Apple Store energy meets Ford retail as JB Burnett builds a concierge dealership that actually fits how people buy.
Today’s guest, JB Burnett (GM at Preston Automotive Group), went from serving tables at 20 to running his first dealership at 23. He’s now opening what Ford calls the world’s first Signature 2.0 facility—a wide-open, concierge-style showroom where advisors work on iPads, coffee comes before paperwork, and financing options hit the screen in about a minute and a half. He’s betting big that the future of car buying isn’t one lane—it’s dozens—and the store should flex to match every guest’s journey.
We get into the “why” behind the build: Apple-like consult spaces, a barista bar that starts the experience, and tech (AutoFi) that connects online starts to in-store finishes without the dreaded “let me ask my manager” lap. We also talk team prep, culture shifts, and why experiential retail is resurging right as everyone debates online vs. in-store. Spoiler: a dealership isn’t just a place to transact—it’s a place people actually want to be.
0:00 — The Apple Store Feeling That Broke the Dealership Mold
3:54 — Meet JB: From Server to GM at 23 (and What Flipped the Switch)
4:37 — “I Wouldn’t Buy a Car From Me” — The Brutally Honest Epiphany
7:18 — Why Some People Need 8 Hours—and Others Want the Keys in 8 Minutes
10:12 — Inside Ford’s Signature 2.0: Barista Bar, iPads, and Zero Cubicles
15:45 — Weeks From Opening: The First Signature 2.0 Store in the World
18:37 — The 90-Second Finance Loop: AutoFi + RouteOne Changes the Game
20:49 — Open Lines of Sight = Open Trust: Service and Sales Merge
23:20 — Moving a Dealership a City Away: Why Environment Elevates Behavior
24:24 — From Salespeople to Concierges: Training the Mindset, Not Just the Tools
27:20 — Physical Retail Isn’t Dying—Bad Experiences Are
28:38 — Experiential Retail Wins: Make the Store a Place People Choose to Be
Connect with JB Burnett at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jb-burnett-14534626/
Learn more about the Preston Auto Group at https://www.prestonmotor.com/
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Paul J Daly: 0:00 Do either of you remember the first time you ever walked in an Apple store? Unknown: 0:09 This is auto Collabs. Yes, Paul J Daly: 0:13 tell, tell us about it. I Michael Cirillo: 0:16 was, I was still living in Canada, and I was down in the San Francisco Bay Area, doing a project, working on a project, and I just happened upon this area, I don't even know, somewhere between Silicon Valley and San Francisco, somewhere nestled in there, and there was this cool, vibey outdoor shopping mall, e type area, and right at the heart of it was an Apple store. And this is gonna sound so cheesy, I don't even know why I'm sharing this. Probably because, like growing up in the sticks in British Columbia, Canada, this type of vibe was so felt so unachievable, Paul J Daly: 1:04 and they had indoor bathrooms and everything, yeah, Michael Cirillo: 1:07 I mean, people wore deodorant. It was like, and I remember feeling so elevated walking into that store, like I had achieved something so special. And also probably a part of it was at a time in my life where I could not afford a single thing in there, Paul J Daly: 1:25 and the roster, oh, even better, and they treated you great. It was Michael Cirillo: 1:28 almost like this aspirational experience that I came back home feeling, feeling like I all of a sudden, didn't belong where I lived. Paul J Daly: 1:39 How about that? Kyle, do you remember? Kyle Mountsier: 1:42 I think it was pre iPhone, actually, where I lived, at a mall, we had one, a very early, like new ish Apple Store, probably, like a lot of computers, like a lot of desks. It was all, it was all desk like laptop computers. So it was that first, like the white laptop, like the white MacBook laptop, we Paul J Daly: 2:07 had the iMac that was on like the base, like a lamp almost. Well, yeah, they Kyle Mountsier: 2:13 had that, yeah, the one on the base, yeah. So that. So that was, like my first experience into it, pre iPhone, like, late high school, it would have been like, like, late 90s, early 2000 something like that, like, Paul J Daly: 2:25 so I'm actually going somewhere with this. Michael, you and I got, oh, I think were the three of us in an Apple store when you bought the watch? Yeah, was that all three? Yes, we witnessed. We witnessed one of Michael's more recent visits to the Apple store, where he walked in, like, he owned the place, checked out the big, what's the Big Apple Watch, called the Ultra, or something? Yeah, the Ultra. He looks at it, puts it on his wrist. He's like, Yep, I'm gonna get it. And then we stood around for 20 minutes waiting for someone to actually execute the purchase, Kyle Mountsier: 2:55 