Kelly was honored to be invited onto The First Pencil Podcast with Kathi Kruse and Mike “the Car Guy” Correra to talk Automotive dealership marketing strategies and more!
Automotive dealership marketing strategies and processes take a lap on this fast-paced chat amongst friends that love the car business. This episode covers everything from marketing and accountability to CRM process and used vehicle acquisition. If you’d like to get a feel for Kelly’s passion and drive for making dealers thrive, you can listen to Season 2, Episode 12, or read through the show’s transcript below. With a run time of 73 minutes, the facts, marketing ideas, and best practices are racing!
This episode is a treasure trove of dynamic marketing strategies to elevate your dealership’s success.
Automotive dealership marketing strategies
Full transcript of the visit:
Mike: Hello everyone, welcome to the first pencil with Kathi and Mike. My name is Mike the Car Guy. I’m trying to talk slow. I’m just so giddy with excitement. I’m like thrilled. We have an incredible guest with us today. And I will let Kathi, you take the honors of introducing our friend and sharing with everyone that’s listening in who we have.
Kathi: Hi, hi everyone. Hi, I first met this person, I believe it was a digital dealer at those… long ago before it was sold to the company that owns it now, there was a gentleman that was the, he ran the actual conference and he and I came up with this idea of lunch and learn on the exhibit floor and they’d set up tables and then certain vendors would come over and sit there for an hour or longer and answer questions and it was really a great time to, it was good to educate people or and, but also to keep people on the exhibit floor. So that was one of the, so anyway, so I already knew her from social media at the time, I think, and then she came over and we spent a lot of time together because we think a lot alike. And so her name is Kelly Wilson, and some of the listeners will already know her, especially the ones that are vendors in the Carbiz. and I’m going to let her tell us about her journey to where we are today. Welcome, Kelly.
Mike: Welcome, Kelly.
Kelly: Thank you, Kathi. Thank you, Mike. It’s so nice to be here with my auto fam. So if you don’t know me, Kelly or Kelly Sue, I have started out as a marketing manager, internet director at the world’s oldest Chrysler Dodge dealer, was there for about 12 years. about halfway through my time there, a little bit less than that. Literally the day after I signed for my house, I was voluntold that I was gonna be moving into finance because they needed to move customer service into that department. So I’ve spent about the last six years or so in finance. After I was at the Chrysler store, writing was on the wall that they were gonna be selling, moving out because the last owners, daughters didn’t want to take over and he was, you know, third generation. So they sold. And before that happened, I moved over to an Audi store, little different. Um, and not only was I in finance, but I continued to do a lot of,
“Oh my God, Kelly, we’re not selling any cars. Can you look at our internet in our stuff and why aren’t we selling cars? And can you find a solution?”
Um, and I was like, sure. I’ll consult for free for you because if we can sell cars, I can have a spin and, and I can, I can do a deal. So, it’s still keeping my toe in the water. All the things. They’re like, oh, we just sent out this email blast and we didn’t get any response. I look at it and I’m like, you didn’t even put a call to action in it. Like, no, let’s go back. And so, keeping my toe in the water with automotive dealership marketing strategies. And then earlier this year, we had a Buy/Sell that happened at the end of last year. And we all know what happens during Buy/Sells. And it going to a larger company than what we had already been with gave me a chance to realize that I allowed my skills, my passion for helping grow businesses, revenue through accountable processes, intelligent marketing to become disregarded, underutilized, unappreciated.
And I decided that I’m going to take some time. I’m going to be of service with my time to the people in my life. And I’m going to look. to join the vendor world. So that’s where I am today. I’m actually looking at finding a partner I can believe in because if I can believe in you, I can move mountains. And so, got to give a shout out, Bill Playford, Jessica Ruth, Joe Webb, Gary May, Renee Stewart, you guys, Brent Wees Hunter Swift, Dara, my shoe girl. And, uh, “the nicest guy in the car business,” Ryan Leslie, have given me so much support from reviewing resumes to like giving me pointers or kind of name dropping and I’ve got a couple of leads, but again, I want to find somebody I believe in because one of the conversations that I had when I just went to digital dealer and to dealer knows summer camp was everybody’s talking about new business, new business, new business, but there is a very large value. We all talk about customer retention and the dealership, but vendors need to talk about customer retention as well. And I think the number one tool for customer retention in a dealership is for your representative to give more value than just the tool that they’re servicing. If you’re a wealth of knowledge and you help them in multiple parts of their business, you’re gonna be the last company to get cut because you bring so much more value to the table and it helps so much with customer retention. And just like we talk about in the dealership, retaining customers is cheaper and makes you more money. Why wouldn’t the vendors take that approach with their own customers?
Mike: So that’s one kind of behind the door conversation we had. And they hire you. Obviously I’m gonna be thrilled for you, but I’m gonna be actually. more excited for that company because I’m saying this publicly, whatever company that is will be the freaking company to watch explode and go into the stratosphere of success that they’ve never seen before. I am saying that right now.
Kelly: Well, thank you. It’s it’s been very eye-opening. I’ve got to learn about a bunch of new products, some of which I don’t think I would have been a good fit for some of which I’m really sad that I’m not going to be a part of and maybe I will in the future, but it’s been amazing. but also getting to reconnect with all of those friends. I’m not even going to call most of them acquaintances because I’m going to call them friends. Like it’s like, hug it out. It’s like COVID. No, we’re in the Blue Ridge mountains. We’re going to hug it out and then we’re going to go, you know, shoot arrows at a target and, um, they had a, if you’ve seen pictures from the dealer knows summer camp, they, it was called the theater, but we all called it the church because it looked like a church. There was nothing religious and it had stained glass windows vaulted ceiling. Like. It was like going to church and there were like, amen, when people were saying stuff. That’s awesome. It was so great. And you got a chance to go to a session and learn something. And then you got to go be physical and interact or network and then go to another session and then eat. And you didn’t have to go anywhere. You were outside, inside. It was just kind of free for all, but not because it was very structured. And I, it was, it was so refreshing. I got to meet a lot of new dealers. I had a lady, I was like, we were at archery and she was like trying to learn how to hold the bow and I had just learned how to hold the bow and I hit the target and she was like, show me how you did that. And so I was showing her how I was holding the bow and we got to talk.
