TOGETHER WITH:
Welcome to Saturday, Friend!
A lot happened this week, and I can't imagine anybody caught all of it. So this one's built to share. Every story below ends with the person at your store who needs it most.
If you've got a team, and you believe people accomplish more when they're well equipped, forward this email to them. Who knows, maybe they'll send a GIF back.
*If they do send a GIF back, you're morally obligated to reply and share it with us. Plz.
Keep Pushing Back,
—Paul, Kyle, Chris & Kristi
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ICYMI
Missed a few emails this week? So did your team. Here's the whole week in five stories, with the person at your store who needs each one.
Gut instinct is costing you. (Monday) Cox Automotive's Dealer Success Study found the 22% of franchised dealers who run on data hit their profit goals 36% of the time, compared with 19% for everyone else. They're also far more likely to say their tools are used to full potential. Before you sign for another AI tool, ask your current vendors which features you're already paying for and not using.
Forward to: whoever signs your software contracts.Tennessee told Scout no. (Tuesday) Fourteen of 16 Motor Vehicle Commission members voted down Scout's dealer license, and we argued that when Volkswagen AG funds Scout, the money lands in the same place either way. That same day, we asked who's really writing your customer messages now that AI drafts so many BDC follow-ups, service texts, and review replies. Read your last five follow-ups out loud and rewrite any that sound like nobody wrote them.
Forward to: your BDC manager.Your used shopper might be a new-car buyer. (Wednesday) Thirty-eight percent of GM's CarBravo shoppers who start on used end up buying new, often when a $500 used F-150 payment sits next to a $515 new Chevy. With new-car gross down five straight quarters and F&I and fixed ops carrying the store, that first CPO conversation matters more than ever. Treat every certified buyer as your next new-car and service customer.
Forward to: your used car manager.Most of your competitors now advertise all-in prices. (Thursday) Seventy percent of dealers say most rivals now meet the FTC's pricing demands, and Kyle's message to the holdouts was simple: quit it. AI shopping bots can already pull out-the-door pricing from eight stores in one go, so any gap between your ad and your desk will show. Check every advertised price for every mandatory fee.
Forward to: whoever runs your ads, in-house or agency.ChatGPT now lets you claim your dealership's profile. (Friday) OpenAI's new Business Hub lets you verify what ChatGPT says about your store. It takes three steps: find your listing, verify by business phone, email, or a DNS record, and finish an identity check. Claiming doesn't guarantee more visibility, but it puts you in control of whether the answer about your store is right.
Forward to: whoever controls your website domain.
Grab a Complimentary Lyft to ASOTU CON West
Every service drive has the same transportation question: how do you get the customer where they need to go without tying up a shuttle, loaner, or employee?
Lyft Business gives dealers an on-demand option. Advisors can request rides in seconds, customers do not need the app, and dealers pay only for the rides they actually send, with no platform fees or minimums.
And at ASOTU CON West, they are putting that same idea to work for our attendees. As our official rideshare partner, Lyft is offering complimentary rides around the event for registered attendees (message our team if you need more details).
If customer transportation is still eating time and money in your service lane, make sure Lyft is on your list of people to meet in LA.
THE DEALER PLAYBOOK
Brad Lea sold at least 20 cars a month by asking customers whose car he could buy.
Most salespeople ask for referrals and get nothing, because nobody wants to hand their friend's number to a car salesman. So Brad, who founded LightSpeed VT after years in dealerships, flipped the ask. He had every customer, whether they bought or not, write down five people and what they drive, and he offered a couple hundred bucks if he bought one of those cars. When he called to make an offer, he asked whether they'd need to replace the vehicle.
"Now all of a sudden, I just created a buyer," he told Michael Cirillo. Those buyers hadn't shopped every store yet, so his gross ran higher. Check your state's rules before paying for referrals.
Jump to 51:42 for the full script. Listen if you manage a team that waits for the next up.
The day after ASOTU CON West, we're heading to AutoMobility LA, the official media and industry day of the LA Auto Show, on November 19th.
An ASOTU CON West ticket includes a ticket to AutoMobility LA for free!
But, if you can’t make it to ACW, you can still get $100 off with our exclusive code: MTC149
Mercedes wants your car to go the second the light turns green.
It's 7:42 a.m. You're two cars back at the light on the way to the store, coffee in the cupholder, already running a little late. The light turns green. The guy in front of you is scrolling. You give it one second. Two. You reach for the horn.
Mercedes-Benz would like to skip that whole scene. The automaker filed a patent application, first spotted by The Drive, for a launch control system that uses cameras and machine learning to watch the traffic light and accelerate the moment it turns green.
And Mercedes isn't alone. On Nov. 3, General Motors was granted a patent for a camera-based system that reads the Christmas tree lights at a drag strip and launches the car for you. So the robots are coming for the stoplight and the quarter-mile in the same month.
To be fair, a patent isn't a product, and plenty of them never leave the filing cabinet. But somewhere, a guy who has spent 20 years perfecting his reaction time at the local strip just felt a disturbance in the force.
Saturday question: would you let your car decide when to go on green, or is the half-second stoplight stare-down a sacred American right? Hit reply and tell us.
1851: Moby-Dick is published in the U.S. It sells poorly, proving that even the greatest story of an obsessive chase can struggle to close.
1910: Eugene Ely makes the first airplane takeoff from a ship, rolling off a wooden ramp on the USS Birmingham, dipping toward the water, and somehow staying airborne.
1969: Apollo 12 is struck by lightning twice in its first minute after liftoff. The crew resets the systems and goes to the moon anyway.
