Big Sales, Big Funding, Big Ideas

Paul J Daly: 0:27

That's it man is officially Christmas week. Monday, December 18, Kyle's about three wheels up to come my way in Syracuse, but we have some great automotive related entrepreneurial Christmas time stories that people really want. Okay, the last one was an elaboration, the not really Christmas time stories. But if you tell a story during Christmas time, doesn't it become

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:49

a Christmas? Or Christmas stories? Period? End of story?

Paul J Daly: 0:52

Oh, let's give Adrian there's some prompts this morning. Happy Monday, right out of the gate on the money. Number one comment.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:00

So we had we had some friends over last week for dinner and, and the guy or no Saturday and the guy on Sunday, yesterday, he goes, the guy and I started listening to your podcast. I've listened to three or four episodes. He's not the industry, I'm guessing. No, not in the industry. You know, he said I was nervous. I don't think I'm gonna be able to follow this thing. But you guys actually make this thing actually enjoyable. I write I think I'm gonna thank you. He goes, who knows? Maybe I'll log in one day and become at number one. Already in it. That's

Paul J Daly: 1:33

what I'm talking about. Are we live on Instagram again? Yeah, we're getting thumbs up. We're live on Instagram. Again, good morning, Instagram. For the second automotive troublemaker in the morning. I didn't think about this until it was live on Instagram. But the energy of the show is very Instagram, where it is Instagram where they write because it's like, people log in to Instagram, they want to feel you know, they want to log in, they want to kind of get their week going. They want to check everybody else's posts and see who's better than them. So we're gonna be you're gonna log in, and we're gonna be like, you are better than us. Let's just be the first ones again and be like you are better than us. And we're glad that you're watching the show and being a part of this. And even if you're not in the automotive industry, guess what, you can still feel good leaving the show and maybe one day, you'll find your way into the industry. Hey, and since you're here, everybody's here for the first or for some time. We're having a big event on Wednesday. It is our third annual year end extravaganza. And this is where we kind of sum up the great things that have happened over the year. We look forward to next year. We have a ton of guests on the show. We have a lot of fun. I remember one of my best members here and extravaganza is when Paul Walzer when he was the chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association. NADA, for those of you who didn't know, he shows up with a giant Grinch was unbelievable behind him. And that's the kind of thing you can get away with on the urine extravaganza that you can not get away with.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:00

I can't wait. I'm I can't wait to be surprised. Like I feel someone's going to come in with something that we're not always gonna get this week. It'd be fun always.

Paul J Daly: 3:08

And we're going to have a lot of fun. We are here in Syracuse, a typical studios, we have studio rented out. We have a set and we're keeping it different this year. Like we always tried to do it different so and countless families come in with them so our families get to hang out, which is that it's always it's actually the third year to happen. It's third year I would say no probably a tradition now.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:28

I know next year you have to come back to Nashville. Sounds like a plan Syracuse for going back to Nashville. That

Paul J Daly: 3:33

sounds like a great plan. What else do we got going on? No, no, I think that's it. We have some news out fun stories today. Yeah, fun stories. We were kind of like take to theming it up today. Right? We're theming automotive entrepreneurship, the investment in the industry and some real big unique ideas which the last story is going to tie in with a bunch of the things we've been talking about over the last year, have a first first step after announcing a landmark deal back in September Asbury Automotive Group, one of the big public groups has completed its acquisition of the Jim coons automotive companies, which is actually the ninth was the ninth largest privately held group in the country. It includes 20 dealerships, 29 franchises, six collision centers, and poetry and a high volume Toyota dealership actually one of the highest volume Toyota dealerships in the country valued at 1.2 billion. As very

Kyle Mountsier: 4:25

president the entire deal was $1.2 billion, correct? Yeah. Well, thanks

Paul J Daly: 4:30

for making that clear. The Toyota do not know that he that was the last Toyota deal we recovered. As very President CEO David Holt said in a news release, Jim coons passion for the car business, as well as enthusiastic leadership of the group is evident at every level of the coons organization. So Jim actually bought the store the group from his brother about 50 years ago, John Coons and we didn't see this covered everywhere. So we're going to talk about John Coons for a moment. Yeah, so basically, this is customers up What the automotive industry is like? He wanted to be a doctor when he was a teenager broke his neck in his swimming accident at age 18. So no more doctor who's partially paralyzed. What did he do? He got a job as a salesman at a car dealership. This was a DeSoto. Remember that brand? Probably not Plymouth dealership. Remember that plant brand properly? Probably not. But a year after getting a job there, he actually bought the store with a loan from his future wife. If that's not a car guy, sir, that

Kyle Mountsier: 5:27

ain't no car guy. I

Paul J Daly: 5:28

don't know what it is. The next year, it was at that point, it was 1941. And he was asking other dealers like, hey, mentor me, what should I do with this thing? Right? So a dealer said you should buy every 1941 model vehicle you can, because we're getting into war time and trust me by them. So he did. A year later, the OEMs converted to making tanks and planes and military things. And what do you think happened to the inventory that he bought? It was worth. Right. Like that's something we can all understand. Right? Now. You imagine if you had a bunch of vehicles when there was an inventory glut, so we're an inventory shortage. So then he put the money in real estate he saw De Soto coming to an end, he sold the dealerships put the money into real estate, real estate came back into the industry in 1964. And open what is now the coons family of dealerships, which are sold his brother Jim, which has now sold at Asbury. And here's a little peek inside the man's mentality. So here's the owner, and he said this, my motto in business is I'm not a bit better than a car washer. Just more fortunate, coming from a man who has half paralyzed and he said, we build morale, nothing beats a smile. And he said, If anyone ever catches me outside my office without a smile, and taps me on the shoulder, I'm gonna give them 20 bucks, which now is probably like 100 bucks or 200 bucks. Yeah, that

Kyle Mountsier: 6:58

I that, that that's the heart and passion that that we know is behind so many dealers, but to see it from, you know, very humble beginnings getting a loan from his future wife, to now a $1.5 billion sale to a large public group coming from being the ninth largest privately owned dealer, dealer group in the country. Like we say it all the time. There's no ceiling in the auto industry. There's also no floor that's right in wherever, and you can go wherever you want to go. And that's just like, this is a perfect testament to that truth.

