Dealerships Ignoring This Will Be Out of Business in 5 Years

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Chris Keene (00:04): we are folks. We are back. This is lot talk powered by lot pop. I'm Chris Keene, one of the co-hosts. And because last week he was a little bit upset about it, but I'm going to announce them like this. We have the esteemed Mr. John Anderson and his “ sidekick, Leonard. So how's that John? that better?

John Anderson (00:24): “ you could have put a steam curmudgeon. I would have been all right with that.

Chris Keene (00:29): Well, I know Tori is notorious. So the notorious Jay Anderson. So

Renaldo Leonard (00:29): And I was looking for a notorious notorious

Chris Keene (01:11): listen I am “ so stoked after our first run at fumbling Okay. I we fumbled, have been fumbling around with this. We had a gentleman reach out. That is from an AI company and the best part about it. He is three X than John. So he, he is like with the times. “

John Anderson (01:36): He's young enough to be my grandson. Look at that. Come on now.

Chris Keene (01:39): “ he's definitely, I mean, Hey, listen, he's young enough to be me and run all those sons. So, but, “ for real, got a pair of ostrich boots. I'm not kidding you 27 years old. So, you know, my boots are older than him. Okay. But this gentleman reached out to me. I spent some one-on-one time with them. you guys, I sent you some, some context he put together around AI. “

Renaldo Leonard (02:06): Yeah, I got shoes older than he is.

Chris Keene (02:06): around a E O around G E O. So viewers, listeners, okay. You'll watch this. You heard us get educated along the way over the last three episodes, to deliver this a E O G E O. What car max is doing with chat GPT. Now we're an expert on. So you get your. digital note takers. can't believe I'm having to say that today's time. What the hell's this world coming to, but get your digital note takers put together for your old cats. Like John, get your legal pad out. Okay. Get your ruler out, get your pen, get your paper, get all the women and children around the mic, around the computer, around the speakers, around the video, because we're going to start unpacking this with somebody that knows what the hell they're talking about. Cause we just stumbled across it. and looked at it from the same goggles you're looking at it from. So with that being said, Ronaldo, John, I just want to get right into it and bring our now good friend, Max up on stage. Max. Max. There he is. We have Max, ladies and gentlemen, from Provena

Renaldo Leonard (03:18): Hey Max, how you doing man?

Max @ Provena AI (03:18): Jan, so are we. John, Ronaldo, Chris.

Chris Keene (03:18): AI, straight up. My man is from Ireland. max. Thank you, my friend for taking time to join us on the show to put some really great talking points. Let's just go ahead and get the party kicked off. Max, first and foremost, tell us a little bit about what you guys do and how long you've been doing it.

Max @ Provena AI (03:37): Of course, course, Ronaldo, Chris and John, thank you for having me on. I'm excited to jump into this. First “ the viewers who are watching this video, if you haven't watched the other episodes, do so, because the guys here were breaking down exactly what the AO is, GEO is, what's going on, what is this in the space, and what I'm here to do is I'm here to clean up the pieces, make it make sense of why CarMax have done what they've done, and how any other vendors or techs as companies in this automotive space, can actually take action so they're not getting left behind. So I don't think it would be fair to go through and talk to you guys about my opinion without understanding who I am. So Max, yes, I'm from Ireland. And although I may look a bit older than what I actually am, I'm 21, but that doesn't really matter because the guys who are actually moving pins in this AI space are usually the guys who grew up in the times, right? So. come from a background of door to door sales, knocking and cold doors, cold out in the weather. I'm out here in Columbia right now Chris said, Max you got balls for being out there. I tell you what Chris, you'd have balls if you're knocking doors trying to sell telecommunications in minus degrees weather. “

Chris Keene (04:46): hahahaha

John Anderson (04:46): Thank

Renaldo Leonard (04:46): yeah, oh yeah. That's definitely a great way to cut your teeth if you're gonna be in sales. Going door to door, ain't easy. I gotta tell you, man, I think this is as close as Chris has been since his last box of Lucky Charms. So I know that he was, I know he was really, really excited to have you all. So, ugh.

