Latest / Auto Collabs / The Internet and 1998 with Jasen Rice

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The Internet and 1998 with Jasen Rice · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  It's a good thing we're recording because, uh [upbeat music] This is Auto Collabs. We are about to hang out with, uh, a, a friend now, Jason Rice, and- He's a friend. Uh, yeah, we'll call him a friend.
• 0:17
  Jason Rice is... He's like, for me, he's a little bit of a sleeper. Like, he's, he's kind of a burly guy. When you meet him, he's like 8'11" and so it's a little bit intimidating. [laughs] Give or take. Give or take.
• 0:32
  Give or take an inch or two, you know? Cerullo comes up to his knees. [laughs] Knee. [laughs] I put on his socks for him. [laughs] Without bending over. Without bending over. [laughs] On my tippy-toes.
• 0:42
  No, but when you start talking to him, and any time he's in a clubhouse room or I, or I saw him at d- Driving Sales or, m- uh, he's got a podcast that, like, I think every used car operator should be listening to on a weekly basis.
• 0:57
  Mm-hmm. Any time I talk to him or listen to him, he's thinking about data. It's that, it's that ability to draw insights and understanding out of data that is what is unique about his capacity.
• 1:08
  And, uh, I'm excited to, to kinda hear how he weaves that into some of what his, his origin story and, and what we'll probably get into in the podcast.
• 1:18
  Gotta respect the people that can bring it down to the basics and, you know, help you focus on the fundamentals of the game that have not changed. I always love when people m- approach things with that mentality.
• 1:30
  I feel like every time he drops into a conversation, drops into a room, he's like, "Let's talk about some basics that everyone's doing wrong.
• 1:37
  Let's do those right first, and then let's worry about, you know, the sizzle and the spin move at the end of the layup." He, he goes one step further, too, right?
• 1:45
  Um, you know, like coming up in automotive, it was a lot of fear-mongering. Like, that was just kinda the style. Not from him. He's a tactician. He comes in, he says, "Hey, here's the things you're screwing up.
• 1:56
  Here are some things you should be doing differently, but now let's talk about how to do those things. Like, let's, let's actually get into the weeds and talk about doing those things." So he's not out there...
• 2:05
  I always love this about him.
• 2:05
  He's, he's using his ability to understand the market in a way that, that is then practical for people and, and that's something that's, we could still benefit more from in, in the auto industry. Legit.
• 2:20
  Well, hope you enjoy this interview with Jason Rice.
• 2:23
  [upbeat music] All right, hanging out with my friend Jason Rice of LotPop, uh, which m- many people may, may not know about yet in the industry.
• 2:42
  I think, you know, uh, some people, uh, around the ecosystem of, uh, Sodoo, as well as Clubhouse, know Jason, uh, for just his insights and intelligence and all of that. So Jason, I'm excited to be hanging out with you.
• 2:55
  Thanks for coming on with us. Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yeah. Um, you know, I, I actually first, uh, kind of found out about you through, I think, uh, the Clubhouse ecosystem.
• 3:06
  And I kinda had met, uh, Danny, who you're good friends with, and then David Long knew you. And I was like, man, this guy.
• 3:13
  And then the first time that I really met you and saw you in person was actually, uh, at, uh, at Driving Sales last year. And I will never forget, like, the dialed-in nature of the way that you're looking at data.
• 3:30
  So I'd like to kinda hear, you know, how, how your trajectory led you to, you know, looking at used car inventory in the way that you do.
• 3:39
  Like, where, where did you come from in auto that kind of brought you into this I need to, uh, I need to help dealers and industry partners reimagine the way they look at used car inventory data?
• 3:50
  Well, and with that used car inventory data, we're realizing, you know, it's inventory management's, uh, lead management.
• 3:56
  And to give you that perspective, uh, in 1997 I started selling cars, and by '98 I was selling cars off the internet exclusively. So I didn't take any ups back in the '90s, early 2000s.
• 4:07
  And over those years, uh- Wait, so you're saying you started selling cars in '97, and by '98 you only sold online? Yes. [laughs] I got... There's a, there's a thing right up there from...
• 4:18
  Here, here, let me do this real quick. Watch this. How did you even s- Look at this. This is from... Look, 1999. Uh, Microsoft CarPoint certification. I was selling cars off the- Well, I've never even heard...
• 4:30
  What is CarPoint? It was MSN. They, uh, MSN, they had MSN Auto. See Reynolds & Reynolds was right here? Kyle, how old were you in 1999? I was a spring chicken.
• 4:40
  I was- [laughs] I think I was in middle school at that point, so. That right here is a cover of Digital Dealer. So I was on the board of directors to get Digital Dealer Conference off the ground.
