McCullar on Used Car Strategy, Tasche on Acquisition Leads | Daily Dealer Live
Car Dealership Guy Podcast
McCullar on Used Car Strategy, Tasche on Acquisition Leads | Daily Dealer Live
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Concept
Daytona 500
The Daytona 500 is a famous car race that happens every year in Florida. It's one of the biggest and most popular races in the United States.
Term
catalytic converters
A catalytic converter is a part of a car's exhaust system that helps reduce pollution. It's valuable because it contains metals that can be sold for money, which is why thieves sometimes steal them.
Term
auto recycling thefts
Auto recycling thefts happen when people steal parts from cars, usually because those parts can be sold for a lot of money. It's a growing problem that affects car owners and the industry.
Concept
traceability
Traceability means being able to follow the history of an item, like a car part, to see where it came from and who owned it. This helps in finding stolen parts and catching thieves.
Car
Toyota Highlander
The Toyota Highlander is a popular SUV that will be fully electric starting in 2027. It will have space for families and is made in the U.S.
Term
battery EV
A battery EV is a car that runs only on electricity and doesn't use gas. It doesn't produce any harmful emissions.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful a car's engine is. The Highlander will have 338 horsepower, which tells us it can go fast and perform well.
Term
aerodynamic profile
An aerodynamic profile means the car is shaped to move smoothly through the air, which helps it use less energy and go faster.
Term
LED lighting
LED lighting is a type of light that is very bright and uses less energy. It's often used in car headlights and taillights.
Term
automatic start-stop systems
Automatic start-stop systems help save gas by turning off the engine when you're stopped, like at a red light. When you press the gas pedal again, the engine starts up automatically, which can help you use less fuel overall.
Term
Clean Air Act
The Clean Air Act is a law in the U.S. that helps keep the air clean by setting rules for how much pollution can come from cars and factories. It's important for protecting our health and the environment.
Term
emissions credit
Emissions credits are like permission slips for companies that allow them to release a certain amount of pollution. If a car company makes cleaner cars, they can earn credits and sell them to other companies that need them.
Term
fuel economy
Fuel economy is how well a car uses gas. If a car can go more miles on a gallon of gas, it has better fuel economy, which means you'll spend less money on fuel.
Car
Dodge Ram
The Dodge Ram is a big truck that people often use for work or to haul things. It's known for being strong and comfortable, which is why many people like to drive it for both jobs and fun.
Brand
Honda
Honda is a car company from Japan that makes many different types of vehicles, including cars and motorcycles.
LIVE
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 CDG daily deal live with us
this Monday February the 16th coming up today use cars as rocket launcher AI
doubling engagement rates system migrations in real-time and why service
absorption is about to separate pros from amateurs if you're not optimizing for
off-street acquisition acquisition AI workflows and customer pay service
right now then you're playing defense in a market that rewards offense and by
the way speaking of offense for anyone who watched the Daytona 500 what an
exciting weekend race that was America's greatest race Ziggler's own Carson
host of our sponsored number 77 spire went into the final lap of the race the
the white flag in first place he was bumped from behind by someone who was
bumped from behind by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. into the wall and across took him out
went from first I think it was a top 20 finish so still props to Carson for a
great finish but in automotive it wrote as in race car driving it does pay to
play offense and that's what we're here to talk about today in the car dealership
guy podcast but first let's hit today's auto industry headlines first up today a
federal bill aimed at cracking down on catalytic converters we've talked about
it here on the show just cleared a key hurdle in Congress the preventing
auto recycling thefts are part act advanced out of subcommittee and is now
headed to the full house energy and committee commerce committee thus far
dealers thus far dealers have been backing the measure hard the bill would
require new vehicles to have traceable serial numbers stamped directly on the
catalytic converters making stolen parts easier to identify and track it also
Titans record keeping rules for converter sales and creates federal penalties
for anyone caught stealing or trafficking them law enforcement groups say that
without traceability prosecuting thieves is tough and supporters argue this act
creates a national framework instead of the current Patrick of state laws what's
the bottom line here well this could help protect dealers from costly theft
losses but it's not across the finish line yet NADA is urging retailers to
call their members of Congress and to push it through next up today Toyota is
taking one of its highest volume SUVs well they're taking an electric the
2027 Highlander will be an all-electric U.S. built model the first battery EV
Toyota has produced domestically the vehicle have 338 horsepower full-length
LED lighting and a more aerodynamic profile inside buyers get a 14 inch
center screen a 12.3 inch driver display charging access in every row upgraded
voice controls and a built-in dash cam style recording feature assembly well it
will take place in Kentucky with battery modules sourced from Toyota's North
Carolina plant big picture here the Highlander is a core family name plate
with a serious volume and bring it to market as a three row EV in late 2026
well it'll be interesting in other news the EPA is ending regulatory credits
for automatic start-stop systems it's that thing that happens when you stop in a
light car shuts off I've always wondered how much gas does that truly save well
that feature that that falls the repeal of the Clean Air Acts 09 endangerment
finding for context over many years automakers received emissions credit for
