Latest / Auto Collabs / My Level of Service will Determine My Outcome with Evan Riley

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My Level of Service will Determine My Outcome with Evan Riley · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  Did you know [upbeat music] This is Auto Collabs... that sometimes
• 0:14
  Google literally breaks and every marketer in the country freaks out for, like, about three and a half minutes? I actually didn't know that. How does it break?
• 0:28
  Literally all of AdWords and Google Analytics just shuts down, and what you find is marketers, they have these corners in their offices, and you see the...
• 0:40
  Like, if you could bird's-eye view, you could, you would just see them shaking in the corner. [laughs] It's quite a wild phenomenon.
• 0:45
  This is- Dude- Is it because they think they've just done something very wrong, or they just don't know what to do? They, they don't know what to do. They're like, "I can't log into analytics. Life is gone."
• 0:55
  [laughs] "Life as we know it, it's over." This is precisely why old people hate young people. [laughs] Is it precisely why? Okay. That's exactly why. This is it. The one reason. Because they get...
• 1:06
  They're like- [laughs]... "So let me get this straight. Something on the interwebs broken?" Well- "I had to boil all my food." [laughs] It's flat. "I had to mow the lawn with clipper, with scissors."
• 1:21
  [laughs] I, I hope this never comes back. This is like- Old John Stewart... this is like the moment where I'm like, "Why won't this website load? Why won't it load?"
• 1:28
  And my dad looks at me like, "Son, do you remember middle school?" [laughs] [imitates modem dialing] Right?
• 1:36
  [laughs] [imitates modem] Oh, man, that has nothing to do with anything that we're gonna be probably talking about. Uh- Oh, I'm sure it ties in somewhere... with Evan. Well, it might, it might sneak in.
• 1:48
  Uh- It's how you market it... but we are really excited to introduce, uh, you, our, our friends here in the Auto Collabs world. Uh, Evan from FlickFusion. We're gonna be hanging out with him today.
• 1:59
  Uh, I, you know, I don't know much about Evan. I don't know too much about FlickFusion outside of their video capacities, but, uh, you know, should be a, should be a riveting conversation. Love the new people.
• 2:11
  Seems like they always are. Lo- Ab- Absolutely. I love the new ones. I have high hopes. I have high hopes. It's a good day. We're all kind of in good moods. Yeah. Right?
• 2:18
  We're talking about- FlickFusion is gonna be at, at ASOTU Con. Uh, they, I'm, I'm excited about that.
• 2:23
  So, you know, if you don't know about FlickFusion, you get to, get to introduce yourselves to them then, and I, I think Evan's gonna be there.
• 2:30
  So, uh, hey, if you- And if you don't know about ASOTU Con, actually- Then are you living? Let's just not assume. It's, no, no, ASOTU Con is our- What do you do, boil in your food? [laughs] Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:40
  Get with the times. Your, your grandparents and parents probably won't be there. But ASOTU Con is, like, the automotive industry's version of, like, South by Southwest. It's at Bal- in Baltimore this year.
• 2:49
  You can go to asotucon.com. We hope you can join us there. But for now, we have this conversation with Evan. Okay, so I moved to Texas,
• 3:04
  and I realized that the grass in Texas is different than the beautiful Kentucky blue from Canada. [laughs] And so what do I do, Evan? I join a bunch of groups. One is called Texas Lawn Care Nuts.
• 3:18
  [laughs] And it's all about different mowers and different ways of cutting the grass. And then I see you join the call, and I wonder, "Is there a group for beautiful bald men?"
• 3:35
  [laughs] There is at least three of us. Oh, see, I didn't think my bald head. Oh, man. Unbelievable. And, and then I, and then, and then- And th- and then you realize that this is it... in the spirit of mowing.
• 3:45
  [laughs] This is it. This is the group. And then in the spirit of mowing, I, I can't help but ask, are you a razor in the shower kinda guy- [laughs]...
• 3:53
  or are you the, are you the, like, mmm- I was wondering where he was going with this... electric, electric- So that's an awesome question. It took a long time to figure this out, man. It's clippers here.
• 4:04
  Clippers are the rough stuff. Razor's in the mirror. You gotta do the ears. Like, if you don't get this right, you're in trouble.
