October 3, 2023 • 11 mins
Kirk Preiser and Michael Cirillo sit down to chat at ASOTU CON 2023.
Kirk Preiser is the Founder of E-Volv Solutions.
Thanks to Effectv for making ASOTU CON Sessions possible!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul Daly (00:00):
If you're listening to his soda concessions by
(00:05):
effective live from a soda con2023
Michael Cirillo (00:10):
Hey, welcome to this episode of a soda
concessions by effective I'msitting down with my new pal
Kurt priser. Thanks so much forjoining me here today. Yeah,
what's up? Hey. So you, we werejust chatting here pre show a
little bit you have experiencedthat not a lot of people get to
have working at the OEM levelthrough Audi, I want to just
(00:30):
quickly pick your brain on thatand say, Okay, from the vantage
point you had working from theOEM level, what were some of the
things that you were picking upon that that could just scale
across the dealer body?
Kirk Preiser (00:44):
Yeah, I mean, really, we're in a situation
now, like we've never beenbefore in the industry, where
there's new players in town thatare selling manufacture direct,
okay, the Evie companies arecoming in, they're selling
directly to the consumer. Andwhat we're hearing, by and
large, is that it's notnecessarily the product and a
lot of cases, they've got somereally good product out there
that the customers are vibingwith or really enjoying. But in
(01:06):
a lot of cases, it's the salesexperience that has really
turned them on to this new wayof purchasing a vehicle. And so
we've got this threat coming in,that we've got to attack, right.
And what we've done in theindustry consistently is we've
looked at this 30 day cycle, orall we're focused on is the new
car sales objective, in mostcases, right. And we really
(01:26):
can't find time to really workon our processes and change the
business, but we have to startthinking about it. So we're at a
situation now where I see acrossthe country, a lot of dealers
are kind of in flux, wherethey're not really sure what
direction to go. But we've gotto, we've got to double down and
take this opportunity to reallylook at the things that
consumers don't enjoy about thetraditional sales process and
(01:48):
figure out a way to fix them,the technology is there for us
to improve the experience. Infact, what I like to tell
dealers is that we can deliver amuch better experience than what
Tesla does, we've got anopportunity, okay, because of
the integrations and thetechnology companies that are
out there today and the waytheir integration integrated
with the tech stacks anddealers, we can do more online
(02:10):
and in store to connect theconsumer experience than what
these OEM directs are offering.
But now what do
Michael Cirillo (02:15):
you think the what do you think the barrier to
entry on that is?
Kirk Preiser (02:18):
I think really, what it comes down to in a lot
of cases is the fact that yougot to take two or you know, one
or two steps back sometimesbefore you can move forward,
right? And in the industry hasalways been one where we can't
afford to take a step back,right? All these products are
coming to market manufacturershit sales targets, dealers have
sales targets, and everybody'skind of hesitant to say, Well,
(02:40):
yeah, no, I get it. I think Ineed to change the industry is
changing, the consumer mindsetis changing. But if I do this,
you know, I might miss my salesobjective next month or the
following month, etc. And Ithink it's that hesitancy and
it's it's not, they're not surethey don't have the confidence
that heading in that direction.
And investing the time andenergy to changing is really
(03:00):
going to pay off in the longrun. I think that's the biggest
barrier to entry that we haveright now.
Michael Cirillo (03:06):
You know what it makes me think of recently,
nothing makes you want to gethealthy, like a fatty liver test
results on your blood, you know,exactly, exactly. And when I'm
listening because of TMI. Butanyways, point being is, what do
I do I hire a trainer trainersays you're gonna eat five meals
(03:29):
a day, right? Which seemscounterintuitive to me, it seems
like a backtrack. Because I'mlike, I don't eat five meals a
day. Are you intermittent andfast? You know, and do all this
kind of crap? No, you're gonnaeat five meals a day, you're
going to do these calories,you're going to do these macros.
And boy, to your point did Ifeel like I'm like I said to my
wife, I'm gonna take it a stepback, I'm actually going to gain
weight. Maybe so worried I hadto actually trust the process,
(03:54):
which you talked about earlier.
And so that's the way I'mthinking about it here. You know
what may be? You might dip thefirst month Exactly. But it
really makes me think of thisKirk like that. What's that
quote? If not now, when? You'rethere anyways, you're at the
store anyways. Yeah,
Kirk Preiser (04:13):
I think there's a couple of things that you just
hit on. One is you got torecognize your fat before a diet
works. Okay, yeah. So so sothere's still some people out
there in the industry that don'trecognize that it's broken.
