Ringing the Bell with Dan Moore

Michael Cirillo: 0:00How many people do you know?Unknown: 0:08

This is auto collabs

Michael Cirillo: 0:10

that have rung the bell, not once. Maybe not twice, but a third time

Kyle Mountsier: 0:16

on Well, I can think of a lot of boxers that have done that. We could go with Ali, we could go with Tyson, if you want to get really technical about ringing the bell, like lots of lots of the UFC fighters, how many you want to you want to go Google it? Or what do you think?

Michael Cirillo: 0:32

Yeah, well, I don't know. We could Google it. But then I immediately think of our guests today, Dan Moore from Oh,

Paul Daly: 0:39

that was my first thought.

Michael Cirillo: 0:40

That was your first thought how many people did it? Yeah, I mean, cuz he, he's at the point now, where he's rung the bell, so many times that it's like, I don't even know if he even bothers like, telling his family that it's happening anymore. It's just like,

Paul Daly: 0:54

you know, it's like honey our paychecks coming from somebody else now.

Michael Cirillo: 0:57

Yeah, exactly.

Paul Daly: 0:58

Our benefits plan changes again. Oh, yeah. Don't worry about it. I got it. Don't worry, I got it. Well, what of course Michael means is that he's brought successfully led Vistadash through several acquisitions. And Dan is always one of those people. That's just a pleasure to be around. And I think that probably has something to do with his business success. It's got a smile on his face. He's the easiest person to talk to. And the second you start talking about any details, you'll realize that Dan, is somebody who wants to talk about the truth, right? He's not interested in in like, meandering around the topic. He's not interested in throwing up, you know, a buzzword to move the conversation along. He's like, whoa, wait, what you said right there. I don't think that's accurate. Right. But he doesn't in this really friendly kind of way. Do we

Michael Cirillo: 1:45

will get to your prepared talking points in a minute. But first.

Paul Daly: 1:48

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. You know,

Kyle Mountsier: 1:51

I always think of Dan in I was at a conference with him one time, and we're just having dinner. And I think of him as like this, like extremely incredible businessman, but an incredible family man as well. And so I just love having a conversation with him because I I know the root of his heart and his heart for his family and the way he cares for his children. And like the way he he wants, like he wants people to succeed, whether you're in his family or outside of his family, he is genuinely for people. And that comes across in everything that he does. And probably the reason why he's now seen a couple acquisitions of Vistadash under his watch so well, we hope that you thoroughly enjoy our conversation with Dan Moore of Vistadash.

Paul Daly: 2:45

Dan Moore we are already laughing because I don't think the four of us can get together without laughing thank you so much for giving us some of your time on Auto Collabs today. And we hope to get you in as much trouble as possible.

Dan Moore: 2:56

Well, you know, that won't take long. And we already were in trouble before you hit the record button.

Paul Daly: 3:02

You only can get in trouble if you hit the record button. So now that troublemaking time starts, you are in the middle of what I would consider like a bit of a new lease on life with Vistadash, you've gone through some seasons, there have been some acquisitions. But give us a little bit, give us a little insight into your life because you're an entrepreneur, you're tech entrepreneur, and you lead a company that's been through several transitions, like what's your life looking like these days?

Dan Moore: 3:27

It's great.

Paul Daly: 3:29

It's great. This podcast. Thanks for spending some time with us today on Auto Collabs. Mike, I'm gonna take

Dan Moore: 3:38

my time it's done. Thanks for having me on. I said it wouldn't take long to get in trouble. No, I mean, all seriously, it's, again, seasons are fun, right? You start out you know, super proud of just taking Brian Pasch's vision of what he started with ROI bot that then became Vistadash, and really kind of running with it, you know, as someone that kind of, you know, create something, to hand it off to someone and say, Hey, go run. That's, that's a hard challenge in and of itself. So just starting there. And now going through and we're now on our being acquired for the second time. It's been a great journey. A lot of lessons learned a lot of do's and don'ts. But really, right now, you know, this relationship with Dealerbuilt coming into this being right next to a DMS. I mean, you guys have known me for a long time. I love data. It's like a big box of Legos. So being able to kind of peel those layers back and look at all the possibilities is really really exciting. Also to just being partner with such a great equity firm like Parker Gale, and having this you know, backing of go hey, how fast can you go? What can you do? Well, I think you guys are starting to see that. We just announced our strategic relationship with NADA we've got James Klaus on board we've got Ken ennoblement onboard, so you're already seeing signs of what's coming. And the fun work that's about to happen.

