Focus on the "And" with Cindy Allen

Unknown: 0:00I don't think there are many company names out there that are more. This is Auto Collabs authoritativePaul J Daly: 0:13

than Stern,

Michael Cirillo: 0:14

evil. That's what I picked up. I'm like somewhere.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:18

It's somewhere in between government contractor 1993 you know,

Paul J Daly: 0:25

metal band, metal band, yeah, right. We're already thinking in the same way, yeah. Or a character in mighty birds, Angry Birds, Angry Birds, yes.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:33

Stone Eagle, stony gold launch, stone Eagle, yes.

Paul J Daly: 0:38

Or code word, could be a code word, oh,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:41

it's a project name, right? Project stone Eagle, right? Matt Damon played the role, you know,

Paul J Daly: 0:49

co starring, co starring, Allen. Who? Cindy Allen. Cindy Allen, that's what I was getting at CEO. I think. Is this the first time we're all meeting her? Yes, yeah, I can't wait. She has no idea what she's in for. It's good thing. We, they can't see an intro before we do the recording, because they might never show up. They're gonna call PR and like, who booked this for me tell them they're fired.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:16

Great. That's great. We, we really hope that you enjoy as much as we do meeting new people. And we hope you enjoyed getting to meet Cindy Allen, enjoy this conversation.

Paul J Daly: 1:29

Cindy is always so much fun when we have a guest on the show that Michael or Kyle or myself don't have any experience or relationship with, because we ask all more fun questions, and I can tell just by your answer, just by your energy, like coming into this call, that we're in for an amazing episode. So thank you for daring to get on the show with us today,

Kyle Mountsier: 1:54

Paul, I don't know if you know this. I don't know if you know this, but Cindy and I actually planned something for this, we're about to sing a duet. It's, it's German. She doesn't look

Paul J Daly: 2:07

like you planned this. I'm looking at her face if you're just listening to the podcast. No, we

Cindy Allen: 2:12

didn't plan it. But I actually sing in like, seven different languages, so I don't know what I'm saying when I sing in the other Hold on one of them, I can sing happy birthday in Italian, that's the only one that actually know what I'm saying. Michael, he's doing the Italian hand gestures. Requiem, you want to do that one?

Kyle Mountsier: 2:28

Yes, I can do Brahms. Requiem, let's

Paul J Daly: 2:30

do it. This is where Mike pulls out a pitch pipe.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:34

I know, I know about you, because you answer these wonderful questions from us that you're a classically you're a classically trained vocalist, correct like myself. You didn't know that. I know, right? So, so you How did you go from? Because I know how I went from I'm going to be a musician all of my life to that's not going to happen. How did that happen for you.

Cindy Allen: 3:02

So I was doing a lot with music, and I met the man of my dreams and all that didn't matter, and went down a pathway where now we've been married for a gazillion years, and he's been our my partner in life and in business. And so I decided to answer the phone at Stone Eagle after we got married, and I never got to leave while. I did leave for a little while, but I was just, I've been in it ever since. And, you know, auto one of those things. You get into it, and there's so many cool people. And it's just, it can be so much fun that, you know, you just stay here

Paul J Daly: 3:43

without a doubt. So you started in stone Eagle when it was a pretty small company, right?

Cindy Allen: 3:51

Oh, yeah, there were. We had about 13 people in the business of family. We were family owned. Family started. My husband and his brothers and father started the business. And so somebody went on maternity leave, the lady at the front desk, and they asked me to come answer the phone. And so I started at the front desk, and today I have the privilege of serving the organization as the CEO. So yeah, what a

Kyle Mountsier: 4:15

trip. Oh my goodness,

Paul J Daly: 4:17

just that's fun. You've heard of them all.

