Meeting Title: Brainforge x Troy Ottmer Collaboration Date: 2025-09-03 Meeting participants: Troy Ottmer, Jake Nathan, read.ai meeting notes
WEBVTT
1 00:02:38.330 ⇒ 00:02:39.150 Jake Nathan: Hey, Troy.
2 00:02:40.000 ⇒ 00:02:41.319 Troy Ottmer: Hey, how you doing?
3 00:02:41.320 ⇒ 00:02:42.520 Jake Nathan: Good, how are you doing?
4 00:02:43.040 ⇒ 00:02:44.200 Troy Ottmer: Doing well.
5 00:02:45.030 ⇒ 00:02:47.899 Jake Nathan: Yeah, thank you for making time to meet, I appreciate it.
6 00:02:47.900 ⇒ 00:02:50.150 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, likewise. It’s,
7 00:02:50.870 ⇒ 00:02:56.510 Troy Ottmer: It’s got… it’s been a… I got a hectic schedule, I got lots of projects cooking. That’s a good problem to have, right?
8 00:02:56.690 ⇒ 00:03:00.020 Jake Nathan: Oh yeah, that’s the best problem to have when you’re in this type of industry.
9 00:03:00.020 ⇒ 00:03:06.269 Troy Ottmer: now… now, like… like a Tom and I talk about, we just gotta monetize all this crazy crap we talk about.
10 00:03:06.270 ⇒ 00:03:15.540 Jake Nathan: Yeah, yeah, tell me a little bit more about, like, I joined a few weeks ago, and he gave me a little bit of a rundown, but I’d love to hear some background before we get started.
11 00:03:15.540 ⇒ 00:03:24.320 Troy Ottmer: Well, you know, in short, he and I met kind of at a random wine event in Austin.
12 00:03:25.190 ⇒ 00:03:32.650 Troy Ottmer: That I went to that was talk… it’s a fireside chat with a couple of guys from either Sweden or Norway.
13 00:03:33.490 ⇒ 00:03:34.840 Troy Ottmer: And,
14 00:03:35.130 ⇒ 00:03:43.020 Troy Ottmer: on the east side of 35, it’s a nice little place. Anyway, it was… so that’s where we met, and it was…
15 00:03:43.160 ⇒ 00:03:58.459 Troy Ottmer: talking about AI and how we interface with AI, and I’m not a tech guy, but I’m a tech guy, and I always like to say that, because I don’t want to misrepresent that I’m not some coder or back-end architect, but I do…
16 00:03:58.550 ⇒ 00:04:09.090 Troy Ottmer: I’m more of a power user, so I’m a good interface between IT and corporate, and the customer and or the end user, so I’m like a translator. So,
17 00:04:09.380 ⇒ 00:04:24.320 Troy Ottmer: If you will. I kind of go bi-directional. So, in a nutshell, you know, what Brainforge is doing is exactly what I’m doing, and I’m not looking to recreate a,
18 00:04:24.600 ⇒ 00:04:42.910 Troy Ottmer: another chat GPT, or go… go head-to-head with a brain forge. Look, man, that’s not my skill set. My skill set is bringing the technology to the human in such a way that… and the C-suite, because that… a C-suite is like a whole nother… that’s like an alien entity, right?
19 00:04:42.910 ⇒ 00:04:43.370 Jake Nathan: Yeah.
20 00:04:43.370 ⇒ 00:05:01.360 Troy Ottmer: they… and I’m a former executive C-suite-level guy, so I… but I came from the back end of the business, so I understand, and I try to never forget where I came from. So that’s really my mode of operation, and today.
21 00:05:01.490 ⇒ 00:05:04.540 Troy Ottmer: interestingly enough, if you look at my LinkedIn.
22 00:05:04.780 ⇒ 00:05:09.650 Troy Ottmer: There’s an article I publish, and I typically publish one article a week.
23 00:05:09.740 ⇒ 00:05:15.419 Jake Nathan: more about branding who I am, similar to what Tom does, right?
24 00:05:15.650 ⇒ 00:05:17.470 Jake Nathan: And it’s.
25 00:05:17.660 ⇒ 00:05:31.380 Troy Ottmer: And yesterday, I had a meeting, I was in Austin with another group of people, not in the same space, but ultimately, we all could end up working together, I suspect, in some form or fashion.
26 00:05:31.440 ⇒ 00:05:39.139 Troy Ottmer: And I was… I met with their CEO, and this was at their request, not mine, which is… that’s always a good sign, right? Yeah.
27 00:05:39.530 ⇒ 00:05:41.260 Troy Ottmer: And he asked me, he said, well.
28 00:05:41.300 ⇒ 00:05:49.719 Troy Ottmer: what exactly is an operational excellence, you know, consultant? And I said, well, it’s misunderstood.
29 00:05:49.720 ⇒ 00:06:01.579 Troy Ottmer: And as a matter of fact, I said, I’m identifying what my identity will be, because I get this question a lot. So, if, you know, after we finish, if you have a few minutes, it’s a short read.
30 00:06:01.620 ⇒ 00:06:06.760 Troy Ottmer: Check that out, because it… it’ll kind of give you a peek behind the curtain.
31 00:06:07.070 ⇒ 00:06:13.909 Troy Ottmer: you know, to really what I’m trying to do and define, and interestingly enough, the three questions you asked me
32 00:06:14.040 ⇒ 00:06:20.110 Troy Ottmer: is similar to a future article that will be published, and that’s already in the hopper, and .
33 00:06:20.110 ⇒ 00:06:20.610 Jake Nathan: Awesome.
34 00:06:20.610 ⇒ 00:06:23.690 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, and so it was easy for me to…
35 00:06:23.840 ⇒ 00:06:26.710 Troy Ottmer: really pull… there’s more than 3, but…
36 00:06:26.710 ⇒ 00:06:27.610 Jake Nathan: Yeah, totally.
37 00:06:27.800 ⇒ 00:06:43.820 Troy Ottmer: where do you start? So, this… so I just went back to my raw article, and I write everything in the raw, and no secrets. I use AI like everybody else, to refine it based on the audience that I’m going to, and things like that, so…
38 00:06:43.820 ⇒ 00:06:44.190 Jake Nathan: Yeah.
39 00:06:44.190 ⇒ 00:06:49.009 Troy Ottmer: Anyway, that’s… that’s a crash course on who Troy is. That’s awesome.
40 00:06:49.010 ⇒ 00:06:58.580 Jake Nathan: No, I appreciate it. Yeah, no, I appreciate the rundown, and yeah, my background is in content, so before this, I was actually on the consumer side, so I grew,
41 00:06:58.580 ⇒ 00:07:21.499 Jake Nathan: cooking account, funny enough, on social media to a million followers across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram. And then before that, I worked for Deloitte doing, you know, very typical management consulting, and then worked for a tech company here in Austin. So I’ve kind of have a B2B background, and then have this consumer content background, and now I, met up with Utam, and so I’m gonna kind of blend the two, so…
42 00:07:21.500 ⇒ 00:07:36.510 Jake Nathan: try to bring that consumer background to B2B, because as you know, it seems like, B2B, you know, like, just content-wise isn’t as developed as consumers, so there’s, like, a ton of opportunity to create, you know, really stand out, in my opinion.
43 00:07:36.510 ⇒ 00:07:52.020 Troy Ottmer: Well, and you just hit the nail on the head, and that’s one of the things that I think we’ll talk about in this next section that we do, is B2B, with the progressive e-commerce platforms being more…
44 00:07:52.700 ⇒ 00:07:58.779 Troy Ottmer: they’re more customer-centric now on the B2B, so a business selling to another business
45 00:07:59.070 ⇒ 00:08:09.899 Troy Ottmer: I can see it going that direction, where, you know, you’re doing wholesale in the automotive dealership, or the commercial truck, or commercial, like, tractor business.
46 00:08:10.450 ⇒ 00:08:13.940 Troy Ottmer: Dealerships all function basically the same way.
47 00:08:14.180 ⇒ 00:08:14.610 Jake Nathan: Huh.
48 00:08:14.610 ⇒ 00:08:29.610 Troy Ottmer: They’re trying to sell OEM product, they’re trying to gain market share, one. Two, over here, they want to gain wallet share, and some would argue, well, hey, market share, wallet share, it’s all dollars, all cents, right? So it’s all the same. No, it’s not. Market share…
49 00:08:29.980 ⇒ 00:08:37.349 Troy Ottmer: when you… when you really break it down, that’s about unit count, and of course, dollars count, that matters. You’re talking about units.