• 4:10
  It's, it's just- 'Cause there's nothing more annoying than having a d- a bald dude, and he's forgot the hairs behind his ears, and they're like little spikey. And I've been that bald dude that's done that before. Yeah.
• 4:18
  And I've been the one who's like- I'm just, like, waving at you, flapping in the wind back there. I've been that... Two years ago at NADA, on day one, I realized I left a little, like... Oh. [laughs] I was hurrying.
• 4:30
  I was pumped up. We were back at NADA, if you remember that. It was like, "All right, let's get back." I do. It was like... [laughs] You're like, "Oh, my gosh." Just a little.
• 4:39
  I think we might be on to- But to everybody out there, you have a beautiful head. You'd look great bald. Just a little. Yeah, like, you know this.
• 4:44
  Do you ever call your mom and, and thank her for not letting you, as a baby, lay on one side longer than the other? [laughs] I was- 'Cause that is a, you got a perfect shape going on.
• 4:53
  [laughs] I got some lumps on the back, but nobody notices. Everybody think... I thought I had a weird head. I got a big head. Very symmetrical back of the head. Yeah.
• 4:59
  Uh, but, hey, man, uh, I was bald, grandparents both sides, mom, grandma, grandpa. It was coming. I was 22, one of the best decisions I ever made. Um- Yeah. I didn't, I don't know, Michael, do we- Never let us know.
• 5:11
  I don't know why we're talking about this so deeply all of a sudden, but I don't know why Michael decided, but when you look back at my pictures from, like, my late 20s, I was like, man, I'm like, "Where was that friend that just told me, 'Man, it's time?'"
• 5:25
  [laughs] It was my girlfriend. Yo, my wife was like- It was your girlfriend... "You better do something about the..." 'Cause, like, I, I had- [laughs] I went through the comb over.
• 5:32
  She's like, "You better do something w- about this, 'cause one day our kids are gonna ask why your hair parts in a circle." [laughs] This is sideways. I have no idea how we're getting back from this one, man.
• 5:45
  Hopefully, my last comment on here was I went to the, to the barber shop. My girlfriend, I got home, she said, "How much did you pay for that?" I was like, "Oh, it was like 25, 30 bucks with a tip."
• 5:53
  And she was like-Never again. [laughs] Never again. Yeah, I enjoyed automotive at one point. I remember. Bro- Yeah... we need an automo- an automowers group. [laughs] Mow. M-O-W, Tim. Yes. Right? Automow.
• 6:07
  A Discord channel. Hey, for the Asotoverse- Oh my gosh... if you think us and Evan should create the first ever [laughs] beautiful, bald group- Comment, like, subscribe, all of the things... lobby. Smash that like.
• 6:19
  Start a GoFundMe. We're gonna make this happen. [laughs] I'm bald. W- w- well, you said 42. And that actually is the whole reason why you're a sales director at a company in automotive. That's, that's the whole wrap.
• 6:30
  It's because you're bald. That's why. [laughs] No. [laughs] I'm pretty sure it's not. I'm sure it was, I'm sure it was a really big, uh, hiring decision. Um, yeah. [laughs] Remember.
• 6:43
  He sat at a boardroom table in front of 14 other bald men with beards. [laughs] It was a built-in when I was selling cars.
• 6:49
  It wasn't built in, like, you know, we're waiting for finance, sitting there talking knee to knee, and I don't wanna talk about the car deal anymore. If they were bald, we were golden.
• 6:58
  When did you get into the car business? Uh, 17. 2017 is when I... Or I guess '16 is when I started selling cars. Um, I sold for about a little over a year and a half at a dealership.
• 7:08
  You know, he goes ahead and he says that. And- Yeah, so this is Paul's thing... this is my thing Paul gets all excited. He's like, "He did it." I do. "He did it." I'm like- "He did it."
• 7:16
  [laughs] Well, every time somebody says that, I'm just, just flabbergasted that I didn't know that ahead of time. Because if I was an industry partner, I would, I would put that on my shirt.
• 7:27
  When I, when I started selling cars, and realized that opens up so many more conversations for you, and people all of a sudden understand, like, "Oh, I know where you're coming from."
