For The Sake of Retail Auto with Nick Askew

Paul J Daly: 0:00

Michael I think we need an update

‍Unknown: 0:07

this is Auto Collabs you're

Paul J Daly: 0:10

looking more and more fit every time you show up for a podcast. How do you feel?

Michael Cirillo: 0:15

What do I feed myself is?

Paul J Daly: 0:17

How do you feel?

Michael Cirillo: 0:18

I feel great.

Paul J Daly: 0:20

How long has it been? Wait, I remember like when you flip the switch, and you'd like to hire a trainer, what's Yeah, what's the count?

Michael Cirillo: 0:27

It's been almost a year, April, end of April be a year that I've been farming

Paul J Daly: 0:33

because I remember that. I remember that. Like it was like four months ago. Yeah. But I'm sure it felt like 12 months to you. What's

Kyle Mountsier: 0:39

cool about it is he's actually decided to do all of the setup for soda con, because he can now do it quickly. single

Paul J Daly: 0:45

handedly single handedly just.

Michael Cirillo: 0:48

It's funny I was talking to I was talking to my doctor. And I was like something weirds going on. He's like, what I'm like, I'm still working out. I'm like, I hit the treadmill on a 12 incline three miles an hour. And I'm like, I don't run out of breath. He's like, you're healthy.

Paul J Daly: 1:06

I'm like I've never said we're done. Done it. That's so good. That's so good. Speaking

Michael Cirillo: 1:12

of being out of breath, hey, I got nothing.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:16

There was no good segue there. I don't know where you're going with that. Or is he going? We're talking to someone that I've known for a couple years. Now. Nick asked you today. I didn't know that. Yeah, we met back like a few years back, actually, through a mutual connection. doing some consulting work. And you know, I met Nick and he was still only a couple years into his thing crazy growth since then. So I'm excited to kind of like, I don't know a bunch of his backstory. I'm excited to kind of hear about it. But just say, I was like, did

Michael Cirillo: 1:48

he take your breath away? I was trying so hard to find this. We hope you enjoy and are excited about this conversation with Nick ask you from space auto. Let's do it.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:02

Right, we got Nick ask you hanging out with us, man. Thanks for coming to Auto Collabs

Nick Askew: 2:07

Great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:09

First. Some of the people can't see this. But my man has a backwards hat. And his shirt says so good. I hold gross. Is that a one of one did you make that

Nick Askew: 2:25

it's not a one of one we actually made it for some of the conventions we were speaking on. And then every will every sales manager and other vendors. Like can we get some of that? So yeah,

Paul J Daly: 2:40

tell us tell the story where the idea come from for that shirt and who was like we're making this thing. So

Nick Askew: 2:48

you know, run merch you know apart from you guys you know brand merch is not something you want to go to a convention and everyone's in the same polo t shirt with that brand logo the wearing some khakis and and you know looking like that from automotive Ryan. See, no shit. No. Look, I sold cars for a long time. And as you know, I I was always just given this like, Hey, this is what we want here. And it's a golf polo with a brand logo on it. So we want it to get the you know, and you know, we're digital retail so everyone's always going with digital retail. You're giving up all your gross you're giving up everything we don't have control over it. We're just selling online prices. So I just said we just need some like Helvetica font with I hold gross or something like that. And then the marketing department just went with that exact idea. And that's

Paul J Daly: 3:48

that's the best, no frills.

Unknown: 3:50

No,

Michael Cirillo: 3:51

I'm sensing a designer in YouTube because you specifically called out the font name. Well,

Paul J Daly: 3:56

that's his. That's his firstborns name. Helvetica Helvetica.

Unknown: 4:01

Helvetica All

Kyle Mountsier: 4:03

right, so I'll ask the question. I already see. Paul normally gets super excited excited about it. I just he got excited about it again, but go every single time he's like, Oh, we got a vendor in the room that sold cars Alright, so go back because you sold cars for a little bit but your entrance in the car business was a little unconventional as he's made these a lot of ours but I like your story best. So tell me tell me about when how you got in the car business back in the day. Yeah.

