From Vendor To Dealer with Andrew Diffenderfer

Kyle Mountsier: 0:00So the other day this is auto collect I got in the mail this right here. It's a, it's a card. I have a story here.

‍Speaker 2: 0:16

This is, this is a explain it for a hundred dollar. You know, like Visa card, I'm covering the numbers because I actually want to use it.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:22

Shoot, I was just ready to get my screenshot ready and I just yeah, I know, I just want to explain to the people like Like, so we set up this, you know the home security system. And then they were like, oh, we're going to install this, but it's basically free because you get a hundred dollar gift card. I was like this is this is awesome.

Paul J Daly: 0:42

I'm going to do it. There's a subscription on the other end of the second.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:45

No, it's not a subscription Now. I did it just because I wanted to be able to tell this story at some point, because I got this in the mail yesterday. Yeah, I had to mail in for that rebate, like I had to write things down.

Paul J Daly: 1:02

Yeah, because they're like we're going to make it hard for you to get a rebate.

Michael Cirillo: 1:06

He's going to get a CD subscription delivered back to him for Columbia House.

Paul J Daly: 1:10

I'm coming, you're getting Pearl Jam, nirvana.

Michael Cirillo: 1:15

Who exactly we're. Kirtmer, you remember this.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:19

He's going to great news is is I'm going to have to ship it back, just like all the Netflix DVDs that they were doing. You know what's the best?

Paul J Daly: 1:26

part about this intro to this interview is I bet that Andrew Diffender, for a K a diff, had a Columbia House subscription in his day.

Speaker 2: 1:36

He was the guy with the 200.

Paul J Daly: 1:39

CD folder with all the CDs that you'd hit the road trip. You'd be like what am I going to list to? I got my 200 favorites right here.

Speaker 2: 1:46

He's in his van he's like I might still have that one.

Paul J Daly: 1:50

He might still have it. I saw a Tic Tac the other day, or no? Is that Instagram real? And the guy was driving. He's like people are worried about distracting driving. He's like this was me in 1997 and he's got. He's like looking down trying to flip through his CDs trying to figure out which are they like trying to get the disc in the player I was like, ah too, shame, too shame, but either way it's in disc five. It's in disc five.

Michael Cirillo: 2:14

Right, Well, man, multi discs CD changers were a game changer.

Paul J Daly: 2:20

The safest ones were in the trunk. Remember those? Wow, what came up with that idea? Let's put them in the trunk. You got to preload your favorite six and then they're just in there.

Michael Cirillo: 2:30

Diffender for dead.

Paul J Daly: 2:31

Diffed, diffed, and so can you. We hope you enjoy our conversation with Andrew, the founder of Foundation Direct. One of the smartest, the heart, most hardworking guys in the industry really has a long path through serving in OEMs and then retail all this stuff Always insightful and it's fun. He's like an old friend, which is why we can give him this intro right. We've had many interviews with Diff, but maybe it's your first time, so we know you're going to enjoy meeting him, just like we enjoy having conversation. Hey, andrew, thank you so much for giving us some time. It's awesome to have you again on the show.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 3:08

Thank you. Thank you, it's always good to see you all. Thanks for having me, he said Andrew and I was like, who wouldn't?

Kyle Mountsier: 3:14

play in my show. Well, it's like right.

Paul J Daly: 3:17

That's why the name is on the screen, but you know a lot of people are going to meet you for the first time. You guys are growing like a weed and so, if we've all heard correctly, you have now traversed the gap between vendor and dealer. Am I right?

Andrew Diffenderfer: 3:35

That is correct. You are correct in that statement. Yeah, technically that is correct with the one and only Mr Brian Benstock. Yes, it's been a real real one Full send. Yeah, I mean you're going to play playing the deep end of the pool, right? You know it's a. Really, I am very humbled and thankful for the opportunity. Many people know Brian and I don't know. Brian and I started working together in 2010 and really just formed a. He's been a huge impact on my life from just a personal perspective, a mentor and to be partnered with him doing what I love. You know, I started my career in a Honda dealership in central Pennsylvania, antrim way Honda. Ironically, one of our other good friends, liza Borges, was the district sales manager of that store.