• 7:36
  Like, just like one bald guy to another, like, "Oh, I know where you're coming from." So okay, so you started selling cars. I just get excited about that. That was my first real job, right?
• 7:46
  I just watched the Real Job episode and- [laughs]... that's what I thought when I got into it, for sure, though. That's what happened. Uh, but it's kinda like when I was a bartender when I was way younger.
• 7:55
  People would say, "Don't worry, I'm a bartender," and you didn't... You're like, "That's a little shady." So s- it always helps sometimes once they get to know you, but just st- saying that isn't gonna earn you anything.
• 8:04
  I, I just- So, you, you... That was your first real job, and the jobs you had before that sound like obviously a bartender. Were you like hospitality type jobs?
• 8:11
  Bartender, server, random construction jobs, concrete, tile, a little bit of framing, a little bit of whatever. Gosh. Uh, mostly. So common, right? Hardworking, knows how to talk to people.
• 8:22
  Automotive is just like, "Come to us," [laughs] right? "We have a place for you." Oh, absolutely, 100%. It worked out real well. So start at selling cars- So what was your experience, like, in that- Yeah...
• 8:31
  first year and a half?
• 8:32
  Because, you know, it, it, it's always, it's always interesting to understand, like, you know, what type of dealerships or dealership were you a part of, and what was the experience, and what kinda like crafted the reason why you still sit in a seat in auto today?
• 8:47
  Yeah, that's a great question, man, and I look back on it. You know, you forget day to day kinda how you get to this day here, but it's cool to think about it.
• 8:55
  Like, yeah, I was a, a bartender and a server and I looked online and I found a place that was hiring. It was a Chevy store out west of where I was living. I went in for the interview.
• 9:05
  Uh, I met with like what would end up being my one-to-one sales manager and then the, the general manager and then the owner.
• 9:12
  I thought they were the managing partner at the time, and they just offered me the job right there. It was a great deal. Like, I learned a lot, like way more than I could've thought of.
• 9:20
  Just like I think a lot of people should be a server and a bartender, it should be like a requirement. I think you should have at least like a week in that first week of training in an auto dealership- Oh, yeah...
• 9:29
  if you wanna participate. Like, for real, it was... Um, I'm not immune to the idea, and, uh, there were some people that didn't help it, but I'm not immune to the idea that, uh, dude, they're just gonna rob from me.
• 9:40
  They're gonna rob me. They just want my friends, all this stuff, because there was a small part of that, but it wasn't intentional. Like, I got in, I learned how it worked, I worked hard, I showed up to training on time.
• 9:50
  You know, showing up was half the battle. I was just there, present.
• 9:53
  And like, uh, one thing that I've always taken into, whatever, whatever job it was, is like my level of service will determine my outcome, and, uh, that was true. Mm-hmm.
• 10:01
  Uh, I thought for sure, uh, that at some point I was gonna have to be, like, get a gold chain and start lying to people and, like, uh- [laughs]... put sawdust in the car.
• 10:10
  I think it was Matilda or whatever that movie, where put sawdust in the car, and none of that ended up happening. What ended up happening was the guy that was running the store was actually a good guy in the community.
• 10:20
  He was somebody I could go talk to.
• 10:22
  My sales manager taught me a lot of life lessons that, uh, I ran into him at the grocery store like a year and a half ago, and I just stopped and said, "Hey, I still say some of the same stuff you told me on my very first day, and I believe it today."
• 10:34
  Oh, wow. "For real." And it's not only just automotive, you know.
• 10:37
  Um, he always told me, like at the end of any pitch, whether it's with anybody, not even just in a work environment, he was like, "One of the last reasons they should say, 'Why should I work with you?'
• 10:45
  is, 'Well, 'cause I work here.' And I'm gonna tell you this.
• 10:47
  I'll do what I can to be of service to you, and if you ever find out that I'm not doing that, I wanna be the first one to know about it and the first one to fix it."
• 10:54
  And he said, "People don't care how much you know till they know how much you care."
• 10:57
  This was day one, two, or three stuff when all we were doing was moving cars on the lot, learning how to park them in a line and, like, uh, back it up. But I was trying to absorb, like, life information.
