Ahhh, beautiful start to the day with a direct flight to Viva Las Vegas for Digital Dealer, arriving bright and early on Monday morning. Already looking forward to that couples massage and spa that Julie booked at Caesar’s Palace at 11 am. Hmmm, riding over to the Mirage in our Uber when I see a voicemail.
Is that Elvis on his way to Digital Dealer?
“Mr. Frye, this is the spa at Caesar’s Palace and you have missed your scheduled appointment. That will mean forfeiting the entire price of the spa you booked as you did not cancel within 24 hours”
What? We still have a couple of hours before our spa appointment. No problem, just a quick call to clear this up.
“Caesar’s Palace, Atlantic City, how can I help you?”
Two of the hardest working folks at DD - Eliana Raggio & Alissa Calvaruso
Um, Julie, WHICH Caesar’s Palace did you book our spa? Well, let’s say that we had a stressful start to our trip – BUT after a few phone calls, we were able to rebook to the Caesar’s Palace next door to us and all was well - time for Digital Dealer Las Vegas 2022!
Some pre-conference relaxation at Caesar's Palace Qua Baths and Spa
Wow, talk about a full house for the opening keynote. I am willing to guess that Digital Dealer had record attendance with a quick visual scan of the room. Just one problem. I believe the opening sessions opened flat. Bear with me please on this one.
Sorry, but not too much. There was a lot of anticipation for advanced content and an exciting start for scores of dealers who spent a lot of money and took off time from the dealerships for Digital Dealer Vegas, but we opened with a panel of EIGHT folks to talk about issues like culture. Too many people, with some people getting no time to speak while others dominate. And for many dealers (I spoke to lots), this was not advanced content. (Kudos to Brett Oubre and John Luciano for bringing life to this keynote with their direct commentary).
Opening Panel at Digital Dealer to a packed keynote hall
I spoke to Dane Saville, former professional wrestler, about starting off an event like this and he shared the following. The most important match is the FIRST match which sets the tone for excitement and what to expect for the rest of the event.
Brent Wees and Dane Saville overcome tech issues to excite the crowd
Digital Dealer – this is what I encourage you to do - Start off hot! Exciting! Perhaps a strong keynote speaker from outside of the industry (say what you want, but Jordan Belfort from Wolf of Wall Street fame was likely the most exciting speaker DD has brought to an event). Why not book a corporate comedian like Greg Hahn (famous from the Bob and Tom show)? I guarantee that if you start the event with that much fun and laughter, it will only set the tone for the rest of the event.
Team Wyler dinner at STK Steakhouse at The Cosmopolitan
I am a bit confused by “Tech Talk”. It appears to be nothing more than a pitch from keynote stage for 3 separate providers. The solutions were not new – in fact at least one has been around since before the pandemic. And there were several instances on keynote stage where we saw this. No - that is not advanced content. We deserve better. Digital Dealer – you can do better. We pay to see pitches in exhibit hall, not presented as "advanced content" on keynote stage.
Please set the cap on panels on 3-4 people max so that each can have an opportunity to be engaging. Select folks based upon their ability to talk straight about difficult issues, not folks that love to “rah rah” about themselves. I don’t mean any disrespect – but I feel like I just have the courage to say what a lot of dealers are thinking (we dealers talk to a LOT to each other at these shows - aka "networking").
Sean Stapleton with DealerTeamwork and Adam Pavkov with Meta
What are the pressing issues? How are dealers going to be prepared for electric vehicles which are going to be a huge part of our future market whether you like it or not. Why didn’t we have content on the EV credits recently released with the Inflation Reduction Act? Talk about important, this is going to be a significant part of every dealers future for the next 10 years. It is also incredibly confusing. Why were we not discussing this?
Why not bring in some OEM reps to discuss pressing issues with dealers in a panel? How do OEMs look to support dealers in selling EVs that the marketplace is not embracing (hint - see my UX study presentation). The OEMs could explain why or why not they can't seem to improve the tracking status on ordered vehicles to bring an “Amazon experience” to the modern day consumer. And maybe dealers would be better incentivized to order cars if they were given some inventory allocation advantages. And maybe dealers could better incentivize sales reps to complete orders with a spiff. You know, just some discussion around RELEVANT issues to the modern day market.
Jack Weinzierl, Ryan Leslie and Erikka Tiffani
How should dealers prepare themselves to compete against 100% online transactional sites like Carvana and Vroom. Sure, that is a small part of our market – but it will be a much larger part of our future market. Another hint – I spoke about this during my session.
What about the change in consumer sentiment in preferring to trade in their car to a dealership, or sell it directly to a dealership rather than sell it themselves. Do you want to know why? Because it is SAFER. Check this story out where someone was shot in Ohio while trying to sell their car on Facebook Marketplace. In a modern day marketplace where all dealers are trying to acquire more inventory directly from our consumers, wouldn’t this be relevant?
Breakfast of Champions with Kenny Calhoun
More straight talk? While dealers have been experiencing record margins, stores are getting sloppy with their processes. Why work so hard on following up on a lead when we have multiple people already coming in to see what little inventory we have (current sentiment). Should we review (again) how to work the leads, or should we learn how to lead and motivate our people back to doing what they should be doing.
Lovely dinner with Jennifer Sanford
And finally, I heard little to nothing about economic forecast for the upcoming couple of years. I heard some general talk about inventory levels that was all over the place, but did everyone forget that we are in a recession? That we are experiencing 40 year high record inflation levels, 20 year high mortgage rates and continued rising interest rates? I know that dealers are eternally optimistic, but folks, there is a rain storm coming. Whether it is just rain, a tropical storm, or a hurricane, I don’t know. I do know this, the best time to fix your roof is when it is sunny, and right now it has already started sprinkling. Where were the talks about how to prepare for that?
