How "Gambling for Car Dealers" inspired a $2 Billion Business
发布时间 2024-02-06 10:00:04 来源
This dealer went from selling cars and eBay to cashing out with his $2 billion car auction app. But instead of retiring at 40 and playing golf, he's already out to build the next big thing in the wholesale car business. Today I'm speaking with Joe Nieman, the serial entrepreneur who co-founded ACV auctions, a publicly traded digital marketplace for dealers to buy and sell used cars. We discussed how the thrill of car auctions inspired his industry disrupting app, the systemic incentive issues plaguing the auction block, if there's a silver bullet for car sale success, his massive announcement and much more.
这位经销商曾在汽车和eBay上销售汽车，现已通过他的20亿美元汽车拍卖应用程序获得了可观的回报。然而，与其在40岁就退休打高尔夫，他现在已经致力于打造批发汽车业务中的下一个大项目。今天我与乔·尼曼进行了对话，他是ACV拍卖的联合创始人，这是一个公开交易的数字市场，供经销商买卖二手汽车。我们讨论了汽车拍卖的刺激性如何启发他颠覆行业的应用程序，拍卖市场存在的系统性激励问题，是否有一种解决汽车销售成功的法宝，他的重大宣布等等。
Don't forget to click subscribe so you never miss an episode. What's up everyone? This is Car Dealer Ship Guy. You're listening to the Car Dealer Ship Guy podcast, which is my effort to give you access to the most unbiased and transparent insights into the car market. People ask me all the time, C&G, can you help me fill and open roll my company? Well, now I can. I'm excited to announce my new industry job board. I've built this job board set out employers and the auto industry can take advantage of my network and distribution.
不要忘记点击订阅，这样你就不会错过任何一集了。大家好！我是汽车经销商。你正在收听的是汽车经销商Guy的播客，这是我努力为你提供对汽车市场最公正透明的见解的努力。人们经常问我，C&G，你能帮我填补和招聘我的公司的职位吗？现在我可以了。我很高兴地宣布我新建了一个行业招聘板块。我构建了这个岗位版块，使雇主和汽车行业可以利用我的网络和分发。
Your company needs roles filled and I have access to talent. It's a win-win situation. This job board is for anyone in automotive vendors, dealers, lenders, manufacturers, auto tech, you get the point. The best part is that posting roles is 100% free. Over 50 companies have already posted open roles, including Lithia Motors, Recurrent, Credit Acceptance, Carse Commerce, Shift Digital and over 20 dealer groups. Add your open roles today by visiting my website at dealershipguy.com and clicking on industry job board or visit the link in the show notes below.
你的公司需要填补职位，而我可以接触到人才。这是一个双赢的局面。这个招聘网站面向汽车供应商、经销商、贷款机构、制造商、汽车技术等，你懂的。最棒的是，发布职位是百分之百免费的。已有超过50家公司发布了空缺职位，包括Lithia Motors、Recurrent、Credit Acceptance、Carse Commerce、Shift Digital和20多个经销商集团。立即访问我的网站dealershipguy.com，并点击行业招聘板块或者点击下方音频注释中的链接来添加你的空缺职位。
This episode is also brought to you by Stream Companies. Stream Companies is the type of agency partner that easily becomes an extension of your team fully engaged in the growth of your business. Their impressive team of auto industry and marketing experts dive in to understand your business needs, study the data and provide full media strategies that leverage every channel that is right for your specific business and its goals. Stream is fully integrated, full service and just celebrated 28 years of consecutive growth. A feat that is only possible through collaborative partnerships and exceptional customer service.
本期节目也由Stream Companies赞助。Stream Companies是一种能轻松成为您团队延伸部分的代理伙伴，积极参与您业务的发展。他们拥有令人印象深刻的汽车行业和市场营销专家团队，通过深入研究数据了解您的业务需求，并提供全面的媒体战略，充分利用适合您具体业务和目标的每个渠道。Stream是一家全面整合、全方位服务的公司，并刚刚庆祝了连续28年的增长。这一成就只有通过合作伙伴关系和卓越的客户服务才可能实现。
From building your brand to leveraging their patented ad-pack, Stream has driven a capture that attention to your shoppers and convert them into buyers. They work with some of the biggest and best dealerships in the country and serve all OEMs. To learn more, head to Stream Companies.com today where you can book a free advertising audit. Their team will dive deep into your online presence and digital advertising to uncover all your immediate opportunities for growth.
从打造品牌到利用他们的专利广告包，Stream已经成功吸引了顾客的关注并将他们转化为购买者。他们与全国最大最好的经销商合作，并为所有原始设备制造商提供服务。要了解更多信息，请即刻访问Stream Companies.com，您可以预约一次免费的广告审查。他们的团队将深入研究您的在线存在和数字广告，揭示您所有即刻增长机会。
Lastly, this episode is also brought to you by CDK Global. CDK Global has been empowering nearly 15,000 dealers with the tools and technology they need to build deeper relationships with customers. Their team is keenly aware of the state of dealership technology. And while many vendors promise seamless experiences between your CRM, DMS, digital retail and fixed ops, most of these bolt-on solutions tend to break workflows and cause more harm than good. That is why CDK has launched a new dealership experience platform.
最后，本集内容也由全球CDK赞助带给您。CDK Global已经为近15,000家经销商提供了必要的工具和技术，帮助他们与客户建立更深入的关系。他们的团队非常清楚经销商技术的现状。尽管许多供应商承诺在您的CRM、DMS、数字零售和固定运营之间提供无缝体验，但其中大多数插件解决方案往往会破坏工作流程，带来更多的伤害而非益处。这就是为什么CDK推出了一款新的经销商体验平台。
This new integrated software consists of everything you need to operate a dealership officially while delivering an unparalleled experience to your customers. Basically, everything working together, not separate, one system to run your dealership as opposed to 10. CDK developed it with an outside-in approach listening to dealers every step of the way. You can learn more about CDK's dealership experience platform by visiting CDKglobal.com slash DXP or clicking the link in the show notes below.
这个全新的集成软件包括了您经营一家正式经销店所需的一切，并为您的客户提供了无与伦比的体验。基本上，所有功能都可以同时运行，而不是分离，只需一个系统即可管理您的经销店，而不是十种不同的系统。CDK采用了从外部到内部的方法，始终倾听经销商的意见和需求。您可以通过访问CDKglobal.com/DXP，或者点击下方的链接，在展示说明中了解更多关于CDK的经销店体验平台的内容。
Joan even on the CDG podcast.
乔恩甚至还参加了CDG播客节目。
这句话的意思是，乔恩甚至还出现在CDG播客节目中。
Joe, welcome. Good morning. Happy to be here. Thank you. Happy to have you on and not the first podcast that I'm doing without an animation.
乔，欢迎。早上好。很高兴能在这里。谢谢你。很高兴能邀请你来参加这个播客节目，而且这并不是我第一次不带有动画的播客。
This is a big one. There's that beautiful face. Yeah, yeah, right. So at least someone thinks that. No, I'm scared. I got the CDG going. So we're in business.
这是一个大事件。那张美丽的脸。是的，没错。至少有人认为如此。不，我害怕。我已经做好准备了。所以我们可以开始了。
I'm super pumped about this, super pumped to have you on. Dude, do you know when I first came across you? I don't think I even think I told you this. No, I don't think we talked about that. So you were always very active on the dealer Facebook groups. Yes.
我对此感到非常兴奋，非常高兴有你的加入。伙计，你知道我第一次遇到你是什么时候吗？我想我甚至都没告诉过你。不，我不认为我们谈过这个。所以你总是在经销商的Facebook群组中非常活跃。是的。
And I was, believe it or not, I was not active or I wasn't posting, but I was consuming. And I would always see your name. And I was like, dude, this guy is sharp because I knew the time that you were already working at a much larger company, ACV auctions, which we'll get into shortly, which you also co-founded or co-founded. I would say I was the industry guy. I mean, it doesn't matter. We did it. There were three of us from the start, but I'm definitely the car guy. Yeah.
相信与否，我并没有积极参与或发布，但我一直在消费。而且我总是看到你的名字。我觉得，哥们，这家伙很精明，因为我知道你早就在一个更大的公司ACV拍卖工作，我们后面会详细讨论的，这也是你共同创办的。我想说我是行业里面的那个人。无论怎样，我们做到了。一开始有三个人，但我绝对是与汽车有关的那个人。是的。
So either way, I just remember seeing your name. I'm like, dude, you're getting a crowd. And I respected that because you know what you did? Whether you're aware of this or not, but I can say we now in the social media world call like community engagement. Like you were very engaged with the community responding to people and that you build that personal connection very, very well early on. So kudos to you for that because I definitely took notice of that. You did a great job. Yeah.
所以不管怎样，我只记得看到过你的名字。我就觉得，兄弟，你聚集了一批人。我尊重你做到了这一点，因为你知道你做了什么吗？不管你是否意识到，但我可以说，我们现在在社交媒体世界中称之为社区互动。你非常积极与社区进行互动，回应人们的需求，非常早期就建立了那种非常非常好的个人联系。所以真为你感到骄傲，因为我一定会留意到这点。你做得很棒。是的。
It was, I think it was necessary at the time. And it felt good doing it. You know, it was genuine interaction with our customers. So it was a great place to have those form those connections.
我认为那时候是必要的。而且做这件事感觉很好。你知道的，这是与我们的客户进行真正互动的机会。所以这是一个很好的机会来建立那些联系。
Can you start us with your background? Right? Like give us some of the early days and your like your early automotive career. How do you even get into automotive and sort of work your way out? Yeah, don't let me get too into the weeds, but I was definitely one of those kids. I'll stop here. I trust you.
你能告诉我们一下你的背景吗？就是那些早期的经历，以及你在汽车行业的初期职业生涯。你是怎么开始进入汽车行业的，然后逐渐脱颖而出的？不要让我深入细节，但我肯定是那些对汽车非常感兴趣的孩子之一。我就说到这里，相信你会了解的。
I was one of those kids obsessed with cars from a young age. It was not a family business by any means, but I started working at my uncle's repair shop just breaking down tires, you know, empty and waste oil bins when I was like 15 in the summers. He hooked me up with a car that was otherwise gonna go to the scrap yard.
