I mean, moms and families and probably anyone truly value their time like their money. The carbine process takes too long. It takes too long a lot of the time because the consumer is not prepared because as dealers, we're like so scared to tell them what's going to happen at their lease turn in. Like, why we're so coy about how to make your carbine process go quicker is so weird to me.
What's up, everyone? This is Cardioshab Guy. You're listening to the Cardioshab Guy podcast, which is my effort to give you access to the most unbiased and transparent insights into the car market. Let's get into today's episode. Kelly Stumpy is the founder of the car mom and automotive media company focused on moms and families. In this conversation, we discussed how Kelly built a massive social media presence focused on moms, the various ways she's monetizing her brand, which channels have been the most profitable, her best carbine advice and trade-in tips for consumers, and what she believes can be done to change the broader perception of cardiators. This was a very inspiring conversation. I think you will love it.
大家好,我是Cardioshab Guy。欢迎收听我的播客节目——Cardioshab Guy podcast,我致力于为你提供最客观、透明的汽车市场见解。今天的节目中,我们邀请了汽车妈妈的创始人Kelly Stumpy作为嘉宾,她的公司专注于母亲和家庭的汽车媒体。在这次对话中,我们讨论了Kelly如何在社交媒体上构建了一个巨大的面向母亲的品牌,她如何实现了品牌的多样化盈利,最有利可图的渠道是哪些,她提供给消费者的最佳购车建议和二手车交易技巧,以及她认为可以改变广大卡车司机形象的方法。这是一个很鼓舞人心的对话,相信您会喜欢的。
But before we get into the show, please take two seconds to subscribe or follow this podcast on your favorite listening platform. It's completely free and we'll help ensure that you never miss an episode. All right, let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Kelly Stumpy. All views of Cardioshab Guy and guests on this podcast are solely their opinions. None of the views expressed should be treated as financial advice. This podcast is for informational purposes only.
Kelly, how did you get started? Like from the dealership to media, you're almost reminding me of a Twitter account that I know. How did this all get started for you and how did you go from the transition from the dealership to media?
Yeah, I think people are very surprised to actually find out that I do have such an automotive background. Like I'm not just a mom with a smartphone. Like my automotive roots actually run very deep. So in St. Louis, my grandpa and his brother started a used car lot in 1957. And then my dad and his brother grew it to a multi store franchise. They currently have five different locations. And in 2016, I was like, cool, I'm going to join the family business. I'm going to start selling cars.
I walk me through that. Why? Like the car business. It's just, you know, historically like male dominated dealership business. Go ahead.
请带我走一遍。为什么?就像汽车行业一样。因为在历史上男性主导了经销商业务。请讲。
Yes. So I got a college degree in equestrian science, which is the study of horses, which hindsight was not the best thing to go to college for. So my father looked at me and he's like, so what's the plan? And I'm like, right? I guess I'm going to try the car business out. And he really wanted me to do it for just a summer. I'm the oldest of five. So the rule was, when you graduate, you sell cars for a summer. Now, keep in mind, none of my other siblings have had to do it since me, right outside of college. So I, that was just the rule. He thought I would learn so much about business in the world if I started selling cars.
Which was so interesting about starting selling cars when you come from a dealership background is you actually know nothing about buying a car. I had so many people tell me like, you're going to kill this. Like you were raised in the business and I'm like, no, I had never bought a car. My parents have never bought a car. I, when I started selling cars, I was 22 years old. He put me at the BMW store. Didn't even know you had to pay sales tax on a vehicle. Like I was so ignorant to how the car buying process worked, let alone the car selling process. So it was a huge learning curve, but I quickly like fell in love with the business of selling cars. I thought it was, I had never had more fun. I had never felt more accomplished. Like the rush of closing a deal, I was truly addicted to it. And I started in July and by October, I was salesmen of the month. Wow. And I, for sales, sales, women of the month. Sales, women of the month, it's true. They actually had to get a new placmate. Because they had salesman in the month. And then we had to change them that said sales person of the month. Yeah, sales person. So I really just loved it. And I did it until I was pregnant with my child, with my first son. And you look at the hours of the car business and I think about everything that goes into being a mom and wanting to breastfeed and wanting to do all these things. I'm like, I can't be away for 12 hours.
Were you at any point a mom working at the dealership or at no point did that overlap?
你曾经在经销商做过母亲吗?或者说,这两者从未有重合的时候?
Yes, but I was never selling cars as a mom. Oh, got it. Okay.
是的,但我从来没有像当妈妈一样销售汽车。哦,明白了。好的。
So how did you handle the childcare? What did you do throughout that time?
那你是如何处理孩子的照顾的?在那段时间里你都做了什么?
