The Car Ad Maverick: Secrets to Dealership Profitability

We see very healthy use businesses, but we see a lot of unhealthy new car businesses. You go up from selling on average, you know, 12 days to 70 days and your gross on new is about half. Machines can do things with precision that we can't. And there's huge margin in the precision. A big thank you to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. Cars, commerce, rhythm and lot links. And now let's get into the show. Land short on the CDG podcast. Land welcome. Yoshi, thanks for having me. I'm a big fan. Well, I'm, I had a little cheat sheet in the company over here. I think I think this person is related to you. So I learned a little bit about, about your background or a little bit more than it's probably publicly available here. We'll go into some of the topics, you know, I think one of the, one of the things I wanted to kick off with is I heard you used to sell Porsches. Is this true? I did. I was, you know, I took a year off trying to figure out, you know, what I was going to do with my life and met a guy who owned a bunch of stores. They had Tom Kavanagh. And what was funny about it is they had been, the family had been horse traders before they were car dealers, they actually traded horses. And then the like the model they came along or whatever, a ball team came along and we got in the car business, you know, and so they were a long time, you know, smart operators. I think Quark up here in the Northeast bought their stores. Honestly, that part of the Quark thing. Anyway, I came across this guy and said, you know, you got to come work for me. And, you know, I heard Porsche and I thought, well, you know, I can sell, you know, and the first month I didn't sell a single car. I was the worst. And I'm taking up smoking cigarettes, you know, drinking coffee, trying to figure it out. Second month I figured it out. Third month I was number one salesman, you know. And anyway, I had a lot of great life experiences going on. You know, you learn, you never know who's going to buy. I had a guy walk in with a beat up truck and overalls to pay cash for a brand new 911 target, you know, and you know, a long story about him. But you know, and I was not, I was the first guy, a guy was up to like, yeah, you know, you take it next time. So now you take it and I took it, you know. So you never know who's going to buy.

我们看到很多健康运转的业务，但也看到很多不健康的新车业务。平均销售周期从12天增长到70天，新车的毛利减少了一半。机器能够做到我们无法精准完成的事情，这就有巨大的利润空间。非常感谢我们的赞助商，感谢他们让今天的节目成为可能。今天的赞助商是：汽车，商业，节奏以及Lot Links。现在让我们进入节目。欢迎来到CDG播客。Land, 欢迎你。Yoshi，谢谢你的邀请。我是你的忠实粉丝。嗯，我有一张小纸条，记载了一些公司里的信息。我觉得这个人和你有关系，所以我了解了你的一些背景，比公开信息知道得更多。我们会讨论一些话题，其中我想先提的是，我听说你以前卖过保时捷，这是真的吗？是真的。我曾经休了一年假，试图弄清楚我未来要做什么。在这期间我遇到了一位拥有很多车行的老板，名叫Tom Kavanagh。很有趣的是，他们家族以前是马贩子，然后汽车业兴起后，他们转行进入了汽车行业。于是他们成为了长期聪明的经营者。我想是东北部的Quark公司买下了他们的店。无论如何，我遇到了这个人，他对我说：“你得来我这里工作。”我听到有保时捷，就想，嗯，我能卖出去。而事实上，头一个月我一辆车也没卖出去，我是最差的一个。结果就是，我开始抽烟，喝咖啡，试图搞清楚这一切。第二个月，我弄明白了，第三个月我成了销售冠军。我经历了很多宝贵的人生体验。你永远无法预料谁会是买家。有一次，一个开破卡车、穿工装的男人走进来，付全款买了一辆全新的911 Targa。我还有很多关于他的故事。那时我还不懂，总是第一个说‘你去接待吧’，结果这次我接待了，成交了。所以你永远不知道谁会成交。

But yeah, so I've walked a lot. I've done lot rodeos. I've, you know, the GM would, the son, when he was the general manager, he'd come in every morning and he'd literally go out to the front lot. He'd look up and down the road and sniff the air and then he'd come back in for the, with a strategy for the day, like, you know, okay, we're going to move all the used cars around and we do this lot rodeo. I mean, it was like this active manager guy who would like divine what was going to happen today and what he had to do to sell more cars. And then we would be all on it, you know. And I thought it was a good discipline actually. So, so what took you from the car business to, I call it the tech industry, which you'll tell us about in a second, then brought you back to the automotive tech industry. So you give us a little spark notes of your transition through your career. Yeah, I've always been a car guy, you know, so I bought more cars than the average person. I figured I knew something about buying cars. Um, but yeah, you know, I, I, I went into the advertising business and, you know, as, as you know, some of the big advertisers are automakers. So I spent some time in Detroit working on the Chrysler business in Detroit.

当然，所以我走了很多路，参加了很多活动。我经历过很多"车场活动"。总经理的儿子，当他是总经理的时候，每天早上都会出来到前面的停车场。他会上下打量着路，闻闻空气，然后回到办公室，制定当天的策略，比如把所有二手车重新摆放一下，我们就进行这个"车场活动"。他就像一个非常积极主动的经理，他会预测当天会发生什么，以及他需要做些什么来多卖车。我们都会按照他的指示行动。我觉得这其实培养了一种很好的纪律性。那么，是什么让你从汽车行业转到了科技行业，接着又回到了汽车科技行业的呢？你可以简要说说你职业生涯的转变过程吗？嗯，我一直是个汽车迷，我买的车比普通人还多，所以我觉得自己对买车有一定了解。不过，你知道的，我后来进入了广告行业，你也知道一些大广告商就是汽车制造商。所以我花了一些时间在底特律，负责克莱斯勒的业务。

And I learned a lot about a, you know, we have side of things. And one of the things I learned that I still apply today is back then we would run, you know, they'd introduce a new model. We do fancy advertising, put it 800 number in the ads and people would call for a brochure, which we would, you know, rush to them. But we would find that by the time the brochure got, got there, they were already driving their car. When people get down to, you know, putting in a lead, they're in that strike zone, you know, in the 72 window and everything changes, you know, and so we've actually applied that, that philosophy here, just sort of trying to understand when people move from just generally what, you know, clicking around and looking at cars and so on to when they get into that strike zone where they're ready to make a purchase and connect with these inventories. Big part of what we focus on. So I learned that, but I did a lot of things in the, in the, in the ad business, primarily telephones, credit cards, you know, I ended up moving to the client side.

我学到了很多东西，你知道的，有关我们这边的事情。其中一个我至今仍在应用的经验是，当时我们推出新车型时会做精美的广告，在广告里写上800免费电话，顾客打电话来索取宣传册，我们会尽快寄给他们。但我们发现等宣传册送到时，他们已经在开他们的新车了。当人们提交购买意向时，他们已经进入了一个72小时的关键期，一切都会发生变化。我们实际上在这边也应用了这种理念，努力理解当人们从随意浏览到真正进入准备购买的关键期的转变，并与这些库存车辆联动。这是我们工作的主要部分。我学到了这些，但我在广告业做了很多事情，主要是电话、信用卡等，最终我转到了客户这边工作。

But some head on our call me in my office in New York and, you know, I was blathering on about something and all I heard was San Francisco and I always wanted to get to San Francisco. So I went out and, you know, interview with this little company several years later, they came back after me with Schwab. And so I went to be the chief marketing officer of Schwab and they had about 700,000 active accounts. And a few years later, I left them with a million active accounts. The way I got back to the car businesses I was writing angel checks in San Francisco. I had left Schwab, you know, done well. And so I had done a nonprofit startup called Product Red, which, you know, is red branded products that you could, you know, gave money to the global fund for ARV drugs for Africans.

但是有一次一个高层在电话中叫我到我的纽约办公室，你知道的，我当时在唠叨什么东西，然后我只听到了旧金山，我一直想去旧金山。所以后来我出去面试了一家小公司。几年后，他们通过嘉信理财（Schwab）再次联系到了我。于是我就去了嘉信理财担任首席营销官，当时他们有大约70万个活跃账户。几年后，我离开时，他们已经有了一百万个活跃账户。我之所以重回汽车行业是因为我在旧金山写了一些天使投资支票。我离开了嘉信理财，表现得还不错。所以我创办了一个非营利的创业公司，叫Product Red，你知道的，就是那些带有红色品牌的产品，收益将捐赠给全球基金，用于非洲人的抗逆转录病毒药物。

And so every, and the dog patch in San Francisco thought I was pretty cool. I was like the old guy who, you know, I was hanging with Bono and they thought I was cool. And, you know, so I was just writing angel checks and I came across some guys who I'd recently found out are all billionaires now because they did one of the big cloud plays and they had, they, they were technologists, really brilliant technologists who raised Porsche weekends up in Sonoma. And they had built all of this indexing technology to find used portions, like, you know, used as seeds that were posted and it was very disorganized back then. So they'd be posted online.

