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What happens when you combine a thrilling 2000 km electric vehicle adventure with the rugged beauty of Newfoundland?


You get the captivating journey of our guest, Devin Sooley, a talented Canadian automotive marketer who recently embarked on a mini tour of Canada in a Hyundai Ioniq 6 EV. We sit down with Devin as he shares the incredible details of his three-day expedition, including how he and his team relied on EV charging points and managed to create an impressive array of content for their video series in just 72 hours.

But that's not all! We also dive into Devin's creative process and strategies behind crafting engaging automotive content that keeps followers hooked. From using polls, comments, and group chats to leveraging TikTok for growing a dealership's social media presence, Devin reveals the key to his success in managing the Norris the Mini Instagram page and why creating a character out of Norris has resonated with audiences. Don't miss this exciting and informative conversation with Devin Sooley, where you'll not only get a glimpse into the world of EV adventures, but also learn valuable insights on creating content that truly connects with your audience.

Devin Sooley is the Marketing Manager of Capital Auto Group.

Follow Norris the Mini.

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What if you could create a workplace culture where employees were not only valued, but truly cared for? Dive into the world of automotive leader Bruce Miller, as he shares his journey from sales to becoming his own boss, and how his experiences of being misunderstood and mistreated in the past have shaped his approach to management. With a focus on non-transactional relationships, Bruce emphasizes the importance of building a strong, supportive team culture and treating employees with the respect and care they deserve.

Discover Bruce's "all gas, no breaks" mentality as he shares the importance of balancing work and personal connections within the business environment. From taking his team to Pelicans games to helping employees when they're in need, Bruce's approach to leadership is all about going beyond the transactional and building meaningful relationships. Don't miss this insightful conversation with a true disruptor in the automotive world.

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The first repeat guest on Auto Collabs.

Of course we mean the one and only Rick Ricart, President and Chief Vision Officer of Ricart Automotive Group. Every time we get the chance to talk with Rick, the conversation is packed with insights, and today is no different. We touch on the challenges of the EV market, negative equity woes, trends in the showroom, and the all-important power of training. 

Key takeaways from this episode:

1️⃣ EV Conundrum: Navigating the EV market is akin to driving on a winding road. The team explores the complex dynamics of infrastructure, communication patterns, and regional variations, making it difficult to predict the industry's direction. The hype surrounding EVs has outpaced the actual market demand, leading to a mismatch between expectations and reality.

2️⃣ Thrill of the Drive: The crew delves into the allure of high-performance vehicles and the passion of die-hard Harley-Davidson riders. They discuss the reluctance of some enthusiasts to trade their roaring engines for silent EVs. The joy of shifting gears, feeling the power, and embracing the traditional driving experience is an integral part of their automotive lifestyle.

3️⃣ Negative Equity Drag Race: Negative equity emerges as a major challenge in the auto industry. With soaring vehicle prices and longer loan terms, customers find themselves trapped in a race against negative equity. The team emphasizes the importance of education and awareness in addressing this issue head-on.

Key Moments:

📕 Intro (0:00) with Paul J Daly, Kyle Mountsier and Michael Cirillo.

📕 The Inventory Balancing Act (7:24): Rick Ricart shares the struggles of aligning market demand with current inventory. The team discusses the contrast between states like California, Florida, and Texas, where EVs thrive, and other regions where the market is yet to catch up.

📕 The Hype vs. Hope Showdown (09:55): The team delves into the hype surrounding EVs and its impact on the industry. They examine the influence of stock market excitement and the rise of Tesla, emphasizing the importance of separating hype from reality.

📕 Affordability Speed Bumps (21:21): The team addresses the affordability challenge faced by customers in today's automotive landscape. They highlight the rising negative equity rates and the impact of high vehicle prices on monthly payments.

Connect with Rick Ricart on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickricart/

Learn more about Ricart Automotive - https://www.ricart.com/

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We threw some hard questions around.