installing the tech which now appears in roughly two-thirds of new vehicles and
can improve fuel economy anywhere from about 7% to 26% depending on the setup
and although the systems were never federally mandated the credits gave
automakers incentive to include them as part of their broader compliance
strategy EPA administrator is Lee Zeldin called eliminating the credit a quote
added bonus close quote as part of the administration's bought broader emissions
rollback noting the feature is widely disliked by drivers looking ahead with
the credit going away mid-cycle automakers now have a choice they can keep
the technology without regulatory upside or they can find other ways to make up
those efficiency gains elsewhere let the market guide last up today dealership
M&A activity returned to the CDG buy-sell tracker M&A activity refuses to slow
down with more deals happening in New York and in Texas this year in the first
transaction Kedge Cook purchased Martin Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Cleveland Texas
from Brian Bounds according to performance brokerage services the firm
facilitated the transaction Cook now owns two dealerships including Cook Ford in
Texas City over on the East Coast West her automotive group purchased Sharon
Chevrolet in Liverpool New York from Mike Carrow the store ranks second in
volume for Chevrolet in the Syracuse market according to West her and the
group they anticipate selling about 2,000 new and used vehicles per year there
and you can check out this deal announcement and many more throughout
the year by visiting the CDG buy-sell tracker at cdgbuysell.com
it's power we love our tracker and that is powered by of course the
Presidio group so welcome back everybody on this Monday as always you can push
your comments into the CDG comments all across social media anywhere we're
live streaming post your comments and join the conversation let us know you're
there we were thrilled to have you back on this Monday mid-February including a
question for everybody how's your February going we hear a lot of talk
about February this month in the CDG circles but we'd love to have you share
your thoughts here as part of the show as well and we're gonna turn straight into
our very first guest today so first up today Tina Tash innovation and
technology specialist at Van Horn Automotive Group Tina welcome to the show
welcome back hi thanks for having me back I think it's my three-peat today so it
is your last year I think in June of 2025 and you had a lot going on in the
world you are focused on a lot of things AI and whatnot how's how's your world
now in February of 2016 about six seven months later yeah I mean business is
strong we've got honestly some really big milestones going on this year one of
them being we're celebrating our 60th anniversary as a company so we have a
lot of different marketing and fun things for customers and employees going
along with that we actually just opened a brand new building for our Honda store
in the Milwaukee area so we've previously had what was probably the oldest
Honda building in the country and now at least for a minute we have the newest
and then the other big thing oh go ahead no no I was gonna say quickly to be
eclipsed in the building world and automotive like that'll be it that'll
last for about 10 minutes but props to you and the entire group for that yeah
yes it's two and a half times the size of our old building so it's huge wow
excited about that and then the other big thing we've done in January is we
switched for our CRM our DMS and our service scheduling tool so we moved over
going all in on techie on so we're starting work today of a huge move for across the
entire company that is a huge move we want to talk a little bit about that
I've been through CRM changes it is a massive lift for a big group so we'd
like to explore a little bit the why behind make that but before we go there
I want to step back and pull on a thread we talked about last time you were on
the show so you were talking about AI your tech stack and and what tools you're
using in BDC and elsewhere that helped engage customers better and one thing
you noted in the show notes for today you said you took your AI engagement from
nineteen point eight percent to forty one point one percent that's double that's
not incremental it's structural I'd love to learn a little bit about what
changed so AI engagement is an interesting metric why that metric and then how
did you get that particular metric to double and then what's been the result
financially but let's start on that metric yeah yeah so let me just break
that down so the first highlight on that is we decided last September that we
wanted to really narrow in on acquisition AI we thought we could do a better
job than what we had out of the box with our vendor partner so we worked with
them since September to customize in AI world what they call a procedure and we
would meet every month with my director overuse cars and then the vendor
partner and we just keep studying not only like what are the results but what's
being said what could we potentially change what do we tweak and we've been
tweaking it every single month since September and that brought us to the
stat that you just gave out of you know pretty much doubling the engagement
right with our customers and our initial goal on this was just that
engagement we want to make sure that the customers are replying back to the lead
because that's you know the biggest part of the battle right is getting
customer engagement so rather than immediately focusing on the you know
the appointments which we obviously want first we wanted to study how do we get
more people to reply to these leads okay so so what's the tool that you're
what's the AI tool you're using to engage yeah so we are using podium for our AI
assistant platform and we've been with them since the very beginning of when
they started to decide they wanted to have an AI assistant so we've had kind
of a really you know a cool seat of being able to kind of help design what
that looks like and when we talk about these numbers one of the things that
was huge in allowing us to be able to train the AI the way we have is they
have this new program called the AI studio that allows people like me to go
in there without knowing how to code or creating tickets or anything to redesign
exactly what I want to train into my AI assistant interesting and when you talk