于是，每个旧金山的狗补丁区的人都觉得我很酷。我就像那个老家伙，你知道的，跟Bono在一起，他们觉得我很酷。然后，我就开始写天使投资支票，碰到了一些我最近才知道已经成了亿万富翁的人，因为他们参与了一个大型云项目。他们是非常聪明的技术专家，周末会在索诺玛赛保时捷。他们开发了一种索引技术，可以找到二手保时捷，就像那时候网上发布的无组织的二手保时捷广告一样。

So they had all this scraping algorithm. And then they built a bunch of tools to understand the value. So they sort of priced mileage and whatever they, and, you know, they were looking for a commercial application for it. So I ended up going deep on that. And that was really the beginning of what is now a lot like. Yeah, so take us to 2011, which I believe is that you found it. Latlings, right. Just give us a quick summary. Like, what was the state of the market? Right. What was the value prop? And I can imagine the companies evolved a ton till today. It's been, it's been a while. The car business has changed somewhat. To certain extent, it hasn't changed as well. But what was the state of the market? Like, what was the problem you identified to found lot links? Yeah.

所以他们有了所有这些爬取算法。然后他们开发了一些工具来理解这些数据的价值。因此，他们对里程等等进行了一些定价，并且寻找商业应用。我深入研究了这一点，这实际上就是现在很多东西的起点。那么，带我们来到2011年，那一年你创办了Lotlinks，对吗？给我们一个简要的总结。那时市场的状况如何？价值主张是什么？我可以想象，公司到今天已经发生了很大的变化。已经过了一段时间了，汽车业务也有所变化，但在某种程度上也没有改变。那么当时市场的状况如何？你发现了什么问题来创办Lotlinks的？

So, so what we understood was vertical, high consideration, vertical categories didn't weren't dominated by Google. They were nominated by vertical sites, like Travelocity or Auto-Trader and so on. Yeah. So dealers were, you know, basically pushing all their inventory up to third party portals and letting all the online shopping happen there. And our pitch was, Hey, you've got to get that shopping that and engage the customer on your inventory on your site and your BDP.

所以，我们了解到的是，垂直领域、高度考虑的垂直类别并没有被谷歌主导，而是被像Travelocity或Auto-Trader这样的垂直网站所主导。是的。于是，很多经销商基本上将他们的全部库存都推送到第三方门户网站，让所有的在线购物都在那里进行。我们的宣传是，嘿，你必须把这些购物行为和客户互动吸引到你自己的网站和你的商品详细页面（BDP）上。

And, you know, their only question was, what was VDP? You know, they didn't, they really know, they just want to think of that way. They just, you know, and, and so we, we went to work, you know, sort of showing them the value of delivering, you know, that low funnel customer directly to their inventory and, you know, that when you do that, you connect somebody at that strike moment, you know, on inventory, it has a big influence on where they purchased, you know, so it had an immediate impact.

他们唯一的问题是，什么是VDP（车辆详情页面）？说实话，他们并不知道，只是想那样认为。所以我们开始工作，向他们展示直接将低漏斗客户吸引到库存中的价值。当你在关键时刻连接到某个库存的时候，这对他们的购买地点有很大的影响，所以这产生了立竿见影的效果。

And, you know, and so of course that was a long time ago, but we, we, the industry has changed a lot since then. And we, of course, built a lot of technologies. Yeah. How did you talk to me a little bit about how you got this company off the ground? I think we have many listeners who are aspiring auto tech entrepreneurs, many you know, vendors tuning in, of course, many dealers.

当然，那已经是很久以前的事了，但你知道，行业自那时起变化很大。我们当然也开发了许多技术。你能不能跟我说说你是怎么让这家公司起步的？我觉得我们有很多听众是有志于汽车科技创业的人，还有很多供应商和经销商在收听。

But what was it for you, right? Getting company out like this off the ground from just, you know, business model, but also funding, right? What was that, what was that experience like for you? Yeah, I was, you know, I was in San Francisco. And so I knew a lot of the VCs from, you know, what I was doing in just angel investing. And so I was running, you know, I was taking the classical route, which was we had put together a deck and sort of a basic demo of what we wanted to do.

但是对你来说，这意味着什么呢，对吧？把这样的公司从无到有做起来，包括商业模式和筹融资，这对你来说是什么样的经历？嗯，我是在旧金山。由于我之前从事天使投资，我认识了不少风投人士。所以我采用了传统的方法，我们制作了一份方案演示文稿和一个基本的产品演示。

And I was running up and down Sandhill Road, trying to get VCs, you know, to, to do a seed investment. And at the time, no VC wanted, they were all interested in anything they had to do with, with, with destroying the car dealer. Like, Hey, the car dealer is going away and it's all going to be online. And they were throwing money at all of those things, which by the way, you know, now 15 years later, all roadkill, they never, none of those things, you know, succeeded.

我当时在Sandhill Road上跑来跑去，试图说服风险投资公司进行种子投资。那时候，没有一个风险投资公司感兴趣。他们都只对那些致力于颠覆汽车经销商的项目感兴趣，比如说汽车经销商即将消失，一切都将在线上进行。他们把钱都投在这些项目上。不过现在15年过去了，这些项目全都失败了，没有一个成功的。

And our pitch was, well, no, the deal was not going away. But you know, technology is going to enable a dealer and, you know, to, you know, expand their footprint, you know, and increase their, their efficiencies and so on. And it was a tough sell because they only wanted to hear, Hey, the dealer's debt. Yeah. And, and, you know, online is going to, you know, destroy everything and, and, and, or disintegrate everything.

我们的推销词是这样的，不，交易不会消失。但是，你知道，技术将使经销商能够扩展他们的业务范围，提高他们的效率等等。这是一个很难的销售工作，因为他们只想听到“嘿，经销商的末日到了”。他们觉得网络销售将摧毁一切，使一切分崩离析。

I'll tell you a funny story. I mean, when I was raising capital for get a car in 2018, I was consistently getting the question of like, well, Uber, you know, put dealers out of business. If as a dealer, it was something that was so bizarre to me that they, that people actually thought that, you know, I always believe right sharing would grow and expand. I mean, it makes total sense. It's an amazing, an amazing technology and just service in the market.

让我讲个有趣的故事。在2018年我筹集资金买车时，我经常被问到一个问题：“那么，Uber会把汽车经销商挤出市场吗？” 作为一名经销商，这个问题对我来说非常奇怪，因为我一直认为共享出行会不断发展壮大。这完全有道理。这是一项了不起的技术和服务。

But I, I resonate because I've been in those conversations. But tell me what, what gave you the conviction, right? As a, you are a technologist, right? You've been in some of the most impressive tech companies. I mean, you were at AOL. I saw your background in some of the, you know, peak years, what gave you the conviction to think like, Hey, dealers are not going away as someone who's so forward looking in progressive.

但是，我，我感同身受，因为我也参与过那些对话。不过请告诉我，是什么让你有这种信念，对吧？你是一名技术专家，对吗？你曾在一些非常令人印象深刻的科技公司工作，比如AOL。我看过你的履历，在一些辉煌的年份里，你在那里。那么作为一个如此前瞻性和进步的人，是什么让你坚定地认为经销商不会消失？

You know, I mean, really was Schwab because we, as I said, we dominated online trading. But the reason we did was that we had branches everywhere. Now, I mean, people may wander into a branch once. So we didn't really do that much. It was maybe early on in the relationship. But the reason we ended up dominating was that people kind of, they needed a physical presence. They needed to know where their money was.

你知道，我的意思是，实际上是因为我们有施瓦布（Schwab），我们才能做到这一点。就像我之前说的，我们在网上交易方面占据了主导地位。我们之所以能够做到这一点，是因为我们在各地都有分支机构。我意思是，人们可能只会偶尔走进分支机构一次。所以我们实际上并没有做多少事情，可能只是关系开始时的一些工作。但最终我们能占据主导地位的原因是，人们需要一个具体的实体存在。他们需要知道他们的钱在哪里。

And I just, I guess I always believed that the dealers played a absolutely crucial role that wasn't going away. It may evolve and change, but it wasn't going away in terms of what the customer needed for that purchase. And, you know, I, I believe that. And I think I, I was right, right? I don't think dealers, all this stuff has happened and has made dealers, you know, it's changed the business, but it's made the dealership business stronger. It's hard to keep up with.

