The View From Down Under with Michael Johnson

SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly, Michael Cirillo, Michael Johnson

Kyle Mountsier  00:00

What do kangaroos and cars have in common?

00:09

This is Auto Collabs.

Michael Cirillo  00:12

They're both pests.

Paul Daly  00:13

They're both in one of the countries that Michaels podcast, the Dealer Playbook is in. That's all of it.

Kyle Mountsier  00:19

That's the whole thing. That's the joke. That's

Michael Cirillo  00:23

real life. They know I can fit inside of both.

Paul Daly  00:31

Well, today's guest the COO of SalesLogs, Michael Johnson is an Aussie through and through. And he's bringing that energy into our world in this ecosystem.

Kyle Mountsier  00:41

It's been amazing. You know, it was, it's interesting, because there are so few people that really understand the dynamics of some of the things that Paul and I throw out there into the world. One of those things being where, like, you know, we're thinking, you know, this is back in the summer we're thinking of doing a Swag Shop, but we were gonna print bucks, and then give people the bucks and so we're gonna buy them. And we're gonna have someone sponsor that sounds good. And someone threw down and said, Yes. And then later this summer, we're like, we should do a soccer scarf. said nobody in auto and so you know, we we talked to, we're like, hey, SalesLogs, and they were like, huh, we said, we're gonna do a soccer scarf. You want to be on it? And like, true Aussies. They said, Absolutely. Yes.

Paul Daly  01:30

I mean, there's something about the energy so I'm, I'm not a I'm not a soccer fan. Right. But I don't have anything against rugby. I probably less. I don't know. I mean, I didn't

Kyle Mountsier  01:42

like lacrosse either. I'm sorry. Oh, look, Syracuse is

Paul Daly  01:45

like world lacrosse.

Michael Cirillo  01:48

There's a bias there. And he was like, you know, Syracuse clogging champions? Was you?

Kyle Mountsier  01:56

Really? Oh, man, I don't even know what you're talking about. Well, enough about us. We're really excited to kind of hear how he's here. What is going on over there at SalesLogs and how a bunch of Australians have have looked to serve us, us plain old American folk and can't wait for you to meet Michael Johnson. Oh, man, I am excited to hang out with Michael Johnson. And only and maybe not only because but a major reason why I am excited about this is he is up in the future. Tomorrow. Paul and I are. And he is on in Thursday in Australia. Michael, thanks so much for joining us on Auto Collabs today.

Michael Johnson  02:50

Awesome. Hello from the future. It's great to be here. Catch up with you guys. Very excited. Yeah. It's nice. It's nice, early here. So when we speak just after 6am. So we're ready for big day.

Kyle Mountsier  03:03

I love it. I love it. That's awesome. Well, you know, the first time I met you was actually back at Digital Dealer in it was pre pandemic. So you know, there's the breath there. I can't even remember what year I think it was 2019 2019 you all we're a small booth in the back corner of Digital Dealer. I didn't even know this. Yeah. So, person. Yes. So that's yeah, yes. So that's the first time we met, we saw each other again at Digital Dealer this year. And and so you all have been operating SalesLogs in in Australia for the longest time, but are are looking at entering this kind of US market at this point. So but I'd love to hear the story behind the story a little bit, because you've been in automotive for quite some time. What What, what, because you had a retail journey and auto tell us a little bit about like how you came into that and, and what your retail journey was like?

