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Raymond on GM Talent Strategy, Strosnider on Buying Used Inventory | Daily Dealer Live
Raymond on GM Talent Strategy, Strosnider on Buying Used Inventory | Daily Dealer Live
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About this episode
Sam Dark hosts a dynamic discussion with automotive leaders Jerry Raymond and Kevin Strohniter, focusing on the challenges and strategies in today's dealership landscape. Raymond shares insights on growing his dealership group and the importance of hiring the right people, while Strohniter discusses the complexities of used car acquisition and the shift towards proactive outreach. The episode also touches on industry trends, including the impact of interest rates and the need for disciplined operations amidst tighter margins. Both guests emphasize the significance of culture and accountability in achieving success.
Today's show features:
Gerry Raymond, President of Gerry Raymond Automotive
Kevin Strosnider, Dealer Operator of Strosnider Chevrolet
This episode is brought to you by:
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Term
MSRP
"...with many buyers no longer paying over MSRP. Higher income households are still doing most of the heavy lifting in this automotive economy..."
MSRP is the price that car makers suggest dealers sell their cars for. It's like a starting point for how much a car should cost.
MSRP stands for Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price, which is the price that the manufacturer recommends for the vehicle. It's often used as a benchmark for car pricing in the market.
Concept
luxury segment
"...especially in the luxury segment or loyalty remains strong and repeat buyers continue to cycle back..."
The luxury segment includes expensive cars that have lots of features and comforts, like nicer interiors and better technology. Brands like BMW and Mercedes-Benz make these kinds of cars.
The luxury segment refers to a category of vehicles that are higher-end and typically offer more features, performance, and comfort compared to standard vehicles. Brands like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi are often associated with this segment.
Brand
Chevy
"...So you've had Chevy stores. You had a Stilana store, bought and sold."
Chevy is short for Chevrolet, a popular car brand in the United States that makes many types of vehicles.
Chevy is a common abbreviation for Chevrolet, an American automobile manufacturer known for producing a wide range of vehicles, including cars, trucks, and SUVs.
Brand
Ford
"Yeah, we actually were able to get another one. We closed on a Ford store, which is pretty cool because that's where I first started selling cars."
Ford is a popular car brand in America, known for making many types of vehicles, including trucks and sports cars.
Ford is a well-known American automotive manufacturer, famous for its trucks, SUVs, and cars, including the iconic Ford Mustang and the best-selling Ford F-Series trucks.
Car
Renault Latitude
"Colin Kubik says your attitude determines your latitude, great point, Jerry. And then Kevin pops back up."
The Renault Latitude is a type of car that is bigger than a small car but smaller than a full-size car. It was made to be comfortable and has a lot of space inside, which makes it nice for families or long drives.
The Renault Latitude is a mid-size sedan that was produced by the French automaker Renault from 2010 to 2015. It was designed to offer a comfortable ride with a focus on spaciousness and luxury features, making it a notable option in the European market during its production years.
Car
Jeep Recon
"... get at the price, I wanna get it and I want less recon and the path to that is trade-ins"
The Jeep Recon is a new type of Jeep that runs on electricity instead of gas. It's built for people who love to go off-road and explore nature, but it also helps the environment by not using fossil fuels.
The Jeep Recon is an all-electric SUV designed for off-road capability and adventure, reflecting Jeep's commitment to sustainability while maintaining its rugged heritage. It is part of Jeep's strategy to expand its electric vehicle lineup, appealing to both traditional Jeep enthusiasts and new eco-conscious consumers.
Term
KBB
"Now they've gone on the KBB and they've gone on the NADA, they go on these different sites"
KBB is a website that helps you find out how much your car is worth. It gives you an idea of the price you can expect when selling or trading in your vehicle.
KBB stands for Kelley Blue Book, a well-known vehicle valuation and automotive research company that provides information on car prices, including trade-in values and market trends.
Term
NADA
"...they've gone on the KBB and they've gone on the NADA, they go on these different sites"
NADA is another resource like KBB that helps you find out how much cars are worth, especially for buying and selling.
NADA stands for the National Automobile Dealers Association, which provides vehicle pricing information and resources for both consumers and dealers, helping to establish fair market values for cars.
Select text to request an explanation
We're doing better as a result of social media presence.
It doesn't do those three things, then it's on the chopping block.
It's in return on investment discussion.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to another episode of The Daily Dealer Live.
I'm your host, Sam Dark.
And welcome to this space where automotive comes together
to learn, to share, and most importantly, to execute.
Thanks for choosing to be here in this moment
on Friday, December 12.
Today's show is for dealer principals and GMs
who are tired of excuses and who are focused
on that execution I mentioned.
It's true today, margins are tighter.
Use cards are harder.
OEM pressures have not let up.
And the store still winning today
are doing one thing extremely well.
They're running disciplined operations
with zero tolerance for drift.
We've got two leaders today who live in that world
every single day.
Jerry Raymond, president of Jerry Raymond Automotive.
He's back and in pursuit of 100 rooftops.
He was last with us in June earlier this year.
We'll get a progress update on his progress
towards that and other things.
And then we'll have Kevin Strohniter,
dealer operator and GM of Strohniter Chevrolet
running point on used cars, FNI, culture, and accountability.
This is gonna be a real conversation.
And before we dive in,
let's jump into today's industry headline.
All right, first up today,
the U.S. Federal Reserve just cut interest rates again.
This is not a surprise to anyone watching the markets.
Lowering its benchmark rate by 25 basis points
to a three and a half to three, seven, five range,
making the third cut this year
and the lowest level in nearly three years.
That's not unsurprising.
What is, is the decision was not unanimous.
Three Fed officials dissented,
highlighting growing internal tension
as the central bank tries to balance a cooling labor market
with inflation that's still above its 2% target.
Economists are describing this backdrop as K-shaped economy
where some sectors and households are still doing fine
while others are clearly struggling,
which makes it harder for any single policy move
to help everyone at once.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell stressed patients
saying policy makers need time to see
how this year's rate cuts ripple through the economy
before acting again even as political pressure
builds to move faster.
Looking ahead, the Fed's next meeting is in January
and Powell said decisions from here
will be driven by incoming data
even as pressure from the White House intensifies.
And as a side note,
the incoming data comment is interesting
because the Fed did not have a full set of data
due to the government outage.
So there is a little bit of an attempt
to help the economy without all the facts in front of them.
And I think that's what Powell is insinuating.
Next up, auto loan delinquencies are still creeping higher
but the pace is slowing.
Transunzion now expects overall 60 day plus delinquencies
to hit 1.51% by year end
before leveling off around 1.54% at the end of 2026.
That makes this the fifth straight year
of rising delinquencies
but each increase has been smaller than the last
which could help explain why lenders haven't slammed
the brakes on credit access for those riskiest borrowers.
