dealers · 2026-10-27 · 1h23m
ABR · Audi zone visit · Q7/Q8/Q9 localization + Q4 sales/service
ABR · Audi factory/zone ops — Q7/Q8/Q9 localization + Q4 push · Oct 27 ~5:20p
~1h23m. Audi zone/rep visit with ABR leadership (Richard on tape).
Production / brand
- U.S. localization planned for Q7 / Q8 / Q9 (Georgia path); Q5 Mexico, Q3 Europe. VW Group board sign-offs still pending.
- ~$1.2B tariffs paid last year; ~$4B localization spend (rep numbers). Tariff relief pre-2030: not confirmed.
Sales / inventory
- Momentum: 22 → 26 units MoM; Q7/Q8 carrying; low new-Q7 stock, excess Q5s.
- Q7 launch holds released — units can start arriving before Nov 2 (software flashes still).
- New MAP: 0% advertised discount first 6 months of a new model year; then 5%; prior MY up to 8% once next MY lands. Rewards process/experience over price war with NOLA.
- S8 / SQ9 dealer trades tight; Dallas S8 path open for Tom call if customer still live.
- Suggest DAG creative shift A5+Q5 → Q3+Q5 (1.9% on both); Q3 Mastermind custom offers currently misfire (offer shows, rebate excludes Q3).
Loaners / RSI
- Target lifecycle 90 days active + 60 days to sell = 150-day RSI window.
- Need to clear ~25 grounded Q5 loaners / aged fleet before clean 90-day cycle; used inventory high is the blocker.
- Magna points: email capture still the easy lever (service effectiveness already strong).
Service
- ~3yo Q5/Q7/Q8 diff shudder on turn — fix exists (fluid cycle + drive pattern) but cannot quote/upsell until customer complains; trade-in warranty needs customer attached. Daryl follow-up.
Marketing / Lance
- Hulu/YouTube Momentum (Q5) ~15k impressions / 99.6% completion cited.
- GBP categories expand (leasing, finance, manufacturer, etc.) — Lance said he would add.
- Nine-page buyer’s guide still waiting finance-manager review before deploy.
- Prefer off-site sponsorships (CCL food/wine etc.) over traditional launch party; Audi can bring Q7/Q9 kit Dec+.
Status
park — dealers/abr FYI. No Ada build from this tape. Q7/Q9 feature work stays gated on HQ image pack (board).
0:00
GBP categories
~60% organic from profile — add leasing/finance/manufacturer categories (Lance owns).
0:00
Q7 launch + MAP
Q7 launch hold released early; MAP 0% advertised discount first 6 mo of new model year.
0:00
Loaner RSI
90 days in / 60 days to sell (150-day window); clear ~25 Q5 loaners first.
0:00
Diff shudder warranty
Customer must complain before quote/fix; trade-in needs customer attached — Daryl path.
0:00
Turn your microphones off
0:02
Man. Take. No. Four billion dollars. Able to localize production here. The number I heard. Don't turn that microphone on every time. After you're reaching for it. What I heard was last year 1.2 billion dollars in tariffs we paid. We spend four billion dollars to give us a little.
0:36
Tariffs raise for us? What's the final number on those? We already paid one point two billion. I wonder what the total number of tariffs is. It didn't help the national debt.
0:50
It didn't go that way. My understanding is there's still a lot to get finalized, like the VW Group board has to sign, and the management board has to sign off on this.
1:06
I kind of got the feeling, like, kind of got surprised with the hey, come on stage deal, and I was like, okay. Trump tweeted it. So yeah, he put us in a country. It's like, but I said, yeah. When I said, wait, they hadn't signed off on this yet. Like, yeah, yeah,
1:27
We're. So that's the reason they're they're not a whole lot of answers, a lot of more details as to what's to come. There's still still some sign-offs to do. All right, let's rock and roll. All in all, good good news. I think the brand has really got some momentum in our favor. That's that's huge to have localized production. I mean, we've been asking for that for ten, fifteen years. Now, Q7, Mark just just told you guys that they're they've been released.
1:58
Earlier than what we originally were told. So again, more good news to come into the market, help keep the momentum going into November, so you guys can get the ground running. And then obviously, two weeks ago we got you know good incentive mid month enhancements, which we rarely do. We rarely, you know, we kind of got away from doing mid month enhancements, but I'm certainly glad to pull some stuff ahead so that we can have strong finishing. So now, obviously, the expectation is that we will capitalize on the messages that we occupy. You guys do what you guys do best, which is attack the market and attack the customers. So couldn't be more happy to see you guys pretty close to the top of the dock, rocking and rolling, and looks like you guys are doing good. So happy, happy to hear that. You guys deserve some some wins. I think we all need some. Yeah,
2:46
Absolutely. This is a good good start for us. And that mid - month enhancement is nice because, yeah, we obviously would have loved it October 1st, but now instead of getting it November for, Yeah, having to wait ten days like it's already here. Building so we can hit the ground running. Terrence might not like me saying this, but my my goal is to have all of eighty four B take this one nine nine and prove what the hell we can do with it with a special program. Right? Like, there's some times we feel like we're left out. So if we can take the ball and run with it, then all of a sudden we can say, hey, we deserve a seat at the table too. Give us some extra extra.
3:25
So that's my plea to you all. Obviously, that doesn't mean that we can always get stuff, but hey, make the most of this. Then all of a sudden, we've got a level one. We're doing it for sure. But yeah, now the other news, like we said, that major is eight hours away. So how awesome is that? That we'll have some Q sevens, Q eights, Q nines, literally within driving distance, as opposed to how many steps it takes currently. That'll be huge. So all exciting stuff. I do have some new reports on here. A lot of the stuff is going to look very familiar, but there's one that I'm going to make sure that we hammer home because it has to do with probability and RSI, and that's going to come later on. But definitely wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page here. So a lot of really good things on this actually. And the one thing that we're missing out on for Magna, I highlighted, is that email capture we talked about. You're crushing it on service effectiveness. Most of them are.
4:21
Maybe earning fifteen points, maybe you're earning twenty five because you're above sixty. Your RSI is still very much in the green. There, you're doing well on your CPO. So really, not only ask for you, but we get the yield on capture rate. Then all of a sudden, we'll get an extra fifteen points, and we're sitting at sixty, which I believe would make us eligible for magna.
4:42
So what are you talking about? Perfect. We just do one hundred percent female capture for the rest of the month. I'm sorry for the rest of the year and that should.
4:50
And just make sure the services you're keeping on the service one too, because that's at 86%. So if we can do that, that's a lot easier than saying, hey, we got to raise our RSI by 10 points.
5:00
Service. There's a bonus connected to their CSI and part of their bonus when they're paid is easy no capture.
5:08
Like I said, I think you're in the driver's seat with this. This is only through July. So there's a lot of time left on this. It doesn't feel like it for the long term. I just have a bonus coming your way.
5:17
Too. Love to bring back the plaque, you know. Thank you. Because I mean, it's important. Because one, we we like your mega parties. I mean, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, kind of. I was here for those, so be nice to revive that and put that into win history. Come in twenty twenty six. Yeah, thanks, man.
5:39
With the top year, to be honest, right? Like twenty twenty six. It's it's should have been one of these. Like, oh, now everything's good, but it's been tough for us. So if we get one there, that's that's definitely a nice feather in the cap. But, Questions on this? No, easy enough. Cool. Scorecard again. We can look at this. There's a few things that I would say we can look point out. I mean, our RSI yeah, it's down, but it's still very much in the green, 7.5 compared to 11.9. The area is down 18. We're down 25. What I thought was interesting was you know, loaners. We've only done seven more loaners. Right? It's not like we're flooding the market with all these loaners. Yeah. I've seen others where it's like, oh, we've increased our loaner fleet twofold. So.
6:18
I think you're doing a good job not to drowning loaners and make sure that you're doing it when you need to. You're maybe maybe we'll get to it where yes we can maybe pull them a little earlier, but doing a good job with age inventory. Obviously, we'd like to see market share go up, but I think a lot of this is right around the corner with these Q7s and Q9s coming through. Obviously, some of the model year Q7s will have better, you know, those 25, 25s are kind of more in the rear view. We've got 26 that were successful, 27 even more, and the Q3s been. Report. So, just wanted to make sure to toss this here, just because it is something that I wanted to always have at our disposal. But this is my favorite report. I said it last time I was here. Say it every time. This shows where we are year to date through the twenty fifth of October. So I would say that you guys do a really good job with SCBs, and I would imagine that's just the market. You're probably not doing much when it comes to eight threes, five threes, sixes, right? I mean.
7:14
That's kind of the only ones where I would say you're kind of out of whack on five eights, threes and thirties. I love you with Julio eleven thirteen, but everything else you're really doing a great work with Q sevens and Q eights. Probably why you're earning more Q sevens and Q eights than others.
7:28
And obviously, do you? There he is. How are we doing?
7:30
Doing great. How are you doing?
7:32
I see you. Good. The weather is a little nice. It is. Actually, it is picking up a little bit.
