How to Build a Strong In-House Marketing Team with Quirk Auto Dealers

Sean Western is the Director of Marketing at Quirk Auto Dealers. For a little over 10 years, Sean has been leading the marketing department and building out its entire digital operation. He specializes in marketing campaigns that leverage online media, TV, radio, and public events to generate and convert leads. Before joining Quirk Auto Dealers, he was a Sales Associate at the Museum of Discovery and Science.

Brandon Sweeney is the Marketing Manager at Quirk Auto Dealers. He is a skilled marketer with a demonstrated history of experience in the automotive industry and expertise in marketing strategy, graphic design, and creative writing. Before becoming a part of Quirk Auto Dealers, he was a Marketing Specialist for Alliance Home Health Care. He holds a degree in Communication and Media Studies from the University of New Hampshire.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Sean Western talks about the current state of Quirk Auto Dealers and how it has evolved over the years
• Brandon Sweeney gives us a look into his background and how he joined Quirk Auto Dealers
• The structure of their in-house marketing team
• Sean talks about Quirk Auto Dealers’ decision-making process
• What Brandon is most excited to bring into the dealership
• Brandon’s thoughts on the future of blockchain in the auto industry
• What has changed over the years with auto conferences, technology, and digital marketing?
• Does Quirk Auto Dealers provide online purchase and delivery of vehicles?

In this episode…

Every dealership needs a good marketing team to help effectively reach out to customers and grow the business. So how do you get to that team? To ensure success, there needs to be a collaborative environment between business owners and the management team, where all employees would be willing to jump in and offer assistance when needed.

The marketing team at Quirk Auto Dealers is made of people handling email marketing, social media content, and parts and services. They all work collaboratively to provide the marketing services needed by the dealership and its customers. Every employee has their specialty—but they all share ideas and handle challenges together.

Sean Western and Brandon Sweeney from Quirk Auto Dealers join co-hosts Aharon Horwitz and Ilana Shabtay in this episode of the Inside Auto Podcast to discuss their strategies on how to build a strong in-house marketing team. They talk about Quirk Auto Dealers’ decision-making process, how the dealership has evolved over the years, and the future of blockchain in the automotive industry.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• AutoLeadStar
• Ilana Shabtay on LinkedIn
• Aharon Horwitz on LinkedIn
• Quirk Auto Dealers
• Sean Western on LinkedIn
• Brandon Sweeney on LinkedIn
• Daniel Quirk on LinkedIn
• Carvana
• Reynolds and Reynolds

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by AutoLeadStar, a company that helps car dealerships engage quality customers on the web and convert them into car buyers.

Co-founded by Aharon Horwitz, Yishai Goldstein, and Eliav Moshe, AutoLeadStar’s state-of-the-art software automates a dealership’s entire marketing funnel and provides around-the-clock service for dealers.

AutoLeadStar’s innovative technology helps dealerships automate ads, connect with customers, and discover ROI and performance metrics. 

Visit their website at www.autoleadstar.com to learn more about their around-the-clock marketing service.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to Inside Auto Podcast where we feature everyone and anyone you’d want to talk to in and out of the automotive industry.

Ilana Shabtay 0:14

Ilana Shabtay here with Aharon Horwitz, co-hosts of Inside Auto Podcast where we interview top dealers, GMs, entrepreneurs and thought leaders in and out of the automotive industry. And before we introduce today’s guests, this episode is sponsored by AutoLeadStar.com. The AutoLeadStar platform is built in a technology so powerful, it allows you to market, sell and service cars as you would in the real world online at scale, making one to one matches between shoppers and inventory. AutoLeadStar is the only platform that is powered by scale speed and specificity to change the way dealers are doing marketing. Aharon, how are you doing today?

Aharon Horwitz 0:50

I am well here we are. How are you?

Ilana Shabtay 0:52

I’m good. I’m good. Season two.

Aharon Horwitz 0:56

Season two is going strong and it could not be stronger with our legends episode. Right? We are here with two legends.

Ilana Shabtay 1:03

The legendary episode? Yes.

Sean Western 1:05

Yes. They were known.

