Who’s Responding to Leads, Caddy Considerations, Mario Kart For Seniors

Paul J Daly: 0:16

Fresh week last week heading into ASOTU CON oh my gosh boy it's gonna be on fire but today we're talking about it who isn't isn't responding to Lee's. Yes, Cadillac considerations and Mario Kart for senior citizens. The people really want to act isn't who I be they stopped. You know what they see, one thing that I've learned is that banana peels senior citizen, be grudging on one another. Let me just say that, like you had nothing else to think about sometimes then, like the worst

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:44

place that you want to be is in a senior citizen home drive and like area driving, right? Because you're going to get some angry looks. That's just the way it is.

Paul J Daly: 0:53

Yeah, yeah, I know.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:55

I'm gonna be one of those guys one day.

Paul J Daly: 0:56

I'm just nothing to care about. But like who's cutting you off? Yeah. Hey,

Kyle Mountsier: 1:00

I don't this is what this is the vibe that I was feeling this morning. If you just listen to the pod, just a reminder, we do do a video on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook. And we have this like 32nd countdown that if you just listen and you never get to hear I apologize for that. But that countdown the very first time I ever heard the music of that countdown was the morning of full day one ASOTU CON last year, really? And yeah, so I don't think we had used it beforehand. And I hadn't heard that like that drumline. Okay, and so like that, that energy is especially reminding me this week, right? Yeah.

Paul J Daly: 1:45

Well, look, we've talked about it ad infinitum for a long time. And now one week from today, our team will be descending, descending, and some will be there already, but we will be arriving on site. I'll probably be in the car right now. Maybe in Baltimore, south of Baltimore, North Annapolis, at the live casino hotel where we will be having the third episode of con soda con 2024. And I can't say I can't say it enough. I've never seen energy toward an event like this. And not just energy, right, because I didn't talk about energy, but substance, the people who have been signing up the dealers who have been signing up, a lot of which I've never met before, which gets me so excited because they are welcomed into this community of people who are committed to being the very best dealers, the very best industry partners in the industry in all areas, not just in culture, not just in marketing. But we're talking about technology. We're talking about recruiting and hiring. We're talking about fixed operations, mobile service, sales, models, customer experience, ROI. business objectives, Brian benstock is going to light this place on fire on Tuesday afternoon. Winston

Kyle Mountsier: 2:56

is ready to go. Yes.

Paul J Daly: 2:57

Is it Tuesday, or Wednesday afternoon, it's Wednesday, Thursday, and get a little bit get ahead of planning.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:03

It's a real quick before we get to the show, I've been explaining it like this to people, that when you get to ASOTU CON, even if you've never met anybody else there, there's this kind of like way down in your gut feeling that everybody in the room kind of sees the world in a similar way, or at least with the same, like perspective on why to care about the things that they're about to care about and all the sessions. And that's an important differentiator. And when you look around the room, you're gonna see light hearted like minded people are talking about things, they're going to challenge each other. It doesn't mean that everybody agrees on every single aspect of how to do business. But it does mean that their perspective on why they believe that way, comes from the same core deep, deep beliefs. And so watch out for that feeling if you come in good

Paul J Daly: 3:51

one, I mean that that makes all the difference in the world. We've all been in countless sessions, where you find yourself in there, and you see something presented or someone talking and maybe you're like, oh, yeah, that's kind of a nice idea. But when you get in a room with people, or like, let's learn the next step, and are motivated, that's when things actually change, because like 98% of the sessions I've ever been a part of, I've just walked out and immediately forgotten about them. 98%, maybe 99. But it's just true. And everybody knows it's true. Maybe not because it's different, maybe 99%. I want to thank our friends at Reynolds and Google for being the presenting sponsor of ASOTU CON this year means the world to us. I think it means the world to the industry, because they're going to walk away from this. And they're going to remember this one and implement the things in their store. So thank you so much for helping us we have a lot of other sponsors collaborators to talk about to this week. But first, we have to talk about some news today. Yes, speaking of implementing things in their stores stay away first. on a Monday. Let's go I have a feeling there gonna be some managers walking into some offices if they see this story on Yahoo or hear it on this. So the napleton Auto Group has secured its top spot for the third consecutive year in the 2024 Pied Piper psi internet lead effectiveness study. So they're leading the way in responding to online customer inquiries, which is what the study leans in on Berkshire Hathaway ranks second herb chambers and Ken garff Tied for third. So basically, the study ranked 18 major auto groups, evaluating their responses to web generated customer inquiries via email, phone and text within it's not a high bar to set within 24 hours. I mean, I mean, look, if you're past like four hours, like just there's they've asked the question to three other people already. Fran O'Hagan, CEO of Pied Piper says, quote, top performing dealerships focus on their behaviors, but they also carefully track what their website customers are actually experiencing. napleton excelled with 84% of its dealerships scoring above 80% highlighting their efficient and personal customer engagement. They said 80% of those got personalized, thorough responses is basically what it says in the study. The industry leading average score rose from six to 66. That's the average 66% from 58% in 2023 and 55% in 2022. So we're moving in the right direction. Ganley, Automotive Group Ganley, automotive showed the most improvement year over year at 21% 61 to 74, meaning some manager walked into some office when they heard conversation. Yeah, while Sierra automotive and Berkshire Hathaway showed also showed notable improvements, the four groups that saw declines row, lean and everybody this is where

