May 22, 2025 • 26 mins
Carol Marshall unpacks how culture, trust, and hospitality can supercharge your dealership.
In this episode, Paul, Kyle, and Michael sit down once again with the ever-insightful Carol Marshall, COO of ActivEngage, to talk about the power of intentional hiring and world-class hospitality. Carol shares the secret sauce behind her company’s team-building approach—spoiler alert: it involves “hiring for attitude,” a heat-packed conference room, and a pair of brown shorts. Drawing inspiration from industry classics like Be Amazing or Go Home and The Speed of Trust, she dives deep into how great workplace culture and thoughtful recruiting aren’t just HR buzzwords—they’re how you build a business with staying power.
From making ASOTU CON attendees feel like VIPs to setting up dealers for lead-gen success, Carol and her team aren’t just talking the talk—they’re walking it (in comfy shoes, ready to help). The trio reflects on what it means to really show up for your industry, how customer experience starts well before the sale, and why “fit” can trump even the best qualifications. This one’s got real takeaways for leaders, operators, and anyone who’s ever tried to build a team worth trusting.
Books Referenced In The Interview
- Hiring for Attitude by Mark Murphy
- Be Amazing or Go Home by Shep Hyken
- The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey
Timestamped Takeaways:
0:00 Intro with Paul J Daly, Kyle Mountsier and Michael Cirillo
2:41 Carol Marshall joins to talk growth at ActivEngage and what makes team expansion exciting—and tough
4:58 Why hiring for attitude beats hiring for skill, and how Carol’s team smells out drama before it starts
10:52 Behind-the-scenes of how ActivEngage owned hospitality at ASOTU CON with cross-functional team support
13:48 Productizing service: from sticky website chats to flip-to-text, ActivEngage is all about real customer connection
17:18 A fresh client wins big: 8 appointments, 8 sales—how quality conversations can drive real ROI for dealers
Learn more about Carol Marshall:
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul J Daly (00:00):
Gone country, sorry, demonetized.
Unknown (00:09):
This is Auto Collabs.
Paul J Daly (00:13):
That's the least of our concerns. Michael,
unbelievable. You know how muchthat would change my life. If we
got demonetized, I would atleast be excited that someone
was paying attention.
Michael Cirillo (00:28):
You get that copyright claim on YouTube and
you're like, when did something?
Oh, somebody cares. It's like,What's that movie with Steve
Martin where he's like, the newphone books here, I'm somebody,
oh, jerk. That's how I feel whenI get a copyright claim on
Paul J Daly (00:43):
Kyle. Have you ever seen the movie The jerk with
snow Martin? Oh, my God,
Kyle Mountsier (00:48):
I feel like I have, because Steve Martin's the
same character in every movie,right? Yes, but this is like,
Paul J Daly (00:53):
early Steve Martin, when he was really all in on
this character. And it's likethe phone book comes and he's
excited. No phone books arehere, and he looks at his name,
and he finds that his name is,like, in there, he's like, I'm a
somebody. And then it's a hardcut to like, it's like a, like,
a Rando, like, shooter who islooking through the book and
just picks a name at random,like, who he's gonna go try to
(01:15):
shoot at, and it's his name. Andthen that's off and running. So
I don't know, speaking of being,I don't know where we go from
that. Let's go back to the hat.
So the hat is the first new lookthat the more than cars
ecosystem has had in forever,and it feels a little Nashville,
it feels a little Texas, itfeels a little human. And you
can buy these. We're going to beselling them. We released them
(01:36):
at ASOTU CON, and now we'regoing to be selling them
online@shop.asotu.com you shouldhave one because this is, this
is cool weekend where, like, Idon't know this is showroom
wear, but this is weekend whereit depends on your showroom. I
guess
Unknown (01:49):
you know who really helped push some of those is who
we're going to be talking totoday. Carol Marshall from
active engage. They were hangingout at the hospitality. What do
we call it?
Kyle Mountsier (02:00):
Every center the hospitality
Paul J Daly (02:02):
sponsor, but they had the shirts on that were
like, hospitality, how can wehelp you and just blend it in as
those willing to serve people?
You
Michael Cirillo (02:11):
know, we've, we've had her on before, and
it's always an engagingconversation. You know, she's
somebody that thinks deeplyabout a lot of different aspects
of the industry, and we know, Imean, we love her because she's
a good partner, and, you know,they just did a bang up job in
the hospitality area of Con. Sowhy don't we dig in? Why don't
we bring her on in, and hope youguys enjoy this conversation
(02:34):
with the Carol Marshall.
Kyle Mountsier (02:41):
All right. We're hanging out with Carol. Carol,
it is so good to see you again.
How's, how's life in the activeengage in your world. Let's
start with that. Let's get let'sget into just how's life. How's
life.
Carol Marshall (02:53):
Thank you first of all for inviting me. It is
good to see you both again. Lifeis good. Life is super busy.
We're growing the team, andthat's always interesting and
fun, and you learn new thingsand new people, and that's
exciting for us, growing people,growing products. It's it's
(03:16):
growth is good. So I think,fine,
Michael Cirillo (03:20):
I just gotta ask this because I'm curious,
because, because I'm in thewe're in the same boat growing
Kyle Mountsier (03:24):
I was, I was gonna ask the same question. So
I'm glad you're asking it. Okayif
Unknown (03:27):
you find, you know, we, oftentimes, I feel like in
business, we're like, you knowwhat? Like, growing revenue is
hard, and then it comes aroundto hiring, and you're like, I
think growing a team is the mostdifficult thing ever. Tell us
your secrets? How do you findthe right people?
Carol Marshall (03:44):
Our secrets is we, we listen and we pay
attention. And early, early,like years ago, I read a book
hiring for attitude, and itdescribed how Southwest Airlines
hires, and it was so insightful,and it involved, yeah, hiring
for attitude, and it involvedasking a series of questions,
(04:05):
and you ask it of your entireteam, and then you noted how did
your high performers answerversus your lower performers?
