The Past Is Gone, The Future Is Not Here Yet with Danny Zaslavsky

Michael Cirillo: 0:00They drink this in Valhalla.

‍Speaker 2: 0:10

This is auto collapse.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:13

He don't worry, he's not drinking alcohol. He is drinking.

Michael Cirillo: 0:17

What is that?

Kyle Mountsier: 0:18

vitamin orange, tangerine mixed up with some water. Today and you're here with us on auto collapse, not in Valhalla. So welcome everybody. It's. It's been a minute. I'm in. Actually the people don't know this if they're just listening. I'm in a whole new office or watching.

Paul J Daly: 0:35

They probably don't notice either.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:36

They probably don't notice same blue color, except for I took down the hat, so I apologize to everybody that's confused.

Paul J Daly: 0:42

You look incredibly crisp right now, though, Doesn't he though?

Kyle Mountsier: 0:45

Thank you. Well internet speeds are a little bit. Ok, not up at the old house. So, maybe, maybe that's what it is. I appreciate the note, the compliment, the compliment. Well, none of that has to do with the fact that we're hanging out with Danny's. Does loft ski?

Paul J Daly: 1:02

today on the podcast Guys Every time every time we talk with him, every time he always has something to contribute. He's just, but his nature is a contributor. I'll say that every, every room I've been in with him, every group I've seen him speak in front of every personal conversation. He is someone who is oriented toward how can I contribute to you? And I see that span is personal life and his professional life, his, his contributions to the auto industry. So you just know you're going to get something good.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:30

Danny. At one point he said to me he has me on a call. He's talking to me about a soda con, actually, and he goes now, listen, I've got an idea, but wait, I was like huh, he goes. Do me a favor, when you hear this idea, don't change your mission, Don't change what you want to do, and make sure you don't do anything for me that you wouldn't do for anybody else. Got it.

Speaker 2: 1:52

I was like OK.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:54

I'm going to set up to have said we should bring in McDonald's for everyone.

Paul J Daly: 2:00

Boom.

Michael Cirillo: 2:00

When our friendship ended.

Paul J Daly: 2:02

No, never spoke again.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:05

All right, we hope you love this conversation that we have. Hey, we're here with Danny Zizlawski, and if you try and say that name five times fast, you can't. Danny, thanks for joining us on Auto Collapse. Again, man, thanks for having me. Guys, have you ever you should like?

Speaker 2: 2:26

make that a party.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:27

I could do it, danny, for all the people that aren't. We were admiring just previously. For all the people that aren't watching this on video, we are admiring your, your handsome ish tan there and I like the. Yeah, because it's like you know, I, you know I'm going to, I'm going to just like leave it just gently there.

Danny Zaslavsky: 2:52

but Well, the only thing that makes my teeth whiter is when I get color.

Paul J Daly: 2:58

Actually, so I'm just going to get my teeth whiten and that'll fix that how tan I am.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:06

So we were talking about before we got on here and I love bringing on all the conversations from before we got on but that that like taking vacation as an entrepreneur. There's so many people in entrepreneur life or in dealership ownership roles or big, large roles in auto groups or dealers that well one. Historically, our industry has has positioned vacations as like welcome back, part timer, you know, but that even since then, like it is hard to unplug when your, when the business is so dependent on you, helping it progress. Like give us a little insight into what vacation looks like to you as an entrepreneur living in the auto industry?

Danny Zaslavsky: 3:59

It's a series of little tricks I play on my brain. My dad growing up, would take three days into the vacation to actually be able to disconnect and I watched him do that and I watched the arguments my parents had of you know why can't you? Or you should, or whatever. I never understood it. And watching my dad.

Paul J Daly: 4:20

Am I your dad? I didn't realize it.

