Innovative Ideas are Born at ASOTU CON with Phil Gill

Kyle Mountsier: 0:00

You always know that it's going to be dicey when Paul shows up to a podcast with his hat backwards

‍Paul J Daly: 0:12

this is Auto Collabs Yep, or that dicey, which is why Paul showed up to a podcast with his hat backwards.

Michael Cirillo: 0:19

What does that mean? Is this code? Have I not learned something about you yet? What is the backwards hat backwards hat

Paul J Daly: 0:25

is like business mode, like we're down the road, getting things done right now.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:29

I wouldn't call it business mode, I

Paul J Daly: 0:31

would call it like, it's,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:32

I mean, it's like full throttle mode. It's like, turn your head around. And Brian,

Paul J Daly: 0:37

I don't care. Yeah. Okay. so fast that the brim is gonna blow the hat typically

Kyle Mountsier: 0:42

happens a little later in the day. True. True.

Paul J Daly: 0:45

I mean, there's a lot going on right now. And the reality is, if I put the hat on forwards, it's going to blow off because there's so much

Michael Cirillo: 0:53

just right now I'm just picturing you running down the halls of the building full speed.

Paul J Daly: 0:59

Just like hold on fourth and then stop for these like, turn that stopping I'm doing an experiment and I grabbed my neck Paulson look at my watch. Like I know how to do that part. I don't know how to do that part.

Michael Cirillo: 1:11

I mean, isn't just kind of the perfect metaphor for working in automotive retail what it's exactly what the metaphor is for it's

Paul J Daly: 1:17

called Tuesday. Especially if you're in charge, especially if you're the the heir apparent of the business because you're the owner son who has worked your way up from the bottom up and earned every stripe which is what Phil Phil Gil is the sleeper of the industry. Every time I speak with Phil and every time I've spoken with him over the last few years, I always walk away thinking like, like more of the industry needs to know about Phil. I mean, it's one of the reasons we do a soda con the way we do it isn't I

Michael Cirillo: 1:47

mean unless it's a strategy, right? Because my old pappy used to say Don't interrupt your competition when they're busy making mistakes. Oh, we

Paul J Daly: 1:56

gotta get your pappy on. Oh, Bureau Pepe. Is that is that your

Michael Cirillo: 2:01

dad or your grandfather? No, my best. My dad's what I call my old pappy. It's from that movie Maverick with Mel Gibson used to be like my old pappy used to say, I forgot

Kyle Mountsier: 2:11

that movie. And there's been so many references in this intro. I can't even

Paul J Daly: 2:15

All right, well, well, referenced once you've referenced the girl, I'm gonna reference the

Kyle Mountsier: 2:19

fact that we're hanging out with Phil Gill today. And we really, really hope you enjoy this conversation and maybe get a couple of references and one liners of your own.

Paul J Daly: 2:30

Hey, Phil, thank you so much for spending some more of your time with us today. On Auto Collabs Hey,

Phillip Gill: 2:36

Kyle, it's great to be here. Okay, so

Paul J Daly: 2:39

you are definitely one of the best dressed people in the industry in my opinion. Every time I see you, you bring you bring the hot fire at a soda Con last year, you had this kind of like suit. It was it was just perfect. And you're wearing something unique now to like, what's this jacket?

Phillip Gill: 2:55

Oh, this is a I mean, just great sport coat. It's an interesting blend. You know, it is

Kyle Mountsier: 3:05

just so you know, Phil, Paul's practicing. He really wants to be one of those like red carpet. Reporters when he walks out the view. You

Paul J Daly: 3:13

know, it's who are you wearing? I know when I get there. I know your dad. I remember the first time I met you and your dad always like has has a dialed in suit. And then you were like, yeah, you've really picked up and carried the torch. And in the outfit. I mean, you have I don't know if you want to see it in person just comes Are you going to be at NADA? The show? No, I won't be at NADA this but you will be at a soda con. So you have to come meet Phil just to check the outfit. And that really actually does have a segue into my first question. Well, my first real question. A lot of people in this industry have grown up in the industry. And we're seeing this transition of leadership from the parents still to the children. And you have really embraced that over the last years. Did you always know that you were going to step into the automotive world? Like at what point did that click for you? Or was it just kind of a predetermined notion?

