We open todays show with this epic LinkedIn post from yesterday, we talk about Toyota opening up beyond full throttle in January with inventory, and jam with Brian Kramer on Phone Call Friday about Starbucks, Unions, and Customer Experience.
Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier
Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/
JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/
Read our most recent email at: https://www.asotu.com/media/push-back-email
We open todays show with this epic LinkedIn post from yesterday, we talk about Toyota opening up beyond full throttle in January with inventory, and jam with Brian Kramer on Phone Call Friday about Starbucks, Unions, and Customer Experience.
Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier
Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/
JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/
Read our most recent email at: https://www.asotu.com/media/push-back-email
Paul Daly 0:01
Friday, December 17. We're coming out you're hot today lasted for the live stream. We're going to talk about that going to talk about some stairsteps. Talk about rivian. And a couple more things that we can fit in.
Unknown Speaker 0:13
If you go to the people who really want to know who is and who Id they started. Today, repeat one upon me what's
Paul Daly 0:23
your halftime with the bounce. If you want big deep bounces and settle i In short bounces, you can do deep bounces. We're not going to judge you do the kind of bounce that feels right on a Friday afternoon. I'm going to read something's very important. Pay attention. Here it is. When I heard there was going to be an automotive year and extravaganza, I couldn't contain myself. And then I found out that Paul J. Daly and Kyle mounts here would be hosting the event. As I was jumping up and down uncontrollably. I couldn't stop shouting. Paul and Kyle are coming.
Kyle Mountsier 0:55
Oh my God,
Paul Daly 0:56
I know them. I know them. I'm still having a tough time getting away from saying the word extravaganza. Because it's almost as fun to say as friend Cisco. Just like the holiday shopping at 819 at shopping malls and inflatable Godzilla is at car dealerships. All this one must come to an end. The anticipation will soon be over on the live streaming event with Eric and Tiffany wells and Carrie wise and myself begins on Monday, December 20 at 12 noon, Eastern. Click on the following link to register. It's worth the applause that is the LinkedIn post that Brian Kramer made yesterday. I'll tell you what,
Kyle Mountsier 1:35
yes. It's just came out swinging in. I mean, that was like some people I guarantee that was like that was on the tip of his tongue for days. He was like, I cannot wait to drop this. It's you know,
Paul Daly 1:50
oh my gosh. Why didn't we think that we should call him right now?
Kyle Mountsier 1:54
Oh, it's phone call Friday phone call
Paul Daly 1:56
Friday has been having a little bit of trouble lately. What we're gonna do is we are going to dial him up and just see if we can get him on the phone. I don't know if it's gonna work. But you know, Friday, he's busy. It's holidays. Morning. How are you going? Oh, except for Brian Craver picked up Brian, you're on the podcast with Kyle and I wasn't the first choice obvious. No, you were settlement? Well, you will hear? No, it's beyond that. You're gonna feel bad. You're gonna owe us a nice gift after that when you hear the podcast today, because we just got done giving you all kinds of prompts by reading your LinkedIn posts from yesterday. And I was like, we're calling Brian today. That was maybe
Brian Kramer 2:32
that was I was thinking of both of you when I wrote that. You know,
Paul Daly 2:36
I hope so. You know, I was as I read it, I was just picturing you dress like Buddy the Elf.
Brian Kramer 2:41
Right? Do you have my hands to my cheeks going?
Paul Daly 2:45
I know him.
Kyle Mountsier 2:47
Now we fully expect you to be dressed like on a Monday.
Brian Kramer 2:52
You know, spandex is not a
Paul Daly 2:54
good look for me. Yeah, I can see but of the elfin your your body tight not really working out together. It's not it's not a good look. Oh, well, thank you so much for making us all smile.
Brian Kramer 3:06
I was just actually on the other other line on David Long's. So he'll hear this. On David Long's clubhouse used car group.
Paul Daly 3:13
Oh, yes. All things use cars. Right. But like when you you guys
Brian Kramer 3:17
call, it's like a, you know, like Anchorman. You don't know when they're blown that Ricola? Horn. Assemble.
Kyle Mountsier 3:27
Right, exactly.
Paul Daly 3:31
Oh, man, too much too much. Let's do this real quick. What's what's your big takeaway from this week? Just thinking about what you've accomplished, or what you've been focusing on?