7:38
Good to see you. Thanks, Richard. Richard, nice to see you. Nice to see you again. Good. We're just going over a couple of reports, and yeah, to your point, business is up. Actually, up 100 percent month over month. If you look at it that way, 22 versus 11, which is great to see. Every single car line there is in the green, and you're you're really selling the cars that we need you to sell because those are your money makers right now, and the ones that will earn us more future Q7s and future Q8s and future Q9s. So keep up the good work there.
8:12
What we talked about a little bit downstairs, anything you can point to other than we've got some tourist ride people coming through or working the one nine nine? Anything else you can link some of this stuff to? It's eleven twenty two to eleven.
8:25
This is a little more excitement.
8:29
I really think that's it. I think this is general more. We're in the news a little more.
8:33
I think everything and everything. You know, we see a little bit more foot traffic. Sales people get a little excited, work a little harder. You know, they see sales going down. You know, see see us making sales, and you know, right. I think general excitement is yeah,
8:49
Where are you guys? You talked a little bit about the new company that you guys are using. Is that all digital?
8:57
No, it's it's it's it is mostly digital. However, it's commercials that basically runs through. Hulu, YouTube, you know, all those kind of things. All those kind of eyeballs, correct. And then there's a, of course, you click on it. It's linked to the website. We can track how many is going back to our website. How many people watched the, the commercial in its entirety? And it was our own, it was our own commercial that we shot here with a local feel. So, again, it's just trying something new. So, I'm not saying there's a big result from that. I don't know. You know, we got that within the momentum plan with.
9:35
With DAG, and then you've got Q7Q9 coming out. You've got a little bit better leases than we had before. You've got a little bit better interest rates than we had before. And then there's actually been a little bit of private offers sent through Mastermind this month, where we didn't see that in previous months. I think you just combine all those things together, and that's probably where you're seeing it from. It's not a very specific thing. Yeah, the DAG, and still well. Yes and no. I mean, we're starting to run low on on Q7th action. Sure. We're not having a few of those. Of course. The old body style. Yeah. And it's it's just a lot of things. I really I can't pinpoint one thing. The only concern I really have is we're still not seeing conquest. It's still it's loyalty heavy. You know, I think it's seventy six percent, seventy seven percent loyalty this month, which is.
10:33
Yes and no. It's nice if you sell them. If you sell them 50 cars, it's bad if you're not. So hopefully the Q9 brings in a lot of conquest customers, and I think those are going to be conquest.
10:48
Would you so Q7s? I mean, I think all the Q7s have been allocated. Obviously, we're trying to get rid of a lot of those. I would imagine you're going to be in the position where you got someone in here that wants the new one, maybe can't afford it, wants to look at the old. I would imagine there's going to be plenty of interest. Okay, five. Okay,
11:05
We got one yesterday.
11:06
I would say I think.
11:07
You dealer trader got from?
11:09
I would say New Orleans has a decent amount of those.
11:11
Got I got a white brown premium plus black optic from New Orleans yesterday.
11:17
S two eight right? Yeah, If if you're ever in a position where like, where should I go fishing? Like, usually if you look at maybe the dealer might be like, I'm not giving you any, but behind the scenes they're telling me I've got too many cars. So let me know if you're ever in a spot where like I really need this tomorrow. Yeah, for sure. I'm happy to kind of. Help out. I don't like to get too involved with dealer trades, but like if you've got it sold, let's try to move that dealer for it. So, but yeah, I don't think it's in the world to have five,
11:41
Six, f eight of those. Maybe you can help us on the S eight that we've been trying to get.
11:48
We had talked about that one. It's a really tough build.
11:54
We'll figure it out. Even if I give you a different one that you could trade, is there one out there? It's about the seats.
12:01
So here's the deal. I don't really like to get Audi too much involved in dealer trades. But there's one out there. But if they come call and then I'm gonna try to rework the deal. They've said they were gonna take an SQ9 from an S8, and I don't.
12:18
If you need help.
12:19
And I don't have an SQ9 anymore. So right,
12:22
You know.
12:22
Who is that? Um. It's not an eighty - four. It's not an.
12:28
Eighty - four. Even better. They might even buy it. Yeah. That was really dumb. Playing stupid. Yeah, I don't really. Yeah, it's it's a yeah, it's a deal that we always have trouble with, but yeah. Audi Dallas. Okay.
12:40
Yeah, I'll call Tom and give him a call.
12:44
And and it's been a while. You know, when we talked about it, so it's been a while, and I don't know if the customer's done anything. So it's just.
12:51
They'll call.
12:52
Me sooner or later. Yeah, yeah. And then they were like, " Well, we'd take a Q9." And then I actually offered them a new Q7, and they didn't want to do that.
13:01
What did you offer them a different SSA?
13:04
Oh, I tried. Yeah, I tried that.
13:06
Yeah. Because I'm having to give you another S8. Yeah. You know, in return.
13:09
I think it was. It was weird. It was. It was like I tried to get. So, I talked to Dustin in Memphis, but he had one that was for his owner. Yeah. And then. I went as far as to like this Audi Jacksonville order, or does Audi Jacksonville also own another dealership like Orange, Orange Park? Yeah, went there, and he wanted a SQ nine as well. So I was just like, I'm not doing it.
13:37
The SQ nines are as good as gold right now. See if you can.
13:42
Work into the sales support on those lower Q fives through the first quarter.
13:51
Probably 25% support. So the first quarter, we should help. Which I actually probably should have put in there, but obviously we all know about the 75%. I think you're well past that already this month. Yeah, we're very, very, very good. Yep, I think that's a great way to just say, hey, let's let's at least get through that. Who knows what comes of that down the road, but I think we're we're safe at least for the next couple of months. That let's hit that 75%. Here's where we're at. Again, I think we can take foresight out of it because they're. I think it was only four, right? But you are right there towards the top. Is 22 still accurate, or where are you at now? 22.
14:26
We punched at 26.
14:28
That must have been yesterday.
14:30
We punched yesterday.
14:31
Beautiful. So three to go with the full week essentially, and a weekend. Imagine no reason to stop at that 29. So probably no reason to do any loaner stuff this month, unless you absolutely needed to.
14:45
Probably not.
14:46
Just like we said, maybe retire some of those like you have. Move them down. We'll talk about that. The volume bonus. Your number was where are we? Seven. Seven. Where are we at? Seven. Once with the punch with the twenty - six. Another. Yep. One of those. Go. Beautiful. So you got three seven. Now everything else moves up to that fifteen hundred territory. You got some SBU fives. One. Okay.
15:12
That's the fourth back. The fourth back or not?
15:20
Yeah , That's all gravy right there. Yep. Good. We'll keep sending this this out. I know we've got a tracker on it now. Obviously, we've got the sales manager on the Q7 and A5, which is great to see. So until you got a handful of those out with two Q7s, three A5s, six Q7s. Sorry. Oh man, look at you. Q7s are moving forwards, and then here we already know the programs, of course. Not changed since the beginning, but this was our update about seven days ago, eight days ago. So great to see the fifteen hundred. Obviously, the bottom there is one thing I want to make sure everyone realizes is they do not apply to the ex-curtis vehicles and traffic. So really, that fifteen hundred on there for the Q3, but definitely should help boost some new cars. RSI, like we said on the bottom right, that's the main reason I wanted to put this in here. It's kind of just we're kind of right around that that.
16:17
10, I'd say I'm probably on the way out here through July. We've had a couple of decent months that'll bring us back up. We will talk about how to get that back up even more. I would imagine if you, if you followed those with the loaners and you can start punching those within the 150, we can get that up to positive 20, maybe 25, and you'll make more money as I do better. I guess you could say you'll you'll lose less on loaners if we're doing this way. So we'll talk about that, but fully appreciate bottom left. You guys going over a couple of months. Obviously, we want to get you to that one hundred percent on our new sales achievement and objective achievement, but you're never missing that seventy-five percent. You're always hitting your your one percent there, which is huge. Here's RSI again, plus twenty overall, which is why we're still at that seven point five. Breaking it down here, you're only really losing, and we talked about it. We're really not selling that many A fives, A sixes, A threes. So your B set end there. You're at negative five.
17:15
But I think, you know, you're overachieving on your Q7s, Q8s, doing well with your A6s, and obviously your Q3s right there at minus one. So 20 overall, you're still at 7.5. Where we're winning, where we're losing, New Orleans. You sold 40 to New Orleans. They sold 22, so 18 net there. Still in the positive. You only lost 38. You took back 77. That's a big reason.
17:46
Are you seeing a lot of people say, "Hey, it's a little bit easier to get here than go into the city and have to worry about New Orleans?" Are they servicing with you?
17:55
Customers that service with us, of course, we market to them through direct marketing. And if they service with us, they're our customers. They're not New Orleans.
18:05
You're looking at them and you're seeing where they bought, where they live. Yep. But any of those surprises?
18:14
I think we just offer a better dealer experience than New Orleans does. Sure. You know, I think that's really what it comes down to. Yeah. Same thing with Lafayette. Yeah. A lot of times, you know, and sometimes we might have the car that they don't have. You know, that could be part of it. But I think we just offer a little bit better dealer experience. And if they've bought with us before, I mean, they're going to get automotive masterminds. They're going to get email marketing. They're going to get direct marketing.