• 11:06
  I didn't know much about finance either. Learned about how that works and, like, um, basically I, it was a natural. The easy part for me was always, like, you know, knee to knee. That was perfect. That was awesome.
• 11:16
  I was always, it was gonna be fine. Whatever. How crazy is that? That, like, you get into auto. It's like you get to learn life skills, customer care, service.
• 11:29
  You learn about fi- like, you are forced into learning about financial responsibility, interest rates, all that type of stuff, and parallel parking. [laughs] Yeah. Right? And- It's like now, now I can parallel...
• 11:43
  I can... Look, I, like, you can spot someone that's worked in auto before. They back into every spot they ever park in ever, right? I'm not backing into this mother... my wife's like, "Honey,"... mother, no.
• 11:54
  I'm not backing in. I'm not. I hate it. [laughs] But I know the feeling. I know it's really cool.
• 11:59
  So that, that went on for a little while.We switched, uh, I went to the internet department after, like, a couple months and, like, again, I wasn't a top salesperson, but, like, day to day it was a matter of, like, doing what was asked of me.
• 12:10
  They believed in a process. I was following the process. And, uh, they switched me to internet, and so I was fielding internet leads and stuff like that. And that, that switched a lot because it was, like, super then...
• 12:22
  I wasn't needing either of them. It wasn't lot ups. It was, like, email, text, transactional. Like, and a lot of it was, like, beating you up on price and stuff.
• 12:29
  And it's like, "How could I, how can I get them in front of me?" That's when, uh, I was, ended up being all right at that. And, you know, after about a year, a little over a year, I did real well there.
• 12:38
  Paid off a bunch of debt, paid off a bunch of stuff. And, um, you know, there was an opportunity for, um, here at FlickFusion that just popped up kind of randomly, just like the car dealership one.
• 12:48
  Sometimes, like, I think, uh, you know, life just winks at you a little bit and if you got your eyes open you might see it. I don't know that if it was, like, all divine order or whatever, but it seemed to work out.
• 12:59
  And I started here with FlickFusion, uh, yeah, back in '18, and I've been working w- we're here since then, so. Wow. So that was actually a really short, like, it only took a year- Mm-hmm... for you to make that.
• 13:10
  And you got all of that knowledge and all of that packed into you that you still hold onto in one year in the dealership. Yeah. Yeah. It was- That's great... it was a lot. It was like a fire hydrant and, uh, you know.
• 13:23
  So how do you carry that? Like, because, you know, well, first of all, w- I guess, was it, was it something that you all were utilizing FlickFusion in the dealership there? How did you have that relationship? No.
• 13:35
  So FlickFusion is based in Iowa. They have their home base in Iowa. That's where I'm from. Got it.
• 13:39
  Uh, we service dealerships all across the, uh, the country, uh, and international through a couple resellers and stuff like that. But it was a lot of happenstance.
• 13:47
  Like, I was in internet and we'd, he'd always, we'd always have, like, uh, monthly meetings and, like, you had 100 leads, he only converted blah, blah, however many we'd have the internet department ones.
• 13:56
  And, uh, he'd talk about doing video. It was always talk about. And, uh, I know he wanted to, but he just didn't really think about, out that it was an option. And I shot some from my phone.
• 14:07
  I shot some, just kind of sent them out to people. I'd do, like, little... You, you'd get asked for a walk around. If I get asked for something, I wanna go show them whatever it is. Right.
• 14:15
  I wanna get a car deal out of it, and it's the right car, I think, for them. And so I wanted to do that. FlickFusion, when I, when I went into it, you know, I didn't know much about the company.
• 14:22
  I didn't know a whole lot about of it. A lot of, uh, what FlickFusion does has kind of been in the background since their origination. It's one of the bigger little companies a lot of people have never heard of.
• 14:31
  We service a lot of our customers through a network of resellers. So I had not heard of the customer facing name, but I heard about what they were doing.
• 14:39
  They were working on an integration with the CRM that I was using then, so that helped them kind of want me on that side. Uh, it ended up being just a great relationship from the start.