Cindy Allen: 4:22

I phenomenal journey. I, you know, I think the coolest thing was getting in trouble at the front desk, because, you know, you're just sitting there waiting for the phone ring. And this was in the 90s, right? So I'm reading a book, or I was actually doing my nails one day when my friend there's no, like,

Kyle Mountsier: 4:43

scrolling Facebook. So listen

Cindy Allen: 4:48

to this. I'm sitting there doing my nails. He comes in. He's like, I do not pay you to paint your nails. And okay, what do you want me to do while I'm waiting on the phone to ring? He said, I don't know. I. Figure out how to make us one of those www things. Okay, so that just dated myself significantly. I was gonna say I was at another meeting today when somebody introduced himself and they said, I've been here for x gazillions of years. I was like, I am not telling you how long I have been. Totally screwed that up now. But that started my journey from, you know, sitting at the front desk and just waiting on things to happen, to pursuing making things happen. And so we I found a book, and I found a little piece of software, and about a month later, had the first website developed and and he basically said, if you think you're so smart, figure out how to connect all of our insurance systems to the internet as well. And again, that no man or woman stands alone, right? So contacted IBM, we found the right partners, and we went on the journey of becoming, you know, the first technology company in the insurance industry, in auto that started connecting our big administration systems to the internet, and it was bleeding edge. Nobody trusted it. Nobody they were

Paul J Daly: 6:07

like, aren't you afraid they're gonna they're gonna lose everything. You gotta be kidding me.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:13

Dealers didn't even have websites at that

Cindy Allen: 6:16

point. No. And when we started connecting our systems the internet. Like one of the first things we did was they used to have to open books to get to the rating for F and I products, right. First things we did was create an online engine where all you put the bin in and bam, it gave you the rates for everything. And when

Kyle Mountsier: 6:34

I started, no Cindy, when I started in the business, in 2009 10 and 11, the some F and I managers were still opening up the book, flipping the pages going down the table. It was

Cindy Allen: 6:48

so far in front that you had it was so painful to try to teach people about it. But I was bringing, gosh, you guys are so young, you probably don't know what this is. I was bringing floppy discs with me to the dealership.

Paul J Daly: 7:04

Maybe Kyle doesn't know. No, hold on. Here's the real differentiator. Watch this, Cindy, were your floppy discs actually floppy? Yes, I had floppy. Floppy disks, like five and three and a half. I had both of them. Okay, he went, No one must have gone to some nerd preschool,

Cindy Allen: 7:30

like install AOL, and then somehow to sign on to the internet first, and then I taught them how to sign on to our site, and then they would write down their user ID and password and stick it to the bottom of their keyboard, because the only thing they were going to do was stone needle stuff online, because we were the only thing there, right? But it was like pulling teeth, but it was a ton of fun. And, you know, gosh, I had the privilege of sitting in a lot of dealerships, and you there's nothing like being feet on the ground to, like, actually learn what's happening and figure out what kind of challenges people are facing, so you can can figure out how to solve them, right? So

Michael Cirillo: 8:09

do you ever feel like you look back at that time period, and if you were to fast forward it to today, where you're just like, we would have never been able to do that today, like you look at all the compliancy issues, and you know it was like the Wild West back then. That's

Cindy Allen: 8:23

a good point. It is a good point. And you know, the reason why our business is so stable is because it was the wild west in a lot of different ways. And so even for years to come, you had with technology in general, you had organizations that were just super resilient. Dealers are great example, where they do whatever it takes to make business progress, right? So I don't, hey, it doesn't matter that that field is supposed to be used for that. I'm going to shove this other thing in it because I need to get something accomplished. And so I'm just going to, you know, use, use these systems however I want to. And what, what we have always focused on is, okay, Let you be you. You go be wild. Do all your wild things in in your dealership, or in whatever practice you're in, if you're a TPA or product provider, and then we help kind of normalize all that so people can, you know what we learned? As I sat in all those dealerships, I was thinking, man, if we're asking them to constantly change first of all, it's going to throw them off their game, and it's going to be hard for them to have that sales conversation. We should support that instead of trying to change that. And so we came to them instead of asking them to come to us and adhere to strict policies on where they put data and how they do it. And that's what we do. We we help shape data to be standardized, and we take that from the wild west that sometimes happens and inside a dealership and help standardize it. So it's still kind of the Wild West and a lot of ways out there, but yeah, good point actually there, and that's it was. There was no, no standards, and from a compliance perspective, yes. Oh, my goodness,

Michael Cirillo: 10:03

I have to ask this because I'm so curious. I mean, our company stemmed from a family business. The dynamics of a family business are so interesting, right? And just looking at your journey as we get to know you a little bit better, at what point did you realize that you loved this business?

