Dealer Tech Tuesdays
S03E01 - Cheryl Lopez - Dealership Culture - Accounting - Technology
Cheryl Lopez, an accomplished automotive industry leader with more than
32 years of experience, has been with Headquarter since 2016 joining as
Controller for the Toyota store. Since then, her proven track record of
success in streamlining processes, increasing efficiencies, and optimizing
time management procedures in a fast-paced work environment has
earned her a reputation as a hands-on leader who can make a real difference. She has gone on to become the Corporate Controller for the group's four locations. In her current role, she is responsible for organizing and directing accounting personnel at four dealership locations while ensuring the integrity of financial data, accounting, taxes, reporting, and financial controls. Her oversight of the monthly close process and account reconciliation procedures have ensured the accuracy of financial
statements and compliance with GAAP.
She also provides leadership, mentoring, and training for direct reports, developed and implemented departmental policies and training programs, and possesses a strong knowledge of all accounting staff duties. In 2022, she was elected Treasurer of the Southeast Toyota Comptroller’s Association. Cheryl began her career by spending 24 years with Lehman Dealership Enterprises, where she began as a file clerk and receptionist while still attending high school. During this time, her roles included IT Director for the group’s 8 Dealership Locations, CDK System Administrator, and Bookkeeper, later becoming the Office Manager for the Toyota and Mazda locations. She then went on to become Assistant Controller with the South Motors Group.
A unique perspective on the automobile industry, rooted in her experience in each role in the accounting office, gives her a complete understanding of the industry's inner workings. Through her years of experience, the impact she has had on the automobile industry has been significant. Her work leads to improved financial and operational performance, resulting in increased revenue growth. Her expertise in accounting, office management, and system administration has made her a go-to source for technical guidance on complex accounting issues, and her ability to provide leadership, mentorship, and training has earned her respect from her peers.
As part of her mission to inspire future female leaders, she has taken on numerous mentorship roles to share her rewarding experiences in the industry. For over a decade, Cheryl has volunteered for various organizations, such as American Brittany Rescue, Lasagna Love, and MPS Superhero.
Cheryl and her husband, Byron, live in the beautiful city of Miami, Florida with their three Brittany Spaniels.
Cheryl Lopez, an accomplished automotive industry leader with more than
32 years of experience, has been with Headquarter since 2016 joining as
Controller for the Toyota store. Since then, her proven track record of
success in streamlining processes, increasing efficiencies, and optimizing
time management procedures in a fast-paced work environment has
earned her a reputation as a hands-on leader who can make a real difference. She has gone on to become the Corporate Controller for the group's four locations. In her current role, she is responsible for organizing and directing accounting personnel at four dealership locations while ensuring the integrity of financial data, accounting, taxes, reporting, and financial controls. Her oversight of the monthly close process and account reconciliation procedures have ensured the accuracy of financial
statements and compliance with GAAP.
She also provides leadership, mentoring, and training for direct reports, developed and implemented departmental policies and training programs, and possesses a strong knowledge of all accounting staff duties. In 2022, she was elected Treasurer of the Southeast Toyota Comptroller’s Association. Cheryl began her career by spending 24 years with Lehman Dealership Enterprises, where she began as a file clerk and receptionist while still attending high school. During this time, her roles included IT Director for the group’s 8 Dealership Locations, CDK System Administrator, and Bookkeeper, later becoming the Office Manager for the Toyota and Mazda locations. She then went on to become Assistant Controller with the South Motors Group.
A unique perspective on the automobile industry, rooted in her experience in each role in the accounting office, gives her a complete understanding of the industry's inner workings. Through her years of experience, the impact she has had on the automobile industry has been significant. Her work leads to improved financial and operational performance, resulting in increased revenue growth. Her expertise in accounting, office management, and system administration has made her a go-to source for technical guidance on complex accounting issues, and her ability to provide leadership, mentorship, and training has earned her respect from her peers.
As part of her mission to inspire future female leaders, she has taken on numerous mentorship roles to share her rewarding experiences in the industry. For over a decade, Cheryl has volunteered for various organizations, such as American Brittany Rescue, Lasagna Love, and MPS Superhero.
Cheryl and her husband, Byron, live in the beautiful city of Miami, Florida with their three Brittany Spaniels.
Welcome back to Dealer Tech Tuesdays. On deck today we've got an industry veteran, a mentor making real change, a committed volunteer and the corporate controller for Headquarter Automotive Group, cheryl Lopez, all right. So Cheryl yes, the famous Cheryl Lopez, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Finally, we're able to get this.
Speaker 2:Finally.
Speaker 1:Coordinated.
Speaker 2:Only took a few years.
Speaker 1:Exactly so, chelle. You've been in the business for north 30 years. Yes, 33 years 33 years and I know you have a pretty interesting story of how you got into the car business and then what your trajectory is in the car business. But before we get into that, can you tell me who you are and what you do?
Speaker 2:Yes, my name is Cheryl Lopez. I'm the corporate controller for Headquarter Automotive and we have four stores one in Miami and three in Central Florida.
Speaker 1:Nice. So how competitive is the Miami market compared to Central Florida market?
Speaker 2:Central Florida is growing. It's growing all the time and um, you know, I know we sell a lot more cars in miami, um, central florida, a little smaller um, but it's so up and coming I mean you would drive down the road there and there's just so much building going on and what was an empty field is now huge uh, bjs or costcos or dealerships. It's just it's growing and growing, and growing.
Speaker 1:So it's definitely uh gonna be there and you guys are mainly on, like the i-4 corridor, right, is that?
Speaker 2:um. Just off the turnpike on state road 50 are two of our locations Honda and Mazda and just off I-4 in Sanford is our Hyundai store. Okay, which is in Sanford? Yes, it's just off I-4 in that area.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so how did you tell me a little bit about your origin story? How'd you get into the car business? Why the car business? Okay, so it's really interesting.
Speaker 2:I never thought about going into the car business ever. Of course my mom worked in the dealership. Never thought about going into the car business ever. Of course my mom worked in the dealership.
Speaker 1:So your mom was in the car business.
Speaker 2:My mom was in the car business, okay.
Speaker 1:What did she do in the car business?
Speaker 2:She was a warranty administrator for a layman group.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And she did warranty for them. She worked in their car rental division. She was a service cashier, a parts secretary, so she kind of made her way through the fixed ops department. Okay. And one day she came home and said they're looking for a file clerk. And at the time I was 16 years old and I was just starting my senior year of high school. Oh, and I worked. I was scooped ice cream.
Speaker 1:So first scooping ice cream, then file clerk at a dealership and then a file clerk at the dealership oh my gosh yes but I mean, obviously you had your mom to kind of uh like guide you or sherpa you through the, the experience, right well, I mean, she worked in service and the file clerk was for accounting.
Speaker 2:So she basically handed me to accounting and said you know, there's this, the title title clerk. Her name is Bobby. She's fantastic. If you don't know what to do, go to her, she will guide you. And Bobby and I are still very, very good friends to this day.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, Is Bobby still in the car business?
Speaker 2:She is. She's actually a title clerk for Lehman Leasing. Oh wow.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:She's been in. She's worked for the Leh group um since the since 1982, I believe.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I mean layman. Layman in south florida is a huge table, absolutely. You know they'll probably get back into the car business after selling to lithia, but you know, good for them very happy for that, for that organization yeah, so you started with the file clerk, and then what was that like?
Speaker 2:um, it was interesting. Um, I started filing and the only thing I really noticed is, with the work they would give me, I would get it done really fast.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then I was like, okay, what else can you show me? What else can I do? My mom worked until six and I got there. She would pick me up. I did the school where you went to school until 12 and then you had a job. So she would come on her lunch break pick me up from school and I would go back to the dealership with her. So I needed to fill those six hours.
Speaker 2:So, just giving me a small stack of filing wasn't really cutting it for me. I'm like, okay, well, what else do you want me to do, you know? And then it just started, you know, separating paperwork, filling in for the receptionist for her lunch break, okay. And then which became being the receptionist on Saturdays whenever they needed someone to fill in. Basically, I learned how to do the different jobs in the office when people were either out sick, out on vacation.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Or someone came in, you know, during someone's lunch break and I needed to figure things out. So I basically learned how to do some title work by going to the drawer and looking at photocopies of title work that was done on the last car deal and saying, okay, does this look okay? And faxing a copy over to one of our sister stores, to title clerks, and saying does this look right? And she said yeah. So I said okay and that's how title work began.
