Latest / Auto Collabs / The “And” Mindset with Matt Jones

Transcript

The “And” Mindset with Matt Jones · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  You know, some people really, really have a desire to be on TV. [upbeat music] This is Auto Collapse.
• 0:13
  And then some people actually are on TV a lot, and one of those people is Matt Jones. And you wouldn't know it from his countenance or his current position, but,
• 0:23
  b- but Matt Jones, who's currently with TrueCar, has actually been on a ton of TV spots talking about industry insights that he's had from being at different companies across automotive.
• 0:38
  This cat has literally educated multiple, th- like, thousands and thousands of people on news, radio station, on news stations about economics, and, uh, vehicle dynamics, and inventory, and all that type of stuff.
• 0:54
  Um, so the man knows how to throw down in, like, a real class interview.
• 0:59
  [laughs] Oh, he's got, he's got this way of, like, coming around to, like, making a point that he just kind of comes alongside you, and then he puts his arm around you, and he explains a few things, tells a little story, and then he actually hits you with the point.
• 1:14
  But by the time he gets to the point, you're, like, nodding your head yes, and you're like- [laughs]... "I, I really agree with whatever he's gonna say next, and I don't even know what it is."
• 1:22
  That's just the kind of person, which is probably why he keeps getting asked to be, like, on the news and be the, the, the resident expert, because people are like, "Oh, that's a, that's a smart guy.
• 1:30
  I agree with everything he's saying." I don't know. I had just met him for the first time a few months ago at the ASOTU Family Remix. That's right. That's right. Do we call it a remix or is it a reunion?
• 1:39
  It felt like a reunion. A reunion remix. Remix. 'Cause there was a reunion the year before. This time was the remix of the previous reunion, but also a reunion.
• 1:47
  Gotcha, and, and one of the things I loved about that events, th- th- events like that and the stuff you guys are putting on and just rallying people is, I'd never met him before, never heard of him, never, didn't know anything about, and I'm like, "Who is this cool cat?"
• 1:58
  And he was. He was just the coolest dude, very, like, um, you know, passionate, excited, was, was easy to, like, just strike up a conversation with.
• 2:07
  So to your point, I, I think that's why, you know, he obviously gets asked. He's just kind of a natural at, at conveying information.
• 2:13
  And of course, we're excited for you to listen in as we have this conversation with the man himself right here on the Auto Collapse podcast.
• 2:27
  [upbeat music] So Matt, the first time we met, we were at NAMAD, and you caught up with me and you just, you wanted to say hi.
• 2:36
  And then you sent me a picture, um, you know, several months later, and you were like, "Hey," the person that you don't recognize, my wife and I, you were like, "Hey, let's get a picture."
• 2:44
  It was me, you, and my wife, and you sent me a picture and you said, "The person you don't recognize [laughs] in this photo is Matt Jones with TrueCar."
• 2:50
  And then- And literally, literally, Paul, Paul, we're on a, I think you texted him while we're on a G- uh, a Google Meet, and he, and he holds it up. He goes, "Kyle,
• 3:00
  I know that everybody," you know, the TrueCar thing, "but, like, this guy's gonna change the game," and he holds it up to the- [laughs]
• 3:08
  So that's, like, our introduction level to Matt Jones, uh, from TrueCar, who's on with us today. Yeah, it, it, it's a true thing, man. It's a true thing.
• 3:16
  You know, we are in this car business, but we are people, and if you've been in the car business for more than 10 minutes, at some point you have heard, you know, people buy from people they like.
• 3:26
  And I think it goes beyond that. Like, people get down with people they like. But- That's right... people, people are not gonna know you or get down with you or like you if they haven't had that first intro.
• 3:34
  So Paul, I am sorry for running up on you and your wife- It was awesome... like a crazy person. [laughs] But I was like, "I, like, I, I, I gotta be on with this dude. I've been watching this dude. He's right there.
• 3:44
  He's, like, 16 yards away. Uh, my old 40 time was 4.4. I can get there in two se-," boom, had to. Yeah. Had to. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah. My old 40 time, close. You did play pretty high-level football.
