NADA is a big annual event for car dealers and automotive companies. The hosts are basically saying, “Here’s what we learned at that big show, and what we’re doing next.”
They’re using a comparison to say NADA is a huge deal in the car world. Like the Super Bowl is the biggest sports event, NADA is presented as the biggest automotive event.
“Second cup” is just the hosts’ way of saying, “Here’s part two—another conversation to keep the energy going.” It’s not a car term; it’s the show’s format.
Concept
digital dealership system
A digital dealership system is basically the online and software tools a car dealer uses to advertise and handle leads. It’s how dealers run parts of their sales process without relying only on phone calls and in-person visits.
Todd Katcher is the person the hosts are interviewing. They’re talking about his work and how he connects with car dealers and companies at events like NADA.
An in-person demo is when someone shows you how something works face-to-face. Here, it’s used to explain why customers are more likely to adopt the service after seeing it.
The segment discusses using screens in a dealership (showroom or sales office) to display videos or presentations for customers and service-related viewing. The host argues that using a dedicated service improves professionalism and reduces the dealership’s workload managing digital media.
A self-managed setup is when the dealership makes and runs its own videos or screen content. The point here is that a specialized service can make it look more professional and easier for the dealership to use.
Concept
Service drive / dealership service area
The service drive is the part of a dealership where you pull in to get your car serviced. Since people are waiting there or passing through, it’s a place where the dealership can show helpful info or updates.
Some tools use AI to help create ads and manage social media posts. The point here is that AI can help, but a skilled person or agency may still get better results because they understand what to target and how to run the campaign.
Digital signs are the screens you see in a dealership—like in the waiting area or service area—that show ads or helpful info. The idea is that a specialist can set it up and manage it so the messages are clearer and more effective.
Concept
Customer-focused leadership (asking the right questions)
They’re saying good leaders should think like the customer and ask questions that reveal what customers actually see and feel. The goal is to improve service by making changes based on that perspective.
A sales leaderboard is a ranked display of dealership performance metrics, typically used to motivate teams and track progress over time. The speaker mentions presenting it in a more interactive “presentation mode” during demos.
“Fixed ops” (fixed operations) refers to the dealership’s service and parts departments, as opposed to sales. A fixed ops leaderboard similarly tracks performance metrics for service/parts to help dealers manage and improve those departments.
Reporting tools are software systems that collect data and present it in dashboards or summaries for decision-making. The speaker notes that many reporting tools are built around standardizing how dealers use the same platform so results are comparable.
Concept
fixed ops director / dealer performance tracking
“Fixed ops” typically refers to a dealership’s service and parts operations, and a director overseeing multiple stores would use performance dashboards to manage outcomes. The segment frames how managers use data to guide decisions across a dealership network.
DMS is the dealership’s main computer system. It’s where the dealership’s sales and service information lives, and the platform uses that data to build updates.
ROs are basically the paperwork/job records for car repairs in a dealership. If you’re making a lot of them every day, a report can get old fast.
Concept
live leaderboards vs reports
They’re talking about two ways to track performance. A report is like a recap of what already happened, while a live leaderboard shows what’s happening right now so people can react and improve faster.
CRM is basically a computer system that helps a dealership keep track of customers and sales work. Instead of everything living in spreadsheets or emails, it organizes leads and activity in one place.
CDK is a major provider of dealership software used by many auto retailers. The discussion contrasts CDK’s reporting with a different approach that uses live performance tracking to motivate teams.
Real-time reporting means you can see results as they happen. That way you can change what you’re doing now, instead of finding out later that you missed an opportunity.
Concept
TMS
Here, TMS sounds like a system the business uses to manage and track how things are going. It helps managers make decisions based on data instead of guessing.
Concept
platform manager
A platform manager is basically someone coordinating operations across a bigger group, not just one person or one desk. They focus on the overall system and results.
A general manager (GM) in a dealership oversees overall operations, including sales, service, and customer experience. The transcript frames the GM as someone who should be able to get a clear, accurate report on where the team is and what work is being completed.
GSM typically means “general service manager” in dealership operations, responsible for the service department’s performance. The speaker groups GSM with the service manager and emphasizes tracking both presence and output (what work has been completed).