18:43
Well, your service effectiveness is presented pretty high, so you're clearly getting people back through the door and not trying to avoid you. So that's good. Yeah. But all in all, like you said, seventy-seven to thirty-eight. Love to see that number. It is Lafayette. Six percent. You know, most people are going to buy from you, right? They're not going to go go elsewhere. Only thirty-eight going somewhere else that are living here in Baton Rouge. Good. We talked about it. You said you're getting low on Q sevens, right?
19:13
We're worried about two fives. We've got plenty of two fives.
19:18
We get too many.
19:19
And I've seen that ten months before. A lot of people are saying I'm good on these two fives. Hopefully, the one nine nine should help once it has more time to get its teeth into the market.
19:32
But are y'all gonna be? Y'all have added that to the momentum, right?
19:44
Yes. I don't really have anything to do with the actual ads. I'm pretty sure they have. We can check with Constellation, but I'm not in.
19:51
I'm wondering if we shouldn't switch from Q5A5 to Q5Q3, since both of those have 1. 9, and then you could have a good cohesive message. Yep. So, and I know that because right now you have a commercial built of. Yeah. For A five and Q five, I don't know how hard it is to go back and do an A five or Q five, Q three commercial, but it seems like that would be better. Should have a much more positive message on the DAG.
20:21
We did make a change for Q five, one nine.
20:27
That's yeah. But if you could tag that with the one nine and just put those two models.
20:35
And I would imagine you've got more people coming in on Q three than on A five. Correct.
20:40
Yeah. Yeah, I mean the A5, what the factory did with A5. I mean, you had a good selling car for the longest time, and then decided to redesign it to some some old lady glorified A4 or something like that, and now people hate the car.
20:56
And you've got a decent amount of Q3, so I don't hate that idea at all.
21:00
That's what I would do. I would recommend if you can have any influence on that, you switch from the A5 Q5 to Q3 Q5.
21:08
Unless All of a sudden the A five is included for one nine nine for season of Audi.
21:12
Sure, but there's been a slowdown in Q three sales.
21:16
I think not just here
21:19
But I think everywhere.
21:20
Definitely needing some of that support.
21:22
Fifteen hundred is certainly a different reaction to the slowdowns, which is why we put some money. We tried to hold off as long as we could because it's a brand new product, but obviously the market dictated that we needed to be a little bit more competitive with that.
21:35
It's an expensive car now. It's not in the upper thirties anymore. It's in the low.
21:40
Still a segment leader. We're still holding on to that leadership with a pretty good margin. But at the same time, we want to make sure we get more on the road. We should dominate that market.
21:51
It was not close on ASB.
21:54
Yeah, absolutely. We were asking about getting Q three included in the mastermind. Right now, I think we're excluding.
22:02
Oh yeah, I mean, a customer came in and you know. We blame ourselves because we didn't read the fine print. Q3 customer comes in. He's got his he's got his custom offer from Mastermind. Hey, I've got a custom offer, fifteen extra fifteen hundred dollars off. I'd like to buy another Q3. Great, no problem. Bring me in there. Selling a Q3. We go to apply for the rebate on the fine print. Q3 is not. So, I would say either we need to add Q3 to it or B. Let's not let's not market.
22:33
Custom offers to Q3 customers that they can't utilize because of this stuff.
22:38
I think I think the the challenge is that we're hoping that that the offer gets them to step up into something else. But obviously, from Q3 to Q3, the easiest route to be is to have it added to the the offer. So it's on my list to to discuss. We're actually in Arizona with the with the entire team.
22:56
And it's not even something we thought to demo to to. Because normally when they get a custom offer, it'll be you have this on your car, and it'll be you know five hundred dollars less if you go to a different model. Yeah, right. So, okay. I mean, we we didn't.
23:10
I think it's a good. We didn't run it, but it's it's noted. Now that we've got fifteen hundred on the Q three, it feels like we've opened up. Yeah. Let's now include those in a couple. Yeah. So I'm going to.
23:19
Or if you don't include them, just don't even give them an offer and give it to somebody else.
23:23
Yeah, yeah, sure. Give give that give that custom offer to a Q five customer. Yeah.
23:27
And you said you almost did it again with the same guy buying two, yeah? We caught it. Yeah, we went to apply the incentive. We talked about this. Doing really good, good job with the H inventory, keeping that down. You got one right now that S3. What's the story on that one?
23:46
Yeah,
23:47
Yeah, it's for sale.
23:49
One of those, yeah, it's for sale. He said your next demo.
23:53
Yeah. We had talked about that. I I had asked you about ask like what people were doing to sell S3s because we're being very aggressive on them. We actually had a couple or three, and we actually managed to sell them. But yeah, S3s have been very tough for us.
24:07
But it's on your radar. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like I said, if it's only one car, it's like really hard to hit you on the head with that. But you got a couple getting up there. But I would imagine again, once you need to do something for loaners, you can always actually look at those. These are your active loaners. Now, you tell me. Would you say a lot of those are still active, or just how many is it? Well, the ones that are a problem, not a problem to question on, are like some of those that are active: 145, 148, 245, 312. The ones on top. If those are those are entirely too long, I would say. Yeah. We've got national data now that shows the 1,400 cars.
24:53
Or 14,000 cars, I should say, that have gone through this program nationally. The longer they're in service, and then it takes to sell, you can see the the numbers there. It's the last time we're ever going to be able to remark these cars for that sweet spot total age the day you put it into the day you sell it as a used car is five months. That also coincides with getting RSI punches. So if you put a car in for 90 days, pull it no matter what. You don't have to replace it. Just pull it. Give yourself 60 days to sell it. Then all of a sudden, that acts as a new car, and now from the let's call it yours 34 that you did, so you did half of them through that 150 days. At 17, RSI was plus 20. Now it's plus 37. Right. So now all of a sudden, your net gain is essentially doubled.
25:42
Well, what is the what is the cutoff on RSI? Six months, five months, four from from how many cars goes into when we sell it?
25:50
150 days. 150 days. Right. So it's five months. Okay. Yeah. So I would always say nine. I mean, three months is your minimum, right? Yeah. So it's. Of course, that would add both RSI on it. Correct. Sure. And I mean, if we're talking about man, I'm I'm getting torn up by these these loaners. Well, if they're in there for 300 days, I totally agree.
26:10
But we just got to get through this batch of 25 Q5s that we've got sitting out there. Once we can do those, we can start moving those 20s through.
26:19
If you have a good amount grounded. So you've already grounded them, right? But they're still obviously growing in age, so they're not going to count for RSI. But if you can just give yourself a chance, hey, we're pulling a ninety. At least, I mean, how long does it usually take to sell a used car? Would you say that's an X loaner? Sixty days, ninety days. Yeah. Yeah.
26:37
If you're lucky.
26:39
So it's not that every single loaner is going to count, but if you get half of those to count, all of a sudden RSI is going to go up. Like I said, I saw Memphis kind of do it. You saw them with a lot of loaners going in. Their RSI has gone through. I mean, I think they've raised.
26:52
Are they cannibalizing new car sales by doing that?
26:55
So I've asked that same question, and they're saying the people they're selling these ex - loans to would never qualify for a new car. They come in wanting a new car, but they balk at the price, and it's like, okay, well from here you get we've got an ex - loaner. So they're saying no, they are down this year, but a lot of people are down. So I asked the same question. He assured me, but we're just getting extra cars going through the ex - loaner program. Do I love it? No. But if you can do, I mean, I wouldn't say put sixteen loaners in every month, right? Yeah. Put five in if you need to. Have the same amount that your service needs, but definitely don't keep them in for forever days. Yeah. Because then off the bat, you know, you've got a car with only six thousand miles, but it's been in there way too long. So I think three thousand miles, ninety days is perfect. So again, this is national. Now that we've got the data, I think it is really something to look at.
27:49
And then here's yours specifically. You can see that your total age. You've got seven month, two of them is your is your youngest car. Call it so that's already automatically past that 150 day. But a couple of those, 18 months, 17 months, 16 months, and then you can see by by model. Your comparison is the sub area. So when you look at yours versus 84B. But clearly, there's there's a a trend, right? Is that easy to do the ninety days, or is that like walls made on the car still in the shop, so can't get it back, or is it that hey, come on back, we'll get you a new car? Because I've had some pushback on that, like yeah, I can't always get the car out at ninety days.
28:37
Um, well, it's two fold. Number one, you got to make sure you have a car to replace it. Now that we've got our fleet out, sure. So that's number one. Do we have a a new car that we can replace it with? For the most part, I'd say yes. And then the other question is, what is the used car current inventory like? Yeah, you know, right now we have a little bit too much inventory in used cars, so so so really, really to do what you're asking, and I agree with it. Right, it's an easy way to on paper increase market share, and I think it is worth more money. Right, is we have got to decrease some of this some of the pre - owned inventory that we have before we can start. I mean, you agree with that? Yeah, that 100.