Paul J Daly: 4:24

Oh, no way yeah so it's all coming together right.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 4:28

And you know Brian told me one day is like someday we're having a dealership together, I was like man, that'd be awesome and you know I love Honda. So to be in there and really having the opportunity to see what we as vendors, partners, technology companies, can do for a dealership firsthand, and then feed that back into my company foundation to really serve dealers, I think you know, I believe that our number one job is a partner, vendor, whatever it is, is to build meaningful and lasting relationships with those that we serve. Period, at the end of the day, like you can create a slide deck and when you have, when you can see those efforts translate into changing. You know the way people do things with their family and you know having a better service experience, it's really cool, so it's full circle. So thank you for acknowledging it.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:18

I love, okay. So I'm like, as you're saying this, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay so checking in like vendors, really having the ability to like dig deep, you know, back like the originator of this you probably remember this because you've been in the industry oh, hot minute, the originator of this was dealercom. Like their home offices were across the street from a dealer and all of their train, all of their training had to happen through dealercom and then, like one of the most recent ones is techie on, bought a dealership. Because I was like hey, gotta know place to practice right in the dealership. Now it's like foundation direct part, now indirect partnership. You know it's not foundation direct buying a dealership or anything, but obviously a leading partner. You get the ability to insights, to go, oh, okay, so that's how that's impacting day to day. Right, like what me or the connected, because, because you are a data and ads company, like it, it, you, you have a purview into all these other partners that dealers are using, and so it requires you to kind of have the understanding on the impact, not just on like the digital analytics, but the offline analytics to right, what have there been kind of like key things, like initial learnings are like oh shoot, hadn't thought of that in a hot minute.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 6:34

You know it. Yeah, 100% right. I mean we sink. Every morning my day starts with going over yesterday's business at the dealership. I think it's kind of like a good way to get your head back in the game and remember why we're doing what we're doing. Brian is, as you know. He's as good at this as anybody. He continues to just push it. You know, I think we finished 77th of the nation last month, which is which is out of Honda dealers, which is pretty cool. And yeah, there's a. There's a ton of that right, because you know what you spend on per car sold from a marketing expense becomes a real number, right. And when you're sitting down, you know it's interesting how the world oh yeah, it was my pocket. Sure, we needed those new tears in the customer waiting.

Paul J Daly: 7:26

I kind of like the old. So and you know, it's just been. There's so much.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 7:29

I think, when you step back, and look at the industry that we serve, right, I mean, you guys are getting ready to put to put on a great event for the industry. But when you, when you go into the dealership and I'm up there a good bit when you go into the dealership and you walk around and you start looking at, like why isn't there? Why don't we have enough paper towels in there? Like why is there a fingerprint on that door? And you really begin to remember, like everything that goes into a store, like why didn't somebody get the weeds cleaned up, that after we had the mulch put in the flower beds? And you look at the impact language, yeah, right, when you look at the impact, right, it's like holy cow, man, these, these things are. Dealerships are very complex and I think we often in the industry focus on the pain points, right. But there's a lot that dealerships do really really, really well and let's talk about the business side of it for a second is usually dealerships, because of the money that they contribute to the community, are a large part of the tax base. They're also a large employer. So, like you've kind of forget, like the local dealerships that serve your community, they are very integrated in what happens in that community and I think you know it's interesting for me, having worked with Paragon for so long. You know white planes is in Westchester but it's they're very different markets that have very different needs and it's just fascinating to me, you know. I think I think one of the things that always attracted me to this industry is that the owner of Greg Weaver of Andrew Way Honda, where I started my career. He said the beauty of a dealership is that you have seven businesses in one. He's like I can teach you business of seven businesses and one in one business if you want to learn it. And I mean you think about it. You got finance right, you got used, you got new, you got parts, you got fixed, you got a body shop. I mean those are all businesses that I would love to have, but you get dealership, you get all those and it's just fascinating. I think this industry is the, I believe it's the best industry that anyone can be involved with. I think you can learn the most. I think it. I think nothing has prepared me or prepared me for life better than working in dealerships, because I feel like I had a. I feel like I had a head start when I even went to grad school because I was like oh, I've worked with this in parts obsolescence. And you're like why do you know what that means? And then they take that one step further, and you know, with foundations, partnership with NCM and now kind of standardizing digital measurement for NCM and helping dealers understand how their data can unlock profitability and dealership is just really cool. Like it's the best of all worlds.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:11

So yesterday, paul and I, you know we were shooting this more than cars series. So to Right and in the lead we're like the largest retail industry in the country and I was like man.

