Rasmey on Monitoring KPIs, Daury on Vehicle Presentation, Rose on Photography | Daily Dealer Live

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

I'm your host, C.M. Dark, and thanks for choosing to be here with us this Monday, April the 13th.

Tariffs, margin compression of buyers who are making their decision before they ever set foot on

your lot. Well, today we've got Jeffrey Ramsey coming back, CMO of Orzman Cars, on running 18

rooftops when half your brand portfolio just got more expensive overnight. Jason Dowry from

CarCutter on why your VDP is your new showroom floor and what bad photos are actually costing you

inventory. And Jacob Rose from Titus Will, the guy who built a photo department from scratch and

turned it into a competitive weapon. All this and more coming up on today's Daily Dealer. Plus,

I have a sneak peek into tomorrow's podcast drop. Car dealership guy, Yossi, sat down with three

dealers in a new podcast format called Dealer War Room, joining Yossi and Florida where Todd

Blue, Andy Wright and Matt Bowers. And I got to bring you a clip from that show that, again,

drops tomorrow. Matt Bowers said something that hit me.

Stores that during COVID would have made two and a half million dollars a year

easily would have traded for 12 million in a week. Now are not profitable at all.

One thing I am seeing, you had a couple of brands struggle a little bit, which created

opportunities for buyers here and there. Now what I'm seeing, I'm seeing more brands for

action. Nobody's talking about it, though. People feel perfectly comfortable talking about

the two that everybody talks about all the time. They're really not in that much of a different

vote in terms of dealer profitability than many others out there. They just don't get

hated on as much. So he didn't want to say the name Nissan Stellanus. I'll say it for him,

but I found that clip fascinating. I'm excited to see the rest of the episode because are we

starting to see such a competitive marketplace out there that some of the other brands that

haven't been pulled into this hyper competitive marketplace are starting to come under a little

bit of strain. He mentioned Ford GM and some others. I see a lot of discipline in GM, right?

They're disciplined with their inventory production. They're not overproducing right now,

but how does that trickle to the dealer and ultimately to the net profit, which is the

ultimate goalpost for automotive? Super excited to see the podcast drop tomorrow again. You can

watch it, Matt Bowers, always candid with his assessments. Todd Blue, Andy Wright live with

Yossi in a recording they did in Florida just recently. So they'll hit a bunch of different

topics. I want to hear your thoughts though. What do you think about profitability in April of

2026 as it relates to all brands? Push your comments into the comment section. We'll bring

them into today's show. We're streaming live across all Cardiola ship guy social media platforms.

So that's where you can post them today. It's daily deal alive. And now let's break into today's

automotive industry headlines. And we've got some breaking news this morning. Purecars has

announced the acquisition of Auto Alert, combining two well-known names in automotive data and

marketing technology for context. Purecars brings advertising technology, customer data management

and agentic AI to the table, while Auto Alert is known for data mining, CRM and customer

lifestyle cycle engagement. With that, the combined platform is being positioned as a

unified data and activation engine for dealers and OEMs. The idea behind the deal, connect high

intent customer data with targeted digital advertising across every stage of the customer

journey with the goal of driving more leads and service appointments while reducing acquisition

costs. Curious to see how dealers who use one or both of these platforms experience the integration

and what they think about today's news. We'll get Jeff Ramsey's take from Orzman. We'll get

his take coming up shortly during our segment with him. All right, on to our next headline.

Quick update on the broker policy story we covered last week. Been a big topic on daily

deal alive since our last live read. Hyundai has joined Kia, Toyota and Nissan in issuing a memo.

Hyundai's note reminded dealers that its broker ban has actually been in place since at least 2021

and reinforced three things. Broker sales are prohibited outright. Any RDR filed on a broker

or wholesaler sale is ineligible for retailer fleet incentives and authorizing a broker to

operate on your behalf violates both the personal services requirement and the single location rule

in the dealer agreement. Four OEMs in the same week. That's a meaningful signal and dealers in

Northeast, especially where brokers are prevalent are taking notice. We're excited to bring this

topic to you and updates to it on daily dealer live. Next up, Mannheim's used vehicle value

index came in at 215.3 for March. Get this, that's up 6.2% year over year and it's the

highest level since the summer of 2023. Sales conversion hit 68.2%, nearly five points above

the three year March average, which Cox Automotive says is a clear demand signal.

Retail days supply fell below 40 in March. That's the tightest point of the year so far

and list prices on popular three year old vehicles are running about 2% above seasonal norms. In other

words, the used market is the relative bright spot right now, but firmer wholesale pricing

cuts both ways. Stronger demand is good, but acquisition costs are rising with it. Cox is

still projecting a softer second half, so discipline on sourcing and inventory mix,

that matters more as the year progresses. And also last week, Stellanus confirmed that the

Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk is coming back later this year as an ice trim powered by the 2.0

liter Hurricane 4 and the Quadra Drive 2 4x4. This falls the automaker scrapping its 4xE

plug-in hybrid models, which had left the trailhawk in limbo. The numbers behind the

decision are pretty telling. Gas-powered Charger outsold the electronic version 7-1,

7-1 in Q1. And Wagoneer S and Fiat 500 E sales plunged 93% and 85% respectively. Big picture,

Stellanus is leading into what's selling and the Trailhawk Revival gives Jeep dealers a proven

nameplate back on the lot. And finally up today, one deal to close on today that ties directly

into the broker story, Andrew Haberstadt of Haberstadt Auto Group purchased Huntington

Kia on Long Island in a deal that closed December 15th. It's the group's first Kia store,

now renamed Haberstadt Kia, joining four other Long Island locations. Haberstadt told us his

uncle owned the same dealership decades ago before returning it to the factory, so buying it back,

well, that carried some personal weight. He's also the same dealer who told us his head nearly

hit the ceiling when Kia's anti-broker memo landed on his phone at 6.30 in the morning,

safe to say he's bullish on where the brand is headed. And you can stay tuned on all CDG

Bicell activity by following the tracker at cdgbicell.com. We love our jingle. And that's our

app on today's auto industry headlines. So we got an action pack show coming up today. Let's dive

straight into it. We're going to talk a lot about digital leads, advertising, marketing,

photo photography. And we start with that. CMO Orzman Kars, repeat return guests on Daily

Deal Live. Jeff Ramsey, welcome back to the show. Hey, thanks for having me back.