Okay. And figure that the waywe've been doing business for
the last 100 years works justfine. I'm hitting my sales
(04:36):
targets. I'm making lots ofmoney, everything if it ain't
broke, don't fix it. Yeah,right. You're you've got
individuals and I've met themthat said, You know what, I hear
you I understand the industry ismoving slow. I don't have to
worry about this. The next guywho replaces me is going to have
to worry about this. So I'mgoing to continue doing what's
gotten me to this point and I'lland I'll let them focus on
(04:57):
right. So I've heard that aswell. But you Yes, sometimes you
do have to take a step backbefore you move forward, but you
got it, you got to have thatlong term mindset that you're on
the right path, right. And it'sthe, it's the right thing for
you to do. Because if you'regoing to change the major sales
processes, so if you're going toadopt digital retailing in
(05:18):
store, okay, which is, which isone of the biggest things that
I'm pushing to dealers today isthat you shouldn't have two
different technologies thatyou're using with the consumer.
If you're using a digitalretailing tool on your website,
like say, a roadster or Darwinor Karna, or whatever. And then
they come in to the dealershipor they engage with you, and
(05:38):
you're using your CRM deskingtool to put the deal together,
right, you've got two completelydifferent technologies, it's a
disjointed experience, many ofthe DR tools can be used in
store to put the deals togetherfor the customer. But that's a
huge process change, you got toget people it takes training, it
takes weeks of training andfollow up, etc. And that takes
(05:59):
time, then not a lot of peopleare willing to invest, because
they could go backwards beforethey go forward.
Michael Cirillo (06:07):
Right. And then I think of what to your point,
this, this idea of playing theinfinite game, which is what
hopefully we're doing, requires,to your point, what you're
making me think of requires thatyou actually finally sit down
and document a process with athesis, like if we do this, here
(06:28):
is the intended outcome that webelieve will result in I think,
Sophia, not just in thisindustry, every business, I
mean, families would benefitfrom a thesis statement and
desired outcomes, you know, fromyour experience, looking at the
playing field, what is thatstarting place? You say, Let's
(06:49):
build process. You've talkedabout experience, but where do
we start? What what's the firstthing I could look at and say,
that's where I'm going to start?
That's what I'm going to tweak?
Kirk Preiser (06:58):
Yeah, it really goes back to recognizing that
you need to start. Okay, soseriously, that's the big part.
Right. And, you know, Imentioned yesterday in our talk
that you don't replace your roofwhen it's raining outside.
Right. Okay. And when the Eeveemarket, or the Evie vehicles
that are being built in theindustry right now start
flooding into dealerships, okay.
And the pressure starts mountingto sell those cars. Okay, that's
(07:21):
when the rain starts. And so nowis the time to recognize that we
do need to change. So So that'sthe first step. The second step
is that you need to overcommunicate with all of your
employees that you need tochange. And why. Because you
have to plant that seed ahead oftime before you just throw the
change on them, they have to bebought into it, they have to
(07:43):
understand why you're going tobe going through this, they have
to understand the long game,they have to understand that
things might be difficultinitially, it's going to be
different from what they'reusually doing, right if you
expect them to buy in and besuccessful. So that's the next
step. The third step, I wouldsay, in most cases, is get
yourself a personal trainer.
Okay, I know there's a lot ofdiscussion out there in the
(08:04):
industry with respect toconsultants, and whether or not
they're helpful. And I thinkthere's a lot of consultants out
there that are that are reallytrying to push some of the old
practices in the industry. Yeah.
So you got to find yourselfsomebody that is progressive
enough to be thinking forward,and then get yourself some help.
Because some of this stuff isreally hard. And you've got to
run a business on a daily basis,okay, you've got employee
(08:25):
problems, you have serviceissues that pop up, you've got
all kinds of things going on,you got to worry about facility
and Hail Damage cars, and allthat other kind of stuff. And so
get yourself some help to movethrough the process. Find
somebody that you trust thatunderstands it, that has worked
with enough dealers to reallyhave some, you know, best
practices that they can sharewith you. And then kind of start
there. I mean, I could go on butI mean, that's right, you get
(08:48):
the point of kind of where togo, but it's it's finding that
personal trainer, that's goingto write you a diet plan
Michael Cirillo (08:54):
and they're there as an accountability
partner as well to make sureyou're sticking to it. Yeah,
absolutely right that I findthat something that we do all
too often our human nature saysoh yeah, I'm super ambitious
about this. This sounds great.
And then seven days go by andwe're like this is no this
didn't work you're like reallyyou gave it seven days you're a
loser. Well that
Kirk Preiser (09:12):
but but that goes back to the industry as a whole
never wants to miss right right.
