LIVE
We're doing better as a result of social media presence.
It doesn't do those three things then it's on the chopping block.
It's in return on investment discussion.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Daily Dealer Live.
I'm your host, Sam Dark, and thanks for choosing to be here on this Friday, March 13th.
Yes, it's Friday the 13th.
Let me ask you a question.
When was the last time a $50 oil change on this fixed ops Friday felt like the felt
like one of the smartest strategies in the car business?
Because right now something fascinating is happening and it's happening across the industry.
Customers can't afford that $900 payment used car supply is tightening again.
And as we know, service traffic is becoming the real battleground for dealership profitability.
And at the exact same time, AI is starting to decide which dealerships consumers even discover
that according to a guest today, not Google, not AutoTrader, AI answers.
Customers are literally asking tools like chat, GPT, where should I buy my next car?
And the scary part?
Well, most dealerships have no idea how those answers are being determined.
So today on Daily Deal Alive, we're digging into three things every dealer should be thinking
about right now.
Why a $50 oil change could be a customer acquisition weapon?
Why AI search may rewrite dealership marketing?
And why data might become the most valuable asset in your dealership?
We have got an incredible lineup of operators to break it all down today.
And first, let's dive into today's industry headlines.
And as we go there, just a reminder, we're streaming live across all CDG social media
platforms.
Post your comments up to today's show.
We'll bring them into the show.
It always enriches the content, the conversation, and the direction of the show.
And in particular on this Friday the 13th, as we approach St. Patrick's Day,
got a little bit of my green going on today for that.
All right, first up in the news today, we're leading with another fraud story.
Stellantis has filed a lawsuit against Sky Automall.
It's an Iowa dealership operating two locations.
Alleging they ran a $12 million loan scheme through what's known as double flooring.
Essentially, this is when dealerships secure financing on the same vehicle for multiple
lenders simultaneously, and then they pocket the proceeds.
Since the claims, the dealership has already laid off 76 employees across its two locations.
And now we're just waiting for a March 20th hearing where the Stellantis is planning to
seek approval to seize the vehicles.
Parts and equipment potentially valued at over 20 million bucks.
This one comes less than two weeks after the Florida bust out fraud story we covered.
And if fraud strategists are right, it probably won't be the last one we see this year.
Also up this week, Edmund says they're seeing an uptick in EV research in response to, well,
rising gas prices with electrified vehicles climbing from about 21% to 22% of all vehicle
searches on their platform in a single week.
Welcome to the challenges that I ran right now.
It's worth flagging because we've seen this before and back when gas spiked after Ukraine in 2022,
shoppers moved hard toward EV and hybrids.
What's the mean difference today?
Well, it's where affordability sits.
Average transaction price is nearly 49,000 bucks, average APR is 7%,
and average monthly payment is $775, that's versus $656 back in 2022,
or up over $100 a month.
Meaning, dealers will probably see more EV and hybrid conversations coming in,
but as Edmunds points out, that interest is a lot less likely to close
than it was the last time gas prices went up.
Up next today, we've got some good news on the fixed ops front.
JD Power's 2026 customer service index is out,
and overall dealer service satisfaction is up three points this year
to 868 on a thousand-point scale with the premium segment posting the biggest gains.
Porsche led all premium brands for the second straight year with a score of 915,
and many topped the mass market side.
The data shows a clear business case for getting things right,
because when satisfaction hits 950 or above,
more than 80% or 66% of customers say they'll definitely return for paid service.
The persistent gap, though, is speed.
Dealer maintenance visits average over an hour and a half,
while 62% of aftermarket visits wrap in under an hour.
That's still the pressure point to close.
And finally up today, we turn to the CDG Bicell Tracker.
Cue the jingle.
There you go.
We love that.
What would Friday the 13th before St. Patrick's Day be without that?
Wrapping up on the Bicell Wire,
Harvey Automotive Group picked up two dealerships in Pittsburgh and
Pittsburgh, California, Winter Honda and Winter Chevrolet,
from a family that had built them into community staples since the 1950s.
The deal closed February 23rd, adding Harvey's fifth Honda store
and its first Chevrolet.
Also closing February 23rd,
Osteen Automotive Group out of Jacksonville purchased Acura and Volvo of Athens, Georgia.
Go Dawgs from Smith Automotive Group rebranding both stores under the Osteen name.
It's the group's first Acura franchise,
and their broker noted Osteen has a real affinity for the Georgia market.
As always, a fuller look at our Bicell coverage is available at cdgbicell.com.
That's a wrap on our CDG Bicell updates and a wrap on today's industry headlines.
So, hey, welcome to Fixed Ops Friday, everybody.
And guess what? We're doing a little bit of an abbreviated Fixed Ops.
We're going to go first guest up, Fixed Ops,
and we're going to turn Hardcore to Generative AI,
which will be a heck of a lot of fun.
So let's go first up today.
Actually, before we go there, Patrick Block says happy Friday from Nash Vegas.
Thanks for joining.
Kevin Stuckey, it's Fixed Ops Friday the 13th.
Friday the 13th wouldn't be Friday the 13th with at least one segment in the Fixed Ops arena.
And then Michael Minor says a $50 oil change is what the rotisserie chicken is to Costco.
Great way to get customers in the door and capitalize on any warranty work the car needs.
So for that perspective, we turn to our very first guest this Friday the 13th,
Zach Kinch, general manager, Roman Toyota. Zach, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
That's the second reference to a Costco to my $50 oil change.
I don't know if I like this thing.
OK.
It's getting out of control.
Hey, you know what? Everybody loves Costco and they love the hot dog.
Like I think the two things everybody loves, the hot dog and the soda.
That's the loss leader.
I personally can't do it because it's Pepsi.
It's not Coke. I'm preferential to Coke.
And then everybody loves the rotisserie chicken.
So what's your objection to that, Zach?
Well, I don't know.
I didn't think when we launched this, it was going to be this is the $1.50 hot dog.
But hey, we'll take it.
That's what it's got to be.
Well, so before we go into rotisserie chicken and oil changes on this Friday the 13th,
Zach, tell us who you are and what you do.
Yeah, I'm Zach Kent with the Roman Automotive,
been general manager of the Toyota store here in Lafayette, Indiana for eight years now
and trying to do the automotive space differently.
And that's really where the $50 oil change plugs and plays and fits in is,
you know, trying to make servicing a vehicle at a dealership easy.
And too many times we don't.
So that's where this all stems from.
And obviously is now catching wildfire on social media waves in different places.
And it's been insane here at the dealership as well.
I love it.
Well, across Ziggler Auto Group, we have a footprint where you are there in Lafayette.
We have a Subaru store right there next to the Subaru factory not far away.
And let's talk that $50.
In fact, you guys had some crazy weather here this week as well.
You went from like summer at 75 to crazy weather in the 20s.
Let's talk that 50 oil change strategy.
Why does that make financial sense to charge $50 for an oil change in an environment where
certainly that's less than even your hard-coded cost?
Yeah.
Well, first Sam, before you go any further, I got to have you audibly say it's $50.
Go ahead and say that loud.
It's $50.
Yeah.
And with that footprint, just know that's pending trademarks.
So don't get any crazy ideas on today's meeting, right?
But no, with that, right?
Like saying it's simple.
We may have to compete with you, by the way.
We might have to compete.
I know.
I love it, right?
It's $50, trademark pending 2026.
So it's so simple, and that's really what it comes down to.