It's good to have you back. Well, hey, it's been months since you were on last. Tell us who you

are, what you do, and how's biz in April of 26th? Jeff Ramsey, Chief Marketing Officer for Orzman

Kars, which is Robert Orzman's 18 dealerships. And we're here in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware,

growing group. And right now, you know, things in the market for us are great. We've had record

months, our gross profits up, net profits up, and overall volume. So to be here at Orzman,

it's pretty great. You know, we don't have a lot of bad news here. That's good. That's awesome. So

tell us there are two pieces of news that we led with today. I want to hit both talk to both talk

about both of them with you, the auto alert news and the headlines with pure cars. How does that

affect your world? What's your take on that? So it's kind of it's perfect timing for me. I mean,

we use pure cars as an advertiser for the group. And auto alert is something we're testing out.

And, you know, at the store, we were testing it. They've, they were already a strong store.

I mean, we're like two months in. But now that you know, the ball's rolling, people are bought in.

And it they had a top 60 national ranking last month. So I'm my I was already optimistic on the

product. And with I already know what pure cars can do and utilizing data, what data they have.

So I'm very excited to see this purchase. I've used and I've used pure cars data

mining tools prior to this. So in seeing this piece layered on, I think it strengthens them.

And really, you know, it's an opportunity where I'm probably going to add a few more stores

to the product. So have you had contact from either company talking about the the acquisition

that combining and what are your expectations on what that will give you in terms of like,

what will the product look like on the other side? Well, it's fresh. I've had I've talked to both

companies. And, you know, what I'm excited for is it not to be rushed, because we've seen where

products have been purchased. And the company that brings them on integrates the wrong way.

You know, it seems like it's never down the middle. It's like it's either it goes way south or it

improves based on, you know, feedback from both companies. I really do feel like they're handling

this the right way. They didn't buy a broken product, and they're trying to build on it.

They bought a great product. And I think they're going to manage it well. So right now, you know,

I kind of liked that it wasn't this entire overhaul or whatever. I mean, they're working

through it the right way to make sure the pieces complement each other. And the dealers, you know,

see the benefits of it. Yeah. So the other story we led with today is the broker story. It's a big

deal on the East Coast, not as much in other parts of the United States. In fact, I think there's

probably dealers in the Midwest that are like, what is this issue, right? But the issue of brokers

being able to sell cars directly to consumers around the dealer or with the basically as a middleman.

Four OEMs have come out in the last week and restated or stated their new position,

hardening that line, excluding brokers out of the picture. Does that change your world?

What's the impact to you? And is that something you welcome or question?

I welcome it. I mean, I knew what the dealer agreement was. It wasn't an issue for us. So

I'm trying to, you know, when I saw one than the other than the other, I was like,

you might as well see, you know, another 15 of these is every OEM says, hey, guys, this.

So for us, it's a non issue. But it's an interesting thing. We're out, you know,

I'm searching through the news, going, did I miss something? Because for this to come up,

I assume something happened. So for that topic doesn't affect us, but I understand it completely.

Well, I think what's happened is, is certain OEMs have put, pumped a lot more inventory into

the marketplace. It's put pressure on the market. Like dealers in an effort to hit stair step have

gotten more engaged with brokers. Some have and others have said, hey, we want to provide that

direct link to the consumer. So on this show, we've had a vigorous debate around which model stands

the test of time better. And it was a vigorous debate, but it's interesting to see the OEMs

standing on the side of the franchise dealer system and behind their dealers and saying,

look, if the customer is going to buy a new car, paying a new car payment, we want that to be

transacted primarily at the dealership. And sounds like you agree with that.

I mean, I do. I think the buying experience for the customer, these cars right now,

I mean, I used to think I was technologically advanced like beyond, you know, I'm in that top

0.01%. I understand all this. You put me in a vehicle, you know, that I have not driven before

with, you know, an updated tech, and I'm going to need someone to walk me through

a lot of the technology in there. You need to have that direct connection to the store.

The buying experience needs to be at that top tier, especially where the prices are.

You know, their expectation, I completely understand it.

Yeah. All right. So last time you were on, you were talking about where you were cost per sale

in 2024. You were down about $108 per unit cost per sale. Where do things stand, April of 2026,

for you? So really good. After, we had a phenomenal march. And, you know, we have,

it's a constant dance of getting the advertising line to where it needs to be.

And having leads continue to funnel in because you could, you know, you can become obsessed with

it. And all of a sudden you're spending $10 per car. It's not healthy. But verse, you know,

the same numbers we're talking about four, I'm down $175 per car. The group is, you know,

our conversions have gone up. And we saw our highest overall close rate ever last month.

Wow. So what was that? 15.7% across the group. And that's the number we, you know, we want the

number to be higher. But that's everything. You know, every customer that touches us. So we want

to get to where we're at 20% plus. But, you know, I think we had super confident buyers last month.

And that last quarter is the quarter of the month with the FTC updates. So, you know, it's all positive.

So you were down 108 bucks per unit cost per sale. Now 175. For those watching the show,

what are three tips a dealer could implement today to achieve similar results and reduce their spend

but increase their close rate in digital leads? Yeah. So you want to definitely on your advertising

spend the third part are with paid search, you want to work to a non percent charge with them

a management fee. You want to go to a flat fee, which is fair. You never want a conversation you

have with your advertising partner to be based on, you know, hey, spend more. Well, that's spend more

make more. Yeah, that's crazy. The other is constant observations of your third parties,

your inventory levels, the patches you have if they're working. You know, if you keep the same

patches throughout the year, you're definitely there's thousands of dollars, waste of tens of

thousands. And the third thing, I mean, it comes down to have the meetings with your vendors.

You know, this is all from a spend perspective. You don't know what products are out there.

