Aggression, Humility and Passion with Diana Lee

Michael Cirillo: 0:00

Please welcome Diana Lee

‍Unknown: 0:09

This is Auto Collabs

Paul J Daly: 0:11

we decided we're just gonna really streamline the podcast attention spans are low. So that's just what we're gonna do.

Michael Cirillo: 0:17

I'm excited about getting to sit down with Diana Lee today, obviously founder, CEO of constellation agency. I mean, they're, they're massive, a huge success story, but I don't know about you guys. I've been following her for quite some time. So the fact that I

Kyle Mountsier: 0:32

got to, I got to like, listen to her talk at the world can luncheon at name add last year? And the only thing that I remember is like, by the end of it, everybody in the audience is like, like, it's basically like church, right? Like, she's on the house. And then like, everybody, like she ends with like a stand and everybody's up out of their seat. It was pretty one like that's the wall can vibe, but general, but like she had it, she had keerai to house you know? Yeah, you

Paul J Daly: 1:03

know? Yeah. I mean, she's she she's lived in Philly. She's a New Yorker. She's an immigrant. We're

Kyle Mountsier: 1:11

gonna talk about Philly. Oh,

Paul J Daly: 1:13

I mean, it is the best topic, unless we're talking about the Eagles, which no, but But reality, you think you look at the things that start to stack up, you know, I really had to fight for everything came to the country, as an immigrant not knowing language, there's a special fire in someone like that. That I think is very it when you start reverse engineering and looking at the success of constellation. It makes sense that it is the way it is. And by the way, they have one of the best websites I've seen in a long time. It is strong. That's fair. I gotta put that out there. Because I was impressed. I was like, this is a really good website to say. Like, just say, well, we won't have

Kyle Mountsier: 1:51

to talk about their website, but we really hope that you enjoy this conversation.

Paul J Daly: 2:00

Oh, Diana, it is so good to be on this episode with you. It's been a while since we've had any conversation. Thanks for being here.

Diana Lee: 2:06

Yeah. Thank you, Paul, thank you so much for inviting me. So

Paul J Daly: 2:10

I mean, there's one part specifically of your background that is super close to my heart, and it's the fact that you've lived in Philadelphia. Oh,

Diana Lee: 2:18

wow. That's so funny. Yes,

Kyle Mountsier: 2:20

I know. Yeah. That's why I wanted to open up the conversation. Yes, yes.

Michael Cirillo: 2:27

By yourself? Yeah. Yeah, I

Paul J Daly: 2:30

grew up in South Philly. And so like I was born and raised in upstate New York. And I know you moved. How old were you when you moved to Philadelphia.

Diana Lee: 2:38

So I was five years old. I emigrated from South Korea, when I was five. And we ended up in Philly. And you know, I come from South Korea. I still remember this. And like, I can't speak the language. I don't know what they're saying. The

Paul J Daly: 2:54

divert, can't speak the language either. Just

Diana Lee: 2:57

you know, so crazy. Paul, back then back in like 1974. The blacks, the Asians, and the Hispanics did not speak to each other. in Philly. Nobody spoke to each other. It was like enemies, and we would steal each other's bikes. It was so crazy. That sounds

Paul J Daly: 3:15

about right. Did you how long? How long. When did you leave Philly? I

Diana Lee: 3:22

love Well, my parents actually worked and then they ended up buying homes in the suburbs. So I ended up going to Springfield, which is in Delaware County. And that grew up in Springfield, went to high school and then ended up going to New Jersey and then to New York.

Paul J Daly: 3:39

Yeah, well, that's that sounds about right. Sounds about right. Okay, I had a start there. But you had

Kyle Mountsier: 3:45

to the next question. He's gonna No I'm

Paul J Daly: 3:47

not I'm not gonna do it. But I'm gonna ask any sports questions. It's gonna be and then he's gonna work in a dealership? Yeah. Yeah. Like you're the perfect guest for me. I'm like you've lived in Philly and you've worked in the dealership which is perfect industry partner.