Speaker 1:Oh wow. So you would basically be a floater in the office, just kind of covering for people.
Speaker 2:Floater in the office, and then I started doing their deposit every day. Okay so that's where you know that started counting all the money brought in from all the departments. Make sure everything you know balanced out. And I did that floated around the office, built car deals for them, did some title work, did a lot of fleet.
Speaker 2:We used to do thousands of fleet cars for alamone enterprise yeah so we would do 2500 pieces of title work in a couple weeks for fleet cars and I'll always remember our, our fleet manager, marianne, with the license plates and the screwdriver out there with her high heels on putting the license plates on all the cars she was the best.
Speaker 1:She was the best. Oh gee, but yeah. What was the car business like back then?
Speaker 2:it was. It was crazy, um, I mean, I worked for a store, we had buick, saab, hyundai, and we had a mitsubishi store, subaru su, suzuki, isuzu, hummer.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So we were really, really busy, especially in our service department. Our service department at that location served seven different manufacturers.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:So it was the parts department was crazy. It was just it was crazy because there was so much going on and no, it was just really interesting to learn. It was very, very busy, definitely. You know phones rang off the hook. Nobody had cell phones, yeah nobody had cell phones.
Speaker 2:Phones rang off the hook. We all learned everything on a green screen. I remember the day the first computer came in. Everybody was scared to touch it. So it was definitely very interesting. Um, you know the car business back then it was. It was not as um, it was just different. It was different. We were very much a friend. You know family. Everybody went out to dinner afterwards. It was, it was crazy.
Speaker 1:It was the 90s so you saw the transition basically from paper to computer, right Absolutely. To the computer infrastructure, because you were just really on that cutting edge and you were young, right, so you were already familiar with change. So what was that like? How did that translate? Did that skill set translate into your later IT strengths, or how did that work?
Speaker 2:It did a lot because at the time, the computer person whose responsibility was data entry Okay. And walking into the computer room and changing a reel for the data save.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the backup tape.
Speaker 2:You were the you know air quotes here computer person. Because you changed it was even before backup tapes. It was a gigantic reel. Oh, really, and you would trim the edge off if it wasn't catching when you put it on and it spun.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So then, my job every day was to take that reel off, take it to a fireproof safe, put it in and then that night, you know, drop another reel in before I went home and then posting everything, all of the hand-typed checks.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:We would put a check into a typewriter and we would type the check.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And they would give me the carbon copy in the back to post Okay. So it was data entry and changing a reel. You were the computer person.
Speaker 1:That was it, so the reel actually had the program on it. The reel was like Like where it recorded the data.
Speaker 2:Where it recorded the data.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then every day you would have to swap out, you'd have to change it every day, Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:And then on the weekends you would do, you know, every few months you would have to do a file save which took like six, eight hours. You would just sit there waiting for that wheel to stop spinning.
Speaker 1:Took a very long time, Very long time Did you have to actively monitor it, or no could you just be like go in and be like okay, it's saving, and then when it would stop, no, it would show you on the green screen. It would sit there and blink okay, so it would just sit there and blink and blink and blink and there was no cell phone to play on, so you literally just would wait oh, my gosh geez. So you've seen really what you know like paper. Then you went to the first kind of infrastructure of computers.
Speaker 1:Right, yes, the green screen monitors and then? So what was the evolution from there? How did your role transition from when technology starts getting implemented?
Speaker 2:So when at the time it was ADP, today it's CDK.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:When they first came in and they're talking to us about laser printers and now our receipts and our checks can print on laser printers and everybody was looking at each other like how on earth does that happen? And then it would automatically post into the system. So we got this laser printer. Nobody wanted to deal with it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So you know, you would just sit with them and start working on some of those setups. And then you know, this machine started to print a check on check stock and it automatically posted into cdk, into adp, which was, you know they were like wait a minute, we don't have to post this anymore, you know. So it was definitely changing the mindset of people who had been doing things on green bar paper, yeah, and on ledger books for a very long time.
Speaker 1:Was it with like the green, transparent visor and like the pencil Cigar smoke going up. No, well, they did smoke in the office as they wrote in pencil on their ledger books.
Speaker 2:But no, and nobody wanted to touch these computers. When the computers first came in, I remember we had one. It was our vice president's office, and anytime something needed to be done on the computer they came out and called me and they would just hover over me as I sat in a seat and typed.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, no pressure, no because you had to start paying sales tax online.
Speaker 2:So they stood behind me while I entered each figure in and then they checked it and they entered the next and you know it was hard, because where is this data going? You know, um. You know, back before I understood, um, you know what the internet was, that things went into a cloud. You know, back then it was very like mysterious, and now we know more of what it is. So it was harder for people who were in the industry, um, that had been already working. The car car industry 20, 30, 35 years did not accept it.
Speaker 2:Really and their jobs basically made them accept it because those green screens went away. So we did see. You know, there were people who just decided to retire. I remember they just didn't want to deal with that anymore. They didn't want to have to log on to a system to balance the credit cards for the day, they were used to just counting up the slips themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense you know it was a big change for everyone, and because I was the only one that didn't seem to be afraid of it, they said well, you're a computer person now, so one computer at one dealership turned into hundreds of computers over eight dealerships very, very quickly.
Speaker 1:So how long did that take? Suddenly, you have one computer that everybody's working on, and then everybody's working on a computer.
Speaker 2:Everybody's working on a computer. It probably took a couple of years. The manufacturers were really the ones that pushed us. I remember Saab was one of the very first that came in and said you now need to enter warranty claims on a computer. And you know, again they would call me back to the service office and I would sit down and somebody would tell me what to type because nobody wanted to touch this. This, oh my god. And and they did. You know, I I want to say they were, it was like windows 3.1 and they were like sloppy discs and all sorts of stuff everywhere and and a lot of people did really embrace it and start using it.
Speaker 2:Okay, um and and it was generally, you know, some of the some of the younger um associates that were there at the time embraced it and figured it out. So, as the manufacturers started bringing in computers, you know had to order cars on this computer using this system. You know, they're the ones who pushed us.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then ADP came out with their reflections, you know reflections, and we had to um, you know, slowly those computers got replaced. But then came the other issue now these computers got viruses and now these computers broke yes green screens. Either there were two things on green screens they worked or they didn't yeah, that was it yeah, there was no virus no virus.
Speaker 1:Yep, you plugged it in if it didn't work. You you know it goes wherever.
Speaker 2:But then all of a sudden we started running into these problems and we had to try to fix them. And there was no Googling the problem to figure out how to fix it. You just had to fix it and start calling people. So that's how it all began. So anything I learned at that point was definitely learned by doing it, by trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1:And it's not like you could go to a school that had been around for 10 years that is going to start showing you this how to use this stuff. It's just like, like most things in the car business, like, just figure it out, right. A fit foe is what the F that sticker. Right, Just figure it out.
Speaker 2:You that sticker right just figure it out you know. So I very much went to um car dealership college because that was it. Yeah, you know, I learned everything. I learned there, um, yeah, you just had to figure it out.
Speaker 1:I relied very heavily on those cdk field engineers when they came in yeah, I made them my best friends as you know, as know, I'm still very good friends with one of them.
Speaker 2:I made them my best friends because when they would come in, I would follow them around and I would ask a million questions.
Speaker 2:You know, I wanted to know why there was a dark line in the middle of the check on the laser printer. What was happening? Okay, there's some sort of heating element in it and it's not working properly. So changing the toner is not going to work. So I just kept asking, and asking and asking and before you know it, I was able to call in for support and say, hey, the heating element inside my laser printer is broken okay, you know so don't send me a new toner.
Speaker 2:I need you to send someone out to replace this.
Speaker 1:So and already, with a part that they're already like, you're doing the troubleshooting for them already. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I need a p-note, I need a modem, I need a crossover cable.