Aharon Horwitz 1:06

They were known for a while here’s the Quirk boys. But they’ve since grown up apparently, you know, that was probably five, six years ago. Serious men we have here, Sean Western. Sean has been at court for about 10 years, leading the marketing department and really building out the whole digital operation. He joined five years ago. And I actually realized now probably right when we met him, Brandon had just joined work by Brandon Sweeney. And Brandon has brought his own unique perspective on marketing to everything having to do with outbound really trying to systematize a lot of the digital that they’re doing. And together, they form a team with quite a few others at work, who are turning work into just a marketing powerhouse in every dimension. So Brandon and Sean, welcome. We’re so happy to have you on.

Sean Western 1:55

Ya know, it’s great to be here. Yeah, thank you for having us. Very, very nice.

Aharon Horwitz 1:59

Um, so guys, give us a quick word on how you’re doing right now. Give us the status check on the dealership, on the group where all the stores open, or things happening? Where are we at right now,

Aharon Horwitz 2:11

as we push into, into these cold months here with January and February coming up.

Sean Western 2:18

So all the stores are there open, obviously we’re adhering to, you know, all the state’s guidelines, as far as keeping, you know, sales staff, service staff and our customer safe. Again, it’s a little tough just with inventory allocation. But that just means we you know, we’re pushing, you know, used vehicles and service as much as possible. Luckily, you know, being in the northeast, we haven’t been hit with too much snow. Because that’s the one thing that is always you know, pretty tricky, is when a big snowstorm comes and then it’s all hands on deck. But the weather’s kind of been on our side. Yeah, we’re just we’re just rolling through the winter months here. And, john, I

Aharon Horwitz 2:58

wanted to ask you, you know, when I think about work, and we work with parks, we have we have a lot of historical kind of experience with court. I think about this quote, that I saw from Mr. Park,

Aharon Horwitz 3:13

back in 2009, it was an interview with him in a local publication. And when, when someone asked him the interviewer, they said, you know, what have you learned in your decades of being a business owner, he had a quote that I really liked. He said, I’ve learned that if you don’t change on a regular basis, then the parade will pass you by everyday is exciting. And it has its challenges and changes, you have to make decisions, a lot of fun. When I read that quote, I was like, oh, that explains so much about our experience with work. And if I look at you guys, and the way you market, I just it seems like you’re all about kind of experimentation, evolution or lack of fear to just jump into something and test something different. Was that the case when you showed up 10 years ago? Or has that kind of emerged as you’ve been there? Over the past 10 years?

Sean Western 4:06

Yeah, so literally, we have a wooden sign and our conference room where we meet every Tuesday that says, Don’t be afraid of change, be afraid of not changing. And that’s kind of the attitude that that we’ve always had is that things are constantly changing. We obviously we always need to adapt, optimize, you know, overcome any sort of obstacles. And that’s how we’ve always been. Since, you know, I’ve been introduced to Quirk it’s been a new adventure, you know, from basically going from agencies to creating an in house marketing team. So we’re constantly looking for, you know, something new, something different. I mean, the last thing, you know, I want to hear is when someone you know, a vendor comes to me and says, hey, we’ve been doing this for XY and Z. We’ve been doing it for the last 10 years and it works great and I’m like, okay, but where are we going? In the future, like, you know, we can’t keep doing the same thing forever, and then expect the same results. And just because technology’s always changing, the people are changing the way people shop is changing, just just the whole landscape in general. And if we look at, like, the automotive industry, you know, we can say that, technologically, we’ve been kind of, you know, been far behind, we’ve been kind of like, you know, sheltered in the past, where you look at, you know, other industries, and what is going on with them. And the integration that they have with Western technologies are like, why doesn’t the automotive industry have this? Why, you know, why we kind of pigeon holed ourselves into using, you know, kind of outdated technology? known, were you in auto before you joined? No, no, I was not an automotive. And I think that’s, you know, one of the great things here at work is, is, you know, old habits are hard to break. So, you know, whether it’s from, you know, our call center, or you know, BDC, to marketing, we don’t necessarily look to bring on board people that have automotive experience. And just because, you know, the way the mold was set up doesn’t necessarily mean best, best, the best, best method for the future, especially, you know, like, with our, like, with, with the BDC, the call centers, like, there was a way that things you know, had set up, and people have, you know, almost a standard themselves in certain positions, where it’s really, you know, you’re there, their goal is to make appointments, and you don’t need, you don’t need an automotive background necessarily, to set appointments, when it comes to marketing, but you know, that, oh, you know, you may have done, you know, this at XYZ dealer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s gonna work or be beneficial, you know, for the future. And so Brandon, when I, when I think of you, I think very much of like Technical Marketing, meaning very data driven, very methodical.