Michael Johnson  04:03

Yeah, so I've always loved cars. So even at a young age, the guy who lives directly across the street owned the big dealer group in in my my city. And so I always was quite interested in you know, what new cars do we have. And we were always sort of over there having a bit of a look. And I went into to a retail telco business for about 10 years. And when I wrapped that up, it was like, Okay, I'm gonna do something different. I've always loved cars. I'm just going to start selling cars and just work my way into the industry. So you know, and the general manager who hired me at this BMW dealership as my first gig, you know, he said all like we're in the people business, you know, it's just a medium of exchange as cars and and that kind of resonated with me because all through my telco journey, it was always around customer experience. You know, you were always delivering that exceptional customer experience because what differentiates to you from from your competitors, right. And so, so that was the start of my journey and my first month like I sold 20 cars. And and everyone was sort of like whoa, like this guy has never sold cars before. And here he's pulling 20 cars straight off the bat which impressed he's I worked for BMW was my first gig and I then worked my way through a few different roles, so into a sales management role, and then into a general manager role. So it was, it's been an exciting journey. I then use SalesLogs as a customer for for a majority of that time as well that I was in dealership land, and thought, like, wow, like this, this tool saves me so much time. So that was where I met John, our founder, and he started selling cars straight out of high school as well. So, you know, we're both car people who have had a significant tenure in retail, that have been moved across into this vendor space to find a tool and solutions.

Paul Daly  05:57

Yeah, I love we always love it when people have real world experience. And then either you have used a product in like the dealership, or, you know, just understand what it's like by living in both sides of the fence. So that goes a long way. Let's talk for a second because I know a lot of the folks that are going to be watching this listening to this are not familiar with the company or the product, the people who are on the ASOTU email list are because you've promoted, you've been promoted and some of the emails and you know, people are very seem very interested in the product. But can you start by telling us a little bit, let's get a little tactical, because we like to introduce, you know, our audience to the people and the personalities and the products. Right. So I think we're all your personalities coming through already. Yes. And I feel like we're just about the crack that can open. But let's talk about the product for a second, because it's important that everyone has some context, can you just tell us quickly what SalesLogs is and the extent of the reach you have in the Australian market?

Michael Johnson  06:58

Yeah, so So SalesLogs as a product is essentially it's your daily your sales log, it's your daily deal book. We sit separate to the DMS and we sit separate to your CRM because we find that there's this gap in the process that the DMS is your accounting system, the CRM is tracking all of your leads, and enquiries and sales sort of process, right? So what do we do to track all of the deals that we've done? What price do expect and all of that checklist of things, we do it in a spreadsheet, right? So we find all these spreadsheets, they're built by people in the business. So you know, they're not data analysts, they're sales managers, generally who are building these spreadsheets and tracking this data. So there comes with a lot of risk and complications with that. So we've built an online platform that's in the cloud. So think Google Sheets, on steroids, like it's completely just set on fire, and just with so much more features. So we built out all of those things that become a problem or a challenge or still a restriction with inside those environments, and fix them. So everybody can see it. Anybody can customize their view,

Paul Daly  08:07

give us one, like what's the most used instance of your product? Like give me give me like a real tangible use that people like rely on it for?

Michael Johnson  08:15

Yeah, so sales managers are looking at So counting that gross and units and volume, what retail report information that they've done. And just basically tracking every deal from start to finish? What have we sold? What are we delivering? Especially in the current environment, we've got stock, you know, stock shortages, Chip suppliers, things like that. And the American markets now shifting that, you know, you're not walking in and buying a car and taking it out a few hours later anymore. You know, there's, there's water pipelines now to contend with. So how are dealerships managing that pipeline? And who are we sold to? When are we expecting it to come in? And how are we communicating internally about those vehicles? So we track all of that as well inside the system. So

Paul Daly  08:58

that makes sense. You know that that's a very practical and timely obviously use for it. Tell us about your customer base, existing, you know, in Australia, because again, like we want to give an idea for like the actual adoption of it for other dealers, that might not be US dealers.

Michael Johnson  09:14

Yeah. So we, so we work with about 700 dealers currently across Australia and New Zealand. So we've

Paul Daly  09:21

got Australia and New Zealand.

Michael Johnson  09:24

I think there's about 12,000 or so. Okay, okay.