I was like, “so what did you come here to learn? “And she says, “we’re getting a brand new CRM and I’m putting in a whole new process for my DDC. ” And I was like, that’s so awesome. She was like, “what, what do you do?” I was like, well. Um, one, I take my first rule is three minutes. You get three minutes to research your lead, read the entire lead. Where did it come from? What button did they click? What conversation do they want to have? What information have you been provided? We searched the name, the email and the, um, phone number in the CRM to make sure that there’s not a duplicate lead somewhere that’s not a patching, if you’ve still got time in your three minutes, put the phone number, the email. into Facebook and see if you can see anything else about that customer. Take three minutes and learn who you’re going to talk to. You’ll have a better conversation and then reach out, follow up your process, but meet the customer where they are with the lead that they sent. If they sent in a trade-in request, don’t be like, oh, our car is this price. No, you start talking about their trade. And she was like, oh my gosh. And I was like, and you can get as granular as you’re willing to do. Start big and then drill down those processes because You know, we had just got out of a class where they were talking about 73% of leads by in a week, 90% of leads by in a month, that’s still 10% of sales that happened after the fact. But if you’re overwhelmed with the number of customers, you need to automate that process. So I said, you’re going to need to talk about contacted, uncontacted, and then you’re going to have to talk about the people that you were talking to, but have kind of gone dark and you need at least three follow-ups. levels inside of each process so that you can have the right conversation and automate it correctly so that you can focus a little more energy where you’re going to get more sales, but not forget about people. And her mind was just blown. She’s like, I, we have the same conversation with every customer. And I was like, just even just reading the lead and having the right conversation before you do anything else, you’re going to pick up, you know, another four, five, six percent of sales. And she was like, there’s no way. I was like, just try it. Here’s my card, got questions, call me. And it went, we went into the next session and she came out of the session she was in and she was like, they just followed up with everything that you said. I never thought about this. I was like, well, it feels good to be validated, but yes, it is,
Mike: let’s go back to what you should do. Everything you’re saying is gospel because it’s the same process I follow. Automotive dealership marketing strategies are the same. Honestly, working in sales with a CRM company, when we receive a lead, I research the lead, I read the lead, and just what you’re saying, I had it just last week, just to key off of how true it is, whether you’re selling cars, whether you’re selling software, whatever you’re selling, sales is the process, it’s all the same. I put the dealer’s name into Google, I searched them, first thing that comes up was an article about how they were recognizing 60 years of being family owned in the little town in Texas where they’re at. So when I got them on the phone, what do you think the first thing I mentioned is? Congratulations on your 60th anniversary. That’s awesome. I’m, I love that. You know, I came out of the dealership world after 30 years that we had a 30 minute conversation about the car business, his dealership, just, just talking, just swapping stories. So when it came down to the, you know what? Yeah. I do want to get a demo of your product. You know, I, I hear what you’re saying. I think there’s maybe some value there. It was, it was a no brainer at that point. And then for you, when you’re having that conversation, they buy your products and you go into install it. You’re going to also go in loaded with the idea.
Kelly: If they’re a 60 year old family owned business, there’s going to be a lot of, “well, we’ve always done it this way.” And you’re going to be loaded up with reasons and research of how, yes, it’s already always been done this way, but you brought us in to make changes. So if you give it a wholehearted efforts. to do it this new way and see how it goes, maybe you’re gonna see some changes. And if you don’t, I completely understand, but if you can let me help you do these new things that you’re investing in, and it comes down to one of the things that we talked about earlier, and we talked about at all of these conferences, you go out and you learn all this Automotive dealership marketing strategies stuff and you wanna do all of the things. And then you get home and you’re completely overwhelmed and you don’t know where to start.
And take some TikTok ADHD advice that I’ve been implemented in my own life. Do one thing, just do one thing, make it as small as possible for me. Put away three pieces of laundry. It winds up usually being all the laundry, but still just put away three pieces. If that’s on the list and I do that thing, I’ll do another thing. That’s a big, small win. And they were, you know, somebody in the, at digital dealer, the first day they had. uh, Tracy Meyers and Troy Spring. And they were talking and they said, what if you have an underperforming new salesperson? How do you, and he said, Tracy, God love him. He says, “set them up for success”. And it’s the same thing. I’m setting myself up for success to say, I’m going to put away three pieces of laundry. If I do more great. If that’s all I have to do to get it off of my checklist. Great. Give them something small. That’s easy to do. tangible, just like all of your information.
You know, you go home and you’re like, I want to make all of these new processes in the CRM. Well, do one, do one piece or your commit to the content was the big thing for social media. Well, start small. What, what are your posts going to be about? Write down a sentence, come back to it and write down three or four things that you want to post about this week. And then. go do some other stuff. And then while it’s percolating in the back of your brain, come back a little later. And then under those three or four things you wanna post, come up with two or three questions for each one of those that you wanna answer. And then a little bit later, you’ve got your questions. You probably got them on notes on your phone. You see a salesperson that’s standing around, grab them, take a 10 minute video, ask them the questions that are on your list. You’ve got something to edit down. to 30 second contents and one minute and all of the places that you can post and you’ve got so much to work with that you can get posted, but it’s just one small action at a time because you can’t implement change all over the board because one, you’re not gonna have the bandwidth to do it and two, you won’t know what’s working and what’s not if you change everything at once.
Right, gotta be able to measure it. It’s amazing and you know. long, long ago when Kathi and I sat at that table for so long, which was, I was like in tears, I was so excited to spend time with her and pick her brain about these things. And what we had talked about is, you know, 12, 13, 14, 15 years later, we’re still talking about it. Dealerships need to know what their voice is. What is your culture and are you portraying that online? And it’s not just taking a picture with somebody that bought a car, taking a picture with somebody that bought a car.
You know, Ryan Leslie, the nicest guy in automotive did a 20 minute presentation that had at least half of the room in tears over lunch, the first day of, you’ll know, summer camp about cause marketing. And he was talking about how brands are doing things and the brands don’t talk about it a lot, the dealerships hardly talk about it, even though they’re involved. And he had been a vendor for multiple dealers of this brand. and didn’t even know that they did an actual like huge effort from the dealership level and the corporate level for donating to children’s cancer research until his own son’s picture showed up on the internet. And that was thanks to Megan Barto, because she worked at the dealer at the time that she submitted in his story. And it was just one of those things where he just immediately felt like as a vendor as a dealer, as just a whole part of the industry, we’ve failed to talk about the good that we do.
You know, they say that automotive and its relations are 40% of GDP. But look at how much money from your softball team down the street to big things that you’re donating to and are you talking about it? Is it mutually beneficial? And does it match the brand that you want to have? Do you even know what your dealership’s voice is? to build around that? What is your culture? And is that something that needs to change to match what you wanna do? Because if you build this beautiful thing online, which most people aren’t taking the time to do, is it the same when they walk in the store? Because if it’s not, they’re just gonna leave. And many dealerships are doing such great things, but oftentimes the whole dealership doesn’t even know what they’re doing.
