Just Take Good Pictures of The Cars with Jason Tropp

Paul J Daly: 0:00

Kyle, what's the meanest thing you've ever said to a friend?

‍Unknown: 0:08

This is Auto Collabs

Paul J Daly: 0:11

I'm just kidding. I'm not gonna make you answer that on the well.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:14

No, I'll tell you what it was. It wasn't something I said. But like, basically I remember the moment where because I was like a real scrawny dude growing up like tiny was three to four inches smaller than anybody in my in my grades, right? And I think it was, like sophomore year, I went from like, five, nine to six one in like, a couple months, right. And, and dudes were used to picking on me, right because I was I was a little scrawny kid. I was quiet. I never never really talked much. And dudes were used to picking on me. And I was playing basketball. And this dude just like full swipes my legs, right like it very intentionally, everybody's all got it, you know. And I just come up all six, one of me that used to be smaller now taller. And I just come and I just like, get real ready to just light this guy up. And he was down on the ground a little bit. And I remember the like, beer in this guy's face. And I didn't I didn't even need to hit him. I had any like satisfaction that they did. That's what I thought. So that's probably the meanest like, quote unquote thing that I've done. There's my there's my deep. We

Paul J Daly: 1:35

never really know how we're going to open the shows. Just so everyone else knows some one of us will just like, flip some random question like that. And now we're into an episode of Auto Collabs. There it is. Yep. Are Canadians mean to one another Michael?

Kyle Mountsier: 1:49

Oh, sorry.

Michael Cirillo: 1:52

I wouldn't you know, Canadians have a rap for being very nice. But bro, they will be the first one to stab you in the back of the head. The minute you turn around. Yeah, okay. Not for the Canadian and me. But like the Italian in me that got root words at the ready whenever you need them, bro.

Paul J Daly: 2:15

Your internal dialogue and, and

Michael Cirillo: 2:18

the self control is on.

Paul J Daly: 2:21

Right. Now see? So now I'm trying to think about how we transition into today's guest.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:26

We don't just go straight there because he's he's got a

Paul J Daly: 2:29

background in creative being

Michael Cirillo: 2:31

rude to people. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:34

Now

Michael Cirillo: 2:37

speaking of being the nicest guy we spoke to today

Kyle Mountsier: 2:47

we're talking to Jason shop over at car cutter. We really hope you enjoy this conversation and we promise it won't be quite as ridiculous as

Paul J Daly: 2:56

Kyle promises.

Michael Cirillo: 3:01

All right, Jason. What's going on, buddy?

Jason Tropp: 3:03

Welcome to Auto Collabs. Thanks, Michael. Really appreciate it, man. Wait, wait,

Michael Cirillo: 3:07

where did you say you're from?

Jason Tropp: 3:09

I'm working from the house. I'm up in Portland, Maine.

Michael Cirillo: 3:12

Portland, Maine.

Paul J Daly: 3:15

Good this time of year.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:15

That's the confusing thing. Right. Right.

Jason Tropp: 3:18

Because people Yeah, they think West Coast when you say Portland so you always have to throw the man at the end. And they're like, oh, Optus, I

Paul J Daly: 3:25

have a feeling that I have a feeling just the whole atmosphere is a little different between the

Jason Tropp: 3:29

two. I would say so. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:33

Except for still a lot of rain, little snow. I mean,

Michael Cirillo: 3:37

did you grow up? Like what brought you to Portland? No,

Jason Tropp: 3:40

I grew up really, my family's from New York. I grew up in Virginia. But I came to Maine, probably a little over between eight, nine years ago. And it was for automotive. So I had an opportunity to come up and work for New England Auto Group. And I just got lucky and was able to sort of land in Portland, Maine, to do that job, which was super sweet. What was the job? So I came aboard as it's kind of a funny story. I had asked to come on board on this internal marketing team, to be the Creative Director for this auto group.

Paul J Daly: 4:07

But I gotta say that, again, didn't exist in the industry. What is it? internal marketing team has a great

Jason Tropp: 4:14

marketing team. Yeah, it was great. So it was like, so it was back in the day when when Prime Motor Group was around and they had started when I came on board, it was like between 25 and 30 stores. And during my time there, they sort of, you know, expand their portfolio got up to 60 stores. And I did that for you know, the first four years I was in New England. So I was going down in Massachusetts traveling all over, which was super cool. But yeah, we had this internal marketing team just so happened to be that it can function out of Maine because you know, marketing can happen from anywhere. And the home offices are down in Massachusetts. So you know, it's a two hour drive from Portland. Not a big deal. But it was super cool. But that jobs kind of transitioned from a creative direction to really digital direction. So it was making sure all the websites work or third party integrations or firing, doing email marketing, you know, Like, that's

Kyle Mountsier: 5:00

the flow. Like, that's just the flow. It's like, ah, you know, we like the whole creative everything, but you should do some analytics, you know?