我是那种从小就对汽车着迷的孩子之一。这并不是一个家族企业，但当我15岁的时候，夏天的时候我开始在我叔叔的修车店工作，主要负责拆下轮胎、倒掉废油罐之类的工作。他给我提供了一辆本来要被送到废品场的车。
And it was like an 88 Honda Civic. And he didn't ask me to buy it. He told me to buy it. Then it was $50. And we're going back a lot of years now. And it was probably like around 2000. And I said, all right, I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. I don't know my license or anything. He said, well, fix it up, you know? So I did. And put a couple hundred bucks in it. I bought it for 50, probably at $300 in it by the time I was done. And I sold it for 900. And at 15 years old, that was kind of like a light bulb moment. You made the first buck. Yeah, I made first real buck. And I was always a worker anyways, you know, doing landscaping stuff. So I had the work ethic. It's just the cars gave me something to focus on.
这辆车就像是一辆88年的本田思域。他并没有让我买，而是告诉我买。当时价格是50美元，那时候已经是好多年前的事了，大约是2000年左右。我说好，我不知道买来后要怎么处理。他说，那就修整一下吧，你知道的。于是我就这么做了，花了几百块钱。我以50美元买下它，到最后我大概投入了300美元。然后我以900美元的价格卖出了它。那时15岁，对我来说就像是一个启发的时刻。我挣到了第一桶真正的钱。我一直都是个勤奋的人，做园艺之类的工作。只是汽车给了我一个专注的事物。
So all through high school, I was flipping cars out of my parents' driveway. This really pretty much predates most of Craigslist. I probably was putting it on there, maybe some other places. And then in college, I turned that up a bit. And I was always able to find like a used car dealer whose license I could use. So I didn't have to have my own spot. I kind of rent a little bit from them and give them a little piece of the profit on each car. But I developed my niche was cheaper, but specialty type cars that I could sell on eBay. So oh, so you sold eBay? Yeah, I was big time on eBay.
所以在整个高中时期，我都是在我父母的车道上翻车。这基本上早于大部分的Craigslist时期。我可能会在那里出售，或者其他地方。然后在大学里，我增加了一些活动。我总是能找到一个可以使用的二手车行的许可证。这样我就不需要自己找地方。我从他们那里租用一点空间，并在每辆车上给他们一小部分利润。但我的专长是便宜但有特色的汽车，我可以在eBay上卖掉。哦，所以你在eBay上卖车？是的，我在eBay上非常有成就。
I mean, what year was this? Roughly like 2007 to 2013, 2014. But we got to the point where we were on eBay's, they claimed, I don't know how true this is, but one of their top 50 producing dealers on eBay. It's a little hard for me to believe, but we didn't use it as a lead gen tool. We used it as a transaction platform. So we listed a lot of cars, no reserve. That got dicey because the market kind of dried up on there for a while, but our stuff got sold. It wasn't, again, it wasn't like fishing. It was spear hunting.
我的意思是，这是哪一年呢？大致是2007年到2013年，2014年左右。但我们达到了一个程度，在eBay上，他们声称我们是他们前50大产商之一。我不知道这是否真实，但有点难以置信，但我们并没有将其用作潜在客户生成工具。我们把它用作交易平台。所以我们列出了很多没有保留价的汽车。有一段时间市场有点萧条，但我们的货物被卖掉了。再次强调，这不像是钓鱼，而是直接狙击。
We were putting stuff out there, lifted trucks, jeeps, you know, lower cost Corvettes, but stuff that customers on a national and sometimes international scale or platform would be interested in. How big was this operation? Like give us some context of numbers?
我们推出了一些产品，包括升高的货车、吉普车，你知道的，成本较低的科尔维特等等，但主要是那些在全国乃至国际范围内的客户会感兴趣的产品。这个运营有多大规模？能给我们一些数字上的背景吗？
Yeah, I eventually got it to the point, I was like 26 years old. We've taken over an old Chevy dealership. We sell about 50 cars a month, but we'd be doing that with 50 cars in inventory. So the turn time, our average turn time was like 20 something days. We were just, we were, I didn't even realize it at the time, but kind of ahead of the curve, I guess, some big, meaty profits, not always, but we focused on the cars with eyeball. We knew how to present them. We didn't into our photo room.
是的，最后我把它搞定时已经26岁了。我们接手了一家旧的雪佛兰经销商。我们每个月卖大约50辆车，但我们也必须要有50辆库存来完成这个销售量。所以平均周转时间大约是20多天。那时候我并没有意识到，但我们似乎有点走在了前面，有一些可观的利润，虽然不是总是如此，但我们专注于那些有吸引力的车辆。我们知道如何呈现它们，我们没有在照片室里瞎搞。
We took like the body shop location of the dealership and converted that into like a 35 by 35 photo room, which most people would say was a crazy waste of space, but fast forward and now everybody's got a photo room.
我们选择了汽车经销店的车体修复位置，并将其改造成一个35×35的摄影室，大多数人会说这是对空间的荒谬浪费，但快进几年，现在每个人都有一个摄影室了。
Stable sticks. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
稳定的棍子。是的，完全正确。确切地说。
So you were doing, you pretty much created this career in eBay. You mentioned taking over the Chevy dealership. I'm assuming you were, were you doing any retail at the Chevy dealership or were we still only online?
所以你之前一直在eBay上做，基本上是自己创造了这个职业。你提到接管雪佛兰经销商。我假设你之前在雪佛兰经销商是只做线上零售，还是同时也有线下实体店？
We did, we did probably like 50 50, but my focus and my, and my desire and my heart really was in the online sales. We wouldn't turn a local customer away, but it was much, for me, it was much cleaner and more fun to go and get the wire transfer.
我们做过，并且可能也有大约五五开的比例，但是我的关注点、愿望和实际上我内心的渴望都是在线销售。我们不会拒绝当地的客户，但对我来说，去获取电汇款更加干净而有趣。
You know, we were doing some finance stuff, but primarily it was like, hey, let's make a three, five, six grand front end deal and put that thing on a truck and ship it away and never see it again. And that felt really good.
你知道，我们当时在做一些财务方面的事情，但主要就是，嘿，让我们做一笔三、五、六千大头的销售交易，把货放上卡车运走，再也不见了。这种感觉真的很好。
Were we acquiring most of your cars? Octions. Octions. Yeah. That was definitely, yeah, that was definitely the years of the, you know, of the up and up in eBay, eBay motors. I mean, Texas Auto Direct was, you know, obviously number one online eBay dealer from Texas, at least back then. I don't know about it today.
我们是不是收购了你们大部分的车辆？拍卖。拍卖。是的，那绝对是 eBay 和 eBay motors 蓬勃发展的年份。我是说，Texas Auto Direct 显然是当时来自德克萨斯的头号在线 eBay 经销商。至于今天我不清楚。
No, you know what happened to them, right? Well, yeah, they've just shut down. So no more Texas Auto Direct. Amazing. It's incredibly great. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what's, you know, the end game there. I mean, I guess it's the list to say is, but needless to say, they built quite an empire during those years. Yes, they did.
不，你知道他们发生了什么，对吧？嗯，他们刚刚关闭了。所以不再有德克萨斯汽车直销。真是太令人惊讶了。太棒了。是的。我的意思是，我不知道。我不知道他们的最终目标是什么。我想说的是，不用说，在那些年里，他们建立了相当一座帝国。是的，他们确实做到了。
So fast forward us a little bit now. When I listen to your story, and obviously I have, I've done some research, I have some more background on you, you know, you went from flipping cars to building a multi-billion dollar publicly traded online auction platform, ACV auctions. I'm sure many people listening here have heard about it. If you haven't, check it out. How give bridge and I know that's a fully loaded quite, but bridge that gap for us. So like how you went from this dealership to launching an auction platform.
那么，现在让我们稍微快进一下。当我听你的故事时，显然我已经了解了一些，我还对你有些背景了解。你从翻修汽车起家，发展到建立了一个市值数十亿美元的上市在线拍卖平台——ACV拍卖。我相信在座的许多人都听说过它。如果你还没有听说过，可以去了解一下。那么，请介绍一下你是如何从汽车经销商转型并推出一个拍卖平台的。
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of it was kind of leapfrogging from one, one thing to the next. And not always knowing where we were going to land. But in, in 2014, I really just started to get frustrated with my dealership.
是的。是的。很多时候我们都是从一个东西跳到另一个东西。并且并不总是知道我们将要着陆的地方。但是在2014年，我真的开始对我的经销商感到沮丧了。
I had a dozen employees. I know a lot of people go through the same things. I was in my mid 20s. I had guys working for me that were in their mid 40s. I know exactly how to manage people, you know, at the time and managing texts and managing salespeople. It's, it can be challenging.
我曾有过十几名雇员。我知道很多人也经历过相同的事情。当时我二十多岁。我手下的人中有些人已经四十多岁了。我熟知如何管理人员，当时是指管理沟通和销售人员的能力。这可能是具有挑战性的。
And I was technically still a kid at the time. There was some profit compression. There were more people. Like I used to be the only guy walking around the auction. I had a laptop or I had it with an air card stuck in the side. If you remember that for an iPad, like a first gen iPad, and I would find these cars on eBay, comfortable, you know, to what I was looking at at the auction.
那个时候，从技术上讲，我还是个孩子。利润收缩了一些。人也多了。以前我在拍卖会上走来走去时，我是唯一一个这样的人。我有一台笔记本电脑，或者是插着一个空中卡的电脑。如果你还记得那个时候的第一代iPad，我会在eBay上找到那些车，舒适地观察它们，你懂的，跟在拍卖会上观察时一样。
So I had a really clear path to what I knew I could sell the car for. Anyways, I wasn't the only one who was still doing that, right? Some people were creeping in and it just, you know, the Volkswagen TDIs that I used to be able to make for grand.
所以，对于我知道我可以卖出的车辆，我有一个非常明确的途径。不管怎样，我并不是唯一一个仍在这样做的人，对吗？有些人悄悄地加入进来，你知道的，这些大众TDI车型以前我还能卖一千大元。
Now, I was, you know, struggling to make 1500. It just kind of took some of the fun out of it. So I started to look at my other options and I had an opportunity to go work for a big new car group. And so I said, you know what, I'm in a good cast spot. If I go and liquidate everything, I'm going to do it.
现在，我在努力赚取1500美元。这让事情不那么有趣了。因此，我开始寻找其他选择，并有机会加入一个大型新车集团工作。所以我说：“你知道吗，我处于一个好的投资位置。如果我把所有东西都变现，我就去做吧。”
And I ripped the bandit off and I liquidated my dealership and went to go work for this new car group. And needless to say, I was not a good fit in their corporate machine. They got a really efficient dialed in thing.