Aharon Horwitz 6:57

When you before you were, were you in automotive, then tell us a little bit about your journey. How did you come to work? And from where?

Brandon Sweeney 7:04

Yeah, so actually I came from a healthcare background, and was a small company. And basically, it just didn’t have the tools and technology that I was, I was kind of looking for, I guess. So when I first came to Quirk, you know, Sean, right off the bat, kind of had the mo of a, you know, we’re very different from the dealership next door. And, and that was kind of the mentality that he kind of drove drove home for me where it’s like, when I’m coming into something new, the first thing I want to do is research what everyone else is doing in the market. And that couldn’t have been more different than what Sean’s demo is, and you kind of wrapped it up there perfectly, where it’s, hey, let’s not look at what other dealerships have been doing. Because, you know, most of these people are stuck on, you know, traditional media, traditional markets. And let’s focus on what all these other large companies are doing, you know, what I mean? What’s the big picture here? And how do we incorporate that technology with us and, and that’s pretty much been that same mo for the last five years. And you’re right, we have done a lot of experimenting, and, and that’s one of the most exciting parts of my job. And that’s one of the best things I look forward to every day coming in. So it’s nice having the owner, share that same mindset, and, and definitely help build a team to kind of get to that goal.

Aharon Horwitz 8:21

How quickly did that become clear for you, when you, you know, came into the organization? Like, were you aware of that even in the hiring process?

Brandon Sweeney 8:28

Yeah, I mean, pretty right off the bat. Sean, Sean hired me and with the, you know, with, with the note of saying, Hey, you know, we’re gonna rebuild the New Hampshire office, you know, it’s going to be a very small team, but we’re gonna build it out. And kind of, you know, get it to where I want to be. And yeah, I mean, that that was pretty straightforward, right off the bat. And he kind of kept his word on that. And, and at no point was I ever like, yeah, you know, this, this is what it is, this is what we knew we’re getting into, and it’s been a ride ever since. So it’s, it’s great stuff.

Ilana Shabtay 9:01

What’s the structure? And things? What’s the structure of your internal in house marketing team there?

Sean Western 9:10

So, we have, you know, basically, we share a large office, socially distant, of course. But no, it’s a very nice collaborative environment. Everybody has their own, essentially, like roles. So, you know, we have, you know, like, like the email team, we have, you know, social media content. We have parts and service. We, you know, sem, you know, programmatic split, everything like that. But essentially, we’re all in the same room so we can always, if we need an all hands on deck thing, everybody can, you know, can jump in and work on the same thing. So, everybody has their kind of specialties, but everybody is pretty well versed. So that way, you know, oh, if we have you know, there’s an inventory issue. You know, somebody can jump From the content team and you know, push new feed, and also we bounce ideas off each other like, Hey, you know, can we post this meme about, you know, she shanties? Because, you know, Ilan musk tweeted it? And we’re like, Yeah, well, maybe maybe we can make it work. But no, it’s good that we can bounce things off each other, especially because, like, the people in the department, it’s crazy. You have like, your, your, you know, your old school, GM, you know, Chevy truck, you know, you know, fan all the way to then you have like, you know, the Subaru click, you know, Brandon has, you know, has, you know, his, his RAM and his outtie? They do. So it’s, you get a lot of different perspectives, which is nice.

Ilana Shabtay 10:45

And works on all the stores. So it’s not, it’s not split by stores or by state?

Sean Western 10:51

Correct? Correct. Yep. So everybody works in all the stores? Yeah, at one time. And this is, again, from experiments from trying different things, we did try to attempt to say, like, Alright, you’re going to grab, you know, all the GM stores, you’re going to grab the FCA stores, they’re going to do this. But it doesn’t really always work, especially because, you know, you have people doing too many different things, and there becomes more variables. And obviously, you know, being data driven, we want to figure out, okay, you know, what, can we make work? And can we scale this, you know, across the Auto Group. So we haven’t tried that, but we found it doesn’t really work for us.

Aharon Horwitz 11:34

And one of the things I’ve noticed about pork over the years is that it seems like decision making has been pushed out to the edges, meaning you have the ability to make a decision that maybe other dealer groups would require, like layers of approval. And there’s something about that, that actually reminds me of like experiences I’ve had in certain contexts, even in some, you know, interesting military units and stuff where, like they want the further out, you push decision making, it allows for kind of an organic operation that just moves forward without having to, you know, centrally control, everything’s alignment, but there is it forced control, is that a culture that emerged? Is that inherent in Quirk, is that only in the marketing department, like, where does that come from?