You don't know where they can kind of adjust things to help save you a few bucks. But outside of

that, that's just managing your spend. Awareness on the KPIs with your group is everything.

So it's interesting. You say manage and change your packages with your digital leads providers

often. It's interesting. I mean, a lot of those meetings and when you do that, it's like you killed

somebody, right? Like, it's interesting to me how often some of those lead providers will play

the FOMO game. Hey, if you do this, if you pull back, if you change, if you shift your strategy,

you're going to miss out on things you otherwise would have had. I think a lot of dealers get

pulled into that idea. But you're saying don't be sucked into that, make an intentional decision,

and shift and test that. Is that your strategy? Well, and have database conversations. Don't

just say, hey, you guys are charging me too much. When you go into it, we don't have the same,

a lot of these third party factories are used inventory level based. And so I don't have the

same inventory in the kickoff of the years I do now. And so should I be paying the same? No,

I mean, that's where you have to, you have to know what's coming in, where your inventory levels

are and adjust as long as that make the conversation easy for them. I get it. There's paperwork

involved. And, you know, but it's worth it. You follow metrics, you track it. I asked you this

on the last show, I'm going to ask it to you again. Who are your top three digital lead providers

across the screen? Your, your, your stores in the Orzman group for now. Yeah, I got in April of

26, when you asked me. Did you? Yeah, I got a call. Yeah, I got a call. I was like, hey, thanks for

a number. I got a thanks for number one, but I'm happy to do it. You know, it's so ready. Everybody

wants to know what your top three digital lead providers are. And they are great with communication.

They're, they're phenomenal. One that I'm very optimistic on and continuing to grow is Capital

One offers a lot of, a lot of opportunity there. It's not the highest volume in leads, but it's

the highest close rate, which I'll take that. But really, I'll be honest with you. My feelings

on vendors right now, third parties, it's heavily based on how the, I had some, I don't want to say

demands, but you know, for the FTC updates, I need the third parties to work with me to update.

So let's talk about that. Let's, let's talk about that. So last month, 97 dealer groups across the

country received a letter from the FTC. We all know about it. We're going to actually have Senator

Bernie Moreno on the show Wednesday talking about it. And then there's another FTC webinar after

the one that was a false start last Monday. There's one, another one Friday. Something we've

talked a lot about on this show is digital lead providers play a role in helping the entire industry

get compliant with what appears to be some of the FTC guidelines. Talk to us a little bit about

what are you asking digital lead providers to do to help you in that effort? Well, I want, you know,

from the, I want the website to extend to the third party. And I had, I had a meeting with one

of the third parties just out of respect. I don't want to say which one, but they said, hey, the FTC

won't talk to us. They'll talk to, they'll, you know, they'll, as a dealer, you have more communication

with them. And I said, well, here's, here's what we need. And then they've, they've adjusted. But I

think they, you know, I worry sometimes because they're just listing the car, you know, they're

not selling the car. So their exposure is essentially non-existent. It's like the dealer chose to be

on there. But, but we've talked about it too. The digital lead providers, sometimes it's a race

to the bottom. It's, it's trying to see, you know, who ends up at the top of the list. And one component

that's been much discussed from the FTC that I think the entire industry needs clarity behind,

and I hope we get it Wednesday with Senator Moreno and Friday with the FTC is dock fee disclosure,

right? So I'm going to give props to one of the providers you mentioned, CarGurus. We reached out

to them and they very quickly responded back with a template where they listed it. And it seems

like they're sort of requiring most dealers to, to include that in their listings. Is that a part

of the solution, Jeff, is that every digital lead provider has a common template? Yeah. So that's

happening now. CarGurus, I think they're the Northeast. It was a state requirement up there.

So they already had this kind of rolled out in a section of the US as a template, but it wasn't

nationwide. No, it wasn't nationwide, but it was available. So when I voiced it to them, they said,

give us like two days, we'll flip it to you and you'll have the itemized dock fee,

which is that's what we need. Like that's, that's the non-negotiable it sounds like with the FTC,

which I get. We're not totally sure yet, but we think it is because to the issue state law has

different requirements. So there are some states that actually say you don't advertise with it.

So I think the industry is looking for some clarity there and lead providers will help

facilitate that technologically. They need flexibility. And that's a great point. So

state by state, it's going to be a little different, but they need flexibility to where

dealers can have a price out that they're confident in. Dealers spend a lot of money to be on these

sites. There's got to be an IT guy and there's companies that can make this shift. It's not

complicated. Cars.com made the adjustment with cars. We reached out to cars to props to cars.

They did a great job. Cars.com and dealer.com as well.

Dealer.com. Yep. I was, I think I was one of the first sites that had the itemized dock fee.

I owe my rep some money for therapy after that week, but the auto trader is putting in,

that launches I think today. I believe it's out now is where they have the dock fee.

Props to auto trader. So how long do you think Jeff does the entire industry have from a

timing perspective? This is something I intend to ask Senator Moreno on Wednesday, but then also

I hope comes up as a question to the FTC. What is the timeline when you think of all the technology

and all the programming that goes into this? How long will the industry get to bring these things

in line with these new guidelines? How soon does everyone have to like have the itemized portion?

Yes. I think we did it immediately. So for us, I think if you haven't done it, you're behind.

Yeah. You know, and I have, I've seen dealers that are still doing it the other way and we're not,

you know, we're always going to follow the law. We are too, by the way. I think what the industry

is looking for right now is complete clarity behind that. It would be, what would be really cool to

have at some point is, you know, in the world of if we could, if we did, could we, it'd be neat to

have like some sort of a submission thing to the FTC where you could say, Hey, here's the way these

different things look, approve it, and then just everybody moves on with templates. What I'm not

a huge fan of, and I'm getting a glut of this right now is all the vendors that are out there with

various solutions as helpful as they are. But if you'll pay 300 bucks a month or you'll pay 500

bucks a month with a two year commitment, which is insane to me, we'll, we'll tap your website once

a month or twice a month and make sure it works. If you want to see my blood pressure go up, talk

about these companies that take advantage of car dealers every single time something changes.