我撕破外衣，清算了我的经销商业务，并加入了这个新的汽车团队工作。不用说，我并不适应他们高效精密的企业机制。他们有着非常有效的操作流程。
And I was a little bit of a cowboy, I guess you could say, but I was used to be in my own operator, you know, I never worked for anybody. I did that for about six months. And what I learned in that experience, the big takeaway was as much as the used cardio that's primarily acquiring inventory at the auction, and as much as there's struggle and hardship going, and I love the auctions.
我曾经是个有点像牛仔的人，你可以这么说，但我习惯于独立操作，你知道的，从未为他人工作过。我这样做了大约六个月。该经历中我学到了一件重要的事情，那就是在拍卖中主要是通过购买库存来获取货物，虽然会有许多困难和挣扎，但我喜欢这些拍卖。
Don't get me wrong. It was my favorite part of the business, but it was tough. And my naive perspective was these, these four dealers, the Lexus dealers, the guys that are bringing 20 trades a week, they're just minting money when they're standing up on the block.
别误会我的意思。那是我最喜欢的工作部分，但非常艰难。而我天真的观点是这样的，这四个经销商，那些销售雷克萨斯的人，每周带来20辆二手车，他们在拍卖台上就能轻松赚大钱。
And I literally, I mean, this is what I thought because I never sat in their shoes. I move into the new car world and I was, I couldn't believe how inconsistent the profit and loss was from what they appraised the car for to what it actually sold at the auction for. And the whole, in the wholesale world.
我是真的，我是说，这就是我当时的想法，因为我从来没有亲身经历过他们的处境。我步入了新的汽车行业，我简直不敢相信他们评估车辆时候的盈亏情况与实际在拍卖会上的成交价有多么不一致。而整个批发市场都是如此。
Correct. Correct. So what, what the light bulb moment for me was that geez, there is, there is a pain and challenge and a lack of consistency on both sides of the equation, really like both customers, the sellers and the buyers need a better option than what they're currently dealing with. So that's the backstory. I left the new car dealership and I just kind of jumped in headfirst into trying to figure out how to do this.
正确。正确。所以，对我来说，灯泡瞬间的感觉就是呀，确实存在着一种痛苦和挑战，以及双方都缺乏一致性的问题，无论是顾客、卖家还是买家，都需要比他们当前所面临的情况更好的选择。这就是背景。我离开了新车经销商，然后我就毅然决然地投入到试图弄清楚如何做到这一点的过程中去了。
And I'm not a technology guy at all, but I knew how to use an iPhone. I knew what I wanted that app to be. I knew what that wanted ACV's like user experience to be. And so I was very fortunate in Buffalo, New York of all places, I was able to find a co-founder, Dan, who was a great tech guy and knew a lot of people and knew how to build this stuff. And then we got linked up with another guy who was a really great finance guy, Jack. So the three of us had this really unique, a kind of partnership where I think a lot of what we were told by a lot of venture capitalists was it's very unusual to have the industry guy, the tech guy and the finance guy. And so even though the vision might have been a bit of a reach for the investor community to really believe that it was going to get traction, we had the right people around the table early on. And so they bought into it. They believed that we had a solid plan. We built the thing out and we started it in Buffalo, New York.
我并不是一个专业的技术人员，但我知道如何使用iPhone。我知道我想要的应用程序是什么样的。我知道ACV想要的用户体验是什么样的。在纽约州的水牛城，我非常幸运地找到了合作创始人丹，他是一个很厉害的技术人员，认识很多人，并且知道如何构建这些东西。然后我们又遇到了另一个很擅长财务的人杰克。所以我们三个人有一种非常独特的合作伙伴关系，很多风险投资人告诉我们这种行业人员、技术人员和财务人员的组合非常罕见。即使愿景对投资者社区来说可能有点超前，但我们早期就聚集了正确的人才。所以他们相信我们有一个稳定的计划。我们把这个东西建起来，然后在纽约州的水牛城开始了。
And, you know, I literally just banged on doors and we got a whole bunch of used car dealers signed up that said, you know, sure, if cars come on the platform, would you bid on them? And enough of them said, yes. And then we went and just hit on the new car stores and most of them said, no, but was able to get a few early on to say, yes, and went and listed their cars and they transacted. I mean, it's, to me, it wasn't rocket science. You know, I used to buy a lot of, a lot of cars on phone calls. So of course I forced most of my cars at the auction, but from people that I trusted, used car managers, wholesalers, a lot of these guys would call me. It was repeat business. They brought a truck past me and send me a couple pictures via text. And I'd say, you know, we'd agree on a price and it was a dumb deal. So the idea of launching 20 minute long spontaneous auctions out, scatter shotting into a buyer base, it didn't seem unreasonable and it proved, proved to work.
然后，你知道的，我实际上就是敲了敲门，我们就有了一大堆二手车经销商签约了。他们说，如果平台上有车出现，你会参与竞标吗？有足够多的人说是的。然后我们去找新车商店，大部分都说不行，但我能找到一些早期的合作伙伴，他们同意列出他们的车辆，然后进行了交易。在我看来，这并不是什么高深的科学。我过去经常通过电话购买很多车，所以当然我强迫自己的大部分车参加拍卖，但这是来自我信任的二手车经理、批发商的交易，这些人经常给我打电话，他们会开一辆卡车经过我这儿，发几张照片给我。我们商定一个价格，这是笨重的交易。所以，在买家群体中启动20分钟长的即时拍卖的想法并不令人不合理，而且证明有效。
You launched, I mean, ACV auctions, it's always had a different type of auction, you know, just the way it functions. It's not like a traditional auction where you go, you know, car comes through the lane, bidding, bidding, bidding. Next car comes in. And I mean, I guess in a way it's similar to that, but it's digital. So you have like a timer or a countdown. Why did you decide to do that?
你推出了ACV拍卖，我的意思是说，它一直以来都有一种不同类型的拍卖方式，你知道的，它的运作方式与传统拍卖不同。它不像传统的拍卖那样，你知道的，车子从车道驶过，竞价，竞价，竞价。下一辆车进来。在某种程度上，我猜它有点类似，但它是数字化的。所以你有一个计时器或倒计时。你为什么决定这样做呢？
Right? Like that to me, that was something very different. I remember the first time downloading the app and seeing an ACV auction, it was just a, it was a new type of experience that I wasn't used to. Why did you decide to do that?
对吗？对我来说，那真是不同寻常的事情。我记得第一次下载这个应用程序并看到一个ACV拍卖，那是一种我不习惯的全新体验。你为什么决定这么做呢？
The physical auctions do a really good job.
实体拍卖会表现得非常出色。
It was an accident, right?
这是意外，对吗？
Yeah, it wasn't an accident. No, it wasn't an accident at all. It was, it was what I wanted to do was I wanted to legitimize those spontaneous phone calls and text messages. I'm a car dealer at heart, right? If I'm sitting at dinner, this is not something I'm proud of, but if I'm sitting at dinner with my wife and I'm going to pay her to text me and runs a car past me, I'm going to respond. Because it's, if I don't, I'm going to miss that opportunity. I know I'm not the only one. He's, you know, sending that car out to he's shopping it past three or four guys. He knows. So to me, there's, there's a thrill and an excitement factor of being able to have an opportunity to buy a car out of the blue. And what I really saw too was, was I wanted to serve both customers. I feel like the best marketplaces, they don't pick sides. They don't go on for the buyer, on for the seller. They go, no, I'm going to, I'm going to do it better for both of them. And going back to what I saw in the new car stores, I saw a huge, like, cumbersome burden on getting these cars to an auction that doesn't sell the first week. It's sitting behind a fence. You know, maybe the keys are getting stolen. Maybe they're not. Maybe somebody's pulling spark plug wires, maybe not. And then it's the next week and does it cross the block? Does it not cross the block? And the car is held hostage. The whole thing was just like, this is harder than it needs to be. Leave the car right in the parking lot. Take some pictures of the thing. List it. Let's sell it in 20 minutes. There are, there are buyers out there that if you just put the chum in front of them, they're going to buy you. So that was the notion. Um, and I think we played into the psychology of the car deal really well.
是的，这不是意外。不，这根本不是意外。我想做的是合法化那些突发的电话和短信。说到底，我本质上是一个汽车销售商，对吗？如果我和妻子一起吃饭，虽然我不以此为荣，但如果她给我发短信并推荐一辆车给我，我会回应。因为如果我不这么做，我就会错过这个机会。我知道我不是唯一一个这样的人。他也许会把这辆车推荐给其他三四个人。他心里有数。对我来说，有一个机会突然买下一辆车真的带来了刺激和兴奋。而且我还想服务好两种客户。我觉得最好的市场不偏袒任何一方，既不只顾买家也不只顾卖家。它们要为两者都创造更好的环境。再回到我在新车店里的见闻，我看到了把这些车送到拍卖行的过程非常复杂繁琐，而且有时一周都卖不掉，就一直被锁在围栏后面。也许钥匙被偷了，也许没有。也许有人拔掉了火花塞线，也许没有。然后就是下一周，车子是否上拍，是否卖掉。整个过程就像是把车子劫持了一样。我觉得这不必如此麻烦。把车停在停车场，拍几张照片，列出来，20分钟内卖掉。市场上确实有买家，只要你把诱饵放在他们面前，他们就会买你的车。这就是我的想法。而且我觉得我们很好地把握了汽车交易的心理。
And that, and that's exactly what's going to my head, right? Like it's, it's in hindsight, it seems so ingenious, right? Because like you said, it's like you're, you get them hooked, right? Hey, I want to get that next best deal, right? You get that push notification. You see that next car that comes on the platform, you literally gamified the process and you played into the psychology, which you were doing anyways, just manually, you put some tech behind it. Right. And the whole thing, the whole thing is a game, right? And that's not a bad thing, but like car auctions are legalized gambling for car dealers. I have no interest in going to a casino. I love going to a car auction. It's a thrill. And, and I'm not the only one that feels that way. That's it. That's a shared, that's a shared love, you know? Yeah. Do you feel like today in the state of, you know, mainly digital auctions, do you think that that's, you know, sort of lost for the industry? Very much so. Very much so.