Paul Daly: 5:07

And someone's saying, can imagine how fast can you go? Dan's like watch this? Yeah. The magic words of a wait to hear my whole life.

Dan Moore: 5:17

Like, I'm sorry, did you just take just looking at the cage like, oh? Yeah, it's always a thing. Be careful what you ask for.

Paul Daly: 5:29

So, all right, so does your regular life. Like you didn't move anything for this?

Dan Moore: 5:35

Did you? Know Scottsdale?

Paul Daly: 5:37

Yep. Is it hot in Scottsdale? I'm just kidding.

Dan Moore: 5:40

Well, it's actually hotter in California. Yeah, it's quick. It will go back. But no, it's not. It's hotter in California right now.

Paul Daly: 5:47

That was a joke. That was a joke. Michael has a very insightful question. I'm sorry. So no joke. The joke is on the show for everyone who's listening is that Michael has a very big tendency to when he doesn't want to ask a question. He will just ask Kyle or me to ask a question. And I thought Dan Moore was the right guests. Like we're gonna get we're already sideways on this podcast. But I thought that was the perfect the perfect time to give Michael a little of his own medicine.

Michael Cirillo: 6:18

So you know, I got questions for days, though. Yeah. Question.

Dan Moore: 6:23

I got answers for days. That's why I said you guys still only booked this 20 minutes. Good luck.

Michael Cirillo: 6:27

Give me an inside look into a merger and acquisition because I think people see you know, from the outside, we're like, ring, he rang the bell and he's rung the bell so many times, what are the nuances of like, new new acquisition moving, you know, migrating into a new company? Or their new workflows, or, or, for the most part, is it just like, No, you keep doing what you're doing and operating that way? We're gonna we're gonna stay over here and or do you have to really sit down and say, here's the lanes that we're all in? What does that look like?

Dan Moore: 6:58

It looks like all of those things. Because again, it's everybody thinks it's easy. Right? Which seems

Paul Daly: 7:06

to be nice, right?

Dan Moore: 7:09

Oh, you're gonna retire? Yeah, no, I'm still in the game kids. So obviously, there's more to the puzzle, right? Kids? Listen, I feel old man. I'm starting to feel old. I mean, we use Twitter back in the day when it was cool. I mean, that's certainly

Paul Daly: 7:25

that just shows you that Twitter's actually cool again.

Dan Moore: 7:28

No, no, it's coming back. It's making a comeback.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:32

It's that cyclical thing?

Michael Cirillo: 7:34

The founders of

Kyle Mountsier: 7:36

Twitter back again, right?

Dan Moore: 7:38

Yeah, Facebook might show up. Who knows? Sorry, Bob. Love you. Shots fired all day long. twice on Tuesday. It is Tuesday. It's Wednesday.

Paul Daly: 7:50

Okay. Must be nice. m&a. Must be nice. Yeah. But

Dan Moore: 7:55

no, but getting into urea. So let me give you some some ways. Everything is going to be different based on who, where you're going, Are you going into a company and again, these are things I've seen from being at Cox Automotive to going through my own journey with the seasons, there is the point of being acquired and you're the shiny new gem or, or something. So then that lane will be like, Hey, do what you do keep going. There might be the point of acquisition where you come in, and you're kind of like, more of being dictated how things are going to go and you're going to be forced to conform. So it really depends. So if you're going through this or your, your goal is to get into this situation, I would give you some caution and some advice, a think about why you're doing it and what you're doing it for. If you're just looking for the exit, cashing out and running. It's not going to it doesn't play that way. Everybody that's going to go ahead and put money in the game is going to especially if you're a founder, something that wants to retain you, or hold you in. So remember your works not done. It's not as glorious going in and going out at times. Again, sometimes these things are strategic. And again, it's just kind of how you navigate and what your endgame is. My endgame has always been I see Vista for what it is. And I think we're just getting started. There's so much more that we can do. I love this product. I love the team. So I'm still in it for the love of the game.