Sean Western 12:20

So that’s definitely a company wide, you know, type of culture. Basically, if you are the manager of your department, you have the ability to make a decision. And if you know, as you know, as a director, my job is to also stand by, you know, my managers that make decisions, sometimes it is a, you know, always the right decision, no, but you want us to empower your employees and your managers to make decisions. So, there’s sometimes you gotta make a snap decision, whether you’re a service manager, you know, or a sales manager. But if you’re not given the ability to make decisions, then then you are really not, you know, kind of managing. So, that that’s, that’s kind of the mentality, you know, that Mr. Clerk is always passed down, he empowers us to be able to make decisions. And yes, obviously, we don’t want to make mistakes. And but, you know, to, to, essentially to not to decide is to decide, and you don’t want to you know, you don’t want to be on the wrong side of that. Very nice. I like that.

Aharon Horwitz 13:25

That’s a good one. Ilana, we’ve been talking about coming up with with with hotter titles for episodes, we can take that.

Ilana Shabtay 13:33

Titus two this time,

Aharon Horwitz 13:35

is a decision or whatever. I like it. Um,

Aharon Horwitz 13:39

and then, Brandon, when it comes to you, like, I think the you I when you came in, and I think in general, over the past five years, we’ve seen like, massive transformation in martec overall, out there in the world. Has any of that influenced you? Or is there something that you’re looking at now maybe even for the next few years is like, maybe the next year? The thing that you’re most excited or interested in saying you’re like, you know, poking at that isn’t necessarily fully on board yet? You know, where does your mind go? People talk about lots of different things that are out there. Obviously, there’s a lot of hype now about video Ott, stuff like that, but there’s so many you’re particularly interested in, I think, bringing that kind of forward facing technology orientation to the group.

Brandon Sweeney 14:24

Yeah, I mean, you kind of just started the conversation right there with Ott, that’s something where, you know, when

Brandon Sweeney 14:30

I first started five years ago, you know, it was dynamic. websites, like responsive websites, and now have already been well established. And whatever. Five years ago,

Brandon Sweeney 14:41

exactly. So it’s like now you’re seeing people in the automotive industry, kind of like an XYZ company, which has no business being and Ott is now like, coming at us with Ott, you know, proposals and you’re like, what, wait, when did you get into this and it’s like, that’s kind of like been our, our new tech, I guess over the last year or two and It’s, it’s been doing great and we kind of, you know, developed a great, you know, relationship with some good people to kind of keep that going. So it’s funny to kind of see that trend and kind of do that stuff where now we’re established, you see all these, these new companies try to come in and pitch ideas. And it was nice that we got in on the ground floor. But as far as moving forward goes, AI means anything that’s kind of dynamically interacting, or just having the machine learning and having the computer kind of, like, take control for a minute and just see things that we can’t necessarily see. And that’s kind of all in the data level, you know, working with you guys has been a huge bonus for us, just to kind of capture that technology at an early age, where it definitely is prominent with other companies and other industries. But for the automotive, it’s like, we’re on the ground floor with that. So I know, we just started scraping the surface as far as what those capabilities are. And in the future, I mean, in the next couple of years, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be awesome, I’m genuinely looking forward to some of the things that you and Ito have like, An Le off of like come out with and just like, the ability to throw some of those ideas at us like the next year or two, I think is going to be a very like monumental, especially with some of the dynamic email campaigns we were talking about to be able to get somebody get right in front of somebody’s face, the moment that the engagement should happen. Not that like when you’re trying to make it happen, but like when it should happen. And that’s, that’s definitely something I’m looking forward to.

Aharon Horwitz 16:28

Let me ask you, while we’re talking kind of future tech, do you

Aharon Horwitz 16:32

this is outside of the marketing realm, probably. But you know, there’s a lot I know some of your kind of areas of expertise outside of auto. And there’s been a lot of buzz and hype about, you know, how blockchain could impact the industry. And I know, out of Cleveland, there’s a dealer, I don’t know if he’s a dealer anymore. I think he sold his stores. Bernie Marino, I think was for a while in Boston, maybe at herb chambers or something like that. But he anyways is, uh, he’s built out like this whole, like, you know, blockchain thing in Cleveland, Ohio. And I know they had some conferences, even on the concepts of automotive stuff. Do you actually see blockchain? Or have you ever thought about whether there’s really an application that’s realistic? Or is that not? I do not see where that is? It’s not, you don’t necessarily see the path there. I just have a curiosity. And Sean, if you have a comment about this, you’re welcome too as well as to know what Brandon thinks about this stuff.