这就是我脑子里所想的，是吧？事后看来，这是多么巧妙啊！因为就像你说的，你让他们上瘾了，对吧？嘿，我想要得到下一个最好的交易，对吧？你会收到一条推送通知。你看到平台上出现的下一辆车，你实际上将整个过程变成了游戏，并且玩到了心理上。只是之前你手动运作，现在用一些技术来支持。整个过程就像一场游戏，这并不是件坏事，但是汽车拍卖对于汽车经销商来说就是合法的赌博。我对去赌场没有兴趣，但我喜欢去参加汽车拍卖。这是一种刺激。而且，并不只有我一个人有这种感觉，这是共同的喜爱。你是否认为在主要进行数字拍卖的当今时代，这种感觉在整个行业中已经丧失了？非常肯定，非常肯定。
And that's why I think truthfully, I think the best auction experience right now is that independent owned physical auction, family owned, you know, and it's what not just them, but I'll be honest about this. Like it's what ACV went out to go and disrupt and kill off, but they've, they're so resilient and they know their customers so well that they, that they've been able to through reputation and relationships, maintain their football. And if anything, I think they're gaining a bunch of traction back because they're given that, that those customers, the experience they crave, because there's more, it's my belief that there's more to an auction than just the cars and the day.
这就是为什么我认为，老实说，现在最好的拍卖体验就是那些自主拍卖公司，家族经营的，你知道的。这不仅仅是他们，但对此我要说实话。就是ACV本来打算颠覆并淘汰的拍卖方式，但这些独立拍卖公司很有韧性，并且非常了解他们的客户，通过声誉和关系的维持，他们能够保持稳步增长。事实上，我认为他们正在重新获得广泛认可，因为他们能够为顾客提供他们所渴望的体验，因为拍卖不仅仅关乎车辆和当天。
Sure. So yep. The best example I can, or the best way I can kind of frame this is in my thinking at an auction, there's two major components that need to be equally represented to have successful transactions. And that is what you're auctioning. So the car itself, but then also the reputation of that seller who's bringing that card market. And if you're blind to either of those, the buyers are not informed and they really can't make safe bidding decisions. So if you have a really crappy condition report, you know, let's say there was a condition report that had three pictures instead of 30 pictures, is that buyer informed? Can they make a good decision? No, I don't think they can. On the flip side, if you've got a seller and you have no idea who that seller is versus, Hey, you know, I know I've bought 20 cars from this guy before. And every time 19 out of 20 times, there were no problems. And the one time there was a problem. He said, don't worry about it, Joe. I value your business. Just give me the car back. Right. So it's, you don't have a problem. Now, now I feel safe in that transaction.
I'm going to show up to that and bid fully, right? With no fear. I don't think the online auctions are capturing that, uh, that reputational piece. And I think that's powerful.
好的，没问题。所以，我能举的最好的例子，或者说我能用最好的方式来解释这个问题是，在我的观点里，在一个拍卖会上，有两个主要的组成部分需要同等地得到体现，以确保交易的成功。一个是你要拍卖的物品，比如一辆汽车，另一个是将这辆车带到市场上的卖方的声誉。如果你对其中任何一个方面都视而不见，买方就会缺乏信息，无法做出安全的竞标决策。比如，如果你拥有一个非常差劲的车况报告，比如只有三张照片而不是三十张照片，买方能得到足够的信息吗？能做出明智的决策吗？我认为不行。另一方面，如果你面对一个完全陌生的卖方，与一个你之前从中购买过20辆汽车，并且19次中没有遇到问题的卖方相比，你会有什么感觉？而且，就算有一次出了问题，他也说：“别担心，乔，我重视你的生意。把车还给我就好。”对吧，那么你就没有问题了。现在，你会觉得这笔交易很安全，我会充满信心地参加拍卖，不再害怕。我认为在线拍卖无法捕捉到这种声誉的重要性，而我认为这是非常有力的。
I mean, you spent, I want to say almost a decade, maybe a decade, uh, building ACV. And clearly there's been other entrants into the market sense and, you know, other iterations on online auctions. And you don't think that online auctions today are truly delivering. The best possible experience for the dealer. I think, I think there's room for improvement, you know, yeah. Yeah. But I also think it's a physical auctions. What I'm talking about is not. It's not captured anywhere. You have to be a regular attendee of that option. You have to know the players. You have to get that tribal knowledge. You have to make mistakes. It's a costly lengthy process that a lot of people don't even survive. I mean, a lot of used car dealers are under capitalized. And if they make too many decisions that are, you know, poor buying decisions in a row, it can tank them in a month or two. I don't think that the seller side should be that blind. I mean, there's people right now. Dealers that I know well that I would buy, like I said, they buy cars from them. On a phone call, right? Buy them on a text message, but it's because of I know who they are. I know they're not going to take advantage of me. I know they're the reputation. It's all about reputation. Yep.
我的意思是，你花了差不多十年，也许是十年，呃，建立ACV。显然，市场上还有其他进入者，也有在线拍卖的其他版本。你认为现在的在线拍卖并没有真正为经销商提供最佳体验。我认为，我认为还有改进的空间，是的，是的。但我也认为这是一种实体拍卖。我说的不是关于实体拍卖的事情是无法捕捉的。你必须是定期参加拍卖的人。你必须了解参与者。你必须掌握部落知识。你必须犯错。这是一个昂贵而漫长的过程，很多人甚至无法经受住。我的意思是，很多二手车经销商资金不足。如果他们连续一两个月做出太多糟糕的购车决策，可能会完全倒闭。我不认为卖方应该这么盲目。我的意思是，现在有一些人，我很了解的经销商，我曾经从他们那里购车，通过电话或短信。这是因为我知道他们是谁。我知道他们不会占我的便宜。我知道他们的声誉。这一切都与声誉有关。没错。
What do you think? What do you think is the biggest flaw today with the online auctions? What do you think really would be the changes to create a simply, you know, 10X platform, something so much better?
你觉得呢？你认为当前在线拍卖的最大缺陷是什么？你认为应该做哪些改变，以创造一个更简便、更优秀的平台，让它有一种10倍的变化，变得更好。
I think you got to start fresh truthfully. I think that it's a difficult position that they've found themselves in. They're all fighting for, for consignment. They all have numbers they need to hit. And when you do that, you, you sort of become a desperation dumping ground. And now that's not universal. OK, like there's plenty of great cars from reputable dealers that transact on these platforms, but it doesn't take that many bad dealers and bad cars to go and kind of mess up the reputation in a meaningful way.
我认为你应该真诚地重新开始。我认为他们陷入了一个困境。他们都在为委托而战。他们都有自己需要完成的销售量。而当你这样做时，你会变成一个不得已而为之的垃圾堆。虽然不是所有情况都如此。好的汽车交易商也有很多在这些平台上进行交易，但只需要有几个不好的经销商或糟糕的汽车就足以给声誉带来实质性的损害。
So I think there's room in the market for a new platform that. I don't comes out of the gate focused on reputation management first and foremost. Take us a level deeper. You're teasing us over here. I know. I know. No, I mean, you're speaking and my rules are turning. I mean, what does that look like? Right. What does that new platform look like? What is focusing on reputation really mean?
我认为市场上有空间为一个不以声誉管理为首要目标出现的新平台。你在这里困惑了我们。我知道。我知道。不，我的意思是，你在说话，而我的规则正在转变。我的意思是，那个新平台长什么样？专注于声誉真的意味着什么？
Yeah, you know, you know, I don't know exactly. But I've got a I've got a lot of ideas and this is my passion. So this is the stuff I go to bed thinking about and that I wake up in the morning thinking about is car auctions. You know, it's kind of an odd obsession. But even if you just look back on my on my history, I've always been obsessed, whether I knew it or not, with these different marketplaces, you know, eBay was such a phenomenon to me. And then I found myself questioning when I was starting a TV like, why am I the guy to be doing this? But then it did actually make sense because of all the stuff I was doing on eBay. And at the car auctions three days a week, you know, in the snow, in the heat, I just try and capture the pieces of a physical interaction experience, immersive type of auction experience. And I guess I obsess about the different components of that, then, you know, how to digitize those, how to make those in online experience without losing precious pieces of that equation.
是的，你知道的，我也不太清楚。但是我有很多想法，这是我的激情所在。所以在我上床睡觉和早上醒来时，我思考的就是汽车拍卖。你知道的，这是一种有点奇怪的迷恋。但即使你回顾我的历史，无论我是否意识到，我一直都对这些不同的市场着迷，你知道的，对我来说，eBay是一个如此了不起的东西。然后当我开始做电视时，我发现自己在质疑，为什么是我来做这个？但后来事实上，因为我在eBay上做的所有事情，这是有道理的。在汽车拍卖场，每周三天，不论是在雪地里还是在炎热的天气中，我都努力捕捉到一种物理互动体验、沉浸式的拍卖经历的片段。我痴迷于其中的不同组成部分，然后思考如何将其数字化，如何在网上体验而不丢失其中的宝贵元素。
What do you think could possibly do that, right? Like, what do you think could evolve to online car buying experience? You think it's VR or is it more of like a human connection? How do you see this? I'm a huge believer in AI. And my definition of AI is not artificial intelligence. It's it's actual intelligence. I love that. The second you said I'm a huge believer in AI. The first thing goes, I was like, what do you mean by that? Actual intelligence. That's great. I really like I personally don't care about. And I think all that stuff is a bunch of noise. I know I know I'm a bit of a Neanderthal in that sense. But to me, like car buying, especially in wholesale is a belly to belly sport. It's a reputation based relationship based industry. And I don't think that's ever going to change. I think the more that some of these big companies lean into AI, the more they actually lose connectivity with their customers. And I don't know what the end game is. What's the end game? Computers are going to see are the cars and computers are going to buy the cars. And who's going to who's going to then buy those cars computers? No, I mean, ultimately it has to touch a person. So you got to have that human element in this. And that's where I want to over index is on the human side. And you can drive. You can drive the desired human behaviors by creating a thoughtful marketplace with the right incentives. And I don't think that's rocket science. I mean, if I can figure out how to do that, it's not rocket science. I'm not a genius. So I'm a relatively smart guy in the car business who's got a lot of experience and really knows his customers. That's kind of how I think about myself.
你认为可能会做到这一点吗？就像，你认为在线购车体验会发展成什么样？你认为是虚拟现实还是更多是人类的联系？你怎么看待这个问题？我非常相信人工智能。对我来说，人工智能并不是指人工智能，而是实际智能。我喜欢这个定义。你一说我非常相信人工智能，我首先想到的是，你是什么意思？实际智能。太好了。我个人并不在意那些东西，我认为那些都是一堆噪音。我知道在这方面我有些落伍。但对我来说，尤其是在批发方面购车是一种面对面的体育运动。这是一个基于声誉和人际关系的行业，我认为这永远不会改变。我认为一些大公司越是依赖人工智能，他们与客户的联系就会越少。我不知道最终目标是什么。电脑会看车，电脑会购车，那么谁会购买这些电脑购来的车？不，最终还是要接触到人。所以你必须在这个过程中注重人的因素。这就是我想要过度强调的人性因素。通过创建一个有正确激励措施的周到市场，你可以引导人们产生期望的行为。我认为这并不是什么高深的科学。如果我能找出如何做到这一点，这不是什么难题。我并不是天才。我只是一个在汽车业有丰富经验并真正了解自己的客户的相对聪明的人。这就是我对自己的看法。
So if I'm putting two and two together, right, you leave ACV auctions after almost a decade where you've obviously been very successful. And, you know, we have to assume you made FU money over there. It was a good run. It was a good run. You don't need the money right now, right? You're you're everything you're talking about, right? It's it's in, you know, in essence, for sport, as I like to say, right? You're truly care about this. You enjoy this. It's something that that gives you drive.