我一直认为经销商在交易中扮演着不可或缺的角色，这一点不会改变。虽然这个角色可能会随着时间演变和改变，但从顾客的需求来看，它是不会消失的。我相信这一点，我觉得我也是对的。尽管行业发生了许多变化，这些变化确实影响了经销商，但它同时也让经销商业务变得更强大。虽然很难跟上这些变化的步伐。

You know, it's added costs, but it's, it's, there's no indication that the dealers are going away. This episode is brought to you by cars commerce. The platform is simplified everything about buying and selling cars, including the quote unquote follow up. Let me explain dealers. Fast and effective follow up is crucial for converting leads into customers. But here's a problem. 40% of shoppers report that they are not getting timely or helpful responses from dealerships. This is a huge problem because your own team could be leaving four out of every 10 sales opportunities on the table. Cars commerce makes it simple to measure and improve your follow up performance. A cars.com experience report tracks the percentage of leads your teams are responding to and how customers rate those responses. While dealer inspires retailing technology enables your team to quickly text follow ups with personalized financing options to make the most out of every opportunity. to learn more about how you can measure and improve your team's follow up performance, go to cars commerce dot inks slash experience or click the link in the show notes below.

你知道的，这增加了成本，但没有迹象表明经销商会消失。本期节目由Cars Commerce赞助。这个平台简化了一切关于买卖汽车的流程，包括所谓的后续跟进。让我解释一下。快速有效的跟进对将潜在客户转化为实际客户至关重要，但有一个问题，40%的购物者表示没有从经销商那里得到及时或有帮助的回应。这是一个大问题，因为你自己的团队可能会错过10次销售机会中的4次。Cars Commerce使得测量和提升你的跟进表现变得简单。Cars.com体验报告追踪你的团队对潜在客户的回应比例以及客户对这些回应的评分。而Dealer Inspire的零售技术可以使你的团队快速发送包含个性化融资选项的文本跟进，从而充分利用每一个机会。想了解更多关于如何测量和提升你的团队跟进表现的信息，请访问carscommerce.inks/experience，或点击下面的节目说明中的链接。

So let's fast forward now 13 years and I want to get into the problem that the specific problems you're solving today as well. The market has changed, right? The dealership environment adopted over the last decade. I mean, you can go through many, many different things. Digital retail, CDPs, customer data platforms. I mean, today, of course, you know, AI is scaling quickly. I mean, in many, you know, there's many different potential use cases. You know, lots of dealers have exited in the last couple of years, right? It's been a combination of high valuations, you know, future uncertainty. Um, certain automakers have come out and made proclamations such as, you know, we're going to go direct to consumer certain automakers of them backtracked on that at this point where we stand today. Do you think that the dealers are here to stay long term? Will they evolve? How will they evolve? What's your take? Yeah, I think what I find about dealers is there's no more resilient. You know, a set of business people that I've ever come across and I've been in some tough businesses. Right. So dealers get everything thrown at them and they figure out a way of adapting and surviving. And, you know, so I think you got to actually take that into consideration. You know, they figure out how to power on, you know, a lot of stuff was thrown at the movie internet. It was a struggle, you know, they spent a lot of money and maybe wasted a lot of money trying to keep up and they figured it out, you know, and it's, uh, um, I do think that that technology is more and more data and technology is the thing that's going to separate the winners from the losers. And so, um, you know, there's continuing pressure on dealers to figure it out and adopt the right technology.

那么，现在快进13年，我想聊一下你今天正在解决的问题。市场已经发生了变化，对吧？过去十年里，经销商的环境也在不断适应。可以说，数字零售、客户数据平台这些东西已经广泛应用。当然，今天AI也在迅速普及，有很多不同的潜在应用场景。过去几年里，许多经销商退出市场，这种现象是由高估值和对未来的不确定性等多种因素共同导致的。有些汽车制造商曾宣称要直接面向消费者销售，但其中一些现在又放弃了这个计划。站在今天这个时间点上，你认为经销商是否会长期存在？他们会如何进化？你的看法是什么？ 嗯，我觉得经销商是我见过最具韧性的一群商业人士，我也曾在一些艰难的行业待过。经销商面对各种挑战，但他们总能找到适应与生存的方法。所以，我认为这一点我们必须考虑在内。虽然面对互联网发展带来的诸多困扰，他们花费了大量时间和金钱去适应也许其中一些是浪费的，但最终他们还是找到了解决之道。 我确实认为，越来越多的数据和技术将是决定胜负的关键。因此，经销商面临着持续的压力，需要找出正确的技术并加以应用。

You can't go to market like you did and expect to succeed. And, and what I find when I go out, I spend a lot of time with owners. And, and they're very focused on this. You know, where they tell me, I mean, university, I went out there to be four men with a hundred owners, big, you know, big groups and all. And almost universally, they're saying this data thing is going to be bigger. The say I and data things will be bigger than the internet. And then they tell us, sorry about it. Yeah. Remember the internet, you know, we were all sitting around. Is this real? People really got to buy cars online? You know, it's this is just bad and then work what happened. And they all have a sense that this is going to be more profound than the email itself. And in some ways, there are indications that it will right the machine efficiencies are are are what are necessary to, you know, an increasingly tough environment to stay profitable and eat.

你不能像以前那样进入市场，并期望获得成功。而且，我发现当我外出时，我会花很多时间与业主们交流。他们对此非常关注。你知道的，比如我去大学时，和一百个业主在一起，都是一些大团体。他们几乎一致认为，数据的作用将会比互联网还要大。他们告诉我们这个消息。是的，还记得互联网刚出现时，我们都在讨论这是否真实，人们真的会在网上买车吗？这当时看起来很疯狂，但是后来发生了什么。而现在，他们都认为数据的重要性将超过电子邮件本身。实际上，有些迹象表明，机器效率的提升正是为了在日益艰难的环境中保持盈利和竞争力所必需的。

And the ones who, you know, embrace that and get that right are going to pull away from the ones who don't and they have a strong sense of that. The issue though is how you can build the TVP and then you can drown in data. You know, the whole issue is then, you know, what technologies do you use to actually activate that data and connect it, you know, with your business problems, your business objectives? Yeah. You know, I had at my prior company when I was a first time CEO at Gettikar, I had an advisor and they taught me something when I started hiring executives and whatnot. And they taught me like, you know, they called it like, you know, breadcrumbs, right? You look at someone's experience background. Well, just look, look for patterns, right? Look for, look for a slope, right? Look how this person has really grown or, you know, what are they focused on? And I bring this up because you obviously are, you know, the chairman CEO of lot links, but I think what made me more interested here is that you've been in this position for 13 years and you're not a dumb guy.

知道拥抱这种方式并能正确做到的人，会远远甩开那些做不到的人，他们对此有强烈的认知。不过问题在于，你如何构建TVP，然后又不会被数据淹没。问题在于你使用什么技术来真正激活这些数据，并将其与业务问题和目标联系起来。在我之前的公司，当我第一次担任Gettikar的CEO时，我有一个顾问，他们在我开始招聘高管时教了我一些东西。他们教我，看一个人的经历背景时，像是找面包屑一样，要寻找一些模式，寻找趋势，看这个人是如何成长的，或者他们专注于什么。我提起这点是因为你显然是lot links的董事长兼CEO，但让我更感兴趣的是，你在这个职位上已经待了13年，并且你不是个笨蛋。

And for you to still be in this position, it tells me that without knowing you, right? We're just talking now, it tells me that you have a lot of conviction in what you're doing or at least believe in the long term upside because you would have otherwise done something else a while ago, right? Now I'm hypothesizing here, but that's just how I see it. So the first takeaway for me is it's clear that what the, or at least it seems as though based on what you're doing and you've been doing for so, such a long time that you really do believe that there's great upside here or else you would have done something else a while ago as any entrepreneur would have. The second question for you though is what are the problems you're solving today at lot links? Like tell us a little bit about your company, right? Like what are the problems you're solving today? And, you know, what does that future look like? Go ahead. Yeah.

你仍然处在这个位置，这让我明白，尽管我不认识你，对吧？我们现在只是聊天，但这让我明白，你对自己所做的事情非常有信心，或者至少相信长期的回报，因为否则你早就会做别的事情了，对吧？我现在是在假设，但这是我的看法。所以，我的第一个结论是，很明显，或者至少看起来基于你一直在做的事情，你确实相信这里有很大的潜力，否则作为任何一个企业家，你早就会转向别的事情了。 不过我的第二个问题是，你在Lot Links公司今天解决了哪些问题？请告诉我们一些关于你们公司的事情，好吗？你们今天解决了哪些问题，未来的发展是怎样的？继续说吧。

So I do have a lot of conviction. I think we're, you know, I guess I'm a born optimist, but I think we're at the beginning of something rather than the end. And, you know, if I thought we were even peaking, you know, we've had a number of people try to buy our company and we've said no. And, you know, we were in a nice position. We don't have to, you know, and that's only because we, you know, we think the future is brighter and as this, as these trends play out, it's going to move more and more in our direction. Right. And so we'll see if I'm right about it. I'll try to simplify it. You know, like the dealers understand that they take inventory.

