What Leadership Looks Like, Elon Brings Internet, Supply Chain Management

SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:32

Yo, it is Monday, last day of February the 28th. I'm finally back in the studio. I missed you all so much, Kyle, Danielle. I don't know if they miss me as much. But regardless, we have a lot to talk about this morning. Let's get into it and go.

Paul Daly  00:54

I think we need to open the show with something that's kind of a first first actually, I don't think it's a first but it's close. We have some fan art.

Kyle Mountsier  01:04

This is amazing, by the way, right?

Paul Daly  01:06

Robin? Yes, we got to give you a major shout out because this started our Monday off the right way Daniel throw the fan art up. This is a picture of Kyle and myself on our way to Las Vegas in the asoto. Like, Range Rover, whatever that thing is so

Kyle Mountsier  01:21

epic we need we need some level of like yellow if someone can rent us some level of like yellow Hummer. For in Vegas, just so we can recreate this

Paul Daly  01:31

when you're born. If you're just listening on the podcast, it is an amazing piece of art map of the United States. This big, like kind of yellow Hummer Range Rover busted out Kyle and I are already in it. Cars got a bullhorn in his hand. And you see the little Las Vegas side in the side. This is good stuff. This is the quality that you should expect with automotive stay the union thank you so much.

Kyle Mountsier  01:52

I'm like no, I have to roll up into like, like right into the show with a bullhorn. Like

Paul Daly  02:00

we're gonna we have to at least not get kicked out on the first day,

Kyle Mountsier  02:04

just like at least the second day, right?

Paul Daly  02:07

If you don't know, we are rolling with the crew that keeps getting bigger every week. Right? So it was like, we're gonna go with four people. No, we're gonna go with six people. Actually, now we're gonna go with seven people. And we're probably gonna have somebody at home, running live streams and producing. So I don't know what exactly is going to happen. But if you can't be an na, da, you should definitely make sure you're signed up on the email list that asoto comm sign up for the emails, and like and follow and subscribe to the social channels because we are going to try to make it our best effort. If you can't be there. We want you to feel like you were there. Because that's one of the things that we are really passionate about making sure that we draw a big circle around the entire industry, not just the small percentage that get

Kyle Mountsier  02:51

30,000 people is not the entire industry. Not a

Paul Daly  02:55

few people but not even close. Not even close. We estimate we were crunching some numbers a couple weeks ago and we estimate there are two and a half million people in the greater automotive industry retail automotive dealership world that need to be paying attention to a narrative that meet need to understand at least in a cursory level, what's going on what it is to be a retailer, what's going on and culture and crypto. And f&i and sales and global supply like everybody needs to know right even what was it a Philo right? Yep. Trying to Yeah, it's a service advisors what Philo is why, because it's their dealerships on Philo, you should know exactly why your owners a little grumpy LIFO by the way, by left Oh, yeah. First and last. Oh, that's kind of our life as entrepreneurs.

Kyle Mountsier  03:39

Philo is us. LIFO is accounting.

Paul Daly  03:42

Right? Right, right. I mean, I can't wait I didn't get to catch up on the episodes. I heard that I got made fun of a little bit. Which is fine with me. Just It's okay

Kyle Mountsier  03:51

though. It's okay. We had I mean, we had to we Michael Cirillo was sitting there and you're you're showing him off this like rental house in in, in in Waco, Texas, nonetheless, right. Which you got to go to last week you were you were with some dealers last week, I'd love to hear a little bit more about like how that was and with Glen Lundy and the 800% Club and just how the energy was around there. And then you got to add to Waco. So how was it last week? It's seemed like fun trip, at least from a little bit of Instagram that I could follow. Yeah, I didn't post too

Paul Daly  04:23

much. That's how you know, like, I'm really out like, I'm not anywhere on my social media, like literally tried to keep my phone away from myself, because there's too many things going on. So I was invited to speak at Glen Lundy's, 800 Club elite, courteous quarterly events. So I got to go out and speak with a bunch of great people on culture. company culture was the term so he had about 30 dealers from all across the country, and a small venue in Dallas. And we talked about company culture and every speaker, the theme was still culture. And the big takeaway was a couple big takeaways. Number one is that there are dealers everywhere that we've never heard about that are made leaders that are caring employers that are good retailers and that are committed to getting better, right? Yes. And it's always inspiring to see like, oh, there's all these people I've never met before, that are committed to the same fight that we're so found some of the others. Secondly,

Kyle Mountsier  05:16

I love that like, don't if you're in the automotive industry, and you're listening to this, or you're a part of automotive say that you mean, you're thinking I'm out here on an island? Just know. I mean, Michael shrill last week was saying, Hey, I recognize I'm not on an island, right? We met someone back at Digital dia that said, Whoa, there's other people that think like me just know, there are others doing the same thing in other regions of this this country of this world that are pushing back in the same way that you are against market forces against, you know, poor culture and all that. So yeah, bring him in,