Paul J Daly: 10:24

I just want to make sure we're back that up. You've been saying it for a long time, so I went to a few sites and I found like three confirmations.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:31

There was like it was either four or five on the total industry list in the US, but in just retail there was no one else that hit the top 10. New car dealers are what Number five New car dealers were. Number five, like four or five depending on the site that you looked at, and that that's the reason is because, like we have multiple retail industries injected into a single industry and like the reason I'm tying that back is you said, like back to the you know, paint on the walls and mulch in the front. So often as just anybody like a consultant or a dealer or a fixed ops manager or service manager, like the phrase starts like this If that dealer would just right, whatever the justice you're like no, just you don't understand, there's no just in dealer world. There's like 83, just in each company. It's like a contractor.

Paul J Daly: 11:29

Hey, every hour Just move that window half an inch.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 11:32

Yeah, well said, well said, yeah. So it's been really cool, very humbling, love it and so thankful for it. So more to come, you know, yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:45

What's the you know? At the end there you said like you know, you guys have recently formed a partnership with NTM and are working to standardize the model of looking at digital analytics, and there's a lot of talk around standardization, right, we've got talk around standardization of APIs with the star standard, standardization of GA4 events with the ASC standards council, ncm being a massive trainer and 20 group representative across the industry looking to standardize digital metrics. Where have you seen, like, the biggest gaps and the things that maybe, as an industry, we're asking for but become very, very difficult as we plug in all of these inputs?

Andrew Diffenderfer: 12:26

You know, that's a really great question because I think we're talking about buzzwords, and standardization is one of those buzzwords. Now, like everybody you know, it's like I want to standardize this and I think I love, I think, covid and thanks a lot to you guys too, from starting just what you do I think there's a lot more collaboration in our space versus competition, which I think is the most powerful thing that we need as an industry, because, again, sitting on multiple different areas of the fence, there you go. Collaboration right. It always wins Is that, when you begin to look at these things, I think the old sentiment was let me tell you how much I know, so that you trust me that I'm smart and that I'm just going to word. Just hit you with all these, these stats, right?

Paul J Daly: 13:19

Or at least confuse you enough that you believe. I know must know more than you.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 13:22

Yeah, like, let me just go deep on that. Let me talk about schemaorg. I mean, like we all went down the stuff and how sites should be built and what organic means. Now people are sort of like yeah, I get it, I need a website. I know that there's four major traffic driving sources or whatever it may be. What I've found is that where we've been very successful in talking to our dealers you know we're going to have about 600 dealerships on this composite platform by the end of the year and where it's been really helpful is learning from the NCM moderators. Like today we're going to talk about fixed coverage. They pick one topic, they look at who's the best at it and then they collaborate in the room to figure out a way to bring everyone up to that level. And that is not easily done if you're not measuring everything the same way. The financial statement measures everything. Gross profit is gross profit. You can't be like well, my version of gross profit is this and yours is that. And we had a little bit of that from the measurement perspective in the space, because it was sort of like well, it's Google Analytics and we got to do it. I think it's great now, as we can sit down and be like hey, paul, here's the deal. Man, like you run a very profitable dealership, but the guy who's not as profitable with you, he has a 31% service appointment booking rate. Like what if you had your profitability plus a 31% service booking rate? Like that's, one plus one equals three. So that's where this standardization has become very, very impactful. Also is you know, we were talking about a marketing person, a dealership. People aren't sitting there trying to understand if their chat conversion stopped firing in their Google Analytics 4 account because that talks to their ads account In the weeds. They don't care about it. But what will happen is if the website provider shows that there's a decrease in leads because that tool stopped working, the dealership gets fired up. So we've really been able to collaborate with website providers and partners that work on these websites. So, hey, man, the chat thing went away. Did you change something in the code? Did you do an update? Did you refresh? Let's get this fixed on behalf of the dealers. That's been like really exciting and just I think it's been inspiring for me too, because I'm learning From looking at this. You would think, well, if you standardize the data, there's only so much that's going to be different and man, we're working with some groups. They're mixed brands, they're like these general manager groups. You have a CDGR store, a Honda store, a Toyota store, a Ford store, all in one group and just the cool things that come out of that has been pretty powerful.

Kyle Mountsier: 15:54

You're like well, these guys call it used and these guys call it pre-owned, and you wouldn't believe the number of complexities that adds to a data model.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 16:03

Faces and hyphens are very important in our world.

Paul J Daly: 16:09

Michael.

Michael Cirillo: 16:11

I was going to ask you about indoor skydiving, but I don't know if we're there yet. Well, you know I have my question written out.

