Changes to DealerRefresh

[Alex Snyder]

Member's bios:

https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5LWNvcHk_0f77fd77-f084-4272-9ae7-1ca09e754105

I like this. What could be more powerful is taking all of their thread history and creating a "community engagement" profile. I'll have to look into the feasibility of that.

Grok gave some guidance on giving Craig an "award" and I like that too. There is some fun stuff to play with here.

 

[joe.pistell]

Input: https://forum.dealerrefresh.com/members/dan-sayer.648/#recent-content

@Dan Sayer Summary
Dan Sayer is a long-time Staff member / "Boss" (joined December 2009) from Lincoln, Nebraska. He currently serves as Director of Sales Development/Marketing at Anderson Auto Group (a multi-state dealership group) and previously held the role of VP of Digital / eCommerce. With roughly 560+ posts and a very active presence, Dan is one of the forum’s most respected high-level contributors. He regularly brings real-world, executive-level dealership experience to discussions and has guest-hosted multiple RefreshFriday episodes.


Key strengths and skills that stand out from his activity:

• Third-Party Marketplaces & Classified Sites — Go-to expert on CarGurus, Cars.com, AutoTrader, and similar platforms. He frequently analyzes VDP views, SRP/VDP conversion rates, lead quality, ROI, and cost-per-lead performance. Known for data-driven, no-hype critiques that help dealers separate vendor marketing from actual results.
• CRM Evaluation & Lead Management — Strong, practical insight into CRMs (especially DriveCentric, which he has praised for its simple UX/UI and appeal to salespeople). Discusses lead categorization, attribution challenges, BDC operations, and comparisons with systems like VinSolutions, Tekion, and others. Recent threads highlight how certain CRMs are “running away from the pack.”
• Digital Strategy & Vendor Transparency — Emphasizes honest performance measurement, advertising budget allocation, inventory merchandising, and cutting through vendor hype (including AI/SEO claims). Helps dealers focus on what actually moves the needle at the store level.
• Compliance & Data Security — Shares actionable guidance on FTC Safeguards Rule compliance, call compliance/spam flagging, and customer data protection. Guest-hosted a RefreshFriday session on “Securing Customer Data – BETTER.”
  
  Community Leadership — Starts insightful threads, participates thoughtfully in high-value discussions, and bridges the gap between dealership operators and vendors. His posts are consistently practical and forward-looking.
  
  Grok's not too creative, I asked it for: "review the last two posts and create an artful "Expert Badge" collection. make them graphic labels, informly shaped, drop the icons "
  
  Oh well
  

 

[joe.pistell]

2023 Concept: "Tech needs car ppl more than car ppl needs tech" [link to post]

Uncle Joe's DealerRefresh Top100 Mock

Twenty years of threads. A million posts. Who are the best and brightest — the ones sharing the ideas everyone else came here to read? We classified every post to find out.
​

PRD: DealerRefresh Top100.

 

[joe.pistell]

Idea: For each post, add "# of times this post was viewed"

 

[Alex Snyder]

Built a system that looks for content about vendors and then distills it into a summation heavily based on community sentiment.

This could have been turned into a landing page, but I thought it made sense to keep them native to the forums as threads. Maybe one day we can do something different.

As you can see (and may be annoyed by it) these took over the daily activity feed. This is far from all of them. It started with the vendors who have the most content on the forums.

I’m going to try to stagger these over time so that the activity feed doesn’t get overrun again.

 

[joe.pistell]

Built a system that looks for content about vendors and then distills it into a summation heavily based on community sentiment.

This could have been turned into a landing page, but I thought it made sense to keep them native to the forums as threads. Maybe one day we can do something different.

GENIUS!

Coming soon, I can see dealer decision makers talking to their AI looking for a solution to a biz problem. Architect your landing page design to be AI native and you've created a content-rich powerhouse that is priceless to AI.

If it works, Design in CTAs that get turned on for Paying Vendors (LIKE ME!!!)

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Built a system that looks for content about vendors and then distills it into a summation heavily based on community sentiment.

This could have been turned into a landing page, but I thought it made sense to keep them native to the forums as threads. Maybe one day we can do something different.

As you can see (and may be annoyed by it) these took over the daily activity feed. This is far from all of them. It started with the vendors who have the most content on the forums.

I’m going to try to stagger these over time so that the activity feed doesn’t get overrun again.

Is there a way to EXCLUDE "community review" posts from displaying in the new Daily Activity Feed feature? When this was a xenforo add-on "Modern Statistics", there was the ability to exclude categories and forums from showing up and taking over the users view.

You are currently publishing Community Review posts under Deals & Reviews > Sales Operations. Why not publish them under their own Category > Forum (Community Review) and then omit Community Review forum from showing up in the daily activity feed?

 

[Rick Buffkin]

@Alex Snyder, I have a quick question. The old UI had a setting that I could change the number of post that shows in the forum feed. I can't find it now. Is that feature gone?

 

[Alex Snyder]

@Alex Snyder, I have a quick question. The old UI had a setting that I could change the number of post that shows in the forum feed. I can't find it now. Is that feature gone?

It is for the moment. That old UI threw millions of errors over the time we had it because the maker stopped supporting it. Jeff and I kept it around because it was the way so many of us navigated the site. The new one is built from the ground up. We own it!

I need to make two adjustments to this new one. I'm working through a bunch of things and will get back to it soon.

Is there a way to EXCLUDE "community review" posts from displaying in the new Daily Activity Feed feature? When this was a xenforo add-on "Modern Statistics", there was the ability to exclude categories and forums from showing up and taking over the users view.

You are currently publishing Community Review posts under Deals & Reviews > Sales Operations. Why not publish them under their own Category > Forum (Community Review) and then omit Community Review forum from showing up in the daily activity feed?

Maybe.... probably... I mean, we can just about do anything.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

2023 Concept: "Tech needs car ppl more than car ppl needs tech" [link to post]

Uncle Joe's DealerRefresh Top100 Mock
View attachment 9976

​

Twenty years of threads. A million posts. Who are the best and brightest — the ones sharing the ideas everyone else came here to read? We classified every post to find out.​

​

PRD: DealerRefresh Top100.

Been reading through this Joe. I like it!