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The Most Effective Sales Tactic with Will McGinnis · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  I, I love the fact that we come to a podcast, somebody's already laughing. [laughs] Yeah, and someone's, like, off in their own world just trying to figure out what, why we're actually starting a podcast. Well...
• 0:09
  [laughs] [upbeat music] This is Auto Collabs. [laughs] I just, I caught the intro to the episode where we were going to...
• 0:22
  I just caught it on LinkedIn in the feed, 'cause we never go back and watch the podcast, so- No, you don't watch your own podcast... but I caught it and I- Me neither Wait, you don't? You, you, you don't?
• 0:31
  [laughs] Sheila's like, "That's not quite right." Michael's like, "I gather my family every evening and like, 'Let's watch the-" You gather around the gate though and- "... content father created.'"
• 0:39
  [laughs] Yes, no, but I just watched it and I was like, "What a bunch of morons." [laughs] We're a bunch of morons. You, I, I don't know if you caught this.
• 0:46
  Uh, so Paul and I were in person last week in San Antonio, and they were having some mic issues. [laughs] You were at the very back of the room. Oh, no. They, of course, hand it to me.
• 0:55
  I don't know what it is about my face that screams tech support- Yeah, he can fix it. [laughs]... and I get it, and for some reason it turns on and I just go, "Sue." [laughs] Of course you do. Sue. Sue. Of course you do.
• 1:08
  Hey, well listen, I'm excited about this one today. I've known our guest, Will MacInnis, for quite some time. Actually- Really?... probably, I'm gonna say at least a decade, Will and I have known each other.
• 1:21
  What's the history? Tell us the history there. Well, so I mean, well, what I will say is that- That's pretty huge... as long as I've known him, I have always known him to be, dare I use LinkedIn language, a consummate
• 1:34
  sales professional. Is that a Link- Nah. Is that LinkedIn language? I always see it on people's reviews. They're like, "You know, so and so is the consummate professional."
• 1:43
  Oh, this sounds, that's too expensive for me, that term. He's always, he- I guess they don't have any real LinkedIn reviews.
• 1:45
  However, he's always, he's always, what I will say of what I've known about him, he's always had a presence about him that not every person, sadly, in the sales industry- Mm... has.
• 2:00
  There's just something compelling about him. He has charisma and, and I think we're gonna see that today. I think you'll- Well, that- I think you guys will get what I'm, what I'm saying when we get to chat...
• 2:09
  that's always the flip. Like, if you're a sales professional, like, presence is the word you just used, which is actually a version of confidence, but in sales, confidence usually comes across as arrogant. Right. Right?
• 2:22
  Ah. So you're saying he's got the good side of it. He's got presence. Yeah. He, he's- Uh-... he's got the genuine, like, when... I don't know if you guys have experienced this, but when you, you, you...
• 2:32
  I'm sure we all know somebody, when you talk to them and they're like, "Hey, tell me everything about you," and then they're, but they're kind of, like, always looking over your shoulder to see who else more interesting has come into the room.
• 2:41
  [laughs] I've seen those people. He's not that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, you feel genuinely- He's there... that you're the only p- He's there...
• 2:47
  person in his environment when he's talking to you, which, I mean, in sales is just, I mean, y- how do you put a value on that? That's lights out. Well, awesome.
• 2:55
  Well, we hope that you enjoy this conversation that we get to have with Will MacInnis. [upbeat music] [laughs] Hey, welcome to Auto Collabs, and, uh, thanks, Will, for joining us here on the conversation today.
• 3:13
  [laughs] Yeah, thanks for having me. Absolutely, man. All right, well, we gotta get into it.
• 3:17
  Um, we wanna w- really the first re- thing that I gotta ask you is, is how did you miss the email letting you know that it's black shirt Tuesday today? [laughs] Like, how did you go with the white shirt today [laughs]
• 3:31
  of all days? You know, I c- I consciously thought, I was like, "All right, I gotta be on this today. What should I wear?" Nice white shirt. I'm gonna go white. Nice white shirt.
• 3:39
  'Cause, like, I, I have the black in my hand. Like, my, I have a, I have a V-neck uniform these days. It's- [laughs]... white, navy, black. Keep it simple. Nice. Keep it simple. V-neck uniform. White's a good look.