Instead of pulling back, lenders are leaning on refinancing
to keep payments manageable.
In Q3 alone, for example, borrowers refinanced
$3.8 billion across 121,000 loans
saving about 77 bucks a month on average.
As expected credit unions are absorbing most of this spike
controlling roughly 65% of ReFi volume
and offering the biggest rate cuts
but those savings come with a trade-off
with refinance loan terms now averaging more than 90 months.
Did you hear that?
90 months.
More cars are staying in driveways longer
quietly stretching replacement cycles
and keeping buyers out of the market longer
than dealers likely care for.
90 months.
And in other news next up,
a long running internal fraud scheme has surfaced
at Murgado Automotive Group in Miami, Florida
where prosecutors say a former billing clerk
and two members of her family
stole more than a million dollars from the dealer group.
This is no shade on Murgado, great group
and it's a cautionary tale I think
for all of us auto dealers.
Investigators allege Yodi Mejas
who worked at the store since 2013
began the scheme around 2020
cutting hundreds of fraudulent refund checks
tied to real customer accounts
but the checks were not made out to customers
they were made out to her husband and to her son
and typically ranged from $1,000 to $3,000.
The operation ran quietly for years
until an anonymous tip in August 2024
triggered an internet review
that uncovered more than 480 suspect checks.
Oh my goodness.
Bottom line, the case is a vital reminder
that even trusted back office rules
need separation of duties, routine audits
and controls that catch patterns early
before losses quietly compound
and then my own take on this too is
at the end of the day we depend on people,
good people around us to help support this business
and it's a call to action for those good people
if you see something for heaven's sakes say something
that's a massive fraud and a hit to that group.
Apologies to them next and finally up today
according to a brand new forecast from Edmunds
the new vehicle market is poised to settle
into a steady groove in 2026
with sales projected around 16 million units
that's the SAR, which is essentially flat with 2025.
Translation, the market isn't getting cheaper
but price growth has largely leveled off
with many buyers no longer paying over MSRP.
Higher income households are still doing
most of the heavy lifting in this automotive economy
especially in the luxury segment or loyalty remains strong
and repeat buyers continue to cycle back
into premium and SUV trucks.
At the same time, vehicle affordability
is still public enemy number one, many shoppers are stretched
which keeps volume capped
even a slightly lower interest rates
offer a bit of relief on monthly payments.
What's the big picture here?
Well, 2026 auto sales will likely fall
into a holding pattern and growth will hinge on mix
finance structure and keeping well qualified buyers
in the funnel while everyone else shops more cautiously
and that is a wrap on today's industry news.
Yeah, you know, theft and fraud in this industry
in my prior role with the Swiss based insurance company
Zurich, I insured auto dealers against risks
and employee theft was always a big one
and you know, it's never the fault
I feel like it's not the fault of the auto dealer
that gets caught up in it or victimized by it
but man, you know, it just reminds you
how much dependent we are on good people around us.
Terry Ondia says yikes, which is correct.
So props to Murgado.
I actually saw him at the CEO chase event
this past week, great group.
And you know, thanks for sharing that story
in the news cycle because again,
I think it's a great reminder to us all
to watch out for that sort of thing
and a reminder to everybody watching today
our daily dealer live listening audience.
Post your comments, your questions, your feedbacks
to social media all across the CDG social media platforms
where we're being broadcast today.
We'd love to bring your comments into the show
and props to Terry for that yikes comment
because it does shape today's show
and I am pumped about today.
First up today, we have a return guest from June
one of our first episodes.
We're on 93 episode 93 today.
So joining us today, President Jerry Automotive,
Jerry Raymond, welcome to the show, Jerry.
Hey, nice to be back, are ya?
It's awesome to have you back.
Thanks for being here.
So when you were last here,
you were hot in pursuit of 100 dealerships.
You were almost four years in.
Now December 15th, we'll mark your fourth anniversary.
Yeah.
How's the pursuit of 100, Jerry?
Man, you know, it's a lot easier to say it
than actually to do it, right?
I mean, it's a fun time though.
It goes back to it.
It's funny what you're saying.
It's all about the people, right?
So you have to have a great team
or surround yourself with a great team.
Got the best processes, procedures in the world,
but without a great team to execute what you wanna do,
it's never gonna work.
But it is pretty cool to come up on four years
on the 15th is when we officially open our first store.
So congratulations to everyone
that's been involved with me and our group.
That's pretty cool.
So you've had Chevy stores.
You had a Stilana store, bought and sold.
What type of activity have you had since our last show?
You were at three stores then.
Have you grown since?
Yeah, we actually were able to get another one.
We closed on a Ford store, which is pretty cool
because that's where I first started selling cars.
Probably about five miles away.
We got our first Ford store.
So happy to be with Ford.
Hopefully make a name with them.
And then we're actually in pursuit of another one
as we speak, and that's coming to a close.
It's actually kind of already closed
and we'll be opening up probably sometime
in the spring of next year.
It's ready to close, but it's still top secret.
Can you talk about it or no?
Is it?
It's a major metro market
where huge playing potential, huge playing volume.
So we're really excited.
I think it's gonna put us our name,
our group up there with the other big dogs.
So we're really excited to keep on growing.
Again, with growth does come as challenges
as we learn every day.
So it's not always rainbow and butterflies, right?
As they say.
So as we grow, we learn.
We don't always do things right,
but as long as we win, more than we lose, right?
Yeah.
So talk to us about that, Jerry.
Coming back to the news today,
Murgado, victim of a massive internal fraud
by a longtime employee.
I mean, a million dollars to lose on fraudulent checks.
How do you think about that
when you're looking to grow and scale
and grow so quickly in size?
How do you protect against that?
Yeah, you know, it's tough because you, again,
you always put in procedures, you put in policies,
two-step verification, two check centers,
whatever the case may be,
you always have to put those into place.
But again, it just goes back to the old saying,
it's all about your people.
If you have the wrong people,
it's never going to work out.
You can have people that you think are doing the right thing,
you can have the procedures in,
but again, if you don't have the right people,
or if you don't have that culture,
again, sometimes you just don't know and you just get burnt,
but again, it all goes ties back to the people.
So what do you have to do?
You really have to take your time of finding the right people.
You know, we could go,
it's okay to go without that position
maybe for a certain amount of time,
but if you rush into something
and just pick someone to fill that position,
I guarantee it's not going to work out
as well as if you were just taking your time.
So it kind of goes back to that.
It's about the hiring process.
It's about the people.
It's trying to find the right fit for your organization.
So you're expanding quickly as an organization.
You want to get to a hundred and want to add rooftops.
You're on the eve of a major acquisition.
As an owner, as a successful dealer,
walk us through your thought processes.
You acquire this new group.
How do you go in and find the right people?
How much change do you do initially?
