Sokolowski on Bench Strength, Gilson on Profit Potential, Merrick on F&I | Daily Dealer Live

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

I'm your host, Sam Dark, and thanks for choosing to be here on this Wednesday, the 23rd of February.

And here's something to consider midweek.

Used values have swung double digits in the past months.

Auto subprime delinquencies, well, they're at multi-year highs.

And national service retention, well, it's quietly slipping.

All-Wall floor plan costs are elevated.

In this marketplace, we're clearly seeing signs that average execution is getting exposed.

I see that every day in my role as COO.

Today, joining the show, Matt Sokolowski, also COO, joins to discuss how he's building

leadership bench strength in a large auto group, while pressures are real.

Michael Gilson also joins with an opinion on unlocking millions in revenue,

hiding in your database and your CRM and among your customer records.

And we also, last up today, have the youngest F&I Ford F&I manager in the nation.

It's self-proclaimed, we'll test that, Ryan Merrick.

He joins to discuss why modern F&I process beats old school tactics every time.

Today, we've got leadership.

We've got intelligence.

We've got execution.

And that's our show.

But first, let's hit today's auto industry headlines.

All right, first up today, in the service department, more customers are

demanding real-time answers and AI advisors are quickly becoming a legitimate

solution to meet those demands, this according to a new report by InMotion

Brands. Per the report, roughly between 20 and 40 percent of inbound calls to

service shops, they go unanswered.

That is an astounding statistic to me.

20 to 40 percent of inbound calls to service go unanswered.

And roughly 80 percent of callers who hit voicemail, well, they hang up

before they actually leave a message and they take that business elsewhere

often. But for dealerships, AI offers a new lever.

It acts as a 24-7 intake advisor that can field common call types while escalating

only qualified opportunities to human staff that frees up overburdened

service advisors, BDC managers and other staff to take care of the customers

with the bigger issues.

And dealers are using these hybrid models, dealers using these hybrid

models are showing measurable gains, close rates climbing from 20 to 28

percent, this according to the study.

And average repair orders rising from $1,029.50, I want to know where the

50 cents came from, to $1,095 tapping on $1,100.

Still, AI will not fix a broken process and results improve most when

the AI handoff process is clearly defined.

Pricing language is standardized and advisors receive follow-up coaching.

Interesting statistic and report to report out to you this morning.

We'll follow that and more AI related news throughout the week and coming

episodes. Next up today, more technology news this morning.

FullPath's latest auto intelligence index highlights how AI platforms are

now influencing vehicle discovery in ways traditional search can no longer do.

Total traffic to dealership websites from generative AI sources such as

ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Clauda and Grock surged more than 15 times year over

year. ChatGPT remains the dominant force accounting for roughly 89 percent of

all AI originated traffic.

But Google Gemini is gaining ground quickly, notching a 50 percent month

over month surge and growing its share from 4 percent to 6.5 percent

between December and January. Beyond AI referrals, the broader digital

picture shows growth access growth across the board.

Website traffic jumped notably for Stellanus, Hyundai and Honda.

Meanwhile, Toyota dealers grew marketing budgets by 24 percent month over month

and 27 percent year over year. Mercedes-Benz saw the sharpest monthly increase.

That's up 58 percent and JLR more than doubled its spend from a year ago.

What's the signal? Well, dealers that treat AI as a new top funnel channel

keep merchandising clean and flex marketing to match day supply will be

better positioned to capture demand without giving away margin.

And even as I read that news piece, parts of that conflict with a

car dealership guy pod we released earlier this week with president

CEO of Wikimotive. Go there, listen to that.

There are several opinions about where to put your generative

AI dollar spend and ad spend in this rapidly evolving AI marketplace.

In other news today, dealers and industry advocates are telling CDG news

that car brokers and the legal gray area they operate in are hurting

the industry in multiple ways. Want more on that as an aside?

Check out Monday's show where we had a robust discussion on brokering

and how it's impacting dealers, particularly in New Jersey.

Back to the story, they argue that a lack of regulations for brokering

practices along with manufacturers that don't police their own policies

have helped fuel an increase in brokering in recent years to the

detriment of franchise dealers. For example, in New Jersey strict

regulations against brokering took effect in June 2024,

but they've not been enforced. And for dealers, the core complaint

is the math operator Paul Sansone Jr. says some stores will take

three to $7,000 losses. He said it on Monday's daily dealer

live show on broker deals just to hit volume targets and

unlock back-end incentives, pumping the numbers, but gutting

long-term profitability. Yet, supporters argue that brokering

provides convenience, upfront pricing, and access to hard-to-find

inventory. And when former broker put it to CDG news, quote,

maybe dealers should ask themselves why brokers are needed

in the first place. You want more context on this

conversation? Go back to Monday's show. Listen in.

We'd love your feedback as we continue to stream across all

CDG social media platforms. Post your comments. We'll bring

them into today's show. Next up, last up in today's news, dealership

M&A activity is continuing its red hot pace with more deals

happening in North Carolina and Kansas. Hunter Automotive

Group purchased Victory Chevrolet from Brandon

Gandy in a deal that closed February 17th. This, according

to Performance Brokerage Services, which facilitated

the transaction, Hunter Auto now owns three dealerships

selling Hyundai, Subaru, and Volvo. They're all on the same

campus in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Further west in the

nation's bread basket, spouses Jennifer and Jason Duckdority

of Legacy Auto Center, they purchased the former Hyundai of

Dodge City in Kansas from the G1 Group in a deal that closed on

February 12th. The Hyundai store is the pair's

second dealership, according to Performance Brokerage

Services, Jamie Farley. And you can see these deal

announcements and many more throughout the entire year by

visiting the CDG Bicell Tracker at cdgbicell.com

powered by the Percidio Group and we love that Jingo.

