Podcast Episode 85 Transcript

Episode 85: The Date Dealership with Dan Ryan & Robert Schaeffer

Welcome, everyone, to The PreReal Podcast. So we have an interesting show for you today. I'm joined by Rob Schaeffer. He's the senior regional director at Zero Sum. And we'll get into Rob's background and the amazing work Zero Sum is doing. And we're joined by Danny Ryan. Many of you, at least local from Staten Island, know Danny. He's the senior advertising director at Si Media Group, and he is handling a very large project for us here at Prereal. So, Gents, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you here. Hard to complain when you walk in with a bottle of whiskey. Right? And we start by enjoying a couple of swigs of the good stuff have to. Yeah, absolutely. All right. There's so many interesting things that are happening out in the world right now that relate to technology, data, AI. And we're going to try and pull all this together for you folks today. Robert, before we get into your background, can you just give us a couple of minutes on what you're doing at Zero Sum just to give the audience a little context? Yeah. So at Zero Sum, basically, in automotive, we listen to all the big companies like Google and Facebook and everybody else, and they give you all their shiny toys and they tell you, like, this is how you do things, and this is how to make it work. But we know it's all revenue models for them, basically. So we know that they're going to have ad platforms that help them make revenue and companies like Facebook make revenue and record amounts. They made it twice as fast as Google did as we go through. So we have to understand that if we're going to work directly with dealerships like we do at Zero Sum, what is the thing that we need to do to be very customer centric? So how do we manage the data and how do we manage the actual advertising platforms like Facebook and Google and all these ways that you can reach people and we do it in a way that actually benefits the customer the most. Right. So at Zero Sum, what we're doing is essentially taking away the shiny toy and saying, okay, if we understand what you actually have to sell, like what's actually on the shelf? Because Google doesn't know. Google has no idea what you have to sell. They only know how many people are searching for what, right? So essentially what happens is they see searches triple for automotive right now, because quite frankly, if you can't find a car that you want, you keep searching and searching and searching. So search volume has nothing to do with actual sales opportunity for the dealerships. So we had to build a system not only that, had insight into the markets to understand turn rates and velocities by dealership, to understand how much can you sell what is actually possible so that we don't over market and we don't do too much in a space because a lot of dealerships spent and spent and spent and never saw a return on their money simply because just because they had 120 days where the cars didn't mean that they could sell that many in a specific month, they just didn't know what was possible. So it's zero sum. What we're doing is we built a platform not only that has insights, but we also built an execution model that literally is like, how do we do this more efficiently, kind of move away from a media model and actually serve to people looking at actual inventory in a way that we can capitalize on that and that audience that's near us. So it's like there's so many things that had to happen for us to do that. There's so many data sources. It was pretty big effort, a lot of teams, a lot of support behind us with our parent company. But it was definitely one of those things that we needed to do if we're going to do automotive marketing correctly. So we're going to take a deep dive into that in a minute. But just one point I wanted to touch on before we move on to a brief intro for Dan. For those of you who are not familiar with them getting the information and getting the data from places like Facebook and Google, it's tainted a bit, right? I mean, there is a self serving purpose at the end of that data. So you guys are kind of the third party independent Orbiter that's looking at not just the top line data, but also the entire sales funnel. How are you going to execute that sale? Is there issues with inventory, issues with the pitch, issues with the customer? Is that a fair assessment? Yeah. So the thing is with that is like companies like Facebook and Google have all the data they want, right. It's the Privacy laws that keep them from being able to use it. So even the changes that have happened in the last twelve months, it's like it keeps Facebook from being able to use the data that they actually have. So companies like us that have first party data sources and active shopper audiences and all these things that we built, we can utilize that anonymize through those platforms where Facebook can't necessarily use it anymore because of all the Privacy laws and the things that have changed. So we have to keep that stuff in mind. And also the inventory thing you brought up. Right. So low inventory is definitely a concern right now and everybody's watching the numbers. But in all reality, people are still buying cars and dealerships still have to sell 100% of what they have. Right. And