Qore Conversations
Tune in for engaging conversations about the latest technology, innovations, and trending issues in the automotive industry. QoreAi's podcast delivers expert insights, practical tips and problem-solving solutions. Stay informed and inspired with every episode.
Qore Conversations
From Guesswork to AI: How Dealerships Can Finally Make Data Work For Them
In this episode of Qore Conversations, Todd Smith, CEO of QoreAI, explains how dealerships can shift from relying on fragmented, outdated data to using AI-driven insights that fuel smarter, more profitable decisions. Many dealerships are surrounded by data from CRMs, DMS platforms, web analytics, and service records—but few are effectively turning that information into meaningful action. This episode breaks down how AI can help dealerships move beyond guesswork, streamline operations, and unlock the full potential of their data to drive better outcomes and maximize profits.
Despite having more data than ever before, most dealerships are still stuck making decisions based on gut instinct and incomplete information. The problem isn’t a lack of data—it’s that the data is scattered across multiple systems, leaving dealers without a clear, unified picture of their operations. Todd explains how dealerships can break free from this cycle and use AI-powered tools to move from reactive, backward-looking strategies to predictive and prescriptive decision-making.
This episode offers practical, actionable insights designed to help dealerships stop wasting resources and start making informed, data-driven choices that boost efficiency and profitability.
Key Highlights:
- The Data Dilemma: Why fragmented and biased data keeps dealerships stuck in ineffective decision-making cycles—and how to break free from outdated systems.
- Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics: How forward-looking insights can help dealerships anticipate challenges, optimize performance, and drive future success.
- AI in Action: Real-world strategies for reducing marketing waste, enhancing customer experiences, and improving inventory management through AI-powered insights.
- Real-World Examples: Practical use cases showing how AI can help dealerships identify high-value service customers, score leads more accurately, and fine-tune marketing efforts for a better return on investment.
- Taking Control of Your Data: Why owning and organizing dealership data is essential for unlocking the full potential of AI—and how relying on vendors can keep dealerships stuck in old patterns.
Throughout the episode, Todd emphasizes that AI isn’t here to replace people—it’s here to empower dealerships to make better, faster decisions that drive long-term success. The dealers who embrace AI and take control of their data will lead the way in this new era of automotive retail.
This is more than a conversation about technology—it’s a guide to transforming your dealership’s future. If you’re ready to stop relying on guesswork and start making your data work for you, this episode is a must-listen. The data revolution is already underway. The only question is: Will you lead the charge?
Listen to the full episode now and start transforming your dealership’s data strategy today.
For more information about QoreAI, visit our website: www.qoreai.com.
Follow Us:
www.LinkedIn.com/company/qoreai/
www.Facebook.com/Qoreai
www.x.com/qoreai
Podcast Directed and Produced by Hired Guns Agency: https://www.hiredgunsagency.com
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. It is another and this is post-Super Bowl. We're recording the week not even a full week after Todd Smith's Philadelphia Eagles. That's right, they're his, he claims them, he loves them. Welcome back to another episode of Core Conversations. Let's start where we should start, todd, congratulations on your team winning where we should start. Todd, congratulations on your team winning. How long have you been an Eagles fan? Has it been since childhood? Give me, I want that backstory. I know the audience is like we don't want to talk about football, we want AI and data, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:Exactly Since I can remember. I was basically handed the Eagles jersey as a child and I played football in my front yard and I had an Eagles helmet and I actually liked Tony Franklin and I had an Eagles helmet and I actually liked Tony Franklin the kicker at the time he was the barefoot kicker and just grew up around the team. One of my dad's friends built the sideline benches that the players sit on to stay warm in the winter and keep their helmets dry and all that stuff, yeah and super crazy. So I got to go to games as a kid. I would stand next to, like you know, wilbur Montgomery. I stand next to Ron Chorsky and I'd met Dick Vermeule multiple times Like I'd been around the team and the old vet stadium. And now they have the new link and financial and I actually, right here, I have a vet stadium seats. I have two next to my desk, so I've bled green from the beginning.
Speaker 1:All-time favorite, eagle Ooh, top three.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I, you know I liked. I think there's eras of the Eagle players, right, I would definitely say Jaworski to me was just just tough great quarterback. Lost the super bowl against the oakland raiders and jim plunkett I think it was like 16 to 9. Devastating to me as a child. Um, I, I then liked, I liked the cunningham errors too, and then it went. You know, obviously mcnabb and mcnab kind of got sick in the super ball and then I didn't like mcnab anymore. Um, but like you have that, like I don't know, like I feel like in the end, man, it just they continue to put together a great team. I, I think today I love jalen hurts.