29:14
And I think that's the tough part, right? Because now you've got, Let's call it ten cars over 150 days already. Yeah. So do you bite the bullet and just say, you know what, I'll get these gone and fine, and then all of a sudden you know now you can do those 90 days right away, or do you slowly take the top oldest and you know you're just never you're just never going to get the handle.
29:33
Well, if you if you do it the second way, you'll never get to where you're going. About 90 days. So it's and.
29:39
I guess setting setting yourself up for January, February kind of used car months, you could. You could get there, but it's it's not as easily doing.
29:47
Typically January, February. Obviously, we put a lot of support on on used car CPO support, and obviously we hit a reset, but so it might be something to plan. Yeah,
29:57
Plan around. So those are the current.
30:00
When it says active, it's still in loaner status, but grounded. It's and where is that loaner? Car. I think it's right there. Right here. Okay. So a lot of those are grounded.
30:11
Understood. Understood.
30:12
But these have been grounded for four hundred. Forty - four days.
30:15
So it doesn't look like we we still have one active 2025 on there down at the bottom, the last active one. Yep. So I guess they haven't taken that one out. I need to pull that one out.
30:26
And then you've got 26s in yeah in stats, which is fine. Yeah. But yeah, this 25 definitely. And honestly, I mean, they're supposed to take it out.
30:34
They're supposed to take it out. It should have been taken out at three months. Yeah. Yeah. But it hasn't come out yet.
30:40
Who's um. Who's like managing the fleet, or not not for a used car, but I mean it's a service. Yeah, yeah, service. Okay. And is it easy enough for them to say, hey, this at this at ninety, you need to go give me some more cars, or is it?
30:55
It's actually the other way around. We tell them when things need to come out, and then I give them new cars.
31:00
If you can pull them at ninety, then yeah, start that clock. All right, sixty days. Like this one. I mean, yeah, it's a twenty - five, but it's only been one hundred eighteen.
31:06
It was one of the last ones we put in. We put in three, if you can remember.
31:11
So You sell that next month, all of a sudden it counts towards the target. Okay. So and you'll probably, I mean, start tracking that, but you're probably seeing better, at least not as not as bad as the market results in there. But I thought it was interesting. It's tough to do without the data points, right? But now that we've got so many, whenever there's a clear trend, and this is something I want to make sure that everyone knows about. Obviously, the car line is, you know, this Q8 can be deceiving because you're still paying a little bit higher monthly on that. So, That doesn't really go into your your overall win net loss. It's simply what you bought it for versus what you sold it for, plus all of your marketing allowance and daily allowance. Your one percent monthly payment doesn't count. Your reconditioning doesn't count. Tax don't count. So any of that stuff.
31:57
But that's a pretty accurate number though, because I don't charge reconditioning on loaner cars. Got car. I charge it to loaner car expense. Sure. And the one percent is not charged to the card; it's charged to loaner card expense.
32:11
So that's some pretty dollars in the red. I mean, that's that's that's probably about right. Yeah. Bought it for, sold it for, averaging a hundred bucks in the red. Which, I mean, I can tell you a lot of other stores. You can see it. Three forty - three. It's kind of the national average. I can see. I can tell you. There's a lot others in eighty - four being much lower than that. Mm - hmm. Worse than I should say. So. Yeah, good. Good to see, but also, yeah, sub area right there, 550. So there's a few that aren't. Anyways, I thought it was interesting. Do what you want with that, but I think it is definitely a way if you think how do we get this RSI up. Sure, it's a good way to do it. Who are you sending out to scouts though?
32:54
My technologists, yeah, and one of my salespeople.
32:57
Awesome. So, when what days are they going on?
33:00
You know, they're staggered. So Sebastian goes first, and Brandon goes second. I don't. Well,
33:09
Yeah, I'm excited about it. Be able to get get your hands on a Q9, Q7, little competitive comparisons, and then thoughts doing a Q7, Q9 launch party at all? Are we thinking about doing anything like that locally?
33:22
What we've been thinking about doing locally, rather than doing a launch event here, is is doing events around town and sponsoring the cars. There's an event coming up with the Country Club. We'll be able to get involved with as a food and wine event. Like the two nines invited in Colorado and just.
33:38
Pay a sponsorship, and you'll have like we said. I guess you'll have some of those on the ground. We do have a couple marketing vehicles. I know it's really booked up for the first couple of weeks in November, but if something in December you need it or whatever it is, let us know and it'll come with this this toolkit, which has got obviously the the satin cover on. It's got lighting. It's got, A way to to collect leads, anything like that. So, just let us know so we can plan that schedule if that's something you wanted to do.
34:13
I like that idea. I think I've been kind of pushing guys to get away from the traditional. Hey, invite your same.
34:19
Well, you do a launch event. Let's say you get 150 people to come here. Okay, well. Let me sponsor an event somewhere that's got 300, 800, you know,
34:29
Whatever. Yeah, and probably 150. Yeah, 150. 140 of them are are your customers that you talk to anyway, right? So I mean, they just eating the cheese and wine, and that ain't going home. So let's go talk to the guys that are at this event that you know Audi wasn't on their radar, but now they see the car, and now Audi's on their radar, right? And now we got some incremental leads that we didn't have before. In addition to the hundred fifty that we still can talk to in our database, yeah, super smart.
34:57
I got a customer meeting at four thirty, CCL. That's where I'll talk to them about sponsorships coming up.
35:03
So, let us know some dates we'll come down. Yeah, meet up there, cheese and wine.
35:09
We'll bring the kit. I think that'll be good. So, I know there's a couple events going around around the area starting next week. So, I'll send you some pictures of what that kit looks like if that is something you want to do. I mean, again, my biggest thing for you was loaners. I think that's something that is actionable right away. You're doing most everything you need to do on the new car side. Q7, Q9, we bring a lot of that buzz and hopefully some conquest. So we're in a good spot. I think there's a lot of good, exciting things happening. But you know, we want to come down and just kind of see what we can do. How can we help get through this fourth quarter? What's big on your guys' mind?
35:46
I mean, this — if we can continue this through the end of the season of outing,
35:51
Yeah. I would assume we're going to continue that, or some variation of it. The season of outing — that's that's my best guess.
35:56
Like we pulled it forward, trying to help.
35:58
It's nice to actually do a season of outing sales.
36:01
I agree. It's been a while. It's been a long week. Honestly, hadn't had a whole lot to sell and nothing to talk about, so it was almost a. Wasting money, but this year obviously it's a little bit different. We start looking at the really the portfolio. I mean, Q3 still a fantastic car, fresh, precious product in in that segment. Q5, the changes with black office and the wheels, and finally getting the packaging right. Now that's a sellable car where your your salespeople aren't afraid to sell it. The quality has gotten much better, so they're not walking around it. So that's that's a huge hit, especially with the with the special APR there, and then now I mean starting with some cars.
36:42
A couple days here, new Q7, which is a fantastic car. I'm assuming JR's probably been. Yeah, he was here last week, so you guys got a chance to see it. Yeah, that's right. Feel it, think, think good things about it. I mean, it's fantastic. The technology is just—it's mind blowing. Let's tell them you were in the Q9 for Q9. I had five days into it. Funny story. I don't even know if Mark knows this, but was in the SQ9, and I was doing a tour. I took it up to Huntsville, Nashville, and then Birmingham. Got to Birmingham on Thursday. Get a call from our president's admin. She's the secretary, but they don't call the secretary. Admin, and she's like, "You need to have that SQ9 in Atlanta tomorrow." Like what?
37:35
I got a whole, you know, week plan. This she's like, no, Nino's coming in. He needs to SQ9 tomorrow. I'm like, okay, new president needs to SQ9. What is he coming for? Can't tell you. I go high tail it down I-20 doing 95 and SQ9 and get it back, get it washed and clean. I'm at the airport at dark 30 in the morning. Comes out and takes the key and says, see you later. I'm looking like. I didn't set up a ride home. I'm literally I'm on the curb with my briefcase, thinking like, yeah, we're going somewhere, and I'm taking him somewhere. He's like, nope, thanks, you appreciate you, and and he takes off. And so Uber City. Then I realized he went to Vegas, so he was going down for the whole event and stuff. So it was so confidential that crazy. That's crazy. Uber back home, you know, eighty eighty five dollar Uber ride back back to the city, and but.
38:33
But yeah, fantastic deal. So thank you, guys, for coming. Well, first time ever. I think I think I was here calling you guys in 20 2017, and we were talking about we need a three-row SUV, full-size SUV. There's so much market that we're leaving on the table now, with guys. So now that customer, we can bring them in at a Q3, and as life changes, you know, they can go to Q3, Q5, Q7, and you know, Q9. So we're a big The whole lifecycle, and then now having localized production. Ledford mentioned going into 2030, you know, those cars are going to be forever built for the United States here in the states. Quicker timetable, hopefully a little bit more competitively priced, that will help bigger piece of the pie and a bigger piece on product design, which is key for us.
39:24
So Q2, Q9, Georgia. Yep. Q5 stays in Mexico. Yep. Q3 stays in Europe.
