How To Actually Reach In-Market Shoppers with Dave Karasick

Paul J Daly: 0:02Yeah, nice though. You start the episode with a yawn.

‍Unknown: 0:10

This is Auto Collabs.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:12

Oh, that's nice, yeah, okay, all the people are now yawning that are listening.

Paul J Daly: 0:17

That's that's exactly the intended effect of any podcast.

Michael Cirillo: 0:20

Did I make you young? Leave a comment. I wasn't looking

Paul J Daly: 0:24

so, yeah, leave a comment. That'd be great. Comment with your favorite emoji, yeah,

Unknown: 0:28

let me, let me know you young. Yeah, oh my

Paul J Daly: 0:31

gosh. Look. We whenever we get to spend a little time together in person, which we did recently in New York, I'm always amazed at two things. Number one, how short Michael is.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:43

Oh my gosh. I hadn't done it in so long. It's been so long, I apologize. All right, give me your number one. I think I forgot my number

Unknown: 0:51

one nose because I wanted to be like

Paul J Daly: 0:56

number one is how much faster conversation goes when you're in person, and ideas flow. Number two, I wonder how we

Kyle Mountsier: 1:05

get anything done. I don't understand it. I don't understand it. And

Paul J Daly: 1:10

I wonder how we haven't gotten in more trouble. Yeah,

Michael Cirillo: 1:13

you know, the one thing that dawned on me is how fast you guys walk with those long legs of yours. I

Paul J Daly: 1:19

know I was hauling up

Unknown: 1:26

upset, going bowling. I'm like,

Paul J Daly: 1:30

I know I had, I had the jets on, but made up for it with because we had time for some really great pizza.

Michael Cirillo: 1:36

Oh, my goodness. Oh, well, you, you actually

Paul J Daly: 1:39

kind of came in with the data on the pizza call. I mean, it's, it's a lot easier to find a good slice in New York City. Granted, like you kind of make a left in any pizza shopping. Really, this is really good, but,

Michael Cirillo: 1:49

yeah, but it was data on it. Like, no, there was a rating on it that it was rated by Dave Portnoy, yep, that we had to test him out and see. Like, this kind of actually ties into what I think we need to talk about with our guest today. It

Unknown: 2:02

is data and cooking. Urban science, right there. It's right there, right? We get these pre we

Kyle Mountsier: 2:09

get these pre interview things. I'm going to bring it up probably right as we get started, because it's the most interesting one liner, and it's all about data and cooking. Yeah. So

Paul J Daly: 2:18

now I'm hungry.

Unknown: 2:19

You're hungry for data. Let's get into it.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:26

All right, we're hanging out with Dave. Dave, man, thanks for joining us today. Your beard precedes you so

Paul J Daly: 2:35

literally, it looks like such a such a burly, manly beard that when you walk around, the first thing to break the plane of the finish line is your beard?

Unknown: 2:41

Gosh, I hope so.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:44

It definitely allows me to walk into a room. Yeah, it's, what did you say, Michael?

Michael Cirillo: 2:49

I said, when Dave shaves his beard, it reveals another beard.

Paul J Daly: 2:53

That's actually just his beards. Beard,

Unknown: 2:55

there's a skin about,

Dave Karasick: 2:57

yeah, this is the day to beard. I have a night beard for later on. Yeah,

Paul J Daly: 3:01

my evening, dude. So

Kyle Mountsier: 3:03

good. All right, I have to read because we, we like to, you know, get to there's, there's a little bit of background, there's a little we're not, we're not afraid to say, like, we ask questions of our guests before they come on here. And the way, I don't know if you wrote this, someone else wrote this. GPT, I don't care who wrote it, but this is the, this is the first phrase, because we got to dive into it. It said, Once Upon a Time in the early 90s, and that now I'm like, sitting by the

Paul J Daly: 3:26

I went right back. You know, I know where I was in the early 90s, right? I'm like, I that was, that's

Kyle Mountsier: 3:30

where I was. He said I was a broke, unemployed chef with nothing but a dream and a serious lack of drops prospects. So naturally, I wandered into a GM dealership make

Paul J Daly: 3:41

$70,000 in your first year. I'm in,

Kyle Mountsier: 3:46

okay, take us back to broke chef, because now I'm super intrigued by the chef portion of this whole legacy.

