The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

Remembering The Alpha Dawg, Carvana Goes Franchise, Paul Buys An EV

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As we greet the first full week of March, we’re live from Charlotte, North Carolina with good friend Todd Caputo. Today, we pause and remember titan sales trainer Jim Ziegler, who helped thousands of dealerships during his 48 years in the industry. Plus, we cover Carvana’s acquisition of a CJDR store in Arizona and what it might mean in the future.


Show Notes with links:

  • Sad news this morning: Jim Ziegler, the larger-than-life trainer and industry icon, has passed away after a battle with brain cancer. Known as the “Alpha Dawg,” Ziegler spent decades shaping dealership floors into profit machines with his no-nonsense style and razor-sharp insights.
    • His family shared the news on Facebook saying: “Jim passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by his beloved Debbie and family. ”
    • With a career spanning 48 years, Jim turned green salespeople into closers and taught GMs how to hustle smarter. His seminars were part revival, part boot camp—equal parts inspiration and tough love.
    • He pioneered training that blended old-school grit with new-school tech, pushing dealerships to adapt to the digital age while keeping the art of the deal alive. His company, Ziegler SuperSystems, was his proving ground.
    • Love him or hate him, you couldn’t ignore him. Jim’s brash voice—online and IRL—called out BS in the industry, from shady F&I tactics to lazy management. His X posts were a masterclass in stirring the pot, and he never shied from a fight.
    • Thousands of auto pros owe their paychecks to Ziegler’s wisdom. The “Alpha Dawg” may be gone, but his playbook’s still in the glovebox of every dealership worth its salt.
    • Remember him today—then get back to work. He’d hate us slacking
    • From the family’s post: “Jim may no longer be with us, but his influence, his lessons, and his impact will never leave us. His voice may be quiet now, but his words will be carried forward by the countless people whose lives he touched.”


  • Carvana has taken a bold step into the new-vehicle market by acquiring Jerry Seiner Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram in Casa Grande, Arizona. This is a major shift for the online retailer, which has historically focused exclusively on used cars since its founding in 2013.
    • Carvana plans to reopen the store on March 3, retaining all 41 employees.
    • The move is described as a "small test" by Carvana, which stated: "We don’t expect it to have any noticeable impact to our results for the foreseeable future.”
    • This experiment follows a path previously trodden by competitor CarMax, which owned new-vehicle franchises until divesting them in 2021.
    • "We are excited to join the Stellantis network and our focus in this test will be learning how to provide great customer experiences at a franchise dealership," a Carvana spokesperson said.
    • Questions still to be answered (per Ben Hadley on LinkedIn)
      • Can all the CDJR cars on Carvana now be CPO?
      • Can ADESA now access wholesale parts for CDJR repairs?

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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Paul J Daly:

Good morning, everybody. It is do we have music today? Oh, here we go. It's Monday. March. What is it? March? 3 cheers. You and me are in a dealership together today. We're going to talk about, of course, Carvana and saying goodbye to a legend. How appropriate to be in a dealership as we're talking about this today. Todd, thanks for picking me up from the airport. I got on a plane at what fun morning. It has been a heck of a fun morning. It was one of those 4am wake ups, get to the airport, and then, like you, blink your eyes, and now I'm sitting at in a Ford dealership with you, exactly in Charlotte. Yeah, some people know why I'm here, and if not, you know why I'm here. Of course, she picked me up. I know here. So I am, I am buying my first EV today. Actually, I just signed the paperwork. We got here. They had me in and out on the paperwork signed. I'm not going to reveal what it is yet, um, it's a used vehicle. So I'll let the Ford dealership throw you exactly Ford in Charlotte, yep. And I'll tell you what this dealership is doing. Some business. This lot is packed. We couldn't

Todd Caputo:

even park out front.

Paul J Daly:

No, we couldn't. We drove around this lot twice. I'm looking at a row of, like, super duty trucks and commercial over here. They have a ton of service work queued up. They have a ton of, yeah, big group. I know it's good early. It's, I love it. Something about the dealership in the morning, the sales people are all outside over there just doing their meeting walk around. It's great. Oh, it makes me so happy. Look, we've been talking about a lot of things. Oh, what do we Okay, have Todd, get his mic closer to his face. Nathan, you could just jump in. Hold on. Let me turn up the input levels. Try that.

