EV Dealership Experience Preferred, Tesla’s Used Car Biz, NFL Punts the Pro Bowl

SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:24

I thought we're doing an ad today what does it take to be a creative in retail automotive of this November 13 through 15th. My friends and I are going to show you how we hope you can join us at the modern retail conferences we put on the industry's first ever creative track for creatives, practitioners, marketers, if you're creative in retail auto or if you have creatives on your team that you've just been looking for somewhere to send them to get them energized, motivated and learn some of the tips and tricks that other people are deploying at scale. You need to send them to spend a few days with us we're talking Kyle mounsey or Darren don't ally pinion is that a hair flip, and Nathaniel Breck lick some of the best, most innovative and open handed creatives I know, and we're all getting together to spend a few days with a small group to actually workshop creative ideas. We're going to learn about tools, we're going to learn about live deployment, we're going to learn about best practices and we're actually going to make things this isn't theory this is actually practice. So we hope to see you at the modern retail conferences, creative track November 13 through 15th in beautiful Palm Beach. We hope you will come spend some time with us

Kyle Mountsier  01:51

all right.

Paul Daly  01:52

If that doesn't get you fired up little drum solo by Darren King. I don't know what's gonna we got news. First, we have a reaction video, and we have a Rick Rule to talk about. But there's a whole lot today feels like a really great show. It just does it every day. I don't feel like it's really great. D they stopped. But some days it's greater.

Kyle Mountsier  02:10

Yes, today is definitely like I actually texted someone, I think today's gonna be a good show. You should watch. Like that's, that's how I feel about it.

Paul Daly  02:19

Like just go in our year. And it's

Kyle Mountsier  02:22

the last show in our first year of shows. Also, I just have to note this because you've said this, like the fact that the drum solo on that video is only for that video is next level. So that's pretty dope that that's what we rolled out with that.

Paul Daly  02:41

The little it's a little things that make a difference. It's a little things that make a difference. Okay, so does everyone here know what a rip roll is? If you have teenagers, you know what a rip roll is but Rick rolls have been around for like a good decade now. Rick Roll is when someone sends you the Rick Astley video Never Gonna Give You Up is that what it's called?

Kyle Mountsier  03:02

You're never gonna give you up. So basically what it is, it's like, it's a link that looks like something else that you would want to click on like a news story or something like that. And it goes to

Paul Daly  03:12

build your right? So when you do that, you're like, Ah, got Rick rolled. And I think there was like a company in Texas that did this big drone show over Dallas and all the drones lined up into a QR code and everyone's like, what is the QR code that when you scan it, it was actually that video, so they reference the entire city and I am happy to announce I believe we are the first organization or individual to ever Rick Roll their entire email audience in the header

Kyle Mountsier  03:44

we did it we did it got

Paul Daly  03:47

me I read the email this morning I opened it up because at the end of the day Kyle is the one that like make sure the emails all buttoned up before it sends it often means he writes the lead this morning and I'm never gonna give you the context was this is dealers to consumers. But that song is now in my head do

Kyle Mountsier  04:06

i Yeah, thank you

Paul Daly  04:07

you're welcome to all are many people are going to open that today for getting it stuck in your head for a minimum of an hour. You're welcome. But that that Honestly though, I think that is the most contextual Rick Roll I've ever received first of all, it was in text, right? It's got the word text in it but secondly, the context you gave it was perfect. Like Oh yeah, that is the heart of auto dealers to consumers like all the people and all the all the energy and the hate the trash talk gonna read and deal with like, we got you. We're never gonna give up. We're never gonna give. It was so good. I was so happy. I was so happy. So happy. So happy. Um, hey, you just saw the ad this morning. If you're just listening to the podcast, we rolled the ad for our creative track that we are putting on at Brian patches modern retail conference coming up very, very soon in November, we still have six weeks, you still have time to register if you're creative, or you're in the creative space or you have creatives and you're always like, I wish we could inspire our creatives more which Kyle and I hear that across the country all the time, we made something just for the creative so you can go to a so to.com forward slash M AR C for modern retail conference cio.com forward slash MRC, you get a discount there please come spend some time with me and Kyle and like the Director of Music videos that has like a billion views on YouTube Darren don't ally pinion Nathaniel Gregg real practitioners, we're going to just spend a few days together making some really amazing things, and we promise you will go home, energized and inspired, I'm gonna give you that promise.