How does it make financial sense?
Here's what I would say.
I don't think dealerships look at this to make financial sense.
I think when you think about it, we're discounting.
No, we're marketing, and we're going after growing customer base.
And unfortunately in the car business, dealers say they want to acquire more customers
and they want to see more guests.
But then they make pricing irrelevant to the point where a customer can't justify it.
And we believe that if we can just keep it simple, people will come in here,
and it's proving the concept we're three weeks in, and it has been absolutely insane every day
to the point where we're having to tell guests, like, hey, we'll get you in as fast as we can,
or we can set this up for tomorrow, which is probably the better bet.
And that's what I really think it comes down to in making financial sense,
is getting customers in the door.
Yeah.
So how did you get this word out?
How are you marketing it?
And then what has been the response in the three weeks you've had it in terms of
RO count coming in specifically for this oil change?
Yeah, surprisingly, the fastest way to market it was staff.
Like, if you want to know if your dealership thinks your service department is good,
go around and pull them how many people actually service with your department.
Ooh, that's a question.
For us, it's going to hurt.
And it was an eye-opener of like, wait a minute,
my staff are choosing to service elsewhere when they're here eight hours a day.
It makes sense to bring your vehicle in.
So the first thing was just staff.
Hey, everybody, I want you to schedule an oil change, get your personal vehicle in,
and obviously go from there.
And what we saw immediately was true organic social of our staff going out of their way
to prioritize, incentivize, and schedule them to come in and bring family and friends.
The second side was very simple.
We went for actual paid local advertisement.
And really not looking to do a national campaign.
We've done really well on social media here at Roman Toyota,
and have a very strong foothold presence.
But it was about how do we really attack that five to 10 mile radius
and forget about really looking nationally or anything else?
This is to help our community.
And that's what's been the insanity about it,
is the number of people that I know I do life with
that I'm seeing inside my facility for the first time.
So are you trying to bring in just Toyota customers?
Or are you doing any make model?
Are you looking to bring everybody?
We service all makes and models.
So which, by the way, creates a great opportunity to convert people
out of used cars into new Toyotas if you've got enough inventory.
So before I ask you if you have enough inventory,
you said part of the strategy was driven to increase your customer pay work.
In the first three weeks of this, what percent of those
oil change customers actually do convert into CP labor?
For sure.
And that's been the crazy part is when I started
posting this on LinkedIn and keeping,
I just wanted to make it like a journal,
kind of like the journey of it.
The loves I have from half of the group
and the hate I have from the other half
is insane of those telling me that this is a waste of money
and a waste of time.
And the reality is this, we're tracking this as simple metrics.
Is customer pay our account going up?
Yes, year to date or I'm sorry,
this month over the previous six months,
we've seen a 13% increase in customer pay our account.
And then on the gross side, we've seen an 18% increase.
Those two don't intertwine and give you any other path besides it's working.
When both are green and both are up,
it's hard to argue with anything else across the board.
Yeah, what are your detractors saying?
What the half that says this does not make good sense.
What's the counter argument to it?
Yeah, it's all about X's and O's and money.
And I think when you look at this and you truly want to drive
the idea around money, I think you're missing the point of this.
And I think if you think about this,
we're looking at one service visit and quantifying that as a financial loss.
And I'm looking at this as customer acquisition for three years,
five years, 10 years.
And if I have to put any kind of money into a pool
to drive customers to my dealership to give them the best service
with the highest quality work, is there ever a loss on that?
And that's where I think, unfortunately,
people are looking very short term is almost their paycheck.
What's it look like at the end of the month?
And I got to applaud my team here at Roman Toyota.
They've been fantastic about jumping on this
and absolutely owning it to the point where they're seeing it benefit them
by just having the opportunity,
having more guests in, more opportunity.
And it's been really enjoyable to watch attitudes and culture
continue to increase because of providing the opportunity of full bays
and more than enough opportunity across the board.
Now, I joke tongue in cheek, but if in the marketplace,
you suddenly see a $49 oil change pop up.
Just, no, I'm kidding.
That's not, that won't happen.
Yeah, that's right.
So, hey, Dan C comes into the comments.
He posts often here.
He says, I assume the $50 oil change is for conventional oil.
What do you charge for synthetic in this case?
No, full synthetic.
Yeah, we took all the questions out.
You can't argue that I had tons of people.
You know, we went into a big box,
an undisclosed big box retailer
and actually priced out what an oil change would be to buy it from them.
And it ended up being like $63
if you had to buy a wrench and a pan and everything.
It's $50 full synthetic.
The two caveats we put on it is we're not doing diesels
and we're not doing luxury exhausts.
All right.
That was the next question.
But I've had Taho's- Kevin Stuckey said,
all makes and models is for all of them diesel,
high line, et cetera, I love the strategy, says Kevin.
You've got, you've had Taho's in.
Yep. I've had Taho's Suburbans.
I don't care about that.
If you're driving it and it's your daily driver,
we're taking care of it.
You're bringing your commercial fleet in.
I'm not doing it.
If you want your used car department to come over here,
we're not doing it.
Those are where we draw the line in the sand.
But across the board,
this is truly to take care of the community
and to get guests in here.
It's not to gimmick and play dealership games by any means.
All right.
So now I want to test the experience
because obviously you bring customers
to the store with that oil change,
which is super appealing.
You've tested the market.
You're in a good spot dollar wise.
Then what does that experience look like?
At Rormann, you're famous for a great tech stack.
Do you do a video MPI on these lube oil changes?
What does that experience look like
that you're hoping to retain that customer for life ultimately?
Yeah.
I mean, if you have shown up here last week
and paid full price,
whether it's $99, $109, $112,
whatever your price came out for your vehicle,
nothing has changed.
And the experience outside that is exactly identical,
except now when you come in for the $50 oil change,
the question being asked is,
is this your first visit with us if we have no service history?
Which we know, we see that in our DMS system,
but it's to get the customer interacting
and it's the red carpet tour.
It's walking them to a seat in the waiting area
if they choose to wait with us,
showing them where the facilities,
the restrooms, the refreshments,
everything our dealership has to offer
to make sure that we're giving that VIP experience.
It's still the same thing.
Full vehicle walk around when you pull in,
photos of the vehicle, video MPIs,
technicians introducing themselves,
all the access through the portal
to watch your car rides in service,
nothing is being shortchanged.
It's the same oil that you'd get for a brand new vehicle.
If your vehicle has 50,000 miles,
we're not shortcutting anything.
And again, that's where I think
in the automotive space dealerships look to shortcut.
And for us, this is customer acquisition
and what we've learned so far,
the highest converting customer is a service customer.
If I market to a service customer
with a $50 oil change,
it's like a 60% schedule rate.
I'm asking for a 20% to 30% schedule rate
on sales appointments and on service,
I don't ever have anybody know show.
So I'm going to keep my money there
and I'm all in on the $50 oil change.
Zach, we appreciate you coming on the show to share this.
So you're sharing it with everybody in automotive.
And here's one of my biggest claims.
And I believe this.
So Kim Saylor was on Wednesday with CDK
talking about buyer preferences in service.
She was talking about how this new generation of buyers
is defecting from service
because they just have this perception it's too expensive
and there's not enough value in exchange for it.
Plus, add to that the nine minute average wait time
to actually get a pickup in the service department.
You're dead on with this experience
on top of this $50 oil change
because as a customer, I'm going to come in
and have an elite customer experience.