Nathan Southwick:

See I can jump in, but then it shows me. So that's alright.

Paul J Daly:

We it's good to know you're there. How's that? How's his mic now? Better.

Unknown:

Better. Yes, better, yeah. Thank you. We

Paul J Daly:

fix things we're building while flying here. Obviously everybody knows ASOTU CON is right around the corner. It's less than 80 days, I believe, now, which means on

Todd Caputo:

the phone with a buddy of mine this morning. Say, did you get your ticket? Chat? Did he did you book your hotel yet? No, he was the procrastinator. I wouldn't resonate. Don't do it. You don't get a room the hotel.

Paul J Daly:

You do want the room, because the hotel rooms in that event venue are going to be gone. They're only we negotiated down to 179 that is by far the nicest hotel room on the East Coast that you're ever going to get for that rate. We're going to be announcing more speakers and sessions this week. I think we have like 90 speakers and a ton of sessions. This is like an automotive accelerator. We even have an international contingent coming in. So if you're thinking about going, or if you already know you're going, you just haven't bought your ticket, the Northwood students coming this year. We're working on that. I hope so they go, oh yeah. That was great. That was awesome. It's been fun having some Northwood students last year, watching them throughout this last year, land some jobs, a lot

Todd Caputo:

of them, and connected with them on social media, get someone working for Hendrick. I think that's one of them going to work with techion, yep. So like, that's what you'd love to see, right? They're getting into, we gotta get Northwood here. We do, all right, get them here, baby.

Paul J Daly:

Yeah, we always figure out a way to work it out. But if you've been thinking about it, or, you know, you're going, don't procrastinate. You know, dealers, it's 3060 days out. If it's not 30 days, it almost doesn't exist. But now's the time to buy it, lock it in. We probably going to sell out all the just general admission tickets anyway, but we're definitely the hotel rooms are going to be gone probably this month. Yeah. So get them ASOTU CON com, um,

Todd Caputo:

it's better than nada. No offense, nada, I can't this is definitely, for sure. It's different. That's different than nada. It really is, I shouldn't say better. I take that back, yeah, because

Paul J Daly:

it's very different that the folks at nada, they attract everyone, and they put on an amazing show. This is a place where it's just not as big, close community around people that totally agree. I think one of the biggest differences is that ASOTU CON focuses on like thriving people at the center of the business strategy, at the center of the technology, at the center of the customer experience because of

Todd Caputo:

the fact that it's all in one place. And with nada, you got to go to, like, different venues, different parties, different buildings, like it's all in one place here, which really, really, I mean, anybody that's gone knows exactly what

Paul J Daly:

I'm talking about. Oh, it's definitely easier to not get lost. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, we hope you go. We hope you go to both, because we go to both. All right, talking about some sad news to start a Monday though. Jim Ziegler, the larger than life trainer, Alpha Dog. You know him. He passed away over the weekend from his battle with brain cancer. Again, people, he's been, he's been like an industry fixture life. So let me share something

Todd Caputo:

with please do because I wonder if you know. So when I was a dealer, we used to get this thing called dealer magazine right. And dealer magazine always had a column from Ziggler in it, and it was typically always in the front, like within the first few pages. My father used to get it all the time. And I can remember back 1520, 25 years ago, my father would leave it on my desk, and he put a little note at the top. This guy is spot on. Every time he was kind of like, I could see Joe Caputo really Liza Rush Limbaugh of the car industry, in a way, gosh, that's because he, you know, anytime, no offense to people at the factory, right, like, but anytime they came out with some idea that they thought would work, Ziegler was, you. Very critical, politely, and sometimes not very politely, about whether or not he thought it would work or not. And six months later, a year later, or two years later, he'd always would say, You know what, I was right? Oh, he was just breaking back out.

