This is the CRM that most users can proficiently fly. It is functional, dependable, and predictable. It requires very little user input. It is not sexy. Make no mistake, it is fast and efficient and will get users from Point A to B.

An "Execution Grade" of A+ is easily attainable if the user generally gives a shit. Any untrained person can fly it if they want to. They can go ahead and get everything set just right and it will pretty much fly itself.





This is the CRM that most users have. It too is functional. Theoretically it is dependable and predictable. It is really sexy and even has some empty space for future buttons that will CERTAINLY be added. It is really fast, but not efficient at all. It will positively get users FROM Point A. It will get a few users TO Point B or C, but most users won't really know where it got them to.

An "Execution Grade" of A+ is not possible. A good goal is to grade out at about a C+. An untrained person can't even get this thing off the ground much less control it to the point of a predictable landing. The only way to get this thing in the air is to hire someone to teach people how to use it. People have tried to bring in a trainer for a few days to teach the users, but as soon as the trainer leaves, the users pile it up. So that didn't work.

This CRM can also be set up to fly itself. It is the button there on the right next to the yoke...no, no that isn't the yoke, that's the throttle...the steering wheel looking thing. Yep, but not that one. I said RIGHT, that is left. directly above the red button...so you see it? What do you mean there is no red button, there has to be a red button. Oh wait, you can't see the red button. Ok ok...ok, we got this. Ask Oliver there if he can see the red button. He can!, ok, cool. Switch seats with Oliver real quick. Oliver, please tell me you are not color blind. Ok, turn everything off and restart it.......

This is a kick ass machine but unfortunately the only people that can truly fly it are usually not the people that are spending most of their time trying to fly.



Is there room for another CRM? I think there is. Is it going to be easy to sell it to people EVEN IF IT IS A BETTER PRODUCT? Nope. This is why.




So, my advice is...build out an MVP version of what you envision. Then take THAT to market and see if you can sell it. If you can sell it then get after it! It is a whole lot harder than most people realize.

every word of this is perfect

Last feature video until closer to the end of the year. We have one more major feature to announce. I am really excited about this one, it's quite ambitious.

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Collaboration is key to success in the automotive industry, and we’re excited to announce 20 Groups, a feature designed to bring dealerships together like never before.

How does this work?
Dealerships thrive when they share knowledge, compare strategies, and collaborate. With LVL Ups20 Groups, you can now:

-Create informal groups with other dealerships in your network
-Share vendor insights, product reviews, and best practices
-Pool vendor intelligence to make smarter, more informed decisions

How Dealerships Are Using 20 Groups?

-Collaborating on Vendor Evaluations: Compare notes on vendor demos and share honest feedback to help everyone make better decisions.
-Planning for Conferences: Coordinate with your group to decide which vendors to meet and prepare together for events like NADA.
-Work as a Team: Leverage group data to identify the best partners

Whether it’s official 20 Groups or informal networks, you can easily invite other dealerships to join and share their experiences. Create a group or joining one takes seconds

Congrats @Ryan Everson

'refresh threads are hot, @Ryan Everson has been quiet... I bet ya he's balls deep in prompt/agent discovery

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The best ILM was AVV’s Webcontrol. It was so simple and gave you true oversight on all leads. No CRM has come close to duplicating what this little tool did in the late 1990s. What is now called “the CRM” had a nice little ILM that became iMagicLabs in the early/mid 2000s. That too, was a more elegant solution than what we have today, for leads.

The single person handling all leads doesn’t exist anymore. Those of us who had the Internet Manager role during those days are no longer at those dealerships or moved up in roles. The Achilles heel of those systems was us. If the “expert” was no longer using that tool, that tool died. Thus, we have bland CRM systems stuck in a feature parity chase because the front door on the dealership revolves. The new guy only wants what he had at his old dealership. The vendor has to have the same features and flows to have a chance at retaining the dealership at that point. And it works the same way for a new vendor trying to come in. Dealers are too busy to have an open mind every day.

You are witnessing Tekion crashing against this right now. The shiny new trinket phase has warn off. They have crested the early adoption chasm. The end of the grow grow grow phase is plagued by scale scale scale and the quick get-to-market decisions show their ugly downsides in glitches and bugs. They will overcome it to find their spot in the pecking order soon. This is totally natural.

CDPs are shiny new things right now. AI too. In two more years we will have different opinions about these things as we better understand these techs’ limits. CRMs are 30 years old. They need an evolution or disruption.

joe.pistell said:

@Eric Miltsch how 'bout this cool idea Like you, I'm an auto merchandising guy.