• 3:51
  To be fair though, Will has the physique that can pull off a white V-neck shirt. That's so true, man. When I put it on, people are like, "Hmm, he should open up a Greek deli."
• 4:02
  [laughs] Throw yourself an apron on, Cyrillo. To which Michael says- You know?... "Too late, I already did." [laughs] "I already did," there you go.
• 4:11
  All right, so tell me this, because I look at your history, and you and I have like, uh, we, we've, we've, like, crossed paths a couple times in auto, but I, I did a little scroll in the LinkedIn and you were working in the website game in auto- Wow...
• 4:28
  back in 2008. Whoa. Wow. That's real OG. Give us a little bit of like, remind us of where we've come from, Will. [laughs] Wow. Wow. You went way back. Um- Oh, me, I went way back. That's, that's impressive...
• 4:44
  I went way back. Um, you know what's interesting about that, the website game in '08? It was also, as you recall, um, the, the crash. The Great Recession. Yeah, the Great Recession.
• 4:56
  Um, and also I chose an organization, um, that was going up against dealer.com, had just won the GM contract.
• 5:08
  So I was trying to sell websites to basically Volvo dealers and Mitsubishi dealers, uh- [laughs]... in 2008. Um,
• 5:17
  the most fascinating thing that, I guess, to answer your question, was that, so my, the company I worked for was XI Group, owned by Dominion.
• 5:26
  Um, and they also owned an old website company called Dealer Skins, you may recall. Oh. Oh, yeah. And Flash was the thing. I remember Flash. The really hot thing. I remember that.
• 5:38
  Honking, uh, honking and headlight flashing- [laughs]... on the homepage. Like, where you'd have to, like, if you went to a car dealer's website, you might have to mute your computer really fast- [laughs]...
• 5:47
  if you're at work looking for a car. [laughs] That's unbelievable. That, that was, uh, that was- It was basically like dealers were like, "Have you guys, have you ever seen Home Star Runner?"
• 5:59
  [laughs] "Can you, can you do that on our website?" It's funny that you mention it. That's the very first thing that came to mind.And you know what else- Right...
• 6:06
  they did was w- on, like, say a white background, they would have white text at the bottom of their website page- To hide it in there... so that they can hide their content- Hide the SEO in there, yeah... to get-
• 6:19
  Stuff it... it was, uh, wild. I remember that. The wild west. It was, it was, uh- That's the wild west... I thought I made the biggest mistake, uh, [laughs] c- going to the vendor side on automotive.
• 6:30
  I was like, "What am I doing here?" [laughs] Um, but that was the start of my, uh, journey on, on this side of the ball, for sure. What were you doing before?
• 6:39
  Uh, before I was working at a tech company, um, and when I say tech, not tech in how we think of it, uh, these days.
• 6:47
  It was a, a wireless distributor, so kind of a commercial B2B side for everything from cellphone cases to the towers that, um, the towers that h- hold those broadband antennas. Uh, I, I started there after selling cars.
• 7:03
  So I, I broke my leg selling cars at 18 [laughs] out of Mitsubishi's out of Mitsubishi- See, this guy That's not a really good guy... you broke your leg selling cars. How do you make it...
• 7:15
  Like, he's like, "Dump lineups- Oh, oh... mine, trip someone," the guy... I don't know. I've got a story in my head, but give it to us. Oh, no, no, I, um, you know, at 18 I wanted, I just wanted to make money.
• 7:25
  I've been in sales all my life. Um, and I joined a, a group here in Maryland, and as an 18-year-old they put me at the Mitsubishi point, I guess is where they wanted to start, on $150 a week draw. And it was, it was...
• 7:43
  It sucked. Like, I, to be honest, I hated it. Um, but I learned a lot of things, and then parlayed that into a different job outside of automotive.
• 7:52
  But then, you know, as all things automotive, it sucks you right back in. And so a few years later, that's how I ended up, um, at XI Group selling websites. Okay. That was- Golly... that's 2008. Yeah. Right.
• 8:06
  So a lot- And before, but yeah... 15 years have gone by. You've stayed. You haven't gone anywhere else. As the pro- as the, as the journey progressed, like, what are you doing now and why have you chosen to do it?