Speaker 1:I'm like you know a new printer head for? Oh yeah, I need a print head. Show me how to change that. Yeah, exactly yeah, then I had a tool.
Speaker 2:I had screwdrivers in my desk and, oh wow, 32lq printer print head. So yeah, very quickly I figured things out.
Speaker 1:Jeez. So what was the support from ADP? I know you know ADP back in the day used to have a different level of support that they have now. Tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:It was tremendous. Really it was tremendous, to the point where you could call up and you would get a lot of the time the same people over and over. You know I a lot of the time, the same people over and over. I remember some of the names accounting. If I knew I got Bobby in accounting, I knew my problem would be fixed. And then when you would call tech support James, his name was James. Anytime I would call and I knew I got James, james knew that I needed.
Speaker 2:if I said a P-note is dead and I need a replacement, he would send it and I would change it myself and we would send the next one back out the next day. So you kind of built a rapport with them and you kind of learned and you didn't have to start in the beginning where, okay, well, did you turn it off and on.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then he's like hey, cheryl, and you're like hey how was your weekend? What's going on? It's like oh no, I got this PNO. That's bad. Okay, you're ready. Yeah, that's a different relationship we had something at one point.
Speaker 2:I don't even remember what it used to do. It was called a Canoga.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So James used to call me Canoga girl.
Speaker 1:He's like hey, canoga girl, you need a Canoga today.
Speaker 2:So we were calling um because especially down here with the rainstorms, it seemed like any time there was thunder and lightning these devices were just so delicate, yeah, that they would fry that makes sense and and we would need new ones. So the support was unbelievable back then, um. And you know, one thing I do miss is when they did roll something out new, they used to send people out to the dealership because there are still many people in the auto industry that need their hands held when they're learning things A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Many, many, many yeah. And companies don't send human beings, you know out anymore. It's all done remotely, it's all done on Zoom, which for many things it's great, make it work. Nobody has to travel, the expenses are down. But I kind of miss, you know them, coming out and standing next to a service advisor or a technician?
Speaker 2:yep, however, they do today. We you know. You pay for it, of course. You sign up for x amount of visits per year and they send people out yeah, I think that that's such an art that's been lost in technology support.
Speaker 1:It's like that man, I like to call it the warm and fuzzy feeling. Yep, it's like just that extra level of customer service. Concierge, you have a relationship with the person rather than outsourcing it to God knows where. And I mean, maybe if you outsource it to God knows where but you have people that are part of your team and that those people build rapport with your customer base, then that may work. But just having rapport is like with our team, having somebody be like oh, I talked to Tin, or I talked to Katrina, or I talked to Juan, or I talked to John, and they're constantly talking to that people and that's what we based our company off of. And I just don't understand why. You know they, they. It seems like they step on the customer service for profitability, but it hurts you in the long term right and I mean you know it's it's to get customer service from many different industries these days.
Speaker 2:It's it's difficult, yeah, to call if you have a problem.
Speaker 1:I mean you know we we talk about. So I'm in a group and have you heard of clubhouse yet?
Speaker 1:no so, um, the clubhouse is like, uh, I talk about this way too many times, but um, it's 6 45 every morning we meet and talk about the car business right, dealer principals from across the country, vendors, gms you know people that are in the in the day-to-day grind, you know knocking it out right from. People that have three rooftops to 15 are in the in the day-to-day grind. You know knocking it out right from. People that have three rooftops to 15 are in there kind of talking, or like platform managers or you know, like maybe some manufacturer reps come in and we all kind of talk about what's going on in the business the good, the bad and the ugly, and everybody's talking about you know, how technology is gonna replace all these people, and I'm like man, you're looking at it from the wrong direction.
Speaker 1:Technology can eliminate the repetitive jobs that can be automated, freeing you up to provide a high level of customer service and, like in our world, I can automate chat, gbt, most things. But if you can't jump on the phone and be a warm body on the other side, that's having a genuine relationship with the person that you're supporting. They have that confidence to go back to that tool and do their job appropriately.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and actually very recently at a conference, there was a vendor there that I was so impressed with. I came back to my store and said I need you guys to see what this vendor's doing, and it's AI.
Speaker 1:Okay. I could shout out this vendor right, yeah, of course, of course, 100% they're really cool people Stella AI. Yeah.
Speaker 2:They came out to our dealership. You know I saw them do a demonstration at the conference and they came out to our dealership and it's AI receptionist.
Speaker 1:That's smart.
Speaker 2:But it does not replace all the receptionists. My receptionist may be on a phone call with someone, may be doing a cash receipt, may be giving a customer a tag, answering customers' concern while they wait for their finance manager to come out and take them back to their office. They're very busy and sometimes we have three receptionists there at a time that are busy dealing with the people in front of them, whether it be a sales associate, a sales manager, finance customer, anybody, someone asking where the restroom is, you know. But in the meantime, phones are ringing off, the hook and you hook, and I challenge anybody to, of course, go look at their phone logs and see missed calls. There are missed calls, unbelievable amount of missed calls. So what Stella AI does and products like it, I'm sure is they will answer the phone and they will handle the majority of questions.
Speaker 1:Times you open.
Speaker 2:where are you located?
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Based on recognition from your phone number, you can make a service appointment.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you can tell them what you want to come in for and you don't have to be like really specific. You can say you know, my car's making a weird noise, you know, and AI will ask how many miles Around 25,000, you know, and it'll make a service appointment for you. But in the meantime, while they're on the phone making that service appointment and of course that system can handle 20, 100 cars- 100 calls at a time.
Speaker 2:It's 24-7. The people that used to answer that are busy helping the customer standing in front of them, so I don't see it at all as a replacement. I see it more as an enhancement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, an augmentation.
Speaker 2:Helping, allowing us to take care of those customers that are in front of us, to take care of that customer on the phone that has a more complex problem that a you know that ai will probably never you know, I don't think ever be able to fix yeah but um, and then let other people get on and off that phone quickly handling something.
Speaker 1:So, um, I I do think it's, I don't think it'll replace yeah, that's like you know, I bring this, bring this up a lot and there's a lot of good ai products out there and I think style is the one. Do they do the ro's? Will they fill out the stories in the ro's? Is that the same company?
Speaker 2:I don't think. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:We only talked about a service appointment there was one company, and I thought it was stella, that they you know what a service. You know service tech will be like needs breaks, all in caps, you know what I mean. Like, rather than being needs breaks, it's you know he'll write the the ai will write out the whole story based on the actions taken. So it's like 30 000 mile check done, needs breaks or whatever, and it will write out the full story rather than you know, sending the customer for an approval all caps, you know. And eed, you know breaks, right, it's like just this. You know, just um kind of blanket statement of what it's going to look like.
Speaker 1:So I thought that was pretty cool. But, um, what I was going to say before is that you know, it's like how do you kill a great bdc agent? It's like you have them make a hundred thousand mind numbing calls where they're going to find one or two nuggets of customer interaction, right. It's like if you have an outstanding um bdc agent that's killing it out there. That's like sending gifts and sending text messages and communicating with the customer, sending their birthdays and have real authentic engagement. Have them use that and then have the ai do the mining of all the kind of garbage. Right, it's like this automated stuff until they're you know, if they're cold, have the AI automate all that garbage and then, when it's a warm, when they've engaged a couple times and it's warmed up, get them to the authentic person. So I don't know if it's the business that hasn't clicked yet, but I keep seeing. You know, people either use AI as this blanket solution and bastardize the whole process and throw the whole thing away, or they're worried about being replaced.
Speaker 2:Right, right. And I think if they did it where you know, they used it to make the process better. You know AI could be busy making those service appointments, canceling service appointments, answering some simple questions, and your staff could be creating memorable experiences for your customer, because it's not just about coming in and buying a car. You want that customer to have a great experience. I know at Headquarter, you know we have a wall with you know five-star reviews.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I keep seeing these reviews where you know they created they made it a wonderful experience to buy a car. It's a stressful experience to buy a car, even for me who's been in the industry for a long time. You know they take the time with the customer to explain everything, to show them all the features of the car. When you take that time and you're not rushing someone in and someone out so you can get to the next sale, that customer is going to remember that time you spent with them to show them, to explain the terms, to explain the financing, to explain what they're signing. They're going to remember that and they're going to come back to you. Remember that and they're going to come back to you. So you know that little more time that you're spending with them creates that memory, makes them tell someone else about it.
