Merchandising: Fixing The House Before Inviting People To It with Daniel Able

Paul J Daly: 0:02

I feel like it's a Mexican standoff right now

‍Unknown: 0:12

this is Auto Collabs

Paul J Daly: 0:15

who's gonna shoot first? I don't know, everyone

Kyle Mountsier: 0:21

if you're just listening, we're all just looking at each other with the most curious eyes.

Paul J Daly: 0:25

You're gonna say, well, in

Kyle Mountsier: 0:26

particular has the most curious, I feel like that's Cirilo. I got a question for you. Do you just stare into A into your camera and the teleprompter too often? Or? Or do you practice this in front of mirrors at on a regular basis? No,

Michael Cirillo: 0:43

because like if I'm standing in front of a mirror, then I have to get comfortable with how I look.

Paul J Daly: 0:49

They select some biceps. I don't know dude, I've seen a couple of gym pics from you. Awesome. Jim.

Michael Cirillo: 0:56

has made me so uncomfortable.

Paul J Daly: 0:57

I'm glad that you put it that way because I was like you know now we've done it. Michael Cirillo is posting gym pics.

Michael Cirillo: 1:04

Somebody we already talked about that. Nevermind.

Paul J Daly: 1:08

Fine, fine, fine. Fine. Speaking of pictures, today's guest today's guest Abell from car cutter are experts in taking pictures or helping dealers get good pictures on the website, we have a couple little surprises for him that he doesn't know about little factoids that came up in the research portion of this podcast. So we're gonna drop those on him early on in the conversation I think we hope you enjoyed this conversation with Dan cutter

Kyle Mountsier: 1:39

the infamous Daniel Abel has joined us on the Auto Collabs, fod Daniel. Thanks for joining us, man.

Daniel Able: 1:47

Thanks so much for having me go.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:49

I learned something that I don't know if you know that I know about you. Oh, that's

Paul J Daly: 1:55

a weird way to start a conversation. I saw what you did

Kyle Mountsier: 1:58

last summer. All right. Reduce her said that you have a part time volunteer job as a beach babe. Yeah.

Daniel Able: 2:09

I got to screen my LinkedIn a little better. So

Paul J Daly: 2:15

I think you're the one that put it up there. Yeah,

Daniel Able: 2:17

I know. But yeah, maybe I need to elaborate more. So you're

Paul J Daly: 2:21

not there's a David Hasselhoff AI generated photo with your face on it coming up.

Daniel Able: 2:26

Please do not do that. Yeah, not exactly. Me. But I, we have a lot of waterways and stuff. I'm down in the low countries, they call it Hill net area of South Carolina. And we have a lot of waterways and rivers and stuff. And a volunteer for a water rescue organization was basically volunteer fire department without the fire and without the trucks. So people get stranded or something like that out on the river. Then I come with about 20 or 30 other people that can so yeah, no bathing suit. No,

Paul J Daly: 3:03

it's without all those things. But is it with the chicken barbecues at least?

Daniel Able: 3:07

No, no, not even. I mean, doing it wrongly.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:10

You're doing it wrong? Maybe?

Daniel Able: 3:13

Yeah, for sure.

Paul J Daly: 3:15

For sure. Well, I

Kyle Mountsier: 3:16

guess that has only something to do with what we're talking about today. Because we love just like getting the human story behind behind the human that is in our industry. And Daniel, you know, what I love about you is that you've taken a journey around a bunch of different places in auto, both on the retail and the vendor side. It was just like a little bit of a brief story on on your background in the auto industry. Reader's

Daniel Able: 3:46

Digest is I got out of high school had a friend that was a personal shopper for cars. So instead of spending time in a dealership, people would call him he would find a specific car. That sounds so fun. And I was the runner guy because I couldn't do much didn't know anything about the car business was running between dealerships and met a person who said hey, you ever thought about selling cars? And I was like, No, not at all. And I got put into one of the classes I know all the dealers that are watching this have had the the salesman class right, you know, where you bring in 10 or 12 people and I was one of the two or three that survived the class. And that was in 2001. Yeah, graduated.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:32

I was one of those in 2009.

