Exchange   - John Murphy, Used Vehicle Director at Holler-Classic Automotive Group This episode is brought to you by: Great America – Planning a new service lane, collision center, or showroom refresh? GreatAmerica finances dealership build‑outs and remodels—including service equipment, collision & repair, body & paint, EVSE, car wash, signage, and software. Our fast credit decisions keep projects on schedule, while flexible financing structures are designed to support growth, efficiency, and long‑term ROI—without tying up cash needed for inventory, staffing, or daily operations. Visit https://carguymedia.com/4l4uK13 to learn more! AutoHauler Exchange – Auto Hauler Exchange is the vehicle transportation marketplace connecting shippers and carriers directly to remove inefficiencies, cut delivery timelines in half, and save 15-20% on transport. Visit https://www.autohaulerexchange.com/ to set up your free account today. Check out Car Dealership Guy’s stuff: CDG Circles ➤ ⁠https://cdgcircles.com/⁠ CDG News ➤ ⁠https://news.dealershipguy.com/⁠ CDG Jobs ➤ ⁠https://jobs.dealershipguy.com/⁠ CDG Recruiting ➤ ⁠https://www.cdgrecruiting.com/⁠ My Socials: X ➤ ⁠https://www.twitter.com/GuyDealership⁠ Instagram ➤ ⁠https://www.instagram.com/cardealershipguy/⁠ TikTok ➤ ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@guydealership⁠ LinkedIn ➤⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/company/cardealershipguy/⁠ Threads ➤ ⁠https://www.threads.net/@cardealershipguy⁠ Facebook ➤⁠ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077402857683⁠ Everything else ➤ ⁠dealershipguy.com

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