Brian Kramer is the EVP at Cars.com and General Manager of Accu-trade. He is the former General Manager of Germain Toyota of Naples and was responsible for leading the dealership’s digital transformation initiative, working to eliminate traditional dealership “pain points” that cause unnecessary friction in transactions.

Brian has been named one of Automotive News' "Top 40 Under 40." He was promoted to General Manager of a Mercedes-Benz dealership at the age of 24 after working in all positions in various operations. His career as a general manager spans 19 years and a variety of franchises, including Lexus, Chevrolet, Mercedes-Benz, Cadillac, and Toyota stores in the Midwest and Southeast for AutoNation and the Germain family. Alex, the CEO of cars.com, was so impressed by his performance in the used car area that he recruited him to become the Executive Vice President of Cars.com and General Manager of their amazing Accu-Trade program.

Brian begins the show by discussing his experience with Accu-Trade, the lessons he has learned, and how this has altered his outlook in the Automotive Industry. Once upon a time, the marketing guru of marketing gurus, Jay Abraham, stated that, if you think about it, best practices emanate from within an industry. Consequently, we are limited to observing the actions of others in the auto industry. In truth, he maintains, the majority of innovations originate outside an industry, not within it.

Everyone can describe the meet-and-greet process at a showroom. How we as car dealers - we'll conduct a needs assessment and analyze the customer's requirements and proceed through the demonstration, test drive, service block, and everything in between, such as the sales menu. The journey is then compared using a Disney journey mapping process. How do you map it out if it's a virtual project? Are your salespeople authorized to visit clients and do these tasks? At what point have you provided them with emancipation guidelines similar to those found in schools or other environments where they are trusted and aided? This is part of Amazon's strength in the process. Apple has credibility and clarity. There are so many excellent best practices from outside the business that we're going to learn considerably more of, rather than learn from the automotive industry.

We've seen and heard reports of Carvana's stock value plummeting by as much as 98 percent over the course of the past year. And it does not appear that they will be able to write that ship anytime soon. And I'm not sure if they'll ever write the story in which they played a significant role. When all is said and done, there will be a chapter in the history of the automobile industry that states, "These people really made everyone up their internet game."It altered our viewpoints. It made us believe that perhaps the impossible wasn't impossible after all. Perhaps we can provide a more transparent and straightforward online method. And now it appears that so many dealers have responded so effectively and are so serious about continuing to improve along that path that if a customer could get that in the future from a franchise dealer or an independent dealer, we don't know where it will lead, but I believe they served a purpose at the time.

We are currently living in a really intriguing time period. We've spent the past three years in fantasy land. Everyone has achieved record profits, which is wonderful. However, we are observing a significant shift in the market for secondhand cars. And the news is good. It's actually good news because, given the choice between extreme limitations and limits, it's preferable that we figure out how to do what Walmart did years ago, which was to buy better than everyone else, not sell more than anyone else.

Discussing Accu-Trade and how it has enabled dealers to rapidly expand their market share or sales volume at a greatly reduced risk? Brian says that It is the key to tran