Paul Daly  05:46

bring them into the fold, right? Because the lights have come on, and so many people that when we've met them, or they've seen some content, they were like, I had no idea, right? You're about to have an idea, right? And your partner sharing that and making sure they know that, hey, this is where our people, our so the dealers that are in this room, the big takeaway, and it was a common theme from, you know, like, what I talked about lies and Porsches was there, a flow was there, like a bunch of a bunch of great speakers, and people that like know what it's like to be in the trenches of culture, talked about the fact that it's not easy. And setting a high bar for yourself, is what we should do, even though you know, you're not going to hit it all the time. And culture is one in the incremental inch at a time fight. You can't just plop a vision or mission statement on there and expect everybody to live it absolutely is. And that was a common theme. So you know, I My goal is always that people remember one thing and go home with one thing when I talk because I know they're going to forget 98 to 99% of what I say. And that's the one thing I wanted them to remember that it's an inch at a time. So move forward an inch today, just,

Kyle Mountsier  06:51

you know, it's interesting when you talk about like, you can't just drop a mission or vision or drop, like we want good culture into a room and hope that it happens, right? I was, I'm not going to remember the book or the person that shared it or anything like that. But the concept remains, you know, a few months back, I was perusing LinkedIn, and someone's screenshot, a book that they were reading. And essentially, the idea was the volume of communication that happens in a day for a typical employee, between like social media sites, emails, things like that, that there are like 1000s of elements a day that they're getting communicated, whether that be through marketing messages, or employee messages, like internal type stuff, and they're just getting communicated all these things and that, and yet, we think that one Summit, or one monthly meeting, or one time can clearly communicate the culture we desire the mission of vision and values. It's like no, it actually has to lead every single meeting every single thing for years on end until it is completely sunk into the environment and the culture of a store and so when you think about that inch by inch, like you don't get you don't get to a mile by going three inches first and then like leapfrogging to a mile you have to continue doing all of the inches. Right and it takes time though.

Paul Daly  08:07

Well speaking of culture segway

Kyle Mountsier  08:13

Welcome back to segway time

Paul Daly  08:14

we have said I was gonna say that we have segway time Oh yeah.

Kyle Mountsier  08:17

Oh, we crushed segway time last week. Come on, go

Paul Daly  08:19

go back. I know there are a lot of people leaving comments that I was just focused on the show and not using comments so here we're gonna throw a couple up. No, Michael Cirillo is not here today. Michael you have a fan. We don't know if that vehicles a Hummer or an Eevee Todd Smith telling us if we can't get a Hummer yellow suits, I doubt that's going to happen. For Viking is like a dumb number style. I'm going to slap Kyle on the back of the legs with my baton. If you're going to fail, fail forward, for sure. And when you're finally sick of talking about your vision, people are starting to hear it and get it Yes. When your people are starting to get it. So I spent I took my family out to Waco, Texas after the speaking event in Dallas brought my mother in law like we rolled heavy, all of us going down to Waco, Texas, and I got to wake when I realized waco is not what you see on TV. Anyway. Surprised right movie magic. I was like I told my, my my wife and my mother in law were like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe it looks so different in Waco than what you see on TV. I said there's a lot of money to be made and knowing which direction to point the camera. Right. So we stayed in one of Chip and Joanna Gaines fixer upper, the Magnolia empire. Now they have their own network. And we went down to the silos, which is a little two blocks square thing down in, in the center of Waco. And they also have several properties that they've renovated that you can actually stay in, we stayed in one of their properties and they have a diner. We have I think one of the best examples of how you don't need to listen to all the other reasons why you can't do it. If you want to build a brand. They build a brand over a number of years and I know that for dealers, well, you know, Chip and Joanna Gaines. I want to remind me In this industry, that brand connection is something that you have control of you have control, waiting it and it doesn't matter how far people have to drive to your dealership, it doesn't matter how many times you say, Oh, well, it's automotive, you don't understand. I was in the middle of Waco, Texas, in a place where if you just turn around, you're like, Wow, this is not, you know, this is not like the nicest area, I would never fly across the country to come here, right? The people in Waco amazing, by the way, but this two block radius where the silos were the diner that had a three hour wait, the house that I stayed in, every single thing was in order and made me feel like magic. Really, it was like Disney magic. In the center of Waco, every person I talked to was amazing. They embodied the brand. They were excited for me that I was a part of it. Now. They were asking me about my experience. They were surprised and delighting me. And so if you tell me Well, I can't find these magic Disney employees. I'm in Waco. Full crap.