• 4:50
  Uh, I wrote articles in Dealer Magazine for years and stuff back in the '90s and 2000s, and ran internet department and stuff.
• 4:56
  And so, you know, over those eight-plus years on the retail end, I either sold cars off the internet, ran internet departments. I, I was a GSM at Independent Lot for a little bit, so I did some F&I and stuff.
• 5:05
  K- Let me just hold you. I know you're excited. Yeah. But I'm still stuck on CarPoint. Yeah. How in the world do you sell a car online in 1998? Well, you know what, back then even, like, Ford Direct had a CRM.
• 5:17
  Um- Right... we would, we would, uh, fax invoices, circle the invoice amount, add, you know, a few hundred bucks to that, and tell the customer we're... I mean, I sold a car...
• 5:26
  In the '90s, think of this, I sold a car to a lady in Alaska in, from St. Louis, off the internet. Wow. Okay. In the '90s. I, I just had a camp out there for a second.
• 5:35
  [laughs] And like, and see, so I'm still- I don't hear that every day... I'm still stuck on this. With this whole corona crap and everything, I'm like, "This is old-school stuff.
• 5:40
  This is-" 'Cause you got dealers still today that are like, "Ah, yeah, we, we just, you know, don't email customers. They, if they come in, they come in." I mean, that's still happening.
• 5:51
  I know in the US it is, like, there are people- [laughs]... that don't even have dedicated people following up with internet leads in 2022. And you're like, yo, in '99 it's all I was doing.That's it. [laughs] No, I did.
• 6:04
  And so, you know, I- it's funny, I've shared a lot of my articles from the, you know, early 2000s, like 20- 2- 2005. And so they're still relevant today. It's kind of like- [laughs]...
• 6:13
  man, we've been talking about this for 20 years, and you're worried about Carvana. Uh, but yeah, um, it- it's been a while. So, you know, that experience got me...
• 6:21
  You know, I was gonna go out and consult myself in internet, 'cause back then, Sean Bradley, Cory Mosley, David Kaines, those are all guys going out there and creating their own internet consulting business.
• 6:30
  And this guy named John Hanionis, bless his soul, he was our... Uh, WebControl was our, our CRM. And he knew my passion of going out and doing that, and he said, "Hold on a second.
• 6:39
  Before you do that, I got a gentleman I want you to introduce you to. He's starting his own- He started a company and a- he's looking to hire somebody." And that guy, in '05, was Dale Pollack. So- Yeah...
• 6:49
  um, Dale had a product called Empower Auto. It wasn't even vAuto yet, and it would score you out on how you owned the cars to wholesale. And he knew internet and used cars go hand-in-hand.
• 6:59
  And, um, he hired me in, uh, December of '05. It w- it was Empower Auto, and then within, I don't know, about a year of that, it transitioned over to, uh, vAuto. Um, and we got the chance to- Wow...
• 7:10
  me and Dale sit down at NADA this year on your guys' show and just kind of discuss some of that old, old-time background of where vAuto originally started. So I was there for nine-plus years.
• 7:21
  So now our company's been around, it'll be nine years September. In a month it'll be nine years. So we're- Wow... kind of been in a sleeper pattern for a while.
• 7:28
  But, um, you know, the last couple years we built a software and really integrating lead management and inventory management hand-in-hand. But, but again, I- I mean, think about that.
• 7:37
  Back in, like you said, in the ni- I'd seen the in- the start of the internet and the revolution of what in- internet had did to the industry and I was a very, uh, heavily part of that.
• 7:47
  Again, getting Digital Dealer off the ground, writing articles, speaking at conferences back then.
• 7:51
  And then to be involved with what Dale did with the used car portion of the industry, you know, that's just been a, a blessing of an experience. Dang. Those years. Anyways. [laughs] Everyone's like, "Record scratch.
• 8:05
  Everybody needs Jason." He's like, "Oh yeah, that digital deal? Yeah, I was a part of that. Yeah, I was a part of that." Yeah. "Yeah, I was a part of that." That's funny. [laughs] Yeah.
• 8:11
  I just, I just knew you were really smart. I didn't know any of the background and that you knew Dale.
• 8:15
  [laughs] Well, it's, all, all those y- I would, I would just say of making mistakes and learning things that, you know, and just picking up from other people and holding on to, you know, what mattered and learning over the years through everybody.
• 8:25
  I mean, it was great to have those, the mentor and the, those experiences. How did you get into the car business at all? [laughs] I ra- A, a girl...
