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Ondar Tarlow: Activate More Car Buyers with VIP Events | Car Sales | Ep. 676

The Dealer Playbook Sep 04, 2025 44 min

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About this episode

Ondar Tarlow, a seasoned marketing strategist, shares insights on how automotive dealers can enhance customer engagement through unique VIP events. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the target audience and creating memorable, story-driven experiences that stand out from traditional events. Tarlow discusses the integration of luxury brands and activities, such as racing or exclusive experiences, to attract high-net-worth individuals. He also highlights the significance of data-driven marketing and the role of AI in optimizing campaigns, while advocating for meaningful community engagement through philanthropy.

Topics: event marketing audience engagement luxury branding data-driven strategies AI in marketing community philanthropy customer experience storytelling collaborative events

In this episode my guest is Ondar Tarlow, a marketing strategist with more than 20 years of experience working with brands like Fastlane Drive, Pacific Premier Bank, and the LA Chargers. He’s built a career on creating events and campaigns that actually move people—sometimes literally into showrooms.

We dig into the big question dealers wrestle with all the time: what actually makes an event memorable? Ondar breaks down why so many VIP activations fall flat, and what it takes to craft experiences that stand out in a world where everyone is competing for the same high-value customers.

You’ll hear insights on:

Knowing your audience beyond the surface level
Why cocktail tables and champagne won’t cut it anymore
How partnerships with other brands can elevate your dealership events
Lessons automotive retail can borrow from Formula One and pro sports
Where AI fits into the future of marketing without losing the human connection

If you’ve ever wondered how to make your dealership events more than just “another invite,” this conversation will get you thinking differently about experiences, community, and what customers really value.

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So for the dealers listening in, what's a place that they can start?

After they have an understanding of their audience, then what does it look like to make

sure that an event they put on does not fall flat?

So I come from the marketing world, and of course, marketing and sales being deeply

connected. So the first thing you need to know is...

One of the things that I enjoy most about producing the dealer playbook is

hearing from you the messages that I get of people who are getting so much

value out of the podcast, applying it to their day-to-day workflows, and finding

a thriving career right here in the retail auto industry. It means the world to me.

And you know, one of the ways that we make doing this possible is through my

agency, Flex Dealer. And of course, in the spirit of providing value,

I think this is a perfect time to head over to www.flexdealer.com

to show even further support for you, my beloved DPB gang.

Right now, if you go to my website, flexdealer.com, you can get a full,

free PDF of my number one best-selling book, Don't Wait Dominate.

And the reason I think it's so special is that a lot of the topics that are

discussed in this book are even more relevant today than ever with this

surge in popularized AI and people wondering, well, what can I do next?

How can I have a competitive advantage? Well, that's all here in this book.

And so I'd love to be able to offer you a free copy of this.

If you go to flexdealer.com, it would mean the world to me because that is how we

continue to produce this show for you.

Ondar Tarlo is a marketing strategist with more than 20 years experience

leading award-winning campaigns.

When he was the CMO at Connect to Federal Credit Union and Pacific

Premier Bank, his data-driven and creative storytelling delivered over 1.7

billion in product volume and tens of thousands of new customers.

He's worked with brands like Fastlane Drive, producing sponsorship

activations for the LA Chargers, the Galaxy, Anaheim Ducks,

Hanna Center and Beach Life Festival, which I mean, ever heard of any one

of these brands people? Of course you have.

Known for leveraging AI to increase campaign performance five-fold,

he's passionate about turning events into high-impact, story-driven experiences.

The DPB gang knows a bio that invigorates me to ask questions and learn more

is exactly what just happened.

Ondar, I got to ask you this right out of the gates,

especially in the context of automotive dealers.

They love the idea of community activation.

They love the idea of bringing more people into the dealership,

getting more foot traffic.

Some of them have tried cocktail parties and quote-unquote VIP events.

This idea of a VIP activation I think really stimulates a lot of desire

in the dealer community, but I'm curious from your perspective,

from all the events you've worked on, what makes them underwhelming?

What makes them great to be at?

And can you share an example of maybe to start a poorly conceived event

that missed the mark?