they're not all doing that. Some of the people are. And as far as new and used goes, because in automotive right now you have the choice between new and used and the new shopper is the used buyer. So like you have to market both. Right. So we have to just pay attention to what's happening in the market and sell what they have on the shelf. So that's the key of knowing what you actually have to sell. Got it. That's such a differentiator from what you were saying before for the old business model where you used to have a certain amount of vehicles, that was usually about three months of inventory on a lot. But just because you had it didn't mean you were going to move it or sell it or that it was the right inventory to sell. But what's important about the way that they can position themselves, especially for a dealer group, is that they could educate that dealer in a better way to be able to then position themselves with better inventory that will sell faster, better, and then ultimately position themselves better with revenue, sales and everything else that follows. So again, a lot to unpack. But Dan, just give us a couple of minutes on background who you are, what you're doing, and then we'll take a deep dive here. Sure. I started with the State Island Media Group about eight years ago. I am originally from Chicago, Illinois. Went to College at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, moved to Manhattan, started working on the design and art side of the world in the agency business that evolved into design, advertising and sales within the construction industry and material supply industry and chain. And then as my wife and I relocated to Staten Island, I landed at Staten Island Media Group where we got into really I was brought in for digital advertising and strategies and applying the tactics to work with the local businesses here to not only expand their footprint on island but also off island. Got it. So as I mentioned earlier, I'm working with Dan for us, it's a big project and it's a stepping stone to hopefully our bigger vision and goal. Right. Which is to scale. And I have to say your team, it's been such a different experience and the call we just had the other day blew me out of the water. I dive deep into these things and to be able to get on with the group. Everybody today is an SEO expert, everybody is an ad expert. Everybody is a social media expert. Everybody is an expert at everything but they're not right to be able to get on and go through the analytics. There really is nothing that if you look hard enough, you can't source, understand completely and fully and refine your approach as you move forward. So I just wanted to say head and shoulders above anybody we've worked with. It's not even a close second in any of the categories. We're working on a number of different things together, a number of different initiatives. So hats off to you. You guys are really doing an amazing job, and I really do appreciate the opportunity to work with the team because it is absolutely stellar. So how did you guys get together? Well, we started I would say it was about five years ago. Roughly five years ago, we had local automotive clients and partners out here together. And as our company started to develop and expand and really focus on automotive being one of our pillars across the country, we started partnering with our group from Michigan who had really become the automotive experts in the space. And they've understood how to they really lived and breathed and literally lived within car dealerships and understood what the dealer groups needed and wanted and what was really relevant. It wasn't just an ad in the paper anymore. It wasn't just a display ad or an ad on Facebook. It was tech. It was strategy. It was rolling up your sleeves and understanding what a dealer group actually needed in the market. And as we developed some of our clients here, we were approached by our Michigan group. Really, we needed help, honestly, in this vertical, in this space. And so we enlisted their help with a couple of bigger projects and dealer groups that we were working on. And Robert and I, both being from the Midwest, originally, we hit it off. We had a whiskey or two together, and we ended up being able to work on some really substantial projects that helped build up our automotive division on the East Coast. And then zero sum the company that Robert worked for, he could go into it more, but it's really become its own business and company, and it's becoming automotive giant and marketing and advertising. So I want to jump into the zero sum detail in a minute, but could you talk a little bit about the parent structure? I wasn't aware when we started working together, you had referenced that you had access to these different data sources and you had access to different companies. I didn't quite understand the size, scale, and scope of the parent company. Can one of you kind of run down who it is that we're doing business with here? Sure. We work for the parent company is called advance at Advanced Local. They are owned by the New House family. We're one of the largest privately held media companies in the country. We rank in all of our local news media markets as number one for being the top and most reliable resource for news and information. And also the company, the