Kyle Mountsier  05:32

Absolutely. I, here's the thing, the other thing that you're gonna do is you're gonna go home, and you're gonna be like, Look, this cool stuff I made. And then you're going to be able to do similar stuff. And you're going to have layouts and templates and all that type of stuff. So I and I would say this, like, even if you're not a creative, and you're going, how do I inspire my creative? Sometimes it's just like learning to like, have a new eye or mind's eye, what you're looking for what to communicate. And we'll we'll walk through that because we realize not every creative can come. But there might be an owner or general manager that can lean into that Converse. Yeah,

Paul Daly  06:05

marketing manager, General Manager, sales manager that has a creative bent, like, for real, like, this is a spot for you. And not to mention, all of the sessions and conversations that aren't part of the creative track that are also going the main panels and all that are unbelievable. Just Brian always puts together an amazing list of dealers and industry partners that are at his events, really high value conversations happen at these things. So this will be my 12345 this I think this will be my sixth or seventh Brian passionate. Wow, that's cool. And I don't travel lightly right. When I travel somewhere, it better be worth it. Because I don't like leave my family. You know, I'm saying Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Kyle Mountsier  06:40

Hey, speaking of really strong conversations, segue. The important one, everybody lean in, if you're listening, if you're watching, we got to have this conversation. We're about to roll a video that's gone viral on Tiktok. It's been up for 10 or 11 days, something like that. And we just like we need people to recognize what the one off instances have the capacity to do to to shift the perception of retail automotive. And unfortunately, today's is not a positive one. But we've got to draw a line in the sand on the way that we need to we believe we need to interact as

Paul Daly  07:20

trying to see how many views this says it has half a million likes. Right? So it's kind of millions of probably a couple of years. Got it's got like 9000 comments, 3500 shares, I can't see the views on the internet, but either way, and all of the comments have like 1000s and 1000s of likes. Right? So all right. It's got a truth hurts.

07:43

I went to go buy a car yesterday at this dealership, I don't care. I'm name dropping. So I walk in the price online was 23,000, which is a great deal for the car that it was 23 was a great price. So I get there and I'm like, Hey, price is still 23. And they're like, absolutely. So I test drive it great. I'm like, awesome. So we go to work numbers. And they're like, Okay, so we've broken down the costs. And I'm like, Hey, what's that right there that $2,500? And they're like, oh, that's the blazer cost on like the blazer? And they're like, Well, yeah, it's a package that we have to add on. Basically what it is, is it comes with two years of free maintenance and some formats for the car. And I was like, oh, no, thank you. I don't want to want that. I don't have any use for that. And they're like, oh, no, it's not optional. And I'm like, what? And they're like, yeah, it's not an optional package is $2,500. And I was like, So the car is 25 Five, not 23. And we're like no, the car still 23 And I'm like, okay, then I don't want the package, and I'll pay for it at 23. And they're like, Well, no, he has to have to pay for the package. And I'm like, Okay, well, then I'm going to leave. And then they're like, Well, what can we do to make this work? And I was like, you can charge me 23, which is what the price is. And they're like, well, we can come down half of that price. And I was like, no, no, I want to pay the 23. There's no half or anything like that. I came down here for the price that was listed. I'm not paying over that price. And I'm not paying for this weird BS package. And they're like, well, it covers maintenance for the first two years. And I'm like, it's a fairly new car maintenance at best just oil changes. That's at most, what 200 bucks. You're just ripping me off $2,300. And they're like, well, it comes with floormats. And I was like I can get formatted for $50

09:12

on the internet. I don't need those for

09:15

the best part is after we have this argument for a while they go and get the highest one actually, this really hurts, right? He's like, alright, well let me go speak to my boss, he leaves and I'm sitting at the salesman's desk for like 20 minutes. And then after a while the salesman goes, Are you waiting for something? And I was like, yeah, for the sales manager come back and he goes, Oh, he's not coming back. I was like, what? He's like, Oh, no, he went home like don't even I was like, he was

09:41

like, this dude was like he's not making a deal. I'm just leaving. He said he was coming back and he just so weird.

Kyle Mountsier  09:48

So here's, here's the thing. Let me give you a few data points, few data points.