Nick Askew: 4:34

So I was a I went to school for music composition, right. Dropped out, which was fun. So couldn't even handle a music degree.

Paul J Daly: 4:46

John Mayer dropped out of his his degree to just so you know, that's

Nick Askew: 4:50

great. That's so did so did many great entrepreneurs. And that's what that's what I tell myself. Right? It's so did that A move to America moved to Texas and then joined a band started touring and then ended up finding out my girlfriend was pregnant. So that was that was cool at 20 years old. But Athletica, right? Helvetica Yes. Was my second child Comic Sans

Kyle Mountsier: 5:20

veneers I see what you did there. Papyrus

Paul J Daly: 5:23

soon enough? Oh,

Nick Askew: 5:24

yeah, one day one day. But ya know, so needed. Gosh, because, you know, being in a small town band doesn't obviously support that kind of lifestyle. So went to car sales and view, they turned me away. I was 20 years old couldn't be on the insurance plan. 10 minutes later, the GM called me and said, Look, if you don't drive any of the cars, if you let the customer pull and pull themselves out, then you can, you know, sell up until your 21st birthday. But if you if I catch you driving any cars, you're fired. So from 20 years on, I've never left the car business. I was in sales and that sales f&i on the desk, and then I ended up being a marketing director and an operations for for a small group in Texas and Arkansas in that area. So yeah, just after that, I decided that I got tired of having 13 windows open every day to work. Cardiel so wanted to come in, do my own thing. So

Paul J Daly: 6:33

now I have 22 open every day. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:36

Isn't that weird, though, I did the same thing because I took a similar path to I was like, This is dumb, you know. And then like, if you're on if you're like in SAAS, or like the vendor world, it's everybody is always like, Oh, but if you get Salesforce, or you gotta have open and Salesforce, right, it's not true.

Nick Askew: 6:56

That's not true. I just swapped him for different windows now. So

Kyle Mountsier: 7:01

but you're solving it for the other side

Paul J Daly: 7:04

of it, but now he has, like, you know, insurance and HR window like you have all the other fun windows up to Oh, yeah, exactly.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:14

Did you like selling cars? I, I

Nick Askew: 7:17

did. You know, it was weird for me at first because I'd never sold anything in my life. You know, I didn't come from a sales background. But, you know, I remember selling my first car and going, you know, the previous job that I had, I was I was pulling, pulling pallets for a Dr Pepper distribution factory. So, you know, we all imagined how great the wage was the so when I got my first check, or my first sale, and I was like, like 450 bucks or something for a Nissan Juke, and then they went to finance and went, Oh, we sold them a warranty. So you get a spiff of $100. Well, I made in one hour, my entire weeks wage in my previous job, as isn't addiction at that point, I got that. Sales where she got that close. You know, I was maybe addicted to the rush of the clothes more than I was anything else. But I'm also a car guy. So it was a good thing to marry both. You know, at so I, you know, I really did enjoy retail for sure is a lot of fun. And really gave me a good grounding. I think selling cars was one of the best things that I could ever do for what I do now. Because it it taught me how to close How to Talk Talk to people, but it also gave me the primer to be able to build software and dealers, knowing how hard it is to actually do that job. So is it really valuable experience?

Kyle Mountsier: 8:53

It's so interesting, because it's like, you know, I did music, then I sold cars. Then I did marketing operations. Now I develop software, like when When did you you said you know, it was the 14 windows or whatever it was, but when did you kind of say, When was the moment that you said now that I've had enough is enough, I'm gonna move do my own thing. And it's important to me, it's important enough to me to serve the industry in a different way, then with my local group, that I have the opportunity to impact the industry in a more broad way from a software perspective. You

Nick Askew: 9:31

know, it's a, it was a hard situation because you know, I was I got my first management position at 21. So I started moving into f&i. I was the youngest f&i manager in the group and you know, started making more money than I could have ever imagined in automotive and maths my Korea evolved. You know, the next logical step after you get to a certain In areas like do you get your own stall? Do you become a GM? Do you know? Do you take that part of retail and I don't know if it was my own ego or just wanting to yearning for something more creative I felt like being a GM and going into having my own stall may have not been the right path to me personally because look I'm I'm I'm a creative I love to design I love to build I love to, you know, the advertising thing really spoke to me. And you kind of plateau as that point of a Korea all you make a decision to go full pelt into retail. So I just decided to you know, it was a was a big gamble because I stepped away from a really good salary to zero and that to me stepped

Paul J Daly: 10:51

away. You stepped away from something that is probably like, in the top one to 3% level of income. Yeah, no, totally. People. Most people will never automotive aside across the board ever get to that level even of personal income. Right. So stepping away from that is at 20. How old were you?