50 00:08:37.960 ⇒ 00:08:49.699 Troy Ottmer: And, like, Caterpillar, when you look at their global dominance, they’re still… they’re not 85% global market share like they used to be 30, 40 years ago, but they’re still probably…
51 00:08:50.110 ⇒ 00:08:53.750 Troy Ottmer: In the 58% to 62% global market share.
52 00:08:53.750 ⇒ 00:09:11.100 Troy Ottmer: footprint when you compare in a broad category. John Deere on the ag side of the business, you know, they’re probably 70% global market share from the ag side of the business, and so when you look at that, okay, hey, we got market share, but what does that really mean? Well, where the real money is made for the dealer.
53 00:09:11.390 ⇒ 00:09:24.559 Troy Ottmer: Not the OEM is on parts and service activities, supporting you and me who buy from them. And that’s the wallet share aspect, and so it’s… I mean, we could talk for hours building.
54 00:09:24.560 ⇒ 00:09:29.600 Jake Nathan: Oh, yeah. And we may end up doing that over time as we develop things.
55 00:09:29.600 ⇒ 00:09:31.320 Troy Ottmer: And, you know.
56 00:09:31.470 ⇒ 00:09:40.019 Troy Ottmer: I’m a chatty individual, and I like to talk about progress. Hey, full disclosure, I’ll be 59 next week, but I’m the hippest 59-year-old you probably know, so…
57 00:09:40.020 ⇒ 00:09:40.490 Jake Nathan: That’s awesome.
58 00:09:40.750 ⇒ 00:09:45.029 Jake Nathan: Oh, well, yeah, no, I can… My brain, that’s… that’s…
59 00:09:45.070 ⇒ 00:09:57.050 Jake Nathan: This is already cool, because, yeah, for, on my side, like, the consumer side was fun, but I actually found myself geeking out more about, like, I could talk to you about,
60 00:09:57.050 ⇒ 00:10:07.330 Jake Nathan: this stuff all day, and then I could talk to someone who manufactures pipes and talk to them all day, and I could talk to Utam about his business. Like, to me, that lights up my brain more than, hey, I’m gonna…
61 00:10:07.330 ⇒ 00:10:18.019 Jake Nathan: you know, this consumer product, this beauty product does this, this product has protein in it, like, just the B2… the problems in B2B, to me, are a lot more interesting, so I think there’s a lot of good stuff.
62 00:10:18.020 ⇒ 00:10:24.409 Troy Ottmer: I’ve had, and I do the bulk of my marketing on who I am through LinkedIn.
63 00:10:24.410 ⇒ 00:10:28.830 Jake Nathan: And a former colleague who took some time off to have her children.
64 00:10:28.830 ⇒ 00:10:41.420 Troy Ottmer: She is… she’s really good at marketing as well, and this… and so she and I, we’ve stayed connected, but we reconnected as she’s developing her marketing business, and she has a great operational background.
65 00:10:41.520 ⇒ 00:10:47.750 Troy Ottmer: And we really work well together, so she’s gonna help me refine my website, which is kind of hokey, but…
66 00:10:47.750 ⇒ 00:10:48.179 Jake Nathan: Huh.
67 00:10:48.180 ⇒ 00:11:04.520 Troy Ottmer: You know, but at the end of the day, you know, content matters, right? And, you know, I’m not saying that you and I won’t do other things, we might, but I do believe that you’ve got to find the right mix of content creators and or to collaborate with, because.
68 00:11:04.910 ⇒ 00:11:11.989 Troy Ottmer: you know, I may have a great message, but it doesn’t resonate if it doesn’t get out there in the right hands, and to that point.
69 00:11:12.090 ⇒ 00:11:17.430 Troy Ottmer: something I did, changing my different type of hashtags on LinkedIn, and what
70 00:11:17.800 ⇒ 00:11:23.069 Troy Ottmer: I get a phone call from a group in LA that’s a large plumbing company.
71 00:11:23.610 ⇒ 00:11:30.590 Troy Ottmer: And I’m like, well, why would they call me? Well, they’re not calling me about dealership expertise, they’re talking to me about change management.
72 00:11:30.640 ⇒ 00:11:45.640 Troy Ottmer: And possible, you know, what it would look like to help their organization get more efficient, because plumbers, like dealership technicians, you’re scheduling with a customer in a remote or mobile application, and boom, that’s how you go to business, and
73 00:11:45.790 ⇒ 00:12:02.249 Troy Ottmer: the next weird one here came out of here, out of Texas, out of Fort Worth, and I’m still gathering details, but these folks build water towers for municipal water towers. Well, you know… you know what’s also going to be important for all this AI is all this power people need, right?
74 00:12:02.250 ⇒ 00:12:04.550 Jake Nathan: You’re also going to need cooling capacity.
75 00:12:04.820 ⇒ 00:12:05.210 Jake Nathan: Yeah.
76 00:12:05.210 ⇒ 00:12:21.619 Troy Ottmer: and water storage, and different ways of managing water in reservoirs, water towers, underground tanks, etc, etc, that’s gonna, I think, gonna be big business. Well, they’re reaching out to me, again, about operational leadership, how to scale their business. And this is where…
77 00:12:21.720 ⇒ 00:12:26.179 Troy Ottmer: who Tom and I really connect very well, because I do not want
78 00:12:26.250 ⇒ 00:12:42.479 Troy Ottmer: I’m not trying to recreate another AI engine, and while I can do, and I love teaching myself about AI, I jumped on this bandwagon 5 years ago to further myself, to get ahead of the curve, again, to be that hip 59-year-old we’re talking about today.
79 00:12:42.490 ⇒ 00:12:57.410 Troy Ottmer: So, how could it make my job better? How could it make me an augmented Troy Otmer, who may be really, really capable in the conventional world, but now I’m… I can really do some cool things with AI, and not…
80 00:12:57.410 ⇒ 00:13:03.070 Jake Nathan: Not to be lazy, but to be better, and, you know, to teach myself prompt generation.
81 00:13:03.150 ⇒ 00:13:19.860 Troy Ottmer: you know, being a prompt engineer, as they’re referring to nowadays, and I… I’m still a novice, but my… I do some really cool things for some automotive OEMs on very specific market segment work, and I can’t go into those details because that’s private, but…
82 00:13:19.860 ⇒ 00:13:20.370 Jake Nathan: Yeah.
83 00:13:20.370 ⇒ 00:13:31.719 Troy Ottmer: But what it has helped me do is refine my approach, and I was using this similar methodology when I was in the dealer world, using AI with all these other widgets we had, but.
84 00:13:32.140 ⇒ 00:13:44.219 Troy Ottmer: And we’re gonna talk about some of those in my opening statement. But anyway, man, this is really cool. I am so happy to start this conversation, Jake, so thank you for, again, for being flexible on the time as well. I appreciate that.
85 00:13:44.690 ⇒ 00:13:58.459 Jake Nathan: Of course, of course. Well, yeah, I’m pumped to get into, in this hour that we have. So, I, I read over your notes, and, those were all great notes, and so I think we could really, one, I don’t want you to think, like,
86 00:13:58.580 ⇒ 00:14:20.640 Jake Nathan: you know, we can do as many takes, like, you don’t have to worry about, like, saying specific things. Really, I’m gonna take what you say, like, look at the transcription, and kind of build around that, so it’s not like you have to say the… we’re not doing any sort of, like, acting or performing here, so I just want to make that clear. But yeah, if you want to, since you had four, if you want to go, kind of…
87 00:14:20.640 ⇒ 00:14:22.330 Jake Nathan: each one.
88 00:14:22.330 ⇒ 00:14:22.740 Troy Ottmer: Okay.
89 00:14:22.740 ⇒ 00:14:37.059 Jake Nathan: step-by-step, I think that’d probably be the best way. So, yeah, like, the… at the end of the day, we’re, you know, now we’ll say four, like, the four biggest problems holding dealerships back, and so, like, tell me that first problem, and then, yeah, let’s get into it.
90 00:14:37.800 ⇒ 00:14:38.810 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, so…
91 00:14:39.490 ⇒ 00:14:46.809 Troy Ottmer: you know, four… the four most common problems holding dealerships back, as I mentioned earlier, man, there’s tons of different…
92 00:14:46.850 ⇒ 00:15:01.090 Troy Ottmer: problems, but what are the critical ones in today’s world? And what’s interesting, when I say today’s world, you would think that that means right now. Not really. This has been an ongoing problem for the 40 years I’ve been doing this, and
93 00:15:01.230 ⇒ 00:15:10.250 Troy Ottmer: Not until today did we have all the tools to be able to address this number one issue in my mind, which is siloed information.