AI in this case I know podium has both voice and text I think they're just
coming out with voice are you engaging using voice or just text or email or
what's the method currently it's text and email we are looking into voice AI so
that is something that at some point this year we want to start to dabble and
do and figure out where we want to go with that voice AI I think we all know
is more difficult than the text because the text you have the grace of oh they're
typing oh they're looking something up and that's harder to look at on the voice
side so we intend to you know pick a racehorse on voice but today it is the
email and the text web our chat system off of our website and all of our third
party leads so Tina it's interesting I props to you on the success doubling that
engagement rate but I'm curious from a dealer perspective where we win in 30
day increments and we all want those sales in the month if you've been with
podium as an AI solution since the beginning what caused you to say hey
let's take a step back and not measure appointment not measure sales as a
result of let's measure just simple engagement were you having a hard time
getting engagement or or is it the studio where you're like hey we just really
want to perfect it before we start going to appointment what why why now is a
combination of both of those things the studio came out at about the same time
that we were starting to really want to you know pull back and kind of look back
at just the basics and one thing a lot of people don't realize is just how much
time you have to actually put into training your AI assistant and I think
a lot of times I hear dealers you know it's week two and it's not incredible so
now we want to cancel but I can't say it enough it's not a set it and forget it
product so you have to constantly be building into it and I look at it the
same way as you wouldn't expect a new employee of two weeks to know everything
so it takes time to train that up as well so it was kind of the combination of
all of those elements and then having a partner who is willing to work alongside
us on the project and just you know when we all can sync together our brains we
can really build some pretty amazing things and that's kind of what we've done
on acquisition so we're pretty excited about the results and next we want to
start to do more tracking on you know the AI autonomously scheduling
appointments on its own but to us step one was there's not enough people are
applying to these leads off of what our AI is texting in the first text message
it's that text message isn't good enough is the way we looked at it and we just
pulled back to figure out what can we do to solve that problem okay so a ton of
comments online we're gonna get to those be patient with us to the audience but
I've got to ask this so you mentioned you started to kind of hone it in using
the studio what are the top three things that you did that resulted in this
doubling engagement over that period of time Tina yeah so number one was
redesigning the procedure and then within that we looked at things like what
can we say that people are going to actually want to respond to so rather
than the generic initial first response that that kind of would go out maybe on
a traditional lead that doesn't make sense on an acquisition lead we looked
at how can we optimize that so we did things like let's make our intro be let's
just ask them are you looking to just sell your vehicle outright or are you
looking for a vehicle upgrade so that was one big switch that we made another
one was keeping training the AI to keep things open to let's try to get the
customers to come in for the appraisal whenever possible but we have an
acquisition team who can strategize you know being able to put numbers on
vehicles and accommodate things without them actually coming in the dealership
so that that was another thing we looked at and then another thing we added that
actually surprised us that customers have been responding back to was was
simply asking them where else have you gotten values do you have other values
on that your vehicle already that you've gotten and the combination of those
things and they sound so basic but when you put them all in play that's what
increase the engagement for us that's awesome and what a great way to kind of
refine that and run that to ground so a few questions online yoga cart or let's
see actually let's let's start in order here so sagar doga says hi Tina podium
was being used as an engagement tool like automated emails or just service
queries like a chat box curious your take on that yeah so for us what we've
kind of been able to do through optimization is move on from just
thinking do we have a good assistant whatever you want to call it to what
are we doing to train up and optimize the system to make it excel so our assistant
is able to take both service and sales conversations the sales has kind of
been the focus of last year so this year we're putting a lot of focus on the
service leads and the integration with allowing the agent to be booking service
visits on its own the big thing is just we want to create as much of an
autonomous environment as we can and a whole nother conversation this would be
but it's just all allowing our employees to focus on higher level tasks and
letting the AI assistant take the lower funnel things okay another comment from
online yoga car says I count fan horns branding their pre-owned locations as
cars for 15k.com who came up with that who's behind it and why you know I don't
know who was the actual person who came up with that but just to add to that we
don't just have cars for 15k anymore we have trucks for 25k also okay and that
was kind of a branch off of one of our CDJ our stores we have a building across
the street so we have trucks for 25k as well so it's been very popular so far
I mean popular enough on the car side that we built the truck side so yeah
that's been a little bit adventure for us and look for everybody in our listening
audience here across the Daily Deal Alive world you've got to know Van Horn
you're an ESOP right so you can you all sort of talk like owners because you
all are a little bit owners you have ownership interest in the organization
which is pretty pretty pretty strong. Segar Dogrel also says the best part of
moving into a new building is getting those new coffee machines so maybe you