I'm in my Schwab account and I see this:
View attachment 9276

Swing it to a dealer's site:
View attachment 9278

oooo... now that's powerful!
Stick the CTA below the fold (near dealer comments).

Comparison UI is easy to map out.
View attachment 9279

Gradual Engagement Reward: No login = See one store. See more requires PII.

Goal: Save shopper time, help them shop. They will come back (again and again)

DISC?

Click to expand...

Yeah, @joe.pistell - that's a solid idea. Fidelity figured out how to conquest customers by speeding up the ACAT process

Dealers could speed up their own conquest process with your solution by just showing

• Dealer's name & how far away they are
• Image of the car
• Trim (features/options)
• Lease/Finance offers

Dan Sayer said:

No. @Shawn Ryder Not in the traditional model of CRM. DriveCentric flipped the old guard on its head a bit in the way they approach tasks and engagement and UX. They're still limited though by partnerships and integrations with the puzzle pieces they don't posses (DMS, etc). Tekion's goal of a single integrated system seems to be stalling even though they're growing in accounts, growing in features, but seemingly not improving satisfaction, performance, or value of tools. I think the largest area of opportunity for someone with a new CRM wanting to move quickly is in the independent space. Subscription based $199-$399 price point with basic features, mobile, and customer management with even 5% of the market is $3M+ in annual revenue. And with that said, every entrepreneur on here is going to say I'm an idiot LOL. The other issue is going to be the increasing OEM lock down of tools and required partnerships and integrations for franchise dealers. For instance, just to get FordDirect integrations I had to move our four Ford stores to "FordDirect CRM" aka DriveCentric which we were already using. My FD rate on DriveCentric is going to add a considerable expense to our Variable Department expense BUT gotta play if we want those private offer and inventory integrations...

Click to expand...

And I rest my case...

Shawn Ryder said:

but with more folks submitting leads online

Click to expand...

@Shawn Ryder, noticing this ^^^ point (highlighted by @joe.pistell from his RANT), I do not equate Internet Leads to CRM. Internet leads up or down have no weight on whether a CRM or the function of a CRM is either more or less important. Internet leads are Phone Ups we haven't talked to yet, Phone Ups are Walk-ins we haven't met yet, and Walk-Ins are Internet Leads that didn't push the button. Don't base the entire focus of a CRM on how the customer raises their hand but rather how a dealer needs to organize every prospect and customer in their lifecycle and automate as much as you can because lord knows even the best salespeople and managers can barely manage their own lives let-alone their work day.

Shawn Ryder said:

with more folks submitting leads online

Click to expand...

RANT.
The Dealer/CRM relationship is AFU. Our world is slowly shifting...

Last month,
• 19 Million Car Shoppers went to Carvana.com**.
• 1 Million Used Cars were sold by Franchised Dealers*.

How many Carvana Shoppers were on YOUR SITE this month?
--> 97-99% OF YOUR WEB SITE VISITORS DON'T BUY FROM YOU <---
-->90% of 1st time visitors to your VDP never return <--

Dealers: "7% of buyers purchased a vehicle entirely online in 2023" (NADA '23)
Carvana: 100% of buyers purchased a vehicle entirely online.

Carvana CRM = Collaborative Retail Management

(p.s. your going to need FrikenTech's platform to execute teh penny perfect loan/lease quotes)
**Carvana 2024 retail unit sales up 34% YoY.



/RANT

For independents you are competing against free. Many companies have died at the hill of CRM/web to independents. The price point you mentioned is totally realistic if the value is there and the non-automotive freemium CRMs with super low entry points have taken up this space but they aren't making any money. It's definitely a tough nut to crack. I have also seen a dealership in a box type of offering with website, crm, messaging, taking payments, inventory management in one service be the trend at 250-500.

No. @Shawn Ryder Not in the traditional model of CRM. DriveCentric flipped the old guard on its head a bit in the way they approach tasks and engagement and UX. They're still limited though by partnerships and integrations with the puzzle pieces they don't posses (DMS, etc). Tekion's goal of a single integrated system seems to be stalling even though they're growing in accounts, growing in features, but seemingly not improving satisfaction, performance, or value of tools. I think the largest area of opportunity for someone with a new CRM wanting to move quickly is in the independent space. Subscription based $199-$399 price point with basic features, mobile, and customer management with even 5% of the market is $3M+ in annual revenue. And with that said, every entrepreneur on here is going to say I'm an idiot LOL. The other issue is going to be the increasing OEM lock down of tools and required partnerships and integrations for franchise dealers. For instance, just to get FordDirect integrations I had to move our four Ford stores to "FordDirect CRM" aka DriveCentric which we were already using. My FD rate on DriveCentric is going to add a considerable expense to our Variable Department expense BUT gotta play if we want those private offer and inventory integrations...

