Events Season is Here, We Need a Show Name & Dealers Partnering w/ Athletes

April 11, 2022
Welcome to the first week of what we are dubbing “events season.” Ok, maybe someone else called it that first. However, we can’t wait to see you soon at one or multiple of them. We also are doing some R&D on a new show and would love your help to curate the name of it. Launching into Monday like djsmokeysmoke (Jonathan Smoke) on a Spotify playlist!
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Events Season is Fired up

  1. Auto Intel Summit
  2. Digital Dealer
  3. VeeCon
  4. DMSC
  5. Kain Clients and Friends

Dealers Partner With College Athletes

  1. The National College Athletic Association decided in June 2021 to allow college athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness. Multiple dealerships have since partnered with college athletes, exchanging advertising for vehicles or pay. 

The future of retail last mile


Paul Daly  0:28  

Yo, Monday, Monday, Monday, Monday, I hope you're ready to make some trouble. We certainly are. Made a little trouble over the weekend too. But that's okay. There's a lot more to be made. Let's talk about a little trouble this week. The people who need they stopped when they see me is already getting off to a great start. I've ever started by laughing so hard in my life kyle events season is here, if you didn't know it already, I feel like may all of a sudden, I looked at the main calendar and I'm like, holy crap.

Kyle Mountsier  1:07  

Look at everything that's exactly starting this month. Yeah, it is it's starting. We, we were going to be going places but you know, between nada last month, I got babies in the house and may is going to be crazy. June is going to be crazy. So we're staying put for a little bit blinded, Jacqueline getting things done, but it's good. It's really good.

Paul Daly  1:28  

You know, I really wanted to get out to the auto Intel Summit. Steve Greenfield has so many good things to say about it. And the Cherokee team that puts that on, and we thought we were gonna get out there just wasn't in the cards this time around. But we'll we'll try to pay attention. But I've heard it's a great Summit. And Steve is going to be doing some stuff there. So you know, he's what I

Kyle Mountsier  1:46  

love about that one and I'm from what I hear about it is it's it's primarily technology companies and and looking at like, what does it look like to collab to increase the capacity from a technology perspective in the industry. So it's kind of a unique event where it's actually not dedicated to dealers, although a lot of dealers do attend. You know, it's dedicated to a lot of the industry partner platforms that are looking to like, make changes, challenge each other, tell what they're doing. So kind of an interesting, interesting thing. We'll see if we can snag some stuff out of it, and maybe talk to some people that are there this week. Yeah.

Paul Daly  2:23  

Now we're gonna try to do that as much as we can. Whether we're there or that there. We're going to try to bring as much much of like the highlights and things to you. So you feel like you were there. And we feel like we were there. Even if we weren't sure. charity's gonna put a lot around there. So we can report on that a little bit. Um, we're super excited about digital dealer. We're throwing another asotu family reunion Friday night was it may 9,

Kyle Mountsier  2:44  

you You heard it here first, folks, you heard it here.

Paul Daly  2:47  

We haven't said it out loud yet. We haven't said it out loud. That was the first

Kyle Mountsier  2:51  

we just we just actually committed to it. Right?

Paul Daly  2:55  

We committed to it already. We got a venue lock. It's going to be an American social again. Last time. I mean, we blew the roof off that place last time. And this time is going to be better. We have some fun stuff planned. Maybe even a live in person retail Swag Shop where you get to come in and just get some swag for free. Or if you're there as a guest or you know, there's a lot of fun things to do. But digital dealer is going to be great in Tampa ninth through 11th. We will be there. Obviously the night we're having our event, but we'll be out there on the floor trying to bring some of that stuff to you. What else is going on? What is the David Kane families and friends and family event? I haven't been to this

Kyle Mountsier  3:31  

end of this month, right?

Paul Daly  3:33  

I think it's an April and talk about one of the nicest guys in automotive. Right, David? I mean, just look at this picture. He's so nice. And on top of it, the accent on top of it. You're like, Man, I know why everybody likes you. You're just so great. You're so nice. So that's going to be like a who's who, especially in the vendor industry have, you know, a lot of amazing speakers and a lot of innovators that we know are going to be there in person. So if

Kyle Mountsier  4:00  

its the 19th it's coming up, it's real soon. So yeah, that's who it is the cast of characters and I think that's, that's just a testament to David. Right. It's just that he's like, everybody loves David and so everybody comes to the workshop. And yeah, it's also interesting because he holds it where he's at, which is in Lexington, which is not a place that you know, you typically go for conference, not the average stop. Yeah, so it's kind of a fun, fun, different thing to go to.