can maybe you can relate to that so Segar also says thanks for applying but
what's the total cost of acquisition total cost of acquisition if you have
thoughts on that I mean I don't have anything top of mind other than you
know we're what's nice about it is when you purchase like the AI assistant that's
all bundled in it's not something that we have to purchase an AI assistant for
acquisition now because it's different than you know sales purchase straight
purchase or service so it's all bundled together in one assistant for us. Okay so
a few more questions on one part you talked about in the very beginning of
today's interaction then we're gonna we're gonna go to our next guest but we'd
like to bring you back for a little lightning round both guests together at
the end of the show if you can hang out and stick around so you talked about this
transition to Techion that's a big lift DMS CRM all the tools where did you come
from what are you moving from and what spurred that for you said four months
ago why make the change now yeah so last year we spent pretty much the entire
year with kind of the target plan of deciding if what we have today is great
and we don't need to make a change just to make a change or explore other
opportunities out there one thing that we were really seeking is a unified
platform that whether we're talking CRM DMS service scheduling with Techion is
just Techion it was all built to be you know have that golden customer record
for us and that was a lot of it is just being able to holistically optimize
departments all using the same technology we have a we call it support
services which is basically a building that we purchased that we have about a
hundred employees and now that their job is just that they support the
dealerships and allowing us to have a system that can piece all that together
for all those different support services employees the dealerships and and just
make it really smooth that was the goal we're on week four so probably a six
month checkup is a different conversation of where we're at but so far so good and
where did you switch from what was the prior yeah we switch we had dealer track
then solutions and X time so we switch all those platforms three weeks ago all
the same day over to Techion so who in the organization when you think about
that big of a lift all those different platforms that's massive it's basically
the operating bones of any dealership who's kind of spearheaded this and how
many months in advance the actual transition did you begin the planning
for it yeah so our leadership team is awesome at Van Horn so they kind of had
the conceptual plan that they passed off to us as we call them the CRM the DMS
champions to really you own your area we want you to be the biggest one part of
the research phase of asking the questions because you live this you
every day you do this you know it fast so it was a collective research project
with probably about 30 employees that we all like just poked for holes and in
any piece that we've needed to make sure was going to be level set upon moving to
any new partner so again we were just we we've had all of the right minds on the
project in the research phase which then makes it simpler when you move into the
onboarding phase which I mean this is the first time I've really been through a
transition quite like this on this scale and there is a lot involved in those
moves and you just have to have the right people in the puzzle taking care of
the things that they sell an specialist at so early on recognizing a large
organization you're gonna have adversity and challenges making a big change like
that what have been some of the biggest challenges you've had to overcome
initially during that transition yeah anytime you make change it's never easy
it doesn't matter what system you're moving to from anything in between I
think one of the biggest challenges that was somewhat bittersweet for us was we
were forced to kind of look at all of our processes look at every granular
little detail to figure out should this still be here just because it was in you
know the last system for 10 years should we make a change we have the
opportunity to kind of have a whiteboard right now yeah yeah it was in a way when
you did that process Tina what did you kill you know I think a lot of what we
did was we really started to look at the tasks that we had going out what could
we automate that we aren't automating today the right tasks going to the right
people to our templates need a refresh and when you have to install the stuff
in a new system you have to put eyes on it in a way that you wouldn't in a
product you just had for you know 10 plus years yeah yeah so one thing you
ejected is there one thing that you could say hey we decided we just don't
need it anymore I don't think there's anything that we just completely
eliminated one thing that was nice with this system is there was there's a lot
more customization that you can do there's a thing called a decision tree
that I think I'm gonna have to get a college degree to really really know what
I'm doing on but I'm making my way through it and there's there's pieces that
we're able to do now to just separate tracks so much more so it's a highly
customizable system but it isn't undertaking to learn it all right again
door our listening audience there's a ton of comments you can see me get
distracted I'm looking around all these comments trying to figure out which ones
to bring in I want to make sure we keep momentum in the show today you talked
last time you were on about a CDP Van Horn went through that process of
cleansing data creating the CDP was that strategic in advance of making that
shift into techie on and has that process process benefited benefited you in
the transition yeah so one thing that's actually a big project that we're
working on this year is kind of creating our own data warehouse so that we can
start to have ownership in an area of all of our data but as it relates to
like the CDP I think those two things kind of happenstance fell together for
us at the right time so it was great to you know kind of have the cleanse data
that we wouldn't have had otherwise and I mean it's it's still anytime you move
data it's messy so there's little things that you find and learn every day
you're talking about you did the CDP you cleanse the data then it's creating