所以我确实有很大的信心。我认为我们正处在某个事物的开始阶段，而不是结束。我猜我是个天生的乐观主义者。如果我觉得我们已经达到顶峰了，许多人想买我们的公司，但我们都拒绝了。我们现在处于一个不错的位置，我们无需出售公司。这是因为我们相信未来会更加光明，随着这些趋势的发展，形势会越来越对我们有利。 对吧，所以我们拭目以待，看我是对是错。我试着简化一下，让大家容易理解，就像经销商明白他们要保持库存一样。

And essentially if you're a dealer, you all your position in the whole food chain is to take inventory risk. You know, you got to hire staff. You got to have a place. You got to do all this stuff. But really all you're doing is the OEM is pushing off, you know, inventory risk to you and you have to actually dispose of that risk to the marketplace. Right. That's, that's the whole game. And so the other is to understand, listen, I take on the right stuff. I'm stocked right, you know, and I have a good franchise. My franchise absorbs cars and I make good money on them. The issue is when that doesn't work.

从本质上讲，如果你是一个经销商，你在整个供应链中的角色就是承担库存风险。你需要雇用员工，你需要有一个经营场所，你需要做所有这些事情。但实际上，原始设备制造商（OEM）只是把库存风险转移到你身上，而你必须把这种风险转移到市场上去。这就是整个游戏的规则。所以，关键是要明白，你要挑选合适的产品，合理备货，有良好的经营体系。这样，你的经营体系能消化这些车，并且能从中赚到钱。问题就在于，当这种模式不起作用时，该怎么办。

Like, Hey, if you sell a car on time, you make good growth. You're on every dealer's going to sell a certain number of cars every month, just because of their footprint, you know, and they're pretty well organized. Thanks. The, the issue is, all right, when I don't have a match, okay. And I carry over inventory. So one of the key insights is if you sell a new unit on time, which means to us within 45 days, dealers move on average inventory and anywhere from 12 to 20 days. Is there average turn time on the stuff that they sell on time? And on youth, it's 30 days, right? You're going to move stuff in 30 days. All right. And that's, you know, these dealers are doing really well with, you know, use.

就像这样，如果你按时卖掉一辆车，你就能有不错的增长。每个经销商每个月都会卖掉一定数量的汽车，因为他们有足够的销售网络，而且他们的组织也很健全。谢谢。问题是，当我没有匹配到客户时，我就会有库存积压。所以一个重要的见解是，如果你在规定时间内（对我们来说是45天内）卖掉一辆新车，经销商平均可以在12到20天内完成库存周转。这是他们按时卖掉汽车的平均周转时间。而对于二手车来说，是30天。就是说你在30天内可以把二手车卖掉。就这样，这些经销商在二手车销售方面也表现得很好。

I see most dealers are running about 10, 12 days on average turn for the stuff they're selling within 30. But as soon as you cross that 30 day mark or the 45 day mark in the case of new, that goes up by five X. You go up from selling on average, you know, 12 days to 70 days. And your, your gross on new is about half. So if you just break out your business, all right. I, you know, how many, I sold a hundred units this month, but I sold a 50 of them fresh within 45 days. I make great gross on those. Okay. And my average days to sell were, you know, 12. But as soon as I, they started to age, I crossed that 45 day line. Now my average days to sell is 75 or 80 days. And my gross is getting is, is really slim. Okay. All right.

我注意到，大多数经销商在他们销售的商品上，平均周转时间大约是10到12天，但如果超过30天或者在新车情况下超过45天，这个时间就会增加五倍。你会从平均销售时间12天增加到70天。而在新车方面，你的毛利大约会减少一半。所以，如果你把你的业务分开来看，假设你这个月卖了100辆车，其中50辆是在45天内快速卖出的，这些车会有很高的毛利，平均销售时间是12天。但是，一旦这些车的库存时间超过了45天，现在平均销售时间就变成了75到80天，毛利也大幅减少。

Wait, I, I, before you move on, I just want to, you know, simplify this for one second. So I live in Philly and there is the Pennsylvania turnpike here. And I used to drive to the auctions on Mondays. And there was this one exit on the auction that if you missed this exit, you were stuck on that turnpike for 45 minutes. So that, I don't know why my brain thought about that. But what I'm hearing from you is basically. You're broke. Exactly. Yes. So what I'm hearing from you is that basically what you're saying into simplify is like, if you don't get that car out and sold by that 30 day mark, you are like that car is likely is that average spikes and that car is going to linger on your lot for 70 days. Your gross is kind of gotten cut in half. It's pretty much like you got to operate efficiently. But if you missed that boat, that average just shoots up way higher.

等一下，我、我在你继续之前，只是想让话题简单一点。比如我住在费城，这边有条宾夕法尼亚收费公路。我以前每周一会开车去拍卖会。如果错过了一个出口，就会被困在收费公路上 45 分钟。我不确定为什么我脑子里想到这个事情，但从你的话中基本上听到的是，如果你在 30 天内没有把那辆车卖掉，那辆车就在你的停车场上停留 70 天的几率就很高。而那时你获利几乎减半。基本就像你必须高效运作，但如果你错过了这个时机，平均停留时间就会激增。

And so, so again, we have all the data. And, and so then what happens is dealers have a tendency. And again, I have the deepest respect. I will tell anybody the most resilient, smartest route it doesn't be about every couple of across, but they tend to buy stuff, hope for the best. And then about day 35, they're like, oh, shit. Okay. And so then when they, when they carry over, right, that inventory, they have to mark it down. The problem is first mark down doesn't do it. They actually, the bar counts, the average is almost four.

所以，再次说明，我们已经掌握了所有的数据。然后，发生的情况是经销商通常会倾向于这样做。我要再次强调，我对他们充满敬意。我会告诉任何人，经销商是最有韧性、最聪明的一群人。但是，他们往往会在购买商品时抱有希望，接着在大约第35天时会意识到，“哦，糟了。”然后，当他们继续保留这些库存时，就需要进行降价。问题是，首次降价并不能解决问题。实际上，根据数据，他们平均要降价将近四次。

So you got, you know, once you miss the exit, you're going nine miles down the actual, you know, in traffic, right? And so they got to market now. And, and you're, and by the way, cars always depreciating. So you're chasing the market, you know, you're chasing and falling knife. We used to go on the stock business and it just sort of compounds. And so the whole game for a dealer is, hey, you're never going to be risk free. You're going to get risk inventory. You're going to take stuff in trade. You're going to go to auction, make good decisions that turn bad on you. The game is to know which units are going to be a challenge.

你知道的，一旦错过了出口，你就得在交通中开九英里，对吧？所以他们现在必须进行营销。而且，顺便说一下，汽车总是在贬值的，所以你是在追逐市场，像是在追逐一把下落的刀（风险很大）。我们以前在股票业务中遇到这种情况，一旦发生，就会不断恶化。所以，对于经销商来说，整个游戏就是，你永远不可能完全没有风险。你会有风险库存，你需要接受二手车，去拍卖，会做出一些好决定却变成坏结果。这个游戏就是要知道哪些车辆会成为挑战。

Day one, not okay. It's day 35 and I got to start trying to clear this inventory. And my only tool is marked out. Right. Now, how do you do this, Len? How do you do this now? Well, so what we use is machine learning and machine prediction. Like we have this massive data set, knows everything about all the things that are going on, they can basically look at cars and say, okay, these are the ones that are going to be in trouble. And then if you know that before they become trouble, you can make some real, really smart moves and keep really great growth.

第一天，不太好。现在是第35天，我必须开始清理这些库存。而我唯一的工具已经失效了。那么，你现在怎么办，Len？你现在怎么办呢？嗯，我们使用的是机器学习和机器预测。我们有一个庞大的数据集，了解所有正在发生的事情，它们基本上可以查看汽车并判断哪些会出现问题。如果你在它们出现问题之前就知道这一点，你就可以做出一些非常聪明的决策，并保持良好的增长。

One of the issues that dealers have is that trouble cars tend to be overpriced too long and then they have to cut them way too much too late. And so if you know that something is going to be a challenge, if you get it down to market, you know, the sweet spots about 98% of market, right away, you're going to harvest massively more gross on that car than if you keep it overpriced until day 35 and then you start adjusting now. And so what we've built is a bunch of tools that give dealers the ability to understand what's going to be a challenge and take early corrective action.

其中一个问题是，车商往往会把问题车的价格定得过高，并且持续时间太长，最后不得不大幅降价，但为时已晚。如果你知道某辆车会成为一个挑战，那么一开始就要把价格降到市场价的98%左右，这样才能在这辆车上获得更多的利润，而不是等到第35天后再开始调整价格。因此，我们研发了一些工具，帮助车商了解哪些车会成为难题，并能够及早采取纠正措施。

And therefore hold a lot more gross and actually keep their turn, you know, carry over less and keep their turn times on, you know, their overall turn times, you know, in a healthy position. And that's, you know, that's sort of, that's kind of the key thing that we're, you know, we're working with dealers on because they start, we just show them their data. Yeah, this is what's happening. You're selling these on time making great growth when they cross over, they don't, you know, here's how here's here the the mark times you've taken. If you had moved, you know, earlier on that mark time, you would end up marking down a lot less, holding a lot more gross. And when they start to understand this and they're given tools to actually manage it, if it's all manual, it's hard to keep up with, but machines can do this in scale. You know, they get a much healthier business, right?

