Ulrich on Work/Life Balance, Camastro Jr. on AI, Bird on Used Sourcing | Daily Dealer Live
Car Dealership Guy Podcast
Ulrich on Work/Life Balance, Camastro Jr. on AI, Bird on Used Sourcing | Daily Dealer Live
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Brand
Kia
Kia is the car brand involved here. They’re telling their dealers that using brokers to sell cars isn’t allowed under their rules.
Concept
broker sales
Broker sales means a middleman helps sell cars instead of the dealer handling everything directly. Some car brands don’t like it because it can break their rules for how cars are sold and tracked.
Concept
dealer agreement
A dealer agreement is the contract between the car brand and the dealership. It lists the rules the dealer has to follow to stay in good standing.
Concept
dealer network
A dealer network is the set of dealerships that sell a brand’s cars. When the brand contacts the network, it’s telling all those dealers the same rule.
Concept
sales policy
An OEM sales policy is the set of rules and guidelines governing how vehicles are marketed and sold through the franchised channel. Here, Kia is asserting that broker sales violate that policy, which can lead to compliance actions.
Concept
OEM
OEM just means the car maker itself. When the OEM sends a letter, it usually means the rules for dealers are changing.
Company
S&P Global Mobility
This is a company that studies car-market data and makes forecasts. Dealers and automakers use their numbers to understand where demand might be heading.
Car
Chevrolet Trax
The Trax is a small SUV made by Chevrolet. It’s meant for everyday driving and easier parking than bigger SUVs. It’s mentioned because it’s selling well compared with other similar cars.
Brand
Honda
Honda is the car company in this story. They’re changing how they organize their engineering work to move quicker and compete better.
Concept
follow-up
Follow-up is the ongoing contact with leads and shoppers after initial interaction—often via calls, texts, and updates. In dealership sales, strong follow-up is a major driver of conversion from interest to purchase.
Concept
Book Club
“Book Club” here is a team learning routine. They read and discuss together so everyone thinks and communicates the same way.
Concept
converting a lead
“Converting a lead” means turning someone who showed interest (online inquiry, phone call, form fill, etc.) into an actual customer who completes a purchase or next step. Dealerships track this because it directly impacts sales volume and efficiency.
Concept
digital dealership
A “digital dealership” is when a car store uses more tech and online tools to sell and communicate. The speaker is saying they’re not ignoring tech, but they think the basics still matter a lot.
Concept
AI and technology
In car sales, “AI and technology” usually means computer tools that help with things like replying to leads faster or organizing customer messages. The speaker is basically asking if all that hype is more important than good people and good process.
Term
service manager
A service manager is the person who oversees the dealership’s repair/service shop. They help coordinate the work so inspections and repairs get done the right way and on time.
Term
GM
GM here means General Manager, typically the top executive responsible for overall dealership performance. In dealership operations, the GM influences standards for accountability, vendor management, and customer-facing processes.
Concept
CRM
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the system used to store customer/prospect information. In the segment, they emphasize that personal contact details aren’t written down and are instead stored in CRM, with the name used to identify the top prospect.
Company
CDG Circles
CDG Circles is an online group for car dealership owners/managers. They use it to talk with other dealers and share information without having to meet in person.
Concept
promoting from within
They’re saying it’s better to move people up inside the dealership instead of bringing in outsiders. The idea is that long-time employees already know how the place works and can keep the standards consistent.
Concept
service booking
Service booking is when a customer schedules their car for maintenance or repairs. If you make it easier to book, customers tend to come back more often.
Concept
retention
Retention means getting customers to return again and again. In this context, better follow-up and booking processes help customers keep using the dealership.
Term
QR code
A QR code is a square barcode you scan with your phone. Here, it’s being used to make it faster for customers to take the next step—like booking service or contacting the right person.
Concept
voice AI
Voice AI is computer software that can talk and understand what you say. Dealerships use it to answer calls or texts automatically, but some people don’t like how it sounds or how it behaves.
Concept
synthetic voice
A synthetic voice is a computer-made voice. Some customers prefer talking to a real person, so a dealership might avoid using it.
Concept
click to call
Click to call means you can tap a button and your phone automatically calls the dealership. It makes it easier for customers to reach them quickly.
Concept
click to text
Click to text lets a customer tap a button and start texting the dealership right away. It can speed up responses.
Brand
Longo Toyota
Longo Toyota is a dealership group used as an example in the conversation. Their point is that you want to help customers before they feel they have to call you.
Brand
Cadillac
Cadillac is GM’s luxury car brand. They’re talking about how Cadillac is managing supply (inventory) and how the lineup is changing as more cars move toward electric power.
Concept
market share
Market share is basically how much of the local car-buying business you win compared to other dealers. More market share means more customers choosing you.
Company
Auto Trader Canada
Auto Trader Canada is cited as a source for market pricing benchmarks for both new and used cars online. The speaker uses its “average value” figures to illustrate how dealers can misread their own pricing versus market pricing.
Concept
margin erosion
Margin erosion is the gradual shrinking of profit per vehicle, often caused by pricing pressure, higher costs, or discounting. In this segment, it’s tied to the dealer’s pricing/value assumptions being out of sync with market reality.
Brand
Ford
Ford is a big car company. If a dealership is “under the Ford banner,” it means they sell and service Ford cars and follow Ford’s rules for how things should be done.
Term
VSC
VSC means a vehicle service contract—basically an extended warranty-style plan sold by the dealer. It can help cover repair costs after the original warranty ends. They’re talking about how many customers they get to buy it.
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 this Wednesday, April the 8th.
Coming up today, three dealers who are actually doing it, the things they talk about.
Dustin Ulrich cuts his sales staff by 35% and he sold more cars.
Bill Kamastra will put AI on his service phones and says profits are up 40% and Matthew Bird
from Canada is turning used inventory before it hits the lot.
57 second lead response. No excuses. Excited to hear these stories and more.
We're getting into staffing models, AI and the service lane used car acquisition strategy
and what discipline actually looks like when the market stops being forgiven,
stops being forgiving. Join the show today by posting your questions across the CDG
social media platforms. We'll bring those comments into today's live show. And as a quick aside,
as you know, I follow a lot of you out there on LinkedIn. Brian Benstock, he's posting his 5am
gym content. Yossi, Matt Bowers, Andy Wright and Todd Blue posting this week on their Florida
War Room recording. Brian Kramer's always good breaking down used car recon like it's a science
class. I love all of it. But one post this morning stopped my scroll. Alex Lawrence,
Evie Alex posted this, free private jet to the master, six seats leaving tomorrow. I grabbed
my green jacket. My thumb moved to the more button so quickly on LinkedIn. It cramped.
What was the last line? Well, preferably someone who has a private jet and six tickets. Otherwise,
we can't go. Props, Alex. That post is a master class in writing a well hook PhD well spent.
Meanwhile, I'm still dreaming as is Alex, I think about streaming DDL from the masters this Friday.
