Stop Asking "Are You Still in the Market?" Ask Gemini This Instead.

Transcript is auto-generated from the episode recording and lightly formatted. It may contain transcription errors.

Chris Keene (00:03): we've recently separated ourselves from it because we've got our own identity

Chris Keene (00:13): And we are back. You have tuned it back in. We have made it through the 4th of July. I still got 10 fingers. Ain't nothing blown up. But you've tuned it back in. This is Lot Talk Powered by Lot Pop. I am Chris Keene, one of your co-hosts, joined by the all-famous Peapaul himself, also known as John Anderson. And Mr. Ronaldo Leonard. Come on, baby. Guns up. How are we doing today? Gentlemen.

John Anderson (00:41): Fantastic. Fantastic.

Renaldo Leonard (00:43): It It's all good in the hood, my man. Two fifty the celebration behind us. Ready to go ahead and finish up the rest of twenty six.

John Anderson (00:46): Happy, happy. Happy two fifty.

Chris Keene (00:52): Is day one. It's we're now working through the first year of the next 250. You know, I I'ma tell y'all, the fourth of July is my most favorite holiday out of all holidays. It is my most favorite holiday. we would be completely out of line. if we did not take it just thirty seconds here or more and say thank you. Thank you to the men and women. That have served our country to give us this independence, to give us this freedom. Thank you to those that are left behind when our family members go out to protect our freedoms. You know, that they don't get to go do that. They don't get the opportunity to serve us without enormous support from the loved ones of those out there serving our country. So we thank you, we thank you, we thank you for just the sacrifice.

John Anderson (01:51): Mm.

Chris Keene (01:54): that you've given, that you continue to give for the family members that you've given, that you continue to give by letting our servicemen and women protect that very freedom that we've had for the last two hundred and fifty years and God willing another two hundred and fifty. Anderson, you're pretty patriotic.

John Anderson (02:11): Greatest co greatest country on earth. Greatest country on earth. And if you don't believe me, just ask any of the soccer fans that are in from Europe. They'll tell you loud and proud.

Chris Keene (02:16): Yes, sir.

John Anderson (02:19): I love it. You know what? I love it 'cause it reminds me of how great it is over here, I love every I love every bit of it, man. I love every bit of it.

Chris Keene (02:25): It's a

Renaldo Leonard (02:25): Apple pie, hot dogs. Absolutely. Absolutely. Is it is it perfect? No. No. But as long as as a collective, we're all putting our energy and our effort towards making it better than it is, hey, we're gonna keep on moving in the right direction, right? That's what it's all about. Yep.

John Anderson (02:34): No, no, no. Let's all make it a better let's all make it a better place, man. Let's all make it a better place.

Chris Keene (02:51): In all seriousness though, yes, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We appreciate it because of the sacrifice, we get to do shenanigans like this each and every week. And Brett's going back there saying amen, that it's definitely shenanigans that you somebody pull off every single week. So with that being said, I mean, we've been on a social media t you know, turn for the last several weeks.

John Anderson (02:54): Yeah. Amen.

Renaldo Leonard (02:54): Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Keene (03:16): And now we're introducing out, you know, something that, hey, listen, you may already be doing it, and kudos to you. I applaud you. I'm glad that you are. But I have a sneaky suspicion that there's a lot of y'all out there that aren't leveraging. AI with automotive intelligence. I mean, last week I talked about it. Our president, our founder, CEO, Mr. Jason Rice, you know, he looks at AI and uses it in a different, you know, acronym. He says automotive intelligence. Have some automotive intelligence because you still gotta have a human being in today's time. You still gotta have a human being to make the AI work for you in the best way, shape, or form. Now, I talked about it last week. You know, it John, Old Dog New Tricks. This is part two of Old Dog New Tricks. First time I showed this to John, I mean, my God, he just absolutely thought it was the coolest thing to slice bread. And he sat there and now uses it for everything. And what I'm talking about, folks, is that little bitty button at the top right hand side of the screen. If you use Google Chrome as your as your browser, which strongly recommend that you do because of everything that Robin talked about a couple weeks ago with your YouTube channel and YouTube and Google and everything tied together. But at the top right-hand side of the screen, there's a Ask Gemini. Let's use that to help us in our industry speak the same language that our consumers are speaking. I just want to get right into it, John. I just want to get right in and show the viewers if you're watching on the YouTube. And if you're not, hit pause, go to Lot Talk. Podcast powered by Lop Pop. Go search for that in YouTube. And instead of listening to this, you could watch it right there. Drop comments. Tell us that my gosh, this is good content, or my gosh, you guys are morons. Really don't care. Drop a comment, let us know what you think. But you sit there, folks, and we got customers every single day. That we need to call, text, email. John, what's the famous thing we always hear from our dealers? Well, I called them yesterday. What follows after that, John?