That's patent pending from our own GM, Zach Tarrell.
An elite customer experience,
they're going to see the video MPI, all the photos,
they're going to have the experience in the store
and they're going to see the value that is delivered
by a franchise dealer that is well run,
a Toyota store in your case.
I think it's awesome.
Kevin Stuckey comes in and says,
it's the new guest captured for potential car sales later,
data mine.
He says, I love it.
And then we also have Angelica.
Angelica Surprise says, love the strategy, Zach.
Jason to McKesson says,
is your hours per RO up as well to match the CPR ROs up?
Yeah, and that was the battle cry.
That's where I love my team that at first it was,
wait a minute, how are we getting compensated?
I was like, guys, nothing's changing.
I'm going to compensate every employee exactly
how an oil change is inside the shop
because the moment that detracts,
how do you sell them on great experience
when they're already having a miserable experience?
Yes.
So nothing shifted there.
But the mindset that got into it was like,
guys, if you want to continue to fund this
and we want to be the home of the $50 oil change,
because again, you set it at the top,
it's $50, it's easy, it's simple, it's clean.
I told them, you guys have to grow customer pay RO count
and you have to grow your CP hours per RO.
And that's what we've been able to do
by giving that experience.
And what we've seen is a customer saying to us,
hey, I was going to pass on everything
and just do the $55 oil change.
But because now my bill is only $154,
I'll go ahead and proceed with everything.
And that's been the win across the board
as we've just seen Domino's continue to fall.
I'll keep posting on LinkedIn.
So don't think that just because we're doing this,
now we're done.
We're going to take this to the finish line
and we're going to keep updates coming.
That's an ad for your LinkedIn, Zach.
K-I-N-C-H.
I bet you will find you.
I'll come find you as well.
You can find me as well.
Let's find us all.
We'll find each other on LinkedIn.
So how are you training the service advisors
to sell this maintenance instead of just writing tickets?
To your point, the comp has to make sense.
But you've also got this one shot with this one customer
at not a high dollar transaction
to create an elite experience and own them for life.
And you've got to capitalize on it.
How are you training on that, Zach?
Yeah, I may have two of the best employees
in the automotive industry
when it comes to my service manager, Ann Blanchard,
and my assistant service manager, Matt Crabtree.
And they are so focused on customer experience
over any dollar or cent.
And they are 100% bought into if you provide that experience,
the rest of it just becomes simple.
And my team has completely endorsed that.
The culture buys into it.
They follow it.
They chase it.
And I think that's the biggest shift is
if you start with the questions
and truly walking somebody through it,
they're going to feel a difference of environment.
They're going to feel a difference in experience.
And when that experience outweighs any price,
customers continue to transact.
And that's business.
That's the beauty of business.
And that's what's out there in the automotive space
if people are willing to do the automotive space differently.
And that's what I believe that we're doing here
with a $50 oil change.
Again, it's been addicting almost to see it happen.
We're going to continue to support it
and continue to push this as long as we can,
because it's definitely a winner in the automotive space.
So what was the economic reality?
You're a general manager.
Many general managers have a bias towards variable operations,
towards the sales department, towards the BDC and whatnot.
What was the Economic Realities Act that had you say,
hey, I see this as an opportunity in fixed ops
and have you go in and set up this program and execute on it?
So I'm going to be super honest with you here.
I can't grow customer pay ROs any other way.
I have tried every third-party source.
I've tried every company.
I've tried everything.
And no matter how hard I grind on social media,
opportunities, community, I can't do it.
I have my teams here in this.
Yeah.
So it's like, guys, let's get down and dirty
and just figure something out.
And it's got to be, it can't be the GM.
It can't be the service manager.
It can't be anybody.
It's got to be a team effort.
And when they bought in, it's been insane.
I have 16 employees who have done oil changes this month
that just shows you how this is hitting the sweet spot.
The number of guests that stopped me,
because I've done a lot of the social media for it,
and say, hey, is it really $50?
And it's like, hey, give me 30 minutes with your car
and you're going to find out if it's really $50.
They've been great to have testimonials on the backside.
So that's how you get down to and dirty with it,
is just jump in with your team, get in the trenches,
and figure out how to do business the right way.
And the rest takes care of itself.
All right.
So let's pressure test some of the results.
You've talked about CP going up, Average Hours Car O,
going up, it's creating retention.
Let's talk used cars.
How's used car acquisition looking like in the service lane?
Do you have a process on that?
And if not there, what's your biggest source
for used inventory today in March of 26, Zach?
Yeah.
So Toyota Store, full transparency,
always battling inventory in the Toyota world, which is great.
Not enough new cars.
Yeah, which is great.
I mean, again, Toyota is the greatest manufacturing partner
in my opinion.
They work with you in any way possible to continue to grow it.
And for us, we have just had to figure out
how to do used cars really, really well.
And again, that's part of the pressure
of inventory constraints.
And in the last five years, my team has just championed it.
And in the service department,
we've shifted away from vehicle acquisition
and focused on vehicle experience.
And we have an individual who comes in and just asks,
every single customer, is your experience what you expected?
And that transitions into so many different paths and avenues
and sometimes it's vehicle acquisition or vehicle upgrade.
But what we realized very quickly
was just having those conversations leads to,
what's the next task in the CRM?
Is it in three months follow up?
So we've been able to source especially well
through just that experience manager.
But also on this side, we are,
we're all over the place between marketplace,
auctions, whatever it needs to be.
And customers again, have had that opportunity
to upgrade into new vehicles with us.
It's amazing, the first time guests
we've ever seen on $50 oil changes,
we've been able to already convert two guests out.
And that should not happen.
Hey, I'm coming in for a $50 oil change
and I'm leaving with a new car.
That should not happen.
And that in itself may pay
for this entire event across the board.
Yeah, that is pretty cool.
Next time I'm in town, I'd love to come see
how you've got this set up
and get a feel for the experience.
Dan C says online,
I think this strategy actually has some legs,
very creative.
And then Kevin Proctor 60 says,
what's your minimum inspection rate
for your technicians?
So what's your minimum inspection rate?
100%.
Okay.
There is not a conversation.
There is not a video MPI as well.
What's your tool?
100% video MPI.
So we're techie on it all through and through.
And again, it's a 100% video MPI.
Even my use car technician team
is bought in just to the culture of it.
And I would tell you,
if we brought in all of our use cars,
I bet we're over 85% on use car video MPIs.
It just streamlines the process.
And even when they're quoting things to my use car manager,
it makes his job easier by not having to get up
to go inspect those things.
So you bring a vehicle in,
100% you're getting a video sent to you.
We are going to push that through across the board
because video is the future for all things automotive.
Yeah.
How long have you been doing 100% video MPI?
We switched probably back in 2021 or 2022.
And it was a big push to get everybody to do it.
And again, that was part of the COVID world.
You know, the cars are in here.
You don't want to wait.
How are we going to make sure
that we have that conversation
before the phone call goes through?
Now that it's shifted back,
we're about 40% waiters.
It still stays extremely high
because of our expectation
of just providing the greatest quality service
we can possibly do.
Yeah.
Well, props to you.
What was your service manager's name again?
Aaron Blanchard.
Don't you dare call him.
Props.
Props to Aaron.
Props to you.
I'm kidding.
Now it's all, I'm a neutral party in this show,
but I do love what you guys are doing.