• 8:32
  I was waiting tables and one of the girls there said, "Hey, my boyfriend's starting to sell cars." And I'm like, "Really? Does he have a degree for that?" She's like, "No, he"... She just answered an ad.
• 8:39
  So I found an ad that said, "Hey, uh, 50 to 80 grand selling cars", and- What were you doing at- And I came on... what were you doing at the time- Waiting tables... besides eating at the diner? Waiting tables. Oh, yeah.
• 8:48
  [laughs] Failed, failed out of college twice on pro- academic probation and trying to, waiting tables trying to figure out what I wanna do. Yeah.
• 8:54
  They were like, "This guy, he can't put two, two things together", and here you are- Yeah. Who knew?... revolutionizing [laughs]- Yeah. Who would've knew?... one of the biggest retail industry in the country.
• 9:02
  [laughs] Yeah. So it's been- Unbelievable. I always have to ask that question. So, so, so let's get into- Yeah... I, I, I gotta get into, because this is, I think what's so, what's so keyed in about what you're doing
• 9:13
  in perceiving the way that inventory and lead management are so closely intertwined is really, really intriguing.
• 9:21
  I was actually just having a conversation over chat with a marketer, and they were trying to f- figure out how to clearly communicate to their operators that, "Hey, look, leads are up, but total conversations year over year are down, and that may be why you have a disparity in, you know, like 74%, like, sales efficiency in comparison to last year."
• 9:46
  And w- what you're saying is that you're, you're hoping to solve for how do we, how do we match inventory and marketing management with lead management instead of them being two disparate conversations- Yeah... right?
• 10:00
  Yeah. So, you know, on the showroom floor, teams, the teams, being management team, sales team and stuff, F&I, they all work together. You know, TO and deal's talking to customers, meeting and greeting.
• 10:08
  But when it comes to virtual lot, you got two different silos.
• 10:12
  You got a BDC internet sales department working out of the CRM talking to customers, inventory manager over here in a silo working through his inventory management tool, and they really don't work, uh, together.
• 10:23
  And matter of fact, the, you know, one of the things that threw me a curve ball, as, as I was getting dealers better with used car inventory management, selling more cars, I would've thought that something like their used car internet closing percentage would've been better, but it actually went down.
• 10:38
  Mm.
• 10:38
  And so those are the kind of metrics that things like closing percentage that I tracked for 20-plus years, lead to appointment ratio, those metrics don't make sense anymore until you can incorporate the inventory metrics into it.
• 10:49
  And, and again, the processes that CRM puts customers through, every customer, every deal's different, but yet we shove them through the same funnel- Mm... of a follow-up. It, it doesn't make sense either.
• 11:00
  I- I'll, I'll dig into that more, but yeah, I mean, it's... Yeah, I mean, here, what happened was, and, and what might be happening with that marketing person, so think about let's just take 100 internet leads.
• 11:08
  And if you did a decent job at marketing, you might get one or two leads on a car, um, per car. So you might have 20% of your active leads on a sold car. So you get two leads, you sell the car, there's one left, right?
• 11:21
  Yeah. So if you have 100 leads, 20 of them you can't sell the car they wanted anymore. That leaves 80 leads. Now, you close 10% of those 80, that's eight deals. Your CRM says you have 100 leads.
• 11:33
  You sold eight deals, 8% closing. Now, let's take it a different step. Let's get more effective with photos, pricing, descriptions on my inventory. Instead of one or two leads, I'm getting three or four leads.
• 11:44
  Now all of a sudden, 100 leads, I got 40 that can't buy the car they wanted anymore. That only leaves me 60 to sell the car I wanted to today. If I close the same 10%, I'm only closing six deals now.
• 11:57
  Six out of 100, it's a 6% closing percentage. Now, uh, it looks like my, my team did a worse job or the lead manager or the marketing team did a worse job- Oh...
• 12:05
  'cause my closing percentage went down, when in reality it was just the way... And what we are finding now, 60... I did a data set of 10 dealers, another data set of 10 dealers and good operators.
• 12:15
  Both, one was 62%, other was 66%.Over 60% of these dealers' active leads are unsold cars. 60. Whoa. If I had 100 leads, there's only 40 people left I can actually sell a c- the car that they wanted to today. Yeah.
• 12:31
  That's staggering. So what do we do with those 60? That is straight up staggering. Which be- which creates, like, this massive gap issue between closing ratios.
• 12:38
  Because everything that you expected, especially right now in an inventory crunch, both on the new and pre-owned side, but also as marketers get better at merchandising, you know, putting products in the right place, brand build, all of those type of things.
• 12:53
  And y- so it is, it's interesting. Like- So-...