Speaker 2:You know, that now they're saying hey, I got a great new, you know, look at my new car, it was a great experience. Oh, or you know? Or if someone says oh, isn't that a hassle? No, it was great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I can. You can tell from and I wanted to get into this a little bit. It's like you can tell how great the organization is by just like walking like I've walked into all your guys's dealerships and you can really tell that it's a great culture.
Speaker 1:You know, it's like some dealerships, there's like a scent in the air you know, like something you're like oof, I don't know about this place and you can kind of tell like the fine details, like if stuff's kind of messed up and the place is not really taken care of and everybody's kind of angry or sitting outside like sharks smoking cigarettes, like you guys walk into your. If somebody walks into your organization, everything's like there's activity, everybody's nice, they have like there's a lot like you see a lot like employee engagement things than at most dealerships, like stuff written on the like oh, that's like you know good job, so-and-so you guys did something awesome and like shout-outs and you kind of see that through the whole organization You're like this is pretty cool to see and you can really tell that the organization geez, something else Cheryl's petting our dog Shelby now I can't resist a dog, I can't resist pets.
Speaker 1:He warms up to you, but you can see organizations that have that culture that permeates everything that you guys do. What's that been like? I know you've been at several different organizations, everyone having its own style, but it seems like Headquarters has something pretty special going on.
Speaker 2:Headquarters has something pretty special going on. Headquarters has something very special going on. My very first week I parked in employee parking and as I walked to my office, you know I had been introduced to the managers, to you know, they took me on a tour through the whole dealership. But as I walked past the body shop where all the body men were doing their work outside, they all said good morning. Every single one of them said good morning. And when you know, my second day there I finally got to meet the owner and I said he said how do you like it? I said, you know, everybody says good morning to me. Everybody's been so warm and welcoming. I've never even being at a place for a long time, I never remember having that. And you know, yes, the Lehman organization is fantastic, the Lehman family is fantastic. It was just very different back then.
Speaker 2:And you know the people you worked in with your group and and you know I definitely have. I'm still friends with many people I worked with then. Um, but there's just something very special about where I am and, of course, I'm doing something different now. So you know, it's a different experience.
Speaker 2:But whether I walk into the store in Toyota or it's a Honda store in Claremont or Hyundai store in Sanford sales associates that don't know me greet me you know, of course we have our uniform shirt on and our name tag, but everybody is just warm and friendly and inviting and I haven't really had to deal with anyone who wasn't in this organization.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I just think it's because you know they look for the right associates.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, okay.
Speaker 2:You know, I just feel that they look for I don't know. I don't know what it is. It's like magic. They just find the right people. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean there's, you know there's a kind of esoteric thought about that. It's like, you know, people talk about, like the law of attraction and stuff like that and they say, like, like attracts, like it's like, the more an organization is a certain way, they'll attract more people of that of that ilk, you know, and that works both ways right, for the positive and for the negative. Right, and I've certainly walked into organizations like Headquarters and, you know, other organizations across the country and you can just kind of tell the temperament of the dealer, right, like you can tell the fabric of the dealer and you're like, oh, this organization is, you know, open and welcoming. And then you walk into some other organizations you're like, oof, you know, it just kind of puts you on high alert.
Speaker 1:But that's one of the things that most impressed me about your guys' organization is that everybody that I've talked to is like that. It's kind of really open, very courteous, very nice. You can see it from the leadership. I follow you on Instagram and your social media. You know we're friends on Facebook and I see you guys doing something and it's like, oh, you know, we went on this retreat. See you guys doing something, it's like, oh, you know we went on this retreat and we're doing this and we're doing that. It's really cool to see that from an outsider's perspective.
Speaker 2:You know, headquarter is always doing something, whether it's team building with associates or having pumpkin decorating or snowman decorating contests between the departments at Christmas time. To doing things in the community, headquarter helps, is huge, headquarter helps. Uh, we're a title sponsor for the jingle bell jog okay jingle bell. I don't think it's called that anymore. The reindeer run um and it supports veterans um that's in miami lakes. We do that every year it's huge um. So much just goes on um with a local church in the community. We're a big sponsor of their um.
Speaker 2:They have like a festival every year and we have volunteers that go there. They hand out shirts, they hand out prizes, lots of swag, um. They just have a lot of um things that headquarterps does in the neighborhood, whether it's needing three or four of our associates to go and help. Maybe, you know, pack backpacks for kids for school to huge events like that 5k I mean, that's a big event takes a lot of sponsors from from Headquarter Helps and when I see them, you know come in and their red Headquarter Help shirts and their red converse. So this is their uniform.
Speaker 2:It just makes me smile because I know they're out there. They're out there doing for the community, so it's a really great thing. And the Orlando stores do it as well. They're very involved with Claremont. They're always out there doing something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it seems like it creates a sense of exchange with the community and that they always see, you know that the auto group is doing something and then they, you know, see it as a great organization to do business with. Yes, yeah. And you can see that from the employment side too. It's like there's a job opening at headquarter. I'm like reposting, you know, like hey, that's a great, you know.
Speaker 1:I'm always going to repost and say, hey, this is a great, a great opportunity over here, because I know the group and I know how strong you guys are with your culture, so it's, it's really cool to see to, you know, recommend anybody to go to go join the team, you know.
Speaker 2:Right, and I actually have um recruited quite a few people I've worked with at other dealerships to work with me there at headquarter and um, I know what you mean because I I previously worked for a dealership for a little while and you know there's places I would not, you know, recommend. I wouldn't have recommended somebody to come there just because I don't want them to call me up and be mad at me. It's almost like no, but um, definitely at headquarter.
Speaker 2:Um, I have, I, I believe I'm up to three uh that I used to work with, that I've known for years and years and years and you see how many, though, how much those places will like augment the best.
Speaker 1:You know like in great cultures, they'll augment the best of you, and in crit and terrible cultures it will augment the worst of you. You know like you'll go to, like your just like people are so much a product of their environment. You know right, he's like you'll go to, like you're just like people are so much a product of their environment. You know Right, it's so wild, that's so wild to see.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I just had a young lady come back to the car industry who left the car industry years ago and said you know we kept in touch over social media and said I'll only come back if I work with you and we had an opening.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2:And I reached out to her and I'm like, hey, do you want to come by? And she goes I'm actually on my way to a job interview somewhere else. I go okay, go do that one, but then come here after and she did and she's. She's there today.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great, that's really great. So tell me about, um, you know, I I some of the strongest women, some of the coolest women that I've ever met, most professional women I met in the automotive business, right, I have tons of respect for it and I know that the automotive business can be a double-edged sword. You know whatever you want to call that, right, it can be a toxic environment for women or it can be a thriving environment, depending on the culture of the organization. What are some challenges and some benefits that you've seen in that?
Speaker 2:like being a woman in the automotive business. In the beginning it wasn't easy. It definitely wasn't easy um you know, I remember back in the day and someone would come in and say, let me talk to your it guy because you know my desk was towards the front and I'm like, okay, well, that's me, and they're like, no, no, for real, where's the guy and I'm like, okay, where's the guy and I'm like, okay, I'm the guy.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, you know, at the time I had to start building a staff and my staff was all men, um, and for the majority it worked out great.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You know, however, you know you. You just you know different people, different personalities, and then you know you have someone working and you're the manager and you're managing and you know, yeah, we kept it fun. I mean, it's IT, you've got to keep it fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, but you know, when you know someone would call you babe or hun, even if you weren't their manager, just another coworker, you're like, excuse me, like no, we're not going to do that. So you know it was right, it was difficult and I remember stepping up at one point when we had a meeting at the dealership, you know, back when I was still like the data entry clerk, slash, changing a reel. But then a lot of stuff started happening and they had a management meeting and they called me in to get my opinion about everything with the computers going on and what we needed to do. And I said you know, they were talking about hiring someone and I said wait a second, I'm doing the work right now, like I'm raising my hand, let me do this. And a man in the room said absolutely no way, just absolutely. He said that is absolutely not going to happen and I'm like wait a second.
