APS Welcome’s Kirk Monger with Georgia & Chris

On this episode of the APS Podcast, Chris and Georgia sit down with Kirk Monger, the newest member of the APS team and our new Director of Sales & Business Development for North America. Kirk’s no stranger to the auto recycling industry—he’s spent decades leading sales teams at Hollander and has been watching APS grow from the sidelines. Now, he’s officially on board, and we couldn’t be more excited!

We chat about why Kirk made the move, what excites him about APS, and how having him on the ground in the U.S. will help us better serve our customers. Plus, we touch on AI innovations, the power of Video Wizard, and an exciting new project—our APS Voice Assistant (Ari)—which is already in beta testing.

And, of course, the URG Bus Tour gets a mention! Kirk and Georgia have been mapping out the locations, and we’ll be announcing them soon. If you’re keen to hop on, don’t wait—it’s always a sellout!

Big things ahead for APS, and we’re stoked to have Kirk along for the ride. Welcome to the team, mate! 

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Transcript

Chris Daglis 

Welcome back everyone to the APS Podcast. I'm Chris, and we've got, as always, Georgia here. 

Georgia

Hello. 

Chris

How you going? Georgia?

Georgia

Good, excellent. We're face to face. We're real in real time. Today, 

Chris

I know we're in a studio here, so it feels really official and all that type of stuff. So we've got another guest here, though. I’m really excited to announce the arrival of Kirk Monger as our new Director of Sales and Business Development from North America. Kirk, welcome to the APS team.

Kirk

Thanks, Chris, thanks, Georgia. I am really excited to be here and be part of the APS team.

Chris

Yeah. Well, you're no stranger to the automotive industry. Georgia, but you've met Kirk a few times before.

Georgia

Yes, last year on our URG bus tour. We obviously made a big impression on Kirk during that tour. I think,

Chris
I think we did.

Chris

So Kirk, big move. But you’ve been in the industry for a long time. We're really excited to have you on board. It's something that APS has been looking at doing for some time. One of our biggest markets is in the US. We've got amazing growth opportunities there. Tell us a little bit about what you see, a little bit about your past. For those that don't know, although most people do know you. Tell us a little bit more about you and why you're here.

Kirk

Alright, so I spent about three decades in the auto recycling industry, with the bulk of that at Hollander, where I led different sales teams, National Strategic accounts teams. I've been watching APS for the last five years or so and going, boy, those guys are some innovative people. I've been watching the growth that you guys have done, and seeing the things that you're doing, and I just want to be a part of that. I think it's an exciting time and and, you know, it looks like this is, this is where I should be,

Chris

Well, we're really, really happy to have you with us and part of the team. And I'm sure that it's your first day today. I think you've probably spent a good five or six hours now already in the job. How's that going?

Kirk

Oh, it's been a good day. I've not talked to as many people as I thought I would. I left a lot of messages today, so I did some outreach today, but I had a lot of other folks in the industry also reaching out to me and congratulating me and being excited about the move that I've made to be part of APS.

Chris

Yeah, I have to say, I've I woke up this morning a couple of hours ago to a heap of text messages, Facebook direct messages and and so forth, emails from you know, the likes of Paul the Adamo and Mike Kuncle and Lambert  and Rainwater, Nick Dario congratulating us on the appointment. And really, I suppose they didn't have to, but they spruik, you up. They said, this is great appointment. And you know, they're sure that this will be a great success for all of us. But most importantly, from my perspective, as long as it's a great success for our customers, we'll be right, if I can put it that way, because it's, it really is about delivering for them.

Kirk

Well, you know, one thing about me is I've always been very customer focused. So I mean that's, the number one. My number one focus is going to be you know to take the relationships that we've got with your existing customers, with our existing customers, growing those relationships and build on them, adding new relationships and finding out what the industry needs. And you know, just because of how I see that APS is with innovation and technology, and you know that we can develop the tools and the services that this industry needs to help them expand and grow their businesses. You know, it's just, it's like I said, it's exciting. I'm excited to be here and to be a part of that.

Chris

We had a chat before I was in the cab on the way here to this studio where we're recording this from earlier Georgia, and we were having a bit of a chat with Kirk about potentially, some of the challenges we have. You know, because we make mistakes, we’re human, we're normal people, right? Some more than others, some more than others, yes, yes, some more than others. But that said, as an organization, we try to deliver excellence to our customers, and sometimes we're not going to get that 100% right. Sometimes we'll be, you know, 90% right, whatever the case is. So, I want to make it clear that we give 100% to try and make it successful for our customer. But you know, life is life and we're going to make some mistakes. Having someone like yourself on the ground there Kirk gives us the opportunity to actually deliver that level of customer service that we're looking to in that market, that to a degree, we've done our best to deliver that Georgia. But, you know, time's a funny thing. We're up at five in the morning many days of the week trying to catch up with people in different parts of the US, but we're really excited about having you on the ground there Kirk to help with that.

Kirk

Well, I'm excited to be a part of that as well. And one thing I think that customers and people in the industry know about me is, you know, they can call me anytime, day or night, weekends. I'm available. You know, I'm just, I'm just a cell phone call away. So, you know, that's that is something that I really pride myself on, is just being available for for our customers.

Chris

It's definitely having someone on the ground in real time as well. Yeah, most things we can action, but there is always going to be that little bit of delay if we're not there. So certainly to have the ability to have you there in real time is an asset.

