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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.⭐️ Love the podcast? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your LinkedIn or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! 

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Learn about UVeye

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Like eating your own cooking or living in the house you built.

A tech company that is using its product regularly is going to understand what the end user faces and make sure that it works well. So when DriveCentric started, they used their CRM product as their CRM. Steve Roessler, DriveCentric’s Chief Evangelist Officer joins Auto Collabs to talk about how we can rethink CRMs and how to communicate with today’s generation in a way that they want to be communicated to.

What we talk about in this episode:

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

5:15 Like so many others, Steve’s journey to automotive wasn’t a straight line. He started in engineering, and then moved to medical. One day, his neighbor asked him to look at a CRM that he was working on. The CRM was DriveCentric.

9:12 DriveCentric started by using DriveCentric as its CRM. Kyle and Steve talk about the pros and cons of this approach.

19:06 What can auto learn from dating apps? Steve lays it out.

22:48 Kyle and Steve discuss how B2C sales can look a lot more like B2B sales.⭐️ Love the podcast? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your LinkedIn or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! 

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Connect with Steve Roessler on LinkedIn

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This might be the most we’ve laughed on a podcast.

Normally, Auto Collabs is hosted by Paul J Daly, Kyle Mountsier and Michael Cirillo, but during a special in-person recording in Atlanta, Paul and Kyle turned the tables on Cirillo, interviewing him. It almost doesn’t need to be said, but what followed was full of laughs, Cirillo’s amazing word pictures and a lot more insight into the Real MC.

What we talk about in this episode:

0:00 Intro with Kyle Mountsier.

2:10 The interview starts with Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier explaining a new podcast that ASOTU just launched called “In The Dirt,” which of course, Cirillo makes fun of them about.

4:57 Michael talks about how for the last 60 years, Cirillos have generated their own revenue. He then tells a story about how his dad started a phone book company.

12:59 The tech and marketing business that Michael had its start in 2006-2010. Michael shares how it came about and grew into what it is today.

19:18 Bring about meaningful change is actually going to take hard work, but doing that work will scale into something amazing.⭐️ Love the podcast? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your LinkedIn or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! 

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Connect with Michael Cirillo on LinkedIn

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It’s an Auto Collabs first!We have 2 guests joining us today. Michael Lucki and Matthew Vollmers are NADA Academy Instructors, helping to mold and develop the next generation of dealers. They talk about their experiences in the program, how they’ve seen it change and shift, and what it takes to stay relevant in an ever changing landscape.Michael Lucki also spoke at ASOTU CON during the Managing Profitability During an Inventory Shortage panel in the Sales and Culture room.

What we talk about in this episode:0:00 Intro with Michael Cirillo, Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier.5:33 Michael and Matthew talk about the diversity they’ve seen in NADA Academy students, and how the size of the classes has grown over the years.16:42 Staying relevant is important to Michael and Matthew, and they are constantly working to improve their content. One of the advantages of the NADA Academy is that any graduate can retake any of the classes any time for free.18:51 There are 3 buckets to help you think about the future, according to Michael, Awareness, Preparedness and Act Now.“So in my mind, there's three buckets, there are things that you have to be aware of that might be coming in the future. But you don't have to do anything about it right now. There are things to prepare for, that you have to have a strategy on that are already happening around you, or that you want to be the leader on. And those are things that you need to be strategizing with your management team, usually maybe a quarter or a half a year ahead of time. And then there's the last bucket, which are things that you have to act on right now. Otherwise, you are missing the boat or we're getting left behind. So in our class, I like our students to write down everything we're going to cover. There's going to be some things in the awareness bucket, there's going to be some things in the preparedness bucket and there's gonna be some things in the act now bucket.”26:58 What’s going to be the most important skill going forward, according to Matthew? Learning how to unlearn and relearn things.⭐️ Love the podcast? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your LinkedIn or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! We have a daily email! ✉️ Sign up for our free and fun-to-read daily email for a quick shot of relevant news in automotive retail, media, and pop culture.🎧 Like and follow the podcast: 

• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/auto-collabs/id1635647407

Connect with Michael Lucki on LinkedIn

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There’s a through line here somewhere.Mike Colacchio has gone from minor-league baseball to selling snowboards to Dealer.com to DealerInspire to AutoLeadStar, where’s an advocate for connected data and Customer Data Platforms. He joins us on Auto Collabs and shares his story, plus his vision for the future of data.Mike also spoke at ASOTU CON on “Our Data Has An Automotive Problem.” Get access to the entire Marketing/Tech room today!What we talk about in this episode:0:00 Intro with Michael Cirillo, Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier2:51 Mike started off as a minor-league baseball player working for snowboard company Burton in the offseason. He got a call to come work at Dealer.com while taking batting practice.8:55 From Dealer.com, Mike went to Dealer Inspire and now AutoLeadStar. He talks about some of the innovative things that those companies have been doing.13:07 Dealers are sitting on a lot of data, but the challenge is being able to unlock and connect all that data.22:14 Mike gives us an example of how a Customer Data Platform (CDP) would work when all the data is connected.⭐️ Love the podcast? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your LinkedIn or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally!We have a daily email! ✉️ Sign up for our free and fun-to-read daily email for a quick shot of relevant news in automotive retail, media, and pop culture.🎧 Like and follow the podcast: 

• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/auto-collabs/id1635647407

Connect with Mike Colacchio on LinkedIn

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A tech person for tech people.

Ben Hadley has led an influential journey through automotive. He’s worked with Clarivoy and CreditIQ and helped found Auto Genius. He knows the definitions to all the big words and has a way of communicating almost in parables to bring that heady knowledge down to earth for the layman. And he believes we’re only about 5 years away from a major breakthrough in the way automotive technology works.

What we talk about in this episode:0:00 Intro with Michael Cirillo, Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier.

4:23 Ben, Paul and Kyle talk about the challenge of raising little ones, as they all have children aged 2 and under.

9:42 Equipping a tech product’s end users, in other words, the people at the dealership who use it. It is like creating the Jarvis to the Iron Man suit for the salespeople to execute faster.

14:39 Ben Hadley helped found Auto Genius, along with Kyle Mountsier and Kevin Gervais. Ben and Kyle walk through that founding and why they chose “Market, product, fit” rather than “Product, market, fit.”

22:43 The data in automotive is disconnected, and one of the things Ben is passionate about is finding a way to help everything talk to each other, so it can be connected.

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Connect with Ben Hadley on LinkedInLearn about Auto Genius

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He might be the handsomest man in automotive.

Durran Cage is someone you want to be around. He oozes kindness and has a genuine passion for people. He pours himself into his work, mentally and emotionally. As a consultant, he sees a lot of what is working and what isn’t working, and is able to speak to dealers out of his own personal experience.

What we talk about in this episode:0:00 Intro with Michael Cirillo, Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier.

4:30 Durran shares about the 3 phases of his journey through retail automotive, from selling cars, to the digital transformation and then putting that all together.

6:56 During Cash For Clunkers in 2008, Durran and his team had the innovative idea of purchasing a domain with the words “cash for clunkers” in it. The site provided information and then directed customers back to the dealership.

14:46 Clear communication of the process is an area where Durran sees dealerships drop the ball. The process should be simple and explainable. Durran says that his 3rd grade son should be able to understand it.

18:59 Durran teaches out of his personal pain because there’s been times when he hasn’t had his priorities right. But they’ve been learning experiences that he is now able to share with others.

“Now I do chase positivity, family, friendship, and things of that nature. Because that's really what's important at the end of the day, man. Automotive is great and stuff, but at the end of the day, it's all about us just connecting with one another and helping each other out. That's what helps us enjoy life.”

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Connect with Durran Cage on LinkedIn

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Tom Ryan likes change.

And Tom Ryan knows he can navigate through change. He’ll figure it out. He’s been doing it his whole career, and figuring it out over and over again has given him a directness and an optimism that’s infectious. To him, automotive is a simple place: Let the customer buy the way that they want. We talk about that plus a lot more.

What we talk about in this episode:0:00 Intro with Michael Cirillo, Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier.

2:53 Paul and Kyle both share stories about the first time they met Tom, and the conversation pivots to Lululemon’s history and pregnant pauses in conversation.

8:38 Tom traces his journey through automotive, from working his way up through the Walser Automotive Group to having a falling out and reconciliation with Paul Walser to founding and launching FUSE Autotech.

19:18 There’s only one north, in Tom’s mind, and the goal should be always moving towards that north. For Tom, that means transparency and honesty.

25:19 The reason that there are 3rd party vendors in automotive is because the customer hasn’t been able to buy the way they want to, according to Tom. He’s excited for the changes that are going to come to retail automotive because it means that the good dealers who are helping customers will rise to the top and succeed.

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Connect with Tom Ryan on LinkedIn

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