• 3:56
  Yeah, I did, but- Like, and if you're just listening to the podcast, if you're watching the show, that all makes sense. But if you're listening, like, this man, this man could put a hurting on a quarterback, I bet.
• 4:05
  Yeah, I did. I, I, I tried. But you know what I learned when I, uh- "I tried," you said. [laughs] I tried. I tried.
• 4:10
  But it, it's funny, because I, I cannot believe I'm about to make this a sports to automotive industry transition, because nobody's ever done that in a conversation before. [laughs] But I'm about to do it right now.
• 4:22
  Right? So, uh, when, when I played football, uh, in high school and college or whatever, I thought I was really good. I really did. I was bigger and stronger, and I had a little bit of football acumen, right?
• 4:35
  But when I look back on that football experience, I realized there were so many opportunities to be better, because I was relying upon me and my coaching strictly and solely for my success.
• 4:50
  I wasn't reading about what's the benefit of hydration. Yeah. I wasn't reading about what's the benefit of proper stretching. Why should I be watching old '80s football? What am I gonna learn there?
• 5:01
  And all I took was what me, my teammates, and my coaches had to offer, which was, which seemed fine at the time. And now when I look back and I s- look at today's athletes,
• 5:15
  their team and their coaches, that's not enough. You wanna be special, you wanna be elite, you're getting a trainer, you're getting a nutritionist, you're getting maybe a mental health therapist.
• 5:26
  You're g- you're taking a lot more. And so when I think about the times in automotive, I look back on and I'm making that parallel between the team sports. I was a salesperson. I was pretty good. I was pretty good.
• 5:37
  I was a manager. I was pretty good. But I was reliant strictly and solely on me, my team, and my management for growth. Yeah.
• 5:45
  And I see now that I'm s- somewhat, you know, diso- you know, uh, separated from football and a little bit separated from the retail side, 'cause I don't sell anymore, that the opportunity for growth is exponential when people get around
• 5:58
  other cats such as yourself, right? Wow. I mean- I didn't know where you were gonna go with that, but- Well, uh, it's, it's something that- What a kickoffAll right. I'm sorry, Paul So that was a good podcast...
• 6:08
  I apologize. I apologize. Everybody listen to that on repeat for a couple times, and then you'll be good, you know? [laughs] I love it. [laughs] Okay. Gentlemen, I'm sorry, but I hold that very seriously.
• 6:18
  It's a part of who I am as a human now. Like, it, it has impacted me. Oh, yeah. That- Well, it's one of the reasons I showed Kyle the picture, and I was like, "This guy's gonna change the game."
• 6:28
  [laughs] Well, you know, you know, I, I love automotive. I, I, I fell into it like everybody else, um, by accident, you know? I was selling cell phones, uh, at Sprint PCS on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills.
• 6:40
  And I remember I was killing it selling my 30 cell phones and 50 accessories a month. I was killing it. I was killing the game, y'all.
• 6:49
  [laughs] Um, and right across the street there was this dealership that's still there, and the salesperson came across the street, and he came to buy a cell phone from me.
• 6:57
  And we had a little negotiation back and forth over the $250 Sprint cell phone at the time. And my man said something to me. He's like, "Can you give me a deal?" And I said, "No. This is the price."
• 7:13
  [laughs] "If you want something that's less- No... buy the one that's less," right? Because you don't negotiate the price of a cell phone. You can't, right? It's already that. Unless you're a car guy. He...
• 7:24
  Well, well, no, no, no. I'm saying on my side- [laughs]... I had no control. We- Right... we couldn't take off a cent. Like, we literally- Right. Right... couldn't take it off, right?
• 7:31
  And so the guy says, "You know, hey, maybe you'd be good selling cars." I was like, "Selling cars?" [laughs] "You crazy, man. I'm s-..." You know, "You know how much Sprint pays me? I'ma make, like, 40 grand this year.
• 7:41
  You crazy." [laughs] "I'm not, I'm not. Get out of here with that. Get." And then he showed me his check, because, you know, you know, in the car business retail s- [laughs]... you know, we, we get paper checks, right?
• 7:53
  Just happened to be. And I was like, I was astounded. He told me to go across the street with him, uh, to his store just to check it out, 'cause it was literally across the street.
