Dealer Tech Tuesdays
Dealer Tech Tuesdays - Where we discuss all things dealership tech. The good, the bad, and the ugly. We believe tech can empower your dealership to conquer an ever-changing world.
Dealer Tech Tuesdays
Jean Reitelbach - Leading with Authenticity - Redefining Leadership in Automotive
In this episode of Dealer Tech Tuesdays, John Acosta sits down with Jeane Reitelbach to explore how leading with authenticity and vulnerability can dramatically transform your dealership's culture and profitability.
Jeane, a renowned marketing and customer experience expert, shares practical insights into why genuine human connection is essential for creating lasting customer relationships, enhancing employee engagement, and boosting dealership success. Discover how shifting from transactional interactions to authentic leadership can redefine your team's performance and elevate your dealership’s reputation.
🔑 Key takeaways include:
* How vulnerability can be your greatest strength in dealership management.
* Proven strategies to integrate authenticity into your dealership’s culture.
* Real-world examples of successful leadership transformations.
If you're a dealership owner, general manager, or automotive leader looking to foster meaningful connections, enhance customer experience, and drive sustainable growth, this episode is a must-watch!
🎧 Stay connected:
Subscribe for more episodes of Dealer Tech Tuesdays and join the conversation!
\#AutomotiveLeadership #DealershipCulture #Authenticity #CustomerExperience #LeadershipDevelopment #DealerTechTuesdays
Vulnerability can be viewed as a weakness, whereas I view it as a strength. We desire connection so much. We desire it because technology has taken some of it away from us.
Speaker 3:I love that fear and alignment conversation. If you're leading from a place of abundance, like from alignment, this it's going to compound on the right decisions that I made yesterday and then you create a flywheel of momentum that you create incredible organizations that you and I know. Dealer Tech Tuesdays is brought to you by VTech Dealer IT, guaranteeing your dealership premier reliability, stability and customer support. Transform your Tuesdays into a powerhouse of growth. Contact us at wwwvtechdealeritcom. Good morning.
Speaker 1:Good morning.
Speaker 3:How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm very good, this is a great day.
Speaker 3:It's a great day. Yeah, I know it's been pretty busy lately and you just got back from a SotoCon. How was that?
Speaker 1:Spectacular. It is a place of very good energy, conversations that challenge the way things have been done, the way things are being thought about, and so that's kind of my favorite space to be, john.
Speaker 3:And I know you've been in the industry for some time now and how would you compare not to compare them, but the focus and the human side of the differences between the more traditional conferences and a SOTU?
Speaker 1:That's a great question and the reason I like it is because there's such a huge fundamental difference. Okay.
Speaker 1:And I do believe that one appeals to me more than another, and so a soda con for me is a very good experience, because it's really focused on that human to human business and so topically, as well as how they try to give some space in between learning sessions so that there's that conversation that can naturally occur, so you feel less rushed, whereas in some of those others it's very like an NADA. I've been going to that for so many years. I'm always running from one end to another and then meetings in between, and it could feel very task oriented, and so I think you lose some of that really important work that needs to be done when you are choosing partners to help your auto group or your dealership to work well, that fundamental people work. Where you need to learn is the energy matched with the energy of your particular business, because it's not necessary, but it does work really well when it's there. I think you're a fan of Stephen Covey too the speed of trust. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so that's the kind of space that I think they built into the conference to allow people to get to know other people.
Speaker 3:So more focusing on creating random encounters of connection to be able to build trust on than to just be transactional.
Speaker 1:Now I don't know if it was designed to do that, but I do know that those who attend are personalities, dealer groups and also vendor partners who want to focus on doing that as well. So it kind of is the culture that is created by both those who structure the conference, but also a huge part of it is those who attend. That's where perhaps, if I were to say, a difference is, it's the attendees are participating in setting the cadence, the tone, the personality and the value.
Speaker 3:They're not attendees, they're participants they're collaborators more than collaborators.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I, I noticed that you know there's a there's. There's, I think, a global shift. I don't know if it's it's global, but because that might be too big of a word but there seems like there's an industry shift towards authenticity. Right, the videos that you see on social media and the outreach that you see isn't as much as polished and or the you know wacky, inflatable guy type commercials that are happening in dealerships. It's now more authentic. It's like how the dealer is connected with the community.
Speaker 3:And how did a person you know, that employee, showcase that? How, you know, maybe, this mother of four got into the industry from now as a BDC manager and has been able to, you know, create an incredible career and do that. It's like it's really shifting towards authenticity and that's such a cool, a cool shift industry wide. Are you, are you seeing more of that from your perspective? Because I know you were at the group and now you're, you're, you're leading a marketing organization and I'm that's, I'm really happy for you. But are you seeing that more people are asking for authenticity or is how? How does that? How is that shifting? Are you seeing?
Speaker 1:that more people are asking for authenticity, or how is that shifting? I would say it's required on their teams, and that team satisfaction are the ones that are very successful then in creating the experiences that the market is demanding in 2025, for sure, but actually in the last several years. And then, of course, we have that occurrence where we were all isolated for a bit and we were all so heavy dependent on technology, and so now we're really craving that human to human interaction. I think those businesses that really, if they know how to take human to human interaction and to actually insert it into strategy, it isn't the only strategy, but it has to be aligned with strategy.