Phillip Gill: 4:01

Yeah, no, it wasn't predetermined. You know, my father was always one to encourage me to try things that I was either passionate about or interested in. So but I would say that it definitely click somewhere in the teens that I would probably get back into this business at some point now. It happened way earlier than I expected. I was going very well on trying the new thing. And then dad called up and started the heavy recruiting of what cool is the new thing? So actually, I was I was living in Boston at the time working for a TJ X who's corporate for TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods and was loving my time in Boston was enjoying. I was buying sport

Paul J Daly: 4:45

coats overseas. Oh, yeah.

Phillip Gill: 4:50

And so, you know, I made the decision to come back and it's now been I think we're coming up on 12 years back back in the dealership now so It's been a wonderful time. I

Kyle Mountsier: 5:02

have I want to know what the recruiting was like.

Paul J Daly: 5:07

was involved. I'm sure it's awesome. Started with

Phillip Gill: 5:10

a phone call. And when he when he realized I was hesitant, he was on a plane out to Boston. Nice.

Paul J Daly: 5:19

college athlete recruiting, right.

Phillip Gill: 5:23

And I still have a log for another three months. No,

Kyle Mountsier: 5:27

that is amazing. So what was your first role back? What did you come back? Yeah, actually. So

Phillip Gill: 5:33

when I came back border moved in different, right. I did that all through high school. So yeah. When I came back, I actually went to Chicago for six months and moved back to Cincinnati. Two weeks later, I'm in Chicago for six months, working with our CPA firm who's does all automotive accounting, the Pamukkale group, they're great firm. And I was in accounting, one of my majors in school was accounting. So I was there doing that. So when I came back to the store, I was up in the office kind of implementing helping to implement all this great stuff that I'd seen from all these other dealerships I got to interact with

Paul J Daly: 6:10

while I worked. During that time, did the CPA just get get like a free fill?

Phillip Gill: 6:17

In free fill, no. But no, it was a really good education. I got to learn a lot about all the different manufacturers read through and analyzed just about every financial statement that existed out there. So I it was a great introduction to the auto world for sure. You know

Paul J Daly: 6:34

what that reminds me of Kyle's?

Kyle Mountsier: 6:37

Yeah, that's exactly what it literally will get Dara, you are Helga Dara for

Paul J Daly: 6:45

automotive. It's can't tell the full secret. But we may or may not. We'll tell you later. So we'll get there in this book. He his father was in the restaurant business. He grew up kind of in the restaurant business, was really passionate about the front of the house. Right. So the hospitality side ended up being rated the best restaurant in the world with 11, Madison Park, and it worked for Danny Meyer. Great, great book, great story, you would absolutely love it actually, I'm gonna send you a copy. Yeah, that would be great. And, and the point is that his dad, he had this chance to go work a dream job like in a dream restaurant that he always wanted to or go work for was the company calls like the most boring name in the world, like Restaurant Associates or something, you know what I mean? And corporate restaurant company, and his dad's selling basically, in accounting, and is that said, take that job, because you need to learn that side of the business. And he just spent years, analyzing p&l is learning them inside and out learning, supply, learning, inventory, learning all of the backend details that he needed to really run an incredible front of house and an incredible restaurant. So like your journey is all like,

Phillip Gill: 7:55

yeah, shaping up. Nice and invaluable to have that, to have that background for sure.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:01

What do you think you're in the front of house? sales departments? Oh, right.

Phillip Gill: 8:08

You know, it's, it's, it's a pretty interesting mix, but it works out pretty well.

Paul J Daly: 8:13

Why? Why is it so effective? Like, let's let's break into that a little bit. Because I think there are a lot of people that have sales chops in front of the house chops that like no, they're like, simple math, you know, in the front, but they don't understand the full picture of what's going on in the business from the dealer's perspective. Like, open the book a little bit and speak to the people that work in the front of the house. Maybe the kids have parents who are in sales right now. Like, why do they need to learn the other side? How do you how do you use that to shape your perspective and your activities?

