Latest / Auto Collabs / Running A Business Is Like Coaching An 8-Year-Old Baseball Team with John Fitzpatrick of Force Marketing

Transcript

Running A Business Is Like Coaching An 8-Year-Old Baseball Team with John Fitzpatrick of Force Marketing · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  Kyle has been eating pretzel sticks. [upbeat music] This is Auto Collabs And he's still [laughs] he's still eating pretzel sticks. We had this whole conversation about dipping pre- I'm still having pretzel sticks...
• 0:18
  and then Michael said it's his snack of choice when we're on the road or at NADA show. Yeah. Have you guys not seen my bingo arms? Of course carbs are my snack of choice. [laughs] Bingo arms.
• 0:27
  There's something about a pretzel stick- Yeah, right, man... that just makes you feel so happy, right? Kids love them. Adults love them. It's the right amount of salt to carb. It's the right amount of crunch. Oh, boy.
• 0:38
  Oh, boy. I have no idea why we're talking about pretzel sticks. I've had enough- Because it's almo- it's, like, lunchtime... of pretzel sticks. Central Time, maybe. Sometimes you just gotta know what we're getting into.
• 0:47
  You know what I mean? [laughs] I do. I do. Like, just, just enter into our world. I do. So...
• 0:51
  Looking forward to talking with John Fitzpatrick, today's guest, uh, founder and C- was he a founder of Force, or did Jim found Force and John took it over? Man, I don't know.
• 1:00
  I don't know, but John's been in charge for a long time. [laughs] There you go. So, so John, president and CEO of Force Marketing. Uh, we're gonna spend a little time with him.
• 1:08
  Been a long-time supporter of ASOTU, and a long-time friend. We're gonna try to ask him a few questions and get him off his, uh, get him off his game if we can. So, hope you enjoy this interview.
• 1:16
  [upbeat music] Hey, John. Thank you so much for joining us here today. Uh, we have a lot of questions for you, so I hope you're ready. I'm ready, man. Thanks for having me. Okay.
• 1:28
  My first- Mainly, what did you eat for breakfast? No, no, we're not gonna talk about... We are talking about pretzel rods. [laughs] Pretzel sticks, pretzel rods, I don't know. Um, okay, so
• 1:37
  I've, I've recently heard that you are a travel baseball team coach, and I just- I am... when I read that, I was like, "The shoe fits." Tell- Everything made sense. [laughs] It does. Tell us about that. Absolutely, man.
• 1:49
  Uh- [laughs] I, um, my son is, you know, just one of these athletes, right? He loves... Whatever sport he's playing at the time, that's his favorite sport. And so, uh, coming out of spring ball, we had a great season.
• 2:01
  Uh, um, he, uh, he loves shortstop, but really all the positions, and, uh, he made travel ball. And, uh, and they asked me to head coach it, and I...
• 2:10
  And I've coached all of the leagues, so, you know, of the coach- I was already in the selection set. And so I said, "Yeah, absolutely, let's give it a run," and we're having a great, uh, great summer. A lot of fun.
• 2:21
  And I- On a scale- A tour- Go ahead... a tournament every weekend, and practice every single day. [laughs] Oh, buddy. Well, on a, on a scale of... Every single day? Every single day. Sometimes we'll take Monday off.
• 2:33
  Serious business, Kyle. Sometimes we'll take Monday off. [laughs] Serious business. My goodness.
• 2:37
  Um, a scale of, uh, one being really laid back to number 10 being insane with intensity, uh, at what level do the parents usually come in at this level of baseball? Oh, it's, it's in- it's insanity.
• 2:52
  I had to sit the parents down. [laughs] We had... When we, when we, when we j- when we put the team together, my first meeting was with the parents- [laughs]... 'cause I had to set the tone, right?
• 3:01
  Because the parents are the ones that can get out of control. [laughs] We've got a great, we've got a great group of parents.
• 3:06
  They've sort of done everything that I've asked of them, 'cause that's all I can really do is ask.