Paul J Daly: 7:33

Oh, Michelle Langford commented, I worked at Coons and shit, I worked for both. I think she means Asbury and coons.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:39

Or Jim

Paul J Daly: 7:40

and John, that would be amazing. Michelle, if that's the case, send us a message, you can email us at crew@asoto.com. And by the way, we have an email that we send out every day that has a bunch of this type of stuff in it, but also a lot of fun. Few more gifts, a lot of fun to read. We hope you can be on the email list to a soda.com you can just sign up real quick two seconds. All right. Speaking of valuations, let's do that. So as the same entrepreneurial spirit carries forward, more dealers are actually being brought together to invest their own money in the future, the industry through startup and tech innovation, especially around mobility. So our friend Steve Greenfield, automotive ventures, also, our friends at FM capital are attracting millions and millions of dollars from dealer investments into mobility and tech across various industries. So there was an automotive news article that covered this. It was really great birth, both firms have a history of successful investments. FM capital, managing 300 million across funds and automotive ventures, more focused on seed stage funding across dealership technology. So they they're looking at the current market and startup valuations have kind of normalized and they say, Hey, there's huge opportunity for growth here. And Chase Frazier of FM capital said this could be one of the most promising periods for venture capital. Yeah, we're seeing

Kyle Mountsier: 9:03

a massive rebound. It's cool because FM capital is in the middle and about to finish up a $200 million additional fundraise to be able to invest in specifically auto companies. And then automotive ventures that said, was announcing a $15 million raise that they're going to be starting in January. So if you know Steve Greenfield or you know, Chase, Frazier, and you're interested in having us manage your money across all of these investments that are specifically in auto specifically auto tech, a lot built or funded by dealers, like that is a place to get in and these people are willing to talk to you. It is cool. Like I you know, I follow kind of the startup trends on valuations and we're starting them to see them come back. We're especially starting to see more money invested and in seed and series A rounds with with startups. And so I think that, like Jay said, we're going to see venture capital and we're going to see early early stage startups. especially in the technology space, see a rebound as the last year and a half has been a little bit of a dip. But we'll see that rebound in the next five years. And that's exciting for auto because it means more innovation coming into the industry.

Paul J Daly: 10:12

It is it isn't exciting. You talk about belief in the industry and like the Henny Penny sky is falling mentality that we've kind of come in and out of over the last two and a half years. I think this is a key indicator that the dealers, the people that are know what they know about the industry still believe in the model. They believe in the ability to innovate and deliver to consumers, right what consumers are actually asking for. Speaking of what people may not have been asking for, but are getting anyway. Significantly consumer friendly.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:43

And we have to go they're definitely consumer friendly. So Sarasota Ford is now offering both Michelin tires and get this a Michelin star dining experience as they recently launched la mom's kitchen exclusively for its customers. The initiative is built by the between Matt and canon of the Buchanan Automotive Group and is its goal is to enhance dealership loyalty. Crazy the dealership already has a movie theater and a relaxation area. The cafe will be a 38 seat restaurant and is a nine month renovation project actually I looked and and we'll get a quote from MERS in just a second but six months ago they were looking for the executive chef looks like they placed that and so the executive chef is Jose Martinez and owns at Maison Blanche previously which had an award winning restaurant in the ideation today oh me and pronunciation may sound blush and also owns a highly rated restaurant on Longboat Key very close to serve sort of closer to Sarasota, Florida. Here's directly from the automotive news article. And the gentleman's name is Mirja Mirza village. And he's this is the title Paul. His title is the chief experience officer of the dealership.

Paul J Daly: 12:02

I've never heard of a dealership that had one of those but never heard an advocate that more should

Kyle Mountsier: 12:07

here's the quote we have created a space that will completely immerse people when you walk inside la mom's kitchen. It's like being transported out of a car dealership and into another place a time in the French countryside. Here's the kicker Mirza spent seven years as a food and beverage supervisor with the Ritz Carlton come on

Paul J Daly: 12:28

you gotta know these people know I feel like we need to go to Sarasota AMI and let's go yeah oh look we've been from when the book first came out unreasonable hospitality by will get Dara legendary restaurant tour worked under Danny Meyer had the best restaurant in the world. 11 Madison Park, talking about hospitality being how you make people feel. And it's amazing to watch the auto industry take more and more steps into how we're making people feel with intentionality. And sometimes that obviously includes Michelin rated chef's starting restaurants. Sometimes it just includes having technology that makes the digital and the physical part of the experience come together and doing that very empathetically, without without a doubt, this is a winning recipe for the industry and more people should be looking here. And not that you everybody can build a restaurant inside their store. It's easy to discount things when you see a big thing like that. Oh, yeah, but yeah, but But I guarantee you there are little things you can do in your sales department, in your service drive that make people feel special and it doesn't have to cost a lot of money, but it has to be very, very intentional. So

Kyle Mountsier: 13:37

I like that one.

Paul J Daly: 13:37

Well, let's let's end on that. We got a whole Christmas week to make people feel special. So as you go from this podcast, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, whatever it is, go try to make at least one person feel special today. We know you can do it. We'll see you tomorrow.