Nissan Shocks, Leaders that Rock, High-Income Flock

Paul J Daly: 0:18

Oh man, I thought I hit the button. Did I hit the button? I hit the button. There you go. It's Tuesday, May 21. We're gonna roll with it. Man, my hat was backwards before I even started today. We have a lot to talk about Nissan shocking leaders that are amazing. And high income people really? What do they call it customers? Customers flocking to Walmart's gonna blow me what's your thoughts? I mean, that's kind of like it's not new news that Walmart has a fluent customers. But the reason why is very valid conversation for us in automotive. I think I know, I know, how's the how's this show to kind of hangover feels pretty good. Feels

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:55

great. On my end, I'll tell you this. I mean, you and I were texting this morning. It's still messages coming in, whether it be LinkedIn cannot keep text messages or emails about, like the acts and every message isn't just great job. It's this is how I was impacted by XYZ. Absolutely. And that's what's encouraging to me is like, oh, no, that there's it's more than just a feeling like the feeling. Yeah. enabled the action. Action.

Paul J Daly: 1:26

Right. And that's what we're saying. Yep. Go and do. Adrienne. Good morning, son. cylinders. Hey, what's up Dylan? Right in the car on the way to work or whatever school get it done.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:39

You know, yeah, I don't know if you saw this yesterday. But we we announced 2025 at the event last week. And then yesterday, soft announced it during the morning show, if you listen to the show. And then on our YouTube channel, we kind of put up like a graphic that was about 2025. And I think I don't know if we still have that graphic. If we do. You can see it. And on our YouTube channel. Someone was like, I love the 2025 logo. And I was looking at it and I was like, is that the 2025 logo? We thought we might be. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see how that goes. But I feel like we're we're already priming the pump. You know what I mean?

Paul J Daly: 2:24

It is? Yeah, I see what you're, uh huh. Okay, thanks, crowd, crowdsource logo Dev, we'll take that listed. If you said you've sent a message or mentioned, either of us on LinkedIn, or Facebook or whatever, and we haven't responded to it, it's just because we haven't gotten to it. We haven't gotten to it. But it's pretty amazing. Thank you again. The point is that we can hit the ground running Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and continue on this journey to be inspired about what we do to serve our communities, our customers, our people, watch them develop and grow by being the best operation best and most operationally sound practitioners in the industry. We can only do that if we understand what's going on around us. If we leverage all the information, we have the relationships we have to do that so you're in the right place. And today we're going to talk about a little bit of news to help give us some broad perspectives. Sometimes you need to be

Kyle Mountsier: 3:16

in my allied alright, what I'm doing, Paul, how's it doing?

Paul J Daly: 3:20

Well, Nissan's having a little fun. They're revisiting their US electric vehicle production strategy, putting a $500 million investment in a Mississippi factory on hold. company plans to adjust its Evie lineup and production schedule to better align with customer demand. As a result, they're halting production plans for its next gen Evie sedans delaying this investment in Mississippi in a memo to suppliers dated May 17. Nissan wrote please stop all development activities related to the Evie sedan project until further notice in order to enhance product competitiveness. We can introduce a fifth Evie model at the Canton plant, which is a compact crossover named the Pz L one, come on with the names already people disease and numbers and all that. Now the plan is to have two crossover models that will precede evey sedans. So they were launching couple Evie sedans they're saying actually it's going to be two Evie crossovers now. A Jeremy Pepin, Nissan America's chairperson said What matters is making sure that we launched the vehicles that the customer wants at the time the customer wants it. That sounds like pretty sound business advice.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:31

Can I get snaps for that on a Tuesday morning? Well, first of all, going into the Eevee market with an SUV makes a ton of sense because that's where the most people are going in the going in trucks model Y right? model Y can competing with the thing that everybody's looking for is obviously the clear and easy route to go. But this is like the dominoes just keep falling. It's almost weekly now it's like ah I remember that one time boss when we were like does go all in skirt, you know, head back to the drawing board. This is just another domino falling in the race to quote what the customer wants. You know, we were on stage with Mike Stanton last week. And Mike is has constantly and I got to interview him in a podcast constantly said hey look, the dealers, industry partners OEMs nobody is against heading toward EVs or hybrids or whatever next drive train is out there or powertrain is out there. But what everybody does want is what the customer wants and what the customer is asking for and they'll tell the general pop the general pop will tell the manufacturers when they want it and how they want it. And so watching manufacturers start to take that approach back means there's a good chance they were listening to consumer and they're probably listening to their dealers to speaking