• 8:22
  Well, you know, it's interesting. I, I did leave, uh, automotive back in 2019. Oh, boomerang. Um, I, I went and joined, uh, Facebook, Facebook Canada specifically. Uh, worked in Michael's home country for a couple years.
• 8:36
  Um, and um, I actually... It was a great learning experience, kind of chaotic, but, um, especially as COVID hit. But my, um, verticals were CPG and, um, restaurants, which is just an- Mm-hmm...
• 8:52
  interesting learning landscape for me to, uh, kind of understand a little bit more about marketing as a whole. Mm-hmm. Um,
• 9:00
  and then, uh, back in 2021 I left Facebook and moved back to the States and, um, and worked for a startup, and that was, that was really awesome.
• 9:11
  It was a great, a great experience, um, but it wasn't what I wanted to do, and what I loved doing and what I did before leaving for Facebook was manage salespeople.
• 9:20
  So I currently manage the sales team, um, for Full Throttle, a marketing tech platform. Yeah. What? You know... [laughs] Michael's like, he's tr- he's trembling. He's like, he's like, "Now we're talking about Canada.
• 9:33
  It's my turn, guys." [laughs] Yeah. Poutine, poutine. [laughs] Uh, you know, I was gonna ask you. I, I, I mean, during that, that time period, right? Yeah.
• 9:40
  Starting websites where it was just Flash, and, like, I'm sure, I'm sure the buzz phrase back then was, "All you need is a website. You'll get more traffic, leads, and sales. You gotta have our website.
• 9:50
  It's gonna get more traffic, leads, and sales."
• 9:52
  To then progress to, to today with what you're seeing Full Throttle do, um, in a, in a arena where we go through these seasons of you just need the thing to make your marketing more effective, or you just need a website to this, or you just need...
• 10:09
  What are you seeing now contrasting that to the, the level of first party data, attribution data that Full Throttle can, can capture?
• 10:17
  Um, because I'm sure a lot of people still out there are thinking, "Oh, you just gotta run Google ads. It'll be fine." [laughs] That they are.
• 10:24
  Um, you know, what I, what I'm seeing successful organizations do, uh, and mind you, the, the, the team that I manage is across the spectrum, not just automotive.
• 10:36
  So I thankfully have a lot of conversations in home services, and senior living, and higher education- Mm... and finance. And I used to think the car business was, like, five years behind in marketing.
• 10:49
  But I have news for you gentlemen. [laughs] Basically, every industry is, is behind. [laughs] Five years behind. There's, there's, like- So who, who is, who's setting the pace then? Right.
• 10:57
  If every industry's back, like, who's in the front? I think it's, I think it's the top 10, 20, 10, 20%. I think it's those, like, those top, like, organizations that actually focus on trying to- Innovate...
• 11:11
  be ahead of the game. Right. And, and innovate and- So you're absolutely... Whatever vertical it is- It's-... there's a percentage of that vertical that is pushing- It is... the envelope. It is.
• 11:18
  I would've died if you were like, "Senior living is- [laughs]... leading the charge." [laughs] No. I wish they were, but they're not. And, like- [laughs]
• 11:29
  But I, I would say that the, the number one thing that, that organizations can do is, like, actually pay attention to the sky is falling type conversation. And what I mean by that is, like, pay attention to it.
• 11:44
  So cookies have been deprecating for the last couple of years, but it actually is happening. It's not happening as fast as we thought it would.
• 11:54
  Google has kicked that can down the road, understandably, um, for quite some time. And, uh, to, to you bringing up first party data, Michael, it's that, that-Organizations are so used to...
• 12:09
  They just want to handle, like, the, the good stuff, the leads, you know, the, the form fills, the call-ins. They wanna handle the stuff that attributes directly to the sale.
• 12:18
  But what they need to pay attention to is all the stuff that's not converting, and really focus on those, because those are your opportunities. The leads are gonna come. The sales are gonna come.
• 12:30
  It is, it is what's behind it that's not converting, and how, how to bring them to the front, but also just pay attention to what is happening and, and causing that not to convert. Yeah, I think about it. Like,
• 12:45
  it's nuts that in our industry, best in class, like the top is maybe a website will get 2.5 to 3% Yeah... net conversion. Meaning
• 13:02
  97 out of 100 people that come and say hi on the website are like, "Nah." [laughs] Or they find another avenue to interact with the organization or get brought back in a different way.