So on to today's, there you go. I love it. Late, but good. No, I love it. So
on to today's auto industry headlines. Some breaking news from this morning related to a
topic much discussed on this live show. Kia is drawing a hard line on broker sales. Kia America
just sent a letter to its active, to its dealer network warning that broker sales activity violates
the Kia sales policy and dealer agreement. The memo signed by VP of sales operations,
Eric Watson reinforces three key rules. Broker sales don't count as eligible sales or earn
incentives. All broker deals must be reported using the BRKR sales type and dealers can't
operate or delegate sales through unauthorized locations or third parties. The memo also warned
that misreporting broker activity could trigger incentive charge backs. We'll have lengthier
coverage on this shortly, but from what we can tell right now, it seems like tighter oversight
is in order and potentially coming in as a little aside. We've actually got wind of another letter
from another OEM working to confirm that. We'll bring that to you as soon as we're able to confirm
that. So next up this morning, S&P Global Mobility revised its 2026 Global Light Vehicle Sales
forecast this week, projecting a reduction of 800,000 to 900,000 units this year on the back of the
Iran conflict. That's a significant shift from their March assumptions, which had anticipated
the Strait of Hormuz disruption resolving within weeks. Since their forecast dropped,
and yesterday's apprentice style reality TVS negotiations, a two-week ceasefire between the
U.S. and Iran was announced. And oil prices fell in response. However, the situation remains
unsettled, everything but settled. Iran says vessels can pass through Hormuz if they coordinate
with its armed forces, though it's unclear what that entails. In the context of the auto industry,
the ceasefire is a step in the right direction on fuel costs and customer sentiment. We need it.
We need that certainty. But with the underlying deal still being negotiated and key sticking
points unresolved, it's way too early to call this a clean resolution. So a million units coming out
of the count on this conflict. Fascinating. Up next, CarGurus is out with Q1 data that paints
a pretty clear picture of where the market is right now. New vehicle day supply hit 73 in March,
the highest in five years, as affordability concerns pushed more buyers towards used cars.
Sub-30K vehicles now make up just 13% of new inventory. That's down from over 30% five years
ago. And vehicles at higher price points are sitting the longest. Naturally, the used side
is where the action was in Q1. Sales of vehicles two years old or newer rose 24% year over year,
with the fastest growing concentrated around 20,000. And the Chevy Trax, Jeep Compass and Kia K4
all posting massive gains. And on the powertrain side, hybrids remain the tightest segment
on the new side at 47 days supply. Moving over to a tariff update, Mexico's auto sector exports
to the U.S. fell 13.4% year over year in January and February dropping from 26.7 billion to 23.2
billion. Passenger car exports were down 27.5% over the same period. And for context, nearly
80% of all Mexico's auto exports go to the U.S. So this is hitting the core of one of the most
integrated vehicle supply chains in the world. At the same time, overall U.S. Mexico trade is
actually up during the same period, which underscores how specifically exposed the auto sector is to
tariff pressure compared to other industries. In other words, it's expected that tighter cross
border parts and vehicle flow will continue working its way into pricing and model availability on
dealer lots. Closing out today with an OEM update, Honda is restructuring R&D, spinning thousands
of engineers into an independent unit to move faster. After its president visited a Chinese
auto supplier factory in Shanghai and came back with a stark assessment, the factory in question
was fully automated. No humans on the floor supplying both Chinese automakers and Tesla
and built around keeping costs as low as possible. Honda's president said plainly,
quote, we have no chance against this. Close quote. This restructuring is a direct response.
And it's a reminder that the competitive clock dealers heard about at the New York
Auto Forum this week is the same one OEMs are already racing against. And that's a wrap on
today's auto industry headlines. And as an aside on the Honda piece, there is such a debate going
on right now, hey, should Chinese OEMs be allowed into the U.S.? Should we have to compete against
them? There's the great counterpoint that, hey, from a security standpoint and from a fair trade
standpoint, we can't do it. Perhaps to Honda for going and looking at the factory for making an
assessment and then committing assets to make their production more competitive so that we're
as competitive as we can be go forward. Whether Chinese vehicles come here or not, we continue
to hear how the technology and their abilities are incredible. And we're in a world right now in the
U.S. where we don't compete directly with that. And at some point we will need to like it or not.
So props to Honda for getting out there. Let's turn to the to the to the chats. Eager KV12.
Happy Wednesday, everyone. Hello, Sam. I'm finishing with auction day. I just wanted to share that
MMRs are sky high on every segment and they keep going up. Eager K says even salvage titles are
now fetching higher values on wholesale level. It's crazy. And Hannah Farmer, as to the masters,
count me in. And then Patrick Block Ventures always bringing us the dates as they are.
Happy National Zoo Lovers Day. So that's what we've got to look forward to today.
Thank you, Patrick Block Ventures. It's Zoo Lovers Day. So if you're a lover of zoos or if you are
in one, whether a dealership or elsewhere, today is your day. All right, let's swing into today's
content. First up today, General Manager Roper Kea, Tustin Ulrich. Tustin, welcome to the show.
Oh, thank you, man. Happy to be here. Tustin, it's exciting to have you back. So for our audience
that may not remember your last appearance on the show, you were here as part of the debate about
one price or negotiation or broker direct. What is the best model that serves the auto industry?
Remind us where you stood and where you ended up because you might have shifted your opinion a
little bit during the course of that debate. You know, it was funny as we had that debate. And
where's my opinion still stands? Is that a great culture is going to trump any model
when you deliver the right way. And it was, we look at what the FTC just handed down, right?
Dealers just need to do business the right way. And when you do business the right way and you
have an incredible culture, I'm not missing a cardio over a set of formats ever. And I'll
continue to stand on that. I love it, which, which, which lends to the competition side and the
negotiating side, not one price, which was debated on that round table. So
leading the news today and breaking news is that letter from Kia. You're a Kia manufacturer. Is
brokering a deal in Missouri as a distribution model? Yeah, it, no, not, not necessarily. It
doesn't happen a lot here. At least not in our town. We're pretty isolated. We're only about
100,000 people in Joplin. And so, and no, not a big deal here. Okay, you mentioned the FTC letter
thoughts on that. And you talk about the importance of culture and delivering your best to customers.
Have you made any changes since that letter hit the, hit the industry? And where do you
see if any area where it's problematic today in April of 26? We didn't have to make any changes
because we price everything accordingly online. And we're willing to honor that price and
charge our admin fee and move on. And I think every dealer should be willing to do so.
You know, the amount of friends or guests or people that try to do business outside of our
dealership because they see a better price and then just simply recognize the dealers are putting
out a number they're not willing to honor and have no plan of honoring, it needs to be eliminated.
Yeah, yeah. So, Doc V was one item where, you know, some lead providers have a space for it. Some
don't necessarily. Is that an adjustment or was that something that was clear prior to the letter?
But we did have to make that adjustment. We included it in the disclaimer, ours is 399,
but we didn't have it listed in the final price. So, we made that switch immediately, but that was it.
Yeah, yeah. Have you had any challenges getting different lead providers to comply and participate
or are you pushing that out through your feed and not having them pull that as a separate item?
Yeah, I would say everybody is approaching that a little bit differently and we're all trying to
navigate these waters together. In the end, we want to serve the guests as best as we can. So,
anything we can do to help any of the third party providers provide a better experience,
we're willing to do. All right. You did something really interesting recently. You cut your sales
staff by 35% and outsold yourself in doing that. Walk us through the moment you knew
that old headcount model was broken. Why did you do this and what pushed you to it?
Yeah, I would say it was third quarter 2023 when we recognized that COVID was a thing of the past
and these ridiculous grosses were no longer going to be a thing. And then you have to dig
in and become efficient. But you have to become efficient in a way that takes care of the people
that want to be here. And I've always said that we want the people that work the hardest and produce
the most to be able to feed their families comfortably. And so, that was always a design.
And we didn't just walk in and the bottom 35% of the board were eliminated. We were very intentional
up front. Here's the pay plan. Here's the structure. Our goal is the people that are willing to put
in the work every single day will have the opportunity to provide for their families the best
way they can. And we just want to allow that to happen and build that template. So, we started
out with 21 salespeople in January of 2024. And now, we had 13 salespeople last month that did
227 cars. So, as part of it, are you asking each individual salesperson to produce more units per
or are you offloading some of their tasks onto AI and allowing them to focus more on the sales
function? We're not offloading their task. And so, I believe there's ample time for everybody to
sell a car a day. And I would be hard-pressed to find why somebody couldn't. So, if you're scheduled
21 working days in a month, I don't think 21 cars is an unrealistic expectation. Now,
can you go three days without selling a car and then do it three days Saturday? Sure.