And now you have an answer keyto when you interview people. It
also gave tips like, if peopleanswer questions with never,
always. They tend to be verydramatic people, and so you
(04:26):
might want to stay away fromthat if you don't want to have a
lot of workplace drama and
Michael Cirillo (04:31):
all the Italians.
Carol Marshall (04:37):
So we know sometimes they gotta say that's
Michael Cirillo (04:42):
interesting.
Yeah, huh? That? No, that,that's interesting, though,
because those are, there'scommon language, and I just
find, you know, everyone'sresume is a good lie. You know,
it's just like a good coverletter, strong interpersonal
communication skills. You'relike, yeah,
Carol Marshall (04:59):
right. So now we have a hiring team, and it's
cross departmental. Our HR teamhas trained all of these folks
on how to interview, and we wentthrough this be amazing, or go
home workshop off based on thebook by Shep Hyken. Be Amazing,
(05:19):
or go home. And let me tell you,when you have an amazing team
and you're looking to grow, theywill smell out the ones that
need to go home so quick,because now they're listening
for that extra they're they'rereally tuned in. And so, in
(05:40):
fact, today I just made theproclamation, I'm not hiring
anyone anymore, because I'm toohopeful in my hires. You know,
I'm for, oh, I think this personcan get there and I can get them
over that.
Kyle Mountsier (05:53):
Never hump,
Carol Marshall (05:56):
yeah, the team does great, though, the team,
and I think that's, that's thecombination, is okay.
Kyle Mountsier (06:02):
So, so we've got a book called hiring for
attitude. Is it the book beamazing, or go home? Or is it
it's a different Yeah, it's thatbook. Yeah, we'll put that in
the show notes. Because I well,I think if we all point to
especially southwest back in theday, right? I think Southwest
has waned a little bit. Youalways got on a Southwest
flight, and you were like, howdid they find these amazing
(06:24):
people to fly in steel cans allday? Right? Like
Carol Marshall (06:29):
they all had the same kind of attitude. And in
that book, it explains that, youknow, 99% of the people applying
for pilot are ex military, andso they come in in their suits
and their ties, and they putthem all in a huge conference
room and explain, oh, there'sbeen some delays, and we just
need you to wait. And they wouldmake that conference room really
(06:51):
warm. And then after 45 minutesan hour, they would come in with
a box of Bermuda shorts and go,we know you guys must be warm.
Feel free to grab a pair ofshorts while you're waiting. And
the ones who did not takeshorts, they never interviewed,
because no way that did not fitthe persona of Southwest, of
(07:15):
having fun and adapting andgoing with it.
Kyle Mountsier (07:19):
Yeah, interesting. That's
unbelievable. Yeah, they
Carol Marshall (07:22):
call it the brown shorts test. Yeah, I
Michael Cirillo (07:25):
just learned something about myself. I'm
like, You better not put thoseshorts on. You are a pilot.
You're right, right? There aresouls on board, right?
Carol Marshall (07:33):
But think about like you said Kyle back in the
day, when you think about thethings that were said on the PA
system in southwest flights. Ohyeah. You're like, Whoa,
Kyle Mountsier (07:43):
yeah. But yeah, you don't, you don't just find
those well. And I think you'vesaid it is, you know you can,
you can try. We all know this,right? Yeah, it's like, you've
got a top salesperson performs,sells 3540 cars a month. But
it's just a cancer to the entireorganization and, like, that's
(08:03):
an example of not hiring forattitude, because you
potentially hired for skill, orall of a sudden they, like, grew
into that skill and became acancer because of attitude. But
like, you hire for attitude. Imy good friend who, I think you
guys know, Patrick, a bad healways says, like, we hire happy
people because happy people makehappy people, right, right?
Like, it's like, this residualeffect. Like, if you hire happy
(08:26):
people, there's going to behappy people in your business
and your client base, all ofthose type of things. And you
can't just, like, forcehappiness.
Carol Marshall (08:34):
No, you can't force it is an attitude. It's
how you're it's how you'retrained to think, you know, it's
the the old joke about the twoboys, and the one kid gets all
the presents, and the other kid,the room opens up, and it's a
room full of horse crap. And,you know, they come back and
check on the one kid with allthe kid with all the presents,
(08:54):
he's like, I they're like, whydon't you play with them? And
he's like, Well, I'm afraid I'llbreak one, and you'll be really
angry and, he's crying, right?
They go back to the kid withroom all the horse crap, and
he's just joyfully slinging thiscrap left and right. And they're
like, why are you so happy? Andhe goes, Well, all this horse
crap, there's got to be a ponyin here somewhere. So.
Michael Cirillo (09:19):
And that's now I'm thinking. I'm thinking, we
need to the next time we hirepeople Kyle, we gotta put them
in the boardroom. We have tocrank up the heat, and then,
like, at some point we come inwith just like clippers, like
hair clippers, and we're like,we know it must be hot, and just
throw like clippers out. See whoshaves their head to look like
(09:40):
at first. We'll put, like, somefake beards on the table.
Carol Marshall (09:44):
Yeah, do something with the fake beards.
I don't know that you reallywant people willing to go,
Kyle Mountsier (09:55):
but here's, here's what I know. And when you
think about an organization likeactive, engage. That is that has
grown and is larger, and you alljust were at ASOTU CON, and we
kind of, we early on, presentedthis, this option, and it was in
our, you know, our media kit,our sales deck and all that type
of stuff. But we said we wantedsomeone to partner with us, from
(10:16):
a hospitality perspective, tolike, greet people and be
available and actually come toserve instead of just like, be
served by having sales output,right, right? And you all like,
it's hard to find 910, people tocome that are like, I mean to be
to be fair, kind of paying towork. It's like, No, we're gonna
(10:37):
throw down because we know thatif we serve well, people will
look at us and go, Wow, that's adifferent type of company to
interact with, yeah. How didthat kind of come about? And
then, like, the talks internallyto get people ready for serving
at that level.