Speaker 2:I I think he's such a class act as a person like you know we did with his first, you know, when he signed his first rookie contract. Um, you know he has a five person woman-led team that manages him. Um, you know he's never in the press doing stuff stupid. And and he was like that guy, what was he? He was in, uh, was he in alabama? And then they stopped playing him. And then he, he went to oklahoma and wins like a national championship. I mean to just to have that like uh, strength as a kid, not speak out, to not say, oh, what was me?
Speaker 2:and yeah like take it to the press like a lot do a lot of people do.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's like an inner stoism. That's really rare and you know, I just I love the team this year. They're now they're a young team. I feel like they there's a lot. And man, they just showed up last sunday I I was talking to kane grout, a good friend, was the old cto of cars and went on and did driven.
Speaker 2:He was in mexico. He had his hat on. He's sending me pictures and we're like is this real? Is this? Oh, eagles are gonna, they're gonna buff it. Like you know, kansas is gonna come back.
Speaker 2:I loved andy reed. He was a great coach for us too. Like I'm like, oh it's, and I'm like sitting there literally even third fourth quarter. I'm like, oh, you know, mahomes is gonna come back. Like we're gonna end up losing stupid by like a like a field goal and no it, just it just. The train went on and then, as soon as like five minutes were left, we put in second players just to let everyone play in a Superbowl. Seeing Cooper like get his first pick six in a Superbowl Holy crap, is that kid as a rookie, like I don't know there was so much stuff around that game. I feel like I'll never forget it. Like the last time we won, I actually flew up for the Eagles parade. This time it's Valentine's day and I think I'd prefer to stay married. My wife is not, obviously, eagles fan, cause she's not a football fan, so I was like I think I'm going to stay. But I was at the gym this morning and I was like watching, like oh, the parade was on.
Speaker 1:Well, you made the right choice on the parade.
Speaker 2:I love my wife more than football. Yes, sean, I made that decision when I got married.
Speaker 1:I feel very, very, very fortunate that my wife loves football, maybe sometimes more than I do, and so we're both big Seahawks fans, both from Washington. So, and um, we both commented watching the game um, that it felt like when the Seahawks absolutely annihilated the Denver Broncos. Yeah, it was such domination and we remember people saying like, oh, this Super Bowl's not great, like it's not very, mike. But if you're the like last week, if you're the eagles fan, yeah, you, that's exactly what you want to see. You want to see them squash people every single play. You don't care if it's close, you want your team to be like uh, no, there is no question. Yeah, we're better than the chiefs, and it was.
Speaker 2:It was very much, there was no question and I I think things that stuck out to me was one one just the size of our line. They're enormous. I mean, average weight was 338 pounds or something.
Speaker 1:Yes, average.
Speaker 2:And they're probably heavier. That's probably what they said when they weighed in at training camp.
Speaker 1:Beginning of the season. Yeah, beginning of the season.
Speaker 2:After Thanksgiving, christmas and a couple weeks off, I mean. So they're probably at their heaviest right now and I think Kansas didn't know what to do and I think I mean we never blitzed. And it was crazy to me that you know we were just on Mahomes knocking them, tackling them, and I feel like it reminded me I was texting Kane. I was like this is just like the movie Miracle, when they're playing the Russians and the countdown's happening and they're like why isn't he pulling the goalie? And they're like they don't know what to do.
Speaker 2:And I think about homes, that team. They just didn't know what to do and they were so out of their rhythm. You could see it and you could see that bench every time they pan to it and you just saw their frustration. They didn't know what to do and he didn't. And look, I think everybody goes into every game with a game plan and you play your plan and you play it for good or bad. And they just didn't.
Speaker 2:The plan didn't work. Not only did it work, I mean they did shut down, uh, sequent, they shut them down Like the run game was off but, dude, we started passing to him because he's good, he has good hands, like we adapted really well to what they threw at us and I like I look at it, it's like business too. I really always like relate things back. That you know, and I think Mike Tyson said it right Like everyone has a plan to your punched in the face. I was like I think I think Kansas, kansas city, had a plan until they hit our O-line and then they were like whoa, these, they were just manhandled and they didn't know what to do Our defensive line, I think, just crushed them.
