🦉 A Few Wise KPIs

TOGETHER WITH

It’s literally like a fresh start mash up this morning. New month AND new week. For every board that gets erased of sales quotas, accounting close, and flat rate hour clean sheet, remember that there is a customer sitting right beyond those check boxes and paperwork.

Serve well today, fam!

Keep Pushing Back
-Paul, Kyle, & Chris

DEALERS

Keying in on Performance Indicators

Last Friday’s All Things Used Cars podcast was filled to the brim with used car key performance indicators (KPIs) that successful dealerships are keeping tabs on. Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to these metrics, but there were a few that we learned many dealers are monitoring:

🔑 First 30 Days

• Track: Watch your volume. Monitor 2-week sold percentages to anticipate upcoming inventory needs once there's been a month’s worth of sales.

• Stats: Ideally, you want to be selling 60-70% of your used car inventory within the first 30 days of acquisition.

• Consider: If only 30-50% are going out in the first 30 days, why? This can lead you to troubleshoot where you may be falling behind (i.e. not enough promotion, behind on photos, not carrying inventory customers care about, pricing too high, etc.)
  

🔑 Leads By Segment and Model

• Track: Start with leads by segment — SUVs, sedans, trucks, etc. Then focus on leads by model. If you’re getting a lot of interest in large SUVs, you don’t want to fill your inventory with Infinity QXs if you’re actually selling a bunch of Sequoias.

• Stats: 70% of your active leads are on cars sold.

• Consider: Backfill your inventory with cars that you’re not just selling, but also have leads on (i.e. if you have a car that gives you 20 leads and you only have one of them, then you need to backfill your inventory for the other 19 customers).

• Don’t forget to consider comps. Take an active lead on a Ford Explorer that sold, and introduce your customer to the lonely Jeep Cherokee that’s been hanging out at the back of your lot waiting for a chance to shine.
  

🔑 Acquisition and Cost to Market

• Track: Cost-to-market = acquisition + reconditioning + transportation + maintenance. This KPI is critical because it enables the dealership to determine the profit margin on each unit.

• Stats: Private-party purchases direct from buyers have grown from 13% to 42% over the last few years. Due to limited inventory, the front and back grosses are almost 50-70% higher than any other acquisition source. In general, dealers will want to maintain a maximum 84% cost-to-market average for their overall used vehicle inventories.

• Consider: Top performers embrace the balance between a vehicle’s desirability and its price. Cost-to-Market is just one of three critical metrics to improve profitability in your used vehicle operations – you’ve still got to find the “right” cars (e.g., Market Days Supply) and price them in a manner that assures their quick sale to maximize front-end gross and minimize age issues (e.g., Price to Market).

Telling it like it is - Key performance indicators are a lot like real keys – there are always plenty around, they’re all different and unlock different things, and you should definitely be keeping track of them. 👀

TOGETHER WITH CAROFFER

Not Just Providers. Partners!

The common language of experience binds communities together tighter than a zip code or contract ever could. Knowing the people at your side share your attitude and goals increases not only the impact of your effort but the confidence you feel jumping into a new challenge with both feet!

CarOffer's team has walked the walk of retail auto and is ready to welcome you into their community of over 13K dealers.

91% of their trade floor has at least 5 years of experience in a dealership, with 67% having served more than 10 years in stores just like yours.

There are no wrong cars, just mismatches. Let CarOffer match your inventory to markets across the country so you only buy the right cars, sell the right cars, and trade the right cars today!

AUTOMOTIVE

Quick Bites: Honda, Kia, GM, Daimler, Toyota

📈👩‍🏭🎓 Honda and Kia have upped their EV production goals following 2023's 60% growth in the EV segment. According to recent data, 14% of global sales are EVs.

• Kia will invest around $18B to hit 1.6M EV sales by 2030, nearly 40% of total sales. By the end of 2023, they expect to electrify 9% of total sales.

• Honda is shooting for 2+M annual EV production by 2030.

Business Lesson 1: Sell something for more than it costs you.

Business Lesson 2: If people tell you what they want to buy - sell more of that.

🧑‍💻👯🚙 General Motors worked with the Eclipse Foundation to create an open-source protocol, uProtocol, to speed up the development and improve the customer experience of in-car software across the industry - that is, if its competitors opt to use the protocol. Currently, the automaker is working on a product for OTA updates, subscription services, and theorized in-car features like facial recognition to activate child locks if a kid enters the car.

If cars are heading toward a software-defined future, getting dibs on writing the dictionary makes sense.

🔌🔋🚛 Daimler Truck North America is launching national charging and hydrogen fueling networks for medium and heavy-duty vehicles. The $650M project will start in Southern California and expand along freight routes.

You can take the diesel out of the truck, but you can't take it out of the trucker!

🤥💥❤️‍🩹 Daihatsu, a Toyota affiliate, rigged side-collision safety tests on 88K small cars. Most of the rigged cars were under the Toyota brand. A notch was added to the door trim to minimize risk during testing, but the modification was not part of production vehicles. A whistleblower reported the issue, Daihatsu stopped shipment, and Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda apologized for the "unacceptable" violation of consumer trust. A thorough investigation is underway.

Social math: Owning your mistakes earns back some favor, but not more than is lost when a whistleblower has to report the errors first.

TL; DR - Honda and Kia announced more EVs, GM is branching further into software, Daimler is investing big in US big-truck charging, and Toyota is investigating some rigged safety tests.

AROUND THE ASOTU-VERSE

Tomorrow is the day, y’all! Join us in Tampa at 6:30pm for our premiere of “More Than Cars,” the only docu-series giving viewers a peek behind the curtain of dealerships to tell the real stories behind the real people who keep them thriving.

TECHNOLOGY

School Bus Power

🚌 School buses can bring up fond memories of younger days or thrust us directly back into long afternoons of listening to the bus driver's favorite honky tonk music on repeat every day until we finally got our driver's license. 🤠

🥶 Folks in Canada are looking to electrify their school bus fleet for more than cleaner student transportation. They will use the buses as backup power sources in the event of widespread winter power loss. Some 200 electric buses will enter service in Prince Edward Island, with 82 coming before the end of next month.🌤️

Telling it like it is - Nobody expected school buses to rebrand as blizzard heroes, but here we are.

Quick Hits

• Japan is investing in its own national battery and chip production. $1.8B in subsidies will move the country toward power storage battery and semiconductor-related projects. 💰

• Some things should go without saying, but the US is working to make it illegal to give AI nuke-launching abilities. 💣

• A new Smurfs movie will feature Rihanna as Smurfette. In case you were wondering. 🎤

• Live in the ocean’s “twilight zone” at risk due to shifting climate. 🦀

History

• 1930: "Pluto" is officially proposed for the name of the newly discovered dwarf planet Pluto by Vesto Slipher in the Lowell Observatory Observation Circular.

• 1941: “Citizen Kane” premieres in New York.

• 1956: The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.