Daniel Able: 4:36

I was showing my age obviously. And sold cars for what a while took a call one day from a company called car ad and what they were was in a company that dressed up eBay listings and asked me if I'd ever sold cars on eBay and I was like, Man, I have a hard enough time selling them on the lot. No, I've never thought about selling them on eBay and eBay was the craze in the early 2000s. So that's adapted really quickly. Yeah, and actually left the franchise store I was at work for a guy in the middle of nowhere. So in 30 cars a month on eBay, it was easier all over the country. All I did was talk on the phone and answer emails, like we had no foot traffic. And now right out of the start of my digital career, since then I've bounced a little bit back and forth, I took took a sabbatical or two out of the car business, but a majorly with a dealer group down in this area, and handling everything from use cars to running a store, to digital to BDC. So it was it was it's been an awesome journey, and then eventually got out and in 2018, and got on the software side. And, and that's been a very, very eye opening experience to be able to bring a lot of knowledge but some some good products out to dealerships.

Paul J Daly: 6:01

So I think first of all, I think you've definitely like checked all the boxes, you have the stripes on your arm, right, like, earn the respect, I think that is do. Right. What prompted, what prompted the move to go to vendor side is like the first part of the question. The second part of the question is, what was the biggest surprise when you went vendor side and weren't a dealer anymore, right, but you dealt with a bunch of

Daniel Able: 6:26

dealers. So a lot of things in my personal life changed. And I came in one day had nothing to do with the group that I was with, or the team that I had. But I came in one day and said, Man, I don't want to do this anymore. Sometimes, you know, it was late, late, my schedule was way better than it had been. But there was just a point where I was like, you know, I just I don't want to do this anymore. It's not that I didn't want to do work. And not that I didn't want to be in the car business. I just didn't want to be in retail anymore. And so I parted ways and went home. And I remember sitting on the edge of my bed hand in my head going, what the heck am I gonna do now don't know, if you all get a mortgage notice every month, every month and want their money, it's crazy. Um, so I did a little consulting for a little bit. And then in and then I actually landed with Otto loop. And I had someone reach out to me and and say they were referred to reach out to me, which is pretty, pretty cool experience to have. And to begin building out a sales team for auto hoop. And one of the biggest things that I immediately learned, I guess was that I mean integrations and like the inner workings were just not always as friendly as a lot of vendors made it made it feel like when when I was on the retail side, it was it. That was probably one of the biggest most eye opening things was how much that people didn't play with each other. And you got to analyze, there's a lot of money behind all that. But at the end of the day, my my thought is like success for the viewer success for your product. And everybody can stand on their own with with those successes. Like if I provide the value, you know, then I don't mind integrating or working with others. There's a lot of companies out there. And I hope this comes from a place of love. But there's a lot of companies that started off doing something. And they branched out and to 50 other things that they had no business being in to try to get a market share my opinion. That's the way I see it. And maybe it was through a purchase of a company. Maybe it was through just creating it on their own, but they really high insight should have just stayed in their lane. You don't I mean,

Paul J Daly: 8:54

they went wide instead of like, the depths of the niche. Yeah. In 2018.

Michael Cirillo: 9:01

Yeah. At any point during the preceding three years. Did you look back and feel like you sold your stocks too early?

Daniel Able: 9:11

That's funny. So one of my GMs have reached out to me and I still had the text. He's like how you doing? And I'm like, doing good man. And he's like, just in case you're wondering how we're doing you are in

Unknown: 9:31

case you're one wondered where are you wondering?

Daniel Able: 9:32

No, no, I wasn't until he

Unknown: 9:41

was much.

Daniel Able: 9:44

Yeah, because it was quite the opposite during COVID. Obviously, because dealers were looking for not necessarily they were looking to spend less but they were like why why are we why are we buying that or they may have taken their eyes off the prize but they weren't looking to add any more, because they don't have

Paul J Daly: 10:02

any people were kicking the door and they'd be like, please let me have that one. Please, please, please sell me that car. Yeah,

Daniel Able: 10:08

so they had no cars to sell. So why would they care about you know, like marketing better and have to try, right better, better follow up who am I? What am I gonna do follow up and say, Hey, we just got a blue one in do you want it

Paul J Daly: 10:20

like follow up sounds like this? Well, if you don't want it, there's three other people that do. Right.

Daniel Able: 10:25

Right. So yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Michael. I really I would go. And that was great. Like,

Paul J Daly: 10:35

nailed it.

Michael Cirillo: 10:36

Because I'm sitting here writing notes. And I wrote down 28 Getting out in 2018. And then I'm like, wait a minute.