因此，他们实际上能获得更多的毛利，并保持他们的周转时间处于良好的状态。我们与经销商合作的关键点就是我们向他们展示数据。我们告诉他们，你们在规定时间内售出商品时，能取得很好的增长，而当你们超过这个时间，就会出现问题。这里是你们过去的定价时间，如果你们能在那个时候更早调整价格，你们会少降价很多，且保持更多的毛利。当经销商理解了这一点并获得相应的管理工具时，如果完全手动操作，确实很难跟上，但机器可以大规模处理这一任务，这样他们的业务将会更加健康。

You know, I always say to a dealer and I'll ask you, you're, you know, if you got a hundred F one 50s, new, and some of them are fresh and some of them are 120 days old and they 120 days old, you've marked down. Aren't you marking them all down? In essence, a hundred percent because yeah, I mean, you're always going to go, I mean, to your point, you're going to go for the, you know, for the less expensive one. You have no choice. So the, the compound effect of this is if you start nipping those, that carry over in the bud, you're marking down less and your whole business goes up. We, you know, we, we push up the growth on everything, not just the cars that are the problem, but everything sort of rises. And so there's this, you know, it's, we see it in every business. If you get it tuned right, it gets really profitable. If you start, if it starts fall apart, you kind of get in this doom loop, it drags you down.

你知道吗，我总是跟销售员说，我会问你，如果你有一百辆新的F-150卡车，有些是刚到的，有些已经摆了120天了，而且这些摆了120天的你已经降价处理，那么你岂不是要把所有的车都降价？因为你总是会选择那些便宜的，对吧，你没得选。所以，这种做法的连锁效应是，如果你能在一开始就解决这些滞销车的问题，你的降价幅度会减少，你的整体业务也会上升。我们推动所有东西的增长，不仅仅是解决有问题的车，而是整体都在提升。所以，我们在每个行业都能看到这种现象。如果你调整得当，利润就会非常可观；但如果事情开始走下坡路，你就会陷入一个恶性循环，把你拖向深渊。

And, you know, right, you know, right now dealers are doing very well with you. As I see, you know, used, you know, the other day's supply is actually coming down. You know, we see very healthy use businesses, but we see a lot of unhealthy new car businesses. And that, you know, that depends on the brand you're having. It certainly depends on the operator. And if you got a bad, you know, a challenged brand and a challenged operator, it can be a really, really big problem. And so, you know, new is because of, I think affordability primarily is, is we're seeing a lot of carry over. And that's really dragging down the overall profitability of the story. Yeah. And makes total sense.

你知道，现在经销商的情况很好。根据我的观察，前几天车源实际在减少。我们看到二手车业务非常健康，但新车业务却有很多问题。具体情况主要取决于品牌和运营者。如果品牌和运营情况都不好，问题会非常严重。我认为，由于经济问题，很多新车滞销，这大大影响了整体利润。这完全合理。

I mean, your cars are, are competing with each other. So what you're saying, I mean, in concept makes sense to me. They're, they're competing with the other cars. You're doing a lot. You know, as a car guy, over half of people will come down dead set on one bit and they, they drive off with something completely different. All the time. So it's not only just the other F-150s, it's all the other cross shopping and everybody's got a different little orbit that they're willing to move into, you know, some of it's driven by payment, some of it's driven by use, you know, but there's, there's internal competition beyond just the other same makeup models that you've got, you know, I want to ask you more about, you mentioned new cars are not doing, not being managed properly.

我意思是，你们的车实际上是在互相竞争。所以，你所说的概念对我来说是有道理的。它们不仅在和其他品牌的车竞争。你知道，作为汽车爱好者，多数人可能起初铁了心要买某款车，但最终却开走了一辆完全不同的车。这种情况经常发生。所以，这不仅仅是和其他的F-150s竞争，而是和所有的其他可供选择的车型竞争。每个人都有他们愿意接受的不同范围，有的受价格驱动，有的受用途驱动，但内部也存在竞争，不仅仅是你们自家型号之间的竞争。我还想问一下，你提到的新车管理不当的问题，你能说说这个吗？

But before we do that, just give me a sense of your scale. Right. You, you've obviously, you've been around for quite some time. The company has grown a lot. How many dealers are you currently working with? Like what's been the impact of your tool, your software, throughout the industry? Yeah. Yeah. We're deep. Our sweet spot is, is dealer groups 10 to 50 rooftops. You know, we do business with really big guys, a lot of business. Lithia, by the way, has been, we wouldn't be in business if it weren't for Lithia. They figured us out early. And, you know, so I think they used to be our biggest customer. Morgan, I think is our biggest customer now. Morgan, look at that. He's a friend of the pod.

在我们进行下一步之前，请先让我了解一下你的规模。对的，显然，你们已经成立很久了，公司也有了很大的发展。你们目前和多少经销商合作？你的工具和软件对整个行业的影响如何？ 嗯，我们的主攻方向是拥有10到50个店面的经销商集团。我们也和一些大型公司有很多业务往来。顺便说一下，如果没有Lithia（利西亚），我们可能都做不下去。他们很早就发现了我们的价值，所以曾经是我们最大的客户。现在我想应该是Morgan（摩根）成为了我们最大的客户。摩根是我们节目的朋友。

Yeah. Yeah. He is. I saw that, you know, and very, very, very, you know, great operators and building a great, powerful, you know, future-proof business. We have a lot of respect and deeply humbled by their faith in us. You know, so we tend to do well with, with those groups.

是的，是的，他确实是。我看到了，他们是非常优秀的运营者，正在构建一个强大且适应未来的企业。我们非常尊重他们，对他们对我们的信任感到深深谦卑。我们通常能在这些团体中表现得很好。

So, you know, in terms of direct dealer relations, it's about 1500 rooftops. You know, we do a lot of business through the agencies and the OEMs in addition to that. So, you know, the OEM business where OEMs use us to manage their inventory issues, right? Because they, you know, they're not selling through Silverados in a certain region. The bad, the expensive thing for them to do is to drop incentives, right? So they tend to use law links before or in conjunction with incentives to clear these troubled bottlenecks of inventory. They got to clear them just a little more, you know, and so we do a lot of that business too.

所以，你知道，就直接经销商关系而言，我们大概拥有1500个门店。我们还通过代理机构和OEM（原始设备制造商）进行大量业务。比如，OEM业务中，OEM们会用我们来管理他们的库存问题。因为他们可能在某个地区的Silverado车型卖得不好。对他们来说，最不理想和最昂贵的做法就是降价促销。所以，他们往往会在降价之前或同时使用我们的服务来清理这些库存瓶颈。他们需要只是稍微清理一下库存。我们在这方面的业务也很多。

And, you know, so I would say that we have very high penetration of those, you know, five to 50 power groups. You know, the real competitive players. This episode is brought to you by WYTHM, one of the largest dealership accounting firms in the country. WYTHM partners with dealers to help maximize revenue and cut costs, adding profits straight to the bottom line for dealers. And dealers, one of the easiest ways to add thousands to your bottom line is by working with WYTHM to submit for a warranty reimbursement rate adjustment. WYTHM has the insights and resources to quickly get parts and labor rate approvals across all manufacturers with zero disruptions to daily operations. Contact with them today to get a free estimate on the potential profit you may be missing out on by visiting withum.com slash warranty or clicking the link in the show notes below.

所以，我会说，我们在那些五到五十人的强力团队中有非常高的渗透率，就是那些真正有竞争力的玩家。本集节目由WYTHM赞助，WYTHM是全国最大的一家经销商会计公司之一。WYTHM与经销商合作，帮助他们最大化收入和降低成本，将利润直接提升到底线。对于经销商来说，增加利润的最简单方法之一是与WYTHM合作，申请保修报销率调整。WYTHM拥有快速获得所有制造商的零件和工时费批准的见解和资源，而且完全不会干扰日常运作。请联系WYTHM获取免费评估，看看您可能错过了多少潜在利润。访问withum.com/warranty或点击下方节目备注中的链接了解更多信息。

Tell me more about you mentioned right now that there's this crisis in the car business where, or maybe you didn't say the word crisis I did. So excuse me on that, but you mentioned that new cars are not are being mismanaged, which is obviously a bad thing. Can you like dive deeper into what that really means? What was working a year ago as I'm working now, right? There's more and more inventory. We went through this bubble of COVID. So let's just go before COVID, right? And really, I think at the root of the issue is affordability, right? New cars is, you know, the average price of new cars gone up. The average payment has gone up exponentially because of interest rate. So people are being pushed into use cars and it's really challenging the equipment for it. And so we see very high carryover rates in new cars.