We never want to miss we neverwant to go back it's
Michael Cirillo (09:24):
kind of oxymoronic though. Because in
the in the process of notwanting to miss you're missing.
Kirk Preiser (09:29):
Yeah. Yeah, I had so I had a general manager at a
dealership that I used to beresponsible for. That flipped
his whole entire dealership overto single point of contact.
Right okay. And he did not useany outside help. super painful.
Took him about a year to perfectthe process. He'll tell
everybody to this day. I almostlost my job over it. Okay, but
(09:50):
looking back now they are somuch more profitable, more
successful. They have a higherloyalty. They don't have any
turnover. And he'll tell metoday I would never go back.
back to the way that we weredoing business before. But he
had to go backwards for a longperiod of time to the point of
where his job was in jeopardy.
He was able to deflect thatpressure get his ownership to
buy into the long term vision.
(10:13):
They were able to make itthrough it and they are and
they've been one of the mostsuccessful dealerships since
then.
Michael Cirillo (10:18):
Yeah, you know, just the closing thought here
for me is if you haven't noticedtimes are changing Get with the
program or Off you go rightthat's what's gonna happen you
know, so many people in Oh 809were like oh to want to be the
other one of the ones that hadto shut down it's like well then
do something about it. Yeah,change. I love it. Kurt priser
(10:39):
Thanks so much for joining mehere on asoto concessions How
can those listening or watchinglearn more about you and get in
touch with you?
Kirk Preiser (10:45):
Yeah, just follow me on LinkedIn, Kirk priser
KIRKP rei ser on LinkedInconnect with me there, follow me
there. We'd love to talk to youlove to help in any way. I just
want to help the industry moveforward. That's that's really my
passion, just changing theindustry one dealer at a
Michael Cirillo (11:01):
time.
Appreciate your time.
Paul Daly (11:06):
Thank you for listening to this. So to
concession by effective if youwant more content like this, you
can check out our other podcastswe have a daily show called The
automotive troublemaker Mondaythrough Friday. Here on podcasts
also live streamed on YouTube,and LinkedIn and Facebook. We
also have a long form podcastcalled Auto collapse, auto
collapse. And if you just wantto go a little deeper into this
(11:28):
community, you should sign upfor our regular email we put our
heart and soul into it. You canget it for free by going to a
sotu.com. We'll see you nexttime.
If you're listening to his soda concessions by
(00:05):
effective live from a soda con2023
Michael Cirillo (00:10):
Hey, welcome to this episode of a soda
concessions by effective I'msitting down with my new pal
Kurt priser. Thanks so much forjoining me here today. Yeah,
what's up? Hey. So you, we werejust chatting here pre show a
little bit you have experiencedthat not a lot of people get to
have working at the OEM levelthrough Audi, I want to just
(00:30):
quickly pick your brain on thatand say, Okay, from the vantage
point you had working from theOEM level, what were some of the
things that you were picking upon that that could just scale
across the dealer body?
Kirk Preiser (00:44):
Yeah, I mean, really, we're in a situation
now, like we've never beenbefore in the industry, where
there's new players in town thatare selling manufacture direct,
okay, the Evie companies arecoming in, they're selling
directly to the consumer. Andwhat we're hearing, by and
large, is that it's notnecessarily the product and a
lot of cases, they've got somereally good product out there
that the customers are vibingwith or really enjoying. But in
(01:06):
a lot of cases, it's the salesexperience that has really
turned them on to this new wayof purchasing a vehicle. And so
we've got this threat coming in,that we've got to attack, right.
And what we've done in theindustry consistently is we've
looked at this 30 day cycle, orall we're focused on is the new
car sales objective, in mostcases, right. And we really
(01:26):
can't find time to really workon our processes and change the
business, but we have to startthinking about it. So we're at a
situation now where I see acrossthe country, a lot of dealers
are kind of in flux, wherethey're not really sure what
direction to go. But we've gotto, we've got to double down and
take this opportunity to reallylook at the things that
consumers don't enjoy about thetraditional sales process and
(01:48):
figure out a way to fix them,the technology is there for us
to improve the experience. Infact, what I like to tell
dealers is that we can deliver amuch better experience than what
Tesla does, we've got anopportunity, okay, because of
the integrations and thetechnology companies that are
out there today and the waytheir integration integrated
with the tech stacks anddealers, we can do more online
(02:10):
and in store to connect theconsumer experience than what
these OEM directs are offering.