Carol Marshall (10:53):
So when we saw what the packages that were
being offered were offered,hospitality is just, I don't
know it's a core part of me. Ihave two daughters in the
hospitality industry, and I havea son training to be a pilot. I
don't know if he'll put theshorts on, but so hospitality
means something. It meanssomething, and I think that's
(11:17):
the whole thing. When you gothrough that be amazing, or go
home book, and we put everyonethrough it, but you got to be
ready to stand on your businessand mean it. And so when we
started talking to Anne Marie,and I think it said two or three
people to help, you know, withregistration or whatever, and I
was like, I think we can domore. There's more to being
(11:40):
hospitable when, I mean, we allgo to conferences, and we
understand, you know, if you'rereally need to find the bathroom
or whatever that situation is,there's just so much more you
can do. And we want to beamazing in every single thing
that we do as a company, sothat, yes, that means the
conversations with shoppers onthe dealer's websites or
(12:03):
autotrader or wherever that is.
That means too, when I passsomeone in the hallway, or I see
someone at a conference, you'regonna be amazing. And so when we
started the conversation withyou guys, you were like, well,
how many people can you bring?
And I said, How many do youneed? And so it was a couple of
(12:25):
weeks that you came back and andI said, yeah. So I mean, I have
two people in sales, that's ittoo. So I tapped some people in
Customer Care, marketing,strategic partnerships, and
that's the team. And yes, we'vebeen meeting. We met repeatedly
to prepare ourselves to be thathospitality that will make you
(12:49):
guys proud, because I know youall put together such a
professional, polished productin everything you do, we will
not be the chink in that armor.
And so that's the way we'veapproached it, and trained and
prepared for it.
Kyle Mountsier (13:07):
That's so cool, like that, like pulling that
together, I think, is, is it's ait's a different way of looking
at serving the industry. And Ithink when, when you pair that
with, like, the question of,what do we build next, right?
What do we build for the dealer?
Next? What do we build for theconsumer? Next? You're probably
approaching it with us with asimilar type of heart and
(13:27):
mentality. It's not just like,Oh, someone did this. We should
do the same thing. It's like,you know, you're asking the
like, right question initially.
So I'd love to hear like, howhas that been productized? How
has that been thought of in thebusiness output of what you're
doing right now? How is thattransferring to the way we use
serve customers, the way youserve
Carol Marshall (13:48):
Yeah, it's interesting. The what we're
hearing back from our sales andour partnership teams now is the
industry, the dealer body haskind of been they've been
trained to believe that if youpay a company to handle your
messaging, you need to watchthose conversations and jump in
(14:10):
and save them or take them overand so us coming in and trying
to explain you don't need to dothat with us. You're going to
get better results with us. It'stough. It's it's a it's a hill
to climb. Even though we're theoldest in the industry, it's
just not what anyone else does,the way that we train and do
quality eval, and our goal is toget that shopper sticky with
(14:35):
that dealer and get them intothe dealership. Leads are easy.
We don't care about leads. Wecare about the quality of that
connection, from the time theyenter the site through to the
dealership, so that the salesteam in store, they have quality
people to talk to that thatperson is going to answer your
email. They're going to answeryour phone call. I mean, it's
(14:58):
hard to you. As a sales managerto get your team call these
leads, call these leads, andnobody answers. And nobody
answers an email because thatwas just a form fill or it was a
not a good experience, andyou've lost their trust, and
they've moved on, right? And sothen, yes, we're working on
additional products in terms offollowing up on leads already in
(15:22):
the CRM, and we'll have allthose products out the second
half of the year. We also haveflip to text, which is, if the
dealership phone line is busy,the consumer can change that to
a text, so now they're gettingthat same human conversation
right from the job to again,build that connection. It's,
it's, it's tough when we're thewe. I know a lot of people say a
(15:45):
lot of things, and all I can sayis, we really mean it, and that
was part of why we wanted to behospitality at ASOTU CON is
like, you can feel us touches,look us in the face, and like
where we're trying to back upwhat we're saying and be more
visible in that way. So I
Michael Cirillo (16:05):
feel like speaking of people saying a lot
of things. I'm interested. Thisis my crack at a Kyle Mountsier
segway. This is not a dealershipthing. This is a human thing. I
want to be clear about this,because we are we are advocates.
I know all of us are advocatesfor the dealer body here, but
one thing we hear dealers say alot is, across the board, oh,
(16:29):
the leads stink right. The leadsare awful. And I think of the
impact of that on whateverfollows, if the starting point
is always the lead stinks,right? What does that do to
morale? How they handleopportunities? How does it kill
hospitality versus what you'vejust said? I love how you said,
we will not be the chink in yourarmor. And I know you were
(16:51):
directing at that, at us, but Imean, Kyle kind of drew a
throughput there. That's yoursentiment. I can hear it exactly
right, with your clientpartners, yeah, not being the
chink in their armor, havingquality eval, making sure the
customer, the shopper,experiences where it needs to
be, and ensuring the quality ofthe connection. Yeah. What are
you seeing is the impact now ofa pre vetted, higher quality
(17:14):
opportunity on the dealer'sability to provide better
hospitality.
Carol Marshall (17:18):
So I, just before we started this. I heard
there was a dealer that signedon with us two weeks ago who
really thought they wanted to doself managed and handled the
conversations themselves. Andbecause of turnover, they they
had to change plans, right? Andwe're like, you know what we'll
do, fully manage for you. Ourteam can handle the
conversations. Let's just goahead and launch so. And it's a
(17:41):
Volkswagen store, and in twoweeks, we've set eight
appointments, and they've soldall, all eight. So excuse me,
right, right. Hold right.
Kyle Mountsier (17:59):
I was like, I was like, and they all showed
up, and three of them bought,and I was like, that was going
to be pretty good. I was goingto be down for them. She goes.
