Dealer Talk With Jen Suzuki

If you're exhausted at the end of the day but your paycheck doesn't reflect the effort, this episode explains exactly why. In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki , I'm kicking off a brand new service department performance series focused on helping service advisors and fixed ops leaders understand the metrics that actually drive income. Today we're digging into one of the most important nu...

Managers… this one is for you. I sat down with Jimmy Vargas, GSM at Paradise Chevrolet and this isn't just a conversation… this is someone I'm actively in the trenches with right now. I'm working directly with Jimmy and his sales team on their phone process, listening to calls together, coaching in real time, and using the tools inside CallRevu to actually  develop his people. And that's the diffe...

Dealership advertising is entering a completely new era and AI is at the center of it. In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki , Jen sits down with Jarett Bellucci , a two-time Emmy Award-winning director and filmmaker and the founder of Bellucci Productions. Jarett has created commercial work for major brands like Cadillac, BMW, and Forbes, and now he's helping businesses, including car de...

Flat rate has been debated for decades in service departments, but what if the real issue isn't the pay structure at all? In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki , I sit down with Joe Minns , Corporate Fixed Ops Director at Dennis & Co Auto Group , who brings 34 years of real dealership experience to the conversation. Joe has seen just about everything in service operations, from dirt-floor...

There's a lot of communication flying out of dealerships every single day and text messaging is often the fastest way to reach a customer. But if your messages look like everyone else's, they're going to be treated like everyone else's. "Just checking in" and "any questions?" isn't follow-up… it's noise. In this episode, Jen shares a creative tactic she's been using in her own follow-ups that's ge...

AI isn't something managers can delegate. It's something they have to demonstrate. In this episode, Jen talks about one of the biggest leadership shifts happening inside dealerships right now: leaders becoming the model of how to use AI , not just the ones telling everyone else to use it. Your team isn't going to adopt tools because of a memo or a mandate. They adopt them because they see their le...

20 seconds. That's all it takes to separate average dealerships from memorable ones. Customers don't remember your CRM. They don't remember your process map. They remember effort. In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki, Jen breaks down why short, 20-second personalized videos are one of the most powerful follow-up tools in modern dealerships — in both sales and service. Not five minutes. N...

Great ideas don't fail in dealerships because they're bad. They fail because no one installs the behavior fast enough. In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki, Jen breaks down a simple, high-energy methodology to help leaders stop "motivating" and start installing execution inside their stores. Most dealerships don't have a training problem — they have an execution problem. Processes get ro...

The first five minutes of a service visit can make or break everything that follows. In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki, Jen dives into one of the most overlooked yet powerful moments in fixed ops: the service check-in. This isn't about speed. It's not about numbers. It's not even about selling. It's about trust. Jen calls the check-in one of the two sacred moments in every service vis...

If your service managers and advisors can't explain Effective Labor Rate in one sentence, money is leaking out of your shop every single day. In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki , Jen breaks down the most misunderstood yet most powerful performance metric in the service department:  ELR (Effective Labor Rate) . While advisors often track CSI, gross, and hours per RO, ELR quietly tells t...

This one was different, we recorded an  in-person (we are both within minutes of each other in CO!)   episode in a studio (yes, the kind rappers use 😄) with a dealer/general manager from a 100+ year family dealership story that started back in 1922. Meet Fred Emich from https://www.emichauto.com/ We get into what most leaders don't talk about: the daily pressure to stay relevant, how to keep peop...

There are two sacred moments in every service visit and if you miss them, nothing else matters. In this episode of Dealer Talk , Jen Suzuki breaks down the most overlooked, most powerful moment in the service lane: the check-in . This isn't about speed. It's not about scripts, numbers, or reports. And it's definitely not about rushing customers through like a transaction. Jen shares what she's see...

AI isn't here to replace service advisors, it's here to protect what they do best. In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki , Jen speaks directly to service leaders navigating the overwhelming wave of new AI tools flooding the automotive space. While the industry is being told to move faster, adopt more, and automate everything, Jen challenges leaders to slow down and ask a more important qu...

