Cooking Up Any Magic Today?

TOGETHER WITH

Check your schedule this week and ask yourself:

Can any hour meeting be 20 minutes?Can any meetings be group texts?Are my meetings set to report history or plan the future?What % of my meetings are meant to inspire, train, or lead others?

Set your intentions and make it a stellar week auto fam!

Keep Pushing Back,-Paul, Kyle, & Chris

DEALERS

Mastering Acquisitions with ATUC

David Long's All Things Used Cars community knows that you gotta have cars to sell cars. So, last week they spent time discussing used inventory acquisitions. 

David Long opened the discussion by reminding us that what we don't know can't hurt us, like clinging on to what we think we do know. He compared an excellent acquisition strategy to a radio station. If you spend time listening to it daily, you stay caught up with the content, but if you skip a month, new things will appear and you'll need to catch up. Pick a channel and commit.

Brian Kramer continued his steadfast advocacy for both service-drive acquisitions and sight-unseen appraisals. He said service-drive acquisitions are the least expensive way to bring people into the showroom because they are already coming for service. Investing in fixed-ops marketing will bring cars in, and some will convert to acquisitions if you are ready. 

Taki Caranicolas said everybody has to peel back the onion and look at the whole story. He offered a few rapid-fire points to think on:

• Discipline checks. Put in place and stay committed to the building blocks of an acquisition culture across the management team. EG: Ensure your sales training calendar is being executed regularly. 

• Define acquisition. If you ask the team and they say different things, you know there is work to be done. To Taki, it means every single source that can bring cars into inventory is being used properly. Before you can have a strategy, you need an agreed-upon goal for each channel. 

• Look at right now. What percentage of your inventory came from what source? How many appraisals are you doing? What appraisal sources are converting? Set improvement goals and strategize toward them. 

Check out the rest of the replay on Clubhouse. Join the community every Friday morning for more idea-sharing from around the industry.

AUTOMOTIVE

Hyundai Completes Child Labor Audit

Following a Reuters report documenting child labor violations at parts plants in Alabama, Hyundai audited 29 of its direct suppliers across the state and is now confident they fully comply with all child labor laws. 

Hyundai also told investors it is implementing new corporate measures, including new training for parts suppliers in collaboration with the US DOL. 

One location with child labor violations is a direct subsidiary of the South Korean automaker called SMART Alabama LLC in Luverne. Hyundai says it will divest its 72% stake in SMART, but preserve jobs in the Luverne, Alabama community. 

No timeline or buyer was announced in the sale of its SMART stake. 

Telling it like it is - This is nothing to joke about, but if you got a speeding ticket do you think the authorities would let you conduct a 6 month audit on how fast you were going?

TOGETHER WITH SHOPIFY

Any Other Options Would Be Nuts

We've all been there - it started as a hobby, an entertaining way to pass the time. You had some walnuts, a decent pocket knife, and some energy left over at the end of your day. Carving little characters was fun and helped clear your mind. Now, tiny walnut men in clothes, roller skates, knight armor, and sombreros have taken over your home. The time has come to launch your walnut man business one online sale at a time. 

Luckily for you, there is Shopify!

Founded by people who found ecommerce solutions needing more control, Shopify offers users an all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow a business. Millions of businesses trust Shopify's ten years of experience and a 10,000-member strong team to help run and grow their business. 

Start a free trial today to see how Shopify can get your business started or to the next level!

AUTOMOTIVE

Tesla’s Magic Dock, Carvana’s Major Drop, and the Silva’s Motor Swap

🪄🔋🔌

Tesla has been testing a "Magic Dock" in upstate New York which can unlock to become a more universal CCS adapter and allow non-Tesla electric cars to charge. The company plans to double the size of its Supercharger network to make 7,500 stations available to all EVs by the end of 2024. 

📉🚗😓

Carvana reported a net loss of $806M in Q4 of 2022 and saw its revenue fall by 24%. The company sold 87K vehicles in Q4 2022 (down 23%), and its per-vehicle profit tumbled by about 50%. Carvana execs have said that it was a difficult year and the company's turnaround plan includes decreasing costs and inventory, but, thankfully, no layoffs.

👑🔨🏔️

Keith and Melissa Silva of EVolve Racing built an EV rock crawler for the Every Man Challenge at this year's King of the Hammers event in California. The couple swapped the powertrain in their Chevrolet S10 rock crawler with a 2015 Tesla Model S P85. Their TeS-10 finished last out of 155 entries, but the couple garnered plenty of attention and praise from intrigued onlookers.

Telling it like it is - Tesla tests some magic, Carvana needs some magic, and the Silva’s create something magical.

CULTURE

New Ways To Get Lost

Suddenly the sky is more filled with space junk than ever before, and satellite phones are making a comeback. Motorola announced a hotspot that will add sat comms to any iPhone or Android, while smartphone maker Bullitt is adding the feature to their new phone. While you may find a place to briefly hide from our constantly-connected culture, your phone will still be able to ring. 

Imagine a drone that is strong enough to carry you in your office chair anywhere you want. That's this Chinese-made, $78K, 30-minute flight time vehicle's frill-free description. With a top speed of 11 miles per half-hour, we imagine they will work well for getting away from it all… as long as "it all" ends around 10 miles from your house. 

Porsche has updated its route-planning app with an AI to add twisty or scenic roads to your trip. Any car with Apple CarPlay can use the Roads app to spice up their travel or check out the user-created routes, comments, and tips. Of course, if you ever are lost and ask the AI to get you home, it may simply remind you that home is where the heart is and find you an abandoned logging road to the nearest butcher shop. 

TL: DR - Soon people may be able to take their mini quad copter on an AI planned scenic trip to the satellite phone store. Sounds like the opening of a high school student’s sci-fi novel and we are here for it.

Quick Hits

• Amazon finalizes a $3.9B acquisition of One Medical to expand into the healthcare Industry.

• If you watch sports, this might be the sports watch for you.

• High school students in Texas raise $260K to help an elderly custodian retire.

• Scientists discover the largest flower preserved in amber to date, which happens to be 33 million years old. 

History

• 1922: The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed on this day – the right of women to vote.

• 1951: Alfa Romeo, SEAT, Audi, and VW designer Walter de Silva is born in Italy.

• 1991: Gulf War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush announces that "Kuwait is liberated".