Paul Daly  09:53

Now the first data point is that they have the dealer's name and address Google My Business page up in the background if you're just listening to podcasts. Exactly. So

Kyle Mountsier  10:00

I mean, at this point, I just looked it up 4.5 million people have seen this video. So it's not like I'm blowing anything by saying Lindsay Chevrolet. This is what's wild, right? When we think about we had this conversation with DealerRater, about the percentage of positive, right? This dealership has a 4.4 star review 6000, Google reviews on DealerRater, a 4.3, with 1200 Reviews on cars, 639 reviews at a 4.2. So here's the thing, they're probably doing a lot of really good things. There's probably a wide swath of the way that they're doing business, the way they're engaging customers, the way they're doing, engaging customers is doing good work. The problem becomes, when we as an industry continue to shoot ourselves in the foot by like, just communicating poorly. Here's the thing. This guy might have actually shown up for that car at 25. Five, if we knew that we needed that for the profit margin. I don't know, maybe not. But he was saying it was a really great price. Maybe the car was something that he needed. But the problem is what we did is we weren't aware of the situation who was potentially in front of us, which at any point, well,

Paul Daly  11:16

that's what's so viral. Yeah, let's just fix that who was in front of us is someone who could have 5 million people see what they have to say about this experience? The next day?

Kyle Mountsier  11:27

Exactly. His highest previous views was like 132,000, which is a pretty big tick tock account, but still, like, it's now gone viral to the point of like, being in New sources. So like, what does that do not just for that dealership, but for that industry, and so are just like, are out and out ask is just quit with the junk. You know,

Paul Daly  11:50

we had a conversation, real talk, Kyle and I had a conversation. And we we were like considering what we do in service to this industry so that we can serve consumers. And we kind of made this distinction. Like number one, we are for the retail auto dealer network, we believe hands down, it is the best way to sell and service vehicles in every community across this country. And we will fight to that to the fight for that to the bitter end. Well, that does also mean we have to call out the practices that are be smudging the industry and ruining it for everybody. Which means that we do have to call out some dealers and some dealer practices. And we realize we aren't, we aren't for instance nada, right who has to lobby for the whole body, we are able to have a little bit more of a precise voice and say practices like that were just described in this video are ruining the perception and ruining the experience, not even the perception. It's just like no one likes to buy anything, where they're told one thing and given another every time a dealer does that they ruin it. Every time they do that they're one second away from 5 million people looking at all car dealers and saying that's what I'm talking about. Go ahead, click on that video, read the comments section. Right? It becomes a game of you know, back and Looney Tunes, they call it pile on the rabbit. Right? And everybody jumps on the rabbit. And so like what Kyle said, like, there's got to be a lot of good things going on in that store. Because the reviews show it when you look through the reviews. And that's

Kyle Mountsier  13:22

when you read them that's talking about the people and how they care people dealership, right.

Paul Daly  13:27

But this is just like, guys, gals, this is inexcusable, like, we can't keep doing this. And if you have dealer partners or friends, you know other dealers have other dealer friends that are doing this man just gently and caringly. Like encourage them in the other direction. That is really what it is going to take because we can't do it. You know, YouTube tick tock reviews can't do it. They won't do it. Right. Like I don't know that. But the blazer package is still on every vehicle that they're trying to mark up by 25. Yeah, maybe not. So I mean, that's that's just our real talk, real talk, loving talk out of care for this industry. We have to be better, like we cannot let those things happen. Right. We can't let it happen. Nothing about but nothing about that tick tock video made me think this hasn't happened 100 times already this month is somebody else. Exactly. There's nothing about this that that that communicates all this was a one time thing. Yeah. Like I

Kyle Mountsier  14:19

like you know, some some YouTube stuff and tick tock stuff you can be like, Okay, that's like you perceived that weirdly. And you You took your own kind of thing. And they're like, No, without a shirt like that that was level headed and probably something that's happening on a regular basis at not just that store, but a lot of stores across the country and there's just there's no excuse for it.

Paul Daly  14:40

There's not there's not Well, I think that's enough of that

Kyle Mountsier  14:46

in front tone about dealerships.

Paul Daly  14:48

Oh, speaking of Eevee I don't know there's no, I think we just really need a Segway button to just come over here. Hi, we're gonna get into our regularly scheduled programming a new study finds that 74% of Evie intenders would prefer to buy an Eevee. From a dealership. Yes, as opposed to purchasing directly from an auto manufacturer, or a third party participants who already own an Eevee or even contenders or younger buyers are more likely to prefer purchasing from an automaker not a used car, not an independent however, a majority of each group still provides still wants to buy from specifically a dealership. And like they had a little asterix. In the study, they said, you know, the more familiar people are with AV technology. So if they already own one, or if you know, their younger demographic, they still are more likely to want to purchase DirectX than the other people, but still have those people trying to like get this right of everyone. dealership is the preferred method to buy an EV.