And that's where like it goes back to AI. It's like, Oh, AI is hot. And all of a sudden, everyone's

got an AI thing. You know, but when it comes to this, I've seen on LinkedIn, not stop. Yeah,

they're all all of a sudden, they're experts in the topic that no one is an expert in,

that there's been, you know, as this evolving clarity comes through with what the FTC is,

is wanting our interpretation of it, we've put out there. But, you know, with, with these companies

starting, it drives me nuts. You cannot, you can't pay for an in store culture. And that's

what this comes down to. You know, you can't have this protection. Because if you get in trouble

and you say, Hey, but I paid this company and they said we're good, you'll get left out. So,

yeah, I think steer clear that this is a in store is a group shift. So doc fees one item. Are there

any other items that you're thinking about that the industry needs to get serious about adjusting

in light of that FTC letter? Oh, so I think the if you look at advertised rebates, you know,

I'm still saying, you know, we're not to be very clear. We're not doing this at all. But when

you're, I think, totaling rebates that customers don't get that becomes a rough area, especially

and even totaling rebates that are not stackable. OEMs do it. Well, totally, they are, they are

advertising correct. That's where you have some, you know, we have some OEMs out there where the

rebate is so heavily based on the customer financing. You know, and I have some stores that,

you know, they're they're seeing their competition advertising that rebate, we're not doing it.

But we've got to be on the right side, the cost of not doing the right thing in 2026 is way

too significant reputationally. Otherwise, large groups have got to do the right thing. And we

need as many of our technology partners running towards it. So props to car gurus dealer dot com

cars dot com props to auto trader and others for running towards helping with this and and doing

it quickly because that was a shot over the bow, I think, yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I was in,

I was in Vegas at a Chevy dealer meeting sitting in my hotel room on my phone trying to get everything

updated. So it was, it was definitely, we heard it loud and clear. And, you know, we made the shifts.

Yeah. A few comments to you from the online chat here. Amy Edens Hughes says, great partner,

camp. Thank you. Thank you for the positive feedback, Jeff. Can't wait to watch your scores,

store score even higher. Is Amy with which side she with a pure car or

she's with she's with auto alert. Yeah, are very good auto alert yoga car says, Jeff,

since the last time you were on DDL, you mentioned you hadn't seen much good AI for sales yet. It's

been about five or six months. Has that changed? And what do you see now? Is there any good AI

yoga cars? Yeah, I would say auto alert is in that AI category. And they're, they're pretty solid. I

think from, you know, my feelings on, I think a lot of dealers expectations on AI right now has to do

with conversations with the customer. Like how do we, how do we solve this thing where my sales

staff doesn't follow up well. So now I'm going to pay 1000 bucks a month. And I don't think it

solves it. I think it's evolving. And you know, the data is not all in the same place to where it

is possible yet. So I'd say auto alerts are good ones. So auto alerts are good on pure cars,

a good one. Any other good technologies AI related that you're using at Orzman? There's

someone looking at, but nothing to where I'd like to say live on the air right now to where

next time hopefully they're tested and good, but I'm obviously optimistic.

CDP data lake. Have you guys done that yet? Not yet. Now we're looking at the CDP at CDPs. We've

tested it, you know, and trying to get our data all in one house to where, you know, we can grow

in the right way with AI. It's incredibly complicated in automotive. Paul Salisman comes

contracts. Can you expand on that? You know, I'm not sure what, you know, I think he might be

talking about I get frustrated because you have some of these AI or tech related companies that

are like, Hey, we're going to sign you up to a five year term. And it makes us as quickly as

things are evolving. I think it's on the company to evolve and out, out evolve AI. I would love

to hear the debate on the flip side. I am not a fan of terms. And I tell vendors when they come

into the group, look, table stakes for doing business with us, you know, there's a few where

you're kind of forced to DMS and others. But I'm not, you know, I'm going to stutter a lot here. I

don't even have the words. Go ahead. Sorry, my mind was so in FTC pricing where I was like term

based. You mean like finance contracts? No, vendor contracts. I do not do extended vendor

contracts. The I wish, you know, if I had a dollar for every time I was told, we've never done this

before where they go from yet to be a one year, two year commitment down to, you know, if it's

three months, that's fair. But typically not majority of our contracts are month to month.

If your product is good, you don't need to lock me up for a year. Right. That's right. And then

the incentive is for you to continue to evolve to become better. At the moment you've got all

these two year three year contracts, and you're just getting the revenue in, there's less incentive

to continue to evolve and innovate. And look, if we have to pay up any more, a little bit more,

I mean, it's all everything's competitive right now. Just the term thing just drives me insane.

So Paul Salisman comes in says yes, vendor contracts. And then Dan, he says large groups

have to do the right thing. Agreed. He says I agree 100% Sam. But he says even the smaller groups

or singles point stores need to operate above board to being very transparent. And listen,

here's my own take on this FTC thing. I think this is a blessing because I think this is a shot

over the bow of the industry. I think the entire industry is going to come together.

And what we need an automotive is everybody coming completely out into the light and doing

things fully transparent. And that's part of the idea behind the Cardiola ship guy. This podcast

social media in general is is is we bring all that out out into the open air. And you know,

this industry has it's a it's a major it's a it's an economic indicator of health of the US

economy. It's a major driver for people's incomes and livelihoods. And we deserve to be the very

best that we can. And I think this will end up pushing it. That said, I think more clarity

behind some of the components timelines and some other things are going to be very helpful too

in getting everybody to operate on the same page. Jeff, thoughts on that?

I, you know, I said the morning email out, you know, dirt Monday to Friday, and I keep coming

back to the same thing. And the leads that are coming in, these are converting at a higher rate

because the customer is more confident. Yeah, yeah, they're there. I think you're 100% right

as dealers. We all need to do the same thing. Yeah, on the right thing. So, you know, I'm,

I think it's a positive, you know, for us, you know, when we see the higher close rates,

you know, and lead traffic, you know, when you when you're coming in over the end, you know that

people calling people walking in, people submitting internet leads, that they're

more likely to buy and they're going to put up less of a fight. And it's more of a conversation

in purchasing a car. That's where we need to go to. And I think that's where this is going to

take us to. So to me, this is a positive. Yeah, well, Jeff Ramsey, CMO of Orzman Cars.