Jason Tropp: 5:10

I mean, it makes sense. Like,

Kyle Mountsier: 5:12

one day someone was like, Can you prove that what Jason is doing is actually working? And he was like, wow, try

Paul J Daly: 5:19

to kerning on that. Be like, oh, you should see this map working? Yeah.

Jason Tropp: 5:26

No, it was really great. We had a whole team of, you know, internal team. And I think the coolest part about this job is just, it is, as long as you're not going to say no to something, there's always an opportunity to learn. And so that job really sort of launched me further into the automotive space, because it's just, you're going deep, and you're going deep, really fast, that make heads or tails, everything and you realize just how interconnected it all is. And that replays sort of under the whole mindset of like, what is automotive marketing today? It's, it's not one thing. There's not one answer. His finger, I'm

Kyle Mountsier: 5:57

still. I gotta be honest with you. I'm still stuck on the fact that you were like, I moved to Maine for automotive and then drove two hours south. I can't get that out of my like, I'm like, wow, I don't think that actually works that way. No, so it was it like an acquisition or something like that is that wow,

Jason Tropp: 6:17

so their stores in Maine. So they had a whole collection of stores in Southern Maine, and they had stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont. So the corporate offices were down in Massachusetts. So I'd go down a couple times a month, stay for like a night or two and knock some stuff out. But then the majority of my team, for the marketing side was actually located in Maine. So we kind of had this split office, and it was, you know, early days remote work, essentially. But we had space above one of the dealerships. So we sort of had a little microcosm of marketing up there. And then we were just sort of, you know, do early zoom with a team down in Massachusetts for something that needed more hands on just shoot down there for the day, stay two days if you need to. That's good. Let me ask

Michael Cirillo: 6:55

you this. I got I'm dying to ask you this. From your vantage point, working in a group working in stores. What do you think it is, that makes dealers believe that marketing will solve all of the world's problems? If sales are down marketing fault, people feel

Kyle Mountsier: 7:19

like you got some pain in

Paul J Daly: 7:22

marketing, sales or sales teams fault, right?

Michael Cirillo: 7:25

My my thing back in the day was like, Okay, so like dealer has an argument with their spouse the night before comes in huffing and puffing and the marketing team is on the chopping block.

Jason Tropp: 7:34

I think it's one of those things. I think it's kind of like last man in first man out a little bit. You know, marketing isn't necessarily thought it was as a frontline effort is sort of brought into the business as it matures. It's like, oh, yeah, we should be paying more attention to marketing, let's internalize this, we want more control. But I think it's also there's less understanding about it than a lot of the other operations, because sales managers, parts, manager, service managers, those are all very tangible things that are happening in front of you, every day, the marketing stuff is more fury on us. That's because it's digital. It's a lot of, you know, what's happening with the algorithm is when everybody has an opinion on it, everybody has an opinion on it, because we all are consumers. We're all just seeing this all the time. So it's really easy to say, hey, I have an opinion saying, Hey, did you like that movie last weekend? Well, let me tell you how I would have shot that movie. You know, it's, there's only going to be the two cents of I have, I have tastes and I want to express that. And sometimes it comes across as I have ideas for marketing. And sometimes those ideas are really worthwhile. And sometimes those ideas, just their ideas that have been tested and tried and don't necessarily make sense. And I think there's also again, the experience of maybe one market is different than other so you've got you know, the movement in the automotive space where you go from a small store domestic to a highline, you come from outside market to a major market, you know, those marketing things, there are some truths that play through but then there are also the nuances of, you know, what works here. And you have to figure that out. So I think everybody wants to contribute is kind of what that comes down to, but the chopping block,

Kyle Mountsier: 9:06

I mean, I don't know if you ever experienced this, but it like the chopping block is also related at some at some level two, like, what so what did you do today? Right. Yeah. You know, how did how did you and your team? Yeah, cuz I think there's a lot of marketers that kind of like, listen, and they're trying to figure out Yeah, prove my work, prove my value, like the things that I'm asking for the things that I'm doing the things that I'm responding to actually have like, value to the business today, not just, you know, because every marketer loves to say, like, I'm building brand, I'm building a big thing. It's coming soon, right? And there's a realities but there's the proof in the like, I sold the car today. There's a x on the board because I did some level of work and that x is harder to find sometimes in a time or Sona.