• 12:56
  you get more leads, but if they're all on the same cars, then your, your sales efficiency actually drops because you're not turning the, the, those gap people that have been- Yeah, and you're just pissing off customers.
• 13:07
  [laughs] And so what would we do on... Well, two things. Yeah, cars, you're getting more activities 'cause the demand, uh, more people reaching out 'cause cars are moving faster too.
• 13:15
  So I need less leads to sell the same amount of cars. So we had a dealer who's blowing the ball off the cover, but his leads per car dropped off. And I'm like, "Man, that's weird. Why is leads per car drop off?"
• 13:25
  Well, he went from, you know, a 25-day average sale rate to f- 18-day average sale rate. So cars were moving faster. He didn't need as many leads to sell a car. It's kinda like VDPs, you know, or SRPs.
• 13:34
  It's like, when you s- your inventory's more efficient, you need less to, to do it, right? They're selling... You don't have a 60-day old car driving all these VDPs or driving all these leads anymore, right?
• 13:45
  An age card, 88%.
• 13:47
  So that right there, just closing percentage, uh, to me, is not a fair metric to gauge a lead provider, marketer or v- team until you engage in the inventory, understand the dynamic that h- that impact too.
• 14:00
  And just, I wanna say that because we, we like to be clear because we got a lot of b- different people. When we say VDP, me, we mean the vehicle detail page.
• 14:07
  So how many people have viewed that, that actual vehicles page. SRP, meaning the search results page. So all- Yeah...
• 14:13
  like, that car in the myriad of other search results, whether it be a third party inventory provider, like an Autotrader or cars.com, or on a dealership's website.
• 14:22
  And, you know, the, the, the, all of these variants have an impact on both lead volume and also closing ratio because, yeah, I mean, I- it'll never fail.
• 14:36
  But- And some- some dealership gets the '08 Toyota 4Runner that is in perfect condition- 50 lead... with 140,000 miles on it.
• 14:46
  And everybody from Colorado to New Hampshire to Florida is interested in it, even though it's in St. Louis, right? Yeah.
• 14:53
  And all of a sudden you got 500 leads on this car in three and a half days, and everyone's like, "Why was the closing ratio 2.8% on that leads, you know, on Autotrader that month?" [laughs] Yeah.
• 15:03
  Well, it's because the '08 4Runner that everybody in the country- Yeah... was looking for to export to Africa, right? Or whatever. So here's the, another- [laughs]...
• 15:09
  another way that we're getting dealers to not need as many leads is kind of recycling their currently. So what would I do?
• 15:15
  If a customer walked in the door and they came in on a car that sold, I would typically slow them down, see if they're open to other similar vehicles in the same price point, and I switch them. All, happens all the time.
• 15:26
  But because CRMs do not talk inventory and inventory tools typ- don't talk leads, you know, the connection between switch cars isn't happening in CRM.
• 15:36
  So that's one of the things we focused on was, you know, I, I've got a dealer... Your job as a used car manager is figure out, is it a pricing, is it a car, car customer problem? Okay?
• 15:47
  If I've got customers, you know, it's not a, it's not a car problem, right? If I got leads, then my price, everything else should be okay. Now is it, is it, are we following up with them?
• 15:58
  So one, once I have a car, do I have customers to sell it to?
• 16:02
  If I've got leads and there's leads in there three, five, eight days that haven't been followed up with, that used car manager usually blames the BDC people and don't take responsibility for it, but that's no different than a customer walking around the showroom floor for 10 minutes.
• 16:15
  They take responsibility for that. They should take responsibility for this. Mm.
• 16:18
  But that's the thing, if you got five leads, but the other avenue is I've got dealerships, um, you know, I'm looking at a couple cars right now, six active leads and two switches.
• 16:27
  Switches, again, these are active leads that we're looking at a compact car and that are within, you know, 2,500 bucks, high or low of that similar car.
• 16:37
  So now you go from five leads to 10, 15 leads 'cause you have now the five that you got, plus the other five or 10 that you might be able to switch to this.
• 16:46
  So if I can recycle the leads I already have, I've already spent money on, know the customer name, contact information, I know the segment and price point they're in.
• 16:53
  Why can't I switch those lead, those customers to those cars too? And that's just another big disconnect, uh, again, with CRMs not involving inventory. All right. So here's, here's...
• 17:03
  'Cause this is called Auto Collabs, the, the actual name of the podcast, and we're really emphasizing this collaboration.
• 17:09
  And, and so obviously between LotPop and dealers, there, there's, there's this collaboration happening to gain efficiencies, right? And, and, and make sure that we're, we're checking all these things.
