Tekion-CDK Squabble, Maximising Last 2 Weeks, GPT Can See

Paul J Daly  0:01  
Are we live? Are we supposed to be talking right now? Nathan, yes or no, yes. Oh my gosh. It is Friday. If you haven't noticed December 13, we got a lot of stuff, but most importantly, we have Todd Caputo today. I don't know what happened just now. I hope somebody else is recording, because I'm not who's playing the music. Nada is playing the music. See, this is what happens on

Kyle Mountsier  0:39  
a Friday. That was probably the best intro to our podcast. I think we've

Paul J Daly  0:43  
actually ever had I feel like it to me, it didn't feel on my

Kyle Mountsier  0:47  
side. It was magical on your side. It was stressful. I understand. I

Paul J Daly  0:52  
don't even know what is happening around here, but there are 12 days till Christmas. We have Todd Caputo on the show today. We're gonna bring him in in a minute. He's in Backstage just drinking coffee for the last two hours, like layman coffee. So he's going to pull him in a little bit. We're going to talk about techion CDK squabble. We haven't talked about that yet. We're also going to talk about maximizing the last two weeks of the year. Because I don't know if you've noticed, we've got two weeks left. We've been pumping out these webinars over the last few months, and we have another one coming up on Wednesday. With our friends at automotive mastermind, basically data driven strategies, scaling service to sales processes. One of the coolest things is we actually have a practitioner we have. Who is it? Oh Shannon GM, at Chapman, BMW, Chandler, BMW store. He is averaging 30 to 45 cars a month from service to sales at a BMW store. So there's a thing or two to learn from him. You can go to asotu.com sign up for the webinar. You'll get the recording if you can't be there live, but please be there live, because it's so much fun to have you in person. Also, next week, we need you to get a pen out right now, get a physical calendar and circle it, because on the 19th that is Thursday, right? It's Thursday, yeah, Thursday. We are having our fourth annual year end extravaganza. We've done these for the last three years. Always the different variety, but we're going to have a lot of guests, a lot of familiar faces, some new friends, Ryan Warman, Liza Borches, Lady bozart, Ed Roberts, and a bunch of other people. And we got some writing going on. We have some set different looks we're going to be having. We have a lot of people that want to say hello on the show. So it's always a fun hour. We can recap the year. Have a little fun. Get some insights going into the next year. So just circle your calendar. Do we have an event on LinkedIn yet? We probably

Kyle Mountsier  2:36  
do, yeah. We do, yeah. LinkedIn. We got event. You'd be good to go, yeah, if you don't follow

Paul J Daly  2:41  
us. So do on LinkedIn. That's where the conversations happen. That's right.

Kyle Mountsier  2:44  
Hey, speaking of events, we also have the NADA parties.com site. Oh, you should, and they're starting to fill up. Everybody's announcing their events. We'll get them all in there soon. They'll probably be, I don't know. You know, last year, I think there were 35 plus, like, night events that you could check out on there. So if you know of an industry partner, or you're an industry partner that is having some sort of after party event, some night thing that people should go to, they can register for, they can get tickets, whatever it is, put it on there. It's going to be the home base for finding what you're going to be doing, planning your little schedule out. So, and we're having a party, we only have, like, I don't know, like, 20 tickets left legitimately to this thing. That's a hush.

Paul J Daly  3:22  
How's Todd gonna get gotta be there. I'm just kidding. We got a ticket for all the assigned investors. Get it. We got it. We got all right, let's talk about some news. Let's go the battle over dealership data is heating back up as techion has filed a federal anti trust lawsuit against CDK global, claiming anti competitive practices. CDK, however, is firing back labeling the lawsuit as retaliatory and lacking merit. I think actually lacking substance was the word that they used in their little, little slap back. Techions lawsuit accuses CDK of abusing its control over dealer data to stifle competition in the DMS market. They're claiming CDK is claiming the suit is retaliation for a cease and desist letter regarding tech eons unauthorized access to CDK system. Interesting, yeah, spokesperson for CDK called the lawsuit a marketing stunt, and has emphasized its history of facilitating dealer and vendor data transfers tech young citing CDKs initial refusal to share data with Asbury Automotive Group as an example of anti competitive behavior. A court ruled back in October that CDK must provide Asbury with data for the pilot of techion systems, following delays by CDK. So, yeah. So if you are familiar, basically back and forth. Asbury came, came out this summer and said, Hey, we're piloting I think there was a couple articles about it. Some someone find out they've got four stores that are going to pilot techion. And you know, it's like, obviously, when you're a massive organization like that, and all the roll ups, all the changes, there's a lot to kind of pilot figure out if it's going to work. And I think this is something that is still kind of on the chopping block. Automotive retail, like, Where does the data sit? Who owns the data? How easy is it to get in and out? You know, and I understand, like both sides of the equation right

