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Vendor Insights Podcasts

Oct. 18, 2025

Unveiling LotGPT: Automotive’s First Dealer-Facing Chat Tool — and 7 …

Today I’m joined by Len Short, CEO of Lotlinx. LotGPT is here — and it might change how dealers manage inventory forever. In this episode, Len Short and I break down the world-first dealer-focused LLM , how it diagnoses inven...

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Oct. 16, 2025

The State of Dealer Advertising in 2025: What’s Really Working Now | …

Today I’m joined by Amol Waishampayan, Co-Founder of fullthrottle.ai, and David Regn, CEO of fullthrottle.ai. We break down what’s really working in dealership advertising right now , what’s getting left behind, and the new a...

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Oct. 11, 2025

Appraisal Landmines Costing Dealers $1,000's — And How To Defuse Them…

Welcome to Industry Spotlight—a focused series hosted by Sam D’Arc, highlighting standout dealerships and innovative companies, and exploring the trends driving success in today’s automotive market. Today, Sam sits down with ...

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Oct. 9, 2025

Stop Bleeding Margin: 3 Red Flags in Dealership Ops — and How to Turn…

Today I’m joined by Jim Roche, CEO of WarrCloud. We dig into the $100K+ most dealers miss in warranty work, why surging warranty volume has made WarrCloud one of the fastest-growing companies in America (#1 in Missouri), and...

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Oct. 7, 2025

The #1 Bottleneck in Car Sales: Broken Tech Integrations—and How to F…

Today I’m joined by Sanjiv Yajnik, President of Financial Services at Capital One. We cover why tech integrations are still the biggest challenge for F&I, how lenders are anticipating an EV market slowdown, why "6%" is the m...

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Sept. 25, 2025

The Old-School Process Still Killing Dealer Productivity – And How To…

Welcome to Industry Spotlight—a focused series hosted by Sam D’Arc, highlighting standout dealerships and innovative companies, and exploring the trends driving success in today’s automotive market. Today, Sam sits down with ...

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Sept. 18, 2025

"F&I Must Come First!" — 2,900+ Hours of F&I Research Distilled in 30…

Today I’m joined by Jason Swiech, Product Marketer at CDK Global. We discuss what top-performing dealers are doing in the F&I office, why double-entry data is crushing customer satisfaction, the add-on products flying off the...

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Sept. 11, 2025

The Time Bomb In Labor Rate Increases (& How Dealers Are Maximizing P…

Welcome to Industry Spotlight—a focused series hosted by Sam D’Arc, highlighting standout dealerships and innovative companies, and exploring the trends driving success in today’s automotive market. Today, Sam sits down with ...

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Sept. 9, 2025

"Money's not in the CRM, It's in the DMS!”– Tracking the Pulse of AI …

Today I’m joined by Art Dessein, VP of Sales at Impel. We dig into how AI is reshaping inventory management, the playbook big dealer groups use to roll it out without losing culture, and why less customer communication is act...

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Aug. 31, 2025

Remote Deliveries Are Booming—So Is Fraud (Here’s How to Stay Safe) |…

Welcome to Industry Spotlight—a focused series hosted by Sam D’Arc, highlighting standout dealerships and innovative companies, and exploring the trends driving success in today’s automotive market. Today, Sam sits down with ...

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Aug. 28, 2025

“Like Watching Game Tape”: Exposing How Deals Slip on the Floor—And H…

Today I’m joined by Jake Cronin, CEO and Founder of Siro. The untapped profit potential hiding in F&I, winning strategies to secure consent to record customers, using data to diagnose dealership challenges—and more. This epis...

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Aug. 21, 2025

Booms, Busts, and Big Sales: Top Trends Steering Today’s Dealership B…

Today I’m joined by Alan Haig, President of Haig Partners. We dig into why Stellantis and Nissan are still searching for the bottom, which states are commanding the highest blue sky multiples, the drivers behind Carvana’s fir...