Dave Karasick: 3:54

Gosh, I you know, I had a culinary career that started at a small hotel in my hometown, very nice hotel, and quickly grew to expand to where I was a corporate chef for a company called Gilbert Robinson, which they they ran darrell's and woohans, if you remember, those, those restaurants. So I was a corporate chef for them and their test kitchen. And back then, we were making everything from scratch, but as you know, as time and things progress, they wanted things to be faster and quicker and easier to execute. And so they started going away from, you know, fresh ingredients and and homemade recipes, and started bringing in powders and bases and and things like that. And it just really kind of took the the umph out of it, right, the fun out of it. And so the last time I, when I I got fired for speaking my mind about it, and I didn't have anything to do. And, and somebody said, somebody said, Hey, if you're going. Be successful and you're gonna make some money, you need to be selling big ticket items, and it was either real estate or cars. And real estate, I realized I needed to have a license for and I needed to have training and stuff like that. But when I walked into a GM dealership, Hampton, Chevrolet and and Hampton, Virginia, they hired me on the spot.

Paul J Daly: 5:18

Check your pulse,

Dave Karasick: 5:22

right? Yeah. And I was selling cars the next day. I just gotta, here you go, here's the keys, here's the tags, there's the cars. Good luck to you, right? And

Michael Cirillo: 5:32

when you're when you're a chef in a test kitchen, like, does everyone wear a bracelet that says, What would jack papen do? Or, like, what would, what would Julia Child do? Like, what? Because? Because, isn't he, like, the master chef of test kitchens?

Dave Karasick: 5:47

Yeah. So it was, it was unique, right? So the I ran the entire kitchen, but we had a separate part that only specialized in a few menu items, and so that special part was responsible for quality testing and then going out to the consumers after they ordered it and asking, you know, very, very similar to what we do with surveys. Now, right? How did you enjoy? What was a flavor like? What would you like to see differently? And, you know, got that feedback, and then if it went well, through that test kitchen process, then we rolled it out to the entire menu and then across the company. And so that

Michael Cirillo: 6:19

always fascinates me, because I'm like, Look at the lengths you're willing to go to for a $35 meal. And imagine if there was some sort of R D customer experience, you know, department in a dealership that's like, this isn't a $35 meal, it's a $68,000 buy. And we'd like to just, you know, try a new we're trying out a new experience to make it better for you. Would you be willing to participate?

Kyle Mountsier: 6:45

Yeah, right. Well, they don't have R and D. We don't. We literally don't have R D as a lane in retail auto, not,

Paul J Daly: 6:53

not largely, there are some dealerships that have it some kind we don't have, we don't have a lane in auto for it. We do. I mean, I work

Dave Karasick: 7:02

with a lot of dealers with our tools that are able to do research and development based on the data they see and change their processes and get better. So yeah,

Paul J Daly: 7:10

okay, then let's get into that. Because you basically stayed in the industry for 22 years. You eventually became a GM, you know, in your words, you said hurting, hurting sales people, and managing chaos, making processes work, squeezing every dollar of profit out. So you've been in the seat, you've been trying to make sense of what works and what doesn't work, navigating a lot of situations happen in the 22 years, starting in the early 90s. So now what you're doing is actually back to what you kind of like Test Kitchen mode. Yeah, you said with the data. So, like, tell us about that.

Dave Karasick: 7:47

Yeah. So, full circle, right? So, you know, one of the important things is to get feedback on what is happening currently, so you can understand if there's any gaps in improvement, right? And so, you know, you I've always been a data guy, and it was a very easy transition once you get in the world of automotive. And data seems to come from everywhere, right? But it's tough to make sense of it, and it's tough to know which data is is best to use and how to utilize it and then take advantage of it. And so, you know, I really spent the last eight or seven or eight years working with dealerships on these, on urban Science Solutions, helping them continue to squeeze every dollar out of a out of a deal, continue to squeeze every sale out of a bucket of leads that they're getting on a regular basis. And the, the way you got to look at it is, is, you know, how have things been progressing over the last, let's say, 90 days, right? You know, I the I'm gonna be speaking to past performance predicts future behavior. Now, I started that, that little catch line in high school, because that's how I choose, chose to how I ask girls out, right? So, if they if they were nice in the past, if they had good reputations, you know, that I would consider them if they were, you know, they're total, you know, if they're told bees, then, you know, I just, I went on down the road. And I

Paul J Daly: 9:09

think the ladies have a similar process too.