Nick Askew: 11:14

I was 25 when I actually stepped away to start my company. Yeah.

Michael Cirillo: 11:19

Can I Can I just I gotta ask. Do you by chance like running?

Paul J Daly: 11:27

You thinks you found your brother, which is why I say

Michael Cirillo: 11:29

I think I think I found Metaverse, Kyle Mountsier like 2.0 because as I'm listening to you talk, I'm like, oh, okay, like So Kyle. Hey, meet meet Nick.

Paul J Daly: 11:46

was on the uptake? Nick, Nick just picked it up at 20.

Nick Askew: 11:50

Yeah, look, I It's

Kyle Mountsier: 11:53

a It's uncanny. Nick. It's like I was a music major in college started selling cars when I was 21 was an f&i Manager by the age of 23. opened a store by the age of 25. I just took another eight years to actually leave the whole thing. So yeah. That's crazy.

Nick Askew: 12:14

No, well, yeah, we'll need to we'll need to talk more. We need to jump some time that for sure. Yeah, that's why

Michael Cirillo: 12:25

I'm like Kyle, take it away. You know what questions?

Kyle Mountsier: 12:28

Yeah, I'm like, Alright, here's the next five.

Paul J Daly: 12:30

It's metaverse. Kyle though, right? Like yeah, if all of a sudden it was Metaverse, Kyle, you'd look more like Nick.

Michael Cirillo: 12:35

Did I miss what brought you to America? What Why do you? And where did you come from somewhere in the Commonwealth? I'm hearing an accent. Yes.

Nick Askew: 12:43

So I'm originally from North of England. I used to have family here. And just to be super candid. My dad used to live here. And I, he passed away in 2011. So I came to take care of my grandpa for a couple of years until he ultimately passed away. So I'm the only family member really over here from that. So by the time that happened, I had a baby and a great career in the automotive. So I just stuck around. Right, Bill? You know, when you look up in you have more life here than you did back home? Yeah. What's that to go back to? So? Yeah, it was just a turn of events that led me here temporarily, and I never got on my return ticket.

Michael Cirillo: 13:31

So I'm curious, Paul kind of asked a question a little bit earlier, right. Like you get into automotive people or like, once you're an automotive, you never leave automotive. And I think especially on the retail side, because the income for the role is so disproportionately higher than it would be anywhere else. Exactly. Like a marketing director in a retail dealership is making way more than a marketing director and some other you know, business. But you talk about kind of this friction in direction and where you wanted to head I'm guessing money wasn't necessarily fully, contextually fully part of your definition of happiness. Can you talk to us a little bit about making that decision to leave, you know, the top three to one to 3% earners in America and going off and saying, Hey, I'm gonna take this risk. I'm gonna put the chips on myself.