John Anderson (05:35): What do you want me to do? I called him yesterday, what do want me to do?

Renaldo Leonard (05:37): I'm not sure.

Chris Keene (05:38): Yeah. It's like, my gosh, okay. You're right. So here, listeners, viewers, I'm gonna use our good friends again over at Bozard Amuse website. I want you to just think about this for a minute. Now let me set the stage of this. Bozard is a Ford dealership. Now, typically speaking.

John Anderson (05:45): Mm-hmm.

Chris Keene (06:00): When you work for a Ford dealership, you rip your shirt open, you got a big blue oval. You work for a Chevrolet dealership, you rip your shirt open, you get the big bow tie. Or you get the Toyota Sombrero, or you know, whatever the case may be, you 100% you just bleed that manufacturer's colors. But in your pre-owned apartment, you don't have just your brand. So what we've been talking about, and John brought up an old school term called a drip campaign, in terms of, hey, what what what do you want me to say to the customer? I just called him yesterday. I just texted him yesterday. I just emailed him yesterday. Well, what we don't want you to say is, hey, Ronaldo, are you still in the market for a car? That's what we don't want you to say. What we don't want you to say is, hey, great news that vehicle's available. What time can you be here this morning or afternoon? Now I'm not saying don't ask for an appointment. What I'm saying is is earn the right to ask for an appointment. Earn the right. But if I'm a Ford dealership and I got a Chevrolet product on my lot, I may not know a darn thing about this thing.

Renaldo Leonard (06:43): No.

Chris Keene (07:05): But if you use that little Gemini button right there at the top of the page. Tell me about this Chevy Colorado. my goodness, looky there.

Renaldo Leonard (07:17): Dude, that's a world class walk around just like that.

Chris Keene (07:20): No. I mean, John, how many times have you heard me use the acronym SPACET? Safety, performance, appearance, comfort, economy, dependability. Wha what if what if the person looking at this Colorado is thinking about economy? Look at this. So for the listeners, yeah, J Jiminy. Old Jiminy. So so the listeners, all I'm simply typing into the old Jiminy here is how's the fuel mileage?

John Anderson (07:40): As too as too many. Yeah, asked to man ask to many.

Renaldo Leonard (07:47): Jiminy Cricket.

Chris Keene (07:55): It it what? What was that not a three seconds?

Renaldo Leonard (07:58): If that

Chris Keene (07:58): There's there's there's a fuel cotton. Hey John, how many times how many times is a a consumer because what's the number? How many how many leads or how many inquiries does a consumer do on average?

John Anderson (08:12): twelve to fifteen, my friend.

Chris Keene (08:14): Okay, so twelve to fifteen. Listeners' views, do you think they're only looking at Chevy Colorado's? Show me a side-by-side comparison to the 2024 Nissan Frontier. There it is. I mean, John, you've used this with dealers. Give us some of the best practice you've given dealers on how to use this with their follow-up.

John Anderson (08:39): Well, I mean, basically what it's exactly what you're doing, Chris. I mean I if I'm if there's you know, let's say that a let's say that you have a father that reaches out to you if you're if you get a lead from a customer and and you're one of one of twelve to fifteen dealers, I don't have any reason to refute that that that that data but let's say it's not that many let's say it's eight so you're one of eight you know what you should be doing is showing first off and foremost how much you care about the customer not You know, it's not a dollar sign to you, it's how much you care. And so, you know, I want to ask them questions. You know, Chris, you and I were talking about this the other day, right? Just asking questions of that that customer, hey, what do you really like about the vehicle you're driving now? What does what are some of the options on that vehicle that you really like, right? You really appreciate. So I'm I'm just trying to find out. where that customer's coming from, where they're living out, what's important to them. Let's say you have a father that reaches out looking for a vehicle for his daughter that's going to college. And safety is important to that that father, which that would be the first thing I would think about for my daughter if I was getting a car from her for her going to college. And so how easy is it to plug that into ask Jimini right? What tell me about the safety features on this vehicle and let it let it feed you the information. Could you do that on your own? Absolutely. Can you do it in fift can you scour the entire internet in 15 seconds and deliver the product? No, you can't. So leverage the tool and then use the information. Look, th this lo let's put together a few pieces of data here. We talked about the average the average customer sends out twelve to fifteen leads. All right. We also the the car guys with coffee, Fred and sweet Lou were on with us, and they told us that the average customer is now spending up to nineteen hours researching their purchase. Right? So that's gone up. So customers are doing a lot more research, I gather from what Fred and sweet Lou told us. And so, if I put those two pieces of data together, 12 to 15, 19 hours, how much value do I build for a customer that's reached out to me if I'm get if I'm if I'm doing this type of work and delivering them the goods on what they're interested in? Am I s am I not saving them part of that 19 hours because that would be research they would be doing themselves, right? And does that Does that I know this sounds simple, but seriously, d do we think about do we think about this, right? Does that is that building value with our customer, right? And if I if they've sent out 12 leads, 12 different leads to 12 different dealers, is it important as an individual to for me to build value with that customer so that I set myself aside apart from hell from what I've experienced over the last

Chris Keene (11:19): Ha ha ha!