So before my son was born, I switched to some more operational type things around the dealership. So I did CRM management, direct mail pieces, a little bit of social media. Basically, I hated it. It was a super boring job. My son went to a daycare. Very like nothing I liked about the car business. I was like, I want to be talking to people. I want to be selling cars. And I just found it so frustrating that I was like, gosh, being a mom and selling cars just doesn't mix.
And looking back, it's so funny because it was literally right in front of me. And when I was pregnant with my second, now it's two kids in daycare making an hourly wage at the dealership doing direct mail pieces. Cost of childcare for two kids. I'm like, this isn't penciling. So my husband was like, this isn't penciling. Yeah, this is making sense. I should probably just be a stay at home, mom. In a way, I thought I was always going to end up there anyway. But I was so sad because I'm like, I freaking love selling cars and I was so good at it.
So my husband gave me the idea one Sunday afternoon. He's like, Kelly, why don't you just focus on the moms? He's like, why don't you just try to sell cars to other moms and you can like, you know, tell your dad, like, you'll sell cars by appointments. And his idea was like, take a minivan to your park playdate and sell it to all the moms there. And I was like, that's a good idea. I was like, I will be the mom salesperson of St. Louis. But as soon as he said it, I immediately saw like the entire vision laid out of what I was going to do. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be, I'm going to start doing car reviews for moms and for families because no one's doing it. And I was like, this thing is going to be huge.
So I started in June of 2020. When I was 25 weeks pregnant, no 14 weeks pregnant with my daughter. And it blew up like faster than I could even keep up with it. And I just grabbed used cars. So once I got how did you start? What was like the first thing you did? Well, I thought like the car reviewers are on YouTube. It's like, I need to be on YouTube. But then I was like, well, YouTube's hard. Like I don't have a camera. I don't know how to edit a video.
And are the moms on YouTube? Because like I was like rocking my baby to sleep every night like scrolling Instagram for hours. And I know how to work Instagram. I thought the moms are probably on Instagram. So I just opened an Instagram account one day with live and said, Hey, I'm Kelly Stumpy and I'm the car mom. I'm going to review cars for moms and for families. And I'm going to focus on the safety, comfort and convenience. Hope you follow along. And then I just started grabbing used cars off the lot and talking about, you know, how they work for families. If car seats can fit, if strollers can fit what the couple ofers are like and the things that, you know, moms care about.
And how did you get your first like 1000 followers? It was pretty organic. I would say like I went on, you know, my personal Instagram page and I said, Hey, I'm starting this new passion project. And then I went to all of these Facebook groups. There's like this like dark corner of the Internet of all these Facebook mom groups. And they're honestly incredibly talk because I don't recommend anyone go on them. But so I was in like St. Louis moms, like moms of two under two boys born in the month of me.
你最初是如何获得前1000个粉丝的?那是相当自然的。我会说,我去了我的个人Instagram页面,告诉大家我开始了这个新的兴趣项目。然后我去了所有的Facebook群组。网络上有这样一个黑暗的角落,里面有所有这些妈妈群组。说实话,它们非常流行,但我不建议任何人去那里。所以我加入了像 "St. Louis moms","moms of two under two boys born in the month of me"这样的群组。
Like there's all these mom groups and I would go on there and like try to promote myself. And a lot of the times they get deleted because they don't allow self promotion. But if if one slid through the cracks, I would get like, you know, 200 new followers from Peloton moms of Facebook. It's so funny because we used to have a head of HR and she was very active on the mom groups and we would like, we would sometimes post stuff in there. But we would do it in a way where it would be like, Hey, looking for advice and then completely plugging in the business.
Yeah, that's what I was. And it's the same thing. I would like look at other comments. So I would like go to the Facebook group and I would keyword search cars because everyone was like, what's the best mom car? And I would say, Oh, hey, my name is Kelly. I review cars for moms and for families. And I would just do everything. I would comment on like all the manufacturers post like Mercedes Ford. I would just comment on a random post say, Hi, I'm Kelly. I'm doing car reviews for moms and just post the comment. I mean, whatever I could do.
And then the first, I mean, the first thousand almost took the long guys. I think it took me about a month to get a thousand. And then I started in June and by October, my daughter was born. And my goal was to have 10,000 followers. So I could like see if I could actually make this a career. So I didn't have to go back to 15 hours at the dealership, $15 an hour at the dealership. And by October, the day my daughter was born, I had 14,000. Wow. So I had just beat it.
Do you right now, is this do you make enough money to live from it yet? Oh, yeah. So this is like your full time like your, this is your career. My full time job, my sister's full time job. And it's significantly more money than I could make song cars. I love it. We'll get more into the, we'll get more to the finish shortly.