John Anderson (05:10): You

Max @ Provena AI (05:10): Of course, of course. And so since, since starting off knocking the doors, you know, I worked my way up, understanding tail cycle, seal cycles. What does it actually take to get somebody on in short cycle sales? So worked my way up to the enterprise and that's when I ever decided, Hey, it's time to make the jump. And that's when I made my company Provenai. What we do is we build, we build full scale outbound engines and seal systems. using AI and all that good stuff. worked with private equity firms in the space. I've with “ tech B2B SaaS companies, capital allocation. Just recently, I just wrapped up a campaign with an automotive tech company. Wow, did it open up my eyes to a bunch of stuff that I can't wait to go through with you.

Chris Keene (05:54): So you don't about that max. mean, you “ listen, this is a no holds barred. Brett hates it. When I say this, this is a no holds barred, you know, uncensored, you know, podcast. I mean, we just keep it real. Okay. But “ talk about that. It was sell my ride that you did workup with. “ Is correct? It sell my ride. Is that right?

Max @ Provena AI (06:19): Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's

Chris Keene (06:20): So that was your first automotive vertical that you worked with. Okay. What are some things that you saw from that about the automotive industry? And listen, like I said, there's no holds barred. I mean, you could call an ace and ace and a spade to spade and ain't nobody going to get the feelings hurt. Okay.

Max @ Provena AI (06:36): That's correct. Yeah, no, of course. So one of the biggest things I realized working in the automotive vehicle is the technology lag, right? So let me just, let me just break this down to you guys. So the automotive industry is proven to make the slowest changes whenever it comes to technological advancement compared to any other industry or any other vertical in the world. I mean, it's not my words guys don't shoot me down here, but even you guys say it's like snail's pace out here. And that's exactly what it's like. So reason I'm saying that is because, you know, it's not like what it used to be where, you know, you're handing out flyers and you know, you're up adverts on a board outside your place. “ times are gone. “ the people who are still thinking that's the way it's going to be in these hard sales, it's coming less and less attractive because “ mean, if “ the internet has done, it's given too many people opinion and people are absolutely drowning in choice. Right. So you have to think. different, you have to think bigger and well, how can you do that? It's leveraging the tools that you have now with the AI and really breaking things down. So to answer your question, biggest thing that I noticed is definitely the lag “ the automotive space whenever it comes to the new way of short cycle seals, the new way of conducting outbound efficiently and that actually looks like. It's just why I'm excited about this vertical because I see a deep sea blue of opportunity.

Renaldo Leonard (07:57): Absolutely. Well, you're spot on. There is a lot of opportunity out there. I think, hopefully, with the conversations that we're having, it may spur some of our auto-voted partners out there to seriously delve into it and investigate “ attempt to get “ of the curve. What we saw with the announcement with the companies that we mentioned earlier getting into it.

Max @ Provena AI (08:20): Of course.

Renaldo Leonard (08:20): that's gotten a lot of people's attention. So from your perspective, how do you see it evolving from here? Or actually, back it up, how would a dealer begin to delve into it to take their first steps and, you know, kind of make that first step to get that AI of what we're talking about implemented there at the store?

Max @ Provena AI (08:42): Yeah. That's a great question, Naldo. answer that question, like, look guys, it's really broken down into like two streams, the way I see it anyway. You've got direct sales and you have indirect sales, right? You've got the sniper rifle approach and you've got the shotgun approach and you what's gonna work best, it's probably the balance of the two. So my advice is, is define the balance. “ well, how do you do that? You have a look at... you know, your current ways of outbound, inbound, all these sort of things. And you start to analyze like, okay, is this going to be sustainable for one and two? What's this actually yielding? So I would genuinely, it's like, you know, looking in a mirror, am I teeth clean? Is my hair slicked back? Well, yes it is. But the point is, is you have to look at what you're already doing to know what you're missing out, right?

Renaldo Leonard (09:25): Absolutely.