• 8:00
  And then he- And he showed you the check. Wow. You're like, "You make that much a month?" He's like, "A week." [laughs] So I, I'm telling you, I didn't believe it. Because until that stage of my life,
• 8:10
  that money was like... It wasn't real. You know what I'm saying? Like, we walk around, and we're doing our thing, and we understand that Elon Musk is worth $257 billion, but that's not real money. Yeah.
• 8:23
  It's like- Absolutely. You can't get your head around that, right? I don't... Yep.
• 8:26
  And so the man's check that he had in front of me, and this cat was, I don't know, five years older than me, you know, working, breathing the same air as me, right? I was like, "I have to go check it out." Mm-hmm.
• 8:36
  And he introed me into the car business. Otherwise, I might... Well, I don't know if Sprint still has retail stores. But you know what I'm saying?
• 8:42
  If that person hadn't saw somebody and grabbed me, my whole trajectory would've been different.
• 8:47
  And so again, it's like, how do we impact each individual person and maybe show them something that they didn't see, or they hadn't been exposed to, or they hadn't considered to make it a little bit better?
• 8:58
  And so I am trying to help change, but like, you know, the game a little bit, but from a, a position of what have you not thought of? Yeah.
• 9:04
  What have you been doing in your store for the past 15 years or 20 years that has worked, that absolutely works? But what else is there that maybe y- you know, that you can add on to that, you know? So I'm trying.
• 9:14
  I'm trying. I'm trying.
• 9:15
  You know, it's interesting, because I, I do think a lot of people, when they get in business or when they get in careers, and, and, and Paul and I say this a lot even about content creators or marketers.
• 9:26
  We say, like, you get into y- whatever thing you're doing, and you stop learning, right? Yeah. Our whole, our whole lives up until we're 21 or 22, if you go to college, are dedicated to finding new things.
• 9:38
  Like, y- you are... Your, your whole existence is learning. Because whether you're learning from just the hard knocks or school- Right... you're learning something. Your t- your parents.
• 9:50
  And then all of a sudden, you go into whatever career that you've learned everything to l- to do for, and it's like everything happens in a little silo. And, and- Yeah...
• 9:58
  your learning either comes from your direct mentor or the people that are right across from you.
• 10:03
  And you stop going like, "Oh, there's other things that I can acquire knowledge from," and go, "I can, I can bring that to where I'm at, whether it be inside my industry or outside of my industry, and that's valuable to what I'm doing right now."
• 10:18
  So are you, you know... And, and I know that your role, obviously, with TrueCar, and from a marketing perspective and, and you're understanding that.
• 10:25
  But from an industry perspective, what, what are you seeing are things that we can be looking at as an industry that are maybe outside of our industry, whether it's a salesperson or a manager- Mm...
• 10:36
  or anything like s- what are you seeing that, that we should be looking at or looking toward from outside our industries to try and draw back to understand, whether it be employee experience or consumer experience or the way that we, you know, engage in sales?
• 10:50
  What are you seeing that we should be looking to as an industry to understand better?
• 10:55
  I, I think what, what I, what I see the most of, and probably the, the first and foremost biggest opportunity, in my opinion, um, that I see other industries doing, just like us, the learning, is actually learning and, like, you know, training opportunities that may come from outside of your immediate org.
• 11:11
  So, uh, I, I'll give an example. Um, for a very short time, very short time, I was a firefighter here in Long Beach, and some of my best friends are firefighters.
• 11:20
  You know what you have to do in order to be a firefighter? You must have continuing education. You must. Hmm. It's part of the deal. Hmm. Because the way that w- a person would treat a heart attack changes.
• 11:30
  The way that CPR, as we learn more about anatomy, changes, right? So it's not your captain. Um, it's not your deputy captain. It's not your, uh, battalion chief.
• 11:39
  It's the American Heart Association, and you must go there, right? And you can take that across other, other industries. But a lot of folks that I've seen, we, we just train internally, or we, we train with video.
• 11:49
  So just opening up, you know, our space for, for learning. Um, the other, the other thing, though, I think that's probably just as important, if not more, is, like, is exposure to what's possible.
• 12:02
  So, you know, the, the, the- Oh, yeah...
