The David Spisak Show

Larry Sherman leads parts operations at two of The Niello Company's luxury dealerships, Jaguar Land Rover Sacramento and Land Rover Rocklin. With more than four decades in automotive retail, he's learned that some of the biggest threats to dealership profitability are the ones nobody thinks to measure.

What if your dealership doesn't need more customers, more technicians, or more service bays to make significantly more money?

In this conversation with David Spisak, Sherman exposes the hidden inefficiencies quietly eating into fixed ops profitability, including one everyday parts department practice that can cost dealerships far more than most managers realize.

And his solution? It challenges how dealerships have operated for decades.

They also uncover:

• Why strong technician hours don't always translate into strong gross profit.
• The overlooked operational bottleneck that steals productive time every day.
• Why Sherman believes 25% of service business could eventually happen outside the dealership.
• How to expand service capacity without investing millions in new facilities.
• What the best fixed ops leaders understand about trust, retention, and profitability.

The most expensive problem in your service department might be one your financial statement isn't showing you. And the solution could already be inside your dealership.

Connect with David Spisak to Achieve Exponential Growth:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidspisak/
• Website: https://www.davidspisak.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 (510) 604-0308
• Visit https://linktr.ee/davidspisak for all our links

Like this show? Please leave us a rating and review where you're listening right now!

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Kevin Tynan has spent decades analyzing the automotive industry from Wall Street, including his influential tenure at Bloomberg Intelligence. Now with The Presidio Group, he's known for looking beyond the headlines to uncover the economic realities shaping automakers, dealership profitability, and the future of automotive retail.

And what he's seeing heading into 2027 should have every dealer principal asking some uncomfortable questions.

What if the biggest threat to dealership profitability isn't declining sales, rising costs, or even affordability, but something far more fundamental about how dealerships operate?

At the fourth annual Presidio Tech Conference in Denver, Tynan joins David Spisak for a revealing conversation about an industry generating extraordinary amounts of revenue while facing a problem that higher sales volumes alone may never solve.

The numbers tell one story. What's happening beneath them tells another.

Connect with David Spisak to Achieve Exponential Growth:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidspisak/
• Website: https://www.davidspisak.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 (510) 604-0308
• Visit https://linktr.ee/davidspisak for all our links

Like this show? Please leave us a rating and review where you're listening right now!

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Charles Gallaer has seen the automotive industry from three sides most people never will: inside a major automaker, behind the desk of a dealership general manager, and across the negotiating table as a dealership attorney. A partner in the automotive group at Arent Fox Schiff, Gallaer has represented buyers and sellers in major multi-dealership transactions and helped secure a $1.185 million jury verdict after a dealership seller abandoned a $16 million deal for a higher offer.

That combination of experience gives him a perspective few dealership owners can afford to ignore, especially as artificial intelligence, consolidation, and new competitors begin changing the economics of automotive retail.

But this episode isn't simply a warning about technology or legal exposure. It's a conversation about protecting what you've built while making the decisions necessary to keep it growing.

And there's a particularly revealing moment when David asks Gallaer what happens to dealerships that refuse to evolve. His answer should give every dealer principal, general manager, and automotive executive something to seriously consider.

The question is no longer whether AI and consolidation will change automotive retail. It's whether your dealership is making the right decisions before those changes begin making the decisions for you.

Connect with David Spisak to Achieve Exponential Growth:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidspisak/
• Website: https://www.davidspisak.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 (510) 604-0308
• Visit https://linktr.ee/davidspisak for all our links

Like this show? Please leave us a rating and review where you're listening right now!

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Bill Cariss of Holman Ventures is helping shape what comes next in automotive technology. With investments spanning AI, robotics, and emerging technologies, he's seeing firsthand which innovations are gaining traction, where investors are placing their bets, and what dealerships need to prepare for before the industry catches up.

What happens when your competitors can grow their service business without adding more employees?

That future is already taking shape. Holman Robotics is putting autonomous robots to work moving parts through dealership service departments, and a major publicly traded dealer group has already selected the company as its robotics supplier.

But robotics is only part of a much bigger shift.

Joining David Spisak at the Presidio Group's Automotive Technology Summit, Bill reveals why the next competitive advantage in automotive may have less to do with adopting more technology and more to do with how intelligently dealers connect their systems, protect their data, and deploy AI.