John Anderson (11:41): three or four cars that I bought. If you just get back to in a reasonable amount of time, you're building value because half the time nobody's responds to Robin said it last week, right? Nobody responds to n that's the first thing is I gotta respond to right? So yeah, I think I think with the tools that we have nowadays, man, I just I I just think it's it's it's a heck of a lot easier than when I was coming up. as far as being able to deliver quality content and set yourself aside from those other, you know, twelve to fifteen people that are working for that customer. I think you've got all the tools necessary. You just gotta you gotta leverage them and use

Renaldo Leonard (12:22): Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it goes back to, and we talked about it just briefly in the last episode, becoming that trusted advisor. You know, everybody wants to find that guy, and the guy that is doing things with their content that is gonna save them time, that prospect's time overall, that nineteen hours, you shrink it to seventeen hours, not only do you sep separate yourself. But you also give yourself a pay raise, right? You know? And and if you take that 19 hours and you cut it down to ten, how much more valuable are you? And then how many more people? Absolutely. And then how many more people are they going to tell? Hey, go see John. I don't care what you think about buying who you've been talking to, go see John. He'll take care of you. Tell him I sent you.

John Anderson (12:50): Yep. Yep.

Chris Keene (12:56): How much more efficient are

John Anderson (13:10): And so I I need to add something to this what we're talking about, 'cause I it comes from a meeting I had yesterday and large dealer, lots of leads. And I was training the I was training the group of salespeople on a call. And the internet manager was on the call directing things, and he said, You know, this was this is what he said to me. You don't ex you don't seriously expect my guys to do a every three day contact on a on a fifty to sixty day old lead, that is in the CRM.

Chris Keene (13:40): Ha

John Anderson (13:50): And then now what we're talking about, so I can be clear with the listeners and viewers, I was referring to the leads that are still active in the CRM and the vehicle they sent the lead in on is still in stock on the lot. And the manager said, With the amount of leads these guys get, you don't seriously expect me to have them do a every three day contact on a fifty, sixty day old lead. And I said, yeah, yes I do. Why wouldn't you? He goes, I don't and my guys don't have time to do that with the amount of leads we're coming in. And so I went and showed him and separated. You know, they had over the last sixty days, they had something close to nine hundred active leads in their CRM. And of that nine hundred active leads, I don't remember the exact number, it was a little it was a little over three hundred that were on inventory and stock, and they had about twenty salespeople. And I'm like, wha why w I mean where where where am I missing the boat? Why are you getting overwhelmed by this? Why would that be difficult for them to every three days? And and so I s I mentioned that to make this point. I I have a personal situation going on, and so I've been doing a lot of studying on the brain, research. And what I'm realizing that I've never realized before is I n I guess I realized I never bought into it, is that You can retrain your brain and you can your body will follow. You can look you can heal yourself by the way your thought process and your perception, right? But it's a it's a it's training, it's retraining that perception, right? It your brain's an amazing master computer and you only use portion of it, but it's got it's has an amazing amount of power to it. And so it's a matter of re-creating. training that and harnessing that power. And so when I think about this, I'm thinking, why why would you ever look at why would you ever look at a customer at any given point in their process as long as they're as long as even if you even if you've reached out to them for and that's it that was his point. If we've reached out to the customer over a a forty day, 45 day period and we've gotten no response from the customer, why would I have them waste their time? Well, you're thinking about it from your time frame. You're not thinking about it from your customer's time frame. What if they what if they're 60 days out from buying a vehicle and they're not going to reach out to anybody until they're ready to buy? But you're going to tell me that you're not going to continue to respond to them or reach out to them because they haven't responded to you. That's focusing on myself. That's not being that's not being a customer focused person. That's focusing on myself. And and here's my point to this. Why wouldn't you every chance I get, why wouldn't you train yourself to go after every customer that you can put yourself in front of, irregardless of the time frame? Because over time I'm stacking up those those contacts. And at some point, those things are going to come home to roost. Because I've stayed I've stayed diligent to that every three day, every five day, and keeping my keeping myself in front of that customer. And then if you add to it what Chris and Ronaldo are talking about today, where I'm delivering as a result of AI, I can now I can have a I can have a a limitless treasure trove of information that I can pull up and deliver to them over a long period of time. I don't get it. Why wouldn't you invest yourself that way? If this is truly what you want to do, listen I'll be honest, I got into the car business until I figured out what I wanted to do forty years ago.