39:30
That's the plan.
39:33
But that Q7, Q8, Q9, I think will will give us sort of the first right of how this car should be filled over time. Yeah, because it's going to be made here in the American market. So I think I think what it really signifies is that the investment in in the American market is still great because there's so much upside, whereas China is a disaster, and so they need a market to step up. So they're willing to put support around us growing and becoming.
40:04
Is there any tariff relief since y'all.
40:07
Agreed to put a factory in the U.S. that y'all received prior to production happening in 2030?
40:17
That's a great question. That's one that we had we had an internal call yesterday with Lido, and he shied away from answering anything more than what was announced. But I had to guess.
40:30
Yes. And then on article day, I sent it to you. And he was talking about having production at the Scout Plan too, probably 25, 000 units a year. I don't know if y'all heard anything about that.
40:41
We heard all the rumors and read all the articles, and he was very tight - lipped. He was to the to the script. Right now, what's been announced is all that we're prepared to talk about right now. We asked the question about four separate ways. Yeah, we had some people that went four separate ways. Yeah, so if I ask you this way, you know, to get a little bit more out of you, and it's like. What we're what what has been announced is all that we're prepared to talk about, but there's a lot of things going to be said. He said there's more to come. There's more more more stuff.
41:11
It just seems like there's more positive attitude within the last five or six months compared to the last three or four years. It seems like, you know, I mean, it's like we're trying to get back into the game. It's like we were on cruise control, and whatever happened happened. We lose you know 60, 000 units, whatever it was. But you know, we have to stay aggressive. To compete in this market, you know, I mean, you look at Mercedes and you look at BMW. They had clamps in here for the last 15, 20 years. It's about time we put our foot into the market, you know, and build cars. So, I mean, I'm glad to see that we got a positive attitude and an aggressive attitude versus it was like a helpless attitude the last two or three years. It seemed like.
41:51
Well, I will. I'll share this, and I won't. I'll leave it nameless. But to your point, Richard, someone just texted me, and it starts with leadership, right? So it says. Vito has accomplished more than more than in the six in the first six months than our last president accomplished in six years. So I think I think starts with the top and the ability to to.
42:15
You gotta have vision. You gotta have vision and a plan. You can't just be on cruise control and let things happen. And if something starts to happen in a negative way, you gotta make adjustments and don't let it continue to happen for several years. But no, I mean I I see. There's a different pride. Look, when when I spoke with you guys, I think last time when that Q7 came out, my wife used to drive through the through the you know the driving lanes, and all people would say, " What the hell kind of car is that?" You know, because it's got a a different looking vehicle from everything else. And now I see us going back in that direction, and it's about time. I mean, we're starting to build products that people are going to be excited about. You know,
42:49
And people will turn on us. Didn't you say you're driving on this side?
42:55
You have you have touched my soul because up to that point I was just I literally got the drive up stare you know for a mile like on 80 you know doing doing 85 miles an hour somebody drives up and they're trying to keep up with me and then finally they give me the thumbs up I haven't had a thumb up at me driving an Audi in six years I was like holy cow we're back like probably to that point everybody's excited I think. When you.
43:25
Look at innovation in a car, people thought about Audi. Yeah, yeah. In the last four or five years, maybe they don't even on the shopping list. It seems like hands down. So yeah, there's excitement behind the product now, dude. When my wife used, I used to come home and my wife driving the car and it was dirty. I said, " You can't drive a car like this, dirty. This car's got to be clean." Stay clean. Stay clean. I mean, that's the kind of attitude that you have to have. I mean, you got to be proud of what you're driving. When you drive that car, you probably say, " Shit, I'm driving something special." I thought they were looking at me, and then realized like, " Okay,
43:55
It's the S. U. I." I'm like, " What are you doing? A nice haircut? I just got a haircut." So I'm thinking like, " Man, they really,
44:01
Really trying to find me, huh?" Okay. Pulled up to Huntsville, the entire building walked out with their phones and pictures, and customers were like, " Whoa!" It was like real. Yeah, it was like you know. I.
44:13
Look at all the emails and the phone calls that come here. We had more people calling in now about a Q7 and SQ9 or Q9 that we never had that. We haven't had that attention in the last two years.
44:24
So today we released the launch hold on Q7. So we thought it was going to be November second. It's had a schedule. Okay. Obviously, there's still going to be some some quicks, you know, software flashes and things to make sure that they're good good to go. But I think we're doing the first 2, 500 are going to get extra. Touch points,
44:41
So they're trying to grow with shoes.
44:43
Yep. But you know, instead of waiting for the second for those release, we're starting now, and maybe a couple trickle in before the end of the month. That would be not a surprise to close it out. But we don't want to wait. Right? We're ready. We've got a lot of them here. A lot of these cards are sold, so they're prioritizing those. Q7 is first. I don't know what's going to be next, but I would imagine it's snowballing from here. And then we're off to the races. And we've got everything that we need for volume. You know. Brand new, ready to go, and then we see some fun stuff, some RS, some other things roll through, and you know, a lot of things they say are kind of on the radar, but. Armside ones. Sorry, got a little. So you know, maybe armside ones. Got a little. So other things, so it'll be fun. You know, this this year was very fun to have. Here's a launch, there's a launch. Now it's, no, now we get a little more exotic with it. So we'll get there. Next year's gonna be fun.
45:37
The end of this quarter is going to be fun. The end of the year is going to be fun, but you know, I think with that map guidelines that we're talking about, it's no longer who has the best price. It's who takes that that same lead.
45:50
Yeah. No discount for the first six months on the Q7.
45:52
No discount six months for all brand model years.
45:55
So you're talking about like advertised.
45:57
Once your model, once a new model year comes out, you discount zero percent for six months. After the six months, you can do five percent. Once the new model.
46:04
Correct. You can do like online or something.
46:05
Correct. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Once the new model year comes out for that one, then now we can go to eight percent for the previous model year. We used to have kind of just a free-for-all discount on the old model years. It keeps it around. Yeah, agreed. And now what we can do is, if you're really good at handling leads and you're doing the same way as New Orleans, well, now New Orleans can't just undercut you, right? You, you might, you said it. We provide a better deal experience, so it'll reward those who can provide a great experience to that customer. And can handle the needs and make sure they don't fall through the cracks and not send a generated AI email that nobody reads or whatever it might be. So I think it really will reward those stores and have their process in place. And obviously, we've seen that you guys can do that with your loyalty and with your service effectiveness. So it'll be good. It'll definitely kind of separate the halves and the half knots pretty quickly.
46:58
Make people realize, man, I got to change the thing. So,
47:01
So, so, so it's not Q seven Q nine; it's just a new model year.
47:03
Q seven Q nine for sure, but that I think that was the main reason we started with those two cars. They'll be the first to come out. Right with the Q five, I think it's been in the market for six months. Right, so it will. No, no, I'm talking about model years. Like, yeah, guess what? No, model year hasn't come out yet. Model year twenty seven Q five. I, I don't think we'll have the discount for how it's written. I don't believe it will for six months. Yeah, we'll look, but I don't think it will. I think every new model year will have zero percent discount.
47:33
I think it's good. I think we used to be that way. We only show rebates, and that's what BMW, that's what Lexus does, that's what that's what other brands.
47:40
Yeah, I think the intent is to sort of obviously establish brand presence, and you know, obviously bring back some of the ability to hold and retain growth. So yeah,
47:52
That will sway product versus you know,
47:54
Because once. Once somebody goes there, then it becomes a downward slide, right? So we can we can take a page out of what Lexus was doing and and sell those cars, you know.
48:05
Yeah, I don't think we have a single car that we sell for profitability unless we hold back on trade at this point in time because everything is yeah again everything is customer skier.
48:13
You guys are doing hand to hand contests. You know, then if you hey you bought me you bought four cars from me, I want to give you. Get fifteen hundred bucks off of it. That's that's your right. I mean, we don't tell you kind of what to sell the car for, but at the same time, we don't want to advertise as you know, thousand dollars off. No, fifteen.
48:33
Thousand dollars.
48:33
Yeah, I'm just saying. It's seventy - seven percent our loyal customers. Anyway, is already in our list. It's not like you're getting somebody shopping all the time coming through there. Well, because we would like to have this. We would like. But it's clearly a ten percent discount isn't bringing people to do that. No, it's not. It's not. It's not. Now all of a sudden it's just we can be better. No, so I think I think we're the good news is yes I think we've listened a lot of these for the feedback. Obviously the cars are where we need to be. So now it's all going to be a lot of that process stuff that's in place, which you've already gotten. What comes out next year? Cars, well, that's the first big one.
49:13
A lot of rumors,
49:13
But about A7. What's the word on A7? That was always a decent selling car. I don't know. They haven't. They haven't. Yeah, you had the A7 and you had the A5. The A5 looked like a baby A7. Now you have no A7.
49:29
I heard rumors of a. I heard rumors of a remeasurement on the on the A5, but I don't know though. I think maybe we learn a little bit more. We usually learn more at CLX or.