Mike: I was at a store in Ventura and… just searching the dealership’s name, I happened to see them referenced in a children’s hospital in the Ventura area. They had contributed to this awesome project for kids that can’t leave the hospital. So they built this gaming center for kids so they could have access to just some recreation while they’re going through some really challenging trials with getting treatment. And it was a car, it was in the shape of a car. So they sat in the cockpit of a car to play a game. The screen was on the… windshield. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. And I’m talking to the GM and I say, hey, by the way, I love what you guys are doing with the Children’s Hospital. He’s like, what do you mean? The Children’s Hospital? You guys built the car with the gaming system? I don’t know anything about that. I literally got out my phone, found the post. I’m like, you guys, that’s your dealership’s name on the side of that car. I mean, A, that’s a great opportunity to share, you know, just what good things you’re doing. Cause we have such a negative you know, reputation in the car business, but B, you should be telling all your employees and you should be sharing that. You should be just getting some good traction out of it. It’s not just, I mean, it’s a good thing to do. Don’t get me wrong. First and foremost, that is an awesome effort, but it could be mutually beneficial as well. There could be people that, you know, know somebody that are having a difficult time in their life and would feel like, you know what? I appreciate that they did this. I may go. to that company and do business with them because they did something that’s important to me. And he’s like, yeah, I don’t know anything about that post. I don’t even know who put that up. Who does our Facebook page? And he’s like looking around, who does that? Who manages the Facebook page?
Kelly: Oh my gosh. Well, and I mean, as a vendor, you have Kathi and of course her stuff, you know, every what? Is it five posts, every 10 posts? She talks about how 10% of the proceeds go to the horses and it’s something that you. everybody knows. I got, uh, Ryan and I were actually on the same early bus because we’re overachievers. Um, and we had, we had a couple of hours at the house, the, the lodgings that were set up for the summer camp and they had a bit of a petting zoo area. So we went over there and saw the animals and had some fun. And then we went and sat on the front porch and rocking chairs and got work done. But the very first thing that I did when I got there, they had this paddock of horses. And I was like, these guys look, some of them look a little beat up. They all immediately run over and like scratch us, scratch us. First thing I did is I stepped back, took a picture and I sent it to Kathi. I was like, I wish you were here. There are all these horses. And then she told me, you know, they have a terrible track record for like overusing horses. I hope they’re being taken care of. So I actually went back inside and I said, hey, can you tell me about these horses that you have out here? So like they’re all really nice. Most of them are old rescues that can’t work anymore. Just we do trail rides. We have limits on each horse about how much of a person they can carry. Any one of those horses may go out once a day. Most of them probably don’t have a rider all week and they just sit out there in the paddock and live their best little horse life. They’ll even come up to the back door of your cabin where your rocking chairs are and say good morning. which they did. And so it was just one of those things where I was like, okay, well, at least I know that there are rescues that are mostly at the last of their years and some of them never even have a rider. But like, I wouldn’t have thought about, oh, this could be a bad situation. Maybe we shouldn’t pay to ride these horses, which I didn’t because I’m not a person that should do that. They didn’t have any horses that were the size that carry my body. But having that that conversation with Kathi just made me more aware, even though I see her posts, I didn’t think about this place maybe being one of those people perpetuating that situation. So we’ll cross our fingers and hope that they really are, you know, a good little place for retired horses to go live some beautiful days in the mountains. But I was at least aware that there was somebody that knew about that to like educate myself. And that’s part of her brand. And I think the compassion that she has for those horses can lead people to. Search her out because she can bring compassion, especially now that she’s operations, um, which was another big topic of operations and culture and hiring. Um, but if it wasn’t for, for that kind of slant, she may get people that were totally off brand for her. And. Nobody wants to fire a customer. So that was another whole conversation that was had at both Digital Dealer and at Summer Camp. Have you guys ever had to go through that situation of firing a customer because they didn’t align with you?
Kathi: Oh my gosh. Yes. She might. Both of us. Have I experienced that, do you think?
Mike: Yes. In the harshest of ways. Me not so much harsh, but yes, we both have had to end relationships with clients that we’re just not on the same page with, yes.
Kelly: Yeah. It’s so crazy, and you know, I think that’s why it’s really important, finding what your culture is of your dealership, and if it’s not what you want, there was a dealer there that was doing a presentation about the culture, they did a four year shift. They added PTO. that you were encouraged to take, oh my gosh. They had, everyone got a long weekend once a month and they were encouraged to take it, not, you know, it wasn’t kind of an under the table thing. It was Leif Johnson. She was the dealer that was talking with Upstart about putting in a digital process to meet customers where they were, but… in a very unpitchy, any process would do this. It was much more about the culture shift that they had made.
Mike: That’s amazing. I’ve been saying that for years. It was so wonderful. The leadership that can figure out how to let today’s employees have a better work-life balance because I’ll be the first one to admit in the 30 years of me pressing and hustling, I let it get to me. I got twisted around. I was willing to do Bell to Bell six days, seven days a week. I was… I was all in because I have myself convinced that that’s the way to be, you know, a good provider, a good dad, a good husband, and you just do whatever it takes. Yes, and if I’m doing it and I’m leading by example, you should do it. And in the last few years of running stores, working with people coming in and applying, you know, I just thought what appealed to me would appeal to them. So I’m telling people, yeah, you can make five to seven grand a month, easy. You know, the good, performers, not even the overachievers, but the good performers, 10 grand. If you’re a hustler, yeah, I’m telling you, 12, 15 grand a month. And these numbers were like, it had no effect on people. They’re like, yeah, that’s great, but ooh, no weekends, no evenings, man, that’s tough. And I’m thinking to myself, what the hell’s wrong with you? I’m telling you 10 grand a month and you wanna have a weekend off? And I finally got to the point where I admitted, you know what, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I… let myself get caught up in this whole thing. And I say as an industry, the dealerships that are doing these kinds of things, telling people, hey, you got PTO, we wanna make sure that you’re a good employee for us. The way that we can help you do that is to make sure you take your time, recharge, go do fun things with your family, enjoy your life. Because if you’re happy, you’re gonna come back happy. You’re gonna be happy with our customers. You’re gonna be a better employee. Those dealerships that are willing to think like that are gonna be the ones that see success for the long run.
Kelly: And we were having conversations about, you’re not going to change the upcoming generations to your job. Your job is going to have to mold to the people that are gonna fill it because you can’t create another baby boomer. It’s gone, it’s over with, the world isn’t going back. So there were some, what they called shots, which had to do with hiring and operations and strategy. And it was a whole course of classes that they did talking about those things. And, one of the things, whether if you’re talking about marketing or process, or, you know, talking about your culture and your voice, one of the questions that I like to ask myself is, “does it serve?” You have an outline of what you want to achieve and everything that you do. When you go to. think about this idea, you need to ask yourself, “does it serve?” Is this going to move me forward?
Oh, there’s a quote from a book that I read recently called 4,000 Weeks. And the quote is, “does this diminish me or does this enlarge me?” And I absolutely love that. And you should think of it for yourself, you should think of it for your company. Is it, it might not necessarily be the greatest thing to do, in the end of the day, is it going to enlarge and improve your life or is it gonna diminish you? And then, you know, talking about culture and making those changes because the world isn’t gonna go back to that. You have all of these people that want to feel involved and appreciated.