Speaker 2:So anyway, super exciting, I am living on the glory. I will for the next, you know, till season starts, I will be always. I was going to wear my actual Hertz jersey for our thing, but I was like, oh no, maybe that's pushing it too far, but I got the hat on at least.
Speaker 1:Well, it was a dominating performance for sure, and I agree with you on all those things. I think Jalen Hurts is a class act of a player. I'm always happy when you see people like that. How he handled himself and you nailed it on his college experience too, I mean, that's mental fortitude for a young kid, you know what I mean there's so much pressure and yeah full domination I mean there's so much pressure and, yeah, full domination.
Speaker 1:And I honestly think it dovetails a little bit into what I'm going to be talking to you about today, because I think that what ended up happening is that the Chiefs ended up in this state of like we're now guessing, like what, how do we figure all this out? How do we figure out how to change whatever their plan was in the middle of a game, uh, around something that they hadn't seen before. And imagine also then having the confidence that they came to that game with thinking we've beat these guys before, we I mean, we've beat them in the big game before like, so it was really, uh, it's quite interesting, but uh, I, I'm ready to switch on your AI and data brain.
Speaker 2:You're always killing it on LinkedIn. You don't have to switch it on, Sean. That brain is always firing at it.
Speaker 1:I know, I know I shouldn't even say that, I shouldn't even have to say that.
Speaker 2:I love this stuff. I just commented on Jason Rice's. He posted a bunch of data. I was like it is literally the best 11 minutes and 8 seconds, I said, of data analytics around used cars and leads and stuff. And I was like man, this is so valuable so I just actually forwarded it on my LinkedIn because, again, man data tells an amazing story, right? If you really get a hold of it, you can change your entire business trajectory. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and Jason Rice man, he's, he's like like you and I and OG, you know, one of the pioneers, been in it forever and he just continues to do awesome stuff. So, yeah, I love, I love that guy, I love what he shares Well, so here's what I want to set up for you today and and for the audience listening and or watching Dealers. I think if you've been in the industry for even seven minutes, you know that dealerships are drowning in data. Yet most dealers are still kind of guessing. They're guessing relative to sales and marketing and decisions they make about inventory. And so what if I told you, audience, that AI could predict what's going to happen next? What if Todd Smith could help you understand that there are a lot of predictions that you might be well, it might blow your mind.
Speaker 1:So in this episode, we're going to dive into some of these things around predictive and prescriptive analytics, why that matters and how successful dealers are thinking about and starting to use AI to gain their edge. So I say let's freaking go, tom Brady. I'll just keep it clean for the kids. It's a family show. So by the end of the episode, just expect that you'll know much better on how you could take AI, you could use automation. You can use this to help your dealership make better decisions to reduce waste. To help your dealership make better decisions to reduce waste, to maximize profits all the things that you should be focused on today. But first I want to talk about where dealerships start to get it wrong, because the problem is really right up top. The dealership data is kind of broken. So before we get too far into the future, let's break down where dealerships are kind of today.
Speaker 2:Todd Sure, let's start at the first place, which is just the fragmentation of data. You know data is held across many systems DMS, crm, web analytics, j4, like. Take your pick of systems across. You may have apps for video, you may have different text tools, you have chat on the website, you have trade-in forums. There's so much data surrounding a dealer operationally and unfortunately it's held in these systems and bringing that together to me is the first thing. And if that together to me is the first thing, and if that doesn't happen, I think the rest of our conversation today is a moot point. It really is and I feel, like many dealers I talk to have really incomplete insights into their stuff and there's a lot of bias in data.
Speaker 2:Just in general, I see, I see data being used very specifically around certain functions inside dealership. Like oh, how many leads do we get? And okay, leads are important, absolutely, but did we qualify those leads? Are they valid leads? Because there's no governors on leads going into systems, right, nobody's saying like that's a real email, that's a real phone number, that's a real person.
Speaker 2:Or wow, this person only put a lead in because it was some e-price, so they're still way high funnel, curious to know what a payment would be on a traverse and in the end they're not buyers Yet they're thrown into this lead farm in the CRM and now we're come on in, sean, you're ready to buy a car. So I think there's a lot that I've seen around just biased data or weaponizing data and only taking the data that they want to curate a image or something inside the store, and I think that you kind of have to peel that back a little bit. And the one thing I'm hoping you know AI will kind of normalize that and kind of train if you train the engine correctly to pull the bias out that you can just look clearly at your performance for what it is, because to me, unless you have truth, how will you improve?