Cindy Allen: 10:21

Gosh, it was very early on, and a lot of it had to do with how creative and resilient the whole industry was. But you know, my I said uncles and aunts and we have multiple generations from multiple families, not just ours, in the business, and Jay Gillette, who's one of what I consider the godfathers of f and I took me under his wing and was knocked down the door to help me get into a lot of these dealerships. And that, you know, having somebody who was trusted introduced me to them, and then they trusted me. And you get to know the kind of heart and soul of the folks in the business. That's that's when I fell in love with it, you know, to have interactions with people, not not just the business, you know. So that's why I love your that's why I love your slogan, because that's all about, all about the people. Our core purpose is making lives better. And from the day you're going

Paul J Daly: 11:24

to meet so many of you're going to meet so many really soon in this community, you really are friends and family that you didn't even know you had.

Cindy Allen: 11:33

Well, we, you know from the beginning, like as I sat there teaching people how to sign in, are the people that I you know, like the Jay gillettes of the world, the agents that were out in the field would pick up these giant stacks of green bar paper. Do you guys know what that is? Yeah. Okay, yeah. So they were printed, and take it away, and some port intern would type it into Excel or and then they build these charts and graphs and graphs and everything come back like, 60 days later and say, Oh, here's how you performed in living color instead of just in data. And I was like, that's crazy. There's got to be a better way. That poor intern, this poor, you know, agent,

Paul J Daly: 12:13

they're back there just rethinking their life decisions to that point

Cindy Allen: 12:20

and just thinking, gosh, there's got to be a better way to help them. And that's where our, actually, our metrics product, was born from that kind of process of going man, that just, there's got to be a better way for them to get so much more accomplished. I mean, they're so talented. Are, you know, most people in the agency world, or they're, you know, they're great at helping somebody in the F and I office just kind of get better and better and better at what they do. And wouldn't be great if they just got to spend their time doing that instead of picking up paper and coming back later on to go through scale data.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:55

You know what? I think we're all musicians here, so I'm just going to call it like I see it. I think musicians make the greatest entrepreneurs and business change, people, especially those that have played in a band or like a garage band or a jazz band or something like that. And you mentioned Cindy that that you love jazz, because, like, if you think about jazz, right, it actually is very akin to what you just said. You know, you're like, I don't know, maybe you're back there on the drums and you're right, and all of a sudden, like, you just look over and it feels like the pianist needs a little something, maybe they need to go off over here, and you can just tell, and so you're like, the pianist takes that and just like moves with it. And I think that that's what musicians can kind of see in the world, right? Because they can see, like, Yeah, I think that there's something missing from like, the way that that person is interacting with their job or their role, or things like that. And what you're calling out there, it's not actually natural for most people to take that as their first step, to kind of walk into a room and go, I see an opportunity over there that's, you know, that's like, it's adjacent, but similar to what we're doing now. And I can draft on that, pull that in and make that person almost shine more, right? Give them the freedom to do what they do better, because I've given them access. And so I think, like that allows you to be continually be, to continually be entrepreneurial, and not get stuck in one place. And I'm guessing, you know you, you, you left and did some things outside of auto, but have now come back and and, and been at Sony ego now for a little while. And, and the pace of change right now in our industry is is hard for anyone to kind of keep. Up with, but let alone, you know, a company that does have some legacy attached to it, right? And so how do you now that you kind of, like, know what that felt like early on? How do you take that and and inject that into today and yet, like, stay resilient as a company that's grown, but also stay flexible and, like, move like a jazz band, right?