I want to take a quick step back. What's the mission for the car mom? Like what, what actually is it? Is it just an Instagram page? Give us a kind of an overview of what you're actually doing here. Yeah. So the car mom, we, I always say that my content is twofold. So like I definitely focus on like the car reviews for mom. So I'm a certified child passenger safety technician. So I had to get the certification so I could safely talk about car seats and how they fit in vehicles. So part of our content is all about the cars.
The other part of my content is all about the car buying process. I am so passionate about empowering women through the car buying process because I hate the perception of what it means to be a car sales person and what it means to be a car dealer. Like family owned dealerships are my life. Like my whole livelihood is because of people supporting local family owned dealerships. And it's always saddens me to see like the stigma that people have around them because I know there's so many good dealerships and sales people out there. Like I was, I was, and I still am. I'm a great sales person. Like I took good care of my customers.
I returned their phone calls. I was always honest and transparent. So the other half of my mission is like helping my followers find good dealerships, find good salespeople and feel empowered through the car buying process and to know it's not something they have to be afraid of. There is so much fear mongering when it comes to buying a car and there's all these like, you know, car coaches out there that just have all this fear invested.
It's like you're going to get screwed over and here's how. And I'm like, hold on, you probably aren't. And here are the red flags I would look out for. And besides that, like the car business is way more transparent than I think people think it is. So the other half of my platform is all about just empowering through that. So it's an Instagram page. We have our YouTube tours. I have car buying courses. We have merch. It's kind of like a little bit of a lifestyle brand.
Like, you know, I have like some car accessories, like car safety magnets, car cleaners. Anything mom car, first time car buyer related adjacent is kind of my thing.
How big is your reach? Like followers, subscribers, listeners? Yeah. So we actually said 100,000 on YouTube, like last week, which was pretty exciting. And then I have, I think 420 on Instagram and several thousand on Facebook. And then we have a podcast as well.
What's the podcast about? Oh, it's called the carpool and it is mom and it's, it's a little bit mindless, but then we always have an industry news segment. So we always talk about what's going on in the auto industry, but the spin is we talk about it like we're gossiping. So it's being my sister. So we're like, Oh my gosh, like Ford is going crazy. Like now our clubbing and they are like, you know, sharing EV chargers, but we do it in a way that's entertaining for, you know, anyone who's like not a car nerd to listen to.
And the whole point of it is it's like everyone likes to talk about cars. So like next time you're staying home mom and like next time you're at your kid's soccer's tripping and I like here's what you talk to you like your friend husband about. You tell them like this stuff you learned about the car business. So it's just kind of like getting people interested in the auto industry who may not be the typical gearheads.
We would think would be interested. Yeah. That's incredible. And so what's driving your growth at this point? Would you say like, is it just organically moms are sharing this with each other? Or what is that lever for you?
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, even still to this day, there's just not a lot of people who are doing car reviews for moms. And I think what makes my reviews different than the typical car reviewer is I am not reliant on the manufacturer to send me vehicles.
So what's difficult about, I think the car viewer model is so many of these car viewers like they're not getting in Toyota unless Toyota sends it. I'm like, I don't give a shit like I got a used for runner right now go do a tour of it like it's the same body style like as far as like my contents concerned.
I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of like the different trim level upgrades like I'm going to tell you the car seat can fit. So I've been able to be so completely raw and honest about the vehicles because I don't have any manufacturer ties.
I mean, I don't know if my dad always like loves when I grab a new Nissan and drag it through the mud, but I also try to explain to him which he's done a good of understanding. I'm not saying it's a bad car and things about car families and here are the reasons why and like I don't think there's I would go to bow with anyone who would disagree with me because in a way like my reviews are so data based because it's like it either fits or it doesn't like this has nothing to do with anything other than that.
So one thing that comes to mind when you say that is what was your sales style at the dealership because I feel like you are in a way, you know you're either selling these cars or you're not selling them or you're giving your unbiased opinion. But what was your sales style at the dealership like how did you actually go to that sales process with a customer.
Well, I think what's what's been what I'm so thankful for my background is because I was so ignorant to the car buying process when I started selling cars I'm really able to relate to those customers who are going through that first time car buying experience like I understand if you have no idea what how least worse because neither did I so I'm really able to like explain it.
And then additionally like the same at the end of the day the like I was still a young woman in a male dominated industry so the same gripes that my audience has about carbine is the same gripes that I had about car selling like it's both.
We're out of our wheelhouse we're not always being respected I mean how many times did someone come in and like assume I was the receptionist or like you know things like that or ask work with a sales person or like tell me I didn't know what I was talking about I mean that stuff happened all the time.
