Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] All right, Mike Wethington, president, I'm sorry, not president, founder and CEO of Outsell. We just talked to the president. And chief bottle washer. Chief bot- Well, that's why they put you in charge. 0:15 That's why he's got- That's correct. [laughs] That's why you're still in charge. We'll put it that way. I, I, you know, I have lots of skills. [laughs] Yeah. 0:21 [laughs] Well, I think one of the, one of the lanes that, uh, the conversation hasn't gone yet today, in a lot of conversations we had, we've talked a lot about technology, we've talked a lot about people. 0:30 But blending together why technology is actually changing the face of what people are doing, both in the stores and on the front line, seems like a topic that you're probably uniquely qualified to talk about. 0:41 Yeah, I, it, it... I mean, my, my perspective is I've been around technology for 40 years, and, you know, and as, as I've told you guys- All right, but, but I think that you... Now that you just said that, I have to ask. 0:52 Yeah, we gotta break in on that. What's the first piece of technology you remember like, "I'm really excited to work on this"? Well, actually, I'll tell you kind of a fun story. 1:00 I started Xerox out of college, and I, uh, uh, 'cause they had the best sales training in the world at the time. They did. Yep. Notoriously great sales training. Notorious, yeah. 1:08 And, and I was in a, uh, in a demo room with this, this, uh, thing called the Xerox Star. And it had- I know exactly where you're going with this. [laughs] Ex- Exactly right. It had a GUI. Yep. [laughs] It had a GUI. 1:19 I, I looked at it and said, "That is the future of computing." 1:23 [laughs] The difference was there was one other person who saw the same machine about the same time, and ended up doing something about it, and that was Steve Jobs of Apple. Yes, it was. So. That's right. 1:32 But he didn't invent the GUI. And that's how far back I go. He saw it at Xerox. At Xerox. It, it was created at Xerox PARC. So. Oh, yeah, right in Rochester. Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't it? Uh, uh. New York. Wow. 1:39 Actually, it was in Palo Alto, California. Was it? They, they- They moved? Xerox was, uh, based out of- Oh... out of Rochester, New York, but, so, so- Okay, so back then. Yeah. 1:48 We've moved on quite a bit from the GUI now. Yeah. Yeah. [laughs] A little bit. And now we have Neuralink in people's heads, just getting them to- That's right. That... Wow. Yeah, we'll get to that section. 1:56 Yeah, that was a whole nother- Elon, we went from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk, and now to Mike. [laughs] Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it... 2:03 I've, I've never seen a time in my 40 years that's more exciting about technology than, than today. And I don't know of another industry that is more interesting related to technology than automotive. Yeah. 2:15 And, and there's just- Isn't that wild? Oh, it's cool. It's fun. I love it. And, and it... And what's fun about it is, is that it's, you're always on the edge. You're always trying to find opportunities. 2:25 And, and one of the things I like about you guys is you're focused on trying to help change the industry- Mm-hmm... and change people's lives. Mm-hmm. 2:33 And, and, and change it in a way that's positive for the industry and for the people. Yeah. 2:37 And so with all the technology that is happening, it's, you know, I've found over many years is that technology can either be looked at as, as the beast or, or your friend. Mm-hmm. 2:51 And, and then if you approach it that, that it can be your friend, what it does is it helps make you more productive. Mm-hmm. And it allows us, and we've, we've done it within our organization. 3:00 I remember through different times where we've evolved more of our technology, we've increased AI, we've increased automation, you know, I was always worried that the people would be concerned about their jobs. 3:12 But, but what ends up happening is exactly what I told them would happen, which is, is that- That's good... they would start to do jobs that had even more fulfillment- Mm-hmm... 3:21 uh, because the technology was taking the more mundane tasks- Yes. It doesn't replace-... and handling it for them... the number of jobs. 3:26 What it does is allow you to focus on more meaningful deployment of a human's brain- Exactly... and the human experience. Exactly. And that's, uh, that's what this industry's gonna face more and more. 3:36 I mean, this industry within automotive, let's face it, I mean, there's, there, there are some huge market forces that are, uh, that are in play. Yeah. 3:45 And, and, and one of the key ones is, is the evolution of technology within the industry. 