A service manager runs the day-to-day operations of the auto service department, coordinating technicians, advisors, and workflow. The transcript highlights the need to know not only where employees are, but what their work output has produced so far.
A test drive is when a customer drives the car to see how it feels. The speaker is saying managers should know which customers are at which stage, like test drives.
Concept
qualifications
In sales, “qualifications” means checking whether a customer is a good fit and ready to proceed. The speaker is saying managers should track that stage too, not just where someone is standing.
Concept
customer experience vs dealership differentiation
If lots of dealerships sell the same car, then the car isn’t what makes one store better. What makes the difference is how the dealership treats you—how easy it is, how you’re communicated with, and how you’re taken care of.
The Ford F-150 is a very popular pickup truck. The point here is that lots of dealerships can sell the same truck, so the dealership has to stand out by how it treats customers, not just by the product.
McDonald's is used as a comparison because it’s the same product in many places. The host is using that idea to say car dealerships need to stand out through how they treat customers, not just the product.
The segment argues that when many dealerships sell the same vehicles, the differentiator becomes the customer experience—how calls are handled, how staff communicate, and how consistently the dealership presents itself across channels. This includes “touch points” from online browsing to in-store interactions.
A “touch point” is any moment a customer interacts with a dealership—phone calls, website messaging, service scheduling, the showroom experience, and more. The segment emphasizes that poor performance at any single touch point can hurt the overall customer journey.
“Service status menus” refer to the screens or interfaces that show customers updates on their vehicle’s repair progress. In the segment, they’re part of a broader digital approach to reduce uncertainty and improve the dealership’s customer experience.
BMW is the car brand. Here, they’re talking about a BMW dealership that hadn’t updated some in-store screens and lounge setup in a long time.
Term
lounge cb
“Lounge cb” sounds like a screen or display system in the dealership lounge. They’re saying it was outdated, and updating it helped the store feel better.
Granular reports are super detailed reports with lots of breakdowns. The point here is that they want simpler reports so managers can quickly understand what’s going on.
These are ways to compare results over time. Month-over-month looks at the last month versus the current one, and year-over-year compares this time to the same time last year.
Macro reports are the big-picture summaries, not the super-detailed stuff. They help a dealership see how they’re doing compared to the industry.
Concept
virtual kick in the butt
It’s a playful way of saying the app sends reminders/alerts to get people back focused. The idea is to nudge sales staff to stay active when opportunities come in.
Performance metrics are just the numbers a business watches to see if they’re improving. Here, the dealership uses them to track sales and service results over time and decide what to focus on.
An open platform is software that’s flexible—so the dealership can use it in different ways and connect it to other tools. In this case, it helps them send the messages they want to their team.
Dealer feedback just means dealerships telling the company what’s working and what isn’t. The idea is to use those real-world comments to improve the software and make the customer experience smoother.
This means the software can be adjusted to fit how a particular dealership does things. Instead of forcing everyone to use the same setup, they can tweak it to match their workflow.
Think of a development queue like a to-do list for software. They’re saying they already have a list of updates planned for the next few months, and they keep adding more as they learn from dealers.
Term
cell people
“Cell people” appears to be a transcription error for “sales people,” referring to dealership staff involved in selling vehicles. The context is about improving the dealership experience for both customers and the sales/service teams.
LIVE
Hello and welcome to the CarGuy Coffee Podcast. This brew has been brought to you by Certified
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Let's brew! What's going on CarGuy's and CarGuy's it's Lou Ramirez and it's Fred Lynn Arts and we
are enjoying a cup of coffee on the CarGuy Coffee Podcast with you and whoever it is that you can
get inside of the brew, you know what you need to do. Tag a CarGuy! Tag a CarGuy and share, share,
share, share, share. Let's get this out there. We have some really great content to share with you
all today. A really great guy that we got to hang out with at the great event, the great event,
the Super Bowl of All Automotive Events, NADA this year. We got to go to his booth, check out his
passion, what he's doing, got to actually shake his hand in person and really get to hang out with
them and learn more about his business in person and his people man and man what a great group
of people there were and I'm excited to get him on the screen today and have the second cup
of this grounds for growth. Yeah definitely all about that second cup. Some of you might be on
your second cup of the day and we are excited to put a little bit of high energy inside of your day
and we're pumped up also to have another conversation and cover a few other things that are happening
post NADA just like many of you are doing things that are because of the result of what you did
during NADA for those of you that are listening. We are having fun collecting all of this incredible
information in these great conversations. Make sure that you stay up with us at CardiCoffee.com.