Jason Tropp: 9:57

Yeah. I mean, that's that's the Forever challenge. Right is sort of marrying what's happening in marketing to is it having an effect on the sales floor? And there's so many layers between, we put a marketing messaging out there, and someone signing the paperwork. You know, that is a journey. I think that, you know, there's a couple things marketers can do. I think one is, it's, it's certainly more work, but I think it's part of the job is if you are in house marketing, and really, if you're any marketer, it doesn't have to be in house. But if you're marketing for a client, whether it's internal external, not only you're doing that job of making your marketing perform, you also have to do the secondary job of marketing the work that you're doing internally, right. So just because you're doing the job doesn't mean that anybody knows you're doing the job, they don't know the work, or the effort, or sort of the effect, you might be saying, Hey, we have our monthly meeting. Here's the reports. That's kind of baseline helpful. You know, I had those standard operations with a lot of the different website providers, I use, the advertising agencies we use, we get those sort of ongoing reports. But it was the consistent conversations, the team going out of their way to sort of paint the picture. Here's how it all comes together until we get to that report, instead of just saying, Hey, I'm going to grind and then here's the report, at the end of the month, I think being able to sort of build that internal marketing message of the value of marketing, and how everyone is involved in that and how it kind of all ties back because we put marketing in this bucket of ad spend creative, and that that's true. That's a huge part of it. But the other part is what is happening at the store, what is the attitude at the store? What is the energy going into sort of living the messaging that you're putting into your marketing? Right? Is that all coming together? Now? Yes, obviously.

Paul J Daly: 11:39

And the entire ecosystem, right? Like every marketer is like getting out there waving their hanky, they're like, this guy knows me. Right? So it was me. You made the jump, though. From dealer marketing to industry, partner side, what did that come about? So

Jason Tropp: 11:55

it's actually it's really interesting. So my whole journey in a nutshell was actually started in automotive on the agency side. So I kind of saw how the agency life played out supporting dealers

Paul J Daly: 12:04

and like major markets and small markets all makes sense now.

Jason Tropp: 12:08

And then I took, you know, took a hiatus work for nonprofit for a couple years, but then I got the calling card to be like, Hey, we've got some opportunities, New England auto group. So I jumped into that. And after that, you know, that was, like I said, the Digital Director stuff, really making sure the integrations working from there went to a smaller group in New England, where it was handling the marketing fully. So budgets, etc. But when I was at my last group we were really looking for Well, let me back up. In all my reporting, and everything that we were doing, it was kind of like, I'm turning all the right levers, I'm allocating the funds where it makes sense. We've got, you know, smart messaging, what what can we do weird things breaking down? Like, why are my ad dollars not performing to the level I think they should be. And one of the things I've identified is that our inventory has a heavy effect on that advertising, which should be a no brainer. But it's not simply the inventory itself, it is taking photos of the cars. So when I was there, I was really looking for a situation where we could improve the photo situation, get those on the website, improve the quality, to then improve the performance of our ad dollars, hitting those third party marketplaces hitting our retargeting ads, whenever we brought traffic back to the website, having that VDP be a clean and solid experience. And the thing is, we all shop online, it's all visual. So if you're not prioritizing, visualizing your product, you're sort of diminishing your ad dollars all downstream, when it comes to merchandising and sort of re advertising inventory online. So I've, you know, came across car cutter as a solution for that, and I had a couple Highline stores and you're shooting at different places. And we've crossed here, that inventory. So we have mixed inventory showing up online, we want to make it look like it's one collection, not like hey, this car is being treated differently than this car, or they appear that there may be in different locations really, for the customer, it doesn't matter because we'll bring the car to you. And this, this turned out to be a tool that was really beneficial for some of the problems I was running into. And I liked it so much. I was talking to, uh, you know, the team, and at that point in time, you guys know, Daniel, I was talking to him. And he's like, yeah, man, you know, it's great. Keep your eyes on, you know, we're definitely grown up making moves in the US. And so I was like, Yeah, I think this is awesome. So there's an opportunity and I put my hat in the ring. And now here I am. So it's really cool, because I've seen using it as a dealer and

