The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

Black Friday Tips and Tactics with Zac Kinch

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As we’re all still digesting the fun, excitement and food from yesterday, Black Friday kicks the holiday shopping season into full swing. Today, Zac Kinch, GM of Bob Rohrman Toyota in Lafayette, Indiana, co-hosts the show to share how he keeps his team engaged on holidays and how they’ve created unique marketing strategies to get customers in the door, starting with a $99 car deal.

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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Paul J Daly:

All right, we've made it Black Friday, November 29 I am joined today by the one and only Zach Kyle of Toyota Roman, Toyota Lafayette, Indiana, to tell us his strategy around Black Friday holidays and selling cars for $99 the people really want to know. I think everyone did you say?

Zac Kinch:

I had to look twice. I thought Kyle was gonna be on the other half of the screen. I

Paul J Daly:

don't know what Kyle's doing today, actually. Oh, I know he is. He's doing, oh, he is on his way to some basketball game, college basketball game with his family. And

Zac Kinch:

it serves it good for him, right?

Paul J Daly:

It was this whole thing where his, like, somebody in his family was playing the trip, and they were like, oh, and he can drive and meet us there, and then we'll all drive. And it involved like, five hours of driving, and his wife was like, no, no, Kyle's gonna want to fly. I know, man, we've made it Black Friday. You all just seem to lean in to holidays and sales and fun in a way that not everybody does. So I thought it'd be cool for you to share a little bit of your Black Friday strategy and your holiday strategy in general, and how you, like, get your team ready, and how you measure, like, whether people or whether or not ready to buy a car or do anything. So just what's historically Black Friday been? What's been your approach? Yeah,

Zac Kinch:

I mean, I mean, the biggest thing is, we're here on the holidays. Like, your family's at home, retail, yeah, your kids are out of school. So like, how do you get people fired up to want to be here? And that's kind of where it shifted for me, was like, man, we got to do something different. We got to get people excited. So we leaned in this on Black Friday a couple years ago, doing a $99 car, where we actually sell it retail for $99 and everybody's like, how do you do it? How do you afford a $99 I'm like, listen, I spend 1000s of dollars on marketing campaigns that just get thrown out the window because, like, 50% of our data is already bad. So I'm like, why don't we just reallocate funds? Get people fired up on something, get sales people easy deals. They make money. Get their team fired up. The sales managers, finance hates us. No disclaimer to them on Black Friday, the rest of it, man, it's a vibe, and that leads into the month of December. So that's massive for us to try to make the holiday selling season fun, and that's what the car business should be about.

Paul J Daly:

I think especially true this year, because Thanksgiving just came so late, right? So here we are at the 29th right now. We're gonna be followed by a Saturday good and it's done, and then the new month. Are you all open on Sundays? Or is everyone closed on Sunday

Zac Kinch:

Indiana? Indiana is closed, thankfully for that. But yeah, we've talked a lot about it with our team, like getting them hyped up this morning, being like, Listen, this is your month when Black Friday is over. Whatever you kind of you use up today, it could be what you don't have tomorrow. So make sure today you're serious about it. You got your attitudes locked in. I know you're still full. I know you probably had a couple naps yesterday watching football, but it's time to go. Yeah.

Paul J Daly:

Well, tell me. Tell me, what's the $99 car this year?

Zac Kinch:

It's, it's actually a sick vehicle. It's a 2003 Toyota rav4 with like, 170,000 miles, but it comes with alloy wheels. We've been making the joke that for $99 we don't just sell you four tires. We give you a fifth one on the back, because it's the big up. And the individual that we got, it was a trade in. They actually just put four new tires on it. So we're like, Man, this isn't a good sign where the tires are worth more than what we're

Paul J Daly:

selling the car for, even with 170,000 miles on it. So what is the criteria like? How do people take a shot at the $99 vehicle, first

Zac Kinch:

come first serve, baby. So the guy who's been in line that was able to receive everything has been here since Tuesday last week, not this week on Thanksgiving. So he has been sleeping out. He got out of his tent on Friday, and we're like, Oh no, he's leaving. He's had an or on Thursday, he's leaving. He's had enough. He's packing everything up. We were watching him on cameras, and one of the guys who's working with us, uh, text him and said, what's going on? Are you okay? Do we need to bring you somebody's like, just cleaning I'm like, man, never would you think you want to clean your tent up make sure everything's perfect for you. Just worn out.

Paul J Daly:

That's amazing. So first come, first serve. It gives you the opportunity. How do you market and advertise around this?