Stay in tune with what it is that we brew on YouTube and everywhere else because many of
those conversations are dripping into your cups as the months go on and we are excited to continue
to put some of that content out there but today we are going to be live and we are going to keep
these conversations going. There is something to be said when you do meet people in the digital
sense and we were just talking about how sometimes it's even just a little bit different when you
meet them in a physical sense but I was very impressed and excited to be able to meet Todd
in person and be able to also see a little bit of his swag. You can't quite pick up somebody's swag
just looking at pictures and then seeing videos. You got to see how they actually look when you're
standing with them and man he definitely had his own style his own flow and he is really
brewing some serious solutions. One of a kind. There's no cup of coffee that's like this. There's
no brew that's like what it is that you're about to get with Fred and Lou and from digital
dealership system. System. The one. The only. Todd. Catcher. Welcome to the show time. Welcome back.
What's up guys. Good to see you. Man so pumped to see you back. What an honor.
I almost said digital dealership because they don't need your company but NADA you are a busy man.
Not only were you busy but you're going around. You were talking to some great people. You had
people coming to the booth to interview you. We got to interview you which we were honored to do.
Man great event that was. How did you think NADA was this year? Oh it was a great success this year.
Not only the ability to meet great people vendors like yourselves and do some great
interviews and have some great conversations but it was also it was the first time that we
really had an NADA where we had so many customers come up with us and say hey we've seen a lot of
your ads but we wanted to go ahead and actually meet with you in person and then the amount of
people since then have to have upgraded their services because you know when you're when you
have customers and you don't get to see them very often we have a thousand customers across the
country and so when we actually get to meet them face to face in person shake a hand and they
say hey we love your product what else can you do for us or we want to upgrade this and that.
The biggest success that we've had at NADA this year was our current customers coming to the booth
and saying we want more which is crazy but like we can't get this any time. We contact our customers
on a regular basis just part of customer service but for them to take an effort out of their busy
schedule at NADA they have so many vendors to see and there's so many different people drawing
their attention and to come to a current vendor and a partner that they've been with for a long
time and say hey I want more when they could have just called us on the phone or just reached out to
us by email because we have that contact but to actually spend their time to do that and to sit
down like we had dealers come to us and just literally sit down our booth and just sit there
and talk to us and say hey I want to learn how to use this better I want to learn this and it's
almost like an in-person demo but then afterwards we're getting all of our business after NADA or
I should say most of it has been from our current customers who are adding more services because
they like what we do for them and they see the value and that's the best customer. That's the
best feeling. New customers make but when your customers currently have loves you so much they
want to do more with you that is that's a that's like a compliment right. The best form you can
do that that would make me feel so great and I know that you did too. I could see the energy I could
see the smile inside you I know that the show was a whirlwind it was so busy it was the busiest
activity I've been to probably ever so it was really cool to see how it was happening in there
your booth was in a great location it looked phenomenal I guarantee not only did your current
clients but anybody who walked by actually took the time to see what you actually were doing
with blown away. We were blown away by technology I love the setup we talked about on your show we've
done a demo with you I've done it all but to see it actually on a screen the way it would look inside
a showroom inside a sales office or wherever that the screen is going to be for that particular
situation man it was really cool an eye-opening even a little notes the positivity quotes that
are at the bottom of it for the customers to be watching the service but all these things
matter so much and it was the details that I noticed it wasn't the fact that you had it
it's cool but it was the little details that you did inside of it for them and for their clients
and for everybody to make it even better is where it impressed me the most so congrats on that.
