Mind The Innovation Gap with Colby Joyner | 2024 NADA Show

Kyle Mountsier: 0:06

My good friend the bald bald. Why Colby Joyner

‍Unknown: 0:10

forgot beautiful.

Paul J Daly: 0:11

Oh, that was that was a better beginning and the other one that was way better than the other one. Here's

Kyle Mountsier: 0:16

how you doing man,

Colby Joyner: 0:17

man, I'm blessed. That's all that's the best way I can say it. I'm blessed with

Paul J Daly: 0:21

that when you when I've seen you like two or three times when you come up, you just smile at me like everything's good. Life's good.

Colby Joyner: 0:29

No complaints.

Paul J Daly: 0:30

That's awesome. So we're here we're Drew, because I bet you have some points when it comes to technology and marketing.

Colby Joyner: 0:37

I mean, yes. Are we supposed to talk that talk about that at NADA? Or is that like afterwards in a little roundtable? I

Paul J Daly: 0:44

think one of the problems is we don't talk about it enough at NAB NADA.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:48

Yeah, exactly what so Okay, so what's the what's the thing? What's your why you why you? Were so chill. Why are you grumpy? Honestly,

Colby Joyner: 0:59

like that biggest beef that I have is the need to have 18 Different software platforms to go and inspect this and look at this and call out here and text out of here and do a video out of there. And why can't we just have one thing I log in, and it just works. And I can report out of it. And it all talks to each other? It's fine. That would just make my life 10 times easier, just so much easier. Sure, instead of living in what I

Kyle Mountsier: 1:24

mean, you know, all the players in the arena, like what do you think the realistic timeline of having something that, you know, we've got some players that are kind of starting to claim that but what do you think the realistic timeline is for our industry to be able to have? Probably not just one, but two or three places that that dealers can go based on their processes to make something like that happen?

Colby Joyner: 1:46

That works? Yeah. 10 years?

Kyle Mountsier: 1:49

Wow.

Colby Joyner: 1:50

That's really just just, it's 10 years.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:52

So what's the blocker?

Colby Joyner: 1:54

So think about it this way, like what I've been noticing around is most of the demos that we've done, because I've we have a lot of people from the group here, most of the demos that we've done, they've talked a lot about service. When did service become that big tech side player of like trying to reach out right and trying to do all this? That was in 2020? Yeah, it's 2024. And now we're seeing products that have this service focus. And that's just a little small piece, that'll piece How long is it going to take to get two or three or four other big players that have an all encompassed system that's like, hey, here you go. You don't have to have multiple logins, you log into one place and you have whatever tabs based on your, your job level or your title or whatever, it's going to be 10 years, I would say at least in real estate. It's either that or we're gonna see a big influx of out of automotive companies come into automotive. Seeing that the there's a gap there.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:50

I think that's a real that's a real truth. Like I think that come this time next year. NADA, we're not just going to see new entrants into into into the auto space like new technology companies. We're probably going to be walking around going, huh. I didn't know they served auto right. I think we're gonna see that like we did in the next show this year. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be a wild proposition like, but watch, watch Salesforce, and HubSpot. And I mean, tealium is already

Colby Joyner: 3:19

I was just gonna mention to Liam, like, that's one of the things I know that we're gonna go look at. But the main purpose is they were doing this outside. They saw the gap here, they came in here and now are doing it. So it's not everybody here is trying to build and catch up and say, Hey, this is something we want to do. They were like, Okay, we did it. And we can come over here. So,

Kyle Mountsier: 3:39

so minding the gap, right? Because there's a gap in what desired state is, and what's current state is, where is your focus on kind of minding that gap in technology and people in process.

Colby Joyner: 3:51

In reality, it's a reporting thing. And I know like I'm a marketing guy, reports are live and die by the reports, but it's amalgamating all the data, bringing it all in and being able to run from the data point as your single source, not from each individual thing of how this is going. Because if you have the ability to look at data, like you're reading a book, then it tells you where you need to go focus and change the process. So if you bring all the data and you have this one dashboard, this one, like I live in spreadsheet, hell right now because of that, but if, if you bring it all in one place, it's easy to just say, okay, that's the spot, we need to focus on this, you make that adjustment. That's the easiest way to mind.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:32

That's a great first step is like how do we get all of the data at least coming into the same spot so that we can say, all right, this is what's happening wholesale level at my organization, I can make decisions in these individual platforms. Based on this aggregated data seems like

Paul J Daly: 4:49

a middle step, middle target step. Yep. Can we have everything in one place in the same format? Yeah, well, the

Colby Joyner: 4:54

other thing is to like when you're looking at the data, like there's we're putting some stuff together internally at the group is a Understanding benchmarks in the industry, but then also having the understanding that just because there are benchmarks in the industry doesn't mean that's our

Paul J Daly: 5:07

benchmark that should be an acceptable bench. Yeah,

Colby Joyner: 5:09

it's a whatever art like now that we know what a general benchmark is, what do we want it to be? We want to be higher or lower. I mean, depending on what type of OEM we are, how many stores we have, how much money we're spending, like, what do we want it to be? And then we target it there. We don't have to be like every other group, because then we'll be like every other.

Paul J Daly: 5:26

How do you go about approaching that though, figuring out what it is that that should be your benchmark.

Colby Joyner: 5:32

Data, I mean, it like, and looking at and trying to create data points or KPIs that don't exist, that somebody hadn't really thought about, you know, like, What's this and this and divide it, divide it by this and how many of this and you get this new KPI and then there you run that KPI and if it looks like it's running, well, then you work it backwards. And then you then can figure out what the other benchmarks are on the on the things that everybody else may be higher or lower.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:58

Yeah, I think half of like reporting to me is just always measuring the same thing the same way. Right. And even if you're only doing hyper locally at the dealership, or or dealer group level, like if you have a good understanding of what your benchmark is that you can measure it against yourself, year over year, month, over month, week, over week, day, every day, then you can make trajectory changes based on your personal best benchmark. And so I think that that is a great opportunity. Probably what are you hopeful for in 2024? For our industry? It's a big question. I know, give me a deep breath here.

Colby Joyner: 6:33

So I will tell you this. We have we've been doing leadership and stuff in training within the organization. And what we decided 2024 was was the year of clarity. Right? I'm hoping for clarity. I don't want a you know, a grayed out this is kind of what it is. Or it kind of looks like this, or yeah, we can do that. Or I want clarity. Just hit it, you know, hit me straight. This is what it is. This is how it needs to be. The there's a saying kindness is clarity, right? So just be clear, clear on your expectations clear on your abilities, your bandwidth. If you're clear on all of that everybody's on the same page. And then you start to work together better.

Paul J Daly: 7:14

It sounds like organizational health, being the most important thing, it doesn't matter what data or technology,

Colby Joyner: 7:19

you can have star players on a on a team, but if they fight in the locker room, or if they don't understand the plays in the same way, you know, they haven't repeatedly practice and practice and practice the same way every single time. It's

Paul J Daly: 7:33

gonna go to crap. I think at the end of NFL season, there are quite a few people who understand the reality of that and a real quick way.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:40

I know you're I will just give you a little just give you a little cry. Then we just go a little left there. Yeah, it was a little sideways. Yeah. Well call me. Thanks for spending a little bit of time with us. Always excited to see what you're doing. I can't wait to hear what you figured out on the data side.

Unknown: 7:54

And yeah, we'll probably talk to you soon. It'll be fun. I always share so Stefan, appreciate it. Appreciate it.

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