Daniel Able: 10:41

Yeah, that whole COVID thing did? Yeah, remember

Paul J Daly: 10:45

that? Um, yeah.

Michael Cirillo: 10:48

I mean, I'll just take a heavyset Bye. So then you Trent, you go from auto loop? And then what happens? Yeah,

Daniel Able: 11:02

so um, they, they, they were acquired by another company. And so I decided, because you

Michael Cirillo: 11:09

what you did there. I'm sorry. They got acquired because of what you had built there. Oh, man,

Daniel Able: 11:15

I kind of wish but no, that wasn't the reason they got acquired they, they were acquired by another company, I guess, to give more of a broader scope of products to this other company. And so I moved into service Lane solutions. And as an account manager, traveling all over the country installing service Lane solutions. And so tablet based messaging based all that kind of stuff. And that was a eye opening experience, because all of my experience has been in the dealership on the variable side on the retail, you know, shoveling around cars and, and selling warranties and in finance, and, you know, acquisitions, all that kind of stuff, you know, buying cars. So never did I my most utilized role in the service department was talking with an advisor about why a used car Bill was so high. You know what I mean? Like that was, that was the most let's go look at that thing. Let's go look at that axle. And they're like, say see this? I have no idea what I'm looking at. But yeah, okay, I believe you know, you know, so, anyway, it was it was very eye opening, because the thing that really spoke to me was the customer, right? Like how the customer can how the transaction can be made so much easier for the customer, rather than all this paperwork, on paperwork on paperwork, and this calling into service departments can't get an advisor on the phone, you know, things like that. So the platform that that I was working with was making that a lot easier. And then I came across an opportunity with a company called car cutter and join them in late 2002. And that has been a 22. Yeah, 22 sorry. 22. Yes,

Kyle Mountsier: 13:09

I was like, Man, you've been

Paul J Daly: 13:11

the big reveal.

Daniel Able: 13:14

22. And it's been a blessing man. We've grown tremendously throughout the country, and in helping dealers to better merchandise, their vehicles, through images. So lots of inconsistency. We bring consistency to websites and SRP. So let's

Paul J Daly: 13:31

talk about let's talk about the result. Like because Kyle talks about this all the time. I just had a lot more exposure conversations cousin. Yeah. But he talks about merchandising, and the effect that it has, right Michaels company leans in on Merchandising, and the effect that it has give us your take and like what are you saying to dealers who may not understand the impact? The like, the direct impact it has when the vehicle is improperly? merchandised?

Daniel Able: 14:00

That's part that's great. I really welcome that question. Because here's my thumb

Paul J Daly: 14:04

set of both. No, it's not it's not only what I think you're an expert at because of what your company does. But I do think it's a part of the broader narrative, that that really just it's like throwing, like three anchors on the consumer when they're going through the process. When it's not merchandise, right, and it just has, it's easy for people to move past stuff that just doesn't look right.

Daniel Able: 14:24

Two points I want you to consider since Oh, one, okay. And it was happening. Well, before I got into the car business, there was the quote, three day rule, right, you know, and 72 hours, we want that car on the front line, right? Yeah, that meant with the new tires, the dead guy, the bumper painted, you know, the oil, change the window tint, the strike, whatever, right? Never happened, you know, but the new front line is your website. And so we we tend to forget that if we don't do all the cosmetic things and then not only prepare that listing By pricing it and putting a description and all those great things but then getting images is checking the box. And that's what a lot of dealers I think do today, right? Like we got the big boss, the GM, whatever that's honest, the owner who's honest about pictures, right getting pictures, we do it right we check the box, but we don't do it very well. Think about this other point, go to Amazon, go shop for something, anywhere. Amazon's just a good example. go to Amazon and tell me if you can find one listing that does not have a picture. That's the first thing. And then have you ever seen something that was $1? Or two more or less that you bought? Because of the picture quality? You were able to maybe see a little video or something? Oh, man. Yeah, that was

Paul J Daly: 15:45

that that actually happens on Amazon all the time. When you're shopping for something, right? You're like something if you're like, it's the same product. And you kind of know that already. Right? Especially because like a lot of the stuff is made from like the same overseas vendor, like whatever it is. But if there's a better picture, like even though I know it's exactly the same thing, I'm paying a few bucks more, just because I'm like, I feel like they got it together a little bit more.