Speaker 2:Good example's say, you know, at the gym and I do 12 reps but I struggled and I sort of did 13, but not really, because someone picked up the bar. But I write 13 down, so did I do it?
Speaker 2:not really, but I'm gonna count it Like I see this all the time in data and we because we're like oh, I want to be better, all right, my numbers need to match, so I don't get fired Like so that there's a deep side of that, I think, and I think we're going to move, and I think I wrote a note here and it was interesting Like all data inside dealerships is lagging right now. So we're not looking into leading data, we're always looking lagging. What did we do over the last 30 days? And this is a construct of operations and dealerships that everyone thinks in 30-day cycles and then we review the 30 days backwards of what went right and wrong. Though, if you think about it from a business perspective, looking backwards does not necessarily change the forwards, because it's done, it's smoked, You're not getting back that.
Speaker 2:You had some overage inventory that you lost or didn't reprice and now you're trying to reprice it into the next month. So I think we're going to see being able to create more predictive modeling and then prescriptive modeling. So I want to start looking instead of backwards. I think the ambition of core and what I've been focused on is like can we start peering into the future a week, two weeks this month or more to predict things that will happen and those predictions, I think, will get better, and then, as those predictions get better, we can then prescribe actions to do and execute, because that's what AI is for actions to do and execute, because that's what ai is for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you, you, uh, you actually put a post. You post a lot of content, really good content, on linkedin. So there's just a reminder for everybody. If you're not already connected and following todd um, if you're interested in ai there's a lot of different uses for ai, by the way but if you, if you're interested in AI, especially around data, you're doing yourself a disservice if you're not following Todd, because I don't think anybody is even close to the amount of content that you're putting out.
Speaker 1:But recently you put one out that I thought was very interesting, that it kind of speaks to the example of even if he was like in the gym, did you actually get that 13th rep or did you not get it? If you contextualize that inside of a dealership, knowing that and you talk about this a lot that it's hard to get that single source of truth because there's not a single source of content, like you're taking CMS data and DMS data and all these multiple systems and marketing and whatever else you got going on in your dealership. But if you aren't accurate and truthful, it's not even just logging the rep. It's like some people, it's like they didn't log one through 12, let alone get 13. Or did you then share that plan, something that in your dealership was someone else that had inaccuracies in it, and then it just perpetuates all kinds of wasted money in it, and then it just perpetuates all kinds of wasted money. You can never get efficient if you don't learn from data.
Speaker 1:And you cover these things so well and I like the fact that you're taking people in the direction of trying to think of a framework mentally of okay, well, what are we wanting to do? Well, we want to be able to predict. We also want to be able to prescribe, and if we don't have all the right stuff going on with data, then we've got problems. So I guess that's the next place that I want to push you towards is how do you think we move from just the prediction, because of course it's important, but how do we get from kind of prediction and then start to take that? Because I'm sure every dealer who's paying attention wants to get to that point where, like now, we can prescribe things in a way that uses all this new technology that's at our fingertips. What are your thoughts there?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So look, I feel like back away and let's deconstruct that. Forget the technology, let's go back to the most fundamental. How do you win games right, and it's fundamentals. Trick plays, all this other stuff great to have in the back pocket play action, all this, but it's, you know, run, run. You know it's fundamental stuff. So that really win.
Speaker 2:And this is that point where you know we talked a little bit. You know, obviously getting all the data out of silos, job one. But in the same breath it is hygiene. So unless you clean and organize that data and put it in a construct that you can start gaining intelligence on it, you're at a loss. And it's not uncommon for dealers. They never hygiene their existing customer data ever, or once every time they change DMS. So every decade or longer, or maybe it's every couple of years, they hire a new marketing guy and he's like no, we got to clean up our data. We have, you know, five Todd Smiths in the database, let's clean it up. And I look at those. I was like that it all begins right there. And this has to.
Speaker 2:Dealers have to change the mindset and start realizing your most valuable asset is your dealership data. It's not your building, it's not the cars and start realizing your most valuable asset is your dealership data. It's not your building, it's not the cars, it's not even your people. Without your customers and that organized understanding of them, you don't really have a business right. You have a framework, you have a factory, but you know you need the product and the product is people. And I think when I look at stuff, dealers don't take that into consideration, because I look at where the spend goes and today the spend is all for conquest New customers, boom, boom, boom. Yet you have a database of customers and service customers and you're not talking to them Besides blanket marketing them. I feel like there's buyers in your existing database. There's buyers entering your service drive. There's people who service with you, who have never bought a car from you, and there's people that have bought cars from you who have never serviced from you.