Georgia

It also means that we've got a third person on the bus with us as representing APS this year, because we are going to do a URG Field trip, bus tour, which Kirk, you and I had a meeting about yesterday, just fine tuning the locations. And I'm hoping that we can release those locations this week to our customers. It's just logistics because I don't know Florida that well, but that's really exciting as well. And I think, you know, our customers, obviously, we get really good feedback from that event every year, and it has grown every year. And now, I think the opportunity to have the three of us on there representing APS is going to be really helpful as well.

Chris

Yep, I think the bus tour is one of those things that's evolved. We kicked it off a couple of years ago. We had a small minivan. I think we had 15 people in there, and it was fun. It was actually quite good. It was great. Then last year, we had the big bus, didn't we? Kirk, and you joined us on that one? I think there was, I think we ended up being around closer to 50 people. A few people couldn't make it last minute, but we had a fairly well booked bus last year. I think we're going to, you know, we're going to go into overflow again so it's going to be first in best dressed. Unfortunately, we can't do much about that unless they make bigger busses. Unless they can do a special bus, an American sized bus.

Georgia
It will be first come and Kirk and I have mapped out some pretty good locations, and obviously we'll send them to you and to overlook and check in. But I'm really excited about where we're going to go and what we're going to do and the bus itself, that actual time spent on the bus is always, if not, as valuable to the people that join us as it is going and seeing the yards. That's always the feedback we've got about the chat on the bus.

Kirk

From my perspective, last year, I always love going in and seeing recyclers that I haven't been to before, because everybody, they've got their own secret sauce. They all do things so differently. But really, the journey on the bus was the best because, you know, Chris and Rob are up there talking and sharing and just even the intimacy of being able to just talk to the other recyclers on the bus and other partners. It was great. The time flew by.

Chris

We did a workshop here with eBay yesterday, and we had a few recyclers in that and a few of them were talking about the APRA conference, the Auto Parts Recyclers Association of Australia conference here in Australia that we did last year, and how they enjoyed that, whether we're doing another one, and so on. And I asked the question, are you going to URG or ARA this year? And it's amazing how many times, you know, it doesn't matter what you do, every time you go to one of those conferences, you come back with something, right? And I think, you know, we had a couple on the bus last year from Australia that really got so much out of that bus tour, just by talking to other recyclers on the bus during the travel time. It's not as if, you know, we had two days of driving around in a bus and everyone just sitting there, falling asleep. It was two days of going from facility to facility, sitting next to different people in between each stop, and talking and sharing ideas. So there were different focus groups that were on the bus. There was plenty of interaction, which was great. So enough about the bus. Look out for information around the bus tour. It'll probably be theTuesday and Wednesday, I think before the URG conference, so it's not too early in the week. Look out for that there'll be opportunities to register your interest or to book your ticket. So if you do see that and you do want to be on it, don't miss out. It's free. It's free. Supported obviously by APS, Profit Team Consulting and Mike Lambert at Bid Buddy are supporting it, as they did last year. And of course, URG.

Georgia

And we have our buddy Kirk with us.

Chris

Kirik, you spoke about some innovative ideas and things that we're doing at APS, and we talk about AI as a big buzzword these days. Tell us a little bit about what's exciting you about what we're doing and potentially where it goes moving forward.

Kirk

I think there's a lot of opportunity in this industry to help our partners to make improvements. And with AI, I mean, I think, you know, some of the things that we are looking at with what you're developing and testing right now, I think it's going to be a game changer for a lot of these recyclers. And, it makes you go, what’s next? And we need our partners to tell us, auto recyclers need to tell us what they need, what their challenges are, so that we can find solutions. I'm excited to be a part of a team that can make things happen quickly instead of big corporations, that have big, long processes, and things don't just happen, and then by the time they do happen, it's too late. So I mean, I think it's going to be good. 

Chris

Yes. One of the things that we pride ourselves on is being nimble and being able to see things, see ideas, apply them to a need in this industry, and then be able to deliver it right. So everything that we do, all the services that we offer, the technology that we've built, has come out of a need in our industry, and then understanding how we fit that in, whether it's the video wizard, whether it's exactlink, from a perspective of how we optimise eBay listings with fitment, part numbering, item specifics and so forth. You know our new voice assistant Project, Ari, as we call it, our voice assistant, which will be a sales assistant. That's amazing. Even at phase one, we'll be ready to sort of show some of that off over the next couple of weeks. We're in beta testing at the minute, but I think some of the stuff that we're doing is great, and the important thing is, the feedback that comes through industry makes it better, right? So, having worked closely with different people in industry already to sort of develop some of this, it's that feedback that makes it an even better product.

Kirk

Yeah. And I, you know, you mentioned Video Wizard, and I just like, look at that. And I go, every single recycler that is selling parts online needs to be using the Video Wizard, because it's so easy and quick and it's going to, you know help you sell more.

Chris

All right, I think we'll wrap this up. Kirk, welcome to the team. Really excited about having you on board. Thank you and everything that you have to offer to APS and its customers, I hope you're as excited as we are about it. And look, stay tuned. More news coming soon, more new products coming soon, and Kirk's there to support you. So if you need to contact Kirk, it's Kirk@autopartneredsolutions.com so if there's anything you need, please feel free to reach out to any of us

Georgia

As always. Thank you. 

Kirk

Thank you.