How Dealers Can Improve Close Rates Without More Leads

As dealerships compete for sales in a more normalized inventory environment, RevDojo Founder and CEO Kyle Disher says many stores are missing opportunities after the first customer contact. In this episode, Disher explains why dealers may not need more leads, advertising, or inventory as much as stronger follow-up, appointment-setting, and management involvement.

Drawing from RevDojo hiring events, sales candidate interviews, and more than 120,000 mystery shops completed in 2026, Disher highlights where dealership teams are falling short in the sales process. He also explains how personalized communication, trade-in conversations, and consistent lead management can help stores improve close rates from the opportunities they already have.

Key discussion points:

• Why existing leads may hold more value than new traffic
• What RevDojo’s mystery shops reveal about dealership follow-up
• The role of custom video and personalized communication in shopper engagement
• Why salespeople often answer questions without setting appointments
• How management involvement can improve internet lead performance
• Why trade-in conversations can strengthen close rates

Disher outlines practical areas where dealers can improve execution and capture sales opportunities already coming into the store.

Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick is powered by CBT News, your go-to source for the latest news, trends, and insights in retail automotive. Subscribe for more interviews with top industry leaders, dealership innovators, and experts shaping the future of automotive.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Data Source

Kyle Disher 0:06

Welcome to Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick.

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:11

After interviewing nearly a thousand salespeople in group hiring sessions and mystery shopping across the industry, Dot Kyle Disher, founder and CEO of Rev Dojo, has a unique perspective on where dealerships are winning. He joins us now to share the data that uh he has found out there. Thank you so much, Kyle, for joining us once again on the show.

Kyle Disher 0:30

Now let's put a caveat on that thousand salespeople. That's a lot, but I did it in the last like 12 days. Geez.

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:36

So thousand salespeople in 12 days. Yeah. Oh my God. It's like speed dating where you just super speed dating. That's right.

Kyle Disher 0:43

It's interesting. So, you know, we've been doing this recruiting thing for about 10 years. And the way that it happened, I was doing a sales training and a GM came up to me and said, Hey, would you ever host a career fair for us? Yeah. And I was like, uh sure, let's try it. Yeah. And we started running ads, and it was crazy. We would get two or three hundred people to register to come

Speed Hiring With Group Interviews

Kyle Disher 1:05

in in person.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:05

Okay.

Kyle Disher 1:06

And so it was like, okay, you can get 300 people to show up in a day.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:09

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 1:10

How do you make it super easy on the applicant? Right. And then how does the dealer make it easy to see who they're interested in? So usually we break that up. And uh my average session for a hiring event, I got about 40 to 60 people in it.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:22

Okay.

Kyle Disher 1:23

And I usually do three plus sessions a day. Okay. So we just bang them out in group interviews.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:27

Oh my gosh. And then you've got dealers standing by to take these individuals or the ones that they like. Is that how that works?

Kyle Disher 1:33

So I do interactive exercises, and then there's managers on the perimeter.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:37

Okay.

Kyle Disher 1:38

And the managers just writing down the name of the people that they like.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:41

Okay.

Kyle Disher 1:41

And it's funny. You could have five sales managers in a room. They could all be in different spots. They all pick the same people.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:47

Yeah, right.

Kyle Disher 1:47

You know, they know, hi, my name is Kyle. I'm a server at Outback. I want to sell cars. They know whether they want to hire you or not anyway.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:54

So at least interview you. That's pretty interesting. Okay. So let's let's talk about this. Let's uh drill down a little bit. Um, you know, you've interviewed close to a thousand people, as we mentioned. Yeah. What what kind of a trade what kind of trends are you seeing out there?

Kyle Disher 2:06

You know, we we're hearing, you know, it's slow, it's slow. The good news is it's not slow when it comes to dealers wanting people. There's still tons of opportunity there. Yeah. And I think dealers are realizing that a big part of it is to make sure they're staffed appropriately because they're not trying to miss any opportunities. Yeah. I don't talk to one dealer that goes, every single internet lead, phone call, walk-in, we're the greatest closers on earth. Right. So they're trying to staff accordingly to

Why Dealers Still Need Staff

Kyle Disher 2:30

hit their numbers. That's I I think they're adjusting.