And I personally understand that completely, especially with the time that I’ve had off and being of service, whether if it was… taking my 93 year old grandma who calls and says, “Kelly, can you take me to the Aldi?” Yes, grandma, I will drive 45 minutes over. I will pick you up even though you will not let me order it online so we just pick it up. We’ll take you to the Aldi. I’ll make sure you don’t fall down in the grocery store. Pick all your stuff up. She’s so old she can’t even pick up a gallon of milk. She’s got to have half gallons. My billet mother, the mom that I spent a lot of my childhood or my teen hood with. from my best friend that diagnosed with cancer. I’ve been able to take her to doctor’s appointments and whatnot when her daughter couldn’t do it. And I’ve gotten time to volunteer with my mom at a local historical society and community garden. And those are things I’ve just never had time for. I’ve made it to birthday parties. It’s things that you don’t do. And then because I’ve had these times. you know, looking at positions, interviewing people, things like that. I was actually going to my dad’s house to review some paperwork because he was getting ready to buy a house.
And at 11 p.m., as you hadn’t seen on my Facebook post, I was actually had three cars follow me through three different, at least three towns, and pulled up behind me when I got to my dad’s house in the driveway and was carjacked at gunpoint. Uh, so also now working through some trauma, which is really also helping me figure out, you know, I really just want to help dealers move the needle.
And we were talking about the fact that in 15 years, the conversation hasn’t changed. It’s personal connection and meeting customers where they are and helping however you can to expedite that process because it’s always taken too long. And. People talk about digital retail, customers don’t want it, customers do want it. Well, at least offer it, but if you do offer it, don’t make them restart the process once it gets to the store. You can verify the information, but don’t restart it. And then we were talking about just now, culture, and defining that for a dealership and putting in PTO and understanding the value of what the business can offer them and what they can offer the business. In Ryan’s presentation, he actually had some research to show that cause marketing and people understanding the business has a cause that aligns with kind of their personal beliefs can have the equivalent of a $3,600 raise.
Mike: Nice. So that is a really strong piece.
Kelly: When you’re talking about these younger generations coming in to work for you, you know, Do they understand what you stand for or are you, you know, the old image of a used car sales person? How are you getting that message across? Because it does bring value to the employees that you’re bringing in. Um, and I thought that was really, really strong. And, um, they had a, a presenter, Katie Mares. She actually has a book called customer, her experience, which is what I’m reading right now. working through it and it talks about how you should have a client experience that you’re working through and how many females are involved in buying a car. And it’s a really impactful book. I’m only a handful of pages through it and it’s already like making notes and coming up with ideas. And I just finished reading. Oh, promotions are so yesterday. And that was a really, really good book. And it talks about how we’re funneling people into a ladder. And there’s not room for everybody. We all know in a dealership, how much forward progress is there really? And was it last week Mike? Unless someone quits or retires. Yeah, and last week Mike, I think you said if you went back, you’d just be a salesperson.
Mike: Yes.
Kelly: So. It’s talked the book talks about multi-dimensional jobs and how it’s a manager’s job to help people develop Not necessarily advance career through another title but to advance themselves in their career with their education the proficiency and as a person because that’s going to help with their with their satisfaction level in that job and Exactly, you know unless somebody dies off whatever, you’re not gonna fill that position. So for me, I don’t know what’s next for you. And that needs to be ongoing, long-term. Because you do promote people. And sometimes, I was just sharing with Kathi earlier that I’ve seen a lot of posts that came out of the two conferences about training and building cultures and all these importance of it. And believe me, no one believes in it more than me, 100%, 1,000%. But one thing I wanted to also bring to that conversation online was You know, sometimes we promote and forget, you know, we take someone that’s a rock star salesperson and to give my own experience, you know, I was, I was a good salesperson. It’s not bragging. I was, I was rocking it. I was crushing it, but I wanted more. I wanted to, you know, I was always helping other salespeople because I came out of being a mechanic. So the whole team knew when they had a guy that needed some kind of mechanical information, you know, what’s under the hood.
Go find Mike. because I was always willing to stop whatever I was doing and help, I was helping a lot. And I wanted to do that for a team because I thought, I can help others the way I’ve learned and we can develop and run together. And I had a GSM that said, I’m not gonna promote you dude, stop. I know what you want, but it’s not gonna happen because if I promote you, I lose my best salesperson. And when it doesn’t work, you’re gonna blow out. And now I’ve lost you as an employee because you’re not gonna go back to the line because no one does that. No one sucks up their ego and goes back to the line. So. I went out and found another job, you know, which is what I wanted as a closer and I luckily found someone that helped me learn what that position was. Cause when I got there, I thought I knew what a closer did. I thought I knew what a team leader did because I saw him do it from my perspective as a salesperson, but I had no idea what happened in the sales office, what happened when he was taking a deal up in the finance, you know? And so I was constantly at first like getting yelled at like, dude, you should know this. You know, why don’t you know this? You saw your manager do this, but there’s a difference between watching it being done and learning how it should be done. And at that ongoing, like you’re talking about, that ongoing training and development, it’s not necessarily tied to a position like we need to promote you, but we want to promote you to grow and become the best that you can be, whatever it is, whether it’s a salesperson, finance, service advisor, parts counter guy, technician. We want to build you up to be the best that you can be. And that is a beautiful thing. That’s really exciting.
Kathi: And I can say one thing. The one thing that you illustrated is that a manager who behaves that way is going to lose you anyway. They can say, I’m gonna lose you because I’m not gonna promote you or I’m not gonna train you because you, this is someone that wants to be, you’re gonna lose them anyway, so why not do it? And second, It’s clear that whoever that was had no plan for a, to have quality people at the store. So in other words, if you have a plan, when someone does move up, then you have someone to take their place. It wasn’t like you were the only, quote unquote best salesperson. There are other people that can be trained and moved into that. And it takes a program of assessment and support and accountability and responsibility and all of those things. And if you have a program for it, you can just use your program, work your program instead of like saying, oh no, we’re not gonna let you move up because we can’t afford you. He was right, yes. There’s an old term about the Peter principle that people are promoted to a place where they’re- either competent or incompetent. However, it does leave that vacancy. And if you don’t have someone to replace them, you will end up with a very poor work group. You’ll have, your staff will be substandard and then the competition won’t be, will be right after you. Did that make sense? I know I’m rambling.
Kelly: Oh, absolutely. But I think, you know, a lot of the conversations at the digital dealer and at Summer Camp are both about You know, when you see this rock star salesperson who has no leadership skills, except for to lead the huddle where they’re talking about how bad things are, which you want to get rid of anyway, you know, moving them to a manager. That doesn’t mean that they know how to lead a manager is not a leader.