that data lake is that what you're talking about that's the next project
that you're looking at that's the next project yeah exactly is there a
particular partner you're looking at that stands out that you're leaning
towards or you've already made a commitment with we're actually working
with four eyes right now okay they're going to help us facilitate creating a
snowflake for running all that we're pretty excited that project has been
kind of like moving very slowly because we needed to get techie on in place
first so we're going to be hitting the green light pretty fast moving on that
now that we have techie on live at all the dealerships all right last question
up then we'll move that's a lot like CDP cleansing data making the transition
you're engaging with podium on on quantifying AI engagement you're making
all these platform changes big picture at the end of the day we got to sell
cars was there one or two things that just pushed you guys to I mean you're
basically doing it all at once which is fun to watch and we definitely want to
check back with you but it anything that kind of pushed you in that direction or
any advice or warning you'd give the dealers considering it maybe being too
much I mean I think one of the things is you don't want to do too much which is
why we've kind of just to go back to the AI assistant conversation like we said
let's tackle acquisition you know now there's other areas that I want to
start to optimize that the same exact way we haven't put as much focus on the
service area so what can we build out to make that experience better for our
customers there's plenty of optimization that will never end when it comes to the
assistant because you again you have to think of it like you're training this
person so whatever you're training process yeah just one quick example would
be the other day a sales manager came up to me and said I we're not taking
deposits right now in the 2027 Kia tell your rights okay well you tell the
staff that but you also tell the AI and wait how do you tell the AI that so
you tell the AI that by creating what they call policies so you create a
policy that you then extend out to whichever dealership does or doesn't
need it and then it just it's genius it just knows and the next time somebody
asks it'll say it you know professionally that we're not taking
deposits right now and it does a great job of spinning negative things to
sound more positive than I think a human yeah so the role of the general
manager today we've talked about this isn't just managing developing people
within the organization it's also managing developing AI Tina to your point
you can't make a big policy adjustment and forget to tell your AI agent
wherever that yeah exactly exactly it's a lot of work to continue optimization is
the biggest buzzword for me when it comes to this Tina innovation and
technology specialist at Wisconsin based fan horn automotive group thank you so
much for joining the show and we're gonna have you back at the end of the
segment for a little roundtable thanks for being here awesome thank you all
right let's talk stream companies how much revenue is slipping through the
cracks at your dealership stream companies missed opportunities report
analyzes your strategy and highlights where you can drive more sales faster
request your free report at stream companies.com slash DDMOR again get
your get that free report today at stream companies.com slash DDMOR and thank
you to stream companies for supporting today's content including that fascinating
conversation with Tina as we talked about their transition from CRM, DMS all
these different platforms over to Techeon and how they're being super
thoughtful in their AI integrations and cleansing data and data lakes they are
really in 2026 seeking to do it all so we've got to have Tina back at some point
to go through that next piece because I'm fascinated by all they're doing next
up today Wes McCuller dealership operator at Lake Norman CDJR Wes welcome
to the show thank you thank you for having me. Wes we're pumped to have you
thanks for being here this is your first time on the car dealership guys show so
we're pumped to have you hey what do you think of Tina and making all those
changes all at once I mean DMS alone is a big lift but you add the CRM to it you
you're working down the road of AI agent and all that that's a lot of change all
at once that's a huge lift for sure yeah yeah yeah all right let's let's talk use
cars then we'll bring Tina back in you called used cars your rocket launcher in
a market where margins are tightening per Cox data what has made you double down
and use cars and and why do you call it the rocket launcher in February of 2026
well I mean really last year used cars without question is I call it the
precipitator of profitability for the entire operation I mean it's it's it's
really what transformed our year it made our year what it was so yeah you know
used cars was the most impactful department bar none year of a year in
25 for our operation so before we dig deep deep tactically into what you did to
achieve the result you did tell everyone who you are what store you are just tell
us a little bit about yourself yeah West McCuller Lake Norman Chrysler Dodge
Jeep Ram parks automotive group acquired the store three years ago last month
actually the store has a long-standing history of success so we were blessed to
you know walk into a you know already prominent operation that was well ran
by the prior owners and already had you know national recognition so it's an
honor to be here you know the only challenge we've taken on a store that
successful is you know the I'm gonna keep it going you can't screw it up right
so yeah our focus was to not mess it up the you know best we could and just
optimize areas that we felt you know we could improve upon okay so as used cars
one of those areas where you felt like hey they're doing it well but I can even
make it better yeah you know used cars they weren't underperforming and used
cars I mean the store was doing a buck 30 buck 40 used when we acquired the
operation and we maintain that a year one and year two and really you know
going into the end of 24 the team and I really sat down and you know I think it
first starts with just making a decision that you want to be high volume
you want to scale used cars any sector for that matter but used cars without