Thank you so much for joining Cardiola ship guy. By the way, Moreno's on Wednesday. Is there one

question you would have me ask him? And to our entire audience post it in the comments, I'd love

to have as many as we can get anything you'd love to hear from the sitting center that has

a lot of say as it comes to FTC. And I mean, he's a senator, right? So,

yeah, I'd say just in how are we evolving to open up the lines of communication, you know,

with the older ones, we can submit sites in and for approval and say, Hey, is this good? We're

trying to do the right thing. There's a lot of rules. Yeah. Can you just take a glance? Let us

know we're good. You know, are we getting to a point to where we can grow a complaint, you know,

the line of communication so dealers have confidence in their compliance? Because you have a dealer

doing the right thing being like, I hope it's the right thing. Yeah, let's get to where it's like,

yes, it is the right thing. I got the stamp, you know, I would hate, you know, that there's got to

be a way where you could somehow submit a form to your point, get feedback back, get it stamped.

Hey, we're good. And then and then you move on back to the business. So I agree with that 100%.

Jeff Ramsey, CMO Orzman Kars, thanks for being on the show. Thank you. We'll have you back. We'll

have you back at the very end, by the way. Can you hang out for the round table? We'll have you

back at the very end. All right. Very cool. All right. Thank you. All right. Let's talk stream

companies. Today's 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 streamcompanies.com slash D D M O R props to stream company for supporting today's content,

including that phenomenal conversation with Jeff Ramsey and his take on all the major news items

of the day. And also that cost per lead reduction. Give me a break. That's awesome. Three strategies

he gave us to helping to decrease your cost per lead. And he also coughed up his top three digital

lead providers. So unintentional props to car gurus and props to them as well for being great

partners on itemizing dock fee out and whatnot. So stream companies, thank you. All right. We are

going to dive straight into our next guest, Jason Dowry, vice president of sales at Car Cutter.

Jason, welcome to the show. Perfect. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. So hey,

for our audience that may not know you, tell us who you are and what you do out there. Absolutely.

So my name is Jason Dowry. As you said, I'm vice president of a, an imaging company that's called

Car Cutter that has a pretty significant presence in the US. And we really focus on helping dealers

get the right type of images on their websites as fast as possible. Yeah. So you talk about vehicle

merchandising and you talk about it as a process problem, not a photo problem. Say that again for

the dealer who thinks they've already solved this with whatever background tool they bought a couple

years ago. What are they actually missing in April of 2026? Yeah. I mean, a lot of dealers

think that this is a problem as you just said that you solve with a background.

But there's a pretty big thing that they're missing there is, is backgrounding is not,

is not the same thing as solving merchandising. I mean, if you really look at it, can a background

improve a photo? Yeah. I mean, it depends on what's going on. So the answer over there is

an overall yes. But when you're looking at the number of images and the number of vehicles

that these dealers are taking, it doesn't fix a big problem, which is speed. It doesn't really get

there on the consistency and it doesn't necessarily give them the control. It's just throwing a

background on there. And in some cases, depending on the story that that background is telling,

it can actually hurt the performance. I mean, we've all seen cars are floating all over the place

and there's logos in every direction. So the real question that we like to ask people that come to

us and say, look, we've already solved the background. We're not interested is, well,

how are you shooting the cars? Is there consistency? Are the OEM guidelines being followed? How fast

are your cars getting online? What's the experience across every single listing? Because if not,

every one of those answers is dialed in, well, you might have a background, but you also have a

broken process that's actually costing you a lot more. So best case scenario, April 2026,

what would you advocate for or recommend as the guidelines or the benchmark timelines in that

process? What is the ideal process in April 2026 automotive? The ideal process is one that you've

taken the control away from an individual photographer, and you've really brought in something

that scales, something that reduces the time it takes to capture them, but make sure that

every car has the same shots, the same angles, the same visuals, because what's really impactful is

you have to treat it like, it's not necessarily a car, but you have to treat it like everything else

in digital retail is. You're not scrolling through pages on Amazon or on retail websites

that show every piece of clothing or every sneaker taken at different angles with different

lightings and with no control. You're actually making people work a lot harder to understand

what your product is. So Coons, as an example, implemented the process that you're talking

about, and they say they saw a 52% jump in their click-through rates after doing a process similar

to this. What were they doing before and then what changed in the process? That's a really good

question because Coons is a great example for us because they didn't actually look at this as solving

a photo quality problem. They looked at this with a number of rooftops they have as they wanted to

get 100% consistency across their entire inventory so that every web page looked the same. So that

story for the buyer was a really fluid story. So what they were doing before, there were variations

everywhere. So some dealers had lots of service providers, others had professional photographers,

some people had porters taking the pictures so like your angles, your backgrounds, your guidelines,

the time to capture, the time to getting online, they were really having huge shifts and it depended

on the person and almost the day. And what they really looked at is the friction that created.

So what changed for them is they said, okay, we're going to assign a process and that process is

going to be applied in the exact same way every single time. And what's really interesting about

that is it matters more than you think because as I was just saying, when people are shopping online,

you scan super quickly, you compare instantly and confidence builds really fast if you're seeing

the right visuals but it also falls away incredibly fast. So if you open a typical inventory page,

what you generally see is a visual mix. Everything looks different from the next one.

So the shopper clicks into a car, their brain has to reprocess what they're seeing and our brains

are really good at visual recognition of patterns but they're not great and they get tired of having

to relearn what they're looking at every single click. And Kuhn's really understood that. So

they focused on removing what we call the visual friction. They made the inventory

systematically easier to browse and once you took off that friction, people stayed. They looked

deeper because they didn't have to relearn what they were seeing every time. I wish we had a visual

example of this. I guess you'd go to the Kuhn's website to see that but if you had to describe

what is visual friction and how do you eliminate visual friction in your online presence?

