Adapting Tech To Dealer Workflows with John Clavadetscher | 2024 NADA Show

Paul J Daly: 0:06

All right, we're here with John Clavadetscher. Your president of Outsell, thank you so much for giving us some of your time today. How is it good combo? Happy, NADA. Hope you're doing well, Paul BUDEAU welcome.

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:15

Absolutely. Look, I'm gonna look in the camera for this Oh,

John Clavadetscher: 0:20

oh one.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:21

If you don't know, John Clavadetscher, your you got to get to know the guy. Every time I talked to you, you make me feel special. And I appreciate that. Because you remember things about, like, you just asked me about moving. I've not told many people about that. And so thank you for that. And I'm sure that transfers to your people and to your clients and to people that you come in contact with. So I'm just thanking you. And I'm letting all those people know that are watching or listening that they should get this kind of person. So well, you go listen, you lay that out

John Clavadetscher: 0:51

kind of high praise and incident the other day, the praises go back to what you all are doing. I've been in the automotive space for 25 years. So I'm from Asia, but left to go into CPG and pharmaceutical advertising. And when I came back, I said listen, who are the influencers for the thought leaders. And the time that I left, you all just absolutely rose to where you are today. But it's a similar like you have an incredible values, you treat people well, and your newsletter, if you're not using the newsletter, you need to be looking at it, it's a must read for myself, as well as sort of the daily updates for everyone on the team. So thank you for elevating the industry for promoting the trade and for all the things you do for the dealer community.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:31

That does mean a lot, I tell you, so we're headed into we're at NADA, we're heading into 2024. The world has been upside down twice in the last two years in the last four years. Right. And we're getting to this place. I've seen the word normalization over the last three weeks more than I've seen in the auto industry in a long time. And I don't think any of us thought that we would get here as a leader in our space and a leader with a with a leading technology. What does that mean for you and the way that you're proceeding the industry this year?

John Clavadetscher: 2:03

So, you know, I don't? So I'll take a step back. And since that I think you're right. I mean, you can't open up automotive news or look at the various different publications and see things like we're now under the new normal, or what does this year look like as a competitor, compared to 2019? earlier? I think the reality is, is that, you know, even though there may be some normal trends, I think the trends that the industry is really adopting is very special. So I'll take a step back, if you look at like, why the American economy has been so incredibly resilient in the last couple of years. It's because of leading entrepreneurs, dealers included, but everyone really embracing how you can make you can automate and create sort of automation through software. Now there's a lot of buzzwords and people talking about AI or people talking about chat GBT. And those are all important. But at the end of the day, the hard rule of why sort of software came about is that every business, every organization, has those mind numbing soul crushing tasks that you have to do through legacy systems. Yeah, instead of sort of complaining about its legacy systems, you know, what most companies have done is figured out how to then automate that how to use software to layer on it, and make things more effective and efficient. Because at the end of the day, you know, you talk about leading through people, as you all do, people are better engaging with customers communicate with customers, creating content for customers, as opposed to that sort of mind numbing tasks that they have to do. And so how can you leverage software to do that we all have examples in it in our own lives. And it's really neat to see the really rapid adoption of dealers using new or different software to help them leverage their people in a more effective and efficient way. So I think that's why it gets me excited for what we are now in whether it's the new normal or not, I think there's a heck of a lot more ways to automate those mind numbing, soul crushing, you know, events?

Paul J Daly: 3:50

Yeah, I think automation, when we talk about normal, I think the new normal is really that there will be no normal. Right? Right, I think we can probably say, like, there's never going to be only normal we're going to have is a constant changing of norms, right? We were just having a conversation with the dealer and talking about how we we level up process alongside technology, when most we see a lot of people just thinking that a technology install is gonna fix a problem, when, if that's not accompanied by substantial process, it never works. What's your perspective on that?

