The Highest Level of Intelligence with Kelly Good Stoop

Paul J Daly: 0:00

Michael imagine a world

‍Unknown: 0:07

this is Auto Collabs

Paul J Daly: 0:10

where we actually work together to record these like in the physical location.

Michael Cirillo: 0:16

It almost makes me feel like that started with general idea that

Kyle Mountsier: 0:21

the original idea.

Paul J Daly: 0:23

The original idea there, we were like, hey, hey, Cirillo, we think we can do a podcast called Auto Collabs. Can you fly to Philadelphia? And do that? Yep. We all show up in Philadelphia, we set up in a hotel room,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:38

record some of the best podcast content,

Paul J Daly: 0:40

I fully agree. And we had like, I don't know, we had like eight pre loaded. So we just sat there and did an intro episode and intros and outros to this and we were like, we are going to fly in and get together once a quarter and do these live. Everyone and the laughter can be a little indicator of how that actually happened. But in my in my idea of my best life. We do that once a month. Just saying nice.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:09

I can't wait till you send the pirate plane to come get me and bring me to Syracuse. Well,

Paul J Daly: 1:12

I don't know, Southwest just backed out of Syracuse. And we're all done and we're never getting there on one ways.

Michael Cirillo: 1:19

So what do you guys do to get out of Syracuse now horse and buggy,

Paul J Daly: 1:23

horse and buggy.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:25

You basically United

Michael Cirillo: 1:30

United pretzels, sir. I

Paul J Daly: 1:32

know. No Southwest was a big deal. United American JetBlue Delta? No,

Kyle Mountsier: 1:39

I think we can speaking of regional flights.

Paul J Daly: 1:41

Oh, very good segue.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:42

You know, today we're talking to a regional VP of Lot links, Kelly stoop. And, you know, if you've been around the automotive industry, you probably seen Kelly on the socials or at events. And like, all I know about Kelly at this point, honestly, is just a bubbly, wonderful personality, like one of those personalities that is just nice. She's just a wonderful person to be around, you know. So I'm excited to kind of get to know her a little bit more on kind of her journey and what drives her.

Michael Cirillo: 2:09

Let's hit it. Let's get into this conversation with Kelly Stewart from hotlinks. Let's go.

Paul J Daly: 2:17

Hey, Kelly, thank you so much for joining us today. It's a pleasure to have you here.

Kelly Stoop: 2:20

Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Very excited. All

Paul J Daly: 2:24

right. So you and Kyle in in our, you know, like pre conversation conversation. There's a very common thread because every time you know, Kyle lived a lot of places because he was a pastor's kid. And we found out too that you have moved around a little bit and had a lot of experience because you're a self proclaimed army brat.

Kelly Stoop: 2:43

I don't know if it's self proclaimed. But that's the title that I was given. So you know, I just felt like it was too late to rebrand. So yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:51

It's like, after rebrand. rebrand that, by the way.

Kelly Stoop: 2:56

I don't know, I haven't looked into any domain names, but I'm just sticking with it.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:01

Getting got to get a domain name, right.

Kelly Stoop: 3:04

Step one to rebrand new domain.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:07

What was the most interesting place that you lived? like growing up and moving around? Oh, geez. Well, we're in Idaho, then South Dakota,

Kelly Stoop: 3:19

that no, just go, you know, and we weren't in any of the I mean, granted, I was in Oklahoma. So I don't want to say it wasn't like in the Midwest or any of those states that are kind of like lumped up in the middle. But, you know, we lived in Europe. So that's cool. I was born in Europe, in Germany. And then in the early 90s, I was back in Europe actually went to the same high school while junior high school and high school because there aren't as many students as there probably needs to be so they just lumped seven through 12 together, but went to the same high school is Shaquille O'Neal. So what? Yeah, I mean, very inconspicuous School for the American high school. So early. 90s. That's

Paul J Daly: 3:58

the name of it. American high school.