Yeah I appreciate that that's one of the distinctions between a self-managed system like
dealership can go ahead and do slide shows or they could do google sheets or they could go ahead
and run a youtube page or something like that on their screens in their dealership but utilizing
a service like ours just adds a little bit of detail and professionalism and allows them to
focus on selling cars and taking care of their customers versus worrying about managing digital
sites. Most dealers use some sort of advertising agency for managing their social media right
so this is just an extension of that marketing is inside their dealership whether it's
motivating their staff or whether it's using or the service drive or lounge tv programming
sure you can do that yourself you could also do your facebook advertising or social media
advertising by yourself too but you pay someone to manage that for you because they're experts and
they do it better than you can do it on your own so you could save money right you could do your
own agency stuff you could there's tools that you could use and you could say the big buzzword the
ai to go ahead and create your advertising and go ahead and manage your social media advertising
but it's not as good as if you were actually an expert in that that's why dealers go ahead and hire
advertising agencies that are experts so when it comes to digital signs hire a digital sign company
that's an expert in that so that way you could have a better better result at the end of the day
for your customers and for your staff so true and so good and so real you said something and it is so
true dealerships are focused on their customers the people are focused on the people that they're
serving especially in the field of where they're serving them as i'm considering this and just
thinking of it does make sense that and the opportunity that those that serve the customer
so well remove themselves from that measure of service to go get educated then can get
pointed with considering the right questions to ask the right additions that need to be done
the right people to be in the company of while we're in that environment because i can completely
see where hey how can i make your service any better and i guarantee your service rep probably
asked them these questions anything you consider you want to see any of our new things and you know
what they're on the next call the next thing they got to get the next fire they have to put out the
next deal they got to do whatever it is their efforts are already moving in an area which is why
and inside of our first show we told people to take a look at your business from outside of your
business it's so it's so hard for these leaders to sit and see what is it that the customer seeing
because they see themselves serving the customer and that's sometimes all that they see is that
there's ones on the other side with their hand out to the customer whereas when they get the chance
to go to an NADA to go to a booth and really slow down long enough to say i only have so much time
but the time i am here to find out how to use what i have better to add to what it is that i may
not already have so it is it does flow in a good rhythm to be able to say okay it does make sense
especially because we're all creatures of familiarity we do want to go to the people
that we already know are doing something good for us and have a good conversation there too
so i think that it does facilitate a great healthy environment for all the add-ons to come
and for a comfortable position to ask them in you know what i mean because you don't know what
they don't know and sometimes they really just need to be pointed you all you dealers out there you
know what it is that you want in a lot of in a lot of the scenarios but sometimes you also
didn't know how bad you needed the most recent solution you just found out about
and that happens so so very often some of those conversations are continuing to continue and
they're going to keep going throughout the year what were some of the big highlights from this
show that you enjoyed so much past NADA it was really just a great experience to sit down and
we use i use it a touchscreen for the first time this year to actually do live demos i've
usually used a keyboard and mouse so that was like a really big game changer for our system to talk
about our sales leaderboard and our fixed ops leaderboard on a touchscreen and really be there
in more presentation mode where i could stand by the touchscreen and really go in there and
show them all the different features and the feedback that we get from them is really wow i
didn't know is that there is so much we keep on hearing from dealers day in and day out wow i didn't
know there is so much and the reason why there's so much in our sales leaderboard and fixed ops
leaderboard because it's built for dealers so we need to just build a tool and then say every
dealer has to use the same platform that's how most reporting tools are built what our system
is built on conversations that we have with dealers not just years ago when we created the
program but literally like yesterday i created three feature enhancements for our developers to
go ahead and put into our development queue based on a conversation that i have with a fixed ops
director of 10 stores that was like i want to move to your platform here are three reports that i
use internally that we weren't using that i want to use to motivate my guys i take an hour a day to
build these three reports from our dms but by the time that i go ahead and build that report
we do 3,500 ro's a day that report is old by the time that i go ahead and share it with my guys so
even though he's sharing it every day it's old by two three o'clock in the afternoon and it's
reporting on yesterday's numbers versus being live dealers are starting to see the value in live
leaderboards and we've actually changed our terminology that we use even our presentations
and on our website to distinguish ourselves from leaderboards and reports where reports are a
snapshot of time in order to go ahead and take a make future decisions based on past performance
that's not really motivational the leaderboard is really motivational we learned that a lot to
show where dealers were getting that concept of hey there's an area in the store that they value
reports owners dealers general managers they rely on reports to make decisions in a macro sense