Speaker 1:I'm doing the work.
Speaker 2:I'm getting called 24-7. I'm handling things, I'm fixing things, I'm cleaning up viruses. I'm figuring it out. Why won't you let me do this? I'm already doing it. Long story short, he wasn't with the company much longer I'm not sure why and they said, hey, are you still willing to do that?
Speaker 1:and I said well, I'm already doing it, so yes, let's do it exactly.
Speaker 2:Um might as well pay me for it, exactly so um which they really did it back in the day it was still considered a very clerical position.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I think it's still considered a very clerical position.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then you know, I can remember when we built a car dealership and before you know it I was on a job site with the electrical riser blueprints yeah, working with the people who did the electrical and the cabling, telling them where I needed stub ups and where I needed, you know, isolated ground and where my copiers were going to be and where this was going to be. And here comes in a consultant they hired and he's like, well, that's my job and I'm like wait, like on site to the job site and I'm like well, wait a minute.
Speaker 2:I just marked the whole thing up a little, like you know all my little triangles and I I'm done I'm done.
Speaker 2:Here you go, I'm done yeah because I asked questions and I figured out how to do this yeah um, and then you know to go to, then buy cells where I would walk in and there would be a room full of, you know, owners and partners, and it was all men and I would say you know, I'm the IT person that's coming in to meet with their IT person and everything I would say. A man would turn to another man and say is that right? So you know, it was hard, it took a long time, but it's changed, at least in the organization where I am now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:At champion or at um at headquarter? Women are championed. Um, that's awesome, we go to a conference every year called women in automotive.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And at that, women in automotive conference. You have everything from female technicians, female finance directors, female dealer principals, um female women that work for the manufacturers. You know it's unbelievable. And they're just there to help share information, mentor, lift each other up. It's wonderful. It's how I met my current mentor that I've been working with for a year and she's absolutely amazing. I love love working with for a year and she's uh, um, she's absolutely amazing. Um, I love, love working with her.
Speaker 1:So how, how important is it for you know, just people in general?
Speaker 2:to have a mentor. Like what does that provide for? It do? Um, it increases your, your ability to think outside the box. Maybe you thought about this situation or handling a situation with staff in one way and you're not really looking at it from from another perspective.
Speaker 2:Um, my mentor is Kathy Gilbert she works for CDKdk okay, um, and she's just amazing and although she doesn't work in a dealership, it's okay, because a lot of the things that we talk about are about leadership. Yeah, um, and currently I'm working with her as a mentor uh, mentee relationship, but now I am learning to step into that role, to be a mentor for other people in the other people as well, not just in my group.
Speaker 2:Um, I currently have an office manager at another Toyota dealership that is eventually taking over for her controller and I've been working with her for a little while and we got to talking and we actually know each other. We worked together after a few minutes. We're like wait a minute, Really.
Speaker 1:Are you that?
Speaker 2:person. Oh, are you that person? Yes, we remembered each other after a couple minutes of conversation and now, through the Southeast Toyota Controllers Association Controllers Conference that they have, we were assigned If you wanted to step up and be a mentor or a mentee. You put your name on a list and I've been assigned someone. So they have a new program that they're going to start this summer where we're going to work with people who are newer controllers and not only newer controllers, but maybe a newer controller at a toyota store uh, okay so you know, they get to learn some of the things.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, that's more of a helping them with like the manufacturer and things like that. It's not so much as a relationship, like you know, a mentor-mentee relationship, like Kathy and I have, where we talk about literally everything. So I'm working towards that and being, hopefully, hopefully one of these years, a mentor with women in automotive where I can mentor other women who are up and coming in the auto industry, regardless of what they want to do in the industry. That's great. Or men that's fine too.
Speaker 1:That's fine, women or men. No, I just think that there's, you know, there's, you know. Obviously the car business has been been male dominated for many years. Yes, but I think it's such a cool opportunity I love seeing women in this group that I'm in this modern-day car sales thing and we went to there's a thing called the Automotive On Conference and we go it's at CarNow's.
Speaker 1:Are you familiar with CarNow? No, they're a big vendor in the car business and we go to their offices and her name's Jessica. She's with CMA, you know, are you familiar with CMA? Liza Borges? No, borges, I think, is her last name, but anyway, she's kind of a famous you know group and you know she was like single mom, mother of two, got into the BDC and then was like I just need a chance, just like one of those stories. Right, she's like just give me a chance.
Speaker 1:And she was part of our group and then just getting kind of poured into every morning and we're all talking and we're all becoming friendly and she's out there killing it. That's great, doing so incredibly well. And she got a standing ovation at the at the conference. Everybody's like, you know, just kind of everybody kind of it was had. I don't know how else to put it, but it had like this, you know, like spiritual retreat vibe to it. You know, it's like it was just so cool to see that. It's like the automotive business is filled with those stories of people that are, you know, maybe came like second chances or just needed a chance or whatever that looks like, and didn't just created these incredible careers out of it. And I'm so proud to be part of that, that community, you know it's wonderful.
Speaker 2:I I got to talk with so many incredible people at that toyota conference and there was a controller that I don't remember talking to her last year. We probably would say hello in passing, um, but we sat down and talked and she had a similar story where she, you know, did everything in the office, was a receptionist, uh, worked in the office, did sales, became a general manager.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:And she's now, you know, a controller for this group, and I said to her your story needs to be told.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And she looked at me and I said think of all the young people that are out there or maybe not young maybe who are just starting in the industry to hear that there's opportunity, that there is growth, that there are things you want to do. So when I came to work for Headquarter, I was the controller for their Toyota store. They were building a Mazda store which opened about, I think, nine months after I started working there, and then they had the Honda and Hyundai stores. I really didn't do much with them because they hired me to be the controller for just Toyota. So as it got closer and closer to Mazda opening, they asked me if I can help out with Mazda. I said, of course, you know, let's. Let's see what we do. You know we'll do. And after that, first women in automotive conference, one of the speakers said don't be afraid to speak up and ask for what you want.
Speaker 1:That's a powerful message.
Speaker 2:Do not be afraid. At that moment my boss was sitting next to me, my boss Judy, and after a couple minutes I wrote down on a piece of paper and I said I need to ask you something when we get back to the office. And she said ask me on the break. So we go out on the break to have a cup of coffee. And I I said to her um, I would like to be the controller for all of your stores good for you I want to do that go big or go home and she said okay, and then we talked about it and she's like you know, that's a lot of work, that is a lot you know and and wasn't.
Speaker 2:She didn't say okay, here have these other two stores. You know, here the work is yours now. It was gradual. I started doing a few things. I started getting more involved, I started visiting the stores. Um, it became a little bit at a time and now I can say that we're at the point where I'm able to do their financial statements and close their month and she's our chief financial officer. So at the end she still looks at the financial statement and everything goes over with the owners. But I sit and go over expenses with my GMs and go over everything and get it all to that point where she looks at it with ownership and says, okay, it's good to go ahead and transmit, but she's not involved at month end anymore with those. You know that huge, long checklist of things that need to be done. You know just because she's such a great teacher.
Speaker 1:Has a competent team.
Speaker 2:And yes, and we have an amazing team at all the locations and she has taught me and she was patient and if I didn't know something I would say hey, you know what? I've never done that before. I was an assistant controller when I came to headquarter, so I never had that role. I helped, you know, I would help with certain projects, but I never had that whole responsibility and she taught me. She taught me more probably in the first six months there than I had learned from anybody in my whole career. She's amazing.
Speaker 1:I mean that talks so much about leadership. It's like how much a good leader can be impactful in your career and just blossom somebody's new skill set that they never had before. So that's, that's incredible, I mean. But you were all. You also had the courage to ask and say, hey, I'm, I'm open to do this as well.
Speaker 2:You know I was taught a long time ago. The only thing people can say is no, yeah, and I've heard no. I've heard no a lot. And you know sometimes no is a is a good thing, because then, you know, a different opportunity arises. You know I've left an organization for being told no you know and saying okay, well, I don't feel like I have room to grow here anymore.