所以如果我把事情合在一起，对吧，你在ACV拍卖中待了将近十年，显然非常成功。而且，你知道，我们必须假设你在那里赚了大钱。这是一个成功的阶段，没有问题。你现在不需要这个钱，对吧？你所说的一切都是真心的，对吧？基本上，这是一个娱乐，正如我所说的，对吧？你真的关心这个，你享受这个过程。这是给你动力的事情。
If I'm putting two and two together, I mean, are you launching an auction platform? I wouldn't rule it out. I'm thinking about it, right? And so I took a year. I had a non-compete. I tried out retirement and I bought and sold a lot of collector cars out of my garage. And I still got the itch, you know? And and so again, this is the stuff I think about. I've got a domain. Hey, that's that step one forever. The website and I've got I've got a lot of stuff documented, but these things take time and what I would do differently if I were to do something this time. I would invest the time and the money and it's going to be my resources this time, you know, not venture capitalists because I'm fortunate that I don't need to do that. I would put the time and energy required, no matter how long it takes to bring a really fully developed marketplace to the world versus how all these other platforms have to start. And I get it. They have to launch an MVP, you know, a minimum viable product. They have to get out there and get adoption. And then you're scrambling the whole time while managing daily, you know, customers and transactions, you're trying to improve the product and it's it's hard to do.
如果我把两个加两个加在一起，我的意思是，你要推出一个拍卖平台吗？我不排除这个可能性。我在考虑这个问题，对吧？所以我花了一年的时间。我有一份不竞争协议。我试着退休，在我的车库里买卖了很多收藏车。但我依然渴望做点什么，你懂的。所以，这就是我考虑的事情。我有一个域名。嘿，这是永远的第一步。我有一个网站，我有很多东西做记录，但这需要时间。如果我这次要做些什么不同的事情，我会投入时间和金钱，这次将会是我自己的资源，因为我很幸运，我不需要投资者。我会投入所需的时间和精力，不管需要多长时间，将一个完全发展好的市场带给世界，而不是像其他平台一样从零开始。我理解，他们得推出一个MVP，就是最小可行产品，他们必须要发展用户群。然后在处理日常的顾客和交易时，你会不断努力改进产品，这很难做到。
If I'm going to do something else, I'm going to put the time in. I'm going to take my time, you know, and we'll launch something that is is fully baked as it possibly can be at launch. So that's going to take time, but it's definitely it's more than on my mind. If I guess I went and bought it, a domain name, what would you have done differently in hindsight? When you when you think about your time at ACV and having built such a, you know, powerful auction platform, what would you have done differently? You know, I think about that a lot, or at least I used to. I don't know if I would have done anything differently. And the reason I say that is I look back at that and that was a tremendous success for me personally, which is very nice. But I also think it was a great success for the industry. It really moved the industry forward in a big way.
如果我打算做别的事情，我会全力以赴。我会花时间，你懂的，我们会发布一个尽可能完善的产品。所以这需要时间，但对我来说，这个事情比仅仅是想法更重要。如果我猜我买了一个域名，回过头来你会有什么不同的做法？当你回顾你在ACV的时光并且已经构建了一个威力强大的拍卖平台时，你会有什么不同的做法吗？你知道，我经常思考这个问题，至少以前是这样。我不知道我是否会有任何不同的做法。我这样说的原因是我回顾那段经历，对我个人来说是一次巨大成功，这非常不错。但我也认为它对整个行业来说也是一次巨大的成功，它真正推动了行业的发展。
And, you know, are there product things differently that I would have done differently or that I wanted to do? Absolutely. I don't know if that stuff would have worked or not. I mean, there's it's interesting how, of course, there was simulcast. Of course, there was OVE. ACV was definitely different in how it was facilitated. And it was a newcomer on the block. And it it it carved out a new, a new niche and a new way of doing the transactions. I think we've learned a lot though, too. And me personally, like I've been humbled. I made a lot of mistakes at ACV. There's stuff that I thought was going to work that absolutely didn't. There's a weird dynamic that's going to be challenging to overcome no matter what. When you have a seller, a third party supposed to be agnostic inspector and you have a buyer. And all these platforms are reliant on that. And I think I think no matter what you when you have three parties in a potential debate in an arbitration situation, you get a lot of finger pointing. And it becomes very hard to get clear line of sight as to where that mistake may lie. How do you solve that? I think it's a big reeducation. Honestly, and these are not that's not an easy thing to do.
而且，要知道，有没有一些产品事情我会做得不同或者我想做的不同？当然。我不知道那些事情是否能够成功。我的意思是，有趣的是，当然有实况转播。当然有OVE。ACV在推动方式上肯定有所不同。它是一个新进入者。它开创了一种新的交易方式和新的市场定位。不过，我认为我们也学到了很多东西。至于我个人来说，我已经变得谦逊了。在ACV，我犯了很多错误。有些我认为会奏效的东西完全失败了。无论如何，存在着一种难以克服的奇怪动态。当你有一个卖家，一个第三方应该是中立的检验员，以及一个买家。而所有这些平台都依赖这一点。我认为，无论如何，当你有三方参与一个潜在的争议或仲裁事件时，你会看到很多指责。这样就很难清楚地看到错误出在哪里。你如何解决这个问题？我认为这是一个重大的再教育过程。老实说，这并不容易做到。
But you have sellers that know they can get away with things. You have buyers who end up being on the receiving end of that. You also have buyers that know that they can create fraudulent or like pesky arbitration claims and get paid. So they're creating a second income stream. If they feel like they can consistently on average get about $500 back because they complain, you basically just erode the platforms. It's not healthy to have those sort of behaviors going on. It's not healthy to have sellers, unscrupulous sellers, sliding cars past inspectors. And then you have inspectors who are very inconsistent. And that's partly because the human. And from anyone listening, I mean, you're referring to the inspectors that are checking these cars before they go on the wholesale platform. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah.
但你有一些卖家知道他们可以逃避责任。你有一些买家最终成为被害者。你还有一些买家知道他们可以制造欺诈或类似烦人的仲裁要求并得到报酬。因此，他们正在创建第二个收入来源。如果他们觉得他们可以始终平均得到大约500美元的退款，因为他们抱怨，那么你基本上只是侵蚀了平台的利益。这样的行为是不健康的。让不道德的卖家把车卖给检查员也是不健康的。然后你有非常不一致的检查员。这在一定程度上是因为人为的。对于听众来说，我是指在汽车进入批发平台之前检查这些车辆的检查员。没错。没错。
And you can educate these these these folks to a high degree and some of them are excellent. Some of them probably better car people than I am. But what I what I really know to be true is that if an unscrupulous seller wants to get off a basket case car and not be honest about it, there's always a way these these folks are professional car dealers. They know how to get something passed in inspector, especially an inspector who they can't really drive the car. They're not they're not taking it up to highway speed. You know, they've got they've got a 20 minute interaction with that car. So I know I could do it to to somebody too. I could absolutely dupe an inspector if I wanted to. So, you know, you got so there you go. You got three competing kind of factors that when you put that in the blender and turn it on, it's just becomes messy, right? And it's hard to see who who's the good seller? Who's the trustworthy inspector? Who's the honest buyer who they buy the car? It's a great car. They know they're going to make $2,500 on this F-150 when they retail it. But instead of just being happy with that, they find, you know, a couple PDR dense that weren't disclosed. They find, you know, God knows what, right? And then they go and they make an arbitration claim and they waste everybody's time. And and that, you know, and they get a chat that costs that option money. Who do you think pays for that? Everybody pays for it. The fees have to go up to compensate. It just becomes very messy.
而且你可以对这些人进行高度教育，其中一些人非常出色。其中一些人可能比我更懂汽车。但我真正知道的是，如果一个不道德的卖家想要摆脱一个有问题的车，并对此不诚实，总有办法让这些人变成专业的汽车经销商。他们知道如何让某些问题通过检查，尤其是对那些不能真正开车的检查员。他们不会将车辆开到高速上。你知道，他们只有20分钟的时间来和那辆车互动。所以我知道，如果我想，我也可以欺骗一个检查员。所以，你知道，你就有了三个相互竞争的因素，当你把它们放入搅拌机并打开它时，就会变得一团糟对吧？很难判断谁是好的销售商？谁是可信任的检查员？谁是诚实的买家？他们买了辆好车，他们知道以后将以2500美元的价格零售出去。但他们不仅仅满足于此，他们还发现了一些未披露的凹痕，或者其他什么问题。然后他们提出仲裁要求，并浪费了大家的时间。那，你知道，他们还得为这种选择付费。你觉得谁付这个钱？大家都为此买单。费用必须上涨以弥补损失。它就变得非常混乱。
You know, everything you're saying to me, it just sounds like there's a systemic incentive issue in the industry, right? And I think that, you know, I posted about this a couple weeks back. I wrote about, you know, I believe there's like, you know, a new wave of entrepreneurs that will hit the market and automotive. And some of the things that went through my mind are, you know, I was speaking with a reporter that other day and they were asking me about the job board. We just launched an issue job board for, you know, it's completely free for anyone to, you know, post a role in the industry. You get a role we've already had like hundreds of hundreds of postings or over 100 postings and dozens of companies join. Anyways, the point is they asked me a question, which I thought was interesting. They said, wait, how can you use this for free? Like, how can you, you know, quote, quote, put food on the table? And I said something similar to you. I said, I don't have investors. I don't have a board, right? Like I am making my own decisions. And I think when you operate that way, I think it's very powerful because you're not a public company, right? It doesn't mean you'll never have investors or anything or a board, but you're not a public company, right? You can set your own incentives, earning another buck or, you know, creating, you know, quote, unquote shareholder value is not the kind of be all end all and you can make longer-term decisions for the company. You can simply build a better product into your point. You can fix a broken system, which is not an easy thing to do. Totally agree.