But I don't think that expectation is asking too much. And as long as you're diligent and staying
on top of your tasks and your follow-up, those are meaning they are small ticket items that
should not take hours and hours in a day to do. So, until I see someone tap what they're capable
of from a time perspective, I don't think we should offload it. I think they should be responsible
to it because that's going to deliver the best experience. So, speaking about asking people
to deliver and do the basics, I was fascinated in your intake form. You talked about how you're
asking your leadership team to read. That's old school. Read 10 pages a day and then text
takeaways into a text chain. Talk to us about what made you decide to do that as a practice
and what's been the takeaway benefit of it? I think we should all be intentional with what
we're learning every single day. None of us have all the answers. There are people that are light
years ahead of us that can teach us things. So, how do you take a staff or let's take an automotive
culture where people tend to jump ship quickly, always change the next shiny pinning? How do we
create continuity, same vocabulary, same mindset, same belief system, and just continue to foster
that culture? And so, that's where Book Club was created. Now, in the beginning, it started with
a read a chapter a week and we'll talk about it on Fridays. And of course, half the room isn't
reading at all. The other half of the room is reading it an hour before the meeting and we're
all- Or they put it into chat. Or they put it into chat GPT, right? They say, hey, give me a recap
on this. They couldn't. Why? That's where the pivot Book Club has become. Now, we break down the
book into 10 pages or less in a day. So, it shouldn't take them more than 15 minutes. And it's a text
thread. And they, everybody texts their takeaways in the Book Club thread every night. And it's
great because you get to see where everybody on the team is at. But more importantly, when you
read books like Unreasonable Hospitality or Yesterday, we finished a 12-week year because we do need to
run faster and harder. And annual goals aren't enough. We need 30, 60, 90-day goals. I need my team
to understand that. So, we put that book in front of them and we make them digest it. And
what it creates is a continuity that I think is extremely hard to recreate without a 10-minute
focus every day. I'd love to get the list of the books you guys have done over the past 12 months.
We'd post it to social just for others to see it. So, did you get anybody that said,
did you get any team members that said, uh-uh, I don't read good, right? I'm not doing that.
Anybody? Yeah, find a way. The automotive industry is about finding a way, right? Find the
cardio, find the problem, find the objection. You can read. And if you don't want to read,
I completely understand we wish you the best. Yeah. For any of my English majors out there,
it is well. But that's okay. Yes. So, hey, you also, moving on from the Book Club, you go,
you do an 830 stand-up, an 830 meeting. It runs every day. What's the structure?
And what happens in the room and in what order in that meeting? Oh, the structure is the same
every day. So, whoever's leading the meeting that day, and we set that schedule 30 days in advance
so everybody knows. You're in the room 10 minutes before it starts with music playing. I believe
the vibe of the room is super important. So, I don't dictate what music they pick, but they have
music playing. You're in there early so you can listen to the conversations amongst the team.
We have a goal board that we update every day. Everybody knows the goal that we're chasing,
how many we've sold, how many days are left, what our pace is, how many we need per day.
We celebrate two wins of the previous day, whether it be someone giving crazy good customer
service or converting a lead or whatever the win looks like. And then we advise on anything
from a company perspective. Hey, we caught these buyers' orders not filled out properly.
So, any pivots amongst there. And then we develop every single day. This week, we're training on
trade walks. Now, my team is all very seasoned, good people. They've been with us for several
years. You wouldn't think repainting the fence with make sure you walk around their trade before
you come back into the store is something you should touch on. But we train on the six steps
every month. We train on social media posts every month. We paint and repaint the fence because
people forget life gets busy. Sometimes we just need reminded. So, when you start doing those
things every single day, it helps. And then the last thing is we read the core values of the
company every day, our pledge to the guests. And then we have 15 daily affirmations that they read
to each other out loud every day. The last one on that list is the grass is greener where you
water it. They say it is a team and it has become the lifeblood of us.
I like that. 15 affirmations. They say it to each other every day. How do you validate or how do
you test for that? Whether that's done, whether they do that? No, they read it out loud. So,
the book is called the Moneyball Book and we don't need to get into that. But in the Moneyball Book,
the second page is daily affirmations. And so, they're printed and they've been printed in that
book every month that comes out for the last two years and they one by one read them out loud to
the entire room. Interesting. That's very cool. Very cool. And so, what do you see as the net
affect your culture in having that happen on a regular basis? And in what, how does it help
you sell more cars, connect better with customers, increase CSI, increase revenue in the store?
I'm a firm believer that the only way you can get the result that you want to achieve is to become
the best version of yourself. So, my goal at Roperkea has never been to sell more cars.
My goal at Roperkea has been to build better fathers, husbands, moms, wives. And if we do that
every single day, the impact is going to be incredible. In the end, we will sell more cars as
a byproduct of that. Service more cars as a byproduct of that. And so, we constantly push to
build better humans. I think reminding you that you are the standard you hold yourself to and you
never rise to the level of your goal but you fall to the level of your standards and holding up a
significant amount of accountability is going to have a massive impact. When you do that and people
buy, listen, we've had 25 car guys leave too because they just don't like being asked what to do
every day or asked to look in the mirror from a personal growth perspective. But every time one
leaves, the storage just gets better. So, we've gone from averaging nine cars per person during
COVID to averaging 18 cars per person over the last 90 days. So, as we continue to make these
shifts and focus on building better humans, our result speaks for itself.
Yeah. How do you, what's the goalpost for creating a better human? How do you say,
hey, we're successful in that and we're done? How do you quantify that on a regular basis?
You can't. It's the emotional side of things, right? Can you look at them and say, are they
better yesterday than they were today? You watch it and the decisions they make, you watch it and
how they treat each other, how they help each other. In moments when the business is busy or the day
is busy and there's opportunities for things to break down and you watch a team member help another
team member not expecting a half deal or anything else in return, that's when you know things are
winning. You know, it is interesting. It's a subject I really almost don't like talking about
on the show because everybody talks about culture. Everybody talks about the feel good part, right?
And it's tough to quantify, but I will tell you, Tustin, I walk into a store. I can tell very
quickly whether or not they are cohesive, whether they work well together, whether there's a good
vibe, whether they greet customers in a certain way. And I think at Ground Zero that are a lot of
the processes that you have in place. And it's interesting because the auto industry right now
is talking all about this digital dealership, right? AI and technology. But you've kind of gone
back to some of the basics, that 830 standup, a book club, the tech part of that is the text chain,
which I think is pretty cool. Do you think AI and high tech is it overrated as a performance
driver and automotive today? How are you looking at that as you create this culture and execute on it?
Two years ago, one of my favorite movies is Moneyball. And it's because it's an
unorthodox approach to baseball, right? But for me, I look at what automotive was 20 years ago
when I started. And it was paper books where we wrote down every customer's name, phone number,
and then we had to keep track of that. And I think cell phones and technology are great. However,
I think they're a distraction. How many times do you look at your cell phone to see your wife a
text message? And the next thing you know, you scroll to talk for seven minutes and you waste
the seven minutes of your day. Right. So I shifted my mindset to expecting my salespeople to
accomplish these tasks just because it's a drive centric is available on their cell phone.