Zac Kinch:

I mean, man, it's all social. That's the part that's crazy is we did this. 2023 was where it really blew up. And we did it. And we had people calling in from, like, Tulsa, Oklahoma, like, Hey, do we come up here? And Pennsylvania and Arkansas? And then we had a guy in 2023 fly in from Utah. So flew in from Utah to buy a vehicle to drive it all the way back. And, you know, our whole thing was like, man, what's this going to look like? The cars are sold as is that kind of stuff for the price of them. And truly, the individual who's in line that that's getting the $99 car, he bought a car last year. He's put 25,000 miles on it and still drives it today. So that's what justified him to come and spend all this time in line. Was like, I can't replace that

Paul J Daly:

vehicle. Best Week. That's the big highest ROI week I have. Yeah, right. So it's a big one

Zac Kinch:

for that. It's definitely four. Definitely fun to have all the people lined up. I love you'll see more social from us dropping tomorrow. You'll see more social now that we can recoup after Black Friday and get ourselves people rested going into Saturday. But like you'll see the lineup, you'll see our staff fired up to help these people. I mean, it's a fun day to be in the cars business. It's kind of reminds you of. Like, all the movies you see a black Friday where they're like, trampling people to get in the Walmart to get you've recreated that poison stuff, yeah. And it's like, that's what we create here to get that vibe going. I

Paul J Daly:

feel like we Kyle and I were talking about this yesterday. I feel like that vibe is kind of coming back a little bit this year. It feels like that, that Black Friday push the holiday shopping in person has been really trashed since COVID, and it's never really come back. But for some reason, just the energy and the traction and the holiday spirit feels a little different this time around. Is it the same way for you, or is it just us here?

Zac Kinch:

Yeah, I think, you know, we were talking a lot about this, because there's so many Black Friday sales with businesses like you're referencing. I think it's that that pin up energy, that couped up, energy that, you know, you take three years off of not doing anything. Yeah, Cyber Monday has been the new thing. You know, it's replaced Black Friday, yep. But, I mean, the big thing for us is just that vibe that people want to go and do something like this. They want to stay in line like we asked the the gentleman, like, Why have you been out here the whole time? He's like, I mean, when can you ever say you've done this? And I'm like, well, I'll never say I've done this. I'm not going to do this. But kudos to you for feeling like you've done it, like the other individuals that showed up overnight, that you know were second, third, fourth, fifth, in line, like they were there to get these cars. So the moment the door opens, it's a rush of 20 people to get in. What car do you want? And how many cars there's, uh, 27 cars. And the the printers are on about fire alert right now, waiting to get a little

Paul J Daly:

warm. 27 $99 cars. No,

Zac Kinch:

there's 290 $9 cars, but the rest are all discount, all under, like five grand. So 499-799-1199, $1,000 1299, so literally, these people will camp out right after Thanksgiving. Is what always is. I cannot wait to see the social content, yeah, the socials, insanely, the salespeople feel like Greek gods because they're like, we sold four cars today. It's like, wait a minute, we kind of gave away four cars today. He's like, Well, yeah,

Unknown:

let's talk about this.

Zac Kinch:

They're 20 deals in right now, and I haven't seen any of them really come out with a smile. So,

Paul J Daly:

so what is going into the last the last leg of the year, right? We're heading into December. Inventories, definitely back, in a way, it wasn't last year. How are you feeling about December, and where are you putting all of your focus? Like, the progress you feel like you can make in December, as opposed to December in years past?

Zac Kinch:

Yeah, honestly, it's that growth for 2025 like, you know, we've always talked about December being the great end of the year. The business is coming in those last deals to kind of get the tax savings, you know, customers that have put it off, the families that want the Christmas gift that are coming into, you know, travel to see family and want to have the new car. But really, for us, it's like, how do we set up 2025 because 2025 is going to be a year of, like, no excuses. And we talk a lot about true you know, tough times make great dealers. Great times make bad dealers. And it's been tough, and it's now time to take all these strategies we've had time to implement with, you know, leaner staffing, leaner inventories, and make sure that we're geared up, ready to roll. So December really is that first month to put all of your work in place to say, hey, the off season's over. Let's prep it and roll. And I think there's a lot of dealers. I'm in Indiana, so the Midwest has still the brutal winter coming. We're not there yet. It'll

Paul J Daly:

be pretty nice, right? I think a lot of the this part of the country, well, I'm in Syracuse, so we're kind of on the same was it longitude is like, No,

Zac Kinch:

you guys are much worse. You guys get that lake effect. We get just like, a little dip out of Chicago. You guys get that brutal wake up and it's like 18 inches of snow, and it's nothing that's easy for you

Paul J Daly:

guys. It does happen that way. It's been so nice, though, I gotta say it's been like in the 50s and 60s. So, yeah,

Zac Kinch:

you can't complain that. We'll

Paul J Daly:

see if it actually drops or not this year. Um, tell me, what are you most excited for personally in the holidays? What's your what's your typical routine over Christmas and New Year's, things like that.

Zac Kinch:

I got three kids under eight, so you can imagine this for me, right? So brutal. Love it again. My favorite part of it is we stopped doing some of the Christmas to put in family trip. So always in the first weeks after January, month closes, year closes, everything kind of settles down. My family disappears, and that's my favorite time of the year, because it's just my family. There's no excuses around why we're on our phones. We make sure we go away to spot where there's no reason to pick up the phone. And I tell my staff, like, hey, it's too early in the year. I can't be called for anything. You can't set the building on fire. If so, hopefully it's snowy and it goes out like I'm off the radar. And I love that time. So blessed to have a family that wants to get away still with me and prioritizes

Paul J Daly:

that every year amazing. Well, let me just thank you, Zach, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for helping everybody. Thanks for leading the way with showing people you can bring the energy and the fun still be very successful. Have a great, great December, and I will talk to you soon. See ya.

People on this episode

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Kyle Mountsier

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Paul J Daly

Host