And what does that change look like, Jerry?
Yeah, you really have to take your time
to find the right leader, right?
So we spend countless hours
trying to find that right person.
We go through lots of resumes.
We do a lot of phone interviews from that phone interview.
We know we do a lot of teams interviews
and then in-person interviews.
So we really try to find the right person
to lead the helm, right?
So again, you know, I've come from a sports background.
So in order to build the championship team,
you have to have that culture.
So you really have to have the person
that is leading your group
or leading that particular store buy into the culture.
So give me the top three things you look for
in a great leader, because it's easy to say culture.
It's easy to say right,
but what does that mean to Jerry today
in December of 2025?
What am I looking for in that time of year?
Yeah, it's about the experience.
It's about your attitude and it's about your attitude.
So you know, attitude goes twice.
It's 100% about your attitude.
You might not have all the right answers,
but if you're willing to find the right answer
or know how to get to the right answer
or do what it's willing to take to get
to find that answer and to make it work,
you can't teach attitude.
You can teach a lot of things in life,
but you cannot teach attitude and dedication.
So attitude is definitely on the top three twice.
So as you're searching for that GM,
I get this question a lot when I speak to panels.
I was in Canada speaking to a bunch of Lexus dealers
who are like, what's the top thing you look for in a GM?
So you gave us attitude, attitude.
What's the one thing you're looking to avoid, Jerry?
What's the biggest red flag?
The biggest red flag for me personally is,
if I'm looking for a GM and I'm looking at their resume,
they jump around a lot.
And again, there could be valid day reasons for that.
But if we have a jumper going from store to store
every year, typically it's not gonna work for us.
If you have that person that's stuck where they're at
and they're trying to get to that next step,
I love that.
Or even if you could have that person
that was let go from their current position
and things happen, they have something to prove
or they have a chip on their shoulder, I love that.
So it's not so much about a lot of people
always say the right thing on interviews.
If you're a general manager or been general manager before,
you usually know what to say
and you really don't know until they're there
in the store working,
but you can tell by someone's attitude
or if they have that chip on their shoulder, right?
So those are the kind of things that I look for
because everyone's gonna say the right thing
for an interview, my personal opinion.
So great comments from online.
So Kevin Stuckey 06 says,
congrats on the continued success.
Correct, the right people are everything.
Colin Kubik says your attitude determines
your latitude, great point, Jerry.
And then Kevin pops back up.
Sports culture always comes up multi-tasking
at its finest, somebody put a quarter in the merry-go-round,
LOL, so that's funny.
You know, one thing that's a red flag to me,
and I agree with you, it is tough sometimes
to hire and to interview because people,
we're all in sales, we know how to sell ourselves,
we know how to sound really good, right?
And what you have is you have your track record
to rely on and to explain.
And a big caution to me is that GM candidate
has been in a few different places
over five, six years, whatever,
and they've got a story
for why they didn't succeed in every single one.
I don't want the story about why you couldn't succeed.
I want the story about where your success was
and how you would have doubled down on it, right?
Have you run into that where people are able
to quickly say why they didn't succeed?
I don't wanna hear it.
Yeah, that goes back to the resume.
Oh, well, it's always this person's fault
or that person's fault.
You know, if you start to hear that a lot
of someone else's fault, it's usually your fault, right?
So, you know, we look for accountability
and even if it was your fault, you know,
I'd love to hear you say that, hey, sorry,
it was my fault and I messed up.
Own it, I messed up in this situation,
but you know, I learned from that
it's never gonna happen again
because without failure, there's no growth, right?
Or without growth, there's no failure.
You can look at it either way.
So you grow from those experiences, right?
If you truly did grow from it.
So, you know, there's all kinds of different ways
to deal with failure.
So-
Why is it so hard for so many leaders to say,
hey, I failed in this element.
Here's why and here's the takeaway lesson I learned.
Why is that tough?
Because not-
It is, but you know, they're not really leaders.
That's, you know, they're not really leaders.
That's why it comes down to a leader
will take accountability
and they'll be the first to point the finger at themselves.
They'll be the first to say, hey, I messed up.
You know, a lot of things that we use
when you come into our dealership or our group,
it's always about we, it's never about I, it's we, we, we.
So, you know, that's one thing that, you know, we teach,
you know, it's never I, it's never him,
it's never me, it's never her, it's we, you know,
we win as a group, we fail as a group, you know, it's us.
So, you know, that's one thing that I look for
in the little word tracks that people say
because it helped, you know, playing sports, you know,
when you won championships, it's we, you know,
it's never I, the great ones always say, we, we, we,
not I.
Yeah, yeah, that is absolutely 100% true.
So, we always ask the same question to begin.
We've kind of gone a little bit around
because we started with the news,
but how's business in your neck of the woods right now?
Yeah, I mean, business is good.
Obviously it can always be better.
You know, we're focusing a lot on our current customers.
You know, we're, I think the one thing with us
that we learned is, you know, we have the business, right?
You know, so we have the customers,
we have the opportunities, but, you know,
what are we doing with the opportunities
and the customers that we currently have?
So again, everyone's always looking for more and more and more,
but you know, what are we doing with our current business?
You know, what are we doing with our fixed operations?
What are we doing with our current sales?
Our leads, our customers calling in.
So business is good, you know, it could be great,
but we're in the process of trying to do a better job
of the customers that we currently have.
Again, I think that's a big opportunity with us,
you know, with the fixed operations,
especially trying to get the absorption level up
as high as we possibly can
to really bring in the customers that are calling in already.
It's submitting leads, you know,
trying not to lose them from to other makes or models
or to other dealers.
So business is very good.
It's very steady,
but you know, we're always trying to make it better.
All right, so as you're working to capitalize
on the business you have,
I think that's a sentiment that many dealers have right now.
You're looking in fixed ops,
you're looking at your current owner database.
What's a specific strategy?
You're implementing in your stores
to help maximize fixed ops and your current database.
Yeah, you know, I don't get into really stats that much,
but you know, it's, you know, this business to me,
it's so, it's so simple, right?
So customers are calling in all the time
and you walk through your dealerships,
you hear your phone ring all the time, right?
I mean, it's, I swear it,
but the phone, everyone's always saying,
oh, I'm answering the phone,
I'm answering the phone,
but the phone rings 24 or seven
and people are calling in to give you business
or to ask questions or opportunities, right?
So that's something that I've been really focused on.
We've been really focused on the last 30 days
is trying to better handle our call volume
so we don't miss those drop calls.
We don't miss those opportunities.
And of course, there's AI out there.
There's more people.
There's all kinds of things that we could be doing
better of a job of.
We're just trying to figure out what's works for us.
So we don't miss those opportunities,
but that's a major thing with us.
And I think a lot of dealers out there,
you know, you walk through your showrooms,
you walk through your service departments
and I swear the phone never stops ringing.