And that, folks, is a wrap on today's industry headlines.

And hey, just a reminder, you can post your comments across

all CDG social media platform. Again, as I said before, we'll

bring it into today's show. Including, we'd love to get

your take on this broker discussion that we've been

having. It started Monday. It's continued through the week. I

see CDG circles are alight with the conversation on that, as

well as the conversation we had about Stellantis limiting

acquisitions by dealers and many take their take, is it

related to Carvon? Is it not? What's the play there on

Stellantis? There are many topics right now alight in

CDG circles. If you want more, you can join that up.

Yoga Cars, thanks for commenting in the post today. 15x

growth on AI Search, but still low overall volume. And that's

an opinion shared by WikiMotive in a pod we did earlier this

week. There are things he said you can do to prepare for

what will inevitably become more generative AI Search.

But for today, he would argue SEO, investing in SEO, in fact

investing in human-made SEO, is the place to go today.

Alight, let's launch into today's show. We've got an action pack

show, starting with the CEO of a large group in the Midwest.

Welcome to the show. CEO Willis Auto Campus, Matt Sokolowski.

Matt, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks. Appreciate you guys

having me on. It's awesome. Pump to have you here. Thanks for

joining the Daily Deal Live. You're a first-time guest, so

we're excited to get your take on things that you're

doing in the marketplace to win. Before we dive into our

first question, Matt, just tell us a little bit about

yourself, your role in the auto group you work with for.

Yeah, easy. Been in the car business 23 years. That's an easy

one because it's a year my first daughter, my daughter was

born and made my wife nervous. She's okay with it now.

Willis Automotive, we've got eight brands that we have on

the sales side. Great brands, Lexus, Cadillac,

Infinity, Land Rover, Mini, and Chevrolet and Nissan.

Proud to represent those in the Central Iowa area.

Operate with our core values. That's first and foremost

and love our people. Yeah, that's awesome. So

it's interesting, Matt. You run multiple rooftops. You're in a tough market

and there's downturn signals right now in the U.S. automotive space. There's

inventory pressures, credits tightening, there's volume that's

plateauing. You've told me your focus right now is

professional training and leadership. Frame that for us. Why are you

choosing professional training and leadership over sales

strategy today in February 2026? Yeah, thanks for the question.

It's, you know, as the car business goes, ups and downs happen

and when potential headwinds hit your way, what's our first reaction?

We lean on our people and we lean on them to do

even more than they have ever done before.

And so, you know, doubling down on the importance of having an amazing

culture and people that are truly trained up in their current roles

and ready to assume new roles should turn over happen, should

promotions happen. It's just more important than ever

when things do get a little tighter. What's the toughest role you're finding

to hire for or to develop for in automotive February 2026?

When you're looking at things, two things come to mind immediately.

Technicians are always a challenge. Yeah.

Getting better, I would say. And then your entry-level

BDC type folks and retaining those folks sometimes can be a challenge.

We feel like we've, we're definitely in a really good space there, but those two

roles are tough and then everybody always wants great salespeople.

So BDC is interesting. We hear a lot about AI and some

technology taking over some of the BDC task.

Have you implemented any AI in the BDC role?

And if so, where, and where are you finding the best BDC candidates today in

February 2026? Yeah, of course. Thanks.

Yes, to answer your question, we have, we tried one AI company that I won't

mention that didn't really work out for us.

And then more currently with an AI company, I don't know if you want me

to mention them or not, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

Numa and Angie Augustine with Numa brought that to us.

It's been an amazing onboarding experience. We've had them for a year now.

And whenever we're looking at a service, you know, is it going to provide

better guest care? And that, that means our internal guests too. Is it good for

our teammates and is it good for our paying guests that are

coming in and out the door? And I'll just tell you Numa is a

homerun yes on that. Numa gets every single, you were talking about

unanswered calls. There's no unanswered calls anymore.

And the calls go directly to the people that they need to go to.

Flipping, you know, you talk about frustrations with guests and it's,

I left a message and I didn't get a call back in the same day and that's

over and over and over again. The beautiful thing about Numa,

among one of many things, is you have the ability to track that.

And we've gone from that same, we were in that boat a day to get a voicemail

returned to now with all of our brands, our average response time to a voicemail

is 10 minutes. And Numa does an amazing job of

converting guests when they're talking to them,

talking to them to text. People would rather text and so that's one of

their first things. Would you rather communicate via text?

Heck yes, I would. What percentage of people are converting from voice to

text in your experience? 70 plus percent are converting immediately

on that first, you know, offer to text. And I would say, you know,

and how does this work for our company? Well, our director of guest care who

oversees sales, service, BDC and everything,

she's the one that brought Numa to us before NADA

a year ago and said, Matt, you got to check this one out. If you go one

place, check this one out. And we did. And I mean, I don't want to,

I'll give you a little dirty little secret. We were

of our brands, we were underwater on all but two on national CSI, meaning we were

below average. And now we're up to

seven of nine on our brands on the service side,

finished the year over national average with CSI.

And would you attribute it to that technology or better trained people or

what would you attribute the increase in the CSI to?

All of it, because what Numa has done is it's given our teammates the ability to

inhale and exhale. Those BDC reps were not the right people to be

fielding the phone calls on. I'm frustrated because my car's not

ready. I'm frustrated because I haven't had an update. I'm frustrated

this, that or the other thing. Or I just have a question.