Yeah, what we always tell people is your dealer website shouldn't be more tiring to look at than

an Amazon or than any other product you're going to buy with. And so when I start meetings,

I often ask people, hey, what's the last thing you bought online?

What were the pieces that spoke to you immediately? Did you zoom to the bottom

to see all the features and everything like that? No, you're making a first choice that's

instant on is this picture representative of what I want to be interested in and what I'm

looking for? And if the answer is yes, you go deeper. If the answer is no, you're out.

Yeah. So Dan C comes into the chat and says, I wish more folks would take pictures of the

undercarriage of used vehicles, specifically the frame, right? Do you see that level of

photography that's happening or is that more in depth than what a lot are going after today in

2012? Outside of a few of our exotic clients that have really big ticket item pieces we don't see,

we don't see, I mean, again, this is visual interaction. It's not so much inspection software.

Yeah. So with over 20% of new car buyers now paying over a grand a month,

how does the visual presentation of a vehicle factor into protecting gross? So we're in an

ultra competitive environment. So you reduce the friction you talked about, you give appealing images

that the brain doesn't have to reprocess. What does that result in from a gross standpoint if you do

it right? Yeah, that's a great one because when you think about the commitment on $1,000 a month

in and around there, I mean, you have to set the bar completely differently. At this point,

it's not a transaction. It's a high consideration purchase and those situations, consumer trust

is everything. So what the visual presentation is built on is it builds confidence, prefer anybody

gets involved. You're at your computer, you're looking at things and if it's telling the right

story, you're already ticking off. Is the dealer trustworthy? Is this the right car? Am I missing

something? Is it worth $1,000 a month? No, because the answer is in front of you.

So that's a really big piece because on the flip side, when the presentation is clean,

consistent and easy to understand, the buyer feels like they're in control. They assess the car

quickly, they compare it and they move forward and they move forward extremely fast. So a good

thing is a confident buyer doesn't negotiate with you the same way somebody who has doubt that's

crept into them. So protecting the gross today isn't just about pricing strategy. It's about

removing doubt super early in the journey. And for us, the first thing you see is the picture.

Yeah, that's an interesting way of looking at it. Yoga Cars comes into the chat says,

biggest issue with virtual backgrounds are reflections and over or under exposure. It's

hard problem to solve without controlled environment like inside or booth or dealer

finding a good spot. Thoughts on that, Jason? Yeah, I mean, we've got a bunch of features

in our setup that help mitigate those pieces. But what's clear and we often talk about this,

if you're going to go out and take a picture of your family on a nice vacation and you point

that camera directly at the sun, you're going to get a bad picture. So yeah, here's the thing is

good picture takes effort. Now the tools that you have at your disposal should allow you to make

just the right amount of effort to get the absolute best output without having to commit to

thousands of dollars of setups and completely dedicating a space to something that might not

get a huge amount of use. Yeah. So it's interesting in a lot of dealer groups right now, there's

basically three different strategies. There's the guy that takes photos and it's his full time job

just running around doing all the photos. It's a company that comes in and helps with it.

Or it's sales people running out and taking pictures like for a viato that somehow get

laid into it. As we wrap up today, for a dealer watching right now, they've got a decent photo

setup. Maybe they've got one of those three things are okay. They see some friction on the site.

What's one thing that you'd suggest as we walk away today that they do differently starting tomorrow

or today as it relates to their photo and merchandising of used cars and new?

Absolutely. And my big ask is, and this is when we sit down with people, is really open up your

web page and look at it like a customer. Put yourself out there. If it's cars, it's cars,

if it's shoes, it's shoes, if it's shirt, whatever it is, look at it like you would look at what

you're going to buy, knowing that probably what you're buying online on a regular basis

isn't going to cost you a thousand bucks a month. Yeah. But would you trust

what you're putting out there? And the big thing is here is focus on that it needs to be effortless

to shop and compare and understand the product you're bringing to market as somebody who's going

to look at it for two or three seconds before deciding if it's what they want or not.

Thoughts on pop-ups? When I see websites, I've been going through a ton of dealer websites just

to kind of look at different things. Like sometimes it's tough when you talk about friction and having

a great merchandising experience. Sometimes we have so many flipping pop-ups on our websites

right now. It's tough to actually see the car for very long, right? Yeah. And that's always the thing.

I know there's leaves that come out of these and they're the piece. But for me, that's one of the

first things that when you have to get onto a site and you have to do three clicks before you

can even select what you want to do to get the chat off and everything like that, our position

is it really slows down and it takes them out from the get-go of a position where they really

want to interact with the content. Yeah. It's interesting. A good photo, frictionless as you put

it, creates trust, right? And then trust ultimately creates the pull to the purchase.

And what is it about automotive where we are so tactile? We want people to be in dealership with

us. Why do you think this is one area as we wrap up? Last question. Why do you think this is an area

a lot of dealers have overlooked or not spent as much time? I mean, we are a very photo-based

world right now. Videos, pictures, but we miss that sometimes.

Yeah. And it's one of the interesting things. Whenever I go onto a dealer to visit their lot,

I always look at their rows. And I can guarantee you the rows are spotless. They're perfect. The

bumpers line up is not floating around or anything. The first thing I do is I take them to their

website. And we have a conversation on the effort of getting somebody to line up two or three hundred

cars perfectly. They get moved around all the time. How many people interact on that

asphalt every day? How many people walk onto the dealership? What's your foot traffic?

And I follow that up with how many people are hitting your website? How many people are hitting

your third-party listings every day? And the magnitudes are absolute in terms of how many

more people are seeing their digital inventory to make the decision of am I going to come see the

physical stuff? If the pictures tell the story, they probably will. If not, you've already lost them.

So in 2026, having a digital showroom that's as well-positioned as your physical is probably

equally and maybe even more important. Jason Dowry, vice president of sales at CarCutter.

Thanks for joining Daly Dealer Live and sharing your perspectives. Thanks for the launch.