• 12:03
  you know, when I sold cars, I worked for a big group-Actually one of the biggest groups in the country, and then I worked for another group, which was a big group, another one of the biggest groups in the country.
• 12:13
  Southern California, it's a s- significant car market, right? Mm-hmm. We had this one dude at our store, or one in our group, who sold 100 cars a month.
• 12:23
  And then we had another dude at another store who sold, like, 75 cars a month. But there was, like, 400 sales people, and there was nobody else who sold 100 cars per month, right?
• 12:33
  So the rest of us were like, "That dude drinks special water. That, that dude over there, he's just beautiful. Like, there's no duplicate-" He had, had to give it a reason, right. Yeah. Right, right.
• 12:45
  There is something intrinsically... Their, their digestive system works different. There's something different- [laughs]... about these people that I can't emulate, right? Mm.
• 12:56
  I get out of the car business, I learn about this Ali Reda cat. Never, I didn't even, I didn't know about him at my store. I wasn't ex- I, I wasn't, you know, introduced to that guy. Hear about this Frank Kenedy guy.
• 13:05
  I hear about this Shenaya. I'm hearing about all these people who are selling fif- 50, 70, 90, 100 cars, right?
• 13:13
  If somebody had exposed me to that as a salesperson, may that have changed my perspective of what's possible- Mm... as opposed to this dude who's been sitting in that corner for, like, 35 years, right?
• 13:23
  That's why he sells 100 cars, right? But that... You know what I'm saying? So that's what I'm talking about- Yeah... the exposure. Get me out of the San Fernando Valley. That's, that's where I'm at, right?
• 13:31
  Or, you know, get me out of that space and let me see what's happening in Indiana, what's going on in Florida. Who is this Brian Kramer cat? What i- what, what's g- that's what I mean is, like, getting us exposure.
• 13:42
  So outside training and then the exposure I think are the opportunities that, um, sometimes don't present themselves because we're, you know, successful. You know?
• 13:51
  We just had a very similar conversation in another podcast interview with a, a gentleman who's also gonna be at ASOTU CON, uh, named Darren Doan, and he was talking about, um, the recyc- metal recycling industry, and just people who are used to dealing with big scale, right?
• 14:07
  Mm-hmm. Like acres and acres, and we're gonna level these five blocks of buildings. And he said when you're around people like that, it, it kind of, like,
• 14:16
  teaches you to think, like, about, you're worried, he's like, he, he joked, he said, "You're worried about, you know, um, getting a permit for the little, like, 10 by 10 deck you're building in your backyard, and you're worried that, like, the railing's gonna be an inch or two too low, and you're gonna get..."
• 14:31
  Right? And these guys are, like, rerouting communities, [laughs] right? [laughs] And, and rivers- Right... and electrical s- high power electrical service.
• 14:39
  And it really, the, the common thread here is the, the broadening the horizons, right?
• 14:44
  Like, pulling the drone up so you can see the broader view, and all of a sudden normalizing things that you thought were impossible or didn't even think of, right? It's the story of the, the four-minute mile. Right.
• 14:55
  Everyone's like, "You can't do it. It's impossible," right? Actually, people were like, "You're gonna die." Mm-hmm. "If you ran a four-minute mile your heart would explode."
• 15:01
  And then one person did it, and then that next year a bunch of other people did it. Right, right.
• 15:06
  So, so to, to, to take that, uh, like a step further, so you have a unique perspective, and I think TrueCar has a unique perspective because of so much data and so much, like, scale. Yes. Right?
• 15:17
  What, what do you see in the industry, or what are some of the things and opportunities you're seeing because you have a little bit of perspective, like getting some information from consumers directly, in a time when dealers are like, "How can we improve the customer experience?"
• 15:30
  S- so it's, it's really good that you said that, because when you're in the middle of the fight, all you see is the fight.
• 15:36
  So I'm gonna say things right now that I may not have believed when I was actually running an internet sales department, um, back... And I did that for several years in Southern California. Um, the data tells us
• 15:48
  that the story is true. The group of people who actually contact a consumer and create a real human-to-human connection first tend to win, and that's not besides, uh, the autoresponder.
