GM Hires Apple, Toyota Pre-Flex, Employee Only Hotel

Paul Daly: 0:00Hi Hey, what's up? It's Wednesday already. Kyle still in Chicago. He's just keeping it warm over there. He's coming home though. Today we're going to talk about GM hiring apple. Yes, Toyota, kind of give it a little flex, and an employee only hotel. Totally need to figure out how we're gonna post this. I thought you were gonna be like,

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:45

we totally need to figure out how to have an Sodhi. So do only like

Paul Daly: 0:49

hub. You don't know that as, as we're streaming the show a notification just popped up over my B cam window. And it said, Lori Lightfoot declares emergency. And then that's all I saw. And you're Chicago. Right? So Oh, no, look at your windows.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:08

It's beautiful out there.

Paul Daly: 1:11

I'm pretty sure it really depends on where you are in Chicago. Whether or not there's an emergency? I don't know, maybe we'll get off and we'll look up the news. But oh, that's what's up.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:20

Don't tell anybody has you type it in

Paul Daly: 1:23

Chicago been with a lot of dealers, a lot operations folks. At the Kane 20 group event

Kyle Mountsier: 1:28

that came in and these these people are? Well, one, you know, any people in like the internet BDC marketing arena are just people after my own heart, and I care and love for their, their their joy and their plight all at the same time. So let me just encourage, if you are an owner, General, manager, dealer, Principal, any of those titles that you have someone in the marketing arena, or a team, a marketing staff, the chances are they feel overwhelmed by the number of tasks and the number of things that they have to do on a daily basis. And they feel like basically, everything is thrown on them. That doesn't have to do with sales or service. And that's like, it's just a, it's just a thing that happens because of like the type of Persona, that type of task manager, the capacity to deal with things in the digital ecosystem. And so just know like, how, how you approach that how you think about that on a day to day basis, is is really important to making sure that your brand still has the ability to carry itself forward. Because these people are crucial to your success. And thinking about that and understanding that I guarantee you will provide like infinite return, if you're thinking about how to care for those people in their job role.

Paul Daly: 2:49

So there you go. We that's what you what you needed to know that you didn't know you needed to know, right from the ground, because it does kind of happen that when we kind of get in these closed rooms, it turns into a therapy session pretty quickly. So, you know, speaking of therapy sessions, hey, we're gonna do that. But we're gonna be at the Reuters automotive retail event next week. Yes, the Reuters. Yes, the asoto. We got a bunch of stuff. Kyle and I are moderating several panels. Our buddy Steve Greenfield is emceeing the event. And we are launching a new podcast in collaboration with Reuters called amplify, and our workshop session that they gave us, they pretty much were like you can do what you want. So, so title, the title is, what dealers wish their O E. M, do speaker sessions. So listen, if you're a dealer out there, and this, the intention of this is not to have a gripe session. The intention of this is to bring together the two sides of the industry, the OEMs are thinking over the horizon, all these you know, one set of problems and challenges, the dealers have another set of problems and challenges that are right in their face every day was consumers walk in and out, there's a gap between the two consumers are in the middle of this gap. And we're trying to bring both sides closer together. So if you're a dealer out there, or you work for a dealership, and there's some things you'd love to communicate to the OEM in a positive, productive way, please, and then through to us, send your comments through, you can just email us, you can send them through DMS, we will get it and we might include some of these in the presentation or in the workshop discussion. So that is next week, if you're going to be in Vegas. Good morning to you, Shelly is good to see you. And we have a lot of other things going on. We have our premiere of more than cars, the TV show the pilot episode is less than two weeks from now. So excited. The fourth is cars like that

Kyle Mountsier: 4:38

more people see that. Actually everyone here in Chicago, there's a good swath of them that kind of knew what we were doing. And they're like, I can't wait for that. I can't do that. We're gonna bring your teams together. So yes, yeah, make sure you do that. Make sure you put that on your calendar.