Cindy Allen: 15:28

Yeah, I It's the and. And one of the things that I always say, we've grown significantly over the years. We've had the privilege of acquiring some other businesses and things like that. And, and, you know, people tell you, Well, you can't be a cool, Soul oriented, family oriented business and be large and grow and have a massive footprint. And I would say it's the and if we concentrate on the and of being both very rooted in who we are from a DNA perspective, and focus on growth. We can accomplish it, but we have to focus on the end, like we have to purposely do,

Paul J Daly: 16:08

right? It's never going to happen organically. When you start scaling to that size. It's going to naturally migrate the other way,

Cindy Allen: 16:15

exactly. Well, the urgent always out, you know, outweighs the strategic. You know, in the moment, in the heat of the moment. And so unless you're really focused on making sure you have that balance. And so from a keeping up perspective, it's sort of the same thing we're rooted in that, you know, direct relationship with end the end user, the end consumer, and all the the, you know, sort of steps in the distribution cycle in between, kind of like you have to be out there. You have to be touching what's happening in the industry to kind of keep it top of mind, and so you can keep moving forward. So it's a, it's a principle for us as an organization to, like, continue to be curious, continue to be innovative, and kind of don't settle for Well, it's because we've always done it that way. If it's stupid and it's broken, let's figure out how to fix it, and if we see any kind of way to use what's happening in a lot of it is supporting other organizations and other teams that come up with phenomenal ideas. Our customers are brilliant in so many ways, and they come up with great ideas and partner with us to help solve them. And that's phenomenal. So again, back to people, right? Like, yeah, like, not just who you know, but how you treat the people that you

Michael Cirillo: 17:34

do know. Okay, I've got two questions here. The first one is for my own selfish ambitions as a vocalist and a leader, and I promise I'll get us back here. But I have to know, do you ever notice, like, what are your thoughts on the the passive aggressive singing guidance, you know, like someone's not pulling their weight. Because, like, I noticed sometimes vocalists, they tend to do this. What are your thoughts?

Cindy Allen: 18:04

You know, that's something I've never thought about. Actually, now

Michael Cirillo: 18:09

we're gonna now you're gonna notice if you do. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. What I really want to know. I mean, obviously a company such as yours, someone who integrated so early on with technology, and now, moving into this fast paced environment like you and you and Kyle have just brought up, what are you seeing now from a data perspective, how have things changed? What are some of the insights that you're getting out of the data that you guys can see across the industry that you think is just really important for our industry to know.

Cindy Allen: 18:43

Man, I think you know, the first thing that I get from our data is that it's not the same as what people feel is actually happening history. And so there's a period of time, and let's take COVID, for instance, where it's like, oh my goodness, the sky is falling. But when we looked at data, yes, there was a couple of months that were really, really hard, and the bounce back from that was so phenomenal. And today, you know, we had this giant spike in that pent up demand from a buying perspective. And then it kind of feels like, Oh man, it's not great in phases. And I just look at data, I'm like, that's actually not what's actually happening right now. And so that's my favorite thing, is to say, you know, disconnect from what you feel is happening, and actually trust information that's actually showing you the truth of what's going in on in the business, and at a big picture level in the industry. And so, you know, for us, we're seeing what we think is a new norm that's so much higher from a from a performance perspective, in the F and I office, then, then, then we've ever had and things like, remember the. Days where we would take a hit on a new car, and just like we would lose money on the car because we would try to make it up in other areas. And that was just kind of the norm. When you looked at front gross the differences between new and used, but just kind of on average, it was very low. We just accepted that, and it's totally different now, and after the interest rate craziness and and a lot of things changed there. We kind of settled. And I was had the privilege of talking with one of our partners, who is an OEM, and was kind of poking around at that and and their thinking was, hey, one day, it'll probably go back down. But man, we're seeing when we look at the data, the data is telling us we're doing a great job as an industry, maintaining front grosses that are that are positive, and they're actually significantly more than they were pre, pre, you know, the norm, that was the norm the last time there was norm, right, which was in 2019, and so we're seeing things like that happen that are really, really, you know, they're awesome. They reflect the resiliency of this industry and the creative ways that we tackle problems, and we just don't back down, and we we keep pushing. And that's dealerships are, are the engine that runs that, you know, yes,

Kyle Mountsier: 21:11

I think, I think the the theme actually goes back to, like you being the receptionist that goes, yeah, let me take that and try it. And I think if, if others can go, Oh, so you're telling me that, like, it's not as bad as the news media is telling us.

Paul J Daly: 21:30

And like, if every day, yeah, probably

Kyle Mountsier: 21:32

fine. And you know, the F and I penetration rates and the the front end grosses as an industry are good, so why don't I expect that as an organization? Then, then dealers can, can, can continue to play jazz with their team.