Kelly Stoop: 4:00

That's it. Yeah, I had my like, you know, cross colors like overall with one

Paul J Daly: 4:06

oh my gosh, I haven't thought of that brand forever. Yeah. Across colors

Kyle Mountsier: 4:12

lists. Absolute. Absolutely. Oh, my God. What a time back. I don't know, you know, all of that is back. At least in Nashville. Like, it's like it's the 90s are cool. So, you know, that's the way we do it here. Yeah,

Kelly Stoop: 4:27

well, one of the downsides to moving as often as we did as you didn't move that much from one place to the other. So Lord knows where that that wardrobe is, nor would I be able to fit into the same thing I could when I was 12. Join the club. Thanks for bringing that back up.

Paul J Daly: 4:46

All right, let's talk about the fun part of the conversation, which is always how in the world did you find your way to the auto industry? Oh, yeah.

Kelly Stoop: 4:52

Um, you know, I feel like I probably have a similar story as everybody it kind of found me. So I will I was selling advertising, I realized that I had the gift of gab, I probably would chalk that up to my life is moving around all the times and like, either be interesting or be a reader. survival instinct, right? Yeah, the alternative just didn't seem as fun to me. So I started selling I was in broadcast, you know, traditional, all that good stuff. And then, you know, I just kind of gravitated towards auto, they tend to have some big Co Op dollars, and at least some, you know, personalities that love to see themselves on screen. And I was like, This is so fun. I love car dealers. They're just, everyone's different. And it was through that, that I was referred to a little company called Pure cars long time ago. And I was like, 10 910 99, like authors slinging, like third party research reports to try to validate car prices. Like, I felt like it was very grassroots. But you know, that's kind of where it all began. And then car dealers have become my friends there. It's, it's a pleasure to do business in this industry.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:06

I love it. Because the way that you portray coming from linear and traditional media, you portrayed the dealer or the dealership is like, I'm sure there was like, a moment when you were in traditional media, like, just send me a commercial, please just send me something that we can actually put up. And the dealers are like, I'll get in front of a camera, and you're

Kelly Stoop: 6:29

talking about trying to convince people who are on carpet stores that they should advertise, you know, and the Carters are like, yeah, no convincing necessary. I've been waiting for you. Well, it's like, oh, it turns out, you already have your script and a suit to wear. So this is going to make things really easy for me. That's

Kyle Mountsier: 6:48

amazing. Yeah. So But fast forward, because, you know, then you kind of get into the digital side of the business with pure cars. And there, you know, at least when you started that, you know, probably, what, 1012 years 1012 years ago, when pure cars got started. You know, there was still a lot of convincing to be had, though, on that side of the business. What did how did? How did you kind of translate that feeling from like, Oh, this is easy to maybe there's some convincing that has to be had, because digital was still believe it or not kind of coming around for auto,

Kelly Stoop: 7:22

we had an advantage only because it was both right. So there was the online component where you had the, you know, little graphic that went on the VDP page that a customer could click on, but also dealers would print that report out and hand it as a part of their collateral at the dealership, right. So it could transition kind of like in straddle both lines. But frankly, like coming from where I was asking dealers for budgets for you know, 15 grand for a broadcast spot to going and saying, Hey, can I have 300 bucks so that you can have a little growth on your use? Didn't seem as tall of a task sounds like turns out I'm pretty. There's a lot of names, right? Yeah. The the so the ticket, the ticket amount, you know, the price definitely made conversations easier. Plus us card dealers, were so ready to have something that said, Okay, I can have a third party research tool that can validate my car, my pricing, signed me off, it was actually like a pretty, pretty seamless transition. Now, transition was to, like, actual digital when I went over to Autobytel and was talking about TCPA and texting. Now that was a conversation.

Paul J Daly: 8:38

You've really been on that kind of the edge of a lot of stuff. You

Kelly Stoop: 8:41

know, I'm really trying to be as forward thinking from a tech standpoint as possible. Just you know, ultimately, why I ended up where I am now a lot of things.

Paul J Daly: 8:52

So what's what's the edge now i know i think i know that two initials, you're gonna say, the two letters you're gonna say but but tell us about the edge what's on the edge. You've seen several of them. And now you're in the middle of this one. Talk to us about that.