But now what do
Michael Cirillo (02:15):
you think the what do you think the barrier to
entry on that is?
Kirk Preiser (02:18):
I think really, what it comes down to in a lot
of cases is the fact that yougot to take two or you know, one
or two steps back sometimesbefore you can move forward,
right? And in the industry hasalways been one where we can't
afford to take a step back,right? All these products are
coming to market manufacturershit sales targets, dealers have
sales targets, and everybody'skind of hesitant to say, Well,
(02:40):
yeah, no, I get it. I think Ineed to change the industry is
changing, the consumer mindsetis changing. But if I do this,
you know, I might miss my salesobjective next month or the
following month, etc. And Ithink it's that hesitancy and
it's it's not, they're not surethey don't have the confidence
that heading in that direction.
And investing the time andenergy to changing is really
(03:00):
going to pay off in the longrun. I think that's the biggest
barrier to entry that we haveright now.
Michael Cirillo (03:06):
You know what it makes me think of recently,
nothing makes you want to gethealthy, like a fatty liver test
results on your blood, you know,exactly, exactly. And when I'm
listening because of TMI. Butanyways, point being is, what do
I do I hire a trainer trainersays you're gonna eat five meals
(03:29):
a day, right? Which seemscounterintuitive to me, it seems
like a backtrack. Because I'mlike, I don't eat five meals a
day. Are you intermittent andfast? You know, and do all this
kind of crap? No, you're gonnaeat five meals a day, you're
going to do these calories,you're going to do these macros.
And boy, to your point did Ifeel like I'm like I said to my
wife, I'm gonna take it a stepback, I'm actually going to gain
weight. Maybe so worried I hadto actually trust the process,
(03:54):
which you talked about earlier.
And so that's the way I'mthinking about it here. You know
what may be? You might dip thefirst month Exactly. But it
really makes me think of thisKirk like that. What's that
quote? If not now, when? You'rethere anyways, you're at the
store anyways. Yeah,
Kirk Preiser (04:13):
I think there's a couple of things that you just
hit on. One is you got torecognize your fat before a diet
works. Okay, yeah. So so sothere's still some people out
there in the industry that don'trecognize that it's broken.
Okay. And figure that the waywe've been doing business for
the last 100 years works justfine. I'm hitting my sales
(04:36):
targets. I'm making lots ofmoney, everything if it ain't
broke, don't fix it. Yeah,right. You're you've got
individuals and I've met themthat said, You know what, I hear
you I understand the industry ismoving slow. I don't have to
worry about this. The next guywho replaces me is going to have
to worry about this. So I'mgoing to continue doing what's
gotten me to this point and I'lland I'll let them focus on
(04:57):
right. So I've heard that aswell. But you Yes, sometimes you
do have to take a step backbefore you move forward, but you
got it, you got to have thatlong term mindset that you're on
the right path, right. And it'sthe, it's the right thing for
you to do. Because if you'regoing to change the major sales
processes, so if you're going toadopt digital retailing in
(05:18):
store, okay, which is, which isone of the biggest things that
I'm pushing to dealers today isthat you shouldn't have two
different technologies thatyou're using with the consumer.
If you're using a digitalretailing tool on your website,
like say, a roadster or Darwinor Karna, or whatever. And then
they come in to the dealershipor they engage with you, and
(05:38):
you're using your CRM deskingtool to put the deal together,
right, you've got two completelydifferent technologies, it's a
disjointed experience, many ofthe DR tools can be used in
store to put the deals togetherfor the customer. But that's a
huge process change, you got toget people it takes training, it
takes weeks of training andfollow up, etc. And that takes
(05:59):
time, then not a lot of peopleare willing to invest, because
they could go backwards beforethey go forward.
Michael Cirillo (06:07):
Right. And then I think of what to your point,
this, this idea of playing theinfinite game, which is what
hopefully we're doing, requires,to your point, what you're
making me think of requires thatyou actually finally sit down
and document a process with athesis, like if we do this, here
(06:28):
is the intended outcome that webelieve will result in I think,
Sophia, not just in thisindustry, every business, I
mean, families would benefitfrom a thesis statement and
desired outcomes, you know, fromyour experience, looking at the
playing field, what is thatstarting place? You say, Let's
(06:49):
build process. You've talkedabout experience, but where do
we start? What what's the firstthing I could look at and say,
that's where I'm going to start?
That's what I'm going to tweak?
Kirk Preiser (06:58):
Yeah, it really goes back to recognizing that
you need to start. Okay, soseriously, that's the big part.
Right. And, you know, Imentioned yesterday in our talk
that you don't replace your roofwhen it's raining outside.