Paul Daly: 9:23

But when you say you see Vista for what it is, what is it?

Dan Moore: 9:28

It is going to be probably the biggest business intelligence platform in automotive. I get my way, because there is a way to make it agnostic. Again, everybody's talked a good game about truly being open ended and connecting and wanting to connect. That has been our premise all along, standardize and connect to provide dealers a single source of truth.

Paul Daly: 9:49

And you see it as fulfilling that for real for real for yes. 100% What's the timeline?

Dan Moore: 9:55

I think we'll have an MVP by NADA.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:58

Oh, wow. Oh, All right. Okay. He said, Remember that run fast thing?

Paul Daly: 10:04

Yeah, Kyle, that's not 2030 Last time I checked.

Dan Moore: 10:09

Well, I'm gonna say I'm not saying it's me fully big guys. I'm saying well,

Kyle Mountsier: 10:12

but MVP, yeah. So I mean, obviously, a strategic play is getting closer to the DMS. And I think that I don't care what technology platform that you're working with right now is, like, I feel like that's the, that's kind of the, that's the, the, the pot at the end of the rainbow, let's call it like, if you if you find it, if you get close as closest to the DMS, whether you are a website or or data or you know, Dr or doesn't matter, it's like you're there if you're tied in that. So what is that going to accomplish for you in creating this level of like BI? But yeah,

Dan Moore: 10:52

yeah, the taste factor is this like attribution's cute. But at the end of the day, if if a dealer is really running their business, and in many challenges that hit the business, you want to know what levers to pull. So imagine this if you would, if you had an indicator that said, your master tech right now only has three hours worth of work. That's a red flag. Right? What's the lever? I'm gonna go pull on marketing, I'm gonna do some kind of transmission special. I'm gonna pull hard, right? But no one has the insights or the levers right now. They're guessing we're still guessing. Even attribution attribution is just keeping score. Hey, good job. I sold Paul a car. He'd hit these touch points. Yay, me. But we're not asking the question. How many Kyle's did you lose? That's not keeping score that's watching game tape. Yeah, yeah. I like that.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:43

So profile, and it's watching game film, and then creating and then creating the playbook for for the next day, the next week, the next month. And I think that what you're saying is like, hey, what we've been doing is we've either only been watching game film, or only been like reporting the score on ESPN the next day, but like the turn to action is much, much more based on gut feelings than real insights.

Dan Moore: 12:11

Right? If we're all being honest, I think we've been keeping score. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Nobody's watching the game tape.

Michael Cirillo: 12:19

Well, and what what it sounds like you're trying to do with more direct integration is creating game tape that you can watch while you're actively playing the game. Right? It's like you're playing Madden Football, where you're actually seeing your player in real time. So you're getting the gameplay and the replay and, and real time, all at the same time.

Dan Moore: 12:45

100%. And instead of having to go dig for it, it's in your face. Like imagine sitting in the dealership with a true, a true Air Traffic Control, right, you're seeing a screen and it's telling you from variable to fix to accounting? What do you need to be paying attention to? What are the red flags going on in your business right now?

Kyle Mountsier: 13:05

Yeah, what does it take to because you know, at some level, there's, there's the human intelligence piece of, of this that takes like those insights to action, right? There's always a coach, watching game film, taking insights to action. What's the like? What's the gap that technology can fill? From insights to action, right? To say, like, yep, that's a lever, you can go pull, you know, or here's four levers that you can pull test accordingly, or something like, do you think that technology can fill that gap as well?