Kelly Stoop: 9:04

Well, you know, I'll back up a little bit too because part of you know, I I was on a third party side at TrueCar and I loved it and part of what I loved about it was just you know, the the ability to drive those like deep and funnel ready to purchase consumers to the dealership, right? We had those affiliate partners, we had all these things that I like loved. That is where I really I feel like cut my teeth in terms of automotive, I'd spent so much time sitting in dealerships trying to figure out how to help them with processes and doing observations and doing all these things. I could help them convert at a higher level, but every dealer told me Kelly, I love this, this is the best, but I really wish that I could get this type of deep and funnel traffic to my my website. And at that time, I was like, Yeah, me too. And I'd love to have you know, a Ferrari but you know, we have to the you know, the circumstances in which we have around us and then my four former boss at true car left and went to lot links. And frankly, I was like, shoot where, you know, I had never heard of this company before. And I was very happy at TrueCar. And you know, honestly really wasn't considering leaving one day she was like, Kelly, just look at this sound always starts and it was all over write never never peek behind the curtain and I saw it. I was like, oh my god, this is exactly what every dealer for honestly, as long as I've been having conversations with dealers been asking for. But couple that with in a tremendous amount of data and intelligence that's literally constantly optimizing in order to find the best deepen funnel shopper for inventory only dealers have, right? So, you know, that was another part of the problem was like, okay, unicorn cars don't exist. And there was all these nuances to like, were the solutions I thought I had were really good, but they weren't quite right. All of a sudden, you've got this situation where you're like, we're coming off of years and years of data, you know, you've got at this point, 12 plus years of vendor specific, you know, indexing, we're, we're looking at all of the different market factors, all of the pricing, everything that comes on and off the internet, like that amount of data mixed with, you know, 160 publishers that are pushing us their site traffic every day, so that we can kind of measure against and do some pretty, you know, remarkable indexing to make sure that we're making the best match as possible. I mean, what's not to like, it's just, it's an extreme. I

Kyle Mountsier: 11:36

mean, I remember like, my first introduction to a lot links was not as a digital tool, or an advertiser or anything like that, it was simply a market research tool, where like, this aggregate of data gives you an over leverage on your ability to assess the market provide, you know, the best use cars for your market, understand where the market is going. And I think that's been a calling card of like, you know, don't, don't just like, take our word for where the shoppers are, look at the look at the entire market. And a lot goes into just like preparing market data for the industry at some level, right? Which is interesting for like, much more of a SASS company, you know, it's not it's not so much like a JD Power and NADA or anything like that. But it's, there's definitely a lot of data baked into the way that lot links kind of goes to market. Yeah,

Kelly Stoop: 12:25

I mean, into Paul's point, I know you were like, you're teasing out the AI part of it, right. And AI. I don't want to say this, like, everyone's got AI, but we hear it a lot. Right. It's

Paul J Daly: 12:37

I love your position on this so much. All right. The fact that you didn't just like go full in and be like, it's gonna save the world. Yeah, given us here's

Kelly Stoop: 12:50

the thing about it is is like, Okay, now what, right, that's the question that we need to be asking is not Do you have AI is what is your AI built to do? Yes. So our AI is built to think like a dealer does, it just makes those decisions 30,000 times a second, how do I mitigate risk? How do I increase my opportunities for profitability and velocity. And we use a bunch of data as ton of data to figure it out. And the nice thing is, is that it doesn't take a day off, it doesn't need sick leave, or you know, anything else. It's constantly working. It's funny, I was just listening to something from actually, Brian Pash thing was just look talking about your tech stack and what to do and what to not do, right. And it's talking about clean data and making sure that you know, all of the things that we're doing, essentially, there's this hygiene involved, there's this reinspection that's necessary even for the best companies, right? Whether it's data mining, or whether it's retargeting etc. It it made me think like, Well, isn't that what machine learning is for? Cleaning it, it's a curse, discover it's a filter feeder, right? It's figuring out how to get rid of all the unnecessary data to make sure that the exact right decisions are being made. But it's being presented for an inventory you know, advancement or solution.

Kyle Mountsier: 14:20

You know, one thing that I always find interesting and we've kind of gone from like your your history as a kid, you know, moving around to you know, what you're doing and how you're serving dealers what what lat links is doing, where where would you see see like the parallels or the advantages that you're getting? From having had a rich history of like, multi country multi city learning as a as a kid, and then deploying that into how you see the world and how like your worldview actually impacts how you serve dealers through the tech that that you're a part of.