Nick Askew: 14:27

You know? So when I first moved here, I am quite frankly, I walked 45 minutes to work in a town that didn't have sidewalks to go work at a frozen yogurt store when I was 19. Right. I was under no circumstance unfamiliar with struggling financially, right? I lived in a trailer in someone's backyard, right and even having a getting from that point to a manager salary So, from 19 to 21 is like a wild experience, right? But then you start to look around you and you start to and you set it right is the the people don't leave, because how can the sales managers that are making two 3000 $200,000 a year at a step away with no credentials? No, you know, experience, generally, a lot of the people that I know, are not formally educated, they were educated by just sheer hard work and resilience. So it hit me one day that I had a decision to make now was, I will be in too deep for the rest of my life in retail. What and what do I care about security? A paycheck, oh, do I could do I care about doing something that I'm super passionate about in my life to be able to go and make a difference, even if it fails, you know, I don't want to get to the end of my life and regret never trying to create something that would make me feel so fulfilled in the fact that I chased my passion. So it was a gamble on the fact of what do I value more the security of a paycheck, or the allure of the what if, and, you know, fortunately, the focus that I've been able to provide it over the last five years has been able to, you know, and look, we're still upcoming, it doesn't mean that we were, we're at like, a Cox automotive or something like that, where we're just, you know, wildly successful to all of our shareholders, and, you know, turning the biggest profit imaginable, but we're continuing to build something that I'm really passionate about, and that, to me is way more fulfilling, and trying to change those things for automotive, then, you know, staying where I was, and, you know, the last thought on that is, you know, these kinds of hours, the amount of people work at retail, right, the kind of stress that you get put under the kind of experiences that customer have spend in five years, you know, five days at a dealership, or five hours at a dealership, five days, five days, five

Kyle Mountsier: 17:30

years, five days, okay, fine.

Nick Askew: 17:34

Those, those kinds of experiences are the things that I wanted to solve. So I could make life better for my fellow people that work in retail, make life easier, make the experience better for customers, it's like, if I get the chance to be able to participate in something that moves the industry forward, then that is going to be really fulfilling for me. So

Paul J Daly: 18:01

let me ask you fist bumps to that. I know. Um, so in, you know, let me ask you this. You absolutely have a passion for your future. And for like the long game, you see it, you saw what the path looks like in automotive, and that's one of the I mean, people see that as a benefit in automotive to write is there's a very clear career path, if you don't have like, a desire and vision for something else. When did you start finding other people in the industry that felt the same way that you did? Like, when did you realize that because you you've just articulated in a way, a care and a heart for the people in the stores, and you're doing something to solve some of the issues? When did you realize like you think about it a little bit differently.

Nick Askew: 18:50

You know, being part of a group allows you to, you know, we have 40 stores in the dealer group. So it allows you to get different perspectives. And one of the biggest fundamental mindsets is, this is just the way it is, and we can't change that. Right? Oh, wait between OEM programs, and, you know, Co Op, and all of the things that they have to do this, this is just the way it is. And not a lot of people questioned why, you know, if you speak to someone in the digital side, they're like, Oh, God, we're, you know, OEMs telling us to do this again, you know, we speak to someone in operations, Oh, great. We're getting this audit again. And, you know, it's kind of a just suffering in silence, right, and not doing anything about it. But then you start to meet people that are progressive enough to understand that things need to change and not just for the benefit of the dealers, but you know, the consumer behavior is changing. You know, we, the OEMs are changing the way that we want to do business is changing. But the technology and the processes that we use don't necessarily support that. So when you start to verbalize those things, you know, like attracts like. And when you start to just open up about those things, you start to find those people that go. Okay? Yeah, we also have that progressive point of view. But again, we can't do anything about it. If you if you're allowed enough, and you have the right conversations, and you network the right way, you start to realize that those people are out there, you know, I'm speaking to those people on the phone or on the on this call right now is that there are people out there that do see a future of, of being, you know, letting technology get out of the way, letting all these games get out of the way of, of, you know, tricking the customer into providing, providing their informations and focusing on arbitrary metrics, like, you know, like, how many leads did you get, and it's like, actually can be focused on just being good business people and taking care of the customer. And, you know, be part of the revolution that needs to happen. And, you know, I think it was just about, about the time that I started getting loud about it, as I started realizing that Oh, wow, there are other people that want to have this conversation to

Kyle Mountsier: 21:20

love it. I've got one more question for you. Because we've, we've kind of danced around it. But it's clearly and concisely like space, Otto is solving a lot of this right, the 19 tabs, the how do we engage with people, and there's a bunch of website companies out there. There's a bunch of digital retailing companies, there's a bunch of CRM companies, there's a bunch of communication companies, there's a bunch of companies talking about AI, and you would have all of those words come out of your mouth in some way around space auto. But what makes it different? What about everything that you just said about your career path about the way that you see automotive retail, what makes it different as space auto, you know, is providing a solution to the problem that dealers have?