Kyle Mountsier  5:13  
from like the partner side and the dealer side. But this is, this is kind of like an interesting shot across the bow, especially from a tech eon that's been building over the last five to six years. I think it is in the market and kind of like, you know, the competition has now been heated up type thing, yeah, you know, we'll see what happens with it. I don't, I don't have much more other than like, hey, look, play nice, because it comes around.

Paul J Daly  5:45  
Yeah. And, I mean, I think from a marketing standpoint, it's only, like techion only has something to gain here. Yep, you know, like this, this is it's kind of like, if you're in techion seat, like they can only win from this being in the public eye, and so CDK has to be really smart, and are being as smart as they can about how they navigate this. In the end, like you said, it's like, we have to think about the consumer and what's best for them. There are laws and things that have to be followed, and in the end, the courts will decide who's who's following them and who needs to change. Yikes. Oh. Well, I think that is thing, Paul. Let's bring Todd Caputo into the show. Todd coming at us from from sunny North Carolina. We gave him, we gave him a little call this morning. We're always like, Todd, you want to be on the show. We have some things that we need you to talk about. And he throws on his Batman costume, which is it looks like your son? Auto Group, retro, Vincent

Todd Caputo  6:44  
car, King Baby. Thanks for being with us today. So this DMS thing, right? Like, who owns the data? It belongs to dealers. It's our data. And it's just unbelievable that these conversations are still even happening. So if you're ever going to sign any kind of agreement with any vendor, whether it's a DMS or anybody else, like, really, go through your master service agreement. Like, really, really, really carefully, right? And if you don't like things, you redline it. They're either going to keep you as a customer or not. But red line the hell out of it. I mean, that's kind of where it starts. You know, it's our data at the end of the day. I mean, that's all I have to say. There you

Paul J Daly  7:28  
go. Well, go. Let's talk about, let's talk about this new chat GPT feature that was released. You've been using chat GBT like, every day of your life. You probably, like, put it by your bedside, and you're like, All right, good night, buddy. And it's like,

Todd Caputo  7:42  
my my family, my family had t shirt made with the chat GPT logo that says Todd. GPT. No, they didn't. I should've, if I'd known you were talking about it, I would have wore it today. That's, that's,

Paul J Daly  7:53  
I know, GPT. I got your family Christmas card. I was like, Who is that other person in there? It's like, oh, it's chat GPT. Todd adopted it, but so basically open. Ai announced yesterday that they it's now not didn't announce they released it. You can have it if you have GPT, especially Pro on your phone right now chat GPT can see they introduced a live video input and screen sharing capability during its day six live stream event users can now analyze and discuss visual contexts in real time through a new video icon in the mobile app. It's available on Plus Pro and team subscribers. Basically, you can show it what you're looking at, and it will tell you. It'll interact. It will make suggestions. It'll probably tell jokes. Have you used it

Todd Caputo  8:37  
yet? Todd, no, but I can think of a lot of use cases for the car business that's for sure. Go ahead. So I'm a customer, and I walk into a dealership, or I pull in and I show chat GPT where I am. It will give me reviews automatically of of the dealership, right? Maybe I can walk around a particular car and chat GPT will tell me all the features of the car, any reviews from customers. Maybe someday, someone's smart, maybe, maybe I'll invent it, right? So we're, if you're at the auction and you're walking around a car, or you want to do an appraisal on a car, and you can use it, and then walk up to the VIN number and pull the VIN number off the car, and then just get the values of the car where it should be, price, retail, what it's worth, wholesale, like, there's, my mind is just like, going and, yeah, I imagine,