Jim Fitzpatrick 2:32

Why are we in such short supply of salespeople? Are they are they turning over quicker? Is it just typical turnover situation where um where you know sales managers are just like, oh, this guy's he's not working, done. I need a salesperson.

Kyle Disher 2:45

I'll give you an example. The place I was at yesterday, a great group, it was a Honda store. Uh they sold like 240 cars with 14 salespeople.

Jim Fitzpatrick 2:52

Okay.

Kyle Disher 2:52

So I think I think that people have been running a little lean, and I think they're starting to loosen up and go heavier. I I think it's more than that or anything else.

Jim Fitzpatrick 2:59

Okay. And during COVID, what we found was a lot of sales trainers that I would speak to and a lot of dealers for that matter said, let's try to move that number from 10 or 12 cars a month up to 15 or 20 cars a month. And uh the lot of stores that were that did that and did it effectively. Now that was deaf just after COVID, so it was like shooting fish in a barrel in many cases, you know. But where where does that stand today? What did what did dealers expect from their sales department?

Kyle Disher 3:23

People have lost that COVID confidence. Yeah. It was funny. Salespeople I got the car, do you want to buy it? Right. Oh, you do? So uh if you're in sales meetings, everyone's like, these COVID sales people, it's almost like a uh like a disc.

Jim Fitzpatrick 3:38

That's right.

Kyle Disher 3:38

Did you sell cars before COVID? You have no idea what it's like. So it was easy during COVID. And people are starting to tighten up, they're starting to clean up, and that that's part of it too, is the job.

Jim Fitzpatrick 3:47

Okay.

Kyle Disher 3:47

So COVID feels like a million years ago. It wasn't that long ago.

Jim Fitzpatrick 3:50

I know. So the notion that everyone's going to be selling 20 cars a month is it's back down to 10 or 12, or what were you doing? It's getting back down to those lower numbers. Okay.

Kyle Disher 3:58

At a lot of stores. There's always exceptions. Uh most stores are not have 20 car people on average.

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:03

Right, right. Which is interesting because today it's tough to make any money. You can't have a uh you can't make a living at 10 cars a month unless you're at a Lexus or BMW store, right? I mean, that's it's it's tough to do.

Kyle Disher 4:15

You know, it's funny, I was talking to a guy the other day. I haven't talked about this in a long time. One time I sold 15 cars and made minimum wage. Yeah.

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:22

Is that funny?

Kyle Disher 4:23

I sold cars in you know 2000. Yeah.

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:25

Yeah. So you got mini deals of 100, 150 bucks. Mine were 50 bucks back then. 50 bucks. And if you split, you eat $25. Yeah. Yeah. And if it's a high volume store and they're discounting the heck out of it and they got high packs, you're in trouble. You're in big trouble. Yeah.

Kyle Disher 4:36

I was at the special finance team then and uh uh we had fixed

Post COVID Expectations And Pay Reality

Kyle Disher 4:40

commissions. Okay. I couldn't believe it. I was like 18, 19 years old. I was like, what? How'd that happen?

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:45

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 4:45

So numbers, uh, have I told you about the Philippines? Yeah, tell me about the Philippines. So so uh we do the training, the BDC, and the websites for a lot of dealers in the Philippines. Which is crazy. Which is crazy. So if you talk to someone in the United States, I could have 20 GMs in here.

Jim Fitzpatrick 5:03

Right.

Kyle Disher 5:03

And I go, if you want to sell 200 cars, you need and they all go, 20 salespeople. Right. The average salesperson in the Philippines, do you want to guess how many cars they sell a month? What uh what is it? One car a month. One car a month. The average salesperson. So so our biggest store we've worked with. Those are some closers there in the Philippines. Our biggest store sells 300 cars a month. It's a Mitsubishi store. Right.

Jim Fitzpatrick 5:24

And they have 300 salespeople. And why is that? I mean, it just makes no sense. That means so much of the month, the person's just standing around.

Kyle Disher 5:31

Oh, yeah. They don't get a lot of leads and they try to prospect on their own. Oh, I gotcha. Okay. Uh it's it's interesting. They they got to generate their own stuff. Well, when we started working with dealers over there, wasn't that long ago? Five years ago, most don't even have websites. Jesus. Literally, I go, what's your website? We don't have one. We just have a Facebook page. Oh my god. I'll send you some clips. I was over there all of December selling cars. I'll send you some clips. You can splice them in if you want. Absolutely.