And it's cool to see how you're turning.
By the way, the idea of an oil change
to create some retention is not an old idea.
That's something that's been around for a long time.
What has been a challenge,
I think for a lot of dealers that have tried to do this,
is it's a loss leader on the oil change,
and then the experience collapses
under the inexpensive oil change.
And the customer doesn't have a great experience.
And they end up waiting.
And there are so many italicized fine print in it
that they end up getting frustrated.
And then the whole program collapses months later.
I think if you're able to sustain this
and use this as a broader retention tool,
I mean, props to you guys.
How cool is that?
So last question up today.
Thank you again for being on.
What's the biggest leadership lesson, Zach?
You've learned as a GM in the last 12 months.
What's the biggest leadership lesson
that we can take away March 26?
Yeah, I think the biggest thing in the last year
has been life happens to everyone,
and you don't know what day in life they're living.
And I think that slowing down
and asking the question about where are you at today,
and is this the right time to provide leadership to you?
Because the number of times I've ever walked out
of a great conversation,
as the one having the conversation,
and the first text message I wake up to
is, do you have time to have a conversation again?
They weren't ready for the conversation.
I was, I spent all night getting ready for it,
in the morning getting dressed.
I was thinking of it on the drive to work,
and then I blindsided you with,
hey, Sam, can you come to my office?
No, like making sure you're ready
for those conversations
and make sure that you get there to do them,
and maybe I'm going to help you right.
Give me one tip.
March 26, how do you prepare yourself
as a GM to have a tough conversation
with an employee or a partner?
Yeah, schedule it.
I schedule every meeting with a vendor.
I schedule everything.
And unfortunately, we don't do that
in this industry with tough conversations.
We just, hey, you available for a quick combo?
Blindside.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and then I hate going back
and having the follow-up.
So why not just schedule it and say,
here's what we're going to talk about.
I want you to be prepared.
Let's have a great combo together.
Yeah.
All right, well, speaking of scheduling,
we're going to put you in the green room.
We have a tradition now,
I didn't prep you for this pre-show,
where we bring both of our dealer guests
on at the very end for a lightning round.
Are you cool hanging out till the end of the show?
Yeah, I can hang around for you.
All right, we're going to bring you back.
Thanks for letting us schedule that last minute.
And Zach, general manager,
Rohraman Toed in Lafayette, Indiana.
Thanks for being here on the show.
And thanks for sharing your perspectives
on the $50 oil change
and using it as a retention tool
to create an elite customer experience
for customers everywhere.
So, Zach, thanks for being on.
And we'll have you back in just a moment.
No problem.
Thanks, guys.
All right.
That is a cool conversation.
Kevin Stuckey comes into the comments
and says, Tekion, baby.
Tekion.
He's obviously a fan of Tekion.
All right, let's talk experience automotive.
Today's episode is brought to you by Experian Automotive.
Nearly 90% of dealers
say fraud is rising,
and 75% say it's already impacting operations.
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with Experian Automotive Fraud Protect.
It quickly validates customer identities
and documents with zero disruption
to your sales flow
or to the customer journey.
Learn more by clicking the link in the show notes below
or you can also go to the QR code there off to the left
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whichever side you're looking at.
And scan it for more information there.
We appreciate Experian Automotive
for sponsoring today's content,
including supporting that conversation
with Zach just now
on the $50 dollar little change available
at Rormund Toyota
and Lafayette, Indiana.
Let's continue the conversation.
We're turning now to founder
and CEO of Reunion Marketing,
Dave Spanky.
Spaha.
Oh, my goodness.
I butchered your name.
Dave, did I get it right?
I got it wrong, didn't I?
Oh.
20 years and then she got it wrong
when we got married.
Okay.
All right.
So, give me the real pronunciation.
How did I get it?
Yeah, Dave Spanky.
Spanky.
Okay, very good.
I will not get that.
All right.
So, Dave, tell us who you are
and what you do out in the world
before we talk a little thing about that scene.
21 years in automotive.
Love this industry.
I spent 10 years working
at the Leith Automotive Group.
I was the marketing director.
Some really amazing guys.
We increased the leads to that group by 400%.
Contributing to 75% revenue growth
for the 33 stores.
And we said, you know what?
We're on to something.
So, we left and reunited
and started a reunion marketing
just about 11 years ago.
And along the way,
co-founded V20,
the vendor 20 group
with David Kane and Brent Williams,
and then the serial entrepreneur in me
with some of the reunion guys.
We launched Punchlist Digital
and Home Service Base too.
So, love this.
All right.
Well, with you on the show today,
we want to delve into an area of automotive
right now that is mystical to many of us, right?
And there's much debate in this world.
So, we dealers, we understand SEO,
search engine optimization.
We understand Google search.
We get the keys to making a show-up
at a higher rate show-up better,
although Google does change the rules
from time to time.
But we sort of get it.
Define for us what the heck
is exactly generative engine optimization
or GEO here in March of 26.
Yeah.
I mean, it's very similar to SEO.
It is, you know, trying to create an environment
where you are showing up and visible on the LLMs,
you know, ChatGPT, Proplexity, Grock, all those.
And then of course, you know,
Google has Gemini and AI mode.
So, what can we do to make sure
that we are visible in that environment?
And it's a little bit different than SEO.
Okay.
So, what happens when customers start asking ChatGPT,
hey, where should I buy a Toyota near me as an example?
What happens?
Well, there's a lot of different things.
It's funny you say Toyota near me.
I mean, this is the one that I love to share
as a good anecdote,
because unlike all the great experiences
we just heard from Royman Toyota,
there's a Toyota store in Colorado
that if you say, hey, what's my experience going to be like
if I go into this dealership?
The response said, lawyer up, you're in for a wild ride.
Oh, you're kidding.
ChatGPT said that?
You know, because ChatGPT, unlike SEO,
where, you know, you're kind of in charge
of where you're going, right?
You'll make the click historically.
And, you know, you'll be one of 10 on page one,
no one goes to page two, right?
And usually you click on the top three organic listings
or maybe some of the vehicle listing ads
and paid ads or things like that.
This is, instead of you kind of choosing your own adventure,
it's going to take an opinion.
And it's pulling information from, you know,
I think you want to be in charge mostly from your website,
but it's pulling information from Better Business Bureau
and all the different directories
and all sorts of different places.
So, you know, not only do you want to be found,
but you want to be found and talked about not like that, right?
So we had an industry expert on recently and he said,
look, the instances of customers asking
where should I buy a Toyota just isn't that high right now.
He said it's a fraction of a percent of billions
in searches on AI.
And he said the reason for that is,
is because for now anyway, AI is location agnostic,
which I don't totally get that
because I'll still use it to go find a great restaurant.
But for some reason, his claim is for dealerships,
auto dealerships, we're not looking to make a buying decision
about a particular dealership on AI.
You disagree with that?
Yeah, yeah, I think I think it's actually, I mean,
you know, I don't want to say the wrong thing here,
but I mean, there's 700 million people
that are on chat GBT and they're asking it everything, right?
And, you know, I know that there's some people
that try to take a hard take the other way, you know,
and I know a year ago, you know,
doing some presentations, I asked, you know,
the whole room of, gosh, where was it again?
NCM event, I think.
How many people have used an LLM?
They're like, what's an LLM?
It's like, you know, chat GBT or complexity event.
It was maybe one at five.