Speaker 2:So, now I'm going to make a change. So you know as hard as it is sometimes to leave and make that change. It was the best, absolute best thing for me, yeah that makes sense absolute best and you know um. It's great.
Speaker 1:I'm in a great place so how's your background in technology giving you has? You know, I I always have this, I always have this thought that, like it, people or people that have a technology background, know kind of everything in the background, like how everything's kind of working. You must have a superpower because you know it from the background, like how the minions work behind the scenes and also from a financial perspective. So you probably have such a deeper understanding of the organization that it'd probably be pretty useful.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean it really does help, because IT is in a dealership and I'm sure you know in other industries as well is beyond the break fix. Yeah, you know, a lot of it is that system administration and setting up of your dms systems. Um, you know how does everything interface into one another yeah because if things aren't set up correctly, you can have.
Speaker 2:You can have a lot of problems. But yes, as far as um, you know, for instance, when the computers are slow, um, in the office, you know, you know there's instance when the computers are slow in the office, you know, you know there's something going on. Okay, I automatically think we've got to be on backup internet.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Of course I text ITM where they say oh, we're on our backup internet.
Speaker 1:We're on our backup internet.
Speaker 2:And you know when, when things aren't working properly, you know there's always. I automatically like think okay, there's, there's gotta be something going on here. But you know's.
Speaker 2:Always, I automatically like think, okay, there's, there's got to be something going on here. But you know, it's wonderful, it's very helpful when thinking about, like an active directory hierarchy. Yeah, um, when it comes to knowing who needs access to what, yeah, that is really, really important. Yeah, because if you don't have, if you don't work with it and say the payroll group, you know there's different things in payroll. You have your payroll clerks, you have your HR directors, you have the people who are in onboarding. They don't all have the same access.
Speaker 1:No, and you don't want to. You know everybody access to pay plans and yeah, everything needs to be, everything needs to be in its home.
Speaker 2:It's just you know everybody access to pay plans and, yeah, Everything needs to be in its home. It's just, you know, imagine a building with a ton of doors and all those doors have a lock on it and inside those doors there's lots of other doors and locked file cabinets and there are very few master keys and you have to be very careful about who has a key to open what you know to put it into.
Speaker 1:I mean just something as simple as onboarding and offboarding you know, new hires and terms. Car business has a lot of turnover and if you don't have a process set up for that, it can be a disaster, especially with the regulations that are coming up. It's just not good at all.
Speaker 2:Just that checklist that HR has to have to remove access from key fobs, turn that access off, turn the CDK access off, all those applications that they log into. Now we all have authenticators on our phones like half a dozen authenticators for different websites. You know they have a checklist of everything that an associate's been given access to so they can go down and turn it all off if the time should come.
Speaker 1:Have you guys done the simple ID rollout for CDK yet?
Speaker 2:I believe many people are. I'm on it.
Speaker 1:That's the black icon. Yep, I'm on it yeah that's a good rollout, that's a good good step up from them that they're doing that multi-factor authentication right and and so many, so many of the websites are, um.
Speaker 2:You know, with all those codes I have on my phone constantly, it's like if you forget your phone you can't work oh yeah, you gotta go home and get it, you gotta go get it or you know, because not even your Apple Watch will save you. Yeah, not at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not at all. You know, one of the things that I'm really encouraging dealerships to see is to look at technology as a force multiplier rather than like a net negative.
Speaker 1:And what I mean by that is, like you know, everybody should be everybody's help desk right in some capacity. So if you're a controller at one location, you can jump on a Teams call and then share your screen and say this is how you load this deal to this, you know account, or this is how you structure your chart of accounts for this and this is how you reconcile this and you can be your own help desk. And so I'm like thinking like, thinking like from a systems perspective, like how do you make the organization denser? You make the organization denser by creating new connections, like your warranty administrator talking directly with a service technician or with the foreman, and then they're chatting back and forth and they can be like hey, look at this, look at that, and then they're not kind of chasing each other around and you create a more dense organization, and technology has the ability to do that it does and and you have to use it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to use it because if you don't, you know, like if you look at something like a month end, let's say, an office manager, um, a bookkeeper and your controller all have their month-end checklists and you're working on five stores at the same time and you know item three can't be done until items one or two are done. Well, item one might be one person, item two might be another. So everybody's constantly asking is this finished yet?
Speaker 2:Is that done yet? Is this finished yet? Is that done yet? So it's something like I'm working on in my mind, like you know, okay, I think of it as a Google doc, but, you know, with just vague things on it, because you know that's not a very secure document, it's out there, you want to do it in SharePoint, right, right, do it in.
Speaker 2:SharePoint. But just to say you know when you're finished with a task, you know, because one person might be working remotely Yep, one person might be working in Claremont and one person's here in Miami, you know, and to be able to stop emailing each other. This is done, that is done.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine the mess, it's just constant.
Speaker 2:Oh golly, and then you know, I'll ask someone hey, you know is, is this finished yet? And she goes oh yeah, email the two three years ago, or three three hours ago. So you know now it's buried under 30 emails and you have to go back and you have to find it. If we could just use something that's like a shared, everything that's like okay, this is what Jennifer's responsible for, this is what Ron is responsible for. These are all real people, by the way.
Speaker 2:Fabulous, fabulous people Um you know, I think it will help us and we're moving towards there. We have streamlined so many processes. That's great. Yeah, we have. You know, we are done closing, ready to submit the financial statement for the four stores plus our rental car this month. We did it in five business days.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's outstanding.
Speaker 2:And you know, just got a lot of cars. What do you do for?
Speaker 1:the rest of the five days. You have the other five days. We go to the beach.
Speaker 2:No, no, you know, you start working on because in addition, you know in addition to having that going on. You know you're in the audit period and you know there's just a million other things to get done. And then what can you work on? You can work on growing those associates. You know, I heard someone say one time it's, you know, it's all about making your C players, b players and your B players, a players A players, all stars and your all stars legends.
Speaker 2:You don't have time to do that if you're closing the month for almost two weeks of the month. Exactly of time to do that if you're closing the month for almost two weeks? Yeah, exactly exactly, because by the time you catch up from closing the month, it's time to close another one, and that doesn't work for anybody there's no time for training.
Speaker 1:There's no time for culture. There's no time for for cross-training people.
Speaker 2:There's no time for anything right there's no time to to change things, to make things leaner. I, I, just I'm you. You know this is probably going to. You know, if someone's listening and they're a master black belt. Lean Sigma Six black belt they're gonna laugh at me but I just started Lean Sigma Six, okay, and I got my white belt. I know people don't even recognize that one. It's a belt, it's a belt.
Speaker 1:It's a belt.
Speaker 2:But now you know I'm I said you know I know some people start at like yellow or green, but I'm kind of like I don't know, I kind of like the whole process.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So I'm starting, you know in pre-K and, but you know what? There's useful information in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's a quick enough. Basically, it's an intro to Lean Six Sigma.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And it's something that I shared with quite a few associates at work. It was about maybe 10 hours of reading and then the little quiz at the end. I think for those of us that don't have a lot of time, it's nice to start with that quick little look at it versus. I know have some you know people I know in the business that are starting with their green belt and their project is going to take a year, year. There's a lot of people that will do it for maybe a month yeah and then stop.
Speaker 2:But I think if you start and you get somebody to buy into it, just by learning those fundamentals of you know, lean processing and eliminating wasteful steps yeah and you get that buy-in and they get that little certificate to print out. You know, it's a free course.
Speaker 2:It's a free course, and now they're excited about the next step. So maybe the next step takes them a little longer, but they're not jumping into it with a year Cause you know, if you tell me I have to finish a course, that's a year, I'd probably do it. But starting out and getting them excited especially people who are completely unfamiliar with it so you know what, if I was going to share that with my team, I wanted to start with what I'm going to share, that I've done intro before. I didn't do a certification. I've done intro before, years ago. So if I'm going to ask somebody to do it, I'm going to do it first and then I'll be able to. You know, when they come back with their feedback and that's the one thing I ask them when you're done, can you tell me, give me some feedback?
Speaker 1:I want to hear.