你刚才提到汽车行业现在有一个危机，或者其实你没用“危机”这个词，是我用了这个词，所以请见谅。你提到新车正在被管理不善，这显然是件坏事。你能不能更深入地解释一下这到底意味着什么？一年前有效的方法现在不再奏效，对吧？库存越来越多。我们经历了COVID的泡沫。所以，我们先回到COVID之前。从根本上来说，问题在于新车的可负担性。新车的平均价格在上涨，月供也由于利率上涨而显著增加。所以人们被迫转向二手车，这对设备来说真的是一个挑战。因此，我们看到新车的高积压率。

Now, you know, you can, we have a thing called bin census. You can go to our website and download it free. We also have all this. Putting the show notes as well. Yeah. Yeah. There's a market demand stuff and it's like a ticker tape. Go click around in that and you can see exactly what's happening in your brand, your market, you know, comparative trends and so on. We offer that all free to the to the others. So, you know, some of the brands that are most challenged, you know, obviously, stellantis is, you know, has got a lot of inventory, very, very challenged. Toyota, not they're probably the, they're the, you know, Toyota is really crushing it. You know, we see very healthy, you know, Toyota, new car dealers and sort of everything else in between. But the trend is, you know, swelling, deal a day supply, you know, deeper and deeper discounting and, you know, a real negative impact on grosses, you know, in, in, in new and dealers in order to deal with that, you know, you've got a, you can't just, you know, hang there and suffer the consequences. You've got to be able to bring that new demand into your, into what you're holding.

现在，你知道，我们有一个叫做“垃圾桶普查”的工具。你可以访问我们的网站，免费下载它。我们也会在节目的备注中提供相关信息。是的，还有市场需求数据，就像股票行情一样。你可以点击查看，了解你的品牌、市场以及对比趋势等。我们将这些信息免费提供给大家。 所以，一些面临巨大挑战的品牌，显然，Stellantis库存量很大，面临很大挑战。另一边，丰田表现非常好。我们看到丰田的新车经销商状况非常健康，其他品牌则各有不同。但是总体趋势是，交易日的供应量在增加，折扣越来越大，这对新车和经销商的利润有很大的负面影响。为了应对这种情况，你不能只是消极对待，你必须能够将新的需求引入你的库存中。

So then different question. Do you think that OEMs are going to blur the lines with auto retail more and take more inventory risk? How do you feel about that? Yeah, you know, there's a loaded question. I think that's what I'm here for, Lynn. That's why I know. I think they would like to. But I think that there are significant, you know, things in the way of doing that. Not, you know, I said one time to Scott painter, you know, it was always sort of Yeah, he was on the pod. Yeah. Yeah. It was a brilliant guy. You know, I said, who's the number one contributor to a state senators campaign? They looked at me. I said, a car dealer. Who's the number one to contributor to a state senators campaign? A car dealer. Don't try to screw with a car dealers locally. OK, they, you know, the, you know, the states, you know, kind of protect the franchises. Right. You go down to Texas and try to mess with the dealers. You're going to run into the Texas Card Hill Association. That's a very well organized thing. So, you know, I think I think the OEMs would in the end, the OEMs just want to most efficiently move the inventory. They can manufacture and, you know, they they print out at one silverado every 50 seconds all year long, except for August, right? So they just got to figure out how to most efficiently move that down through the channel. So, you know, I don't think the dealers are as long as the dealers are efficient. And in moving that inventory, you know, there's no strong incentive for the, for the OEM.

那么，换个问题。你觉得原始设备制造商（OEM）会更多地模糊汽车零售的界限，并承担更多的库存风险吗？你对此怎么看？ 嗯，你知道，这是个有挑战性的问题。我觉得这是我要来这里的原因，Lynn。这就是为什么我知道。我认为他们愿意这样做。但是，我觉得有很多因素阻碍他们实现这一点。比如，我曾经对Scott Painter说，你知道，这是一个……是的，他也在节目里。是的，他是个聪明人。我说，谁是州参议员竞选活动的头号捐助者？他们看着我，我说，是车商。谁是州参议员竞选活动的头号捐助者？车商。不要试图和当地的车商作对，好吗？你知道，州政府有点在保护这些特许经营权。你到德克萨斯州去试图与车商较劲，会遇到德克萨斯汽车经销商协会，那是一个组织非常完善的机构。 因此，我认为OEM最终只想以最高效的方式移动他们制造的库存。你知道，他们全年每50秒就生产出一辆Silverado，除了8月份。所以他们只需要弄清楚怎样最有效地通过渠道把这些库存移动出去。所以，只要车商在移动这些库存方面是高效的，OEM就没有强烈的动力去改变现状。

And I think the OEM, you know, we'll see the intestines sort of broke that model. We'll see how, how, how well that does, how much of that is hype and how much of that is, you know, I'm a huge fan, but I'm just saying, I don't know if you saw the McKinsey report, but 46% of EV owners are not buying. They're going back to gas. What? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that. Like, it feels to me a little bit about like some like confirmation bias from someone at McKinsey or something or like some, someone commissioned that. I'm open to hearing your perspective, but I personally, you know, it's just like, I don't want to get political, but, you know, it's just like political polls that tell you someone's going to win versus the other. And I don't know. It's like, I agree with that. There's a hype cycle. And one, at one time we were just seeing EVs are going to take, roll the world. And, and I didn't believe that. And then I read this and it says, well, maybe not. And I don't believe that. I think it's like, like when I was raising money for lollings, all the VCs thought the dealers were dead, you know, and other people thought, well, you know, online. Yeah. Yeah.

我觉得OEM厂商可能会打破这种模式。我们得看看情况如何，是炒作居多还是有实质性的改变。虽然我是电动车的忠实粉丝，但你知道我只是说说而已。我不知道你有没有看到那个麦肯锡的报告，但据说46%的电动车车主不再购买电动车，而是转回使用汽油车了。我不知道这让我感觉如何，就像是麦肯锡有人有偏见或是有人委托他们做这个报告一样。我愿意听听你的观点，但我个人感觉这有点像政治民调，说某人会赢一样，我对这些数据总是持保留态度。 确实有一阵子电动车的炒作很厉害，大家都说电动车会主宰世界，但我一直持怀疑态度。然后看到这个报告，我又觉得可能没那么夸张。我觉得就像我当初为一个项目筹资时，所有投资者都认为汽车经销商没前途，而其他人又觉得线上销售很有前景一样。

It's kind of somewhere in the middle. Yeah. So, you know, Len, one of the things that I talk about a ton in this podcast is just the term of like stated, versed revealed preferences. And the reason I talk about it a lot from consumers perspective, basically, like, you know, I have a big audience, right? Relatively speaking. And so I ask my audience a lot of times for feedback on things or, you know, opinions, but I always have to remind myself as well that your consumers don't always know what they want. And so, you know, sometimes like you have to tell, like, you know, with Uber, if you went to a consumer 15 years ago and he said 10 years ago, he said, Hey, you're going to hop into a car with a stranger. They're going to take you somewhere, right? Like I would have said, absolutely not. Everyone would have said, no, what are you talking about? Right. Like this guy's this random person's car.

这有点介于中间。是的。所以，你知道，Len，我在这个播客中经常谈论的一件事就是所谓的"陈述偏好"和"揭示偏好"。而我之所以经常从消费者的角度谈论这个问题，基本上是因为，我有一个相对较大的观众群体。所以我经常向我的观众询问关于某些事情的反馈或意见，但我也必须时刻提醒自己，消费者并不总是知道自己想要什么。所以，有时候，你需要告诉他们，比如，柳德伯，如果你在15年前或者10年前问一个消费者，你会和一个陌生人一起搭车，他们会带你到某个地方，对吧？我可能会说，绝对不可能。每个人都会说，你在说什么？这可是个陌生人的车啊。

Well, look today, right? People send her, you know, 14 year old daughters in Ubers and stuff like that. So the point I'm trying to make is like a stated preferences from a consumer versus revealed preferences. It's just, it's really, really hard to predict the future. It's really hard. And, um, and even if you ask people what they want, most people don't know what they want until you show on what they want and they get used to it. So that's easy. But hey, when I was in advertising, all the great new products failed and focus groups, because people hadn't seen it before. They, they, yes. Yeah. And there's what Henry Ford said, right? If you ask people what they want, they wanted a faster horse. You know, I mean, that, I love that. I love that line. Alright.