Kyle Mountsier: 14:22

this is, this is one thing that like typically, the marketing persona like kind of gets this you know what, just make sure the cars sell will take care of the inventory will take care of the cars like as a sales management staff or as a management staff as an owner operator, whoever's managing specifically the used cars. And it's kind of like, man, boss, you had 100 less cars last month than what you normally do

Paul J Daly: 14:48

and don't think that might have something to do with it, cut

Kyle Mountsier: 14:51

it maybe that you know, we're

Paul J Daly: 14:53

all $50,000 SUVs,

Kyle Mountsier: 14:55

right? So, but then Marco and I say this all the time like this is Is this is the biggest, like, this is the hardest thing for me to reconcile as a marketer, and especially when I was at a dealership group is that it is so tied to merchandising, right, what inventory you have in? And what inventory is merchandise, you know, you hear these people like coming off, you know, reducing ad spend on didge ad and reducing spend on on third party marketplaces. And you go look at their inventory. And it's, it's just tight, right? They have cars, the right price, the right pictures, the right Merchandising, and they're still selling cars. Well, because like, people have to buy cars. And if their merchandise Well, now you can layer on to that great brand, great advertising, great digital strategy. But if you don't have the cars merchandise, well, like you're, you're done at square one. And I think that that's what you're pointing out is like, hey, look, we went back and realized we were not we weren't handling square one. Right. And so all of our efficiency downstream that we could have gained was just lost

Jason Tropp: 16:04

100% Yeah, that's That's exactly it. I mean, when I was with prime, a big part of my job was traveling all the stores, we had set up, sort of like best practices for how to photograph how to merchandise your cars, how to use the systems that the stores are putting those cars into, and it was, it was a heavy lift, and trying to train everyone to do that is a monumental task. But when everyone started doing it, there's such a power in consistency, and prioritizing that stuff. And unfortunately, I think like the industry sort of treats. This might be a broad statement, but it has been my experience that getting photos of cars is sort of considered a low priority in a lot of places because there's so many bigger issues that you have to tackle at the store. But again, it's just sort of it's your merchandise. Everyone starts online so at the end of the day, your digital store is store number one before anybody sets foot in your actual store where the actual cars are so what do you do to get them there? So it's always been it's always been a challenge. I tell

Kyle Mountsier: 17:01

this story one and I'll back out continue to back you up on this because like I agree I think it is a one getting cars frontline ready. It has, like everyone wants to say we got our cars frontline ready in 72 hours, right? But the reality is, is that just doesn't happen and broad, broad stroke across the industry. I always I saw I had a buddy probably eight or nine years ago that went to church with him. And I found out that his entire job is to take photos of shoes for like a bunch of different marketplaces that are like, like department stores. Right? And literally, they start photographing prototypes of shoes a year before the release so that they can get an approved in time for the merchandise dicing effort. Right? That's amazing. Yeah, like so that's the that's the level of care that these merchandisers that are merchandising like 50 to $200 pair of shoe items commodity they have a dedicated warehouse in Nashville, full of five photographers, only thinking about how these things are photographed and edited. Right so cool. $200 shoes right. And we're out here like yeah, just throw it there against the back wash bay.

Paul J Daly: 18:36

All right, yeah.

Jason Tropp: 18:38

Yeah, we all know

Kyle Mountsier: 18:41

we know the pain

Paul J Daly: 18:44

just thinking about like all the different photo experiences in automotive and like just evaluating my personal behaviors because I'm kind of I'm kind of in the market for a car like my my family wagon just you know, it's like 100 103,000 miles on it I'm like god I'm gonna get out of it for something expensive breaks because there's nothing worse than something you announcing

Michael Cirillo: 19:06

it on the pod dude.

Kyle Mountsier: 19:09

You're about to get AM's like I can sell you a Kia Telluride. Yeah, it's

Paul J Daly: 19:14

what can we can you pay for my Lincoln Navigator though? It's all about extracting about the race. Oh, no, but the reality is, I know the difference. Like I know the tools that are out there. I know. And I am still staggeringly shocked. Because I'm looking to replace the Navigator. We're maybe looking at another navigator. They haven't really changed anything. So it's kind of like a bummer. Just buy a newer version of what you already have. So like so like the escalators are like a suburban are the only like vehicles big enough to fit all my family and all the stuff. And they're not cheap cars. And I can't believe how bad some of the photos are.