94 00:15:10.460 ⇒ 00:15:25.489 Troy Ottmer: It’s the primary noise generator, you know, and the problem in the dealership world, whether it’s commercial, automotive, truck, tractor, equipment, what have you, or any business, is managing all this different
95 00:15:25.510 ⇒ 00:15:32.900 Troy Ottmer: data, right? It comes in from your CRM, your ERPs, some call it DMS, your dealer management system.
96 00:15:32.940 ⇒ 00:15:37.180 Troy Ottmer: OEM portals, telematics, you know, e-commerce platforms.
97 00:15:37.530 ⇒ 00:15:50.790 Troy Ottmer: And how do you manage this? Well, in… even in the best, most functional dealer groups that I’ve worked with, either as a consultant or worked for, and some of them do a very good job, the biggest challenge is that they…
98 00:15:51.250 ⇒ 00:16:06.599 Troy Ottmer: They really get into the situation where, you know, there’s duplication, there’s contradictions, there’s incomplete insights, or rather you make an assessment on why the customer is doing this versus that, and
99 00:16:06.640 ⇒ 00:16:13.780 Troy Ottmer: You know, and it generates all this noise, and guess what noise does in any environment? It causes a distraction and slows you down.
100 00:16:14.130 ⇒ 00:16:17.350 Troy Ottmer: You know, so one of the… one of the fixes…
101 00:16:17.630 ⇒ 00:16:28.130 Troy Ottmer: or what I would say a better fix would be is establish a single source of truth, you know, where data flows across departments. Now, easier said than done, right?
102 00:16:28.290 ⇒ 00:16:35.500 Troy Ottmer: You know, it’s… but I think, again, going back to my statement a few minutes ago, Today.
103 00:16:35.600 ⇒ 00:16:40.079 Troy Ottmer: Right now, we’re better situated to deal with
104 00:16:40.110 ⇒ 00:16:57.909 Troy Ottmer: all this different data that’s coming in from different directions that’s similar but dissimilar enough to where it’s not easily mapped or functional to make it useful. And you can go old school, write queries, you can run SQL, you can do this, you can do that, and…
105 00:16:57.920 ⇒ 00:17:05.140 Troy Ottmer: you can really… you can probably get there, and I’ve gotten there. Others have gotten there by doing that, but it’s tedious.
106 00:17:05.190 ⇒ 00:17:15.320 Troy Ottmer: But what if you had this wonderful tool called AI? That’s one of the fixes, and so what’s AI’s role? It’s to integrate normalized data streams, you know.
107 00:17:15.960 ⇒ 00:17:35.200 Troy Ottmer: surface real-time insights, identify anomalies before they become roadblocks. You know, and to me, that’s problem number one, is quieting the noise that comes from all the siloed information. And, you know, some would argue, well, if it’s siloed, how is it noisy? Well, it’s easy. You have
108 00:17:35.440 ⇒ 00:17:42.759 Troy Ottmer: independent departments operating on independent sets of financials and or KPIs, chasing
109 00:17:42.990 ⇒ 00:18:01.969 Troy Ottmer: a unique set of business goals without understanding what those goals and or initiatives will do, either in the positive or negative, to their sister departments and or the organization as a whole. So, I guess for the number one problem, I mean, how did that sound to you?
110 00:18:02.780 ⇒ 00:18:19.599 Jake Nathan: Yeah, I mean, from what I can hear from you, it’s basically, like, I mean, across every part of the business, from, like you’re saying, the supply chain, from your CRM, like, from marketing and sales, from the DMS, which I’m guessing
111 00:18:19.600 ⇒ 00:18:26.439 Jake Nathan: encompasses a ton of different departments. Like, all of those, when they’re siloed, then you’re making… you’re gonna make
112 00:18:26.520 ⇒ 00:18:28.270 Jake Nathan: subpar decisions.
113 00:18:28.380 ⇒ 00:18:40.210 Jake Nathan: than when all of that information is under one single source of truth. And, for that, like, right now, how… how are companies like you… like you said, right now.
114 00:18:40.330 ⇒ 00:18:46.129 Jake Nathan: they might just hack together a system with some queries, like, how are people trying to solve that right now?
115 00:18:46.130 ⇒ 00:18:54.650 Troy Ottmer: Well, with… and some of these tools already dabble in the AI side of things, and have for a number of years. Power BI, for example.
116 00:18:54.650 ⇒ 00:18:55.160 Jake Nathan: Yep.
117 00:18:55.160 ⇒ 00:19:08.690 Troy Ottmer: popped up on the scene, and… and then Tableau, another one that has an AI integration. And… and look, they’re… they’re… for the average user, they look like fancy spreadsheets, right? Or big… big crazy pivot tables, things like that.
118 00:19:08.690 ⇒ 00:19:15.899 Troy Ottmer: But when you really get down into the details of what they can do, they’re very powerful in helping you quiet that noise, and those were.
119 00:19:16.380 ⇒ 00:19:35.130 Troy Ottmer: you know, and I’ll go back, Crystal Reports, for me, way back, and you know, and that became part of SAP, and the derivatives from there, and, you know, I learned to write queries in IBM AS… IBM System 36 AS400, so old green screen command line.
120 00:19:35.380 ⇒ 00:19:35.830 Jake Nathan: Yeah.
121 00:19:35.830 ⇒ 00:19:46.759 Troy Ottmer: And, you know, so there was… you know, so when you look at that, what dealers are doing today is they’re taking the Power BIs, the Tableaus, and other technologies.
122 00:19:46.850 ⇒ 00:20:02.919 Troy Ottmer: Microsoft Dynamics is another good example of… CRMs are built around that particular platform, and when you look at what they do there, you really get a comprehensive understanding that they’re trying to get there.
123 00:20:03.050 ⇒ 00:20:08.900 Jake Nathan: But as with any organization, if it’s in the dealer world, it’s sales-centric over here.
124 00:20:08.900 ⇒ 00:20:16.810 Troy Ottmer: And it’s parts and service-centric over here, so the back end of the business and the front end of the business, they’re both equally as important.
125 00:20:17.350 ⇒ 00:20:23.930 Troy Ottmer: And they don’t always talk to each other, and you would think the CRMs would be interlinked. They’re not.
126 00:20:24.290 ⇒ 00:20:35.440 Troy Ottmer: They’re sorta, kind of interlinked, but they’re not. So you’re managing islands of information, or silos, or walled off, you know, fenced.
127 00:20:35.720 ⇒ 00:20:45.379 Troy Ottmer: areas of information, and if the salesman that’s going out knew what they needed, these dealers that are doing this very well are focused on, okay.
128 00:20:45.380 ⇒ 00:20:59.300 Troy Ottmer: When you go make a sales call, you can pull up, and it pulls out of your DMS, hey, what that customer… when the last time they bought something, do they have something in the shop? Do they have something on order? Do they have a machine on order, or a truck, or a car?
129 00:20:59.300 ⇒ 00:21:06.600 Troy Ottmer: all these different things, so when you call that customer, you’re now prepared. And that’s… so they’re doing it.
130 00:21:06.910 ⇒ 00:21:10.640 Troy Ottmer: But it’s clunky. And I, you know, I just came…
131 00:21:11.100 ⇒ 00:21:21.189 Troy Ottmer: out of working for a large… the largest publicly traded commercial truck group in North America. The only one, actually, and they’re close to you guys out of New Bronx for Rush Enterprises.
132 00:21:21.190 ⇒ 00:21:34.260 Troy Ottmer: And I’ve been with that company since the 90s, and and I work various different projects. They’ve sold my divisions off, I’ve gone with that. So I’ve seen the other side of dealers and things like that. I’ve worked on the customer side.
133 00:21:35.180 ⇒ 00:21:50.989 Troy Ottmer: So I can tell you that even… even the best companies that are highly, you know, profitable, well-funded, still struggle with how do you manage the noise? And AI is… it’s a volume switch, right? It can tune it, turn it up, it can turn it down.
134 00:21:51.720 ⇒ 00:21:55.290 Jake Nathan: I love that. Yeah, I like… I think that’s a huge insight, is that
135 00:21:55.460 ⇒ 00:22:01.699 Jake Nathan: exactly what you just said at the very end, like, AI can… can really help you actually filter out the noise, which…
136 00:22:02.410 ⇒ 00:22:10.660 Jake Nathan: everyone, you know, for… I’m sure, people have attempted to filter out the noise for so long, but you’re saying, like, this is kind of a turning point where
137 00:22:10.960 ⇒ 00:22:16.029 Jake Nathan: It actually… like, the intention has always been there, but now, like, it can actually turn into…
138 00:22:16.350 ⇒ 00:22:25.120 Jake Nathan: Into something. So, I love that for the first one. So yeah, second one, you were… you were talking about, or… I don’t want to put any words in your mouth, so…
139 00:22:25.120 ⇒ 00:22:39.970 Troy Ottmer: I’ll… I got it. So, the second one, and I mentioned it just a second ago when I said there’s the two sides of the dealership business, the sales and the parts and service, and parts and service is referred to as fixed operations, or, you know.