Paul J Daly: 21:51

Listen, listen before, before we wrap this up, I'm gonna, gonna tell you and let you in on the real reason we wanted you on the show today. And yeah, you this is going to be great. You're going to love it. I hope, I hope you have some real hard hitting information for us, because you were, you moved to travel for a while the travel industry, right? You were the CEO of a company called GDS x, which was acquired by concur, which a lot of people who travel understand what Concur is, that was acquired by SAP, which I'm not even sure what SAP does, right is, are they? Are they the company that's like, we don't make the products you use, we make the products you use better. Is that SAP?

Cindy Allen: 22:28

That's a great question. I don't

Paul J Daly: 22:31

know. All I know is, they bought it, okay? But after that, you served as the CMO for American Express, global business travel, and as business travelers, we need you to tell us one secret about the American Express system that we probably don't know that's going to get us into everywhere we want to get into. Oh

Cindy Allen: 22:54

my goodness. And there are some secrets that you just can't share. No

Paul J Daly: 23:02

offline, aka, sounds like we need to have a coffee at a soda. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 23:08

She was like, but trust me, I get in every day, so

Paul J Daly: 23:13

you're saying there's a chance aliens are real. It's been so much fun having this conversation. I knew it was going to be amazing like this. Looking forward to spending little time in person, and as always, thank you for giving us some time and joining us today on Auto Collabs. It's

Cindy Allen: 23:29

great to spend time with you guys too.

Kyle Mountsier: 23:35

What an incredible story, guys, a hero's journey. You know?

Paul J Daly: 23:39

I mean, it really ties back to

Kyle Mountsier: 23:42

the project stone Eagle.

Michael Cirillo: 23:45

I, you know, I wish I would

Paul J Daly: 23:46

have asked CEO of a tech company and everything in between the American Express

Michael Cirillo: 23:51

stuff with such a cheery disposition for working in a family business. You know, right,

Paul J Daly: 23:56

what do you mean for working in a family business? As someone who's worked at a family

Michael Cirillo: 24:02

I'm just saying, like, there's days right where you're like, I'm gonna rip

Unknown: 24:06

I hate my family so much. Yeah, and

Michael Cirillo: 24:09

then and then later, you're like, Okay, Dad, what time's dinner?

Paul J Daly: 24:14

Yeah, gonna go play catch. Well,

Kyle Mountsier: 24:16

I think you know, it is any of these businesses that span time like this across an industry that has kind of like grown up alongside tech not been built in to the tech industry. It is a challenge to constantly stay ahead and stay innovative, and so the fact that she challenges herself and challenges her team to figure out how they can support dealers with the tech and the and the things that they're building, and not just sit on the sidelines or let their size or whatever, just kind of let it coast, is really encouraging to me. And I think it, it speaks to the, you know, I was a receptionist. Someone asked if I could do this, and I went for it. I tried it, you know,

Michael Cirillo: 24:58

I just got to say this. And maybe we can factor this into the next time we do it in ASOTU CON, we always have such great neck networking event the first night, right? And good good vibes and good conversations. Let's not gloss over that. Cindy, the CEO of stone Eagle, is a classically trained vocalist.

Unknown: 25:17

Come on. I mean, her and Kyle. Can make that duet? Can we

Michael Cirillo: 25:20

not book her? We'd be like Cindy, come and sing, come Come be the VOC, come be the end.

Kyle Mountsier: 25:25

There's so many great musicians in auto we've talked about this on a podcast.

Michael Cirillo: 25:33

It's gonna happen, guys. Anyways, listen. We hope you enjoyed this episode with Cindy Allen. She's the CEO of stone Eagle. What a pleasant treat to get to know her today, on behalf of Paul J Daly. Kyle Mountsier, myself. Michael Cirillo, thanks for joining us on Auto Collabs.

Unknown: 25:47

Sign up for our free and fun to read Daly email for a free shot of relevant news and automotive retail media and pop culture. You can get it now@asotu.com That's asotu.com if you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time. Welcome to autoca. Last recording you.

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