Paul Daly: 4:52

Absolutely. And I think that's enough for today. Let's get into some news. Let's get some new so what do you do when you Cut Apple CarPlay from your future EV models, you know who we're talking about? What do you do when you do that? Well, and you get some flack for it. Do you reverse course? No, you go and you hire an Apple executive GM is that by recruiting Mike Abbott key software executive at Apple. He's got a strong record leading software project that major couple major tech companies, Apple, Twitter, if you heard Twitter, Microsoft, and here's a great one that's listed. Palm.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:31

Barely, yeah, but you know,

Paul Daly: 5:34

I had, I had a Palm Pilot,

Kyle Mountsier: 5:36

oh, too early. But yet old Palm Pilot Yeah, basically is

Paul Daly: 5:40

a way to keep addresses in one place, and you had to sync it with your period, it was a thing. But he, my dad was gonna join GM as their Chief software officer playing a central role in developing their future software controls. As GM ramps up as EV and autonomous driving efforts. You know, this just shows their commitment to moving forward being progressive in their development of software customer experience. cm CEO Mary Barra said Mike's track record and fast paced high growth environments, developing and executing strategies that generate scalable, repeatable and commercially successful results will be instrumental as we redefine the future of mobility. So big swinging,

Kyle Mountsier: 6:21

that's a big swinging is a long sentence. And currently, because, you know, as we've talked about multiple times over that automakers struggle creating software and technology. That's an understatement. user friendly. And so for someone that is that has been around companies like early companies like palm and even more recently, Apple are going to be thinking about the UI, they're going to be thinking about the UX, the way that the software and the plumbing is built around the technology. So kudos to them for for making a hire outside of automotive from the tech sector. It will be interesting to see like, you know, Abbott's bet for Apple most likely, there's probably a personal bias there. And whether or not that influences a redirection of decision making moving forward. Yeah, absolutely. So

Paul Daly: 7:13

I mean, I don't know, I don't know that I have any more comments on this, like, you make a hire. But everybody knows that when you make a hire, to totally change like the trajectory you've been going in it. It's there's a little bit of a little bit of culture ingrained and big companies learned that firsthand, that is kind of hard to push back against. But hey, like sometimes you just got to go against the grain. Speaking of going against the grain. I like it tastes like kind of like follow up. We have all these narratives going that we're able to keep up with. This one is about Toyota when Toyota said they were getting more serious about their Evie sales strategy. They weren't kidding. Earlier today, the company's CEO Yeah, it was like, I can't remember it was May 10. But in Japan, so it was like today, so we'll call today. The company's new CEO Koji, Sato announced a projected 10% increase in operating profit and a five fold increase in evey sales. They're targeting to under 2000 units worldwide. I just, it's only been a month, this aggressive electrification push follows, you know, easing global chip shortages. And so basically, they said last month, we have a new plan. We're going to start executing on that. And then this month, we're like q4 results are in and we're actually kind of way ahead, kind of way ahead. So this is a plan to lean into EVs more aggressively than originally, keto, Toyota, the former CEO was very bearish on EVs. And so basically, what's happening now is they're saying, Kochi, South we're saying like the demand for EVs in China is a new demand. It's just starting. It wasn't didn't exist last year. It didn't even exist, you know, two years ago, 12 months ago. He's like, this is new. We're focusing on it. And we're actually separating the Eevee strategy from the hybrid vehicle strategy, which seems to me really smart.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:04

Well, and he was very clear in the article and in his comments that this is primarily put a push in Chinese markets. Right. And we talked about that actually, earlier this week. Maybe it was yesterday, that the Chinese markets are adopting Evie and adopting technology a lot quicker than other markets. So I don't think we're going to see the effects of this and impact of this a ton in the US, but it's clear. I said this a couple of weeks ago, it is clear to me that Toyota is is going to be able to either they're going to pivot, or they're just coming in swinging, even though it seems like they're later to the game and they've been planning this all along and they have all of the efficiencies that up and they know exactly what they're doing. And that's my bet.