140 00:22:40.000 ⇒ 00:22:46.369 Troy Ottmer: slang the back end of the business. And so number two would be fixed operations.
141 00:22:46.400 ⇒ 00:22:54.750 Troy Ottmer: underperforming. And the problem, parts and service together should be the dealership’s profit engine. Truthfully, when you sell
142 00:22:54.790 ⇒ 00:23:09.490 Troy Ottmer: You’re selling new product, for example, cars, trucks, etc. You know, it’s big numbers, big revenue numbers, but the margins you sell for are relatively low in the industry. Let’s say they average 4-8%, just a rough number.
143 00:23:09.880 ⇒ 00:23:22.409 Troy Ottmer: Okay, but on the parts and service side, you know, your revenue numbers are smaller by comparison, and I’ll give you… I can’t mention company names, but this is a dated one, but it’s relevant. Easy math.
144 00:23:22.410 ⇒ 00:23:30.520 Troy Ottmer: You know, so an organization that’s doing $450 million total revenue, okay, large group.
145 00:23:30.820 ⇒ 00:23:42.850 Troy Ottmer: And that’s a big number, right? Well, you know, and so, of that, $110 million is all parts and service. Well, the blended margin percentage
146 00:23:43.140 ⇒ 00:23:49.100 Troy Ottmer: for that 110 million is
147 00:23:49.450 ⇒ 00:24:06.170 Troy Ottmer: 52% gross profit margin. Parts and service blend, okay? So, service margins are… you make higher margins, 60% to 70%. Parts margins, you’re making, you know, 30-ish, plus or minus. So, the blend comes out in that midway point.
148 00:24:06.340 ⇒ 00:24:13.550 Troy Ottmer: Where on the sales side, so that… you take that 450 minus 110, okay, now you got, what, 340 left.
149 00:24:13.670 ⇒ 00:24:30.629 Troy Ottmer: And that’s at an average margin of probably 5.7% of memory serves. So if you take, you know, that’s still a big number in terms of gross profit dollars to the bottom line, but when you look at it in terms of all the effort that goes into selling.
150 00:24:30.630 ⇒ 00:24:35.240 Troy Ottmer: You know, $340 million at 6%.
151 00:24:35.500 ⇒ 00:24:40.250 Troy Ottmer: Versus selling 110 million at 52%,
152 00:24:40.720 ⇒ 00:24:56.480 Troy Ottmer: you know, now that tells you what supports a dealer, and a dealer… the primary goal of a dealer is to be… the term is to be fully absorbed, meaning what percentage of the parts and service… or excuse me, what percentage of the,
153 00:24:56.740 ⇒ 00:25:05.379 Troy Ottmer: Total expense burden, less sales commissions, and floor plan interest, does the parts and service department pay?
154 00:25:05.690 ⇒ 00:25:20.090 Troy Ottmer: Well, in… in theory, you want it to be 100%. That way, if sales department sells zero vehicles that month, you make… you cover all your expense, you break even. But a lot of dealers, you know, in some…
155 00:25:20.330 ⇒ 00:25:26.150 Troy Ottmer: Some truck industries, tractor, automotive, they’re running 135% absorbed.
156 00:25:26.190 ⇒ 00:25:42.090 Troy Ottmer: So they’re making an additional 35% contribution to the overall profitability of the business, and if they’re selling units and they’re still making their 6%, guess what? They’re bringing it in. So, it’s critical, going back to problem number 2,
157 00:25:42.140 ⇒ 00:25:46.509 Troy Ottmer: Is, you know, if without consistent parts availability.
158 00:25:46.640 ⇒ 00:25:50.279 Troy Ottmer: Technicians can’t work on trucks in the shop.
159 00:25:50.640 ⇒ 00:25:55.160 Troy Ottmer: Our customers can’t come in and buy repair parts for their trucks that are broke down.
160 00:25:55.250 ⇒ 00:26:11.419 Troy Ottmer: Customers lose confidence, technicians lose confidence, you know, so your back end of your business is hurting. And, you know, the better fix for this would be, you know, you synchronize how parts and service work together so stocking aligns with demand.
161 00:26:11.680 ⇒ 00:26:22.190 Troy Ottmer: You improve workflows to maximize technician productivity, so the, the, you know, you’re ordering in advance, you have predictive analytics to, you know.
162 00:26:25.680 ⇒ 00:26:34.829 Troy Ottmer: using… going to go get AIs roll again, historically, and what your order parameters are, lead times, all these different things, and you calculate
163 00:26:34.840 ⇒ 00:26:49.299 Troy Ottmer: you know, your reorder points, your stocking parameters, and so on. And then you maintain what they call high fill rates to keep your customers happy. So, you know, in a dealer, your fill rate, first pass fill.
164 00:26:49.300 ⇒ 00:27:00.029 Troy Ottmer: you want that to be 92% to 95% or higher. Nobody’s ever going to be 100% perfect, but if you can perform at, let’s just say, 90+,
165 00:27:00.700 ⇒ 00:27:18.280 Troy Ottmer: you’re… you’re… you’re stocking well. That don’t… that doesn’t mean you don’t have some dirty laundry or skeletons in the closet from an inventory standpoint, but you’re at least taking care of your… your technicians and your customers. And so you gotta align the parts and service departments to this, and so AI’s role…
166 00:27:18.710 ⇒ 00:27:30.130 Troy Ottmer: For problem number two would be to help with forecast demands. You know, what your parts demands would look like. Predict repair timeliness. So now you’re communicating with your customer.
167 00:27:30.150 ⇒ 00:27:38.719 Troy Ottmer: by sending them a text message or an email, not just a phone call anymore, and I’m sure you’ve experienced that with a repair shop for your vehicle.
168 00:27:38.840 ⇒ 00:27:55.259 Troy Ottmer: You know, nowadays you get text messages on status updates, you know, and then you optimize, you know, using analytics, AI, all of the above, optimized shop loading, you know, jobs. It’s not the first vehicle in that you necessarily work on first.
169 00:27:55.710 ⇒ 00:28:11.989 Troy Ottmer: if, you know, if a vehicle comes in and it needs a major rebuild, and it’s a 3-month long project, you know, you don’t put all your other customers that need oil changes on hold. You need to optimize shop loading based on the type of repair criteria, category, etc.
170 00:28:11.990 ⇒ 00:28:28.299 Troy Ottmer: And then, you know, automate to replenish. Automate, in this case, would refer to using AI and other technologies to automate your restocking parameters. So, just to wrap up, problem number two, you know, the back end of the business, as… as…
171 00:28:28.300 ⇒ 00:28:47.739 Troy Ottmer: we collaborate on a go-forward program, what does that look like? Would be simply, how do we take AI and work smarter? Not to displace people, because that will… that comes up in problem number four, and we’ll talk about that in a minute. So I guess on number two, did you have any more questions on that one?
172 00:28:49.170 ⇒ 00:29:02.970 Jake Nathan: I, no, I think that was a really good summary, and to me, seems like one of the more straightforward use cases, in a good way of AI. Like you’re saying, like a scheduling, like, shop loading, that seems like a, like a perfect fit for AI.
173 00:29:02.970 ⇒ 00:29:03.350 Troy Ottmer: Yeah.
174 00:29:03.350 ⇒ 00:29:19.949 Jake Nathan: In that case. And, AI is being applied in a lot of cases, and other, you know, I guess, similar use cases for other industries. Like, I know, like, nurse scheduling, for example, like, that’s a big one. So, there’s, it’s…
175 00:29:20.260 ⇒ 00:29:30.919 Jake Nathan: I think, people should be hopeful that it would definitely be able to take on, shop loading, because it’s been, applied in other use cases.
176 00:29:30.920 ⇒ 00:29:40.009 Troy Ottmer: And I’ll add one more thing to number 2, and is… in my 40 years of doing this, I’ve been on the customer side roughly 15 years.
177 00:29:40.330 ⇒ 00:29:51.199 Troy Ottmer: And I’ve done that on purpose, mainly to grow my own educational needs and my career, and, you know, not just financially, but I wanted to broaden my skill set, right?
178 00:29:51.650 ⇒ 00:29:59.920 Troy Ottmer: And… when I’m running large fleets for publicly traded companies over a big footprint in the US and Canada.
179 00:30:00.620 ⇒ 00:30:07.659 Troy Ottmer: I needed… what did I need most of all? I needed information about, you know, the downtime, how quick my vehicles.