Dan Moore: 13:39

I think technology can assist. I think that's the part where, just like everything that we're facing today, when we talk about movies and everything, we lose sight of the common thread to your point, which is the human piece, I don't see how you get past not having human interaction, because, again, a business owner runs the business. Yes, we can use machine learning, we can use some If This Then programming, if we really get to a scale of of mass data, then you could add an element of AI. But But if we're just being honest, we've got to be able to present the flags at first get those reads? Right. Use the human intelligence to then add those other layers. So you're talking I mean, you are talking time in that one. And that could be you know, a couple years could be five years could be 10 years. I don't know yet. But we're going down this path. I see it for what it is. And the question just becomes if you get enough synergies and enough partners that truly want to open up the gateways, we can probably get there faster. But we'll see how that goes.

Michael Cirillo: 14:39

This is where I think like as an industry or as providers, we've done a disservice over the years because we've made there's been so much talk about big data, artificial intelligence machine learning. Yeah, nobody's really offering true AI, like the amount of data that like to your point like you You said once we get a certain level of data, then we can start exploring maybe then, is the key takeaway for me. We're not there yet. And now that we are when really you said it, it's we have simple programmatic intelligence If This Then That. And now we're all mistaken. And we think, but how come? How come there's no sentient being vendor in automotive? Because they've been saying, for so long? No, it actually just takes time. We're not there yet.

Dan Moore: 15:31

No. And again, the only ones that really aren't capable of that threshold, and I guess I don't even I mean, there's still so much data. Because if you look at what Google crunches, per like, millisecond, a Cox, automotive a cars.com, somebody of that site is the closest one to AI that you could possibly get to just in the sheer amount of data volume. Other companies that are touting it, there's just not enough volume. So the problem becomes, and if you've listened to any TED talks on AI, which was there, some of them have been really been fascinating, in the sense of, hey, the problem is, even Amazon had this, they, they used it for looking for programmers. Okay, so they use AI to run the program to run through resumes. And the unfortunate side is it, it became very objective, because it learns from a human in a small box, so it started kicking applicants out of it, right. So, again, when I hear AI I cringe, because I'm like, okay, either a you've, you don't have enough throughput, you're using human intelligence, you're creating bad behaviors, because you're not paying attention to what is really learning. So there is an art to AI and there's a there's a small group that have really, really understand it for what it is, and run it at the at the velocity that it has to run it. So therein lies the challenge. I think we just get I think that

Kyle Mountsier: 16:51

I think that like, like, you know, I think that what we can achieve with scale from a data perspective is understanding trends, right. And I think if we can learn from trends as an industry to understand shopper behavior, and then iterate off of that, to to give these like, potential levers, I think that that's a better way to think about the level of data that you may have access to, as you get closer to the DMS or you're implementing on all these dealer websites is like, Okay, here's mass data trends, I think you already do some of that, but you're pressing into that more, here's the mass data trends. Here's the insights that we typically see from that, especially, maybe there's a regionality or a district level. And now we can make some we can gain some like insights to say, Okay, there's the game film, let's watch that. Now, here's the levers that we've seen pulled that impact, you know, the user experience or the, or the, or the employee experience, or the amount of traffic. And if we can have those few levers that we can quickly spit out and start to run tests, one of one of the things that I'm really interested in, you know, Have you have you, like, baked into this idea of like, we have to not just, we not just have to pull levers, but we also have to run tests at scale? Yeah. Is there a move to like, how do we figure out like, when tests are being run, that, you know, like, I think simply is, you know, Google Analytics, you know, created this note, take, you know, there's no rotation system a long time ago, and some people use it. Well, some others don't. But, you know, what, what are you doing to bake in this, like testing native into the ecosystem of dealer marketing?