Paul Daly  4:28  

I heard one of the events is they're actually like, gonna go to a horse race.

Kyle Mountsier  4:33  

Which is great. You can't do that anywhere.

Paul Daly  4:36  

I could picture David Candice in blue suede shoes. I just can't Yeah. Super white, blue suede shoes. We're gonna find that picture. I'm sure it's going to exist. Couple. Another one coming up. That's not an automotive conference. It's the first ever it's called V con ve CO and it's Gary Vaynerchuk. Conference. It's going to be I mean, he's positioning like the next South by Southwest very heavy into crypto and NFTS and the only way you can get to this is if you own one of his first issue V friends, NF T's. I happen to have one. So I'm going, I can't miss this one. I just can't miss this one. So really looking forward to seeing what what is on the front edge of conferences in general, what is on the front edge of how you bring people together how you execute how you activate? Well, because we're trying to shake up, you know, the automotive scene. I don't you know, I'm not saying I don't think we need another conference with workshops, and keynotes, right, those are good things. But we have another little something cooking for maybe September, that will be our take on what we think an automotive conference can be and should be. So we'll talk more about that. But I'm a little jealous, because right after V con, Kyle is going to dmsc its event that Brian put up for you, you should be excited.

Kyle Mountsier  5:49  

I've never been to dmsc, I've wanted to go a few times. And if if, if nothing else, because it's in Napa Valley, and it's just so cool, there doesn't suck, you can be outside at all hours of the day and not be mad about it unless it's raining and it doesn't rain much. So

Paul Daly  6:06  

it rained one year when I was there. I think what the last four years, it's one, it's one of my favorites, because it stands for Digital Marketing Strategies conference. And what you have here is some of the brightest people in the marketing ecosystem. So if like you have the tippy top as a 10, these are all the sevens, eights, nines and 10s. But it's all like everyone that's there is at least like a seven, and they're looking for the 10. And it's in a small hotel. It's real intimate. You know, Brian always curates some really great wine. I mean, he knows the man knows how to put on an event. He just does. And so that that's coming up as well. And some others are coming up, then well, at the end of May we kind of like take the break, right? June, July, August, right, we're doing the summer thing. And so all these things are coming up, we're gonna try to cover them as best we can for you. Or maybe you're interested in going to one of them. We'll link them all up in the show notes. So that if you want to like learn a little bit more about it, and maybe go to it, go to it. And when you go, yeah, tell them tell them we sent you.

Kyle Mountsier  7:04  

Tell them asotu sent you a glimpse on ground everywhere. That'd be like, wait, what? How many employees did they have?

Paul Daly  7:11  

Right? Yeah, we have. We're not trying to play blocker on any event. We're saying. We are pro industry.

Kyle Mountsier  7:17  

Speaking of employees.

Paul Daly  7:20  

Segue where are we? Where are we speaking of employees? What did you get that?

Kyle Mountsier  7:28  

Well, I was like, I'm we're sending people places we got to so do employees everywhere. It was a stretch.

Paul Daly  7:35  

Okay, well, I'll allow it. I'll allow.

Kyle Mountsier  7:37  

No, so we last week, there were a couple of new asotu employees, while some that you may know, through a calendar invite on Paul on my schedule, kind of unbeknownst to us known to us, and they named it something a little bit ridiculous, right. So that it was ambiguous, ambiguous as to what they were working on. But on the back channels, apparently, they had been working on a new podcast show idea. And we'll explain it in just a minute. But the really fun part about this new podcast idea was they were like, here's the podcast idea. And yeah, we think we can put it together. And both Paul and I were like, Yeah, we think we can probably make time in our schedule. And they were like, no, no, why don't you What do you don't understand is we want to host it, which was really cool to us. And so Paul explain like, why they thought that them hosting it and watch, we're gonna do some things with this, why that's gonna be important and what we need from you if you're listening right now.

Paul Daly  8:36  

Okay, so what our philosophy here at asoto is we want to wrap our arms around the entire industry draw a really big circle, which means we're not just going after the owners, GM salesman, or sales managers, very important. But we're also trying to wrap our arms around the service advisors, salespeople, receptionists, back office technologists, janitors lot porters, detailers all because we know that's where the rubber meets the road in the store. And we know if we can get more of those people in the conversation, we're just going to be able to innovate faster, because everyone's aligned on what we're trying to do and why and why Automotive is the best industry to be in in the United States. So they understand that about us are two of our team members, Danielle and Chris. So they were like, Let's do a podcast where we interview those people. And we find those people so that they can not only we can inject into them some energy for this industry. So they leave being interviewed with some more energy and knowing that like, hey, it's cool to love automotive. But then the other people that have the positions like them start listening to this, right because everyone wants to listen to the other people that do the same things they do, and maybe they'll get inspired and energized. And the reason that Danielle and Christine they should host the podcast is because it's one step removed from Kyle and I right so we want to show everybody that everybody on the asotu team loves this industry as much as Kyle and I do. And so it's like, hey, like, those are those are the boss guys, right? But But us, like we all believe it too, you know. And so it blew our minds. We were just sitting there like,