Those calls anymore, so their job satisfaction has gone through the roof.

They're able to focus on outbound calls now, CSI calls now. How do we do

yesterday when you were in? And those are more fun calls to handle.

And that's what fascinates me about some of this technology. Some people are

reticent to adopt it. They push back on it because they fear it'll

take a job away. But to your point, the high volume of

frustration that comes in through a lot of service departments, you can't

staff for it. Certainly at 2 a.m. in the morning. And some of this tech will

answer that and respond to it more quickly earlier. And then it allows our

staff to be a little bit more at ease and not feel like they're constantly

getting bombarded. And they can focus on the stuff that's

really challenging. For those that are curious, so

I think a lot in automotive, myself included, COO role, we both share

that. You've seen things that have worked and

you've seen things that haven't. That first solution you mentioned,

what about it didn't work? And what would be your takeaway lesson to

other dealers watching today when you're considering purchasing similar tech

to avoid the lesson that you learned early on?

Number one, I would encourage you to involve your team, whatever you're

looking to adopt. Get a group of whoever's in

charge of that and then a frontline person to weigh in on and sit in the

demo with you. If you've sat through a

demo, sit through it again for the courtesy of

them and let them really weigh in and buy in and then listen to them after it

on boards. What didn't work about that one is it

didn't do what they said it was going to do and it was really truly upsetting

our guests. What was the specific claim that

they made that it didn't deliver on? They specifically said that their

AI tool had the ability to talk seamlessly with a guest

and you couldn't tell it was AI. You could tell it was AI

and it wasn't listening to our guests when they would say hey I just want to

talk to somebody and it wouldn't get them to the right person

but when that happens it does happen. There's a lot of

good sales people out there. My encouragement, I heard this at

NADA, is when you had on board one of these new

solutions, the very next day I heard it at the

at the Hague Partners conference. They did it. That was a great conference by the way.

I was only born and invited me and it's awesome but

best practice dealer on board is a new system.

He sends them a cancellation the very next day and they're like whoa

whoa whoa. It's like hey man I'm you know whether

I'm 30 days. Keep you on notice. Yeah we're

on notice. We need to make sure this thing works and then and then pivot.

If it doesn't work, pivot. Yeah you know I love that. I was just talking to one of