Speaker 1:It has to be part of it. It has to be inserted, it has to be holistically put into strategy For growth, it has to be inserted to it for a customer experience, so that what you're doing on our different technology platforms is aligned with the actual in-person experience, and so that's a must. And so that's a must, I believe, in order for us to then gain the trust of those who come after they've been told what the experience is going to be like. So you want them to come and say it was thoughtful, it was professional, it was easy. It was fun you can't just say it.
Speaker 1:You have to insert, then, that human to human part of it into the experience. Then they become your storytellers, becoming your storytellers and your fans. That is one way to really optimize how we are able to extend our brand, extend our services into the acquisition and retention as well, because every experience now, john, every visit, every experience matters, not just your first. So we want to see one that is good the first time, but now we want to see consistency. Consistency creates trust. So in order to do that, we have to have consistency within our own organizations. So it's human to human in the organization, it's human to human with our prospective markets, and then our markets use their human to human reviews to help us to extend our ability to acquire more valued guests.
Speaker 3:And you know speaking of that, that opportunity to create relationships and lasting relationships and create trust. Where do you see the industry's biggest challenges, biggest opportunities and biggest strengths?
Speaker 1:Well, let's start with biggest challenges. So challenges are the opportunity. So I would definitely say that our biggest opportunities is leaning into the voice of the customer. I'm very big on voice of the customer and I always say the voice of our valued guests needs to be the loudest voice in all of our meetings, and that's not just your marketing brand meetings, it's not just your, it's your operational meetings. So there should be that seat at the table for your valued guest's voice to be in that meeting. And so what that requires is that requires an interesting role within the dealership.
Speaker 1:An interesting role within the dealership, one that isn't typical of those who create, you know, an SOP strategy, do the training. You almost have to have someone who is able to separate themselves enough to be in the shoes of those who walk in to our spaces and interact with our people. It's almost like a distance. How do you pull yourself out of the day-to-day, out of the 30-day cycle, and how do you keep yourself clear about what it's like to walk into, say, a service drive and have your car serviced right before a big vacation and be on the other side of that advisor desk? And you have all this planning that you're doing and you're trying to coordinate this with the schools and you're trying to get it all ready right, and now you have to come and you have to do this last thing For us to not think that that's a high stress situation, and then to be greeted in such a way that now our stress is brought down. Those are some really awesome soft skills that are necessary to add to the hard skills the knowledge you know of how operationally it works.
Speaker 1:How operationally it works and when you can add the soft skills to those hard skills, I think that's where the magic happens.
Speaker 1:And so I think the opportunity is to really start to focus on bringing in some roles where they're empowered, they speak for the voice of the customer.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what they would be called. We have the concept of customer experience management and that is a necessary part of it, but that's not the whole part of it. So to try to imagine what this new role and to empower them also to be a seat at the table representing and making sure that the voice of the customer is in the meeting, is in the decision-making, is in the tech stack, and how we choose to put that together is in the implementations like to push it through into every part of a dealership, and then not just the dealership but to take it and do a repeat and repeat as you want to. Then, you know, push it through an auto group which could be very geographically distanced. So that's some heavy lifting. So whoever has to do that, that is where an opportunity exists. But whoever has to do that has to have some ninja skills, soft skills, and then also, I think that person has to encourage everyone that they can be learned and they should be practiced.
Speaker 1:And so that's kind of exciting news for all of us, because in that sense it means that so many people can lead, and so I think that another neat opportunity is really opening up what it means to lead in a dealership or an auto group, and it may not be just your typical hierarchical old school leading that is done by an operations officer or a general manager or a platform level person. Those women and men want to use their soft skills to teach their hard knowledge to more people so that they are able to duplicate all their efforts through others and then push it into the whole organization, because we're seeing, with the buy cells, just a massive growth in auto groups, and so how do you control that process? How do you make sure that you know that the customer isn't lost? How do you make sure that the team culture remains strong? It's a wild time. Isn't it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the thing that I love the most is wild times usually abound with opportunities for growth and change. It's like the old patterns are fracturing and almost opening up for what the new paradigm is going to look like.
Speaker 1:Agreed.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, would you say, it's important for us to recognize that, to talk about that and to get real comfortable being uncomfortable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. I think that uncomfortable is the new normal and being adaptable and changing. And with technology, what I've seen, we do technology right. So with technology, what I've seen is that it's creating more real estate for the person to become authentic, be a broken version of that person. Does that make sense? What I'm saying?
Speaker 3:That when you take away all the stuff that was like taking up all their time, what you're left with is you know this person that needs a lot of work right and to say, as a leader, to say, oh, now that we're removing all this stuff, I have to give you the best tools to become the best version of yourself as well. So you become, you transform from like the top down leader to this leader coach or a performance manager or performance coach that you know. Some of the leaders that you and I know that are the ones that we, we admire the most, approach leadership from that, from that perspective, that they're this transformative or transformational coach, that they're this transformative or transformational coach that they're like. Thank God, I met that person in that time of my life that transformed who I am and we have this massive opportunity for that. Are you seeing something similar?