• 14:48
  I went into the interview, honestly, as just like a practice interview, and I left thinking like, "Man, I think I might stick around." [laughs] And, uh, well, it ended up happening for real.
• 14:56
  And I mean, I've told, uh, uh, Tim, my boss, [laughs] that before, but, uh, it's true. It was like, "Maybe try this out and hey, stick with automotive."
• 15:03
  But I didn't sit in a seat six years ago and say, "Hey, I'm gonna work in automotive forever."
• 15:07
  But it's certainly given me a beautiful, beautiful life, and it was not the one that I would've thought, and it's not been the experience that, like, you know, I would've thought coming in either. Right. Right.
• 15:17
  He just said, "Automotive has given me a beautiful, beautiful life." That's to say the least, but I'll say it again, man. Oh, that's so nice. Man, just like- I'm gonna hang onto that... I'm gonna hang onto that one.
• 15:28
  Yeah, I know. It's gonna stay I'm, uh, I'm, I'm loving that statement.
• 15:31
  So what is it, uh, you know, since you've been with FlickFusion and, and obviously now being, being able to work with dealers across the country, other industry partners, right, your white label or resellers, um, what is it that, that you see that's unique about the way FlickFusion is meeting the market and kind of like drawing all those people together?
• 15:52
  Because it sounds like there's a lot of collaboration that's necessary, and you have, like, a client, a customer impact point wh- that you meet. You're not just, like, an internal tool. Yeah.
• 16:02
  Um, how, how, how does it, how, what is it like to kinda, like, draw all those people together and start to, to organize around a common vision, uh, of what the tool accomplishes? Yeah. It's been interesting.
• 16:14
  So, like, I started in, like, a lot working with our partners and resellers, helping them on an individual basis to...
• 16:21
  They had an idea of what they wanna do with video and how they wanna take it, and we do a lot of custom work that allows us to do that in a lot of different ways.
• 16:28
  Most of what you'll see is just individual inventory videos on a website. Instead of just photos, there's a video and/or an interactive 360, and we've been doing that, uh, for quite some time.
• 16:39
  I think the biggest benefits that I've seen is that, again, like at my very first dealership, um, it was always, like, a thought, but it's like, "Man, this is gonna be hard."
• 16:48
  That was always his thing is like, "This is gonna be too hard to do. W- how, how are we gonna get this into the, uh, get it into the regular process?"
• 16:55
  And what I've gotten to see, and be a small part of, uh, for individual stores and for, uh, big, small resellers in between, is, uh, taking that scare of like, "This is gonna be a big, scary thing" to you got guys or girls or people on your lot right now that are doing this.
• 17:13
  Maybe it's not for their car, but they have their phone in their hands. Tell me one person at an automotive dealership doesn't know how to open their camera. [laughs] I mean, they know how to do it.
• 17:21
  And it's just taking that exact same mold and getting comfortable putting it out there, man. Like, it's, it's especially, I love the impact of the inventory videos for the individual customer for sure.
• 17:31
  We wanna give the best automotive buying experience online as possible.
• 17:35
  But my favorite really is getting, like, the face and the name of the individual salespeople in front of the online leads or opportunities or however you wanna call it.
• 17:44
  These are people, uh, potential customers of yours early and often. And, uh, getting that introduction to start off with.
• 17:51
  Maybe they're bald like me or maybe they, maybe they just, once they come in, it won't be as such of a scary face. Um, and starting that and easing it in.
• 17:58
  And that's been awesome to do on, again, a small level, whether it's an independent store or, um, you know-... a big, a big client of ours that does it d- for hundreds of dealerships, you know?
• 18:08
  Some of my favorite story, easily my favorite story of all time, actually, was one guy we started.
• 18:13
  Uh, they needed some videos and we helped them out with, like, the really initial stuff, set it all up, and I got this call from, like, a, the junebug. They're the lot porter guy, uh, walking around the dealership.
• 18:23
  And he said, "Hey, I take these cars to get the wheels and stuff on them. I take them to get the rims and stuff on her, and the subs and stuff. I wanna take a little video of this." And, uh, he said, "Can we do that?"
• 18:33
  And I said, "Yeah, let's set it up." I didn't charge him. I said, "Check with your manager before it goes online." They were on board with it.