Max @ Provena AI (09:26): Absolutely. So I want to look, I want to talk about I'm a figures guy, right? And, I don't want the viewers here, whether you're a vendor, whether you're a tech or SaaS company to think, God, am I getting left behind? No, you're not yet unless you start swimming. So let me just actually break down what these numbers look like and what it actually means. So. So it takes genuinely it takes over. 30 separate systems just to sell one car these days. Can you believe that? not a tax stack. That's a damn “ dig. That's a damn mess if I've ever seen it. “

Chris Keene (10:05): Hold on, Max. I want to make sure the listeners and viewers heard that right. I'm going to read directly from the write-up you gave a case study found that it takes 30 plus separate systems to sell a single car at most dealerships. That is not a tech stack. That is tech archeological dig.

Max @ Provena AI (10:29): Yeah.

Chris Keene (10:29): Wow. Go ahead, man. I wanted to make sure everybody heard that.

Max @ Provena AI (10:32): That's right. That's dumb, right?

John Anderson (10:32): Hey, I just want to say that I felt, I felt that pain. I have, have felt that pain in a store working there. There is nothing there “ you're trying to, when you're trying to serve your sales team as a manager in a store and have to go through what Max just described. it is freaking painful. It is painful. and it's frustrating. So, “

Chris Keene (10:56): Yes, sir.

John Anderson (10:56): dealers and listeners, hope that caught your ear right now. it drew you closer into the computer to to what Max has to say, because “ I tell you from all of our dealer partners, that's a constant frustration that we hear. And we're part of that, right? Because what we do, we're another one of those tabs need to be opened up on your computer screen, right?

Chris Keene (11:19): Every day. “

John Anderson (11:19): So, so we're a part of this equation. So yeah, max, I didn't, didn't want to break that. Didn't want to break your concentration there, brother. Go ahead. But I just took Chris's point. I, I've felt the frustration. I want to make sure dealers heard that man. That's to me, that's crazy. 30 separate systems to sell one car. That's absolutely insane. “

Renaldo Leonard (11:39): .

Max @ Provena AI (11:39): Hmm. It truly is. And you know, this is why, this is why, you know, the automotive industry does have that lag because whenever you're, whenever you're dealing with, with 30 different, you know, technology tools or stocks, whatever you want to call it, man, you're spending more time going in and out of browsers and trying to find out and figure out which is the best one rather than just focusing on what actually matters, which is systems, Systems that actually operate efficiently, seal systems that are going to go from A to Z rather than getting caught up in all this, “ these tech stacks. “ genuinely, “ the other study I want to do, what I want to share is automotive sits at the bottom of the bucket when it comes to digital adoption down there with government, healthcare and construction. Think about that first. Yeah.

Chris Keene (12:31): Really?

Max @ Provena AI (12:31): Think about that. That is staggering. However, automotive industry sees an annual growth rate of over 9%, around 9 % year on year. Could you imagine what that would be if people were able to actually leverage the systems that are out there right now, like CarMax are, right?

Renaldo Leonard (12:50): Mm.

John Anderson (12:50): And we all wonder why it takes four hours to get a car delivered when we go into a showroom, right?

Max @ Provena AI (12:59): Thanks. Haha.

Renaldo Leonard (12:59): “ Yeah, well, and when you're mentioning those those verticals off, I mean, those are the most efficient verticals, “ know, on the planet. We figured out exactly why. Yeah.

Max @ Provena AI (13:10): is true. So gents, what's your thoughts so far?

Chris Keene (13:13): Well, have a thought here because again, “ upon, you know, some of the write up that you had here, that some of the information you shared with us, one the things that you said, I'm trying to find it because it caught my attention and I want to, I want to make sure I speak it clearly, but you were talking about how the system itself about AI. how it here it was. It was where you were talking about the growth of of these A.I. OK. Over the last several. However long, but chat GPT. OK, 50 million subscribers. OK, but I think the thing that caught my attention, which. leads back to where this all started when we brought AEO and GEO to the industry from our podcast two “ five billion daily prompts, two point five billion daily prompts in chat GPT. Google Jim and I. Is doubled from their monthly active users up to 750 million. So just here in the United States, those are your two biggest AI tools be a chat, GPT and go Jim and I now obviously perplexity Claude. I've actually talked to people in the last week that use both of those, you know, medic kind of jumping up there a bunch with 1 billion plus. Meta AI monthly users, you know, that are reported these AI assistants are now embedded across every major platform. That being said, max tie in here for us explain to our viewers and listeners. The, the because what we're seeing and what we're hearing is both of the spectrum.