• 3:11
  And, and my big ask is, and I think anybody that's got kids in sports, maybe this will resonate, is, um, be their cheerleader- Sit down and shut up. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No. Well, no, be- no. Ch- cheer them on.
• 3:23
  Don't coach them from the stands. Mm. They have enough coaches. Mm. And oftentimes as parents, we wanna coach, and head down, and, you know, bat out- Lower your shoulder. Watch, uh, yeah...
• 3:31
  elbow up, lower your shoulder, watch out. And I, I'm like, "I got a, I've got a coaching staff of five coaches. We do, we do a lot of work.
• 3:38
  By the way, if you wanna coach them, you can coach them any time, not during my practice and not during a tournament." [laughs] Right. Except these two hours. That's right. I love it.
• 3:48
  And so, but what they need are cheerleaders, and they need you to, to be mindful that the ride, hour, hour and a half into the tournament, 'cause they're all travel, um, the ride home, all of that small talk that you ha- that's so important in the hearts and minds of our kids that we're developing.
• 4:05
  And if you're talking about the plays that they missed or you're, you know, doubling down on the stress, they've got enough stress. They just wanna get out there and play some ball. And by the way- Mm...
• 4:14
  when they get out there and just play ball, that's when they're their best. Yeah. And so, you know, that... Anyways, I, I, I- I love it. Your passion's coming through. Oh, man. Yeah, man. He's [laughs]
• 4:24
  Well, look- He's about to start a coaching podcast. Here- It's gonna be nuts. Here, let's see if this comes through. This is on... We gave these out right off. There's my eight-year Longhorns. The eight-year Longhorns.
• 4:33
  And you know me, I'm in marketing, so right off the bat we got TAG. Teamwork- T-... attitude- Oh... and grit. Grit. I love it. And I'm noticing a color similarity- [laughs] Oh, yeah...
• 4:44
  to your shirt and the background and... [laughs] Force blue, baby. There's, there's, like- I love it. Force blue... there's something to be said of, like, just getting out there and playing the game, though.
• 4:53
  Whether it's business, sports, like- Mm... the best experience is gonna come when you just get, get out on the field.
• 4:59
  Michael, there are so many similarities between running a business of adults and running a team of eight-year-olds. It's unbelievable. Um, and, and, and just the- Almost a little creepy how close it is. It is.
• 5:11
  [laughs] No, it is. Uh, it re- really is. I, I, I'm, I'm... Every week I'm bringing things into our leadership meeting that- [laughs]...
• 5:19
  that I was reminded of in a huddle, and I'm bringing things into the huddle that we talked about in business. And you're saying it differently and you're using different words, and it's...
• 5:28
  But it's some of the sa- teamwork, attitude, and grit. Yeah. Without a doubt. Think about if you had a business that had teamwork, attitude, and grit. Would that be a good business or a bad business?
• 5:37
  Yeah, it'd be a good business, man. [laughs] Yeah. Great business. It's what you need to be a- Wow... definitely what you need to be a lasting business. Sure. That's for sure. You know- Right?...
• 5:44
  I think, uh, uh, a lot of times, I love how you're like, the, when they just play the game, they're at their best. And, and Michael was kinda keying in on this. But if we take that to the business side,
• 5:57
  what I've experienced is, like, we need to get you trained up so perfectly that you can't mess up your next step. Uh-huh. Right? Mm.
• 6:05
  And-It doesn't matter whether you're an eight-year-old playing travel ball or you're playing professional ball or you're just learning business or you've been doing business for a long time, there's something about, like, hitting a foul ball or missing a strike 'cause they threw the perfect curve ball- Yep...
• 6:21
  that you can't...
• 6:24
  Like, that imperfection actually drives a better result on the other side, and I think a lot of times we get that wrong in business, where it's like the, the repercussion for hitting the foul ball or swinging at a ca- at, at what would've been a called ball- Yep...
• 6:41
  is, uh, is basically demonized as, like, the wrong thing- True... to do in business. True. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, i- instead of just going for it and trusting that if you miss, the team's there to support you. Yeah.