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Aug. 17, 2025

From Dead Weight to Cash Flow: The Transfer Fix for Aging Cars | Indu…

Welcome to Industry Spotlight—a focused series hosted by Sam D’Arc, highlighting standout dealerships and innovative companies, and exploring the trends driving success in today’s automotive market. Today, Sam sits down with...

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Aug. 14, 2025

"Stop the Churn": How AI Is Predicting (and Preventing) Service Defec…

Today I’m joined by Vishal Vadodaria, CEO of AutoEngage. We dive into the product obsession Vishal learned under Steve Jobs, why a major public dealer group bet early on his AI tech, how Agentic AI is poised to reshape the fu...

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Aug. 7, 2025

"Race to the Top": How Dealers are Creating Trust at Scale—and Domina…

Today I’m joined by Alex Vetter, CEO of Cars Commerce. We unpack why consumers are getting shellshocked in the service lane, reveal the CRM blind spots from retail research to retail shopping behavior, and explore why 95% of ...

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July 31, 2025

Cut Costs, Go Viral: Taverna INFINITI's Repeatable Formula for Domina…

Welcome to Industry Spotlight—a focused series hosted by Sam D’Arc, highlighting standout dealerships and innovative companies, and exploring the trends driving success in today’s automotive market. Today, Sam sits down with ...

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July 17, 2025

"Customers Calling the Service Dept is a Sign of Failure" — Inside Ho…

Welcome to Industry Spotlight—a focused series hosted by Sam D’Arc, highlighting standout dealerships and innovative companies, and exploring the trends driving success in today’s automotive market. Today, Sam sits down with ...

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July 10, 2025

The Auto Retail Crystal Ball: What Shipping Trends Reveal (And How De…

Today I’m joined by Royce Neubauer, CEO of Auto Hauler Exchange. We dive into how dealers are footing the bill for shipping delays in unexpected ways, how smart operators are turning logistics into a profit center, why fraud ...

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July 8, 2025

The Big Shift: Why Omnichannel Dealers Are Winning—and Fragmented Sto…

Today I’m joined by Jessica Stafford, SVP Consumer Solutions at Cox Automotive. We dive into the how car buying behavior is evolving, why consumers are embracing AI faster than dealers and much more. This episode is brought ...

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July 1, 2025

“This Is the Worst It’ll Ever Be”—State of Dealership AI and What Dea…

Today I’m joined by Eric Rea, CEO of Podium. We dive into the state of Dealership AI in 2025, the questions dealers should be asking to stay ahead, why 10% of US dealers are using Podium's AI and much more. This episode is br...

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June 26, 2025

Car Shopper Report: Why Ease of Purchase is Crashing in Q2 (And How D…

Today I’m joined by David Thomas, Director of Content Marketing at CDK Global. We dive into why dealership's ease of purchase is crashing right now, why credit denials are racking up, the fate of the EV market post tax-credit...

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June 19, 2025

Cracking the Code on Scalable Customer Care in the Car Business | Ind…

Welcome to Industry Spotlight—a focused series hosted by Sam D’Arc, highlighting standout dealerships and innovative companies, and exploring the trends driving success in today’s automotive market. Today, Sam sits down with ...

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June 12, 2025

The Human Advantage in Car Sales—And Why Ted Rubin Won’t Let It Die |…

Today I’m joined by Ted Rubin, President of ActivEngage. We dive into why dealers don’t need more leads — they need better ones, the danger from AI that dealers don’t see coming, why a human touch is still the missing peice a...

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June 5, 2025

The Hunt For Auto Tech's Next Unicorn: Why Silicon Valley Is Betting …

Today I’m joined by Monik Pamecha, CEO and founder of Toma. We unpack why they embedded in Oklahoma dealerships for months, how that groundwork attracted top VCs, and why Toma refuses to build one-size-fits-all AI. This episo...

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