• 16:05
  It's when I really call Paul or I really text Kyle and have a real conversation. Hmm. We've been hearing that before, but it's never been, um, proven. The data actually proves it.
• 16:16
  Um, the conversation about the lowest price is what's gonna get people's attention. I think this market has proven that's not necessarily the case.
• 16:24
  It's the relationship and the value that has been proven to move consumers. But I think what's, what's really interesting about today's time is that
• 16:37
  the data's also proving that we need to meet people where, where they are. And some people take that as a conversation about, um, you know, digital retailing.
• 16:47
  Some people take that as a conversation around in-store behaviors or appo- appointment meetings. Where a consumer is is where a consumer is. Doesn't matter where it is. You meet them where they are.
• 17:00
  So if we're gonna have, like, n- I don't think anybody who has a, a, a, a brick-and-mortar would say, "Hey, you know what? I don't have that much showroom traffic anymore.
• 17:08
  I'm only gonna have one table to do business on." No. You're still gonna have a beautiful brick-and-mortar for the people who come in, right? The people who come on social, "Ah, nobody comes on social.
• 17:18
  I'm only gonna have one person make a post every eight weeks." No. People go on social. You have to be prepared to meet people wherever they are.
• 17:27
  And what, what, what we see sometimes is there's a, a, a bit of a reluctance.
• 17:31
  And we've all seen this in the conferences and with people that, like, it's, it's a, it's an in-store experience or it's a digital retailing experience, you know?
• 17:38
  Um, but what I think of is like, uh, I, I, uh, I'm from LA, right? If you're from, from LA, every third person you know or fourth person you know is either in the industry or wants to be in the industry, right? Yeah.
• 17:51
  10, 12 years ago there was a big writer's strike. I don't know if anybody remembers that, but a lot of the television writers went on strike and so we didn't get a lot of television shows. Hmm.
• 18:00
  Something sprang from that. Reality TV that didn't need writers, right? Ah. [laughs] Right? Wow. Reality TV had been around for a long, long time.
• 18:11
  If you think of even back in, like, the '70s, you had Candid Camera, right? That's technically reality TV. Okay. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It had been there. It had been there.
• 18:19
  But autom- or but, uh, but the, the, the Hollywood had a crisis, right?
• 18:24
  And the crisis was the writers' strike.And something came out of the writer s- or the writers strike, which is this reality TV, which is now a part of our entertainment landscape, right? Mm-hmm. Big time.
• 18:36
  It didn't take away structure or, or, or regular TV. It's and. It's an and, right?
• 18:43
  And when I think about digital retailing, when I think about people wanting to go front to back, and then some people's reluctance, it's like, bro, it's not a either/or. It's an and, right?
• 18:52
  You know, when McDonald's introduced chicken, it didn't get rid of the burger. [laughs] It didn't get rid of the Big Mac. [laughs] The Big Mac is still there, right? Right. Right. Yeah.
• 19:01
  But now, people who wouldn't have gone to McDonald's 'cause they don't eat beef, now they have the chicken patty, right? Oh. Same thing with the drive-through.
• 19:09
  So there's these examples all across our, our, our, our regular collective existence of the, of the and.
• 19:16
  And I think that's one of the things that I, I, that I, that I don't know that we do so well in, in, in automotive, is think about the and as opposed to, like, the zero-sum game. You know what I mean?
• 19:25
  Well, it- Does that make sense at all? Well, yeah. And, and as an industry, we're well-equipped to handle that, I think. Uh- Yeah. Right...
• 19:31
  like, we, we have, we've constantly been flexible in this meeting the customer where they're at.
• 19:36
  And I do think that that's important to not just say, like, you know, 'cause all the research studies, I, I, I, I was actually m- joking with someone.
• 19:43
  I was like, "Well, of course the person's gonna answer that they wanna buy cars online," because the question is, "If you had an opportunity to buy a car online, would you?" Right.
• 19:53
  [laughs] I mean, who's not gonna answer yes to that? And then the- Right... the storyline comes out, and it's like 73% of customers only want to buy a car online. Right. And you're like- Right...
• 20:03
  yo, that's probably not right, because I'm telling you, 97% of them are sitting in the showroom down the street. Still coming in. Right? Right. Yeah. Well, a- Yeah...