right? That was right, yeah. That was the most. That was an anomaly of an take this Paul J Daly: 3:00 man's $1,000 anybody, right? What a difference from that first visit that you just expressed so interesting into the last visit? Unknown: 3:07 Nobody even made it. What I could ring the bell. Paul J Daly: 3:13 You definitely should. Well, today's guest, JB, JB, Burnett is building, I guess. What do you call it? A signature concept, signature, brand new Ford store, because I think Ford understands that consumers expect what Michael Cirillo expects now, and they're no longer, you know, wowed by the environment. They actually expect a very comfortable environment. They expect to be treated better, and maybe not if they've never bought a car in a place like that. But super savvy dealer, super savvy leader, excited to have him on the show today, so we hope you enjoy this conversation. JB, thank you so much for joining us today. I love that they're going to be a few like first time conversations between the four of us. So welcome. Thanks for being JB Burnett: 3:54 here. Yeah, this is gonna be great, man. I appreciate you guys having us. All Paul J Daly: 3:57 right, so we always ask this question, and I want to get through it quickly, because it's important. But what you're doing and what you're working on, I think, is super interesting to a lot of our audience. But tell us how you first got into the auto industry. Like, what age were you give us the give us, like, the 30 to 62nd version. JB Burnett: 4:13 I love that question. So I got in the car business when I was 20 years old, fresh out of serving tables, right? Somebody I was serving tables. Guy said, Hey, I think you should hospitality. Yeah? And I was like, sell cars. That's commission, right? Like, I can't do that, Paul J Daly: 4:26 yeah? Tables, commission. JB Burnett: 4:30 That felt more real every day, yeah? So, so I got in, I sold cars for actually, a very short period of time, so cars like, a year. And then got into finance because my finance manager left, and I raised my hand and and then my GM left. A couple years later, and he went to another Automotive Group, and he called me. He says, Hey, man and guys running this Hyundai stores and doing a great job. I think I can get you an interview. And he got me an interview when I was 23 coming out of the box, I took over my first store as a general manager at 23 night, ran a store for them, for. Five years, and then had an opportunity to to move from Maryland to Delaware, come over the shore and join the Preston Automotive Group. And I found that home for the last 10 years, and now I'm currently the general manager of their Hyundai store, their Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram store, their Ford and Lincoln store. We're about to talk about, Wow, just Paul J Daly: 5:17 a couple two, little bit of a loaded question, but like, Do you have a favorite football team. JB Burnett: 5:21 So I was born in San Diego. I'm still a chargers fan. Okay. Unknown: 5:26 Charge is doing all right, they're undefeated. Still not Paul J Daly: 5:30 what I expected. Though. I was like, commanders Ravens. Kyle Mountsier: 5:35 We were gonna get an East Coast trick bag. And he was like, not chargers, we're good. JB Burnett: 5:40 Nobody fights me on teams. No problem. Paul J Daly: 5:44 Okay, well, you can have, you can have an East Coast Steve, too. I recommend the Eagles. But go ahead, Kyle Mountsier: 5:49 that's amazing. That's amazing. I always love to know because we ask, ask beforehand, and I think it always there's, there's something that happens when we when we relate, like what we do outside of work, and you, you mentioned that that you love cooking in kind of like a pre chat before we had here get Are you like, Are you the family chef, or are you like, the grill master? Like, what? What's, what's your vibe on cooking? JB Burnett: 6:15 So, so it's funny, my fiance and I've been together now seven years, and at the beginning it was me cooking every night. You know, it was every night. I got home from work 839 o'clock, and then we start cooking. Next thing, you know, it's 1130 because I don't know how to cook small I can only cook for 10 people. I can't cook for two. And so somewhere along the line, she's like, this is really killing the grocery bill, because you're, you're having leftovers, and you don't eat leftovers. And so she started, she started picking up cooking, and now somehow, by default, I only cook, like, two days a week. Yeah. Kyle Mountsier: 6:47 She's like, nada, nada. No, we're not doing this whole cook for 10. And it's, I gotta throw it out in two days. And JB Burnett: 6:52 that, yeah, exactly, Kyle Mountsier: 6:54 well, but I think, okay, so then I go back to how many stores you're working with and