And then I just asked Chad Graves and I had the chance
to actually talk about this in front of all the moderators
at NCM just, you know, a couple of months ago,
asked the room and everyone in the room,
it was 95% of the room had raised their hand
and they're using it for all sorts of different questions.
And I think where people maybe are a little bit more confused
is because Google, Search Console,
you know what all the queries are.
They let you, you can go in and you know,
how many queries people are looking for,
exactly what they're saying.
And you don't have that with these other AI engines,
or they're not telling you that.
But I mean, we know that that traffic from those LLMs,
which is most people don't even go to a website from the LLMs,
it's up 550%, you know, year over year,
people are using it for more and more and more decisions.
And I think if you're not trying to get in front of people
in this environment and being visible and being,
you know, just talked about in a positive light,
then you're really not setting yourself up
for success in the long run.
It is an investment long run, right?
All right, before we have you tell us then
where people are failing in automotive
to prepare for this GEO, this generative search,
tell us, give us, what is your guess
about how much dealer traffic will come from AI Search
in the next, let's say three years?
And then what are the best three tips
to prepare for that today?
Whether a consumer's making that Toyota search
in Colorado today, how do we avoid that?
Or how do we best prepare to show up our best selves on AI?
Well, I mean, first off, I think we need to not necessarily
look at how much traffic it's going to bring to our websites
because people are making decisions within that environment.
You know, if you saw last week, you know, CarMax just,
you know, announced putting out there,
all their cars are out there.
I mean, they're the first ones to do that, you know,
and I bet some OEMs are going to try that.
I'm curious what the third parties end up doing
in that environment because a lot of their value
is their website traffic and the visitors that come there.
But unlike, you know, just driving people to the website,
which is still our ultimate goal for dealers
because that's the land of no competitors.
We convert three or four times higher.
Some people are going to just make decisions
in that platform altogether and make, you know,
again, you know, you look at total leads to a website,
you're getting, you know, two to five percent conversion,
eight percent conversion.
Most people are making their decisions
without even interacting through the website.
So they can do that same thing in the LLMs.
And so you look long term, people may not go to websites
as often as they used to, you know,
but we just want to make sure that in that environment
we are seeing and wearing as influential as possible.
So you said CarMax put their inventory on ChatGPT.
Tell us, tell our dealers, everybody watching,
what does that mean and what advantage does that give them?
You know, well, so it's an app.
So, you know, kind of like the app store and mobile devices,
you have to actually have the app for it to work.
And I mean, I don't know that it's going to work,
but they certainly have a big brand recognition.
I think it's going to be very difficult for dealers
to do that kind of thing, because, you know,
getting someone to download this app, we'll see.
Well, I mean, we are watching it very closely.
So it doesn't give CarMax some sort of benefit
in the general AI search.
It's limited to the app if you download CarMax's app.
Yep, we're within that environment.
Now, I mean, does that mean that long term
it doesn't have an impact and maybe they start using that
in some of the answers?
Right now it's not connected, but I mean,
it's very interesting to see what happens.
And again, with these third-party sites, these OEMs,
you know, what are they going to do?
Are they going to follow suit?
And what does that do?
I mean, again, as more people are getting their answers
within that environment, it's going to change
the whole ecosystem significantly,
where there's less website traffic,
maybe there's less value on some of the conversion tools
and all that kind of stuff.
The consumer is changing, though.
I mean, and a lot of people are, you know,
making their decisions based on that.
You know, I'm one of them.
So, ChatGPT, OpenAI recently announced
they're going to begin selling ads.
And I think they're starting with a pilot here in the U.S.
I don't know what the timeline looks like on it.
How does that change GEO as it relates to OpenAI?
And then does that impact the CarMax deal?
Or give us your perspective on that.
Yeah, I mean, that's what we're monitoring closely, too.
We're actually starting to see them in the wild now.
I mean, nothing in auto yet.
But I mean, again, this is why, you know, we want to watch,
you know, how can we, one, be seen as often as we can?
Because, you know, our prediction is that a lot of those ads
are going to come as the follow-ups.
If you do a prompt and you say, you know,
what are the three best Toyota stores to go to in this market?
You know, it'll say it'll give, you know, three,
and it'll give its opinion.
And then it'll ask a follow-up question, you know,
what, you know, would you like more information
about the inventory levels at each of these stores?
And again, we've got to be feeding the machine that information
so that we can show up and show up, you know, in a positive light.
We think that a lot of those follow-up questions
could be where the ads end up being.
But again, nothing in auto yet.
But I mean, if you're not paying attention to this,
again, I think you might be missing the boat on the long term.
You were just showing that screenshot and said,
by the end of the year, 30% of all search traffic
is going to be AI search.
That can be happening even faster.
I mean, people are starting to use this more and more
and more for their decision-making process.
So you gave us some tips on what dealers could do,
March of 2026, to best prepare for it.
What's something dealers are doing right now
that is completely failing as it relates to GEO?
I mean, not measuring it, I think.
This is another one of those debates that doesn't make any sense,
that you can't measure it, people say.
You can't benchmark where you're at.
I think that if you're doing any marketing
and you don't have a baseline for where you are,
you can't set goals for where you want to go.
So, I mean, and I understand that if you try to track
one prompt at a time and see where you're at,
every time, if I did the same prompt back to back,
it's going to be a different response, even if I do it, right?
But the way that we like to look at things is,
we do about 250 different prompts across new and used and fixed ops,
some reputational prompts.
What are people saying about you and asking about
what their experience was going to be like,
or how the service experience is?
I mean, anything about the dealership, right?
And so we do that, and then we actually,
every single day, run the same prompts again.
And it's more like a survey to some extent.
We're trying to pattern detect,
because every prompt is going to be different.
But if we start measuring how visible are we
across thousands of prompts,
when you started doing it at that kind of scale,
you get a pretty good sampling to make some decisions.
And then what's your sentiment in there?
Is it very positive?
Where is it negative?
Where is it negative over and over and over and over again?
And then also, I mean, how often are you the one
that's helping to be a citation in that response?
How often is your dealership building the right kind of content
so that it's not Reddit or BBB or some of these other areas
where you might not be talked about in this positive
of a light, right?
We want to help shape the understanding.
Everything that we talked about before with Roman Toyota,
all those amazing experiences,
I mean, put that in all your content,
because then when people are searching and saying,
where should I go give my old change for my Toyota?
Then it's like, whoa, I mean,
everything about that experience sounds amazing.
And then that can be part of shaping that prompt response.
So reputation and reviews, as you say, is important in AI discovery.
Are there things to do and to not do
as it relates to reputation and reviews?
I would assume you want to capture as many positive
as you possibly can.
You want to make sure they're posted and available for AI to go find.
Are there any don't-dos as it relates to reputation and discovery?
Well, I mean, I think it's never been more important
to do things right at the dealership.
Right.
And just how you manage your dealership,
make sure that you are delivering the best possible experience,
because that's been a shine in the reviews.
But they're pulling information directly from these reviews
when people are asking about what the experience
expectations should be from these dealerships.
So these are the top ones here that you have on the screen right now
that we see come in as the most cited websites in these responses.
So Google business profiles, obviously, huge in Gemini.
Dealerator has really benefited from, I guess,
probably just being the name Dealerator.
But they are cited all the time.
Cars, Yelp, Better Business Bureau,
all these ones that were shown here, they're cited a lot.
And so one of the goals for the dealership is one,
these are going to keep being cited.