Brandon Sweeney 17:21

Yeah, I mean, there’s definitely a path I mean, block the things that blockchain are doing just with the movement of data is incredible. So I think there’s an application for everything. And anything, is it right now? I don’t really know, a lot of that stuff is generally new, where it’s, it’s, it’s gaining traction. Obviously, a lot of the financial side of it is where most of my expertise is but the technology side it’s, it’s crazy. Do I see an application for it? Definitely.

Aharon Horwitz 17:53

Yes, absolutely build infrastructure to bring things in from outside of the chain and bring it in in a reliable way. You suddenly opened up those opportunities for you know, for automotive, and I don’t know, whatever his vehicle history is like that. You know, that that whole stuff that’s coming to life now around the oracles and stuff could be interesting for automotive as well. And I’m sure there are startups in that space. I don’t happen to know any of them big, not my space, but it is interesting. Um,

Brandon Sweeney 18:20

yeah, for sure. That’s that Cleveland dealership, but they’ll have to take a look at that. Yes, that’s dealerships let

Ilana Shabtay 18:29

I think they sold well. Not to just the Mercedes Benz store.

Aharon Horwitz 18:37

Maybe he did. But what was so crazy, so I entered it is a crazy story. Maybe we’ll bring him on, Ilana. We should bring him to the pot. Bring I’ll bring Brandon on to just just to kind of talk about blockchain. But basically, he’s this really interesting dealer. I mean, a really savvy guy. And I met this professor in Cleveland. When I went back to visit my mother, someone told me about him. And you know, I talked to him a couple years ago, and he was a blockchain guy. Turns out, so I at some point, when I realized this dealer was involved was interested, I connected this professor, this dealer, dealer owner, and next thing I know he’s coming to Tel Aviv, running a conference in Tel Aviv, with a lot of like people from really interesting places in the security services on blockchain. So I went to this conference, it was the most insane thing ever. It was like a whole Cleveland Tel Aviv blockchain. I was like, What is going on here?

Ilana Shabtay 19:33

But it sounds like Brandon’s dream came true. Oh, yeah.

Brandon Sweeney 19:35

Oh yeah, It was Yeah, it was a pretty exhausting conference in Israel. Yeah. I mean, we definitely got to make a trip out there for sure. Yeah. And that would be a bonus.

Aharon Horwitz 19:46

For sure. We have to do that.

Aharon Horwitz 19:47

So let me ask you guys, and then he allowed me to jump in. If you know, we met you guys at Digital dealer circa A long time ago. And what I wonder is Like they’re in those days, I think of it as these, like, the halcyon days of like innovation and things are exciting. You guys are into it. You were into the conferences a little bit. And then and I feel like, I feel like it’s kind of, I don’t know, something that has paled over the past few years. And it may just be because I’ve been in the industry now. And I’m, like, all the rush of excitement that I had in those early days, isn’t there? Or maybe we’re in a little bit of a pause on innovation, but it doesn’t seem to me like you guys have the same enthusiasm offices necessarily, as there was and I’m wondering if there’s, if there’s truth to that, or if you are actually re upped and energized on that. You know, what, either of you would love to hear you think about that. But are you seeing stuff out there? Now? That’s exciting. Do you find this, you know, this moment to be interesting? Or are you guys kind of in a standoff and you know, look from afar kind of position where you find your innovation elsewhere?

Sean Western 20:53

Tell us about it. Yeah, so, yeah, like, five years ago, when we went to the digital dealer. You know, it definitely was very, you know, interesting, you know, exciting, there’s a lot of enthusiasm, and I just remember meeting you guys, and just being like, Man, these are the worst t shirts I’ve ever seen in my life. You know?

Aharon Horwitz 21:21

I was the guy who designed them. He’s, he’s that way. Have you ever heard of Wix? Wix is an Israeli company. He was our designer when he was in grad school. And now he likes it when it becomes a big way to Wix. So I was like, those that were the under these t shirts that got the most attention.

Ilana Shabtay 21:37

You know, they were great t-shirts. They are still Brandon’s gonna wear that like every day.