And so I developed something called the Moneyball book, which is really just a 20 year old version
of the blue book I started with when I was selling cars. And we hand fill things out every day,
top prospects, things we need to do, what are we tracking? What are we pacing? Did we do a
social media post? We just went back to old school pen and paper because when you write
something down, there's a tangible effect to that. And with a cell phone, it becomes
significantly easier to become distracted. In the end with AI, is there a place for AI to have
an impact? Of course there is to some extent. Do I think it will ever replace you and me having
a conversation around the Kia K4? Are you smelling the car? Are you buying the car? No,
I don't think it will ever replace the salesperson of a tangible aspect. And I think the dealerships
that focus on great processes and a great lead response time and just doing things the right
way so you don't get a litter from the FTC. When that happens, guests are going to feel cared for
and you're going to sell more cars. Paul Salisman comes into the text says,
culture can change everything. I've seen stores with poor culture sell cars through sheer force
resulting in poor NPS. Stores with great culture do better with fewer people and high NPS. And as
we wrap up, we're going to have you back for the panel at the very end of the show. Let's say you've
got a GM who's watching Tustin right now. He's got 12 salespeople. He's frustrated. They're selling
between 8 and 10 cars he or she. What would your advice be? What would step one or step two be to
create that solid cultural foundation that you've created, which has resulted in a ton more cars sold?
Yeah, I had to recognize it has started with me first. And, you know, our transformation where
Prokia started with first fixing my mind, second fixing my health, I've lost like 160 pounds.
When you do that publicly from the front of the room, it makes a significant difference. So
I'll tell you, I'm never late to an 830 meeting. I have never missed a reading assignment and
book club. I won't ever miss a reading assignment book club. When you're the tip of the spear,
it starts with you first. And if you're not one to lead yourself, how do you expect to ever lead
them? So pick one thing. Don't make it a mountain. Don't make it a hundred things. Pick one thing
to commit to do every single day and then do it. Yeah. And I'll tell you what, the speed of
leaders, the speed of the team. It's funny because I was talking to a leader recently,
a service manager, and we'd been talking about service. We've been talking about MPIs, video
MPIs, video MPIs, video MPIs. I was finally like, show me how to do it. And to his credit,
he was super humble because he's like, oh, I can do this thing. So he went and got his iPhone out.
He put the app up. He started, but it was obviously never done it before. And I do think
there's something where a real leader sets the tone by doing it first, demonstrating and holding
themselves to a higher standard of accountability. I was talking to our own GM here at Ziggler,
Zach Terrell earlier today. He was dealing with some problems with the vendor. I won't tell you
who it is because I'm sure they're going to rally and fix the problem that he's working on, but
just like a chain of problems. And you talk to him and he holds himself to a higher standard,
much like you do. And it creates energy, enthusiasm, and excitement. And I guess as we wrap up,
it really stuck out to me. You said you lost weight. And that you felt was an important part
of your leadership with your team setting the standard. Why that? Why did you decide to focus
on the physical health aspect? And how did that set the tone for your team?
I have four kids and my youngest is 11. And recognizing that at 460 pounds,
there was a chance I wasn't going to walk my daughter down the aisle.
We'll move you. And so if I wanted to be the best version of myself, I had to conquer that too.
Now it's crazy as the weight was the easiest part. I spent four years fixing my mindset first,
working on growth and the race and gratitude and goals and digging into those things and
devotionals with my best friend. And we're seven years in of doing daily devotionals together.
Like when you do those things, the weight was the easiest part. And I just did three things.
I sweat every day. I only ate between noon and six and I didn't eat sugar. It wasn't complicated.
But it was daily. And when you commit to doing that daily and your entire team watches that
transformation with the front row seat, it's credibility because they don't follow that's
credibility. Dancy comes in says down 160 pounds. That's impressive. Patrick Block ventures proof
is in the pudding as results sound like they're creating the success he wants. I'd be nervous
about pen and paper too with much with info security and you're right in digital age. We've
got an obligation to secure things as we're not writing any address, number, anything like that.
All that stored in CRM. It's just a name. Name is the top prospect. That's it.
Tustin Lurick, we're going to have you back at the very end of the show as part of our
roundtable general manager Roper Kea. Thanks for sharing your successes with us and all you've done
with creating this culture, including props to you on being down 160 pounds. I want to invite
to that wedding when it comes. So many years, 10 years, 20 years down the road. All right.
Thanks for being on. We'll have you in the roundtable.
Tays up. So this is brought to you by CDG Circles, digital peer group for top auto dealers,
private dealer chats, vendor reviews, real insights, confidential, compliant, no travel
required. Join dealers representing 3000 plus rooftops at cdgcircles.com. I guess,
you know what, that conversation with Tustin was so good. Something must have blipped in
the internet world out there and must have bumped us off. But if you want to have these
conversations real live, real time, almost like a 20 group, join CDG Circles. I watched these chat
groups all morning this morning and saw multiple different conversations, vendor-related, tech-
related, stack-related, rules and reg-related. So join CDG Circles to get that type of one-on-one
engagement with other dealers, sharing best practices. And I love it. Patrick Blockventure
says, we can send people around the moon, but tech issues, crazy world. I agree. I have no idea
what happened. I could see everybody the whole way through. So all right, let's get into it. Next
up today, joining William H. Kamastro, Jr., Bill. Welcome to the show, VP dealer, partner of Gold
Coast Cadillac. Thanks for being back. Good to have you. Good to be here, I should say. Listen,
I wanted to mention to you, this is really good. Who lost all props to that guy? 160 pounds?
Yes. I weigh 165. Right. If I lost 165 pounds, you'd need to find another guest.
Right. Right. You'd be gone. That's incredible. And by the way, out of what he said I subscribed to
at the highest level, our meeting this morning was very much similar format. I just, I love your
great choice of guest. The guy did a phenomenal job. How do you, I got a question for you, Bill.
You've been in this business for a heck of a long time. You know, finding a GM, finding a leader
that has that own personal accountability, it's willing to lead by example, willing to take risks
in front of the team that has energy. That's hard. Where do you find that? Where do you find somebody
like Tustin? You know, there's so few, right? Well, first of all, there's only one general manager
at the given location. Right? Yeah. I really think the only way to have a person like that
is for that person to grow up in that environment. It's really the only way. And like he said,
someone says, well, I don't read. And his response was, well, then we wish you the best.
You have to do that to weed out, you know, the people that occupy all of your time and create
fog for you. And in my meeting this morning, I, you know, I don't always do the sales meetings,
but I did this morning because I just wanted to kind of jumpstart things a little bit.
And I said, look, you know, at the end of the day, I'm going to create the culture.
This is what I expect my management team to do. And this is your role as sales, most important
people, sales service advisors and our lock guy, who makes the place book inviting, and who are
the customer facing individuals, right? But the culture starts there and it kind of works
its way up. The more you master the culture, the more you're really asked to impart that culture
to others. So you have to be prepared, as he said, to say, okay, listen, you may be selling 25
cars a month, but you're doing, you're running your own dog and pony show, and it's not the same
fabric as we're using at our organization. And that's okay. You know, you see it happen,
well, baseball, you see it happen in the transfer portals in college. You know, if you want to
create an environment that has to be one leader, they have to issue by example,
that very appropriately, but once you get to that point, you have to look for those people who
subscribe to it and want to master that versus decide how much of it they do and don't want to do,
how much of it they want to change, and then how much of it they want to make believe the
fakers, you know, the people that spend eight believe they're doing what you asked to do to
check the box. And then there's the other people that they may fail to trying to do it. But at the
end of the day, as long as they're trying their learning, it's the people that, you know, it's
the pretenders, like, like your prior guest talked about that you really need to kind of get rid of
because all they're doing is occupying your time and creating fog. So to answer your question,
it comes down to one thing. I'm a firm believer in promoting from within and like he had said,
he's got people there a long time. I have salespeople that are here. I have one guy here,
27 years selling cars, he's 78 years old. Okay, I have another year 15 years, our top salesperson,
one of the top Cadillac salespeople in the United States. And most of my salespeople been here in
the numbers of years, doesn't make us better than everybody else. I think it just gives us a better
shot to build a bigger, stronger house. Yep, yep, I agree. And you know, one of the things, so last
time you were on the show, you talked about a very manual tech oriented process that you had
implemented that helped with your retention and service booking. So let's transition to that. So
you created a letter, you put a QR code on it, you put your personal cell phone on there. And
you said online bookings hit 40% in an industry when the industry is 10%. Is that still steady?