You know, it is interesting. It's something we talk about a lot. I talk about a lot. We hear our

team talk about it. Speed to lot, merchandising, getting all your photos if you do videos,

having those up as well. But it's a moment that can be a little bit of a challenge to execute on

at a high and an elite level. So why don't we go into our next interview final for today,

Jacob Rose, photo department manager at Titus Will Auto Group. Let's talk more photos. Jacob,

welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Jacob, for those who don't know you,

tell us who you are and what you do, Jacob. Yeah. So my name is Jacob Rose. I'm the photo

department manager for Titus Will. I also buy used cars here when I have a little bit of extra spare

time. But we have eight locations in the western Washington area. So I started with the company

about three years ago. And my job was to build a photo department that was non-existent.

And so we built it up and I got the team set up in place. I have six photographers, not including

myself, that take photos of all of our new and used inventory. And so we've been sitting pretty

good with our partners with CarCutter and being able to help us really get the digital marketing

up there. Okay. So it's interesting that the photo department manager, it's not a title you

hear every day. How'd you end up running photos at a dealership dealer group? How'd you get that

gig? Well, I mean, my experience, I've been in the auto industry for over 10 years. I came from the

auction world and I was inspecting cars, taking photos of cars. And so I had a lot of relationships

out here with other dealership groups. And I got a phone call from Titus Will and said,

hey, I need you to come over here and fix my photography department. And I said, yes, sir,

I'm coming. So what makes getting good photos such a challenge, right? So let's say you came

into this group and you have multiple rooftops. By the way, I've had many speeding tickets in

western Washington, Yakima. They do ticket. I used to work for Zurich and I was in a car,

a road warrior there. So props to everybody out there. But it sounds easy to get a photo,

but actually getting it timely and helping you get to the lot. It's a huge impact,

as Jason said. But it's simple, but it's not easy. Why is it so hard to get a good photo and get it

online quickly in April of 2026? What are the biggest obstacles? Yeah, absolutely. So I kind

of see this as twofold. The first section of this is going to be our process. When I first

started, we weren't taking photos of new cars at all. And the photo team is a small team,

one of the smallest teams in the dealer group, but we interact with almost every single department.

And so my first goal was to make sure that we are interacting and working alongside of all

of the other departments from sales team to the reconditioning team to the service department

and making sure that everybody knows who our photographers are and who to find for where

keys might be missing. All of that part plays into this. And then the second fold of this

is going to be making sure that all the photographers are taking the same exact shots.

Car Cutter does a really great job with helping us out and their guidelines on how to shoot the

photos with the app. We use iPhones for everything. But it's also not just as simple as the app telling

you how to take it. So I train all of our photographers the same exact way, just so we can

make sure that it looks like one photographer works for our group because we like that uniformity on

the website. It's like Jason mentioned, everybody's got to be parked the same way. And if you have a

bunch of different variants in the way the pictures are taken, that creates friction in the

user's mind. All right. So what is your speed to getting a vehicle photoed? So let's say you buy

a used car at auction, it's inbound, it hits the lot. What's your timelines in getting it up on

merchandiseable? Yeah, absolutely. So our recon department does a really great job of making

sure that these cars with low miles get pumped through the recon faster than some of the other

cars that might need a little bit more recon time, whether it's PDR and all that other type of stuff.

But our goal is to get that car photoed within four to seven days on the front line. And so I have

all my photographers have different goals and their different focuses. So I have some photographers

that work along the detail team and they take the photos as soon as the cars finish detailed.

And I have some other photographers that they float around all my eight locations and they're

taking photos of the pre recon process, and then also new cars. And so a little blend of the bunch

helps out. So, so which do you prefer? Actually, that's a debate I've had, right? So we want to

online photograph as quickly as you can because that helps with merchandising it, right? So getting

a picture that's not perfect before it actually is clean and ready to go isn't bad as long as you

get the updated cleaned after. Are you okay with with a pre UCI photo? This was definitely a topic

when I first started of if this is something that we should do or not because in a lot of other

industries, you don't see that you don't want to put something that is not clean on the front line

or on you know, digital front line. But we find it really helps out for our internal use because

as soon as that pre recon photo hits, it means that that car is in recon. It's not no longer in

transport. We know exactly where it's at. Plus getting any photos online at all, even if it's

just the four pre wrote pre recon photos, they're getting leads in. And so then sales people are

able to convert those into ones that are ready on the front line. Or if the customer wants to

wait for that unique ride, then they can wait a little bit. Yeah, I think it almost creates some

excitement to if it's known that, Hey, it's not quite done yet. And we're working on it. Do you

do you have a policy for that where you say, Hey, we want them pre or or is it kind of left up to

every store to decide how to do that? Yeah, I make sure that every car is pre record has those

pre recon photos. We do put a little banner on the front of it online. So you can't quite see

all of the car and we make sure they're not taking photos of like it really dirty and and stuff like

that. But so so as a manager for this photo department, how do you measure your team's

performance? What's the scorecard? Yeah, absolutely. So I have a couple of different metrics that I

measure and how I can help coach and motivate them to take more. But I mean, I have a photo bonus

in place for them for the amount of cars that they get photographed per month. And that's based off

of the pre recon photos sets and then also final photo sets. And so I just have a calculation that

adds up what they're doing and to get a little bump at the end. So it helps them motivate like,

I want to get one more car done. I need to get more cars photographed. So do you pay them an

hourly or a per unit photographed? Both blended blended position when it comes to that. But

car cutter has a great back end site tool that you can see all the amount of cars that they

have photographed. And it helps see the timestamps as well, because I want to make sure that my

photographers are getting between 13 to 15 final photos sets done in a day plus whatever recon

photos need to be done as well. Yep. Alright, so having come into the experience where you

joined the auto group and you you established this department for photos, if you had to give

a deal or a GM one piece of advice to improve their digital op presence, what advice would you

give them? And then we'll go to our round table. Make sure the process is dialed because there's

so many different moving pieces when the recon lifecycle of a vehicle. Make sure everybody's

working well together. Yeah. Alright, Jacob Rose, photo department manager at Titus will auto group.

