Connected at NADA 2024 Special Episode: 31 Years of NADA Conventions with Jim Ziegler and Debbie Ziegler
Greg Uland: Hi, I'm Greg Uland with Reynolds and Reynolds, and this is Connected live at the NADA show in Las Vegas. Right now I get to sit down with the legendary Jim Ziegler and his wife and business partner, Debbie. Thank you both so much for joining me today.
Jim Zeigler: Oh, what a, what a thrill.
GU: No, it's great, it's great. So, we're at the show it's, right now it's actually Friday morning, so we're just getting started. What, what have you seen so far that gets you excited?
JZ: Oh, my gosh, more dealers than I've ever seen. This is my 30th convention.
GU: Yep.
JZ: Or our 30th convention.
GU: Right.
Debbie Ziegler: That’s right.
JZ: I have spoke at 17 conventions, attended 30. We haven't been in ten years.
GU: Really? Okay.
JZ: Oh yeah, since 2014.
GU: Yeah. Yeah. Well welcome back. It's great, great to see you wandering the, wandering the floor.
DZ: Yeah it's nice to be back.
GU: Yeah, it's – the energy is just, it's amazing this year.
JZ: I wanted to stop by, this is early for us, at the Reynolds and Reynolds – our friends at Reynolds and Reynolds – and stop by and visit with you guys.
GU: Not that’s great. So, so, Jim you – you're definitely an expert on the F&I process, right, and selling in the office. So I wanted to get your take – one of the things that I find really interesting is, as we – well, I guess we take a step back, you go back to like 2020, right? Four years ago. And if you would have asked a roomful of people, “what's the, what's the car buying process going to look like in 2024, 2025?” Some significant portion of them would have said “well I mean, so many car deals are going to be done all online.” Right? And then we fast forward and it's like well, that's not really the case. But there is this blended model, right? There’s the online to in-store.
JZ: Everybody thought, everybody thought that we were going to go to total transactional model online.
GU: Right.
JZ: It didn't happen. You know a certain amount of people will buy online, but the majority of people still transact at the dealership.
GU: Right.
JZ: You know there's a minority – people point to Tesla. They say, “well, Tesla is selling 100% online.” But still in all, that's, that's an early adopter niche market, and that – that's even fading in.
GU: Sure.
JZ: So what we found out is customers will fill out the paperwork.
GU: Right.
JZ: They'll give some information, but the financial information and the total transactional information, they still want to come into the dealership. They're still uncomfortable with selecting a car totally online.
GU: Yes.
JZ: Now, now there will – there will be those people that will do that. But I deal with what the majority of people would do, not what some of the people will do.
GU: You know, thinking about that consumer who's, who's online, they're in store. They're both right? At the end of the day it's a blended buyer. What are some of the best practices – so there's, there's some dealers out there that like to present F&I products online, at least give them a first pass right, to be able to see them.
JZ: Okay. I'm not in favor of that. What we found out is that presenting the products online, everybody thought that videos are going to sell service contracts.
GU: Sure.
JZ: People don't watch the videos. They don't care about the videos and they didn't – in reality, we’ve tracked the stats – they don't watch the videos. So as far as selling the products online, generally a consumer that is overwhelmed will say no.
GU: Sure that's fair.
JZ: You know and Zig Ziegler – who I'm no relation to but I knew him quite well – Zig Ziegler said “a confused customer buys nothing.”
GU: Yeah you're right. Yeah, that's a good that's a good quote.
JZ: The less confusion you create, the more chance you have to sell.
GU: Yeah. And when you ask consumers too – I mean we've done a lot of studies and surveys with consumers recently and, and one of the most valuable interactions that they have when we surveyed them, you know – “so go through the sales process – where do you see value, what would you pay more for?” And one of the most valuable was the interaction with the F&I manager because they want to be educated. They don't understand these products, right? So, so there's value in the products, which is why they, why they get sold and why consumers buy a lot of –
JZ: There is a lot of value in the products. I am a big advocate. The whole world has gone video. The whole world’s – the whole world's talking on FaceTime. The whole world is talking on social media. I make a living right now with video.
GU: Right.
JZ: So why not have a – built into the website, built into the first visit – some opportunity for the customer to interact with a live person, an F&I manager, to do what they expected the videos to do – a Zoom-type broadcast.
GU: Yeah no, that's a good call. So are you seeing, are you seeing dealers move to that model where it's, it’s a FaceTime call or a Zoom call or whatever it might be and they’re – and what does that interaction look like? Are they selling in that instance? Are they building relationship? What does that interaction look like, that first pass?
JZ: A lot of that's coming out of the BDC.
GU: Okay.
JZ: You know we're, we're a lot, lot more FaceTime, a lot of Zoom-type broadcasts and a lot of that's coming about. That's, that's still in the development. That's not – that's not mainstream yet.
GU: Yeah. Yeah no, okay that makes sense. That makes sense. So, what are some of the hurdles that, that maybe you've seen dealers having to overcome when it comes to, you know – a consumer sees a monthly payment online, right. They've kind of structured out their deal. And then they come into the store, and it's not the same system so the payment is not the same. You know maybe, maybe they're going to add some aftermarket, obviously the payment is going to go up. Maybe that aftermarket is taxable, maybe it's not – depending on the state, so there's a lot of variables, right?