RGMs in our group today and he and I actually

posted something to LinkedIn that you know we had a vendor partner who had

sent us an email over the holiday saying hey I hope you all have success while

I'm at the beach and we were both just like that's so tone deaf right and he

had another experience with a partner. I asked him to see if a problem was

fixed and he's like Sam the guy's like trying to half

half-assed handle it while he's on vacation and he says you know I'm on

vacation I'll get to you back to you when I'm when I'm back and

to your point we've I think 2026 is about getting vendors and partners to

raise the level of play and execution and I like that strategy of

delivering a cancellation as soon as you sign up because

you know there should be these 12 month contracts don't

don't serve anyone. I want the team serving us

and I want us to be equally you know tied to making this thing successful fair

fair yeah yeah absolutely so so you don't you don't want to say the name of the

first AI company probably it was years ago so they probably developed beyond it

right I'm gonna I'm gonna get you know actually they have not developed

beyond all they have who is it I went and took another

demo just a new diligence at any VA and I was just like

asking them all these I'm like really okay okay thanks for your time I'll take

a water and I went on my way so this is only your perspective but who is it out

of curiosity I'm not telling you okay all right at

least I asked because I will get shredded in the comments I'm already seen a ton

of comments if I don't ask you people who lose their minds

Lauren Klein I appreciate that but I'm not on here to

you know make waves Lauren Klein says finally some

quantifiable ROI coming from AI and there are

AI is truly the tale of two cities all right NADA you were there

you're thinking about developing your people your bench strength you're thinking

about implementing tools that deliver ROI to the organization was there a tool

that you walked away from after NADA and you said hey this is valuable and

you're committed to implementing into your organization

I did not find anything new in that regard I did find some

things that intrigued me and I've we have some demos set up

there's a company called M.A.E make auto enjoyable and

it's like a MAGA play huh yeah my team and I are going to take a demo on that

later today actually and it looks like a really robust sales tool

that looks really interesting but I always like stopping by the N.C.M

booth we've had tremendous success with

the G.M.E.P. program I've been through that we've sent several other

leaders through that and you know it's one of our biggest success

stories we've we've promoted man over half the people that

have taken that have been promoted so it's it's pretty good but

so yoga car cars comes into the comments says for SAS product month to

month is enough in that case cancellation makes no sense so

yoga long time listener and you quote you post up often

I would say I think you're right but most SAS products try to get you on a

six to twelve month contract and I just don't think there's a need for a long

term contract when we're trying to hold each other accountable

I don't know Matt what thoughts you have about that do you sign long term

contracts in your group for SAS products

because of what they say are the setup costs and the development costs to

implement into your organization we always try to take the shortest contract

possible and and it's just it's a good idea to

do that and if it works out you can always

you can always take a longer one later but that's always our goal is

to take a little bit shorter and you know whether it's six months we don't

intend to to cancel in six months we don't intend to

cancel any year if we sign up for something we're here

to be great partners on both ends for a long long time you know we talked

about Numa I I imagine them as a partner in our

business for years to come yeah and by the way they're not

a sponsor on today's show but thank you for bringing this up I mean it's

interesting to hear everybody's stories with different providers

and this world is evolving so quickly all right let's go back to talent

development let's go back to bench strength love it when I saw those points

in the show the prep for today I messaged hand on I'm like come on

like I you know everybody talks culture everybody talks development

it's a buzzword and in most cases it means absolutely nothing so let's

pressure test this when you say development what specifically

are you doing to develop your team do you have like a depth chart

and a succession map by role how often do you update this what are you doing

in February of 2026 to truly train develop and career path your teams

um I mean it there's there's two ends of it that you've got the top in with

executive levels you need you need people to replace

me if I get hit by a bus yeah but all throughout the organization and it

really it starts off with interns I mean we've

four years ago we committed to interns on both the sales and service

side we've retained on the service side more than 50 percent of our interns and

on the sales side 30 percent and you get that buy-in early on with

young people they bring an energy to the culture

and an excitement and a new perspective that that can translate on and on

but every leader in our I think we've got 50 people in leadership roles in our

organization they know that when the term

hit by a bus shows up on the their one-on-one agenda

it means we're going to talk about where they at with with succession planning

and what's going to happen once you get promoted because that's

you know people sometimes they're happy in their current role

and we have we have professional development programs for people that

are discerning leadership and for people that are happy in their

current role because you should always be developing

so who comes into your role when you get if you get hit by the bus

I'm not going to name their names because you know I don't need

I don't need head you don't need you don't need to uh you don't need to actually

have a bus contracted to hit you that would be the other problem right yeah

for sure but I mean I can tell you this there are three people that

that are in this organization right now that could absolutely