Paul J Daly:

I mean, it says, here he was in the industry for 48 years. Says he turned green sales people into closers and taught GMs HOW TO HUSTLE smarter. He pioneered training that blended old school grit with new school tech, which is interesting. He was kind of one of the innovators there right now as tech is moving on, and he kind of had already carved out, but Ziegler, super sold, I think

Todd Caputo:

he sold his his his platform. I don't know who bought it, though, yep, not sure who bought I'd love to find out. That would be interesting. There's a lot of wisdom there in that, for sure, but yeah, he one of the greats. There's no question about

Paul J Daly:

it. I've only had the opportunity to meet him one time, and it was in passing at a digital dealer. It was one of the last digital dealers in Tampa a few years ago, the last, like main one they had in Tampa. And I just, you know, remember, and there's a number of people there, and somebody said something about his watch, because he was known for, like, the glitz of the watch. I mean, I gotta respect a man that knows how to wear a hat, right? So he honestly, I always had, always had that going, but he says to me, he goes, if you can't wear 350 grand on your wrist, what are you even doing? I think anyone who knows him will laugh whether you're that

Todd Caputo:

he was he understood the realities of the car business, not the theories, and I think that that really made him very, very special. Well,

Paul J Daly:

his family posted on Facebook. Quote, Jim may no longer be with us, but his influence, his lessons and impact will never leave us. His voice may be quiet now, but his words will be carried forward by the countless peoples of countless people whom whose lives he touched. And I think that the auto industry is, if you go on LinkedIn, you can already see this. I'm sure it's the same way as Facebook and right here, and then far more like this is the industry that you make a deep impact on people totally and hopefully that the good, the best parts of his legacy gets we

Todd Caputo:

can still learn from him, which I think is a good thing. That's a beauty technology. I

Paul J Daly:

know it that is so true. It's legend. I wonder if anyone trained in AI to be alpha dog, that'd be a GPT. I would use the alpha dog GPT. All right. Nathan, get that segue button ready. Speaking of leaving a legacy. Segway, all right. Talk about a trouble making move. I was like, I took one day off on Friday, and Carvana went and bought a franchise dealership. Carvana bolt step in the new vehicle market, acquired Jerry signer, Chrysler, Dodge Jeep, Ram in Casa Grande, Arizona. It's about 40 miles from their headquarters. Major shift from the online retailer who historically focused only on used cars, since they were founded in 2013 they plan to reopen the store on march 3 today, retaining all 41 employees. It's described by them as a small test, and they went ahead and said, We don't expect it to have any noticeable impact to our results for the foreseeable future. This experiment follows a path previously tried and by Carmax tried a similar thing, buying a franchise store, and they ended up selling them back. Here's a quote from a car on exposed person says, quote, we're excited to join the stellantis network, and our focus on this test will be learning how to provide Grace customer service experiences at a franchise dealership. So we'll see what happens. Here are some questions from our good friend Ben Hadley. Put on LinkedIn, can all the CDJ our cars on Carvana now be CPO can Odessa now access wholesale parts for CDJ our repairs. That's a clever one. And carve can Carvana now buy off lease vehicles before they go to auction. I mean, you've been the answer

Todd Caputo:

is yes to pretty much all the Ben's questions, which as usual or spot on. Yeah,

Paul J Daly:

you were a very early adopter, helping are just testing out, piloting a program where you could list your used cars on carvanas Plaza, doing the country to do it, yeah, and so. So, I mean, you know the people do you know Ernie? I've met Ernie before, yeah, yeah. And so, what are your thoughts on the whole thing? Like from a dealer number

Todd Caputo:

one? I wouldn't, I would not ever underestimate Ernie Garcia Junior, ever. He's very, very smart, and they have a lot of capital, and for them to buy a small cdgr store like this is probably a good way for them to put their toe in water a little bit with a new car franchise, and find out what they can and cannot do and how it brings some, you know, really some, what's the word I'm looking for, right? Like, they will be able to maximize the way that they do business digitally with a new car business, yeah, could be potentially, like evolutionary I was, in a lot of ways. I

Paul J Daly:

was thinking about, you know, we have a lot of good friends at the Publix and thinking about the kind of like the reverse approach that carbon has taken. They've taken a long time, built a very noticeable, recognizable retail brand. They've honed in and built vertical systems to sell used cars nationwide, and now going into the new car area, it's so much. They did the harder thing first, I think, but we'll see, because there's a lot of complexity. And I think of, like, Okay, what happens now, if they figure this out with the cdjr store? Like, do they scale regionally? Do they try to scale? Like, like, some of you know, like, group one auto mode. They have, like, kind of the smile, right? Like, are they going to kind of stay relatively localized? Are they going to span around their reconditioning around the Odessa auctions. There's a lot of ways. There's there's