• 20:11
  and so I think that, like, having the mental capacity to understand that people have different ways of wanting to do business and, and, and the, the intentionality around, hey, there may be different people wanting to do different things in order to interact with my business, and knowing that, hey, you might not be able to do all of it- Right...
• 20:32
  but you should be able to do some of it well. And, and that, that way of interacting with customers, I think, is gonna be really important.
• 20:39
  You know, when it comes to, you know, it, it was interesting you say this, like, that price isn't the driving factor. And a lot of people associate, I think, TrueCar with just price, price, price.
• 20:51
  And that's the driving factor to even, uh, you know, having any intentionality around being on a TrueCar website or a partner website. Right.
• 21:00
  Are you seeing that trend transition in even the way that people are interacting with shopping behaviors, uh, on, like, uh, like, relational selling being desired from the consumer side, not just price?
• 21:12
  Are you seeing that- Yeah... in the way they're interacting with their shopping behaviors? Yeah.
• 21:16
  And so, you know, if you think about our origin a million years ago, um, you know, TrueCar was very, very price oriented, right? We still are. That's, you know, people, um, you know, care about price.
• 21:26
  Um, but it, it, it is a part of the conversation now. It is not the conversation. And it's not, it's not just us. Like, a part of the conversation is, "Okay, here's the price," but we have to be...
• 21:37
  Let's be realistic here. Average car price is, like, $48,000 right now. How many people are walking in stroking a check for $48,000? Very few.
• 21:46
  It's like 85, 87% of people use some sort of financing, be it a loan or a lease, right? Mm-hmm. So is the price all that matters now? No. Help me understand what I'm doing, right?
• 21:58
  And so TrueCar has tools that helps people understand what they're doing. You know who else has tools that help people understand what they're doing? A human who forms a connection, right?
• 22:07
  And so it's like we, we are seeing that, yeah, behaviors are changing. Price is still, you know, one of the, you know, one of the pillars that draws people in, but it's not everything.
• 22:15
  Actually, we did a, uh, we did a survey or a study about a year ago, uh, around used car shopper behaviors. What motivated a used car buyer to choose used over new, choose a particular car,
• 22:29
  and choose a particular dealership, right? We, we wanna understand their thought process. Of course price mattered, but it was not...
• 22:41
  It was nowhere near the only thing that these consumers had already purchased that was important. How was my, how was my experience? How are they talking about the car? How are they treating me?
• 22:53
  What information are they giving me? Are they making me feel, uh, like they're hiding anything? Are they making me feel like I'm included, right? So price was there, but it's not the only thing.
• 23:02
  When you're in the middle of a, a, when you're working selling cars, speaking from experience, and you have five customers in a week tell you that Johnny down the street is less, it's very, very easy to internalize that less is all that matters because you hear that from the people who, that you're- Yeah...
• 23:19
  directly talking with, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I'm saying I would not have believed that when I was selling cars because that's the world that I was in, right?
• 23:27
  When you step back a little bit and you look at people's buyer's behavior, we see that it's not always the price. It's how are they being taken care of.
• 23:34
  Uh, is the dealership meeting them where they need to be, or where the customer is, whether that's with a digital retailing a- application or in store or over phone or over text. So the data actually bears it out.
• 23:46
  Now, I have to say, there is gonna be that contingent of 20% no matter what you do. Every time. Yeah. All they care is about saving every quarter, every penny, right? But we're not trying to live for that 20%.
• 23:57
  We're trying to live for the other 80%. They want a good deal, and they wanna feel like they're getting it in the r- in, in the right way. It's really a nice thing to see because this is what...
• 24:06
  This is, this is how other businesses get down, right? Yeah. You know? So, like, [laughs] it's nice that we're getting there. Yeah.
• 24:12
  Well, Matt, I really appreciate you giving us this perspective of, like, there's, there's, there was a kind of common thread of, "Hey, zoom out a little bit.
• 24:21
  Look, look across not just the whole of the automotive industry, but look at cross-industry and retail as, as a whole." And that's, uh, that's something that as a Sotu we can definitely get down with.