Kyle Mountsier  10:54

No, absolutely not. And not just that. But like there's an element to creating such an environment that the employees kind of step up that people just, like, by nature start to step up, because people, people desire that I think, like you think about how many people double tap on all the culture stuff on Facebook and Instagram. It's like, everybody desires that, but nobody's drawn it out of them.

Paul Daly  11:18

Right? And then they walk out of the office and they don't live it or they feel like they can't because of everyone else, right? You make excuses while everyone else doesn't do it. Yep, not excuse.

Kyle Mountsier  11:27

It's not an excuse. And I think that's um, that's a huge call to dealers. It's a huge call to any business owner or, you know, business person doesn't matter if you're an owner or an employee, that no matter where you're at, you can create a brand and a culture worth following worth being a part of. And and doing that, doing that takes a lot of intentionality. Right. But it's, it's well worth it in the end. And I like I think that just leads right into I don't know if it's a segue, but the intentionality around what we're seeing. I mean, I couldn't get away from LinkedIn or Facebook, or Instagram or anywhere without seeing some sort of post about the President of Ukraine, whose name I just simply can't say,

Paul Daly  12:09

a lot of years. Alinsky. Do. You

Kyle Mountsier  12:11

got it, nailed it. Right. But this guy, over the past four to five days, has like put on a clinic on leadership mean, from selfie videos in the middle of wars, war torn Ukraine, to telling the US like, No, I don't need a ride. I need ammunition. He's literally rallied around the world around not just his leadership. But also as Brandon, you said, we were kind of talking about this beforehand. But I think it was Danielle was like, Wait, wasn't he a comedian to start or something like that? And entertainment? Like, yes, absolutely. He was. And the reason why he's so good at the leadership at this point, is not just because of like, there's some story behind him. And obviously he is he has a different leadership cap capacity. But he's also just purely a communicator, right? Oh, yeah. He's willing to eat. Yeah, he gets people he's willing to get on

Paul Daly  13:05

comedian too, right? Yeah. One of the most listened to people in the country is just a comedian. Right, but is very much a part of the cultural and political and, you know, conversation at large. If you didn't know. So, the President of Ukraine, his great grant, or his grandfather had three brothers. So there were four brothers. Three of them died in concentration camps. One brother got out that one brother had a son, his son had a son, which his grandson, and now his grandson, is the President of Ukraine, fighting against an invasion, right and front and center. And it's so interesting, right. And he, he is a screenwriter, he wrote and produced a movie about him being President of Ukraine, they actually turned that fictional political party into a real political party. He got 73% of the popular vote to be the president of Ukraine. And now he's like, strapped up be like, you know, I might die here, but this is definitely where I'm gonna die if I do. It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. So, without

Kyle Mountsier  14:06

this, this is I'm gonna give you like, my, so my wife and I, and I know, like, we're gonna live on this for a second. But my wife and I like Dancing with the Stars. There's a there's one of the dancers, his name is Max. And he has his wife, Peter, they're both dancers on there. But he's, he was in the Ukraine filming the Ukraine's version of Dancing with the Stars, and has like a, an easy ticket out right is now an American citizen. Like they live here full time as an easy ticket out and over the past four days. He has he has said like, because of the actions of this President. I'm hanging in here. Like I'm calling people to arms. I'm calling people to support work providing a network that literally providing a network of housing for dancers across like multiple countries, to make sure that they can have places to stay like absolutely insane that so brand like transferred to brand and now there's more people doing that

Paul Daly  15:05

it's you know not and it's none of this talking about this is like to make light of the situation to not express our concern and prayers and, and all of the the the just broken heart over the disaster and the tragedy or loss of human life and like families being torn apart. And you know, we're like all all of you out there to like really hoping and praying for the best outcome from this point forward. But I think it's really important to set to show that like, brand and business and communication, and real life, grit are all connected, right? It's all the human element is all connected to why you went to work this morning, why you've tuned into this podcast, or this live stream or read some of the content. There are things that connect us. And it's a lot deeper than just selling a car or getting an f&i contract signed, it's so much deeper than that. And I think these are the moments where we remember like, this isn't just what we do. Right? This is who we are. And so I think to bring all that together, it's the truth. I know we're gonna get to a lot of news today. I know we're running a little bit over but a little making up to do. We got some great articles in the show notes. And in the podcast notes. So if you want to go in we're talking a little bit about Tesla, a little bit about, you know, their cyber attack that happened. We're talking about global impact potentially from the Swift sanctions that are going on. We have a lot of announcements. We have a lot of stuff coming this way. We're rolling up to nada, hot, hot, hot, hot. We'll tell you more about what that looks like. Thank you for tuning in. Sign up on the email list. You don't want to miss what's gonna go on but it's only Monday. We have a whole week to go. Let's do it.

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