managing, and it's like, it seems like you've got this only go big mentality, probably in all of life, what, what has led like, Can you recall, like, why that is in your psyche, where you're like, I'm just gonna go after the biggest, the next biggest thing. JB Burnett: 7:18 So I think starting out in life, like in my my late teens, I was, I was real tough just not not finding the right crowds, not doing the right things. And then I found serving, and that wasn't the right crowd. And then I got into the car business. And, and I think car business, there was a guy in that in that room. He was a top sales guy, plaque on the name every single time. And, and I looked, I came to him, like my first week, and I was like, Hey, man, I want to be like you. And he said, well, good luck. Nobody showed me how to do it, so figure it out. And I took that as, like a challenge. And I'm like, All right, well, let's go. And so I took that and really, I excelled. Excel in sales. I beat him my fourth or fifth month in and then from there, I'm like, All right, sky's the limit. I'm actually pretty good at this thing. He should he should be asking me, yeah. So then, you know, as that progressed, every time I had an opportunity, I mean, you know, my back was gonna say, Well, I didn't know what I was doing. I was a kid and and you know, you're 23 years old, You take over your first store. What do you what option do you have, other than success? Like, I got to work seven days a week. I got to work longer and harder than everybody else. And then eventually I learned the car business. I went through dealer Academy a couple of times, and, you know, I really I learned the right ways and the wrong ways to do it, and I've tried to figure out how to make the best right way to do it, and now bringing sort of a new era and generation of the right way to do the car business. Nada. Michael Cirillo: 8:37 Great. Name another industry where you hear this story as often as we do, going down the wrong road, hanging out with the wrong people, stumble into automotive and and we get the benefit here, because we get the hindsight look at JB, your your experience in your life. But, I mean, I can't think of a single other industry where this story is told, and the outcome that we get to see in hindsight, maps the way that yours has mapped. I mean, like, Do you guys know, is there another industry that Paul J Daly: 9:10 I can't I mean, we should ask every guest this I could never think of one. JB Burnett: 9:14 JB, I see it all the time. I mean, I love, yeah, one of my, one of my best finance managers is I met him. He was the 19 year old designated driver at a bar for his his mom, who was who was intoxicated that night, right? And he's sitting at the bar drinking water, and I sit down beside him, and we just start chatting. And I'm like, hey man, and we told you to get the car business. And now he is very, very successful young man, just under 30 years Paul J Daly: 9:41 old. He's really taking care of mom now, yeah, been with me 810, years JB Burnett: 9:45 now. I mean, really doing his thing. And so just seeing those kinds of success stories, especially in southern, Southern Delaware, I mean, where I Paul J Daly: 9:51 don't write, how many, right? Where is the land of opportunity jobs out here, unless you're into, like, filing LLC paperwork for businesses in other states, right? Like. JB Burnett: 10:00 You know, chickens are a booming business in southern Delaware. You see, you see trucks driving down the roads with just boxes of chickens. Yeah, live chickens just heading somewhere. I'm going to pivot us a Paul J Daly: 10:12 little bit. You're doing some amazing work right now, and the work that you've been working on in a lot of these signature concept stores, and we're going to talk about one you're working on with Ford. A lot of people don't even understand you've been working on this for a while, and they're about to see these new concepts in this reinvention or rethinking of the retail experience for Ford specifically. But tell us a little bit about what you're doing, why you decided to, like, hand raise and say, like, I want to be a part of that. And then maybe I think we have some stuff that you can show us that, anybody else, we promise so. JB Burnett: 10:45 So I think it started, I was at a Ford event three or four years ago, right? And and I was sitting there in the room, and they were talking about Ford guest experience and how to make it different and better, and just starting, starting to build the brand. And then from there, I I had this like epiphany, and I raised my hand in front of, I mean, this is a room full of dealers. I raised my hand and I said, Guys, I'll be honest with you, I don't think I'd buy a car from me sit in a car dealership for three, four or