How's that process going today? We're very consistently on that number. And so I have a
copy before you here. This is the actual salesperson. It's got, you know, it's got our accolades on the
bottom, which include the 80 power, you know, but really, it's a letter from me to the customer.
The salesperson goes over in this area here, all the benefits of buying from Gold Coast and the
extras we give you post sale as part of our relationship. And then down here in the center,
right about here, it has my cell phone number in the event a salesperson isn't available or a
manager isn't available or can't help them with whatever that issue may be. They're welcome to
call me. And this QR code that you see over here, that QR code, when the salesperson is giving this
to the customer appointed sale, they take, they have the customer scan the QR code, which takes
them directly to our appointment scheduler. Then they schedule the first service appointment at
point of sale, not on delivery, because it'll get forgotten and it won't be meaningful to the customer.
So it makes the entire post sale value added to the customer. Again, going back to your question
about AI versus will AI replace everything a human? No, this is our time where we
personalize the process. It creates a high level of engagement. It lets the customer know that
the salesperson is becoming their personal agent, i.e. their friend. And also you can communicate
with the dealer principal if you'd like, which lends automatic credibility to the process. Because
if I'm doing something intentionally wrong, why would I ever offer you the dealer's number?
And they'll go there to that cell phone number long before they'll go to a Google survey
or they'll go to a manufacturer's survey and lighten on fire. Patrick Block Ventures comes into
the chat and says, huge reason I bought from the dealer idea was the lifetime powertrain warranty.
Dealers are not great about differentiating themselves. Love this letter idea. So he's
saying props to that letter, which is a great combination of tech and human touch
and really gives the ultimate accountability back to sales and helps hold everybody accountable
as you're setting it up. So thinking about April 2026, you looked at a data point in service and
you said, hey, I want to fix this. And people know I quote this all the time. CDK is reporting
that the average hold time in the service department right now is about 10 minutes. I think it's
nine minutes. That means there's an average number higher unless it's a crazy number by
any account. What did you do to fix that problem, Bill? We employ NUMA AI software,
which has a voice command text function that allows the customer, if they're transferred
to an advisor, let's say the advisor is busy and they have a customer in front of them,
or they call in after hours or on a holiday, they can actually communicate, talk text,
to the actual AI software. And it's got a huge capacity because it's the logic of answering
the customer's questions real time, services they want to have done on the car, oil changes,
do you need a loan of car, do you not, hours of operation, and also describe to us what kind of
problem you're having with your vehicle, is it making a sound, and you can do all of this.
It'll offer you service appointments, it'll offer you all the benefits and services that you need,
but also more importantly, your cell phone, everybody that works in our fixed operations,
they have the app on their phone. So wherever you are, including myself,
that transcription of that conversation real time is coming across my phone. So I jump in
anywhere on the planet into that conversation real time, if I choose to. And there are times where,
hey listen, I'm stuck on a side of 95, it's 10 degrees out, I need help. We'll call a local
tow company, we'll send them right to the customer, get the car towed to our shop. Aside from everything
else, I'm picking up a disabled vehicle, which is a high quality repair, and before anybody else
even knows this person's stuck on the side of the road, before they call somebody else.
I love that. So the first right capability, it gives you the first person to communicate with
the customer if you choose to. And also it enables the customer, once your customers begin to utilize
that software, it's just like anything else. It kind of conditions the customer to, hey,
this technology works, hey, this technology's okay. And yeah, I came in for the appointment,
I got the loan a car and they fixed the vehicle. It's okay to communicate with that software.
And so the amount of people, the aggregate grows over time. So what do you say to a dealer today,
April 2026, that just isn't quite comfortable implementing voice AI yet, right? Technology's
great, it's made great strides, and actually astonishing strides over the last year. But
it's different in our town, customers really don't want that synthetic voice.
What was it that pushed you over the top where you said, hey, we're going to give this a try?
And what would you say to someone that hasn't done or at least looked at it yet?
Well, full disclosure, I was during COVID when we were locked down and we really
couldn't, we didn't have a lot of communication or FaceTime with people going on. I created a
chat group of professionals in all different types of industries from around the country.
And it kind of an expose session where we had guys with new softwares and new platforms come on
and kind of talk about their concept. And the two fellows that I came to know real well from Numa
came on as guests and they talked about their concept, got involved with them after that on
a sidebar and said, hey, listen, I'd like to be part of this. This goes back five years now.
And, you know, I've been with them ever since I beta tested the product. I was able to give input
from a dealer's perspective from a functional perspective on what really happens real time
in the trenches with the customers or via phone, email, whatever the case may be.
So we built in a lot of the communication mechanisms like click to call, click to text.
So right from your cell phone, if you throw the throw the entire platform out for a second,
let's think about this. Yeah, if you have more avenues to talk to a customer,
your percentages will go up. I think we all agree on that, right?
Correct. 100%. If you can communicate with the customer 24 hours a day, 365,
your percentages will go up by accident. Somebody will answer the phone or answer the text message.
So you have a platform that allows you to do that at every level from the dealer on down to
frontline people that does not interfere with your conventional form of doing business.
This doesn't intercept the customer. Yeah.
Customer has to opt into it. So my point is, although it interfaces with all of your other
like the X times of the world and CK and your point, it interfaces with all of that,
but it does not interfere with it. It doesn't block it. It doesn't get in the way.
A call goes to an IP address. It's IP sensitive. So you can actually ask for a particular individual.
You get, you can connect with their extension and the IP address to that person is what's
actually answering the phone. So over time, your customers become extremely comfortable with it.
And I will also say this from a human perspective, any dealer out there or anybody who's got any
kind of questions on this or would like to talk to myself, my people, my advisors on this,
you're welcome to do so. I had the same trepidations as everybody else,
obviously being part of the development of the products, kind of softened my mood on it.
But then actually as I tested it, and I, and I began to get experience with it,
I learned really, really quickly that the number of people communicating with me
is infinitely higher. If you give them the option 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,
two communicators, and I'll break it down to a raw form. If you're an advisor, the biggest problem,
every dealer that's listening right now knows exactly what I'm talking about.
In this plane, they're talking to a customer, they think that's where their money is made,
which is true, right? Their phone rings, go to any service department in the United States,
99% of them, the advisors turn their volume all the way down. They don't want to talk to somebody.
Yeah, yeah. So this goes right through to that extension, and it picks up anyway.
So now you're communicating with someone that would have completely been ignored before,
on top of everything else. So it is interesting, Longo Toyota came on one of our industry spotlight
pods, and they said, hey, if a customer has to call us, it's too late. So to your point,
creating a situation where technology enables that call to be picked up before it ever goes to
voicemail, before they ever have to call back, and at least it's handled to a certain extent,
logically makes a heck of a lot of sense. So let's transition out of the service department.
One last area I'd love to hit with you before we go into the roundtable at the very end is,
you guys are famous and very well known for your grassroots social media campaigns. You've got
can of videos out there. You've got local celebrity tie-ins. You've got community events.