180 00:30:08.190 ⇒ 00:30:18.749 Troy Ottmer: or equipment be repaired. If I’m not getting good communication from the dealer, my customer experience sucks, and what really hurts the customer is the downtime
181 00:30:18.850 ⇒ 00:30:29.849 Troy Ottmer: or lack of ability to use your assets is really what cost you the money. That 50,000 repair is nothing in the big picture of.
182 00:30:29.930 ⇒ 00:30:39.529 Troy Ottmer: what… what the downtime or lost productivity is. So that, you know, and having that experience for me really helped me
183 00:30:39.640 ⇒ 00:30:57.760 Troy Ottmer: I can speak the dealer language and the customer language equally, and that really helps me navigate some of these other things, like the plumbing industry and the other fabrication industry. It’s really… they have the same struggles you and I are talking about here, and it’s siloed. And one last thing on number two.
184 00:30:57.760 ⇒ 00:31:01.370 Troy Ottmer: Siloed information there is applicable
185 00:31:01.370 ⇒ 00:31:17.570 Troy Ottmer: and problem 2 as well. I probably should have stated that more clearly, but you’re dealing with data, large data sets of part numbers, SKU numbers, all this information, and that’s… again, it becomes noisy and difficult to manage.
186 00:31:18.630 ⇒ 00:31:31.559 Jake Nathan: Totally makes sense, and that actually kind of reminds me, on point one, one question that popped into my head was, you mentioned at the very end, like, AI is finally that technology that can actually be
187 00:31:31.560 ⇒ 00:31:54.610 Jake Nathan: the… the noise filter and actually be able to filter out noise. Why… why… and if… if you, don’t know, all good, but if… if there’s any examples or any, I guess, how you could explain, like, why is AI able to filter out noise better than what people have tried before? Because, like you said, I mean, I actually remember I, the tech company I used to work for, we worked,
188 00:31:54.660 ⇒ 00:32:11.239 Jake Nathan: for BP, helping with their, rigs, and trying to give them, like, predictive maintenance data, and filtering out the noise was, like, the number one, thing we were trying to do. So I… it seems like, you know, this has been attempted so many times, so why is it finally… like, why is AI finally able to do it?
189 00:32:11.440 ⇒ 00:32:15.679 Troy Ottmer: Well, it’s… and what I would say is, you know.
190 00:32:15.920 ⇒ 00:32:25.359 Troy Ottmer: One, in the simplest way, the ability to integrate and normalize data streams from all these different places is really
191 00:32:25.360 ⇒ 00:32:39.580 Troy Ottmer: That’s step one that AI does, and that… I’ve been able to use AI to continuously improve all these steps I just mentioned over the last handful of years with… let’s call it the self-education of Troy, right?
192 00:32:39.580 ⇒ 00:32:45.519 Troy Ottmer: And… and then, you know, you can surface real-time insights instead of
193 00:32:45.710 ⇒ 00:32:50.000 Troy Ottmer: Going through a massive database scrub, which may take weeks.
194 00:32:50.120 ⇒ 00:33:09.859 Troy Ottmer: or even months. You can… you can bring that to the surface relatively quick, and the nice thing is you can… you can tell AI, through proper prompting, right, to say, look, I just want… I don’t want to look at the… the 10 million lines of data here. I want to look at 1,000.
195 00:33:10.140 ⇒ 00:33:14.399 Troy Ottmer: As a representative sample of what this could look like.
196 00:33:14.420 ⇒ 00:33:30.439 Troy Ottmer: show me the five uglies that come out of this. And I use it in a similar fashion for market reviews, so that… it brings real-time data to the surface very quickly, and then helps you identify these anomalies before they become a roadblock. That is…
197 00:33:30.510 ⇒ 00:33:46.970 Troy Ottmer: when… that’s the way I’ve used it successfully to help quiet the noise, when I would take data from an old CRM, data from the new CRM, data from another CRM that does parts and service only, the first two were sales, data from
198 00:33:47.110 ⇒ 00:33:59.150 Troy Ottmer: vehicle registrations in the marketplace, information you would get from, like, like, Fusible, they, they provide all this registration data for vehicles and things like that.
199 00:33:59.180 ⇒ 00:34:01.950 Troy Ottmer: How do you make sense of all that data, you know?
200 00:34:01.960 ⇒ 00:34:14.139 Troy Ottmer: And that includes DOT, risk profiles you can get. And then, hey, these customers filed bankruptcy, why… that’s why we’re not doing business with them anymore, they don’t exist.
201 00:34:14.139 ⇒ 00:34:27.619 Troy Ottmer: Where did they go? So, using that is how I was able to take that siloed data from a sales and marketing perspective and quiet the noise. Now, did I get it perfect? No, because you’re, again.
202 00:34:27.620 ⇒ 00:34:30.930 Jake Nathan: It’s… it’s a… it’s like a hurricane, right? Yeah.
203 00:34:30.929 ⇒ 00:34:44.639 Troy Ottmer: So, this AI would be that cold front blowing towards the hurricane that calms the hurricane, settles it down, breaks it up, and then it’s less noisy. So I know that’s a weird analogy, but think about it that way, yeah.
204 00:34:45.080 ⇒ 00:34:49.580 Jake Nathan: That makes sense to me, is like, what I’m kind of hearing you say is almost…
205 00:34:49.710 ⇒ 00:34:59.319 Jake Nathan: Hey, maybe there has, you know, there’s been great attempts at unifying the data, but even if you have all the data, now actually making sense of all the data.
206 00:34:59.520 ⇒ 00:35:08.459 Jake Nathan: that’s… that’s a whole nother ballgame that’s been really tough. Like, if you’re going through thousands and thousands of rows of data.
207 00:35:08.460 ⇒ 00:35:27.109 Jake Nathan: even if it’s all unified, that’s extremely hard, so AI is almost… gives you a peek inside that… that data way faster than you could by… by doing it mainly. So, that’s a… that’s a great nugget. So, I think that’s a perfect, spot to… to lead us to number 3, so tell me about number 3.
208 00:35:27.110 ⇒ 00:35:41.890 Troy Ottmer: So, number three, and I know we originally opened this project on, hey, what are the top three problems, and we ended up with four, and… and it will become clear shortly, but old… number three, old school
209 00:35:42.000 ⇒ 00:36:00.449 Troy Ottmer: sales tactics, erode the employee experience and the customer experience, and a lot of times, companies put the customer experience in front of the employee experience, and I get why they do that, right? At the end of the day, no customers, no business, no… you don’t need anybody. But here’s the reality.
210 00:36:00.780 ⇒ 00:36:02.590 Troy Ottmer: Unhappy employees?
211 00:36:03.230 ⇒ 00:36:11.870 Troy Ottmer: lead to unhappy customers, because if employees are not ready, willing, able to carry out your instructions.
212 00:36:12.160 ⇒ 00:36:18.439 Troy Ottmer: then your customers are going to suffer at the end of the day. So the problem is reliance on old
213 00:36:18.560 ⇒ 00:36:38.259 Troy Ottmer: school tactics, like cold… cold calling. Now, look, cold calling still works in today’s world, but we do it differently today. Knocking on doors is not the way to do it. It’s… it’s going and signing up for these crazy fireside chats about AI in Austin, and meeting people like a Tom or yourself, right, and others.
214 00:36:38.260 ⇒ 00:36:46.110 Troy Ottmer: And then, next thing you know, you’re surrounded in a room by like-minded people trying to solve the exact same problem.
215 00:36:46.390 ⇒ 00:37:02.299 Troy Ottmer: And guess what? Some of those people may be collaborators, some of them may be competitors, some of them will likely be customers. And, you know, so the generic CRM, for example, use that we still do.
216 00:37:02.480 ⇒ 00:37:16.419 Troy Ottmer: every dealer CRM, they may think they have the best one in the world, but I promise you, they are… they’re decades behind where they should be, and nobody wants to address that elephant in the room, and the elephant is expensive.
217 00:37:16.530 ⇒ 00:37:34.039 Troy Ottmer: right, to do a CRM and try to fix one. No, I think you start over, and then I think you implement. So, you know, going back to the original problem, price only, competition undermines performance. So, a lot of dealers lead with price.
218 00:37:34.190 ⇒ 00:37:40.630 Troy Ottmer: price does… price no longer sells, even though I know there’s probably data that says it does.
219 00:37:40.990 ⇒ 00:37:51.689 Troy Ottmer: e-commerce platforms, for example, customers look at ease of use and flexibility of that platform, like the AI chatbots that are there now, and or
220 00:37:52.000 ⇒ 00:38:00.960 Troy Ottmer: Immediate interaction from a chatbot to a human being, in short order, will almost every time guarantee you the sale, in my opinion.