Diana Lee: 4:05

I haven't tell you so my dealer stories there.

Paul J Daly: 4:09

Well tell us one right now. Tell us tell us one that you still remember.

Diana Lee: 4:14

The dealership it was in Worcester, Massachusetts, which is the worst armpit of the nation literally.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:25

Texas College

Diana Lee: 4:27

and I still remember this right? I got robbed three times in my entire in my apartment at college. That's how crazy it is right? At the dealership like back in like those days and this is back in 1989. You know, I wasn't allowed to go inside of the dealership unless I actually had our customer didn't wing it was sleep. It was rain. I was out there and then unless you had a customer and I would lie I'd be like, Oh, come and follow me to get my cards so I could actually warm up inside.

Paul J Daly: 5:06

That is that is as old school as it gets. Like, I think a lot of people in the industry who don't understand like you could be in like Atlanta, Georgia heat and 106 degrees, and you're not walking you better not walk in this building. Unless there is a customer with you.

Diana Lee: 5:23

I know. It's like a street fight in order to survive back then, right?

Paul J Daly: 5:28

There's like five, and there's like five people like on the point at any given time. Like you see somebody like, please, I know you're waiting for the bus.

Diana Lee: 5:35

Yeah, to the matter if I was Asian, if I was a woman, like all the dudes were going to compete with me and they were going to take me out. So I had to take them out before they could take me out. And this makes

Paul J Daly: 5:46

one of the mean This explains why you're so successful now.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:50

Okay, so I worked in I am proud to say like I worked in a dealership I was in sales Do you remember and I this was back in only like, 2009 2010. But you know, you're having a conversation with someone out of the corner, your eye, you see someone pulling on the lot, and you just kind of turn and you're just like taught like, look over there at that cool thing over there. And then you're like, and by the way, right, an autograph a customer?

Diana Lee: 6:12

I mean, no, I and you know what, like, I feel terrible, because I love you know, dealer people, because what they have to go through in order to survive, but just realizing that they get $100 flats for what they have to go through. Imagine, or $90 flat deals, like think about that, like the amount of hostile customers coming in the amount of the environment how it's competitive. All of the situations social political, all that you have to deal with to sell a car and then you get a$90 flat like we have for like, Mueller employees are seriously heroes to actually go through all that.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:54

I'm on now. Don't get me here.

Diana Lee: 6:56

It's proves Oh,

Paul J Daly: 6:57

it's true. Alright, so obviously, that's something that incentivize you to say, You know what, I think I'm gonna learn about marketing. No, it

Diana Lee: 7:05

didn't happen like that. It was like survival instincts. Like think about it right? Auto back in 1989. And it's like street fighting there. We had a guy named Don the pimp because basically tall you would smoke a cigar every single day. And these, these women would come in. And basically he would he was done the pimp like literally, was he really a pimp? He was really a pimp. He was there's a fight what she

Michael Cirillo: 7:36

just described an Italian family reunion.

Unknown: 7:43

I got lapped in

Kyle Mountsier: 7:45

five minutes or podcasts this much in a very long time.

Paul J Daly: 7:51

I already know the headline for this one meet Don the pimp. Right.

Michael Cirillo: 7:56

Okay, I have a question I'm dying to ask. You had mentioned your parents right, and immigrating from South Korea coming here. You said they worked. And then they, you know, it sounds like they worked tremendously hard. And that's something that they instilled in you. So here's my question. Because I've only immigrated from Canada. However, I have noticed a difference in mindset, coming from one place and going to the next around how I think about and see and capitalize opportunity. Is that something that you feel is instilled in you? Like I know, you're talking about dealerships and 89 and survival instinct, like, do you recognize or feel there's something in you where you're like, holy crap, there was so much opportunity to capitalize on on in this country?