Dan Moore: 18:33

Yeah, I think I mean, we've been playing around with that for quite some time using again, you can use event tracking, because you can look at if you properly tag out a site, look at CTAs, you can see workflows, you can see where customers, what pages they come in, if you look at journey flow, obviously that helps you understand it. I think, you know, again, as, as a true industry, we got to get some more AB testing, which is what you're alluding to, to is like, Hey, I'm gonna run this path and this path. Those capabilities exist, the reality to it is not many are doing it. And just the level of wanting the desire of actually truly testing and running side by side, you got to have the patience and appetite for that. Not everybody does. That's part of the challenge we we have in the industry. I think the other piece, too, is is that when we look at some of these facets, we've got to just get past this buzzword mentality too. I mean, you look we've had AI Big Data. OTT. Amazon, like you think about all these different things. At the end of the day, it's either just a channel, it's a marketing, it's not a it's not a thing, it is a tactic. So to your point, Kyle is we're going to take the tactics and truly flush them out for what they are and then test them accordingly. How did these campaigns really perform? And we have to start measuring things on an apples to apples comparison because you guys see this all the day you everybody's measuring on different things. So I can be doing a Google paid search ad and we could have of CARS.com doing this and you know, somebody's doing some Amazon OTT. And you cannot put them in a parallel there, they're all over the place, you can't tell, if you looked at those three campaigns side by side, who really performed better than the other. So I think that's the other piece to this just really critical to standardization as an industry is getting on the same page and making sure that we have an apples to apples line that we can measure with so that we can get to your point, the testing, you can't test if you're not even standing up.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:31

And but this is where I think I mean, just to like, you know, to strengthen your point there, this is where I think attribution is a broken model to marketing, right. And our good friend, Bob Lanham, who we talked about initially, is like, you know, you cannot if you try and go at attribution as a marketing efficiency, you're it's always going to break because attribution is not linear. And so I think, you know, modeling off of business outcomes, I really appreciate that you started with that and saying, Hey, look, the business outcomes, do we have ours? Do we have car deals? And do we have parts sold? Right? Do we have those three things in our business outcomes happening? And as I pull levers, what happens to those business outcomes and if you can, levers to business outcomes, that's, that's the holy grail for me because then you create a mix that says, hey, here's my mix. Now I pulled a lever, my mix there change to x business outcome, all the sudden, then we don't worry about attribution, because it's not channel specific. It's mixed specific. And that's,

Dan Moore: 21:35

that's the word right there. And that's where Bob and I swim all day long. The unicorn to marketing is mix. When dealers realize that they are a fingerprint. Stop worrying about what Johnny ABC motors is doing down the street, you are your own fingerprint, you are unique. Yes, stop. And this is the dangerous game to that you brought up I want to go back on as the comparison game what's what's going on in the region in the market and everything else? It's a dangerous game. Several people in the analytics space have pull that data all the time. Let me compare you to the region to the market to this to that it's dangerous, because your strategy is your strategy. Your strength is your strength. Yeah, because

Kyle Mountsier: 22:14

that guy's a one price dealer. And that guy's a negotiate like crazy crack, guys, you know, and this person runs does you know, lifetime warranties. And this you

Unknown: 22:24

sell you sell to the whole country they sell on their DMA. Exactly. So we got to just cut the noise and be honest, what is it you are doing? What is the right mix? Right, that's one piece. And then the other piece that I think kind of supersedes, attribution is, where's the friction? Because when you think about what you have going, it's three prongs, you have, you have the product, right, which is the vehicle or the vehicle maintenance or parts, then you have the marketing, right, the awareness, the channels in which you operate your marketing, and then you have the people in the process. Okay, so again, like I said, If Paul bought the car, and we know Paul bought a Ford F 150. And he, you know, he went here, here, you're here. Well, the problem is, is that what you don't know is you lost 10 Kyle's because somewhere between the marketing message and it landing on your website, it didn't resonate, and you lost that customer, or, Hey, it went all the way through, you had the product, you have the marketing, but your people in the process failed. Yep. But you don't know that. I want to know that because that's more important than the fact I already know I sold. Paul a car already know I want great.