So in a way like my sale style kind of evolved to you know you can get people you can only get people to respect you so far and at the end of the day it's like okay I'm just going to focus on the moms.
So it's like I'm going to focus on the women and the first time car bars people who are going to treat me seriously like I'm not going to go to bat with like you know Jim who's 85 on his fifth five series like I just I'm a threat or whatever someone else seldom I don't care. I love it.
You know we had this we had this idea that we mocked up years ago where it was an online dealership for moms. Now the issue was that and of course not the issue but the reason yeah really I have the mockups I could probably find them and show you but the reason we never pursued this is because we didn't have that.
We didn't have that edge right it wasn't authentic to us and it wasn't authentic to me like cardio show guys authentic to me. And it's just funny how that works because it's it's in hindsight it's always a genius it's like of course like there needs to be a niche. You know that focuses on moms but you need the right person you know you need that.
They call it like that founder market fit and it's yeah definitely how that so all right let's get into some of the juicy stuff right people want to know like what's the deal with the car mom how much how much money are you making what are the economics of these businesses you're you're over here running like 15 different businesses.
I was impressed when I was looking through all your stuff so just explain to us like you know how do you think it's got started like you know what's making money and what's not making money give us the breakdown.
Yeah so I started the car I had no idea how I was going to make money like I had no idea how people made money on social media. But that wasn't the goal the goal was it's like let's just build an audience and then when I have something to sell to this audience like they will be so engaged and trust me so much that like it's going to work so it's going to work so it's going to work.
So I had no idea what I was going to do. My first big idea was that I was going to like make a carbine course and this carbine course you know people are always like how do you teach people how to buy cars but you're feeling my own dealerships.
I was just going to ask you what did you're dancing on nothing and that I mean it is. I'm not saying that they're going to be the dealership's most profitable customer but there is nothing in that course that breeds fear that paints dealerships in a bad light it is all about empowering you. I had a sales manager who taught me when I was selling cars that validations the new negotiation. That's true on both ends like just like dealers validate their price it's fair for the consumer to also validate their offer.
So it's all about just like validating your offer how to know you're getting a good deal how to improve your carbine experience I mean moms and families and probably anyone truly value their time like their money. The carbine process takes too long it takes too long a lot of the time because the consumers not prepared because as dealers were like so scared to tell them what's going to happen at their lease turn in like why we're so coy about how to make your carbine process go quicker is so weird to me so it's all about like saving time saving money making sure you're getting a good deal course is awesome and we're super proud of it. How many courses do you have? We have a trading course and a carbine course and then we sell them as a bundle as well.
So that's like one half of it I also do personalized consultations because there's so much misinformation about what makes a good family car and what vehicles can fit three car seat what's vehicles like work for families of four vehicles you know so I do these personalized consultations they're 15 minutes long you tell me your car seat set up what your budget is what your needs are and I'll spit out a couple of cars you should look at.
I really though that's not the most profitable end of the business because like it takes me sitting down for 15 minutes and you can only charge so much for that. But I love how much you charge for that. I charge 150 for 30 minutes and 75 for 15 minutes got it okay you can raise your prices that's not about the money for me that's well I know but I just like doing that and it kind of keeps me fresh in the business because I'm not selling cars so I like to see the offers come in I like to see what's happening.
Yeah. And then you know we YouTube's great so you know YouTube pays us for our views and YouTube actually what's interesting about the YouTube payment plan is they pay automotive and finance based accounts more per thousand views than any other type of money. Any other type of content out there. What's driving that just advertisers are paying the most for those. Because our advertisers will pay. Yeah so like if you're a makeup person on YouTube we've heard and I can't say these numbers are super updated but when we were starting it when you're a makeup person you're getting like $4 per thousand views when you're an automotive or finance really one you're getting like anywhere from $14 to $20 per thousand views.
Because the customer acquisition costs on a car is in the hundreds whereas the customer acquisition costs on makeup is in probably the tens of dollars or whatever so it makes sense. yeah so we do a lot of stuff on Instagram so like you make me on Instagram by affiliate links by sponsored content and then by selling your own stuff so we have some merchandise that we're super proud of our merch business.
Who's running all this who's running all this who's doing all the you know blocking and tackling I mean you're creating content media that takes up a lot of time. Yeah I think it's just me and my sister. So just you and your sister are doing everything. I mean we have a fulfillment center and we have podcast producers but my sister does all the editing a lot of the behind the scenes stuff runs the website.