Diana Lee: 8:45

Yeah, so my parents, it was the Korean War, at one time, and they both had lost their parents during the Korean War. So they end up my dad went to the Vietnam War, not because he had to, because basically, it was because he needed to make money. And so he joined the Vietnam War so that he could actually make money. He comes back and he said, There is a land of opportunity. It's called America, we must move there. And everybody wanted to move to America, it was very, very hard. So you had to get invited by like somebody's relatives, if somebody had to invite you into the country. So we get invited. And unlike thinking, like, Okay, I can't speak to these people. And another language I like my face would turn bright red when anybody would talk to me. And then you know, so I was very, very shy. And then I ended up with a DD because I was going to college. And I didn't want my to ask my parents for money. Like that was the key is like don't ask them for any money because they already have all this burden. They're working 15 hours a day. They try to get us out of you know, Philadelphia, where there's street fighting and drugs and all that. And I go to Catholic school my entire career. Why? Because they don't want me to get into trouble. And then I ended up in college and I'm like, Okay, I don't want to ask them for money. And here is the auto industry is amazing to allow people to join. Immediately you are a part of the clan, Don, the pimp was part of the clan, and protect you, but you're competitive with them at the same time, but it's still a dealer family. And the. And the pay is good. Like, you could actually make enough money to pay for college. So that's what I did for four years, I went to college, I paid for schooling. And I realized that that was when I finally could make money that wasn't like waitressing or doing like babysitting that could actually make money to pay for something on my own. And then that gave me the drive to say I should be a finance manager and be a GSM and move up the ladder. But without the experiences of being at that car dealership and feeling included into a family. And knowing that you were going to disappoint the family if you didn't sell enough cars. Because you don't do it for the $90 flat or the $70 flat back then you do it because you don't want to let each other down. And that's

Paul J Daly: 11:16

okay, now what I expected planed.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:19

Okay, so I have I actually had someone last week asked me they were like, so you, you didn't plan on being in the car business. Explain why you're so passionate about it. And I've never been able to articulate it in that way. It is it's like, you know, every single person, even even the guys that you know, I had salespeople, they'd be like, I don't learn anyone's name until three months, and they may not survive, right. But even them, there was this distinct like, but I'm still going to try and help you survive, I'm still going to tell try and help you make it because I care that much. And I'm going to beat you to the customer. But sometimes you're going to beat me and I'm going to help you out and and all that stuff. And it is this like, every family is dysfunctional at some level. Auto family is dysfunctional, but it is a family. And there is a lot of care placed from the person sitting right next to you. You know, the cares, idiosyncratic, you know, in the way that comes out, but it is care. So

Diana Lee: 12:18

there was a guy his name is Bobby, I still remember this. And Bobby was a Calabi,

Paul J Daly: 12:22

the butcher, Don the pimp Bobby butcher, I feel like

Diana Lee: 12:28

was a cocaine addict. And drugs were an all time high back then. Right? Yes, car dealerships. So he's a drug addict. And he used to do coke, he goes missing for five days, because this is what would happen is people would sell they make a lot of money, and then they would disappear. Yep. And so he disappears. So, on the fifth day, we're all calling trying to figure out where Bobby is right? We're like, where is Bobby? Somebody goes, found Bobby, he's locked himself in a closet in his house, we gotta go find Bobby, we got to bring Bobby here. Because if we leave him there, he's gonna end up dying. So everybody leaves to go grab Bobby bring him back to the dealership, and we put him in the back of the room, his face is all caught up, right? And we're like, you're gonna sit there, Bobby, you're not going home. We're gonna watch you 24/7 So you can't do any more drugs. But that's what I mean. It was a family. It was like, we want to make sure Bobby doesn't hurt himself. And this is why I love dealerships is why I love the dealer community. And fuck Carvana really, because community must always continue. It is family. There's

Paul J Daly: 13:41

like, you know, so we're talking about the the dealership and just kind of, I think, what was even generally more cultural back in the 80s. And now here we are, you know, 3040 years later, we're to say it that way, but here we are 34 years later. And, and we've been able to I think, as an industry take a lot of steps forward in the instead of just like keeping people employed or keeping them, you know, like, out of drugs or off the streets. Like now we're seeing a very intentional push to enhance people's lives to help them be a better version of themselves to kind of like think outside the dealership with this family mentality and say how can I contribute to the families of those who work inside the dealership? So it's almost like there's a mentality, that mentality that you're saying have a family exist very strongly. And it feels like we're in a season where the industry is able to reach further outside the store, if that makes sense. And to like the next generations invest? Are you seeing and feeling that as well?