Jim Fitzpatrick 5:54

So and there's a Mitsubishi

A Wild Benchmark From The Philippines

Jim Fitzpatrick 5:55

store selling 300 cars a month. With 300 sales people. I think that's how many they sell in the United States. Yeah. Totally, right?

Kyle Disher 6:00

That's when they had their civil unrest, all the OEMs pulled out, except Mitsubishi went all in.

Jim Fitzpatrick 6:06

Okay.

Kyle Disher 6:06

So Mitsubishi was the only company not to leave.

Jim Fitzpatrick 6:09

That's funny.

Kyle Disher 6:10

And so, yeah, they they I think they sell more in the Philippines than they do in the United States.

Jim Fitzpatrick 6:13

Yeah, I bet they do. Jeez, that's something. Yeah. So um our dealerships, I mean, the answer to this is probably uh clearly yes, but are we are we hiring too quickly in the industry?

Kyle Disher 6:24

So, you know, it's kind of like love at first sight sometimes. Yeah. I I don't know if we're hiring too quickly if you got the right person. We're probably onboarding the wrong way.

Jim Fitzpatrick 6:34

Okay.

Kyle Disher 6:35

So it's funny. Dealers ask me all the time, they go, hey, you're gonna come in here, you're gonna hire me 20 people. What happens next? Well, my turnover gonna be crazy. Yeah. And I just ask, I go, is your turnover crazy when you hire them? Yeah. Because if you hire them, or if I help you hire them, it's funny. It's about the same amount of churn. Okay. So it's more about the dealership and their processes

Onboarding New Hires Through BDC

Kyle Disher 6:55

than anything else.

Jim Fitzpatrick 6:56

Okay, okay. How long should should a new salesperson that's never sold cars before be in training before they take a fresh up?

Kyle Disher 7:03

I'll say something uh slightly controversial, but not really. I don't like putting people right on the floor. Okay, I like giving them whatever training they have, yeah, and then I want to stick those people in the BDC as much as they may not like it. And the reason why is because if I could get somebody's habits built up early on, right, where they know they have to have appointments to sell cars, then that phone is always kind of baked into them. One of the hardest things to do is get people to prospect, right? Which makes it hard to get them to sell big numbers, which makes the turnover higher. So start them out in the BDC after they do their standard training, and you'll have a lot of time.

Jim Fitzpatrick 7:36

How long would you want them in the BDC for?

Kyle Disher 7:38

And it's no real rule, but I like a week to two weeks.

Jim Fitzpatrick 7:41

Okay.

Kyle Disher 7:41

Uh at a minimum. Okay.

Jim Fitzpatrick 7:43

Okay.

Kyle Disher 7:44

And the stores that do that have long longevity with the and they get a lot of people to quit. I'd rather you quit the first two days than in a month, you know?

Jim Fitzpatrick 7:51

Right. And then uh I would imagine too that you're gonna you're gonna have salespeople that go, I kind of like the BDC.

Kyle Disher 7:56

Yeah, I don't really want to hit the showroom floor. You you do the BDC is the best farm team.

Jim Fitzpatrick 7:59

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 8:00

So I it's not treated like a farm team. Right. It's funny, the lowest paid, least experienced people in the entire dealership usually handle the most important opportunities. It's it's it's wild. Yeah. So uh that's nuts.

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:12

Yeah. But it's going that way for a long time, right? Oh, yeah.

Mystery Shop Stats That Hurt

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:15

Incredible. So um so talk to us about how you I I know that last time that we spoke to you was uh it was basically about mystery shopping. Yeah. And uh we got a lot of great comments on that. Talk to us about where that stands today. What's uh what what can you tell us about about mystery shopping and some of the some of the cool stuff and the numbers that are out there? Yeah, stats. I brought them, it's on my laptop, so I didn't forget. Let's do it.

Kyle Disher 8:35

Uh all right. So we send videos to 100% of customers. If I got a room full of GMs, and I go, we mystery shopped all you guys. Oh, yeah, we sent a video. So here's the stats. Okay. This is based on 120,000 mystery shops in 2026. Oh my god. So uh video sent rate 17.6%. Now, I changed how we do this because I got frustrated with internally our process. Okay. We used to give credit for videos, and you know what we were getting? Hostage negotiation videos. Hi, my name is Kyle. I'm the general manager at ABC Toyota. Right. We look forward to serving you with a new so we stopped doing those generic ones. It's got to be custom.