Chris Keene (17:27): Yeah.

Renaldo Leonard (17:27): Yep.

John Anderson (17:27): Right. So once you determine that this is what you want to do, why wouldn't you invest yourself that way and retrain your brain to go after it in that don't look at it as a negative. this person hadn't got back with me in 50 days or this pr I used to do again, I'm gonna tell on myself, right? I used to talk to somebody on the phone and and get off the phone and go, this this person isn't a buyer. They ain't buying nothing. They're a jack.

Renaldo Leonard (17:52): Hey you buying

John Anderson (17:56): Really? Really? You can determine that on a phone call that you got a jack? Right? So so yeah, that I guess that's where I didn't mean to go sidetrack there, but my goodness.

Renaldo Leonard (18:00): Right? Yep. yeah.

Chris Keene (18:05): No, John, you're actually spot on. Okay. You're actually spot on. So listeners and viewers, I want you to think about this for a minute and Naldo, you and I have had this conversation a million times over. mean, a million times over. We have had this conversation. I'm going to pull up a little bit of data here for everybody. Now I want you to look right now the average days to retail turn. This is information we get from Blackbook. This is across the nation, but the average days to retail turn is 34 days. So I want you to think about this for a minute listeners and viewers. You're going to have John Doe consumer that woke up this morning and says, I need, want to buy a car. And in three hours, there's going to be one sitting in their driveway. You're going to have buyers that wake up this morning and say, need or want to buy a car. And it's 34 days before they buy one. When you get that submission across to you, by the way, that 34th is an average. So that means there's people above 34 days before they made a decision to buy a car. So I want you to think about this for a minute. Listeners and viewers, you have no idea where the consumer is at in that funnel in their buying journey. You have no idea. But to John's point, leveraging and utilizing that AI. Here's a simple question I just asked using the example vehicle here of this Chevrolet Colorado. When it comes to safety and economy, why should a person buy this truck? proactive safety that actively prevents accidents. It's telling you right here, again, you don't know where the consumers at in their journey. So why would you send most off-road trucks give you basic alerts? But this Colorado features an upgraded active driver assist technology. Thanks to its factory safety and technology packages. Smart economy. It's a big truck power without the V8 fuel bill. 310 horse. To get that, it meant buying a crew cab, gas guzzle, and V8. But this efficient turbocharged 2.7 liter, 391 foot pounds of torque in it, I mean, look. Providing to the consumer 52 days later on a lead This information versus how are you still in the market? Hey that vehicle still available. No shit that thing's still available 52 days later. What's wrong with it? Because that's all you're telling the consumer when you go, hey, great news, John. That Colorado you looked at 52 days ago is still available.

Renaldo Leonard (20:43): Yeah.

Chris Keene (20:43): Shit.

Renaldo Leonard (20:44): All right. What's what's the greatest compliment that any salesperson has ever gotten when dealing with a prospect? I've I've always read it as, you know what, I wasn't expecting to buy anything today. Or or or I came in, I was just looking, and I wasn't planning on making a purchase today. So what's to say that if we up our game with the content that we're providing these prospects out of the gate, that we don't move them up?

Chris Keene (20:55): Yeah.

Renaldo Leonard (21:11): And it happens before day thirty four. It amazes me. And then to John's point, you got, you know. You think I should have my salespeople reach out to a sixty-day old lead every three days? Absolutely. Because that vehicle's more than sixty days old and in order to sell it, you're gonna have to connect with those prospects, right?

Chris Keene (21:22): Yeah. or that vehicle's at least 60 days old.

Renaldo Leonard (21:33): Right. Right. When the first lead came in, it was day forty five and we had it priced at a hundred and one percent to the market. Wait.

Chris Keene (21:38): No.

John Anderson (21:42): You think my shot what what do you think my shot is to get those salespeople to follow up with those customers after he said that in front of the whole group of salespeople? Right. What do you think my shot is? I ref I hey listen, I I I refuted him. I I you know I I refuted him in front of the I said I absolutely do and here's why, right? but you know, I just to give you an example, you know, you guys know my I was driving a Tahoe.

Renaldo Leonard (21:51): It gonna be tough. It gonna be tough.

Chris Keene (21:51): Wim.