step into my role and and do it just as well and you know

maybe even better don't tell them that but I guess everybody's watching now

but but that's what happens when roles turn over

you know peace that's the expectation they're going to take it to the next

level and I'm sure whoever takes my gig will okay so there are

successors named and you're developing you're working with them to be

prepared if that moment comes let's go before we have to

bounce let's go to the sales and service roles I'm fascinated

by that you say you have interns for sales let's go into that world

where do you find these interns what's the training program look like

and what's the transition from intern into a full fledged sales position

look like in your organization yeah I love that question because I love our

interns we started with interns four years ago on the first year

we weren't that good at it I mean we just weren't we had never had interns

before we we wrote a loose curriculum and we

kind of you know they got to spend a day with

me each and that that was good but it wasn't

enough per se they didn't have enough on the leadership

side so we've we've developed that curriculum over the years to a much

better situation but we also retained a few of those

first-year interns and now they've helped us to continue to develop the program

but I mean they in what's a sales intern do they come

in and they have they're assigned to a sales

manager and they have they have regular scheduled

touch points with myself they they have the opportunity to get exposed to

leadership development and philosophies with our

leaders but they also have to do the grunt work

they have to understand what it takes to build relationships which is the most

important thing with our with people that work

here and then with our guests they're not allowed to talk to a guest until

they're ready but by the end of the summer

you know they're out there taking ups and selling cars and they just get

they I mean we all got it at one point the bug to be in the car business

and and it happens so I love the question from online

our aria asks aria jasmine game I butcher some of these names sorry to

everybody where are you getting these interns they coming from high school

are they college how are you sourcing these that yeah they're from college we go

to um so we're in central Iowa we go to um we've

gotten interns from the University of Iowa last year we had University of

Iowa we had Iowa State Grandview College here at

Grandview University here in Des Moines has been a great resource we've

retained two of them we have a an intern that interned with us

last year who is expressed interested he wants to work full time

he's getting his master's degree at Notre Dame right now

finishing in May and then hooking back up with us then

so really all over but we go we go to the college career fairs

specifically recruiting in sales and leadership interns

so Matt if your Notre Dame guy doesn't decide to come back to Iowa tell

him he's got a place in the chicagoland we're super close between Kalamazoo we

want him at Ziggler Matt so we may uh we may try to make this deal I think that's

a great strategy in February 2026 to deepen your

bent strength before we wrap let's just hit a couple news worthy items

so uh you've got a bunch of different brands you've got Chevy

Infinity Lexus Nissan Volvo JLR Mini what OEM in February 2026 is

winning for you and who's struggling right now I would tell

you the winning right now is is Lexus we hear it over and again but they are

they're an amazing partner you take just um a week and a half ago we had

eight Lexus executives visit us here on site in in Little Des Moines, Iowa the

best city in the country and and just reviewing our our how we did last year

and and what what are our goals for this year what is our budget what do

they see for us and how do we partner

yeah I how do we is it they're nationally they're projected to go backwards

about one percent but we're not okay with that and they're not okay with that

with us okay so how do we get together and push our business forward while

everyone else may be having a bit of a regression

and um it's not just about sales they they set benchmarks for us on the

service side and we just love being challenged

you could take which OEM in your portfolio could take a lesson from

Lexus and improve operations overall

I think you know many could take a lesson from uh Lexus to a degree you know

infinity and Nissan are they're they're pointing in the right direction and I

know they get a lot of bad press they're they have a good

a good plan in progress and if they can execute on that

um they'll be in good shape but they could take they could take a few cues

from Lexus perhaps yeah Tiago Tiago was recently on the show had

some great things to talk about the future but they're still under fire

and they're a brand that's gaining momentum on the

up upside so it's interesting you talked about JLR you recently

converted from selling and servicing to service only what went into the

decision of giving back the sales side and and why

even retain service through that um well the sales side

you know they we were unsure of the direction that they were going it

didn't look like a really solid plan that aligned with our

market it may align in other markets and then and

you know by talking about are you talking about Jag's ad campaign or what are

you referring to talking a lot about uh they have a lot of

things going on and a lot of you know ad campaigns always come into a part of it

but uh yeah yeah I mean it just you know they're

the the focus and vision maybe didn't align with central Iowa as much as it

could in a lot of other areas and I'm sure they'll have

great success there but we we kept service and they get

for five years uh because we sold a lot of Jaguars we sold a lot of new ones

and we sold a lot of CPO ones and it's our duty to our guests

to provide that guest care at least for the entire

warranty that we sold them and sold them the new vehicle or the CPO

vehicle and we have an obligation to fulfill that

well Matt Sokolowski COO of Willis Auto Campus we'd love to have you

back at the very end of the show we've got the nation's youngest

Ford FNI manager love to get your take on development and

some topics that you both work together on so Matt we appreciate you being on the