49:42
Call it a pop sport bag, anything, you know,
49:44
Something to. What do you got there? I got nothing. You know, there you get the edge. I think I think there's gonna be around the experience, the success. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's gonna be enough buzz out there that oh, this is now coming down the pipeline. Oh, there's something new here, just to keep people involved. So, still not enough. What else you got? Questions, thoughts?
50:06
You're gonna clearly look at. We got a question on service. Then, if you can put your service hat on for just a second.
50:15
Yeah, Daryl and Speed Dial.
50:16
There is. We're seeing a lot of customers coming in with a problem with the differential. Which model? Q5. Yeah, Q5. But you also get it on Q7,
50:30
Q8. I would say no. What's that? 2025.
50:34
No. These would be three-year-old cars.
50:36
Do you know that? The issue. Are you familiar? The shutter on the turn
50:40
Like. Okay. There is a fix for the. There is a fix for it. However, we're not allowed to quote it for today. The reason being is it's not considered a safety item. However, well, you have to wait for a customer to complain about it before you can fix the car. So a lot of times our technicians will will feel it. I mean, we'll feel it when we go to appraise a car. Yeah, and you've probably got a customer that's just living with it.
51:07
Not always. You turn. What it feels like. What it feels like. Like if you ever driven. Like if you ever driven a a four wheel drive vehicle on concrete, and you go to turn the vehicle on concrete, it'll like buck a little bit. Yeah. That's what it feels like. Okay. Um. So there is. Very common thing.
51:26
Is a fix for it. Not considered a safety issue.
51:30
It's not a safety issue. It's a feel issue. But I feel the way the customer feels.
51:36
But operating as design,
51:38
Yeah, can't point it out. But but you've got you've gotten customers, and we've had customers come in to trade in the, you know, wanting to get rid of the car and going, I just you know, I can't I can't deal with the way this car drives anymore. And then, okay, you know, at that point in time, we'll try to fix it or whatever. But it seems like that should be something we should be able to quote.
51:57
So if you if you notice it, you can't.
52:00
I cannot upsell it. That's correct. They have to mention.
52:03
You can't say, " Hey, did you notice this bunch?" You cannot do it.
52:06
Interesting. Yeah. But dude, I'll tell you. My wife's coming. Wait, and I brought in for an all game or something, and I got in for the first time in like a year. I said, " What is this feel going on here?" You know what I mean? Because when you turn it, you feel it. Yeah. And I'm thinking. So I got it back out, and I said, " Man, did you?" They said, " Yeah, but we can't. Yeah, we can't. You know, do anything unless they cut them." I said, " Well, man, and the beauty of it is this."
52:31
My car went. I got a 2022, 14, 000 miles. Went out of warranty in July, and I'm saying, " Well, shit! I wish somebody would have told me about it." Now it's out of warranty. Yeah.
52:41
So it would have been nice.
52:42
Yeah, we would have been doing nice. That's how they had it. It seems strange. No. Yeah.
52:46
So. Okay. Let me.
52:48
But I'm just wondering if we could get some kind of.
52:50
So when you you go to unless the customer says something about it,
52:55
You can't. The claim will be the rule. Will claim will be denied. Okay. Correct. Okay.
53:02
And what's the fix? Oh, you drain the fluid, and then you put the fluid back into the into the differential, and then you drive it for three, four hundred miles, something like that. And you have to do some figure eights and things like that. But yeah, there is a fix for.
53:19
It. Is there anything you can send that we can do? Yeah,
53:26
You know what? I will get I will get Taylor to put together something for us.
53:31
Yeah. Say hey there. How do we handle giving these things? Ideally, you'd say hey, we can fix this. Let's fix it under warranty.
53:39
And then the other other item is we trade the car in for a customer. He's got that problem. Well, now I can't fix under warranty with the for the used car department. It's a sad, huh? The used car department can't complain about the part. You don't have a customer attached to it. So it's almost like you know. Then could you? Yeah. Yeah. Could I? Could I go? Hey, listen. Next time, would you come in next week and go? Yeah. Can I do that? Yeah. But I mean, you know, we're trying to create an experience for Daryl, and that's not the. That's. That just seems shaky. I don't want to be part of it.
54:20
Not here. Yeah. Yeah. You would think, hey, this thing has a problem. We have to fix it.
54:24
Correct. Yeah. Play the shadow game. Correct.
54:28
Yeah. Let's see what Daryl has to say. He's always good at something like that. We ask, we ask around how people are playing around that. First time hearing of it, but obviously, yeah, yeah.
54:38
That much on that. It's been a subject of a couple of meetings over the last couple of months. So, all right,
54:44
Let's give, let's give. Yeah, oh well, we'll give him a shot after this. Is it mainly on Q8 or something? Q5 and maybe. Well, it can be on Q, Q7,
54:53
Q8. I think we probably just sold the most Q5. You never see it most.
54:57
Yeah. Yeah. Send me something, and I can get you. For sure. Okay.
55:02
What else? Just that loyalty lock. I don't know if Terrence knows anything about it.
55:07
Oh, that one's another one. Q7s. If they have a sold model year 2007 Q7 right now in their loyalty,
55:15
Which currently has loyalty.
55:17
But I would assume if there's current loyalty on 2007s, we don't have them. We're not going to get rid of loyalty next month when they show up.
55:25
There's a loyalty lock program, so if we do need to put into effect the lock program, we didn't know exactly how to do it, so we're not.
55:33
Yeah, I just can't imagine we offered you.
55:35
Neither can I, but yeah.
55:37
Twenty - seven, one none are in stock. Yeah, but I can, I can ask. One ask.
55:43
Is a situation where, as long as we punch the car with the same name that we ordered the car under, right, that's usually blocked. Right, that we'll get it. We want to make sure.
55:56
There is a program right now that has loyalty lock in it.
56:00
Yes,
56:00
And that shows until November second on the fourth. It should.
56:06
It's been out for actually a couple months now. It has it right. This wasn't the first month. It was last month. I believe it was the first month.
56:14
I'll look into that as well.
56:16
And then it's whenever the rates came out for the Q nine as well, because I think they came out four nine nine, not this month, last month.
56:22
Correct. You do a rate lock.
56:23
Yeah. But I think you have to pull credit for all that, so that's a little bit different. So the Q five for twenty seven is going from no trim to like options,
56:43
Right?
56:46
Have you gotten feedback on packages from other people?
56:49
Or I think it just simplifies things, right? And it's it's less of a, Like varied entry for some of these, like you don't always want all the packages in your print. So now you can say, "I'm going to take this, take that." I think it speeds a lot of the things up and lowers some of the supply chain issues that you deal with. But to your point, if you really want bucket seats, for example, that might everyone wants them all of a sudden, you know. Yeah. So, but that's not anything new, right? Yeah. But no, I think the feedback I've heard on that is positive for the most part.
57:24
What about what do you think of it? Make it easier to yeah.
57:28
So specifically on Q5, it's interesting because like you can go no package and still have good features. Yeah. But when you look at it, I think they have like three main packages you can choose from. It seems like you would want that, that, and that. In one package, you know, but uh, I didn't know if that was kind of on purpose or like, but it's like one main thing in every package, and I didn't know if you had heard that,
58:01
But I haven't, but I'll ask around and see. That would be nice to pick and choose like three things like from a menu, yeah.
58:10
Like the must - have pack,
58:11
Right? You're building most of your cars though pretty quickly on your allocation. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Bro, do you have anything?
58:22
Yeah, I'm just gonna pull yours. Yeah, here, come on. Use this HDMI.
58:28
And then those ah, yeah,
58:31
All right. And then those SQ nines we talked about would be the only last thing.
58:37
Yep. I'm gonna get some more probably. See if the two seven lights trickle in before the end of this one. I don't know. November seventh was kind of on everyone's radar for the launch to be removed, but we just got an email as we were driving saying key seventh we removed the launch lots early, so I don't know if that means yeah. I would imagine you see them exactly Thanksgiving before then, yeah. Which you know I think I remember in July or what other I just said holidays football season yeah. It's football season, so kind of spot on with that, but we'll see.
59:17
The.
59:17
Only reason he's playing in football season is because Green Bay's winning. We lost last three days ago, so that's been tough. We won't bring up the Saints. I.
59:29
Wanted to kind of with the new traffic that's coming in, the analysis of how it's coming in, but with the new models coming out, make sure that we've got everything digitally tightened up that we can tighten up. So I wanted to kind of start with this and go over the momentum campaign. I emailed Ava while you, while we were, while Mark was presenting, and she did the firm that offers our that Q5 ad for us. So this this the results so far of the momentum campaign. You guys have had 15,000 impressions, a video completion rate of 99.6 percent, a reach of 3,117.
60:16
People, so those are the actual people who have viewed the viewed the video, and then the frequency is how often those three thousand one hundred and seventeen people have viewed that video. So we're averaging about five five views per person of that thirty one hundred people on this campaign. That's actually performing really well. One of the things that Lance, I was going to ask you, have you been able? Do you have GA four access? Yep. Do you have you seen or have you looked or will you look? I guess to see if there's been a bump in direct organics, which is typically how we would be able.