• 6:54
  And a big thing in, at, at this age is, you know, sort of backing up each other, right? Every player on, on the diamond, or really on the field, has another place to go to back up the other players.
• 7:05
  So you see this a lot in the outfield, right? You see a fly ball get hit to left center. Did the right center or left fielder back him up, right? Cover. Yeah.
• 7:13
  If you know you have a backup, you're more likely to go for that, maybe make the dive- Go for it... maybe make that extra play. By the way, you make that extra play, that's a game-changing play.
• 7:22
  That could be the difference. That one play could be the difference of winning or losing the baseball game, or winning or losing the tournament. And it was all about understanding, "I've got a backup if I miss this.
• 7:32
  I'm gonna go for it. I know. We've been trained. I know how to set my feet. I know how to set the glove. I'm gonna go make it happen, and I'm gonna go make a play."
• 7:39
  I think that's really a- appropriate when you talked about, like, the willingness to go for it, the understanding that, like, you're, you're not going to always do it- Right... but it's about trying to do it.
• 7:49
  I think the AI conversation, which is very relevant to what you are putting your focus on, a lot of marketers are paying attention to, a- and operations, and there are some people saying, "I'm not going to try because it's new."
• 8:03
  Yeah. And then there are some people saying, like, "I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna make sure I have some backups," and you know what? So, like,
• 8:10
  it just feels very similar to, like, how people are getting into the AI game in the dealership across the board from marketing to operations, et cetera. And what are you seeing?
• 8:20
  Yeah, look, I, I think AI's the big fancy word, so is customer data platform. Before that, digital retailing. I mean, we've had a couple that float around in our industry. Couple few. Yeah. [laughs] Every- Right...
• 8:30
  six to nine months. Yeah, and, and we... But, but i- look, it, um, it's a technology that's definitely here to stay, and it can be a game changer if we lean into it.
• 8:39
  And if you just put the marketing hat on at a dealership, the data that we're able to pull out of the dealer's DMS, the CRM, to drive a more personalized engagement with these consumers, to have a more customer for life relationship with them, understanding that you don't just sell them a car, you also need to service that car.
• 8:58
  Servicing that car well is gonna create a higher trade-in value.
• 9:01
  Higher trade-in value gives you a second at bat, if you will, to earn the second purchase, or third, fourth, fifth, depending on wife, household, kids, parents, community, all of those things.
• 9:13
  And so, um, you know, if we can advance, uh, our industry in our own way with just allowing our technology to be built in a way that can allow less friction in the process, more personalization so that the dealers can do what they've always done best, which is that hyperlocal, extreme personalized, you know, eyeball to eyeball interaction whenever that takes place.
• 9:43
  Even onto the delivery. If you're delivering the car, the transaction happened, let's say, all online and you deliver it to their home, that still has to come with a smile and a handshake. Yeah.
• 9:52
  And so when it does, we've always seen dealers in the dealer environment, and this is why I think the dealer environment in general will always be safe, is they do a really good job of that in their hyperlocal communities, and there's a need there for that.
• 10:05
  And the, the, time and time again in all the surveys, the, the consumers say that they want, you know, a dealer experience that's meaningful.
• 10:13
  And they've also shown that when the dealership takes care of them and takes care of their family, they're gonna bring their business back time and time again. And so- You know- Anyways, go ahead. Well, okay, so I'm...
• 10:27
  I, I haven't, we haven't really had this conversation on this podcast, or, and I don't think it's being had wholesale, is
• 10:35
  over the last couple years, because of, like, the CDP conversation or because of the whose data is it conversation, we've had a lot more ef- in- intentional focus on, on customer lifetime value, lifetime val- uh, like, lifetime customers.
• 10:49
  Um, you know, bringing a customer back, what does it take to do that on the front end in the sales or the service environment, but also in the marketing life cycle, right?
• 10:58
  Bringing that customer back through the flywheel. And I think that what's interesting to me is it's not like we have not been in pursuit of this for a very long time. Mm-hmm. Right? OEMs pay attention to loyalty.
