Car Dealership Guy Podcast

Today's show features: - Ryan Downing, Dealer Principal / Owner at Ross Downing Auto Group - Jay Trivedi, Dealer Principal/Owner at Jay's Chevrolet GMC This episode is brought to you by: Haig – Haig Partners – When it comes to selling your life’s work, trust the only advisors who have built a reputation for maximizing value for family-owned dealerships. The team at Haig Partners has achieved recor...

Today I'm joined by Nick LaSorsa, Director at LaSorsa Auto Group. Nick runs two very different stores in the New York metro, and he lays out the exact playbook he uses to keep both profitable heading into 2026. He explains how a single hiring platform audit uncovered more than $15,000 in wasted spend, why he cancels every vendor contract the day he signs it, and how a mobile fleet service built ar...

Today's show features: - Dennis Gingrich, Sales & Finance Director at The Niello Company - Dave Thomas, Director, Content Marketing at CDK Global - Pat Malloy, General Manager at Patriot Chevrolet Of Limerick This episode is brought to you by: Haig Partners – When it comes to selling your life’s work, trust the only advisors who have built a reputation for maximizing value for family-owned dealers...

Today I'm joined by Perry Watson IV, President of NAMAD. Dealership consolidation is accelerating, and the price of entry to ownership has never been higher. Perry breaks down the numbers behind it, including how over 40 percent of new vehicle sales at some brands now come from minority consumers, and why one manufacturer doubled a dealer's sales volume within two years just by getting ownership r...

Today's show features: - Brian Baker, President Automotive at Stream Companies - Zach Slabinski, Director of Retail Ready at Stream Companies - Brian Hoang, CEO & Co-founder at Mia Labs - George Ripley, VP at International Association of Auto Theft Investigators This episode is brought to you by: Haig Partners – When it comes to selling your life’s work, trust the only advisors who have built a re...

Today's show features: - Don Hall, President and CEO of Virginia Automobile Dealers Association - Alan Haig, President of Haig Partners - Aaron Zeigler, President of Zeigler Auto Group - Grant Cardone, CEO of Cardone Capital This episode is brought to you by: Podium – Most AI is a black box. Podium's is yours to control — and it increases conversion by upwards of 26%. Check it out at http://podium...

Today I'm joined by Scott Traylor, Vice President at Mia Labs. Scott breaks down how voice AI is pulling $8,000 to $30,000 a month in after-hours revenue at stores where customers used to just hit a voicemail, why service advisors are letting calls go unanswered on purpose, and how Mia became the first voice AI company approved by General Motors for their co-op program. If you think AI is still a...

In this episode of the Industry Spotlight, joining host Sam D'Arc are Mike Martucci, General Manager at Jim Ellis Kia, and Kevin Esmezyan, Chief Product Officer at Matador AI to discuss how conversational AI is turning a three-person sales team handling 700 leads a month into a machine that doubles close rates and books service appointments at nearly 90% — while most dealers are still missing afte...

Today's show features: Yossi Levi, CEO of Car Dealership Guy Alex Lawrence, CEO & Co-Founder of EV Auto Sam Hatch, General Manager at JRR Motor Sales This episode is brought to you by: Podium – Most AI is a black box. Podium's is yours to control — and it increases conversion by upwards of 26%. Check it out at http://podium.com Check out Car Dealership Guy’s stuff: CDG Circles ➤ https://cdgcircles...

Today's show features: - Matt Haiken, Dealer Principal and President at Prestige Collection Auto Group - Damon Egan, Service Director at Sherwood Ford - Luis Malespin, Parts Director at Premier Hyundai This episode is brought to you by: Zurich – Zurich Advisor IQ is Zurich’s AI-driven training and coaching platform built to help F&I teams perform more consistently and sell more effectively — using...

Today I'm joined by AJ McGowan, VP of Research and Development at Reynolds & Reynolds. He breaks down why fragmented software platforms are quietly limiting what AI can see and do, uses a service drive scenario to show how a fully connected system could surface a high-value trade opportunity in real time, and explains why Reynolds is investing in its own hardware infrastructure to make that scale....

Today's show features: - Jameson Riley, General Manager at Riley Volvo Cars Stamford - Eric Barbosa, VP of Variable Operations at Plaza Motors This episode is brought to you by: Zurich – Zurich Advisor IQ is Zurich’s AI-driven training and coaching platform built to help F&I teams perform more consistently and sell more effectively — using real transaction data, not theory. By analyzing actual F&I...

Today I'm joined by Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier, Co-founders at More Than Cars. Paul and Kyle break down exactly how a single exposed API key can hand a hacker access to an entire dealer management system, why dealerships are uniquely at risk given the volume of sensitive customer data they store, and what the best operators are doing to build securely before the first major breach hits the ind...