Phillip Gill: 8:40

I think it's given me a really unique perspective, actually. And I'll give you a few examples of that. So understanding the entire dealership operation, you really get to inform yourself of how one department is really affecting the other department, how they work together to drive bottom line profitability, right? Because kind of the, the view I've taken is, it's great if you have you know, it's wonderful to have profitability in every department. But what's really matters is where does it all wash out in the end, right, there's one number at the end that says, hey, we're either really excelling here or we need to fix some things right? And then we can take those deep dives into it. So you know one of the interesting things that once I got to a level I could we put our entire management team on a pay plan that looks at total store gross profit, right and I said that's it's important because the sales side right, whether they like it or not, informs the service side and the service side informs the sales side. And if we can work together from if there are management can work together from a store perspective, then we can drive the entire store to say hey, this is a Tom Gill customer that we need to protect in keep in order to grow our long term viability. Is

Paul J Daly: 9:55

it for all of us, for all of us, right literally.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:59

The dealer about This last week saying you gotta get everybody tied to the bottom, the real bottom line, the real profit margin of the store, because that's, that's when you really start to think about the lifetime value of the customer for sure. Yeah. Have you seen impact to like, customer lifetime value or retention? Or just customer experience? Do you feel like there was a trigger point? When you did that, that that shifted things for the store? Yeah,

Phillip Gill: 10:26

I do. I, you know, it took it took a little bit of time, of course. And we've put in a lot of other programs to help drive retention and things like that. So it's a little hard for me to measure exactly like, hey, this thing graded this. What I will say, though, is that there's a great working relationship that we've been able to develop between our management in the store, right, like our service manager can interact with our sales manager can interact with our parts manager. And of course, there's someone I'm going to call it turf that we're all protecting, right? We all want to take pride in our department. But it also helps us to say, Hey, listen, we've got this customer here, how are we going to solve this? That's best for Tom Gill Chevrolet, not for each individual department, right? Because it all eventually affects no matter what it's affecting us. Right? You know,

Paul J Daly: 11:16

we're getting it, we're just brought up like a really important point of any team to mind. We're just getting through, you know, like a really kind of rousing NFL football season if you're an NFL fan. And the reality is like, you have all the different teams, all the different coaches, they meet separately, they meet together, but they can all see the score. Always. Right. And so like whether the offense is on the field, the defense, the special teams, whatever, it's their turn to do the thing. There is that unifying element of like, that's the score, that's the thing, we have to attack and win or lose together. Right? And with the absence of that, and it's tough, right? It can be challenging inside of business to get everybody tied to that. But without that, like, what do people actually what else? Can they hang their hat on aside from their own little area? Because you come up with a hey, the defense played great today? It's like, great, well, we still lost because you often start putting points on the board. So haha.

Phillip Gill: 12:12

And, you know, that's, I think that's been important. You know, it's been really important in in guiding the store and understanding it. Because I, Kyle, to your point, I think that long term value of a customer is often missed. And it's so important, I think it's going to be even more important in the coming years, as we see shifts in market and increased competition and consolidation within industry that we've got to hold on to those, you know, the customers are our best assets, and we got to hold on to as long as we possibly can

Kyle Mountsier: 12:44

to make it Are you doing anything? And it's okay, if you answer no to this, because I'm trying to find the right the person that's doing this. And maybe maybe you can be the one to work on it. So

Paul J Daly: 12:54

either make his day and ruin his day.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:57

Mind like, Have you worked to expose like high lifetime value customers within the store? And said, like, Hey, this is this is a customer that has an extremely high lifetime value for us. Like we should pay attention even more. You know, I think Delta probably does the best job of this, right? Like, if you're flying medallion on a Delta flight. Someone's saying hi to you. So

Phillip Gill: 13:22

here's where we're at now. And here's where we're going. So actually ASOTU CON this last year got me tuned into this right heard a great talk. And they were talking about how are we identifying customers with this high lifetime value? And I'm like, Oh my gosh. Right. So how do I get this? So I came back, started working with our DMS who's techie on and they're really close to rolling out a product that seems like that will show me that like right in the customer profile is really great.

Kyle Mountsier: 13:54

And was that Dan Bannister? Rick Riker.