Jim Fitzpatrick 9:17

Right.

Kyle Disher 9:18

So 17.6% for the custom. You want to guess personalized what the percentage is? I don't know that I want to guess. Less than 20? 6.3%. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So uh 6.3%, 44% of salespeople ask for an appointment via text or email.

Jim Fitzpatrick 9:35

Okay.

Kyle Disher 9:36

And then here's the number one stat, dealers, if you want to get a big bounce. Right. Number one's the video. Number two is management. We have management engagement only 33% of the time. We cheat that too. That's not real.

Jim Fitzpatrick 9:48

Okay. So walk me through what the what the definition of management engagement is.

Kyle Disher 9:53

We get some autoresponder that has general manager in the tile. Okay. If it says manager, we give credit.

Jim Fitzpatrick 9:58

Okay.

Kyle Disher 9:58

So real manager engagement, it's hard to track at scale. Okay. I guarantee it's substantially lower than that.

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:03

Right, right, right. So the

Video Voicemail And Triple Calling

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:05

so the the the videos play a big role, but we're not doing we're not doing it.

Kyle Disher 10:08

Not doing it.

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:09

What why? Why are we not doing it?

Kyle Disher 10:11

So it's hard to get salespeople to do it, and it's hard to get BDC people to do it. If I'm in front of a room, and uh, if you're watching this, challenge me. If I'm ever in your store, I mean this, hold me to it. I say, give me the first internet lead that comes in.

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:23

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 10:23

I could have 10 people in the room, I could have a hundred people in the room. Right. I call the customer. If they don't answer, I turn to the dealer, I go, can I double call this customer?

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:31

Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Disher 10:31

Then I call again. Then I triple call, as crazy as that sounds. And the reason I triple call is because their stores don't call three times in a week. So I so I do it to get the fear out. And then I shoot a video. And the video that I send is not selling the car, it's selling engagement. Most people think, oh, I gotta go outside. Yeah. I gotta set up a beautiful light kit like you guys got in here. You want to see the video that'll get people to call you?

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:56

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 10:57

Hi buyer, this is Kyle from ABC Toyota. Give me a call as soon as you get the chance, please. It looks like I got that vehicle you want, and ooh, I got a lot of nice stuff out there too. Give me a call when you get the chance, please. Thank you. That's it. As cheesy as that was, 10 seconds. That gets you more than walking out and doing the because I know they want to buy the car. You know how I know? They called. They went to our website. Right. They gave their first name, their last name, their email address, their phone number where they went, click, click, the car sold.

Jim Fitzpatrick 11:22

Right.

Kyle Disher 11:22

So a lot of people got to change their mentality to when they're calling, emailing, you're not even calling to set an appointment, you're calling to confirm it. The appointment's done.

Jim Fitzpatrick 11:30

Okay.

Kyle Disher 11:31

You just got to treat it like a done deal and you make more appointment that way.

Jim Fitzpatrick 11:33

Right, right. So in training and in hiring these people, um, do you let them know that had the importance of the video and the role that it plays in the overall sale of the car?

Kyle Disher 11:44

Our clients are about three times higher in almost every stat.

Jim Fitzpatrick 11:46

Really? So we we hammer on it. Yeah.

Kyle Disher 11:48

It's still tough though. It's still not good enough.

Jim Fitzpatrick 11:49

Yeah. It's it really is incredible to me that something so minor like that and makes so much sense, so much sense, you could really impact your bottom line and the number of sales that you're doing in a month by simply changing that. Huge.

Kyle Disher 12:03

It's funny, when I send those videos live in class, yeah, I everything I do is out of desperation. Okay. Because I always got a hundred people in front of me. Right. So if if double calling upset people, triple, I wouldn't do it. If sending videos upset people, I would because I'm doing it live in front of big rooms. I should have set it up for I can do real uh uh we'll do a mystery shop. I should have called real customers from here, maybe we'll do that sometime. Uh uh, but it just works. People just call back.

Jim Fitzpatrick 12:25

Yeah, isn't that great?

Kyle Disher 12:26

On the video is the new voicemail. I think I've coined that.