Kyle Mountsier: 23:31

Yep, got that one tally Mark,

Dan Moore: 23:34

I want the 10 tallies, I'm missing, I want to I want to constantly understand because I think

Kyle Mountsier: 23:39

what everybody is like save a deal for marketing. 100%, or just being honest,

Dan Moore: 23:43

like, we already know that every dealership has a sports car, it's already primed, ready to go. Like it is it's good. The reality to it is is what we need to do as an industry is help the dealer set themselves up for the track that they're going to race on, which means the environment that the challenges that they face, and then fine tune it for optimal performance by making subtle tweaks to the things that that impact those different chains. And then the end result is a highly functional, efficient race car running down the track.

Paul Daly: 24:11

One of the things that stands in the way of this and it always has, I mean, like even when, you know talking to me about like brand marketing versus sales marketing, is the fact that what you're suggesting takes a little bit of work, be a little bit of time, right? And just on those two factors alone, right, it's easy to lean when you have a lot of people saying let me give you something that you can deploy right now. Right, right. Although it's it's not it's it's a history lesson. More than it is an indicator, right? Like to use a sports metaphor. You could have a running back and say, well, he's not getting enough yards per carry. But what you're not looking at is like the left tackle is missing all his blocks, right? And if that guy was blocking the guy who was supposed to that would affect the running I'm so what is, you know,

Dan Moore: 25:02

you're spot on there because it's easier to keep score than it is to be honest to watch the game tape and see what you're doing right or

Paul Daly: 25:08

wrong. Yeah, it's like, yeah, I mean there's metaphors galore. Right. Yeah, even America's your worst enemy, you can watch your weight. Right? But that doesn't mean you're healthy. Right? Being healthy takes a plan understanding your own biology, right, eating the right things doing the right combination of exercise

Kyle Mountsier: 25:25

on this, I don't know to Auto Collabs. Yeah, full of metaphors like

Michael Cirillo: 25:31

this is a perfect metaphor, because it's, it's, it presents itself as the biggest vulnerability in automotive, like we have these conversations. And guaranteed there, there will be some listening or watching who go home and set a weight a weight loss goal, I want to lose 50 pounds. No, dude, you need to create your eating plan, you need to create your exercise plan you need to and they're not looking at that. And so it is a history lesson. But it's also the most infuriating history lesson because it's the one that on mass we refuse to learn from. You said something, Paul, and Dan, you and I have had a ton of conversations about just the reality of what it actually takes to go from zero to one. Yep. And the reality is, if dealers were to, or anybody for that matter, were to take inventory on that time that they are spending anyways. They might realize how inefficient the actions they take on a day to day basis are, they're complaining too much about vendor a or they're complaining too much about Customer B, or whatever it might be? And they're not taking that hard inward look at their their organization and saying, Am I even the right person for this job, let alone complaining about Susan or Tim, who's in that job? And how inefficient they are? I mean, time is. And then if you cross referenced organizations that we know are crushing it, I mean, CMA first one that comes to my top of my mind Liza's organization. Look at how much they invest in watching the game play in inspecting what they expect in empowering their people in coaching and mentoring and doing all of that, like they have finances, they have health classes for crying out loud for their people. And I think that's just a byproduct of everything that you're talking about. Dan, can you give us those some insights? Like how do we alleviate? How do we both put the pressure on to make the most of the time we spend in the business, but also alleviate the pressure of feeling like we don't have the time?

Dan Moore: 27:40

Well, I mean, I'll tell you the first and easiest one, evaluate your reports. I mean, at the end of the day, we're analysis by paralysis. And if you go into any dealership, they have stacks, reports sitting on their desk, they're tasking their teams with generating all these reports. The question is, is what point do you take inventory and say, Does this report move my business? Yes or no? What decisions Am I making on this? Yes or no? Right? And when you start kicking the can on some of these reports that are meaningless. And you look at the time and you ask your employees, honestly, how much time does it take you to create this report? Well, it takes me two hours whole. That's two hours. That's two hours away from taking action. Right. So I always attack that first. Every time I go in, I don't care whether you use Vistaash, I don't care whether you use Excel, I don't care what it is, as long as you are using data in a meaningful way that has action points, that you can make real business decisions, whether it's real time going into the next month, like there's several different points of where you take action. But let's just get honest with that stop. Just tasking your people to generate meaningless reports that you don't look at. It's just a validation for them feeling like they did their job. Stop. You want

Michael Cirillo: 28:49

opposite. If you want meaningless reports, Dan, hire a VA for 500 bucks a month and have them do that monotonous routine crap. And then empower your people to actually do the stuff that's worth their time.

