Beyond The First Pencil

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At our core, we are car people. We are upset to witness what’s happening to our fellow car people at CDK dealerships. This fact is the driver for this week’s episode. 

While the CDK cyber attack is causing major disruption to sales, service and parts, there will be even more challenging times ahead for the accounting departments at each store. They will be tasked with booking all the transactions, making them balance and collect all the monies owed. 

Let this be a lesson for all the large vendors that don’t have their cybersecurity house in order. Lessons seem to repeat themselves in the car business and we hope this will be one time when actions will be strong enough to avoid anything like this happening again.

Kathi’s post she references in the pod: The CDK Cyber Attack Recovery Will Fall Squarely on The Accounting Office

Music segment:

Podcast: Three Castles Burning: Red Roses For Me with Spider Stacy and James Fearnely (from The Pogues)

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Kathi: [email protected]

Mike: [email protected]

👉Get Kathi’s ebook: “A Beginner’s Guide to AI for Automotive Retail 👈

This week we chat about Kathi’s trip to Vegas for NIADA where she spoke about online reputation management. 

Then we share our thoughts on the CDK outage debacle and what it means for dealership personnel. (of course, the debacle was not over at the time of taping)

Mike recommends a Hulu documentary.

Kathi recommends a Netflix documentary series.

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Got a question? Email either of us!

Kathi: [email protected]

Mike: [email protected]

👉Get Kathi’s ebook: “A Beginner’s Guide to AI for Automotive Retail 👈

Let’s talk about the recent changes Google is making to search. It’s a wild ride and it’s not at all over yet. 

Music segment:

Siouxsie Sioux B-day

Beach Boys documentary (thumbs down)

100 ft Wave documentary

👉Get Kathi’s ebook: “A Beginner’s Guide to AI for Automotive Retail 👈

Got a question? Email either of us!

Kathi: [email protected]

Mike: [email protected]

👉Get Kathi’s ebook: “A Beginner’s Guide to AI for Automotive Retail 👈

Why women dislike service departments = Failure to meet their needs

The National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence states that women represent between 65% and 80% of automotive service customers. This means the female customer experience is directly related to service department revenue.

Kathi and Mike  the subscribe to the philosophy of awesome car dealer, Carl Sewell: “Treat every customer as if they are a guest in your home.”

We talk about the ways to make female customers feel good about coming into the store for service. With the data from the latest JD Power survey showing that customers are more and more turning to the large chains for quick maintenance needs, it’s never been a better time to introduce initiatives in the workplace to welcome female customers back.

5-Step Plan to Welcome Female Customers Into the Service Department

Music segment:

It’s Ian Astbury’s (from The Cult) birthday

The Clash: Combat Rock Album

Documentaries: 

Rather

TLC Forever

👉Get Kathi’s ebook: “A Beginner’s Guide to AI for Automotive Retail 👈

Got a question? Email either of us!

Kathi: [email protected]

Mike: [email protected]

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Beyond the obvious homage to Bon Jovi in this episode's title - in honor of the new Bon Jovi documentary - Kathi and Mike discuss the fallout/repercussions of the last 3-4 years of dealer markups. Of course the market often required markups due to supply chain issues and low inventory, but what comes next is that customers who want to get into a new car are finding themselves buried in their trade. Are there any solutions for these customers now? What effect will this have on new car sales? Let’s get into it.

Go check out the documentary on Hulu and let us know what you think? (Kathi gives it two thumbs up)

Music segment:

Joy Division: Love Will Tear Us Apart

White Stripes on SNL: Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground

Desert Sharks: Deeper

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Got a question? Email either of us!

Kathi: [email protected]

Mike: [email protected]

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Kindness is the oil that takes the friction out of life. It can also be the difference between you and the competition. 

Kathi and Mike share some real time stories about employees that have gone the extra mile, and in the process made themselves memorable. We also share some examples of what happens when poor management, lack of training and a culture that doesn’t put the customer first is left to its own devices. 

In our music segment:

Metallica: Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding 

Ultravox: Reap The Wild Wind

Ultravox: Vienna (Live Aid)

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Got a question? Email either of us!

Kathi: [email protected]

Mike: [email protected]

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Spring is always a good time to review and reflect on what’s working for you, what’s not, and what needs more attention. Kathi and Mike share a few “Spring Cleaning” stories and best practices at the dealership. 

Music segment: 

Alanis Morrisette on David Letterman: You Oughta Know

Milli Vanilli documentary The bizarre untold truth behind the greatest con in music history

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Got a question? Email either of us!

Kathi: [email protected]

Mike: [email protected]

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This week, Kathi and Mike share insights on Rand Fishkin’s SparkToro’s website traffic sources study. Some surprises, great data.

Then we talk about the valuable company assets known as social media business pages. It’s no longer simple or easy to retrieve them if you don’t have login credentials so we share our best practices for how to never find yourself in that position.

Weekend social media for good: Rand Fishkin’s wife, Geraldine DeRuiter is a James Beard award-winning blogger and author. Last Friday, she posted on Threads that her new book was given a terribly negative (even personal!) review by a New York Times critic. Then, over the weekend, something magical happened. It’s a fantastic example of how social media is still great for coming together to support someone and turn a bad review into a bestseller.

Geraldine on Threads (if you’d like to see how it all unfolded): 

Geraldine’s book: If You Can’t Take the Heat (Kathi ordered it and her blog and first book are amazing) 

Geraldine’s blog: The Everywhereist 

Music:

The Jam’s last album “The Gift” released March 12, 1982: A Town Called Malice

March 1985: The first full album from a fav of Mike’s, The Sisters of Mercy was released.

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Got a question? Email either of us!

Kathi: [email protected]

Mike: [email protected]

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As we witness every social media channel changing and shifting, so goes the user experience and behavior on each one. 

Kathi and Mike try to make sense of the current state of social platforms, how to navigate the changes and what we can expect for the foreseeable future. 

One thing that doesn’t change? The need for outstanding, relatable, educational content.

Music:

The Midnight Special TV Show

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Kathi: [email protected]

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Mike gives us a breakdown of the goings-on at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention from his view as an exhibitor.  

As introverts, we both share certain traits (that are completely normal BTW) that make large groupings of people (like conferences, conventions) sometimes hard to navigate and are often draining.

In our music segment:

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations were announced!

Mike and his wife went to see the movie about the Pet Shop Boys: Dreamworld

Check out Gary Janetti on Instagram.

Kathi highly recommends Ozark on Netflix if you haven’t seen it.

Check out Smartless podcast - we can all use a laugh and they deliver every single episode.

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Got a question? Email either of us!

Kathi: [email protected]

Mike: [email protected]