Jim Fitzpatrick 12:29

Yeah. So just treat them like voicemails. Well, I could see that. Wow, that's amazing. So you would think that when salespeople see this, they'd say, I gotta I gotta do it. I mean it didn't they just not comfortable doing it?

Kyle Disher 12:40

No, they're not comfortable. The only way you really do it with anything is like managers, so you gotta have managers looking at it. Okay. And when we mystery shop, it's something that we grade, it's right on there. Did you send a video? Yes or no? Okay. And you just gotta make it a big, big part of the way that people do things. Right. And then when you're auditing internet leads and inbound calls, you gotta look in the CRM to see if there was video sent.

Phone Up Guides And Manager Touch

Jim Fitzpatrick 13:00

Yeah, that that's vitally important. Yeah. So let's talk about um uh the the stores that uh are still getting it wrong when it comes to setting appointments. Uh there's a lot to that, I know, that goes into it. One of them is obviously the video. But what are the what are the other areas that dealers are dropping the ball when setting appointments?

Kyle Disher 13:18

Well, talk about inbound calls. Uh you spend a lot of money and have a guy like me. Yeah, Dawson, you know, there's a million trainers out there. Yeah, sure. I just talked to Dawson on the way here. He says hello, by the way. Yeah, yeah. Just saw him last year. I saw his picture on the wall. So uh there you go. In the green room. Um the hack, the trick, the whatever, to this whole thing. Yeah. Fix your phone-ups right now. All you gotta do is crazy as this sounds, this is a little old school. Inbound call comes in. Right. Give the people some type of inbound call guide. Okay. Call a script if you want.

Jim Fitzpatrick 13:46

Okay.

Kyle Disher 13:47

Have them fill that out. Take that inbound call guide and stick it in the CRM.

Jim Fitzpatrick 13:51

Okay.

Kyle Disher 13:51

And then the next place you go is the sales manager. Hey, I just took an inbound call. I set an appointment. Can you do a manager confirmation welcome call for me?

Jim Fitzpatrick 14:00

Right.

Kyle Disher 14:01

Or, hey, I didn't get an appointment because of this, this, and that. If you walked into the average dealership in the United States and you saw a salesperson let a customer leave on the showroom floor without introducing a manager, you would literally see police tape. There'd be a dead body. Guys, freak out.

Jim Fitzpatrick 14:17

That's right.

Kyle Disher 14:18

But for some reason with phone-ups, managers never touch it. I'm going to do a mystery shop call in a few minutes.

Jim Fitzpatrick 14:23

Very good point.

Kyle Disher 14:24

And I'm going to do an unblocked number and the manager will not call me back. You know how I know? I do thousands of mystery shops and the managers never call back. Right. So, so if when I do this mystery shop, whether there's an appointment or not an appointment, who should be calling me back in three minutes? Yeah.

Jim Fitzpatrick 14:39

Sales manager. Yeah, that's right.

Kyle Disher 14:40

Either to do a manager confirmation walk up or to find out what happens.

Jim Fitzpatrick 14:43

Now, I will tell you as a sales manager, you're you're busy doing other things, you're managing ten other salespeople. Uh that's not something that you are used to as a sales manager to be doing follow-up calls or confirmation calls. So is this a new area? No. Okay.

Kyle Disher 14:56

And if you have a room full of managers, they all go, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really? And the second they hit the showroom floor, they don't do it. But the stories that really perform do it. Okay. Well, I'm on the desk a lot, right? Yeah. And I love it when I'm on the desk and I like the paper, even though it's a little old school. I like having a stack of those phone-up cards there.

Jim Fitzpatrick 15:13

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 15:13

Because the second things get slow, even though it's in the CRM, you know what I do? Oh, what happened to this guy? What happened to that guy? So 100% reconciliation. Ten phone-ups come in. Right. Ten call guides filled out.

Jim Fitzpatrick 15:25

Okay.

Kyle Disher 15:25

Ten managers touch it.

Jim Fitzpatrick 15:27

Okay.

Kyle Disher 15:27

You will have a substantial lift in your close ratio for your phone-ups.