JZ: Well I'm an advocate of “give the customer all the information.”
GU: Yeah.
JZ: Give, give the information, and I don't have any problem selling the F&I products and F&I services after the fact.
DZ: Transparency.
GU: Yeah.
DZ: Be transparent.
JZ: Totally transparent. Absolutely.
GU: Yeah that's good. So just making sure to be transparent. So you mentioned, you had your hand there on your new book, so I wanted to touch base on that. Talk about that, talk about that book a little bit. How – I guess, what's that that process been like? Maybe, maybe start there for me because I'm always interested in anybody who invests the time and energy into writing a book, right. And publishing a book. That – you see the finished product and you don't realize that that's – you tell me, but that's probably two years’ worth of work right there, right?
JZ: No, it wasn't quite that much because it's 30 years of work. This book has evolved. I've rewritten it 14 or 15 times over the years as, as the industry changed, as processes change, as – I've had to reverse many, many times. Paradigm shift. So when I wrote the Sales Managers’ Forum – it’s on Amazon. When I wrote the Sales Managers’ Forum, I wanted to rewrite the book one more time.
GU: Sure.
JZ: And modernize it. And dealers are buying these by the case.
GU: Yeah. Yeah no, that's great.
JZ: A lot of sales.
GU: What, what are some of the things you mentioned that, you know, it's obviously evolved over time and what you've been teaching has evolved over time. What are some of the things that, that you had to look at to modernize in this – or maybe pull out just a couple where, you know, it was – it was one of those things where you're reading it, I'm sure, and you go, “you know, this probably doesn't really apply anymore. We should update this section.” What we a couple of those?
JZ: Old school, new school, I don't care. I've been in the business 49 years, so I've seen a lot of changes. A lot of changes are in the book.
GU: Yeah. Yeah. Anything stand out to you? Any that were, you know, kind of “yeah this one really I’ve got to – I’ve got to adjust.”
JZ: Digital marketing, which didn't really happen. And A to Z sales. A lot of dealers are trying to get into – the salesperson does the entire process.
GU: Right.
JZ: I've covered that in the book.
GU: Okay.
JZ: So no matter how you sell cars, the one price movement that, that's a lot of a lot of people in the business today.
GU: Right.
JZ: So that's covered. It doesn't really matter how you sell cars as long as you're consistent.
GU: That's a, that's a good point. So what – give me the, give me the high level pros and cons of that A to Z sales process, right. So the salesperson handles the entire deal – soup to nuts. Start to finish. What – give me kind of a couple, a couple positives and negatives.
JZ: Okay the negatives. First of all, every dealer has got “Five Car Fred, Five Car Frederica.” You know, you've got that, that underperformer or medium average performer that's always going to be that way. They're never going to be a top performer. I don't want them presenting the whole deal. You know everybody's not a super performer. No. No dealership has a whole sales force full of super performers.
GU: Yeah. You're right.
JZ: You know, I was, I was a super performer but I, I knew a lot of people that were not.
GU: Sure, sure.
JZ: And A to Z I – I've trained some of the A to Z companies.
GU: Yeah.
JZ: Yeah. They’ve flown down to Atlanta and paid, paid the full fee. I’m expensive.
DZ: Yeah.
GU: Yeah so, so can you have both in the same store? Can you have, you know – you know – poor or average performing salesperson who has a partner in the F&I office and have another salesperson who's a superstar do the whole deal? Like could you do both?
DZ: Well the A to Z process still has managers ghosting in the background supervising the sale.
GU: Yeah.
JZ: So it's not really A to Z.
GU: Yeah.
JZ: You know there's still, there's still managers that – they call them coaches or some, some new-age crappy line of managers.
GU: No that's good. That's good. All right well, really appreciate you sitting down. We kind of grabbed you, grabbed you when you popped by the booth.
JZ: Mrs. Debbie and I are having a ball at the convention.
DZ: Oh we are.
GU: No, that's great. That's great. So before we hop off, Jim, Debbie, what didn't we touch on? Anything else you guys want to talk about?
JZ: No, I think – I'm a big fan of Reynolds and Reynolds. Have been.
GU: Sure, and we appreciate the partnership. Absolutely we, we do – and appreciate the support. You know, at the end of the day, we're kind of all in this together, right, this one industry.
DZ: Absolutely.
GU: And we're trying – ultimately, we're trying to help the dealers who are the linchpin, right, be successful.
JZ: And you've got a product called docuPAD.
GU: Yes.
JZ: And I'm going to tell you right now, I have been an advocate of docuPAD for years.
GU: So have I.
JZ: Long before I ever met anybody in the company.
GU: Yeah, yeah.
JZ: And, yeah, probably one of the best F&I tools in the business.
GU: Well thank you. That means a lot, coming from you certainly. And, you know, we're proud of it, but we see a lot of dealers have a lot of success as well, so appreciate you saying that. But, all right well, thank you both for, for joining. It was great to talk and I hope you have a great show.
JZ: Ziegler.supersystems.com.