I create the content. But our merch business we're really proud of it so we sell. Our big thing is we sell these safety stickers and safety magnets so it's looks like a child's hand. And it's designed to go on the outside of your vehicle. It's put there because when I was a mom I am mom when I was a mom of a two year old and a newborn it was so hard to load it on load because my two year old was constantly trying to run into the street. So we created these magnets that gives your child a place to put their hand on the vehicle to stay close to the car.
And then I could like unload or load my other child. So those have been super fun. I have a car cleaner that's completely non-toxic for like daily use. I mean I talk a lot of my platform how I think clean cars drive better and I don't like to buy into the notion that because you're a mom your car has to be trashed because I think your car is like sometimes the only few minutes of peace you get is a mom. So this car cleaner we have is it's natural it's non-toxic it's made to you know use daily and not like exposure families to a lot of harsh chemicals. So you tell some funny t-shirts like we have these like minivan graphic tees that say never say never on them because never say never about minivans you don't know until you try.
Hey the minivans about to arrive right now so I'm not even kidding it's like it might arrive while in the podcast. Yeah right now it's on the way. I just I love minivans you know I always I was talking about us just having sold minivans knowing that the man from it's to me it's a it's a very highly valued you know great just great great utility. I'm not the Toyota Sienna. All right I do want to talk more about your courses just the consumer side of things but before we get into that. Yeah. I mean what's been the most successful form of media for you from a financial perspective it's like your your focus on many different things like what what is that one area that you know you think you're going to invest more.
Our Instagram audience is definitely our most engaged and they're engaged in like my most day to day life so the way that you have an in the way that you sell successful on Instagram is by having an engagement. So we always prioritize taking care of that audience making sure we're buying them with a ton of good content so they don't feel like my pages are like a walking advertisement of you know my own merchandise but our merch is definitely our most profitable and successful. It's because it's you know it's your own stuff so instead of like you know pushing a product that I'm going to get paid 7% commission on I can push a product that I'm proud of that I back that we've invested you know a lot of money in but it's a product that I really believe in so that's the most successful and a lot of those deals a lot of the merch sales come from Instagram so it is always about prioritizing that content but my hopes is that I've diversified enough and I think the reason we're so diverse is because I don't want anyone to feel I don't want to feel like I anyone owns my platform other than me so like the car mom name is mine the car mom brand is mine if Instagram elites tomorrow. Not all my income is tied up in like how people see my Instagram stories we have a podcast a YouTube a website courses consultations.
We have so many other streams of revenue and I don't think enough content creators do that and they get very. It gets very scary on Instagram glitches are like you're just like not the hottest trending thing so. I very much trying to build this build this for longevity and I you know also as much as I love like being whatever an influencer or whatever you want to call me. I don't intend on influencing into my 40s or my 50s so it's like how can I make a brand in the business that. You know isn't going to be relying on me showing up telling everyone like what I made for dinner that night you know tell me more about that no I mean.
I think it's interesting because you are the face of the brand although it is the car mom of course. I'll be the car mom so what is that long term vision for the car mom if you don't think you're going to be the face long term like what does that look like. Well I mean I've always I take the responsibility of like being the the car on very seriously because there is a lot of car buying decisions being made based on what I say about a vehicle. And that's like a lot of pressure when I think about the other influencers who are you know sharing a top that's worth $25 and people are buying it well okay whatever they're out $25 if they don't like it. I'm I'm influencing you know $50,000 purchases so I take that very seriously.
And I also have tried to be super aware of the fact that I am just one mom with one set of needs and one opinion so I really have tried to. Like empower and raise other mothers voices so I can also make sure like those opinions are being heard like.
I drive a Ford expedition I don't like the Chevy Tahoe sorry it's one I think it's one of the most overrated cars out there but a lot of people love the Chevy Tahoe so I'm always very mindful to make sure I include on my site.
Moms who love the Chevy Tahoe and why they love it so we have this section on our website called real mom reviews and it's when moms can write in about why they like their vehicle and I always want to like to give them that like I always want that platform this is a collaborative platform and people buy cars for all different kinds of reasons so I it's finding the balance of like I want to share my opinion.
But at the end of the day like the car mombrian is about safety convenience and comfort and like those can be very much measured in a nine I mean those are very much like David driven thanks.
Walk me through more of the nitty gritty of like what choosing a car right so how do you decide what type of car is good for someone or bad for someone.
请带我更深入地了解如何选择一辆汽车,包括如何决定哪种类型的车适合某个人或不适合某个人的细节方面。
So I think the biggest misconception with buying a family car is not enough families forecast their families growth. I mean I people always ask me what the best car for a first time mom is I say the car you're currently driving because every car can fit one for the most part every car can fit one car seat in so many families rush into this car buying process or rush into this purchase.