Speaker 1:I am. I have a very interesting take on that, so if I can share from my personal experience, I think that would be best. One of the things that made me very effective and open to recognizing I had additional growth to do was when I brought motherhood into my career, because families can be messy.
Speaker 3:They usually are.
Speaker 1:Families are a team and we're all kind of messy and the world has a lock. There's a lot of distractions out there, right, and then you have these human beings and you want the best for them. Yeah. And you know you, you want them to do well, and sometimes that means you want to jump in so much and you can't because you disadvantage them. And then sometimes when you pull back, you know they're upset. This is hard now. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, and you're like, yes, and inside you're going yes, this is hard and this is what you need, and just keep going and just keep doing it. And so I think that that is one thing that has allowed me to look at team building in a different way, that experience of motherhood, because I see that that's a that's, that's a caring, that's a devotion. You want the best for them, you want them to celebrate their wins. You don't want to rescue them and steal their wins from them. And so we have to do that self-work. And how do you create that quiet space? How do you create that move away from adrenaline and some of those chaotic days so that that kind of work can be done, so that then you show up the next day or the next week or the next month, incrementally, better time and again and again Right, yeah, we don't have a choice with our own kids, because you can't fire them.
Speaker 3:Exactly exactly. Yeah. You can put them in timeout for a while not firing yeah.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you can put yourself in timeout right. Yeah yeah, that's what. I would do too. Yeah, so I would say that when we start to look at our lives as a whole, when we start to look at our lives as a whole, when we stop separating ourselves out, from how we are at home and how we arrive at work, that work to continual work, and are doing it to master, leading themselves first.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh man, that needs to be highlighted To master leading themselves first. That is humongous.
Speaker 1:I said this to you the other day you and I have some great conversations and they bring out a lot of strong concepts, and I said to you the other day that the one thing that I'm really working on right now is the thought that if you are going to take responsibility for the path to success for other people, you're taking on that role, and that responsibility to lead others in that way requires you to do that deep, deep work of self-responsibility.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's like any lesson, if anybody listens to anything. Listen to this part. Right Is to say, the more you work on yourself, the better leader you'll become, at every single level. Because and I think you can't you, you touched on this lightly is that you don't even have the space to see between, to read, between the lines, that you're so tied up with your own you know baloney, right, um? That you're tied up with your own baloney, that you can't even see the nuances and the intricacies and the fabric and the texture of the human dynamics that are in front of you and that that's emergent in some way.
Speaker 3:That like, much like parenting is like. You know, my son's off, there's something going on, like what's going on. And then you start asking those open ended questions and you start prying a little bit and you say I know something's going on. You might not be ready to talk about it, but when you're ready to talk about it, let's, let's talk about it. When you're ready, let's talk about it. And then you create space for the, for the thing to come up, because much like, um, you know, much like, uh, something like a dream, when you try to like, try to control a dream is the moment you try to control a dream and it disappears. I think management is the same, is the same way.
Speaker 1:So when you and I talk about authenticity, we can't not talk about vulnerability.
Speaker 3:Yeah that, that, that is a huge part.
Speaker 1:And that's very hard to do in the retail automotive space.
Speaker 3:To be vulnerable.
Speaker 1:To be vulnerable, Because vulnerability can be viewed as as a weakness, whereas I view it as a strength. Yeah, Because there's so much going on and the cadence is so fast and the cycle is 30 days, and then you even start over after a victory, right? Yeah. That to be vulnerable. If someone hears that word they might think it's like too much feelings, too much of a feelings word. You know, we got stuff to get done. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this is moving fast, you know yeah. And there's no time for feelings in business and yet I think Go ahead.
Speaker 3:That may come from like a scarcity mentality. It may be fear rather than alignment based, and I that's why I love that fear and alignment conversation. You know, if you feel that if you, if you're leading from fear, you're leading from a place that if I don't do this, then this, but if you're leading from a place of abundance and all of your or like from alignment, all of your thoughts are getting to a place of if I do this, it's going to compound on the right decisions that I made yesterday, and then you create a flywheel of momentum that you create incredible organizations that you and I know.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:It does make sense. Does that make sense? It does make sense. And that's where I would challenge, very comfortably, anyone who wants to take feelings out of the business. Was like if they could remember back to the very first time that they went in to purchase a car, because it is such an emotional experience. How are we going to take the feelings out of this retail automotive space?
Speaker 3:that's so funny okay, that's so funny people's lives were like yeah, I was without my car for four days.
Speaker 1:the first first two days it was like eh, but the third day I was like oh my gosh. Yeah. That car is the vehicle for moving my life forward in the direction I want it to be. Where I'm trying to go, what I'm trying to accomplish, creating the moments with whom I want to be, with, like, everything that's important to me really is designed around me walking out to my driveway, you know, hitting the button, being able to get in and going and doing that thing that I want to do.