• 13:18
  And we're so focused as an industry on 3% of the interactivity. Yeah. At best, right? Yeah. W- so what do we do with the other 97%? What, h- h- how do we go figure out what's happening there?
• 13:34
  Well, I think, I think a key component, and I think some organizations are, are doing a decent job of trying to identify that 95, 97%, right? And, you know, there's a lot of mechanisms out there to do it.
• 13:46
  Um, you have, you know, for what's left of cookies, you have the ability to cookie your website and cookie those users and try and get it.
• 13:56
  Um, you have the ability to utilize, um, different tools that allow you to identify their IP address or identify their, their MAIDs, their, their mobile user ad, ad IDs.
• 14:06
  And but the thing about all of those things is that they break. And so...
• 14:11
  And the other thing that I've noticed, even with bigger organizations, is that they, they go and they seek out all this data, but they don't do anything with it, right? 'Cause they don't know what to do with it.
• 14:21
  They're trying to merge it. They're trying to append it with- Right. They know they're supposed to have it... different information. Right. Right. Yeah. And so, like,
• 14:29
  selfishly, for our or- our organization at Full Throttle, like, our focus is just talking to that 97%, right?
• 14:37
  And so it's really just, it's a, it's kind of wedged in there to just talk to them to help bring them back and really immerse them with the brand. And so that's where we found our success.
• 14:47
  It's not like a data dump and trying to layer it in on their, on, in LiveRamp to try and layer in with other components of their data to build, like, this huge, um, data pool, if you will.
• 15:00
  But not that that's not important. I think it's very important, but you gotta be able to use it and pay attention to what that is versus just building a customer profile.
• 15:09
  The thing about it, Kyle, to your point, 97 of those people who are coming to your website, they're interested. You're just not necessarily talking to them when they're interested, and that's what we focus on. Mm. Yeah.
• 15:21
  It gets my mind moving on how oftentimes in our industry we talk about the marketing funnel, and we're like, "Oh yeah, you gotta pay attention to the funnel," and we really only discuss those top three steps, right?
• 15:32
  Like awareness, consideration, decision, and then, and then basically the funnel disappears. But it's like, well, what about that post-sale retention, loyalty, brand ambassadorship side of things?
• 15:42
  That's why I don't like a funnel as the illustration, because it really is, uh, like, a, a circle. Yeah. Yeah. Well, exactly. Yeah.
• 15:49
  If, if you made it, if, if you, if, if you were to leverage the, the, the data that Will's talking about, I'm thinking about all sorts of things like why wouldn't I spend dollars then retargeting people who have actually already purchased a V- Like say you bought a Honda Odyssey, and I know that, and I know for a fact it's sitting in your driveway still, and that the touch points have been minimal or lackluster at best.
• 16:12
  I'd totally run ads to people that own those Odysseys being like, "Hey, I hope you're still loving your Odyssey. By the way, here's three things that you should know about your Odyssey that you'd absolutely..."
• 16:22
  'Cause I just- Yeah... I, I think of the impact of, to your point, Paul, using that, that data and making a cycle happen versus the, the funnel happen.
• 16:32
  'Cause I know if they're happy and they're excited and they see that I'm excited and that I'm educating them, they're gonna be more likely to book service with me. They're gonna be- Sure, the retention...
• 16:41
  more likely to tell their friends about... Yeah. Yeah. When we look at people that have killer- Well, and the way that you just said it wasn't, "Here's three, three other cars you could buy right now."
• 16:49
  [laughs] It was, "Here's three interesting things about your Odyssey." Yeah. Which is like, that's a conversation. The other way is yelling. [laughs] Nobody likes to be yelled at. I mean, I think this... Right.
• 17:00
  And this, this kind of gets back and it, it touches on some of the Achilles' heels of, you know, automotive marketing or the mindset, and maybe it's not just automotive.
• 17:09
  Maybe it is, you know, Will, to your point, a lot of other industries, is like there's no direct ROI that's attributable to that type of content, right? I mean, retention- Yeah...