Phillip Gill: 13:57

Yeah, that was the talk. Yeah, that

Kyle Mountsier: 13:58

was the session. I was like, I got to moderate that. That was probably one of my favorite times. I was so

Paul J Daly: 14:05

bummed I missed that one.

Phillip Gill: 14:06

And so you know, there was that and then you know, we will be putting out our next evolution and kind of our advantage program here at Tom Gill Chevrolet. So the thing that drives a lot of our retention is our advantage program that we do with our customers. And I was bright before I jumped on this, I'm putting final touches on our kind of our next evolution of that which will be called Magic care, which will be basically consumer memberships to Tom Gill Chevrolet, and they can then tear up based on those, you know, what conveniences and opportunities they want. And so that's kind of the first step into really saying okay, this is a high value customer to Tom Gill Chevrolet who really is bought into the ecosystem that we're building so stay tuned for that because that is just so so close. No on live Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 14:59

You We've gone back taking something from a session worked with the DMS, that's collaboration that's connection, and then gone and exposed in a brand new program in order to increase lifetime value all on this circle. I'm just, and then you're coming back for the day. As to good, that's me.

Paul J Daly: 15:21

So let me drill into that for a little bit. Because I know you've you've for a long time in putting time and energy into thinking, what are the advantages people and you literally call them advantages? But But what are the advantages of doing business with you versus all the other options that there are in your market share? Right? Because you have you know, you're, you're in a pretty big DMA. Why don't you explain your market in general, just so we can give people a little bit of perspective? Yeah,

Phillip Gill: 15:46

absolutely. So we're in the Cincinnati marketplace. So we sit on the in Florence, Kentucky, which is about 10 miles south of Cincinnati. So it's a metro population of roughly 3 million people. From a Chevy dealer standpoint, we have 16 Chevrolet dealerships to service those 3 million people, which couple? There's a few options out there, right. So we sit in a very competitive market that, you know, is is challenging. I mean, we have a great team of dealers that represent Chevrolet in Cincinnati to give people an idea, Cincinnati, or Chevrolet has been the number one selling brand in Cincinnati, I think eight years going. We command like roughly 15% market share in the market itself. I mean, it's just a really strong competitive group of dealers that is going out there. So we, for a long time, can vouch

Kyle Mountsier: 16:38

for that. Like, I can tell you that in Cincinnati, I don't know of a Chevy dealer, there's probably one or two out of that 16. But like of the ones that come to mind, I lived in northern Cincinnati Mason for for my like high school and middle school years. Like every Chevy like blank, blank, blank, Chevy. Everyone has a pretty generally good reputation. So I can see why that's the reality on like the market penetration. Yeah.

Phillip Gill: 17:04

So it's forced us to say, Hey, how can we differentiate ourselves, right. So you know, our big, some of our big differentiators or advantages are like lifetime oil changes when you buy a vehicle from us lifetime. carwashes and our used cars come with a lifetime powertrain warranty. And then there's some subcategories that you know, you can get additional trading credit based on when you come to trade in off of that loaner vehicles when you're in service. So a lot of convenience is to the consumer, right. And that helps build a lot of loyalty to Tom Gill, Chevrolet apps. It's been a big, big help in our growth. And I'm excited to take it to the next level and see where we can go with that. Because I think what we're seeing here is that, you know, we're still going really steady with that. And it's been a good program. But I think there's more value to kind of squeezed out of that entire kind of ecosystem to really drive even better retention, happier customers, more convenient services, all that type of stuff.

Kyle Mountsier: 18:12

Well, I mean, you're taking the playbook. I mean, it's not the exact playbook. But just when we look at large companies that are doing this, and I I'm gonna go back to Delta, right. All I'm thinking about right now is delta because I fly a lot,

Paul J Daly: 18:25

because any just got the reserve card, so he likes it as he walks into the lounge with his

Kyle Mountsier: 18:32

eye strike in there. Throw PISA signs to ever start

Paul J Daly: 18:36

saying hi to people, he doesn't know if it's right. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 18:40