founding member of our company really found a vision in publishing. He acquired Conde Nast throughout the years, and all of their publications, they continue to grow and really follow consumption trends. So they got into TV, they got into social media, they got into tech and predictive science and other things that really, they Dove into who the consumers are, what they're consuming, what's interesting to them, and how consumption patterns have changed. Attention spans have changed wildly. Sure. From when we were growing up as kids, the average attention span of somebody was about maybe three and a half minutes. That's why TV was segmented the way that it was. That would hold your attention before it flipped you into a commercial. I wish I had that back. Right now. It's 3 seconds, which is terrifying. I feel that on a daily basis, people have so many devices, they have so many distractions, other things that are going on. It's literally 3 seconds. So days of old, of traditional media being able to have a Billboard on the outer bridge or something like that, it's not really effective anymore because people's attention is drawn in so many different directions all of the time. So being able to understand digital media, our company, they follow the consumer, their behaviors, how they take things in, and then they figured out strategies and tactics to be able to market appropriately based on really that consumers inspiration and interest and timing of what they're looking at, how they're reading things, what types of things that they're reading and consuming, what kinds of videos they're watching, how much video they're watching, how do things change? And so being able to be relevant and visible in each of those spaces and the different channels that are relevant in the digital world is how you have to have a media mix to be relevant enough to be top of mind at all times. So part of what was so attractive to us is our planners to scale. Right. We want to take essentially my business. The better deal makers, if you will, are the season ones, right? They're the ones that have been around the longest and have the most experience, but with that is also a bit of a resistance to change and adaptation. Being a deal maker is not enough anymore. It's literally only half the battle. You had said something before we went on air about it's about eyes, and, like, did you hit the nail on the head? It's about how many eyes can we get on this asset and the right eyes at the right time for that asset. So as our business is evolving, and I think it's evolving ahead of the industry itself, the industry isn't quite keeping up with what's happening. And with that, there's massive opportunity. We want to take all of the things that deal makers traditionally don't know, don't want to be bothered with that. Don't want to be in the weeds on the advertising, the target markets, the social media, the SEO, the display ads, all of the things that go into how do we find the right audience and get as many eyes as possible on this asset so we can sell it as quickly as possible for the highest price possible to the most qualified buyer? And there's a science behind that. Right. And that science is being applied now in multiple fields. And I think the automotive industry is ahead of the real estate industry. But that's why I was so excited to get together today. Could you talk a little bit more about the science behind it and how that applies and who is actually your audience? Who is the actual consumer you're targeting? Yes. For us, at zero sum. What we're doing is we're helping the tier three side of Automotive. Right. The dealers themselves get in front of the consumers that are buying vehicles used and new. Right. And it's important to understand, like, AI is the buzzword. Everybody keeps talking about AI. Everything is AI right now. In fact, I stopped using the word AI with dealers because they're just like, oh, yeah, we saw that Nada, like, last year, and it sucks. I don't know what it is. I don't understand it. It sounds complicated. So we started using the word intelligence simply because that's really what it is because AI is only as valuable as the data you put into it. That's the key. So you can have AI with two data channels. And it would not be that intuitive. Right. Like, it's not going to give you that much if you stick 120 data channels in it, all of a sudden you've got something now, you've got something that can learn and adapt and do things differently. But it's something where if the data is available. And the reason we picked Automotive is one of the first verticals that we went after as a tech company is really because the data was available. There's so much data out there for Automotive, and there's the ability to collect that data as well, because all of that information is live. It's on feeds, on the Internet, it's everywhere. So we were able to collect that and do the right thing with it in order to feed it into a system to know. Like, now we have insights into the market. Now we have the ability to see what everybody's doing in a certain space. But we also had this active shopper side. And the active shoppers are key because you mentioned eyeballs. Right. So your ability to get in front of active shoppers in any vertical and be able to do that efficiently is the key. Right. Because