Absolutely, and this is a great question and I'm happy to be here today with you.

What's interesting is you have dealers, of course,

who are dealing in luxury and super luxury automobiles,

exotic cars, hypercars, which I'm all very familiar with.

And when you say VIP, I believe that VIP means different things

to different people at different levels.

And so the first thing you need to know is who is your audience?

And that's key.

So I come from the marketing world and, of course, marketing and sales

being deeply connected.

The first thing is who is your audience?

You have to make sure that you have segmented your audience.

You know exactly who you're going after.

What is the demographic?

What is the household income?

What is the area or areas from the geographic standpoint that you're going after?

What is it that you're looking for in terms of the cars

that they're looking to purchase and from there really identifying

something that is going to be unique to that segment, unique to that demographic?

Because you have to remember, of course, there's a lot of competitors

out there, dealers, et cetera, manufacturers.

They're all vying for this small population.

And so you have to differentiate yourself.

And so if you're kind of leaning on kind of the same traditional things

that you've done in the past, well, you may be a little disappointed with the results.

And so you have to focus on how to differentiate to come up with something

that's actually unique, that's different.

So if you're Stan, if you're starting, a point is, hey, we're bringing

in cocktail tables and we're bringing in champagne.

And this is really great because we have the cars on display.

Sometimes that can be a little flat.

And I have seen that I've experienced that many times.

Folks who are, you're looking to contact and that you're looking to grow your

network with and you're looking to sell vehicles with now and as well as into the future.

Have to be wowed.

Today, everyone again is vying for that same, that same population.

So you have to rise above the fold in terms of what you're doing.

And what I've seen most often in the marketplace is kind of the same thing.

You receive an email, looks good.

You're invited to do a test drive.

You're invited to go to a cocktail party and it's the same old thing again and again and again.

The way that you really stand out is to figure out what your audience is interested in.

Are they also an audience and is there a nearby body of water as an example

where you could do something with respect to a yacht?

So you're incorporating something that is at the level or perhaps even a higher

level than your demographics so that they're looking at this as something that

they're interested in doing and it's an activity as opposed to standing

around a cocktail table and having the same basic conversations that they're going

to do again and again and again.

Right.

Most people will get bored by that very quickly and they're going to turn off

to your dealership, they're going to turn off to your brand.

Oftentimes you'll look at associations and marketing.

If they're interested in a luxury or a high performance supercar,

a hypercar type of vehicle, they're probably interested in other things where

that you can integrate other brands.

Watches are a natural fit.

Anything to do with types racing, of course, like F1 as an example or Indy car

that you could integrate into your event or maybe you're having an event at

one of those locations in a suite at a booth or perhaps you're bringing a

vehicle, a driver or a combination thereof to your event to really spice

things up.

Now, of course, I'm talking about various things at different budget levels,

but when you're focusing on this audience, you know that you're going to

have to spend money to make money and that's key.

This is, there's a lot to unpack here.

I'm looking at my notes right out of the gates.

I mean, the poke, the poke in the eyes for me is, do you even know

your audience?

And it sounds so crazy because I think to your point, you brought up

the manufacturers earlier, they do a lot of that heavy lifting for us.

They're doing the market research.

They're, you know, figuring out what vehicles they should be building

and who those vehicles are for.

They're spending gazillions of dollars.

Don't fact check the number on marketing budgets and things that nature.

But then I think when it delineates to the dealer body, some of that

gets lost in translation and to your point and to the question, right?

Why do these fall flat?

I love how you, you bring it back to a foundational piece.

Who's your audience?

Who's your market?

Who are you trying to activate?

Um, you brought up different budgets and I'm curious about this

because it sounds like this is something, whether you're super

lux or a luxury brand.

And by the way, love the watch reference because I, I'm not going

to say I'm collector status yet, but I'm definitely a dial guy.

My wife sometimes will come into our bedroom on darts.

She'll be like, what are you watching on your iPad?

And I'll turn it around and that some guy assembling the watch.

I've been there too.

So it could be worse.

It could be worse.