You're out there. Now in April of 2026, everybody's trying to do that. What are the imitators?
What's everybody that's trying to do what you did doing wrong today in April of 2026 on social
media? You know, I think the biggest thing is, look, I don't use high content, high resolution.
I don't, you know, I mean, we do have some production media that we use on social media,
because if I'm on your show, for example, I may take a still, I may use a clip,
but realistically, you know, I try to appeal to the greater masses if I can. So
if someone feels like they're riding in the car with me, or they're sitting in my living room,
you know, Brian Benzlack does an effective job with the workout stuff. I do that too,
night, you know, 70 a week, I work out at night. But I find that when people feel like
that personal touch is there, like this guy's a human being just like I am.
My take and my tact on it was, I know, I want people walking through the door say, I know Bill,
that doesn't mean they're going to ultimately sit with me for an hour and a half. But that tie-in,
I would suggest to everybody that's out there, if you don't know how to do it in an effective
way, because we use all forms of it, but if you don't know how to do it in an effective way,
the best possible way to go about it is make it very common man, highly identifiable, highly
relevant to how the other person lives their life, not how you live yours, how they live their life,
what they want, what they would want to see from a next door neighbor, you know, that was approaching,
you know, moving an apple tree off of your property because it isn't like looking at,
you know, those people. So I do the cup phone videos from my car, you've probably seen them.
And I'm in the car at 5.30 in the morning. I'm in the New York area where half the world is
driving at 6 o'clock in the morning to get to work by 8.30 because it takes forever. So I utilize
that time and, you know, the population, the grid is 20 million. It creates a connection. And it
doesn't, it doesn't, you don't lose time in your day by doing it. You allow people to come in and
create a connection with you. And social media is interesting because it's a platform that allows
that in a way that no other platform does. It truly is interesting. All right, before we wrap up,
Cadillac, your Cadillac OEM, we had the head of GM on the show at NADA. He talked about the
discipline that GM is executing on production, not trying to flood the market. Cadillac, do you
have enough inventory? Would you like more? What is Cadillac doing right? What are they doing wrong
today in April of 26? You know, this is a live show, so I'm not going to get into what I think
they're doing wrong. That's the part we want, Bill. Come on. I only have 165 pounds to lose,
so I gotta be careful. Cadillac, you know, they're, they're, they're pivoting like everybody else's
because they, they've identified the real, you know, market for what the current market is for
you big, right? Yeah. So it was a nuance. There is a place for it. You know, whether you went
10 miles that way, 10 miles that way, or right down the middle, you know, it's, it's pretty clear
that there's a market. It's a certain percentage of the overall industry. It's a much smaller
percentage right now than they believe it's going to be down the road, but it is that small. So
Cadillac's made the decision to pivot. Now, we can go back and forth on whether it was smart to pivot
now or a year ago. It is, would I like to have more production? Yeah, absolutely. The only thing
that we, we get hurt by right now is the three ICE engines that they're terminating the XT6,
XT4, and then CT4. You know, they represented 25, 28% of, of, you know, local Cadillac's
overall volume. Yeah. And the EV volume is not going to make up for that because it only represents
five percent of the entire industry. So what do you do, Bill? Well, you got to do a few things
really well. You got to be a really good used car dealer, number one. Number two, we, we are
selling EVs. You know, I would certainly like to see better margins on those. But transitioning
people from the ICE engine to EV, when there's a big throw in payment or price, that's challenging,
but we're doing a better job with it. And I think the big thing is, if you don't earn your share,
better than your share of whatever your current model mix is, what's the XT5, the Escalade,
and the CT5, it's going to be, it's going to be challenging. My take is this, bottom line,
70% of everybody who services a car with you, industry wide will give you an opportunity
at least to buy a new car, right? I'm more focused on the customer base than the vehicle.
If I can control the relationship with the customer, I have a chance at the relationship
on the car. So our, our customer retention, I'm proud to say is amongst the highest in
Cadillac, you know, nationwide, we're well above the Northeast region. I see this time as an opportunity
to gobble up market share by doing things that other dealers won't do, like the letter I showed
you earlier, and captivating customers through voice command text. And candidly, we have a 75
car loaner fleet that'll soon to be 90. Because we want nobody, nobody buys a car near our area
that won't serve. So, so as a strategy to deal with some of the supply constraints becoming
use car focused, that's, that's a crowded field today, because there are a lot of other OEMs
and even some that have a similar discipline, Toyota and others where there's just not enough
new inventory out there to go all in, the use space is getting crowded. So what, what a great
strategy. It's an interesting strategy to use tech and other things to get closer to that customer
to increase the retention so you own that relationship long term. What do you think is
the biggest, biggest threat? Sorry, one thing, one thing I know for sure is that full customer
service department put them in a new car. I know what their, I know what their trade looks like.
Yeah. That's important. You know, the second thing is everybody that pull out of my service
department has a trade. Yeah. Last but not least, rather than going to Mannheim online or going to
the auction and bidding against 35 other people, the only person I'm, I'm working on a bid with is
the customer. And really, it can change the outcome at the auction. The relationship doesn't change
the outcome, but it varies. All right. I want to pull that thread through as part of the round
table because I use car acquisition number one thing on most dealers mind right now, April of
2026. I'm sure we'll have a healthy conversation with that as part of the round table. Bill Kamastro,
thank you so much for being on the show. Executive VP dealer partner Gold Coast Cadillac
and the owner of the original QR code on a letter with your personal cell phone.
Many have attempted a few have actually done it. So props to you for creating an unusually
high connection with your customers that way. Bill, thanks for being on the show. We'll have
you back at the end. All right. All right. Let's keep racing. We're going to go long today, but
the content and the information I've been getting, I've learned a ton. And by the way, this is the
entire reason I do this show because as CEO of a large group, Ziggler Auto Group, awesome company,
awesome group of managers, I learned a ton that then I take back into my world makes our world
even better. Matt Bird, general manager, Aero Motors north of the border up in Canada. Welcome
to the show, Matthew. Thank you. Hey, so how's business April of 2026 in Canada where you are?
Business is good. We can't complain. We've seen a significant growth year over year. We're in
our third year starting our fourth. So no complaints there. It's been a good experience for us.
We're focused. We're an independent news store. So we don't have some of those,
the OEM opportunities that were talked about previously. So we source most of our cars from
the auction. So we have to be tight on our process with the disciplined, like what
Tustin was talking about, in selecting the right vehicles, stocking the right cars and
staying tight to the things that are working for us. So what that means is staying close to
market day supply, tight on average inventory value versus average inventory sale and
obviously watching our turn closely. Very good. Very good. So you're part of CDG circles. You're
in Canada. CDG circles are US based. What do you get out of that group? Give me something that you've
had as a takeaway that you've executed on. Yeah, I think one of the big things is
having an understanding of just how many good operators there are north and south of the border.
I think our challenge is being in Canada. Some of the aspects of the business is different.
I think access to inventory is a little bit harder for us versus our colleagues down south. So I
think some of the best practices we've taken away is really leveraging data, exploring AI a bit,
making some of our own stuff with AI as opposed to leveraging vendors. I think it's been a big
part for us. But for us, really, it's just understanding there's many different ways to
operate in our industry and really getting familiar with, well, some of these guys are
really succeeding, doing it in a different way and then incorporating some of those best practices.
What's one tool? I'm fascinated by the AI. You created something. What's a tool you've
created? We created our own chat tool on our website. We were looking at a couple different
vendors and we just wanted to see if we were actually going to see utilization on our site. So
I didn't want to go in and sign a long contract and invest five to $800 a month on chat. So we just
went and created our own. They exist. We just dropped the code on our website and then it's
$40 US and we have an AI tool on our website that we don't get a ton of chats. I don't think
that's in the market. That's really strong, but I didn't want to commit a huge amount before I
went down that path. That's interesting. You've said that you're targeting three specific metrics.