but if you're getting paid week to week month to month and it's your paycheck that relies on your
own individual performance you want to look at it on what am i doing today how could i make more
money today and so we need to know your leaderboard today not between the not between between the
reports that you get you want to know how you could just make more money today this minute
and meet your goals to go ahead and be a better employee and ultimately create a bigger paycheck
for yourself boom we got kreg weaver down here saying this is absolutely amazing i wish my dealer
would use the live leaderboard kreg i'm gonna tell you something if you could just set up and i'm
gonna say i know kreg so kreg if you can set up a quick demo for them explore the qr code i'm gonna
get this kreg and you know that you're always trying to get suggestions to your dealer and i
appreciate you doing that use this qr code that's over there right by Todd's head qr code that set
yourself up a demo learn about it real quick right you're gonna find that it's way affordable and your
dealer would be spending pennies to be able to gain thousands so make it happen my friends
also we're the only platform that hang those leaderboards for sales and salespeople sales managers
advisors as well as techs there's nothing else out there that does that everyone else has tons
of reports talk to a dealer the other day who's using one was using cdk another one is with tech
yeah and they're like the reports are great but they don't motivate my team and that's exactly
where our system comes in there's lots of every crm dms has tons of reports built into it but what
are the what is actually built to motivate your team what replaces dry raceboards and printed
reports was something that you could actually look at anytime to see where you are and where you
are based on your goals as an actual rep that's the difference so only with the keys welcome to the
party we're excited to cheer here we we absolutely love it when we get the chance to connect people
that are doing some great stuff he said we use a live leaderboard it tracks everything from videos
to calls to sales we love it mainly because it's like a good sports team could you imagine folks if
we waited until after the game after all the stats are already counted after the final buzzer is
sounded and then we say all right guys this is how it went and this is what we did you can't make
any adjustments but when you go to a professional basketball game you go to a professional football
game you go to a professional game of any sort you even go to the college level and they go to
even that puddle the tv break right all of that you have these countless people have all of these
reports put in their hand and they funnel at the moment patients live live what's just happened
literally right every single pass every move every yard all of these different things that occurred
that real-time report gets told now not just so that they say oh okay that's what happened
so that you're going to make an adjustment for now i can't win today with the report of what
yesterday was i can't win yesterday with a report that finally showed up today i need to make real
time action and for those of you that know you're great people if they see where they can make the
adjustment right now early in the day as the day goes on you can still have a winning day even if
it's halfway through the day and you're not having the wins that you expected but you can't wait till
after the game to give the report goodness craig says money motivates amen brother so it's one of
and it's really talked about where you where the tool is designed to assist right so the further
you are away from the actual interaction with the customer right whether you're in a service drive
whether you're wrenching or whether a salesperson the further away you are for that the less you
care about the day-to-day motivation but they're close to you after that is also true so if you're
the quarterback of the team you want to know play by play like how you're doing play by play
but if you're the owner of the team what are you looking at the bank account so that so if you're
so dependent the more granular you are the more the closer you are to the actual option the more
detail that you need to because your individual performance matters the further away you are
the more macro decisions you are like you're if you're the owner of a 10 store group are you speaking
to motivate each individual salesperson or are you talking to the TMS or maybe even a platform
manager depending on the structure that you have so you're further away so you need different
information the further you are away from it the closer you are the more information you need on
your individual performance because the individual performance adds up as an aggregate to the overall
macro but depending on who you are those salespeople need to know where they are in any given time
I love that it's no different if we were to go ask a desk man or a sales manager or somebody
where's your team at most likely and most of them should let's put this in notebooks if you didn't
know this should be able to give a good accurate report of what's going on general manager comes
out your gsm comes out your service manager comes out ask somebody hey where's somebody at
we should know this one's at loans this one's on the test drive this one's handling some
qualifications you should still know the same thing should be said of what it is that they've
completed inside of the day not just where their physical presence is but where their physical
output has produced us to the moment that's what we're managing that's what we're keeping up with
the easier that we can make that for ourselves the better and man have you simplified it you've
done it ridiculously cost effective compared to what everybody else would charge for something
that's making the life easier for not just the people involved in giving the great service
but for those that are receiving it you've managed to make sure to balance both of those ends out
you should really be proud of where it is that you come I know that's where you were gleaming
with pride when the last time that we got to see you loving on your people loving on what's
happening brother we definitely do honor that and I know that you've even had massage he even
can get his dodge at his boot that's what I was like we had more time I would have stayed for a
little while and just got a little bit up too but if you've necessarily you try to bring an