你知道吗，你对我说的一切听起来就像是行业中存在系统性的激励问题，对吧？而且我认为，在几周前，我发过帖子探讨了这个问题。我写到，我相信会有一波新的企业家进入汽车市场。我脑海中浮现出一些想法，比如，我最近与一位记者交谈，他问我关于职位招聘平台的事情。我们刚刚推出了一个面向汽车行业的免费招聘板块。我们已经有上百个职位发布和数十家公司加入。总之，他问了我一个有趣的问题。他说，“你们怎么能免费使用这个呢？你们怎么能‘供养家庭’呢？”我给了他类似于你所说的回答。我说，我没有投资者，没有董事会。我自己做决策。我认为，当你以这种方式运营时，非常有力量，因为你不是上市公司，不是吗？这并不意味着你永远不会有投资者或董事会，但至少目前你可以制定自己的激励机制，挣更多的钱或者创造所谓的股东价值并不是唯一的目标，你可以为公司做出更长远的决策。你可以简单地打造一个更好的产品，解决一个破碎的系统，这并不容易，我完全同意。
I'm an old school entrepreneur. I'm like a Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill. Like those are my heroes. I'm serious. And so like when people ask me about building a business and how do you do it, to me, it's very simple in theory. And that is how can you add more value for your customers? If you can consistently add more value to your customer's experience, the universe at large will reward you financially. It's just that simple. But notice, like you said, it's value to your customers, not value to shareholders.
我是一个老派的企业家。我像戴尔·卡内基和拿破仑·希尔一样。他们是我崇拜的偶像。我是认真的。所以当人们问我如何建立一个企业，我觉得理论上很简单。那就是你怎样为客户增加更多的价值？如果你能持续地为客户体验增加更多的价值，整个宇宙都会从经济上回报你。就是这么简单。但要注意，正如你所说的，这是为客户创造价值，而不是为股东创造价值。
When it's value to shareholders, you make short-term this quarter, next quarter, decisions, which may be to the detriment of adding value to your customers. But unfortunately, when a company becomes that complicated, you really don't have a choice. Because if you don't hit your numbers, the management team goes out the door, and those people want to survive and those people want to be there as long as they can. But it's just a lot of internal conflict. Yeah. And look, ultimately, if you create value for your customer and your end user, whoever, ultimately that will result in value for the shareholder. It's just about time horizons. That's the delta here, right? Is your time horizon a decade or is it three months? And when you're trying to raise money and when you're trying to do these things to appease investors, you definitely end up in internal conflict.
当考虑到对股东的价值时，你会做出短期的决策，可能会对增加客户价值不利。但不幸的是，当一个公司变得如此复杂时，你真的别无选择。因为如果你不能达到目标，管理团队会被撤换，那些人想要生存下去，想要尽可能地留在那里。但这只会导致内部冲突。是的。而且，最终，如果你为客户和最终用户创造价值，那最终将带来股东的价值。这只是关于时间的概念。这就是不同之处，对吧？你的时间视野是十年还是三个月？当你试图筹集资金，试图满足投资者的要求时，你肯定会陷入内部冲突中。
Well, I think you should prepare for a barrage of emails and DMs after this podcast, because lots of people are going to be wanting to throw some cash at you. Let me ask you something a bit more personal. Why did you leave ACV? It was just time, honestly. I know that's not going to satisfy, maybe I can give a little more context, but companies change.
嗯，我觉得在这期播客后，你应该准备好应对一连串的电子邮件和私信，因为很多人会想要给你投钱。让我问你个稍微私人一点的问题。你为什么离开ACV？说实话，这只是个时间问题。我知道这个回答可能不能令人满意，也许我可以多提供一些背景，但公司是会发生变化的。
I'm an early stage entrepreneur. I very much like to be feed on the ground, belly to belly with my customers. And when companies get big, it just becomes harder and harder to do that. I can't really be myself if I have to go through a corporate process to go and make changes, make decisions. I understand why that came to be the company of 2000 employees, but I wasn't adding value. I think I value my self-worth or see my self-worth as, am I being a positive change agent? Can I help people? And when it got to the point where I felt like I couldn't really do that anymore, I wasn't really waking up feeling energized and fulfilled every day. Does that make sense?
我是初创企业家。我非常喜欢与客户亲密接触，与客户面对面交流。但随着公司变得越来越大，这变得越来越困难。如果我必须经过公司流程来进行改变和决策，我就无法真正做自己。我知道为什么会有那样的企业，拥有2000名员工，但我没有为公司增加价值。我认为我的自我价值或者说，我是否能成为一个积极的变革推动者？我能否帮助人们？当我觉得自己无法再做到这一点时，我每天并没有感到充满活力和满足感。明白我的意思吗？
It makes a lot of sense. I mean, you're an early stage guy. And to be honest, it's pretty shocking that you actually made it that far in the company, public, venture-backed, raising billions of dollars. That's not very common. It happens, but it's not that common. Yeah, we raised hundreds of millions, and then the company ended up having a multi-billion dollar valuation when public. But yeah, no, I totally agree. I look back and to me, great lessons learned. I've matured a lot through that process, and I think I continue to mature beyond it. But founders like myself, let me think about that, a used car guy, founder. That's not an easy person to go and work with every day. I'm sure. We're headstrong and we're very opinionated and charged up every day. It was a great run, but it reached its time horizon.
这是非常有道理的。我的意思是，你是一个初创阶段的人。而且说实话，你竟然能在公司中走得那么远，还得到了公开募股的风投支持，筹集了数十亿美元，这真的很令人震惊。这种情况并不常见，尽管也会发生，但并不普遍。是的，我们筹集了数亿美元，然后在公司上市时市值达到数十亿美元。但是，是的，我完全同意。回首往事，对我来说，这是学到了很多宝贵的经验教训。通过这个经历，我变得成熟了很多，而且我相信我还会继续成熟下去。但像我这样的创始人，让我想想，一个从事二手车行业的创始人。和这样一个人每天一起工作并不容易。我敢肯定。我们很固执，我们有很强的意见，每天都充满激情。这是一段很好的经历，但它已经达到了其时间界限。
Did you guys ever think Mannheim or Dessa would purchase you? Yeah, I learned a lot about venture capital too, and I don't think I'm going to say anything out of turn here. But basically, as the company raised more money, all that went really well. I mean, none of it was easy behind the scenes, but as you raise more and more money at higher and higher evaluations, your pool of available acquirers goes down. So if that's your only option, and being a venture back company, we needed to have an exit strategy, and that just became really the only one. I think there were suitors at some point, but those valuations from each successive round of funding got higher and higher, and then who's really going to write a billion plus dollar check?
你们有没有想过曼海姆或黛莎会收购你们？是的，我也学到了很多关于风险投资的知识，我觉得在这里不会说错什么。但基本上，随着公司筹集到更多的资金，一切都进展得非常顺利。我是说，在幕后一切都不容易，但当你筹集了越来越多的资金并以越来越高的估值进行融资时，你可以选择的收购者就会减少。所以如果这是你唯一的选择，作为一家风险投资支持的公司，我们需要有一个退出策略，而那似乎就成为了我唯一的选择。我想在某个时候可能会有潜在买家，但每一轮融资的估值越来越高，那么还有谁真的会拿出10亿美元以上的支票呢？
And the reality is, you think about the time you went public, a company like yours trading, for anyone listening, that's not familiar with these terms. They're trading at a revenue multiple, right? You're valued on your total revenue, whereas a traditional business, a value business, a non-growth business is trading, it's valued on an e-bida multiple or on your earnings. And so it makes the hurdles so much tougher. I experienced a similar thing my time at Gettukar, which is it's a lot tougher at that point, because you're trying to sell potentially a company being valued on revenue to a company that is valued on earnings. And again, there's just such a big gap in valuation to bridge that gap is almost impossible. You do see growth companies like ACV and acquiring value businesses pretty often, or that's more common, but the flip side is a lot more uncommon.
实际情况是，当你考虑到你上市的时候，像你们这样的公司交易，对于任何不熟悉这些术语的人来说，他们是按收入倍数进行交易的，对吧？你们的价值是根据总收入来确定的，而传统企业、价值型企业、非增长型企业是按照e-bida倍数或利润来确定价值的。所以这使得难度更大。在我在Gettukar的时候，我也经历了类似的事情，那时候情况更加困难，因为你试图将一个按收入估值的公司卖给一个按利润估值的公司。再次强调，估值之间存在着如此大的差距，要填补这个差距几乎是不可能的。你确实经常看到像ACV这样的增长型公司频繁收购价值型企业，或者这种情况更常见，但反过来却很少见。
Yeah, I mean, growth companies don't fit well in conventional organizations, I don't think. And truthfully, I think that if ACV were to have been bought by car global or in the Cox enterprise, like I don't know if it would have served it well. I think a lot of maybe the early poking around was thinking about, hey, if we acquire them, we can put them on shelf and quiet down their growth.
是的，我的意思是，成长型公司在传统组织中很难适应，我觉得。而且说实话，如果ACV被全球汽车或考克斯企业收购的话，我不确定它会对其发展有好处。我认为早期的一些探索可能是在考虑，嘿，如果我们收购他们，我们可以让他们停滞不前，限制他们的成长。
It's funny to me to be talking about this so openly now because not anonymous, I can talk to more of my personal experiences. Give us some like boots in the ground insight. I mean, you're very involved with dealers. I've been seeing your most recent posts on social media, on Facebook and whatnot. What do you see right now? What's happening in the whole market right now?
对我来说，现在可以如此公开地谈论这个问题真是有趣，因为没有匿名，我可以谈论更多关于我个人的经历。给我们一些实际洞察力。我是说，你与经销商有很深的联系。我在社交媒体、比如Facebook上看到了你最近的帖子。你现在看到了什么？整个市场现在发生了什么？
A lot. Let me back up and say, my interactions with the dealers, I really, like to me, they're my peers. I know I'm in a different economic situation, but that's new. That's really not going to change me a whole lot. These are the folks I confide in. These are the folks that I want to help.
许多。让我回过头来说，我对经销商的互动真的很好，对我来说，他们就像我的同行一样。我知道我处于不同的经济状况，但这是新的。这并不会对我产生太大的改变。这些人是我倾诉心事的人。这些人是我想要帮助的人。
And so, part of the reason you and I are having this conversation is because I genuinely put on those Facebook groups and flirting little posts to go and say, hey, I'm kind of bored being retired. Anybody got any ideas on what I should do next? And I need it because they're the ones who are running the businesses every day. I'm not. I'm a car dealer in my mind, but I'm not actively in their business every day. A lot of them that are asking me to go and start another marketplace. I don't take that lightly. I think that they see the need. And if they see the need, I think it's a valid calling. So, I'll start with that, right? Or we can park that.