Brandon Sweeney 21:41

I still have it. Actually. I put it away.

Aharon Horwitz 21:44

The Baseball sleeves and they were awesome.

Sean Western 21:46

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. As soon as you guys rebranded, I just burned by and I was like, I gotta get rid of it.

Ilana Shabtay 21:53

Because we rebranded that shirt to wear, like, oh, we’re changing our colors, the shirts coming with us until finally, we say goodbye.

Sean Western 22:02

So yeah, one of the main issues that I had at the time was, like, man, I want to show offers to our users, and basically show the right off at the right time. And I want to do it based on you know, their, their behavior online, and trying to do it rule based, became so complicated and so messy. And I was like, you know, what, I’m, you know, I’m done like, because I don’t want to just to be like, Oh, if they hit a page with a Chevy Silverado showed them a Chevy Silverado, you know, what I want it to be obviously a little more intricate and complicated than that, when we met you guys, you guys, actually, you know, that was kind of like the technology that you had had at the time. And I’m like, perfect, you know, machine learning, you know, Ai, you know, showing these dynamic offers, you know, to our user base, and like, that’s what I wanted to do. And it was too messy to do it, you know, ruled it. And that’s why we’re like, yeah, let’s sign up three stores today, let’s do it right now. And, you know, go into the conferences, everything is insane, what was out there, it was, it was definitely helpful, you know, for us at the time. But then we noticed kind of, you know, you know, over the years that we’ve become, we’ve evolved as markers. And a lot of the, at least some of the sessions, some of the technology had kind of stayed a little bit stagnant. Where obviously, like, he, you know, if you’re on the forums, everything every year, there’s a new buzzword, you know, whether, you know, was, you know, digital retailing, you know, when I was, you know, machine By the way, you know, Ott now. So, for us, it was kind of like, I don’t want to keep going to the same, you know, essentially, like, you know, seminars and sessions, where we’re going to kind of cover, you know, so much, you know, we wanted to you know, we we’ve got other marketing conventions that aren’t just automotive, digital, and we’re, like, awesome, we got the person from Microsoft here, we’re gonna go learn, you know, we’re gonna dive into this and then all of a sudden, it was like, surface level, you know, oh, we have the Facebook perfect. They’re gonna tell us, you know, we’re gonna learn something new, you know, new, it’s like, here’s look like audiences. We’re like, okay, I, you know, so, that kind of forced us like, Alright, let’s, let’s go and look and, you know, let’s look for something different. You know, let’s, let’s try to find, you know, you know, that’s when we started doing, you know, OTP you know, we worked. We started getting the bat, you know, real early. And, we just started looking at different things. And we started, you know, running our own experiments. But, yeah, I guess I, I would say that, you know, coming in to the industry, you know, like whether you’re, you know, You’re a member, you’re you’re new to automotive digital marketing, to kind of see what everyone else is doing and to kind of get a good foundation. You know, conferences like Digital Dealer are great. But I wish there was almost like, you know, it’s a great digital marketing auto, you know, one on one, we want to get to the stage stage two, and go beyond that. And that’s kind of, you know, where, where we’re at now.

Aharon Horwitz 25:28

Yeah, you we really need like a real growth hacker type of conference, type of community and auto, I think, I think there are growth, hackers and auto who, who know, you know, know that the inside tricks and want to get better and better, but it’s, it’s not as common. I hear that. Brandon, do you have the same experience? Yeah, I

Brandon Sweeney 25:45

mean, definitely. I just think one thing, you know, is, whenever you look at Tech, you all you always see like, it comes in waves, you know what I mean? It’s like, it’s, most of the time, it’s, it’s, it’s not really gradual. It’s like, hey, one huge thing just came out. And now everything is going to kind of feed off that new tech and kind of continuously build off that. And then there’s kind of like a low moment, and then it will peak back up. And one of the biggest things this year was like, sorry, for 2020 was like the Express checkout tech, you know, what I mean? Like, who’s got what to kind of like, seamlessly deliver vehicles where the person doesn’t have to leave their car. And it’s, you know, years ago, carvanha was kind of like, you know, they’ll never make it, they’ll never do anything with that. And then to kind of see how you have all these companies now, like pushing out everything in anything that they can to kind of like feed off that necessity of, or almost just removing the salesman, essentially, and removing that dealership experience. So it’s, I think, you know, last year, with all things considered, we kind of saw the old tech rise up based on situations, but it wasn’t necessarily new technology. You know, Carvana, Carvana was around, I think, when I started or started coming up, five years ago. So you kind of saw, like a revival of tech, but it wasn’t necessarily new tech. So maybe that’s kind of where your head is where, like, you had that huge peak and excitement of like, all these things kind of hitting because I mean, for responsive websites to be the new thing and in automotive at that time was not really