And they have no idea how quickly their needs change and how. How these cars it changes how these cars operate so like I had three kids in four years. So if I would have bought a car. When I was pregnant with my first child unless I would have bought like a Hyundai Palisade okay great so three of us you be I had one kid it works perfect.
Okay now here I am four years later to six year alone I'm only on your four. And I now have three kids oh that was crazy. Now my oldest has to go to the third row and can I will just can't buckle himself okay well my oldest in the third row that means I can't put down the trunk space okay well now I don't have enough trunk space for my double shoulder for my other two kids that are in the second row.
So like you they just forget and you don't realize like how quickly those needs change so I tell my families like before you pull the trigger on a car. That's great that's how it works year one what is your seven look like how many kids do you have who sitting where how are you accessing them do you have enough trunk space what is great school drop off look like can they get out of the vehicle and like you just have to go down that process because there are so many families who have to trade in a car early get upside down because it doesn't fit their family and.
My my audience is so different than the other car buying audiences out there because during this pandemic everyone's like don't buy car prices are crazy. I'm like well that's great but Sharon's pregnant with twins so she needs a car and she needs a car today because her current car won't fit her family so you've got to be so careful when you're buying a family car. To make sure you get the right car and that you're in it well so that's my number one tip you've got to forecast what your future is going to look like.
And so what are what are some of the hottest vehicles you're recommending as a plate. Yeah I mean my favorite like my favorite full size SUV is a Ford expedition and like I'd go to bow with anyone who said definitely. The Ford expedition is the most car seat friendly it's I don't hold blog post comparing the Ford expedition to the Chevy Tahoe and I think who would be shocked if they see how much better the Ford expedition is for car seats.
One big thing about Chevy's lineup that I just don't understand is they don't put middle head restraints in their seats. So if you look at a Chevy Tahoe there's no any of the GM line. Interesting. No middle head restraints. I never noticed that. And it's like you can't put a human or a child in a booster seat in a seat without a head restraint.
Like that is incredibly dangerous and like I don't know why they don't have that like it's crazy to me. There's also very few vehicles that there's some vehicles that allow you to access the third row with car seats in the second row. The Ford expedition is one of them there's several other in the mid-sized category as well.
And you can literally tilt the entire seat while you have a car seat installed so you still have that third row access. That's huge. And then there's just like the car seat hardware like a lot of people don't know that car seats need lower anchors or tether anchors which is those like little anchors that we see on all the vehicles.
And there's a lot of vehicles that just don't put enough in the vehicle. So like not to keep comparing the Chevy Tahoe because it is a good car. But the Chevy Tahoe doesn't put lower anchors in the third row. Why? The Ford expedition does lower anchors what's that specifically?
Lower anchors are the ones that are in the seats. So you need those for some types of car seat installations. Oh yeah. The ones that click in got it. Yeah and then there's tether anchors on the back of the seats which are required for forward facing car seats. So another just like crazy example is like the Toyota Sequoia. It's like a huge family car. You're like that's the best that that's a family car. It's perfect.
Well the Toyota Sequoia only has one tether anchor in it and the third row. And only has one tether anchor in the third row and it's in the middle seat. So the only place you can install a car seat in the third row with Toyota Sequoia is the middle seat. Which means you can't see anything out the back. And it means.
Elizabeth can you take this and see what she needs? I'm so sorry. My daycare is calling me. I just want to make sure it's not over. Is she okay? Oh good. My daughter smashed. My daughter smashed her finger at daycare. So she was calling as soon as she gave her ibuprofen. Ugh. Sorry. We should definitely keep that part in.
Now I'm just blown away by these details that I would have absolutely never thought of. No. And you know my wife wouldn't have either. That's just crazy. Yeah. And like I didn't. And I was kind of figuring all of this out real time. And then once I got the car seat certification, it really just opened my eyes to. You know these manufacturers are like, is this a family car? And I'm like, is it? Ha ha ha. Put them on the spot. Is it? Yeah.
Alright so let's go from. I want to jump to carbine tips specifically. I know your courses are a big thing for you. What are just. Give me some of your most important carbine tips.
My number one carbine tip is to choose your salesperson ahead of time. So a lot of people don't know about this, but we all. Everyone carbine goes on Google and they're like, let me read the Google reviews. But we have to take it a step further and you have to choose who you want to work with.
So I love this platform called Deelerator because you can read reviews about individual salespeople. Like when I was a salesperson. You just had to see Ellen DePott, Alex Vetter. Oh, love. When I was a salesperson, my Deelerator reviews were everything. And it is such a good tip to tell people to decide who they want to work with. Because you and I both know like, if you're going to show up on a Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. and not have an appointment, are you going to get the best salesperson there?