• 11:14
  We started introducing equity mining programs a long time ago. OEMs have been sending mailers and service mailers and, and, and we... As soon as we could get an email, the industry was there.
• 11:26
  Um, uh, I, I'd love for you to talk to, like,
• 11:30
  why you see, you know, integration of, like, CDP or something that extracts the data, normalizes it, resolves the identity, AI built into that, new communication, uh, uh, opportunities, why you see that as the reason why there's just a broader focus on this as an industry, or is it, or is it because we see the, like, disparity in it that we've never been able to hit it?
• 11:55
  Or is it because of the new technology that we now get to focus on it because it's, it's more accessible? I think it's a lot of those things.
• 12:02
  So the customer data platform conversation that's being had across our industry is, is a needed one.We've been in search of, like, a term that we can all use 'cause we were a marketing automation platform.
• 12:13
  We were, you know, like there's been a lot of different sort of naming rights of, of this. But here's what it is at the end of the day. One of our core values, of our six core values at Force, is outcome-focused.
• 12:26
  We always wanna be outcome-focused. So what, what is a dealer group looking for out of th- their search for the right CDP?
• 12:35
  My opinion is that they're looking to deepen their relationships with their customers in a meaningful, personalized way with the very tremendous data, rich first-party data set that they sit on top of, and have historically tried to use, and have had some help to use, but really not done as well of a job as maybe some other categories have done with customer data.
• 13:02
  And there's been a lot of reasons why that might be the case. So one outcome is I want a better relationship with my customer, which will should- Mm... give me a higher loyalty rate, right?
• 13:10
  And as these dealers have gone from five stores to 50 stores in these hyper local markets, and they now represent every brand, when 10 years ago they only represented three or four brands. Mm.
• 13:19
  I now have an option for that customer as they've evolved throughout their own journey in life. And so I wanna be able to offer them that.
• 13:28
  Even though I sold them the Toyota, I wanna remind them that if they're ready for a BMW, guess what?
• 13:32
  In the last 10 years, we've got two BMW stores inside the Atlanta market that we're now under the, you know, ABC family of brands. And so that opportunity is more real. That's another reason. Mm.
• 13:44
  Um, you know, I think, too, and this is something that was really big for me and still is from the beginning of Force Marketing.
• 13:51
  I got to see uniquely through my father's lens in retail automotive running as a general manager for some of the biggest groups in the country, and then obviously his time at AutoNation starting them up.
• 14:01
  What I saw most, most importantly and h- through his lens, um, was he worked really hard in a dealership. His, uh, his, his, uh, schedule was on the door, right? So that's one thing I saw. But here's what I really saw.
• 14:13
  [laughs] They, they... Right? He missed a lot of little league games. We'll talk about that. Yeah, he was not coaching- That's a whole nother... That's a, the-... eight, the 8U [laughs] team. No shot.
• 14:21
  And he talks about, we've talked about that. He's like- I'm sure... "Man, you're putting a lot of time into this." He's like, "I- if you worked auto retail, you, you probably would not be putting as much time in."
• 14:28
  Absolutely. Like, it's just not there. But that's a different topic. Yeah. The amount of ad waste still today, the amount of advertising dollars wasted is still something I'm in search of solving. Staggering.
• 14:40
  It's what I started to solve out 18, 19 years ago when we started, and still to this day we are spending too much money in advertising and marketing, and too much of it's going to waste to get the results that we want at the dealership.
• 14:54
  Now, you all know I make money off some of that spend, so that might feel a little weird coming from me. Right.
• 14:59
  But that's the reality of what we're trying to solve for, is if I have a better relationship with the customers and I'm using the data the right way, which means I'm cleaning the data often.
• 15:10
  Every time we jump into a dealer group that says, "No, my data's cleaner than most", we still see 35% of their data is complete garbage. Mm. Oh, absolutely. Now- None@none.com. And it, and... Right. Right.