Speaker 3:That's so funny that you bring up that point because you know, because we're on Clubhouse every morning, right, we're always talking about this stuff and some of the leaders that we know talk about it's an illogical purchase. It's a purchase that's completely based on feeling right, like how is this going to make you feel, what can you do with this ability? Right?
Speaker 3:Yes, it's all feelings-based and then, when it comes to management, it's no, feelings are allowed. Right, this is a double bind, right? You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you bring feelings into it, then it's like, oh, you're leading through feelings. It's like, well, what if it's about leading through the appropriate feelings?
Speaker 1:That's right, and so when you mentioned challenges and opportunities, I think that one of the opportunities is for us to recognize that if we are able to talk about feelings the right way, if we are able to bring them into our processes, if we are able to integrate and stop denying this ridiculously human part of retail automotive, we are going to knock it out of the park.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you're.
Speaker 1:We desire connection. We desire connection so much. We desire it because technology has taken some of it away from us the last five years. We've experienced things in history that have taken connection away from us. We desire connection so much and connection can't occur without that level of vulnerability and without authenticity.
Speaker 3:You know when someone's not being authentic to you yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, or they're distracted, or they're not connected or they're not resonating with what you're saying, and that that happens and most people are like I think the more wounded you are, the more vulnerable you are to getting hijacked by different things. Does that make? Does that make sense? So it's like, if you are, and when the feelings conversation comes up, I get I'm like, you know, i'm'm like feelings, feelings, feelings, like let's lead with feelings, but immediately my reptilian brain or ego or whatever is being like no, no, no. Feelings doesn't have any place in this, because I have a fear that if you talk about feelings, people's definition of feelings will be the wounded parts of themselves.
Speaker 1:I love this and we're going in a really good direction because maybe and I'm one of those words matter people right, I give a lot of, I give a when I am listening and communicating, I give a lot of heaviness to the word choices so let's think about that word feelings.
Speaker 1:right? Maybe that word feelings means different things to different people. So here's where I'll clarify what I think of it as, and then I want to hear your version, because you'll even see, in our two they're different. And so if we're communicating whether it's you and I, um, as uh, you know, as industry professionals whether we're communicating with our partners within our organization, with teammates, or with our valued guests, we have to recognize we are not bringing the same meaning to the same words.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:So how about feelings? Let me talk about feelings from my perspective. I go deep with that word. When I think of feelings, I often think of the emotional language that I was raised in by no choice of my own, that I bring to the world and that then I will either expand through my own learning or I will stay in that emotional language that was given to me as a young child. Okay, is that too, too deep?
Speaker 3:No, I think that that's. That's a. I think that's an appropriate definition of what that that means to you, right?
Speaker 1:So when I have a customer arrive and that customer's emotional language was in a house where, you know, they had so many brothers and sisters and it was so busy and mom was really trying to work and dad was really trying to work, they were kind of on their own and they had to figure things out Right and they didn't necessarily have like a strong foundation of of okay, of of a rhythm structure. Yeah, they might be always looking for safety, so they're going to bring a feelings into every conversation where they're they're. One thing they want is to identify that this is a safe conversation and that this is going to be a place where they could make decisions and trust the person they're dealing with. That's going to be like the language they're bringing. Their biggest feelings is are you going to rip me off?
Speaker 3:And do I feel safe?
Speaker 1:And do I feel safe?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Whereas a whole different person could have had a whole different emotional language when they were being raised. And they walk in and they're confident and it's fun and it's just really just a totally different experience. And now, what are they focused on? They're focused on, like is this going to be fun? Am I going to enjoy the person that answered the phone? Is this the salesperson I want to work with? Like, is this going to be enjoyable? This is my exciting event. I'm going to buy my car. You know theirs isn't safety-based and trust-based. My car you know theirs isn't safety-based and trust-based. Theirs is, like are you going to make this a fantastic moment for? Me Because.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty excited to be driving, you know, off the lot and go show my friends what I just got, you know. And can we make it quick? You know. You have to figure out what emotional language the person is bringing to that interaction in order to be successful.
Speaker 3:Can I offer a third scenario?
Speaker 1:Yes, please, I'd love it.
Speaker 3:The third scenario is I already have my mind made up. You guys are all crooks and I'm just looking for confirmation.
Speaker 1:Where does that come from?
Speaker 3:I think from just the industry being the industry's reputation is that had it for a while. But there's some people that come preloaded with their cassette tape, right, they're like I'm dealing with a car dealership, so I'm loading my, my, my playbook already uh, emotional playbook my feelings playbook already.
Speaker 3:And I think this kind of speaks to the scenarios that we're talking to, and the only thing that the salesperson has to do is just make the customer write about one of those things and it validates their whole playbook. And so I think the beauty of it is that if you have salespeople that are authentic, connected, been trained on asking open-ended questions, finding out what type of buyer they are, right we talk about people like doing disc assessments or you know this person's a green or a blue or a red or a yellow or a polka dot or a you know sparkles or whatever. Whatever thing, they are right.