You know, but who's answering the phone?
Like if someone's answering the phone,
okay, someone just got the phone's ringing again.
I mean, it's a great problem to have,
but you know, it's a bad problem
that people are calling in
and you can't answer those questions
or you can't get a hold of them.
So I think that's a really big focus item for us
is to better deal with our call volume
and making sure that we're not
experiencing drop calls.
And supporting that viewpoint is data recently from CDK.
We recorded an industry spotlight podcast recently.
CDK was showing that the average wait time,
get this, Jerry, the average wait time,
not the high, not the low, was, I think it was,
and I don't have the stat in front of me,
it was somewhere between five and 10 minutes.
Can you imagine waiting on the phone for,
let's say, eight minutes to talk to somebody?
You would hang up, right?
I would hang up in 10 seconds.
I mean, it's great. I would hang up.
Do you believe that CDK stat?
It's a problem in the industry, right?
You know, it's a huge problem.
I mean, it's a problem.
I mean, like this business is common sense.
And how many times have, you know,
you called your own dealership?
Just, I mean, I do it all the time.
I mean, I do it all the time.
And then I go in and say,
hey, I just called.
So what just happened, right?
So I do that all the time, literally,
but this business is common sense.
There's nothing like, it's just common sense.
It's just the people like,
just think about how you want to be treated.
It's like you're learning this in kindergarten,
my son's in first grade.
The golden rule, treat others how you want to be treated,
right?
But if you're on the phone for five or 10 minutes,
listen to an AI bot or listen to this person
and put you on hold,
do you want, no one wants to do business like that.
And if you do, it's just like,
oh man, I have to sit on hold with them.
You know, like, this is my only option
because I'm trying to get an appointment.
I'm trying to get to service.
I'm trying to get a sales call.
I mean, so you're forced to do it,
but you don't want to do it.
So if we could change that whole entire mindset of a customer
or if we just fix it, you know,
don't even change, just fix it at our locations,
it's amazing what's going to happen.
So I interviewed a while back,
the fixed ops head of Longo Toit,
a biggest Toyota dealership in,
maybe in the world,
but definitely in the United States,
huge fixed operations business.
The service director there,
he said, look, if a customer has to call you,
it's too late.
You win by reaching out to the customer first.
Is there anything,
is there anything you're implementing
in your service drive business
to better answer those calls,
respond to customer needs,
whether it's AI, data tech,
what systems or platforms are you using?
There actually is.
We're actually making a major overhaul as we speak
and we've been doing so much research again.
This is also goes back to, you know,
how we talked about,
don't implement something just to implement it.
Yeah.
Implement something that everyone buys into
just like hiring,
you want to find the right person,
take your time,
find someone that you like,
find that right person.
It goes no difference for what we're trying to implement
in our service department or fixed ops departments.
Take our time,
jump on the calls,
ask the questions,
get multiple calls,
multiple demos with multiple things that you think,
pick your free favorite,
pick your two favorite,
have those conversations with your staff,
who do they like,
things of that nature
and then go from there to implement that.
But we are 100% implementing something
into our service departments that are fixed ops
to better what we're talking about right now.
That's the major thing with us right now.
But again, we're taking our time doing it
and we're pretty close to picking one or two,
narrowing it down to one or two,
but we haven't made a decision yet,
but it's 1000% coming.
So I was on a panel recently
and I was asked the question,
how do you decide when you're thinking about AI
and technology,
how do you pick a winner in the space?
And I think that's a good question.
How do you pick a winner
if you're looking at several different companies?
Man, it's funny that we're having this conversation
because I've been doing this for the last 45 days.
So, you know, how do you do it?
It's like anything else, right?
I want something that does it different.
All, so, you know,
I'm going to tell you a little bit
about my mindset, my secrets, I guess per se, but,
you know, hopefully these vendors are all listening right now
because we're going to give them the secret sauce.
I know, this is a secret sauce and for other people,
I mean, AI does such a great job
when someone calls into your store.
They do such a great job
when someone's coming in for the most part, right?
But we talk about lead times,
but what can it do to, you know, be proactive?
That's what I want.
That's what we're looking for.
What's it trying to do to be proactive
It's not about, I mean, if someone's calling in,
they're already calling in.
How do we make them to not call it
just like the Toyota fixed ops guys?
How do we make it so that they're getting in contact,
checking on their cars, checking on their appointments,
knowing their service before we call them?
That's what I'm looking for.
I like it.
So, that's, you know,
I probably said too much for my secrets,
but you know, that's what it is.
Does that tool exist today, Jerry,
in a way that's suitable to you?
Is it texting?
Is it emailing?
Is it voice?
What is it?
You know, I think a lot of it is text messages.
I don't, I think that's the age that we're in
is text messaging.
I think the emails, they all get lost.
Phone calls, no one answered their phone calls.
If you don't know a number, it goes to voice mail.
So I really, everyone reads a text message.
You can be sitting right there.
You're probably reading a text, you know,
why you're doing it.
Yeah, text messages is the way to go.
There needs to be some kind of software
for the Silicon Valley.
I mean, this is a billion dollar idea
if you can do it well, right?
But all the AI right now
is currently programmed to kick in while,
obviously someone calls in.
How do you different from being proactive
or being really good at being proactive at it?
That's what we're looking for.
We're in a now business.
We're in a proactive business.
I mean, how many times do you hear people say,
oh, you don't want your salespeople
or anyone just sitting there, you know,
just waiting for someone to come in.
You don't want your service advisor
just sitting there waiting for someone to come in.
You want them to be proactive.
Well, AI is 10 times more than us.
It should be 100% more proactive than us.
So, you know, I think there are just,
a lot of people are just getting into
that proactive aspect of AI.
And I think the next person
who really can control that will actually,
I mean, it's a, that's the,
that's not in the future, it's the present, right?
I mean, it's not in the present, it's the past.
That's just what we need.
So you've cast this vision for proactive outreach
in your fixed ops to win.
You're looking at different tools in the marketplace
to gauge whether or not they actually do that.
Are there any red flags when you make
that vendor selection in the AI space
that would say, stay away from this company
or be careful about this solution.
It's not going to work or whatever.
You know, for me, it's all about attitude.
So again, I keep on saying this.
Go back to the GM.
It's going about the attitude.
So if I'm sitting there talking to someone
who doesn't truly believe in their product,
who isn't passionate about their product,
who isn't, has a great attitude about their product,
and they're just on these calls,
like, oh, just going through the motions, I'm done.
You know, I'm done.
I want the people that truly believe in their product,
hey, this is the best thing in the world.
That's what really gets me excited.
You know, that's what sells me.
And again, that's what really gets me engaged
to listen more.
So I don't know if that's the right answer
that you're looking for,
but it's the attitude of someone presenting with their AI.