Brian Kramer 3:43
Focusing on service and digging into it in a massive way. I was actually just over what? Well, a couple things I was I was doing with Toyota and Deerfield Beach, ICT and they just came out with Toyota was going to be producing 800,000 vehicles in January, which is an all like, beyond an all time record. What which is? Yeah,
Paul Daly 4:05
like all time record, pre COVID production. Yeah. Anytime. Oh, my gosh. That's unbelievable.
Brian Kramer 4:13
Yeah, so they're at full throttle. And the thing is, is that there's it's been trickling in, you know, but yeah, they're going to be over maximum capacity in January.
Paul Daly 4:24
No kidding. No kidding. That's good. I mean, I expected that the, you know, the temporary groceries around it. Oh, they did? Oh, we're gonna include that in this week's pushback email. For sure. That's amazing. I mean, you were saying you were saying like a month or two ago that you were feeling confident that you were going to get back, but it sounds like this was even faster than you thought.
Brian Kramer 4:47
Well, so it came back but it was coming back a little it was coming as better, you know, like, normal about 350 cars for us this month. You know, it's gonna be probably just under 200 or 300. So That's not that far off. But hold on. Let's see how Starbucks handles mine. I've got a mobile order for Brian.
Paul Daly 5:13
Oh man, Starbucks is on the podcast right now. And they don't even know it. I don't even know if you ask them if they're interested in unionizing while you're there.
Brian Kramer 5:22
That's it. Just a straw. Thank you. That's a that even that makes? Not many things make me feel uncomfortable except for carnies a nuclear war, but that makes me feel uncomfortable. What does that question about unionizing?
Paul Daly 5:39
Well, I guess the real question is this. You just had a, like an instant experience at the window. Right? You're like, I have my mobile order. She asked a great question, to clarify it, and then just hand your beverage, you're already back on the road. Now, the question is Rogers, do you think that that would have been a better experience if you were working with a unionized employee?
Brian Kramer 6:01
I don't. Yeah, but I can't judge like that.
Paul Daly 6:04
No, but you can't, but in that in that store, they're obviously doing a good job. Right. Employee Corp, you had a good experience. Right. That might not be the case for the buffalo store. You know, that was the first one to unionize. Right? Because you don't know what's going on under the hood.
Brian Kramer 6:22
I had a dealership tried to unionize on me in the past. I'm very familiar with. Yeah, that. Yeah. Actually two dealerships? I came in on both of them as they were in the middle of a petition.
Paul Daly 6:33
You mean it wasn't right after you started? Right before? There's a common denominator.
Brian Kramer 6:43
One of them was the second day, but I didn't even know what service was back, then. I got you. So yeah, I found out real quick.
Paul Daly 6:51
I grew up in I grew up in a union home. My dad was a union phone installer for Bell Atlantic, which is now Verizon. And I will say this, from an observation standpoint, I have rarely had a great experience from a union organization. Because I think it's tough because everyone, like you said, judging that way, because leadership's are different in but it's very difficult to have a great customer experience, I think, in an environment where there's built in contention. And I think that that's when a business can
Brian Kramer 7:21
layer between zoar where you can't directly talk to your people. Oh, for sure. It's an unnecessary friction.
Paul Daly 7:27
Absolutely. And it's like I remember my like Bell Atlantic wanting to buy winter gear. Focus was Philadelphia wanting to buy winter gear for other technicians, and the union's like, don't take it. My dad's like, I'd really like some good winter gear, like don't take anything from them. Right. It's like, it's just an awkward situation. And you know, if you think about it, the union, they only survive as long as there's friction, and contention. So there's really a vested interest to not ever reach full resolve all the way. We digress a little bit, but but there used
Brian Kramer 7:59
to be a need for it. There's absolutely now with that. What happens is you don't think you're you people, a customer puts you out of business after the worry about it.
Paul Daly 8:07
Absolutely. Right. Yeah. And not to mention that we have OSHA, Department of Labor, we have customer experience. And it's I mean, it's a it's a employees market right now, too, right? There's, there's somewhere else to go if they don't like it. Oh, yeah. So I'll tell
Brian Kramer 8:21
you, I'm actually reading the Starbucks book, a good buddy of mine, Doug Barnett, used to run our NASCAR team. The GEICO aspect of it, he sent me this book by Howard Bay are called, it's not about it's not about the coffee, is I'm going through this experience, you know, as we speak, and there's so many good takeaways from it. Just one, thank you. Take about five seconds. Yep.
Kyle Mountsier 8:50
This is your morning with Ryan.