if it's too much money to get in front of them, it's not an effective channel of marketing. It's not going to give you a return on any investment you put into it. So you have to be able to do those things efficiently as you go through each channel. Right. So it takes a very targeted audience to be able to get in front of them, and then you have to be able to access the paths to get in front of them in an efficient way. So you can't just keep buying data and you can't keep paying high media prices and things like that because that's not scalable. Right. So the question that always came back to us is like, how do we make this thing scalable? How are we able to look at something and do the math backwards and say, if I could do this many eyeballs and I could convert it in these ways, I could get this many sales at the end of the month and know that that's possible. And that's an investment you could make and get a return on that investment. That's all part of what we had to build and understand was, first of all, what's possible based on the market? What is the market doing if the market can sell 100, guess what? You can sell 100. You're not going to sell 200 if the market can only possibly sell 100 of these vehicles in this actual market. So it's understanding that and understanding the scale behind it and having the right measurement in place. So are you finding through your analysis that there really is a difference between if it's the Michigan market or the New York market, our cars not just selling like car sales. Is there really a difference between one market and the other as far as the type of vehicle, and is the research you're doing limited to the type of vehicle, or do you actually get into I assume you don't. But do you get into trim level, like, how far of a dive are you taking? Yeah. So it's all the way down to trim level. And the key is to this is like, if you take the trends. So if you look at the last three years and I've had Dan actually connected me with somebody in the banking side of things to do some consulting with our data because the banking industry is looking at like, we write auto loans all the time. And the fact of the matter is either their loans are going to be upside down in six months or the dealer is going to be upside down in six months, and somebody has to understand that it's going to happen as soon as new inventory comes back. Right. So I was looking at leading indicators. So if I look at our data set and I look at leading indicators in the market, it's like there's two things that are key. So if you take the two most leased vehicles in the last three years, it's easy. It's the Equinox Lt and it's the rogue SV, the Nissan. Right. Because they were 199 leases forever, and they actually parallel each other every single time. So like every seven years there's a three year period where they're the cheapest leases in the market. And manufacturers do that to buy market share in the market and feed service departments and do all this great stuff. Right. So the key is the residual lease return on that is 13,500 on average, I would say anywhere from $13 to $14,000. Is your buyout on that lease, 36 month lease. It's whatever. So the reality is that car should cost $17 to $18,000 and it has for decades. Right. Every time there's a lease return on the market, you look at a 2018 or 19 Equinox Lt, it should be 17 or 18. And there's always one dealer out there that's going to sell it for 15, nine just to get traffic. They're going to do that price thing. The reality is in New York right now, it's 25 grand. In Detroit, it's 20 grand because there's volume there because that's where the manufacturers are. And everybody's got a Pin number to buy a car. Right. So you can see the number of cars in the market based on the price and how high it is over the actual like what we would say suggested retail and used is the fact that right now it's $7,000 over the market yet. And last week I was in Miami and I was told from a Mercedes dealership that Gwagons are selling $150,000 over sticker. Wow. 150 grand. So first of all, it takes a lot of money to buy that level of Gwagon or whatever. But $150,000 over sticker price for a Gwagon right now in the Miami market. And it's like eventually it's all going to change based on new inventory. So I get an email saying that Toyota cut their production by 150,000 units. It's an auto news article that's out there. It's out there in the world. And yet I get a piece of mail that says my son's second key for his Tacoma is ready to pick up. So it's not a microchip issue, because if it was a microchip issue, he wouldn't have a second key for his truck right now. You know what I mean? So it's very interesting to see what's happening and the things that they're cutting and not cutting and where the industry is going. But the reality is they still have cars to sell. They still have new and used vehicles. There are still 4 million car purchases used every single month in this country. Wow. So they're going to buy something. And we got to make sure that if it's a dealer that we're working with, they have to see what's on the shelf. And then we have to understand what are the most popular things on that shelf to make sure that we're getting people in to do their sales process. So in determining what's on the shelf, are you able to