Unknown: 9:13

I'm confident in that, yes,

Dave Karasick: 9:15

absolutely. Well, you know, anyway, so it worked also well for me anyways, married several times. I'm a great closer, but a terrible retention rate. But the fact is, you really got to understand the background of what's happening at your dealership. And there's some K keep eyes that you can look at that say, Hey, if I don't change anything, this is going to continue to happen. And really it's identifying those KPIs that I want to help dealers, you know, kind of look at and find out, hey, what's happening in my background, and where can I best deploy that change to get a better to get a better result, you know, from from the processes that we're doing, or from the sales that we're that we're having. Leads that we're generating, the inventory that we're that we're carrying. How can we get better at doing the things that make us who we do, who we are in the automotive world?

Kyle Mountsier: 10:09

You know, one of the things that I've known about urban science and the data that's available there, and some of actually when I use that data when I was at a dealership, is there's a lot of like demographics, like local data available, and you've said something like past performance is future results. One of the things that I've that has always been of interest to dealers is con questing or targeting net new areas of business around them, or net new personas. Yet what I'm hearing you say, and what I've seen the data say over and over and over is the buying matrix of a given dealership is very localized. It's very and meaning by persona or by area, and that if you were to just go deeper with that persona or that area, you would drive broader results, because there's enough there. There are you seeing that data still ring true, especially as people are becoming less and less loyal? Yeah,

Dave Karasick: 11:12

so there is a lot of there's a lot of interest in our dealers and knowing where those customers go when they don't go to them, right? And it's really that's kind of the gage, the model that dealers are latching into. If I understand why the customer didn't buy from me, then I can improve my processes so that I don't accompany that in the future. And you know, whether it be knowing who the dealer is that's taking the leads from them, knowing where geographically those leads are coming in from, knowing which sales people have challenges with different lead sources. All those things really when the dealership understands that they can start to adjust processes to better improve their tactics at the store and drive measurable results. What we see is that most dealers, regardless of the customer, started as an Internet lead, a phone lead, or even a showroom lead, but the follow up is a one, is a is a one size fits all type of scenario, right? We're just these are the templates that we have. These are our processes that we have. But it doesn't seek to understand the customer where they're at in the marketplace. And one thing that customer and cars have in common is that they're both very complicated machines, and we have to know both of them very well in order to in order to sell more cars and be sales effective and with our dealerships. And so the question is, we know a lot about the cars, right? We get, we get brochures on them. We get, you know, all kinds of tech specs and websites dedicated to the specs of the car to help our people understand them. But what tools does a dealership have to better understand the customer journey? And that's what's really kind of been a lightning rod in the industry, so to speak. CDPs have taken off, for example, because, because, you know, they're interested in all that customer data to be able to fine tune internal processes to take advantage of that. And it's relatively easy. Once you've got the data laid out in front of you, you can see these trends. I mean, they light up like, like, like, flashlights in the dark. You know when the solutions and all of a sudden dealers click and they see that. I'm like, wow, why aren't we doing a better job with this? We have a process in place. Well, maybe it's not the right process and and, you know, any kind of data that you can get to uncover what those processes is really beneficial.

Michael Cirillo: 13:35

This is really Kyle and I were talking about this just the other day, the how the technology can speed up the human interaction piece, and that, you know, the this, this thing in our industry, where it's like tech, first tech, first tech first. You know, going back to what now Kyle and you both have said past data predicts future behavior, and behavior leads us to the human and as long as human beings are buying cars, then we need these types of insights that you're talking about to better inform the way that that we should behave for the customer, right? And so often it's like the strategy begins with with a shiny object, and that's why it falls apart and why there's no adoption. I like what you're talking about here. It's like, but we can use the data to predict where we should move next. But the critical component here is that a human being must take an action, correct?

Dave Karasick: 14:37

And that is, it is the human aspect that really bonds the customer to the dealership, right? How do you help the dealership move from content? How do you help the customer that you're working with move from contact to close, right? All customers have these these things in their brain that they need to overcome before they're going to purchase a new car. And you know, when I got in the industry 20 plus years. Years ago, it was, you know, you had to sit in front of a customer and you had to ask certain questions, right? Who's gonna be the primary driver? What options did you have on your last part you want in your next car? I mean things to help us understand where the customer was, not only in their journey, but what they were looking for specifically, so we could tailor our sales approach to the customer, to meet them where they are in the marketplace. Well, that same need from the customer still exists today. The problem is, is that now that we've got this interference of the internet lead and the emails, it's hard to build that personal con, that personal touch again with the customer, like we were when we were face to face, shaking hands, and so the dealers that are really kind of the dealers that are utilizing the data to change their behavior on how they work with the consumer is really building value in the consumers mind and loyalty and long term engagement we've got we see, we See lead sources that that close in a few days. We see lead sources that generally close in a few weeks, and then we see lead sources that might close after two or three months. And if the dealers don't recognize that some customers are high funnel and some customers are low funnel, and they're not attacking those customers where they are in that journey, then all of a sudden they they risk being irrelevant in the customer's mind. They keep sending out, hey, ready to test drive? Well, just so happens that this lead source, you know, the data shows this customer is probably two months away from making a decision. So does that test drive? So