Speaker 3:And then you say I have enough emotional flexibility because technology has provided me with the space to do that. I have enough emotional flexibility because technology has provided me with the space to do that. I have enough emotional adaptability, resilience, adaptability, nuance that I can. If you're coming to me as somebody that's looking for safety, I can adjust to safety. If you're coming to somebody that's looking to complete that, I'm going to create the most incredible customer service experience that I can be the pattern breaker for you. Maybe you're coming into a person that says I'm going to make this fun. I'm going to make this the funnest thing that you've ever been through. So I know I have a Rolodex of playbooks, as a person that's creating incredible customer engagement experiences to say which Rolodex, which playbook am I going to use in my Rolodex to create that deep, deep, meaningful connection with the customer?
Speaker 1:I love that and you know that is also going to allow us then to move them through from creating that experience when they purchase into then trusting us to take care of them with their car. So I love fixed operations because I just think it's the most extraordinary place to create raving fans. It's service center, it's in the name Service right Service. Going to my service center. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, again, what does that look like so interesting? What does that look like so interesting? The third scenario that you brought to me about addressing the reputation of the industry, that third scenario, the feelings that immediately I would put on, that will be someone who is more rigid to move away from rigidity.
Speaker 3:Rigidity yeah.
Speaker 1:So then now you have to have the soft skills to say how do I take rigidity and how do I soften it. Yeah so.
Speaker 1:I think if we recognize from the very beginning what a big deal this is, again, cars make people's lives work. It helps me to take care of my mother if she has to go get some right. It helps me to get my kids where they need to go to do sports. It helps me to spend time with someone who could be my partner, you know. It helps me to my income earning place so I could pay my bills. Fundamentally, survival, I mean the car is everything in my opinion and so, beings that I understand that so well, even when I show up and I know that I'm going to entrust somebody to make sure that, as I'm going down the road at 80 miles an hour, that everything that's been done to it is going to make sure that I not only get to where I need to go, but absolutely in one piece and intact and I get to see the next day.
Speaker 1:I mean seriously the technology in cars, the speed on our highways, whoever is working on my vehicle is probably as important to me as the person I'm gonna pick to do heart surgery yeah yeah and that's why I always say there's also an extraordinary opportunity here for you know us to really recognize that there is a strong reason to take your Honda to a Honda store, to take your BMW to those who work on BMWs all the time, you know, because I don't think I would let my general practitioner do heart surgery on me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, makes sense, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's just too complicated. And our vehicles, again, are very complicated. Think of all the tech that's now in the vehicles. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I think that if we start to really move towards hospitality, Start to really move towards hospitality, move towards teaching soft skills on top of that hard skills, knowledge. That that's how you create authority. And when you create authority, if I'm going to be working with an advisor, I'm going to be working with someone who's going to help me pick my next vehicle. I'm going to want them to be an authority. And I think authority is both that mix of those really hard skills, that knowledge, and then also the way to deliver that to me as the individual, each person who comes in and as the individual rather than a scripted experience right, because the individual, then that's where we're getting.
Speaker 1:We'll bring it full circle. We're getting to that authentic work, we're getting to that connection work. And now I'll tell you, with everything else going on in my life, when I'm going to have to do this again, I'm going to just go back to it because I trust it, particularly in fixed operations, particularly when I'm taking my car to be serviced. If I walk away from there educated about everything that was done, why it was done, if they were alongside me as I made the decision, I'm going to feel totally different and I'm going to go back to them.
Speaker 1:When someone tells me something passes and something fails, and they're clear as day. It's not recommended, but it either passes or it fails. And they tell me why and I have that very clear understanding. And then they say, Jeannie, would you like me to explain that again? Are there any parts of what I just shared with you where you have questions before you could really make a comfortable decision? I'm in control.
Speaker 3:Now I'm going to say I don't want to go to anyone else, that's where I'm going to get my car taken care of yeah, yeah, that um vanessa van edwards is like this body language expert or connection expert and she talks about um, you know this, this higher, not hierarchy, but this intersection of competence and warmth. It's like when those two things meet, because if you're too high competence, right, you come off as standoffish, you know you come off as standoffish, but if you are too high in warmth, you come off as people don't take you seriously, right? So I think that in our industry it's that combination of those two things when you have somebody in as a service advisor, let's talk just like a service advisor or a service manager that's extraordinarily competent but also has high warmth. That's what we're looking at authenticity, connection, availability, patience, whatever you want to call those soft skills, right, you have a killer combination and some of the best leaders that we know have great combinations of competence plus warmth and that's just. That's like the perfect formula for creating authentic connections between people.