Jim Fitzpatrick 15:30

Isn't that crazy? Yep. These are these are things we don't need to spend any more money on for any more marketing. Well, just do it with me. No, but seriously, you know, it's just one of those things that right away everybody says, oh, we need more leads. We need to spend more advertising. We should be here. We should be there. We should be billboards. We should be digital. We should be. And meanwhile, you've got you've got a remedy right here just for the calls that are currently coming in.

Kyle Disher 15:50

And when I'm doing live training, I beg to have the phone-ups transferred into the conference room. I could be in the United States, Canada, any English-speaking country I've ever been to. Yeah. And for whatever reason, nine and a half times out of ten, when I just read our call guide, what happens? We have an appointment.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:05

And that's something.

Kyle Disher 16:06

Yeah, you just gotta, it's, it's, these people want to come in.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:09

You almost have to mess it up. Your attitude and your enthusiasm makes this sound so simple. It is simple. And it is, right?

Kyle Disher 16:15

If you make it simple, it's hard if you make it hard.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:17

That's right.

Kyle Disher 16:18

And and sometimes people, you know, there's a room full of salespeople, and they're like, wow, how'd you do that?

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:22

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 16:23

Because I say the same thing every single time. You know how many times I've said this? I just I just read the I just read the shit.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:29

There's nothing new here, folks, right? That's funny. And I've been, you know, I've been in the business a long time and we talked about this kind of stuff. Not the video, because we didn't have videos back then. But uh all of this stuff is is just been around the industry for so long, you know. Just uh it's amazing. I mean, I I remember uh the GM coming in and going, Are you managers following up on the salespeople with the phone calls? And you know, so this isn't necessarily a brand new concept, it's just getting people to do it, right?

Kyle Disher 16:54

And we have a we have a BDC. I don't know if you knew that or not. Our BDC has a little under 250 people in it. Wow. And we either safety net for dealers, okay, where if a lead gets missed, sure, we jump in, or we're just doing long-term follow-up. But it's funny, just another set of eyes. Yeah, we have about a two to five percent overall increase in internet close rates. So you stick us in there, you just get about a two to five percent bump. That's nice. It's it's it's just it's having somebody really, really watching. Yeah, for sure. So many leads get missed. No, yeah, no question about it. I don't want to throw rocks. If I was at a dealership, I'd miss stuff too. You know, it's just no one's perfect. You just yeah, you want processes to where you you you miss a lot more or a lot less than you make.

Jim Fitzpatrick 17:30

So that's right. That's right. So let's do the let's go to the mystery shop.

Live Mystery Shop Calls Gone Wrong

Jim Fitzpatrick 17:34

Let's do it, let's get it. Let's do it live here, right here on CBT News Live.

Kyle Disher 17:38

All right, we're gonna have Chat GPT. I don't know if you'll be able to see. Let's check out my browser history. Let's see what I've been looking at.

Jim Fitzpatrick 17:44

All right.

Kyle Disher 17:45

Give what brand do you want? Uh Toyota, give me a Toyota dealer anywhere in Georgia and their phone number. Alright, now all you have to do, I don't know if you can see this on the camera or not, what ChatGPT is saying there. Yeah. Uh all right. I got Toyota, maybe we'll beep it out in post, maybe we won't. All you gotta do is throw a salesperson this much of a curveball, okay, and they won't set an appointment. Okay. Give me a basic car. Alright, I'll just have ChatGPT do it. Give me a very basic car. Any car, not a Toyota. We'll go 2017 to 2023. Old ChatGPT says uh. Searching the web. Okay. Uh got a Honda Civics. Very first one that popped up. Okay. Honda Civic, if you can see that, I don't know if you can, you probably can't. Yep. Alright, so we're gonna call and I'm gonna ask for a used Honda Civic. Now, is my dream car a 2018 Honda Civic? Okay. Is that what I want? Do I love it? Why am I calling on 2018 Honda Civic? Probably because I just want a nice cheap car, right?

Jim Fitzpatrick 18:58

Yeah, it is.

Kyle Disher 18:59

So I'm gonna run into a clack fiend. You know what a clack fiend is? There's a lot of clack addicts in Atlanta. Okay, okay. Clack addicts. Yeah, hooked on clack, bro. They crush it up and smell it. So a clack addict is this. You're calling on a 2018 Civic? Let me check the computer. Yeah. Click, clack, click, clack. Okay. Uh I don't have it. I'm sorry. Oh, wait, before we do this, I don't want to be a big butthead. If they set an appointment, $100. We'll figure out a way to get it.