Aharon Horwitz 27:20

think about that. You guys, remember that? We will talk about that all the time. Because like a lot of vendors do not have remember

Ilana Shabtay 27:27

Remember, we were like at the conference, and they were asking us if we were mobile, mobile friendly. And we were like, what is that? What do you mean? Like, which is almost

Brandon Sweeney 27:35

like a joke to anyone in the marketing field? It’s like, Wait a second, what? Like there’s, there’s plug and play websites that have this? It’s like,

Aharon Horwitz 27:42

What do you mean, we still have, we still have vendors in our industry, you know, not to be named, that have broken, you know, CSS, on their, in their templates on their, their desktop websites that create forms that freeze the site. And like, you know, you can’t, you don’t know where to exit, I mean, all sorts of weird stuff that we see that we try to communicate to those folks to try to get them to fix it. But I still think auto unfortunately, in some areas, is suffering the weight of its history, which was essentially to evolve out of really early age tech, without the pressures of the competitive marketplaces outside of auto that force those companies to become extremely, extremely effective. And even there, you see sort of a fading of some right, you know, there’s that like web 2.0 moment where everyone was using unbounce to build their landing pages, I don’t really know if that’s popular is like all the new new Gen stuff that came in, I think it’s natural to see that, you know, that that evolution, some companies managed to go for a decade, some are unbelievable. They can even go for tech two decades now like Salesforce, largely through acquisitions, and just being really, really good. But there are kind of, like classes of tech that fade in an auto is coming up to speed on, you know, from a fraud from a pretty deep hole. So

Aharon Horwitz 28:59

I mean, auto so amazing, right? Because it’s so complicated. So it’s not like you can just go meaning people rap people rip on auto tech, but I’m extremely impressed with auto tech. I mean, it’s amazing that this industry was running on your logo, Reynolds and Reynolds did right, Reynolds and Reynolds Do you know, I don’t know how big their fan club is. Right. But like what an amazing company founded in the 1860s 30s. I don’t know when people were still going places with horses and buggies. I mean, think about how they evolved. And then think about what they facilitated when it came to automotive. It’s an unbelievable story. If there’s not a book on it, someone should write it. It’s incredible.

Sean Western 29:33

Ya know, for sure

Brandon Sweeney 29:34

I mean, like, I enjoyed going to conferences like that, that experience just to kind of the collaboration of mine was awesome. I would love to go to something that was that new tech and new field and so on, obviously, when things get back to normal a little bit, but like, I would love to do that. And I think you’re right, it does need to catch up and someone does need to come up with something that’s more like the cutting edge rather than like hey, let’s wrap up what we’ve been doing. So

Aharon Horwitz 30:00

We should build it out in the US every other year and we’re doing this oh that you know, the advanced class coming in. Okay, great. It’s been great. So, so good. So we will maybe see what a conference again is. We’ll see you in the cold northern snows.

Ilana Shabtay 30:19

Or only I’ll ever go to New Hampshire.

Aharon Horwitz 30:25

Where else would you go? And you have Oh, that’s where you want to go? Right.

Ilana Shabtay 30:27

Where else I would go.

Brandon Sweeney 30:28

Make that right now in the mountains. So nice. You’d love it up there.

Sean Western 30:32

Yeah. Apparently the kid dealership? dalkia dealerships are great. Yeah.

Aharon Horwitz 30:40

Where’d you go to the mountains? Is that like a common thing? Yeah, I

Brandon Sweeney 30:44

mean, it’s New Hampshire is one of those places. It’s like you get the foliage and all that stuff, like in the fall. So everyone loves making those drives up to the Adirondacks or King Magnus, and kind of North Conway area and all that stuff. It’s, you get fleets and like trains of cars that are going up there checking that stuff out.

Sean Western 31:01

So yeah, it’s cool. The drive is great, a new k five to like, and we have plenty of them. So if you want to stop by Manchester on your way up to the mountains, we can definitely help you out.