Economics 101 – you grow through volume and efficiency. Can anyone tell me that they really feel confident they are going to grow through volume considering our inventory issues and the recovery time involved? It’s going to be an efficiency play in the upcoming years for dealers that want to grow. Here’s a session idea – how to leverage AI to drive more efficiency and value into your dealership’s bottom line. What if you could hire someone for $2.50 per hour and guarantee that every service call is answered. Look at Stella AI (great selling point btw).
Two of the brightest minds in our industry - Brooke Furniss & Chad Graves
I think it should be a requirement for every session that the speaker must conclude with at least 2-3 actionable items that a dealer can take back with them to become better. I have put this requirement on myself from the very beginning, and I am pretty sure that folks come into my sessions, George Nenni's, Greg Gifford's and more for that very reason. I am not sharing anecdotal stories or ideas, I am sharing advanced content supported by data and facts.
Such great long time friends in this industry
Was I exasperated? Most of you know that during the entire show I am asking folks whether something really jumped out to help them. This show, I could not find much. The networking on the other hand continues to be a HUGE value, and kudos to Digital Dealer for creating that environment. I just believe we need better content - tell me if I am wrong please.
Brent and Dane's Smackdown Series crowns a new champion
I shared the results of our 2022 Wyler User Experience study (this links to our video combining each of the questions) during my session. Each year we bring in 10 people of different ages, backgrounds, etc, and put them into our studio where we ask them a series of relevant questions to the modern market. Why do we do this? When we make any important decision, we ask ourselves “does this make us more consumer facing?”. If we don’t know what the modern day consumer wants and needs, we cannot answer that - and neither can you.
Packed and standing room only for my session - humbled
I have some news for you. EVs and politics go together whether you like it or not. And trust me, all of us want to sell to Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Presbyterians, EVERYONE. The government and our OEMs are moving aggressively towards EVs being the majority of our sales in the upcoming years. We asked our users whether they had considered buying an EV before? What were their concerns about EVs? The answers are downright scary as they have LOTS of questions and reasonable concerns. The primary challenge is this, we (as in dealers) have to SELL these EVs to consumers that are not enthusiastic about buying them.
My goal was to show dealers the opportunities before us to help us be best prepared to sell EVs to the modern day consumer based on what CONSUMERS want and perceive, NOT anecdotal ideas or feel good agendas. And the biggest opportunity now for dealers is to brand themselves as the EV experts in their market.
Reunion Marketing - Amy Peck and Dave Spannhake
What about Carvana and Vroom? Are consumers moving towards buying 100% online? And hasn’t Tesla proven to all of us that the modern day consumer wants to buy their new EV completely online? (FALSE - consumers overwhelmingly do not want to buy an EV 100% online). Over and over again I showed dealers that we have a TREMENDOUS role in the future of auto retail. If anything, consumers value us more than ever as we enter into new areas of transportation that they are not familiar with, and they have lots of questions that we can help them with.
Some nuggets I learned during Digital Dealer? One of the best things I saw was while networking with Paul De Vries, who is a dealer in Amsterdam. He was showing me his website, which was incredibly mobile friendly. In fact, if you click on the only CTA on his website, it goes directly to Facebook live with someone on his team. Wow, real time answers with a sales rep that can help you. Guess what, the service line does the same thing. Is that a cutting edge, advanced approach? YES – well done friend (and I am not going to share his site to save him from thousands of you testing his site and taking up his sales reps time
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Paul De Vries traveled all the way from Amsterdam
Many thanks to the entire Digital Dealer team for putting together an event that ran incredibly smooth and had fantastic networking opportunities. I love the events in exhibit hall (though I continue to not be a fan of presentations there - I find it hard to hear and focus). I know that The Mirage has been sold to Hard Rock Casino, where will DD Vegas be next year?
Thank you Christine for all of your hard work
I know this is a different flavor review. Iron sharpens iron and if Digital Dealer wants to remain relevant and continue to dominate (it does, and it should), we need to challenge them to be even better. I perfectly understand that Emerald Expositions is running a business, and as a fellow capitalist, I want them to be profitable. But I don’t want to pay for glorified sales pitches on the keynote stage – that is where the advanced content is supposed to be. Pitches are in exhibition hall.
Coco Arowold, Blake Norberg, and April Simmons
Feedback? I want it! I am talking to Jeff Kershner about changing the format of this review moving forward. Perhaps more of a vlog approach? “Man on the street” videos with folks at the show with their thoughts? Interviews about “what did you learn or find most useful?”
Always love to see April Rain
We are working on some very innovative TikTok efforts that I hope to find success with and that I can share at Digital Dealer next spring. I know dealers are starving for that content and would like some proven approaches.
Cliff Banks joins Alexi Venneri at the DAS VIP villa
Per the evenings - loved the Digital Air Strike VIP villa - very nice and what a great time. The days at these shows are LONG but there are longer periods when we don't see each other and I think all of us want to maximize our time getting together.
Team Wyler warms up before the DD party
And we did find time to fit in a show - Absinthe. Two highlights, the tap dancers were incredible and my sides were hurting from laughing after watching the "middle-aged couple sexy dance" - enough said.
Enjoyed Absinthe with Team Cuneo Adversiting
On a closing note, I have always loved The Mirage as the venue for Digital Dealer Vegas, very convenient and great location. I know that Hard Rock Casino bought The Mirage, where will DD Vegas be next year? And will there be some significant changes? More OEMs present, more younger talent speaking, and an exciting opening - let's do it. Till next spring friends - cheers!