Kyle Mountsier  10:12  

I was just sitting there, like I had to lean back and just, you know, it's one of those moments where

Paul Daly  10:17  

you weren't leaning back. You were so good. At it's, like I said, the conference calls like, it's, that was an idea where I'm like, How come we didn't think of this sooner? It feels really good when like, your team is like, thinking in an aligned way. And so like, we really got pumped, and then we're like, okay, what are we gonna call it? And then we were like, maybe this note maybe that? No, so we were like, we need to, we need to crowdsource this name. It's only appropriate. And so it's,

Kyle Mountsier  10:43  

it's exactly employees everywhere, Paul employees everywhere.

Paul Daly  10:47  

Right? Right. So what we need you to do is if you can think of a name that would really conceptualize that show, well, go to crew@asoto.com, or email crew, CR ew at a so two.com. And send us your name suggestions. If we happen to pick your name suggestions, we're going to send you stuff. That's right. And we will mention will mention on the show, and we will send you stuff and we will be forever grateful that you decided to troublemaker with us.

Kyle Mountsier  11:13  

Exactly. So again, to recap, the idea of the show is we're going to have core people in asoto interviewing core people in the dealership that aren't the ones that normally get interviewed for podcasts and articles and all that type of stuff. So no owners. Yeah, right.

Paul Daly  11:30  

Sales Manager is not happy. Okay, so let's go. Let's, let's actually talk about some news. Let's do it. Let's get into it. There's one story, it was dropped last week. But I think it's really important because you and I have friends that are actually in it's called the ni l business name image likeness. Dave Meltzer, one of our mentors is big into this. And now college athletes are allowed to monetize their name, image and likeness. You know, within certain parameters, and before now they really haven't been able to so here they are in college, they're playing, playing and studying, they're working super hard. The colleges are making bank off their name image and likeness, right? They're selling, they're selling tickets, and they're, they're putting them on TV and all this and the actual athlete hasn't been in networks are making ton of money on everybody, everybody, but that one is making money. Yes, everybody bought them. So that has changed. And now that that is possible, we're starting to see some auto dealers get in the game. And, you know, we see a lot of auto dealer and pro sports teams and pro sports athletes agreements. But now we're getting into college, which I think is I mean, it's a lot more like organic, right? College sports are just more organic, right? The stories are closer to home, right? That the students they're younger, right? And they're just like, hey, they just left home for the first time. Like, there's just a lot of real life in college sports. Right. And I think

Kyle Mountsier  12:49  

I think what would be really smart is for dealers to look at not not so much the people that are going to school near you. But the ones that were like local homegrown, the ones that came from high school and then went to school and are playing maybe even somewhere else. And the highlight that stuff. Sorry,

Paul Daly  13:06  

it's not a competitive team. Yeah, that's true, right?

Kyle Mountsier  13:11  

You're like, you're in Columbus, Ohio, and Michigan like that, dude, okay.

Paul Daly  13:18  

We're never talking to him again. Right? He's out. So there's an automotive news article that we linked up. Rick Reichert was kind of like, I think that's the one that they featured in mainly. So you can go and check it out. And you can just see that the fun that is about to be had or that can be had. And if you weren't aware of this, you didn't know it's a huge opportunity for your marketing department to get some local influencers at lower dollar amounts, and probably more relatable to some of the audiences you actually want to get in touch with. So it's, it's, you know, things like this don't don't start very often, right? Like, this is a big deal. And it'll become very normal and regular shortly. So this is the opportunity. You have market mover. Yeah. Because in 12 months, everyone else is going to try to get those same people and then it's like, it's always I think it's always weird when you see like the same person. They're like, Hey, I'm with this dealership. And then the next year, like, whatever the contract right now, like I met this dealership, I have a football in my hand, you should buy these cars.

Kyle Mountsier  14:18  

Right? Yeah, exactly.

Paul Daly  14:20  

And so yeah, so for marketing departments, savvy, GM savvy, sales managers, this is your opportunity to move first. So do that. Let's let's do one more. It's 14 minutes in. Everyone's got work to do. Let's do one more. Okay, so I get a I don't know if you know this, but I've read the Wall Street Journal, because our sophisticated businessman are so

Kyle Mountsier  14:41  

sophisticated and savvy, right?