question we we kind of grew grew used cars out of necessity I don't think it's
any surprise to anybody about a motive the challenges that our OEM has had the
last two you know two to three years with CDJR yeah so you know you know we
kind of had like our own recession if you will on the new car side so the only
way to survive was to double down the focus and you know hit the rocket
launcher as you said for used cars and that's what we did but it all started
with making a decision you know we pretty dramatically scaled and increased
our our stocking levels in January February last year and it really took
off in March of last year and we kind of carried that the entire year so we
often talk what is the strategy for stocking if you're not getting it you
use car trade-in that's the best source or service lane which you know if you
don't have a ton of UIO units in operation because your new car is coming
back what's your what's your best methods January of 25 a year ago for
getting that new inventory as you started to scale well back then we
weren't as evolved as we are now you know we've since then have built an
off-street buying team that's sourcing cars from the public and that's
starting to really take off but you know January and February of last year we
we leveraged the options I mean that was the only source that we had at our
disposal to you know press the press the button on quickly so we did that you
know we knew that that would come at a cost of front-end margins you know I
think the one thing that we did here is we had to really come to terms with the
fact that front margins aren't going to be attractive if that's our if that's
the strategy that we're going to deploy is is auction purchases so we did that
and you know we we really try to focus on holistic profitability across the
entire operation I've got a super gross calculator I built you know a couple
years ago that I really built the tool to kind of help educate my you know
managers on how a car deal impacts the entire operation and how it really
primes the pump of all the revenue streams in a car dealership not just
front margin or back or back in growth so once I built that and kind of showed
my team hey listen for every every used car that we sell the operation
holistically generates X amount of profit per car and here's the total
financial impact across the entire store per month if we sell let's say 200
cars versus 130 used cars and it was you know a couple six figures increase in
profitability by making that decision even at the expense of eroding front
margins which is going to happen if you're if your strategy early on is
is heavy auction which ours was because we weren't getting a trade capture at
that point in time to to really offset that so you said you weren't have you
changed that or are you are you seeing a higher ratio of of non auction to auction
vehicles and so you know jinx so about the same time last year we took a sales
person who wasn't really doing a great job selling cars but he he did a great
job with working leads and following up and you know reaching out for whatever
reason that that never translated into car deals but you know he he had the
ability to hunt right just couldn't convert into a car deal so as you know
we we we sat him down and kind of pitched this this vision of building an
off-street team of buyers that sourced cars from you know Craigslist and
Facebook marketplace primarily nice by and right a buying so yeah so we built a
you know a bbc a vehicle buying center but we sat him down and we helped him
build a Facebook he never even had a Facebook so we had to teach him how to
how to build a Facebook and my admin you know helped him sell the Facebook page
and yeah we just trained him on how to go a marketplace and you know sec you
know select your geo market and leverages Intel for my used car
director as far as what cars to source and so that kind of started January
February I think his first book he bought like 10 you know the goal that I
try to have you know for each buyer is 30 minimum you know 30 to 40 plus is what
I like to see him buy well that kind of evolved you know as we got to summer you
know that one person was buying about 20 to 30 by himself and as we got to the
back part of the year we started to add more buyers you know once we've
perfected the model we have a model that we know works we added some
additional buyers some we have three at one point and then we lost one in
December but currently I have two buyers and they're buying about 60 combined
it's about 30 pieces what they're average so that's what half of your used
car sales each month right in that but we're selling about 200 used cars a
month oh you're 200 now okay yeah yeah yeah okay okay so how do you how do you
convey to them what you want purchased and what you don't want purchased like
how do you slow them down if they're out just buying everything or point them in
the right direction of what to buy yeah so we have a Google sheet that they
work off of with my used car director my used car director sits with them daily
they review offers that they made but really he kind of quarterbacks the play
you know stars what to seek you know what to go after but we also use analytics
you know we use you know previous sales data from you know from our DNS and our
CRM has go ahead who's your CRM DMS CRM is drive-centric or DMS is Reynolds
okay we use data from both of those tools to analyze potential downstream
impact you know when when making those acquisition decisions you know for
example we try to you know capture or purchase cars that have a high
probability of capturing a trade so we could continue that that sales cycle
forward as well as cars that have a history of turning fast so that's
really what you know what we focus on as fast turn not so much you know how much
gross we made per car we we you know predominantly focus on cars that have a
history of turning fast so we could you know emphasize velocity and then also
cars that have a you know high probability of capturing a trade so that's
that's what the source yeah so great comments from online I'm looking down
here right now Salim Khan says Wes is a great operator miss him at the Hendrick
store in Richmond how is he acquiring cars across the curb so you've answered
that question a little bit I didn't know you were a Hendrick prior I was we at