Jim Fitzpatrick 19:28

Okay.

Kyle Disher 19:29

All right. A lot of build up to this call. I should have dialed.

Jim Fitzpatrick 19:31

Yeah. I'm impressed that you keep cash on you. I travel with zero. I brought it just for this.

Kyle Disher 19:40

Yeah, I went to the ATM and the ATM only gave me 20, so I had to go to the front desk of the hotel and ask for a hundred. I'm hot here, right? Through here? Yep.

Speaker 1 19:52

Thank you for calling it. I don't know if you think anything. You only put it on what you're doing.

Kyle Disher 19:56

2018 on the civic courtesy of Chat GPT.

Speaker 1 20:02

Your call maybe recorded to improve the guest experience. For information on our privacy policy, please visit our website. Have a wonderful day.

Speaker 2 20:40

My name is Joe Watkin. How can I be with you?

Kyle Disher 20:43

Um, I was on the website about a week or so ago, and uh I thought I saw 2018 Honda Civic. I just want to see if you still have it, please. I don't see it on the website now.

Speaker 2 20:58

I could check on the availability of that vehicle, sir. Sure. Any other vehicle you'd like me to check for you?

Kyle Disher 21:07

That was nice. So we expanded the inventory. Most people don't pay it. Yeah, this thing was uh uh it was pretty inexpensive, so I I like the black civic, but um, I may take something else if you have something in that range. I think this thing was only like 14 grand, man. Or 15 grand, it's pretty cheap.

Speaker 2 21:24

You remember what color it was? Yes, sir. Let me check on that vehicle for you. Sure.

Kyle Disher 21:32

Believe it or not, this is way better than everyone.

Speaker 2 21:34

You didn't need to buy this vehicle today, did you, sir?

Kyle Disher 21:36

Oh, he's reading the call guide. He's got a stuker call guide. Shout out to Stuoker. No, uh, I mean, I'm I'm semi-flexible. He's reading the call guide. He went back to it.

Speaker 2 21:45

You broke up the case.

Kyle Disher 21:47

No. I'm right. I don't I don't have to have it today.

Speaker 2 21:50

Okay.

Kyle Disher 22:33

I'm not a hundred percent sure. I got a camera now. It's nicer, it's a little newer. I was looking for something for a daily driver, but uh maybe okay.

Speaker 2 22:44

Um we that vehicle I do have a seventeen. Can you text it over to me? I can definitely do that.

Kyle Disher 23:02

Yeah, yes, sir. That'd be great. Thank you.

Speaker 2 23:10

Cool.

Kyle Disher 23:16

Sweet. Yeah, I'll take a look, and if you have any questions, I'll uh I will give you a call, sir. I appreciate you very much.

Speaker 2 23:23

Thank you.

Kyle Disher 23:28

No, just send over whatever. And uh I'll take a look. Thank you.

Speaker 2 23:32

No problem, so yeah, we'll go around to do that.

Kyle Disher 23:35

Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 23:37

Thank you.

Kyle Disher 23:38

Oh, it was so close.

Jim Fitzpatrick 23:39

He did ask for an appointment. I even gave him a trade. Oh my gosh, so close. He didn't ask. I thought he was gonna ask. He had the coal guide right in front of him, too.

Kyle Disher 23:47

He didn't ask. Why do you suppose they do that? I don't know. That's crazy. And so uh not to be armchair quarterback. Right. You're driving a 2022 Camry. We need cars like that. I would love to give your vehicle an appraisal. Right. You know what? Why don't you come down?

Jim Fitzpatrick 24:02

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 24:02

Take a look and see what we have. I promise it's gonna be well worth your time. Right. Can you come in this afternoon or this evening? He just didn't ask. I would have said yes if you asked for the appointment. Right, right. Woo! And he would have made a hundred bucks. And he would have made a hundred bucks. Right. Want to do one more? Sure. All right. Let's do it. If I come back in, we gotta do a I gotta call live customers myself. Too always feel like a bully when I don't make calls too. So if you're watching this, dealers, if you ever get a trainer in your store, say say uh, hey trainer, will you call some customers live in front of my entire dealership? If they don't run out the front door, you gotta winner. Or we'll just do the same call for a hundred bucks.