Jason Tropp: 19:57

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's

Paul J Daly: 19:59

like I can't believe it's a Cadillac selling like an $80,000 used car. And like, I'm like, I can't believe anybody buys this, but they might just like I don't usually interact as hard once every three or four years. I know. But then there's a part of it to where it's like, you know what, I might actually be able to get a better deal because they're so bad at photos. Right? Like Oh, yeah. Like so what I was thinking you see this right here? Bad photos. Terrible photo. Terrible photo. Yeah, but the cars are just photos, Disgust trash can. Right? I'm not paying that. And they'll be like,

Michael Cirillo: 20:42

but it was enough to get you sitting in front of me having this conversation, right. So

Paul J Daly: 20:49

this scholarship, he's like, yes, this conversation where you're about to discount this?

Unknown: 20:54

No, no, but really, like, part of me thinks that at some point, like, I'm gonna find like a gym, because they just took it, you know, took the photos like trash. And then like, it's actually a nicer car. I don't know, just little by little fingers crossed a little mentality. But when I go through, I cannot believe that some pictures are still so bad. So yeah, no, it's taken for what it's worth. And if you want to DM me what you think the navigators worth? Just? Yeah.

Paul J Daly: 21:21

I won't give you any more information on it.

Kyle Mountsier: 21:23

There you go. That's awesome. Well, hey, Jason, we've, we've thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with you love your journey. And, you know, just a passion that from for you to go from, you know, adopting a technology to being a part of the technologies growth is a really, really unique story. And I think something that a lot of people can, can can get sticky to. We've had a ton of laughs and always enjoy that one. So Jason, thanks for joining us today.

Jason Tropp: 21:50

Thank you guys. It's been a pleasure.

Paul J Daly: 21:57

Okay, I have to say, he's probably one of the nicest guys we've talked to. And we nailed it,

Kyle Mountsier: 22:03

we got that right off the bat. He was super, he was like, just so kind about the disposition of being. I mean, I like if I know any marketer that's been through his thing, like, there's some anger, so

Paul J Daly: 22:15

yelling at the screen, as he's bringing some of these wounds up.

Michael Cirillo: 22:18

It's the, what's it called, like, when you're so angry, you don't have words, you just make sounds, you know, like, getting that email from your owner. And then you're just like

Kyle Mountsier: 22:33

you know, I love I, you know, I've seen a bunch of stories in auto where people, you know, get a product like they're the champion of a product into a store or a group, and then get so caught up in its efficiency and effectiveness that like, I have to go help build that. And just that story alone is really, really cool to me to see someone get so caught up in the effectiveness of a thing that they brought in and champion that they were that they said, Yep, that's the thing that I want to go be a part of to grow, it means that they there was really

Paul J Daly: 23:08

believe in it. Yeah, absolutely. I do. I also want to add, like, you know, it's through that episode, we talked about, like, the friction in the relationship and the expectations and half of its joking half of it serious, though. And we can say that the situation's you and I, you, the three of us have a lot of inside insight into dealer groups all across the country and marketing departments how they operate. And the very best ones, we see have the marketers have a seat at the table at the strategy table. That's right, and are seen as a very strategic partner in sales and fixed ops and service, all the way across the board and community involvement. And when that is the case, we can't advocate for that enough, because in all the best scenarios, the marketer has a seat at the strategy table. And so I think it's important to say that and remind people of that, because it's easy to get caught up in the velocity of the game, and forget that the person who is maybe easy to blame sometimes or maybe on the outskirts, or like the person that makes the creative stuff, or that you call when you have you need to reset your password because you're usually pretty good with tech as well. That the best dealers in the country have them at the strategy table. So I don't know, maybe that moves the needle a little bit too.

Michael Cirillo: 24:22

I mean, also just on the merchandising side of things, transitioning from from that to just the practicality of speed to market. And how often I know all three of us have experienced situations where the dealer has 30 units that haven't been recon yet they're still sitting out back, they haven't been merchandised. They're not ready to go. And the just the real impact of what that's costing them per day not being online and marketed right and just your experience of it's 2024 and we're still not taking good care. pictures are just at its most foundational level, a 60,080 $100,000 vehicle that we were, you know, our human nature is that we're always looking for what's the big pie in the sky fix. And most often it's the small and simple things. That compound that makes the greatest effect was just flipping burgers.

Paul J Daly: 25:22

That's not a way to wrap up the show. I don't know what it is. On behalf of Kyle Mountsier, Michael Cirillo, and myself thanks for joining us and spending some time with us at at Auto Collabs is it at Auto Collabs add on. I don't know Nathan's waving his hands I botched that. Thanks for being here.

Unknown: 25:46

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