five hours, like, that's not me. I I'm quick, I'm easy. I want it now. I'm Amazon. Pay the money, right? Yeah. I don't care what it's gonna cost, just give it to me and and so once I had that epiphany, I really, I got back from that, and I really started pivoting all of my business to meet the guests where they're at, like we already know there's there's the guy that wants to sit in a showroom for eight hours, right? And he wants to grind and hustle and know he got the best deal. But then there's the other one that doesn't ever want to see our face? They want us the car to show up in their driveway and then sign a couple of wet docs and move on with life. I just feel like, if we can meet the customer wherever in that journey they're at, we're heading in the right direction. And that's where I think this, this project really becomes a good passion project that fits along with how I would buy a car. Now, you know, yeah, Kyle Mountsier: 12:02 man, I I'm just hearing that so much more often. You know, when we especially when, let's call it like the mid teens, the mid the mid 20 teens. There was such a pursuit of like, we would just name the customer broadly. We would say the customer wants to buy online. The customer wants to and we like as an industry, we started making these big old blankets. Paul J Daly: 12:28 You know, this one customer that everyone falls right now, Kyle Mountsier: 12:31 everybody falls perfectly into that. And I'm hearing so often the best operators, it's like, it's actually because then we were like, wow, the omnichannel, right? No, no. There's like three ways that people want to buy, but the spectrum of what you just said is like somewhere between 72 and 83 different ways to buy, right? And they all come with different flavors. And that's a I think, what? What if the data scientists, if the analysts, if the consumer public, if Wall Street could sit in the shoes of a salesperson for one month, and let's say a salesperson meets 50 people, right? Let's just between online, offline interactions, and in just those 50 interactions, the number of different job titles, backgrounds, socio economic statuses, like ways of anything, the price point of the vehicle that they're buying that makes each transaction that unique. Is something that you can only really experience when you do it day in, day out, and you sit in the shoes, and you listen to the stories, and you understand what makes people tick. And once, until you do that, you you actually forget that, like the generalized customer doesn't actually exist, right? Because they are. It's 83 different ways to buy a car, and probably way more than that, JB Burnett: 14:00 right? And I think you hit the nail on the head on that, man, because that's in You're right. They, they, they put it in these little buckets first, and they're like, oh, they either want to do it all online, they don't want all in the store, or they just want to look at it online, but then come drive it and drive it home. No, there's some people that want to get the financing done, the payments done, that the back end done everything before they ever step foot in the showroom, and there's there, like I said, there's other guys that they prefer to touch, feel, smell, drive and and do that to 4568, different cars. We've all been there, right? Kyle Mountsier: 14:34 Same lot when the when the box is in the back, yeah, JB Burnett: 14:38 two different, two different cars, identical, just different colors. Well, I want to see if that one drives any different and, you know, they run around the lot for for a couple 100 bucks, for eight hours. I think this is, again, I'm a younger guy. I got in this business very young, and I learned from a lot of not young guys, a lot of really old school. Mentality that said, hey, follow me. Come to my desk. Watch this. I can make this guy watch walk across the entire parking lot. Not even know why follow me. And I've been through those trainings, and then you come out of that, right? We've been there. And so you come out of that, and you're like, Okay, well, would I follow him? Yeah, I Unknown: 15:19 don't know if I would? No, I know, right. Paul J Daly: 15:23 So tell tell us about tell us we've got this framework of people looking for something different. How different like can you give us some details about the the signature concept in Ford that you're working on, what is, what are the biggest differences between how Ford, maybe approached stores in the past, and what are some of the biggest differences in how they're approaching this? By the way, how far is this thing from opening? JB Burnett: 15:46 We are. We are the weeks we should be open. Oh my gosh. And this will be, this is the first signature 2.0 facility in the world. The next facility is coming up in South