Um, but this sounds like, I mean, gosh, if you're a Jeep dealer to

have some sort of off-road fun, you know, activity, and I love

that you use the word activity.

So for the dealers listening in, what's a place that they can start?

Where do they need to be paid after they have an understanding of their

audience, then what does it look like to make sure that, that an

event they put on does not fall flat?

Well, I think you said it.

So first budget, what is it that you have available as far as your

budget is concerned?

How many, how many potential customers or existing customers are

you looking to entertain?

And then from there, you've got to do research and really identify

the types of events or activities that are available and that you can

connect with other companies to support and help you, or are you

creating something completely bespoke?

One area to look at, we mentioned watches, watches as well as

beverage brands to think about the brands that kind of revolve around

automotive and then figure out if you can also align with those other

brands to help support you in your needs, which also is a way to

offset your budget so that's not completely set up to be supported

by your individual dealership or dealership network.

Because those other brands, this is the same audience.

We talked about watches or whether it is boating or whether it is hospitality.

You know, there's kind of the basic tenants.

If you think about this type of lifestyle as far as cars are

concerned and we'll get to the Jeep reference as well, but it makes

sense is what are, what are, what are activities that this

audience is interested in?

And so they interested in travel are interested in adventure travel.

And can you set something up so that you're taking that

event and that activation to the next level?

So we mentioned racing.

We mentioned watches.

We mentioned hospitality, luxury vacations.

All of those things match up very, very well.

So in my time as I've been a member and also working to support

Fastlane Drive as far as brand partnerships are concerned, Fastlane

Drive is a 2000 member exclusive network across the world, 23 chapters,

one in Monaco, one in Paris, Tokyo and 20 in the US.

The reason that I bring that up is our audience is this luxury

super lux hypercar style audience.

And what fits well for them is exactly that it is experiences

that are something that they cannot attain in their daily life.

Because when we talk about competitors, it's not only the

automotive brands that you're competing with, but you're also

competing with other luxury brands that are also buying for the

same audience as time.

It is a small population that has the wherewithal and the funds

to be able to purchase these types of vehicles.

And so therefore you have a lot of brands buying for that same

timeframe and same, same mind space.

I love that.

It's not that and tell me if I'm understanding this correctly.

It's not that they can't attain these things because they're in that

audience. It's that they can't attain it in their daily life.

It's it's outside the norm.

It's outside the routine.

It's there's a measure of novelty to this experience.

That's exactly right because it's about access as well.

So oftentimes if you are a high net worth or ultra high

net worth individual, you have access, but you don't

necessarily have the same type of access that can be

achieved through dealer, dealer network, as well as collaborating

with other brands, as I mentioned, kind of the F1 reference.

If you're bringing in someone from an F1 team, which would

really be at a top level, you know, oftentimes an individual

to have that access is going to be difficult for them

unless it revolves around a race.

Or are you bringing in folks from the manufacturer?

Those that are very interested in the automotive lifestyle

find it fascinating to speak with engineers,

to speak with designers face to face.

That is something that is amiss in most events

that I attend as far as automotive is it's really left up

to the dealer and the sales team, which have the best

intentions, which is great.

But at the same time, if they can call upon the engineers,

the designers and others that can speak to the to the

vehicle and how it was developed and how it was designed

with authority and interest and charisma, then you're

getting to that next level where again, the average, you

know, high net worth, ultra high net worth of digital still

does not have access to those folks.

And that can be something that can raise the game.

Because if you're bringing in a, let's say you're an

Aston Martin dealer and you're bringing in a designer

from Aston Martin or an engineer or part of that core

team, that's going to be of high interest to many of

those that might be attending your event.

And then you can use it to market because let's go

back to the to the foundation that we talked about a

second ago, you have to think about how are you marketing

this, you might be marketing in your dealership, you might

be marketing of the direct mail, you might be marketing

it through email and you might be marketing it through

social media, as long as you can target that audience.

But then what is going to bring that audience to

you, beautiful cars, possibly, but it's also people

and stories because automotive, the automotive world

is sold on storytelling.

And so you have to remember that as part of your

marketing as well.