John Clavadetscher: 4:22

Well, listen, we're very blessed to have not just great advisors like you all, but with our dealer partners, and we have an advisory board. So we really look at our roadmap and what we're doing, and we really rely on the folks that you're interviewing and meeting with earlier. And they are fantastic. And they're also completely right as it relates. So you need both, you can create the best technology, but if it doesn't fit into a dealer's workflow, it doesn't really matter doesn't work. Right. So one of the biggest innovations we focus on and we're launching NADA is taking our CRM connects, taking the insights that we have on the customer when they coat it with dealers website, or they engage with our content, using our predictive ability to see where they are what medium should communicate with them. And then at the end of the day, pushing that information to the dealership CRM, and do it in a very robust way, because that's the workflow they like, people like to complain about CRMs and what they can or cannot do it, but it's still where they're at. But they're still where they're at. And so why don't you software to then figure out how to do that. And we actually partner with four eyes, which has been a great partner and also friends of asoto. As, as it relates to that, because they do that better than we do. And we ended up going down that road, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Bezos has said, If I could just interrupt you for a second, they says, What makes your beer taste better. Focus on what makes your beer tastes better, outsource everything else. And so as a software company, if there's another software company that does something better than what we do, but it helps our beer tastes better, boom, we're gonna go partner with them, instead of trying to do it all yourself.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:55

Or just stopped? That's amazing. I love that you have said no. Okay, so first of all, we're going to bring the dealers in, they're going to tell us exactly what they need, what they want, how they're going to use this, and blah, blah, blah. And then we realized that we had a gap in exactly what we needed, we brought it in for us to enable that. And then the biggest thing that you said in all of that was were sales enabling, right? Because a lot of times what Tech Tech does is bought by the management, it's bought by and there's very little tech that's in the dealership that actually makes it all the way into the frontline, right. And normally, it's like one, maybe two tools that they actually get to leverage in their day to day, and that's just injecting the right thing into the tool that they're already used to. Right.

John Clavadetscher: 6:37

And it's understanding both the strengths and as well as limitations of a workflow, regardless of the business you're in. Right? It's it's just you have to understand the workflow and what will be changed and what won't. And it's a lot easier to partner and then leverage the existing workflows and to try to create brand new ones. And that's the flaw that a lot of the vendors have in this space is that they think that their latest, greatest newest, whatever, and that the enterprise, and the dealers are going to change. And and, you know, more often than not, it's how can we change and adapt to help out?

Kyle Mountsier: 7:08

Yeah. Can you talk a little bit specifically, we haven't asked you this a lot in our conversations with you, but specifically around out sell, like, what is that? What is the beer of outsell that that is tasting better by all of this? What's the core thesis that you're resting on and delivering for your dealer partners? Yes.

John Clavadetscher: 7:25

So you know, at the end of the day, in, in a retail relationship, it is anywhere from five times to 25 times more effective and efficient to sell to your current customers than it is to acquire? Yeah, if there is a challenge within our industry, which we're trying to all help is that we focus too much on acquisition, give me the list. How can I do acquisition campaigns? That's important. I'm not running away from that. But it outside of auto, they focus on how to retain your current customer base, they do that. So how do you go deeper, what we find is that, you know, and we have some amazing partners in the space, that when our messages are being connected and engaged with the customer throughout their lifecycle from early owner all the way through equity and service in between that dealership is going to get 3.6 times more revenue from that customer. So you think about it from more Oros more service, as well as repeat sales and referrals. That if you just focus on having a relationship with your customer. And here's the other thing going back to software, and that's sort of mind numbing, soul crushing. I'm not saying that salespeople at dealerships aren't great at staying on top of and understanding and reminding the sending end of the day. Like it's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. And it's a lot outside for retail outside of auto and they use technology similar to outsell whether you're Walmart or Walgreens or Costco to then understand where that customer is what you're going to recommend for those customers. So think of Amazon, and then how to do it. I mean, you kind of hear that Amazon is in the car business game, right? And so what they do best is is engaging, remembering understand that customer and so what we do is we provide engagement tools, customer view tools that then help dealerships compete like an Amazon or when Amazon comes in. It's a great

Paul J Daly: 9:15

way, John, it's all the time we have always an encouraging and insightful conversation whenever we get together. So thanks for giving us have

John Clavadetscher: 9:23

a great rest of that idea. Thanks for joining us.

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