And they sold all eight. Yeah,
Carol Marshall (18:09):
all eight. And this was a dealer who was just
so determined that his team waswould do it, and he had a guy
and it would be great, and thatit does. And look, I appreciate
I came from the dealership. Iappreciate everything a sales
person in a dealership needs todo, especially today. You
(18:30):
kidding me? You've got all thepaperwork, you've got hybrids,
you've got tariffs are like,it's all full blast, so to sit
and watch someone else have achat, or to try and do that
yourself. When the averagevolume for a dealer, you know
it's going to be a lot ofwaiting to for something to come
(18:51):
in. If you're one dealer, thatjust doesn't make sense to me.
It's not it's not efficient,it's not economical, and the
results are not going to be asgood. So
Michael Cirillo (19:00):
what I love about it is, is this Carol I
love that. You know, too often,I think in our industry, again,
back to human nature, we makethis a very like finger point,
finger pointing typeconversation. It's like, well,
that must mean that dealerstinks. You know what? I mean.
It's always like, that kind ofthing. And, and what I love is,
I don't get that sense here atall. In fact, you know what I'm
(19:23):
hearing you say is, like, hey,like, there's so much nuance to
why, potentially, anorganization couldn't handle
their leads, bandwidth,training, whatever it might be.
You're saying, Hey, we're we'renot saying we sold all these
eight cars. What we're saying iswe set them up at bat with the
right pitch at the right speedfor their organization, so that
(19:47):
they could knock it out of thepark. They still had to do their
side of it, but we set them upin a way, and I think that's so
important to distinguish. Andmaybe I'm overcompensating, but
I hear that way too much. It'slike, look at the problem. We
solved for the dealer. It'slike, Nah, but the dealer did so
much work, and I love that. I'mnot getting that sense, yeah?
Now,
Carol Marshall (20:06):
yeah, we're we are their partner. That's it. We
are not, you know, they stillhave a lot to do.
Kyle Mountsier (20:15):
I think I was listening to you earlier, and I
almost brought this up, but nowthat, now it's like, eight
people, eight, eight sold rightwith this one particular dealer?
Well, one, I'm still just like,kind of reeling from that. But
also you, you, you saidsomething early on. I can't
remember exactly how you saidit, but it was something like,
we, we are building a like.
We're the communication with thecustomer is building trust, such
(20:39):
that when they come to thestore, when they interact with
the store and and it's buildingtrust from the store, that when
that, when that person comes incontact with someone at the
store level, that they trust,that it's a good connection,
right? Like, like, that'squality, that's a quality person
on the other side, that's right.
I'm guessing you've have youread Stephen Covey Speed of
(21:01):
Trust, I have not, okay, yougot, I will. Gotta check out
Stephen Covey Speed of Trust,because I think it can be, it'll
just be a continuation. But whenI think about like a person that
has a great attitude thatapproaches every single day with
being amazing, and understandsthat the Speed of Trust is a
(21:22):
massive impact factor to everypiece of a relationship. It's
like, employee to employee,employee to customer, customer
to to dealership, dealershipback to active, engage, right?
Yeah, that level of like, theincrease in speed of trust
increases efficiency, increasesthroughput, increases
(21:44):
conversation, yeah, and youlike, you wrap all the there's
three books that people aregoing to have to read after this
podcast, yeah,
Carol Marshall (21:52):
yeah, yeah. It's we are, of course, our executive
team, I've been here over 16years. Our executive team has
been here over 10 years, and Ihave over 80 years experience
just in my training team,training and quality team, of
their experience focused onthese types of conversations,
and then the culture is onewhere people are vocal, and if
(22:16):
something's not right, likethey're raising their hand,
Usually to me, and that's okay,because I will find the pony,
and they'll be like, This is notright. This didn't come across
right, and I didn't get prepped.
And I'm like, okay, okay. Andthen we come together and we
talk about it, we get it right,because ultimately we got to
deliver so and it does requiretrust. It's like, you know, when
(22:38):
you're first married and youhave that first argument and
you're like, Oh my God, he'sgonna leave me or whatever. And
you just come to understand whenyou've been together so long,
like no one's leaving, we'regoing to communicate and we're
going to get get through to thesolution. So, yeah, wow.
Michael Cirillo (22:55):
Well, listen, we trust you, and we're grateful
that you trust us and that youare amazing hospitality
partners. Carol, thank you somuch for joining us on Auto
Collabs
Unknown (23:04):
today. Thank you.
Thanks both.
Kyle Mountsier (23:11):
All right, here's my notes, the books.
Don't forget them. They'll be inthe show notes, hiring for
attitude, be amazing, or gohome. Oh, love that and the
Speed of Trust. Stephen Covey,those three books, if you pull
those three books together, youwill have the essence of
hospitality, trust, bringing theright team together, making sure
(23:35):
that they're constantlyencouraged to do their best. And
you might just build anorganization that has the
staying power of like an activeengage over time.
Paul J Daly (23:45):
There. You know, I often, in my kind of hiring
spiel, I usually get to speak topotential hires at the end of
the interview process, right?
They've gone through several,several interviews, and we've
determined some things. And Ialways say the same, stick to
them say, I look at hiring intwo, two ways, qualification,
qualifications and fit. Right.
(24:07):
Qualifications are, you have theskills and the aptitude to do
the job. Fit is you have theattitude and the aspiration to
go in the direction that we'regoing to and fit will derail a
very qualified person fasterthan anything else you could be
the best at what you do. So Ilove the focus on hiring for
attitude, because you can trainskills. It's very, very
(24:29):
difficult to train I would sayyou can't actually train
attitude. You can train somebehaviors in there, but that
doesn't mean you get theattitude right, and it spills
out.