• 15:24
  [laughs] Right? And, and, and, like, right, they s- they say training's like bathing, right? You've gotta do it frequently. You can't just train someone once. You can't just bathe once and say, "I'm clean."
• 15:33
  Same thing with the data. You can't just clean it once and say, "I've got clean data," because every day you're buying leads from cars.com and Autotrader.
• 15:40
  Every day, someone's typing in into all of your stores, information, fat fingering, not putting in the in- in- information correctly, whatever the case might be. That's happening every single day.
• 15:53
  W- Then if you don't have a good, you know, advertising, marketing, customer-centric, data-centric company, right? You're gonna pull that data out and start marketing.
• 16:02
  And every channel that you spend money on, you're gonna have some degree of waste. I'm trying to eliminate that as much as possible. That's one of our- Yeah...
• 16:09
  core values, is say, "How can we eliminate ad waste in this space?" I think that is- And by the way, I haven't even gotten into the conversation about the waste of overlap between tier three, tier two, and tier one.
• 16:21
  Oh, boy. So we'll know that- Oh, see, now you're gonna make some people mad there. No, no, I mean, we... Hey, don't. That's the- Don't. [laughs] You gonna make some serious enemies. [laughs] It's so true, though.
• 16:31
  Well, I, I... You know what I love? Is you said outcome-based. You were like, "We're always outcome-based," right? Outcome-focused. And like... Outcome-focused, right?
• 16:42
  And I think a lot of people, their initial reaction to that would be like, "Oh, great. Cool." They care about service and sales, which I'm sure you do, right? Write more ROs, sell more cars, without a doubt.
• 16:54
  But the first thing you said after outcome-focused was the outcome that the dealers want out of this CDP or this, like, this customer lifetime value is not more loyalty, is not more sales, is not more...
• 17:07
  The outcome is better relationship, right? The residual impact of a better relationship with the customer- Is all of those things... is more sales. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yep.
• 17:18
  And I think that's a, that refocusing right there for me is, like, if people could get tuned to that as a refocusing, like- That's always a challenge, though. That's always a challenge- It is. It's tough. It's tough...
• 17:28
  because it's, it's not 30-day thinking. It's not even 90-day thinking, right? Like, we're talking about looking over the horizon and kind of believing something is true.
• 17:37
  I think most people wouldn't know that it's true, not just believe that it's true. Well, you're, you're playing an infinite game, right? Mm-hmm. Where there, there's also gonna be a polar...
• 17:45
  We, we see the polar opposite in this industry.
• 17:47
  I mean, it's one of our missions to kind of eradicate this stigma with a SOTU, is the, the polar opposite opinion is, "Oh, well, that's what vendors say because they can't get you more sales right now," or, "That's what they say because you, your marketing doesn't work," or...
• 18:04
  Do you know what I mean? Like, there's gonna be that polar opposite view where there's- Mm... there's companies that make enemies- Yes. Totally... that way 'cause they think they're the best. Mm-hmm.
• 18:11
  How do you reconcile that to help? Because I, I mean, to, to Paul's point, we, we do need to break out of that 30-day mindset-Because we know customers don't think in thir- "You know what? It's the first day of July.
• 18:24
  I think I will begin-" [laughs] "... my process of purchasing a vehicle. In approximately 45 days, I will come to terms." [laughs] You know? It's like nobody thinks like that. No. How do you reconcile that,
• 18:36
  y- what you know and believe is so right that obviously resonates with us, against an industry where there is that polar opposite point of view that pushes against it?
• 18:46
  It's a good question, and it is a work in progress constantly. Um, the, the, the best way... Look, we've built... W- we've, we've got great data partners.
• 18:54
  We've built pretty good technology, and we continue to build great technology.
• 18:58
  But at the end of the day, the lever pullers that we have on our team to help the dealer and the dealer's team is some of how we showcase that relationship and then hope that it waterfalls down, and that they see that what we said in the pitch actually matches all the way through.
• 19:14
  And so it's sort of that constantly reminding them that, yes, we're gonna have a strategy to get sales and service today, and that will meet the needs of the service director and the general manager of the dealership.