cross reference other dealers, for example, pick a car or any car car a is selling way beyond or at a much slower pace than the same exact car at the same trim level is selling in Florida versus Michigan. Right. And Michigan's got a bunch of inventory in Florida's out. Are you guys able to connect and say, hey, Florida, by the way, we've got excess up here. They're not moving there. So that Florida can say, hey, let me take that inventory off your hands and work with Dan over here to focus the ad so that the folks know we've got Car A coming in and pick the shelf off of somebody else's inventory. It does go that deep. Yeah, it goes deeper than that because literally we're looking at lease markets versus retail markets and lease models versus retail models. Right. People buy trucks, but lease cars, it's just a factor. Right. So you can see the turn on SUVs and cars every 24 to 36 months because of the lease markets. Yet trucks are owned for five or six years. Right. It's a different buyer and they keep it for a different duration. Right. So it's like most dealers with SUVs and sedans know that customer is coming back in 24 to 36 months. They're coming back into the market as a marketer. We're like we understand that's the cycle of life for those vehicles and that you're going to have an opportunity to sell that person a car in a much shorter time. But if they bought an F 155 years ago, you might have a few years before they come back because truck buyers are different than sedan and luxury buyers. They borrow with a thing and give it back. Like they rarely buy the car. So if you look at Miami, it's 97% lease, you look at New York, it's 95% lease. You look at the Midwest, it's 50 40% lease. There is that kind of Delta. And so it changes the way the brands work. Right. So if you look at luxury cars, you don't buy Mercedes, you don't buy BMW. Lease those cars and you keep renewing it. Right. You buy Accurate, you buy Lexus because of the cars you would keep. You would buy because they're known for being reliable luxury cars and you're not going to have major repairs and other things at the end of it. So it's like we have to take all of that stuff into consideration because it depends on the market that you're in. Is it a high lease retail market? All of that makes a big difference on how you're able to do that. Quite frankly, when you talk about Detroit market, it's very hard because the big three lives there. Right. Selling Toyota or Subaru in Detroit. Sure. I mean, that's a different thing. Right. Everybody's got a Pin number. Everybody is paying $75 over invoice everybody's friends and family because, you know, somebody that works at Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, Chevy, you know, somebody. So those kind of market factors just change the game for us. And quite frankly, we built the system that we built in those markets because they are so hard to navigate. Well, first of all, where are your data points coming from? So there are several places. So not only did we build systems, we have amazing programmers and tech data scientists, people that just have a different level of understanding than most people. So to be able to build indexing tools like what Google has and other things to track real time movement of automotive is key to this thing. And it was like some acquisitions, some other things we do some things as a company that not a lot of people can do, but we're backed by the Advanced Corporation and the New House family and those kind of resources. Let us do the things that we're doing and doing them right. Quite honestly, there's a lot of people, I think they have a lot of good ideas, but in reality, they can't do it. They either run out of money or they run out of data. Like one of those two things happen and it limits their ideas and their ability to do things correctly. So for us, we don't have those limitations. And so we just want to make sure that we're doing things correctly. Right. Like we're doing things most efficiently and we're doing things that are customer centric that are going to get the customer exactly what they need. They don't want to hear about last month anymore, right. They don't want to hear about metrics in a campaign they don't care about. They don't want to hear any of that stuff. They want to hear how many leads did I get? How many of those leads became ups? How many of those ups became sales? And if we can get them that, they're massive fans. So some of the partners that we've had partners for years, five or six years that helped us develop this technology. And that's key for us because their intel and their knowledge of the markets is what drove us to do the things that we did. So how many people in the space are you finding get it? How many people really understand the value of big data and how it really impacts on a micro level? Big data is scary. Yeah, right. There's so many people in a meeting that'll be like, oh, this is Big Brother stuff. And it's like, well, hold on. So we have to simplify it. So we simplified it in the way that you explained it at the beginning. It's like this is eyeballs and inventory, you know what I mean? So the biggest thing people are concerned about with digital marketing is not getting ripped off. You mentioned things like SEO and SEM. And if you know what those things are, you have