Renaldo Leonard (22:02): Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Keene (22:05): What?

John Anderson (22:09): And and that tie hole I put a lot of miles on that tahoe in in a short period of time. And I'm thinking this whole time, man, I'm thinking, you know, that thing's still running good, got no reason, nice vehicle. you know, you can't tell those things that was new, you can't tell the anymore, it's hard to tell, you know, the the year of And so I'm thinking, I'll drive this thing till it gets two hundred thousand miles on it. And I wasn't I wasn't looking for I wasn't actively looking for anything and then we're on the podcast and and Chris brings up Rams with two point nine and and forty two hundred and fifty dollars cash back and I go, hm. And so I just start and I I I'm start reaching out to a few local dealers just to see what kind of response I get and and you know and then

Chris Keene (22:38): Wrong!

John Anderson (23:04): the dealer that responded to me did an excellent job and they weren't a dealer partner of ours when I engaged with them, but like within a week later, little did I know little did I know that Chris and Eric were getting ready to contract them. This group is a dealer partner. So about the same time I bought the vehicle, they became a dealer partner of ours, which worked out really good and and

Chris Keene (23:14): Hahaha!

John Anderson (23:29): Not because I didn't want to do I was trying to do business with a dealer partner on a different brand. but I was kinda meeting some difficulty there on what I felt like the Tahoe was worth. And so, you know, I j I just they were quick to respond. it was it it was it was interesting interesting the way they did it because they had a young lady reach out to me right away and got some got some really quick information from me and then I heard from a second person. And so they just kind of walked me and it it wasn't abrasive at all. And they just kind of walked me down. And so and I was I was straight up asking them questions. You know, I need to know what my trade's worth. Well, can you send it can you send us some pictures? Because they're, you know, in the state of Oklahoma, everything's two, three hours away from you. So they're considerable way away from me. And so next thing you know, I send them pictures and and you know, I end up buying a ramp. And I I no more intended to buy a RAM. I was just in I was just investigating. So, you know, you're gonna be hard pressed to convince me that you're we should give up on a customer any phase of the process until the customer says, Don't bother me anymore, or yes, I'll come in. Right. I I especially especially if we've got a vehicle in stock that satisfies that customer's needs.

Chris Keene (24:38): But John, what they did... What they did is they gave you all the necessary information you needed to make an educated buying decision.

Renaldo Leonard (24:44): Mm-hmm.

John Anderson (24:49): One hundred percent. One hundred percent. One hundred percent.

Chris Keene (24:54): which is why we're on this conversation of utilizing the Gemini to give the necessary information somebody needs to make an educated buying decision. Don't be that schmuck that is sitting there saying, still in the market?

John Anderson (24:57): Right. Yeah, don't try you know, you make a good point, Chris, an excellent point. Don't try to push them into the decision. Give them the give them the just like Trish said, give them the give them excellent information and let them let them walk themselves in. That's I guess that was my point I was going into. If if I'm if I'm talking listen, if if if I walk towards people instead of trying to separate people.

Chris Keene (25:26): They're doing it.

John Anderson (25:35): If I just walk towards people. And I and I'm using that as an analogy, but as if I do if I've got a ton of leads and I just continue, right, and and so that does take intention, right? You can't it's not I w I I I was in an area of one of our dealer partners a week ago Saturday because I was picking my son up and I st I thought, you know what, I'm going right by the dealership. I'm just gonna stop in and shake hands. I've We I w we've seen each other on camera, we worked together, but I never physically met them. So I'm like right there. So I went past the dealer step, I swung a UE, pulled in, I got out of the truck. And there's like seven guys sitting out on benches in front of the dealership.

Chris Keene (26:17): shit.

John Anderson (26:18): I was like, what are you guys? I was like, what do you guys what are you guys doing? What are you guys doing? You holding down the front of the store? And they all laughed. And I go, why aren't you in, why aren't you in your computers? Where the customers are at? What are you waiting on out here? Right. And so that that's my point is, you know, I every look, I know you need to take a break. I know you eat lunch. I'm not sitting there telling you to have to have your head, your your forehead on the grindstone. What I am saying is if if

Renaldo Leonard (26:18): Waiting on the upbush?

John Anderson (26:44): If you just intentionally reach out to people and just what's that book? 150,000 of your closest friends. And it talks about making connections, right? And you just it it all of a sudden now Chris and Ronaldo, to your point, trusted advisor. So now all of a you're a trusted advisor and maybe that maybe that customer that you sold three years ago reached out to you, Hey John, do you know a good plumber? I need a plumber, right? And you become that person that is that connector. Right. And the and the next thing you know, you have built a huge brand for yourself because you're a connector. So why wouldn't I want to relish an opportunity to reach out to every person that I possibly can and continue to do so until they tell me to leave them alone. And if they I'll respect that, right? You tell them if they if they call me up and say, Hey man, you gotta dude, I appreciate it, but you gotta stop. Right. I'll respect that.