• 19:27
  But Mr. Dealer Partner, Mr., you know, Publicly Traded, we wanna move the stock over a period of time, not just this quarter. Mm.
• 19:37
  And that's gonna take a different approach, where we're gonna have to segment this out, and we've gotta remind our, our consumers of our brand and why it's important to do business with us, and why it helps them in terms of unique selling propositions that a big group might have over a smaller group.
• 19:54
  Look, the little dealers know it, right? If you've got five stores, you have- Yeah... you've done one of two things in the last three years. You've raised capital to go get 15 stores, or you've sold. Yep. That's it.
• 20:07
  That's right. That's it. Or, or, or you've lost out on a big bunch of cash if you didn't sell on exit. [laughs] Yeah, right?
• 20:14
  And, and you just want that le- But, but will you really be able to help the community the way that you once were across a very dynamic, you know, um, marketplace? I- Mm-hmm.
• 20:27
  It's gonna be very difficult with, you know- Agreed... it's very, very difficult. And, and so I think as these groups get bigger, and you've seen that s- yeah, certainly the big seven have gotten big.
• 20:37
  But what's really, I, I think, interesting are the 15 and 20 store groups that are now 50, 60 store groups, and there's a lot of them. Yeah. There's a lot of them out there.
• 20:45
  This is the, like, great, what do, what do you call it? The great consolidation. Yeah. What, the industry's becoming a- Yeah... matryoshka doll, where- And, and all of- Which doll?
• 20:57
  'Cause there's a smaller doll inside- Yeah, yeah... a smaller doll. Matryoshka dolls. Right. And the economies of scale that come with that, 'cause right now it's been roll up, roll up, roll up. Go, go, go- Mm-hmm...
• 21:06
  go, go, go, right? Mm-hmm. But I think the next layer of that is, okay, who are my real partners where I can leverage this data set that I now sit on? It was once 15 stores. Now it's 50.
• 21:16
  And I can leverage the efficiencies of running that operation with a better connected customer relationship, and let me give you one example of that. You buy a Toyota. That dealer also has a BMW dealership.
• 21:30
  You're, the Toyota guy wants you to trade that Toyota in to the Toyota dealership. The BMW guy might reach out to you because of your shopping behavior and say that, "Oh, you're interested in a BMW? Come over here."
• 21:43
  But those two stores that are owned by the same person are not connected, right? So the BMW guy- Yeah...
• 21:49
  if he does a good job, is gonna earn your business, 'cause you want the BMW, and I've got the BMW for you, and I'm the only one that can sell it. Toyota can't sell you a new BMW. I'm gonna take your trade in.
• 21:58
  I'm gonna give you a good value on it. The Toyota guy wants that trade in. Are we pushing that over to the Toyota guy, or are we wholesaling- Right... it to auction? That Toyota guy- No...
• 22:07
  goes and buys that same car at auction. [laughs] Right. For sure, yeah.
• 22:12
  When we figure, when we figure out examples like that, and there are many of them, on how data can be powerful to drive efficiencies in a dealer group, watch out. Oh, it'll be- And that's just in a hyper-local market.
• 22:25
  I'm not even- Yeah... going outside yet. I'm not even saying, "Oh, well, oh, you're 500 miles away? No, no problem. We'll trailer the car to you. We'll pick the car up. We'll digital retail it all. No big deal.
• 22:33
  You never have to come in." I'm not even going there yet. I'm just staying in a hyper-local market. There's efficiencies to be had, and we can, we can double down on them right now.
• 22:41
  And I think as these groups start to build or continue to build up, I think the next phase is gonna be, "Who can really help me drive efficiencies in the business?"
• 22:51
  And those that understand data, data segmentation, how to really have a conversation, not just on the marketing side, but in general, th- they stand to win in a big way.
• 23:00
  And look, we're out to figure out where we play in that space. Man. Awesome. We have covered some territory today. Yeah. Coaching. We went all the way through it. We went all the way through it.