A leader is manager, but you don’t have to be in a leadership position to be a leader. So they were talking about how, you know, what, if you do promote, what does that look like? Are you. outlining that from day one and saying, these are the positions that we have. These are the people that have moved through those positions. If that’s something you wanna do, we can definitely talk about that. But a lot of people choose to stay in this position because it fits what they want to achieve. What do you want to achieve? And also feedback, everybody wants feedback. When you talk to a customer and they say, oh, I bought elsewhere. Do you just say thanks, sorry and move on? Or do you ask them, What did you buy? Can I ask what did you buy? What could have I done differently? Things like that. We talk about exit interviews when people quit, finding out what you could have done better, what did they want in a position? They get feedback, whatever, if you’re letting them go, why did they let you go?
When you apply for a job, the big thing is, I’m not hearing anything back from anybody. and the most you can possibly get right now is an email back saying, we’re going to go in a different direction. Okay. But if you would tell me what you liked or didn’t like, I could, I could at least improve myself moving forward. Everyone likes feedback. And I think, especially when dealerships are sending out 15 emails from different places about doing reviews, explaining and giving them a reason why there is one, setting the expectation that there will be more than one place that wants a review and why that’s happening and how that feedback can be helpful. And again, if you’re building that relationship with that one-on-one experience with those customers, they’re going to be so much more apt to refer more people to you.
And one of the things about feedback and this I’ve learned and I did a lot when I was… a BDC manager and I did a lot more in finance was people that didn’t qualify for a loan. People that could not do business with us. Spending the time to educate them and to set a path for them, just like an employment path and a path to these are the things that you need. These are the things that are gonna help. From my experience, I am not a certified credit professional. However, in my experience, this is what I have seen people do. And this is the path that they’ve taken. And we will be here to support you along your way. And as soon as we can help you get into a car, we will definitely do so and putting them in a tool follow up process that’s going to continue to educate. And that was I was actually not making you feel like they’re a bad person. I’m making them feel like they’re lower and not worthy because they still need a car. If it’s not today, it’ll be next month, next quarter, next year. And they’re gonna remember the people that didn’t shame them.
Mike: Absolutely.
Kelly: One, even if they haven’t bought a car from you, they’re gonna refer everybody that they know to you because you made them feel like a human. And you were like, life happens. Whether if we can go ahead and get you a car and make a plan to get you into the car that you want. Oh my gosh, I can get you the car that you want. It’s just gonna look like this. Does that work? Does it not? And just being human with them and letting them know that this is something that everybody goes through and developing those educational pieces, developing that relationship. I’ve had so many people, I’ve had people call my phone and say, okay, you’re not at Dodge, where are you? It’s time for me to get my next car. And I would say, you know, I’m at an Audi store, but don’t worry, we have other things too. I can, I can get you anything that you want, but let’s find out what we can get for you and kind of work this problem backwards, see where we’re at and you know, they’re still sending their friends over and I walk into the Dodge store and they’re into the Audi store and they’re like. Who is this person walking in the door? I’m like, oh, I set an appointment with them. They’re like, you’re a finance person. I was like, yeah, but I’m gonna set appointments for people to come in and we’re gonna try to get them cars. And they didn’t have many subprime banks, but that’s okay. We worked through a lot of problems. And if I couldn’t get them done, I have friends at other dealers that I would refer them to and say, hey, this is somebody I need you to take care of. I trust this person, go here. And I think that that’s whether if it’s a vendor or if it’s another dealership, having those relations relationships are important.
But for me and going through this process, I was talking after like the first bus of people left from summer camp at the end, and we were all kind of milling around after tug of war and just kind of winding down saying our goodbyes. And we were having a conversation and I was talking to a vendor about this. And they were like, well, what do you know about us? It’s like, well, I can tell you that I like to tie it all together. So I’m going to tell you that you can take your follow-up process and your SEO, and you can marry it together for these credit people. You can put them in a ongoing, didn’t qualify for credit follow-up process. You can make a handful of web pages about credit information. And once a month you can send out an email that has a little bit of information in it and a link. back to your website where your inventory is and it’s open 24 seven and you can provide them with education that education that’s on the website is also going to give you some organic reach about people that are looking to buy a car that don’t have great credit.
Same thing with, I was talking to a lady that was a Ford dealer and I was like, how many Maverick leads do you have? And when did you think you’ll get another one of those? And she was like, oh my God, you have no idea. It’s like, do you have a Maverick follow-up process? And she was like, No, I go, well, these people are going to need continuing information. You’re going to have to continue to reach out to them. Have they decided to go ahead and say, screw it, I’m going to buy an F 150 or they holding on for the Maverick. No one’s giving them any information at this point. A heck half the dealers probably aren’t even replying to them.
So why don’t you set up a process, make web pages that talk about, you know, page one, page two, make a whole bunch of pages about the information about the updates. As the process goes on. and also connecting vehicles that may work in the interim, things like that. And then I attach those webpages and email. So now you’ve got the SEO. Some of those folks, like you said, are gonna get frustrated with the weight and those dealers aren’t keeping in contact with them because they’re like, what the hell? I have one Maverick scheduled for the next three build-outs. I’m not even gonna waste my time following up with those people. Automotive dealership marketing strategies need to look at other options, like you said, some of them may look at a Ranger, some may look at a 150, some may look at a used vehicle. There’s, well, you said that about your Bronco, right?
Mike: Yeah, I did.
Kelly: So, I mean, if a dealer sometime in between here and there, if you were really needing a vehicle and you got an email that was like, well, the Bronco isn’t out yet, but hey, look what I’ve got on the lot or, hey, we got one that somebody got, didn’t like, it wasn’t big enough for their family, so we’ve got a used one, do you want that one? You know, if you were getting emails that were going on like that, and then we were having conversations about, reading the lead, the three minutes.
And one of the things I said, I really, really miss way back in the day before we had CRM, um, my first process was using the CRM. That was the backend tool of dealer.com way back in the day. You could make followup processes in there. You can send things. And the thing that I. to this day when I have to get in and work leads, the thing that I miss is the click trail. What seven cars did they look at before they sent a lead on this one? Because when that used car sells, I wanna tell them about these other cars that we have and I wanna be the cars that they looked at. Cause they considered this one, but this one was better. Well, that one’s gone, so I still have this one. And you can also tell, did they look at a minivan, an SUV, a car, a truck, and they were all under $13,000? Or was it SUV, SUV? So what conversations do you want to have with them? I wish I could see a click trail in my CRM to know what else the customer has considered to have an appropriate conversation when I’m, when I’m reading that lead. Automotive dealership marketing strategies and processes start with caring.