to understand what they're for, right. So there's a thing like Nick Dion, who's on our team, we used to stop ourselves in the middle of a meeting and say, what's it for? Like, what's it for? What is SEO for? And it's like there's a difference between SEO and search engine marketing. And the difference is like, I'm going to go research something or I'm going to go buy something. If I'm going to research something, I want search engine optimization to find data on Google that's going to educate me on the things that I'm trying to learn. So I can make a good decision. If I want to buy something, I want to see a price and a place to buy it. Like right now, that's search engine marketing. There's a difference between those two things. So the example I always give is if I'm looking for basketball shoes and I'm doing research because I don't know what to buy, I'm going to search the best basketball shoes in 2022 and I'm going to get hopefully a list from a company like Footlocker. They can help me out. Right? If I'm ready to buy something, I'm going to say like, I want Jordan 2022 in red and black, and I better find a link to go buy that thing as fast as possible. That's search engine marketing. So there's a difference between the platforms as we go through this thing that people just don't understand the value of each of those things. So if you understand who you're trying to reach and what matters to that person, and then you can put content in front of them that can educate them, you're going to not only educate them, but you're going to make a fan of your brand or whatever, whoever is actually coming up with that content and doing something right. Otherwise, just give them a link to buy the thing. Make it easy. So in our business, on the real estate side, and Dan, you and I have talked quite a bit about this. It's several different buckets. So we found that taking the time to cross the T's, dot the I's and do it right, look at the data and get the right eyes at the right time on the right product, that just leads to more opportunities or ups right for our sales team, which leads to more sales. And that's why we're selling things quicker and for more money than the competition. But as you're pitching that on a retail level and you're trying to explain that to Mr. And Mrs. Smith that own a home or to Susan, who owns a shopping center, they don't quite get that connection. So for us, it's always a challenge to, on the retail level, get them to understand what it is as we're competing for the business as opposed to, well, okay then just speak to other people we've worked with and they'll speak to the results. So in your business, it seems like at least your focus, the vertical you guys are working in now, it seems like the dealerships are getting it. The dealerships definitely get it. And Robert is purely automotive. And my side of the business. I'm more of a generalist, so I definitely see the mom and pops of a grocery store or a local restaurant or hospitality industry. Some get it, some get a little bit of it. They don't always get all of it. And being able to work with dealer groups that are more savvy, where you could actually get them to understand that digital advertising is really built on attribution. And you can understand your business better, understand acquisition costs, understand many different things that are unthought of facets in a smaller scale business. It's much more impactful. But part of that is really we make efforts to try to advance all different types of verticals and businesses really, because we need to keep everybody up with the times to be able to make them as relevant as real estate or auto or anybody else. How long has the program and I'm sure the answer is going to be it's constantly evolving. Right. There's always new data points. There's always new information. That's the beauty of this. But it's also the challenge in some instances. So how long has there been a viable product that you've had out in market? So January of 2020, we actually launched like three days before or 30 days before the pandemic kind of started to affect some things. So the great part is I've been with the company nine years next month, which is a long time. And the team that built this division has been with the company that long or longer. Right. So it's like people that understood the difference between good tech and bad tech. And these were people that came out of like radio advertising and other things that obviously have had challenges. So like, as print has declined and we went into digital and as radio has declined and TV has declined and things have changed because my background, it's like I started in mass merchandising, you know what I mean? I was in store marketing. So it's like your competitors right next to you. I've been publishing for a long time, and it's like literally the publisher next to you and how their design was affected, how they sold over yours. And your price point was everything. And it was like things were simpler when it came to marketing in mass market. Right. It was simpler and harder at the same time, right. There was more competition, but at the same time you understood who was next to you and how it worked and you came up with advantages that could help you. And then for the next ten years, I was in event marketing, right. So it's