• 17:20
  Um, but it sounds like there's a, you know...
• 17:23
  Well, obviously from a data perspective, you're pulling in data from multiple sources, and so you've had to exercise, like, a level of collaboration on the industry partner side to be even, even be able to make some of these insights happen, right?
• 17:37
  Yeah.
• 17:37
  But what's the next level of collaboration maybe that you're working on or that you're seeing in the industry that can, like, sort of tie these, tie these dots or knots together to be able to, like, vertically and horizontally integrate, you know, inventory management, merchandising, marketing with, you know, systems and processes so that this is more seamless both for the customer and the dealer?
• 18:04
  What, what's that that you're kind of, like, setting, hey, we've gotta get this done so that dealers can further execute on, like, what's up in Jason's brain, you know?
• 18:13
  We call, we call it lot walk 'cause they do a, a physical lot walk, so let's do the digital, and that consists of cars and customers.
• 18:19
  We come to work every day to sell cars and talk to customers, but yet we're running in two different silos in the virtual lot.
• 18:25
  So to your point, yes, we're pulling from inventory management tools, I don't care which one, and your CRM, I don't care which one, and collaborating.
• 18:32
  The biggest, the biggest aha moment that I go, 'cause again, my 20 plu- five years of u- internet-... process management is the CRM functionalities. I think there needs to be a big industry shift. Here's why.
• 18:45
  Um, again, we take every customer and every deal on every car and put it down the same funnel. Now, if, um,
• 18:52
  and what I mean by that is a typical CRM follow-up process would be, okay, it's a fresh lead, so for the first seven days let's call them every day, right? Two or three times a day.
• 19:02
  And then m- once it's two-week-old lead, maybe every other day, and by three or four weeks old, it's once a week and maybe once a month.
• 19:08
  There's some CRMs that want you to put through automated system after 14 or 30 days and just let automated system follow up these leads. Well, here's the problem, two things.
• 19:16
  One, Cars.com did a study and 60-plus percent of people are taking two months or longer to buy. We've always known at least 40 to, uh, 50 days s- plus before people are actually pulling the trigger.
• 19:27
  It's one thing if they're shopping, it's another thing to buying. So, um, here's a problem. I always ask a used car manager.
• 19:33
  Let's say you have an aging policy of 60 days and you got a 55-day-old car that you're below market, you don't know if you want to wholesale it or not, but you have five leads on that car.
• 19:42
  So let me ask you, Paul, you haven't ta- if you had five leads on an aged car, how often would you wanna call those leads? Five leads on an aged car?
• 19:50
  On an aged car and you got five leads on it, how often would you wanna call them? Every hour. Call them every, all, like- Okay... I'd be all over it. But what if your lead, those leads are 40 and 50 days old?
• 20:00
  Your CRM's saying, "Hold on, it's a old lead. Don't follow up but once a month", right? See m- see the problem and the disconnect there? It's not apples to apples. So it's not apples to apples. Right?
• 20:09
  So the, the positioning and the follow-up of a lead shouldn't be based on the age of the lead, but maybe the position of the car that they're interested in. If the car's sold, well, that should be a, a switch process.
• 20:20
  Tell the customer it's sold, give them other opportunities. Or if I got a aged car- So let me ask you this... that's a different process How did, how did we, how did we get to that spot?
• 20:27
  Because that just seems like that'd be a best practice, like, not just for today. I know. Right? Like, how did we get there? Like, why, why is this conversation coming up now? Oh, man.
• 20:38
  Is there something about the time we're in that makes it a more relevant conversation?
• 20:43
  Well, yeah, because again, I think, one, uh, if the economy slows down, you might be getting less leads, so you gotta maximize every lead you got. I don't care the age of the lead, is, uh, the positioning.
• 20:52
  If, if you- I've got a 60-day-old lead, but they're on a car that's still in stock, that means they're on a 60-day-old car. [laughs] Right. So shouldn't I increase the frequency of contact or issue with that?
• 21:02
  But my CRM- So I think as n- if leads start going down due to the recession, um, and/or y- you're short-staffed, you need to maximize every lead you have and maybe recycle the previous leads.
• 21:12
  If I got a 14-day-old lead and they, they want a, an Escape and that Escape sold, were they really looking for a '17 Escape or are they just trying to find a 18 grand SUV? Mm-hmm.
• 21:21
  And so now I gotta recycle what I got 'cause I've h- I have less coming in or I got less of a staff, so I, you know, I cut back expenses and stuff. And so I, you just...
• 21:31
  And, and, and really no one's kinda put the two together.