America, and then there's another facility coming up in the EU Paul J Daly: 16:02 so this is in the US. This will be JB Burnett: 16:05 the first the US. I think for a little while, I don't know of anybody else that's this far progressed. And so we're Paul J Daly: 16:10 going to show some pictures then, yeah. So what's the first showroom? A little bit, yeah, get give us and we'll put the picture up, but tell us about JB Burnett: 16:17 it. So, so the showroom in this facility is completely open. It's designed to be more like you're hanging out in your friend's living room, right? So there's like, comfortable seating areas with, like, coffee tables high tops when you walk in, there's this, this huge barista bar situation where you can stop and get a beverage, and really, that's where your journey begins. And then your your sales associate at that point is just saying, hey, so where do you want to begin? They don't have cubicles, they don't have desks, they don't have computers. I mean, everyone's very Apple Store. Ask, it really does. Everybody works in an iPad and, and, you know, when you're working a deal, there you go. So when you're working a deal and, and somebody just says, Hey, well, you know, that's what it looks like with no money down. But what does it look like with five grand down? And then you're like, I don't know, hold on a second. Let second, let me go ask my manager, and you run, ask the manager. Managers doing two other things. It takes 12 minutes to tell you what the difference in a down payment is going to be. So I had every time. So I had to, I had to do some homework on this, because Ford told me, Hey, this is what we want it to feel like. But the coolest thing about this is Ford didn't tell me how I had to do it. And so they said, Hey, we want to digital retailing lifestyle, but we don't know exactly which tool is going to be the best for this. So I looked at a bunch of different tools, I interviewed five different companies and and I settled on one that took the digital retailing experience that we've been hearing about for years, right? Buy it online, click and blah, blah, like that part of it, but it tied it into a showroom experience. And so if you started at home and you started picking car, it grabs your information, and when you come in, I say, hey, you know, Mr. Smith, I see you got this far. Where would you like to go from here? And so I can change down payment, I can change term. And all these are like parameters that we set behind the scenes, obviously. And one of the coolest things that I found about this is, if you have that, you know that 800 that comes in, they got five grand down, you know they're going to go for the best rate. You can set the parameters of that deal, and the sales person hits a button, submits it to route one. It kicks it back within 90 seconds and says, Hey, Mr. Customer, here are your three options. Which one would you like to go with and never lose. Never leaves the desk. Kyle Mountsier: 18:32 Do you mind us asking what technology? Yeah. Can you disclose that yet? JB Burnett: 18:37 For sure, I went with auto phi, yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, looking at a lot of the programs, they just had it, they just had it figured out for what I was looking for. There's a lot of them are great digital retailing tools, but then getting that translation into the showroom experience, where it's seamless, is really what I thought would make the difference in how this whole process looks. Kyle Mountsier: 19:00 Well, and you think about like, and if you're looking at this, and if you can see it, if you're watching the video, you can tell like, there's a very Apple esque like, computer buying, technology buying, look and feel. And people are so native to that these days. And so the ability to kind of walk in and go, Okay, we're going to start this, like you said, in these nine different ways, nine different places, but anywhere we can pick up, drop off in the process, where you left off. And I think that, you know, the the like walking into something like that, is you actually you gave the example of the follow me, right, which I've led those trainings I was, I know what it's like to man, if I can't get a room full of brand new sales people to stand up follow me some random place I like, I could still do that JB Burnett: 19:52 today. I've done it 100 times. Done it 100 Kyle Mountsier: 19:55 times. The interesting thing about this, and I think one of the things that, as I. Um, just as the industry is the the showroom has always felt like, well, if I go in there, things could get sideways, right? And I think what, what, what the OEMs and dealers are starting to recognize is that if we make that a place that's inviting people will actually be excited to come