• 17:18
  you can kind of see, but may- maybe you have a... Or at least it's not clear, right? Sales content, it's a lot clearer. Here are three interesting things about the car that you already bought. Not as clear. I don't know.
• 17:30
  What's your perspective on that, Will? Yeah. So, you know, oftentimes I, I hear constantly, well, attribution, right? Like the Holy Grail is this last touch attribution- Yeah...
• 17:41
  which is just, is just [laughs] something you're gonna be chasing for a long time. Fantasy. Yeah, yeah. Um, it- the, the path is not linear, and I think when... And it's really hard to do, right?
• 17:53
  'Cause you hold vendors accountable, you hold your, like, your own internal marketing team accountable. I spent this dollar, I want these two dollars back, period. End of sen- like, that's what I want.
• 18:03
  That's what I want you to prove out. And I think when you... put those hard edges on your marketing efforts or on your efforts just in general, you are going to see failure and you're going to adjust. Where,
• 18:19
  where I think it's a little bit, you know, maybe chaotic, it is utilizing your marketing dollars in, in measuring the effects that it has on your business, period, in totality, not that individual lever.
• 18:34
  Did I pull this lever and did I get a sale out of it? Because when you don't, you sometimes discard that lever when it was effective for you because you're, you're looking at it in a silo.
• 18:48
  And I think the important thing is to look at your marketing efforts in totality and- Yeah... measure lift in all areas, not just sales, not just leads. But measure lift in- Yeah. I, I talk about this all the time.
• 19:01
  It's the m- it's the entire media mix model squared against the, the KPIs of business outcomes that your business has.
• 19:10
  So like, if your media mix model is targeting growth in, like, five key KPIs, then your levers need to understand whether or not they got the business outcomes, not like a slight it- uptick in leads. Right. Right?
• 19:26
  W- whereas, like, a lot of people will go, "Well, I'm not getting enough leads from source X, turn it off."
• 19:33
  But that may be driving residual sales, offline sales, or potentially it's driving service visits or all of that type of stuff.
• 19:41
  And understanding your KPIs as business outcomes as they relate to your entire media mix model will change the way that you look at attribution across- Right... across the board, right? Right. Yeah. Boof.
• 19:54
  I have one more question. Here's, here's... This is adjacent to, like, everything because in, in auto a lot, I think we... it's like vendors do this, dealers do this, but everybody's kind of in sales, right?
• 20:08
  And, and you said you love leading a team of salespeople. Like, that's why you moved to Full Throttle because you get the opportunity now to care for, lead, and guide a team of sales.
• 20:20
  In the market economy right now, the way that businesses are interacting with spending money, how are you training and guiding your salespeople to be the most effective in their conversations right now with dealers or people in other, other industries?
• 20:35
  Um, great question. So, you know, back when I was at Cox, um, I ran sales teams for vAuto.
• 20:42
  And, um, one of the things that was introduced to us at vAuto, um, I don't know, 2013 maybe, 10 years ago, um, was this, you know, sales training is sales training is sales training.
• 20:56
  Um, but it was called the Challenger Sales Model. And I just bring it up because I, I, I took that and I ran with it and I became a really successful salesperson. And then I became a facilitator.
• 21:07
  I went and got certified to teach Challenger Sales Training, and I ended up teaching a lot of Cox Automotive sales team. Um,
• 21:16
  I fell in love with it for one critical reason, or probably multiple, but one that, that was very, very important to me, and it was making it about their business.
• 21:27
  And so the way I teach my team and, and just, you know, talk in general is I don't, I don't care if you're selling Full Throttle, I don't care if you're selling XI Group websites, Flash websites. I don't...
• 21:40
  It, it doesn't matter. The product does not matter. And what I mean by that is I really spend the time
• 21:48
  as a salesperson and then, and, and training, understanding the business and the goals of my prospect, and really spending the entire time focused on them and those gaps.
• 22:01
  And the art is, is to understand where my product fits in those gaps so that I can be there to service it when ready. Mm.
• 22:09
  And what I learned in, in, like, understanding that, that, that mindset and, and training that way was that
• 22:17
  by being that expert and also utilizing data, which is a critical component of it, utilizing industry data, not my data, but industry data, um, I didn't even have to demo vAuto a lot after that. I didn't- How about that?