experience for people it's big we had Jordan Cox a great friend of ours he jumps on here and he
says what's the best hierarchy is it customer greater than dealership greater than employee or
is it employee greater than customer greater than dealership I always like to say that it all
starts with the customer Jordan I believe that because the customer experience will determine
everything else I do believe we do need to put a lot of love into our employees too I do believe
that and I think that's a tight it's a tight knit for me when it comes to that stuff I don't think
that I think that when it comes to and this is me answering you know I'm gonna have you answer
this afterwards but I think when it comes to the dealership we have to protect our dealership
always that's huge it's important right so that's a big important part of it all but
if it wasn't for our customers and if it wasn't for our employees we wouldn't have a dealership
so I always believe you have to put those two in the front but protecting your store at the same
time what do you think about that Todd yeah I think you have it all comes down to the customer
and if your customer has a good experience in your store and if your store is provides a unique
experience your dealerships are selling your commodity right you can get the same car at
many different areas and many different dealerships in a particular region so if you're in the market
for let's just say something like a Ford F-150 how many dealerships in your given area can somebody
go ahead and purchase that exact same car in the exact same trim for and dealerships go ahead
and spend money competing against other dealerships for the same thing so consider the difference
between other franchises so imagine if you have a McDonald's and every the McDonald's on one corner
competes with the McDonald's on the other corner it doesn't really work because they're selling the
same thing but in car dealerships they do and so the only thing they have to separate themselves
from a minute from someone else at the end of the day you're getting the same what Big Mac
McDonald's is the Big Mac right so you're getting a Big Mac at a McDonald's you can get that at any
McDonald's and it should taste exactly the same right so if you but maybe sometimes you might
prefer one over the other because maybe the people are nicer inside one than the other but we always
hire the best employees that we can right so then you go ahead and go to the automotive industry
and you're like okay i'm going to buy a F-150 all these are made in the same plant usually right
and so in general you're going to go ahead and get the same F-150 so why would you buy one over the
others because how you take care of the customer like in store customer experience and also how
cohesive that messaging is from the online experience into the store so every touch point
that a customer has is equally important and you could lose that at any given time you know how
many times i call dealerships and somebody answers the phone hello right or they transfer you to somebody
and they don't and the call drops they don't know who i am i'm just saying hey can i speak with
mike that your general sales manager can i speak with this person or that person they don't know who
i am so imagine if that was a customer and they dropped the call or they don't know how to transfer
they answer the phone unprofessionally whatever the case may be everything that you do at a
dealership is a touch point and with our products like a digital sign services like when you look
at like a service drive you look at the service status menus you look at the lounge you look at
the showroom our services allow dealerships to to provide a customized solution inside their
dealership to create that comprehensive marketing solution the next thing you need to do is a dealer
is look at how you treat your staff do you invest in your staff or is your mentality they should
be thankful even have a job a lot of managers a lot of owners say hey they should be thankful i've
worked for that guy before he said you should be thankful you even have a job let alone the fact
that we're investing in you we're investing in training in for you we're investing in maybe a
corporate lunch every day or a corporate dinner every day or maybe we're investing in leaderboards
to motivate you to keep track of you to keep you in good hands maybe we're doing like a
we have a trainer come in every once a month or some sort of outside service to go ahead and
what are you investing in your staff so just like you need to invest in your in-store experience
for the customers you need to do that for your staff as well and then everything else falls in
place because i think it's a real management is bottoms up it's not top down and it's really
talking about where does they wouldn't exist without customers and so firstly how do you take
care of your customers then who talks to your customers your staff so if your staff is it
doesn't feel like they're appreciated and they're invested in then how are they going
to take care of their customers so it's a top down philosophy but it's a bottom up culture
building exercise where how do you take care of your customers when they walk in your door
and then how do you take care of the people that talk to your customers most we were talking
before we went on air here about how you could have that person who's this is following a real
hard ass who's an who's an owner or that person doesn't speak to customers if you had that same
mentality speaking to customers it wouldn't be successful but that filters down just as much
as it filters up that attitude have to be all the way down to the people who are speaking to the
customers and it trickles down all the way down your however you treat your staff is how your
staff is going to treat your customers so to get back to the original question on who's first
it always comes back to the customers because we wouldn't exist without our customers
digital dealership system wouldn't exist without our customers you guys wouldn't exist without your
customers but if we don't treat our customers right or treat our staff right then we can't treat
our customers right so it's like a 1b situation for that and then the managers and everything
else fall in line based on those philosophies that you have I think you have to spend more
attention at where the touchpoints actually are in the service that you're in.