Thanks for joining the show sharing your perspectives. Hang out. We're going to bring

you right back as part of the round table here. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

You know what? The thing I love about this gig is it's so much fun to talk different departments

and get everybody's different perspectives. I mean, we've just had two interesting interviews as it

takes on taking photos and building an elite online presence. And we're going to bring both Jeffrey

Ramsey, CMO Orzman, cars and Jacob Rose photo department manager at Titus will auto group back

for a quick round table. You know, the problem with this round table thing is we always run out

of time. So the producers are always like, dude, you still want to do this? Yes, we want to still

do it. So Jeff, who does photos in your group? And what's your process there? Yes, we have car

cutter at a lot of our stores. Okay, everything that said is dead honest to why we use them.

My favorite thing is how it lines up the car to where the photo where the photo should be taken.

Yeah. And for us, you know, it's as we have stores across different markets, limited real estate,

you can't if you don't have software like that. The photos aren't great because there's so much

clutter in the background. So, you know, it helps solve that. But yeah, we've got we have a mix here.

So we've got somewhere a lot individual, a lot, a lot poorer, whatever can use the app and take

photos. And the store that does it that way, they're like one of the best sets of photos

in the group. We have the detail department do it. It's a mix across. Okay, okay. So Jacob,

you said your your time to photo is seven days. I think that was the benchmark. That was that right?

Yeah, that's the benchmark. I'm going to I'm going to test this. Jeff, is that acceptable to you

seven days? Because I get anxiety of a group if we think about going seven days, or am I crazy to

want it faster? You're not crazy. But it could be like negative days. You'd still want it faster.

Yeah, that's for how this quick as possible. But no seven. Yeah, that would make me a little

a little nervous. But you know, getting the car to where it's through the inspection process

detailed, you know, each store is going to be different. But I want them up in 48 hours.

Will you do two sets of photos one pre UCI and then post?

When we can, you know, not every car's worthy of that. So we definitely because you don't

look at so you make a decision based on the vehicles and you put out something where it's

like a this is a one hour detail away from being a gem. But it just maybe had a rough two weeks.

Yeah, let's get it detailed. Yeah, so that's an interesting question, Jacob. If you do on

pre UCI, what's your benchmark for taking the photos or not letting it go through the process

before you put a not best foot forward on that vehicle? Yeah, absolutely. The way we see it

is we want to get pictures up for digital marketing right away. So trade ins, we're getting that either

day of or day after and auction buys as soon as they're land, they're getting their recon.

So yoga cars comes into the chat says the coming soon overlay, Jacob, this props for you for

pre condition reconditioning cars is a clever tactic. It reveals just enough of the vehicle

to pique a customer's interest without exposing the unrefined details. I like how you said that,

by the way. So that that is, that is clever. Do you do you, Jeff, do you guys do a bonus

for a photo vehicles for those where you've got a photographer on site similar to what

does or how do you handle that? We don't have that the previous group I was at did have that

structure where it was there. I think there's three people across nine rooftops. And they were

doing it was if you were at like 90% photo on the month, you would get a bonus or 95% photo,

then then you would bonus it out when it's like a detailed apartment or something like that just

per car. So it's makes it a little easier. Yeah, yeah. Alright, as we wrap up, because producers

are in my ear, they're saying go, go, go. What is one thing in automotive always working on that

next thing, we're always trying to make things better. And the photo department is one area where

we can do that marketing obviously is another Jacob. What's one thing you're working on in 2026

to level up your game and then Jeff will wrap. Yeah, trying to add some videos and stuff like

that. That seems to be the the ways videos. Yeah, videos are a big deal. I agree with that 100%.

Any technology you're using on videos? Not at this time. That's diving into it. Alright,

that's that's TBD. Alright, Jeff, is it photos or just in general, just a broad question? Just

what's yeah, in general, broad broad strokes, CMO, large group, you know, what are you trying

to solve for in 2026? I'm always trying to solve that AI piece. I just I would love to have a

reengagement piece, whether it's through the CRM or auto auto alert or whoever where I'm 100%

confident in that like this is going to reengage the customers bring them back in the right way.

Who's your DMS? Reynolds. Okay, okay. Yeah. Yeah, have you tried? Yeah, there's a bunch of

different interesting ones out there. I'd love to. You know what, Hannah, let's put a note in

there. Let's get Jeff back. Let's get Jacob back. Let's find out who you end up selecting. You know,

we in our group, we've used Impel a lot was a bolt into our CRM and have had great success.

But it is also astonishing at how quickly these things evolve and change over time. So

we'd love to get your perspective. I don't know if that tool engages as well on the Reynolds side

as it does CDK. It crushes it on the CDK side. So so that's what you're looking to solve for Jeff.

Yes, sir. All right. Very good. Well, to both of you, Jeff Ramsey, CMO, Orsman,

Cars, and to Jacob Rose, photo department manager at Titusville Automotive Group. Thank you both

for being on the show and sharing your perspectives. Thank you. We'll see you out there.

And to you, our listening audience, check it out Wednesday. We've got Senator Bernie Moreno. We've

also got NEDA President Mike Stanton. He's going to join us to talk a little bit about all things

franchise system and an article out there that's crazy. So we'll talk to both those. Plus, we've

got another couple of great guests as well. Dancy says, thanks, Sam, for an interesting show. Can't

wait for Wednesday. Senator Bernie Moreno should be interesting. DM me, LinkedIn, through CDG,

wherever with questions. If you haven't for Senator Moreno would love to get those on.

And thanks to you for watching Daily Deal Live. We break down the biggest moves in the car business

as they happen. Don't forget, we're here live every Monday, Wednesday, Friday,

1 p.m. Eastern, which means we'll be back on Wednesday at 1 p.m. So if this is your world,

hit like, hit subscribe, turn on those notifications so you never, ever miss a beat.

And we'll see you next episode. Thanks for being here, everybody.

Rasmey on Monitoring KPIs, Daury on Vehicle Presentation, Rose on Photography | Daily Dealer Live

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