Speaker 2:No-transcript and seeing that behavior on longevity over past years and cycles of vehicle or service ownership, once I understand that flow, then being able to see the patterns and to me AI is perfect at pattern matching it sees the distinct golden thread that humans just a lot of times will miss and if dealers just get there, all their marketing spend reduces Dramatic. I mean, it would not be uncommon that I think dealers could cut 30 to 50% of their marketing budget almost overnight if all their dealership data is organized, cleansed and you start writing and understanding the predictive algorithms on top of that. I think that's phase one of this. Once that is done, I feel dealers' marketing dollar spend goes down.
Speaker 2:They create highly personalized experiences for consumers Never had that. So it's a true one-to-one personalization at scale, and what you're able to do then is deliver a much more prescriptive outcome to that customer, like send Sean this on this day and here's the message and why. And because it has all of understanding of Sean and it gets to know him and I love to tell people this. So you play with chat GPT, right, that's like you go in there and mess around with it and write stuff.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Right, of course.
Speaker 2:All the time so go in there and ask it tell me everything you know about Sean Raines? No, it'll be, it's crazy. Do it. It will create a very most likely if you use it enough, it's going to create a very accurate understanding of you. And how does that happen? It happens because it has the data. It knows how you're interacting with it, it knows how you talk, the words you use, the questions you ask, meaning the customer data. Once you have it organized in the same way, it's almost like wow, I can, I can tell so much about customers and predict behavior because you have access to the data.
Speaker 2:And I think dealers need to see that value and I think once they see that value, I think it changes their whole business. And look, we're talking about what I call marketing. I think there's a whole deeper side where I see a world where I can prompt on all dealership data. I have payroll data, I have everything, and I can write a prompt that says show me my employee productivity in variable operations and how do I optimize it over the next 90 days to increase 10% more car sales, or something like that. Or show me all my service product pricing. Compare it to brands, my competitive brands in market and third party competitors, the minor keys, the quick clubs, et cetera, reprice my products, that I can gain 15% more profitability while staying competitive in the market. That, to me, that's the world we're heading, and that only happens when you get all the data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so every time we have a new podcast episode and we talk about this stuff. I love these conversations. I feel like I'm learning with you, but I feel like I'm in it as well. I'm in this, I get it. I understand these things a little bit. Just a little rewind. You mentioned this and you're not the only one that mentions this, at least the people that are paying attention.
Speaker 1:But data has been weaponized, and it is weaponized today by many different suppliers, different companies. We don't name names on this podcast, but there are companies that weaponize data and they've been doing it for decades. Call them what you want. They were smart enough to know the value of what's going through the pipes and if they can't own the pipe some of them own the pipes that the data goes through as well. But if you can have control partial co-owned control, whatever you want to call it but if you've got the data, you can weaponize it. This is where I know you have, because you were a dealer for so many years that you have a heart for helping them and solving problems for them.
Speaker 1:The internet age has buried dealers in technology, and all of that technology brought with it an avalanche after avalanche after avalanche of data and now most dealers sit at the bottom of all of these avalanches of data and they don't even know sometimes, oftentimes don't know how it's being either used against them or used to confuse them, or used to keep them in a place where that old saying, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always be where you've always been. A lot of dealers feel that way because this technology era that we're getting close to 30 years of has buried them in so much that now, when you think, well, what am I going to do with all of it? What you're talking about and I know you don't like to be promotional about what you've been doing with your new company, core AI but what you are doing is basically helping dealers understand if you put all these things into place, so you do have one place to understand these things and you do properly use AI, instead of just being like, hey, what's the hit list we're going after that we pulled out of the CRM and it's, you know, garbage in, garbage out, as we've said for years, as if that's a way for us to give a pass to bad behavior. Okay, well, it's no longer a funny catchphrase. It's like that harms the dealer. So here, here, todd Smith comes along and you say these things and I'm like gosh, what you're saying means that a dealer could say, instead of, just, I'm going to get my garbage in garbage out of of people that we need to follow up with, today, that you're saying no, no, no, no. You do it right that your web, your data, hasn't been weaponized against you. You have done all the things. You're using AI in ways that keeps it clean and keeps it organized.