• 21:33
  And as we've grown over the nine years, putting that stuff together and putting it into the software, I'm going, "Holy cow, I've been doing this- Yeah, because- "... for how many years now?" Because, yeah, you're right.
• 21:43
  Because, like, all of the CRMs, every trigger point is on time, right? Or previous communication. So it's like time or previous communication. We don't have other trigger points built into the system, right? Mm-hmm.
• 21:59
  Like age of car or vehicle that they were interested in sold. Like, that's... I've looked at a bunch of CRMs. There's not another CRM- Yeah...
• 22:07
  there's not a CRM out there that has a trigger point for vehicle of interest sold, now do this. Well, the- Right?
• 22:13
  The weirdest part, this one blew my mind apart, is like, and it doesn't, it, I, I'm doing this for 25 years, but how has this not happened?
• 22:21
  Let's say, so our job as a inventory manager, we're helping find holes in their inventory. Example would be, to your current sale rate, you got way too many trucks. You got 20 in stock, only sold five.
• 22:31
  Your trucks aren't moving, right? So as a used car manager, we wanna focus on trucks. Well, do I go in there and drop prices? Well, here's an analogy I give.
• 22:38
  Let's say you have, on your physical lot, and I point out to this lot over here.
• 22:42
  On a physical lot, if you have holes in the front line, you call the porter out and say, "Hey guys, let's start moving trucks around", right?
• 22:48
  You start physically moving trucks around or vehicles around, and you see a customer out of the corner of your eye. What do you do? Keep moving trucks around or do you stop and help the customer?
• 22:56
  You stop and help the customer. Okay, so I'm telling you, based on your current carry to sale rate, you're not selling enough trucks. Do you go attack the trucks or, one, do you wanna go look at the leads, right?
• 23:06
  Let's go look at the customers first before I start dropping prices. Mm-hmm. Now, tell me a CRM that you could go into that you can isolate large pickup trucks and just look at large pickup truck leads. You really can't.
• 23:18
  You have to, it, so let's just isolate large pickup trucks. And I've got a dealer who had 111 large pickup truck leads. Well, of those 111, 40 still had the car in stock. The other 61 were on trucks that sold.
• 23:30
  So I gotta work the 41 first, 'cause I could actually still sell them something today. And then of the 61, do I have something I can switch them to? I know you wanted that Ram, but would you be interested in this F-150?
• 23:39
  Now let's start working those. So the way my CRM should work is by the positioning and if issues on my lot, not based on the age of the lead.
• 23:49
  But there's that huge disconnect and I'm like, well, because again, CRMs are built out to get ahold of the customer as quick as possible. What are CRMs saying about this? I'm, like, super intrigued now. I know.
• 23:57
  I- I'm like, have you talked to Drive Centric and VinSolutions and, you know? Uh, I've, I've had those conversations a little bit, but, you know, I, I, I'm just- What's the response?
• 24:05
  Well- 'Cause my response is like, "Yeah, that makes se- but I don't... It's a great idea." Kyle, your suggestion, like, "Hey, car sold, what should we do next?" It seems like a really great and rational idea.
• 24:15
  What's the- I'm not bashing CRMs. They're doing what they're... They're, they're designed to help communicate with customers. For sure. For sure. So they're obviously designed the- But what's stopping-...
• 24:21
  the coolest way to text people and, and GIFs or GIFs, whatever you wanna call them, and videos and, right? [laughs] Yeah. No, no, no, no. I could care less about that.
• 24:28
  This is called Auto Collabs Podcast, and you're bringing an insight- [laughs]... that's like, "Yo, we need to have this conversation", and we probably, like- That's what I'm saying. So there has to be two shifts.
• 24:37
  One, the used car manager needs to be your internet director. They need to understand every lead they have and be just as responsible. I pull it up all the time.
• 24:43
  I said, "Guys, what would you do if a customer was on your showroom for 10 minutes, no one said hi?" You would throw a chair through the window. But here's five leads that no one's called for 14 days, 10 days and 8 days.
• 24:52
  What are you doing about that? So one, the inventory manager now needs to be- [laughs]...
• 24:56
  your internet director, and then you gotta get the internet people to understand, again, the positioning and the issues of the lot. "Hey, we're not selling enough out of our 31 to 45 bucket. Go attack those leads."
• 25:06
  Well, how do you do that in your CRM? You really can't. And that's, again, we're, we're kinda just... I- I'm just kinda exposing this, 'cause again, it's just, one, having the platform, but two, just-Sometimes it's a
• 25:19
  over the head conversation sometimes too, like, so it's a- I'm about to call like five people when we get off this podcast.