221 00:38:00.960 ⇒ 00:38:19.649 Troy Ottmer: And I’ve studied a lot of different e-commerce platforms as a consultant and as a competitor, that my competition is stealing my wallet share, because we’re using old school techniques, they’re using new school techniques. So, combine the data silos, or, you know, that we have.
222 00:38:19.760 ⇒ 00:38:21.999 Troy Ottmer: With back-end inefficiencies.
223 00:38:22.040 ⇒ 00:38:40.010 Troy Ottmer: This drags down both the employee experience and the customer experience. A better fix would be shift to solution-based selling, kind of like where you and I are going with this collaboration on what this could look like, how the two individual companies as a whole
224 00:38:40.190 ⇒ 00:38:41.780 Troy Ottmer: bring a…
225 00:38:42.250 ⇒ 00:38:53.469 Troy Ottmer: holistic solution to the end user, whoever that customer may be that bites on this collaborative selling apparatus we’re building, right? And so…
226 00:38:53.990 ⇒ 00:39:04.049 Troy Ottmer: solution-based selling, life cycle value. In the equipment or automotive or dealer world, life cycle value is important. Uptime. Now, uptime to a
227 00:39:04.720 ⇒ 00:39:15.439 Troy Ottmer: regular person buying a pickup truck or a car that uses it for personal, they don’t look at uptime in the same sense as a commercial client, but rest…
228 00:39:15.740 ⇒ 00:39:17.170 Troy Ottmer: Rest assured.
229 00:39:17.410 ⇒ 00:39:27.190 Troy Ottmer: If their vehicle is in the shop for 6 months, or they go buy a $200,000 Mercedes, and it breaks down 2 days after they buy it, they’re upset.
230 00:39:28.130 ⇒ 00:39:41.980 Troy Ottmer: You know, so you still have a little bit of that. So, you know, and then… then, you know, offer consultative support selling, right? And, you know, hopefully you can detect in my mannerisms that
231 00:39:42.120 ⇒ 00:39:46.589 Troy Ottmer: I’m a salesperson as well. I’m very operational, but I spent
232 00:39:46.740 ⇒ 00:39:57.949 Troy Ottmer: part of that 40-year career, 20 years of it, refining my ability to sell, and I like making sales calls. I like going to see customers that are angry and turning that around.
233 00:39:58.430 ⇒ 00:40:18.310 Troy Ottmer: And, you know, and sometimes you don’t win, but most of the time you can. Next thing that, you know, so the… empower from, you know, empower your employees with accurate data and tools so they can deliver with confidence. And, you know, engage early in the procurement cycles with insights that differentiate. So, in other words.
234 00:40:18.660 ⇒ 00:40:30.370 Troy Ottmer: if you’re buying parts to have in stock, get… get after it early so you’re prepared for when the business cycles, if it’s a seasonal demand, right? Summer
235 00:40:30.370 ⇒ 00:40:39.449 Troy Ottmer: And Texas is hot, so guess what happens in summer? Lots of AC repairs. You need to stock up in the spring for AC
236 00:40:39.650 ⇒ 00:40:47.260 Troy Ottmer: business so you’re ready when it hits. Don’t wait till July and say, oh, I need to hurry up and order. It was too late then, right?
237 00:40:47.380 ⇒ 00:40:51.330 Troy Ottmer: And then, so, what is… what is AI’s role in
238 00:40:51.880 ⇒ 00:40:59.480 Troy Ottmer: Dealing with number 3. Dealing with old-school sales tactics and or old-school process management, what have you.
239 00:41:00.210 ⇒ 00:41:05.059 Troy Ottmer: Identify opportunities early, one. Personalize proposals, two.
240 00:41:05.650 ⇒ 00:41:13.979 Troy Ottmer: Give your sales teams at all levels predictive insights to act as trusted advisors. Look.
241 00:41:14.440 ⇒ 00:41:23.349 Troy Ottmer: Having a thing pop up, and on the screen that you’re dealing with when you’re talking to a customer, or on your app on your phone, hey.
242 00:41:23.620 ⇒ 00:41:38.430 Troy Ottmer: here, I can… would you like to buy extended warranty? I can sell you extended warranty, and that will mitigate some of your out-of-pocket exposure. Or, hey, Mr. Customer, I’d like to sell you all your oil changes for the… for the term of this lease.
243 00:41:38.430 ⇒ 00:41:49.019 Troy Ottmer: They’re all included, and we can even roll it into your pricing, blah blah blah, whatever that is. So AI’s role could be used to help identify that very quickly based on
244 00:41:49.240 ⇒ 00:41:58.679 Troy Ottmer: AI’s ability to profile that customer, and your business, and the vehicle they’re buying, or vehicles, and then
245 00:41:58.860 ⇒ 00:42:01.170 Troy Ottmer: Within seconds, provide
246 00:42:01.300 ⇒ 00:42:14.099 Troy Ottmer: a red… and then sign here, and off you go. So that… that really brings three to a close, just getting out of the old-school mindset. Some things are relevant, but we… we gotta look forward, not backward.
247 00:42:15.180 ⇒ 00:42:34.030 Jake Nathan: And one observation I have from all this is, you know, problem number one really feeds into problem number three, because, like you’re saying, if you’re actually gonna be able to empower your sales team to have that real-time data, it can’t be siloed, it needs to be able to…
248 00:42:34.030 ⇒ 00:42:45.660 Jake Nathan: to flow through to them. So, I think it’s cool that they’re all… all related. So, yeah, this makes… this makes a ton of sense to me. So, yeah, I… I think there… there’s a ton there.
249 00:42:45.710 ⇒ 00:42:51.469 Jake Nathan: Let’s move on to… to… we were gonna do number 3, stop at number 3, but I love it. Let’s do 4.
250 00:42:51.470 ⇒ 00:42:52.940 Troy Ottmer: So, number 4.
251 00:42:53.150 ⇒ 00:42:59.980 Troy Ottmer: Culture in Decline, the silent killer. And it… and this… this really brings the… all three
252 00:43:00.950 ⇒ 00:43:11.580 Troy Ottmer: together, and this really should be number one in some arguments, because, you know, where does this start? Well, the problem. Culture is both a symptom
253 00:43:11.790 ⇒ 00:43:28.949 Troy Ottmer: you know, the killer that we’re having, the culture problems, both the symptom and the root cause of the first three problems, right? So, it’s a symptom of that, but it’s also the root cause. Siloed information frustrates employees, back-end inefficiencies erode pride.
254 00:43:29.260 ⇒ 00:43:38.059 Troy Ottmer: You know, outdated sales tactics, burn people out, you know, because you’re trying to do more with less, and companies like to run leaner today than ever before.
255 00:43:38.100 ⇒ 00:43:53.340 Troy Ottmer: left unchecked. This drives turnover and disengagement and, you know, weakened customer experience. So you don’t, you know, it’s both the symptom and it’s the root cause. And, you know, what is the ultimate root cause? Well.
256 00:43:53.430 ⇒ 00:43:57.770 Troy Ottmer: I always look at culture as…
257 00:43:58.180 ⇒ 00:44:04.230 Troy Ottmer: it’s really the leadership, the owners, the executives, the C-suite, you know, it’s…
258 00:44:04.640 ⇒ 00:44:16.740 Troy Ottmer: Leadership can come from the bottom up, but look, let’s face it, everybody at the bottom is following directives from people at the top. And if people at the top aren’t listening to what goes on in the world.
259 00:44:16.890 ⇒ 00:44:27.499 Troy Ottmer: then they’re gonna make bad decisions, and ultimately they push down more bad decisions, and then it’s just this perpetual cycle that never stops, and…
260 00:44:27.560 ⇒ 00:44:45.779 Troy Ottmer: You know, and I would… I would say, and I’m not blaming the ownership or C-suite, what I’m simply saying is, somehow, someway, number four, we have to get the… everyone at all levels to stop and look in the mirror and ask one simple question. Am I part of the problem?
261 00:44:45.980 ⇒ 00:44:55.089 Troy Ottmer: And ultimately, that’s hard for executives in C-suite or owners or investment groups to stop and say, well, I’m not the problem, this is my money.
262 00:44:55.270 ⇒ 00:45:12.279 Troy Ottmer: And, but you have to navigate that with a little bit of finesse, especially if you’re working for them as an employee, and you’re a turnaround leader that they brought in, or you’re hired as a consultant. And I have these routine conversations, so…
263 00:45:12.400 ⇒ 00:45:20.359 Troy Ottmer: And then, you know, the better fix here for this one is treat culture as a strategic priority, not as a side product, right?