Diana Lee: 14:45

I absolutely do. And I talked to VP of Sales one day, and he's like, Diana, if I don't hire the immigrants, I don't have a staff right now. Because a lot of the Gen Zers they don't want to actually work at a dealership, right? They're very careful about the places they work and where they want to be seen. And even in Korea, it's like so crazy. These Gen Zers in Korea have a mommy card, because they refuse to actually find a job that they actually be that like below them that they feel like they shouldn't have. So they have a mommy card that they charge on their card to live for living expenses.

Paul J Daly: 15:27

Is that like the slang name for it a mommy card,

Diana Lee: 15:29

mommy car, and Korean it's a mommy card, right? So it's, they have a mommy card, they rather be on their mommy card versus actually taking a job that's going to be below them that they actually would have to tell on Instagram or in social media.

Paul J Daly: 15:45

So yeah, feelings about this topic. like

Diana Lee: 15:48

listen, like everybody else, we all have to make a living. And why do we have to be ashamed of what we do for a living as long as it's legal? To me, it's bullshit. And overall, it builds so much character of who we are and what we will be one day. But people don't want to do that stuff anymore. A lot of Gen Z's want softer, you know, white collar type of jobs. And overall, they won't take these jobs. So the dealer was saying like, if I don't hire immigrants, I don't have any staff.

Paul J Daly: 16:20

And what market was that? This curiosity, New York Metro

Diana Lee: 16:24

market, so it was New York Metro, or BMW, so I'm not like talking about like, General Motors, talking about BMW, and he had four stores and he said, all four stores, all immigrants that worked for me.

Unknown: 16:40

Wow. Yeah. You know, I

Diana Lee: 16:42

think well, though, yeah, it is cool.

Paul J Daly: 16:44

I love it. And we're gonna see see a change there. My My oldest is 17. And so he's kind of like toward the tail end of Gen Z, where's Gen Z? And so you might know. He's in it. I know that much. Mike. Enzi too,

Diana Lee: 17:00

okay. Yeah, I

Paul J Daly: 17:01

think Gen Z can be as old as like, 25. Yeah. Right. Like, so. Yeah. Mike was like, Oh, I'm Gen Z. No. No, Gen Z or 00? No, but, but I like that's the experience that you're talking about. I was just talking about like, last week or two weeks ago, I saw an article was talking about Gen Z starting to think more about the trades. Like maybe automotive like if it's not technician, right. It's not a trade. Right. When you think about car sales. Yeah, give f&i One of our things as automotive stay the union this more than cars Docu series we've been producing. And you know, Kyle put words to this when I first met him, you know, what, like, three, four years ago, he said, I want to make this industry so great to be in that you literally are going to need a referral to get a job in automotive. Yeah. Do you know someone who can get me into the industry? I love. And I see,

Michael Cirillo: 17:58

you know what we see how proud Kyle is of that flatline. He is glimmer. And

Kyle Mountsier: 18:02

I still like sometimes I forget about him, Paul or someone else, or remind me about like that moment when I stated that in front of people for the first time. And it's like, I mean, that's what you're talking about. It's like, why wouldn't this industry be so proud enough to tell that story, such that all of cultures like I have to work in that industry, there's like, how do you get a job in that industry? That sounds amazing, right? And I think it's kind of on our shoulders to do that, because we know it exists. It's just we haven't told the story of it existing. You know?

Diana Lee: 18:37

Yeah. What's more American than the auto industry? Absolutely.

Paul J Daly: 18:41

That's what we're saying.

