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All right, y'all, my shirt's wrinkled.
I'm a bit tired, I need a haircut, but life is good.
This isn't a normal recording, as you can tell.
I just wanted to drop in and say, happy new year.
There's no guest today.
I want to do something a little bit different.
You know, when I do these podcasts, I prepare.
There's just this whole process, this regimen.
At this point, we've done hundreds.
I actually have lost count.
We're probably at, I don't know,
including Daily Dealer Alive,
probably over 400 or 500, which is,
it's pretty hard to believe.
You know, this started by accident.
I think that's really the right way to say it.
I was just tweeting out insights,
and one day I, it was, that count was growing so quickly.
And I said, look, there's clearly a need for some level
of industry knowledge, insight from others.
And that was the spark for what Cardio Shabgaia is.
I said, let's just scale this slowly, but surely.
I didn't know how I was going to scale.
There was no plan necessarily early on.
I would say today there's much more of a plan.
But I started just creating content and, you know,
asking around and one day I got a call.
And for those who have been following the platform
for a while, you'll probably know this already.
But I had a friend who was like,
hey, you should try this like podcast thing.
And again, that's not a good reason to do a podcast.
But that was my reason.
And, you know, here we are today.
And so I was out with my wife and kids.
We were just doing some traveling and whatever.
And like, you know, I think it was like Easter Sunday
that weekend.
So it was beautiful Sunday.
Everyone's out and about.
We were, I think like buying flowers.
And I got a tip about some big industry news.
And I told my wife, say, hey, we have to go home.
Like this is sick.
This is the moment where I think I can record something
and put it on air.
And so and so we went home and I pull out a garage band
on, you know, a Mac computer.
It's like the basic, you know, the recording on the Mac.
And I record this whole thing and I don't even edit it.
I just or maybe edit it a little bit myself.
But I throw it up on Twitter and it goes viral within like hours.
And it was a huge revelation moment for me.
But at the same time, I found myself a couple of days later.
I'm like, well, now what do we do now?
It's clear that there's this, I said, this craving for information
that's not out there.
And so I had to solve for that.
And the next way to solve for that was let's why limit the insights
that I have, let's bring other people to the podcast.
And so we did.
And so I say, yes, it's me, right?
Or at the time it was just me.
And so there's no team, no nothing.
But we started bringing other people to the podcast.
And that was, that was the really big moment
that car dealership guys started becoming what it is today.
It was a slow, sort of unplanned, just continuous build.
But it got us to, it taught us, it showed us what the industry was craving,
which was a platform that can democratize knowledge.
I hate to use that word.
It's kind of cringe.
Everyone uses it, but it's true.
Like what do we do?
We take an insight that maybe one person has and we bring it to many.
And then much more beyond that, you know, even if you're listening to this now
on January 1st, we're going to make a big announcement next week
where we're going to be talking about the growth of the platform
and what's next for a car dealership guy
and what we're calling now CDG companies.
There's a lot of really exciting stuff on the horizon.
But that was a really, really big moment for this.
And I think if you're listening to this, I don't have the biggest
thing I want you to know is that we work tirelessly to create content for you.
You're listening to this, you're getting value out of this
and that's our job.
That's our goal.
And if you, the fact that you give us even a sliver of your time each day means a ton
because we simply know how valuable that is for everyone.
And I also want to do something that I don't usually do.
I want to give you my personal phone number where you can text me.
If you have any feedback, if you want to say hello or if there's just something on your mind.
Yes, obviously, this is a Google voice number.
Otherwise, my phone would literally burn.
But it does go to my cell phone.
I promise you that.
So I do see it.
It just gives me the option to put it on, do not disturb if needed.
So the number is 856-393-5432.
So you can text me, you can call me.
I'll probably be more responsive to text initially, but whatever it is, you know, just hit me up.
Let me know what you have on your mind, what you want to see in 2026, what you didn't like this year, what you did like.
You know, some of the best feedback we've gotten was from just complaints or someone leaving a comment.
Hey, the audio quality of this is shit and we fixed it.
And you know, little things like that, like we're very in tune with just our audience and what we can do better and the dealer community and the entire all retail community.
So, and of course, you know, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be cardio subscribe.
I didn't also mention that if you're a dealer and you want to also be part of the expanded conversation, of course, CDG circles, you've heard it many times.
But we have dozens of dealers at this point joining daily, sometimes weekly others.
And it's just been a truly game changer for many dealers with just the insights and the niche chat rooms which we've launched.
So if you want to join, you know, dozens of focused chat groups and literally as little as $1, we kept it like that on purpose so it's open to anyone.