Ziggler have a great relationship with that group and actually spent this past
weekend Daytona they they run a car we run a car and you know we I think they
finished better than we did this past weekend but we were under the white flag
first place so it's pretty exciting but what what did you learn at a big
organization like Hendrick that has helped you in this current rule of
parks and then I want to go back into used cars because Hendrick is a class
act yeah it was a tremendous experience for me I was there for five and a half
years almost six years what did I learn I mean that was my second store I ran I
ran a small store in Pennsylvania for four years prior to joining the Hendrick
group and then you know obviously coming to parks but I think I learned I think
that's really where I learned how to be an operator what what what metrics are
the most important to look at daily you know as it relates to the impact it has
on the operation in downstream effect I learned a lot I learned how to be an
operator I think that's probably the best way to summarize that yoga cars come
in that comes in the comments as our buyers going out with a truck or do you
have people coming into the dealership to drop off cars you buy so I think
referencing the buy center are you are you going far afield are you driving to
them if need be or yes able to get most people to come in for the sale both so
this whole thing first started off local and I found that we were kind of tapped
out on our local market you know this is not a new initiative you know five or
six years ago nobody was doing this now we've kind of reached a point to where
you know private party acquisition is becoming a primary focus of most
dealers we've got car max in our local market as well as well as Carvana so you
know we were having a hard time initially getting past that 30 purchase per
month mark so about three or four months ago we started to expand that radius so
now there's really no limit I mean our main focus is in the southeast but we're
we're going out as far as we can where it makes sense so we do have a team of
logistics drivers that we deployed to go pick up cars yeah so and and another
comment from say guard over I says great story I'm interested to know and how
much digital tools are being leveraged to help boosting the sales on side on the
on the buy side are there digital tools that you're using with the buy center
that are helping to helping with acquisition yeah so we just signed up
auto hub I want to say three months ago we were using Accu trade which we had
great success with Accu trade especially you know in our desking process as it
relates to holding back on on trades but auto hub had a feature that was over
and above you know it does the same thing that Accu trade does so we we signed
up with them they have an AI tool that every customer pay RO that gets open
the customer automatically gets a text message with an offer oh very cool it's
an AI generated offer and it's pretty damn accurate yeah and you know the the
opt-ins are pretty good I mean we're I think we're picking up about 10 I think
last month we got 12 if I'm not mistaken okay first mark we also got 12 now
most of those are customers that have chosen to upgrade their car which is
still the same thing really that's a double win for us if you sell a car and
yeah but yeah we are so another thing that really stood out to me in last few
questions we go here was so coming outside of used cars and going into just
culture going into reputation so again you're at you're a you're a CDJR store
you're hustling to win in the used car marketplace you're having success you've
built this by center your rep.com score for reputation jump from 645 to 868 what
caused that big jump when you think about reputation and culture and customer
satisfaction what what caused that big jump that's a massive jump I think with
anything it starts with focus I mean that which you focus on improves right so
yeah you know that it's been a big focal point of mine since I've taken over the
operation was to improve that metric it wasn't really something that that was a
lot of attention was you know applied to recently you know prior yeah so we just
made it a priority we signed up the reputation comm tool and I think we
really operationalize speed and ownership you know everybody owns the
customer experience from management down to you know a quarter we also tied
reviews to all staff pay plans sales and service advisors so you know I'm not
afraid to compensate you know compensation is not something I'm afraid
of especially if it generates high performance and it helps the store
achieve its visions can you quantify the lift in that reputation score back to
greater sales greater CSI greater profitability like is there is there is
a way you're thinking about that in February 26th that helps generate more
more bottom profit sure I mean you know the the better your online score and
reputation is it has its own SEO value you know it enhances and it improves
your your organic position it helps boost you higher in the relevancy as
far as the search goes so yeah we we have certainly seen a lift in in that
regard and you know the downstream effect of that is more more customers you
know more opportunities which translates into more coordinates but I mean last
year alone is a testament I mean last year was the year that we made the most
significant lift in our reputation score and we had a tremendous year and our
volume increased by 70 or 80 cars per month so yeah I would have to track you
to correlate that back to that so you know I would highlight just just as we
wrap up here it's interesting you know you saw a challenge in the marketplace
you talked about a challenge in your Stellanus world and you've doubled down
on used cars and you've overcome that challenge with a strategy when you think
about the remainder of 2026 West what do you see as the next challenge hitting
your market hitting your OEM hitting your store that you're working to
overcome today February 26 for us it's fixed operations I mean we don't do a
bad job in fixed operations but you know we have improved our unison
operation the last two years you know as an operator I'm never gonna be
satisfied right I don't think any operator is ever truly satisfied no
ever so you know I'm always pushing for more and I you know I think that there's