That's really, you know,
someone passionate about what they're doing.
And you can tell if someone's passionate or not,
but you know, if they believe in their tool,
if they think their tool is great,
if they know their tool is great,
if they know that their tool will help increase
what I'm looking for,
or it will eventually help, right?
That's what I'm looking for, too.
All right, I want to share a perspective of mine
and get your take on this.
So I was recently at this Chase CEO event,
and they had an economist up.
And listen, they said,
don't share a lot of what you've learned here,
but I'm going to share it anyway.
So this guy was super smart.
He said two things.
He said, number one, in his opinion,
he's like, look, AI technology
is going to keep the US out of a recession.
It's going to be such an economic boon
to multiple different industries, automotive as well.
But he also said AI is going to be a separator.
There's going to be two types of people in the world.
Those that are masters of AI that understand it,
that implement it, that utilize it to up their game
in the way that their business functions.
And there will be slaves to AI
that don't understand it, that fight it,
that probably just run alongside it.
And that is kind of cool to me in your role,
because you're learning it, you're understanding it,
and then you're ultimately going to make a selection.
And choosing the right one is important.
What's your take on that?
That it will avoid a recession
and that there's basically two people,
those who understand it and those who don't?
You know, the recession aspect,
I don't really believe in because you always hear about,
you know, there's always going to be a recession.
You know, I don't listen to that.
I was saying there won't be because of that.
Right.
Yeah.
Oh, that's even better.
That's about, you know, but again,
I don't believe in that stuff,
but what I do a thousand percent AI
is going to 1,000% separate people.
It's like, you know, back in, again, I'm younger.
So again, 23 years ago when the internet
came out in the car business, people like,
oh, wow, it's just a, whatever, it could be,
that's, we're in that.
We are currently in that right now.
And that's what, this is what it is,
probably 30, 35 years ago, wherever it was
when the internet came back in the car business.
AI is out there doing so much and it's been out there
doing so much on other companies.
But again, it goes back to the car industry
is just such an old school business, right?
So again, maybe it doesn't take on as fast,
but I'm telling you, AI is not even the future.
It's not the present.
It's the past.
It's here.
And we got, if you know how to master,
if you know how to do it, I mean, you're going to go,
I mean, the sky's the limit.
I truly believe that.
I truly believe that statement.
If you can master it, it's going to help out greatly.
So in support of your comments, Kevin Stuckey
pops into the comments in a couple of different things.
He says, being in the trenches all day, week and month
with four AI vendors, it's a lot of work,
but extremely rewarding for your guests and team
when you customize it the way you want everything handled.
And then he goes on, those who use AI
will replace those who don't.
And then Dan C, great comment, always cautious
when a vendor has had numerous CEOs over the past few years.
And I do agree, particularly in that world,
it's a quick turn.
And you know what's interesting?
I also judge a little bit by the quality of the field.
And you mentioned that, right?
You've got to have good people.
But there are so many of these newer AI-type companies
that just don't have a good field force that
can connect and communicate and bring people
into the vision of what it does.
And I think that's a point of failure right now
in the market as well.
Yeah, I mean, that's a totally great point.
Because I mean, there's lots of the Silicon Valley AI coming
out trying to create AI for what we need.
And they're not really in the business,
but they're trying to come out to what we need.
And then make it, you know, just do a quick turn around,
sell it, boom, they make their, I don't know,
whatever the case may be, they make the money.
But the AI that's truly going to work for this business,
it's going to be someone that fully understands
the business, partnering up with someone
that fully understands how AI works.
And together, they're going to specialize
in the automotive space.
And they're going to make something truly spectacular
that's really just going to hit home for everyone.
I mean, that's, you know, it's the passion.
It's the passion of the car business,
meaning the passion of the AI.
Together, collaborate and they're going to create
something special whenever that happens.
That's what I think we're waiting for.
All right, so let's transition from your excellence
in fixed ops, the announcement you're going to make soon
about how you're going to get that proactive outreach
using digital technology to use cars, new and used cars.
So there's been a slight softening in the star.
There's a ton of inventory pressures.
A lot of people are talking about narrowing
and compression margins.
The dealerships that hold consistent pricing discipline
are winning today.
So in your view, what operational discipline
separates winners from second place stores today?
And you can't say attitude.
Because you've already used that one.
No, honestly, I don't think a lot of people
are just so spoiled from the COVID days.
And it made a lot of dealers bad dealers.
It made a lot of good dealers, good dealers.
Great dealers, we're the great dealers still.
It's about your people and your processes in your business.
It's your processes.
So we have to go back to, this is back to the car business.
It's not back to just having the desk manager
to sit behind your desk, pencil and deals,
customers come in and they just want to buy cars.
It's about actually going out there and working it.
So you have to work your processes.
You have to constantly come into work to work,
whether it's if you know that you need pre-onimatory,
what are you doing to go out there
and find that pre-onimatory?
It's really about isolating your issue.
If you need inventory of new,
if you need inventory of pre-owned cars,
if you're too heavy in new cars,
if you're too heavy in used cars,
if you don't have enough,
you got to identify the problem
and then find the solution.
So maybe some people are too heavy in new cars right now.
So, okay, you know you're heavy.
Where are you doing to upload those
to create better foreplay expense?
If you know that you need more pre-owned cars,
what kind of processes or what kind of vendors
or what are you doing with your staff
to get the pre-owned cars?
Are you just one of the options
or are you utilizing Facebook Marketplace
or are you utilizing whatever you think that you should be
to create that gap?
So I think it just,
it comes down to finding, identifying the issue
and then finding the solution to that issue.
But first you have to know what the issue is.
So I don't know if that's the right answer
but I think the car business
is back to a normal car business.
So you have to work at it.
You know, the people that work at it,
you gotta work at it.
And again, it's about the culture of the business.
I have to say it.
Yeah, nope.
You know what?
You got that in because it's right.
You're right.
That is ground zero for it all.
All right, last couple of questions here.
Use car acquisition you touched on.
It is a differentiator in today's marketplace.
New cars, sales are where they are.
Use cars, that profit is made at purchase, not at sale.
What's your best source of use car acquisition today
and how are you leaning into it coming into next year?
Yeah, you know,
your best source is always gonna be trades, right?
I mean, that's 100%.
That's always what you try and do.
But, you know, if we do need cars,
again, you know, we go out there and we hit the auctions,
we buy the same brands, I should say,
and we get those, we certify them
and try and get the trades that way.
So again, it's going out there buying cars
in order to get the trades.
We know that we're not gonna make good deals
or typically make good purchases,
buying outside the auctions.
But again, you know,
we try and get the trades on those.
I know a lot of people say the service drive
and every yes, that's 1,000% correct
and you're still trying to do that,
but the quickest, easiest thing,
realistic car business-wise is going to the auction,
getting the cars, the same brands that you sell,
bring it to you, flip them as fast as you can,
no matter what it is,
and get the trades and build your inventory that way.