Renaldo Leonard (27:39): Yep.

John Anderson (27:39): But until they until they do that, I don't care if they're ninety or a hundred and twenty days old. It's an opportunity for me. And the more opportunities I have, the more opportunities are going to be delivered to me. And and so that to me it's simple math. I didn't look at it when I was a young salesperson. I didn't I didn't have these tools available to me. You know, we have the we have the we have the benefit of our software now and we see all this stuff from a data side and we're look we're working with hundreds of dealers and we can see this. And so I understand when you're sitting there in your own dealership and you got your tunnel vision on, but dude, there's an amazing opportunity in our industry. And there's as Chris and Ronaldo are talking about today, there's a there's a wonderful way to harness those opportunities now really quickly. Really quickly. How quickly compared to when we were coming up, guys, and selling cars, now how quick look, how many people could we serve versus a guy today with the tools

Renaldo Leonard (28:27): Mm-hmm.

John Anderson (28:36): that they have the ability to serve how many more people than we could, right? Because they can get that information so quick. We had to sit down. I remember I remember my first sales job, they handed me a they handed me a work a book of worksheets, a pen and brochures. Here, go study these cars.

Renaldo Leonard (28:50): Yeah. yeah. yeah.

John Anderson (28:53): Customers asked me a question, I'm over there at my desk flipping through the brochure trying to find the answer to

Chris Keene (28:59): Hey, remember the Naldo, remember the product books, the big ass ring binder.

Renaldo Leonard (28:59): yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was just about to say. I mean what you just did in less than three seconds on Gemini. I we would have to go grab the order catalog, go through all the specs, and we always had a a a checklist in the back. So you could any particular feature that a vehicle had, you could check the com the the the competitive set and see which ones had and which ones didn't.

John Anderson (29:05): Yeah.

Renaldo Leonard (29:27): And you'd sit there and go through all that stuff, and then you might have three bullet points where you could compare what the customer said that they were considering and yours, and then craft an email and send it out. And and hope that they were logging into AOL to get your email and see exactly what it said. yes. Doing less with more.

Chris Keene (29:50): But you know, Naldo, the, but the differentiator now, John alluded to it. Okay. When I talked about Essentially meeting the customer where they're at providing the necessary information they need to make a logical buying decision Just like at the dealership The staff today I've said this on the podcast a million times to work our car deal in today's time is brain damage of all the different things that you've got to log into just to frickin print a worksheet out just to get a deal ready for finance all the different facts and everything that you got to check and this and that to make sure you ate the Taliban and make sure that you ain't got drug money and you know, just all kinds of shit. It's a pain in the ass. I mean, I feel bad for these guys. I miss the day of a Sharpie. Okay. But you know, you think about that though. These consumers. They could secure their financing. They can secure their trade. They can secure their vehicle. They can secure transportation. They can secure everything from their phone. But yet. We go to the speaking from the past. and not meet the customer where they're at. And all we've been trying to articulate, Ronaldo, to the listeners and viewers over the last couple of weeks is leverage the technology you have to meet the customer where they're at. Think like a consumer. mean, the first time I said that with a dealer and you were on the call. I mean, like I watched a little light bulb go off in your head like, well, shit, that's the easiest way to put it. Think like a consumer. What's your overwhelming thought? mean, because John brought up so many great points there. What's your overwhelming thought in this, using the Gemini from a sales BDC standpoint?

Renaldo Leonard (31:34): Hey, hey. Is is just attacking it in a way that is going to be attractive to the way that this particular prospect is probably thinking about this vehicle. Because with any vehicle out there, you got two types of customers. You got one customer who's looking for that two thousand twenty four Chevrolet Colorado. And then you've got others that are out there looking for a small pickup truck in that price range. And we don't know which it is. And so if I take my car guy hat off and say, if I were looking for a small pickup truck in that price range, what would be important? Attacking it from that perspective, offering information that you feel like they would know or that you would want to know if you were looking at that vehicle at that price range, and then also asking those high-quality questions to identify whether or not you on the mark or not. How soon are you considering making a decision on whether or not you're gonna purchase this vehicle? Well, I'm sixty days out. Okay. No problem. Giving you all the information that you need in order to make a well informed decision is the easiest part of my job. Consider these things. When would you like for me to follow up with you? And what's the best way to follow up with you? Phone call, email, text? And give them something of value every single time, but also ask for something of value in return. And that's all that I would do. If I were that person, what would I want to know? And how would I want to receive that information? And then try to figure out exact whether or not the way that I'm thinking about it when I take my car guy hat off is on the mark or not. Cause they'll tell you every single time, right? Do you ever ask a customer, you know, what do I need to do during your business? And them just go blank and well, you can't. That's probably one one out of a hundred will say, you know what, you we ain't gonna do business. Well what have you gained from that? You know you got a jack on the other end of the call. You move on.