Speaker 2:What is your takeaway from that? You know so. Right now I'm waiting on one associate, a fellow manager. You know so, right now I'm waiting on one associate, a fellow manager, to come and give me his feedback. And he and I have had a lot of conversations and he recently told me that he's going to start mentoring a new parts manager.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great.
Speaker 2:It's in a dealership in another state that he met and I'm really excited for him.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:So yeah.
Speaker 1:Man. I mean, imagine if everybody was. You know, the organization was like a Lean Six Sigma white belt. You'd have such a common language to understand and just doing that a lot of the higher you go, the benefit is smaller. It does have some leaning out, for lack of a better term of how much progress you can make, for lack of a better term of how much progress you can make right, Right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:But it's like if you go to a dealership and you implement normal meetings right, you implement, you know, contracts in transit, you know you're looking at service. You can't imagine how much that increases the productivity of the organization just by being a little bit organized. You know One of the guys in this group. He what? He runs a really really, really successful mercedes store in ohio. And have you heard of mondaycom?
Speaker 1:no so mondaycom is like really popular and it's like sales. You know, you've heard of salesforce, right, yeah, so it's like salesforce. But you know, for project management and he manages fixed through mondaycom like a ticketing system. So every car or every vehicle that's going through service is in a queue and it has a ticket assigned to it. So it's like, okay, so what's going on with? You know Ms Lopez with her vehicle. So you look up the VIN or you look up the ticket for that vehicle and you're like, oh no, it's in parts.
Speaker 1:The technician already looked at it, the parts, and they integrated that with Teams or Slack and you can, everybody communicates and then everybody knows exactly what's happening in the workflow and the ecosystem of the, of fixed right, of the service environment, Warranty can talk, parts can talk hey, there's no truck today, guys, you know everybody. Hey, attention, everybody, there's no truck arriving today. So everybody knows that there's no truck right or parts arriving today. But but he said something that that cut pretty hard in the car business. He said you know, sometimes you can, you can run the car business like an actual business, not like a dealership. Was like oof, that cut deep. So that's what comes up every time I hear about technology is, like you know, you see some of these dealers that are that are leveraging technology to you a multi-faceted, multi-level communication platform that you can have channels for accounting, for sales, for executive team, for, you know, trade appraisals, for contracts and transit, and everybody's communicating with each other and you're just creating more density in the system.
Speaker 2:Right. It and technology are so much more than the break fix keep me from getting a virus, keep things running smoothly that it was back in the 90s when I did it, and I don't want to say that's one of the reasons I moved back into accounting from IT, because there's definitely a point where the continuing education and trying to work and having children and a family, you know it becomes a lot of work. So you know, I did the classes, I did the A plus, I did the Net+, I did the MCSE dealer programming school with ADP. I did all of that. But you cannot stop learning and you can't stop learning about all of these wonderful things. Like you said, it's not just about being the people that you come and complain to that my computer is running slow. No, it's bringing in these solutions that are going to work hand in hand with Lean Six Sigma and make things, make things more efficient. And it's not just about efficiency, it's about error reduction.
Speaker 1:Yes, but effectiveness. Effective error reduction yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean it's, it's, it's huge and um, you know it, you know it's just something that keeping everybody communicating, keeping everyone on that same page, you know, especially when you're all working on a project together instead of texting each other and emailing each other saying A is done, b is done, c is done. Oh, I can't finish E until tomorrow. And now I can't start F until you finish E. And it's just, we need to get there, we will we will get there.
Speaker 2:But, um, you know, it's just, it's just something as, as far as I was concerned, you know, I loved the accounting part of it and always got pulled back into that accounting part of it and it, and you know, at some point I I literally said, um, you know, it was probably about 10 or 11 years ago and I was just carrying a really heavy printer down a set of stairs about 10 or 11 years ago and I was just carrying a really heavy printer down a set of stairs and I said you know, I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 1:I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 2:I want to go home. Do you have a desk for me in accounting? Yeah and um, and I tried to get that desk back in accounting with that group, but they just didn't um have an opportunity for me. I waited a really long time.
Speaker 1:18 months I.
Speaker 2:I, I stuck it out because I wanted to be there forever. But, um, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:I tried, but I had to go find that opportunity and I did so you were talking a little bit about um designing the dealership from an IT perspective, from the blueprints yes what? Let's talk about that a little bit. I mean so many times there's not an IT room.
Speaker 2:it was one of the biggest things I fought for when we had those blueprints and I said where's the MDF? And they're like the what? So, for those not knowing what an MDF is the main data facility.
Speaker 2:Yes, so one of my very first main data facilities was just full of those big reels that we had and a line printer, until I got in charge and I said, okay, we need to move the printer out because nobody needs to be in that room. It shared a wall with the restrooms so if there was flooding you know the floor was wet.
Speaker 1:I think I know exactly what I do. You know that room is. The floor was wet. I think I know exactly what I do.
Speaker 2:You know what that room is and then the first time I walked into the phone closet because they gave the phone system a closet.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:MDF. You were lucky to be on the back of a wall, behind a door that somebody was opening into, yes, banging into it and all the toner was stored in there as well. So when I first walked into that room where all those cables for all those pot lines were all over the walls, guess what? What was in front of them?
Speaker 2:three helium tanks oh geez so I went and I got the biggest sharpie I could find and I drew like a square on the like anybody would listen to it. I drew like a big rectangular section in front of that wall that was about four feet out and I said do not put anything here okay and every time I went in there to do something, I had to roll those helium tanks away from that wall. Oh, because you know all of the forms for you know finance were stored in there yeah the balloons for the weekend were stored in there you know all the.
Speaker 2:They would just take, like you know the, the sales things, the bows for christmas, for the cars, every shove everything in that room yeah and you know I would go in there and a line would be down. Well, something was leaning against the wall. I'm like guys come on. Yeah, you know it's just so self-inflicted in some capacity it is so you know back then when, when you're building a dealership, you you had to fight for those rooms.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I can remember nearly every parts manager I knew had a rack in his office.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, yep, yep, Absolutely, because they usually had a pretty big office.
Speaker 2:There was nowhere to put it back there in parts because every square inch had parts. Yep Parts managers had a rack in their office and they knew how to shut down and bring that thing up. Yeah, whether you did it on the phone, the parts you know, going back the parts manager was always my partner, my IT partner in crime.
Speaker 1:Makes sense.
Speaker 2:Because they knew how to bring everything up and down, just like I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because system would go down. They would be in my office, because in a parts department when the system is down, you can't sell.
Speaker 1:You're dead in the water.
Speaker 2:I mean, you could still turn a wrench and change tires, but parts can't do anything. So you know, they were always my best friend and they always knew how to bring the system up if I was on vacation and something would happen. So you know, getting that dedicated space and just now, with you know, for security purposes, those IT rooms not only need to be their own room, but they need to be locked down. They need to have the correct kind of you know.
Speaker 1:Sign-in sheet.
Speaker 2:Sign-in sheet. Ac A system that will, you know, suck the oxygen out of the room in case there's a fire. I mean, it's not just Fire suppression. Yes, it is Thank you for giving me the right name for that, see. Thank you for giving me the right name for that.
Speaker 1:See what happened when I went back to accounting.
Speaker 2:I forget all the names of things, but you know, getting people to take that seriously was really, really hard. And I do believe I got a closet in each of those locations one in the parts department Instead of it being in his office it was on the other side of his. They just made his office smaller to give me a closet. And then, of course, in sales, you know they put it on the second floor. You know you had to go through a couple of storage rooms and climb your way in there sometimes.
Speaker 1:So the you know I I always think back to you know, like just kind of fighting with those, with those, with those architects, and saying, hey, you've got to get this main room that's centrally located, that's locked out, you know that nobody has access to and that you have battery backups and it's. You know it's properly set up because the whole infrastructure basically works off of that you know, but you know, I keep thinking like what's?
Speaker 1:you know, I've always had this thought. It's like who understands the IT person better? Is it fixed or variable? And it's always for me, fixed, the fixed mindset 100%. Because they know if a hunter mission goes down that they're going to be in trouble. Right, absolutely. So they understand long-term planning and effective rate for the IT infrastructure. Because if a variable person will get a dealer principal, that came from variable. You know, like you, you know that mindset just thinks in that 30 day turn, right, so they're not going to, they're not going to take money out of their pocket unless it's like a. You know CapEx, that they're going to. You know that they're going to accrue over. Am I saying that right? That they're going to?