show we'll catch you at the very end sounds great thanks for the time

appreciate it thank you all right today's episode let's talk

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post the live show you can go uh into the uh

comments in the show and get linked up with Impel

props to Devin Daly CEO of Impel he recently came to Ziggler Auto Group

for our GM AI best practice session it was a heck of a lot of fun to sit there

with Aaron to sit there with all of our GM teams and talk about

AI and how it's evolving in our business as I mentioned on the last show

the the shocking takeaway for me from that entire session

was how well sales people are doing in our world today

with chat GPT co-pilot and some of these other AI tools

and just leaning into their personal brand it's exciting to see

sales people in February 2026 owning it in a way that they haven't

in the past because those tools haven't been available and these tools

more often are free right now a couple comments from online Lauren crying

2520 dealer partners don't need contracts

vendors do and aria says if you sign a long-term contract it makes the vendor

lazy and I think that is absolutely an interesting comment as

well all right let's transition to our next guest

up CEO of Conversica Michael Gilson Michael welcome to the show today

thanks for having me I'm excited to be here appreciate having you on before we

dive into our questions tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do

absolutely so I'm CEO of Conversica I've been in the software industry for

the last 15 years really building industry specific AI

products so I've seen a couple waves of AI

and I think this is a very exciting time for the automotive industry

specifically but when I took over the leadership of

Conversica back in April of last year I made auto a core focus of our company

and we've invested a lot in kind of developing this next wave of

applications that I'm very excited to talk about today so we just talked to

Matt about leadership and training and their their kind of career

pathing employees that's a hidden resource for those

dealers that truly do that they can realize gains economically get more

customers you have a different answer you probably agree with Matt but

you're saying hey that next million dollars in gross that could come from your

database and there are millions tied up

hidden in a database if I gave you a Toyota store today doing 150 bucks a

month where would you look first inside that

stores database to find real incremental value in February 2026

absolutely so it's a great question and just to feed off Matt come back to

just the people element of this in a minute

but really the starting point for really any modern

AI system is really the data in the data foundation

and when I look at automotive there's a couple key areas that we typically

look at and and adjust as part of our system but also

every AI system should be doing this so for context I we always think about

a DMS system that's kind of the backbone of most major dealership

operations either at the dealership level or the group level

that's really the core system of record that has so much information

buried in it very hard to get information out of that but that's really

kind of your core system of record then oftentimes there may have a

CDP system in conjunction with your CRM system

as well as all of your historical conversational engagement data

this is the data that's buried in emails

can be buried in call logs text messages what have you

so being able to ingest across all of those data sources

and being able to reason across it to really create

a strong data foundation which will enable you

to generate strategic insights about your specific

dealership or group and I think that's really the key

area of just how this process begins and I think once you do that

you now have a strategy at your disposal that you can go and execute

and I think the AI system should really help you formulate

a best in class strategy for how to drive performance at that specific

dealership or how to drive performance in a specific market

that's really what the modern system should be able to do so I would say

that's where typically we see oftentimes by mining that information

and analyzing it oftentimes just one dealership

oftentimes will have millions of dollars of untapped revenue that they

can go and target obviously with the help of a human team behind you

but we can identify those revenue opportunities in real time to go and

execute all that that's very in this case how does the AI work

so you're saying it gets signals from the CRM it gets it from email

it gets it does it get it from phone conversations and other things like is

it using what are the different sources it's using to come up with this

yes so the beauty of a modern architecture is that you can ingest

data in any form that could be structure databases like CRMs or DMS systems

that could be unstructured data that could be window stickers that could be

emails that could be call logs if you have them being able to ingest

all of that regardless of the form in which it comes in

is really in some ways a prerequisite to be able to execute on what I've

just described so wholesale swings we know in

the marketplace use cars are challenging dealers who

mispriced trades can your AI calculate equities positions dynamically and

identify customers sitting in positive equity before the market shifts is it

able to go in and make calculations like that

absolutely the beauty of it really this intelligence layer

think of your best analyst or the world's best analysts

looking at your your DMS trends looking at your CRM data

and being able to create models that can identify

situations that have positive equity so if someone is bringing in their car

for service someone on your team should have access to that

information and understand you know what there's a high likelihood

that the specific car owner has equity in their car based on the trends that

we've seen historically that we pulled from

your dealerships data or your groups data to help you identify that

information that's something that we absolutely can help with

yeah so you say there's money sitting in the average dealer database

we're defining database more broadly it's not just CRM it's not just DMS

it's in all the data that you collect how much money would you say is sitting in

a dealer average dealer database that that is unmind that if you got

aggressive with it in February 2026 you could realize

throughout the end of 2026 yeah based on the dealerships that we've worked with

in the groups it's oftentimes it's several million

dollars at any point in time so there's

there's oftentimes a lot of untapped revenue

and what are the first three steps to realizing that what

how long does it take to begin the process how long does it take to get up and

running and then what does the training look like with a team

to get the team to effectively mind this and act

act on it absolutely so that's a great question

so i think the core i would say time required to do this is actually

integrating into these core systems of record we've done this now for

for several years so we understand all the integration requirements so

that obviously is not a huge lip in today's day in the world in

terms of being able to activate these applications

but this new application layer really in some ways can generate these insights

in minutes once the data is on boarded into these systems right so

you know being able to develop a world-class strategy

in less than three minutes is now possible and we we've proven that

really with the customers that we've worked with

so solving a huge critical challenge right up front is a great way to start any

type of engagement it's a great path forward

so you mentioned the word cdp data lakes that those are terms we've talked a lot

about on the show cdp is this idea of cleansing the

data as i understand it and having one reservoir if you're multiple stores

having it all together you can segregate it out you can bring it

together what percent of dealership marketing today

in february 2026 would you say is wasted on

incorrect data or low-value segments or miss

targeting information merely because you're not using the right data

yeah i will say a large portion of it to be honest

i think a lot of what you see or what i see now

there's a lot of robotic interactions there's a lot of campaigns that are

being run that don't truly understand the customer

not having you know been specific insights as an example not understanding

your purchase history what your preferences might be

all that kind of complex information that's buried in your course of systems

of record whether that's a crem system a structured data repository like a cdp

or a traditional dms system there's a wealth of information in that data

that's not being relayed or included as part of these marketing campaigns so

oftentimes dealerships or groups are forced not by their own

willingness but it's more this is the best they can do based on the data

access that they have they're forced to have these

somewhat robotic interactions that are you know if you're trying to penetrate a

market you don't really have that that vehicle level

inside of a customer specific insight baked into these

marketing campaigns and and that's a huge loss based on the capabilities that

modern technology can provide so patrick block venture motive

venture says integrating with dms is the biggest sass hurdle

coming into automotive uh how do you look at integrating with

different dms's have you had a hard have you had a challenge

yeah so i would say i understand that challenge

in a very specific way you know i think that he's absolutely right i think the

integrations are really key and and i think they are very challenging

especially with very archaic systems like a dms system of which there are

several uh the even bigger challenges if you

have a group oftentimes different group tops will have different dms

systems so trying to reason across that or connect the dots across an

entire group is very difficult to do and and i would say

there's a lot of innovations that also has happened at the integration

layer so historically the reason it's been very challenging

is because you've had to do one-to-one data mappings

with very complex fields and oftentimes dms systems will have

custom fields that either dealerships create or just

tech debt that evolves of of course of several years as you build more and

more capabilities into your core dms system

that creates a lot of complexity when you're trying to get data out

and oftentimes some of these the taxonomies of these systems are very

hard to interpret very hard to read and as a result a lot of that data gets

wasted and you can't really leverage it in a way that can really make you

more money really running a specific marketing campaign

or getting a clearer picture of a specific customer

it's very hard to do that integration the right way

fast forward to today what these ai systems can do now

is really help you reason across all that complex information and really help you