So you sort of dismiss service drive
and it is kind of the rage right now.
Why do you push that aside?
You know, I don't think I dismiss it.
I just think, you know, a lot of people talk about it
and they don't do it, right?
So that's one thing that I'll never,
you'll never hear me say is,
I just don't say something to say it.
You know, yes, I know the service drive
is a phenomenal place that we shouldn't be able to get cars,
but do I do it?
But it's hard, yeah.
We don't do it, you know,
because we don't want to be those people
like you constantly sit, you know,
trying to sell your customers every time they come in.
You don't want to put pressure on your customers
every time they come in.
You don't want them to feel like
they're trying, they're putting their guard up.
So that's why we don't do it as much
as maybe others should.
Sure, we interact with everyone in service.
We always say, hi, if they ask questions,
certainly we present offers,
but do we go out there and say,
hey, I could buy your car today for this?
Or hey, what do you think about it?
It's just, it's a sales pitch
that people know that you're coming into the,
the, you know, into the dealership.
Maybe people don't want to hear it.
So again, there's other ways to do it.
You know, again, that's about the customer experience also.
We try and make our customer experience.
We want people to come into our stores
because they like coming into their stores.
They don't want to feel like they're constantly being sold
or constantly switching.
If someone wants to do something, you know,
you have those conversations in the service drive
or having a cup of coffee, they're going to tell you,
just talk to people, just talk to them.
If they want to know something, you can probably sniff it out.
So that's my kind of philosophy on that.
Again, is it right or wrong?
Or am I a bad dealer because of it?
I don't know.
Is there opportunity that I'm missing?
I'm sure there is, but you know, we look at other things.
Yeah, I think there is opportunity,
but I agree with you.
I think one of the challenges in our industry
is it's disjointed a little bit.
Imagine being a service customer
and you go into a service drive for an appointment
and you get the text about the appointment,
you get the text with the video MPI,
you get a separate text with a trade-in offer for your car
and you intended to be there for 60 minutes.
You've been there for two and a half hours
and now they want to trade your car out, right?
Like, I think what the industry needs
is something that's more unified
that doesn't have a bunch of disparate systems
that are reaching out and trying to do,
I mean, you set a proactive outreach
in different channels, right?
That's what it is.
It's consistent.
Yeah.
A thousand percent.
So Yoga Cars backs this up online says,
you need a simple tool for service drive
that will have soft approach
and let customers raise their hand, not go after them.
Let them come to you, which makes sense, right?
So maybe that's one of the tools.
Maybe that's one of the tools you're looking at.
All right, so as you continue to grow, Jerry,
and this is the last question,
what brands are you looking for next?
What do you want to add to the portfolio
that you maybe do or don't have currently?
You know, we love everyone.
You know, I love my current brands.
I love our partners and our manufacturers.
I love all the relationships that we have built thus far.
Some great people.
There is no brand make model that we won't sell.
So that question is, you know, sky's the limit for us.
We love them all.
That's cool.
In order to get them all, you gotta love them all, right?
So, you know, we have a great relationship
with a lot of the manufacturers
and you know, I don't think that's a,
we want everything.
So as you think about growing,
you think about acquisition,
you think about winning in 2026.
What's one thing that keeps you up at night
that you're trying to solve for?
Besides the proactive outreach.
One thing that keeps me up at night,
I don't sleep.
I don't sleep at night, you know?
Spoken like a true dealer.
We don't, I literally, you know, it's funny real fast.
But you know, I send emails at like 3 a.m.,
2 a.m. all the time to my team.
I never sleep.
And they know like to answer the morning,
but I don't sleep.
But you know, I think that the biggest,
the biggest challenge is just making sure
that you got the right team in place
and you had the right leaders.
Again, you don't want to worry about your story.
I want to focus on the next one.
I don't want to have to focus on the store
and not performing the way it should be performing.
If it's, if I'm up night worrying about my stores,
that means I did a shitty job
hiring my general manager.
And that's shame on me, right?
So I think that's the major thing.
It's just, you know, that's what keeps you up night
is I'm a wrong choice, find the right leader.
And it takes a long time
to pay the consequence of that wrong choice.
All right, let's talk cars.com.
Today's episode is brought to you by cars.com,
the number one most recognized marketplace brand,
helping your dealership show up
and stand out to the most valuable car shopping audience.
We appreciate cars.com supporting today's content,
including that fascinating conversation with Jerry Raymond
as he seeks and continues to pursue the 100 rooftop.
I love his focus on culture, hiring the right person.
I've personally seen that I can vouch for it
and it'll be fun to have him back
and learn a little bit more about what he chose
as it relates to proactive service outreach, AI and all things.
So we'll definitely get him back.
So thank you, cars.com.
Appreciate you being on.
All right, next up today, we turn to our next guest,
dealer operator of Strohniter Chevrolet, Kevin Strohniter.
Welcome to the show.
Hey, how are you doing, Sam?
Kevin, did I get it?
I got it, right?
You got it right, you got it right.
Kevin in the green room gave me tips
on pronouncing his last name, which was awesome.
I appreciate that.
So all right, first up,
we always ask the same question, Kevin.
How's biz and as part of that,
tell us a little bit about yourself,
Strohniter Chevrolet there in Hopewell, Virginia.
Yeah, so I'll actually go the reverse of that.
I'll tell you a little bit about myself.
So we are a single point Chevy dealer.
Next year we'll be celebrating 60 years.
I'm third generation owner of Strohniter Chevrolet.
My father's actually still here at the store
and I have a brother here in the business as well.
My grandfather started it 60 years ago.
So I've been very, very blessed to be in this area
and I'm blessed to be a part of the automotive industry.
That's a little bit of a background about me about us.
Business is challenging, certainly at the moment.
Challenging, it's tough to come out of a situation
where every dealer's been through this,
where it seemed like business was rolling
and we could sell cars quickly and easily
to now inventory is stacking up
and we're back to the cutting the prices
and margin compressions.
And it just makes things a little bit challenging,
but it's also fun.
I enjoy the challenge.
I enjoy the learning to overcome the daily struggles
of how do you do all the things to keep your business going
and keep everybody happy,
keep everybody employed and grow.
So.
Yeah, yeah.
So you mentioned some of the challenges with growth,
with compression,
all the things we mentioned even in our beginning.
You know, with the news that used vehicles
are at inventory highs, right?
Average listing prices, can you believe this?
For anybody that's been in the industry a long time,
average used car listing prices over $25,000,
$25,000 seven according to Cox
and new vehicle prices are still up there.
How are you optimizing price versus turn
in today's market?
You mentioned that a little bit.
Yeah, and that is difficult.