Kyle Mountsier  15:56

Yeah. Which makes a lot of sense, because you're looking for an authority to walk you through and guide you through a process that's unfamiliar with a product that's quite unfamiliar. Like you think about the early days of Apple is like, you didn't go buy that thing online, I needed to go you need to go touch it, feel it, talk to someone, all that type of stuff and now eat and now, you know, cell phone and smartphone adoption becomes a lot quicker. And it's like, oh, we were ordering everything online. So I think we'll see a transition there. But at least in and this was this was the key one, there's a few data points that you can look into shows but this is that, that things that are unacceptable third party call centers for service inquiries. 71% said that would be an unacceptable interaction. And I think that's that's core to like, people actually need to talk to someone about this because it's something that they don't understand and need to approach with new with a new mentality. And so thinking about that thinking about like, setting up and communicating to customers saying like, hey, look, we have Evie education. Hey, look, we answer the phones when you need us. We have the capacity to help you walk through an Eevee purchase and decide if it's right for you. That type of like comfort and calm in an Eevee shopping process, especially if you're in a brand that has EVs right now and is leaning into that is a way that you should be communicating with customers because they're asking for that it's this survey is telling us

Paul Daly  17:21

it does and this survey is a 2022 Evie forward dealer Deep Dive. It's conducted as a part of advisory firm escalettes work to capture the attitudes, behaviors and opinions of next generation Evie buyers. I think one more notable point is that people want an in person service experience. That's it's kind of buried in there. I read through the whole thing. But people so here's a quote, actually from escolas, Vice President of powertrain innovation and energy transformation, he said, most people, I'm sorry, people are much more comfortable taking their vehicle to a dealer than they are, for instance, having a mobile service unit coming out and doing it in their driveway or garage listing. And they took all that what they did was they just like be branded every experience, right? And they kind of walk people through like, Is this acceptable? Unacceptable? Would you prefer this? Would you prefer that? So like the element of the survey, I like the rudimentary you know, kind of the way it was given. They walked people through the service experiences. They took all the branding off and they say Would this be acceptable? Unacceptable, right? Like, I like it. I like it. It's not too convoluted. It's pretty clear. So it's good news for us. Speaking of us TVs, though, use TVs segue

Kyle Mountsier  18:37

which is a new market segment because we're now getting into a larger swath of EVs being available us for purchase because of trades happening more frequently.

Paul Daly  18:45

Oh, leases ending Yes, leases ending to is a big one. So I learned a whole lot this morning prepping for the show. I did not know you could buy a used car from Tesla. But apparently you didn't know that. I did not know that. And Tesla's use car business is claimed now to be as big as some publicly traded us car retailers. According to Jimmy Douglas, Director of Sales and delivery operations at Tesla. Most people he says don't realize Tesla runs its own vertically integrated nationwide online used car retailer. Most people that's me. It's as big as some publicly traded used cars retailers you've definitely heard of despite no Superbowl commercials, or wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men, so most likely he's talking about, you know, Carvana with the maybe auto nation, it's impossible to prove the claim, you know that they're bigger then because Tesla, the way they report us car earnings on their p&l is under service and other but that line item has grown 50% In the last year. And kind of like the attention this is getting is because of a job post. It's wild. How about that?

Kyle Mountsier  19:50

Jack was on LinkedIn, actually new job posts on LinkedIn for an associate manager of the used car quality team and people were like, You know what, it's actually It's pretty interesting like to find it on, on the website is, you know, it's it's pretty easy like you can shop and then you can go straight to filtering by use cars like it's not a it's not a hard thing. So

Paul Daly  20:14

I just never thought that Tesla was I thought I knew they took in trades and liquidated stuff. But basically they so of course, I didn't like how to start searching it look through the whole Frequently Asked Questions page and look through the whole search shopping experience this morning. A couple of things stuck out to me. Number one, that you cannot buy your Tesla off lease, I know that Ford has made that change, and it became a big thing. Tesla's already had that in place. So they take control of all the off lease inventory. You know, some other things, you know, there's, there are no actual pictures of vehicles. They're all the same stock image. That's a new vehicle. And I'm like, Man, how does that like? How does the reconditioning show up? Because like anyone that has business understands that not there are no two car used cars that have been loaded. I have seen some serious curbed Tesla wheels. Like, man, that's that's fixable. I bet they fixed I know, I want to fix standards. I wonder what the standard is because I was thinking more of things like the smell, right? Smell, pets, kids, all the things, you know, just people that just don't do that just trash and interior, right? There's little scratches, scrapes, scuffs on the tailgate, you know, when you put it up in the plastic, or the hard plastic, if