figure out what data to pull even if you can't fundamentally understand

what it is the system can actually make sense of it in a way a human cannot

and connect dots across different dms systems different markets different

vehicles makes and models what have you that's really what this new

integration capability can deliver for you

so you heard matt's frustration just a few minutes ago he talked about a voice

ai technology that he found and he credits it with increased csi like

a ton of productivity it's awesome right um

it's interesting because there are also ai tools that make claims that they

never deliver on from your perspective as a ceo of a large company

very competitive in the automotive space what would you say to the dealer

listening today that said listen it's a ai's a gold rush

i hear it everywhere i'm sick and tired all the promises i can't keep up with it

all i'm just not going to implement any of it what

you know what do you say to change his mind or her mind to bring her back to

the table but then also what to watch out for with companies and

avoid as far as promises made that they can't simply deliver on

absolutely i love that question because really i've been in the ai business now

for 15 years and i can say especially in automotive

there's a lot of snake oil out there there is a lot of false promises there's a

lot of projects that never get off the ground and that's just

unfortunately that's a byproduct of the industry and

that's really something that vendors need to get better at

not delivering false promises and what i would say to someone that

is skeptical i would really start with you shouldn't

need three six nine months to get value out of a system

and i think the system should be designed and architected in such a way

where once you have your data foundation you should have insights

in delivering value in minutes not weeks not months

you know core tangible insights that your team can leverage

to go and execute in a specific market you know automotive is a fairly complex

industry it's highly fragmented almost every

dealership exists in perfect competition um you know trying to

you know beat a rival dealership or try to gain market share in a specific

specific market requires a strategic

layer of insights to help guide your execution

and so i think that's where if i was skeptical if i was one of your

listeners and i might be skeptical of doing these projects

i feel like if you can nail that piece first then i think the secondary

sorry go ahead and what and the first piece is the integration of the

data sets right i think it's it's really

getting your data all in one place but having a system that can actually reason

across that it is much different right so this is

this is fundamentally different than what a data warehouse might have been

historically or you know trying to build a cdp on

top of some of this data this is a fundamentally new paradigm

that is now a reality for for this but you can see why so many

dealers are so kind of crusted at this point frustrated

candidly with it because you know it is it's a new way of thinking in automotive

and it's new capacity but it's also a new set of undelivered promises so we

appreciate your perspective on how to overcome that

and you know start thinking about with full access to data how do you better

monetize that paul solzman comes into the con

con comments that says many vendors began as a car guy who met a tech guy

but don't know how to architect a business out of their idea

this leads to false promises and poor execution as we wrap up here

uh michael any thoughts on that absolutely i think you know software

in in technology it's its own industry right it's its own universe of

complexity it's you know think about how complex the auto businesses the

technology and software layer is just as complex

and it requires domain expertise and it requires people

who've been there and done that and been through these complex situations in

the past it can navigate these huge technological trends because

right now we're in the middle of a major paradigm shift and i don't think

people fully grasp yet so having that domain expertise that could really in

some ways harness this new tech but speak the language of automotive

i think it's is a hard thing to find so that i think that's why you either

have people that gravitate from the autoside they try to go to tech or

vice versa it's just a difficult landscape with which to

build these next generation applications michael gielson co of

confersica thank you so much for being on the show today sharing your

perspectives on all things a i and listening and

aggregating all this data to better develop your i spend and just as a

note to our audience we showed on your name plate we had a mistake on there we

showed cdg circles you're not in the circles simply

because you're on the vendor side we haven't perfected that side yet so

the circles are safe uh and a lot of dealers uh

are watching for those uh to have conversations about things that are

going on we will make an announcement in the near

future about cdg circles that are available for

vendor partners within automotive so we appreciate you and your perspectives

and sporting today's show so thanks for being on michael thanks for having me

all right uh so you know interesting conversation i love

you know when we talk about contracts i don't want to put him on the spot

but if you sign a long-term contract is one of the comments it makes the

vendor lazy i actually think that that's true i think one of the ways

best ways to hold a vendor particularly a software vendor accountable

in 2026 is to make sure that there isn't a

long-term contract because think about this if the product works if it's as

good as michael gillson uh is is talking about with

conversica it's going to deliver on the tool or

numa as matt said and you're not going to need and you're not going to

want to make a change but if i'm stuck in a 12-month contract or a 24-month

contract i'm sure michael doesn't do that matt's company that he brought in it

doesn't then i just don't think everybody's

equally incentivized and if you have a a counter perspective to that i'd love

to hear it uh in in the uh chat so uh patrick block block ventures

says long-term contracts can make a vendor lazy but also entice them to

develop more specific to your needs when you have custom needs that's

fair heidi mcmillan says great perspective

all right last up today we're going to transition to ryan merrick

who is by the way the youngest ford f and i manager in the entire country ryan

welcome to the show thanks for having me on i appreciate it

thanks for being here ryan tell us a little bit about yourself and a little

bit about what you do before we dive into

absolutely so i've been in the car business since

little before i graduated high school i started off as a lot guy

actually at a mercedes store and very slowly kind of

worked my way up um loved it fell in love with it from the second

that i started i had two great sales managers that kind of took me under

their wing a little bit and showed me the ropes of the whole thing and

since then i've lived breathed and slept car business

yeah so at nineteen and one of the youngest if not the

youngest finance managers in the country what are some of the biggest

obstacles you have in creating trust with the consumer to make these tough

decisions with you but then also finance is a leadership

position in a dealership without a title you can't hire fire anybody but you've

got to develop and and have credibility with the sales

teams you serve how do you uh at your age

how do you overcome age to uh create that credibility with the teams and the

customer so to be completely honest with you i think

with the customer it's actually something that makes it a little bit easier

for me um and the reason for that is because when you

walk into a finance office and most customers i would argue know what they're

getting into they bought cars before they know exactly when they walk in my

office that it's going to be a warranty pitch in the whole nine yards

yeah and so my whole goal in combating that um

at a young age is really to change up the process and rather than

trying to go through a pitch and using more of like sales tactics

i take more of like a consultative approach with the customer

um build a connection with them i'm huge on doing

um like a really good introduction to myself and then learning a little bit

about the customer i listen exactly to the customer and what's

they're telling me is going to make them buy warranty and then from there

i go through it so rather than just kind of hammering them and doing the

usual in the f and i box i take a little different of an

approach to that so you said actually in your

notes you talk about emotional consultative what the heck does emotional

consultative mean in real language not theory

so rather than somebody coming to my office i and i go through your standard

warranty pitch and it's the same for every customer a lot of the old school

f and i guys they've been doing this for 40 years and

that's just what they know every single time the first thing that i do

before i even start signing paperwork anything i walk out to this customer

the salesperson's desk and i do a quick little interview with the customer and

rather than talking about the car or anything like that i ask him obviously