Kelly Stoop: 14:58

Hi, oh, you're really cool. And how can

Kyle Mountsier: 15:01

I know? But like, there's no, like, you can't just like you can't visit that many countries that many cities and, and be a part of an Army family and just like kind of leave all that behind and then, you know, take this whole new road like there's learning that you had as a kid. That's, that's impacting what you do every day.

Kelly Stoop: 15:21

Yeah, no, I think you're right. And it's funny because I didn't really draw the parallel, until you just put it very plainly in front of me. But, you know, people who know me often know that a lot of the things that I am, that I use in terms of philosophy, you know, comes from my dad, he's just a really hard worker, and he just was like, an overachiever. Like, he was always like, the one that was promoted below the grade. And, you know, I don't know if anybody knows that means. But you know, he was a younger, the younger one of the whatever ranking partners per se, because he just was like, super committed. But my dad would always tell me, when I was younger, I always thought it was like his way of telling me to just like, suck it up and deal with it when I complain about having to move. But my dad would always say, like, you know, how to captivity or, you know, being the having the ability to be adaptable is like the highest level of intelligence, right? So I'm like, Oh, it's a backhanded compliment, right? He's trying to tell me just like, you got it, kid, you're gonna be super smart, because you're just gonna, like, figure it out. But as I have gone through my career, you know, I've realized how much being adaptable has helped me, right? So it's like, you can take going to being in a dealership in, you know, Long Island, you know, or you have to go downstairs to the offices, right? Or your you know, and then flip flop that to being in, you know, Ford store in Texas, right? being adaptable has allowed me to have conversations that have like the same undertone, but can come off a little bit differently depending on you know, the environment you're in. And when you're talking about adapt, you know, being adaptive, you know, machine learning, I mean, it's kind of the thing it does. So, you know, I guess we're all kind of tethered to each other, whether we we planned it or not.

Kyle Mountsier: 17:09

Yeah, like you're you're clearly pursuing the thing that you learned, right? Like, in your career moves going, where can I find the thing that was valued so significantly, in my early childhood, right, that, that, that is, the likeness in the thing that I get to work in that is adaptable, that is flexible, to work with different people, different scenarios, different market demands, all of that type of thing. And when you think about the level of data, the level of research, pairing that with machine learning and AI to be adaptable to the market conditions of the place where you're at, like, you're actually kind of like living in the value set that was that was created for you so early. So like, that's why I think when I hear you go, I went from TrueCar to this because it was a no brainer. You just, I think you saw that. And so I think that's a really, like, that's a key reason why, like your passion is coming out through the thing that you get to do right now. And why maybe, maybe the dealers that maybe have question, you know, a connection with you might go, Okay, I see where that passion may lie and connect that to the to the real data that might help a dealership? That's just my perception here?

Kelly Stoop: 18:28

Well, no, I appreciate that. It's really good. So we're gonna hang our hat on that.

Paul J Daly: 18:35

We're all gonna be together in depending on when this airs, but we're going to be together at a soda con. What is your typical approach when you're at an event where people are talking about the progressive things? There's a lot of dealers and industry partners, kind of collaborating on how we're going to solve some of the problems, how do you typically approach those types of events? I,

Kelly Stoop: 18:56

I love to be a sponge, I love want to, like take it all in and listen, you know, it's not too dissimilar than when I'm having a conversation with a dealer. Right? Trying to figure out, as you hear people speak, the gaps start to present themselves, right. So my, we have to figure all of this out as a community. And you guys have definitely figured that out right conversations. And, you know, there is a bunch of different pieces that have to go into this puzzle and figuring out how they all fit together and the connectivity components is where I think we are the most strong. So we I recognize the dealers are faced with so much decision making, right? You know, they have a multitude of things from their tech stack to what formats to buy what cleaning solutions to use in the bathrooms at their dealerships, right. So, you know, my goal every day is to just listen and learn, and then figure out where there's opportunity for me to say Hey, I think that there's something you need to know, or there's some information that I have garnered through my journey, whether it be from a data set, or from an experience that I can parlay that might be useful for you, in your next, you know, when you're having your next conversation, so, you know, a total spirit of collaboration mentality. Super, yeah, super passionate. So this kind of stuff. You know, I've met a lot of people, you know, to the theme, the theme of this show, and my journey, and the thing that I love so much about automotive is like, it's like, I've met no one, right? Because healers, like, nobody, I'm always surprised. I'm like, holy crap, I feel like I've met every different type of person across, you know, the globe. But like, Man, this one is special, or this one is like, hilarious. And these are the reasons why. So I love this kind of stuff. That's

Kyle Mountsier: 20:54

awesome. Well, we can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks. Kelly, thank you so much for spending some time with us today talking about your journey, before entering auto and love to see you wearing your passion on your sleeve. Thanks again for joining us on Auto Collabs. It was 100%.