Aharon Horwitz 31:11

So can we just buy a virtual car from you? I mean, like, why not? Let’s just make it like we’ll just deliver it here. Yeah, we have a lot of Miami’s down south. I mean, you know,

Ilana Shabtay 31:22

I actually asked Sean, at one point if they would deliver a car to Connecticut, because my mother was trying to get a new car and everyone was like, ripping her off. And I was like, no, forget it. You gotta go to work.

Ilana Shabtay 31:33

But you

Ilana Shabtay 31:34

could Yeah, you said you could, right?

Sean Western 31:37

Yeah, yeah, man. I mean, and we’re obviously you know, with, with, with us vehicles, where we’re making that big push to really, you know, deliver way outside of our local radio. Delivered here, Ohio, because my man,

Aharon Horwitz 31:55

I was telling my mother, it was like I was my mother’s looking to get a car. And I was like, I know, all these like car dealers, in states often will give you an honest, good car. But it now actually has some of our customers. I have to actually look at that. But it’s frustrating. The regional limitations are driving this out, like we find it extremely frustrating. It is we’ve talked about and you know, you know, we have some conversations going on that for which work we’ve been working on the past couple days, it’s it’s extremely frustrating to have high quality regional groups that have significant logistical capabilities feel limited by radius and by, you know, those sorts of things. Because, like, it just doesn’t really make sense, necessarily, in this day and age, obviously, it’s complicated, because fulfillment, I mean, that’s why carvanha is so amazing. And you know, what room is done to a certain extent, like, their ability to fulfill, and you know, pull that off is amazing, the logistics are amazing, but that that’s kind of there’s logistics as a service that these days that are pretty sufficient to deliver a car, the last mile of someone’s house, I mean, and you know, figure out what you need to do for the paperwork, but to be discussed in the future future discussion. Guys, this is fun. This is great. Is it really it really, it really, we require an in person? Oh, Ilan, I think that’s what we’ll

Ilana Shabtay 33:07

tell you, New Hampshire, Manchester, I’m coming to work,

Aharon Horwitz 33:12

I think of this gigantic, like, cannon, that like you just aim your marketing at something, it’s like, the reason people should be studying Quirk is that it operates at a massive scale. And it moves really fast and on a massive scale. So you have like, it’s like a, it’s like a football, like a really, really, really huge person who can move way faster than a US person should be able to move, you get that type of effect. And I think that’s a really cool thing to see. You know, we enjoy it and we enjoy seeing it up close. And you know, I hope you guys are, you know, sharing your wisdom here and there and, you know, outside your region, so it’s definitely interesting. All right, so that’s great.

Aharon Horwitz 33:53

Allow me to wrap this.

Ilana Shabtay 33:54

We should wrap it. Thank you so much.

Sean Western 33:57

Thank you guys. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, no problem.

Ilana Shabtay 34:00

It was really fun. And we missed you guys. So I’m glad we got an opportunity to do a podcast together and to our listeners if you like this episode. Guys, I love that. That’s the best way to end the podcast.

Aharon Horwitz 34:12

I did one of those. I’d be one of those so badly. That’s unbelievable.

Ilana Shabtay 34:15

That’s amazing.

Aharon Horwitz 34:18

Yeah, that’s great.

Sean Western 34:19

We still have some old school traditional marketing talk like in our office. Yeah. Our

Aharon Horwitz 34:30

website. Some people have like little side widgets of those things, but they love them. So yeah,

Brandon Sweeney 34:34

yeah. Get a little desk one now.

Aharon Horwitz 34:35

I mean, those are historic. Those things are amazing. Like that’s a collector’s item. I mean, it’s a collector’s item. Well,

Ilana Shabtay 34:43

thank you guys so much.

Aharon Horwitz 34:47

We’ll tell you where to go

Ilana Shabtay 34:49

Inside Auto Podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts, really any mainstream podcast site, you can tune in.

Aharon Horwitz 34:58

And you can check it out on our website.

Ilana Shabtay 35:01

Insideautopodcast.com

Aharon Horwitz 35:04

And there’s some amazing content coming up. Nothing this legendary but hopefully we’ll keep you guys interested. Thank you, Brandon. Thank you, Sean. Good luck and we look forward to talking to you again soon.

Sean Western 35:17

Awesome. Sounds good.

Outro 35:23

Thanks for listening to Inside Auto Podcast. Check out our other episodes with top entrepreneurs and industry leaders.