Kyle Mountsier: 6:41

lean back one of them or

Paul J Daly: 6:43

leave the building pendrick was down 5% Penske was down 8%, Morgan was down 10% and victory down 15% from their performance last year.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:54

Here's here's the interesting thing about this one, this is large groups, right? So anytime that you take a large group and you're trying to scale processes across that group, it definitely gets difficult. So I don't want to, you know, like, you know, discount the fact that yes, a large group scaling processes to replicate over every single store gets tougher and tougher to smaller, especially when you're hiring at the speed your requests actually acquire the all of these rooftops are acquiring at this at a rapid pace right now. So, you know, just we'll start with that as like the qualifier that I have on this, but we know that as, as an industry, that our innate ability to follow up well, has never been at the top of the pecking list, right? That we've always been looking at this as a place where we can improve. i What I love about this, and what you can go look through here is some of the questions some of the ways that they that they look at this and you know, the the questions of like, How often did the group's dealership respond by phone call to a website? Inquiry? was one of the questions did the dealership email or text and answer and also respond by a phone call? So you can go through this survey and start to look at okay, what questions should we be asking of our processes, and it's just a really simple way. It's, it's early in the month, it's a great week for training, why not get in, take this as impetus to go, Hey, whether or not we're at 767 100, whatever, there's always room to improve. And so that's what I would look at this as the highlight on,

Paul J Daly: 8:38

though, without a doubt. You know, COVID didn't do us any favors. And we talk a lot about getting back to the basics. And it's really a demotivator to be very thorough and attentive to web follow up, when you know, you have three more customers behind the one that you didn't follow up on. And so you start cherry picking leads like this is probably not and you start making all these decisions, when in reality, like it's, it's you have to like work to serve and work to sell. I was on LinkedIn and you know, Andy Elliot puts out a lot of content. And he was he's been calling dealerships and like seeing what the salesman does and he just gives them a really kind of like, laksa days decal, you know, but hey, man, I'm just calling to see if there's a ground vehicle is here. Yeah, it's a little too much. And the guy just is like, Yeah, well, I mean, that's, that's pretty much the price. And he was kind of like in his response, and he hangs up the phone. He was like, how about this and he gives a response to the one of the best lines I've ever heard, hey, we've never been able to not come to terms somewhat on price. He said, You know, we buy these cars. We're not a museum. We buy these cars to sell them not to keep them. I was like, that's a pretty funny line.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:47

That's a classic line. Yeah. We've been training for years and years and years. That's back in the day. I heard that one. Oh, it was so old. Still in sales training. We're not

Paul J Daly: 9:59

I tell you, if someone said it to me I would laugh but then I'd be like no I really don't be and so yeah, but the bottom line is this like, like we know we have dealers that are like no no. If someone calls in inquires about a vehicle it's like that that car should be sold that we should find the reason I

Kyle Mountsier: 10:13

say that there's one like really simple baseline thing that you can start to change your culture with is stop calling them leads start calling them them potential customers. There you go, how many potential customers came in through the internet? Like how many customers came in through the showroom today? Not how many leads or not how many ups but how many potential customers so good at language totally will change the frame of reference for everything you do.