We want to be building content,
building an experience on our website,
simultaneous to having a very strong online reputation.
And I think one of the big hints here is,
yes, Gemini is very important.
And Google business profile is very important to get reviews,
where a lot of dealers have just been only doing Google
for the last several years before this new environment.
And what happens is they have much lower
and much worse review scores on some of these other sites.
And when you start looking at your different prompt responses,
you see, dang, I mean, my Dealerator reviews are pretty bad.
And they're being talked about over and over and over again.
Better Business Bureau is one that really is impacting dealers
if they're not paying attention.
And so that goes back to pattern detect and understand,
okay, where is the negative sentiment coming from?
One, can we fix it?
Can we put more of a focus on the right kind of directories
to fix that?
Can we fix our own processes?
And then again, how can we shape the narrative
and talk about all the great things that our dealerships
can do to set the right expectations?
So it's fascinating, all those sources that AI
seems to be prioritizing for its search.
That gives each one of those companies a lot of leverage
in the marketplace, right?
Because with that placement and that preference,
AI giving it preference, it's going to help drive up or down
traffic.
Does AI choose those because they're reputable in the marketplace
or because they pay for that placement?
I mean, how does it decide to go give Cox Auto Inc a preference
over CarGurus just as an example?
And I don't think it does.
They were both on that list.
But how does it make that decision?
That decision is being made in a very volatile environment.
So we're tracking this very closely.
And perplexity has started, for instance,
really starting to focus a lot more
on some of the third party aggregators
and then those kind of things and what it's doing for sources.
Google has been pretty constant.
And Google Business Profile is a big part of what Google's doing.
ChatGBT used to be, we used to see a lot of Reddit.
And then they've kind of evolved in what
they're citing beyond the website.
Again, the more that we can be, the ones being cited
from the dealership perspective, that's the best example
for the dealer.
But with ChatGBT, the dealer right here, the cars.com,
the different review sites is where a lot of that's coming from.
But the volatility and the change, they're still evolving.
Google's the most constant because they figured out
the local experience and how to provide the right kind of answers
to someone on a local level.
These other ones are still learning and changing quite a bit.
So the cheese is moving faster than ever.
So you say they figured out how to do the local.
They figured out how to tie it to geography.
What have been the limitations with geography
with some of these other AI search?
Again, if I want to find a restaurant in the city,
I will ask ChatGBT and it's dead on.
That's geographic.
What is the shortcoming with ChatGBT in automotive search
that makes it not as agile on location?
You know, I mean, I think you just got to prompt it appropriately.
And I think that most people have learned how to do that.
So when we talk about measuring your visibility,
I mean, add in some of those qualifiers.
Google didn't used to have Toyota dealer near me.
Or you used to have to always put the geography
behind all your different searches.
And that still happens if you look at the actual query data
that Google hasn't even given to OpenAI
and some of these other folks recently
because of those antitrust things.
You know, you always do that.
But in the ChatGBT world, people are just saying,
in the Raleigh market, which Toyota store should I go to?
I mean, and those qualifiers are happening.
We don't know the exact phrases though.
I mean, Google's always given us that.
I expect when we start seeing ads come out
that we'll start getting more visibility into the variety.
Well, we know it's very different.
So we know that everyone's searching different much longer.
But people are asking those questions.
Like you said, restaurants.
I mean, if I go to a new town, I'm like, hey, you ask.
Yeah.
I want to find the fastest routes and go do as much as I can.
And they eat the best food I can.
Paul Salisman comes into the comments
and says, ironic that human interaction and discourse
makes the machine work.
So it's AI.
It's artificial intelligence.
But it's people that are still driving it.
And I think that's the interesting conundrum
for a lot of people.
In fact, I've heard that actually SEO that feeds AI,
the AI will discriminate in preference
for human-written SEO text.
And it will actually not categorize AI-driven text
as highly as human-created text for SEO.
Is that true as it relates to GEO?
Yeah.
I mean, the goal is to make it as conversational as possible.
I mean, that's one of the reasons I like those review sites,
because that's real people.
That's why they're like Reddit for other industries.
Not an automotive Reddit was a top citation seven,
eight months ago.
Now it's not.
But these review sites are.
That's all human.
And so when you're writing for it,
you want to write as a human would read it.
Ask different questions.
What are the kinds of things people are looking for?
They're looking for inventory.
They're looking for all the different service offerings
and parts and everything that someone would ask for.
Make sure that your content, your building,
is written in a way that is for humans, right?
I mean, which proves that SEO is not
dead in generative search, right?
In GEO, SEO is more important than ever.
And well-created, well-thought, well-made, thoughtful,
even humane-made SEO is given preference in GEO
than it has maybe even people would think, fair?
So all right, as we wrap up here,
I just have a personal preference question for you.
So ChatGPT, OpenAI, that was the device I first saw AI
and was just in awe when you asked it a question
and how quickly it spit it out.
And I always kind of figured it's kind of the gold standard.
Then Gemini came along with Google.
I will tell you, actually, let me ask you this.
What's your favorite AI search today?
Where do you go when you want something AI related?
You know, I like to look at all of them.
So ChatGPT is about 70% market share, a little less than that.
And Google's around a little bit less than 20%
and the rest are much lower.
So I tend to use ChatGPT a little bit more
because that's where the market share is right now.
And I like to live in that environment.
But I mean, I like all of them.
I mean, grot can be funny sometimes
if you're looking for some humor.
For complexity, we do our state of reunion every month.
And so if I'm looking for great citations
and that academic style here as it says on the screen,
that's a great way to get industry news.
As we do, just like you guys do,
all the industry updates,
aware of what's happening for our partners.
That's great for that.
I mean, they all have different uses,
but consumers are by the lion's share,
isn't ChatGPT the most?
Yeah, I'll tell you, I was shocked.
I downloaded Claude and started playing with that.
Document creation, different things.
It crushes open AI ChatGPT on documents
and integrating documents and some of the other things.
So it is fascinating.
I always, up to maybe six months ago,
I never would have even occurred me, Gemini or Claude
or any one of these others.
This is a very competitive space.
And it's the competition, I think,
that's fueling kind of this arms race in AI, fair.
So David, founder and CEO of Reunion Marketing,
we absolutely appreciate you being on the show today
and sharing your perspectives on all things.
GEO and how dealers should prepare for it,
not a year from now, not two, but today.
David, thanks for being on the show.
Thanks for having me.
Turning back to the comments,
Patrick Block, mode of interest, says perplexity.
That's his vote.
And it says much better at helping you follow the research
to the answer.
So it is going to be interesting as this world develops,
as technology develops, who wins in this?
And ultimately, I think we all win
because, again, in competition, best ideas win out.
Let's go to our third guest.
Next up, we have got Jason Mahoney,
senior director of marketing at Carter Myers Automotive.
Jason, welcome to the show.
Sam, thanks for having me.
So who's your favorite search engine?
And what are you guys doing at CMA?
I mean, CMA's been on the show before,
so you don't need much introduction.
What are you doing in the GEO world today?
Well, GEO specifically, ironically,
we partner with Dave and his company, Reunion.
I think they're the best in the industry at what they do.
But I'll save the sales pitch,
but they're valued harder in that space.
AI as a company, we have just entered
into an enterprise relationship with Gemini
that it's really important for dealers
first to come up with an AI policy
and control the information being shared by staff,
personal, potentially personal.
So I highly recommend that.