264 00:45:21.340 ⇒ 00:45:33.420 Troy Ottmer: you know, invest in leadership development and consistent coaching. I think that’s where the C-suite executives, etc, need to… it needs to be a bi-directional
265 00:45:33.630 ⇒ 00:45:36.480 Troy Ottmer: communication process, you know, and then link.
266 00:45:36.720 ⇒ 00:45:39.709 Troy Ottmer: The employee experience and the customer experience.
267 00:45:39.820 ⇒ 00:45:45.260 Troy Ottmer: Together. So when employees feel valued and supported, guess what? Customers feel the same.
268 00:45:45.440 ⇒ 00:45:50.459 Troy Ottmer: And, you know, customers are always right, even when they’re not, but an empowered.
269 00:45:50.760 ⇒ 00:46:10.219 Troy Ottmer: valued and supported employee will manage that unhappy customer in a way that 9 times out of 10 will end with success, right? And another key point, most importantly, deploy every tool available, including face-to-face, one-on-one conversations with stakeholders at every level.
270 00:46:10.450 ⇒ 00:46:14.190 Troy Ottmer: Real conversations up and down the chain, build trust, repair alignment.
271 00:46:14.330 ⇒ 00:46:21.050 Troy Ottmer: and drive lasting change. And this is the human element that I wanted to reference, you know, as…
272 00:46:21.370 ⇒ 00:46:32.869 Troy Ottmer: as, you know, Tom and I had talked about, one of the things is, you know, how would we approach this? Well, Troy says, I do not… I don’t mind doing data work, and I will have to, obviously.
273 00:46:32.940 ⇒ 00:46:49.269 Troy Ottmer: add my opinion and guidance and counsel here and there, but at the end of the day, that heavy lifting needs to be done by subject matter experts, Brainforge, in this case, and those workflows, and then… and then I do the more holistic
274 00:46:49.910 ⇒ 00:46:54.120 Troy Ottmer: Dealer 360 review, and I think he shared that with you, that…
275 00:46:54.120 ⇒ 00:46:55.179 Jake Nathan: Yeah, I read it.
276 00:46:55.180 ⇒ 00:46:58.730 Troy Ottmer: That’s a broad draft, but that’s in a nutshell what
277 00:46:59.230 ⇒ 00:47:04.010 Troy Ottmer: I would do is go in to a dealer group, and that could take 2-3 months to do.
278 00:47:04.120 ⇒ 00:47:17.140 Troy Ottmer: And depending on if they wanted everything done. And so, you know, and that’s really the approach. And then the last piece, what’s AI’s role? Again, provide analytics that flag cultural risk.
279 00:47:17.450 ⇒ 00:47:27.240 Troy Ottmer: never replace the human work of building relationships. AI can inform, but leaders must engage directly. So, you know, using AI and
280 00:47:27.420 ⇒ 00:47:35.490 Troy Ottmer: doing assessments with your employees and your customers through different tools, surveys, right? Internal, external.
281 00:47:35.590 ⇒ 00:47:55.369 Troy Ottmer: Capturing all this data, your customer satisfaction in that Google reviews, all these different things, and you being a content creator, you know exactly how important those are, right? And you also know that people won’t do any of those things if they don’t feel there’s ever going to be any positive outcome
282 00:47:55.520 ⇒ 00:48:02.109 Troy Ottmer: from them, Meaning it falls on deaf ears. So, and number 4, basically, is…
283 00:48:02.270 ⇒ 00:48:09.930 Troy Ottmer: Is a culmination of the top three and all the other issues, but putting it in a nice little bundle of four items
284 00:48:09.940 ⇒ 00:48:23.040 Troy Ottmer: you know, this is the direction that I’m… I’m attempting to help companies go, and the partnership that I’m looking to develop with Brainforge is simply to, when I go see a client.
285 00:48:23.420 ⇒ 00:48:38.689 Troy Ottmer: look, Mr. Client, this is what I do, and this is what I do very well, and here’s a partner that I have. And I’m very selective, Jake, about the partners I work with, because I can’t partner with everybody, and I don’t want a whole menu card. I want…
286 00:48:38.880 ⇒ 00:48:50.890 Troy Ottmer: a brain forge to do this, and this scope. I want this kind of partner for this, and… and I don’t… I don’t want any of us tripping over each other in such a way
287 00:48:50.890 ⇒ 00:49:01.399 Troy Ottmer: We need to all be able to move in parallel with each other and complement what happens. And this is really the first iteration, what Tom and I are talking about, and
288 00:49:01.400 ⇒ 00:49:05.360 Troy Ottmer: So, so number four, any other questions on that one?
289 00:49:06.550 ⇒ 00:49:24.979 Jake Nathan: Well, it kind of leads me to another question I had, which is… so, I’m… let’s say I’m an executive, I’m reading this, and yeah, I get to number 4, and I’m starting to look myself in the mirror and go, okay, how… how can I actually implement everything that’s said here? Because I feel like this is me right now.
290 00:49:25.130 ⇒ 00:49:29.270 Jake Nathan: Like you said, this might be a… I mean, this would be a…
291 00:49:29.380 ⇒ 00:49:37.179 Jake Nathan: Multi-month to multi-year ultimate transformation by the time you… you go through all these steps and really do it.
292 00:49:37.960 ⇒ 00:49:42.659 Jake Nathan: for people who are… so I’m an executive, I know that ultimately this is gonna take
293 00:49:42.910 ⇒ 00:49:48.910 Jake Nathan: multiple years, I’m feeling overwhelmed. What’s the first… what does the first hour look like?
294 00:49:49.170 ⇒ 00:49:52.939 Jake Nathan: what could I do… what could I do today to start
295 00:49:53.380 ⇒ 00:49:56.249 Jake Nathan: Doing… to put… putting something in place?
296 00:49:56.890 ⇒ 00:50:10.089 Jake Nathan: like, to feel like… to feel like, right now, I’m… there’s this mountain, and I’m trying to build a roadmap. How do I… how do I even start? What’s, like, one thing I can do today?
297 00:50:10.560 ⇒ 00:50:14.409 Troy Ottmer: One thing you can do today would be simply just to…
298 00:50:15.420 ⇒ 00:50:24.350 Troy Ottmer: Stop what you’re doing, grab your notepad, or your phone, people take notes in their phone now, what have you, and go walk around your office.
299 00:50:26.150 ⇒ 00:50:32.689 Troy Ottmer: And don’t just talk to your executives, right? If you’re… if you’re the… one of the senior leaders, or the senior leader.
300 00:50:32.850 ⇒ 00:50:36.500 Troy Ottmer: Talk about… go talk to your executives, find out
301 00:50:36.810 ⇒ 00:50:47.879 Troy Ottmer: what their problems are, but don’t just stay with them. Go to… go to your admin assistants. Go to your other places where you may have people, like…
302 00:50:48.350 ⇒ 00:50:57.389 Troy Ottmer: For example, when I took over a project in 2020, and I really wanted to be… I was going to start my consulting business at the end of 20.
303 00:50:57.610 ⇒ 00:51:01.899 Troy Ottmer: And Rush Enterprises asked me, no, we’d rather hire you back.
304 00:51:02.040 ⇒ 00:51:09.370 Troy Ottmer: And, you work for us. And I’m like, okay, I’m… and it was a good deal. So I just said, yeah, I’m just gonna go… it was… and it was…
305 00:51:10.380 ⇒ 00:51:18.340 Troy Ottmer: it was a great project, and what I… and I’m gonna answer it by telling you my story, I think it… so, my first hour
306 00:51:18.650 ⇒ 00:51:27.940 Troy Ottmer: My first 90 days, and everything in between that, was… unless the building was on fire, Right?
307 00:51:28.340 ⇒ 00:51:30.590 Troy Ottmer: I was quiet.
308 00:51:30.690 ⇒ 00:51:47.639 Troy Ottmer: I was engaging. I would go to… I went and introduce myself to all the people. I’d start walking the service floor, talking to the technicians. Hey, technician needs a hand. I’d reach in and hold something if they needed. You know, and I wanted to gain credibility.
309 00:51:47.740 ⇒ 00:52:02.899 Troy Ottmer: I wanted to be real, and I wanted to be in the moment, in the here and now. That’s the first hour, and that was my first day on the job, and at first, they heard, Rush got this corporate guy coming, and I was a former executive.
310 00:52:03.030 ⇒ 00:52:09.039 Troy Ottmer: So they knew that there was some corporate dude coming, and right, corporate people naturally get a bad name.
311 00:52:09.180 ⇒ 00:52:24.969 Troy Ottmer: And so I had that working against me, but it was 3 different groups of people that got put together, so it’s like the old story of the island of Misfit Toys, right? You got all these… these 3 different groups of people, 3 different business units shoved into one business unit now.