No, we're busy. We're booked and busy. We have appointments. You're going to get the new guy who's ever outside smoking a cigarette. And that's not who you want to work with. And I said what I said. So I think the best way to empower yourself through the carbine process to improve your experience in 10 seconds is to decide who you want to work with.
So go on there, read the reviews, read their experience, what their accolades are, and schedule them up on that. And that's great. Now you're working with the Kelly's of the world and not like the chips of the world. Couldn't agree more. I can tell you that.
It's funny you mentioned that the salesperson smoking a cigarette. When we were renovating a couple years back, I remember the architect speaking with the architect and telling us, Hey, let's put a very short awning outside the dealership so that there's nowhere to smoke outside when it's raining. I like that. Yeah. So we moved from like these like nice awnings to like everything was like super short awnings. Yeah. Make sure that there's nowhere that's covered from the rain. So funny little thing that is just thought of when you mentioned that.
And I couldn't agree more. I mean, you don't want to put the fate in the hands of just, you know, randomness. You want to control your destiny. And the best way to do that is to team up with someone that already has a great reputation. So. And that's so easy for like, I think dealers to do all. So, you know, posting on your social media and just like telling us about your sales staff and say like, Hey, this is Kelly. You know, she's a mom of three. You know, she loves this car. And I'm just working with her like, here's how you book an appointment. And then it's like, why would we not empower our own salespeople and show how great they are because there's so many good eggs in this business. And I just think like not enough people are going to connect into them.
My most important trade in tip. Well, I like to list. So in my trading course, we talk a lot about knowing what's wrong with your car and then knowing what it would cost you to get it fixed, which maybe this is a good thing. And then I'm like, I want to make sure that I want to make sure that they're fixed, which maybe this one's kind of walk in line if it's like, okay, that's not like everyone's favorite.
That's not every dealer favorite tip that I share. But I also want to make sure my audience feels good about what they need you to do to prep their trade for trade in. And again, this is something like dealerships can absolutely share with their audience because all you're going to do is get better trade in. So, you know, for some minor things, I'm always like, you know, like, yeah, get the car detail before you trade in like there's nothing wrong with that.
But when it comes to like any more of like the major, like, let's say curved wheels, they're like, should I fix curb wheels? I'm like, I wouldn't fix your curved wheels. I would just take into the dealership, but I would make sure you call around and have some sort of idea of how much it costs to get curb wheels repaired. Because what a dealership sometimes is going to do is they're going to look at your car and they're going to devalue it and they're going to tell you how much they took off for your curved wheels.
So if they tell you they took off $500 because your wheels are curved and you have a quote that says, you know, your friend will fix it for $200 bucks. Okay, don't worry about it. I got a guy who will fix it for $200 bucks and then I'll bring it back. I just saved myself $300 bucks. Well, yeah, suddenly the dealership's not going to be charging $500 for it. Yeah, I mean, look, I think it depends.
There's in certain circumstances, I would say that, you know, adding, you know, like the dealership deserves to make some money, of course, for doing it or adding value. But I also understand your point. I think it's interesting. Like, you know, the consumer can make that decision for themselves. Like, if they have the time and they want to go get it fixed themselves. Great. Or maybe the dealership will, you know, deduct some or, you know, change to pay them a little bit more for that and some negotiation. So I think that's interesting.
The other thing I think that you said is it's interesting to me is that you mentioned to detail the car. You know, I always go back and forth on this because on one hand, as a dealer, I can tell you if you bring your car detailed, like on paper objectively, it's not adding any value. I don't care. I'm going to detail it anyways once I'm done reconditioning it.
On the other hand, you know, there is nothing like a first impression, a good first impression. And so I think, you know, I think there's something to that. And you're making me think through it because I've always been against like the detail. Like, if you're already trading it in, like, don't get it detailed. But the more think about it, you know, I do think that thinking about myself and my biases, like when someone brings a car in the past, I've seen cars that have been like filthy. Yeah, immediately, I think that if the car is filthy, they did not take care of that car. So I think there's something to be said from that perspective.
And I really try. Like, in the course, I really paint it as a, it's to your point. It's to show, like, pride of ownership. So I say, you know, get your car detailed and then come to the dealership with both sets of keys with your owner's manual with any service records you have. So you can just like paint the picture that this was a super well maintained vehicle. I mean, when I was appraising when I was selling cars on a manager, what a praise a trade, they'd be like, they got every service record, like this thing's mint.