We've made the decision that most dealers,
least dealers in our area I'll say have not made,
which is we have to,
you have to look at the price point of your local market.
I've got friends,
I've got friends their average used car prices is 40 grand.
That's their market.
I've got the average used car price in my market
is probably around 19 to 20,
20, you know, that's my market.
So I think you have to just look at your market,
your local market,
what's gonna move in your local market?
I think our average at the dealership right now,
we fluctuate back and forth between 21 and 22,000.
Average cost of sales of a used car.
And so it's, you know,
we have to look at what are you likely to move
in your market to keep the doors open
and keep your salespeople selling cars
and keep your service lane open.
We made the decision several years ago,
actually kind of right at the beginning of COVID
that we're just gonna go all in on used cars
and excuse me, I apologize,
go all in and we're going to make sure
that it is the one thing,
since it's the one thing as far as sales,
it's one thing we can control.
You can't really control, to an extent,
you can control what you get from the manufacturer,
but in the most part,
you can't control what you're getting
from the manufacturer.
You have constraints,
you can only order what they want you to order,
when they want you to order those types of things,
but used cars, you have so much control,
you can fluctuate with the market.
You can get rid of them quickly
if you don't want them, those types of things.
And so we decided we're gonna go all in on used cars.
What's your best acquisition source right now?
And what's your strategy for acquiring that?
Because you mentioned your average list price
on used cars is less than the market average.
So that adds a layer of complexity to it.
Yeah, yeah, so best or our most common source,
those are the different questions.
So currently we are buying a lot from auctions.
What we have to do to keep our inventory levels
where we want them to be, it's not our best source.
Jerry mentioned this earlier,
and by the way, I took like two pages of notes
from Jerry, it was a very, very good.
I love it, he was good.
Yeah, he's really good.
But the best sources, as he said before, is always trade-ins.
And I think it's trade-ins and then it's streets purchases
and service lane if you can pick up there
and then it's auctions last.
The reality is though in the market that we're in
where you have lower car prices in our market
and the demographics kind of dictate that
in our particular market,
that means the trade-ins are less and less and less.
So we're having at the moment,
our most commonly used source is auction,
but we're having this,
are making it really, really big push
on street purchases, buying off the street
in particular Facebook marketplace.
We're gonna really hammer that this year.
My goal is to get 80% of our inventory
coming from trades and street purchases
and only 20% from auctions.
How are you gonna do that?
Cause I think there's a lot of dealers out there
that feel the way you feel.
They're like, look, I don't wanna be hostage to the auction.
I wanna get that vehicle, I wanna get at the price,
I wanna get it and I want less recon
and the path to that is trade-ins
and it's service drive and it's probably private marketplace
but getting there is another matter.
What are your steps to achieving that?
So honestly, my biggest step is find successful people
and do what they do.
And I've got some really good friends
in the industry who are doing it.
And I'm studying what they do.
Somebody here, I think you're gonna have on sometime soon,
the Rob Ruth Ford,
or Bob Ruth Ford, Rob Ruth and Rob Dill,
they do an excellent job studying what they're doing,
talking with them, learning their strategies.
Good friends with people who used to run,
or used to be high up in the Dan Cummins organization
out in Kentucky, they did a lot of street purchases there.
So I'm learning, I'm studying, I'm learning
and we're just going out there and trying things.
We're just, it's really, it's about relationship.
You get out there, you get relationships
with these people, you have to be willing
to give everybody an offer.
You have to be willing to maybe stretch a little bit.
I think most people wanna, on their street purchases,
I wanna hit a home run like you do on a trade-in,
it's not gonna be that way.
Why is it not gonna be that way?
Well. I think some dealers are afraid
of going all in on street purchases,
which I don't understand
because that's the best acquisition source.
The funny part is, I've talked about this multiple times
with my management team.
The funny part is we'll go to auction
and we'll pay 90% to market for an auction car.
And then once you pay the fees
and you pay the transportation,
you get it here, you own it for 93, 94%.
Why not pay 90% for somebody from a car off the street?
And then you don't have the fees
and you don't have the transportation,
you don't have all that other stuff.
And I don't know why there's this disconnect
of we're not willing to pay up for a vehicle off the street,
but you're gonna have to be
because those people who think about it,
the person that's trading in their vehicle,
they're bringing in the vehicle to trade in,
they're bringing it to one place
or they might go to three or four dealerships at most,
but they're bringing it to one place
and getting a valuation of their vehicle.
Now they've gone on the KBB
and they've gone on the NADA,
they go on these different sites
and looked at it with a bag of their vehicle,
but you can kind of control that a little bit.
The person who is out there
putting their vehicle out for sale,
they don't like the number
that the dealer has given them on the trade in.
They don't want the number
the dealer's given them on the trade in.
So your margin is not gonna be as big,
but it's gonna be way better
than what you're getting at the auction
because you're skipping all the other fees
and all the things that you're paying to Mannheimer
to any of the other places that you're going.
And clearly, by the number of offers you see
that come into your dealership from Carvana and CarMax,
they've figured it out.
It's a game of putting an offer
on every single vehicle that comes into their sphere
and orbit and Automotive,
historically has been afraid of doing that
because you don't wanna offend the customer
with a low number because you're giving a low number,
right, so yeah.
Now your strategy is to put a number on
as much as you can, right?
Yeah, and the reality, this is the tough part too,
is as humans, we want instant gratification
and the reality is you're still gonna be seven to 10%
of the vehicles that you're putting bids on
that you're gonna actually get
and you just gotta be willing to push through it
and push through it and push through it
that, hey, I'm not gonna get nine out of the 10 cars
I put bids on, but the one I get
is gonna be better than the ones that I get at auction,
so you just keep pushing and keep pushing and keep pushing.
So as you're looking to shift from auction
to private market, service drive, and trade-ins,
is there any technology or any tools or vendors
that you're utilizing to help achieve that shift?
Yeah, a couple things, so I do use VINQ,
I use VINQ's VBC Vehicle Buying Center, use that.
I'm working currently with a man named Daryl Steed,
I don't know if you've heard of Daryl,
he's out of California, a smart wolf, smart wolf services,
I can't remember, the ending of his company name,
but Daryl is many, many years in vehicle acquisition,
so we're looking at that, we're constantly on,
I'm using KBB ICO, those types of things
for people who are looking to sell their car,
car gurus sell my car, leads, those types of things,
but really the big thing that I'm really gonna focus on
is I'm just gonna go out there
and not necessarily worry about the technology of the vendors,
the technology is there, the customer's already
using the technology, it's called Facebook Marketplace,
they're putting their cars out there,
it's called the Auditrader,
where they're already putting their cars on Auditrader
to sell their vehicle, they're doing it,
you don't need technology, you just need to actually
go out there and pay attention and contact these people.
So how are you doing that?