312 00:52:25.620 ⇒ 00:52:45.269 Troy Ottmer: So it’s, you know, it’s 40 people almost, and it’s a problem. So the first hour, first 3 months were exactly that. Go be in the moment, get to know each person, get to know what they do, watch them. Talk less, listen more. And… and if there is an actionable item, make sure you follow up.
313 00:52:45.580 ⇒ 00:52:47.060 Troy Ottmer: and build trust.
314 00:52:47.200 ⇒ 00:53:06.680 Troy Ottmer: And then number four becomes easy, because now you’re changing the culture, and then you find out, hey, number one’s really the big problem. Yeah, our culture sucks, but number one’s a big contributor to that culture suck, and so on, and you just kind of work your way through that. So that would be my first hour advice, first month, first 90 days.
315 00:53:07.470 ⇒ 00:53:12.039 Jake Nathan: I love that, yeah, because I can just totally picture in my head an executive reading this.
316 00:53:12.120 ⇒ 00:53:28.610 Jake Nathan: nodding their head, knowing that this is what they need to do, and feeling, you know, a lot of people, when they feel overwhelmed, they’re like, okay, like, what can I do right this second? And just giving them, even as simple of an exercise as, okay, like you said, pick up a pen and paper, go walk around for an hour.
317 00:53:28.610 ⇒ 00:53:29.839 Troy Ottmer: Yeah. Come back.
318 00:53:29.900 ⇒ 00:53:31.940 Jake Nathan: And then, and naturally.
319 00:53:32.000 ⇒ 00:53:37.619 Jake Nathan: Like, like you said, it’s not… an hour isn’t gonna, you know, move the needle, it’s not gonna ultimately
320 00:53:37.650 ⇒ 00:53:50.589 Jake Nathan: create the change in your business, but that can give people a sense of control of, okay, how do I get started? And then, I think just naturally… so… so yeah, everything… this is… this is awesome, and I think, naturally, just by…
321 00:53:50.590 ⇒ 00:54:01.510 Jake Nathan: creating this asset, someone who resonates this would think, okay, next step here, I… I don’t know how… this… this seems like I need to do this, it seems like this is overwhelming.
322 00:54:01.510 ⇒ 00:54:02.240 Troy Ottmer: Right, right.
323 00:54:02.240 ⇒ 00:54:20.330 Jake Nathan: how can I, like, how can I get this going? And then, naturally, like, I think there’s just a call to action to work with you and bring Brainforge along as well. So, yeah, this is… this is super, super helpful, and all these four, I appreciate they… they related to each other, but they’re also distinct.
324 00:54:20.390 ⇒ 00:54:25.630 Jake Nathan: And they each had their own kind of tactics and strategies, so yeah, I’m really excited to…
325 00:54:25.820 ⇒ 00:54:27.340 Jake Nathan: to see what I can do here and put this.
326 00:54:27.340 ⇒ 00:54:44.349 Troy Ottmer: Well, this… this was part of the… an article series that… that was coming, so I did… I did tweak it for this conversation to be more of mine, and I’ll… I’ll email that to you, so it’s a little cleaner than the other message I sent you, but,
327 00:54:44.350 ⇒ 00:54:44.860 Jake Nathan: Yeah.
328 00:54:44.860 ⇒ 00:54:56.509 Troy Ottmer: But one last statement that kind of wraps it all up, one of the core insights, you know, and I sum it up this way, the first three problems, siloed data, weak back-end execution, outdated sales.
329 00:54:56.630 ⇒ 00:55:00.070 Troy Ottmer: All-cause and accelerate culture decline.
330 00:55:00.290 ⇒ 00:55:14.430 Troy Ottmer: And culture decline, in turn, amplifies the first three, which we concluded with four. This is just kind of a summary of that, right? The only way forward is alignment, fix the silos, strengthen fixed ops, modernize sales.
331 00:55:14.430 ⇒ 00:55:21.100 Troy Ottmer: And do the culture work through authentic face-to-face leadership conversations that connect people to purpose.
332 00:55:21.230 ⇒ 00:55:27.320 Troy Ottmer: That, that last statement, I just made is the one… is that one hour per day
333 00:55:27.570 ⇒ 00:55:31.410 Troy Ottmer: That you’re moving around your building, talking to your people.
334 00:55:31.670 ⇒ 00:55:49.970 Troy Ottmer: That… that last line right there, if you… if you do that every day, and you… you follow up with some of those takeaways in real time, or you go back and say, look, this idea you want to do is not feasible right now for these reasons, and it’s not always money.
335 00:55:50.140 ⇒ 00:56:02.609 Troy Ottmer: you frame that the right way, you build authenticity, right? You build credibility, and… and that is… and I’ve done a lot of dealer acquisitions, merger roll-ups, I’ve done turnarounds.
336 00:56:02.610 ⇒ 00:56:12.120 Troy Ottmer: I’ve done some funky projects that make you, like, why did I get involved with this? And I always go back to… it’s a servant leadership mentality.
337 00:56:12.130 ⇒ 00:56:17.929 Troy Ottmer: And, you gotta be real with people. And look, you know, as an executive, you may make
338 00:56:18.580 ⇒ 00:56:26.230 Troy Ottmer: 4, 5, 6 times the money that that person you’re talking to, but you better treat them like they’re your equal.
339 00:56:26.520 ⇒ 00:56:28.739 Jake Nathan: They need to feel that way.
340 00:56:28.740 ⇒ 00:56:44.559 Troy Ottmer: And, I mean, you don’t make it about your paycheck versus theirs, but some people automatically will look down on you as an executive. Well, you just don’t understand. You don’t understand my struggles, right? I make 300, or whatever, you know, so…
341 00:56:45.350 ⇒ 00:56:51.749 Jake Nathan: Yeah, no, this is… I… yeah, this has been super helpful, super interesting, just to hear about,
342 00:56:51.860 ⇒ 00:57:06.840 Jake Nathan: the industry. And so, yeah, next step for me is I’m gonna take this transcript, start, start refining it, and, definitely send you a draft here soon. And yeah, we can just keep refining it as needed, and like you said, I think
343 00:57:06.840 ⇒ 00:57:21.110 Jake Nathan: this is probably going to be more of an ongoing conversation than just one simple project, but yeah, I think this is, this has been a great first conversation, and super illuminating for me, and definitely excited to kind of pass this along, too, to Utam.
344 00:57:21.540 ⇒ 00:57:26.760 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, do you… do you want me to email this to you, or just put it in the chat notes? Which is easier?
345 00:57:27.370 ⇒ 00:57:29.150 Jake Nathan: Oh, is this the transcript?
346 00:57:29.380 ⇒ 00:57:38.500 Troy Ottmer: Well, no, no, no, I mean, what I… what I wrote, basically, I took my article, I pared it down to make it align with this, so…
347 00:57:38.990 ⇒ 00:57:41.080 Troy Ottmer: So, when I published this article.
348 00:57:41.450 ⇒ 00:57:42.879 Troy Ottmer: Very similar to what we talked.
349 00:57:42.880 ⇒ 00:57:43.340 Jake Nathan: Yeah.
350 00:57:43.340 ⇒ 00:57:43.920 Troy Ottmer: But…
351 00:57:44.250 ⇒ 00:57:50.300 Jake Nathan: Yeah, that makes… Yeah, if you want to email it to me, just to that jake.nathan at brainforge.ai, that’d be awesome.
352 00:57:50.770 ⇒ 00:57:57.230 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, and, you know, but… and so if you… that document that he sent you, Jake, it,
353 00:57:57.990 ⇒ 00:58:04.409 Troy Ottmer: it, you know, the Dealer 360, the holistic review, and it goes through a lot of different things, and then that’s
354 00:58:04.750 ⇒ 00:58:08.069 Troy Ottmer: That’s what we’ll have to design and talk to…
355 00:58:08.180 ⇒ 00:58:17.560 Troy Ottmer: you know, talk through, and I know there’s more to come, but first we gotta make an impression and give some people that one-page thing to look at and come up with,
356 00:58:17.690 ⇒ 00:58:26.899 Troy Ottmer: you know, what that ultimately looks like. But no, this is good for me. I appreciate the attention to detail, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
357 00:58:27.490 ⇒ 00:58:33.490 Jake Nathan: Absolutely, yeah, I appreciate that, Troy. We’ll definitely be in touch. So, yeah, thanks again for making time, and talk soon, for sure.
358 00:58:33.490 ⇒ 00:58:34.790 Troy Ottmer: Take care, my friend. See ya.
359 00:58:34.790 ⇒ 00:58:35.510 Jake Nathan: Alright, Citro.
360 00:58:35.620 ⇒ 00:58:36.560 Troy Ottmer: Bye-bye.