Paul Daly  14:45  

Sophisticated and savvy. The reason I read the Wall Street Journal is because a dealer, very successful dealer, he said, I read this every day and you should too. And that's what got in my head that I should read the Wall Street Journal. It's like this is the least biased news publication that covers a broad A variety of news. And it kind of stays down the line because business is usually like down the middle, right? very factual. very matter of fact, I'm a little a little bit agnostic when it comes to like political views like so Wall Street Journal, I've really enjoyed reading it because it gets it gets all that out of my face, all the you know, all the polarizing stuff. And they have a periodical that comes out once a week. It's called the future of retail, or no, it's called The Future of everything. And it covers a broad spectrum. But this article caught my attention because it's talking about the future of last mile, and how drones and robots with AI will deliver your online order fast. Definitely a conversation has been ramping up. Was the company Kyle, that is a that is just starting drone delivery.

Kyle Mountsier  15:44  

I think it's like Arizona, or the heck is it? Oh, man, somebody started

Paul Daly  15:49  

like somebody's doing it now. Or maybe it's Dallas. I think it's Dallas.

Kyle Mountsier  15:54  

I don't I don't know the drone delivery. But I know that there's been like robotic delivery a lot. And that's happened in a lot of major cities, right? They're like little rolling robots. They have like, heated and cooled so kind of cool, that they're really cool. Yeah.

Paul Daly  16:07  

And so either way, so this article, we're linked it up in the articles. I think you can read this even if you don't subscribe. Basically, the talking about building access, right? Like because it's easy to do in the suburbs, right, which makes a lot of sense. And some of that some of the things we're delivering there. Like it's going to be so fast and efficient that your ice cream won't even melt away. Oh, yeah, that's like, you can order like an ice cream sundae.

Kyle Mountsier  16:33  

There's a place in East Nashville called Jenny's. It could easily get here and not melt. I'd be eating some ice cream. all day

Paul Daly  16:41  

dangerous. It's like the one click shop button. super dangerous. But But the bottom line is this we talk about things in retail that are going to affect the way you do business. Right? I even think of like chute parts delivery, there are a lot of parts are deliveries. I can't remember what the weight limit is. I'm trying to find it out. But there's plenty of

10 pounds

Kyle Mountsier  17:02  

you think you can come up this? How many like, like of the Rings, or gaskets or things like that, that you just need, like 10 shipped right now because you just busted one or something like that in a service department. how quick you could have that instead of sending people across the city be pretty wild. But there's the crazy part about this is there have to become like a ton of air traffic control rules, the more and more that's

Paul Daly  17:27  

Oh, yeah. the crap out of it. Yeah. And so it's really interesting. They're even doing some things like writing drone air rights, like landing rights into building leases. As we speak. The article cites an Australian company has already been doing this in Australia, more than 200,000 drone deliveries including 1000 in a single day. The aircraft, oh, the 10 pound aircraft carry packages of three pounds or less including items like sandwiches, coffee, lowering goods to the ground on a 23 foot cord. I don't know why it's 20 feet. But apparently that's a thing. And so about the right height 2321 was just a little too lesson eat a little up a little more 25. And so, so check that out. But this is the part of retail and the way the consumer thinks that the more we pay attention to it, I think as the automotive industry, this the more we're gonna be prepared to pivot might sound like this

Kyle Mountsier  18:20  

is what you know, I used to do a lot in sales training, where it's like when when Amazon came into the market and said, Hey, two day shipping is now the normal. Right? Right, that changed our whole perception on the speed of things getting three days felt really slow. Exactly. And so now, you know, it's it's not maybe we're not delivering cars via drones. But the but the consumer perception on the way that transactions and delivery should happen is adjusted. And it might not be directly related to whatever your industry is. But it's inherently like inserted into the consumer psyche

Paul Daly  18:58  

and never goes back. Well, I can't say never goes back because our delivery expectations went back a little bit but it took a global pandemic to do it. Right. But I'm just I'm back now like I expect two days again, it didn't.

Kyle Mountsier  19:12  

We're getting we're getting like things delivered in three hours. So yeah, it's it's fast. In

Paul Daly  19:17  

Syracuse, we have a big warehouse, Amazon warehouse. It's just about to open. And like, I'm like, oh, game, change the game. Oh, man. I think that's all we can handle on a Monday. But thank you so much for tuning in. Remember, send us the name suggestions crew at a soda.com we need them. We want to hook you up and until then get out there. Serve some people. Get your bounce on today. Let's go

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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