Are you doing it through salespeople,
through managers, do you have somebody
dedicated to it posting ads,
or what's your strategy there?
So right now I have one dedicated person
as we're learning and growing,
we have one dedicated person that he is helping us
create our processes, he's a very analytical young man,
has no business or no background
in the car business whatsoever,
I wanted somebody who didn't because somebody
who has background in the car business
could be tainted a little bit,
so I've got one person focused,
the goal is to get him into that 30 car a month range
and then add another person,
and then get that person, both of them,
into 30 cars a month, add another person,
and just little by little do add people
as we go along, it's a little bit of a slow process,
but again, like I said, the biggest thing
is spending time with people who have already
accomplished what I want to accomplish,
learning from them, and say,
hey, what are you doing here,
and building relationships where they don't mind
helping me out, so that's the biggest thing.
So transitioning away from used cars,
we wish you luck as you undertake this,
I think you're spot on, you've got to make it happen,
and it's interesting too, Jerry, super smart guy,
I love that he's as pragmatic
as he is on service drive acquisitions,
because it's a buzzword in the industry
and it's something most people just, they suck at,
they don't do well at it.
It's the truth.
And you've got to be super deliberate to do it,
and then to his point, you can't over communicate
to a customer, you're just going to piss them off,
and that'll make it even worse.
Let's transition for a minute into FNI,
you've got a great background.
In your opinion, where does FNI create
the most customer friction in today's processes,
and how do you keep product penetration strong
without, to Jerry's point, feeling pushy,
like some dealers are on the service drive
on that used car acquisition?
Yeah, absolutely.
So we've had an FNI growth in the past about four years,
where we, honestly, we were absolutely miserable in FNI.
What is miserable number wise?
It's almost embarrassing to say.
We were right around $800 a copy.
Yeah, yeah, recently, right?
That was about four years ago.
Yeah, which is half of Publix by far.
Yeah, okay.
To right now, we fluctuate back and forth
between $2300 and $2600 a copy.
How'd you make the shift?
That's a big shift, that's a big mindset cultural shift.
It is, it is.
So a couple of things, number one,
we had to change the mindset of our sales management team
that, hey, you're gonna get paid all in,
front and back, not just front,
you're gonna get paid all in on these vehicles,
and our goal is we are gonna set FNI up to do well.
Now, we're gonna do it in an ethical and moral way,
but we're gonna set them up.
We're gonna, we're not,
it's not the front against the back,
which is the mentality in so many dealerships.
We're not gonna do that, it's gonna be, we're a team.
So...
Was that your mentality before that it was a competition
and everybody was kind of fighting against each other,
and that's how you ended up with that.
I don't think it was, it wasn't so much as a competition,
it was just not a collaboration, it just wasn't.
I had literally changed pay plans and said,
hey, we're gonna change,
and you're gonna, instead of being paid you on the front
and you on the back, we're gonna be paid,
you're gonna be paid on the whole kit and caboodle.
And that way you understand
that this is not just about your,
what is good for you is about what's good for the store
and what is good for this person is also good for you.
So...
Market pressure took you to that point
where you said, I've gotta make a change.
I need to go from 800 to the two plus.
Well, obviously the compression,
the margin of compression on the front,
that's a huge piece of that.
The, I think to, I saw that my managers were,
they were, it was tough for them
because they didn't wanna take a deal
because oh, I'm losing,
I might have to lose money to take that deal.
I might have to lose a little bit on the front,
I might have to do this.
Well, what if we could make that money in the back
and you get paid on not just the front,
you get paid on the front and the back.
And then how would you feel about taking that deal
that you wouldn't take before?
Well, yeah, I feel a whole lot better about that.
Okay, so let's do that.
Let's change the way we think about this
so that we can sell more cars.
We can...
And by the way, not having a service contract
in those deals like you were getting at 800,
like that cost service business, right?
The retention alone is a,
has it made over the past four years
since you began that journey?
Has it made a measurable impact on your retention
and fixed ops revenue and growth through the...
Yeah, yeah, we've luckily,
we have been always very, very blessed in our fixed ops.
We've had a really good reputation in our community.
We've had a lot of, a whole lot of loyalty
over the years from our customers and repeat business.
So we've been very, very blessed in that area anyways,
but it certainly has made a massive boost
in our overall revenue in the service department.
Absolutely.
And do you have a vendor or a partner
that helps you or consults with you in the FNI world?
And if so...
Yeah, so I've got two in particular,
and I say two in particular,
I've got a bunch obviously,
but we work with a group out of North Carolina,
the Sterling Group, which is a Brown and Brown company.
Okay, yeah.
We, and they're amazing.
Chris Carter and Tyler and his group,
they're absolutely amazing people, top-notch service.
So I throw that out there.
And then, but the guy that really,
I really got to give a ton of credit to
is a man named Saka Dyson.
Are you familiar with Saka?
Oh yeah, yep, you know, I don't know him,
but I've heard about him online.
We probably need to have him on the show.
You know, I think he's got a good strategy
as it relates to FNI and thinks well.
So Saka, that going with Saka has really,
it's really what started to really move the needle for us.
And it was, go ahead.
Oh no, go ahead.
I was just gonna say, Kevin, go ahead,
wrap up and then we got to close here.
So thank you.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine.
The idea is with Saka, the big thing is,
it's not about product, it's about presentation,
it's about knowing your customer, loving your customer.
So there's a whole lot more I can tell you about that,
but yeah.
Delivering value at a high value.
Kevin Strohn-Sneider, we gotta have you back,
cause it'd be interesting to hear the rest of the story.
Dealer operator of Strohn-Sneider,
Chevrolet Enrichment Virginia,
thanks for joining the show
and sharing your perspectives today.
We appreciate you being here with us.
Thank you, appreciate it.
You know what's crazy is time goes by so quickly.
Like I lose track of it quickly.
We had such a great conversation today
between our two guests
and I'm grateful to both of them for being on today
and sharing their perspectives
on all things used car acquisition, fixed ops
and growing everything.
It has been a fun conversation today
to be sure a couple of closing comments.
Dancy says, does Kevin participate in a 20 group?
And if so, does that impact some of his decisions?
Kevin, you can put that in the show notes
if you want out there.
But we appreciate those perspectives.
And guess what?
Since I'm solo today,
I'm trying to find my outro thing here.
We'll get there in just a second.
I'm finding it, I'm getting there.
But we appreciate everybody that's been on.
We appreciate you, our Daily Dealer Live audience.
You will be back on Monday this weekend.
We've got the Ziggler year end holiday party.
We appreciate everybody for watching Daily Dealer Live
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 1 PM Eastern.
If you like the show, hit subscribe, hit like,
share it with your friends,
and we'll see you back on Monday, 1 PM Eastern.
Thanks for being here, everybody.
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