Kyle Mountsier  9:28  
I mean, imagine an app that has GPT vision included in it where, like, it connects to the OBD two scanner, right, which we already have, uh, apps in the in the auto industry that that do this. And then you just do, like a video, walk around inside, outside, and it starts to tell you, like, Oh, this is an anomaly. Oh, that's, that's what your wheel damage. Oh, this basically, like, creates OCR on the car, right? Same,

Paul J Daly  9:57  
the seams don't line up. Check for paint. Work. Like, literally. UVI to out this is actually with all the tech that's available, right? This, this is like all the ingredients are on the table to

Kyle Mountsier  10:07  
make this cake. Yep, sure, exactly right. And

Todd Caputo  10:10  
also to more power to the consumer, which means, as a dealer, you have to have people that are very well trained, that really know your product, whether it's new or used, because customers coming in if they use this kind of technology, which they all will, because it's all built into our phones now, so everybody's going to get smarter. You just really got to be on your game. As far as I'm concerned.

Paul J Daly  10:29  
You know what this is? This is kind of bringing to mind, and this really doesn't have to do with the video, like you could do this by taking a picture and uploading it. I wonder if any consumers like you're at the closing table, and you upload the contract and the docs, and you ask GPT, you're like, is there anything I'm buying this car? What questions should I be asking about this contract? Like that can happen right now. That can definitely happen right now. Yeah, I'm trying. I'm wondering if anyone's done that yet.

Unknown Speaker  10:59  
Yeah, there's a lot of f and I guys going, No,

Paul J Daly  11:01  
yeah, oh well,

Kyle Mountsier  11:05  
but I guarantee that's happening already. We may not know about

Paul J Daly  11:08  
it on the on the spot I'm talking about right just like right in front of us, might be a PDF of that contract you have on that docupad Real quick. Yeah. Also

Kyle Mountsier  11:18  
tell me how to also tell me what I should be doing to negotiate this into a better deal, and where are the blind spots that I'm missing? Right? Like, actually,

Paul J Daly  11:26  
you just turn on advanced voice. You're like, this is my negotiator. He's gonna ask you questions. You can respond to him. That's

Kyle Mountsier  11:33  
like, oh, but that's really coming. Because also, like, remember that GPT is trained on Reddit, very deeply, that's right. You start thinking about the threads, about dealers, about negotiations, about pricing, about ability on Reddit right now.

Paul J Daly  11:52  
What are the Who are those two guys? Who's that Father, Father, Son duo out of New Jersey, or wherever they're car data guys, or whatever our data is that what it is, they should be all over this. Oh, my goodness. And if they heard it here, because they interact with our

Speaker 1  12:03  
stuff, but this is like, but now you think about, like, eight years ago, we were like, Oh, now all your prices online, so you got to be transparent, right? Absolutely, that was like a freak out moment. What are we going to do? The level of necessity of understanding, like the references to your dealership or your dealerships name, if you're not tracking that across social platforms with some sort of like SEO tracker, where mentions are out there, like it goes so much deeper now, because everything that is relevant gets surfaced so much more quickly into these large language models than Even just like a regular Google search should. Could. I think this just

Paul J Daly  12:44  
highlights the fact that all of the other things that aren't about exactly the sales process, negotiating like the human side of your business, the experience side of your business, the marketing and brand side of your business, the company culture side of your business, all of that stuff becomes so much more important, because what happens when you get into a negotiation or when you start to approach the price conversation, people are already nervous, like, relationship is the thing that like, smooths the way, and building up some relational equity and trust in the brand in the business takes the temperature down several notches from The beginning. So you don't already start, like, with everybody with their body armor on the more that the body armor you can get to take off before you get to that point is the benefit that's wild.

Todd Caputo  13:30  
So it'll take a little bit of time for what we're talking about to become mainstream, for people to start using it on their phones, because we're just like in version one, like this is Atari, as far as I'm

Paul J Daly  13:40  
concerned. So many people don't even know, like they don't know, but they will anything about it.