like what led you to pick this one kind of i learned about the customer and i

developed like a relationship with him and that does two things for me first

of all and right off the bat it builds a lot of

trust coming into my office and second of all i've noticed

it keeps people coming back because i get text messages all day long as a

finance guy which usually doesn't happen for customers asking me

questions about certain things and they trust the dealer a little bit more and

that way when they come back into my office i can take a consultative

approach to selling them a warranty and i can be like hey based off of your

situation this is exactly what i would recommend to you and this is why

it's going to help you out in the long term of your ownership

yeah so uh from from your experience standpoint

what is what is the biggest challenge that you see in f and i today

for a young finance producer in february of 2026

the biggest challenge for me specifically that i run into

is that honestly it doesn't necessarily have to do anything with selling

warranty or paperwork anything like that it's more so being able to

for myself for myself into a leader for the sales team and

everybody else here at my store at a young age and granted

it's it's very weird to do that because i don't necessarily have more experience

than a lot of these people that are on my sales team in a dealership just

because i'm so young but i've been able to gain a rapport

with them and share some of the stuff that i see and rather than

rather than taking like a um a very heavy leadership approach

more so same kind of thing that i do with my customer be consultative and

come to a good decision on how we can both progress

each other out and we do that we do a great job of that throughout my entire

store so from the desk to the finance office to the sales people

that's one thing that i think makes my store so successful is that we all

all right so so ryan ryan ryan we're having a little bit of a challenge on

the connection so what what i'm going to do for just a second is i'm going to

give you a second to see if that connection improves i'm going to have

the producers pop you out for just a second let's see if that connection

improves and i'd like to actually bring matt back

co of willis auto campus because this is a relevant interesting conversation as

it relates to f and i um and i actually want to pick up with matt while the

producers are working with you ryan just to see what we can do on the audio

side uh i want to bring matt back in uh our social

media comments are a light with comments on this whole

contract term uh patrick block again came in said long-term contracts can

make a vendor lazy but also entice them to develop more

specific more specifics to your needs when you have custom

needs um uh and then dan c says the longer the

contract the stronger the sla needs to be along with plenty of

dialogue along the way to ensure everyone is meeting

the agreed upon terms inspect what you expect

um thoughts on contract term and when you think about

you know in your role as coo you're working with vendors all the

time setting expectations how do you balance the need of a

vendor to have a contract with your need to get production and

performance how do you balance those two um i mean

no matter what you're doing it's about a relationship that you're building

and it's it's really critical to before you sign any contract no

matter what the length of it is you know what is the long term

and a lot of them will they'll say the all of the right things but

what's your true feeling on these people and what's the relationship look like

and do we do we feel that they're sincere and giving

good guest care yeah um one thing that we we do and i'm

sure a lot of dealerships do you know i'd like to see a bunch of people you're

doing business with and i'm gonna we call them we have to vet them and

i don't want people that you just onboarded six months ago i want to

know people that have been doing business with you that you had

you know you say you want a an 18 month contract a two-year contract who's been

with you for for 21 months of the 24 months i want to see

how that month is going because they can lay out all these

expectations and we're going to have great communication we'll have we'll have

weekly touch points and monthly meetings and we'll be in your dealership

yeah the first shot though that first tool you put in

to do service calls didn't meet the didn't meet up to expectations it

didn't deliver on the promises made was that a failure in kind of the

vetting process in advance was that a lesson learned by you

well i mean it was definitely a lesson learned by us

and uh we felt like we had all the right things in motion we talked to

i would say in that situation not enough references

and we were excited about it we we were looking to

improve a specific area of the business and

we were grasping at tools rather than grasping at training and

developing our people because no matter what tool you on board there's bolt-ons

left and right all over this industry if you don't have the right people in

place the best bolt-on in the world is going to

that is true yes that is absolutely part of the failure of that company and

with us in the partnership on us we weren't we weren't ready for it

and but they weren't ready for us either yeah all right so ryan merrick

finance manager fred beans automotive group we're going to have a challenge

getting him back due to some tech difficulties but i just want to bring

up heidi mcmullin said this kid needs to be nominated for ally 40 under 40

he's well spoken he understands the culture he understands the customer

just as we wrap up here uh matt thoughts on a good finance manager you

know he's 19 years old super young is 19 too young to be a

successful finance manager in automotive and

what do you look for when hiring finance managers would you hire a kid like

ryan to represent your organization in that key crucial uh role

yeah because i feel like he sincerely cares about the guest

and age doesn't matter in any position in our role

i mean there's people that are in their 20s that maybe could take my my job

for example because when we're hiring and on boarding

it's more about their ability to be a good teammate

provide great guest care and their emotional intelligence

and we'll teach them the rest and if as long as they have the

the emotional qualities and the ability and that

they truly care about providing the best options for the guest

everything else will fall into place or they'll you'll find a different

place on the bus so it's interesting though and

and i didn't get his response we'll definitely have him back on the show

i said hey part of your role is leading the customer but it's also

leading the rest of the sales team finance is a key role

it doesn't have higher fire capabilities you've got to be a leader on the floor is

is leadership at that level and a function of age and experience or can

it be taught early to the right person with the right set of values as you

seek to develop then strength that your group will oh it can be taught early

and i can think of you know a specific

two specific finance managers at our Nissan store that are

the epitome of what you want in a finance manager for your sales team

and that's a good partner that's someone that's not

safety belted to their seat in their office watching youtube videos and shopping

on amazon it's someone that's out engaging with the

sales team and providing training providing

that that turn when the desk manager is working two or three at the same time

and going and interacting with the guests people that

finance managers that truly do that are the ones that are tapped to be

sales managers and general sales managers yes because they'll all come to the

interview and say that's the best thing that you should do but when you can

sit back and actually observe these people in their environment executing

with excellence you know you've got the right people

yeah if they're willing to take on that additional challenge because i also

think one of the toughest jobs to hire for today is a gsm and a gm because

there are so many features and things that are responsible for

matt succolowski co willis auto group thanks for coming back to the end of

the show sharing your perspectives with us thanks for being here

yeah it's my pleasure thanks sam appreciate you

hey we'll bring uh we will absolutely bring ryan back on a lot of great

comments online patrick block says he's going places for sure ageism is

another hurdle for him to clear but i think that the fred beans group is

leading the way of showing development for the next generation

by the way i was at an ad at a lunch or at a dinner with

fred beans with their cfo and then the grandson fred beans grandson and i

agree a hundred percent would love to have them on the show at some point in the

future great conversation with them about

all things automotive in the future of so hey to you our listening audience

thank you so much for watching today thanks for joining this daily dealer

live episode today don't forget this friday one pm eastern

if it's friday it's fixed ops friday so to everybody thanks for watching

today where he break down the biggest moves in the car businesses they

happen don't forget we are here every

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