Speaker 1:Now that top five or top 10 customers to call today you know all of these things what's the right offer to send them if they serviced ever with you, if they've ever bought from you auto generating the exact kind of messaging to how to communicate, what to say to them at what time. And that's just one part of it. It also is like, hey, general manager, would you also like all of this data be telling you and informing you more on what vehicles that you may be acquiring for your used car strategy, or and at what price, or? There's just so many different things that seem so practical for dealers. And we're finally here and we you and I have a lot of conversations like this, and I know that you and I have conversations outside of even these episodes, where we're talking to other people about data and all the things we've been talking about for decades. Now it's here. It's here right now, and you could be.
Speaker 1:If you're a dealer that consumes this content, you should absolutely be thinking hmm, maybe, maybe it's time to say, well, there's a better way than spreadsheets and all these disparate tools that don't share information. Maybe there's a better future, because there is. I don't know. I'm listening to you thinking gosh man, it's probably 95% of the dealers out there need to have a solution to this age-old problem. Maybe it's more than 95%. Is it more than 95% of the dealers out there need to have a solution to this age old problem? Maybe it's more than 95%. Is it more than 95%?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it is. It's crazy how many dealers just are like, look, I feel like data is technically maybe it's been an elusive thing, right. And they're like, oh, I have all these vendors, they all give me reports. And they're like, oh, I have all these vendors, they all give me reports. They're all self-accountable, like the results, and then you're like well, the vendor is not going to give you a bad report, most likely.
Speaker 2:I mean he's going to try to edge it in their favor, creating bias to their product, which, again, probably pretty normal. But I think it's deeper that. Look, dealers, you need to become a data-driven organization, not just a sales-driven organization, and the data will drive more effective sales at a higher profit per vehicle retail. And if you build a data data first organization, I think this is the change that we're going to see, because it's the only way you leverage AI You're never going to be successful leveraging the AI of your vendors. That's just not going to work. It'll work in silos, continuing the same problem we have today, meaning data broken across tons of systems and you'll never get it organized around the customer. So one tool will be saying one thing to a customer. Another tool is going to say something different to the same customer, because they're not accessing the same core data. They don't have access to the same data resources. So when you think about that in a construct, you got to go okay, dealers need to possess, own their data at the bottom, store it. And for us at Corey, my goal was to be the backbone and say hey, Mr Dealer, we're like your AWS, we're going to organize, store all your data, keep it hygiene. We're going to do a little beyond what an AWS does, because we need to.
Speaker 2:Our industry has some challenges, but out of that you can start running. Ai algorithms enhance data from different sources, do all kinds of things, and I think the future roadmap for any dealer in 25 should be data first, Because I think you see the AI, you see that new avalanche coming of a whole new series of applications, whether it's agentic agents, complete automations, like there's so much like inbound to us that I think you have to deeply go. Okay, I definitely want it to be more efficient. How am I going to do that? And it only begins with data Like there is nowhere else. Like you, You'll never win this without getting your data right. There's no shortcut. You're not going to buy your way. Somebody's just going to magically make this happen, and I think that's a super important thing for dealers to consider.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally agree. I mean you're essentially telling dealers some of the most practical things around how they think about using data, putting it into a. I mean, it's the imagine looking at that list, that manual list, or maybe you're working off of a spreadsheet or something like that versus hey, we just helped you understand how all of your data working for you says you better call these three people today because they're somewhere around 85 chance that they're likely to buy because of all of these data points that we didn't leave in all these places that tell us different things. Um, so I wanna, I wanna, uh, I want to keep you moving along here to um, let's talk maybe real world impact. Necessarily you don't have to do case studies or tell stories of dealers that you're working with, but maybe hypothetical but real world, real contextual hypotheticals of what it looks like in the real world, things that dealers might be able to just think, oh, I can relate to that.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's bang out a few of these because these are easy. Right One every dealer wants to target decline service work. Okay, how do you make it easy? So you want to decline service work? You just don't want to blanket those people. Maybe you want to be more selective. So being able to type a prompt that says you know, show everyone that has declined tires and brakes in the last 90 days, cool, I got a curated list. I know there's an inbound storm. Those are people that's an easy phone call to have. Hey Sean, super valued customer, I wanted to call you because I saw you didn't put tires on last time you were in for service. We have a storm coming. Your safety and your family's safety is important to us. Do you want to get that done? Different conversation, different conversation than getting a $99 off alignment text message or email.