Max @ Provena AI (15:08): Mm.

Chris Keene (15:08): We were hearing, yeah, we use AI, we use AI, we use AI. Okay. Well, that's cool and all. But if your AI is not set up properly, hence why we brought a EO and GEO to the table. You can have all the AI in the world, but if you're not set up properly in that a EO and GEO, the AI really, and Max correct me if I'm wrong, if I'm misunderstanding this. But the AI that you use doesn't matter for your business your business is not appropriately set “ in the space of AEO and geo. Is that correct?

Max @ Provena AI (15:44): It is, it is definitely correct Chris. You know, you've, you've tied this off very well because I came in and I'm making all these, huge proclaims. saying it's this, it's that, but this why I love the automotive space because the majority of you guys are cutthroat sales guys. And although I know you've closed a few big deals, you're looking at me like, yeah, I'm a “ salesman,

Renaldo Leonard (16:07): No, no, no, It's just a blind squirrel finding an acorn every once in a while.

Max @ Provena AI (16:12): So let me break this down to the viewers and the listeners out there. And let me create a little bit of tangibility to this. I don't even know if that's a word. So it's actually tangible. So you know why it matters, right? Because throwing these words around here in the space without actually understanding the impact on your industry, how much new sales revenue you're bringing in. I mean, it doesn't matter, we might as well be talking about a terrible halftime performance on the Super Bowl that I've seen. You guys must be pretty upset about that.

Chris Keene (16:46): “

Renaldo Leonard (16:46): Are you talking about 2010 or just this past?

Max @ Provena AI (16:51): Ew. I mean, just the one the past month, thought, my God, these Americans need something else than that.

Renaldo Leonard (17:00): You

Max @ Provena AI (17:00): Yeah

Renaldo Leonard (17:00): Your stock is rising in the States right now.

Max @ Provena AI (17:03): honestly. Yeah, so...

Chris Keene (17:04): So break it down for us, Max.

Max @ Provena AI (17:06): First off, the start that I want to pull up is ChatgyPT, right? It's got 900 million weekly users, Google Gemini, 750 million, Perplexity, 50 million, and Cloud, 200 million, right? So that's like 30%, 40 % of the world is jumping on here and they're using this, right? And then let's compare that to, well, Max, what was the alternative? Well, the alternative is everyone knows with things like Bing or Google or DuckDuckGo, whatever it was that you were using, that's what's being left in the shadow. And that's actually what is the most important point that we should be focusing on. So by 2026, by the end of 2026, there is predicted to be a traditional search drop in Google by 25%. 25%, right? Just remember that's that.

Chris Keene (17:58): Hold on, say that again.

Max @ Provena AI (18:00): Yeah. So by the end of 2026, Google will see a decrease in up to 25 % of the amount of total searches that have been used compared to previous years. Okay, so zero click searches from May 2024. know, you guys, for example, zero click searches like, you know, if I was Brad, I would say, how do I stop my riff leaking? And then you don't click into anything. You just see the first answer, right? And that search from around 50 % up to 69%. So that's nearly a 50 % increase in just a year. So Why that is important is because guys, we're not seeing a decrease in the use of the internet. What we are actually seeing is we're seeing the amount of consumers and the people who are for things, they're using something else. And that's something else is, of course, it's all of the LLM “ engines. It's the chat CPTs, it's the perplexities, it's the Geminis. And you know what they're not using Google for anymore? They're not using Google to find What is the perfect car for a family of four with good tech? That's not what they're using Google for anymore. They're not using Google for what dealerships are trustworthy and are going to give me a good price. They're not using Google for that anymore, guys. They're moving across to these engines and these tools that are going to give them a direct answer in 30 seconds, just like that.

Chris Keene (19:29): Whoa.

Renaldo Leonard (19:29): that and correct me if I'm wrong. When we in the last, I guess five years “ or if we go back 10 years, there “ was huge focus on our Google reviews or everybody up their survey responses and things of that nature. We're going to have to turn our back to that way of thinking. and focus towards the answers that these search engines are providing customers in order to plug in and continue to get the results of traffic coming to us from those folks who are on the internet. Is that all right?