So bringing that audience in, serving them well so that

when they see your brand, no matter where they see it,

they're thinking about the experience that they had

that was truly unique.

I think it's interesting in preparation for our

conversation.

It heightened my awareness of just how much the

associations are in play in day to day life.

For example, my wife works at an all women's gym.

She's a fitness trainer there.

But the owner of the gym also raises and trains horses.

So horse racing horses.

And so of course now I'm paying attention to horse racing

and I don't want to alienate this part of my

audience, but I don't get it yet.

But what I noticed is because I'm a watch guy, I

immediately noticed my favorite watch brand, which

is associated with horse racing, which is long

jeans, and I just love their watch.

They're not the most expensive.

They're not the cheapest.

They're they're kind of they're in they're in

Michael territory.

Let's hit they're in Michael territory.

And I love the way they look.

And so I'm like, oh my gosh.

And you know, it's interesting what happened

immediately.

I was like, do I like horse racing now?

Like, isn't it's a thing because I already liked

the thing I was familiar with.

And then I'm thinking about this, you know, there

are some dealers who do fork out a lot of money

to have maybe a celebrity affiliation.

Maybe it's the local sports team affiliation

or something like that.

But then to your point, I was like, you know,

if that's going to cost me like a hundred grand,

how cool would it be to put on an event instead of

having spending a hundred grand on a celebrity

to say 14 words, to like dial in, no pun intended,

to the watch crew and be like, hey, at our event,

we are giving away Longin, like our guests

at this thing will have will get a Longin

watch as a parting gift.

Yes, it's a hundred grand, but I get something to

I don't know, you got my brain moving here.

Yeah, no, it's a great point, because again, it's that offer.

Some you may have some folks that, you know,

when they show up to the dealership in the event,

you know, they think, great, I'm ready to buy a car,

but usually it's not all of them.

So there's got to be some connection point after that.

Having some type of tangible and interesting offer

to the audience is great.

It's also a great way to be able to collect

additional data, right, utilizing all the rules

and regulations and transparency so that you can

continue that conversation with them.

You know, you may have their email address

or their mailing address only, and that's how you

contacted them to invite them to the event.

But if they give you permission to be able

to utilize their mobile number or other

information that you can gather, you know,

which is kind of fairly standard when you're

doing offers, then that gives you additional

data that you can use to market to them

types of watches they like, as an example.

And so going back also to the experience

aspect is to your point with watches is, you

bring in, you and collaborate with the

with the watch company or specific boutique

that has multiple watch brands and they're

bringing in, you know, a master watchmaker,

which is going to help their business.

And obviously it's going to be interesting

and intriguing to your guests as well as your customers.

This is, I love this.

I love it because especially in such a

tech focused world where it's like, run Facebook ads,

run Google ads, this sort of a thing.

You can cut through the noise and be the one

dealership who stands out predicated on doing

something that that is out of the norm.

And I think this day and age from a human

connection perspective, people want something to do.

To your point about the experience, rich people,

poor people, middle class, but it doesn't

matter what your demographic is.

We all want something to do and we want

to connect with real human beings.

And I want to ask you this on that kind of sentiment

because you've brought up, I've heard you bring

up some unconventional venues on a yacht or, you

know, some sort of an experience or activity

that would really stand out for that target

audience where dealers sadly still are

challenged with this public perception of, you

know, gimmicks and, you know, those sorts of

things. What would you say to those that are

considering doing something like this so that it's

met with the right intention from their audience?

Well, again, it starts with knowing your audience

and being able to communicate and appeal to

them on a level that's of interest to them.

Right. So it has to be a match.

It has to be a match between the automotive

brand or brands that you're representing and

then the audience that you're looking to gather,

whether, again, that's existing customers and

you're looking potentially for additional sales

or retention or whether you're looking to bring

in new customers. The buzzword, of course,

is authentic. So it has to be something that

aligns with their interests.