Daniel Able: 16:07

The difference between you know, Amazon and a dealer's website is I am selling air pods because I got a million of them on Amazon. I'm responsible for that one little listing on Amazon, on your website, as a dealer, you are responsible for every piece of inventory, even the same ones are different. Yes. So you got to have consistency there. You know, I feel like we spent so much effort in getting people to our website. And I was guilty like so my eyes have been open. But we bring them to a website and it's not to where we would really like to have it

Kyle Mountsier: 16:51

don't you start don't you start on me jealous

Daniel Able: 17:01

will sweep the parking lot to put the front line of cars so great, but yet our website is nowhere near that and we get

Kyle Mountsier: 17:07

excited. We should have our porters making our websites. Like they know how to at least line something free No,

Paul J Daly: 17:14

it'd be a fun, a fun piece of content to make. And maybe we'll make it before someone hears this and makes it but like a measure if you did a visual representation like from a Porter's point of view of what the lot would look like if it was treated like the website actually looks like with pop ups and barriers and like oh you drive around the corner all there's three orange barriers or you can actually get to the like

Kyle Mountsier: 17:39

someone's jumping out going Do you want to chat with me? Do you want to chat with me straight up

Paul J Daly: 17:43

tackling you off the lot like

Daniel Able: 17:46

might just pop it up? Hi

Paul J Daly: 17:48

you while you're showing up with the compliance notification

Michael Cirillo: 17:52

through all my effort to park cars on the front line, but then put big blankets over them like coming soon photo

Paul J Daly: 18:01

that is solid. I'm taking notes. We're doing this. We're doing this reason

Kyle Mountsier: 18:06

Ad Set. This is a strategy. Unbelievable. I actually Okay, so back to like back to a little bit of reality back when. So this was five or six years back I had a buddy that he he was a freelance photographer, but like 90% of his work came from big box like retail stores like like department stores like JCPenney, Sears, things like that, right? Macy's and all his job with those people were was to photograph items for their sites. The typical timeline of just the photography started anywhere between 12 and 15 months before the item would even go live to the public. Whoa, like that's when he was photographing beginning to edit beginning to shoot different angles and shots and ways to merchandise like a $50 shoe at Macy's right right. And it's tough because in our industry like you're constantly dealing with seven new cars today to to adjust merchandising seven new cars tomorrow like there's no skew in the in the automotive industry. Right You don't get to like sell 50 of the same exact thing to your point, Paul. So it does it becomes a challenge when you think about the description, the photo, the merchandising, the everything around features, datasets, all of that. That's required to get just one vehicle live listing to 20 different websites. So you know, figuring out more things that can speed that up, make it more professional put it on a pedestal get it in front of more eyes make it more attractive is Something that I think our industry is definitely waking up to that that merchandising is obviously the first step in marketing. You know, that's, there's

Paul J Daly: 20:09

the say, right? Would you say you're enraged?

Michael Cirillo: 20:14

You know how many times I've written $3 signs on my notes, because I'm like, if the, if we shifted the psychology, I want to get your thoughts on this, Daniel, if we shifted our mindset, and we're like, Wait, by virtue of how leveraged I am on floorplan alone, to bring the vehicle here, and this thing is now costing me by the minute that it is not sitting in the slot. To then not merchandise it properly means that if it doesn't have a photo or a description to your point, then it's also not being sent out in product catalogs to Google and Facebook, or wherever and now, now on top of how leveraged I already am, I'm now diluting my ad dollars across just the catalog set number of inventories that can go out. And this poor guy over here is not able to get advertised. Now I've just added to my cost. And then I'm worried about

Kyle Mountsier: 21:09

for those that are not watching Daniel has praying hands right now with like, this this like series.

Daniel Able: 21:20

I'm really just praying that others get it because there's another part that we normally hit whenever we're talking to people is the the amount of time that you maybe have for labor and effort to get those and our product, not trying to really get deep into it. But our product allows you to to get them faster, because again, speed is time to market. So you can spend less money on someone to go out there and capture those photos, but also the amount of profits that you can pick up. And I never even thought about the floorplan part like yeah, there's your third dollar sign right there. Okay. Yes. So my prayer is that, please, dealers, you get with it, let's merchandise these things properly,

Michael Cirillo: 22:02

for sure. And you've seen that meme of Jesus standing in front of a wall of steering wheels. And it's like all the wheels Jesus took. praying hands on like Jesus take the wheel.