Paul Daly: 9:46

I'm gonna bet on that horse betting on that horse.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:49

Absolutely. It's like I they, Toyota just consistently does things in the timing that makes the most sense. And the timing that makes the most sense is when you can fourfold or Five fold your your output of a vehicle line within a 12 month period. No, you were planning that Joker tell me

Paul Daly: 10:10

I you know, Japanese companies definitely known for being very strategic, right? Very measured very patient. And to think that Occhio Toyota is not still in every boardroom. Still, you know what I mean? Like they're all just working it and we're like, oh, yeah, we kind of knew this might Yeah, we I'm betting on Toyota every time

Kyle Mountsier: 10:31

every Vietnam for sure. All right. Oh, am I doing speaking of betting on a brand?

Paul Daly: 10:39

Segue? This is a good one for them. Delta has been getting all the press lately. Yeah, Delta

Kyle Mountsier: 10:44

has been getting all the press American Airlines missed, missed. And being in that top one through three. They're on the top airlines list. But I think that this might change because they are upping their game on keeping their staff comfortable and focus while traveling and training ends with the opening of a beautiful new hotel in Dallas. That's just for staff. That's it to $250 million Skyview six hotel located the airline's corporate campus. And it was designed with input from employees and includes features based on what they prioritize for comfort, and, and fall community. So here's a couple of the features that they've put in. In each room, there is a large cork strip for displaying training materials. So they've got that in in the actual in their actual room because there's a lot of training done near this space. Also, magnetic blackout curtains for those for like people that are obviously moving and they've got timezone issues and or their flights are late or flights or flights or midday so that they can they can black out their room, and then a light in the bathroom that turns on automatically when the employees walk in. So they've done these like little creature comforts. You think about all these people are flying everywhere, they're staying in hotels everywhere

Paul Daly: 12:03

they see what city am I? What day is it? Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 12:06

it's like, if I'm going to come there, and I'm going to be in the central hub, and we're going to be training, I'm going to be around a lot of other employees, we're going to make sure the best of the best the way to do hotel is there. I think the the the My favorite part of this whole thing is they put a minor micro Lounge on each floor so that they can get out of their rooms, socialize, hang out with other people that are either training and study with them, or they can just be a part and around kind of a familial place. Because they are traveling so much. And this lends itself the opportunity to kind of build community around the staff experience, even though there's not like a staff experience where everybody's going to an office every day, gee,

Paul Daly: 12:48

I like that too. And they say, you know, and they said like they did that. So a lot of these things are just from suggestions from current and former staff, like the cork, the cork strip, you mentioned right suggestions that they have a recliner in every room. And that was actually came big from the pilots, the pilots like can we get a recliner, right? So we can study and we can do this. The whole vibe of getting people immersed in your brand and your culture and setting the stage to do that, well, is so much more impactful than a lot of people, I think realize in deploying these elements of hospitality. In the employee experience. We're not even talking customer experience, the employee experience because you're setting the mindset. We're saying how do we want to treat our customers, right? And so in dealerships every day, as you look around your facility, and how you treat your team, you are absolutely setting the tone for how you want your team to treat each other how you want your team to treat your customers and to think that shoving people in a crappy break room that hasn't been painted since 1982. And has green. I know I know. And having a coffee machine that isn't coffee and having all that stuff. Do you think that that might just transfer to the tone of BDC reps on the phone or to how people feel when they come in or their enthusiasm to come in? This American Airlines got it right. We get bringing people in we're taking care of them so that they can take care of a customer. Hats off.

Kyle Mountsier: 14:17

Hats off. Kudos to American Airlines and we got some lessons learned from them.

Paul Daly: 14:21

Let's go Well, speaking of American Airlines, now you're probably not flying American on your way back from Chicago. We have a lot of work to do. We'll be online we'll be around. You have some things to do you have some people serve. So go out there. It's only Wednesday.

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