Speaker 2:you know, spread out over the year depreciate, excuse me depreciate, depreciate, excuse me, depreciate.
Speaker 1:I'm not an accounting guy but they're going to depreciate throughout the whole year and then break it up. That's not going to come out of their pocket. So it's like the incentive is set up the wrong way. It's like I've always thought it's like the right person to talk about IT is going to be somebody either from the fixed side or from the accounting department that understands what long-term investment in the infrastructure of the organization is going to give stability.
Speaker 2:Yes, variable. You know they're trained to. You know don't take no for an answer, yep, and you know I remember some of my IT calls. You know you would get a call from someone in parts or service or the body shop and they would be like you know the system's down. Do you know how long it will be? Where are the handwritten this? Do you know where this is? You know the system's down. Do you know how long it will be? Where are the handwritten this? Do you know where this is? You know we had a system, yeah, Over in sales. It was a much different phone call.
Speaker 1:It usually involves some yelling. Yeah, it usually involved.
Speaker 2:One time a sales manager actually told me you know ADP is down. You do know that you're taking food out of my children's mouths because the system is down and I'm like, wait, I'm doing what?
Speaker 1:I'm doing what she's. You know they're not known for being dramatic at all.
Speaker 2:No, not at all and um. You know I I've ran into him a couple times um, because I think he kind of lives in my neighborhood and I'm just like I usually just go the other way.
Speaker 2:But, um, luckily I don't work with them anymore, but those were the kind of phone calls and sometimes there was yelling and hollering and you know. But I always gave it back to them a little bit because at the Christmas party when my husband would be there sitting next to me and a sales manager would come up and say hello and I would say, honey, this is Bob. You remember the one who called us last Sunday screaming? That's him, that's him, yeah. You know the one who's berating me on Mother's Day.
Speaker 1:That's him. He's right there.
Speaker 2:But you know, those calls made me the woman I am today.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I don't take that anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even back then I didn't, but I really don't take it now. The trial by fire that oh yeah, that comes with being an it person is just. It gives you a certain you know, backbone. That's that's important. You know, like I I just remember getting you know like this is completely out of my control. It's like if I could control comcast I would be a billionaire. But it's. It's just there's no internet from comcast. Somebody cut the cable and it's completely down until those guys in that hole fix it. Your internet's just. There's no internet from comcast. Somebody cut the cable and it's completely down until those guys in that hole fix it. Your internet's not going to be back up. And they're like we'll make it happen faster. And it's like, okay, I can go shout at the guys at the hole, you know, that are trying to fix the fiber, but there's literally nothing you can do about it, you know I, I do remember saying that.
Speaker 2:I'll just, you know, pop on a tool belt and climb the pole outside. You know when, you know when power was out, and I'll just go see if I can fix that transformer myself. You know, because in IT everything is your fault.
Speaker 1:You know the lightning last night that struck the transformer, you know.
Speaker 2:I know, and it's just you know it's, it's, it has, you know, especially back in the day, was always seen. As you know, they're the people you call when you're already upset about something. My computer hasn't worked in three days. Okay, why'd you wait three days to tell me?
Speaker 1:the first question.
Speaker 2:You know well I just found out about this now. So you know, but it doesn't have to be that way and it shouldn't be that way. It should be just as much of a part of an organization as your accounting offices. You know, yes, we're not selling anything, but we're there making sure everything stays organized, making sure everything's run smoothly, and I see it as just as important as a department as accounting. As far as making sure things run smoothly, making sure there's communication, making sure there are these tools for us to use so we can keep making it better, which is what we strive to do every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just kind of taking those hurdles out of the process. It's like there's just such a hidden benefit to have all the systems running smoothly and that they don't go down, because you've experienced what them not running smoothly smoothly is. I certainly experienced what that is and it's it's just such a you know, such a good opportunity to to make things better. So it's it's. I think it can be a powerful, a powerful investment tool. Like we created. Um, like a share. You know, wire transfers. Wire transfers are a big deal, right, um, you know, so we were, we.
Speaker 1:We heard about a couple of dealers that got hit with fraud. Right, it's like the general manager or the owner or the dealer principal whomever is, you know in China it's like, hey, quick, you know, transfer $50,000 to this account. And then you don't double check, you don't double verify. You said hey, that's. And if the owner is temperamental, it's even worse. Like what's the? I always say this like what's? The number one vulnerability of an organization is the owner's temperament. Because if you don't live in an organization where you can say this doesn't seem right, let me double check with them. And if you double check with them, it's like thank you for double checking. I really appreciate you being safe and secure. Yes, this was approved. Rather than being like I told you to approve it the first time, mama, and then hackers will take that and exploit that vulnerability right. So we created like a SharePoint where you send the approvals and it sends the emails to everybody and it all lives in that SharePoint world, so you can prevent that hacking from happening.
Speaker 2:That's great. Um, you know, fraud happens, fraud attempts happen constantly. Yeah, um, I don't know if you saw a recent story on the news about for usps okay about um them putting in enhanced mailboxes because of mail theft really literally people are stealing entire mailboxes they can take all my bed bath and beyond um, you know shutters they can take all that crap.
Speaker 1:I just need like two letters that we get it and you know they love to take checks yeah and they reprint checks.
Speaker 2:The payee is different. A lot of the check looks different. Has my signature on it really um, and I'm not the only dealership with this problem. You know, when we go to these controllers conferences, we're all having this problem, and I'm sure other industries are as well, you know. So you have to move away from mailing checks yeah, we want to go away from checks completely I don't. I don't even have a checkbook like personally. I don't even.
Speaker 2:I don don't even have a checkbook, like personally I don't even, I don't know. Somebody wants a check. I'm like what? Where's your Venmo? And still, there there's fraud opportunities.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's all about taking the time to train. That's another great place that IT comes in is taking the time to train those associates. I know the service manager might say to all the advisors don't open any emails, you don't know who they're from. Okay, that's a, that's great advice, but what if it does look like it's somebody?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What if it does look like the owner? What if it does look like someone?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Are they trained to know to hover over the email address, over the name, to see that email address? Do they know enough to pick up the phone and say do you really want me to go buy $3,000 in Visa cards?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, apple gift cards, Apple gift cards.
Speaker 2:You know. So there needs to be a continuous training because, like you said, especially with you know some of the sales department, you know there is turnover. It needs to be a continuing part of the process, not only to say, hey, here's how to keep yourself from getting hurt while working on a car yeah here's how to keep your data, our data, the companies, the customers, everything safe yeah, now, with glba coming out, it's going to be a big, big big thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that compliance is now. You know, it's like what they say in the industry is like welcome to an end, a regulated industry, kind of the things like what the healthcare industry went through in the nineties with HIPAA the same thing, you know, going through the process. I'm kind of happy for it because I think that, like, like you said, it's like technology, it's like almost the external environment forces dealers to evolve, like COVID did right. It's like everybody did digital retailing and everybody started working from home and it made dealerships a lot more agile rather than being stuck in their old ways.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I think this regulation is going to do the same thing. It's like, hey, now we manage all this data, let's do it a couple of smart ways. And then people are like what if we could process that data and we can start pulling information out of that data, rather than the DMS is holding it ransom or whatever that looks like. So I think, if you look at it the right way, there's huge opportunities.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely. It definitely opens up some conversations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it definitely opens up some conversations. Well, cheryl, I think this was great. I'm really really happy to have you. You know you're one of the people I look up to in this industry. You know we've been friends for a long time and I've always kept an eye on your career and I'm super happy and super proud to be your friend. So I appreciate everything that you do for us and you coming down to have this conversation. I'm really happy we were able to get this coordinated.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for inviting me. This was wonderful, and likewise I've been watching VTechDealerIT all these years since it started and I've always been super happy with your success and you guys have such a great team.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm so happy to know so many of them and have pictures with even some of them. I love going back to those fun days. And it's just a pleasure. Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Likewise, we'll do it again.
Speaker 2:All right, sounds great. No-transcript.