• 18:38
  That person has since gone from doing that for one random car to every car on their lot, as well as rolling it into their sales process. So I didn't do it. This young man in this case did the work. That's pretty cool.
• 18:49
  But I got to be along for the journey of another person who got to have a beautiful life in automotive. He's one of their top salespeople today, and still does this.
• 18:57
  And so whether it's large impacts or small ones, it's making an impact somewhere, you know? There's times where it's like, "Man, what am I really doing in automotive? Man, we're just a part of this little thing."
• 19:05
  But when I look closely, the impacts are there, man. Like, even if, like, who knows what... And again, I didn't do this for this young man. He did it himself.
• 19:13
  But getting to be along for the ride, that's easily been my favorite thing that I've ever done here, and it's not the only one. He's just got a special place in my heart for the first one.
• 19:22
  I said his name once, and he said, "Don't ever mention me again," so I'm not gonna call him out. [laughs] It's like quiet, a quiet lot porter. Because we're about to be like, "Who is it and where is he at?"
• 19:29
  And he's like, "Oh, I-" I know. Well, I did, and he's a humble, he's like a silent soldier, man. He's just gonna be in the back doing it, and he was like, "I don't wanna, I don't wanna do that." So I won't do it.
• 19:37
  Oh, we need to meet him. We need to meet him. You know what I think is interesting about this? Um, which I, which I really appreciate you've kind of touched on here, which is
• 19:45
  putting yourself on video is perhaps one, something that most people think is a scary thing.
• 19:52
  Um, and I know even in my own personal development journey, especially as I started to move into branding myself and things of that nature, I talked myself out of doing video for, like, six months.
• 20:02
  I would record and then I'd be like, "That thing is n- [laughs] not seeing the light of day." Never. Right?
• 20:08
  And however, what, what I can s- say from my own experience, touching on what you've said, is that the minute I finally accepted my insecurities and like, I w- this is how I look, that's how I sound- [laughs]...
• 20:24
  and I put myself out there, my confidence level went through the roof. Mm. Mm. And, and- In probably other aspects, right? It's not just that. Other aspects. Yeah. There's, like, yeah.
• 20:37
  There, there's a interesting psychology to it.
• 20:39
  So, so maybe for the sales professional or somebody within the dealership that's been talking themselves out of it, what you're saying is so important that, but there's an upside to this.
• 20:50
  Your confidence will go through the roof.
• 20:51
  And by the way, if you stumble on your words and you look nervous, there's actually really compelling psychology on that from the recipient's point of view, which is that their appreciation level of you skyrockets.
• 21:03
  They're so appreciative- That's great... that you're doing something that makes you so clearly uncomfortable for their benefit.
• 21:09
  And like you said, then by the time they walk in those doors at the dealership, they see you and they go, "That is the person I'm going to work with," because they put in effort where others weren't willing to.
• 21:21
  So there's, I, I love that you brought that up.
• 21:22
  It just, I had to get that out because it's, it's, um, a close to home thing for me, but I know hundreds of thousands of people in this industry probably struggle to just take that first leap.
• 21:33
  And hopefully, this is encouragement for them to do so. I've said I've got a face for radio. And if I can do it- [laughs]... then you can do it.
• 21:41
  And it's that day one lesson that I heard, people don't care how much you know till they know how much you care, and going out and doing a little bit more. And they can tell I'm uncomfortable even today.
• 21:50
  Trust me, I remember the first time I walked towards a lot up and, like, walked away a little bit 'cause I was scared. [laughs] And the next time I went, I went up and I shook their hand like I was taught to do.
• 22:00
  Same thing happened with video. I got over it. And it, then it works. And then like, "Okay, it's working. Now it's easy." The second time's always easier, you know? Um, so I love that. It's gonna be a,
• 22:13
  it's always that first one is the hardest. Just do it. Hit record, stumble, mess up, great. Yeah. Everybody messes up. Everybody messes up. Everybody goes and mess up all the time. What a great encouragement. Just do it.
• 22:24
  Well, y- you, you've proven that, uh, w- whether it be, uh, a face for radio or a, a, a missed line of hair for NADA, like, hey- [laughs]...