Yes, there’s room for another CRM—especially a unified system that combines CRM, DMS, and CDP functionality. Name it CReMPDaMpS, because we love acronyms. Might need to shorten that up a bit.

Why It’s Needed:​

Current systems are fragmented. A CReMPDaMpS, with one customer household record, could streamline operations, reduce errors, and personalize experiences. By integrating CDP capabilities, it could consolidate data from multiple sources (sales, service, marketing) into a single view, enabling better insights and customer engagement.
ROI Integration: Works seamlessly with advertising platforms to track true ROI.
Nationwide Compliance: Handles registration and title work across all 50 states.
Trade Data Integration: Pulls trade values and generates compelling descriptions automatically.
Inventory & OEM Connectivity: Aggregates inventory and aligns with OEM requirements.
So this would be one system with the features of Vauto, Fullpath, Blink AI, etc.

"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

"A good surgeon never lets his patient see the knife"
...and...
"A good leader never lets his customer see the AI"

I've pivoted my startup to become a LLM centered platform. My product and presentation won't talk about AI, it'll talk about business outcomes (e.g. productivity and yield).

Those employment agreements who reads them...

Anthony welcome to DR, I don't have time to watch the whole video but you kind of lost me when you started talking about how much money you made...seems weird.

Tallcool1 said:

Ya, this is what I see in the Facebook Groups. Most people just regurgitate whatever platform they are using and swear to God it is the best thing ever. In addition, those groups are loaded with Vendors that are really slimy and act as if they are dealers (maybe they once were).

As @BillKVMotorCo said, there is such a difference between dealership types as well. "Independent Dealer" is such a broad statement. That means dealerships that retail 700 units per month and are on the exact same software platforms as Franchise Dealers, all the way down to a guy that works a full time job and has 5 vehicles sitting in front of his shop on his acreage. Now throw in the BHPH and Rebuilder guys and solid advice is really hard to come by.

I turned off Facebook Notifications 6 months ago and I will get on there when I feel like it. My life is better because of it.

Click to expand...

This is the best summary of those groups. The only thing I would is the worse the advice the funnier the persons posts are. I am in it for the humor not the advice.

Alex Snyder said:

Making jokes about things and discussing how things are going with the industry are great topics, but when someone asks something like “what’s your favorite CRM” 100 people chime in with whatever they’re currently using and I know quite a few of them have only ever used that system. They give zero reason why they like it. And nobody challenges them.

Click to expand...

Ya, this is what I see in the Facebook Groups. Most people just regurgitate whatever platform they are using and swear to God it is the best thing ever. In addition, those groups are loaded with Vendors that are really slimy and act as if they are dealers (maybe they once were).

As @BillKVMotorCo said, there is such a difference between dealership types as well. "Independent Dealer" is such a broad statement. That means dealerships that retail 700 units per month and are on the exact same software platforms as Franchise Dealers, all the way down to a guy that works a full time job and has 5 vehicles sitting in front of his shop on his acreage. Now throw in the BHPH and Rebuilder guys and solid advice is really hard to come by.

I turned off Facebook Notifications 6 months ago and I will get on there when I feel like it. My life is better because of it.

This is falling back on to my plate in the group next year and we have drifted in our quality since I last trained our photographers 3 or 4 years ago. While car cleanliness and shot sequence are items that I focus on, my biggest pet peeve is focal length. I see so many of our and other dealers' photographers just flat out standing too close or using a focal length under 35mm or the equivalent of 1.5x zoom on an iPhone. All but one of our stores shoot with an iPhone and outside so I preach to stand back and zoom in. 1.5x zoom or higher and step back to fit the car in frame. Too close or a focal length less than 24mm makes cars look so goofy, cartoon-like, or like looking through a hotel peep-hole. Do this:



Not that:

Get a Canon or Sony Mirrorless dSLR. Then get a 50mm Prime and/or 24-70mm Lens. Then invest in Circular Polarizing Filters for any lens diameters and also get an adjustable Neutral Density Filter.

The ND filter and CP filters will help you shoot outside in bright light.