Lead response time, which you've got down to an astonishing speed. Inventory value alignment
and day's turn. How do those three metrics in the used market can to protect your margin
when margin and the market is squeezing everybody? Yeah. I often talk to my business partner that
today's retails tomorrow's wholesale because we're seeing those rising values. You mentioned
that previously as well. So I think for us, you can circumvent some of the depreciation that
you'll have on your lot through accessing vehicles that are on a tighter turn. So for us, we stay
tied to it. We track a metric, which is our days to sell, which is a metric that was really
introduced to us through Viauto with their new tool that they had. So for us, really staying
focused on how long does it take to actually sell that car and not necessarily just our
average days in inventory. Sam, you can manipulate your average days in inventory and tell yourself
a really good story if you're constantly acquiring additional cars, but you're starting to see that
the vehicle age is actually, the average sale age is really low when you're selling all the fresh
stuff and all that old stuff starting to age on you. So for us, it's making sure that we turn
those cars and sometimes you just cut the car loose and find something else and reinvest before it
gets worse. So that's really helped us protect our margins. All right. Best auction for sourcing
and best auction for sourcing used cars in Canada in April of 2026. Where do you go for your used?
Most of my stuff, we go through Open Lane, which is a merge of Trade Rev and Adessa in Canada. So
most of us, we don't go to live sale. It's usually just the online sale that they have every morning
we usually run and purchase from. And then the second source is eBlock, the two main competitors
in Canada that we're using. But we source 90% of inventory from them.
So here in the US CarMax, Carvon are big giants in the used car space, independent used. Well,
I guess Carvon isn't so independent used anymore with their recent acquisitions of
all these Stellana stores, but is that a threat or just noise in the Canadian market? Do you see
a threat to us? But we do have a similar company. It's clutched. They're fully online. They think
they just relaunched across the rest of Canada. So we see they're a direct competitor to us more
so than any of the other small stores that are in our specific region, because we often come up
against if a customer is coming in and comparing us, it's us versus them consistently. We really
approach our business as an internet-first business. What's one metric every used car director?
US, Canada, wherever you are. We had somebody from Australia here a couple of weeks ago.
What's one metric every used car director should be tracking that they're probably ignoring in
2026? I think a scary thing is really understanding what you're actually selling as an inventory value.
So what are you stalking versus what is actually selling? And we talk, Auto Trader Canada here
talks a lot about the average value of new cars online and average value of used cars online.
And they're in the mid-30s for used. But if your average retail price is 20, but you're
stalking 35, you have a disconnect that you're never really going to see or a blind spot that's
going to lead to age. It's going to lead to a margin erosion. And you're going to start having to
pay curtailments if you're flooring. And you're just going to limit your ability to sell what you
need to sell. Very good. So you are an independent used, and then we'll go to our round table here.
You're not franchised. I would assume that's an intentional decision. Do you think you have an
advantage not being a franchise new car dealer? What decision goes into that for you? Or would
you at some point if it came along? It's not a thought that's really crossed my mind. Early on,
it felt like a disadvantage because there's a lot of strength in carrying the Ford banner
or the Kia banner or any of those ones. However, I think there's a liberation to being that the
brand that we have is the brand that we've set out to create for ourselves. And so we're really
focused and intentional on process, whether that's service or sales. We are partnered with Napa. So
Napa is a part of our namesake in terms of our service department. And I think being in full
control, we get to determine the outcome and how it's going to look and appear. And we get a great
deal of compliments from our customers, from even competitors as well, just how well branded we are
because we are all in on how we want to do it. We're not tied to everyone else telling us how to
operate. Yep. Last question up. Yoga Cars comes into the text saying, did you get it? Did you
have any issues with OEM approvals for chat? Actually, you don't have an OEM. So there's
an advantage. You don't have to worry about that. So Yoga Cars, good question. And the answer is no.
So Matthew Burr, General Manager of Aero Motors. Thank you so much for being on the show. We're
going to have you back as part of the roundtable here in just a moment. Thanks for being on and
sharing your perspectives today. Thank you. Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining today's show. We're
going to go into OT just a little bit for this power operator roundtable. Thanks, everybody,
for being here. You can push your comments into the chat if you want to ask, join. We'll do about
about a five-minute roundtable. Joining back, Tustin Ulrich, General Manager, Roprakia, Bill
Kamastro, dealer principal and managing partner of Gold Coast Cadillac, and Matthew Burr, General
Manager of Aero Motors. Welcome, gentlemen. It's good to have you all back on. So, hey, one segment
that we did today that got a lot of comments and feedback, Tustin, was your creating culture. And
as I mentioned, I hate the conversation about culture because I think it's something people
talk about. It's tough to quantify and few actually execute on. I would ask, as you're hiring people
that fit into your culture, name one thing that you look for. I'd love to ask everybody this.
What's one thing that you look for to help enhance culture rather than hurt it? What's one thing that
helps rather than hurts when you're looking for people that you're looking to bring on as part
of the team? Do they know it all? Because I think everybody should. Yeah. I mean, ask somebody a
question on how they feel about a mindset shift or reading a book in general or what's something
you read recently. And it's just because people that think they know aren't willing to be molded.
And I'm not saying our mold is the only way, but I'm saying it's the way that it's working for us.
And if your mind's not willing to work for that, we completely understand.
Bill, one thing you look for when hiring for culture in your group?
Willingness is, I guess, is the one word. Tustin and I read a lot. I mean, we read a lot of what
he said we subscribed to. But I think the biggest thing is, you know, we've changed kind of the
model of how we hire nowadays. We look for, I don't want to say younger people, but I would
say people that don't necessarily, they're not retreads. They haven't been tarnished by the
rest of the industry. They don't have bad habits built, baked in. I'd rather sit through, you know,
a group of green peas, teach them our way of doing things and look at it as a long-term investment
in their future rather than fight with them to change their bad behavior. Very good. Very good.
Matthew. I think the easiest answer is just to find people who are able to take feedback. I
think if you can't coach them, they can't take feedback. They're going to fight you on the
stuff that you're trying to tell them and help them improve. I think, you know, as leaders, you
know, that's thought that Tustin brought up that kind of came to mind as the leader brings the
weather. So, you know, we determine, you know, when we walk in, how everyone's going to feel for
that day. And if you give feedback to people and they're unwilling to learn and grow from it,
then there's no point having them on your team. Patrick Block Ventures comes in the chat says
resourcefulness. And as a prop to Zach Terrell, again, he and I were talking about a vendor
problem. I think speed to execution. But I think Bill and Tustin, the qualities you listed actually
enhance speed to execution because they can do what they say they do. They're willing to back it up.
All right. Next question up. Fred and Margins are under pressure across automotive. The
dealers who are holding it together say FNI is the primary stabilizer. There's a lot of people
that say FNI is the last line of defense. Is FNI still a place that is worth fighting for? Or,
given all the things we've seen in the marketplace recently, FTC, all the other things, is it,
is that department at risk? Bill, let's talk, let's go to you. How do you view FNI in April of
2026? I think any department's at risk if they don't do things the right way. Simply put,
we're straight up when we sell to customers. We have a menu system, but by the same token,
the customer signs off on every product that they buy, they know the selling price of the product.
But we sell for value. I mean, we're at $2,200 a copy at a Cadillac store. And our VSC penetration,
our goals are typically to be north of 40% VSC penetration at 1.5 or better products per customer.