Kyle Mountsier  09:31

Are there really 12,000? That seems like it seems like that that seems like

Paul Daly  09:39

16,000 in the US,

Michael Johnson  09:41

it seems maybe it's maybe it's not that many then. It's probably probably about I think we have about 20 to 25% of the market. Yeah. So it's, yeah, there's still a lot of opportunity, we'll

Michael Cirillo  09:52

call it Yeah.

Michael Johnson  09:54

So there's

Paul Daly  09:56

the metric system. Yeah.

Michael Johnson  10:00

Does that mean? It's too early in the morning for these

Kyle Mountsier  10:03

numbers, data analysts,

10:06

that's why we have crafts in our software. That's exactly. So we've, yes, so we've got about six and a half thousand   users signing unique every week. So we're seeing quite a number of people in our platform. Some people just sign in once or twice a week. Some of them live in it, you know, they're there all day, every day sales managers, you know, stock controllers, or inventory managers. They're the primarily, you know, the big users. You've got general managers and business owners who are spending more a bit of time sort of having a look at the the dashboards and the graphs, they'll sort of look at how the business tracking and performing, we've got automated daily reports that come out, just to keep everybody in the loop of where things are at.

Paul Daly  10:50

Very nice. Very nice. So okay, so we have this platform that helps that kind of lives in this world between the DMS and the CRM, for pertinent information, that is like very real time sensitive, it's literally decision making information that you're providing, right? Like in real time, you have 6000 unique logins every day. So people are relying on it. What what did you hear? You know, I asked you a specific use case, what, what is the biggest pain right now that Now granted, markets could be a little different, but there's a lot of similarities, supply shortages, what is the biggest pain that new customers are coming to you to solve?

Michael Johnson  11:35

The transparency of data. So you know, a lot of a lot of new customers who come to us they've got these spreadsheets, they've got data that they're tracking, and they can't share it with everybody. Or there's limitations, people break spreadsheets all the time, there's so many formulas and things in the background that people have built out, you make one mistake of just deleting it. And that breaks the whole system, putting it in the cloud. So people are trying, you know, they've got these monster spreadsheets, the size is getting too big, they're trying to migrate it into the cloud. They go and put it on things like SharePoint or Google Sheets, but then it gets too complex. And so they're there. They're trying to work out what is the solution for us to not have to spend hours and hours building and maintaining this thing. We just want our team to be putting the data and tracking the information, getting the answers in an instant not having to become data analysts and building these products.

Kyle Mountsier  12:26

Are you starting to see that, that there are like profit gaps that are found or filled? Because there's there's a reporting system like outside of the DMS outside of where the accounting is getting done? Or are people finding or are discovering those gaps early enough to kind of like stop loss or, or increase profitability because of their ability to kind of track down trends sooner than like when accounting closes the deal?

Michael Johnson  12:56

Yeah, absolutely. Because we've got, you know, the transparency around what is the forecasted gross. So if you've got a sales manager, you're telling their GM, I've got X amount of gross, I've got $300,000 worth of gross covered so far this month. But then by the end of the month, if we ended up with only a 280. Well, where is that $20,000 gap, and at the end of the month, that's too late to see. But as we were sort of tracking and delivering vehicles through the month and accounting of reconciling those deals, were highlighting on every individual deal, sales manager thought there was three and a half $1,000. In this deal, there was only 3200 in the deal, then identifying where the gaps are, you can then leave notes and comments with inside our system. We've got automatic email notifications that come off the back of that screen, there was a variance in it related to this. So if we start to see consistent comments about the same thing, is that a training opportunity for that manager? Or do we have the right costs loaded in our DMS for pre delivery charges and things like that. So when you see those comments in, it enhances like I know, I've I've experienced that personally, myself, I had a sales manager once who was terrible at grossing up a deal and forecasting was always telling me there was way more in the deal like two or $3,000, more every deal. And then we very quickly worked out that he just couldn't read the profit screen inside the system properly to know that this is actually the number that you should be counting. So you know, and that's where we we need to then train our staff highlight the information, but also forecasting through as we're tracking through the month, we want to know where is the needle? Are we on point or are we not and, and keeping a close eye on that and we need to know that now. It's no good when you're running a report that you're having to collate together at the end of the week or towards the end of the month from your DMS which is looking in the rearview mirror. It's what's happened. It's what have we closed off and done and there's your report. So there's that gap.