• 23:10
  John, man, this has been so much fun, and we'd love to pick your brain more in the future. But for now, thanks so much for joining us here on Auto Collabs. Man, thanks for having me. Great.
• 23:19
  I, I mean, I just wanna make sure I, I share some gratitude. What you guys are doing for the industry, you've heard this time and time again, and I was at a SoDeCon, so I heard it too with my own ears.
• 23:28
  Um, it's different, and, uh, we love it. And, uh, keep doing what you're doing, and we'll keep supporting. Thank you. Oh, man. Now we're blushing. Thank you. Thanks, John.
• 23:42
  You know what I was thinking about during that episode? That's- Precious things. You don't spend nearly as much time with your kids after work as John does. [laughs] Yes. Oh, man, yes.
• 23:52
  Um, I was thinking about, so he brought up AI, right? We, we talked a little bit about it. And what I, what I thought was so interesting is this is like that once in every, I don't know,
• 24:05
  I'm just gonna say 50 years as a placeholder- Okay... where a technology as a broad stroke has leveled the playing field in every industry. Yeah, it was like the internet 50 years ago.
• 24:19
  [laughs] Every single oneEveryone- When I, when I ask someone whether or not they've used GPT and they tell me no, my mind is literally blown. I'm like, "I'm about to seem like I'm from the future.
• 24:29
  Come over here and let me show you this," right? [laughs] Watch, watch, watch me work. Yeah. But, but i- it's that one rare moment where all companies are developing it, right?
• 24:38
  Like, I was even in Slack earlier and it's like, "Want to try Slack AI?" Right. [laughs] Every company is developing something with it- Yeah... and we all simultaneously have no clue what we're doing. Yep. Right.
• 24:48
  Which is the be- It's so interesting... I mean, this is where the people that are willing to get it wrong, like, win. Back to, yeah. Yeah. Right? How do you learn? You got, like, well, i- who said it?
• 24:58
  You hit foul balls and swing at balls that should- That's right... that w- would've been called balls. I can't remember who said it. B- But B- he said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first." Hmm. Right?
• 25:07
  And that is like, yes, AI, [laughs] right, for everybody. B.
• 25:12
  The, yesterday, or not yesterday, last week, we were, uh, my wife was working in the garden, I was working outside, and she was like, "Ah, I've never seen a spider like this before," right?
• 25:21
  So I went over, I was like, "Watch this." I took a picture with GPT. I was like, "Is this spider poisonous? I'm in Syracuse, New York." And it gave her the whole thing, and she was like [gasps], "It can do that?"
• 25:31
  I was like, "Oh, yeah." [laughs] Oh, yeah. It's amazing. It's so good.
• 25:34
  That's ab- There's so m- there's so much opportunity with that, and I think that, like, I was trying to just talk through, like, the parallel between,
• 25:43
  you know, our desire as an industry and the net new technology that we have at our fingertips is gonna bring us closer to... W- and I love that his outcome was a better relationship with a customer. There you go.
• 25:55
  Because isn't that the actual- Yeah... actual goal? That is timeless, right? That is timeless, will never be replaced by technology.
• 26:01
  What are the, like, you, you ask the best salespeople in the whole country, the people that are selling the most cars, the ones that have done it the longest, what do they have?
• 26:09
  They have incredible relationship with their customers. A- and all of the outcomes that c- that flow out of that, they never even have to worry about. So- Bring us home... we should be after that as an industry.
• 26:18
  Hey, if you're on Excited Today, if you aren't, you know, if, if you've never coached a Little League team- [laughs]... if you never sat on the sideline of Little League- [laughs]...
• 26:29
  you might've wa- you might want to check it out, 'cause you got a lo- you got a lot to learn about business and that. Hey, on behalf of myself, Paul Jay Daly, and Michael Cirillo, thanks for joining us on Auto Collapse.
• 26:41
  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.
• 26:54
  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.
• 27:01
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collapse. Welcome to Auto Collapse. [laughs] Why are we recording? Are we rolling yet?
• 27:19
  Not yet.