And then settling on a tool that works.
Now, when I do projects, I'm very heavy into Claude,
like you mentioned.
It worked really well for me.
I like the output.
And we've partnered with some folks at the King Group,
the group out of New York,
to really do some training for our executive team
on how to use AI and build systems.
So we're really leaning into it.
And it's here, and it's not going anywhere.
Well, let's dive into that a little bit.
No prep for this, but a policy as it relates to AI
and data sharing, how did you create that?
Where did you go and what were the most important elements
of that in March of 26?
I think the disclaimer I should make
is it's being developed.
Okay, okay, fair.
Yeah, yeah.
I reached out to our legal team at VADA,
Virginia Auto Dealers Association.
Okay, Dawn Hall.
We love her.
Yeah, we have the best leader.
She's a great character.
Yeah, hi, Dawn, if you're watching.
Yeah, Liza Borges, our CEO, is in a Super 20 group
and got some feedback from some dealer groups
and that she works with.
I'm in a 20 group with digital marketers.
And so it's kind of a combination of all things.
But I think the key is coming up with a policy,
getting it out to your teams,
and then I think they also need a tool to then do it.
So for us, it was Jim and I,
and there's some reasons for that
that may be different for other people.
Maybe it is open AI or something else.
But giving them a policy and then giving them a resource,
a tool, that way if they deviate outside of that,
they can never say you didn't provide what they needed
because people want information.
They're going to use these things.
So we're just trying to create a framework
and a resource network for all of our teams.
Well, the real reason we had you on today was talk to CDP.
So we'll transition into that.
You've got 27-ish stores.
What problem were you trying to solve
when you went and said,
hey, we're going to create a CDP?
I think automotive has got to have
some of the most fragmented data of any industry.
Yes.
Your CRM and your DMS and they don't talk.
You can't write back to the DMS when you clean up the data.
You can't even write back to it and things like that.
And you've got website data, OEM data,
all these things coming at you.
I think one, it was just trying to consolidate,
have a unified look at a customer across all those platforms
and then even beyond that, then across our rooftop.
So we do a lot of things as a group.
We just launched a new campaign that's group-focused
and the idea of are the things we're doing
helping them be return customers,
maybe not even to that same rooftop,
but are the things we're doing as a group,
making them at least want to consider CMA at a higher level.
They may move from Honda to Subaru
or Hyundai to Kia or whatever it may be,
but are they choosing to still do business with CMA?
And really, we had no look at that.
A customer could be three or four cars
purchased from a service regularly.
They walk across the parking lot to one of our OEMs,
another franchise, and we don't know them.
Maybe not literally, maybe we do have seen them,
but as far as a customer,
we don't know the value of them to CMA as a whole.
It's kind of rooftop siloed.
So we're trying to get beyond that,
have a real look at our customer base.
And then there's other things that are really
trying to talk into them through that whole life cycle,
not just buying a car, but servicing a vehicle and those things.
So coming into the chat here is our favorite GM dealer,
Scott Simons1313.
He says, Jason Mahoney is the best.
I had the pleasure of working with him for almost 25 years.
He was my former Honda rep, so you've got all your experience.
Scott's always been good to me.
He was a GM at Harrisonburg Honda years ago.
He's a dealer himself now, so I'm really proud of him.
But yes, let me ask you this.
As you've created the CDP,
and now you've got this more enterprise view,
what data insight surprised you most
as you started to engage with this data and reach out to customers?
Well, and we're really early in it to be candid.
This vendor selection process for us was over a year.
Frankly, our friends at Rorman, so Zach that spoke earlier,
his leadership with Ryan and Jeremy Nolan,
and those guys really helped us understand the path they've been on.
So I thank them and other dealers in this space.
We're consolidating all that data as we speak.
And we've got to look at some of it.
It's still going through some hygiene.
Who'd you pick for partners to create it?
To cleanse the data and then create the CDP?
Yeah, the CDP and the cleansing all happens with that is with Orbi.
And we've had a long relationship with Peter Fong and a tool over at Orbi.
And we looked at a lot of Telium, which is what Rorman uses,
which is a fine tool.
For us, it was this relationship with Orbi seemed to be the direction to go.
And really the vendor selection process goes beyond that though.
I think it's your partners outside of that,
that they'll all be willing to get in a room
and kind of talk about what our goals are as CMA
and how they each can make one plus one equal five together in a room.
So it's not just your CDP.
It's people like Ben Q, which were heavily partnered with Danny and his team,
Foundation Data, Reunion, I mentioned earlier, King Group.
So we have a really tight group of partners.
We always say fewer and deeper.
What relationships?
You've said it's taken a year plus.
Why so long to pull the trigger and go through the process?
So for me, when I took this job, I felt like I saw some things out there.
And I felt like if we don't get a CDP tomorrow, we're going to die.
And I went headfirst into it.
And what I realized by doing that is that it was evolving rapidly.
And that maybe slowing down a little bit and letting it mature
was maybe a better move.
So I went from running full speed at it to pulling back, letting it develop,
letting some of the technology catch up to some of the,
frankly, some of the ideas were ahead of the technology.
You'd be pitched something that they couldn't quite do,
but in theory, it made a lot of sense.
And then got to a place where, for us, Orbeez encompassing
what it would take several vendors to do,
including on the hygiene side and some other things.
So that's why they made a great partner for us.
It was kind of one that did a lot of these things.
But I think they would tell you too, they're evolving, right?
So I think it was just waiting for the space to mature.
So Patrick Blockventures comes into the quote, the text and says,
what type of data team do you have?
Data scientists, analysts, business intelligence folks to build from that data?
Once you have the data, are you relying on partners to extract it
and serve it back up to you?
Or do you have some sort of a team internally you've built to do that?
That's been a really big discussion.
I think when it comes to investing in human capital,
we take that really seriously.
So we have a couple of people that deal with data that have for a while,
got named Dave Davis has really helped us bring this along.
But as far as the data strategists or scientists,
we have not hired one.
We've had a lot of conversations around it.
I frankly think that AI is going to be a big part of that solution
when it comes to audience building and segmentation
and understanding what you've got.
So rather than rush right into adding headcount,
as we learn more about what data we actually have,
the technology is catching up there,
actually be able to use it through things like AI.
So we may very well end up with a data strategist,
but we don't currently have one.
I love that you say that because I sense to NADA,
there was a ton of anxious excitement around all this
and just almost this FOMO to be second to the solution.
But then you actually get to the foots to a lot of this
and it's like, hey, let's figure it out before we actually implement it
because you can actually make a lot of mistakes as you go through this.
What's the biggest takeaway or potential mistake
that other dealers could learn from
that you learned going through this process so far?
That's a great question.
I think it would be not spending enough time
on the vendor selection process.
I spoke to a lot of dealers, not just with Orvy for recommendations,
but also that we're with Tealium or Treasure Data
or some of the other partners that are out there.
I attended quite a few conferences.
Some weren't even automotive specific.
I remember going to a Tealium conference and having breakfast
with the guy who ran marketing for New Balance
and talking about how they're selling tennis shoes
and talking to people with that right customer,
right message, right time kind of concept.
So I think just spending as much time as you possibly can
because it can be a very expensive mistake.
I was likely headed toward maybe possibly making one,
running as fast as I was toward it, slowing down.
I think we put ourselves in a good position
to have a long relationship with Orvy.