Max @ Provena AI (20:04): Guys, Ronaldo just asked probably the most important question that you need to know in this vertical, in this lane. Ronaldo, can you ask that again just one more time so everyone can hear it?

Renaldo Leonard (20:16): So in the past when we were focused on having people or thinking that people were going online to look at Google reviews things of that nature, we have to focus, turn our back on that and focus on generating those answers plugging into those answers that these search engines are providing when people are going there to seek their answers. Is that right?

Max @ Provena AI (20:41): That's a great question. The answer that Ronaldo is absolutely, absolutely not my man, because the thing about, so you got SEO, right? Which is what Ronaldo just described guys. And then you've got what is new and what's popping in the market is this AO and GEO. They are not this similar. Matter of fact, to perform, you know, AO and GEO and to actually get on the likes of ChatGBT perplexity, is birthed your SEO.

Renaldo Leonard (21:05): Hmm

Max @ Provena AI (21:05): Right. It's just a different approach. It's just tailored in a different way. So it's not like, damn, we've spent whatever it is, 30k, 40k in the past five years and now all that's flushed down the drain. No, what you've done is you've built your internet infrastructure and now what you have to do is you have to tailor your optimization in a different way. That doesn't mean that everyone shot away. All it means is that you have to You you have to go with it, man. You have to change up. have to look at it. It's like a project that's always evolving.

Chris Keene (21:39): So focusing on tailoring that optimization to the answers not the click.

Max @ Provena AI (21:48): Yeah. So you guys, yeah, Chris, like you guys broke it down like pretty well in the past two “ So “ for me to summarize everything that, you know, you guys were discussing for any of the viewers that didn't watch it, go watch it. If not, essentially what AEO is, is answer engine optimization. Let me repeat that is answer engine optimization. This is essentially being the answer. on the examination, okay? So you're structuring content so AI can extract direct answers from your site, maybe blog posts, things like this. So for example, best SUV under 40K near me, right? So you becoming the answer on the backend. “ I wanna get too technical, I don't want the viewers to drop. What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to create clarity that... Being from SEO and that's what it's been up until now, you guys just need to tailor a little bit in what you're doing. Now with GEO, so we got AO is the answer in the exam. GEO is about being the textbook that AI is studied from. Okay, so it's about being the authority. It's making your brand trusted. know, cited sources like Ronaldo, you said about, you know, getting the reviews up. That's going to improve your GEO. You know, people talking about what's trustworthy. So them two combined, right, is the perfect recipe. Actually them three, the SEO, because it's the initial infrastructure, the AO and the GEO, them three combined is the recipe that is actually going to get you in front of these 950 million users on ChatiPT and so much more,

Renaldo Leonard (23:28): Gotcha. Wow. What do you think, woman? Gosh, we're getting our learning on today. “

John Anderson (23:33): Yeah. Yeah, man. You gotta, you gotta forgive. You gotta forgive the old guy in the room. My head's about to explode. Right. I guess, I guess, cause I'm, I'm just a max. I'm a practical thinker. “ “

Max @ Provena AI (23:49): Thank

Renaldo Leonard (23:49): No.

Max @ Provena AI (23:49): Thank you.

John Anderson (23:49): Without this getting, I mean, I'm just sitting here taking notes on like them from, from our company standpoint, right? Some of the things that we track and trend, right? got to change some things up ourselves, right? But from a, from the automotive vertical, and if I'm a dealer and I'm listening to this for the first time, and this is this conversation that we've had over the last three weeks is new to me as a dealer. What would you say would be your top two things that you would start to lean into to start to get myself of trying to go down that path of getting myself ahead of the competition? Last week I said this is a game changer. in my opinion, of being able to get myself because the automotive industry is extremely competitive. But to your point, we hold on to things. “ hold on to things for so long and so slow to adapt. Right. So to me, this is a way to stretch my legs over my dramatically. And so. From that perspective, what would you say would be a couple go-tos that I could start as a guy that knows nothing about this and start getting my toe in the water so that I can start “ how to stretch my legs over my competition?