Chris Keene (33:40): Hahaha!

Renaldo Leonard (33:41): Right?

Chris Keene (33:41): Now you can call him the Jack.

Renaldo Leonard (33:43): Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, but it it it is easy. We've just gotten to the point where we had we do have so many tools to work with. We're actually getting, you know, we're getting less success with more tools to work with, getting less from more, right? But simplify it. Just keep it simple. Yeah? And and we've said it, if we said it once, we've said it a million times. People are looking for an experience. John just validated that with buying a Ram truck. Had no intention. But he ran into a salesperson or an organization that was focused on sales, not the sales prevention department. Right? It's it's it's about the experience. And guys can can elevate how they execute that whole process just by thinking about it. You know, if we gotta meet the customer where they're at, first of all we gotta understand where they're coming from, and then we can meet them, right?

Chris Keene (34:33): Yeah, you gotta know a direction. For you to be able to intersect, you gotta know the direction.

Renaldo Leonard (34:34): That's that's yeah, absolutely. And Yeah, I've never been accused of being the s coldest beer in fridge, right? But I did know that if I ask a question and I listen, I was gonna get the answer of what I needed to do to kinda turn this from a prospect into an owner. Right? It's it's

Chris Keene (34:52): But I think the key though, Ronaldo is because we've all been taught this, know, John, Ronaldo, me, anybody else in this industry, you've been taught this. If you just shut up and listen to the customer, they're going to tell you exactly what they need for you to be able to transact with them. But the key to that though, especially with what you're talking about, the information highway that's out there. in the resource highway that's out there. The key to it though, is you have to ask the right questions. And the right question isn't, are you still in the market for a vehicle? That's not the right question. The Gemini can help you. The chat GPT Claude or any other, you know, AI tool that you're using, it can help you ask the right questions. If you just let it. mean, with that, with that same exact vehicle example, we've been using today in that Chevy trail boss, because I was curious. I was literally curious. I asked it, what's the difference between the Trail Boss and the Z71? And it rattled off the three things that was significant difference. And it point blank told me, sell the Trail Boss if the customer wants a mean, aggressive, lifted stance straight off off the lot. Sell the Z71 if the customer plans to use the truck primarily as a daily driver or commuter or a highway cruiser.

Renaldo Leonard (36:16): So let me ask you that. With that being said, what's the next question that you're going to ask?

Chris Keene (36:21): What to the consumer? Are you using this as a primary daily commuter driver? Are you looking for something that's going to meet your aggressive stance and will give away? That more luxury to have that more rugged look. That's a question I'm gonna ask.

Renaldo Leonard (36:35): Well to put you know, go going back to that, you know, warm beer here in the fridge. How do you plan on using this vehicle? You know, I've I yeah. I I was on a special ed bus. So

Chris Keene (36:43): I mean, it's, it's, it's very, very simplistic. Yo. So I don't know guys, listeners and viewers. Here's what I'm going to ask. Here's what I'm going to ask of you. Go to our YouTube page. want you to go to lot talk podcast powered by lot pop.

Renaldo Leonard (36:49): Keep it plain.

Chris Keene (37:03): You search that on YouTube. It's a lot easier if you subscribe to it because you get the alerts of the next episodes and the recent drops and things of that nature. But I want you to go in there and I want you to drop a comment. And I want you to drop a comment of how you see benefit or how you are currently utilizing the AI. in providing the consumer public the necessary information they need to buy a car. Drop in the comments how you're using AI to help craft your social on the various different platforms, because they're all different. But most importantly, if you're intrigued and you're like, man, this all sounds great. Where do I start? And you want some help with that. You can find John Anderson's information. We're not a Leonard's information. My information right there at lot talk podcast.com. You find our information there. We will charge you zero dollars.

John Anderson (38:08): What?

Chris Keene (38:08): to have a conversation and help you get started. I know, right? We should, you know what? It's almost like anytime you try to do something for free, nobody wants to do it. We should start charging y'all. We should start charging you like 99 cents or something. know I mean? Charge us.