You can come see the value for yourself at CDGCircles.com.
So I'll just say I'm very excited. I'm very pumped about the future. There's a lot to be optimistic about in this industry.
It is changing fast. There's no doubt about that. We've highlighted that on our platform.
You know, our job at CDG is to keep bringing you those insights and that intelligence to the forefront.
And as you'll come to see this year, much more beyond that, which we'll announce next week.
But you've seen what we've done. We started with media. We expanded to some very tangential and complimentary services such as, you know, nomad content,
which does social media marketing for dealers, recruiting, CDG recruiting, which helps with hiring.
These just made so much sense for us. And of course, now with Circles, where we're bringing dealers together and soon to be with Pulse,
where we're going to be arming those same dealers with more insights and intelligence.
We're actually really doing it already within Circles in the form of beta.
So there's a lot to be excited for, you know, on a personal side, just to share with you all.
I have three kids under five. So, you know, me and my wife, we always wanted a big family.
So it's been interesting building this company while also, you know, building the family, so to speak.
It is, as you can tell, I'm totally like, there's no script here.
So I'm just kind of giving you a quick sneak peek into my life.
My wife is also pregnant. So that's surprise, surprise.
That'll be, you know, God willing, number four. So that would be, and it's a girl.
So I have three girls and one boy, you know, when you ask them, what does daddy do?
They say he does podcasts. So it's a bit different than how I grew up in retail and being, you know, on the lot.
And, you know, at 14 years old, going to sell that first car, go figure it out.
But we'll make it happen. We'll teach them the retail routes.
But that's it. So, you know, that's kind of on the personal side.
It's been a fun journey for them to witness and to be a huge part of this would not be at any way in any way possible.
If it wasn't for my incredible wife, Lee, who is, you know, helps just a ton and I mean, holds the four down when I'm yapping over here and doing all this nonsense.
But truly, it's a it's a team effort, which is, you know, it's in a nice part.
It's like, you know, anything in life, good, it's, you need a strong team.
So and of course, we have our incredible team behind the scenes.
So this might look like a little account or, you know, to some others, it might look like a huge enterprise at this point.
I get all the different feedback across the board.
But we were a team of, I would say, full time, probably like 10 individuals, part time fractional, another 10 to 20.
I mean, there's there's a big effort that goes in here.
Everyone is really, everyone is super hands on, really cares.
I'm sure, you know, if you're a vendor listening, then you've probably spoken with Jay, Hannah or Colin.
If you are a dealer listening, you may have spoken with Jay or Alex.
Or maybe you've spoken with Michelle behind the scenes where, you know, setting you up for coming on the podcast.
Or maybe you've been interviewed by Yuli or Sam.
Or maybe you've been interviewed on our editorial side by Anna, by Ash, you know, by Marcus, by anyone on our editorial team.
We have more people behind the scenes.
We have Ori, we have, I mean, you get the point.
I'm just kind of naming some names right now, but there's a really, really big squad that makes all this happen.
Of course, our incredible analyst, Joe Vitale, he was with us since literally day one and just, you know, support, supporting function and many other things.
Am I forgetting someone?
I hope not.
So I might as well pull up Slack real quick to just double check because I told you this is totally impromptu.
Of course, on our, in our services business, we have CDG recruiting where we have Chris, we have Kim, we have Joe and Nomad.
And Nomad, which is our social media business.
We have Omar who leads that practice.
And I think I've covered the full gamut.
Yeah, that should, that really covers it.
And then we have, you know, on editing side, we have Adrian and we have on graphic design, we have Christian and on our advisory, we have Justin or maybe Cole Short, who leads our creative and content strategy at all of CDG.
So look, the bottom line is we have an incredible team here of amazing people that make this happen day in and day out.
It's a massive team effort.
And we don't work grateful, grateful for, like I said, for you being here and for being part of this journey.
So I want to end off with a happy new year.
Thank you for being here once again.
And here's to an incredible 2026 with just lots of success, lots of happiness, lots of health, lots of positivity, great momentum and change for this industry.
And we're going to keep doing our part in, you know, bringing the best of the best of the forefront so that this entire industry can only strengthen and as we say, thrive and change.
So that's all I got for you.
I hope you enjoyed my rant to a certain extent or as much as possible is again, totally off script.
So there's, it's a little, it might be a little rough in between, but thank you for being here and cheers to an amazing 2026.
Thank you guys.
Thank you guys.
Thank you.
All right, hope you enjoyed that episode.
Please give the podcast a rating, consider subscribing to the show and check the show notes for links to what we talked about.
Thanks for tuning in.
I'll see you guys next time.
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