Todd Caputo:

ways, and I know this because we did it right, like there's ways to take and maximize your used car business because of the fact that you own a franchise, they're gonna have access to closed inventory now that only Chrysler dealers currently have access to they're gonna have access to those cars, Hoff lease factory cars, you know, corporate cars, buybacks, lease, turn ins. They're also going to have access to maybe some floor plan facilities that they didn't have access to before because they have a franchise, also some indirect lending, right? A lot of banks, regardless that they're Carvana, there's just certain banks that won't do business with with used car dealers, yep. And now they're going to have access to that as well. And you know, if they take digitally and digitally merchandise news car new cars, the way that they do with used cars, I don't know of any new car dealer that does with new cars like they do with used cars when it comes to digitally merchandising their cars, 360 photos, the way that you can pull up your options, things like that. Most new car dealers that take a picture of a new car, but it's kind of like kind of like whatever, yeah, the new car side. Now you're going to have probably 360 view, all the features like we'll end up learning as new car dealers. I think some some good best practices, especially when it comes to digitally merchandising new cars from them, getting this franchise. I watching that real close.

Paul J Daly:

I mean, I think it makes sense. It makes complete sense. And I think that this is the the exact I think it's a gift that Carvana has given this industry from the very beginning, and this is going to be another iteration of it, through them trying hard to execute and build this seamless process, everyone who's paying attention is going to learn a lot. I'm curious to see how they get the data to the flow between like CDJ or stellantis in the Carvana, the way they do their pictures and all that like, that's going to be interesting. They've never had to solve that problem before, but it's a point of that's not so easily solved by a lot of vendors. Interesting

Todd Caputo:

to see. Again, this is a small store, right? But how they also do fixed ops, especially on the customer pay and the warranty side, which they have no experience in doing, the only fixed stops really have experience doing right now is just reconditioning, conditioning used cars or whatever they sub out. So this will be different. I think it's something to watch. And, you know, is dealers again, right? Like you have to just expect the unexpected. You know, expect disruptors to come in. And this is just another example of of that. Yeah, they're now brick and mortar as well. They're not just completely digital, very much a brick and mortar location, yeah, legitimately, the first one, and it's now you can

Paul J Daly:

retail from, right? It's not a big vending machine. It's not a big auction. This is a retail location. People come in and out of and service. Customers are going to be coming in and out of every day to have their vehicles reconditioned. I made a post last night. I was on a late flight back to Syracuse, and, you know, I was reading a little bit about about the acquisition. And kind of struck me like back in 2018 I just was reminded of a conversation I was having with Dale Pollock at the auto headquarters. And I was wearing a shirt that said, Because Amazon. And back in 2018 we were talking a lot about Carvana and Amazon. And here we are in 2024 talking about Carvana and Amazon. I think there's something to be said for what customers want out of a transaction, and watching these, you know, non traditional players go after that in new ways again, I think there's a lot to learn for everybody. There's always

Todd Caputo:

going to be disruption in any industry. And as a dealer, right, what I would say is you always got to be on your toes. You can ever, ever, ever get complacent, because now all of a sudden, Carvana is in the new car space. And if they decide they get good at this, they're going to look at other regions, like you were saying, Yeah, which is important, yeah. I think it's important keep an eye on, for sure, none of that consumer acquisition. If they own new car stores, it means they're going to be trying to buy consumers cars off the street. Yep, and they're very, very good at it. Oh, yeah. It'll be very interesting to watch, without

Paul J Daly:

a doubt. Well, you know, maybe we'll get Ernie out to a soda con.

Todd Caputo:

We'll see if he comes. That'd be great if he did. Oh, I know definitely.

Paul J Daly:

We'll try to get him on regardless, even if he can't make it to a soda con. Nathan, roll the music. Alright, I I'm about to get in my new EV and try to figure out how to charge my way back to Syracuse,

Todd Caputo:

you're gonna charge your car just fine. You'll be all set. All right. Well, we're

Unknown:

gonna find out soon. We'll see you guys here tomorrow, if I make it you.

People on this episode

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Kyle Mountsier

Host
Contributor

Paul J Daly

Host