• 25:24
  [laughs] And be like, "We're about to release a podcast" And they're like, "Jason's mad at me right now. I'm about to blow some stuff up" [laughs] Yeah.
• 25:27
  Because I- as I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking, okay, because in my seat when I was at the dealership, right, I was in the marketing and business development, the type, type arena, right? Yeah.
• 25:38
  But I also had a lot to do with the training and the processes, and I had a, I had managed the BDC before. So I did a lot of that manual work, right?
• 25:46
  Where it was like, oh, shoot, I just watched my GM look at the inventory, 'cause we have an inventory call, and we saw that our 31 to 41-day bucket just got, uh, just got blasted with a bunch of cars that we bought, you know, from Enterprise, and they rolled from 29 to 31 over the weekend.
• 26:06
  Mm-hmm. And we've got to do something about it. And I would go into the CRM and be like, "Oh my goodness." So I would run down to the BDC and be like, "Hey, look, here's the list. Make sure that happens," right?
• 26:15
  But that, I mean, that was a super lagging indicator on what was happening, 'cause we should've been attacking that at day 29, not at day 31 when it rolled the bucket, right? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
• 26:25
  And, and if the BDC had worked that on Friday instead of Monday, all of a sudden, like, we may have had Saturday traffic on some aging cars, and we wouldn't have rolled that into that bucket.
• 26:33
  And then on Tuesday when we had the pricing meeting, we wouldn't have adjusted the prices for the next weekend, 'cause we would've sold the car, right? Yeah. Exactly.
• 26:41
  [laughs] It's un- Well, the other, the other attack that we're doing- And so, and so, and so here's the thing, like, we're gonna make sure that conversation, I'm just, I'm promising to you that at some level we're gonna get some CRM to at least engage the conversation.
• 26:53
  I don't know how many you've talked to yet. I'm just, like, making a promise to you, 'cause I'm turned up about it. He's- [laughs] Talk about- You said you get excited, Jason.
• 27:01
  I don't know if I'm gonna be able to end the podcast 'cause Kyle's excited now. I know. That's the thing, we're gonna keep talking and it's gonna be an hour podcast. But, uh, see, look, you got two things.
• 27:07
  One, to help even expedite that faster is you, a lot of times when you get a fresh car, we price it up 104, 105%. We wait for photos to get done. So of course we're not getting much activity on this car.
• 27:18
  But I'm showing dealers, you got a three-day-old car that you're at 105%, fair enough. But guess, and you have no leads. But you got 10 switches.
• 27:25
  You got 10 other people right now that you could call that is interested in this segment in this price range. They don't need to know you're 105%. That Escape sold. Will they take this Jeep Liberty?
• 27:35
  And even though it's 105%, it's, it's still within their segment and their price point.
• 27:39
  So i- I said, it's like, it's like your best salesman that see the, the nice trade-in that came in yesterday, and he's on the phone with five people and he has it sold before it goes through the service department, right?
• 27:48
  Mm-hmm. That's what you need to be doing with this too. There's opportunities here- Mm-hmm... without having to race to the bottom and wait till the pictures are done to, to get some eyeballs on this car.
• 27:56
  But the other thing is, you know, I was sitting there, there should be at least five different processes with your CRM. One, an age car process. Every time a car ages, any leads on that start going down this process.
• 28:06
  It's a different communication, right? It's a sense of urgency. I'd rather cheap sell to you than the, to the auction and another dealer, blah, blah, blah. And I'm calling, emailing. I don't care how old that lead is.
• 28:16
  I'm calling and email. And then there may be a high-priced, um, um, high-priced process, right? Maybe it is that Escape at 104%.
• 28:23
  But if I get a lead on it, somebody's willing to overpay for an Escape, it must like equipment, color, feature, or options, right? So let's offer to take it to their work. Let's offer to take it to their job.
• 28:32
  Let's offer, you know, do a video on it. Or that lifted truck, that's another process. The lifted Jeep. We're focusing on different things, right? So if you just think, the switch lead, that's a different process.
• 28:43
  And it should be based on positioning of the inventory, not the age of the freaking lead. It's irrelevant. Man, look, you're not kidding. [laughs] We could easily talk about this for an hour.
• 28:55
  We're going to have the opportunity to talk about it for an hour, two hours, two days at ASOTU CON, for sure. Yes, sir.
• 29:01
  Without a doubt, the, the mentality and the experience that you bring to the conversation, right, it's like this is just waiting for a bullhorn to hit it- Yeah...
• 29:10
  and then, like, to really move to some substantive change. Because like you said, like, now that you have more of a platform, right, we're doing, gonna do everything we can. Kyle's all fired up.