Speaker 1:And don't you think you feel them before they even enter the room? Like there's something there. So one of the coolest things that I just heard recently as I do some of my reading, is it was a new way for me to think of leadership. Yeah. And so when I hear the word leadership, is that person more followable than another? Yeah, so leadership is about who wants to follow you. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Are you more followable than someone else? So, to your point, we do like authority, we like that somebody is very clear in what they know, but someone also has that strong skill ability to explain it to me in a way where, where I'm receiving it and I feel part of what's going on, and then I get to be the one who makes the decisions. Now, if I'm making the decisions because of what I've been told and something goes wrong, it's on me, right? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that, um, I think we're getting to such a such a cool place of what kind of the next evolution of leadership will look like that. Um, we have these massive opportunities to be able to do that, and I don't think it. You know the the industry the automotive industry is a little behind when it comes to like leadership and shifting, and but we have this massive opportunity because there's people out there doing it and being extraordinarily successful at it as well, and you know to really understand and the point that you said earlier is like, on a leadership level, you know that same. I just I just listen to the podcast, so that's why I'm I'm all on it, right? So she said that if you surround yourself by high achievers, you'll become 15% more effective, but if you surround yourself with low performing you know people you'll be 35% less effective.
Speaker 3:But, I think leadership has the same effect is that that the lack of a better term the essence, the magic, the, the, you know, resonance, the, whatever you want to call it the vibe of the leader permeates throughout the organization and it does have like an echoing effect throughout your team. And so the more the leader is connected, the more people that are connected they'll attract, like, like birds of a feather flock together. When you talk about this and Tony Robbins and all this stuff, this law of attraction, all this stuff, right? So he said that birds of a feather flock together. So if you have a toxic leadership mentality, you're going to attract toxic people. If you have an authentic, connected, effective leadership mentality, you're going to attract people that are of that same ilk. And I think that there's such a humongous opportunity and that's why I do like the, so do love people more than cars. Because if you're leading with love, if you're leading from the heart, if you're leading from a place of connection, authenticity, then anything's possible, right? It's like.
Speaker 3:I saw Patrick Abad and I always named Patrick in this process, but it's like 35 families moved from Tampa, florida, to the middle of nowhere Georgia because of his leadership style.
Speaker 1:I think that's just like such a vision of success.
Speaker 3:You know, when you go to the place and you're like this is incredible. It's very profound to see that this actually works.
Speaker 1:And that's why I think that it's real important also to start doing that vision, mission and values, work in dealerships, in auto groups, and then figuring out who is this new role that can then duplicate and duplicate and duplicate and push it into every corner of the spaces where we spend our time, because, particularly when you're even starting with the interview process, you could learn right away If you're clear about that. Um, cma Liza, moving lives forward.
Speaker 3:That's powerful.
Speaker 1:Three words. It's essentially the same thing I say all the time when I'm talking about cars make people's lives work, moving lives forward, you know yeah, yeah and so it is more than cars. The cars are the vehicle for the people yeah and so we're in the people business more than cars.
Speaker 3:Yep, yeah, I think that, uh, I think that there's there's something to be said there about about leading, and that's leading through feelings, right, but those feelings have to be available. You have to be emotionally available. You can't be emotionally cut off or you can't be emotionally stunted. So you know, shifting the conversation a bit, what? What have you seen, now that that I know you were extraordinarily effective at a dealer group and were there for a long time? But what have you seen, now that your vision has opened a little bit and you've seen probably a lot of different operations? What are some of the things that have popped out for you that make you really excited?
Speaker 1:that make you really excited. I see the opportunity for us to fundamentally change the reputation of the industry. I see the opportunity for it to become a really enjoyable, memorable experience. I think that you can create memories. I've seen memories created inside of dealerships. I mean, it really matters. It's meaningful work for everyone there, and who doesn't want to go to work and do meaningful work? And so when we think of moments, in the tiny little moments that we can create for other human beings inside our dealerships, I think that you can attract a different kind of person, a purpose based person who's going to really see it as a career and an opportunity to stay there longer. And I also think that we're going to really shift the direction and the experience that is had there. You're going to start to see it. Well, I mean, I think we already see it there's. You know, john, there's been a review culture for 10 years now.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, we can't.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's a consumer review culture. We don't have to have focus groups anymore. No. We don't have to pay for surveys anymore. You know what I mean, yeah, and so in those businesses where there is meaning and there is purpose and you get to come home and you say, wow, you know, those were fun to participate in another person's moments, big moments, a first car, you know? Um, uh, the car that you go into because everyone's launched, I mean every age and stage.
Speaker 3:Having a baby.
Speaker 1:Having a baby. Yeah, I mean, there are studies and it says when are vehicles purchased? And you'll see that they're always aligned with life events. Yeah, so again, when we start to think about how we work in this space, it's much more exciting. It's going to attract different personalities. It's going to attract a different. You know the soft skills, hard skills. It's just it's really going to. It kind of opens it up to a new. I would say, like you know, intergenerational opportunities. Okay.
Speaker 1:Right. So the young people working with those who are in their 60s coming together, talking about approaches to these different things. So you have ages and stages and all kinds of people and the different ways they live, and I just think it's. I mean, I love this space. It's a great space. I started in a very structured role in it, in digital marketing, and then I moved into, I would say, marketing, brand, and then I recognized that I couldn't even be effective without understanding operational language. And then I recognized that, ooh, and now we have to take operational language and the brand and we have to bring them together. And now we also have to look at how everything that we say in say, some campaigns which are advertising, how is that reflected then on the inside? So, again, your online and your in-person experience come together and merge. And in all of these things, there's new technology, there's new vendors. Car dealerships are technology companies.