to it. They'll, they will. They will be destined to go to the showroom, because it's a great place to do business. And so that's a it's just a massive pivot, and I'm proud of Ford for picking up on those consumer signals and kind of taking that as an opportunity. JB Burnett: 20:33 I think that was, that was really their designing factor, right? So this the showrooms lines you can you can essentially from the from the sales management area, you can see the service writers. It's all wide open, and so there's no sales Paul J Daly: 20:49 waiting. Pictures we're looking at, these are real world pictures for the showroom from JB Burnett: 20:53 last week, yep. And so you'll see those open consult spaces with a little bit of glass in between. Those consult spaces are based just to give you, you know, enough privacy, but not make you feel like you're locked in somewhere in that last picture that just popped up, that's their that's the guest preparation area. So that I told you, they don't have desks. They don't have, you know, computers or phones out front. Everything runs out of this back room. It's not customer facing at all. So when you're back here, grabbing the phones, knocking out tasks, doing those kinds of things. You're doing that behind the scenes. And so when you're up front, you're almost more of a Ford concierge. You're waiting sure for somebody to come in, or maybe for a reservation to show up, but you're you're messing and talking with the guy that just got out of service and just checked in. And it changes the barrier of the sales waiting area versus the service waiting area. And, oh, those are service customers. I don't want to talk to them. We're all just sort of hanging out in the space. Yeah, you know what, Paul, you know what I mean about service customers. Michael Cirillo: 21:52 You know what really stands out to me here, too. And I'm about to make all of the architect that watches this really excited. I would plural Liza, we hope the the relevance and the importance that good architecture and good good environment design has like what you were saying, Kyle, on the customer experience, but also on the employee experience when they are in an environment that makes them feel something different than than that actually translates to, like, wait a minute, I want to, I want to preserve the vibe like it elevates, actually people. And I'm even looking at these. I've got them on my phone. I had to zoom in 5x because I just want to see all the details. And I mean, people don't realize how important that Apple kind of environment, that Apple Store environment, how important a role it plays in consumer satisfaction, consumer confidence, employee confidence and culture confidence. They know they're coming to a work, to a place every single day where they must behave in a way that actually matches the environment, because if not, then we're just like every other dealership that has popcorn kernels on the floor. JB Burnett: 23:09 You know, I agree with you completely. So Michael Cirillo: 23:12 that's what I'm feeling when I see, I think Kyle Mountsier: 23:15 excitement around, like the team kind of getting ready to move in there. JB Burnett: 23:20 Well, it's funny, because we're, it's, it's a big move, because we're actually eight and a half miles up the street. And so coming, coming to this campus, you're not only it's not like a rebuild, or like you're just upgrading next door. This is, this is removing the whole thing a whole city away, and and the facility we're in now is, I mean, it's, it's outdated. We've had it a long time. We bought it. It was already old when we bought it, and and so their excitement isn't even the word this is, this is such a going to be a different, a different experience for our associates, as much as it's going to be for our for our guests, you Kyle Mountsier: 23:58 know, walk in there with some swagger day one. I'm just telling you it's gonna be Tell me this. Paul J Daly: 24:03 How have you been prepping the mindset shift? Because there's a level where the environment gives you a different mindset shift, but at the same time, this environment is so uniquely catered toward this, like you said, a concierge experience. How have you been prepping the team from the old building to the new building? Like when you step in this new building. This is how we're going to do it, or is there no change? JB Burnett: 24:24 No, I'll give you. I'll give Ford a lot of credit. They have helped tremendously when it comes to pre open visits and meeting with all the staff and going through the guest experience, the Ford guest experience program, which ironically, I'm doing today at the Ford store, but that's every single month right now that we're we're just trying to inundate them with what it feels like to be to