And Ron Smith aced them all. Ron is the Enterprise Sales Director of Stella AI, a fully AI telephone answering system for dealerships, and joins the show after winning a recent month of Pitch Tank. We learned a lot about Ron's background, what dealers and vendors really dislike about each other, and have a lot of laughs.

Here's what we talk about in this episode:

0:00 Intro with Paul J Daly, Kyle Mountsier and Michael Cirillo

3:41 Ron and Stella AI won a recent month of Pitch Tank, and Ron shares how they literally changed the pitch with 30 minutes before the competition, and it's now the pitch their whole team uses.

6:35 Ron's journey to Stella AI started 20 years ago when he worked at his dad's dealership. Since then, he's worked at dealerships and automotive tech partners, able to see both sides.

9:34 We ask Ron to put his dealer hat back on and share the most annoying thing a vendor can do when they're pitching. He responds with one word: "Talk." Everyone has a good laugh.

14:59 In the spirit of growing empathy, we flip the question and ask what's the most annoying thing a dealer can during a pitch process. Ron talks about how getting stuck in a gray area without a solid 'Yes' or 'No' is really hard.

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Connect with Ron Smith (904) 738-4011 on LinkedIn 

Hear the Stella AI Difference

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What do you get when you mix an automotive marketer, a graffiti artist, and meme expert?

Jordan Cox, obviously.

He's energetic, always smiling and full of ideas. In fact, he just won the Best Idea Award at David Kain's Clients and Friends Digital Success Workshop for his work on Gates Car Talk, a podcast produced inside of the dealership. Jordan joins to the show to talk about what challenges he's solving, how to tell better stories and seeing people blossom.

Here's what we talk about in this episode:

0:00 Intro with Paul J Daly, Kyle Mountsier and Michael Cirillo

6:19 Jordan describes Gates Car Talk, an interview/news/information podcast that he created for their dealership. They use it to share employee's stories and to keep up on current news.

8:20 Don't feel like today's strategy needs to be for the rest of your life. Jordan talks about how different seasons of the podcast have had very different feels.

10:02 The team at Gates actually promoted the podcast to customers by putting it on the VDP with the Why Buy? photos.

15:42 A recent problem that Jordan solved was getting SMS conversations to go to the correct store and department within that store. He describes how he worked the problem and the results they've seen.

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Listen to Gates Car Talk

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Here is how retail automotive can learn from Amazon.

While Ben Ayed worked at Amazon, he learned that the customer was number one, and so even though they had over 1 million phone calls a day, every single call was answered. Fast forward to when Ben noticed a 72% drop rate in customer booking on Xtime, he was ready to answer the call and come up with a solution. He’s an entrepreneur, an inventor and his company Autoservice.ai was the first winner of our Pitch Tank tournament.

What we talk about in this episode:

0:00 Intro with Michael Cirillo, Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier.

4:44 Ben talks about living in Silicon Valley, and how to identify and approach the tech leaders to help get your idea and company to the next level.

9:30 Ben casually drops into the conversation that he holds over 50 patents, including one for 2-factor authentication.

14:45 After taking a job at Xtime, Ben noticed that they had a 72% drop rate in customer booking, so he set out to fix that. The end result was Autoservice.AI.

19:45 “Robots for retail” is how Ben describes the goal of AutoService.AI. Robots give you scalability and the ability to have a close to 100% Service Level Agreement with a customer.

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Learn more about Autoservice.AI 

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What do mountain drives have to do with bachelorette parties in downtown Nashville? Plenty, if you’re using them as analogies for the customer experience.

Alan Krutsch joins the show, complete with a black baseball cap to fit in. Alan is the type of guy who you can talk to about the same topic for 3 hours without getting bored. He’s the Director of Marketing & Industry Relations at FUSE Autotech and is always able to take a question and zoom out to consider all the implications.

What we talk about in this episode:

0:00 Intro with Michael Cirillo, Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier.

3:31 Early in the interview, Alan shares how he’s feeling uncomfortable, and then in an automotive podcast award-winning performance, reveals a black baseball hat. And like that, the comfort is restored!