Diana Lee: 18:43

It's exactly what an American is, is the auto industry. And the stories are crazy at the dealer level. I love it. It's so damn entertaining. Like just possible dealers and just talk to the salespeople, they will entertain you to death. And

Paul J Daly: 19:00

there's no like we've heard it said that there's no ceiling in the industry, but there's also no floor. So you can come in at any point. And if you do if you work hard if you pay attention, if you learn the business. You can you can be the general manager like you can get there without any college. Right? We're just and the story after story after story after story. We see people who are like, Oh, Kyle, and I were the general manager yesterday, one of the most successful Toyota stores in the country and started as a detailer.

Diana Lee: 19:28

Exactly. I was at Sonic and people told me at the executive level, right through

Paul J Daly: 19:33

executives using a publicly traded company. Yes. Name another industry, right that you can do that.

Diana Lee: 19:41

Exactly. And they started you know, they'd been there for 20 years, but they moved up the ladder and now they're you know, EVP.

Kyle Mountsier: 19:50

No, I do want to ask because like you, you, you have such a clear passion for the industry for the dealers and you now Oh, exude that through a different lens that isn't being an finance manager or, or a GSM or something like that, like, how do you take that passion and translate that into the lens that you now have, as a business owner operator at the agency and technology level, like where did what's the translation layer that allows you to keep that fire in that business?

Diana Lee: 20:21

I think that it's super crystal clear to me in terms of what I want to do if I remain an auto. And our mission is to innovate, like revolutionize. And so with all of this AI technology, I have an AI team. And literally, they're the one of the best out there and they're building, LLM models chatbots for the future. So to realize that, like chat, GPT, and Gemini, and all of the chat bots, there's five of them right now. They're all pulling open source data of you right now. But being able to also do it at the dealer level, and to be able to be able to do it for the regulated industry and innovate in a way where each individual dealer can actually be their own future. Chatbot is what motivates me to continue doing what I want to do best, which is like, I love the industry. I love the people. I am one of these people that's fight direct to consumer brands, because in my mind, I'm like thinking we only talk about the bad stuff of what happens at dealers, right? We always say, Well, it's the dealers fault. Well, you know, my dealers gave to their communities. Do you know how many dealers funded projects during COVID? Jimmy dealers fund the latest, you know, Little League and the homeless center down the street. We never talked about any of that. We just talked about dealer, bad dealer bad deal, you know,

Paul J Daly: 21:50

you know, I wish I had like a soundtrack to play behind that. And you're saying that? I heard I heard it in my head. You probably you probably I'm gonna send you I'm gonna send you a couple of links after this podcast to this Docu series. We've been filming called more than cars. Yeah. And, and the point of econ, I have gone around the country telling the good stories from car dealerships for this very reason. It's literally like working on the brand of auto dealers.

Diana Lee: 22:15

Yeah, absolutely. Because we do such a bad job to stay away from the public, because we're so afraid that we're gonna get bashed about so many things. Because, you know, like, when room took up that ad, I was furious. You know, that ad I'm talking

Paul J Daly: 22:33

about right. You know, I actually made a response commercial to you or Yes, yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:37

We'll send you that too. It's a whole bunch of things from us. Yeah. When

Diana Lee: 22:43

they went under, I was like, Yeah, okay. That's what happens. Right? You know,

Paul J Daly: 22:47

it's funny, you know, what happened when they went under? We, we post, like, we have a daily email on a podcast. And we went and pulled all the verb employees and scraped LinkedIn, and made a list of physicians. And then we put we posted it saying, like, hey, we would love to welcome you into like, the dealership, model. And a bunch of those people now found positions in dealerships that have kind of like, embrace them. It's a really cool story. Amazing. Yeah. And so like, when when broom left there was like, hey, like, competition makes us all better. Carvana broom broom, they really highlighted some things that the consumers want and help us pivot, right to deliver why we definitely stepped up our game. Yeah. But but in the end, like, we're never betting against dealers. That's

Diana Lee: 23:31

what I'm doing. And so that's what my passion is, like. Because I think like people think like, because I'm educated because I launch constellation because we're, you know, 65 fastest growing company in the US and we hired 200 People move nine times. And it is a success story, but in the sense that it should be about the story of supporting tier three and automotive at the franchise level. I get sick to my stomach. When we start talking about switching everything to DTC I go then, what about all the Americans that are employed by the entire auto industry? What are you going to do? blow them up?