Max @ Provena AI (25:07): That's a great question. So guys, this is for of the vendors out there that are listening. What I would do “ was “ I think I would love to be because I've got that sales in me, but if I did own a dealership, right? What I would do is I would look at my employees, right? Now you just hear me out guys. What I would do is I would look at my employees “ are, “ they be a CTO, whether they are the third party that are doing your marketing. And I would look at “ age are my, are my employees in this this impacting vertical and this impacting vertical. And for this, it's the technical operations. It's the marketing. What age are these guys? Right. “ don't get me wrong. Like you can still be, you know, 50, 60 and really enthusing this, but like, let's be real here. Let's be completely realistic. The guys who know the most about this are the guys who are living with the damn times. Right. Because “ are the guys who are going to push the pins for your company because they're taking it at an angle. that your head's above the water, right? You're dealing with other shit. These guys are gonna be the guys that are going to open up your mind to new things. And that's exactly where I'd start because the marketing that was five years ago is not the marketing that it is today.

Renaldo Leonard (26:22): Well, thank you for joining us, Max. It's been great visiting with you.

Max @ Provena AI (26:27): Hahaha!

Chris Keene (26:27): He's kidding. He's kidding. my goodness. So, Hey, listeners and viewers, “ of viewers, I got to recap this just real quick here because this, this episode, we're going to put a pin in this, but we're going to be back tomorrow and bringing back more of this. And, but got to put. I got to put a quick recap in here, guys. Okay. Consumers drowning in choices with Internet. Okay. Listeners and viewers, “ I you to remember this. Max brought this to the table. So this isn't coming from these three talking heads that you guys tune into every single week. We're bringing a professional. And as he said, us. Old cats in the business. We just got our heads above water, but the young 20 somethings, they're pushing the pin and they're the ones making this realistic for that generation that is going to take over. It is already taking over from the boomers like John or the Gen X is like Naldo and I. So you got to be really in tune. With understanding that piece of it, because these consumers today, these millennials, these gen Z's, they are so drowned in choices on the internet. We got to throw them a life preserver that life preserver, because if you heard Max clearly by the end of 2026, a 25 % decrease in search, which is scary, which means we need to. focus on tailoring optimization to the answers. not toward the click. If we focus on the answers, we'll get the consumer isolated to us instead of focusing on getting the clicks, the clicks, the clicks. 2.5 billion prompts across chat GPT. I did a little more research while the gentlemen were talking. Here in the United States alone, 2.5 billion queries on chat GPT per day. How about this here in the United States, folks, 330 Props per day on chat GPT. That's just chat. GPT ain't even talking about Google. Jim and I ain't even talking about perplexity, Claude or any of others that those young 20 something year olds are using.

John Anderson (28:55): That's about one prompt for every citizen in the country, isn't it? Isn't that close?

Chris Keene (28:58): Yes, Yes, sir. So with that being said, ladies and gentlemen, we are out of time, but when you tune back in tomorrow, we're going to have Max right back on. And we'll go pick right back up, but we're going to dive a little bit deeper. So tune back in tomorrow. As a reminder, this is going to release Tuesday morning.

Renaldo Leonard (29:20): Thank

Chris Keene (29:20): at four thirty in the morning central time every Wednesday morning at four thirty in the morning central time. And then the full one hour you're going to get to see that on the YouTube or on the Spotify. Every Wednesday at one p.m. Max, you've given us a bunch of information. We'll go pick back up. This has been season three, episode 11. We're going to have you back on season 12. And then we'll go wrap this up to hopefully get the juices flow for our dealers on behalf of lot pop on behalf of everybody here on lot talk today. We thank you so much for tuning in and we're going to catch you tomorrow morning. Same bat time, same bat channel. Talk to you guys soon. for y'all that have liked that have shared that have gave us some great reviews on Apple. Please do the same thing on these last couple of episodes. Like I'm Sharon. Continue to give us reviews. We thank you all so much. Things like that is what helps power us and continue to move us forward. Continue to get us “ spread out there so we can find great “ guests come “ on like Max. to help pour back into our industry. So we thank you for those reviews. We thank you for the likes. We thank you for the shares,