I had another conversation about service. You’ve done the mechanic side of things. Talking about being of service to your customers. Here in Missouri, I’m in St. Louis, we have to do, depending on the year of your car, how old it is, you have to do inspections, you have emissions and safety. If you’re not in some counties, you only have safety and not emissions. Nonetheless, you have these things that come up all the time. It’s a state regulated fee. It’s the same at a dealership as at any independent shop. So inspections at a dealership last longer than the ones at independent shops. So if a CRM or if a DMS had a place or your check-in software had a place to put the registration data, you can do marketing for service by saying, Oh, look, your registration’s up in a month and a half. Do you want us to go ahead and add on the inspection? Yeah. It loses money for the dealership, but you know what you are observing you are building so much value because it’s not going to be one, they probably don’t realize they got to go do that. Two, it’s always the day before it expires at the end of the month and they’re freaking out. And you can say, hey, do you want to do your inspection? It’s the same cost here as anywhere else. Oh, by the way, if you were going to send it out as an email, here’s 10% off anything that needs to be repaired to pass the safety inspection. Automotive dealership marketing strategies working for a mutually beneficial outcome.
Mike: And you’re looking out for the customer while you’re building your own business. It doesn’t always have to be nefarious. You know, I think sometimes as dealers, we’re afraid that customers are going to think we’re trying to do business, but guess what they know we’re in business. They know we are here to make a profit. They know we have to pay our bills, pay the lights, pay them. That’s not a secret. So the more we dance around like, Oh, we don’t want the customer to figure out where we’re actually in business. We’re trying to do business with them. We need to get over that by giving value though. Hey, your inspection is coming up. Let’s get that in and get that knocked out. Here’s 10% on anything that you may need. That if you may need it to pass a safety inspection, we’re wanting you to be safe. So that’s a good thing. You know, there’s like nothing negative in there. There’s no one gonna say, oh, these guys are just trying to do business.
Kelly: You know, and when you tell them, don’t forget, it’s the same cost here as it is Jiffy Lube. Then it’s, oh my gosh, I can get factory certified mechanics to look at my car. Instead of the guy that blew my engine up last week because he put antifreeze in it instead of oil. Like the, there’s a whole bunch of things that go with that with trying to be. In Automotive dealership marketing strategies, a thoughtful forward progressive thought process behind everything that you do with customer first attitude, and it’s going to change the relationship that your service advisors have. that your salespeople have.
We were talking about vehicle acquisition and I said, I’ve got a great one for you. You’re gonna laugh at me, but I’ve got a great one for you. And I said, okay, so you pull service data and you find every customer that’s done a lease that’s missed two service intervals in a row. They’re like, I don’t need, my service department’s busy. I’m like, this isn’t service, this is sales. No, what do you mean? Said, okay, so you pull service data for every lease customer that’s missed two service intervals. There’s two answers. They hate you or they hate the car. That’s why they’re not doing service because they’re not going to spend another penny on that car. And so you need to reach out to them and say, Hey, don’t forget your lease requires maintenance. See that you haven’t been in. Here’s a coupon. And by the way, if it’s, if you haven’t been in because you don’t like that vehicle, let me get you out of it. Don’t sell them another one. Just say, let me get you out of it. So many people think they can’t get out of a lease. So be that person that’s gonna get them out of a lease. If you can buy it off lease from the manufacturer and get it on your lot, you’re gonna save them money and you’re gonna save yourself acquisition money, whether they buy a car from you or not. But that’s a really good way to find customers that don’t want their lease because they’re not maintaining that car. And I said that when we were kind of in a huddle of people at Digital Dealer and… there was a person from a CRM company that says, I wonder if, can I make that a report? Like immediately they were like, how can I develop this for my dealers? Because they were gonna go back and tell every one of their dealers, this is a marketing thing we’re gonna do this week. And it’s gonna work. And it’s something that people just don’t think about. As someone who’s in a lease, I mean, My car that got carjacked, which I just got back. She’s $14,000 worth of damage, but I got her back. Yay, happy ending. They caught three people and got my car and two others back.
Kathi: So. That’s huge. And can I just, can I, can we jump in? I need to jump in. Awesome. We just, you just kind of glossed over the situation, but it was traumatic. And so I just want to acknowledge that for you, but also that the recovery that you’ve done, work that you’ve done, and facing this adversarial kind of situation, I mean, there’s such adversity in leaving a position and having that traumatic thing happen all in the span of a few weeks or so is a lot. And so… just I just want to acknowledge that you’re doing great and you know everyone has adversity but yours that’s pretty extreme so it’s just an example of you know you know things can happen to all of us but it is possible to make the work to come back which is what you do.
Kelly: You know we talked about do one thing whether if it’s starting a new process at work or for me I had to the first couple of days dealing with the trauma, I had a set of goal of, I’m going to get out of bed four times in the day. Exactly. Like if that was what I did, then that was what I had to do. And now they had at summer camp, they had an amazing speaker who is a gold medal, para Olympian. And she talked about train moments because she got trapped under a train and lost her leg. She had not been on the Olympic track before. She had ran track for college and she talked about being trapped on that train and making some decisions for herself and moving forward. And then when she found out, you know, the doctor dropped off some magazines left. So we’ll talk about it later. She started looking through it and she started making decisions about what she was gonna do with her life.
And for me, that was, it was like a tailor-made conversation for me dealing with the trauma. and coming out of it and saying, I want to find like renewed vigor to pull myself out of this trauma idea and say, I want to find a partner that I can work with and I can believe in. Because I know that, you know, there are some people out there that hide numbers that gatekeep information that, you know, whether if it’s, you know, doing some of the dubious things that we all know happen and I don’t want to work with a partner like that. I want to work for somebody who can see the value in me and see the value when their customers and that can offer a tool that’s going to help move dealers forward and you know, I’m not afraid of sales, but I also want to help a dealer make impacts, whether it’s these little insightful, Hey, have you ever thought of doing this? Hey, why don’t you build some content for your website? Because you’re going to type this gigantic email that nobody’s going to read. put a little bit in the email and make it a page on your website. Now you’re double dipping on your Automotive dealership marketing strategies. Oh, by the way, now you can also put this into content for social media and provide education. You know, do you have a content schedule and you know, are you doing something that’s interactive and non-sales so that you can get that seven or 14 day lift for your organic so you’re not even spending money on Facebook. You know, you can’t target the same ways as you used to be able to do. Are you putting together a strategy, committing to the content and getting it out there in various forms so that you can catch people that want different type of engagement or is everything you’re putting online, picture of a person who bought a car.
One of our, at Audi, one of our absolute best performers, unboxing, unwrapping. The thing that happens in the back, a lot of like the disgusting stuff you don’t want customers, they want to see that. You know, whether if it was just a Q5 that rolled in or if it was an RSQ8. Um, you know, people got excited about them. We took tons of videos. I would go out on the showroom floor and just somebody was like messing around with it, pulling it in and I was like, Hey, do the light show. And I just sit there with my phone and record it and text it to the, the marketing girl that lived in Indiana from St. Louis. She was in an Indy and I was like, Hey, here’s a video you might want to use. And she was like, I didn’t know if I did that. Okay. By the way, it’s just fun. Like it’s exactly, and you know, and if you enjoy it and you like it, chances are someone else is gonna. And then it’s sharing, not selling. You’re not promoting. you’re just having fun and sharing something that you like somebody else is gonna and now you’ve resonated with someone and you’ve created a customer.