Michael Cirillo (24:38):
I don't know why you're like as I'm listening
to you talk this through. I'mthinking about when you use the
wrong size Phillips screwdriver,and it just shreds the thread
and and it kind of makes methink that she brought up stuff,
like I wrote down words that shewas saying, like, there's
there's words that you canlisten for, that people. Will
(25:00):
say that kind of give you anindication of what kind of
employee they'll be, how they'llcontribute or detract from the
whole one of them was the wordnever, people that use the word
never, common absolutionists,yeah, and they tend to bring
drama. And I'm like, Huh, youknow? And I think, How many
times do we do that in ourorganizations where you know you
might like the person, but thelike of the person actually gets
(25:22):
in the way with what she'stalking about. And what you just
brought up, Paul, where it'slike, but it's not the right
fit. We're just stripping awayat a screw here that's never
gonna, like, bring the wholething together. So I thought
that's
Kyle Mountsier (25:33):
a great that's a great illustration, because
illustration, once you share thescrew out, right, like, then you
have to bring in the big tools,and you're really I feel like
we've got a LinkedIn carouseljust like ready to be made right
there. Fam. Hey, we hope youenjoyed this conversation with
Carol Marshall. I know wecertainly did. Hey, thanks for
hanging out with us here on AutoCollabs. We will see you next
(25:54):
time and go get your hat.
Unknown (25:56):
Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for
a free shot of relevant news inautomotive, retail media and pop
culture, you can get itnow@asotu.com that's asotu.com
if you love this podcast, pleaseleave us a review and share it
with a friend. Thanks again forlistening. We'll see you next
time youwelcome to Article. Lasts.
Gone country, sorry, demonetized.
Unknown (00:09):
This is Auto Collabs.
Paul J Daly (00:13):
That's the least of our concerns. Michael,
unbelievable. You know how muchthat would change my life. If we
got demonetized, I would atleast be excited that someone
was paying attention.
Michael Cirillo (00:28):
You get that copyright claim on YouTube and
you're like, when did something?
Oh, somebody cares. It's like,What's that movie with Steve
Martin where he's like, the newphone books here, I'm somebody,
oh, jerk. That's how I feel whenI get a copyright claim on
Paul J Daly (00:43):
Kyle. Have you ever seen the movie The jerk with
snow Martin? Oh, my God,
Kyle Mountsier (00:48):
I feel like I have, because Steve Martin's the
same character in every movie,right? Yes, but this is like,
Paul J Daly (00:53):
early Steve Martin, when he was really all in on
this character. And it's likethe phone book comes and he's
excited. No phone books arehere, and he looks at his name,
and he finds that his name is,like, in there, he's like, I'm a
somebody. And then it's a hardcut to like, it's like a, like,
a Rando, like, shooter who islooking through the book and
just picks a name at random,like, who he's gonna go try to
(01:15):
shoot at, and it's his name. Andthen that's off and running. So
I don't know, speaking of being,I don't know where we go from
that. Let's go back to the hat.
So the hat is the first new lookthat the more than cars
ecosystem has had in forever,and it feels a little Nashville,
it feels a little Texas, itfeels a little human. And you
can buy these. We're going to beselling them. We released them
(01:36):
at ASOTU CON, and now we'regoing to be selling them
online@shop.asotu.com you shouldhave one because this is, this
is cool weekend where, like, Idon't know this is showroom
wear, but this is weekend whereit depends on your showroom. I
guess
Unknown (01:49):
you know who really helped push some of those is who
we're going to be talking totoday. Carol Marshall from
active engage. They were hangingout at the hospitality. What do
we call it?
Kyle Mountsier (02:00):
Every center the hospitality
Paul J Daly (02:02):
sponsor, but they had the shirts on that were
like, hospitality, how can wehelp you and just blend it in as
those willing to serve people?
You
Michael Cirillo (02:11):
know, we've, we've had her on before, and
it's always an engagingconversation. You know, she's
somebody that thinks deeplyabout a lot of different aspects
of the industry, and we know, Imean, we love her because she's
a good partner, and, you know,they just did a bang up job in
the hospitality area of Con. Sowhy don't we dig in? Why don't
we bring her on in, and hope youguys enjoy this conversation
(02:34):
with the Carol Marshall.
Kyle Mountsier (02:41):
All right. We're hanging out with Carol. Carol,
it is so good to see you again.
How's, how's life in the activeengage in your world. Let's
start with that. Let's get let'sget into just how's life. How's
life.
Carol Marshall (02:53):
Thank you first of all for inviting me. It is
good to see you both again. Lifeis good. Life is super busy.
We're growing the team, andthat's always interesting and
fun, and you learn new thingsand new people, and that's
exciting for us, growing people,growing products. It's it's
(03:16):
growth is good. So I think,fine,
Michael Cirillo (03:20):
I just gotta ask this because I'm curious,
because, because I'm in thewe're in the same boat growing
Kyle Mountsier (03:24):
I was, I was gonna ask the same question. So
I'm glad you're asking it. Okayif
Unknown (03:27):
you find, you know, we, oftentimes, I feel like in
business, we're like, you knowwhat? Like, growing revenue is
hard, and then it comes aroundto hiring, and you're like, I
think growing a team is the mostdifficult thing ever. Tell us
your secrets? How do you findthe right people?
Carol Marshall (03:44):
Our secrets is we, we listen and we pay
attention. And early, early,like years ago, I read a book
hiring for attitude, and itdescribed how Southwest Airlines
hires, and it was so insightful,and it involved, yeah, hiring
for attitude, and it involvedasking a series of questions,
(04:05):
and you ask it of your entireteam, and then you noted how did
your high performers answerversus your lower performers?
And now you have an answer keyto when you interview people. It
also gave tips like, if peopleanswer questions with never,
always. They tend to be verydramatic people, and so you
(04:26):
might want to stay away fromthat if you don't want to have a
lot of workplace drama and
Michael Cirillo (04:31):
all the Italians.
Carol Marshall (04:37):
So we know sometimes they gotta say that's
Michael Cirillo (04:42):
interesting.
Yeah, huh? That? No, that,that's interesting, though,
because those are, there'scommon language, and I just
find, you know, everyone'sresume is a good lie. You know,
it's just like a good coverletter, strong interpersonal
communication skills. You'relike, yeah,
Carol Marshall (04:59):
right. So now we have a hiring team, and it's
cross departmental. Our HR teamhas trained all of these folks
on how to interview, and we wentthrough this be amazing, or go
home workshop off based on thebook by Shep Hyken. Be Amazing,
(05:19):
or go home. And let me tell you,when you have an amazing team
and you're looking to grow, theywill smell out the ones that
need to go home so quick,because now they're listening
for that extra they're they'rereally tuned in. And so, in
(05:40):
fact, today I just made theproclamation, I'm not hiring
anyone anymore, because I'm toohopeful in my hires. You know,
I'm for, oh, I think this personcan get there and I can get them
over that.