Paul Daly 8:52
I love it. This is amazing. This is amazing.
Brian Kramer 8:55
There was just a retail experience. But here's the here's the amazing part of this book, right? He was saying because you can't shove things down people's throat, and you can't dictate to them how they're going to do their job. And when you when you did pay out to them how they're going to do their job. What you do with talented people is you remove their dignity as your you put a cap on their ability to innovate. And he said and quite frankly, you know, when you're an executive or upper level management, C suite, whatever, you're not the best person to make that decision. He said, You know, our purchasing department, which is in charge of buying the brooms, they're not the best people to buy the brooms. The person that's sweeping the floor is because in different parts up there, you guys are going to have more salt and, and different things that we're going to have down here with palm fronds and whatever. But they said the person who's sweeping the floor should be the one that's that's selecting the broom. I love that. They should pick whatever they want, but there should be two or three choices but they should have the decision making ability. They know better and they'll have more buy in when they have it
Kyle Mountsier 10:01
Bryan, could we could we extend that example into the person that's selling the car should be able to select the tool? Oh, okay, madam. Again, madam.
Brian Kramer 10:13
So I'll tell you this, I know that I'm less experienced by backgrounds and variable, not as much service, right? So as I'm going through this digital transformation service, which is my whole 2022, it's, I couldn't be more excited about it. But I don't know as much about it, right. So if you think about like Tesla and Carvana dream, they didn't know as much about the car business as somebody in the car business. And I actually now looking at service, I think it's actually a benefit. Because not knowing so much allows me to ask more questions. So why do you do this? And why do you do that? And why does that? And then there's a saying that I need my own employees that I've worked with for years are going, it doesn't make more sense, does it? Because never had anybody asked me that question. Or why is it that we have to log in the tech stack and service is worse than the tech stack? And variable? is crazy as that? Yeah. And it's so I mean, there's no CRM, the we're right now connecting Twilio and car wars into our digital retail tool, which and everything I'm going through on this, just like in sales, you're the only one in the country that's asking for this. Nobody else has even expressed interest or said that this is even a need. And we need to set all this dead work up to build this around you and kill ya was on the Connie goes? Absolutely. Because everybody just doesn't know yet. There's not even a debate. And then once you show them what this is, everybody's gonna want it. But like, like, for instance, you guys will appreciate this more anybody? Ga tracking events, like in the Dr. tool, but in a service. Dr. Tool? Yes. And you know, so long. There's no real scoreboard. I mean, there's some with reverse risk and keeps roams Corporation, all that stuff. But there's no way to track the event, tag marketing in service. Did they drop off at the decline labor on where they, I'll tell you where they're dropping off on ours, because I can at least see that. Right? It's scheduling the service appointment. But you want to have a reality check. Everybody goes out trying to buy a car on your website, try to schedule a service and try to buy tires, right? Yeah. I listen to phone calls the other night. And I'm listening to these calls. I'm like, oh my god, this is just like appraisals. As I'm listening to it. Hey, you know, I'm calling about this. mailer, email, blast. All the stuff that I spent all this money on, just by, you know, by three tires get one free. Hey, you know, I mean, it's blowing up on the phone. I mean, one after another after another. And some of them go to the BDC. Some of them going parts department. Yeah, I want to buy tires. Can you connect me with tires? In other parts of our park garden? can pre shop tires, but I can't print out labor to install? What? Yeah, yeah. When can you come in?
Paul Daly 13:11
Right. And I'm not. I'm not used to paying for those things separately. Right? Oh, no, they
Brian Kramer 13:15
call the service advisor. Hey, I've got a you know, whatever. 2019 Islander, you know, what size? What's the diameter your wheels? Um, what is that? What is that? How do I find that? Yeah, well, it's on the sidewall of your tire. Huh? Yeah. When they go, you know, What, When can you come in? It's just to be a lot easier. But I live 20 minutes where the tires are in stock. Well figure that when you get it? Yeah. All right. Well, thinking better, more face to face.