Connect with David Spisak to Achieve Exponential Growth:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidspisak/
• Website: https://www.davidspisak.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 (510) 604-0308
• Visit https://linktr.ee/davidspisak for all our links

Like this show? Please leave us a rating and review where you're listening right now!

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John Ellis has seen the car business from almost every seat.

ADP. Autotrader. Gulf States Toyota. Cox Automotive and Manheim. Over 25 years, he’s worked inside dealer stores across fixed ops, F&I, variable, and wholesale. He’s a US Marine Corps veteran and a former Salesperson of the Year.

At 55, he walked away from a successful corporate career to tackle a problem he believes the used car industry can no longer afford to ignore.

What happens to dealerships that keep buying and managing used cars the same way they have for decades?

John joins David Spisak to talk about the future of used car acquisition, the discipline separating high-performing dealerships from everyone else, and what it really takes to build a business when the odds aren't guaranteed to be in your favor.

Connect with David Spisak to Achieve Exponential Growth:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidspisak/
• Website: https://www.davidspisak.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 (510) 604-0308
• Visit https://linktr.ee/davidspisak for all our links

Like this show? Please leave us a rating and review where you're listening right now!

• 🎧 Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-david-spisak-show/id1602552929
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Brian Kramer is Executive Vice President at Cars Commerce and former dealership general manager, has spent decades challenging how dealerships operate, adopt technology, and serve customers. Having worked on both sides of automotive retail, he brings a firsthand perspective on what's changing, what's working, and where dealers are falling behind.

In this episode of The David Spisak Show, Brian joins David for a candid conversation about a growing problem in automotive retail: dealers are investing in more technology, spending more on advertising, and still losing opportunities they don't even realize exist.

And as Carvana, Amazon, and AI-powered search reshape how customers find, evaluate, and purchase vehicles, the traditional dealership playbook is being challenged in ways many operators aren't prepared for.

David and Brian dig into:

• The leads you're losing without knowing: Where dealership pipelines break down and why more advertising isn't always the answer.
• Why AI might be overlooking your dealership: How seemingly small inconsistencies in your online presence can cost you visibility and opportunities.
• The expensive mistake dealers are making with AI: Why adding more tools doesn't necessarily create a smarter or more profitable dealership.
• What Carvana understands about selling cars: Lessons from David and Brian's firsthand visit that could change how you approach the customer experience.
• The dealership org chart of the future: Which roles deserve priority as technology reshapes automotive retail.
• The hidden risks inside your technology stack: What dealers should know about disconnected data, vendor access, and AI-related liability.

The real question isn't whether AI, Carvana, or changing consumer behavior will disrupt your dealership.

It's how much business you could already be losing because your dealership hasn't adapted.

Connect with David Spisak to Achieve Exponential Growth:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidspisak/
• Website: https://www.davidspisak.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 (510) 604-0308
• Visit https://linktr.ee/davidspisak for all our links

Like this show? Please leave us a rating and review where you're listening right now!

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Plenty of dealers are hoping AI is the magic bullet. Ron Frey says if you think it is, you're wrong.

He's earned the right to say it. Ron was a founding partner and COO at TrueCar, Chief Strategy Officer at AutoNation, and Global Chief Strategy Officer at CDK Global. He's delivered 10,000 cars a year sight unseen. Ron says nothing about why that worked has changed since 1985. Including what it means for AI. And that right now feels a lot like 1998, when the internet had everyone confused. Except this time, it's moving much faster.

And the dealers who get scared and pull back? He says they'll be proven right. It will be really bad. 

We also talk about:

• The one distinction about technology that decides whether it makes your store better or does the work for you.
• Why customers bought from him even though they knew he wasn't getting them a better price.
• The principle that keeps people he worked with 20 years ago calling him first when the stakes are high.
• Why being right 51% of the time is enough to win.
• The relay race lesson he ends up having with almost every founder he works with.

His advice on what dealers should do right now isn't the exciting answer. It's the one that will matter. 

Connect with David Spisak to Achieve Exponential Growth:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidspisak/
• Website: https://www.davidspisak.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 (510) 604-0308
• Visit https://linktr.ee/davidspisak for all our links

Like this show? Please leave us a rating and review where you're listening right now!