If it aligns with their interests, they're

not going to see it as a gimmick. They're

going to see it as, wow, this automotive

dealership knows me and they know me

enough to invite me to something that I

have an interest in. That's a key piece

because people are often proud of the

vehicles that they drive and so they

want things to be able to support that,

you know, themselves being proud and

themselves looking at the brand as

really part of that because oftentimes,

especially in your higher end vehicles,

that persona that you have, the car

that you have, sometimes blends

together to a certain degree. If you

have a sports car or you have a

hypercar, you're obviously typically

interested not only in more of a

collectible style automobile, but then

you're also maybe interested in racing

and other things that go along with it.

So being able to reinforce why they

selected your brand or brands to begin

with is something that people find

important and they find interesting

and they will activate with you.

Hey, does your marketing agency suck?

Listen, before we hop back into this

episode, I know you know me as the host

of the Dealer Playbook, but did you

also know that I'm the CEO of Flex

Dealer, an agency that's helping

dealers capture better quality leads

from local SEO and hypertargeted ads

that convert. So if you want to sell

more cars and finally have a partner

that's in it with you that doesn't

suck, visit FlexDealer.com.

Let's hop back into this episode.

I don't think that we've, and this

is kind of ironic, a car dealer

podcast, cars, racing.

I've never talked so much about or said

the word racing as much as I

have on this episode.

And I want to ask you about that.

It's poignantly placed.

You brought up F1.

You brought up IndyCar earlier.

You've said that sports

sponsorships can galvanize new

markets. And so I'm curious

what some of the takeaways, let's

say from Formula One and pro sports

activations translate directly

to a showroom when crafting

a luxury client experience.

Yeah, absolutely.

So it's it's about the imagery

and it's about the experience.

So if you're looking to align

the two, you have to look at what

are you bringing into the

dealership or the dealership

experience again digitally as well

as physically to be able

to, you know, evoke

that type of emotion.

Or as we've talked about

experiences bringing, let's say

your top clientele to the track

or potentially even having a track

day, which I do see some dealers

doing, which I think is a great

idea and works really well.

Because again, it's an activity

you're getting people out into

the mix and they're doing

something again, they can't

typically do each day and is

very exciting for them.

And to a degree, that kind of

runs itself.

One one piece you have to

obviously keep in mind of whether

or not it is professional sports

or F1 as part of professional

sports is, you know, there's

obviously budgets to that as well.

So if you're expending dollars,

you want dollars back.

So the data capture piece and the

follow up is key.

And that's also where I see a lot

of automotive manufacturers, as

well as dealerships fall down

is that follow up.

The follow up is key because

you know as a dealership

that oftentimes that sales

cycle can be very long.

So what are you doing

on a consistent basis to

communicate with that

audience about something that

they're interested in, not

just sales, not just your latest

lease deals, but different

different types of experiences,

different types of subject matter

that they're interested in, you

know, that you're branding as

part of your email or as

part of your website or as part

of direct mail or as part of

any other marketing medium that

you're doing is important to

zero in on.

You talk about plan.

Tell me if I got this quote

right, plan, plan, plan,

then data, data, data.

Yeah, that's from a previous

show, but you're you're spot on

there. So if you don't have

a plan, things are typically

not going to end up really well.

So you've got to literally

create a marketing plan

and you also have to allow

for the budget towards

the things that you believe

will work really well based on

the research and based on the

data that you have and based

on working either with the

manufacturer or other dealerships.

But then also you need to have

a test budget.

And so that plan

needs to incorporate both those

that are kind of strongholds in

terms of being able to bring in

business and retention

and those that you need to test

with. And so that

plan as well as that testing

are key testing

in nowadays is easier

than it used to be in the past.

But with additional data comes

additional complexities.

So the first thing is you have

to make sure that you're

trusting your data

so that when you're planning

and how you're going to utilize

that data to market and then

follow up and then obviously

go down the entire funnel.

It's very clear exactly

what you're looking for as far

as success metrics are

concerned.

And then as you're testing

what's working what's not

what's working perhaps you

double down on that as far as a

budget is concerned and perhaps

you back off from what's not

working. You look at it

revisit it figure out what

you need to tweak and then

test again.

This is this

is quite frankly it's all it

is marketing.

That is the sales piece within

marketing is all part of it.

But you've got to start off with

those basics.