Kyle Mountsier: 16:18

It's like I've been waiting for this in my whole life.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 16:21

You know. So I have a story for that as dif, I always have a story for them. So my limit? My father-in-law is an avid skydiver and 73 years old he's a pilot. He's my life's a pilot. Yeah, right, yeah. He's like where's the door that I can jump out of? He's like it doesn't work that way. And it's funny, when we had our second son, kai, my father-in-law said hey, man, like I'm getting you know, I'm getting ready to get ready for skydive season. Would you want to hop in a wind tunnel with me so I can practice Basically, like hang on to you for my formation flying? I said, yeah, I think, I think I can, probably, I think I'm probably figure this out. So he taught me how to skydive at indoor skydiving over here in London and I, you know they have levels and we just bought an hour of tunnel time and we him and I would just go over there for like 20 minutes a week and just fly around. And you know, as we get older not that I'm getting older, it's fun for me. The thing that is really no, no, no, no, I'm doing the, I'm doing the Ben stock thing, I'm trying to reverse age, yeah.

Paul J Daly: 17:30

When you talk about it a lot, it just kind of verifies the fact that you're getting older. You're getting older.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 17:35

I. You know, my father-in-law, my father-in-law actually told me he said you know, life's like a roll of toilet paper. You put it on, you think it's going to last forever, and closer to the end you get, the faster it goes. Brother, I go. Yeah, that's pretty, pretty fair comment, that's the best. I've never heard that I was like yeah, you're not getting it's like quick man, I'd be like have the bigger biceps. So yeah, yeah, so. Um. So, Michael, to tie this back, what I love about indoor skydiving, other than the fact that Glenn Lundy let me hop into a tunnel down, and you know, I saw that Atlanta that's how I found out about it.

Michael Cirillo: 18:08

I was, it was this place and diffs, diffs doing this. He's upside down as doing this thing. I was like wait, wait, wait, wait what?

Paul J Daly: 18:15

He's like excuse me, I brought my own goggles.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 18:17

He's like yeah, yeah, let's throw my helmet, guys, hold on, I gotta get my skydiving shoes on here.

Paul J Daly: 18:24

He's got the spandex on. He's ready to go.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 18:26

So funny, this shirt right there, yeah, but it it forces this layer of um awareness that I just you don't have when you're walking forwards, backwards, side to side, because you literally can move diagonally back forward and you know it applies a lot to business, like you got to be dynamic, right and um, just the awareness that it taught me was like was really really, really, really fun and you know, our aviation is in our family and you're like three inches off.

Kyle Mountsier: 18:52

You know, unless you're going downstairs you're probably going to make it right, but like the slightest move in the middle of an air tunnel will. The things can maybe not go as planned.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 19:04

You know they have a lot of control. It's funny If you drive down the road and put your hand out the window at 40 miles an hour and you do this, you know you feel the difference. You do it at 70 miles an hour, you gotta be careful you hit a bug like that. It's a different deal and you know, I think when you're in you know head down free fall. I think the max feeding gets like 120, like something like that. But those wind tunnels they control that variable by the speed they push up so as you progress to like sit fly, for example, which is very difficult to do they won't let you sit until you get on your back. Back flying is very difficult because it basically they train you to fly forwards, up, down, sideways around, and then they're basically like no, get on your back and learn all that reverse and you're kind of it's just an awkward. They start you like in a chair position, but it's fun and if you have a tunnel I'd highly recommend that you go do it and just like and put the time in and have some fun. It's you will, it's a good. It's a good, fun thing to do. So there you go, michael.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:00

That's my long story and I'm still waiting for Cirillo and spandex. I just need that in my life and a shape beard. Cirillo is either frozen or really angry, he's just doing a great job of faking it.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 20:15

It's pretty good. I'm trying Wait.

Paul J Daly: 20:17

I've got us. Yesterday, though, kyle faked a freeze. We jumped in.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:21

Had you for a hot minute.

Paul J Daly: 20:23

No, I think he's really frozen.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:24

He's not really frozen. What's what's like? What's the thing that you're working on in the business right now, particularly like in mapping vendors to dealership, right With the new Honda store and things like that and what you're working on is you're seeing like, oh, we have to tie all this thing together from technology into a store. How's that? How's that?