Well, and one of the things that we had a really big problem with, and we had this problem at the Dodge dealer in a different way, but at the Audi dealer, people didn’t know we were in St. Louis because Audi went to this, you have to have the name of like the affluent area that you are located in, in the name of your store. So, People didn’t know we were in St. Louis. There were three Audi dealers in St. Louis. Maybe St. Louis doesn’t really need three Audi dealers, but there were three of them. Nobody knew we were there. So I went through, I pulled a list of everybody who was either a business name or a business owner. The business owner was a little harder pull. It was more labor intensive just to like keep track of them because obviously it wasn’t in the CRM that way. But we went through and every business owner or every business that had bought a car from us, I gave that list to the Automotive dealership marketing strategies lady than ran the social media and said, Hey, take an Audi, go drive in front of their shop, take the picture of our car and their sign and put it on our Facebook page because that’s going to get them recognition for their brand. Whether if it’s a, you know, a grocer who sells imported foods or a flower shop or a body shop. and our brand and then it’s going to tell people that we’re both in the same place. And she was like, are you sure? I go, well, you said you wanted an idea of how to get people to know we were in St. Louis. Here you go. And so she took two or three days. She booked being in St. Louis and she just took this list and drove all over the town and took these pictures in like recognizable locations and with the businesses that we had worked with. And sadly, she didn’t get them posted as much as I would have liked to see, but that wasn’t my job. I was just providing the information and the ideas, but we had done something very similar at the Dodge dealer because we were in Illinois and nobody crosses the river from St. Louis to Illinois to buy cars because everybody from Illinois goes to Missouri because St. Louis is where all the nice things are and we’re just in the country or they think that we are. And I ran a bunch of campaigns about that spatial awareness of being closer than a lot of the other Dodge dealers in the area because of how quick it was right off the highway and running before the campaign and after the campaign. I think we saw like a 350, almost 400% increase in sales to zip codes in those areas after we started that awareness campaign.
Mike: Great. And it’s just seeing where you’re underserving and how can you have that conversation? But you got to be willing to look, right?
Kelly: Data, man, data. It’s your best friend. You can also get lost. So you have to, again, what is your voice? What is your purpose? And does it serve? I feel like we’re not selling enough people in this area. Okay. You want to do this. How are you going to measure that? What like So we had set up parameters. We’re going to run a report out of the DMS for sold zip codes. And we’re going to run it here, and here. We’ve already ran it here, year to date, or month over month and year over year. So we could see what that looked like a couple of years back and a couple of months back to see what that looked like. And then we ran the marketing and we ran it, you know, 15 days, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days through the campaign. And then after the campaign to see what those numbers changed. And it was amazing. Automotive dealership marketing strategies thrive when set up right. We did the same thing for some customer retention and starting a loyalty program. And we actually, we did a marketing campaign for seasonal service. They wanted to do more flushes.
Mike: What are those?
Kelly: Well, see in St. Louis, we have them, they happen like three times in one day. It was 63 this morning, it’s like 85 now.
Mike: A little different. It feels like it’s like almost a hundred outside. But… We were talking about, Oh yeah, you guys have a, what’s it called? Humid, humid, wetness in the air.
Kelly: The thing that makes my hair get real fuzzy and the curls become fluff, which is why it’s in a braid today. And some of my curls everywhere, but we talked about it and I said, okay, you wanna sell more flushes, it’s travel season. Kids are getting out of school. So why don’t we put together a package? We’re gonna make it a pretty big discount, but it’s gonna be oil change, tire rotation, inspection. going to be what flushes we’re going to do a brake flush. We’re going to do transmission flush, radiator flush, what do you want? What do you want in this package? What is the normal price? What are we going to discount it down to if they do everything? That’s only going to be one option going to do all of these things. And you know what the typical vehicle needs. And we made a list. And the service manager said, Okay, this is the price that we’re going to put on it. I said, great. So then We went through, said, okay, if they do everything, we’re gonna give it to them for this price. And it’s this giant discount. We’re not gonna say, you know, each piece is discounted this. All together, it’s this amount of a discount. Then I said, okay, so tell me why when you go traveling, and it’s literally just sitting there with the voice memo on my phone, having a conversation in the service manager’s office and walking around with them as he’s doing everything else, because they’ve got so much to do. And I was talking to him and record it so I can go back and get those details a second time or do. you know, voice to text to get it down onto paper a lot easier. And I’m like, okay, so why did they need this? Why didn’t they need that? Now I’m the daughter of a mechanic. I know why they need them, but I want his words so that I can get it down. And he’s just talking and I’m walking with him and he’s telling me why you got to do this and why you got to do that. Like, great. So I go back and make a webpage. Automotive dealership marketing strategies and tieing everything together. I talk about, you know, time for travel, you know, tips for checking your car for travel. Oh, by the way, if you don’t have time for this, you can get this whole package for this price. Now we’ve got something, you know, I can, if I would have had time, which at that point, I definitely did not what I would have liked to do. And in the age of Tik TOK, I would suggest anyone do a couple of short videos of, you know, entertaining video of the vehicle is loaded with stuff and everybody gets in the car and you look at it and you go, We’re already 200 miles over getting an oil change. What are we going to do? We’re driving 600 miles. You know, everybody can relate to that. And, you know, or you get in and there’s a tire line on.
Kathi: Hey, hey, we’ve got, we’re over time. So we’re going to have to cut it there and you can come back. Awesome. What I’d like you to do is let everyone know how to get ahold of you.
Kelly: Um, you can find me on any of the social media is under @KellySueWilson or, uhi.am.kelly.wilson@gmail.com . And, uh, Kelly. Sue. Wilson.com.
Mike: And Kathi does a great job of putting all that on the show notes too.
Kathi: Say it again. I dot, I think I’ve got it, but just let me verify. I got, I, uh, i.am.kelly.wilson@gmail.com
Kelly: Okay. And then. You guys always talk about music. So I have two notes for you.
Mike: Okay. Talk to me. So today is the anniversary of David Bowie’s first album being released. Yes ma’am. And today is Alanis Morissette’s birthday.
Mike: Oh cool, I didn’t know that.
Kelly: And if you haven’t heard about it, because I’m a big Broadway fan, she has a Broadway show that she wrote one new song for and it’s based off of her music. called Jagged Little Pill and it’s actually traveling. So I suggest everybody go see it. I in this time off, I bought a ticket for bought some tickets to take a friend for Christmas. Her Christmas present this year was to take her up to Chicago to see it. And we were sitting there watching it and she was like, when this comes to St. Louis, I am taking my kids. It covers so many topics, so many topics, so quick in the way that life comes at you. And it handles them very, very well. So it was an amazing experience. It was way better than I expected and I was already expecting a lot out of it. And they just kind of use her music to kind of support the storyline that’s happening anyway. It’s absolutely wonderful. There’s definitely some tear up moments in it. And I would suggest to anybody to go see it if it comes into your area, because it is amazing to see how they cover so many topics so quickly and thoroughly. So, Mike, what have you got?