I love that it's it's like you

plan but also

acknowledging this thing that I

don't think a lot of people

who do marketing are comfortable

with which is.

Account for failing in some degree

like what is the experiment if

not identifying the

failure point and then trying

again.

And so I love that you're

you're approaching it from that

angle because it's like we can

plan and plan

and plan and plan

and look at the data but we do

have to pass through this testing

phase to really know how it's

going to land and then the data

that comes out of that gives

us so much more

insight to to work with.

And like you said I love that

you touch on this because I

mean gosh we're this is the

automotive industry

so that there's a positive ROI

on the backside of this like

nobody's

wants to really engage in

anything now just to test or

just to perpetuate

brand if they can't

track ROI.

So I'm curious if you're to

when you're looking at all of

this data what are some of the

key indicators you're looking

forward to to understand

yes this worked.

I mean aside from money because

that's the easy thing.

Oh look we met but like what are

what are some milestone markers

I guess along the way to know

yes this test is going to bear

fruit.

Sure. And you know these are

the things that top brands who

are successful do all the time

but if you're a smaller brand of

your individual dealership or

you're a group of dealerships you

can do this you can do this same

thing and it starts off

with it's a pre-mortem.

So you have to identify

what are the reasons that this

campaign that this activity

that this experience that this

event could fail.

That's important not a post-mortem

sure we can do that and figure

it out but let's do a pre-mortem

and identify all the reasons

that something could go wrong

which simply there's a lot.

If you're identifying them and

then figure out how you how you're

able to identify and figure

out how to make sure that that

doesn't happen as best as

possible you're going to probably

eliminate a lot of those

chances.

So as opposed to kind of a hope

and pray mentality really is

your planning you're planning

it into the additional

point you know that you made

is one a simple example

is email marketing.

So with email marketing there's

some key pieces that you need

to look at. So first off you

need to make sure that you have

clean data and you have to make

sure that all the email

addresses that you have are

delivering.

There are some relatively

inexpensive tools that you can

use in order to identify

is your email list clean or

is it a bunch of junk because

if you've got 100,000 emails

and 90,000 of them are not

going through because they're

old outdated or whatever

the case the value of that

list is dramatically less.

So you have to look at we talked

about data, data, data you have

to look at that email address

that list of email addresses

figure out what are actually

clean email addresses.

Once you have that list there's

your audience.

So let's say that you have a

thousand email addresses.

And once you send out that

first email

what is happening with that

email what is the actual

open rate you need to be able

to track open rate.

I've seen this not too long

ago in various businesses

where they're having trouble

even tracking the open rate,

which is just inexcusable in

today's world with today's

technology.

That was maybe something 25

years ago.

You have to be able to track

open rate and you also have

to be able to track click to

open rate. These are the

basics.

So how many opened

and then how many clicked to

perform an action and if you

don't have a click option

within your email you're

missing out on a ton because

that's your first conversion

action all the way through

the funnel with in this

case the email funnel.

So open rate, click to open

rate and then what actually

happened after they clicked

did they land on a landing page.

Can you track that landing page?

Did they complete a form?

Can you track the completion of

that form to the thank you

page? And then from there is

that information ingested in

some type of CRM at

your dealership to be able

to then track it to an actual

sale.

So those are the basics

I would say as far as data is

concerned but you see misses

along the way in various

companies and dealerships and

this is what you cannot have

happened.

You have to have folks who

understand marketing.

You have to have folks who are

comfortable with data need

to have the right people in

the right seats.

Speaking of people.

We're in an AI

crazed bubble right now

and I want to talk to you a

little bit about this.

How are you seeing

this impacting

the the ecosystem of what we're

talking about now and where do

you see it going in the future

as as the popularization

of AI continues.

Sure.

So let's talk about

generative AI to begin with

and oftentimes that is used

for content development content

ideation as well as design.