• 🎧 Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-david-spisak-show/id1602552929
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Danelle Delgado is known worldwide as the Millionaire Maker. She is the CEO of Engage Training and The Internal Alliance, a bestselling author, and a business and results strategist whose training systems are used by entrepreneurs, sales teams, and major dealer groups like Carter Myers Automotive. She has built multiple seven-figure companies, been featured in Forbes, and personally built and tracked more than 3,000 success plans for the people she coaches.

Years ago, she had none of that.

But what makes this conversation interesting is that her approach to dealership performance doesn’t start with the CRM, the script, the process, or even the car.

It starts somewhere else entirely.

In this episode, Danelle breaks down what she learned after working inside dealership organizations and why some of the biggest performance problems in automotive can’t be fixed with more technology or another round of traditional sales training.

She shares the framework she uses to separate good performers from the people who become indispensable inside an organization, and why trust, confidence, communication, and personal accountability can have a much bigger impact on sales than most teams realize.

Learn more about Danelle and Team Engage at davidspisak.com.

Connect with David Spisak to Achieve Exponential Growth:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidspisak/
• Website: https://www.davidspisak.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 (510) 604-0308
• Visit https://linktr.ee/davidspisak for all our links

Like this show? Please leave us a rating and review where you're listening right now!

• 🎧 Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-david-spisak-show/id1602552929
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Peter Cooper opened his Lexus store in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1990, in a market that would never let him be the biggest dealer in America. So he chased something harder to copy: becoming people's favorite place to do business. More than 20 years ago, he went one price, single point of contact, no haggling, while the rest of the industry bet the other way. Today his store runs on a culture most dealers only talk about in 20 groups, led in part by a son who has never sold a car.

It started with one question from his wife, Karen: "Peter, what's it like for a woman to buy a car from you?"

He said it was easy. He spent months defending that answer. Then he rebuilt the entire business.

In this conversation with David Spisak, Peter breaks down:

• Why dealers who negotiated well were only closing 3 out of 10, and why nobody talked about the other 7
• The $36 move that puts the exact car a shopper wants in their driveway before they spend a dollar, and why he calls Carvana's return model backwards
• What David found inside a Carvana-owned store in Sacramento: 110 cars sold in a month, 109 to people who never saw or drove them
• The labor rate decision from his first days in business that his own team called impossible
• Why a warranty take rate under 40% says nothing about your customers and everything about your process
• The hidden cost of using AI to cut the entry-level people who were supposed to become your next managers
• How dealers in their 60s are quietly setting their families up for a disaster they won't be around to fix

Most dealers are still asking how to squeeze more gross out of this month. Peter stopped asking that decades ago, and built a business customers find almost impossible to walk away from.

Connect with David Spisak to Achieve Exponential Growth:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidspisak/
• Website: https://www.davidspisak.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 (510) 604-0308
• Visit https://linktr.ee/davidspisak for all our links

Like this show? Please leave us a rating and review where you're listening right now!

• 🎧 Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-david-spisak-show/id1602552929
• 🔊 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6oPjFeHfnxNXPTHXxNwIsm?si=4fc3f546d07a4679

Jason Stein has spent three decades inside automotive media, from running Automotive News across Jason Stein spent nearly three decades in automotive media, most of it as publisher of Automotive News and its properties in Detroit, Europe, Canada, and China, before moving to the deal side of the business. He's now Managing Director and Partner at the Presidio Group, an investment bank focused on automotive retail and mobility, and hosts SiriusXM's Cars and Culture, where he's interviewed guests like Jay Leno, Roger Penske, and Mark Wahlberg.

In this episode, he talks about where capital is currently flowing in automotive retail, what that signals about where the industry is heading, and why he believes AI adoption is at a genuine tipping point rather than another overhyped trend. He also shares what he's learned building Presidio's Auto Technology Summit, an invite-only event where the majority of attendees are CEOs, CFOs, and founders, and what he's seen happen in that room in the years since it started.

If you want to know where the smart money and the smart operators are paying attention right now, before it becomes obvious to everyone else, this is the episode to hit play.

Connect with David Spisak to Achieve Exponential Growth:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidspisak/
• Website: https://www.davidspisak.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 (510) 604-0308
• Visit https://linktr.ee/davidspisak for all our links

Like this show? Please leave us a rating and review where you're listening right now!

• 🎧 Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-david-spisak-show/id1602552929
• 🔊 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6oPjFeHfnxNXPTHXxNwIsm?si=4fc3f546d07a4679