Speaker 1:That is true, and we're service companies and we're hospitality, even if that hospitality means I want it to be done fast, or I don't even want to come to your place. I want you to come to my driveway and do it. There's so many different ways to make this thing unique and exciting. I think more than ever before. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know that was long-winded, but I get so very excited about this because it means it will attract different talent, different minds, and whenever you have movement like this in a particular industry, I think the possibilities are just extraordinary are just extraordinary.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I completely agree with you on the fact that it's kind of boundless of what the opportunities look like and it's ours to mess up or make incredible. And I'm really encouraged by the conversations that we have on a regular basis about making the customer experience better, right, and then leading through our authentic selves and becoming the best versions of who we are. And we know dealers that are doing that and that are showing it on the balance sheets, right, they're showing it on the financial statements. They're showing what effective leadership looks like.
Speaker 3:And I always go back to those barnacles on the ship that having these loops and these patterns that are going to create they're going to create sludge in your organization. Like, how do you take that stuff out and how do you keep removing those things to get into an alignment and getting to momentum, get into a, a flywheel effect organizationally that you keep attracting the same people that you're, that are in alignment with you. And I know that that you have that vision and it's really exciting to talk to somebody that also has that type of view into into things and and what the future of the industry is going to look like and how, and that you have a group of peers as well that think that way. Tell me a little bit about the you know, the peer groups that you're involved with and how that's transformed the way that you look at things.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that's why I brought up Liza and um and moving lives forward is because I'm in. I'm in involved in her women's development training group called engage women auto. Okay. And so we work with Danelle Delgado and we go through a 52 week training, and it is specifically about leadership. It's about discipline, it's about self-responsibility, it's about becoming an asset to others. It is about finding joy. We don't think of joy as a necessary part of leadership, and yet who wants to follow someone who's not joyful?
Speaker 3:right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like a wet towel everywhere they go.
Speaker 1:Right and also just bringing a grateful heart to work. Yeah. You know. So there's so much work that we're doing in this group together, and it's a little over 50 of us. We're all professionals that are within the dealership itself, and we also think tank a lot of things. We have accountability partners. That's a necessity necessity, yeah, so having an accountability partner is really important that's huge that's huge yeah, that's huge to challenge us
Speaker 1:yeah that's huge. Also learn to be a good accountability partner for them and to not be shy and to care about them enough to say what needs to be said, but to do it in a way that disengages any hurt or you want to deescalate so someone can hear if you care about them. So we're all learning these skills, as well as trading our hard skills, our knowledge in different areas, where I can teach about the difference between what is brand versus what is marketing activities versus what is advertising campaigns. They're all fundamentally different, whereas sometimes they get smooshed together. And then there's this whole new topic of customer experience management and we can have these conversations with women who are general managers, dealer principals, and what are all of our different focuses? And what do we not see about one another's roles? That through these continual conversations on a weekly basis and then we do a monthly Zoom we're learning about one another and almost cross-training our brains to see, oh, in their role.
Speaker 1:this is more challenging, and so I have to be mindful of that when I'm approaching them. And that's kind of beautiful to have that um to rely on and I would say I'm gonna bring this full circle ready. It's kind of beautiful because that's expanding my emotional language when I'm meeting with them. Now and others.
Speaker 1:So, just like any language you know, the more you read, the more you learn. It can get bigger and bigger and bigger, right. So the more folks you interact with, the more groups that you join, the more time you spend doing this intentional work. You can then widen your emotional language and then, when you come to conversations with someone who's in a really fundamentally different role than mine or this other person that I'm interacting with, we'll be conscientious of it and we could get to real communication quicker. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 1:And so it's kind of like, uh, uh, it's similar to 20 groups yes yeah when they're topically focused and we'll have topics and they'll go through and it's a 52 week program. It's intense too. I mean, it talks about health, it talks about exercise, food, it goes to the whole human being and so, again, the fact that this exists, the fact that I'm able to join a group like that, the fact that I'm doing it right now and doing it, that's kind of exciting. I don't know that I would have had that several years ago.
Speaker 3:That's powerful.
Speaker 1:It's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, to surround yourself with the people that you want to become.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And to know that there are several of them that are trailblazers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's powerful.
Speaker 1:And so I know that and you shared this with me that it's real nice, if you're trying to be successful, to surround yourself with those who know the path. You give me the example of the Sherpa. You wouldn't tell me about that. With technology and with cybersecurity, can you talk to that? I like the way you explain it. So just take my example and explain it for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, just the the nobody looks at the Sherpa. When they go up Everest or they take pictures with the Sherpa, they were always like I went up Everest and the Sherpa had been up there 20, 20 times or 50 times or a hundred times. You know like nobody's. You know, doing documentaries about the Sherpa, they're all like, oh, I went up there after my divorce or my thing or my life changing thing, and they go through this process. So surround yourself with other Sherpas that have gone through this process to that know the way to the top of the mountain. You know.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think that's how you and I ended up meeting each other. I really wanted to fundamentally learn so much more about the foundation of making all business work, the backbone of the network and the technology that makes every hour, every minute, my gosh. You know, go smoother or not so smooth. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so for me it was a new space and place too, where I didn't have the language. I wanted to extend my language, and I knew you were the gentleman that could walk me through, that. You are my Sherpa, and now I'm learning more, and as I learn more, that means that even in my group I can become an asset Now, you see. So we pay it forward.