exponential. And I was actually working for the auto manufacturers. So we did the Lincoln tour five years in a row. We were like in ten different cities around the country and doing Rocco was doing cooking and wine pairings and everything else. And people were driving Lincoln. And the reality was at the end of it, the President Lincoln is like, what did this get me? And we're like, I don't know, a lot of exposure. Like, people saw the new MKZ. Lindsay Hunter built a custom one in Detroit, and it was awesome, but we had no idea what it actually did for the brand. So when I got into digital space, I left event marketing and went into digital marketing. And it was a new frontier, but it was measurable, and that was the key, man. We could measure something. So then it was determining over the next few years, like, what should we measure and what actually matters? Because what we started measuring didn't matter, right? Like, we understood. I'd walk into a dealerman, like, let's talk about last month. And he's like, dude, I don't care about last month. I don't care at all. Nobody's here. Nobody's in my lobby. Nobody's here to buy a car. Don't tell me how healthy your campaigns are. Tell me how you're going to get people in my lobby. And the reality was it was a shift. It was like, we're looking at the wrong things. We better be looking at eyeballs and inventory and how many of those eyeballs turn into a lead and how many of those turn into an up or an appointment, and how many actually buy something. And if we don't understand that process, we're not doing marketing, right? And so being a marketer for so long, it's like, to me, it was like, there has to be some kind of return on this investment or we can't prove our existence. So, like, cost per car sold, cost per house sold, all of those things matter. So what do we have to do to make sure that we have the right data to look at? We understand the market. We know who we're competing with, we know what people want, and we can get that thing they want in front of them at a high enough frequency that they take action. So how do you account for data integrity on the end of the transaction? So in other words, are you interfacing with CRMs at the dealership? How do you know? Where does this go? Right, I get on with Dan, and Dan gives me, hey, you're up 160% this month here, and you're up here and you're up here. But if I'm not being candid with Dan and saying, hey, you're right. Actually, we closed four more leases last week. There's no way for you to know if it's actually working or not because we're not fully integrated yet. Different industries, right? So is there an integration for you guys on that side? There is, but it's not what you think, right? So most people would think like, oh, we need full of CRM integration, and we want to download their customer list and everything else. If you're not marketing service to that customer list, what do you need it for? You can't sell a car to somebody who just bought a car. So companies that rely on a CRM database or a DMs database to market to, like, they're doing the wrong thing right out of the gate. If you don't have the active market, the people that are actually shopping today, opportunities passed. It's gone. Right. So like, sell accessories, sell service or whatever. But let's talk about service is every ten months, it's maybe twice a year, you know what I mean? So what are you marketing? What's your return on that? You're not going to get somebody to come in if they don't need an oil change. So if it's 10,000 miles before your first oil change, you're not coming in, you're not buying your roof rack there. Right. So there's a lot of people that spend money on this stuff, but in the reality, they don't need service until they need service. And you know what, the dealers know when that light turns on on their dashboard because that stuff is all reported back to the dealer. So I think people have to be careful on what they do in that respect. When it comes to CRM, the key to the CRM, to me is what's your conversion between the funnel metrics? How many leads does it take to get an up? How many ups does it take to get a sale? And how many sales do we need to actually exceed your goal? That's the data I need. You know what I mean? Because then I can do the math backwards in my system and say, how many eyeballs do I need on your inventory to get you those leads and ups and sales. Right. So it's a very scalable approach simply because I know how you're doing as a dealership. But again, there's three things that keep us from hitting our goals. Right. It's either a marketing issue, a market condition, or a sales process. And the faster we can get on the same page with that, the faster we're going to win the month. Because if it's your problem, I need to help you identify that and fix it. If it's our problem, I better be on top of that stuff. But in most cases, it's marking condition, it's a competitor, it's somebody else that's got inventory. It's something else. But I better understand that. And that's the factor that we're going up against. Otherwise, we're going to just spend and spend and do things that it's a knee jerk reaction that's not going to get us anywhere. So understanding the market conditions, understanding who we're competing with and then doing the right thing in the month, like