60:54
And this would be driving. This would be driving to the AudiBatteryLA. com website, essentially.
60:58
This. So this is a video. So this would have to be direct. They have to go to your website.
61:03
Right. But I'm saying it's driving to the the Audi OEM website, right?
61:07
Because I have two. I don't think it's a click through.
61:09
No, it's not a click through at all. Okay, it's just a video. No, the click through is no red media. So this won't have any click - through.
61:16
No, this won't have any. So no good. This, this, the best way we can track this, just to see if there's organic increase or direct traffic increase with those. And I know one of the things that I would recommend. Do you guys currently have a retargeting program for your website? Yes, yes, we do. Okay. So you were talking about wanting to get more competitive, competitive. As far as your competitors around here to try to steal. One of the things that I was wanting to talk about is your fair party needs. So I have this board right here. A couple of things. I wanted to let you know that the.
62:11
Lafayette pulled up, so Lafayette is on the third-party program. You guys are on it, and I wanted to let you know that New Orleans is not on it. Well, they're on it, but they have like a cap of like six cents a month. So now we have this new program. I just wanted to let you know that it's here, and I'll show you. Let's look at Howdy Memphis because it's a they've just adjusted theirs. I'll give you kind of a visual of what it looks like. So now they've updated this program where you can target specific areas. That you might want to, you can do it by zip code. You can do it by pin. So, if there was a specific city that you wanted to drop a pin on and just target within, I think the lowest is five miles that you can go, and then obviously you can go out as far as you want to. But this really allows you to target more third-party lead customers. The reason I'm bringing this up is to let you know New Orleans only has a cap of six six leads.
63:06
Per month that they get on their third-party leads, so you actually could, if you wanted to, go closer to New Orleans and get some of those third-party leads. The reason I say that is with your retargeting campaign, if you guys start really pushing links to your website with these third-party leads, you can retarget these customers. They're typically competitor competitors, right? They're they're typically looking at multiple models, so that would be an easy. Probably the least expensive because if you go target competitors with like Google Ads, it's very very expensive very quickly. This would be one way that you could look at it from an advertising standpoint to pull more of these customers in the area that are competitive, send them lead follow up with links so that they hit your website and then you can retarget them.
63:56
Would these be Audi partner leads?
63:58
These are Audi partner leads. When did Audi? When did Memphis do this? Just now or? Did this last month?
64:07
Have they had success with it?
64:09
They have actually. They went from they were really struggling, like just in general on their new car leads. They went from like a one percent appointment set rate to about a ten or eleven percent, which for them was a pretty big jump, because they were able to target leads in areas where they actually can sell cars. Right. So this way, you can. If there's a certain zip code, you're like, that's not our customer base. We don't want to pay for those leads. Now you can actually go in there and target specific areas. And I'm not saying that you should do this, and I'm letting you know because other dealers know. I don't want you guys to know what everybody else knows. You can go in and actually go drop a pin on New Orleans now if you wanted to get those leads. I don't know if people drive here from New Orleans. I don't know if that would be a strategy you're interested in doing, but it's certainly something that you could do. And if you're really wanting to get some people that are looking at.
65:02
This would actually be a pretty good way.
65:05
And what's the price per lead on?
65:07
I think it's like, don't hold me to it. It's somewhere between twenty and twenty - five. I think it's like twenty - one, twenty - one dollars or something. I can find out for sure,
65:14
But the problem we had before is we had kind of a large radius in Baton Rouge. Yeah, I remember. And were we getting a lot of Audi partner leads? With virtually, yeah, nothing. How are Audi partner leads generated again.
65:27
So Audi partner leads. There's about six or seven different lead providers. They don't let us know who they are. Most OEMs are like that. That they purchase from. And here's the thing about third-party leads, they're very high funnel. But for your strategy, that's actually a good thing, right? Usually, if you're trying to sell and you want lower funnel leads, third-party leads aren't the way to do it. But when you have brand new models coming out and you're really wanting to get in front of people, if you.
65:59
Coincide your lead follow up. That's the key, right? You can't. You have to be able to get them to your website to be able to retarget. So that's the key. You've got to tighten up that lead follow up. But Lance, you did add that model showroom page. I saw that. Do you guys know if you've been using that model showroom page in your third - party leads? Okay. Well, then that that's great. So you're actually able to retarget those currently as long as they're clicking on those links. What's the RMD you guys have?
66:27
Starve. Uh, Vin Solutions.
66:29
Can you look at? Do you have it where you can log on real quick? What you want to know? The template. So there's a template performance report inside of the solutions. I would just be curious how often that showroom page has been sent out, and you can actually see how many times people have clicked on the template and how what kind of performance set percent you're getting.
66:48
So I'd have to go look and see if anybody's using the template. Honestly,
66:51
Okay. But well, I was. That's what I was going to say. We need to make sure that you're you're using that. With these leads, because otherwise this strategy is not going to work. Right, that's pivotal to making this strategy work. If you're trying to get more competitors to see Audi, this this would be a pretty inexpensive way to do that, rather than geo-targeting the BMW dealership, which is going to cost you a fortune. This is a way you can kind of get around that. But you've got to make sure that you're sending links to your website that they're clicking on those links, so that you get that retargeting information for those ads to the customer.
67:29
Any questions on that.
67:30
So, if I wanted to drop, because before it was always you pick a radius from your right. You pick the radius from from from where you're at. So, right now, as you can see, I make sure that I have all of Baton Rouge within our radius and Prairieville and everything like that. So, I can take a separate pin now and go drop it in New Orleans without having to worry about La Place and all this other kind of stuff.
67:54
Yep. Let me.
67:58
And the minimum minimum radius is five miles.
68:02
Minimum radius is five miles, and I was trying to.
68:04
How many pins can you drop? Well, when you talk about five miles, five miles is but we'll let you go. Five miles is a big is a big area.
68:11
Here you go. I was trying to find a screenshot. So this is so I think you can drop what you can see right there. So you can drop at least what seven pins. Yeah. Including your radius, or you can pull that radius back and then specifically target certain.
68:31
I wouldn't want to take away from our radius.
68:34
You're only getting 16 leads a month, well, currently for October 30th, so you're not getting a ton, right? So I would suggest not pulling that back, just because you know, if you were getting like 120 leads, it would definitely be a different conversation. Okay. But this might be worth dropping a pen with the strategy of trying to get. You finished answering your question. I'm sorry. There's seven. There's about seven different lead sources that are involved in the third - party lead program. Some of those lead sources can be questionable. We don't know exactly.
69:07
What are all those people looking for? A car.
69:10
They they they are. They have sent buying intenters like their digital body language. Yes, they have done something to look at a car. There's going to be some lower funnel and some higher funnel. Like one of the things that we've been trying to combat is there was a provider, I think Detroit Trading actually. Yeah. So Detroit Trading would put up an ad, and if somebody clicked clicked on it and they didn't do anything else, they didn't put their information, and they just clicked on an ad, they would pull that IP address, send it as a lead.
69:44
And you guys would get it, and that would not. Yeah,
69:46
He called me. I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Yep,
69:49
Yeah. Yeah. So it helps us. I don't know. Are you guys familiar with the lead feedback tool? Inside. Okay. Let me show you this. This is very, very important. Number one, it helps you not to pay more than you have to for a lead, which obviously is very important.
70:04
Oh, yeah. I knew this. You click on it and say it wasn't a good lead or something. Yes.
70:11
Yes. It helps us if. If there's another Detroit Trading that you're getting crappy leads, that's how we keep a track of that. So not only does that take that out of your equation for how many leads you got and your closure rates, which obviously helps when you pull bad leads out of that, you also don't get charged for the lead, which helps you. But it also helps us to be able to say, wait a second, this one particular vendor is sending us crappy leads. We need to drop them, like we did Detroit Trading, and try to put a better lead source. So it helps us for you guys to do that tremendously.
70:42
But yeah, you go into the Audi Intelligence Lead Transactions, and then you just go click onto the actual view of a lead, and you can come in here and request removal. And then put your put your drop down. If you guys are going to add additional pins, I would say somebody needs to say, "Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna be the one that handles making sure we request lead feedback," because if you get bad leads and you're taking more leads into different areas. We want to make sure you have good leads, especially if you're doing it to try to get some of those competitors to retarget some of those customers. So, we definitely want to stay on top of that, especially if you're about to drop pins in other areas to get other leads. So, Lafayette is on the lead program. They have their PAI. Nothing outside of their PAI, just so you know. New Orleans is on it, but they have their leads capped at six leads, so that it shuts off after six leads for them. So, there is an opportunity there if you want.
71:41
So I want to make sure you guys do that.
71:42
Let me drop one for him.
71:45
Get hold battery. Yeah, yeah. Hold battery. Then you could go across the causeway that. And then do one on the north shore.
71:54
Yeah. Keep talking. I was just going for the money. She started it. She brought it.
71:58
Up. Oh, yeah. One person and not another. There's a lot of money here. I've seen a bunch of it.