Speaker 2:So, I think I look at that. I look at scoring all just inbound leads, just in general, like put leads into a bucket, treat people where they're at in their buying process. You'll connect deeper with them, have a better relationship, better conversation. The buyers are going to act one way. The shoppers are going to act different. Tire kickers are going to be completely different. So, understanding that Also, I think deep inside your business there's lots of interesting data. Show me customers who've serviced with us over the last three years but haven't been in in the last six months and the car's over three years old or whatever the criteria is you want to pick. When you can carve up your data using a natural language prompt, it really changes the types of conversations you can have with your customers. You can create very curated lists for select sales team members, service BDC, whatever it is you have. Or you could just reach out to them to me with a personalized messaging, right. It just resonates with people. Nobody wants to just get the email trickle to them, right? I mean that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:Or you know, show me customers who visited my website, looked at some cars, didn't put leads in, but they're my customers. Okay, that's cool. Show me people in my service drive in the next week of appointments who have an over 800 propensity to buy school. So I know they're in market. Maybe they're fixing their car to give it to a kid or they're fixing their car to sell it independently because they are more on the trade, because they bought it like pandemic era. Everyone overpaid, so you have tons of negative equity and they realize that with a quick payment calculator. So what are they doing? They're going to try to curb the car, but they don't understand like, wow, you can do. There's lots of different ways you can restructure that. So I think there's a million ways when you start carving up data that is incredibly valuable to be able to help dealers. Just to be able to help dealers, just meaning dealers help themselves with their own data by understanding their customers better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean it's also. Once you get started, even with the ones that you've shared, it's like Pandora's box. Now that all of this exists, you're literally going to be thinking of other things. And now the conversations that are being had between you and your fellow dealers imagine conversations that are going to change the dynamics inside your 20 groups, right Inside what people are talking about at conferences. I mean, how much of the stuff that's being talked about at conferences and events is just literally lip service for the people that paid to be on the stage?
Speaker 2:It's like ugh, literally lip service for the people that paid to be on the stage. It's like, yeah, one of our dealer groups just actually asked us to take his uh composites and put it into his llm to train, to just keep him on benchmarking checks and then auto alert him when things are off.
Speaker 2:And I'm like that's super cool, like I'm even like that's really cool. Um, like, I'm even like that's really cool and that's going to get done right, and I feel like I think we're going to. I'm going to see more and more of this with our clients. I view our clients are very we have very innovative dealer groups right now. Right, they're the ones who really want to lead, they want to get ahead of this. They want to own their data. They understand the importance of it. We're not through that Moore's law of like. We're in the innovators phase and those early adopters. We're definitely not in the late adopters or any of the other bigger bell curve of stores. So we definitely see there's a there's a finite amount of progressive dealers and they're they're the ones. They're the ones we want to do business with right now, because a lot of this is experimental.
Speaker 2:Right, you gotta you gotta be willing to get in and and and and make some meals. See what tastes good, doesn't, and tweak. It Needs salt, needs pepper, needs a little spice. Like let's do it. But if you're doing it from a clean data set, super powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've mentioned this before on other episodes where you know you think about it as, like you know, it's the race. Everybody starts at the same point, but some people aren't even out of the gate. So it's like what are you doing? And a good example for you to share, kind of segues into something I wanted to ask you about and I love that you say this, because I say this kind of stuff all the time Marketing is experimentation. You're just trying, you got to try, you got to do something, as opposed to like we'll just sit here and maybe people will figure out that we exist. No, it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1:And so, in the case of dealers using technology to their advantage, de-weaponizing right data or maybe weaponizing in a different way, like to actually, you know, be more on the offense in their own best interest, but there are still objections, right, there are still dealers that they have a hard time kind of getting over some of those things. So I kind of know sometimes what dealers are thinking, although you talk to dealers more these days than I talk to dealers, but I still talk to, you know, one or two a week, and oftentimes they're asking me things like especially the ones that I never tell all of my industry friends who they are, because then they'll go like Sean, connect us with all your dealer friends. I protect their trust in me over many years. But they'll say does any of this really work? It just seems like it's really complex.