Renaldo Leonard (38:23): Actually we we I I I I think we should just go ahead and put a tipped button on there. It'd be like fifteen, eighteen, twenty two percent. And they can just click which ones and

John Anderson (38:28): Shoot it. Shoot, I feel like it's

Chris Keene (38:34): the

John Anderson (38:35): eighteen percent. Who tips that anymore? Shoot, they Uber ask ya Uber asked you for thirty percent now. Yeah, crazy.

Chris Keene (38:44): Yeah.

Renaldo Leonard (38:44): yeah. Yeah, I w Don't get me started. We're about to go on a rant. I I hell, I don't even remember where it was, but I just walked up to a counter and ordered a meal and you you got a tap on the register and then it says, Would you like the tip? And it started eighteen percent, twenty percent, twenty two percent. I was like

John Anderson (38:46): Bill.

Chris Keene (39:04): but you want me to tip you for me doing the work.

Renaldo Leonard (39:08): I give you the tip of this knife.

Chris Keene (39:10): Damn!

John Anderson (39:11): feel like I feel like anymore I I I have to pay I have to pay for it's like my kids man in order for them to take my advice I gotta pay them right they they don't they don't see they don't see they don't see the the wealth in the in in the years right though there's a great book there's a great book by Malcolm out Gladwell called Outliers. It's an excellent book and it talks about

Chris Keene (39:22): For real.

John Anderson (39:36): In order to be considered an expert in any field, it takes about ten thousand hours on average. Yeah. And so it's just why I joke with my kids. I'm like, I got a few more than ten thousand hours under my belt living on this planet, right? So some of the stuff, if you'd listen to me, can save you some pain, right? And so I feel like that a lot of times with what we talk about on here, right? All we're just trying to do is save you guys some pain, right? And here, I would it I would up Chris's offer.

Renaldo Leonard (39:40): Ten thousand hours. Yep.

John Anderson (40:03): Come on the show with us and tell us what you're doing. Spend some time with us. We'd love to have you on here. Spend some time with us.

Chris Keene (40:06): Come on. Shoot, we'll walk right through and let you run the screen or we'll run it for you. Walk us through and show us what you're doing. Now, if you don't want to give all your tips and secrets away, that's fine too, but reach out to us to let us know. Heck yeah, I love it. Come join the show.

John Anderson (40:14): Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, that'd be great. That'd be great. Have a c have like three or four BDC or salespeople on at one time. That'd be awesome, man. Just you know, just trading trading some opportun you know, talking about some opportunities and trading some ideas and and just you know, sometimes sometimes you get people away from their environment a little bit. They open up and blossom a little bit, man, and and you and it that's that's the best opportunities for learning. So yeah, that'd be awesome, man. Three or four of you'd want to do that.

Chris Keene (40:33): Yeah.

Renaldo Leonard (40:33): Ooh.

Chris Keene (40:51): And we'll promote, we will promote the heck out of you to help continue build your brand as well. So anytime you can associate yourself with something that's already got some traction. That's what we did. We associated ourselves with, you know, the lot talk podcast. We associated with lot pop, you know, our parent company, because it's got a lot of traction.

John Anderson (41:03): Yeah.

Chris Keene (41:10): we've recently separated ourselves from it because we've got our own identity So we encourage you to do the same thing. Come hit your wagon to us. We'll drag you along. She had, we ain't scared. So that being said, go to lot talk podcast.com. Look up John, look up, Ronaldo, look up myself. We'll be happy to have a conversation with you. Or as John said, join the podcast, reach out to us. We're happy to have you on our next episode, but until then bring the questions.

Renaldo Leonard (41:22): Spirit at all.

Chris Keene (41:40): Let us know what you've been doing with social, some things that might help or ask some more questions of some things that you are thinking about doing, but not sure the Gemini, how to leverage and utilize it in your followup. Ask those questions or drop comments of exactly what you're doing and how that's helped. We won't call your name and your dealership out. You know, so that way you ain't giving away all your trade secrets and you know, sharing it with people inside your market that you're competing against. But let us know, let us know what you guys are doing. And like I said, most importantly, go to lot talk podcast powered by lot pop right there on the YouTube. If you're on the Apple, make sure to like us, share us, comment on us, give us a review. We gladly would appreciate it because we do this to give back to you guys. All we ask in return is just give us a like, give us a share. Give us a, uh, give us a rating. Okay. But until then continue to enjoy this time, continue to enjoy that freedom and independence that we have. And next week, never know what kind of crazy ass content will go bring you, but we're gonna bring it until then. I'm Chris Keene, one of the co-hosts joined by the infamous people himself, Mr. John Anderson and Mr. Renato Leonard. We thank you guys for tuning in and we wish you guys nothing but the most success possible on that note. We out.