5:26 What is Alan watching? He’s interested in Chinese manufacturers entering the US market and the effect it will have on it. He recalls when Japanese manufacturers like Toyota and Honda came to the US, in spite of naysayers who didn’t believe they’d be successful.

10:21 When it comes to advice, Alan goes back to basic principles of the automotive industry. For him, the 2 pillars are efficiency and customer experience.

21:52 After comparing the automotive shopping experience to general retail, Alan wraps up the interview by suggesting that putting the customer more in control of the buying process will help them to feel more confident and make the experience better.

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Learn more about Fuse AutoTech

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She’s the new interim CEO of National Independent Automobile Dealers Association.

Melanie Wilson didn’t choose automotive, but she’s here! We caught up with her to talk about why she now loves the industry, what NIADA offers to its members and the world at large, and how car dealers are super resilient.

What we talk about in this episode:

0:00 Intro with Michael Cirillo, Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier.

4:16 Melanie begins by talking about how she didn’t pick automotive. Automotive picked her. She shares about her first conversation with Steve Jordan, how they are both characters and how he convinced her to join him full-time.

9:12 It takes resiliency to be in the car business. Melanie loves that in the midst of people thinking about getting out of the industry, the real car dealers are the ones who are out there believing they’re going to crush it.

12:53 NIADA has a huge variety in its over 14,000 member dealers. Everywhere from 4-5 cars per month all the way up to Carmax.

21:29 Melanie is working to communicate NIADA to the masses, helping consumers to understand what the NIADA brand is and what it offers to them. 

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Learn more about NIADA

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One of the most measured men in automotive.

Santosh Viswanathan is not only an auto dealer, but also the legislative chairman of the Delaware Auto Dealers Association. Delaware is currently considering outlawing the sale of ICE (internal combustion engines) vehicles in the state by 2035. It’s an issue that many states are considering, but have significant ramifications for dealers and customers alike. Santosh joins the show to discuss the pros and cons of the regulations and why he thinks that the market should be the one making the decision.

What we talk about in this episode:

0:00 Intro with Michael Cirillo, Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier.

3:51 What does the legislative branch of the Delaware Auto Dealers’ Association do? They weigh in and support the Delaware government as they institute laws and fees around the sale and operation of vehicles in the state.

8:53 Santosh says that the market is never wrong. He points to the rollout of hybrids and how the market rejected hybrids when they first came out. But in time, the market embraced hybrids. His concern is that rules and regulations shouldn’t force the market in one direction that the general public may not embrace or be able to afford.

16:27 “The conditions on the ground should dictate what’s happening in the marketplace.” Delaware is considering adopting California’s regulations that outlaw the sale of ICE (internal combustion engines) by 2035. Santosh thinks that the market and the manufacturers should be the ones dictating that change rather than the government.

24:08 Santosh encourages every dealer to be involved in their state’s Automobile Dealers’ Association, so that the conversation can happen there. Then dealers won’t be put in a position of being reactive.

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The winner of the 2022 Automotive News All Star for Fixed Ops Vendor.

Amir Hever and UVeye have been growing leaps and bounds. The company was originally founded as a homeland security solution for scanning cars for potential threats. But they realized there were a lot more applications than that. Amir joins the guys to talk about where UVeye is growing, helping ease a technician shortage, and what an Automotive News award actually looks like.

What we talk about in this episode:

0:00 Intro with Michael Cirillo, Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier.

3:49 UVeye started when Amir noticed that humans were laying down to do security checks under vehicles, and although the company started by checking for explosives and modifications, they realized they were seeing a lot more leaks than explosives.

7:00 UVeye began selling to dealerships in 2020, and realized that they’re able to help technicians focus more on fixing issues than diagnosing them.

14:13 Automotive News picked UVeye as the All-Star for its Fixed Ops Vendor award. Amir talks about what that means for the company.

20:33 Amir talks about his background and how he and his brother built UVeye from the ground up.

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Connect with Amir Hever on LinkedIn

Learn about UVeye

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