• 22:33
  if, if you can do it, if, if, if your head can do it, then anybody should- [laughs]... should step out there and, and try it. So Evan, thanks so much for joining us.
• 22:42
  The conversation was fun, insightful, uh, and I, I, I believe probably helpful for more than one out there that are listening, so, uh, appreciate you, uh, on behalf of, uh, all three of us for joining us here on Autocollabs.
• 22:54
  Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. [upbeat music] All right. I definitely didn't expect Michael to start the conversation the way he did. Could've never, never believed it. Could we ever, could we ever really?
• 23:07
  [laughs] He starts these conversations, like, so here's a little behind the scenes for how this show works. The guest comes on and we say, "Here's how the show works."
• 23:16
  Myse- and then whoever happens to start that spiel, whether it's myself, Kyle, or Michael, they get the privilege of assigning who is opening the show interview and who is closing the interview.
• 23:27
  So Kyle was like, "Michael, he's gonna get us in with a conversation and then we're gonna talk for about, you know, 17, 20 minutes. And then when it's natural, I'll land the plane and I'll get us out." Great.
• 23:36
  The rules have been set. The guest is all set. [laughs] And then Michael starts talking.
• 23:40
  And Kyle and I for the next- I feel like this is, I feel like at some point we're gonna write, like, some, some doom and gloom game that's called, like, the Rules of Engagement #Autocollabs or something.
• 23:50
  [laughs] And it'll be like, "So you're gonna have to answer a question from Michael Cirillo first." [laughs] Well, I think he fights sport in the fact- Everybody's like, "No, I'm done with the game.
• 24:00
  I'm done with the game." [laughs] Because it takes your- Guys, I've been doing interviews, I've been doing interviews for like- You don't know... Go ahead. Go...
• 24:06
  12 years now, and I just learned todayThe perfect segue is to just ask the next question, whether or not it has anything to do with what you've been talking about. [laughs] Well, that's what we did.
• 24:17
  That's what happened today. We're talking about cutting our hair, and then I was like, "So when'd you get into the car business?" [laughs] I noticed that. Well, I think- It's so good...
• 24:26
  I think Michael felt some level of obligation. Like, "I got us so far down the rabbit hole," and I think Kyle and I were like, "I don't know how to come back from this one." I, yeah, I didn't know.
• 24:34
  And because I think he finds- Except for, he brought it back really well because the- He did... connection of the hair snafu with NADA was, like, sublime. [laughs] It was. I couldn't even believe he snuck that in.
• 24:44
  You couldn't build that in if you wanted to. Man, I really appreciate it, too. It's funny, like, you get this surprising amount of... I c- I'm constantly surprised by the heart that comes out of the auto industry. Mm.
• 24:56
  Yep. From unexpected places. Yep. And when, when he says, "The auto industry gave me a beautiful, beautiful life," something about the use of the word beautiful- Aw... and then twice, it just, like, hit me in a place.
• 25:08
  Yeah. It just- And then he hit us with the porter that has a beautiful- Yeah. [laughs]... life in auto- Yes... that's now a top salesperson. Yes. I'm like, "What are we even... Come on, now. Let's go."
• 25:18
  Dare we say, as Auto Collabs, a divinely appointed podcast. [laughs] Yeah. Brought to you by ASOTU. Whoa. I think you, I think dare we say that. I don't- [laughs] I'm gonna get struck. Um, look it up now.
• 25:30
  I'm gonna be struck. Yeah. Well, I'm glad we're in different states. [laughs] Well, we hope you enjoyed- Oh, man. On, uh- Well, we hope you enjoyed this episode of Auto Collabs.
• 25:41
  I think it may be one of our most fun yet, from the intro to the, the conversation, to the outro. Uh, and look, if you don't know where to grab the best hair products, you can probably hang out with Paul J.
• 25:54
  Daly, Michael Cirillo, or Evan. Uh, but on behalf of all of us and myself, Kyle Mountsier, thanks for joining us here on Auto Collabs.
• 26:03
  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.
• 26:16
  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.
• 26:23
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collabs. Welcome to Auto Collabs. [laughs] Why are we recording? Are we rolling yet?
• 26:41
  Not yet.