Dan Moore: 29:01

Agreed. I mean, that's the easiest one to go after. Just because we have so many reports coming at us. Do we really make decisions? Right?

Paul Daly: 29:11

Well, hopefully I feel

Michael Cirillo: 29:12

like solving the world's problems here.

Kyle Mountsier: 29:13

I think so. We solve some serious problems

Michael Cirillo: 29:16

now. But I mean, Dan, we always love chatting with you. Because it's, it's, you have a keen way. And I mean, it's the experience piece, I think is a huge part, just the wisdom from from everything you've accomplished, you can pull people out of the clouds back down to the earth and say, Hey, feel that that's what dirt feels like. You need to come back down to the dirt. And so we you know, I mean for that we always love, love getting to sit down and chat with you. So of course, on behalf of myself, Kyle Mountsier and Paul Daly, thanks so much for joining us on Auto Collabs Thanks, guys.

Kyle Mountsier: 29:58

So remember that time where We're like, Hey, Dan, all no buzzwords. Well, I think we covered all the buzzwords, but we debunk some myths along the way, I really appreciated the way that he and I got to talk about it a little bit there too, but where he was really talking about how business outcomes are extremely important to measuring and defining marketing, and I think that that's something that we've gotten away from as an industry. You know, a lot of people in this move to digital were like, we're gonna be able to track everything and know every person that came from every marketing channel, and I think over the last like, especially three to four years, there have been more and more people that have started to say, hey, look, that's that's not realistic. That's not the that's not the holy grail of marketing. The idea is like, getting close to the DMS. Getting closer to the business outcomes is the better way to run your business from a marketing perspective. So I appreciate that he debunks some of those myths and is working toward a solution that gives that back to dealers.

Michael Cirillo: 30:56

It's one of those things it's like, show me attribution from a rock. But that's where we're at in the industry. It's like no, I don't think about how rocks provide any value to my life. Dan's the guy that's like, well, think about what you're saying for a minute. If there's no rocks, there's no asphalt if there's no asphalt, there's no road if there's no road, there's no like he he's like a sniper rocks matter, right? Yeah, like he's a sniper in business, because we're everyone's thinking, we need a better dashboard with meaningless reports. He's like, Wait, there's an opening right there. And it's how do I give them real time gameplay footage so they can make smarter, faster decisions.

Paul Daly: 31:42

There's an element of him being a voice that normalizes calling out the absurdities that so many operate by, and, you know, that's, it's, you know, it's honestly one of the things that the three of us really tried to do, and are, you know, making an effort to do through this podcast through the other things that we're doing. Because the more we can normalize talking about these things openly. The sooner people start to actually feel a little shamed by leaning on them so much, right? And like, I'm not a big, big,

Kyle Mountsier: 32:18

I'm not healthy shame.

Paul Daly: 32:19

That's how I'm not a big like, like, all shame is bad, right? Like, there's a lot of unhealthy shame. But there are some things that's like, Hey, if you feel shamed about it, and like maybe there is something that's like

Michael Cirillo: 32:29

an awareness, right, we Yes, it's the shame that comes from heightened awareness of like, oh, I might not have been thinking deep enough about that thing. Yes.

Paul Daly: 32:38

Right. And then when it's when it's cool to think deeply about them, because everybody else is doing it. Like that's actually the good kind of peer pressure. And that's actually the type of mass adoption that we need to make meaningful change in the industry. So thank you for being a part of the meaningful change in the industry by participating in this podcast on behalf of Michael Cirillo, Kyle Mountsier and myself. Thanks for listening to Auto Collabs.

Unknown: 33:01

Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news in automotive, retail media and pop culture. You can get it now @ asotu.com That's ASOtu.com. If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.

‍