100% agree with you Todd and thank you so much Jordan Cox for both being a really great question.
It was a great question it was a trick one because he didn't give the customer
he didn't give the employee or customer employee dealership option he gave he mixed it up so big
shout out to you for coming in and a great answer Todd and way to get deep in that man that's
that's the truth though guys and gals out there listening it's really important and we take care
of our customers but who's taking care of your customers because if you can't take care of them
you don't have customers they don't come back believe and then your business isn't there anyway
so what does your business matter at that point so build those two things up to the best of your
ability and I promise you your company your business will be taken care of naturally and that's
the truth. Since we've left NADA brother I know you were there you had dealers that loved all your
products people who are upgrading their products while they're there was there anything that you
left there saying you know what I want to do this now I want to add this or is there something new
that you're trying to you're going to probably develop here so you know I have a feeling I don't
know if you could trickle it yet maybe something there yeah we have a couple things in the pipeline
that we're doing just to enhance our current services so what we've heard from dealers is really
that we have the best services in the industry we had a great conversation with the large BMW
store and they said their digital signs haven't been updated their lounge cb hasn't been updated
for x number of years before just recently we took over an Audi store down into what
Florida they'll and put screens everywhere it never hasn't been updated from there provided
that they were paying for two years and we went in there and automatically they're like wow it's
completely changes everything in the store because now it's more alive than it was before I think the
biggest thing that we're looking at now is adding more value to our current services where we're
there's a fine line between a leaderboard and a report so leaderboards are motivator boards
whereas a report is a snapshot of past experience and most reporting tools are only updated once
a day whereas leaderboards are updated as often every 15 minutes but there's been a little bit
of a blend in that recently where the customers that we have really love our leaderboards but they
want more reports that are easier to use and then their current reporting tools and more customizable
than their current reporting tools some of the big reporting companies out there now charge a lot of
money up to $25 a month for services for reports and they're very granular which we're not going to
go in that direction but the idea is that we're trying to create a low-cost experience under $500
a month but we want to give them some of those top reports on the desktop as well and so we're
enhancing our services there and then we've worked with some directors so that are interested in our
services to give to their frontline workers if you will their sales managers their service managers
their shop managers tools that they could get easy quick numbers month over month year over
year without getting into these granular reports and not giving them access to all those numbers
so we're working really hard to go ahead and develop those protocols and then also provide
some macro reports so they could look at industry standards and create some industry standards so
they know where they are based on those and then determine that how they fit into that on their own
and then aside from that we're also building some messaging apps built into our current platform
because what we've heard from dealers time and time again is that there we had one dealer group
and the first thing they did was get all their staff members on our mobile app for sales
so that mobile app allows them to go ahead and every time a sale is done in the store
car is delivered they get a text message through our application it's like a virtual kick in the
butt like the guys out there smoking right never happen the dealerships right so there's a guy out
there taking a break looking at social media then all of a sudden he gets like a ding ding ding
like someone all these cars selling maybe i should go ahead and self motivate to go ahead and give
me a virtual kick in the butt saying hey i should get back on the sales floor so we're adding to that
program now it should be done by the end of this month where a dealer can actually send out text
messages through our app to his to their team at any given time throughout the day at any time
saying hey everybody come quick meeting or maybe they have maybe lunch is served or maybe hey these
are the performance metrics that we're looking at or different things that they might want to go
ahead and communicate so hey where's the key to stock number whatever was that well they can say
where's the key to stock number
didn't clean the car after they took it out on a quick break right so who needs to fill up the car
before the customer comes in or those types of messages so they'd have the ability to open platform
to go ahead and send whatever messaging they want to their team so we're building that that would
save a lot and what i love most about that is in why i knew you're gonna have an answer for that
question is because i know you won't rest on your laurels i know that you're constantly looking
for ways to not just help your clients but also to make sure that your business and your people
inside your business are growing too and that's an amazing thing to be able to do just small
adaptations that can really help a deal to get the things that they're looking for to be able to