But that's based on what we know about the market with the typical customer would buy,
not based on what we can down their throat. But like anything else in the industry, including
listed dock fees and transparency on pricing, look, eventually there's a case out there right
now of a dealer that got hit for $75 million. I'm sure you've heard about it.
Yeah, Lindsay. You're only going to take two of those before everybody else. Look,
if we're all doing the same thing. That will be a good thing though, Bill. When that day happens,
it will level the playing field and it will finally not be a race to the bottom anymore.
I would rather, I would rather all of us, if we're all held to the same standards,
then the most professional cultured people will win. The people that you're talking to on this
call, right? The most professional cultured people win when everybody is held to the same
standards and no one has an advantage based on being deceptive. You know, those create getting
in trouble. Who creates that standard, Tustin? Who creates the standard? Do you agree with
what Bill is saying and who creates it? And yeah, I mean, I agree. I'm just going to let
the culture speak for itself and we're going to stand apart anyways, whether there's a standard
to the outside automotive world or not. I'm not exactly a fan of any government agency
necessarily coming in and being this standard or holding this accountable. So I think that's
very self driven. But I can see what Bill is saying that when you level the playing field and when
it's not a race to the bottom, it is going to be better for everybody. Some people say digital
lead providers contribute to the problem by allowing low prices to percolate to the top.
I think GEO will solve that a little bit once there's more generative AI in some of these search
results. But do you think lead providers need to be held to a standard to ensuring that pricing
is accurate and correct, Tustin? Thoughts on that? And then Bill. At some point, you're telling,
you know, because what a price is on car gurus is their best price versus auto trade are two
different prices. And we have someone employed in the store right now that's looking at both models
individually every day and adjusting price accordingly on specific cars. So you have to
stay ahead of the market. It's a challenge though, because what makes them unique? Why is car
gurus draw a certain amount of leads in one market and auto trade or another? And then in a
different market, it's completely flip. At some point, we have to ask ourselves why or how are we
telling a business to conduct itself as a business to just make it the same across the board, go to
Amazon and type in toilet paper roll holder. You're going to get thousands upon thousands of
results at thousands upon thousands of different prices. And that's kind of what makes the American
economy work, right? It is a competitive place. We need to have the distinct advantages of business.
And to be honest, just making everybody play by the same pricing rules, I don't think it's going
to solve that one way or the other. Bill response? I agree and disagree. I mean, look, if I had a
choice between everybody playing by the same rules or not, I don't have that choice. So that so
because there is no choice, the best for the people that are more professional and have more
culture, long term, they're going to win. So Bill, speaking of that, the key letter, we led with it
in the news saying that they are going to levy consequences against dealers that are engaged
with brokering. Brokering is a big deal in your neck of the woods there in the east. We have the
biggest broker market in the world right here. How does that, how does the key letter, I know
you're not a key at OEM. How does that, how's that going to impact the broker market on the east
coast? Well, I candidly, I hope Cadillac does the same thing. And I'll tell you why. Because they
hurt the brand. They hurt the residual values of cars for leasing. They hurt the used car values.
They diminish the brand. And what's worse than all this is when you have manufacturers and many
of the manufacturers this way now, where you have the back end money that comes to you monthly or
quarterly, right? And your margins are getting hurt by a dealer whose 10 cars short of hitting
his number for the month. It's destructive to the entire industry. It's destructive to the entire
business. And listen, above everything else, we work like everybody else. Many of our people
work more hours than most people in blue collar jobs. Okay, all of which I respect. But at the
end of the day, they're working a lot of hours. If they don't sell a car, they could be here all day
and make almost nothing. So to have, you know, we can't control everything. But when it comes to
the race to the bottom, like Dustin said, look, if we're allowing outside influences
to control our destiny, that's a really counterproductive environment. And I wrote destiny. Yeah,
I was in an environment where I control as much of my destiny as possible by doing the right thing.
I think we may have a different take on it. But I think we want to get to the same place by doing
the right thing. So I don't necessarily think he's right or I'm wrong. It's not about that.
They're both culturally, you know, right, and they're both very positive. But we're in a market
where we have dealers that'll sell 20 cars to a broker in one day just to hit their pinnacle number
to get all the back. Their salespeople will broke while they're doing it too. It's nuts. It's crazy.
So we may, I keep checking the slack, the internal CDG slack chain here, because I'm trying to see
if I have approval to share the other letter. So you may get your wish. I don't have anything from
Cadillac, but it is interesting how this debate has been vigorous. We see a response from Kia.
We've actually come by one other letter from another OEM and we're waiting for approval
and validation to make sure that's accurate. But it does seem like OEMs are starting to see that
it's an interesting conundrum to have the relationship ask dealers to spend money on
these facilities and to compete and then allowing a third party to go
advertise as if they are the dealer. And it's bigger, it seems, on the East Coast than it is
in many other parts of the country. But Matthew, as we wrap up, the question for you is, is,
you know, there are some very interesting challenges in 2026 becoming, being an OEM.
Are you glad you're an independent? You're an independent man. You can go sell whatever you
want. Use cars. Yep. We just, we get to go pick and purchase what we want. So some of these things,
I don't miss those days that you guys are talking about. All right. As we round up,
lightning round in five words or less, biggest problem in 2026 you're working to solve right now.
Let's start with you, Tustin. We'll go straight across. Oh, for us, it's 85% service retention.
I think I can get 85% of the people to buy new key is to come back and service with us. It is our
whole initiative. So 85% retention. We need you back on Fixed Ops Friday to have further that
conversation. Bill, I said, I said it during my segment, it fixed up fixed operations and customer
retention will drive my future sales. I love it. And by the way, to that point,
DNC comes into the comments and says, Hey, I agree with Bill. Once you're on the OEM,
instead of stair step program, it's hard to get off of it. Matthew, biggest thing you're working on
is in Canada as you wrap up this month of April. I think for us, it's just staying focused on the
things that we can control. I'm not worried about the noise. And that echoes what Bill said. Bill
props to you. Thank you, Tustin, Bill, Matthew. Thank you all for being on today's episode of
Daily Deal Alive. We'd love to have you back soon. We appreciate y'all. Thank you guys.
Thank you. And to you, our daily, our loyal Daily Dealer listening audience, thanks for being here.
Thanks for watching Daily Deal Alive where we break down those biggest moves in the car business
as they happen. I'm coming to you with my green master's jacket. Don't forget we're here live every
Monday, Wednesday. We'll be back Friday, one PM Eastern. So if this is your world,
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Thanks for being here, everybody. We'll see you next episode.
About this episode
Dealers are getting disciplined fast: Kia warns against broker sales that don’t count for incentives, S&P flags a big 2026 light-vehicle forecast hit tied to the Iran situation, and CarGurus shows new inventory swelling while used demand stays hot. The core interviews spotlight three playbooks: Tustin Ulrich cuts sales staff 35% yet sells more through tight culture, daily standups, and “book club” accountability; Bill Kamastro uses QR-based service booking and voice AI to cut service hold times; and Matthew Bird runs an independent used strategy in Canada using lead response speed, turn/days-to-sell discipline, and lightweight AI tools. The roundtable debates culture, F&I pressure, and broker enforcement.
Original notes
Today's show features:
- Tustin Ulrich, General Manager of Roper Kia
- William (Bill) H. Camastro JR., DP/Managing Partner of Gold Coast Cadillac
- Matthew Bird, General Manager of Arrow Motors
This episode is brought to you by:
CDG Circles – A digital peer group for top auto dealers. Private dealer chats. Vendor reviews. Real insights — confidential, compliant, no travel required. Join dealers representing 3,000+ rooftops at https://cdgcircles.com
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