Speaker 1 00:00:05 Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt in required, where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100% inbound in your industry over the next 6 to 8 months, with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to up my influence comm and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to up my influence. Com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you. With us right now, it's David Boies. David, you are the co-founder and CEO at Team Velocity. Your website is Team Velocity Marketing. Com David, it's great to have you.

Speaker 2 00:01:18 Thank you. Appreciate being here.

Speaker 1 00:01:19 Yeah. Well, give us an overview of your work. It looks like you do a lot of work in the automotive space. So very eager to kind of see what, how you've impacted that space or that industry and, and helped it to continue evolve.

Speaker 2 00:01:34 Well, we are our organization focuses on the automotive industry, and we work with tier one automotive manufacturers, about 23 of them. And we also work with lots of individual car dealerships and car dealership groups, and primarily in the area of technology and advertising technology. So anything to help them sell and service more cars and help their customers, complete frictionless type transactions is really what the business is all about.

Speaker 1 00:01:59 Yeah. Without you. What were they doing?

Speaker 2 00:02:03 Well, it's a very fragmented industry. So what we've done is created a customer experience platform so that as a customer, if you went to buy a car from a dealership, this weekend, you would probably end up interfacing with 14 or 15 different independent applications.

Speaker 2 00:02:20 And you'd be saying to yourself, this doesn't seem connected. The price that was on the Google was different than the price it was on the web banner, which was different in the price when I went to actually buy the car, which was totally different than when I went in to the dealership. And it's almost like I started over. The experiences that consumers have are often disconnected. We built a platform from the initial engagement all the way to a final transaction that is, you know, right now considered best in class. And so we've made it, you know, we think seamless. We're always working to make it better, of course. But that's the real benefit of the platform is it's a fully integrated one. It takes about 14 or 18 different technologies and bundles them together.

Speaker 1 00:03:01 Yeah. Well, I would imagine. I mean, I again, I remember the early days. you know, when, you know, it was almost like. It was almost like this secret hookup that you could go to the website of a dealership and get prices that might be lower than what you would see at the dealership.

Speaker 1 00:03:21 And then it was always confusing for whoever the rep. It was, it was it was a lot of disunity. from a consumer standpoint. and now I, I, I can't imagine, you know, maybe I'm sure, you know, what percentage of shoppers have done some online research versus, you know, just rolling in, you know, to the lot and going to do some shopping around.

Speaker 2 00:03:50 It's 99% at this point. It's a major purchase. people are scheduling service online, much less buying a car. So yeah The more we try to get most of the work done online before the consumer arrives to the showroom and have this kind of, Apple like experience where you pick up where you left off online. That is what consumers really love and even expect today. but the ecosystem that's been developed from a technology perspective in our space, it's been really developed over 25 years. I mean, automotive is a big space. And so it's that's why it's so fragmented and siloed. So a company that came out 20 years ago that did one thing well and ten years ago and some other company did something well, but none of them integrate.

Speaker 2 00:04:35 None of them talk to each other, but yet they're both customer facing. So it's, something that we've worked hard on for a long time. We had a pretty big vision, that we thought would hit, and it was all around just improving the customer's experience. And if you look at the companies that have done that and done it well. So some are famous like an Amazon, but even companies like Tesla and Carvana and driveway. Rivian. they're doing some great stuff in this area, and we believe that our clients can benefit from that.

Speaker 1 00:05:06 Yeah. I would imagine there are some pretty cool AI enabled technology that that you're working with or seeing, that is even going to improve this beyond, you know, what we've been used to. what excites you about the future over the next year or two?

Speaker 2 00:05:26 Well, AI is right up there at the top. just before this call, I was on with our, a group of our development team that the head of that. And he was showing me the how I, we're releasing this next week.

Speaker 2 00:05:40 It creates videos on cars with voices that sound like you and I. And in fact, our voices, as you know, can be cloned instantly, by AI. And it's indistinguishable now. And these videos were just going out and grabbing data off of this, off of our websites and putting together a 32nd video that looked like it was professionally developed. It's incredible. So it's there's all kinds of things that we're excited about. AI is certainly up there. We're also coming out with a CRM application, because it's one thing to bring the customer all the way to the showroom, but oftentimes you have to follow up with that customer, right? And make sure that everything is all the way tied out. So we've got some big plans to continue to build the platform out. AI is at the center of those plans, though, because we are learning more and more about it. We use it in some very good ways today, some very basic ways. But the future, I think in the next 12 to 18 months, it's going to be able to do for at least for our business, for our clients, much more.

Speaker 1 00:06:46 Yeah, yeah. so what would be some examples of folks that you've worked with? Obviously I'm, I'm on your website and I see every major car manufacturer here. Are you working specifically just on the dealership and retail and service side?

Speaker 2 00:07:02 Both. our clients, the way our industry works is you end up becoming certified by an OEM. In other words, in order to work with Toyota dealers and provide certain applications, technology Toyota certifies you. And so you have to pass through that wicket. And that makes this industry very interesting because it's a barrier to entry that many people can't pass. They don't have the size or the, the capital to or can meet the Toyota's requirements, which are significant. so it's the old days. You just worked directly with the car dealer. Those days are gone. the manufacturers now have, inserted themselves, which I think is is probably been a good thing for our industry. And so you and sometimes you work directly with the manufacturer and sometimes you get certified by the manufacturer, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 00:07:51 Then you end up working with their retailers.