Paul J Daly: 10:38

I love it. Speaking of change your frame of reference for everything you do. Segue I have a trigger pad that I'm about to play in a minute you know which one it is. Cadillac is rethinking it's all electric future despite earlier commitments to an all Evie lineup by 20. Yes, it's true they got on the 2030 train and they said by the year 2030, we will sell nothing but electric vehicles which gets more and more challenging this people stop buying or slow down buying electric vehicles. Cadillacs, VP, John Roth announced last week that both electric and internal combustion engines will coexist beyond 2030. Offering the quote, luxury of choice great, great brand way to put a brand play. I'll call that a beautiful backstep. The company's earlier stands going fully electric. By the decades age has shifted and been influenced by slower than expected Evie market growth and customer preferences. How about that? In 2020, they pushed dealers to invest heavily in infrastructure, we remember this, and about 20% of Cadillac dealers opted for a buyout instead of complying with the electric requirements. Now it's a little more lacs, John Roth continues on saying we're always listening to the customer, we are still on strategy of offering an all view Evie portfolio by the end of the decade, but we're going to listen to the customer and let them be our guide. That's our answer.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:07

Yeah, you know, now, I wish we could, you know, I wish we had a trigger pad for I told you so because there's, you know, in our 700 Almost almost 800 episodes, I feel like we've had a couple moment of students I've had a couple literally, you know, we every single OEM right now is doing this. What did you call the backstep? A beautiful bags a

Paul J Daly: 12:31

beautiful backstep? No beautiful

Kyle Mountsier: 12:33

back then everybody's doing this little No, here's was.

Paul J Daly: 12:36

It was it was on brand? Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:39

Yeah, like a luxury

Paul J Daly: 12:40

luxury of choice, the luxury,

Kyle Mountsier: 12:43

luxury, luxury, you know, whatever you whatever you want to call it. But we're gonna see more manufacturers just start to realize that, hey, the dealers that are close to the customer now should have major voice in the way that the progress of the brand goes.

Paul J Daly: 13:02

It is funny what happens when you let the customer decide what they want to drive, they will tell you what to make. It's crazy. But it's true. All right. Speaking

Kyle Mountsier: 13:12

of what we all want to drive, I would drive over the last couple years we've covered electric cars, electric motorbikes, the cybertruck Whatever that is, and now coming to her retirement community near you out the villages the Avenir has introduced the tectus all wheel drive electric mobility scooters are specifically designed for seniors with a third wheel on the back they're featuring a dual motor all wheel on the front. Yeah, yeah, third wheel on the front, two wheels in the back one wheel on the front. You know tricycle style. The the dual motor all wheel drive will boast top performance in any weather or terrain. It also also offers an enclosed cabin with modern comforts such as AC Heating, backup camera and GPS. And it stands out with wireless charging, and versatile cargo options in the rapidly growing $7.2 billion mobility scooter market. The president of Avenir Autobianchi said the tectus can take you anywhere anytime. There's nothing quite like it. Now seniors can Chevron in style and comfort without the need for traditional charging. The future of mobility scooters is here. Now this is the most fun though. Yeah, if you don't get the daily email, you gotta get the daily email and here's why. Because our writers Chris and Christie just have a particular way with words. Listen to this. This is the kind of like recap on this story. says while we're looking for untapped markets have we considered making a real Mario Kart sell like electric go karts poker Active weapon ideas on them at a laned on interstates for combat racing. Imagine the service lane. Like

Paul J Daly: 15:09

the scooter looks great. I mean, it looks Brian Ortega just commented that I'm so close to having one which is true, but not because I'm that old. But I mean, you think about the sheer number of these things, and the only options really are a golf cart. Or like the old. What do they call those things? The rascal remember those things? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but yeah, I

Kyle Mountsier: 15:30

mean, like, it

Paul J Daly: 15:31

looks like very practical, especially if there's just one or two people. I think it's just as a one person. There's a two seater.

Kyle Mountsier: 15:37

I think it's a one person. It's like it says it's a scooter replacement. Yeah,

Paul J Daly: 15:41

I mean, the climate control. There's some climate control, there's a lot more capability like the cargo capability. It's got to feel safer. The front opens up especially in these you know, retirement villages. And I'm

Kyle Mountsier: 15:53

telling you, Ponte Vedra Beach Club Oh, is about to be littered with these guys.

Paul J Daly: 15:58

Heck, yeah. You can just rent them out. They even think of like a park. You know how like, you could play golf on the golf cart in a park. Right, these suckers? I don't know, a lot of fun. I would definitely want to drive. What they don't talk about are the important facts like top speed. How fast is that thing? Go? It looks like it could go really fast.

Kyle Mountsier: 16:14

It does. Yeah. Right. These are all terrain tires that are like a little bit oversized, sharps,

Paul J Daly: 16:19

pegs lucky. I don't know, mobility. So Greenfield should talk to Steve talks should Steve Greenfield will surely talk about this. Sometimes you're not because he's buying one because he talks about mobility. I don't know. Fun to cover. It's Monday. You got a whole week ahead of you. And it's the last week to buy your tickets to us. So do con Minnesota con.com. By the way, if you're an industry partner, I can't think of a more qualified group of dealers to spend a few days in a room working out some problems with I'm just saying

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