right now, today. But we learned some hard lessons. When folks are trying to dive into the CRM piece, oftentimes they're not even trying to market to that customer, they're selling it to somebody else. So you've got to be super careful where that information goes. Right. Because as you said, the opportunity is now after they've bought a car or if they bought real estate, the opportunities gone and no matter how many ads you serve them until it's time to get an oil change, they're just not going to get an oil change. So you started in January 2020. Have you had enough runway under you now considering the market conditions are crazy to understand the efficacy of the platform and how well it's performing? Yes. So we've had substantial growth year over year. Right. So when everybody else was laying off staffs and doing things, we saw an opportunity for innovation. So the hardship actually gave us ideas we never would have had. It was seven over seven day inventory views or market views and things like that that we would never have went after if we didn't have dealer groups, large dealer groups that were like, can you tell me what's happening week over week? Because the reality was because we had real shopper data. When the COVID hit, we actually saw what happened, like shopping activity tripled. It was a volcano ready to erupt. And all of our competitors are laying off staff and figuring out how to get through the long term. Right. And our dealer groups are asking us like, what should we do? And we're like, hold the phone, man. Just hold on. Just stay the course. Like, this is going to be two or three weeks. But people still need cars. This thing is building and building and building. Well. And we had one dealer that had, I mean, such a record month that it's not even close to anything they'll ever do again. It sold like 800 cars in a month simply because they were the only dealership ready to go, because everybody else had laid off their staffs and everybody had dinner. And to us, what it did was it drew a really clear line in the sand who actually had data and who kept saying they had data. Because if they had the data we had, it would have been no question that this thing was going to erupt and be what it was. And the reality was they were like, oh, no, we're in trouble. And we're like, well, then you clearly don't have the data because we're watching what's happening in the market and this thing is building and building and building, and we're going to capitalize on it. So we did. So we've had substantial growth when we've seen everybody else just kind of struggle. What a powerful tool and what a powerful advantage. Right. To having your dealership over your competition. Is this open to any dealership? Like, how does someone's interested listening to the show? How do they contact? How do they reach out? Is it available? So the answer is in the name, right? So zero sum. We chose zero sum because quite frankly, we just can't work with everybody. Right? So this is a zero sum game of winners and losers, and we have to pick the right groups in the right markets and we have to work for them. And then go after their competitors. Right. So I can't have an intuitive, insightful conversation with the dealership and then go across town and have the same conversation with their biggest competitors. So if our goal is to gain market share for a dealer, I have to be able to do that by going after their top four or five competitors in the space and know who they are, what they're doing, pull back the curtain and say, hey, we're going to go after them and take away that market share for you by marketing more efficiently, marketing to the right people and making sure we're moving as much of your inventory as possibly can or what's possible in the market. So, man, I'm excited. When are we doing this in real estate, bro? Real estate is behind the times. I know it's an industry that hasn't evolved in 50, 60 years, but that's opportunity, right? We're trying to centralize all of those pieces so the deal maker doesn't have to and then scale. Right? That's the idea is let deal makers be deal makers because that's what they're really good at. And no matter what we do, we're never going to change the DNA of a deal maker. They're a special breed. They want to Hunt. They don't want to be in the weeds on this other stuff. So this is super exciting to me. Congratulations on the success. It's amazing. How do folks find you so zero sum AI that's our site. If they're a dealership in need, we can definitely kind of walk through what we do, how we do it. We can put their dealership in the actual platform and show them all the insights and everything that's available to us. So it's pretty simple for us to come in person, jump on a Zoom, whatever we need to do. But it's definitely something we can do pretty simply, right? I find you, Dan Statenmediagroup.com is our website, but locally I'm here and anybody can reach out to me. I'm Dan Ryan at SIA advance.com. Appreciate the time, guys. This is great. Best of luck. And it's just an exciting time, man. And I love the things that you're doing in the space, and I think there's just so much more opportunity out there. So let's keep kicking it. Thanks for having us. Absolutely. Thanks. I appreciate it. All right. As always. Everyone out there, please stay safe.