Speaker 1 00:07:56 What is, what what are the trends that you are seeing on the marketing side of things, like what's working right now in marketing? And is there anything that might still be happening that you're thinking not as effective and not as much bang for the buck as it used to be in the past? Like what? What are the trends right now?

Speaker 2 00:08:17 We see the trend in personalization, that is being able to provide consumers, personalized online experiences. I mean, come on, companies like Starbucks or Amazing, they know the cup of coffee you want and where you're going to get it, how you're going to pay for it. They just personalize the experiences so well. And that's a cup of coffee. But Amazon does it, you know, on much larger purchases. and they make it easy and predictive. they know what the customer wants before we do. And so there's a the concept is the same in the car business. Think about it. If I asked you 4 or 5 questions right now, what are you currently driving? How did you pay for it? Do you service at the dealership? How many? How many miles are on it? did you lease or finance? I would be able to just, right off the bat, probably predict the next car that you're able that you probably might likely buy.

Speaker 2 00:09:07 Especially if you said, I drive a Ford F-150, and I've had four of them. I mean, that's easy, but believe it or not, in the car business, predictive analytics, have not been used very much. Everyone kind of starts over. And so what we've done is we see working very well is to take customers like yourself and, and welcome you with hogwash. You know, here's your current vehicle and all the information and its value. And here's some vehicles we picked out for you that we think you might like. It's not like Amazon, right? People who have this car often buy this car. So we're excited about personalization. We've worked very hard on that. The things that probably aren't working as well as they used to, like in the old days. I would say some of these, you know, display Advertising for at the car dealer level. It might be fine for branding for an OEM, but if you're a car dealer and you're really trying to to actually, you know, do something, that can generate a significant result.

Speaker 2 00:10:06 That's a tough one to to tie out. email, believe it or not, is becoming is so it's so full of spam. and the companies are out there are controlling that more and more. So in the old days, car dealers would just blast all their customers. You probably know if you. Oh yeah, you just get, you know, 30 emails a month from a car dealer. It just doesn't make sense. And consumers really are. I just think okay. So those are some examples.

Speaker 1 00:10:32 Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:10:33 Yeah, we used to use a lot and I'd say now we're much more.

Speaker 1 00:10:42 Yeah. David and I don't know if you can hear me. I think we've froze for just a second. So, you know, while you're unfreezing here, let me ask you a question. and I don't know if you can hear me right now. but, I'm curious what the discovery process is like if let's say that, you know, I don't know what size dealerships you're typically working with, but what might be going on in their life right now and, and what are those initial conversations typically sound like?

Speaker 2 00:11:13 Well, every size dealership, we work with, because dealerships in general are pretty big companies, right? I mean, even even small dealerships will have 60 employees or so.

Speaker 2 00:11:25 and so, the generally the discovery process for us is very simple. It's how many companies do you work with today to sell one car? And they'll typically list the companies out. Well, we work with this company A, B, C, D, e. On average it's between 9 and 14. So nine and 14 different type companies that do little type things and that they have to stitch that together. So our conversation is simple. Would you like for us to go ahead and and, and integrate all 14 of those, applications with similar or better technology into one platform that's easier for your customers to digest and easier for your people to use? It's as simple as that. If that if the answer to that is yes, we often then will be able to save them money, but more importantly, improve the experience of both their customers and their employees. That's the name of the game for what we do.

Speaker 1 00:12:22 Yeah. And, tell me a bit about, about, velocity itself. you know, kind of where you come from and who's, who's part of the organization and who who are the people involved.

Speaker 2 00:12:37 It's a wonderful group of people. You know, I have the best business partners. We've been working together for about 30 years. We started right out, together. this is probably, I don't know, the 15th, 16th, 17th business we've owned. and so we've been very fortunate that the the primary partners in the space have remained the same and are all dear friends and and close. we also have a wonderful management team that's been with us in many of these companies. So it's a little bit like a band, and we just keep putting the band back together because we love to play music together. and it just happens to be technology. And we've all grown up in the, in the technology era. so it's been a lot of fun to, to, to, to participate in that. The company itself has got about 450 employees, in the US offices in the Washington, DC area. We just opened up one in El Paso that we're really excited about. and, you know, right at the moment, the majority of the employees, we still are in a, in a mobile environment.

Speaker 2 00:13:36 we do have our offices open. we are opening up a support office, as I mentioned, in El Paso. But, yeah, that's a little bit of a broader review of the company.

Speaker 1 00:13:45 Wow. your website is Team Velocity marketing.com to our friend that's has been listening now. Or maybe they know someone that you know is in the automotive space, and they forwarded this episode and now they've listened. where did they where does someone go from here? Like, if they've they're curious if they can make some improvements on the kind of the customer personalization side, you know, just deeper, more rich engagements that are going to translate to more revenue. where do they go from here?

Speaker 2 00:14:14 It's easy. Just go to Team Velocity marketing.com, or just Google Team Velocity will be there. and so, we're pretty well known in the industry. and again, because we're certified by I think 23 manufacturers. So within our ecosystem, people know who we are. But to to learn more, I think that website does a really good job.

Speaker 2 00:14:34 There's a whole host of people, of course, we do webinars, we have videos up there. We, we are also constantly doing private demos on the platform to those that are interested. So, a whole host of ways to learn more about the company, but I'd start at our website.

Speaker 1 00:14:49 Now, team Velocity marketing. Com it's been a great conversation. Again David Boies founder and CEO, Co-Founder and CEO at Team Velocity. David, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 2 00:15:01 Josh, I appreciate the time. Have a great day.

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