Kyle Mountsier  14:51

Well, and you know, the biggest interesting thing that I'm really intrigued about is this you kind of you kind of threw this out there that people are dealing with, obviously, a large amount of orders or pipeline sales and we start to, you know, you start, you're like, Oh, we sold one today, right? You write it down, and all of a sudden, you're like, oh, actually, that one's gonna get delivered in three and a half weeks when the truck drops off. And so now you can actually potentially manage profitability in the future, and now in a more accurate way, because you're looking at how we're trending and tracking over over a certain period of months. And so there's, it sounds like you're solving for that side of sort of forecasting to

Michael Johnson  15:36

absolutely, and this is where we're seeing that shift in the way that the US market is operating and how consumers are able to buy a car, not how they want to because we're impacted now by stock supply. In Australia, we don't have local manufacturing. So if I wanted to order a car, we were waiting months already, even pre pandemic, it was three or four months wait for those cars. So how do you manage to know well, what am I sold? What am I delivering this month? What's going to carry over what groceries associated with those deals? What f&i is attached to those deals, what revenue is coming in associated with it, but what trading is associated with that vehicle as well? Because we're all need to inquire that inventory when it comes into the used car manager wants to know, what trades do I have coming in when where that communication happens between those two new vehicle and used vehicle managers? Because at the moment, we don't really communicate. Hey, that tradings coming in on Friday at four o'clock. Now, our system is just unconsciously telling them because the new vehicle manager or the delivery coordination is occurring around getting that new customer their new vehicle, we don't really care too much about the trading coming in, because it doesn't impact my department. And

Kyle Mountsier  16:49

I think of Oh, my goodness, so like, let's say I got a Mercedes come in off trade, I'm a Honda dealer, I know, I'm gonna have to do an oil change, I can go ahead and pre order that Mercedes filter, and all of a sudden my speed now now you're talking about like speed to retail, which is also important because many franchise dealers are becoming much better used car operators, which means the merchandising is really important. And now on all of your trades, which are already quick turns into merchandising, you go even quicker, you could almost get that vehicle up, like within hours of it being there, especially if it's kind of a frontline ready, because you know, it's coming, you put it in the pipeline for detail, you put it in the pipeline. It's all there. Yeah.

Paul Daly  17:31

You know, it seems that you know, what you just explained as far as, like, what the just general environment in Australia is, as far as needing to order and plan. It's like, you've already played the game for so long that US market has to play now and is learning how to play. So it seems to be that you're actually you are like built for this time. Right? Like Exactly. Like this is a better time to come to market than it would have been in 2019 like to come strong? Because like you're solving the real problem, right?

18:03

Yeah, it's a completely different conversation. And it's quite interesting when you say like 2019 versus to 2022, right? When I first met a couple of our dealers who who came on board with us in 2019, after that first Digital Dealer, they're like, how many carry overs Have you got are like, two a month. And they're selling like 800 1000 cars, you know, like, the top performing dealers in the country here are selling 200 300 cars a month. You know, and I remember sitting at lunch at Digital Dealer one day, and this, these two ladies were talking sitting next to me, and she's like, Ah, I've been working with this BMW dealership, it's only small, they only sell like 100 cars a month, it's hardly worth my time. And obviously, if my BMW dealership was selling, I wouldn't be here, I'd still be working there.

Paul Daly  18:57

That's amazing. That's amazing. So let's do this. I think we talked about the product, right? And we get kind of a good overview. Give us an idea of like, the personality of your organization, give us some idea for the size and the scope and like what the mentality is inside SalesLogs, how how you approach sales, how you approach a customer service, because that is just such a big question mark. And I think a very, very important thing to dealers like, Yeah, I know, like I could turn the software on, but what's going to happen? When I have questions, what's gonna happen, you know, when something doesn't go right, or I need something changed. So give us give us an overview, like what's the what's the attitude mentality, and the personality of the SalesLogs organization?