因此，我们进行这次对话的部分原因是因为我真诚地在那些Facebook群组里发布了一些撩人的帖子，想要说，嘿，我退休后感觉有点无聊，有人有什么关于我接下来应该做什么的想法吗？我需要这些想法，因为他们每天都在经营生意。而我不在其中。在我心中，我是一名汽车经销商，但我不会每天积极参与他们的业务。很多人建议我开始另一个市场。我并不轻易接受这个建议。我认为他们看到了需求。如果他们认为有需求，我认为这是一个合理的召唤。所以，我想从这个开始，对吗？或者我们可以把这个放在一边。
I think we're in a big rotation right now, and I'm not just talking about values, but I'm talking about everything. Everything's going to get harder. But I personally, like, that puts a big smile on my face. And the reason I say that is because in post-COVID, there's been so much laziness that's taken over in car dealerships. And I'm not trying to be mean. It's just it was too easy. And I was one of those people. I wanted a new suburban. I paid sticker for it. Like, when in the world would I ever go to? Not only that, like, I went like eight states away to go and get it because they're the ones that had it. So, this this lopsided demand made it so easy for dealers. If they had it, it was, you know, if they had the piece in inventory, it's good as sold. That's not what this business is all about.
我认为我们现在正处在一个巨大的转型时期，我说的不仅是价值观，而是包括一切事物。一切都将变得更加困难。但个人而言，这让我笑得很开心。我之所以这样说是因为在疫情后，汽车经销商变得太懒散了。我并不是要说他们不好，只是这变得太简单了。而我就是其中之一。我想要一辆新的Suburban，我按标价购买了它。想想以前我会去哪里？而且，我去了离我家八个州之遥的地方购买，因为那里有我的车。所以，这种需求的失衡使得经销商的生意变得太容易了。只要有车，库存上有这款车，那它基本上就卖掉了。但这不是这个行业的全部。
Okay. But when those things happen, I think you get phenomena wherever they kind of like fools rush in, right? Everybody goes, oh, there's so much money in the car business. Hence, room, hence shift, right? And I could go on and on because there's a lot of smaller players that kind of got too big for their britches, or maybe weren't the best operators. And it's anybody can make money when a rising tide lifts all ships. But when that starts to come back down, it really separates those who know this business and can withstand the ups and downs versus those who are way too lopsided, you know, home way too much inventory, don't own the right inventory. And it really catches them. It catches up quick. So, I like this because to me, it's a necessary clearing out of a lot of noise in the industry.
好的。但当这些事情发生的时候，我认为你会看到一种现象，就好像傻瓜们急急忙忙地涌入，对吧？每个人都会说，汽车产业有那么多钱可赚。因此，市场更加充裕，转变更加频繁，对吧？我还可以继续说下去，因为有很多小玩家有点自不量力，或许不是最好的运营者。在大潮中涨船才有可能每个人都能赚钱。但当潮水开始退去时，真正能够应对市场起伏且了解这个行业的人将与那些过于偏向一方、拥有过多库存、持有不正确库存的人区别开来。这种情况会很迅速地追上他们。所以，我喜欢这个行业因为对我来说，这是对行业中的很多噪音进行必要清理的过程。
What is tightening economic situation? Oh, the tightening and how I. Yeah. So, I think it's actually a good thing. I think we've got, I think we've got some time still to go for this like to shake out. I mean, car prices are strong, right? Wholesale prices are strong. It's tax season. So, that's all normal. But I think we're still struggling a bit to find that right marketplace. And I think dealer, I think there's a level of uncertainty among dealers about how much inventory to stock, where these prices are going to be, you know, retail prices versus wholesale prices in a month from now, in three months from now. So, I don't know, like I come back to, because I get asked a lot about what should a dealer do knowing that there's this level of uncertainty and things are coming down and the economy is it? I don't think the economy is going to crash. I just think things are getting tighter. And again, I think that's back to normal versus like some bad situation.
什么是经济紧缩局势？哦，紧缩和我想的一样。嗯，所以，我认为这实际上是一件好事。我认为我们还有一些时间来解决这个问题。我的意思是，车价很高，对吧？批发价格也很高。现在是税季，所以一切都很正常。但是我认为我们还在努力找到适合的市场。我认为经销商之间对于库存量该怎么样，价格在一个月后、三个月后的零售价格和批发价格会是怎样还存在一定的不确定性。所以，我不知道，我一直回答很多人关于在存在这种不确定性的情况下，经销商应该怎么做，以及经济会怎样。我认为经济不会崩溃，只是情况越来越紧张。再次强调，我认为这是回归正常而不是糟糕的局势。
What I find a lot of dealers are doing is they're looking anytime this happens, they're looking for a silver bullet. I don't think there's any silver bullet in this business. I think it's, you got to do a deep dive, look in the mirror on your own best practices in your dealership. And this goes top to bottom, you know, big new car stores, big new car groups, right down to a small buy here, pay here guy, who's got 20 cars on the lot.
我发现很多经销商正在寻找解决问题的方法，他们希望能找到一种万能方法。但我认为在这个行业中，并没有什么银弹。我认为你需要深入研究，审视你自己的经销商中的最佳实践。这适用于大型新车销售店、大型新车销售集团，甚至包括只有20辆车的小型购车付款商。
How are you presenting your cars? I know this sounds so basic, but like do your pictures look good or do your pictures suck? Or do you have like stock image photos on your website? You know, do you have an AI generated description of a car? Or do you have a genuine, what at least what resonates to me is you have a genuine description written about that car from somebody who actually knows the car.
你是如何展示你们的汽车的？我知道这听起来很基础，但是你们的照片是否看起来不错呢？还是说你们网站上使用的是库存图片？你们是否有一个由人工智能生成的汽车描述？或者你们是否有一个真实的、至少对我而言给人一种真实感的、由真正了解这辆车的人撰写的描述呢？
Are your calls getting answered? I mean, you've probably done this. I know I have. I've tried to buy something. I don't get a call back. Especially with service providers, I got to say, but happens at dealerships all the time. I mean, it's funny how everything you're saying I'm nodding. It's like fundamentals. You know, it's like simple stuff. We sort of got into a point where, you know, we've we are over optimizing in many, you know, many industries on this technology and all these advancements, but the fundamentals to your point, it's what moves to needle in many of cases here. And like you said, if you don't have the fundamentals down, everything else is just, you know, to waste. It's the best practices, right?
你的电话有人接吗？我的意思是，你可能已经遇到过这种情况。我知道我曾经尝试购买一些东西，但我没有得到回电。尤其是在服务提供商那里，我必须说，在经销店里经常发生这种情况。我觉得有趣的是，你说的每一句话我都会点头。就像基本原理一样，你知道的，就是简单的东西。我们已经到了一个程度，在许多行业里，我们对技术和所有这些进步进行了过度优化，但基本原理正如你所说，在许多情况下才能起作用。就像你说的，如果你没有打好基础，其他一切都是浪费。这就是最佳实践，对吧？
Like to me, allowing this stuff, it's not sexy. And that's why it doesn't get attention. I'm sure I could go sell an AI chat bot to go and sit on somebody's website. Who's that really serving? The customer who's, you know, in their underwear at three o'clock in the morning, like what that's not the customer you really need to serve. The customer you need to serve is the person that calls and didn't get a call back or called and talk to a BDC person who's not knowledgeable about that car at all. And it didn't get handed off properly. Like there's your customer and you dropped them versus trying to go and catch them customers who I don't think really even.
对我来说，允许这种东西并不具有吸引力。这就是为什么它没有得到关注的原因。我敢肯定我可以去销售一个AI聊天机器人放在某人的网站上。那真正为谁服务呢？那些在凌晨3点穿着内衣的顾客，那些不是你真正需要服务的顾客。你真正需要服务的是那些打电话却没有得到回复，或者与一个对那辆车一无所知的商业发展中心的人交谈的顾客。而且这个交接没有进行得很好。你丢掉了这样的顾客而试图去吸引那些我认为真的不在乎的顾客。
I mean, I take a bit of a different side. Like I think that it's two separate things, right? I think the fundamentals are the fundamentals. Pushing tech, pushing AI and all these things in order to continue attempting to improve the experience, get to some parity with other industries that are having a more online centric experience where, you know, in the auto business, we're a bit less so. I think that's a good thing. It's healthy, you know, similar to what you do with ACV, it takes time. And so, you know, there's going to be many iterations of all these different tools and whatnot. It doesn't replace the fundamentals. And if you don't have that down, then it's all a waste. And that's what I see with the silver bullet comment I made before. Instead of focusing on the hard work of tightening up your process, they're trying to find, you know, these cheap thing. What's a 399 thing I can buy that's going to go do this for me? I don't think there is.
我的意思是，我持有稍微不同的观点。我认为这是两件不同的事情，对吧？我认为基本原则是基本原则。推动技术发展，推动人工智能以及其他一切，以继续试图改善用户体验，与那些更注重在线体验的行业实现某种程度的平衡，就像汽车行业一样，我们的在线经验稍微逊色了一些。我认为这是一件好事。这是健康的，类似于ACV所做的事情，它需要时间。所以，会有很多不同工具的迭代，诸如此类。但这些工具不能取代基本原则。如果你没有基本原则，那一切都是徒劳。这就是我之前所说的"银弹"评论所看到的情况。他们不是专注于努力完善流程，而是试图寻找廉价的解决方案。有什么399的东西可以买来替代我做这件事？我不认为有这样的东西存在。
You know, people ask me, especially so at ACV, we had a lot of people. And I didn't really call them, did not really salespeople. I mean, they're out there slinging a product in a marketplace, but it should be a very reputation-based and relationship-based experience between that person in territory who was the representative for the auction and these dealerships. And I had a kind of different approach to what I really thought made that person great. And I see this in dealerships all the time too. The best salespeople are storytellers. They're not making up stories. They're not liars. They just know how three story, they can make connection with people. And once you make connection with people, then people want to buy from you. That's hard to do. That's hard to teach. Now, some people naturally have it, right? But that's a hard skill to go and teach. That's so much more effective than like menu selling or something like that.