Kyle Mountsier  21:24

I had to guess they got some pretty strong recondition,

Paul Daly  21:27

too, but it's still it's still a used car. And they still probably have some brand, like some brand, you know, leeway in there, right? Because you're getting the Tesla, they're super expensive. It's very real, how expensive they use Tesla's are, they do have a lot of them. You know, all the photos of stock again. But I mean, you can easily on the site, you can shop with inventory they have, you can arrange your terms, you can see where you can pick the vehicle up at one of their their centers. And there's a very clear list and they show you it's $500 to get it transported there. So I mean, it is pretty clear and pretty clean. I just I just I just it just surprised me. It feels like it feels like you're shopping for a new Tesla because of the stock images. It does feel like that the expectation level is right when you show up and doesn't

Kyle Mountsier  22:17

Oh, I would have a high expectation of that car. On the brace on the pictures. I have a brand new expectation. We talk about this all the time. It's like once you send an expectation you have to deliver on that brand, I would expect a very, very quality vehicle. So

Paul Daly  22:30

yeah, oh, yeah. Like, you know, it's funny, our friend taco pudo used to talk when he talked about used car reconditioning. He's like, nobody wants somebody else's junk. No, right? That was his reconditioning philosophy. Right? Nobody wants somebody else's junk. You got to make it new. You have to make the car stand tall. So I'm curious. Now, I'm super curious and what the Tesla use car experience delivery experience is like, but it's cool. It also lists the warranties. You get a one year 10,000 mile warranty on all used cars purchased on top of whatever the balance of the factory warranty is. And they they make it pretty clear like, Hey, this is the vehicles warranty. This is the remaining battery warranty. You know, so they do a good job of that. And again, it's like, Tesla level clean as far as the website goes. But just There you go. I mean, that's it's out and about zero marketing dollar spent because Tesla is a brand first company. I mean, it helps when you have the richest man in the world was your CEO feverishly tweeting, tweeting about Twitter, tweeting about Twitter writes speaking meta speaking, meta, I think it's kind of meta. I think so. Look, I know a lot of people are going to be disappointed actually not too many. But the NFL is punting the Pro Bowl say goodbye to the Pro Bowl who was used to be held in Hawaii the week before the Super Bowl, which was a game that was very kind of low energy, not that fun to watch. And last year, they had your ship as 67 million people record low viewership ever. So the NFL and what I believe to be a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant customer first brand play. Oh Dainius it's so good. I want to go I've never wanted to go to the Pro Bowl. But I want to go to this. Yeah, so

Kyle Mountsier  24:15

the Pro Bowl games will integrate new challenges where players showcase their football and non non football skills in unique competition that allows the top stars to show off their skills and celebrate their accomplishments in a fun, memorable ROI surrounded by their families and friends. And here's what I'm hoping for Paul.

Paul Daly  24:34

I'm hoping for and we can get press passes. Chubby Bunny, I want to see a bunch of Pro Bowlers just shoving marshmallows. Oh, this has influencer marketing written all over it. You know, get this Peyton Manning's Omaha productions. His company Omaha productions will be partnering with the league on the event and Manning is going to play a key role in Coaching they get this it's going to culminate all of these events in a flag football game. They're like, these are the greatest players in the NFL this year. It's like football belt velcro this to your belt. Now it's gonna be amazing. I don't know how they're gonna do with the receiver to

Kyle Mountsier  25:16

be hilarious and exciting. And the social media stuff is that comes out of it is going to be a friend. I

Paul Daly  25:22

think it might get sticky. And Mike and it's not and it's not in Hawaii, right? It's in Vegas, so it's easy to get to. We have been shoot, it was on the field that the NADA party was on. Right that big, amazing stadium. It's back there. I can't wait to see what happens. I think it is social media waiting to explode. I mean, I could just like you gotta get the Dude Perfect guys in there and do it some trick shots like there are so many plays on this, where the NFL is just I think doing a great, great job of expanding the footprint for the popularity of the sport should bring us into podcast, it would be perfect. We'd be right on time. What are they not thinking right now. That's number one on their list of things. They're not thinking. The NFL will also be using the opportunity to feature key integrations with philanthropic organizations and mentoring organizations like the Boys and Girls Club. So what a great opportunity to just be kind of like in the middle of the country easy to get to in the fans doing fun things. I think the players have a great opportunity to build their personal brands right by being a character, right, a character in the play. So I'm just super excited about this. I love the NFL. I've always disliked the Pro Bowl. I think it's just a weird thing that I never watch. So I will certainly be tuning in to the Pro Bowl games. Maybe Kyle with press passes for a soda because oh well, a little bit longer of a show today. But we wanted to talk about the important things and we know that you are gonna go out today and you're gonna love people more than you love cars. encourage your friends to do that too, because we need some like positive peer pressure up in this thing.

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