Speaker 3:That makes sense.
Speaker 1:So these are really important groups to be involved in. I'd say if there's one thing that a lot of professionals need to do, I call them gardens. I know it's a funny thing, but if you have only one or two gardens and there's a drought, like you're in trouble. Oh yeah, professional lives. You know, we have to have those groups, those community events. We have to have our hobbies, like we have to really do that work so that we could bring, as you were saying, you know, the whole person this different kind of best version of ourselves to work, and it's real easy to get stuck in.
Speaker 1:Just I'm an auto and that's all I am and that's all I do, and I'm one dimensional. Well now, what happens if there's a fundamental change or you have to shift for a little bit? Where's your identity? You've lost you.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, and so I think it's real important that one of those gardens is like a networking garden. Okay. You know a group, get involved in groups, hop on Clubhouse, whatever you need to do to get involved with other people whose language is so different from your own. But then you kind of grow yourself in understanding a greater version of how this retail automotive works. It's complex, it's exciting and yet it's simple at the same time. I don't know why that is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, most things are right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like a symphony right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, most things are. Most things are complex, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, most things are, most things are complex, right.
Speaker 3:And that's the, I think. Understanding dilutes complexity and that's, I think, essentially what you're doing is that as you level up as a leader, the more broader your understanding is, the more you can collaborate with other peer members, you can provide sage advice and, you know, make things, make things very collaborative and everybody pulling in the right direction.
Speaker 1:And so, even for myself, now, what's next? Well, I recognize that I have a real strong vision for what I do. I create extraordinary moments, john. Yeah. That's what I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I do that in my home. I'll do that in a workplace. I'll do that with a team, even if I'm there invited in as a consultant. Yeah, I'll do that in my neighborhoods. I'll do that in communities. I'll do that in a 20 group. I'll do that at a conference, like that's my North Star. I create extraordinary moments, right, yeah, and so I know I could bring that to my work. Well, that didn't just happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't land there, you know? Yeah, oh, this is where that took and we'll bring it back to that deep work. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That took that deep work, that I needed to do the self-responsibility work, if I knew that at any point in time I could be leading a project or I could be leading another person. It doesn't have to be a huge team, even if it's a team of two. Or in my home, as I lead my team of four, or as I go from the leader role to now in a role where I'm a contributor and now I'm allowing someone else to lead, now I can learn how to do that as well, too right, because I have my North Star, so I could create an extraordinary role by pulling myself back and allowing them to shine and move a project forward. It's pretty cool. So I think that if we could start to do a different kind of professional development in this space, it would be highly profitable.
Speaker 1:I say thoughtfulness and clarity are so profitable, hospitality is profitable, connection is profitable, authenticity is profitable. So maybe where I would really want to land my plane on this conversation and my plane on this conversation where I really envision such a massive amount of changes if we could start to do a different kind of professional development and that doesn't matter if you're the CEO or if you're the porter yeah, we could all learn to extend our language so that we connect with one another more authentically and we create that trust where magic happens, where businesses thrive, where they grow, where people like to come to work, where they go home with energy and I know it sounds lofty. Well, you have to have big dreams, you have to shoot high, but I do think, to start with that, we take away the stigma of that feelings. The way you and I are talking about them today, don't belong in business. We're human beings.
Speaker 3:It's not the walls, it's not the cars, yeah, yeah, I think that's a great place to land it. I think you're spot on and I'm so excited that I have a small part of this conversation. It's very, very encouraging of the industry, the direction of the industry and what we're able to provide in it, and I appreciate you for leading that charge. That's humongous.
Speaker 1:So if people want to get a hold of you. You're a joy as well. You're a joy to keep me thinking.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you, thank you. And so if people want to get a hold of you, how do they do that?
Speaker 1:LinkedIn. Linkedin LinkedIn Very easy, send me an invite. I'm very good at that, perfect Perfect.
Speaker 1:I enjoy that platform. It's a very good networking platform in our space in order to recruit people that we know are going to bring some of what we talked about into our spaces today. Maybe go outside of what's regular like, take a risk. There's this really neat children's book and I loved it and it said that trying and allowing failure in a space also creates an environment where trying often leads to success. You can't have tries without fails if you're going to have tries that create success.
Speaker 3:Makes sense.
Speaker 1:Both have to exist, so try stuff.
Speaker 3:Makes sense, Jeannie. Thank you so much. This has been outstanding.
Speaker 1:It's been such a pleasure. It always is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, likewise. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:See you soon. See you, bye.