be different. And we've been using the words guest and reservation for a long time in that store, because we knew it was coming. We learned that, you know, buy it through Lincoln, through Ford, and you know, all. All of it's currently a dual point. So all of those sales associates have had a lot of Lincoln training as well. And what that that Lincoln guest is looking for, and that guest is looking for an even more elevated experience. And so between that and shifting technology, trying to make them less reliant on computers, you know, have, my whole staff have been on iPads for two years. And so it's not like that's going to be some crazy new experience that's huge. Yeah, so it's just as we saw it come in. We just started transitioning. And so all three of my stores, every sales associate works on off an iPad, primarily. And so they don't do it with the with the auto fi software. But, you know, they do it for showing cars or or maybe some of the, you know, the connected services that a lot of the manufacturers have, they use it for all that stuff. So, yeah, it's, it's, I think we've done a good job transitioning. And obviously the real test isn't going to be till we get there, but I think we're heading in the right direction. Yeah, Kyle Mountsier: 25:55 for sure. Well, I mean, I can just tell by your mode of communication, the way that you're thinking about prepping, getting excited for it. JB, JB, it's been amazing just hearing your story personally, but also kind of understanding what's going on here with Ford and the collaboration that it's been. We can't wait to see it open. So you're gonna have to send us pictures. We'll make sure and share those out. But thank you for giving us a little bit of your time and a busy season and joining us here on auto Collabs. JB Burnett: 26:20 Absolutely guys. Thank you so much for your time. We'll talk soon. Michael Cirillo: 26:26 Okay, this is what was going through my mind while I was listening to him speak the this idea of and maybe this is a small detail, but I pay attention to this thread, which is, when you look at the industry at large, there's a lot of polarizing conversations happening. What's going to happen to the industry? What's going to happen to dealerships? Are we going out of business? Are we staying in business? Are we trying to replace, you know, dealerships and and you see Ford and a dealer making this type of an investment in a physical location, and I can't help but think that they are smart enough as an OEM and as a dealer to be looking far enough into the future to say yes, despite everything that's happening and all of the narratives, we have enough conclusive information that comes customers want to go to a place to buy a car. Kyle Mountsier: 27:20 Well, I think that, I think that I'm going to give you like a I'm going to give just a little bit of a change to that is I think that customers want to go to a place to buy things that they enjoy. And the pivot, for me, that OEMs and dealers are starting to see is that not there's that real estate just isn't a place where transactions happen. It's a place where experiential retail happens. And, you know, I was at, I can't wait for the conversation to go but I was at, you know, Alex Lawrence's EV Auto, and you look at some of the things that he's doing with the big LED screens and the seating areas and things like that. And you look at the way that this Ford signature is coming out and few years back Mazda their redesign. And then you look at the boutique shops that a pole star or a lucid or some of these have, and it's like people they make coffee shops in those why? Because they're places where people just want to be, want to be, right? That's what I think that OEM, OEMs are realizing, whether people buy cars online or in store, or some hybrid of both, or one of the 83 versions, is they want to go to a place that they enjoy. And this is a, this is a move in that direction, for Paul J Daly: 28:38 sure. That's true, especially as we're in the middle of this, you know, brick and mortar resurgence that is just in the beginning of the swing right back to bookshops and in person shopping and Gen Z really liking and enjoying it, staying ahead of that and being a part of reinventing now that, like over the next decade, is when you're really going to start to reap the rewards of Building a place where people want to buy things look we hope that this is a place that you like to buy ideas and discuss and think So on behalf of their free and they aren't free. On behalf of com Mountsier, Michael Cirillo and myself. Thank you, as always, for joining us here on auto Collabs. Unknown: 29:16 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 at 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 you welcome to auto Collabs.