Michael Johnson  19:40

Yeah. So for us, because we are car people, we get it. So when there's something pops up in terms of people that are, hey, I want to do this, or this is the outcome I'm looking for, or I'd like to see a report on a particular thing. We'll always take that feedback on board and a lot of things are very easy for us to just build, develop and deploy. So for example, I had a meeting the other day With a Toyota dealership and they wanted to look at a specific metric around f&i, so we didn't have that report built in the system, so I went, oh, we'll just go and build that for you. And two days later, there's the report, just click here, here, it's it's built ready to go. So of course, you know, they're amazed with that. Our customers love our product. So we don't, we don't lock anybody into a contract. This is how much we believe in our products that will make your life better. There's no setup costs, and there's no contract term, if you pull the pin after two, three months, that's okay. You know, we were okay with that, we get it. Because our product needs to enhance your current process, and, you know, take it to this next level, replace what you're doing currently. So we're car people, we get it, we understand when people ask things, and you know, we can pivot and sort of move across. And because we're not a huge corporate organization, we don't have to jump through all these hoops, you know, talking to me and saying, Hey, I'm looking for this solution, or I'm trying to do this, can we build this feature? between John and I were the ones on the front line, making those decisions with our customers daily to go, Yeah, I can see what you're trying to do. So we'll go off and plan that and build it. Because when we release functions and features, we release it to everybody. Because it's a benefit. If you're asking me for something, it's important to you, there's probably another 10 People who also see

Kyle Mountsier  21:24

the data in an inefficient way where it all kind of sits in a warehouse. And it's just like, oh, that's an insight someone wants, you know, just pull it out. And it makes sense. That's amazing. You know, I want to ask, I want to ask two questions. One is, so you guys are coming to ASOTU CON, which is that's just a big deal to me for

Paul Daly  21:45

you. By the way. By the way, let me interrupt this because I have something really special sitting right here.

Kyle Mountsier  21:50

There it is. Look at that. Well, first of all, you all threw down with us and are hosting the swag with us, which is like I initially I was like, Paul, we should do a scarf. Right? Because I'm a big soccer fan. And then, and then some Australians, which, like, happen to know a thing or two, to know a thing or two about soccer. We're like, hey, we'd love to partner and you guys, it just made a whole bunch of sense.

Paul Daly  22:24

So I didn't grow up watching soccer or and Kyle has kind of been my, my first touch into the game and understanding the culture and the community that actually happens around the game. And so when it came time, like this is the very first soccer scarf that's ever been around my neck. And honestly, I'm in love with it.

Kyle Mountsier  22:46

Yeah, it's amazing. But But you told me something else that I think that you might be bringing now I might be committing you to something more than but, but you sent to me You said I think we're gonna bring some I think they're called Tim Tams is that or Tampa Bay? Ah, okay, Tim Tams so so which is amazing, and I don't know how many you're gonna bring people might be like knocking down the doors to find Tim Tam. Yeah. Talk about what a Tim Tam is? And and why? Why now we're getting into the real conversation.

23:21

So it is it is a chocolate biscuit. Or you might call it a cookie, I guess. It is absolutely delicious. And I'm gonna bring I'm gonna bring quite a few. So there should be planning provided, provided I'd have any issues that like customs

Paul Daly  23:41

smuggling. Take you up, we're gonna have to pick up my customs or like, are you gonna claim this guy? Right? He's stuck here in the airport.

Michael Johnson  23:51

It'd be like, what what do you need all of these biscuits for like, you know, we've got food here. Very Hungry.