• 24:33
  And, uh, we know that you are, you are one of those troublemakers that is, that is pushing back- Oh, yeah. [laughs]... with us, uh, against, against the norm. So, uh, Matt, can't wait to see you shortly.
• 24:43
  And, uh, yeah, uh, glad that we got to introduce you to the community, and thanks for coming on with us today. Oh, you guys rock and roll. Thank you for everything that you do.
• 24:51
  And please, as a personal note, if you do see me double fisted with cheesesteaks, just-Knock one of 'em out of my hand because- [laughs] Done. [laughs] I'll take one if you need it. Done. I'll take one if you need it.
• 25:02
  [laughs] Talk to you later. [upbeat music] Um, so you learn the guy's a firefighter, and I'm just disappointed that neither of you got his spin on the movie Backdraft. See, that's why- [laughs] That's why we need you.
• 25:17
  You ask all the hard-hitting questions that people wanna know the answers to. No, no Backdraft questions. Going for the movie Backdraft.
• 25:23
  The, the element of, you know, first of all, like, all of a sudden you start to think of, like, LA firefighter, West Coast mentality. Like, his whole personality starts to come into view a little bit more.
• 25:32
  Like, that's why he seems so laid back, right? [laughs] He just- [laughs] Oh, he grew up on a different, in a different place, in a different zone. But his talk about... His talk.
• 25:41
  His, his point about being exposed to things outside the box that you live in every day so that you can see and understand what is actually possible, that is applicable across the board in every area, and it's re- I...
• 25:56
  We see so many dealerships and industry partners that have their head down, hands in the dirt, so much so that they don't look up and look out, and the way they do things becomes the only way to do things.
• 26:06
  And in this landscape, like, that just won't cut it anymore.
• 26:10
  Well, it's interesting to me because, uh, I, I hear a lot, it's like, this, this conversation of that can't be done or even it's not even being done, that, that it doesn't exist.
• 26:22
  And that happens from dealers and industry partners. I'll talk to industry partners that are like, "Oh, no, nobody does technology that way." And it's like, um, there's actually- [laughs]
• 26:31
  These cats over here are- Except for-... doing that actually right now.
• 26:34
  And then, uh, uh, for dealers it's like, you know, whether y- maybe you got a single rooftop and, you know, you, you can't see that, that going from 100 to 700 cars is a possibility.
• 26:45
  Or you've got multiple rooftops and you don't understand how you can execute to economies of scale because you haven't seen or looked outside.
• 26:51
  And just, I think, you know, there's, there's just so much across the auto industry that just recognizing that someone may be doing what you're headed toward or wanting to head toward and, and that going and find, and l- looking at those learnings, whether you are a salesperson, a service advisor, a dealership owner, doesn't matter, that, that there are those perspectives out there.
• 27:13
  And, uh, you know, uh, people like Matt Jones, people like us, we'd love to help you find those perspectives. It's also like, hey, drop the ego. You don't need to be the only person or the one that figured this out.
• 27:26
  Like- Yeah... reach beyond yourself and get inspired, you know? Like, I think about that even in a, in a small context. Like,
• 27:33
  you know, I've, I've watched the two of you, how you navigate content creation and business conversations, and things of that nature, and I'm like, man, I'm inspired by this. It gives you ideas.
• 27:45
  It, it's like it's a true testament to why you need to be paying attention and, and being willing to learn so that you can take those things back and apply them to the context of your circumstances.
• 27:57
  And I just think about, like, what, what a single rooftop dealer would look like if that was their mode of operation. Yeah. Yeah. A lot different is the answer to that question. [laughs] A lot different.
• 28:08
  Well, we hope that your life is at least a little bit different for the better for spending some time with us today. On behalf of Kyle Mountsier, Michael Cirillo, and myself, thanks for listening to Auto Collabs.
• 28:17
  We'll see you next time. [upbeat music] Sign up for our free and fun-to-read daily email for a free shot of relevant news in automotive, retail, media, and pop culture. You can get it now at asotu.com.
• 28:28
  That's A-S-O-T-U dot com. If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
• 28:40
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collabs. Welcome to Auto Collabs. [laughs] Why are we recording? [laughs] Are we rolling yet? Not yet.