In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki , I sit down with Jessica Colan , who leads one of the biggest BDC departments in the country and works in the  #2 Kia store in the nation . I've known Jessica for more than a decade and trained her team for years and what makes her different is simple: she doesn't chase shiny toolsshe tests them against real processes until they perform. We talk abou...

This episode is all about the kind of AI dealers actually need not another shiny chatbot , but a real assistant built inside the DMS and grounded in real dealership data, real workflows, and real accountability . I'm joined by AJ McGowan , VP of Research & Development at Reynolds and Reynolds and co-founder of AutoVision , to talk about Reynolds' newest reveal: Rey , a tailored AI assistant integr...

In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki , I sit down with Kerri Wise, Chief Marketing Officer at LotLinx , to unpack one of the biggest problems I've seen after decades of training sales teams: wasted time chasing the wrong leads while real opportunities sit right under our noses. Kerri brings a rare perspective, deep automotive experience from brands like  TrueCar and Edmunds , paired with...

Today we're bringing a new angle to Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki Podcast! T he capital side of dealer tech. I'm joined by Keith Style from Presidio, an automotive-focused investment advisory team that's been quietly shaping the next wave of dealership technology. Keith shares what Presidio looks for in early-stage AI and software companies, how they diligence founders (spoiler: customer calls are e...

Every time a service advisor discounts too fast, something bigger than money is lost — credibility. In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki , Jen tackles one of the most overlooked performance indicators in the service department: the discount line . After years of training advisors on the drive and working shoulder-to-shoulder with service teams, this is one of the first places she looks b...

We've never had a CTO on Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki! So we went  full behind-the-scenes with Kelvin Pho, CTO & Co-Founder @ Mia Labs!  Kelvin pulls back the curtain on what's happening in AI tech right now. He shares his insights on what matters, what's hype, and what dealers should actually be asking before they buy another "AI tool." We talk real-world dealership problems like missed calls, aft...

Meet Lot GPT: Dealer AI, Done Right   Ever wonder what happens when automotive tech veterans build an AI  just for dealers ? Meet  Lance Schafer , GM of Product and Tech at Lotlinx and the brains behind Lot GPT . This isn't your everyday chatbot. Lot GPT analyzes inventory, predicts which cars will sell and when, optimizes vehicle pages, and even drafts follow-up messages. All using 12 years of de...

Ujj Nath, Co-Founder & CEO of MyKaarma walks us through the messy, glorious work of building dealer software. The late nights, the dealer-floor immersion, the hard lessons learned from Toyota's Genchi Genbutsu, and the relentless grind that turns a consulting gig into a product powering billions in payments. We dig into real dealer stories (Norm Reeves, Volkswagen, Mercedes), early product wins (t...

Get inspired by Nick Cossette, co-founder and Head of Growth & Operations at Matador AI, as he shares his journey from working at Enterprise Rent-a-Car to creating one of automotive's leading AI tools. In this episode of Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki , Nick reveals how Matador AI is revolutionizing dealership sales, BDC follow-ups, and customer engagement. From SMS automation to human-like AI conver...

Part 4 of Jen Suzuki's 4-part mini-series gives managers a simple, repeatable structure for teaching one of the most stressful skills in sales: handling customer objections . In this episode, Jen breaks down how to coach your team through pushback without pressure — using a calm, confident, 4-step framework: Acknowledge → Reframe → Offer → Close the Gap. You'll learn exactly how to teach the struc...

Part 3 of Jen Suzuki's 4-part manager mini-series goes deep into one of the most profitable coaching skills in the dealership: teaching teams how to gain more service approvals using her formula called Job–Risk–Reward (JRR). Jen breaks down exactly how to train advisors, salespeople, and BDC agents to explain value simply, clearly, and with confidence — without scripts. You'll learn how to teach t...

Part 2 of Jen Suzuki's 4-part mini-series for dealership leaders drills into the single most important window of any customer interaction — the first three minutes . In this episode Jen teaches managers how to coach teams to win fast: a sharp greeting, purposeful value, and immediate engagement. Learn a compact, repeatable coaching routine (teach → demo → apply) with real scripts for calls, showro...