a lot more out there especially in a market size like ours to bring more
customer paid traffic back in so you know last year our focus was to
establish stability consistency and you know alignment that was our theme last
year inside the store and this year you know that helped us to make pretty
tremendous improvements on the variable operation side now that that's rolling
and I've got an incredible leadership team in place that I could trust to kind
of keep that evolving even further I've you know I'm now deploying my my focus
back towards fixed operations so that's that's my main focus this year is is
honing on fixed ops and make it deliver the best it can well Wes we
absolutely Wes McClure we absolutely appreciate you being on the show today
and actually hang tight with us here we appreciate all your perspectives we're
gonna bring Tina back on and have just a little recap convos we wrap out today's
show Wes thanks for being on the show thank you and we'll see how they do this
Tina you came right back fantastic so we're still learning like this whole
transition piece so I just wanted I wanted to get you both on here at the
very end it strikes me you know Wes has overcome some of the manufacturer
challenges by going in on used cars Tina you're going in on AI and technology
stack and making a lot of tough changes February of 2026 the intersection of
both of what you're you two seem to be doing seems to be a little bit of AI and
Wes I'd love to ask with Tina here get her perspective as well how much AI are
you using in that off-street use car sourcing right now just just the auto
hub tool that's that's all we're using as far as yeah okay and Tina what what
what's your take about AI and using it use car acquisition or even use car
pricing you know as long as you have your confidence that you've picked the
right partner AI I've seen it do some incredible things I've seen AI we all
know that there's going to be hallucinations and issues from time to
time but generally speaking it's all about the partner that you pick when it
comes to any piece of AI and Wes it is interesting Tina talks about hallucinations
they've had to go back and train and retrain to get the engagement up one of
the questions I had interviewing Tina is in this 30-day cycle of automotive like
I want car sales today I don't want to have to go back and train is it seems
like you're you're more slowly adopting some of that AI tech is that part of the
reason Wes or what would you say is the reason for that the reason for just kind
of a slower acquisition a slower adoption timeline for AI than a group like the
Van Horn group as an example well I mean AI is a new technology it's new to the
world you know I'm not gonna claim to be an expert by any stretch when AI either
was my team so you know AI without question is the future and it's
something that I think all groups stores and operators need to fully embrace but
you know I don't think it makes sense for at least for us to go full-war with AI
across the entire landscape of the dealership until we can you know
conceptualize it out one phase at a time so we started with AI about a year ago
with our CRM drop-centric and that's really been a phenomenal job on the
sales side and now effective last month January we just deployed AI in service
so we're 30 days in on that we're already seeing a you know modest
improvement yeah so it's interesting Tina a Wes talked about his improved
rep reputation score Paul Salisman online said I'm wondering if Tina stores
seen customer sentiment score improvement since implementing AI in her
stores and across the group Tina yeah I mean we have had people shout out our AI
assistant in reviews yeah so that's how he's interesting that the magic of it is
alive enough that they know or they think rather that it is actually a human
that they're talking to I think the biggest thing there is just the fact
that we're helping customers with I'm looking at my stats here within 44
seconds was our average last year we're just there and we're there whether
we're open or we're closed to help meet the needs of those customers so
sentiment has improved I think from the fact that our response times are just
spectacular now with the assistance of AI in tandem with our human agents who
come in and bring it home yeah awesome well Wes McCuller dealership operator at
Lake Norman CDJR and Tina Tash innovation and technology specialist at
Van Horn Automotive Group a huge thanks to both of you for being on the show and
thanks for joining this end of show recap and roundtable so good to see you
both thank you thank you fun show today everybody and thanks for your online
engagement there are several questions we just didn't get to at the very end
Segar Dogra asked what are the matrices we used to track AI performance it's a
great question just a ton of engagement today on a line to our listening
audience thanks for watching Daily Deer Live where we break down the biggest
moves in the car business as they happen don't forget we are here every Monday
we're here every Wednesday which will be back Wednesday 1 p.m. Eastern and we're
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episode thanks for being here everybody
you
About this episode
Exploring the evolving landscape of used car sales, this episode features insights from Tina Tasche of Van Horn Automotive Group on leveraging AI to enhance customer engagement. With a focus on doubling engagement rates through tailored AI strategies, Tasche shares the importance of continuous training and optimization. The discussion also touches on industry news, including a federal bill aimed at combating catalytic converter theft and Toyota's upcoming all-electric Highlander. The episode provides a blend of practical advice and industry updates, making it a valuable listen for dealership professionals.
Original notes
Today's show features:
- Wesley McCullar, Dealership Operator of Lake Norman CDJR
- Tina Tasche, Innovation and Technology Specialist at Van Horn Automotive Group
This episode is brought to you by:
Stream Companies – How much revenue is slipping through the cracks at your dealership? Stream Companies’ Missed Opportunities Report analyzes your strategy and highlights where you can drive more sales, faster. Request your free report today at https://www.streamcompanies.com/MissedOpportunitiesReport/
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