help their team grow and that's so amazing you already have what you're doing currently
and i love that you've said it out loud it's the best in the industry right so keep following that
and feel that and make sure that you stay the best because the only way you can stay the best
is to constantly adapt so i love that you're doing a great job we listen to our customers every day
and based on feedback that we get tealers come up with some crazy ideas but in general we listen
to everything and they they say and sometimes we allow them to customize the systems to meet their
needs but at the same time when we hear certain things that they're looking for or certain features
that they're looking for consistently we want to build those to meet those needs they constantly
we have a development queue right now that's full for the next 90 days and then over those 90 days
we're continually adding more just based on the conversations that we have with dealers and we
have lots of conversations on a daily basis i have six calls scheduled today so that's six
conversations that i have with dealers today we do about 20 or 30 conversations a week and based
on that we're learning from dealers we're training dealers we're having those conversations that go
ahead and make our products better and make the experience for our customers better that's just
like a dealership needs to go ahead and focus on creating better experience for their customers
as a vendor we try to make a better experience for our customers by providing them the tools
that they need to provide the best services that we can and great value. We absolutely champion
for those of you that do not know that do not recall whether you've seen it on the last show
you've heard about it over at NADA you've heard us talk about it in a conversation or we pointed
out to you dealers inside of your store how you need to set a demo for this make sure that you
do recognize that our friend Todd is 100 cgc approved that's right remember that remember
that in his product and his people in his process and what he's doing for our industry is cgc approved
and we appreciate you Todd thank you for being an uplifter thank you for bringing solutions to
dealers and their cell people and for their customers to be able to have a better experience
in their business so that we can sell more cars make more money and have fun while we're doing it
and grow and know where we're at man amazing stuff but i appreciate that thank you you're
about to sign off we're about to drop those f bombs we give focus in and flying any last words you
got to say to anybody just even on the fence or considering upgrading by just having a conversation
with you okay i just welcome any conversation that i have with dealers it's not always a fit for
what they're looking for about to have that conversation to let them know that we're out
there for them whether they're looking for digital signs in the service drive in the lounge
or to motivate their team with our leaderboards i'm happy to have the conversation and meet new
people and then see if it's a fit if not for now then they know that they know what we have
to set the standard as they start looking in the future excellent do it sign the qr code you all
know sign that qr code sign it sign it sign go check it out get a demo it's a demo is gonna it's
going to change everything if you guys don't have anything like this in your store if you
have something that's even old school that's just not doing what you want to do i promise you this
is the solution for you right now get on that phone get on that website get on this qr code
and set it up right now i promise you it'd be worth every moment that you spend getting that
demo done so let's go let's keep improving everybody up shift uplift let's begin focus
everybody on three one two help us out there we go three forgive
focus and keep growing keep growing everyone thank you so much for growing with us everybody
this has been a great episode of understanding a little bit of these grounds for growth this
has been fantastic and you can get more cups but thank you again for joining us
inside of the far guy coffee cafe the one the only Todd catcher thank you so much we'll see you
everybody
About this episode
Todd Katcher of Digital Dealership System talks about the biggest wins from NADA, especially current customers upgrading after in-person demos. The discussion centers on why live, real-time “leaderboards” motivate sales and fixed-ops teams more than static daily reports—using a sports-playback analogy. They also debate the hierarchy of priorities, landing on customer experience first, while investing in employees and protecting the dealership brand. Todd previews upcoming features like enhanced reporting, messaging apps, and more interactive digital signage and touchscreen demos.
Grounds for Growth “The Second Cup” feat. Todd Katcher
Welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast. Kickstart your day the right way and join us as we tap into the brightest minds and most passionate voices across the automotive world to bring you the education, motivation, and inspiration you need to thrive. From the showroom floor to the service lane, prepare to Upshift and Uplift your perspective.
In this episode of The Car Guy Coffee Podcast, hosts Lou Ramirez and Fred Lennartz welcome Todd Katcher with Digital Dealership System to recap NADA and discuss how meeting customers in person drove upgrades from existing clients. Todd shares key show highlights, including using a touchscreen for live demos and explaining the difference between static reports and real-time leaderboards that motivate sales and fixed ops teams throughout the day.
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