Oh, what's up any? Yeah. But the the the trigger there was they they completely re mapped their entire incentive program, right, like in 2023. And for now 2024. And so it provides doing what you're doing, does actually, like it provides a trigger point for the energy if you can communicate it well to the customers and share the value and show how this enhanced program actually brings them closer, there's a marketing cadence around, hey, we're changing this for the better for you, right? It's not just like a part of the advantage, but there's a marketing cadence that you can get out of that, which will attract more and more people to continue to do business with you. Because we all love and we we love getting the proverbial freemium right in, in, in our absolutely love it. It's the best. Yeah, it's,

Phillip Gill: 19:31

it's awesome. I love it as well. And you know, the one area that we identified that we're really missing is like, how do we bring a program to a customer that didn't buy the car from us, but is doing service with us, right? To bring them into the ecosystem and say, hey, I want to capture you now.

Paul J Daly: 19:49

What's the next sale?

Phillip Gill: 19:50

Because I want the next sale? Yeah. And so you know, that's another big part of this. That'll be a big focus of ours is how do we expand that bucket of people to say Hey, I can serve as your car and then I probably will get your next sale next time around. So that's

Kyle Mountsier: 20:06

exactly it. Because I mean, you're what? You know, you're always like, five to 7x, maybe more your service arrows to your sales? Oh, yeah, every single month. And so it's like, what are the opportunities in that customer base that you're not getting the value of? Because they didn't like, buy the thing with the free stuff. Right? Right for sure. How do you endear them to you as a company? Yeah, that's amazing. I'll

Paul J Daly: 20:33

tell you what, we never ever, ever have a lack of conversation when I'm when you're here. And unfortunately, we're out of time today, but I'm sure we'll catch up soon, you will be at a soda con, our producer messaged me and said I can announce it because it'll already be announced. By the time this airs. We're having we'll get Dara the author of that book at a soda Con this year. So you get to see them. And looking forward to hopefully having some time to share some of these stories with him and get his perspective because we're trying to pull him and his hospitality mindset into automotive, right? Like, what do you think about this product. And he has a company actually, it's called Thank you. And it kind of consults on experience and kind of this unreasonable hospitality. So fill it you kind of embody that just naturally. And now that we know that your story kind of like lines up, it makes all the sense in the world. Thank you so much, again, for just giving your time and your energy and your passion, sewing it back into this industry that really,

Phillip Gill: 21:24

absolutely thank you guys. It was it was fun being on.

Paul J Daly: 21:30

All right. So I think what Phil just told us is that he came Everybody showed ASOTU CON sat in the session, and he learned from another dealer Dan Bannister, how or sparked an idea on how to do something regarding lifetime value of a service customer. And then he partnered with a tech partner to build and deploy the very idea that was conceived in a soda continent. Here we are not even a year later, not even six months later, and he's like ready to do, like, talk about a mover and a shaker and a sleeper I go back to my comment in the intro.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:04

can't even handle it. No, I

Michael Cirillo: 22:06

mean, that's innovation, though. It's like, again, we've talked about this. It's like assembling tools and resources that already exist into a new concept that that serves a purpose for you. And that's exactly what he's doing right tech company already existed. ASOTU CON existed, like, you know, just, I'm always fascinated by how overcomplicated sometimes we make things. And then you see somebody like Phil, who comes right down the middle and is like, I don't I'm not going to ever do

Paul J Daly: 22:32

it about it. Right? I'm not going to tell everybody, I'm not going to make a big fuss about it. I'm just going to do it. And people like every look. Oh, yeah, tell them what I did. Oh, problem. Oh, by the way, like my retention is through the roof and my profitability is through the roof. You

Kyle Mountsier: 22:45

know what I also love it. He talks a lot about just how his experience in like the back of the house. And we talked about whether there is like this, this scenario where you've got someone that understands both sides of the business and can execute and move in such a more seamless way that, like that thought process for me is like I always want to be cross trained on everything in the business. Because then I see the business from all angles. And I think that like GSM is general managers, owners, operators that can take that position, always going to be more profitable and run better businesses. Absolutely.

Paul J Daly: 23:27

Well, we hope you enjoyed this conversation. We hope it spurs you to some action, because if it doesn't, what are we doing here? On behalf of Kyle Mountsier, Michael Cirillo, and myself thanks for listening to Auto Collabs

Unknown: 23:46

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