Kyle Mountsier (05:53):
Never hump,
Carol Marshall (05:56):
yeah, the team does great, though, the team,
and I think that's, that's thecombination, is okay.
Kyle Mountsier (06:02):
So, so we've got a book called hiring for
attitude. Is it the book beamazing, or go home? Or is it
it's a different Yeah, it's thatbook. Yeah, we'll put that in
the show notes. Because I well,I think if we all point to
especially southwest back in theday, right? I think Southwest
has waned a little bit. Youalways got on a Southwest
flight, and you were like, howdid they find these amazing
(06:24):
people to fly in steel cans allday? Right? Like
Carol Marshall (06:29):
they all had the same kind of attitude. And in
that book, it explains that, youknow, 99% of the people applying
for pilot are ex military, andso they come in in their suits
and their ties, and they putthem all in a huge conference
room and explain, oh, there'sbeen some delays, and we just
need you to wait. And they wouldmake that conference room really
(06:51):
warm. And then after 45 minutesan hour, they would come in with
a box of Bermuda shorts and go,we know you guys must be warm.
Feel free to grab a pair ofshorts while you're waiting. And
the ones who did not takeshorts, they never interviewed,
because no way that did not fitthe persona of Southwest, of
(07:15):
having fun and adapting andgoing with it.
Kyle Mountsier (07:19):
Yeah, interesting. That's
unbelievable. Yeah, they
Carol Marshall (07:22):
call it the brown shorts test. Yeah, I
Michael Cirillo (07:25):
just learned something about myself. I'm
like, You better not put thoseshorts on. You are a pilot.
You're right, right? There aresouls on board, right?
Carol Marshall (07:33):
But think about like you said Kyle back in the
day, when you think about thethings that were said on the PA
system in southwest flights. Ohyeah. You're like, Whoa,
Kyle Mountsier (07:43):
yeah. But yeah, you don't, you don't just find
those well. And I think you'vesaid it is, you know you can,
you can try. We all know this,right? Yeah, it's like, you've
got a top salesperson performs,sells 3540 cars a month. But
it's just a cancer to the entireorganization and, like, that's
(08:03):
an example of not hiring forattitude, because you
potentially hired for skill, orall of a sudden they, like, grew
into that skill and became acancer because of attitude. But
like, you hire for attitude. Imy good friend who, I think you
guys know, Patrick, a bad healways says, like, we hire happy
people because happy people makehappy people, right, right?
Like, it's like, this residualeffect. Like, if you hire happy
(08:26):
people, there's going to behappy people in your business
and your client base, all ofthose type of things. And you
can't just, like, forcehappiness.
Carol Marshall (08:34):
No, you can't force it is an attitude. It's
how you're it's how you'retrained to think, you know, it's
the the old joke about the twoboys, and the one kid gets all
the presents, and the other kid,the room opens up, and it's a
room full of horse crap. And,you know, they come back and
check on the one kid with allthe kid with all the presents,
(08:54):
he's like, I they're like, whydon't you play with them? And
he's like, Well, I'm afraid I'llbreak one, and you'll be really
angry and, he's crying, right?
They go back to the kid withroom all the horse crap, and
he's just joyfully slinging thiscrap left and right. And they're
like, why are you so happy? Andhe goes, Well, all this horse
crap, there's got to be a ponyin here somewhere. So.
Michael Cirillo (09:19):
And that's now I'm thinking. I'm thinking, we
need to the next time we hirepeople Kyle, we gotta put them
in the boardroom. We have tocrank up the heat, and then,
like, at some point we come inwith just like clippers, like
hair clippers, and we're like,we know it must be hot, and just
throw like clippers out. See whoshaves their head to look like
(09:40):
at first. We'll put, like, somefake beards on the table.
Carol Marshall (09:44):
Yeah, do something with the fake beards.
I don't know that you reallywant people willing to go,
Kyle Mountsier (09:55):
but here's, here's what I know. And when you
think about an organization likeactive, engage. That is that has
grown and is larger, and you alljust were at ASOTU CON, and we
kind of, we early on, presentedthis, this option, and it was in
our, you know, our media kit,our sales deck and all that type
of stuff. But we said we wantedsomeone to partner with us, from
(10:16):
a hospitality perspective, tolike, greet people and be
available and actually come toserve instead of just like, be
served by having sales output,right, right? And you all like,
it's hard to find 910, people tocome that are like, I mean to be
to be fair, kind of paying towork. It's like, No, we're gonna
(10:37):
throw down because we know thatif we serve well, people will
look at us and go, Wow, that's adifferent type of company to
interact with, yeah. How didthat kind of come about? And
then, like, the talks internallyto get people ready for serving
at that level.
Carol Marshall (10:53):
So when we saw what the packages that were
being offered were offered,hospitality is just, I don't
know it's a core part of me. Ihave two daughters in the
hospitality industry, and I havea son training to be a pilot. I
don't know if he'll put theshorts on, but so hospitality
means something. It meanssomething, and I think that's
(11:17):
the whole thing. When you gothrough that be amazing, or go
home book, and we put everyonethrough it, but you got to be
ready to stand on your businessand mean it. And so when we
started talking to Anne Marie,and I think it said two or three
people to help, you know, withregistration or whatever, and I
was like, I think we can domore. There's more to being
(11:40):
hospitable when, I mean, we allgo to conferences, and we
understand, you know, if you'rereally need to find the bathroom
or whatever that situation is,there's just so much more you
can do. And we want to beamazing in every single thing
that we do as a company, sothat, yes, that means the
conversations with shoppers onthe dealer's websites or
(12:03):
autotrader or wherever that is.