Nick Askew: 22:06

Yeah, so I'll be as concise as possible here. You know, there's a lot of great tools out there. And there's there's a ton of software. Most people use, every time I've talked to a dealer, they use about 10% of the CRM, right, they say they've got all of these functionalities they use about this much of it to do to do business. From a customer side, you know, people are inundated with widgets on a website, oh value your trade, fill out your credit obligation, get your instant track, get your instant quote, and all of these things, it's, you wouldn't treat people like that in real life, you would try and create the path of least resistance to give the customer exactly what they want. And keep that process in a way that actually serves the customer. We think about digital customer service, right? If I went into a dealership and said, hey, I'm interested in trading my car, you wouldn't go, oh, yeah, but have you been pre approved yet? Let's go like you would treat me like a human being. So we decided to take everything that the customer needs to transact. And everything that the dealer needs to transact, connect them together in a way that makes sense. No. And look, we're not here to tell a dealer how to sell cars, we're just here to put everything together to where a dealer can then choose how to serve a customer in a way that speeds up the process and in a way that serves the dealer and makes the CRM side very delightful to use. And then in comes AI, right? If all of your different lobes of your brain was all separated with no connections, and just, you know, if you had your inventory over here, you had your website traffic over here. Being able to place AI on top of that to help speed up the process and make those decisions like, you know, what can Kyle afford? And what bank should we send him to? And how can we you know, maximize his coverage on f&i products, right, we wouldn't be able to make those decisions. So if you tie all of that together, you can actually finally use AI to do one thing. That's to make the process really easy for dealers and then buy as a byproduct of that speed up and make the customer experience model lightful. And that's what we're here to do is just make that customer experience ultimately, more delightful and move technology out of the way so we can focus on being human again.

Michael Cirillo: 24:35

I love it, Nick. That's like the chef's kiss on a really awesome conversation. Sounds like you guys are doing some incredible stuff. Love the mission. Love what you stand for. We're super grateful that you could join us here on Auto Collabs today.

Nick Askew: 24:49

Thanks for having me. Look forward to also oh come

Michael Cirillo: 24:57

on no Bye you guys. But I have so many good band names coming out of that episode. Oh my god, like 13 windows open. Could be a Christian rock band

Unknown: 25:11

could also just

Michael Cirillo: 25:13

be a satirical.

Kyle Mountsier: 25:16

techy, satirical. Nice punk.

Paul J Daly: 25:18

No, it's It's a math math rock band that came out of Microsoft.

Unknown: 25:23

There you go. Without a lure of the what if everybody were allure of the water?

Michael Cirillo: 25:31

is good. Oh, sidewalks.

Paul J Daly: 25:33

You know, so apparently, Nick has some music on YouTube that our producer Nathan found I haven't listened to it yet. Oh, it's five or six years old. We're gonna go look, we're gonna go check that out next. Maybe he will be surprised to see himself on the Jumbotron at ASOTU CON.

Michael Cirillo: 25:52

I love that would be amazing.

Kyle Mountsier: 25:53

Can we gather way that the conversation that we just had with him one like, I was up and down in it. Just yeah, you know, it's like, like all the levels of emotion of like feeling the same way and then hearing his story from 19 to 21. And just knowing like, that's a possibility in auto, that then you can go from music degree to tech entrepreneur, right? Like this is what Otto Gibbs Yeah. And this is what the opportunity is an auto if you take it and grab the bull by the horns. And then near the end there just to kind of wrap it all in this massively deep purpose driven thing that says no, I'm going to impact the industry because if I can have that level impact, then I'm just I'm good. Yes, right.

Paul J Daly: 26:43

Solving Problems man. loving people more than cars are the thing about that. Oh, well look, if you hear this happen to hear this before May 15, or 16th. We hope you join us and Nick and a bunch of other people like 90 other speakers at ASOTU CON, you can get information there to Soto got conduct calm. But until then, on behalf of Michael Cirillo, Kyle Mountsier and myself, thank you for listening to Auto Collabs

Unknown: 27:10

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@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 Auto Collabs Are we recording

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