Danny Zaslavsky: 4:27

So and I projected on my dad. I'm like dude, settle down, like enjoy, be here, be present. But what I took for granted was the vision that was pulling him, or the pain that was pushing him, whether it be on one of his cell phones or ideas he had in his mind, or the old question of does art inspire life or does life inspire art. He was out in the world and he was seeing things and goes, I should use that in my business or I should do it. You know what I mean. So it's hard to disconnect Today. The tips and tricks I do is, like you know, when I'm on vacation I stay away from social media. That's one of the. I don't look at other people's lives and I don't share anything about my life because I want to be present and I rarely even share kind of where I go or what I did afterwards, because it's not about that for me. It's about being present and I'm a mantra guy. So my mantra early on was when I was going through some tough times about seven years ago. It was look forward, move forward in all things and in all ways, because I knew where I was in that moment wasn't where I needed to be. And so I was thinking forward. So look forward, move forward in all things and all ways. And then when I got past where I didn't want to be and got into where I was, my new mantra was the past is gone, the future is not here yet. Now I am free of both, and so that mantra got me to be here. And years ago when I did some therapy of my soul, I asked my therapist a favor. She goes what do you want? And I go well, I want to know pain, but I want to know happiness, and if I know both, then I'm not ignorant to either and I have, like, my control. I have control over my life and I could choose, and that shows up for all of us, like in, maybe, an argument we have with our spouse, where we know we can push a little harder but we choose not to because we know happiness and we know pain, and so that I take kind of that view of honestly vacation. And so I just got to go for four days to Florida and spend it with some friends and family and it was awesome and I could have picked up my computer, I could have made the call and I could have You're like cause?

Kyle Mountsier: 7:00

I saw that restaurant. That was just amazing and I had ideas right.

Danny Zaslavsky: 7:03

Exactly I could have. I chose not to because the past has gone, the future is not here yet. Now I'm free of both.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:13

Well, this has been auto collapse. It's a boss. Yeah, I mean we, you know everybody's crying at home.

Speaker 2: 7:18

Exactly why we don't title things until the end Exactly why.

Michael Cirillo: 7:23

And then your accountant at country Hills is like hey, danny, we got to talk here. What is the $3,000 on burner phones from 711? Yeah, I'm hiding in a vase. There's a lot of you know, but nothing you know. I love what you're saying, that be present in the moment. That's certainly something I think all of us on the on this call can relate to. It's almost seemed like this never ending battle of like how do I be present in the moment and not sacrifice, missing something that will be a memory for someone else in my family, but part of their memory will be dad sitting off in a corner ferociously pounding holes in his iPhone screen Right.

Danny Zaslavsky: 8:05

And in Liza Borges said this. I don't know whose quote it is, maybe it's one of theirs, maybe not, but they said there's a difference between spending time and investing time. When they say, spend time with your kids or invest time with your kids and I've, I've, I've, liked some things, you just hear loudly and that has stuck. So I invest time with my kids. I spend time watching the bear on Hulu that you told me to watch.

Michael Cirillo: 8:32

It's true, though, like you think there are, that just freeing yourself of social media, and the thing that I think is so beautiful about it is that your life continued after the world did not come to a screeching halt. There are people right now, at this very moment in time, who cannot make it through their vacation without taking low lit, grainy photos of their dessert you know what I mean Like their, their, their hands they're like a little like I only, he's like only take he was so close.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:04

High quality photos.

Paul J Daly: 9:05

Well lit.

Michael Cirillo: 9:06

Do it or lower or portrait mode. They're a Lannis man. They got one hand in their pocket. You know they're just reaching for that phone. I got one hand in my pocket.

Paul J Daly: 9:18

Oh, there's a great Canadian reference.

Michael Cirillo: 9:20

There it is.

Paul J Daly: 9:21

There's one in every episode. Lannis Morris said so so. I have a tie up. So you're talking about the future is not here yet, the past is gone, right and being in the moment. How does that connect to what we do as an industry with technology? Because right now we are in this spot where it's like the future is not yet here yet, but we're all talking about it a lot. The past has been weird, right, the last several years of the past. But here we are in this place where people are talking about this mix between get back to basics and we have to do this thing with data and systems we've never, ever done as an industry well before. How do you navigate that in what you do?

Kyle Mountsier: 10:01

because you have a foot in the dealer world and you have a foot in the technology world.

Paul J Daly: 10:07

That's probably that's segue.

Michael Cirillo: 10:09

I've ever knocked that one out there, casey Jones, and once in a while that was unreal.