• 29:20
  He's got speed dial numbers. He's about to call an FSO. His, his head's over there spinning. I can see it. [laughs] But that is- Mm-hmm...
• 29:24
  that is just quintessentially what we're trying to do through this podcast, through these conversations, and really through these relationships.
• 29:30
  Because if you're just listening, you don't understand that these relationships that we're featuring on this podcast are actually go far beneath what the podcast actually is.
• 29:40
  The podcast is just you seeing it for a second.
• 29:43
  But there's a lot, this undertow and this undercurrent in the automotive industry that is actually flowing, and we're just about to start see people moving in a direction because of the undercurrent.
• 29:53
  Which is a good thing, right? Undercurrents are usually a bad thing. But this undercurrent is a really good thing. Yeah.
• 29:58
  Jason, I just wanna thank you on behalf of Kyle and Michael, who couldn't be here today, uh, for just spending a little time with us. And boy, boy do we know- [laughs]... this conversation is not over.
• 30:08
  Thank you for the platform. [upbeat music] All right. I feel like that interview could've gone for an hour easily, easily. And he, he kinda said that at the beginning.
• 30:23
  He's like, "You better stop me, because I'll go for an hour" And he will. [laughs] Right? But it's a good hour.
• 30:28
  It's not like the guy that talks your ear off where you're like, "And let me tell you about my third surgery," you know? Yeah. Cyril's gonna be that guy when we're older.
• 30:35
  For sure you were gonna be like, "I thought, I thought that interview could've at least gone for 20 minutes less than it did" [laughs]
• 30:43
  Well, no, it, you know, well, first of all, he started with the, uh, the story about him selling cars on the internet in 1998- When-... one year after he started selling cars. And- '98.
• 30:57
  [laughs] In '98 he's selling cars on the, literally not, not just, like, one or two out of his however many he was selling. He's like, "Nope, 100% only did it online" Yeah, he said, what'd he say?
• 31:07
  He's like, "I got a, I got a job at a dealership in '97, and by '98 I only sold cars online." Which- Wow...
• 31:13
  I said this in there, but what still blows my mind is, like, if this cat-Is in '98 when floppy disks are still a thing. [laughs] Oh, my gosh. Were they? I know, right? Were they really in '98? Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely.
• 31:28
  Yeah. Absolutely. Like, late '90s- I don't remember... we saw some floppy disks and some green screens going on.
• 31:33
  But if that's still a thing- [laughs] And this guy- Not the kind of green screens that half of our audience thinks we're talking about. He means a computer monitor- [laughs]... that only has two colors, green and white.
• 31:45
  [laughs] [laughs] Right. And this guy's selling 100% of his cars online, and we've got dealers and industry partners still today being like, "Ah, digital. Toss it." [laughs] "It's a fad." "I tried it.
• 32:03
  It doesn't work." [laughs] I like how all of our personas immediately go to some disgruntled Brooklyn, like, different queens. You gotta have the cigar in your hands. [laughs] "Let me tell you something, Cirillo."
• 32:14
  He tries to be Italian, but he's really from... Yeah, whatever the guy is. [laughs] "Forget Web3. I'm talking about web nothing." [laughs] "Web nothing. It's gonna come back." You know what's interesting?
• 32:26
  That's like, um... Have you guys heard of Ralph Paglia? Do you remember Ralph? Yeah, yeah. He was in this Wild West era, like him and Jason, that, like, th- that's what this reminds me of. And, and
• 32:38
  y- you think about where we are today, it would've never happened without individuals kind of blazing the trail like Jason or individuals like, uh, like Ralph who- Danny Kane and Ralph, and yeah. Yeah.
• 32:49
  Like, they just thought, "How can I think outside the box?" Like, "Why does the internet exist if not to sell more vehicles?" I love that train of thought.
• 32:56
  And I mean, you're right, the conversation could've gone for at least 10 more minutes, just picking his brain [laughs] about what that looked like and the struggles.
• 33:07
  The struggles and, like, the lessons learned about getting that kickstarted and moving. Yeah. Absolutely. I think we lost Paul. [laughs] All right.
• 33:16
  Well, that was our conversation with Jason Rice here on the Auto Collapse podcast. [upbeat music] Thanks so much for joining us.
• 33:21
  On behalf of Kyle Mountserre, Paul Daly, who's nowhere to be found, and myself, Michael Cirillo, thanks so much for joining us.
• 33:29
  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. That's A-S-O-T-U.com.
• 33:42
  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.
• 33:50
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collapse. Welcome to Auto Collapse. [laughs] Why are we recording? [laughs] Are we rolling yet? Not yet.