That means too, when I passsomeone in the hallway, or I see
someone at a conference, you'regonna be amazing. And so when we
started the conversation withyou guys, you were like, well,
how many people can you bring?
And I said, How many do youneed? And so it was a couple of
(12:25):
weeks that you came back and andI said, yeah. So I mean, I have
two people in sales, that's ittoo. So I tapped some people in
Customer Care, marketing,strategic partnerships, and
that's the team. And yes, we'vebeen meeting. We met repeatedly
to prepare ourselves to be thathospitality that will make you
(12:49):
guys proud, because I know youall put together such a
professional, polished productin everything you do, we will
not be the chink in that armor.
And so that's the way we'veapproached it, and trained and
prepared for it.
Kyle Mountsier (13:07):
That's so cool, like that, like pulling that
together, I think, is, is it's ait's a different way of looking
at serving the industry. And Ithink when, when you pair that
with, like, the question of,what do we build next, right?
What do we build for the dealer?
Next? What do we build for theconsumer? Next? You're probably
approaching it with us with asimilar type of heart and
(13:27):
mentality. It's not just like,Oh, someone did this. We should
do the same thing. It's like,you know, you're asking the
like, right question initially.
So I'd love to hear like, howhas that been productized? How
has that been thought of in thebusiness output of what you're
doing right now? How is thattransferring to the way we use
serve customers, the way youserve
Carol Marshall (13:48):
Yeah, it's interesting. The what we're
hearing back from our sales andour partnership teams now is the
industry, the dealer body haskind of been they've been
trained to believe that if youpay a company to handle your
messaging, you need to watchthose conversations and jump in
(14:10):
and save them or take them overand so us coming in and trying
to explain you don't need to dothat with us. You're going to
get better results with us. It'stough. It's it's a it's a hill
to climb. Even though we're theoldest in the industry, it's
just not what anyone else does,the way that we train and do
quality eval, and our goal is toget that shopper sticky with
(14:35):
that dealer and get them intothe dealership. Leads are easy.
We don't care about leads. Wecare about the quality of that
connection, from the time theyenter the site through to the
dealership, so that the salesteam in store, they have quality
people to talk to that thatperson is going to answer your
email. They're going to answeryour phone call. I mean, it's
(14:58):
hard to you. As a sales managerto get your team call these
leads, call these leads, andnobody answers. And nobody
answers an email because thatwas just a form fill or it was a
not a good experience, andyou've lost their trust, and
they've moved on, right? And sothen, yes, we're working on
additional products in terms offollowing up on leads already in
(15:22):
the CRM, and we'll have allthose products out the second
half of the year. We also haveflip to text, which is, if the
dealership phone line is busy,the consumer can change that to
a text, so now they're gettingthat same human conversation
right from the job to again,build that connection. It's,
it's, it's tough when we're thewe. I know a lot of people say a
(15:45):
lot of things, and all I can sayis, we really mean it, and that
was part of why we wanted to behospitality at ASOTU CON is
like, you can feel us touches,look us in the face, and like
where we're trying to back upwhat we're saying and be more
visible in that way. So I
Michael Cirillo (16:05):
feel like speaking of people saying a lot
of things. I'm interested. Thisis my crack at a Kyle Mountsier
segway. This is not a dealershipthing. This is a human thing. I
want to be clear about this,because we are we are advocates.
I know all of us are advocatesfor the dealer body here, but
one thing we hear dealers say alot is, across the board, oh,
(16:29):
the leads stink right. The leadsare awful. And I think of the
impact of that on whateverfollows, if the starting point
is always the lead stinks,right? What does that do to
morale? How they handleopportunities? How does it kill
hospitality versus what you'vejust said? I love how you said,
we will not be the chink in yourarmor. And I know you were
(16:51):
directing at that, at us, but Imean, Kyle kind of drew a
throughput there. That's yoursentiment. I can hear it exactly
right, with your clientpartners, yeah, not being the
chink in their armor, havingquality eval, making sure the
customer, the shopper,experiences where it needs to
be, and ensuring the quality ofthe connection. Yeah. What are
you seeing is the impact now ofa pre vetted, higher quality
(17:14):
opportunity on the dealer'sability to provide better
hospitality.
Carol Marshall (17:18):
So I, just before we started this. I heard
there was a dealer that signedon with us two weeks ago who
really thought they wanted to doself managed and handled the
conversations themselves. Andbecause of turnover, they they
had to change plans, right? Andwe're like, you know what we'll
do, fully manage for you. Ourteam can handle the
conversations. Let's just goahead and launch so. And it's a
(17:41):
Volkswagen store, and in twoweeks, we've set eight
appointments, and they've soldall, all eight. So excuse me,
right, right. Hold right.
Kyle Mountsier (17:59):
I was like, I was like, and they all showed
up, and three of them bought,and I was like, that was going
to be pretty good. I was goingto be down for them. She goes.
And they sold all eight. Yeah,
Carol Marshall (18:09):
all eight. And this was a dealer who was just
so determined that his team waswould do it, and he had a guy
and it would be great, and thatit does. And look, I appreciate
I came from the dealership. Iappreciate everything a sales
person in a dealership needs todo, especially today. You
(18:30):
kidding me? You've got all thepaperwork, you've got hybrids,
you've got tariffs are like,it's all full blast, so to sit
and watch someone else have achat, or to try and do that
yourself. When the averagevolume for a dealer, you know
it's going to be a lot ofwaiting to for something to come
(18:51):
in. If you're one dealer, thatjust doesn't make sense to me.
It's not it's not efficient,it's not economical, and the
results are not going to be asgood. So
Michael Cirillo (19:00):
what I love about it is, is this Carol I
love that. You know, too often,I think in our industry, again,
back to human nature, we makethis a very like finger point,
finger pointing typeconversation. It's like, well,
that must mean that dealerstinks. You know what? I mean.