Todd Caputo  13:44  
Yeah, they will, right? And once they start, once they start to use this and learn the power of having any kind of GPT or artificial intelligence on their phone, it's going to be a game changer for not just the car business, but for for any business. That's why I think, right, like, you know, you're a business owner, you really gotta be sharpening your acts and really, really spending some time and money and effort on training your people, not just in your product, but also in communicational skills, emotional intelligence, things like that, because it's going to be extremely, extremely important going forward. But you know, I think that's one of the reasons why you guys want to have me out. Want to have me on today, right? Like, what are we going to talk about for 2025 and prepping? Because there's only a couple weeks. And I don't, I don't want to lead the show, but

Paul J Daly  14:29  
that's exactly what we're going next. You got two weeks left. What are you doing? Your dealer? So,

Todd Caputo  14:34  
I mean, let's, let's think about it. So first of all, we should really be looking back on 2024 and if you're a leader in your story, you should be doing this with all the people that report to you. Right? How did you do in whatever position they have in the dealership? People want to know how they did, whether they did a good job or a bad job. So performance appraisals need to be going on like right now, if you haven't done them already. I think that's important goal setting for. Every single person in the organization. And I'm not just talking about people that sell cars or people in the service lane. I'm talking about even people that, you know, work out in the lot, like, you know, you can, you can teach them to be better, right at what they do, but they have to be coached, and you have to, like, really work with them and set expectations for the year ahead. Because, like we said, you know, 2025 isn't going to be a good year in the car business, probably going to be a very good year, but margins are going to get thinner. I don't care what anybody says, there will be demand, and you have to be on your game. So performance appraisals, planning for next year. And the last thing I will tell you is, like, lead, follow up is going to be really, really important. Because right now you get a lot of people that are shopping. They're not ready to buy a car because Santa Claus. Santa Claus is more important, right? We're waiting on tax return money, which doesn't usually come till January, February, March. So we're shopping now. So that lead that you get in December still might be very valid in February or March. Yeah. So I think long term lead follow up, at least, I know with my stores, like, we paid very close attention to that, and there's a lot of AI now that can help with some of that stuff, too, from some really good vendors in the industry. So like, those, for me, are, like, the top three. I think

Kyle Mountsier  16:17  
that's a huge thing. Like, it's not a seven day buying cycle right now, once you get that lead, like, it's it's definitely significant, especially you get a lead right now, like, the chances of that person really looking at buying in the week after Christmas are extremely high. So what's your cadence as you're heading up to the holiday? I think is going to be really important, and not just waiting on whatever happens during that week. Sure.

Todd Caputo  16:39  
And Paul, you know, you know this too, right? Because you worked with me when I was a dealer, and you had, you know, with your agency, you know, you celebrate, right? Like this is a great time of year to just celebrate the success of the year. Have family involved. I mean, hopefully you're all having holiday and Christmas parties at your dealerships, or are off site. You're giving people recognition in in all different departments of the dealership, of of the job that they did, how long that they've worked there for, how much they've improved, you know, telling those stories, celebrating the successes of, you know the dealership as a whole, and you know individuals that work in the store. And then also, you know if you're planning on making major capital improvements in your dealership, or you're planning on expanding, or any kind of things that you have planned as a leader for 2025 make sure your people know right, like it gives them a reason to be excited that, hey, we're going to be putting an addition on the building, or we're going to be remodeling, right? Or we're going to invest in this and invest in that. So if they're thinking about maybe leaving, which, you know, it happens, a lot of people get poached in this industry, they'll think, Wait a minute. You know, we got a lot of things going on in 2025 in 2025 I'm going to ignore that recruiter. I'm not going to look in indeed anymore like I'm going to be really excited and optimistic about 2025 because my dealer, my general manager, the partner, whatever they're investing in this business, they're investing in me. So that's, that's, that's, that's me all caffeine up this morning. I mean, let's go. I

Paul J Daly  18:00  
love it. I love it. I mean, that's why we have you on the show to bring up the things that we weren't thinking about, so that everyone could be thinking about them. Todd, thanks for joining us today. Whether you're out there, take some of that advice. Get out there and start planning the end of the year. You

Unknown Speaker  18:20  
the night you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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