Right. Okay. And when the Eeveemarket, or the Evie vehicles
that are being built in theindustry right now start
flooding into dealerships, okay.
And the pressure starts mountingto sell those cars. Okay, that's
(07:21):
when the rain starts. And so nowis the time to recognize that we
do need to change. So So that'sthe first step. The second step
is that you need to overcommunicate with all of your
employees that you need tochange. And why. Because you
have to plant that seed ahead oftime before you just throw the
change on them, they have to bebought into it, they have to
(07:43):
understand why you're going tobe going through this, they have
to understand the long game,they have to understand that
things might be difficultinitially, it's going to be
different from what they'reusually doing, right if you
expect them to buy in and besuccessful. So that's the next
step. The third step, I wouldsay, in most cases, is get
yourself a personal trainer.
Okay, I know there's a lot ofdiscussion out there in the
(08:04):
industry with respect toconsultants, and whether or not
they're helpful. And I thinkthere's a lot of consultants out
there that are that are reallytrying to push some of the old
practices in the industry. Yeah.
So you got to find yourselfsomebody that is progressive
enough to be thinking forward,and then get yourself some help.
Because some of this stuff isreally hard. And you've got to
run a business on a daily basis,okay, you've got employee
(08:25):
problems, you have serviceissues that pop up, you've got
all kinds of things going on,you got to worry about facility
and Hail Damage cars, and allthat other kind of stuff. And so
get yourself some help to movethrough the process. Find
somebody that you trust thatunderstands it, that has worked
with enough dealers to reallyhave some, you know, best
practices that they can sharewith you. And then kind of start
there. I mean, I could go on butI mean, that's right, you get
(08:48):
the point of kind of where togo, but it's it's finding that
personal trainer, that's goingto write you a diet plan
Michael Cirillo (08:54):
and they're there as an accountability
partner as well to make sureyou're sticking to it. Yeah,
absolutely right that I findthat something that we do all
too often our human nature saysoh yeah, I'm super ambitious
about this. This sounds great.
And then seven days go by andwe're like this is no this
didn't work you're like reallyyou gave it seven days you're a
loser. Well that
Kirk Preiser (09:12):
but but that goes back to the industry as a whole
never wants to miss right right.
We never want to miss we neverwant to go back it's
Michael Cirillo (09:24):
kind of oxymoronic though. Because in
the in the process of notwanting to miss you're missing.
Kirk Preiser (09:29):
Yeah. Yeah, I had so I had a general manager at a
dealership that I used to beresponsible for. That flipped
his whole entire dealership overto single point of contact.
Right okay. And he did not useany outside help. super painful.
Took him about a year to perfectthe process. He'll tell
everybody to this day. I almostlost my job over it. Okay, but
(09:50):
looking back now they are somuch more profitable, more
successful. They have a higherloyalty. They don't have any
turnover. And he'll tell metoday I would never go back.
back to the way that we weredoing business before. But he
had to go backwards for a longperiod of time to the point of
where his job was in jeopardy.
He was able to deflect thatpressure get his ownership to
buy into the long term vision.
(10:13):
They were able to make itthrough it and they are and
they've been one of the mostsuccessful dealerships since
then.
Michael Cirillo (10:18):
Yeah, you know, just the closing thought here
for me is if you haven't noticedtimes are changing Get with the
program or Off you go rightthat's what's gonna happen you
know, so many people in Oh 809were like oh to want to be the
other one of the ones that hadto shut down it's like well then
do something about it. Yeah,change. I love it. Kurt priser
(10:39):
Thanks so much for joining mehere on asoto concessions How
can those listening or watchinglearn more about you and get in
touch with you?
Kirk Preiser (10:45):
Yeah, just follow me on LinkedIn, Kirk priser
KIRKP rei ser on LinkedInconnect with me there, follow me
there. We'd love to talk to youlove to help in any way. I just
want to help the industry moveforward. That's that's really my
passion, just changing theindustry one dealer at a
Michael Cirillo (11:01):
time.
Appreciate your time.
Paul Daly (11:06):
Thank you for listening to this. So to
concession by effective if youwant more content like this, you
can check out our other podcastswe have a daily show called The
automotive troublemaker Mondaythrough Friday. Here on podcasts
also live streamed on YouTube,and LinkedIn and Facebook. We
also have a long form podcastcalled Auto collapse, auto
collapse. And if you just wantto go a little deeper into this
(11:28):
community, you should sign upfor our regular email we put our
heart and soul into it. You canget it for free by going to a
sotu.com. We'll see you nexttime.
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