Paul Daly 13:41
No kidding. We have a we have a few minutes left here to talk about one more thing that I think ties to what we were talking about in customer experience. Yesterday, Kyle and I were talking about the real winner loss is the customer perception of the industry in the retail auto dealer network. And we're looking at an article in automotive news from last week where Paul Walzer who's going to be our very first guest on our year and extravaganza on Monday, keep right call it it was so great that we got him. I mean, it wouldn't be an asoto livestream if we didn't have the chairman of the NDA kicking us off. So basically, he was talking about one of the things that he thought was a great benefit from the disruption, the supply chain disruption, was he thinks there's a reasonable chance that you know, stair step programs are going to go away. And we're talking about how that actually affects the customer or the perception. It's because, you know, they go in one dealer and he says, I'm selling this for you for what I bought it for, and they're like, Okay, and then they go down the street, and a dealer sells the car for $5,000 less than that, because they're trying to get their incentive. And now, you know, the consumers just like I knew it dealers are liars. Right, but they're telling the truth. So you know, what you brought up with the Toyota thing. Coming back to inventory coming back to a world where there is inventory, the thought that we might actually have an opportunity to get rid of incentive programs that didn't do right for the dealer or the customer.
Brian Kramer 15:02
So I've been thinking about that a lot. Go ahead, and it was you sourcing these cars coming down the pipe. And I think that I think that it comes back to branding and marketing. And now that I, I look, because I'm looking at it now through a different lens through our service department, where we still add, we still advertise specials, we still advertise price, we still advertise discounts. We do all these different things, right. And they're all about price. And then the customers come in and they're all about price, not just listen, the salesman is less than the service department and blowing my mind. I always reflect back, did we create this? I think we did, by this way of advertising to where I don't know that this, their steps and all that. So I say like this. We had a couple appraisals. In the last 30 days, we're like, hey, you know what? I think we can take this one in for less this person doesn't know what it's worth, they've been online. And you know, Wendell Hardy, or GSM is like, No, we're just whatever it's worth it's worth. We're not keeping it simple, fast and easy for our associates. And for the customers. Yeah, but we don't have to give them as much to the trade. And it's really a dichotomy. You know, it's like, do you want to give money away? Do you, you know, you're still a for profit. It's not like you're a charitable organization. But the overarching theme pony more trades, you win that you don't even realize, you know, are we have 76% of our sold vehicles that trades now. Whereas there's one point we have done a 48 to 52% didn't know why, right. And some people were just on the sidelines, some people sold in the Carvana, Carmax. Some people did what I don't know what they did, but I know that we got a lot less of them. And I and I think that this is the exact same thing, we don't ever scramble, at the end of the month, our end of the month closes are like a trot across the finish line. They used to be, you know, a little pack Lego Jima,
Paul Daly 16:57
rice, rice,
Brian Kramer 16:59
you know, it was like, you know, forward, if you felt a bell for the last five days, Red Bulls, nobody gets left. I mean, it was like a ritualistic, you know, blood on your face type experience, and their body was exhausted for a week. And then you wonder why we're gonna get burned on this business. But now it's so much more consistent and steady. But I don't think it's because of the production. I think that that doing it in branding, to where you're not talking about that drives the right behavior of the salespeople, because they know what's most important, the customers aren't coming in with all these bullets to shoot at them that you've loaded into their gun. And, but so I think that the dealers that like, you know, the ones that you're always with, and talking about, and the ones that you help branding, are going to be the winners in this. And I think that the ones that still keep advertising price, it doesn't matter how many cars they have, they're still going to deal with the struggle, and they're gonna go okay, we're off pace. What, what used to happen as owner, can you call the rental car company and see if they'll take 10 cars? Well, if we just did what Carvanha does, and Carfax we would already be at the number. Now maybe we would have missed two grand here or one grand there but how much does it cost when you have to react the macro?
Kyle Mountsier 18:18
Right? I think that that's I think that that's the that's the big thing and we're running out of time Brian, but I want to close us with that. Is that is that is that we are so concerned about what's happening today that we forget about what could happen tomorrow five years in the future. And the reality is, is that if we consistently look at the whole picture, both including today and and and tomorrow, and step back from the customer experience, ask ask what's really happening then what we're going to do is progress quicker and quicker and quicker. And we're going to retain loyalty and all of that together.
Brian Kramer 18:55
Let me say one last thing you got something good said that he won't tolerate is paying overpaying for the past and not investing in the future. Specifically when it comes to people in media.
Paul Daly 19:10
Oh well there you have it. We got a little couple bonus minutes for Brian Kramer this morning. Register at dealers pushing back calm for the live stream. Brian Kramer is gonna be dressed as Buddy the Elf and we're gonna show up fire.
Unknown Speaker 19:25
The people really cool, isn't it? They stopped this deal when they see me. No need to repeat run up on me watch for to tip my hat.