It's always like, that kind ofthing. And, and what I love is,
I don't get that sense here atall. In fact, you know what I'm
(19:23):
hearing you say is, like, hey,like, there's so much nuance to
why, potentially, anorganization couldn't handle
their leads, bandwidth,training, whatever it might be.
You're saying, Hey, we're we'renot saying we sold all these
eight cars. What we're saying iswe set them up at bat with the
right pitch at the right speedfor their organization, so that
(19:47):
they could knock it out of thepark. They still had to do their
side of it, but we set them upin a way, and I think that's so
important to distinguish. Andmaybe I'm overcompensating, but
I hear that way too much. It'slike, look at the problem. We
solved for the dealer. It'slike, Nah, but the dealer did so
much work, and I love that. I'mnot getting that sense, yeah?
Now,
Carol Marshall (20:06):
yeah, we're we are their partner. That's it. We
are not, you know, they stillhave a lot to do.
Kyle Mountsier (20:15):
I think I was listening to you earlier, and I
almost brought this up, but nowthat, now it's like, eight
people, eight, eight sold rightwith this one particular dealer?
Well, one, I'm still just like,kind of reeling from that. But
also you, you, you saidsomething early on. I can't
remember exactly how you saidit, but it was something like,
we, we are building a like.
We're the communication with thecustomer is building trust, such
(20:39):
that when they come to thestore, when they interact with
the store and and it's buildingtrust from the store, that when
that, when that person comes incontact with someone at the
store level, that they trust,that it's a good connection,
right? Like, like, that'squality, that's a quality person
on the other side, that's right.
I'm guessing you've have youread Stephen Covey Speed of
(21:01):
Trust, I have not, okay, yougot, I will. Gotta check out
Stephen Covey Speed of Trust,because I think it can be, it'll
just be a continuation. But whenI think about like a person that
has a great attitude thatapproaches every single day with
being amazing, and understandsthat the Speed of Trust is a
(21:22):
massive impact factor to everypiece of a relationship. It's
like, employee to employee,employee to customer, customer
to to dealership, dealershipback to active, engage, right?
Yeah, that level of like, theincrease in speed of trust
increases efficiency, increasesthroughput, increases
(21:44):
conversation, yeah, and youlike, you wrap all the there's
three books that people aregoing to have to read after this
podcast, yeah,
Carol Marshall (21:52):
yeah, yeah. It's we are, of course, our executive
team, I've been here over 16years. Our executive team has
been here over 10 years, and Ihave over 80 years experience
just in my training team,training and quality team, of
their experience focused onthese types of conversations,
and then the culture is onewhere people are vocal, and if
(22:16):
something's not right, likethey're raising their hand,
Usually to me, and that's okay,because I will find the pony,
and they'll be like, This is notright. This didn't come across
right, and I didn't get prepped.
And I'm like, okay, okay. Andthen we come together and we
talk about it, we get it right,because ultimately we got to
deliver so and it does requiretrust. It's like, you know, when
(22:38):
you're first married and youhave that first argument and
you're like, Oh my God, he'sgonna leave me or whatever. And
you just come to understand whenyou've been together so long,
like no one's leaving, we'regoing to communicate and we're
going to get get through to thesolution. So, yeah, wow.
Michael Cirillo (22:55):
Well, listen, we trust you, and we're grateful
that you trust us and that youare amazing hospitality
partners. Carol, thank you somuch for joining us on Auto
Collabs
Unknown (23:04):
today. Thank you.
Thanks both.
Kyle Mountsier (23:11):
All right, here's my notes, the books.
Don't forget them. They'll be inthe show notes, hiring for
attitude, be amazing, or gohome. Oh, love that and the
Speed of Trust. Stephen Covey,those three books, if you pull
those three books together, youwill have the essence of
hospitality, trust, bringing theright team together, making sure
(23:35):
that they're constantlyencouraged to do their best. And
you might just build anorganization that has the
staying power of like an activeengage over time.
Paul J Daly (23:45):
There. You know, I often, in my kind of hiring
spiel, I usually get to speak topotential hires at the end of
the interview process, right?
They've gone through several,several interviews, and we've
determined some things. And Ialways say the same, stick to
them say, I look at hiring intwo, two ways, qualification,
qualifications and fit. Right.
(24:07):
Qualifications are, you have theskills and the aptitude to do
the job. Fit is you have theattitude and the aspiration to
go in the direction that we'regoing to and fit will derail a
very qualified person fasterthan anything else you could be
the best at what you do. So Ilove the focus on hiring for
attitude, because you can trainskills. It's very, very
(24:29):
difficult to train I would sayyou can't actually train
attitude. You can train somebehaviors in there, but that
doesn't mean you get theattitude right, and it spills
out.
Michael Cirillo (24:38):
I don't know why you're like as I'm listening
to you talk this through. I'mthinking about when you use the
wrong size Phillips screwdriver,and it just shreds the thread
and and it kind of makes methink that she brought up stuff,
like I wrote down words that shewas saying, like, there's
there's words that you canlisten for, that people. Will
(25:00):
say that kind of give you anindication of what kind of
employee they'll be, how they'llcontribute or detract from the
whole one of them was the wordnever, people that use the word
never, common absolutionists,yeah, and they tend to bring
drama. And I'm like, Huh, youknow? And I think, How many
times do we do that in ourorganizations where you know you
might like the person, but thelike of the person actually gets
(25:22):
in the way with what she'stalking about. And what you just
brought up, Paul, where it'slike, but it's not the right
fit. We're just stripping awayat a screw here that's never
gonna, like, bring the wholething together. So I thought
that's
Kyle Mountsier (25:33):
a great that's a great illustration, because
illustration, once you share thescrew out, right, like, then you
have to bring in the big tools,and you're really I feel like
we've got a LinkedIn carouseljust like ready to be made right
there. Fam. Hey, we hope youenjoyed this conversation with
Carol Marshall. I know wecertainly did. Hey, thanks for
hanging out with us here on AutoCollabs. We will see you next
(25:54):
time and go get your hat.
Unknown (25:56):
Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.