Today's show features: - Vic Keller, Founder and CEO at Experience Ventures - Namu Keys, Senior Product Marketer, Digital Retail at CDK Global - Sam Vesely, Director of Marketing & Public Relations at Ford of Cookeville This episode is brought to you by: Zurich – Zurich Advisor IQ is Zurich’s AI-driven training and coaching platform built to help F&I teams perform more consistently and sell more e...

Today's show features: - Matt Bowers, Owner of Matt Bowers Automotive Group - Vince McIsaac, Director of Parts Operations at Hawk Auto Group - Jim Sabino, Fixed Operations Director at All American Ford This episode is brought to you by: OPENLANE – OPENLANE is getting ready for DealerFest 2026, its biggest customer event of the year. For the entire month of July, earn points for every transaction y...

Today I'm joined once again by Alan Haig, President at Haig Partners. Dealer profits fell 16% in the first quarter of 2026, yet the number of dealerships changing hands surged 39% over the same period last year. Alan breaks down the capital stockpile dealers built during the COVID era, why franchise values have held steady despite softer earnings, and which brands represent the best buying opportu...

Today's show features: - Patrick Haggerty, President/General Manager at Faulkner Infiniti of Willow Grove - Peter Massimilla Jr, Internet Sales Manager at McGovern CJDR This episode is brought to you by: OPENLANE – OPENLANE is getting ready for DealerFest 2026, its biggest customer event of the year. For the entire month of July, earn points for every transaction you make on OPENLANE, and redeem t...

Welcome to Dealer War Room from Car Dealership Guy, where we sit down with top operators to break down how they're navigating the biggest challenges in auto retail. These three rural store owners share the specific moves working right now: Scott Simons bought a Chevy store for $6.9M and tripled sales & fixed ops in under a year. Rob Ruth built a street-sourcing machine buying 300 cars/month from c...

Today's show features: - Ryan Knight, Director of Operations at Knight Automotive Group - Britt DeJohn, Sr. VP of Business Operations at Impel - Nicholas Velez, Internet Director at Valley Kia of Fontana This episode is brought to you by: OPENLANE – OPENLANE is getting ready for DealerFest 2026, its biggest customer event of the year. For the entire month of July, earn points for every transaction...

In this episode of the Industry Spotlight, joining host Sam D'Arc are Frederick Grimm, Co-Founder and COO of AppraisalPro, and Danny Galat, General Sales Manager at Lithia Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram of Bend, to discuss how dealers are using real-time diagnostic scanning to stop taking hidden mechanical losses on trade-ins and turn a wholesale department that was bleeding money into one that's actuall...

Today's show features: - Joel Love, Service Director at Toyota of Montgomery - Liam Golightley, SVP Dealer Success at Podium - Ryan Carlstedt, EVP Fixed Ops at Willis Auto Group This episode is brought to you by: Experian – Experian Automotive helps marketers identify and engage high-value auto shoppers, strengthen customer loyalty, grow service revenue, and activate 1,100+ automotive audiences ac...

In this episode of the Industry Spotlight, joining host Sam D'Arc are Aaron Zeigler, President of Zeigler Auto Group, and Johnny McKellar, who leads NationsGuard for Hendrick Automotive Group, to discuss why Zeigler is leaving its third-party warranty provider to stand up its own dealer-owned program, Zeigler Guard, and what Rick Hendrick himself says has been the single best decision in his 50 ye...

Today's show features: - Michael Cottone, Head of Subaru Motors Finance at Chase Auto - Steve Rowley, President of Cox Automotive - Aharon Horwitz, Co-Founder and CEO of Fullpath - Katie Gattuso Duncan, General Manager at Mohawk Chevrolet This episode is brought to you by: Experian – Experian Automotive helps marketers identify and engage high-value auto shoppers, strengthen customer loyalty, grow...

Today I'm joined by Vic Keller, Founder and CEO at Experience Ventures. In this conversation, he makes the case that most dealers are sitting on hidden enterprise value they haven't tapped, that the vendor landscape is moving too slowly for dealers who want to win now, and that the single biggest lever in any dealership is still the people, not the platform. Topics: 01:30 Fixed Ops Is Unbeatable....

Today's show features: - Adam Stein, Executive Director at Plaza Auto Group - Brian Benstock, Vice President & General Manager at Paragon Honda and Paragon Acura This episode is brought to you by: Experian – Experian Automotive helps marketers identify and engage high-value auto shoppers, strengthen customer loyalty, grow service revenue, and activate 1,100+ automotive audiences across 30+ adverti...