Paul J Daly: 24:12

I wonder why no one left to buy cars. Right?

Kyle Mountsier: 24:14

You go. It's Diana, you are really passionate. Yes. I can't wait. I can't wait till people get to meet you at ASOTU CON, and we get to hear more from you in the US so diverse because you're passionate about dealers and that's like right up our alley. Thank you so much for joining us today. Oh much fun.

Paul J Daly: 24:41

Oh, I think we're gonna make some trouble in Baltimore. May 15 and 16th.

Kyle Mountsier: 24:49

That's exactly what's gonna happen. I was like, Can

Paul J Daly: 24:51

we say this on a podcast halfway, like several times through that?

Michael Cirillo: 24:56

I mean, we can, you know, do you know what, like, just stood out to me I love that she has this passion and grit. But But like, not, like chip on your shoulder? Yes. Like she Yes. I don't know, I can't explain it the vibe was because he's like, you know, people that have a chip on their shoulder, it's like, yep, they only make a positive statement so they can make a negative statement. And there were moments of that interview where like Kyle said it he's like, I've never lost so much in the first five minutes ever. And then right after that, I was like, am I about to cry?

Paul J Daly: 25:33

Yeah. No, it's well, when you have that passion, and that kind of, I mean, I call it aggression, right? Because it is like an aggressive like belief that is followed with action and words, but there's also just a very apparent humility. And it's the combination of those two, that really is is disarming number one, and number two, it's like, yeah, I really want this person in my corner.

Michael Cirillo: 25:56

Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 25:58

You guys didn't maybe didn't catch it. But she said this thing that now I'm like, I'm gonna corner her so to con, she said this when she was talking about the AI stuff that they're doing. She was like, to allow a dealership to be their own language model. Yep. Yeah. Whoa, haven't like, you know, you've heard about like leveraging the dealer's data or like exploring the dealer's data, or you've, you know, maybe like the chat bot on the website, but like that the the entirety of the dealership is a language model. That's a whole new like, that's

Paul J Daly: 26:31

a good connection. Yeah, really, that?

Kyle Mountsier: 26:33

I mean, you can't come to that conclusion without having all that history.

Michael Cirillo: 26:37

No, I did hear her say that. But you know what I was thinking in that moment, and everyone will have to just forgive me here.

Paul J Daly: 26:44

What am I gonna have for lunch? I knew I was like, no matter

Michael Cirillo: 26:47

how hard I tried to make my studio or yells studios look awesome. Nothing looks more awesome than having New York City skyscrapers on the back. Yeah,

Paul J Daly: 26:57

absolutely. And you know what? It's not cheap.

Michael Cirillo: 27:04

I said, I can't make that happen with what I got. I got Philly skyscrapers in my background. Oh, it

Paul J Daly: 27:09

is sad. CSOD scarf? It is. Scarf. Oh, gee.

Michael Cirillo: 27:14

That's the Oh, I must say like, if you have not planned on coming to ASOTU CON, where you get to be in the room with individuals like Diana Lee. And and you're sitting there right now and you're wondering, Hey, man, there's so many unknowns. There's so many uncertain circumstances, the economy interest rates, what do we do with all these EVs? How do we get people to buy stuff? What are we doing? This conversation for me is the exact reason why you need to go to ASOTU con.com. Get your ticket right now. Don't delay. It's in Baltimore. What's the dates may 14 14th. You got to be there in the room. And this this conversation for me was exactly why we hope you enjoyed this conversation with Diana Lee. She's gonna be there in Baltimore. Come and check it out. Be in the same room with her and with us. We'd love to see you there on behalf of Kyle Mountsier. Paul J. Daly myself, Michael Cirillo, thanks for joining us on Auto Collabs sign

Unknown: 28:08

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 recording

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