Andrew Diffenderfer: 20:47

You know, that's a, that's such a good question and I could go, we could, we could talk hours about this. But you know, when I was at Google, the gentleman who kind of taught, like I worked out of the partner plex and stuff, and he said big and simple always beats small and complex. And I think, seeing the detail that we have of data right now, it's so complex and I'm working on simplification and making things easier to process Like, why do we all love iPhones? Right, by the way, friday 15th, iphone 15 pro, get it ordered, titanium, not that I just ordered mine, but throwing it out. There is, you know, the, the, the simplicity of things to do highly the simplicity. If you make it simple to do highly complex things, it provides value, in my opinion. Right, and as I'm going through the dealership, I'm like, why do I have to log into nine platforms? Like, what? Like, tell me, right. I'm literally like talking to everyone in the dealership. I'm saying to you know, our general citizen hey, chris, hey Harris, here's the deal. What are you looking at in this platform more than five times a day? Okay, write that down. Right, what would be helpful out of this platform that you can't get to? Okay, write that down, and then you have to make a decision about your own application, because when you do that, you get more time back to go sell more cars or service more cars or talk to more customers, because you're not spending time trying to find something in the tool.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:19

So that's been a big, big, big man. I think, if, if, if anybody listening to to right now in this interview doesn't take back, go to each of your people and ask them what are they doing to look at a system five times a day and you potentially move over, eliminate or or increase the speed and efficiency of that employee, like that's a massive takeaway and I think any own and it doesn't matter. If you're at a company and you have a technology that someone uses, go ask them whether or not they're logging in five times a day and what are they looking at in that thing and is that necessary and does it work for them. So I'd like that's a. That's a perfect way to wrap this up. If you're, you're always like we've like hit, I think, 83 things at this point in this, in this conversation, and we're so excited that that foundation direct is partnering with a Sotokon on the swag, on some thought leadership. Gonna have Jesse Nass below there and she's amazing that the scarf looks so legit. If you're coming to a Sotokon, you get a scarf with the logos and the whole nine yards on it. It's as always. It's been a pleasure and thanks for joining us.

Andrew Diffenderfer: 23:26

Hey, thank you guys. Keep doing what you do. You're doing such great things for the industry and thanks for always letting us be along for the ride, so I appreciate all you do and keep doing good things together.

Paul J Daly: 23:41

I love how often we have seen dealers venturing into technology in this time period, right, a lot of dealers, dealer groups, starting to build tech products. Diff is a story that's going kind of the other way, right? Well, the tech product now is actually a partner in a dealership and that collaboration and what we're just seeing in the industry going forward and backward is really showing itself to be effective and helping us progress faster.

Michael Cirillo: 24:09

And you know, you know what it underscores for me? How, as a human species, we have no clue about anything all of the time.

Paul J Daly: 24:18

I think that occurs to me just about every morning when I wake up.

Michael Cirillo: 24:21

Yes, Like because here's the thing, right, you remember eight months ago when everyone was like every dealership will be out of business in the next seven years, and it's like OK, and everybody's bowels quiver. And then we, shortly after that on the show, talked to Damon Lester and he's like I plan on buying more dealerships. Like he's an accountant who's playing on by. And then we're like oh, wait a minute. And then, you know, fast forward to today and we're not really talking about that anymore. You've got like Asbury Auto Group, who's buying all of the dealerships right now, it seems, and they're obviously seeing something that they want to double, triple, quadruple down on. And then, to your point, you get diff like no, I think now would be a good time to enter the retail game. And so I just feel like we don't know anything most of the time and everyone needs to calm down and diff is leading the way.

Kyle Mountsier: 25:12

Yeah, and I love he's like you listen and he's like, yeah, we just have these regular check-ins every single day. We look at all the business I go into. My team members say are you using the things that we have, we built for you? Like, that's the regular things of business that keep business open. And I think even just in auto, a lot of times we look at like grand ideas, big things, what are we going to do next? What's what's every one on one on the horizon? And it's like no customers want you to do really well today for them. You know and that's what that underscores to me that that if you do the right things really well today for for people, whether it be your customers or your employees, you're going to succeed. Well, hey, we look. We hope that you enjoyed this conversation, as we did with our friend diff on behalf of myself, michael Cirillo and Paul Jay Daly. See you next time here on auto products.

Speaker 2: 26:05

Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news and automotive retail media and pop culture. You can get it now at a so to dot com. 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. Welcome to article. We were recording.

Paul J Daly: 26:27

We were rolling, you know, I'm just I'm oh my gosh, we've got so many fine bott and hot this bag.