Paul J Daly: 22:20

Well, Daniel, you have been so much fun to learn a little bit about your Baywatch aspirations, and also to talk about your journey in the industry and just seeing your desire at heart to serve dealers to help them be better to help them be more efficient, help them serve the community and the customer better. Thank you so much for joining us today on Auto Collabs. Oh, go

Daniel Able: 22:38

Michael. I can't thank you guys enough. I really appreciate it. See you guys again soon.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:46

Here's the thing. One, it was that was just too much fun. So I and I enjoy a good laugh in a podcast. But I'll tell you, there were a bunch of things that stood out to me. But there was one in particular that I think is really important. And it's something that everybody can take is there was a moment there. I don't know if you caught it. But he said, and I was in the wrong. I was one of the people that didn't know better. I did have my head up out of the sand when I was in retail. And I think that, like especially I mean, I remember in retail like your your hands are in the dirt. You are grinding out the next day, the next week, the next month, just almost like fighting to stay in the fight, right? And the benefit of people that have either gone before or trying that new things is there are people out there and others can be that person that go, Hey, we might have had it wrong yesterday, actually. What does it look like to write that? Like where do I need to be looking to find the better information that might actually propel the business forward instead of just going like I'm in the fight? Everybody got away? Yeah, I know better. You know

Michael Cirillo: 24:03

what I like? Simple little factoids

Paul J Daly: 24:08

stood out I'm gonna get a trigger pad on my broadcaster because factoid,

Michael Cirillo: 24:12

but you gotta you have to get the C in the T press like fact toyed? Two things he said along these, these lines, small little small little nuggets that I that I took out that it's 2024 time recording. In there is still so much old school mentality baked into something as simple as merchandising, for example, when he says that and this might be the most compelling argument regarding Amazon and a car dealer website because you know, we've all heard the Amazon Oh, well, look at Amazon, would they ever do this? Why does your car do this?

Paul J Daly: 24:57

I do this because they don't have $100 billion in reserve. Yes, but also

Michael Cirillo: 25:01

somehow Amazon's made us comfortable buying products from a store that's called Fung Shui houses. I eat all that in there, like 3000 letters on Amazon. Are there any listings without photos? Yeah.

Paul J Daly: 25:14

So simple. Would you pay more for listing as better photos?

Michael Cirillo: 25:18

But also the simple mentality? And 2024? Is this? Yeah, but you know what you just never know. Just get it up, get the listing there, even if it's a coming soon photo, because you just never know. Actually, we do know because data, yeah, view segregation study on your website, look at how many VDP views you get on non merchandised listings versus those with merchandise listings. If there's any consistent display or do no do No,

Paul J Daly: 25:47

you know, in I think it's Pennsylvania, their slogan for the state lottery as you never know. That's it. That's their brand statement. You never know. Which is pretty brilliant. But that's not how you should manage your inventory. Like a you had a front row seat. Because your dad the company your dad started was it was a so called Flex then. No,

Michael Cirillo: 26:08

it was called Auto RV world.

Paul J Daly: 26:12

Auto like OTO? Or is that the Canadian version of auto?

Michael Cirillo: 26:15

No, not like auto the opioid Poppy grower, but

Paul J Daly: 26:22

you you had a front row seat to the transition from print to digital. Yeah. And there was like this mindset shift that happened then and now this is like an evolution of that mind set.

Michael Cirillo: 26:33

But that's it's 30 years later. See? And I'm still talking about getting a good photo. Oh, dude. And see now Now that's interesting bringing that into it because no dealer if they only had nine to 12 slots,

Paul J Daly: 26:47

they're not not putting a car picture in that thing.

Michael Cirillo: 26:50

Never. Who would never do it all of a sudden on the web. Do you think it's the simplicity of the way that has caused this? I don't know. Anyways, love talking about simple solutions. I also have a cool piece of content which should just be somebody walking onto a car lot with a big red drape and draping if car dealer websites were real life and just draping the curtain over the car and putting a coming soon for the price. Well listen, we hope you enjoyed this episode Auto Collabs we had a ton of fun with Daniel over at car cutter on behalf of Paul J. Daly. Kyle Mountsier myself, Michael Cirillo, thanks for joining us on Auto Collabs sign

Unknown: 27:34

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