Danny Zaslavsky: 10:14

So I think our job is to solve complexity. I think, as humans, the older I get, the simpler I want things and the less I need to wear on my sleeve, because we earn the ability to understand. And as we learn the ability to understand, we get to choose how we apply that. And then at Vincue, there's principles that we behave by, and these aren't principles that we like necessarily see on a wall, and that's our guiding principles and that's how we have to behave, these principles, because it's the way we're literally formed as a company. An example of that is we believe innovation happens on the front line. So how does that show up in real life? Our product, my dad, my dad, for example used to buy buildings and say what are we going to do with this building? What business are we going to put in it? And that's the definition of creating a product and then wondering how the world's going to use it. And that doesn't necessarily solve any complexity. When you do it the other way around, when you say what's the experience, what's the result, what's the intention here, and then you work your way back to product For us, we end up with a better result. So if we know that our job is to solve complexity. One of the benefits we have is to see the landscape and some companies innovate through acquisition. We haven't, for a couple reasons. We've chosen to innovate through innovation and partnerships. I shared this with somebody earlier but, being on the dealer side, when I used to walk the floors of NADA, I would see a lot of really cool solutions and I would say, hey, which one of you can I install at my dealership to elevate our processes? And when we would do that, sometimes they would work. Obviously, sometimes they didn't. But as a person that now helps create solutions, it's also very easy to walk around the NADA floor and go shoot, I can build that. When, in fact, we have a zone of genius, and that's inventory, and when we find others that have the similar zone of genius and when we can create partnerships to end up at the ability to solve complexity for our client, then whoa, that's like real power. So that's really that's. Another tenet of ours is we don't go wide, we go deep, and that's been, quite frankly, a maturing thing for us as a company. And, to preface, I define company as a company of people no different than you throwing a party at your house and you have company over and it's set by the culture you create. We're no different. We're a company of people.

Kyle Mountsier: 13:14

Yeah, you know, I love the NADA reference because, especially as, like, dealers are beginning to even just hire developers, not to create a new company, like they're trying to solve a problem internally, and so they like solve one problem, right, and, as you like, the moment you have some developers on staff, you're like, oh, what else could they develop for me? Right, and I think that this is the trick with any like it's a trick with a tech company, or the trick there's so many things to do out there. I mean, like so many, you could create apps for days just to solve for the apps that you've created for days, gaps, right, and this is it's. There's. There's like a two-pong issue here. One is that you just create more and more things that are wide, like you said, instead of deep, that don't actually like get to the root of the problem, and so you're always having to continually develop or acquire new development tools. But the other thing that actually happens and I think this is where where you are actually leaning first here is you start to wrap your processes based on your product instead of your products based on your processes, right, which is the most dangerous thing that I see dealer groups and dealers get into is shiny. This was DR Right, this was like DR at its core. Shiny new thing. Customers want to transact online. We try to wrap our process around it, but the adoption curve was so slow because none of it actually fit what was happening in the showroom. How do you like, as a company that has to continually integrate, innovate, how do you ward off the like shiny new object syndrome?

Danny Zaslavsky: 14:57

is the filter actually make sure? Yeah, it's a filter of thinking. A feature is only a shiny object unless it lives within a process. When it lives within a process, it's a weapon, and when that weapon is used for good, then you're solving complexity. So we think about anytime we get a feature request doesn't enhance a process, and processes, depending on the dealership or the dealership groups, are slightly different, and so I'll give you an example of one. We have a dealership group that asked this question. I love this question. They said Today we behave like a group of dealers, tomorrow we'd like to behave like a dealer group. What is it going to take for us to be a dealer group? And so for them, that meant changing the thinking of right car, right price when they're doing appraisals and or acquisitions, to right car, right lot, maybe that dealer that is appraising that vehicle, that vehicle. They may have bias because they didn't do well on the last one, or maybe they did really well on the last one, but they see it out of a very Surgical filter. When we apply technology to be able to appraise a car as a dealer group, to bring in signals from the dealer group, to bring in other touches and other ideas and do it in a live way. Then all of a sudden you're now going from a group of dealers to a dealer group and that's pretty cool. So, like that's, that's solving complexity.

Paul J Daly: 16:56

I think you got us all on that one. It's just like that simplicity of the thinking, actually, but that's all. Great thinking, though, all through all great thinking is like you get it to the most concise thing possible, and there's beauty in the simplicity of it, and I think there are a lot of groups of dealers running around right now with this new, with this newfound scale.

Kyle Mountsier: 17:18

Which I don't think is a problem. I, like, I want to prep.

Paul J Daly: 17:21

No, there's some groups that operate and like have operated Like that for a long time like the right dog.

Kyle Mountsier: 17:26

It was just the right question asked, it's intentional?