Paul J Daly: 6:00

of listening segue. This week, two large dealership groups were recognized with a prestigious award for their love this outstanding performance and leadership. As the Ziggler Auto Group and Hendrick automotive group were selected for glass doors and inaugural list of best led companies. I'm so excited that dealers are showing up high on this list. It's the first time they've ever released it the 50 businesses on the 2024 lists were chosen based on the factors of CEO approval, senior management ratings and leadership sentiment. Hendrick ranked 13th and Ziggler ranked 30th. On the list, Ziegler group had given us a 4.7 star rating on Glassdoor that's not easy to do on Glassdoor. I think 96% is tough to do, anywhere, anywhere, anything, right and on Glassdoor is like Oh, where could anonymous employees tell it they want you think that could go sideways note 96% of them said we love this organization and the leadership 96% said they would recommend working at the company to a friend Aaron Ziggler. Their CEO said We are fortunate to have a good group of strong leaders who are innovative and hardworking. We happen to be good friends with Sam dark, the CEO of the company, a follow him on LinkedIn. He's always talking about leadership and serving his people. The Hendrick Auto Group employs nearly 11,000 employees has a 4.3 star rating on Glassdoor. It's really great. With 84% people recommending the company, Christian Sutherland, one Glassdoor CEO said the award showcases those shining examples of companies where senior leadership is putting work life and people first thing Yes, that's car dealerships, folks. That's it. I just want to come out before ASOTU CON, I'm just

Kyle Mountsier: 7:55

gonna like the fact that Sam dark, you know, like you listen to their podcast, it's not about how to sell a car. It's how to be a better person. Right? And you see that across zoo Automotive Group, and then Hendrick Automotive Group. I'm just calling it, Ryan ever since that cat is so good at getting reviews everywhere. He's probably got a review strategy for Glassdoor as well and they just activating their employees in the right way. But in order to activate your employees in the right way, they have to love working for you. Oh, or you're not trying to activate them at all. That's right, or you're not trying to activate them. The only way they love working with you is if you put dinging people first.

Paul J Daly: 8:34

That's right. That's right. Speaking at one I don't know I was gonna say people first not really, I don't know what as well. I went to Walmart last night, by the way. I went in and everybody I went in and everything. And as I was driving, I was like, you know, we really got to figure out this online order pickup thing. Actually, I needed pool chlorine for my saltwater pool because we had a little bit of algae issue. But Walmart will result in their

Kyle Mountsier: 8:57

financial results that shows a significant rise in purchases from high income shoppers, contributing to the retail giant sales gains in the first quarter of 2024. CFO John David Rainey reported higher engagement across all income cohorts, with upper income households contributing to the most sales gains. Basically, they, they look at their customers in three category buckets under $50,000 of income 50 to 100, and then above 100. And what's interesting is each of those categories make up about a third of their customer base. John Ferner, Walmart's us CEO highlighted the focus on value flexibility and convenience as key factors appealing across all income segments. They, they're not specifically targeting wealthier shoppers, but providing a value that appeals to a broad spectrum of stoppers. They've launched recently a private label line, better goods, higher quality stuff, and then even some Chef inspired food at affordable prices. So Walmart going after the Super center for all peoples? Yeah, actually

Paul J Daly: 10:05

I think better goods is the name of the line. One of the things that if you click on the morning brew article, it's worth a read, I think if you're in retail talks about the value of convenience, and how that the ease of shopping specifically when it comes to services delivered at your home, not having to inconvenience yourself and waste your time is why they believe they are attracting the higher level of income earners. Because the time over money factor, I think it's something we all can pay attention to in the stores. We talked about it it's not it's not a secret, right, like people value their time, right it people say it all the time. It's an adage, it's a whatever, what do they call those things. But reality, like the people who focus on that, the consumers notice, and especially the higher the higher level income you get, likely, the more they noticed, and the more they care. One

Kyle Mountsier: 10:55

thing that's interesting that, you know, doesn't get a lot of publicity, but they they seep their way into every point of culture is they have very similar similar value propositions of Amazon actually, from like, they're the type of shopping you can get done the range of variety of products online, as well as shipping pickup and delivery. You know, things that even especially like on the grocery side of things, Amazon has not perspective perfected but you get with similar membership levels at Walmart. And so when you look at that, plus the in store shopping experience, plus the wide range of of products across food and common household goods and clothing, you get a competitor that's in the market, both in the E commerce and in the in store shopping sides of stuff, right or

Paul J Daly: 11:47

take a comments people work at Walmart to people who work at Walmart. Let me tell you about my experience. Last night I walked in. The carts were all over the place and I needed somebody to sit somewhere to sit my little four year old we went in, grab what we need really quick. We needed pool chlorine, and it was strategically placed with all the pool stuff, which was right next close to the front. They know everyone's buying pull stuff right now in upstate New York, right? Because it just got above like 42 degrees out here. So we're getting in the polls. Now, but but when I went to check out they have mostly self service checkout lanes, now they have the little community one where you can get in the line and you go through, they have the two people standing there. And then they have a lot of lanes, which is just like a standard lane. Only like 4% of the green lights that show you the lane is open. We're working but they were people in like 70% of the lanes it was just kind of operationally a mess. Yeah, you know, and explain that. It's like, man, it's like that. That's my perception going in. And it's like few just a few little

Kyle Mountsier: 12:45

like carrying things and totally changed which made

Paul J Daly: 12:48

me not want to go in there again. But they were open and they did have full coloring so much

Kyle Mountsier: 12:52

higher. Publix, you know.

Paul J Daly: 12:56

I think you'll probably just buy. Yeah. We're just having fun today. Let me think a little bit more broadly about what you do, why you do it, how you treat the people you're working with how to treat the people you're serving. Think about those things and go do something

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