Paul J Daly: 16:34

the answer is no, stop asking Correct, right? Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 16:38

But how do you keep the team engaged on something like that. What are you seeing in success to keep the because I'm, if I'm a salesperson, I'm like, How do I find a deal in next two months? Right? It's like three months from now, months you kidding me, when you're ready, right? Like, yeah, how do you how do you adjust processes to keep your team engaged and not like, let leads go to die, or let leads get missed that need to be prioritized, that are maybe getting de prioritized because of volume, right? Yeah.

Dave Karasick: 17:04

So there's a couple of different ways that we suggest. First of all, if you know who's left your business customers in your CRM right now, the average defection rate in the United States right now is about, it's just close, just shy of 20% 19.6% so that means the average dealer opens up their CRM in the morning, almost 20% of those customers have already left the marketplace, and the dealer doesn't even know about them, right? So, so for the first thing, first thing is, is, if we eliminate follow up on those customers, now, every time the every time the dealership is dialing for dollars or typing an email to a consumer, they're actually reaching to somebody who is still in marketplace, right? And so that confidence gives the BDC team, or their sales team the initiative that they need to continue this long term follow up. Secondly, if you approach it from the customer standpoint, you look at it like I need to know where this customer is in their journey. In order for me to be effective to them, we have to ask, and I've got, I had one dealer, great example. And she saw from her data that she had some customers coming in and internet leads that were very low funnel. She had some customers that were mid funnel, and she had some customers are a high funnel. And she's like, how do I send a message out to these customers that's going to resonate with everybody, right? And so I don't remember the exact the exact verbiage she used, but her first email went out to the customer, hey, thanks for inquiring with us. Right? We value our relationship. If we know at the dealership that oftentimes when a customer you know sends us information or asks us a question about a vehicle. They could be just starting their journey. They could be somewhere where they're looking and researching models and equipment, maybe trim levels. Or they know exactly what they want and they're ready to buy. If you let me know where you're at, I can make sure that I'm sending you the information that's relevant for where you are in the marketplace. And that kind of approach. All of a sudden she started hearing from those low funnel customers. She started hearing it's like, well, if you just write, if you can give me this deal, then I'll buy the car today. And then, consequently, she's also hearing from those customers that were higher funnel. Hey, I just started this process. Don't really know where I'm going to land. My cousin has a car, has this car? Just thought I'd check it out. At least she started getting some engagement from them, because it resonated with them. It wasn't the same approach that she was getting from every other dealership, right? Come in, now, come in, now, test drive, now. Test drive now. It sought to understand where the customer was in the marketplace so they could address those concerns. Right, mid, mid funnel customers, they're worried about their trade, they're worried about being able to finance. They're worried about being able to do they have money down payment, right? And so again, how does a dealer take those customers from contact to close, knowing where they are in the funnel? Provide them the information that their needs if they just send out templates that don't try to move forward because. Customer forward in the process, or at least a system. Customers close their ears, they turn off their emails, and they stop responding. So

Paul J Daly: 20:08

I mean, as we get close to landing the plane here, I always like to ask this question, because of all the people listening, typically, there's a lot of low hanging fruit that you're aware of, because you see it time and time again. So I always like to think like, okay, how can the most, most people possible do something meaning, meaningful from this conversation, where do you typically see the lowest hanging fruit, where you analyze some data, or you step into a situation where, like, a lot of people typically adjust this first or realize this when they get their first look,

Dave Karasick: 20:41

yeah, when they get their first look at the data, the number one problem area that that just peaks out to every single dealer that gets at that, aha, that, Oh my gosh, I didn't realize it is their follow up came in somewhere between between the eighth day of follow up and the Maybe the 21st day a follow up. It check, they check the box that they complete it, but it's not resonating with the customers. And literally, that's where we see almost 40% of the defections that take place within a dealer. CRM is in that kind of time frame. And so instead of just checking the box and sending an email and checking in, we follow