好，看看今天这个情况，对吧？人们现在会让他们14岁的女儿坐优步之类的。这正是我想说的消费者明说的偏好和实际表现出来的偏好之间的差异。预测未来真的很难，真的很难。即使你问人们他们想要什么，大多数人也不知道自己想要什么，直到你展示给他们，他们习惯了以后才知道。所以这很简单。但当我在广告行业工作时，所有的新产品在焦点小组测试中都失败了，因为人们以前从未见过这些产品。对对对，就像亨利·福特说的，如果你问人们要什么，他们会说要一匹更快的马。我非常喜欢这句话。好了。

So before we wrap up, I do want to ask you about AI and inventory management. You mentioned AI, you're obviously very active in the space. What is inventory management going to look like? Right. If, like if we go to this, like world where all inventory management, imagine it's like automated by AI, like will there be any, you know, quote, unquote, alpha left for any dealers? Or is it going to be a race to the bottom of margin? Like what's going to happen? No, I think it's going to push up margin. I think, you know, what I say is, um, AI doesn't do anything that you wouldn't do if you had all the data and you could do it all day long. OK, I mean, it just, it does exactly the right thing and just enough. And so if you think about it, ask, you know, you got a big dealer audience and then you'd ask themselves, listen, are you marking down perfectly? You know, I mean, at the right amount, at the right time, you know, and what they'll say is, yeah, I'm pretty damn good, but I also take a day off. I go on vacation. I forget about stuff. You know, well, that's the difference from machines.

在结束之前，我想问一下关于AI和库存管理的问题。你提到了AI，显然你在这个领域非常活跃。那么，未来的库存管理会是什么样子呢？如果我们进入一个由AI全自动化管理库存的世界，是否还会有给经销商留下的“正收益”？还是说大家都会进入利润竞争的恶性循环？我认为这种趋势会提升利润。我说的是，AI其实做的都是你在拥有所有数据且能够全天候工作的情况下也会做的事情。它只会做正确的事情，而且恰到好处。如果你思考一下，并问自己，你的库存减价是否总是恰到好处、在合适的时间进行，很多人会说他们做得不错，但也有休息的时候、度假的时候，有时会忘记。这就是人与机器的差别所在。

Machines can do things with precision that we can. And there's huge, huge margin in the precision. And, and so what I like to believe, I truly believe it, it's going to free up cardio is going to make the more efficient is going to free them up to do where, you know, to focus on things where they add the most value. I think sitting around, frankly, tinkering with price, you know, maybe isn't the highest value, you know, way that a dealer can spend his day on the lot, you know, and I mean, you want to be able to guide it and you want to be able to oversee it and override it. But a lot of times the machine can make better decisions, you know, and, and always relentlessly without exception at the right time where you can't.

机器可以精准地完成我们无法做到的事情。而在这种精确度上，有着巨大的优势。因此，我喜欢相信并且真的相信它会解放心脏，使其更加高效，释放他们去专注于那些他们能最大限度发挥价值的领域。我认为，坦白说，坐在那里琢磨价格，可能不是经销商在车场上一天中最有价值的花费时间的方式。你当然希望能够引导它、监督它并进行干预。但很多时候，机器可以做出更好的决策，并且始终在恰当的时机无一例外地实现这一点，这是我们人类无法做到的。

And that so I think, I think this move is going to make the deal is more profitable and more competitive and give them more time to be real, you know, to do the software car dealers, you know, they do. I don't think it was going to turn into a machine driven, you know, Max headroom kind of future where it's all, you know, put birds. Yeah. Look, price pricing is always this like opaque, you know, part of the business where there's so many different strategies. I've personally have adopted so many difference as a, you know, on the use side over the years and, you know, we went, obviously the old school way was initially just like, you know, by days, then we went, you know, much more analytical than we we split up the days.

所以我认为这个举动会让交易变得更有利可图、更有竞争力，并且给他们更多时间来专注于真正需要做的事情，比如软件和汽车销售。我不认为这种情况会发展成一种完全机器驱动的未来，就像“电子脑先生”那样，所有事情都是自动化的。定价总是商业中一个模糊不清的部分，有很多不同的策略。个人而言，我在二手车业务中采用过很多不同的定价策略。起初，我们用的是传统的方法，根据天数来定价。后来，我们变得更加数据分析化，并将定价天数进一步细分。

Then we went to, you know, every day you price, right? Cars that hit your trunk. Like we always, it's an always ever evolving type of thing. And I agree with you, but you also, you know, humans, I mean, you obviously it's not far from perfect. That's a, that's a huge pain point that would be, you know, wonderfully solved by the other thing that I'll try to impress upon you, thing about it. If you've ever driven a bulldozer, I have. Yeah, two step not.

然后我们去……你知道，每天都会定价，对吧？碰到你车尾的汽车。我们总是在不断演变。我同意你的看法，但是你也知道，人类肯定不完美。这是一个非常棘手的问题，如果能被另一个我想告诉你的东西完美解决，那就再好不过了。想一想，如果你曾经开过推土机，我开过。对，就像这样。

You got two sticks, you have this big machine and two sticks. And one makes it go one track or one way, right? If you only have price, you know, you keep in it, you're just going to auger around in a circle. And that's literally what what I find with dealers is price is most of the time, not the problem. It's demand. And what they're doing is they keep dropping. Hey, I dropped price. Nobody looked at the car. You know how many cars 70% of all cars you drop price. Nobody looks at it. They price, they drop price again, 70% of price drops. Nobody looks at the car. So what are you doing?

你有两根棍子，还有一台大机器。两根棍子中的一根可以让机器沿某个轨道或某个方向前进，对吧？但如果你只有一个价格，你就会一直在原地打转。这正是我发现经销商的问题所在，多数时候，问题不在于价格，而在于需求。他们不断降价，但没有人看车。你知道有多少辆车在降价后仍然无人问津吗？70%的车即使降价了，也没人看。同样的，他们再降价，结果还是一样，70%的降价后还是没人看车。那么，你到底在做什么呢？

So if you're priced right, what we found is, Hey, you got a price right in the market, then you got to push demand. You actually balance price and demand and do it at a scale of machine can do. There's massive margin to be, to be had. And dealers haven't had the tools to be able to really smart balance those two things. They keep tinkering with pricing if that'll do it. As I say, you know, when you start marketing, now you're marking now four times. And and several of those times you're marking on.

所以，如果你的定价是正确的，我们发现，在市场上定价正确了，就需要推动需求。实际上，你可以在价格和需求之间找到平衡，并且用机器来大规模地实现这个平衡。这会带来巨大的利润空间。而经销商以前没有工具能够真正聪明地平衡这两者。他们总是在调整价格，以为这样就行了。但就像我说的，当你开始营销时，你现在实际上是在进行四次营销，其中几次都是重在价格上的。

Nobody's got an exam. Yeah. So you miss the exit and it's just a grind and the machine can actually balance those two things and and net you far greater growth. But I see dealers marking down too late and then too much. And what they need to do is mark, you know, mark down right and then they need to fill in demand. And you know, that's that's essentially where I think the huge win is, you know, around, you know, machine decisioning.

没有人有考试。对啊。所以你错过了出口，就只能苦苦挣扎，而机器实际上可以平衡这两者，从而带来更大的增长。但是我看到经销商降价动作太迟，然后降价幅度又太大。他们需要做的是正确地降价，然后满足需求。我认为这就是在机器决策方面的巨大优势所在。

So then what is what is what's next for you and lot links? You know, we're we're introducing some new stuff at Labor Day that I think people will find really very sexy, almost like crack to the dealer. So I'll see if I'm right. It's going to be. And I think I'll show it to you first, right before I go. I'd be happy to show you. Tell me whether you think it's cracking up.

所以，接下来你和Lot Links有什么计划呢？我们将在劳动节推出一些新东西，我觉得大家会觉得非常吸引人，几乎像毒品对毒贩那样具有诱惑力。看看我的猜测是否正确吧。而且我想在我离开之前先给你看看。我很乐意展示给你，告诉我你觉得是不是特别棒。

Um, but there's one of that we're blessed with a, you know, asset amount of data that we can surface. And what we do, you know, data is like what you were saying before. You can always find a study lives, you know, lives down, lives and statistics that, you know, confirms your bias. But what we try to do is actually take your data and connect it to exactly what you're holding. How does this actually impact your inventory and your exit on this inventory? And so that's really where we live. Um, and, uh, you know, the more you can help a dealer understand where he needs to focus his attention and maybe move earlier than later, the better off you can make his business. And that's kind of really what our future is, is giving them, you know, you're going to put it in dealer talk, right? You got to, you got to keep it very simple. You can ground a data.