72:08
Yeah. I've got to go to the airport. Any minute, we've got a funeral to deal with today and tomorrow. Okay. But yeah, I want to see where where you're at here.
72:17
Okay. So uh, here. So a couple of things. Uh, you you guys still have Podium, correct? No. You don't. Okay. You got rid of Podium.
72:26
Yeah. What was Podium? One, two. Uh, Vind Solutions version of AI.
72:29
Yeah. Okay.
72:30
So nobody is responding. But you mean you mean Podium for reviews?
72:34
Well, they used to respond to reviews. That's what I'm asking.
72:37
No, it's. I didn't turn it off for the reviews. We still have plenty of reviews.
72:41
You do okay. So, I would recommend. So, this is one thing that I wanted to bring to your attention. I love this. This is great, and these are new reviews. But if you click on these people, they're not being responded to in this system. So that sends bad signals to Google that you're not paying attention. Especially like I want to just tighten up the screws on the stuff that we can digitally. That's easy. Especially with a lot of people.
73:05
I just need to see why Podium. Just Podium supposed to automatically respond to all those.
73:08
They're not. So I wanted to let you know that they're not responding to your service. Yes. On your service,
73:13
They worked for a while, right? Yeah. Yeah. They worked. It's like something. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for being.
73:18
Yeah. So maybe they.
73:20
If that's still turned on, I just need to check with them. Okay. First.
73:23
That's a big one. So let's make sure we're doing that and getting them to respond because, especially with new traffic coming, these are some of the easy ways. Another thing I noticed: your website link on your service page is going to a LouisianaAudiHQ. com page.
73:38
It's Google doing too much. Yeah.
73:41
If we could change that so it's not going to.
73:44
Because I've changed that once already.
73:45
Have you? Yeah. And then I would recommend. I think we talked about this last time. Going in here and updating these categories. So currently you've got Audi dealer, used car dealer. You can come in here and add. Leasing service, car finance, and little car manufacturer—all any of these automotive terms—that'll get you more noticed with Google Business Profile, because about sixty percent of your organic traffic, which is going to be your best performing traffic, is going to come from this profile. So optimizing this out as much as you possibly can—I definitely would recommend. And then you've only got auto repair shop for the service center. Obviously, you see all these other categories. I would recommend adding all those other.
74:31
Yeah, I can do all that. Yep.
74:33
As well. Let's see what else.
74:36
Just go add as many categories as we can.
74:38
As far as I noticed, so just I just wanted to let you guys know all the OADD sites are starting to do an FAQ page, and the reason they're doing that is for generative image optimization, which is basically AI optimization. When I went and took a look at your, should I buy a car from Audi Baton Rouge? It came back with some really good positives for you. I wanted to you to be able to see some of this stuff, and then also the cons. So I wanted to let you know that the generative AI is now holding a lot of weight into what this pulls. If you ever need to fix something, like if you ever wanted to fix a con, you can build an FAQ page on your website in kind of a Q and A form, and as long as you truly have fixed the.
75:29
Problem and AI will score it. They'll score it bad if you put that you fixed a problem on an FAQ page and then you continue to get bad reviews on that same problem. But if there's truly something that you're like, oh, we've changed that process, you can build an FAQ page. And anything that comes up negative on generative AI, you can put on that FAQ page as far as, hey, here's a question. This what we've done to fix it, and this this how we've changed. To make the customer experience better, so I wanted to make make sure you guys were aware of that. They're doing that automatically on the OADD sites and just sending like a questionnaire form. You guys would have to do it manually, but I want to make sure you knew that was happening. Um, I think those were the main things. Let me look at my.
76:27
No, I think that was it. The main things I wanted to make sure we kind of tightened up. I would heavily recommend to make sure that the content on your leads that you're sending out, especially with the new model that's coming out, that you're linking to your website in the in those responses to try to get them to click, so that you can do the retargeting to.
76:52
Them digitally. Do you guys send video walkarounds?
76:57
Um, it is something we have just started fooling with. Um, um. Stephen did a couple of good ones. Uh, his really wasn't a pure walk around, but yeah.
77:11
Yeah, I mean the answer is no. We don't do it like we should. Um, we recently we've tried to. I mean, I think you've tried to. Yeah,
77:19
I've filmed them. We've tried them, and it's a matter of, yeah, we film it, and if they don't consistently use it, it's it's one of those.
77:26
We have started to have more interest from the salespeople to do it, so we're moving in the right direction. But the answer is no; we shouldn't do it. We don't do it like we should.
77:35
Maybe a library, you know, few dealers build sort of the library by model line just to have. I.
77:43
Mean, the the most impactful one is, hey, what's going on, Bob? Yeah, I'm your your name. You know, I'm I'm I'm going to be your guy. This is the car you're asking about. It takes literally 20 seconds. Yeah, and they just hit send.
77:57
The reason I brought it up is I don't know how, but I literally started doing it when I started driving the SQ9, and it has been the craziest reaction to send somebody just, hey, did I show you that the the new car has, you know, just a you know, has a turning signal that projects onto the light, you know, so I want it, I gotta have it, I gotta have it, so I just kind of built myself a little library with. So that's a good, good opportunity. Maybe try to incorporate it into the follow - up to be engaged and get better engaged, you know.
78:32
Customers. So I just wanted to call out that you guys do have 2026 Q3, Q5, Q9 model landing page. So talk to yourself, people, and make sure they're sending out the links to those model landing pages as well as inventory pages, so that we can really get that retargeting data to. Send ads to them since you do have that turned on. I think with with new models coming out, and whether it's momentum, whether it's your new advertising company, whether it's word of mouth and just Audi, people are talking about Audi more. Whatever it is that's that's increasing, we want to make sure that we are really trying to retarget all of those customers because more than likely they're going to be competitors from other brands, and we want to make sure that we can stay in front of them.
79:20
You're suggesting that with every lead.
79:22
I would say yeah. I mean, if if it comes, if a new lead on a Q5 comes in, rather than just shotgunning them a price on the least expensive one, you have to stop saying we can't come in for a test drive. Shoot them a link to the model landing page for that particular vehicle to try to get them to click to grab that, so that you have that for retargeting. And then also, it's quality content, right? Sure. It gives them something to engage with a little bit more than just bland content. So it's twofold. But yeah, for sure. And then you've also I just wanted to point out. I know you guys just said that. You knew it was there, but he Lance did get the mono landing page. So any third-party lead with no stock number, definitely send this and that link, and just introduce them to the brand. And then you'll catch that retargeting information. These third-party leads are going to be hot funnel. They're going to be shopping other competitors. So if you're wanting to grab that, that's going to be really important to make sure we're getting them to click on the website so we can retarget them later. And then of course with lead follow-up as well.
80:20
Any questions on anything? That's pretty much all I have. That's good. That's good.
80:25
While while we were in, if you click on the home page, I'll show you a magic act. While we were in the meeting, I added. Scroll down. You might need a refresh. I don't know, but we'll see. Yeah, I added a specific Q3 Q5 1. 99 banner.
80:41
Oh yeah, nice.
80:42
Yep. While we're in, and then if you come down, so that one feeds into both inventories and then also the October specials. And then further down, there's one that's like a Q9, like the flagship is coming.
80:55
Nice.
80:57
So and those, yeah, that'll land on. So all those landing pages have been there, and I've been adding sliders kind of as we go. So it's all. And look, so much of what I'm doing is geared towards the fact that everybody uses Muse or Gemini or something, and the more answers you give them in your in your stuff. The less likely they are to land on some weird generic Motor Trend fucking website. They do all kind of yeah.
81:23
Statistically, they say that customers go six or seven websites during their shopping experience. If you can have the content that keeps them from having to go, you're going to win the battle for sure. That's awesome.
81:33
Yeah, we've got a buyer's guide that's about nine pages. That's like every question you might ask if you're leasing or buying or paying cash, or you don't you don't know what finance, what products to buy in finance. I haven't like linked that. Yet we're letting the finance manager kind of make sure that it all works with, like what we talk about in our word tracks and what products and packaging he does, and then I'll I'll deploy that too. So yeah,
81:58
Looks good. Yeah, I say let's let's hit retargeting as hard as we can, trying to get people to click so we can get past you, because people are going to be with you guys. You know, get more traffic. They're going to be coming in from direct.
82:17
What ? That's it for me. What generates a retargeting.
82:20
So the retargeting is really is is simple, but it's just some some scripts and cookies that exist on our site and then in ads. And for example, one of them is if someone's been shopping our vehicles, they'll see one of our vehicles while they're cruising around the internet looking at something else. I know what retargeting. But what do you mean?
82:40
Like what generates it? In other words, a customer goes to our website. Yes. At what point in time do they see retargeted? Is it retargeting one hundred percent of the customers to our website?
82:51
Yeah, unless they've unless they've said don't like like when there's the permissions that pop up, unless they say no, then yeah, it's basically always tracking them. Yeah, so they'll see stuff while they're and the way the one of the tools that we have is even if they're shopping a piece of our inventory on Auto Trader, they'll get a retargeting ad from us too.
83:11
So, Terrence. How did you like the phone charger in the Q9? Did you use it?