Kelly Stoop: 21:08

My pleasure. Thank you guys.

Paul J Daly: 21:14

All right. So every time, Kyle, you start an interview with like, I used to live right there we

Kyle Mountsier: 21:22

it's, it's kind of ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, I was lived

Paul J Daly: 21:25

everywhere. I heard that every guest on Auto Collabs has been at it literally.

Michael Cirillo: 21:30

Well, there's two things I've ascertained at this point about Kyle. Just to go, boy, he's lived everywhere the guests have lived and also has somehow also, like, done all of their jobs. So like, really great point. Oftentimes, you and I just sit here and we're like, ah, we watch Kyle and the guest by talking about deep in, you know, my experience doing this. And we're like

Paul J Daly: 22:02

a bunch of things that he never do. I mean, she's true car, right? Yeah, it'll by tell I mean, she really has, I think when you get somebody that's bet pure cars, little company called Pure cars. And when I think when you have somebody that has had the experience of many iterations of digital technology, and digital advertising, digital marketing, I think you get a really well rounded view of just like anything, when you know, the history, where it came from, and you can kind of understand how to explain where it's going and be excited. She's obviously excited about what she does in regard. And

Kyle Mountsier: 22:31

I love the fact that, you know, I pointed to him in our conversation is just that, you know, the the childhood life, the growing up life starts to it, it forces you to find the thing, like at some point in your career, that aligns very deeply with your why. And it seems like she's found that and that, that just gets me excited as a human to say, like, there's another person out there that kind of navigated a career path, right, because I feel that way to like, navigated a career path for the first, you know, 1215 years of their career. And then we're, like, made a pivot saw thing and said, Yep, that actually deeply aligned with my core values. And, and I love the conversations that we get to have on Auto Collabs with people that have found their, you know, their passion, their core values. And we had Nick, Nick ask you same thing few weeks ago, right, had a great career in auto, but then found like, this is the thing that aligns most closely with my why.

Paul J Daly: 23:28

Well, a couple of people like that are going to be joining us, Michael. Just a couple of weeks. Just a couple whenever this is released. Yeah,

Michael Cirillo: 23:36

just a couple of weeks or if you're listening to the future. Sorry.

Kyle Mountsier: 23:41

You missed it. Yeah.

Michael Cirillo: 23:47

I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Kelly stoop from lot links. I'm just gonna put my little two cents in here and break the rule because like, I know, I'm going into the outro. But I'm also now adding my two cents. I just gotta throw it out there because they break the rules. I love the way I love the way she uncensored originally, maneuvered the AI conversation with the two of you like, I know that sounds weird. I'm not big on sensationalism, which is weird to say for a marketer, but like, I just love how she was like, have good data. AI will do this job over here. Happy Day. So anyways, I don't know if that stood out to you guys. We hope it did. If you're listening pre ASOTU CON, there's still time to get your tickets so to conduct comm. It is going to be a game changing experience for you. If you've not seen all of the fanfare and all of the billboards on social then you probably don't have a social account. So I would encourage you to do that. And

Paul J Daly: 24:46

make the first person who follow us. Yeah, so

Michael Cirillo: 24:49

So do more than cars. We hope we get to see you at ASOTU CON. If you're listening in the future, it was epic. Just so you know, it was game changing good. It did show dealers how today they To navigate the next 612 1824 months with ease while everyone else is panicked, they are rolling through this market, like juggernauts. So, on behalf of myself, Michael Cirillo, Paul J. Daly Kyle Mountsier. Thanks so much for joining us here on Auto Collabs. Your

Kyle Mountsier: 25:17

past, present and future podcasts.

Unknown: 25:22

Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news and 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. Welcome to Auto Collabs Are we recording

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