Speaker 1:Or I see people slinging out stupid images and that's what the impression that AI is making on dealers, depending on whether it's generative. If it's LLM stuff, most people are not immersed in it like you and I are. So when you think about that, my question is when a dealer's like it's really complex or I don't understand it, what about all these existing systems that I have in play? How do you kind of help them through that? What are the things that you hear? And how do you respond to dealers and encourage them to hey, it's a new frontier and you don't have to be on the very, very bleeding edge, but it is time to step one foot forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I view cleaning your data, organizing has nothing to do with AI. This has to be getting your house in order. This is a clean and organized house. That's what that is. I think you start there, then you experiment. Ai is a tool, and I feel like I know this, I believe wholeheartedly for a fact AI will not replace people. People who use AI will replace people, and I think it's very clear right now. And though, yeah, if you get in and start playing with it, the impact is huge. Like I think you've played a lot with graphics, I've played a lot with writing different things. Like it gets really good and really fast and it doesn't forget, especially if you're training your own models. Like it gets smarter and smarter. It knows your persona more and more. Like, so I definitely believe that forget AI. Like just block and tackle your data, and you do that. First, you're going to start winning, and then you experiment with these tools, the AI applications running on your data, but in the end, you still have your data and that's your value. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's important. Dealers, I think, need encouragement, and I think maybe I'm so. I hate to use passion is overused. I think I feel so strongly about dealers being encouraged by the right people, the right subject matter experts in the space, because of what I mentioned earlier in the episode. They're so buried. The avalanche of data and technology has made it for a lot of dealers where they get into that kind of state of paralysis, and so it's not that they're not moving at all. I mean, just February alone looks like it's been a pretty positive start to get out of the first month of the new year, which is great.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, here as we start 2025, dealers have to make big decisions on what they're going to do different. If we're going to try to do everything the same. It's just this extremely dynamic industry. It's just this extremely dynamic industry, and right now, you seem to be the one with, I think, the strongest message of evangelism of like you guys got to understand this before. This is the thing that concerns me, because I agree with you. I don't think that the AI is going to replace the people. It's the people that know it. But just like where we sit today in the industry, the people that knew things about how they could use it to their advantage. You have to bet your bottom dollar that they're thinking about how they're going to use AI to either further make it more difficult for dealers, versus the dealers saying we've got to know this ourselves. We have to be in control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think this is something you depend on the vendor. I think this is a dealer very specific thing, I feel like you cannot entrust your business's long-term success in a vendor.
Speaker 2:As I said, have all these AI models that you turn it off. You lose it, they give it to someone else. They're training multiple. There's a lot in there. That's why, for every dealer, we set up their own LLM. We want them to learn and grow on their own data, because there's behavior differences between how stores operate, the people they sell, the people that they employ, the location. All these are points that have to be considered and that's why every dealer needs their own model and multiple algorithms running across that model. But that's the world. That's where we're heading right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you talk about it a lot and I think you're right. I mean, the future is taking us to a place where obviously we're just getting started, but you know, this is already, it's our, it's a it's in a state where dealers have to think okay, across all of our departments. Right now there's a use case right there is and it's only going to get in my world. There's a whole lot of right there is and it's only going to get in my world. There's a whole lot of people that are building out, like the agent, models of what that agent's going to do. That's going to become even more prolific within automotive to where, again, it's not going to necessarily replace all people, but there are going to be certain roles that it's like we don't really need a person for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that model is coming now and it's going to come with the dealers that have aggregated their data, because you need the data to build the models. So, like, all these things are correlated.
Speaker 1:So yeah, listen, dealers, take action now. Like, get started, like, move beyond, just like casually looking at some of this stuff, make sure you're tuning into all of these conversations If you're not already following Todd. If you find this type of information valuable, the best place to connect is actually with Todd on LinkedIn. Yes, you can go to coreaicom and it's spelled a little. You know unique. That's Q O R E A? Icom. There's also-O-R-E-A-Icom. There's also a YouTube channel where you can watch all these episodes. Every time we have a full, long form one, we throw it out on YouTube. You can see it there.
Speaker 1:Todd loves to hear your feedback and so there's a lot of you that we see the types of content engagement, especially from a LinkedIn perspective. And guess what? Reaching out to him is completely free. He's not going to ask you to put in a credit card number or give him your wallet to talk about these things. He is somebody who literally comes from the side of the fence that's called retail. He knows that business so well and today he's taking Core AI to a place where you really should be paying attention. So if you're interested in learning more, reach out to him and his team. Just raise your hand. They'll reach back out to you and until the next episode, everybody happy trails. Until we meet again for another Core Conversation.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you.