Danny Zaslavsky: 17:29

There's not. There's not a wrong here, no different than I can't put Calculus in front of my 10 year olds and expect them to do it because they have AI. Yeah, not be interested, or they may not be ready. And really the question is what is gonna? How do you meet Others where they need to be met? I mean, that's the, that's training 101.

Paul J Daly: 17:57

It's. Some people just see it in a different way. Right like Gary Vaynerchuk says you know what's the ROI of a basketball? He's like well, to me nothing.

Speaker 2: 18:06

Ron.

Paul J Daly: 18:07

James, right, a couple billion, and, and the same is true, like you could take, and it's just what. How does someone view the world? What is their intent behind going in that direction? And yeah, you can, it's. The best thing about the auto industry is that there are so many Perspectives and each of those perspectives can find a large group of people who sees the world that way and they can go innovate in that direction.

Danny Zaslavsky: 18:32

It's one of the things I love. I was on a call Actually a clubhouse and, kyle, you were in it and there's a guy named Daniel that was on there who I think, is just one of the best fixed-stop skies in the country, and the question was, if you were on an island and only had Three tools, what three tools would they be? And he essentially said screw the tools, have your performance manager on the demo, versus which I was like, yeah, that's, that's innovation from the front line. I mean, that's literally taking the person that's responsible to be your coach, your mentor, your your solution area, whatever you want to call it and leading with process instead of leaving leading with features.

Kyle Mountsier: 19:20

Good night, absolutely Good night. Well, look, I'm in one liner. It's unbelievable, it is.

Paul J Daly: 19:25

Well, danny, it is always a pleasure, and every time we get in a situation like this, where we have a few minutes set aside to talk, I always walk away feeling like my perspective has been expanded, and I know that's going to be true for the people who hear this episode. So, on behalf of Kyle, michael and myself, thanks for joining us. Thanks, guys.

Michael Cirillo: 19:47

I'm guys. Guys, I didn't know he sent me into a poetic trance. You were just quieter than I've ever heard you.

Kyle Mountsier: 19:57

He hit me with the whole question. At one point I saw you laying on a couch in the back. When did you get the therapist couch?

Paul J Daly: 20:03

The worst thing is.

Michael Cirillo: 20:04

I think I see his feet. By the time I got on top of that piano I was like where'd these high heels come from? No, the question. You know, usually when you're on podcasts, especially when you've been doing it for as long as the three of us have, you're like right, you know, sometimes people are like oh, and then I was asked this question and oh, I just love this question, and he kind of did that and I was like braced for impact and then he actually hit us with a banger and I was like bam yeah.

Paul J Daly: 20:33

I just like Michael Michael usually will come in with you know, what occurs to me is, and he'll like lead in that way- and you never did that. No, because I'm just, I'm still like the occur was still processing little spinny wheel of what a person that's going to hit you at like 1030 PM tomorrow night. You're going to be like yeah.

Michael Cirillo: 20:51

I mean, the thing that I admire about Danny is is that he, you can tell, I mean he brings up his father, his parents, he brings them up. You know, nearly every time he's interviewed you can tell there's a deep sense of, of meaning and purpose that drives him. And and he used my favorite words, my word of the year he used the word intention several times throughout that that interview. And you know, gosh, I just think he what he got me thinking about is what would happen if just a fraction of a percent of the people that work within our industry got clear about the intention with which they behave each day. That's what I was like oh dang, the whole landscape changes.

Danny Zaslavsky: 21:34

No joke.

Paul J Daly: 21:34

No joke. Well, look, he's not. He's going to be on the ground at a soda con with us in September. So if you want to meet him, you can do that, just get a ticket. We want to see you there. So bad, I want every. Is it weird that I want everybody to be a soda con, whether or not they're in the auto industry or not? I want to tell, like the Uber driver about him, like why? Because I know you will leave like in a better shape than you showed up, absolutely, and if you're in the auto industry, you way better shape than when you saw all these cab drivers that are like you know that was amazing, but the meter still didn't run up the last four hours.

Michael Cirillo: 22:07

Yeah, oh it's good.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:11

Well, on behalf of myself, mike, I'm sorry. Paul J Daily, thanks for joining us here on Autocobo Labs. See you next time.

Speaker 2: 22:19

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 at aso2.com. That's ASOTUcom. 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.

Michael Cirillo: 22:50

Welcome to Autocobo Labs.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:54

Why are we recording?

Paul J Daly: 22:55

Yeah, we're rolling.

‍