All right, Jason Mahoney, Senior Director of Marketing
at Carter Myers Automotive.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
We're going to actually bring Zach back in for our round table.
We're going to go just a little longer, producer crew.
Everybody's like, it's time.
It's time.
Zach, welcome back.
Sounds like you two know each other a little bit.
So that's cool.
I would say no.
Cross paths before.
Yeah, we definitely cross paths.
I know what you're coming at.
I just wanted to say it.
I just wanted to say, Zach, it's 50 bucks.
Let's go.
Trademark.
That's right.
That's right.
Trademark.
Trademark.
All right, so in this, it's kind of a fast fire lightning
round segment, and it's on various topics.
Question one, and either one of you.
What is the single most underutilized profit opportunity
in dealerships today, March of 2026?
I would say for us, we're constantly working on that service
lane, service to sales.
I think I heard Patrick Abed from Beaver Toyota
call it a loyalty department, which I love that kind of concept
versus the super transactional thing.
Zach talked about it earlier.
It's more about a relationship with that customer
and where they're at.
It might be a three month follow-up.
But I think just doing a better job in our service drives
for us is a huge focus.
And it helps us source the used cards that are always in demand.
And we're always trying to find those without going to the auction.
And Zach, you've kind of started to answer that.
What's your answer on the single most underutilized?
Yeah, I mean, obviously, CDP guys on here,
it's got to be expensive, I'm sure.
Like there's the most underutilized revenue stream.
Like what are we paying for that we don't use
and don't actually get attribution out of and audience types?
What does that have to do with the CDP, Zach?
It's the whole purpose of the CDP.
To be able to track that down to the core value
of why are we actually marketing and advertising
and what we're doing with it, that's the secret sweet spot.
But the CDP cleans up the data so every dollar spent
is more accurately utilized, right?
And that's what you're talking about.
It also allows us to provide attribution
to why we're spending dollars
and why that activity actually ROI's.
And that's what I've seen as the sweet spot
as a dealer operator is looking at this and going,
I love being able to market with clean data,
but I also now can have a tribute
to what audience type is active
and where can I actually make an impact with the CDP.
Very cool.
All right.
Go ahead.
I would tease his segment.
He teased mine.
That's why we did it.
Yeah, that was funny.
Actually, you both did that.
You gave it to each other.
So all right, what's one dealership metric?
Every operator should be checking every morning,
March, 2026 automotive.
Yeah, customer pay RO count.
Are you growing?
And I think that's the only thing
in the service department really
where I've shifted my mindset.
Are we doing anything to get better
and are our customers enjoying the experience?
CSI is great, but we all know how we play games
and making sure things are flagged.
This survey is that, are we really growing or not?
And if you're going to actually track
in what your customers are,
if they're choosing to use you or not,
that's a metric that's definitely measurable
and instant impact.
Could we almost say, Zach, that CP is almost a CSI?
Oh, yeah, without a doubt.
Yeah, Jason.
You know, from the marketing side,
I'll put that kind of cap on.
I really look at, you know,
market share and RSE and all those things
are really the holy grail.
But from the marketing side,
it's looking at direct traffic to our sites
and other indicators branded search terms
to say, is our marketing as a whole
helping us build a true brand awareness?
And to Zach's point, maybe we can stop paying
so much for certain other types of traffic.
If we're building a true awareness,
they've done a great job with social,
that's another way to do it.
But I just think, how is your brand awareness
and your share of voice in your market?
All right, what's one thing dealers
are wasting money on right now, March, 2026?
And I'm going to take away bad data
because you guys both have CDP combined.
So we'll give you that.
What's one thing dealers are wasting money on today,
March of 2026?
I would say in a lot of cases,
it's probably phone traffic
because I think we could do so much better
on the phone than we do.
That's probably not the way you were framing that question.
I like that.
Yeah, but that's right.
We're doing a lot better job internally
trying to understand what's happening on our phones.
It was a blind spot.
And it costs a lot to make those phone drinks.
So I think that's an area for sure.
In CDK's data, about nine minutes,
wait for service departments,
average across automotive.
Do you think that's accurate?
I mean, that's a crazy amount of time to wait.
That blows my mind.
I think if you get someone to wait nine minutes,
that's a miracle in and of itself.
I think a lot of people have hung up by then, yeah.
Yeah.
All right, complete this sentence.
The dealership that dominates the next,
the dealerships that dominate the next decade
will be the ones that.
And we'll start with you, Zach.
And then we'll come to you, Jason.
I mean, it's never changed.
It's going to be employee the best people.
Are we going to be able to find better people
than we have today?
I don't know if you can.
So how are you going to develop them?
How are you going to make sure that you invest in them?
And how do you make sure that the employee experience
is never outweighed by a customer experience?
Employees that love their job
are always going to be the best customer advocates
because they're going to go out and make sure
that your customers feel like this
is the place to transact with.
Yeah.
Jason.
Yeah.
Start with, I agree completely,
but I'll give another answer.
But it is people first,
and that's how we operate as well.
I think I would say on the,
from a technology side,
is leaning into AI and leveraging
because it's not going away.
How do you become more efficient
and be more direct with your customers
where the right message,
the right time to use an AI?
So I think that leaning into AI
is going to really separate a lot of dealers.
All right.
And then last question.
Imagine you're a 20 store dealer group owner
watching right now.
You're a dealer principal.
What's the one strategic move
I should make owning 20 stores in the next 12 months?
Jason, you first.
It's perfect.
Zach, you first.
Zach, go.
It's 50 bucks.
I've already said it.
$50 a little change.
Rormantoy to Lafayette Indian.
All right, Jason.
Jason.
And by the way, again,
you're creating culture retention.
You're focused on retention.
CP is your new CSI.
So CP goes up.
You know it's working.
You retain your customers.
You get great used cars.
And you have a customer for life.
I love it.
Jason.
If I own 20 dealerships,
is buy property in St. Bart's a choice?
I think it's investing in your data.
And especially across 20 rooftops,
and Rormant's even bigger than that.
Like really understanding your customer
and cleaning that data
and really making good use of their time
with the way you message to them.
Yeah, yeah.
Being more exact with your messaging.
Well, Zach, General Manager Rormantoy to Jason,
Senior Director of Marketing at Carter Myers.
We both appreciate you both being in the round table
as we wrap up today's Fixed Ops Friday episode,
talking all things AI and ways to deal with data
as part of the CDP.
And then it's only 50 bucks.
So thank you both for being on the show today.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks, guys.
And then as we wrap up,
just a couple interesting comments from online.
Igor Kay has become our roving Mannheim auction reporter.
He says, happy Friday, everyone.
Off topic report, sorry.
Mannheim, New England was busy.
MMRs are going up,
especially on fuel economy vehicle segment.
I do believe that.
I think fuel economy is going to be the key to the future,
especially as the Strait of Hormuz is having some challenges
right now and oil is impacted as a result.
Igor Kay goes on expend, keep expending.
That's what I would say to those dealers.
So we appreciate Igor for coming in
and to everybody watching today's episode
of The Daily Dealer Live.
As always, as we come into the St. Patrick's Day weekend,
we appreciate you all being here.
Thanks for watching Daily Dealer Live,
where we break down the biggest moves in the car business
as they happen.
Don't forget, we're live here every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday, 1 p.m., which means we're back on Monday, 1 p.m.
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hit like, hit subscribe, turn on those notifications
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And we'll see you next episode.
Thanks for being here, everybody.
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