And it's like, first of all, do we know that's every service record? Absolutely not. Like, what are you talking about? Like, they could have been missing, you know, three years worth it, but just because they had the illusion of like every service record in a binder. We're like, wow, must be a great well maintained car. Yeah, that's immediate. I mean, it's, it's okay. A little bit of an illusion. 100%. And that's important.
You know, but I also really like, I always preach on my platform. Like, no, like Mother's Day, ask for a car detail your birthday. Ask for a car detail. Like that is a really good gift that we can get to people and like clean cars drive better. Like, get your car detailed. Like, why are you driving around the gross car? Get your car detailed. A lot of clean cars drive better.
What do you think fundamentally, like you're really working actively on changing this perception of dealerships and also helping moms out and families. What do you think the car buying experience will look like for women in, you know, five to 10 years? Like, how is that going to be different? You know, especially with everything you're working on? What do you think is going to change?
My hopes are that like, I don't think the car buying process or experience is any different than it is for a man, for a woman with the right people in place. Like, there is, I mean, if you're going to a good salesperson and a good dealership, I truly believe you are going to be get treated the same. So I'm hoping that by if we just continue to select our sales people to write good reviews to like build up those good sales people and good dealerships, then like the old cardogs of the world are just like, you know, going to become extinct.
Like, I don't have like a way to like, here's what you say to this guy. He's not treating you right. I'm over that. Like, it's 2023. Like, I just don't have the headspace or the word tracks to get a guy to take you seriously. Like, we're just done giving them our business.
So I really just want to continue to be able to connect my audience with good a local family on dealerships because I just don't want to live in a world where we get extinct. Like, it's my livelihood. I hope it's to be my future. I'm like, I'm not going to sit on the sideline while, you know, carmax and carvana and room in the manufacturers try to think they can do better than us because I don't think they can.
Will you say, hopefully it's going to be my, or I hope it's going to be my future. Do you think you're going to get back into the dealership business in like a full-time capacity? I think so. Wow. I mean, I love the car business. I don't know if I would ever be like, I will never stop doing the car, mom. But I think there's a real opportunity to just like continue to, you know, make ways on the consumer side to really just, you know, have my, I mean, I would love to have my own dealership. Why not? I think when you more women owned, you know, dealerships. Why not?
Well, we have any female owners that are listening to this podcast right now, then maybe they can reach out and connect. That'll be awesome. Yeah. Kelly, this has been awesome.
如果有任何女性业主正在收听这个播客,希望能够联系我们。那将会非常棒。是的,凯利,这真的太棒了。
I want to end with two other questions. The first one being, what's next for the car, mom? I mean, you've launched so many cool different forms of media and so many, you know, kind of micro businesses and some are growing faster than others. But what's next?
You know, we're kind of in the, wow, we did a lot. And now let's enjoy being mom's face. Like, I got into this business to have flexibility to be home with my kids. And I'm very hyper aware of like, phases of my life. So I have three kids for and under right now. My sister's about to have her first baby. And we feel so blessed that we have this career that's so flexible that we can do what we love while still making it to like, you know, four o'clock daycare pickup.
So I plan on like taking, I mean, one day I want to take this thing to the moon and like, I want to have like, you know, I want it to be a household name and like no family is buying a car without the car, mom, you know, helping through the car buying process. And I want to like really help make real changes in how these cars get produced. And like, I would love to like, console manufacturers on like just making some minor changes that would make a car so much more convenience for families.
But my priority for like the next 10 years is to keep doing what I'm doing and enjoy time with my family. And then I'm going to hopefully continue to build an audience, keep an engaged audience, keep, you know, keep being relatable to my audience so that when that time comes, they're all there. And we're ready to do it. But once I'm kind of out of this phase of my life, incredible.
Where can people learn more about you and the car mom? Well, if you want to see some chaos, you can follow us on Instagram. Look at the car mom. YouTube was where we keep more of like our formal like car buying and car, car tours. And then we're really proud of our website. We actually just launched last week a car, a car quiz. So you can take this quiz. I saw that. I have a family car we think, which has been like, I mean, the logic and data that went behind building that has taken truly months. Wow.
But we think it's actually, we think it's actually pretty accurate. So you can do that. And then my podcast is called the carpool where we think it's pretty funny. We'll have to get you on the carpool and you can come gossip with us because some of your tweets are like basically like, I mean, you're like, this is crazy.
Like, I would love to dive into just some of the crazy. Yeah, I would love that. Like I said, we just like talk about the auto industry from like we're two girls gossiping because we are. And there's like a lot of gossip going on in the auto industry. Like it's kind of crazy.
Kelly, this was truly awesome. I'm super excited for what you're building. Thanks again for coming on. And of course, we will talk soon. Thank you so much. Thanks so much.