Mike: First, before we start getting there and wrap up, I wanna just circle back real quick. I know we’re way over time, but that’s okay. It’s our show. The word you mentioned a couple of times was vigor and having a renewed vigor. And I think we talked earlier about having the same conversations for 12, 15 years now. I think the exciting thing about right now is people are now ready to receive this message. You know, we had some conversations 10 years ago that people just weren’t, we were ready for it and we assumed everyone else was ready to hear it. And I know speaking personally, I know I got a lot of frustration saying these things and not getting the response that I thought I should get. No one was excited like, that’s a great idea, let’s try that. But now I think that renewed vigor you’re feeling and the passion that we all share for making the business a better place and moving the needle and helping dealers help their customers, now I think is a better time for the Automotive dealership marketing strategy messages that we’ve been putting out there. So I think you’re in a great position right now and a great place. And thank you for sharing that with us. Musically.
Kelly: Sorry we ran so long.
Kathi: Don’t be, don’t be sorry.
Kelly: You wouldn’t expect me to be someone long for anything.
Mike: Don’t be sorry. I know I’ve been beating the dead horse, Kathi. Last weekend was the 40th anniversary of the greatest concert that has ever existed in all of mankind.
Kathi: Yeah. According to you, according to you.
Mike: Alleged, alleged, alleged. I, you know, I’ve been searching out all of these, you know, clips from the concert on. online on YouTube and I wish you know Steve Jobs would just put them all into one nice easy to stream package with the some better sound and quality. You mean Steve Wozniak right? Steve Wozniak I’m sorry. I actually found an entire hour’s worth of the Pretender set from that show and because I was there you know I just kind of overlooked it. I’m a Pretender’s fan but they’re not like oh my god I gotta see this you know so I had… seen it like there, I didn’t pay attention, I never stopped and watched it. Oh my God, it’s worth watching. So Search Pretenders, Us Festival, 1983, an hour of Christie and the boys just kicking solid ass. Is that, you might not remember, is James Honeyman
Kathi: Scott still alive then?
Mike: Yes. I think he was their lead guitarist. He might’ve been bass, I can’t remember, but. Yeah, he died of a, I think it was an accidental overdose, but. And their producer actually plays keyboards with them on stage.
Kathi: Oh, okay. Yeah, so I’ll check that out for sure. That sounds really cool.
Mike: Yeah, she’s, Chrissy Hines doing, she’s very visible now. She’s, has a lot of, she’s been very activist her whole life, but she’s doing some really cool things.
Kathi: So, yeah, I’ll check it out for sure.
Mike: But I never, I never stopped to watch it because I knew that, you know, They’re like, you know, your best friend. They’re there whenever you want to listen to them. You know what I mean? And it’s always going to be good. But I hadn’t gone back and watched that specific one, but I was blown away by it. So yeah, that’s my contribution.
Kelly: That’s awesome. I love it. Yeah. What’s your music, Kathi?
Kathi: I have been doing mostly documentaries this week.
Mike: So do share. We always got good ones.
Kathi: Yes, we all have a finite amount of time. And so, and I haven’t been driving because things have shifted over here at cruise control a little bit. And so I can highly recommend the, I think I said before the Michael J. Fox documentary that just came out that’s on Apple. And then the Donna Summer documentary is very, very good. I had no idea of her life and what it’s funny with the back then what record companies would do to package up a person and what they were like put out this persona. I mean I know there’s always persona but this was crazy but and just her struggles in her life and how she ended up with this really cool husband after struggling from other relationships and So that’s very good. And then the Mary Tyler Moore documentary is very good as well. So anyone that, I mean, who doesn’t love Mary Tyler Moore, but an amazing- Everyone loves Mary Tyler Moore. Yes, her life, what her original, you know, what her, like when she started in the business and what it was like and how the Dick Van Dyke show was like her, like she was ready to give up and she got the Dick Van Dyke show and they were so pleased with her. Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke. Dick Van Dyke both and there was another producer. They were so happy with her and she just transformed her role as Laura Petrie in that TV show that they started writing for the person she turned out to be. It was, it’s really cool. And then it talks about like, it goes through her whole later life and she was- Oh, that’s awesome. She was very much a horse person. So- Yeah. And then just finally, of course, if anybody’s out there watching Vanderpump rules, you know, the second reunion that was last night was pretty hot. It was pretty, I’m entrenched and it always happens. So, um, nice.
Mike: Yeah. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of Tik TOK moments from that one.
Kathi: Yeah. It’s a, it’s an ugly thing. It’s an ugly, ugly thing that’s happening, but we can’t turn away. It’s like a train wreck. He can’t, he can’t know exactly.
Kelly: When are they going to make one in the dealership?
Kathi: Yeah, there should be a dealership one. I’ve always thought it could be as the steering wheel turns and it could be. Absolutely. I think that’s why so many in automotive are just gravitate towards those type of reality series because being in a dealership is like living in one of those and it’s easy to relate to all that drama. It really is. 100%. All right.
Kelly: Thank you guys so much for having me.
Kathi: Thank you.
Mike: Thank you for joining us. Thank you for all the amazing. stuff you’ve shared and the passion that you still have. That’s awesome. I love it. I knew, I told you when we started this thing, I was all giddy because it was going to be action packed and going 100 miles an hour and you did not disappoint.
Kelly: Thank you so much. Thank anyone that’s listening. You won’t be able to listen to this podcast on double time. Sorry, I talked too fast.
Mike: No, they won’t. That’s okay. No, they won’t. Maybe 1.25, possibly. Double time, there’s no way. We definitely want you to come back sometime and definitely keep us posted. Like I said, I wanna know where you land because that’s the company I wanna follow because they’re gonna be doing some awesome things.
Kelly: Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much.
Kathi: Yeah,
Mike: yeah. Thank you for being on with us. Thank you for joining us. Kathi, I will let you wrap us all up as you always do so well.
Kathi: Yeah, I just wanna say if you’re in need of someone that has immense talent and passion, and really wants to have an impact on your business, Kelly is the person that you need to have on board. So, reach out to her. Even if you don’t think you have a place right now, call her anyway and have a conversation because you just never know. We didn’t get into her stats on when she was a finance manager, but I can assure you, they are outstanding. and she will make you money on top of all of the other stuff that she will do. So, so they’re just taking, take some action. And in the meanwhile, we will, we’ll be here next week, Mike. And until then, bye for now. Bye, everyone.