嗯，但是我们很幸运能拥有大量数据。而我们所做的，数据就像你之前说的那样，你总能找到一些研究，这些研究已经存在很久了，并且统计数据也能确认你的偏见。但我们真正要做的是把你的数据与实际持有的东西联系起来。这会如何影响你的库存和清理库存的进度？这才是我们的立足点。 如果你能帮助经销商更好地了解他需要关注的重点，早点行动，而不是拖到最后，那么你就能让他的生意做得更好。这其实就是我们的未来：用简单明了的方式向经销商传达信息，确保数据易懂易用。

You know, I made a mistake. I built a bunch of stuff. So I built these really fancy tools that would be great for, you know, a hedge fund stock trader. I'm not so much a average dealer, you know, the whole game has been to boil it down into the simple things that, you know, they can act. You know, so we're, we're very focused on that piece of our business. And it seems to when you, when you, the great thing about a cardio is if you, if you show them their next move, they, they are all over it. If you make it simple, you kind of show them what they got to move on, they will move. And so that's our job is to kind of deliver it into those decisions. Yeah. Yeah.

你知道吗，我犯了一个错误。我开发了一堆东西。我做了些非常高级的工具，对对冲基金的股票交易员会很有用，但对普通交易员来说就不那么实用了。我们的目标一直是把这些复杂的东西简化成简单易行的工具，便于他们使用。所以我们非常专注于这一块业务。一个很棒的发现是，如果你告诉他们下一步该怎么做，他们就会愿意去做。如果你把事情简单化，明确告诉他们该采取的行动，他们就会行动。所以我们的职责就是把这些选择呈现给他们，让他们能做出决策。对，就是这样。

The industry is a pretty funny case study when you think about it. Like what there's no other industry as far as I can think of where the majority of the operators are like entrepreneurs and it's so fragmented. Maybe, by the way, maybe motels, that actually might be the one, right? Motels, extremely fragmented. It's all entrepreneurs. But it's kind of funny to think about that. Yeah, you're right. Like it's, it's a super entrepreneur industry and which is a reason I would say why it's so resilient because it's entrepreneurs and you're always finding a new solution.

当你想到这个行业时，它真的是一个很有趣的案例研究。好像没有其他行业是像这个行业这样的大多数从业者都是企业家，而且如此分散。或许，顺便说一句，可能只有汽车旅馆是个例外，对吧？汽车旅馆也是极其分散的，全都是一些企业家。但想到这一点真是有趣。是的，你说得对，这确实是一个超级企业家的行业，这也是为什么这个行业这么有韧性的原因，因为这些企业家们总是在寻找新的解决方案。

So. Hey, listen, how much the story of the guy's on your, your podcast. I was listening to Brian Bedstock thing in him telling his story, right? You know, here is legendary guy, you know, relentless, you know, smart as a whip, you know, came up and found an opportunity and out about it. He could have gone, he could have gone to the top in any business, right? But this was his path and you have a lot of people like that who could have been, you know, rock stars in any business they chose, but, you know, automotive attracted them. They found a way in and, you know, so you've got a lot of that savvy in this business and, you know, it's a tough business.

所以，嘿，听着，你那个播客里的那个家伙的故事有多棒呀。我在听Brian Bedstock的故事，他在讲他的经历，对吧？你知道，他是个传奇人物，坚持不懈，聪明绝顶，发现并抓住了一个机会。他本可以在任何一个行业里爬到顶尖位置，但这就是他的路子。你有很多像他这样的人，他们本可以在他们选择的任何行业里成为明星，但他们被汽车行业吸引了。他们找到了进入这个行业的方法，所以你在这个行业里有很多这样精明的人。要知道，这个行业很难做的。

You got to be tough and smart to make it. That's the one thing we all know about. I mean, the car business was pretty good the past couple of years. But, you know, what the owner tells me is my guys are coming to me like, when's it going back to normal? And they say, like, I smile. Because I think it's going back to normal. You've just never seen normal. OK, the normal car business is brutal, competitive, tight margin, relentless, you know, and that's what all these guys came up in. And so it takes a certain, you know, strength of character and savviness to succeed in that. And I think that's why you get this. It's like being a Marine man, you make a true base of training. You've got something, you know, and, and, you know, that's, I think that's why, you know, we're drawn to the car business because it's full of people like that.

你必须足够坚韧和聪明才能成功。这是我们都明白的一个道理。我的意思是，过去几年汽车行业还算不错。但是呢，老板跟我说，我的员工们来问我：什么时候一切会恢复正常？他说他会微笑，因为他认为它会回到正常状态，你们只是从未见过真正的“正常”。真正的汽车行业是残酷的、竞争激烈的、利润微薄的、无情的，这就是所有这些人所经历过的环境。因此，成功需要特定的品格和聪明才智。我认为这也是为什么你会明白这一点。这就像成为一名海军陆战队员，经过真正的基础训练，你就得到了某种东西。这也是为什么我们会被汽车行业吸引，因为里面充满了这样的人。

I love dealers, man. You know, I spent my time. I would rather do. I mean, I like owners more than GM. The owners of the guy, you know, they started with nothing and they've been through the thick and thin. And, you know, now they're sitting pretty, you know, but they did not give some love to the GMs now. I mean, I, yeah. Great general managers out there. You know, but I'm just saying the owners were GMs. They, they came up, you know, they've been bankrupt twice, but now they're, you know, I had an owner, you know, I was having lunch with the 25 stores. And it was not bragging, but he was telling me what he made last year only to make the point like I don't need to work. But like, but I'm in the office. I'm in the store at six a.m. every morning, and I can't stop. Lend short, man, this was an awesome conversation. I'm super excited to air this one. So thanks for coming on. How to blast.

我喜欢经销商，伙计。你知道，我花了很多时间在这上面。我宁愿这样做。我的意思是，我更喜欢老板而不是总经理。老板们是那些从一无所有开始的人，他们经历了艰难时期。现在他们坐拥成功，但他们也没有忘记总经理的功劳。我是说，嗯，确实有很多优秀的总经理。但我要说的是，很多老板曾经也是总经理。他们经历了破产两次，但现在他们，嗯，我有一个老板，我和他一起吃午饭，他有25家店。他不是在炫耀，而是在告诉我他去年赚了多少钱，只是为了说明，他不需要再工作了。但像这样的老板，每天早上六点就在办公室和店里，他根本停不下来。简而言之，这是一场非常棒的谈话。我超级兴奋能播放这一集。谢谢你能来，真是太棒了。

All right. I appreciate it. Let's I truly love what you're doing. And, you know, we have a Chinese wall. I don't know anything about what you're doing other than what I see publicly because, you know, I know we have a mutual acquaintance, which I haven't talked, you know, I do know he's happy working for you. So he's very excited. Things you guys are on the ball here. So, you know, my man, I'll definitely have to share more with you. So I do try to publicize, you know, a lot of what we're doing. That's a big part of the brain, that transparency, but I'll definitely share more.

好了，谢谢。我真的很喜欢你在做的事情。你知道，我们之间有信息隔离，我对你在做的事情了解不多，除了那些公开的信息。不过，我知道我们有一个共同的熟人，虽然我没跟他聊过，但我知道他很开心为你工作，所以他对你们的工作非常兴奋。你们这里的事情做得很棒。所以，我的朋友，我一定会与你分享更多信息。我也会尽量公开我们在做的很多事情，透明度是我们的一大特色，但我肯定会分享更多。

So all right, Lend, thanks for coming on. This episode is brought to you by my very own car dealership guy news. CDG news is here to help you stay updated on all things automotive. We're not your typical news crew. We're bringing you concise, unbiased car industry news and easy to digest formats. From the hottest headlines to podcast summaries, dealership best practices and industry insights. We've got it all covered. And guess what? It's all free, no paywalls, just like we always promise. Hop over to CDG.News.

好的，Lend，谢谢你参与本期节目。本期节目由我自己的汽车经销商新闻赞助。CDG新闻为你提供最新的汽车行业动态。我们不走寻常路，带来简洁、公正的汽车行业新闻，以易于理解的方式呈现。从热门头条到播客摘要、经销商最佳实践和行业见解，我们全都有。而且，所有内容完全免费，没有付费墙，就像我们一直承诺的那样。快来访问 CDG.News 吧。

That's CDG.News and check us out. We're all yours for your feedback. Tell us what you need. Give us your honest thoughts. We're here to deliver real value. So don't wait. Head to CDG.News. Now we'll click the link in the show notes below.

这是 CDG.News，看看我们的内容吧。我们非常欢迎您的反馈。告诉我们您需要什么，给我们您的真实想法。我们致力于提供真正的价值。所以不要犹豫，马上访问 CDG.News。现在点击下方节目备注中的链接。

All right. Hope you enjoyed that episode. Please give the podcast a rating. Consider subscribing to the show and check the show notes for links to what we talked about. Thanks for tuning in. I'll see you guys next time.

好的。希望你喜欢这一集。请给播客评分，考虑订阅我们的节目，并查看节目说明中的相关链接。感谢你的收听，下次再见。