So first off if you've got

a marketing team even it's a

small marketing team you need

to identify what do you what

do you mean by AI and

then how can it fit into the

workflow that you already have

to not replace but

assist the team that you have to

be able to do more be able to do

more accurately and be able to

do more quickly so they have

the efficiency game fitting it

into the workflow they have now

or adjusting the workflow so

that it makes more sense in the

AI world and then with Gen AI

utilizing tools and being able

to test those tools so that

you can come up with content

content that's unique that

you check that you fact check

it's not a copy and paste

situation you will make some

very very dire errors if

you're doing copy and paste as

far as generative AI is

concerned whether utilizing a

paid version of chat GPT or

Claude or other tools.

These tools are very handy

but you have to use them in

the right way.

If you're looking one way to

do that is ideation

ideation as far as campaign

ideas but you have to give

and you have to feed the AI

engine a ton of information.

If you're just simply looking

for ideas that you can copy

and paste well likely you're

going to have some other

beginners on that level doing

the same thing and you're

going to come out with stuff

that's very very cookie

cutter.

I cannot emphasize that enough

that it's AI has moved so

quickly especially the Gen

AI side on content the

written word if you will as

part of that content that

people will spot content

and be able to identify if

it is generated by

specific chatbots.

So it's critical that

if you're using it you're

using it in the right way and

you're using it in your fact

checking and you're making sure

that it is not copy and paste

and you're coming up with

original ideas that can be

enhanced as well as research

by AI and when you're doing

research as far as AI is

concerned and you're doing a

prompt because really it's

all about prompts as far as

Gen AI is concerned one of

those prompts should be

providing you with the sources

of the information that the

prompt is getting is

gathering and so that AI is

providing back to you the

sources you're asking for

credible sources and you're

not only asking for sources

but you're asking for linked

sources.

Many of us including myself

when you're doing research

or content ideation and you're

asking for those sources

legitimate sources etc.

Fine that when you receive

links sometimes they don't go

anywhere or sometimes you end

up with information that is

completely incorrect and those

are what's called an AI

hallucination and this may

not be new for some of your

audience and for some of your

audience it may be new but

it's not just as simple as

saying hey chat GPT I want to

make reservations at a great

Italian restaurant this is

much deeper this is a way

where you can actually use

you can utilize AI to help

be a research assistant help

be a be an idea

sounding board as well

and so doing the homework

on AI taking courses

online as far as generative

AI will help tremendously

what we use AI in the past

is being able to take a look

and be able to create models

so propensity models in terms

of how how likely

is person a versus person

be going to purchase

whatever it is whether it is

financial services and a loan

or whether it is an automobile

and I believe there are

resources now available in

the automotive industry to do

just that but when you're

talking to various providers

one thing to always keep

in mind is there's a lot of

what I call paperware right

there's a lot of promises

made that cannot necessarily

be fulfilled so you got to

take everything with a grain

assault but first and foremost

is to understand the technology

I wrote down

paperware in all caps

because I love

I love that I didn't indent

that word but I used it

anytime I love it and

and I mean this is so good

I mean some of the notes right

that I'm thinking about as

or writing as you're as you're

sharing your wisdom with us is

most people are probably

not understanding how much

information you actually have to

feed into a prompt to get

a better response back

and and it's actually quite

tremendous it's if you don't

know how to write you better

start learning because you're

going to have to lengthen and

deepen the the prompt that

you're giving AI so I think

that's a huge call out and I

love you know bringing up the

where you do get a link and it's

a broken link that goes to

nothing but but

what worries me about

it is how many people in a

professional setting especially

are maybe planning on putting

something on utilizing it

for idea creation

or you know a first

draft of something and they're

asking for sources but they're

not checking the work

that's a killer for sure

I mean it starts off with

understanding what you what exactly

you're using and if you're not

understanding it and then I would

not use it

with GPT though because it

single-handedly destroyed the

m-dash from my writing

arsenal and I love

the m-dash

yes professional

writers right often utilize the

m-dash but which had GPT

over uses it

tremendously over uses it

okay I've got one one final question

for you

you've

brought up or we talked a little bit

about fast lane drive and the

expanse of that community

they have something

correct me if I'm wrong the J

a fast lane to success

kind of a philanthropic

purpose to the

the community and I know a lot

of dealers we could go to any of

our investments are investing deeply in communities

but when when we talk

to them it's kind of like yeah we

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