Kyle Mountsier  23:59

Hungry. That's great. And then my other is a lot more a lot more intentional on what specifically a lot of dealerships here are talking about right now, which is not just this inventory squeeze, which will be which we'll be talking about. But there's been a lot of conversations about what's happening at an OEM level at in Australia. And I'm sure some of your dealers are starting to deal with some of the conversations that are coming out about how franchises are organized, how OEMs are relating to dealers and just wanted to kind of see like, have there been insights or conversations around that? And how are dealers approaching that conversation with the OEMs in Australia, because I know that there are a few OEMs that have started to push the boundaries of those relationships.

Michael Johnson  24:43

We started to see a lot of the shift around this agency model with EVs coming out. So we saw a few brands going okay, you can have the full electric electrified version of this particular vehicle, but it doesn't count to your retail targets or basically The OEM numbers, so they were doing delivery on behalf of so there was a couple of brands that were doing that specifically for their electric vehicles. And now, of course, we're seeing one particular manufacturer, Mercedes Benz that you wrote about the other day, off the back of obviously, the article. And there's, there's a court case and everything going on here at the moment. A lot of it is just people sitting back watching to see what happens with this particular example, because it's going to set the precedent right, of where dealerships are going to go in terms of their relationship with the OEM, and what that looks like, you know, the dealerships had to sign their agreement, they, they were down to the wire of sign today, or take your sign down tomorrow morning kind of thing. So they didn't really have a choice. You know, that they had to just jump on board and go, Well, we've spent all of this money on, you know, facilities and brand and loyalty and our community to then kind of feel like they're handing that over to the OEM and going all this as this is kind of yours. Huge impact with with another another brand Honda, for example. You know, they they changed the agency model last year, their their sales have taken a big dive, which they were expecting. They were well, they were reducing that anyway, as part of that plan. But what sort of happened off the back of that is dealers, then were no longer dealers. So with the transition with Mercedes Benz, every dealer moved through into agency, they didn't take anybody off the list and go, you're no longer going to be a dealer. Honda didn't do that. So that was where there was a big change. So you know, long time Honda dealerships 3040 50 year dealers, no longer dealers weren't invited along for the ride. So yeah, so that that's, that's also another court case, it's sort of going through because of course, there's all that goodwill associated with it, where those customers now get directed for service because of course, they were then told, or that service center has closed.

Paul Daly  27:10

People getting their Honda service. Well, that's

Michael Johnson  27:14

an independent dealer now. So they're still open, they can still service that particular customer's car, because they're in their database and everything so but they own it. At this point,

Paul Daly  27:25

how about warranty work?

Michael Johnson  27:28

While they wouldn't be able to do warranty work, because they're not a dealer. So yeah, so it's

Paul Daly  27:34

just wait til Benstock hears about this?

Kyle Mountsier  27:38

Yeah, no, I, you know, obviously, I don't want to I don't want to put all the pressure of like, you know, what do you think about it? That's not the idea. But I think you know, you honestly are connected to 700 dealers that are going through this, they're watc hing their friends that are down the street, go through it, or they're, or they might be experiencing it on their own. And, you know, I just think that, like, there's wisdom and understanding that this is a reality across the world in developed countries that are that have the same leadership, like it's not like, you know, the 100 leadership in Australia doesn't talk to the on the leadership in the US at any point. And so, being cognizant of those changes, and how they took place, I think is really important for us to understand, and whether it's a six month timeline for US dealers, or three year timeline, or 10 year timeline, that that's a reality happening at the OEM level that that we just need to be cognizant of. And so to hear that, like, firsthand experience of, yep, it's happening to dealers in our network, and it's happening, you know, we see it and we know what's happening. These people are becoming independent dealers overnight, almost. Yeah, it's a wild deal. So,