3:50 And this, this technology change from ICE engines, you know, internal combustion engines, to EVs, to potentially hydrogen, that's putting so much investment into this industry that ultimately it's squeezing- Yeah... 4:04 the margins, uh, of, of the manufacturers, which will ultimately squeeze the margins of the dealers. Yep. 4:11 And, and what's ultimately gonna happen out of that is, is that we've gotta be, be able to find ways to be more productive. Mm-hmm. 4:18 And so the use of technology, especially with AI-driven solutions, is it automates a lot of the mundane. Yeah. 4:26 It ends up taking, it creates and finds opportunities through the data that we never could find as, as human beings. Oh, absolutely. 4:34 I mean, I was just saying this morning to someone that even my personal use of ChatGPT as a tool for, for, like, use within my day, has accelerated my productivity in the last year way faster than I ever could have imagined. 4:52 Oh. Yeah. I, I say it like this, I'm like- You, you could imagine a year ago. No, no, not a chance. No. [laughs] At NADA last year, right? Yes. Yeah. GPT 3.5 came out after NADA last year. 5:02 And everyone was like, "What is this thing?" Yeah. It hasn't even been a year. Exactly. Oh, my gosh. And now we have GPT-4. Yeah. And, like, it's, it's a totally different thing, and so we're leveraging that. 5:11 How are you, um- Hmm... like, like, wait, not like- I mean, we were, we were way behind. I mean, early in that. I mean- Yeah... we were early, early adopters. I mean- Yeah... 5:21 I, I came from a background around neural networks and fascination with, with all that, and so we applied, uh, you know, machine learning models in 2015. I mean- Wow. There we go. [laughs] And that's nine years ago. 5:34 And, and so it's, again, it's gonna continue to evolve. 5:38 And, and companies that, that are not looking for, for solutions that leverage technology and leverage AI, they're gonna be, you know, eventually like the dodo birds. They're gonna be gone. Yeah. You know what I mean? 5:51 You're exactly right. And so you, you, you have to embrace it. But part of embracing that, you gotta make sure [laughs] that you bring your people along with it. Mm-hmm. 5:58 The, the, your people have to see an opportunity of what they can do to fulfill their lives, you know, to an even better level. And when you show that-People rally. Mm-hmm. 6:09 I mean, if, if they have a vision of what can be done and where you can go, and if you take good care of them, you can do amazing things. 6:16 And that's what we built this thing based off with Outsell, is that, you know, we, we, we have people who are... You know, it's not technology that's our largest asset, it's our people. 6:26 So, um, we're heading in full head of steam into 2024. We talked about there is no normal anymore. What do you hope to accomplish by the end of this year? Um, boy, I tell you what, that's a big question. It is. 6:39 I mean, it's, it's... I mean, from our standpoint, one of the key things, quite frankly, it's not so much around technology. It's actually, it's, it's really about people. 6:50 And, and, and what I mean by that is, is that, you know, we've obviously are focused on building great software and figuring out ways to leverage data to, to understand customers and, and engage them more effectively for our dealers. 7:04 Mm-hmm. Um, but what we're really focused on this, this year is, is that these types of solutions are becoming really mission critical for a dealership- Mm-hmm... and for an organization to better engage with consumers. 7:19 And, and, and with that, organizations, the dealerships, the dealer groups need to have the skills to, to be able to develop their people to figure out how to leverage it. And so we're amping up. 7:31 I mean, our, our mission and theme this year is about three things. One, more implementations, creating a, a, a, an ecosystem of, of more smart solutions that can all work together within our platform. 7:45 More AI functionality to make things easier to, for, for the dealer- Yeah. Mm-hmm... uh, and, and better for the consumer. And then more support- Mm-hmm... 7:54 which goes back to more support into the dealerships to be able to help the dealership's people be able to leverage that technology, get better outcomes, and, and, and that will be the beginning of even more, uh, intellectual capital that we've gotta continue to develop within our organization- Right... 8:14 to support dealers. You got a couple things on your plate. Oh, my, that's a busy year. [laughs] Thank you so much- 10 months... for spending a little bit of time with us. 8:22 I feel like you've gotta go get to work right now after [laughs] [laughs] Watch those bottles. It's always, always a pleasure hanging out with you two. It's good to. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks, Mike. [upbeat music]