Paul J Daly: 21:20

him, right? Yeah, follow it up. Dig into

Dave Karasick: 21:23

it with some purpose, some vigor, some meaning, something authentic, right? Greg CARDONE used to say, give, give, give, right? What have you given? Given the customer? To inspire them to want to do business with you, to inspire them to want to email you back. Are are you just checking boxes, or are you working? Are you selling? Right? That's like, that's the key thing. Are you connecting with the customer? I think that's really the important message we want to put out

Michael Cirillo: 21:48

there. I mean, this just emphasizes what we care so deeply about. We're going to be talking about even more at ASOTU CON, and getting into this kind of information in more detail. You know, the question comes up, well, how do we do it? How do we do it? This is exactly why you need to be in the room at ASOTU CON. But man, this has been such an enjoyable conversation. We can't wait to connect with you in person, which is really, I think the whole point of this thing is, how do we get from the tech to the in person? Yes, faster, exactly. Thanks so much for joining us on auto clubs.

Dave Karasick: 22:19

I appreciate the time guys, and I look forward to meeting you guys in person at this other

Michael Cirillo: 22:27

conference. Do you think a t shirt would sell if it just said I'm high funnel.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:36

I mean, at what like it would sell? Like, okay,

Paul J Daly: 22:41

okay, where does that sell? That sells best in a city or at a at a meetup of

Kyle Mountsier: 22:48

marketers? Yeah, it's like a CMO conference. It's

Paul J Daly: 22:51

like, it's like guys, a guy's willingness to say, like, I'm not really interested yet, but you should try to get my attention. I'm high funnel. I'm sorry, non committal. Is

Kyle Mountsier: 23:01

anyone actually low funnel, though? Does anyone want to Oh, are you kidding me?

Paul J Daly: 23:09

Bar Yeah, low funnel, yeah, that gets you to all kinds of weird situations. No,

Kyle Mountsier: 23:16

but I mean, here's, here's what's interesting. And I think this is, this is what we're all chasing, this thing that I don't know, 2005 through 2009 everybody was like, Oh, the internet exists. Like, now we're gonna know everything about everyone. And we still are sending 13 day follower follow up emails that say, are you still interested in the car that you inquired about? 13 days that you were interested

Paul J Daly: 23:39

in? Yeah. I think the biggest takeaway from that whole conversation for me was his his last insight, he said, every single dealer they talk to, there is a gap between what they are doing and what they think they are doing. That's right. And I think that that's that, that's where the data comes in. Data is like, this is what you're actually doing. The

Michael Cirillo: 23:59

eye opener for me is when you consider, you know, because we kind of talked about, he had mentioned, you know, first interaction to close, right? And I just think most dealers are in rural markets scattered across America. I mean, even Canada, for those that are tuning in from from Canada, most dealers, franchise dealers are in rural markets, and you look at the population of a rural market, let's just say it's 15,000 if you get 1000 leads a month, and you burn through 95% of them, you are effectively burning the entire population of your community in six months. Wow. Dang. But then I think about the like, I actually wrote Prius tundra forerunner, because I think about, well, what's the flip side of what Dave is talking about? I experienced it when you go into a dealership that has a dialed in process, and they know how to handle the opportunities, whether they're high funnel, mid or low, and they know how to recognize it. And. Her team is trained to pick up on those cues. It's like we went from buying a Prius for our kids to learn to drive on at a Toyota store 28 days later, so impressed with the experience and how they interacted with us that I walked in and said, I want that tundra. And now we're already back into thinking of like my wife really likes the new forerunner. Whoa, they're gonna get three deals out of us in the next, you know, 18 months. And now Emer, who you guys know, his wife's looking at a forerunner, because she's seen how excited we are. My dad is thinking about trading in his to get a ton a Toyota like, just think of the impact of picking up on cues using data to the behavior piece that was the the unlock for me, ROI data to inform behavior. It's

Paul J Daly: 25:49

ROI you can't see the ROI you can't see going stupid. Come

Kyle Mountsier: 25:52

on, put a panel up on that. Let's go. All

Paul J Daly: 25:56

right. I think we've done enough damage for today. Thank you for being here with us on behalf of Kyle Mountsier, Michael Cirillo and myself, thanks for being here with us on Auto Collabs.

Unknown: 26:07

Sign up for our free and fun to read daily 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 Auto Collabs. Oh. Last.

‍