28:45

yeah, like we, you know, we had, we had GM exit from, from the Australian market. So, you know, they, they exited from right hand drive vehicles, which, which, of course, that was a bit of a shock. Because Holden as a brand, its iconic, you know, Australian brand, the Holden Commodore, you know, I remember as a kid that you either had a Falcon or a Commodore like that was, you know, that was the two car choices for a Holden, and yeah, like when, you know, local manufacturing exited. But then when Holden exited, you know, the market of right hand drive, and now we have GMSD, which is the special vehicle so we, you know, we see some Silverados starting to get around and things in imports, but it was quite a change to sort of seeing that shift out and, of course, that caused some waves and sort of upset losing that sort of brand. And now going down this path of agency models with other with other brands, and we saw one customer they had 300 dealerships, you know, they weren't invited along for the ride, you know, they have to close all 300 dealerships because they just downsized. You know, we're talking about Metro dealerships as well. Not like they were encountering regional areas where Metro dealerships are just like that we don't need your locations anymore. Wow.

Paul Daly  29:59

Well Look, I think that everyone who watches this is going to be excited to meet you in person and not just for the Tim Tams not just for the he's gonna have a big trench coat going through security, right, it's gonna have 1010 bullet tip devs or be falling out as he walks along. I think that people are gonna be very intrigued to learn more about what's going on in the Australian market, but also to learn about the product because you're solving so many problems that US dealers are just trying to wrap their arms around for the first time. So thank you so much for for being in the ASOTU community and being a part of ASOTU and being a collaborator. But also thanks for giving us some of your time today. Like I can't wait to we can jam in person.

Michael Johnson  30:38

It's a big deal. Yeah, pleasure. Yeah, it's not long to go, I'm almost like you're doing the countdown time to find the head out there. So not long to go looking forward to catching up in person. Thanks so much for your time.

Michael Cirillo  30:55

It's really easy. I mean, coming from Canada, I find it really easy to kind of get sucked into the American Vortex where it's like, oh, this is the way the industry works. When you meet American industry professionals, sometimes we speak as if this is just the way things happen all over the world. And of course, there are some similar threads. But there is nuance there is difference. And I think this this conversation, really kind of underscores that no art like Australia is dealing with some really interesting context and nuance that Canada is not dealing with, or America is dealing with something that they're not dealing with. And I think that's the power of, you know what, what we're working on here in this Auto Collabs is bringing in as many vantage points as possible. So I thought that was really interesting. Well,

Kyle Mountsier  31:37

and what's so cool is that actually something that they've dealt with for quite some time, in dealing the order inventory and not having a lot of home, you know, production in house, essentially, in Australia is that they've managed their inventory and manage profitability differently, which is exactly the way that auto dealers in the US are starting to have to deal with that. So there are learnings that go both ways, right? There are maybe maybe the franchise system is really good and should be passed on to other countries. And so there might be other countries that kind of look and go, Hey, actually, they are doing it really well over there in the US, we got to still figure that out. And then we can learn from inventory management strategies and all of that from potentially other countries. And I think, you know, what Michael and his team at SalesLogs are doing, and allows us to learn some of those dynamics in a way that has a perspective not based on Oh, we just have to figure this out. Oh, no, it might have actually been figured out by someone else. And we can copy that to Jim McKelvey is a point innovation stack that's already been.

Paul Daly  32:39

Yeah, I remember hearing like a couple of years ago is the first time I ever heard that. Oh, well, like in Europe and Australia. A lot of people order cars, like it's more common for someone to order a car and wait 60 to 90 days. And I remember thinking how ridiculous that sounded like no one's ever going to do that here ever. Right? And now we're faced with the fact that we are dealing with that and we'll likely do a lot more of that in the future now look, it'll balance out a little bit. But getting I'm so excited that SalesLogs and Michael are bringing all that over to like say no, actually, this is how it works really well actually in your favor and in the customers favor now that the customer mindset has been a little retrained in Look, I'm just really excited for the moment he gets that football scarf. We'll call it around his neck. And I'm excited for the industry to meet him because he's just a great guy. So on behalf of Kyle Mountsier, Michael Cirillo, and myself thanks for listening to Audio Collabs,

33:36

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