你知道的，人们问我这个问题，尤其是在ACV的时候，我们有很多人。我并不是真的称呼他们为销售人员。我的意思是，他们在市场上推销产品，但这应该是基于声誉和关系的经历，是他们作为拍卖代表与这些经销商之间的经历。而我对于真正能使那个人出色的看法有点不同。我在经销商那里也经常看到这一点。最好的销售人员是讲故事的人。他们并不是编造故事，不是说谎者。他们只是知道如何通过故事与人们建立联系。一旦你与人们建立了联系，他们就会想要从你这里购买。这很难做到，也很难教会。现在，有些人天生就具备这种能力，但教会这种技能是很困难的。这比如菜单销售之类的方法要更有效。
I mean, I just went into potentially buy a new truck and the sales guy was super nice. And I still might buy from him, super nice guy. But he didn't even ask me my name. And he didn't even give me his name. And so there was no like- Very transactional. Yeah. And I was waiting for it. I'm like, are we connected all here? You know, I don't want to buy from somebody. I don't want to go make a $80,000 decision on a new truck from somebody I don't feel like I can connect with.
我的意思是，我刚刚去看了一辆潜在购买的新卡车，销售人员非常友好。我可能还会从他那里购买，他是一个非常友好的人。但他甚至连问我的名字都没有。他也没有告诉我他的名字。所以这就变得很冷淡。是的，我一直在等着这个。我在想，我们之间有没有联系呢？你知道，我不想从一个我觉得无法建立联系的人那里购买，我不想在一项花费8万美元的决策上。
And I will say this too. Like, I'm not a total caveman here, man. Like I was selling 500 something cars online retail a decade before Carvana existed. And the way we did that was presentation. And then we got people to- I mean, some people just called and clicked the bite now. Other people called, but when they called, they spoke to a human who connected with him and was interested in where you're calling from. Oh, you know, I was there three years ago. Like you connect through story. These are- I don't know how this gets overlooked so much, but it's not- And I don't think AI is going to do that. I don't want to connect. I don't want to marry a computer. I don't want to buy from a computer. I mean, there's- This is good. I might be way down the rabbit hole. You can- I'm not a good judge. I love it.
而且我还想说这个。嗯，我也不是个原始人，伙计。就像在Carvana存在之前，我就已经在线上零售销售了500多辆汽车。而我们能做到这一点是通过演示。然后我们让人们——我的意思是，有些人只是打电话或者点击立即购买。其他人打电话时，他们会和一个人类通话，这个人会与他们建立联系，并且对他们打电话的地方感兴趣。哦，你知道吗，三年前我就在那里。就像通过故事建立联系一样。这些-我不知道为什么这个被人们经常忽视，但实际上并不是-而且我不认为人工智能能做到这一点。我不想与电脑建立联系。我不想与电脑结婚。我不想从电脑那里购买。我是说，这是好的。也许我说得太多了。你可以-我不是个好判断者。我喜欢它。
So I do have one more question for you. You know, I recently had Brian Kramer on podcast from- from Cars Commerce. And, you know, he was a former GM at a Toyota store in Florida. Anyways, he mentioned that he's looking at his data and that 22% of used cars right now on deal-ship lots are over 90 days old, which doesn't sound good. And that is actually about- I believe the number was about 10% higher than where it was five to six months ago. So clearly there's a problem right now in the industry that is real time where cars are aging on dealer slots. What do you think about this? Where are we headed? What's next? It'll clear out, but it'll be painful.
所以我还有一个问题想问你。你知道，最近我在“汽车商务”播客上采访了布赖恩·克莱默。他曾经是佛罗里达州一家丰田经销商的总经理。无论如何，他提到他正在观察他的数据，发现目前有22%的二手车存放在经销商的停车场超过90天，听起来不太妙。而且，这个数字实际上比五到六个月前增长了大约10%。所以显然在汽车行业目前存在一个实时问题，就是车辆在经销商那里逐渐老化。你对此有何看法？我们将会走向何方？接下来会发生什么？问题会得到解决，但过程可能会痛苦。
Look, all of our decision-making is- is typically retrospective. Okay? When- when people look at Manheim Market Report, when they look at MMR, that's old data. So people base their decisions on last month or three-month-old or six-month-old transactions. And so a lot of these cars, they were just bought wrong. And that's kind of a universal thing. And it takes time to really clear that out. Like, I'm not going to be as sophisticated or I'm not going to be able to provide a sophisticated answer as he is. But to me, I think you need sharp buyers. Like, like one of the main thing that I used to see was a lack of sophistication when it came to buying. There's- there's really great buyers. And then there's other people that- it's almost too easy to just press the button and buy on simulcast and think you're just stocking a unit. To me, success in a car dealership, even at- even at massive scale, like CarMax comes down to car by car. And as soon as you are not car by car and you're not thinking car by car, you've lost it. And you might be able to cruise for a while, like Vroom did, you know? And I wouldn't know that Inter-Work is that business. So I don't want to go and poo-poo it. It's unfortunate what happened there. But the size that they were trying to operate, I'd be shocked if they could have that touch level, car by car. How do we recon this car? How do we- what do we do? What don't we do on this car? How do we price this car for what this car is? I am of the belief that you have to touch each car and you have to have a sharp person doing that and making the decision, right? And lobbying for that car's best outcome.
看，我们所有的决策通常都是回顾性的。明白吗？当人们查看Manheim市场报告，当他们查看MMR时，那些都是过时的数据。所以人们基于上个月、三个月前或半年前的交易来做出决策。所以很多车子，它们只是被错误地购买了。这是一种普遍情况，需要时间来解决。就像他所说的，我不会像他那样高深，也不能提供一个高深的答案。但对我来说，我认为你需要有犀利的买家。我过去经常看到的一个主要问题是在购买时缺乏专业知识。有非常出色的买家，还有其他人，只需轻轻按下按钮就可以在在线拍卖上购买车辆，以为自己只是进货。对我来说，无论规模有多大，车行业的成功，甚至包括像CarMax这样的大规模公司，都取决于每辆车。一旦你不再以每辆车为中心思考，你就输了。你可能会在一段时间内比较轻松地前进，就像Vroom那样，你知道吗？我不了解Inter-Work是什么样的公司。所以我不想嘲笑他们。不幸的是，那里发生了什么事情。但是，考虑到他们试图经营的规模，如果他们能够在每辆车上都达到这种水平，我会感到震惊。我们如何修复这辆车？我们应该做什么？我们在这辆车上不做什么？我们如何为这辆车定价，以适应它的真实价值？我相信每辆车都需要亲自处理，你需要一个能做出决策的犀利人士，以争取这辆车的最佳结果。
A lot of these dealerships, they are not set up as used car factories. Most are not. Most are set up where you have a retail service department that is looking to maximize at the used car departments, you know, detriment. I'm all for retail service, but you should have a separate used car operation that goes set those cars up. Cars, here's my, here's my, one of my Joe-isms. Cars are not commodities. Used cars are not commodities. Everybody wants to say, they're not. They're all different and then they need to be treated differently. It's not to say you can't scale it. CarMax has managed to scale this. But in every dealership, they have extremely well trained people making the decisions on how to recon that car, how to price that car. And that's where the magic is made. And if you, if you get, if you fly too high above that, I think you're on a path to nowhere.
很多这些汽车经销商，并不是将自己打造成二手车厂。大多数都不是。大部分都是以零售服务部门为基础，希望在二手车部门中最大化盈利，你知道，不利因素。虽然我赞同零售服务，但你应该有一个单独的二手车业务来处理这些汽车。汽车，这是我的一个格言。汽车不是商品。二手车不是商品。每个人都想说，它们不是。它们都是不同的，需要以不同的方式对待。这并不是说你不能扩大规模。CarMax已经成功实现了这一点。但是在每个汽车经销商那里，都有训练有素的人员做出决策，这些人员决定如何整备那辆车，如何定价那辆车。这就是魔力的产生之处。如果你高高在上，我认为你将走向一条没有出路的道路。
Well, put my friend, Joanie Minn, one message you want to leave our audience with. What is it? I didn't say this before. So I don't, I don't fully know what I'm doing next, but I think I'm going to do something next. And I'd love to connect with as many people as possible when the time comes on that. So the domain that I went and captured was dealerclub.com. And by the time this episode airs, we'll have a simple entry form there to just put some information and give us your email, give us a phone number. You know, if you're a dealer, this, whatever I do, will be in the dealer space, you know, dealer to dealer consumers here. You can certainly check it out and if you're interested, but you can't, you can't play in my sandbox. But again, it's going to be dealerclub.com. I think that's, I think that's all I got to say.
好的，朋友，Joanie Minn，请您给我们的观众留下一条信息。是什么？我之前没说过这话。所以，我不完全知道我接下来要做什么，但我觉得我会做些什么。当时机成熟时，我希望能与尽可能多的人建立联系。所以，我注册了一个网址为dealerclub.com。当这一期播出时，我们会在那里提供一个简单的注册表格，您只需填写一些信息并给我们您的电子邮件和电话号码。如果您是经销商，无论我做什么，都将涉及到经销商领域，与经销商和消费者沟通。您可以去查看一下，如果您感兴趣的话，但您不能加入我的圈子。再次提醒，网址将是dealerclub.com。我想这就是我要说的。
I love to hear it. We'll throw the link up in the show notes below as well. And we'll also add your email down there or do you want to say it here as well? So if people want to reach out. Sure. Joe at dealerclub.com. Find me there. I am not a big social media guy besides doing my Facebook car dealer groups.
我喜欢听到这个。我们也会在节目的注释中提供链接。我们还会在下方添加您的电子邮件，或者您也想在这里说一下吗？这样人们就可以联系到您。当然可以。我的邮箱是joe@dealerclub.com。可以在那里找到我。除了参与Facebook汽车经销商群组这些活动之外，我不是一个热衷于社交媒体的人。
There's not a whole lot to say. I know, man. I think you're a pretty big social media guy. You're pretty good at it. You might have to bring you to that car dealership guy creator network. You can do that for me. Done. Love it. Joe, thanks so much for coming on. Just been awesome. Appreciate it. Yo, see you great time.
没什么特别要说的。我知道，伙计。我觉得你在社交媒体方面很厉害。你可能要参加那个汽车经销商创作者网络。你可以帮我做这件事。没问题。太赞了。乔，非常感谢你的加入。真的太棒了。感激不尽。嘿，再见，玩得开心。
All right. Hope you enjoyed that episode. Please give the podcast a rating. Consider subscribing to the show and check the show notes for links to what we talked about. Thanks for tuning in. I'll see you guys next time.
好的，希望你们喜欢这一集。请给这个播客评分。考虑订阅节目并查看展示说明中提到的链接。感谢收听。下次见。