• 22:33
  [laughs] It was, it was inventory management conversations. It wasn't, it wasn't, "Hey, I got this software and it's better than my first look or my competitor."
• 22:42
  It, it was, it was just about inventory management, holding costs, and truly understanding the industry, understanding the holding cost of each vehicle on their lot and what it's costing them as it ages. Gosh.
• 22:55
  That was the focus that I put on, and that's kind of what I try and convey across teams that I manage. That is just the best advice for any relationship.
• 23:06
  When someone knows that you understand them, they immediately trust you. If they know- Yeah...
• 23:11
  you understand my situation, my challenges, my fears, you know, like, the, the things that I have to deal with, the things that are on my plate, the second someone knows that you really understand it, that's amazing that you say, like, "I all of a sudden don't have to do a lot of demos" [laughs] 'cause people are like- Right...
• 23:27
  you understand the problem. I- Well-... I just assume that you understand the solution. And- Yeah... I, I left every conversation whether I won it or lost it, like, I don't care if you buy vAuto.
• 23:40
  I said this many times when I was selling it, but I don't care if you buy vAuto. What I want is to help you sell more cars, 'cause that's what they wanna do. Mm-hmm.
• 23:49
  And so if you want to partner with me to do that, here's, like, you know, everything that I've talked to you today about, blah, blah, blah. Like, that is what made it successful. It wasn't...
• 24:02
  Like, vAuto's a very amazing product and, um, like, their whole process is great, but it had nothing to do with that and everything to do withBeing that partner to them to understand their business, to help them, and I think that's a critical thing.
• 24:15
  I wasn't trying to sell. It, I was trying to help. Mm-hmm.
• 24:20
  Yeah, I think what a, what a, what an amazing, uh, place to conclude the conversation with, with kind of just banging that drum, which is that conversations matter, relationships matter,
• 24:35
  and the true essence of marketing is that, a- and especially what you're doing at Full Throttle, is getting pe- getting advertisers and marketers to a place of understanding so that they can better build those relationships and have those meaningful conversations with their audience.
• 24:52
  Will McGinnis, thank you so much for joining us here on Auto Collapse today. Thank you, gentlemen. Really appreciate you. Look, I'm just proud I nailed the final question. That was a good final question.
• 25:08
  We should've asked that first. I didn't know what was coming after it, but I was like, "Got the good one." [laughs] Yeah.
• 25:13
  [laughs] We should just spend the rest of the outro complimenting our interview skills. We, we could, we could do that.
• 25:30
  We, [laughs] we could do that if we didn't just let the cat out of the bag that we had no idea. [laughs] Dude, your tr- your, your trombone little impression- That was unbelievable, Todd... is so good.
• 25:44
  No, but I- We had no clue that was coming. Legitimately, I barely knew Will before walking- Yeah... into that.
• 25:49
  And for him to drop that just as, to clearly state it, because I think we would all say, like you said, Cirillo, we, we know that relationship matters in sales.
• 25:59
  But the way that he positioned relationship in this, like, exploratory care for the unique point of view- Mm...
• 26:07
  of that person's business, and then you can just, like, replace business with whatever that person is, uh, you know, if it's we're selling a car.
• 26:14
  The unique point of view that matters to that person's livelihood or that person's life or that person's driving habits, that that's the lean in. Mm.
• 26:22
  And that the pro- like, once that happens, it's just like, [imitates car speeding] Yep, it doesn't matter what you're selling. I, I also love the fact that he's got so much experience outside automotive.
• 26:32
  I think people like that we should be listening to more frequently and more intently because, you know, they just, their head is up. Just by the nature of his position, he's in all types of industries.
• 26:43
  And so I love meeting with people like that, too. Well, thank you so much for spending, uh, some of your time with us today. We hope you got a little inspired, a little energized, learned something.
• 26:51
  On behalf of Kyle Mountserre, Michael Cirillo, and myself, thank you for listening to Auto Collapse.
• 26:58
  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.
• 27:11
  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.
• 27:19
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collapse. Welcome to Auto Collapse. [laughs] Why are we recording? Are we rolling yet? Not yet.