Speaker 1 24:45

Thank you for calling Toyota. How many help you today? Accounting directory or we can't the same guy?

Kyle Disher 25:06

Uh I was on the website a couple days ago, and I thought I saw a 2018 Honda Civic, and uh, I just want to see if it's still available. Please I don't see it on the website anymore.

Speaker 3 25:18

Uh let me see real quick.

Kyle Disher 25:21

Sure. May have a clack addict here.

Speaker 3 25:25

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 25:25

So the right way to do it, 2018 Honda Civic. That is a great choice. Called the right place. I love the Honda Civic. I'll check on that for you. And while I'm checking on that Honda Civic, I can also check on other vehicles like it too. That's the part that I had the first time I missed.

Speaker 3 25:44

Oh sorry?

Kyle Disher 25:49

It had like a tan interior. I don't see it on the site anymore though. It's alright, man. If you don't have it, it's all good.

Speaker 3 26:10

Uh LA.

Kyle Disher 26:16

This was a black one, it had a tan interior, had like 20,000 miles on it.

Speaker 3 26:20

I think it was an EX, but yeah, we don't have it anymore.

Kyle Disher 26:23

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 3 26:25

Alright.

Kyle Disher 26:26

I love you. Alright, hang up on me. You like that.

Jim Fitzpatrick 26:31

Wow. So put the call guide in front of you. Two for two. Oh for two. My hundred is safe. No, and nobody's going, nobody's get uh going for an appointment. Nobody's gonna say, come on down, I have other vehicles for you. You're obviously in the market for a car. And so many people, as you know, that probably less than uh 20% actually buy the car that they're calling on. Most people buy something else.

Kyle Disher 26:51

And yeah, there's just a way you do it. And I always feel like a bully when I do that. That's why I like making outbound calls too. Yeah, because it's so easy. You're calling on a 2018 Honda Civic, what a great choice. You definitely called the right place. Let me do this. Let me check on that Honda Civic for you. And while I'm checking on that Honda Civic, I can also check on vehicles like it too. Are you looking for just Honda Civics, just something nice in that price? That's so much better than uh give me, let me check. Uh yeah. What are you driving now, by the way? And then boom, and then that's another piece. So if they just engage the trade and expand the inventory, you're gonna have an appointment.

Jim Fitzpatrick 27:22

That's right. These people are no more than really clerks. They're just you're calling them up and saying, hey, do you have the car in stock and they're checking to see if the car? No, we don't. Okay, well, thanks for calling. Order takers. Right. And that call could have cost that dealership, uh, you know, if you went through their advertising or what have you, uh, a lot of money.

Kyle Disher 27:37

Right.

Jim Fitzpatrick 27:37

Yeah, for every call that comes in. Well, and so therefore, there's huge amounts of profit in the calls for for somebody to go back around and then call every customer that called the dealership, right? Because if you got a call from a manager tonight that's a couple of things, well, my phone should be ringing right now. I know, right.

Kyle Disher 27:53

Both people are real numbers on my phone's aren't ringing. One guy hung up on me, I told him I loved him, he didn't like that.

Jim Fitzpatrick 27:59

I mean, this is crazy. This is 2026, and dealerships are still operating this way. And yet then complaining also about the lack of sales or right?

Kyle Disher 28:06

And that's why you just have someone sitting in our call center, whether it's in America or overseas, yeah, and they just read the call guide. Yeah, the call guide forces you to ask for an appointment. Yeah, the call guide says, take this to a manager at the bottom for an initial. Yeah, it just makes it a whole lot harder to fail.

Jim Fitzpatrick 28:22

You said the first one uh you felt as though he was using the call guide, but then you didn't use it all the way.

Kyle Disher 28:28

That uh you could always tell because there's certain things. You don't have to buy a vehicle today, do you? What are you driving now? I think you hit that.

Jim Fitzpatrick 28:33

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 28:33

And then the hold is for whatever reason, every call guide for the most part on Earth has that hold piece in there. Uh so that's a good way to tell too.

Jim Fitzpatrick 28:42

Yeah, yeah. That's funny. I kind of know everybody's call guides. Yeah.

Holds Trade Questions And Momentum

Jim Fitzpatrick 28:45

Don't you run a risk by putting somebody on hold where they just go, ah, I'm not sure. If you do it the right way, okay.

Kyle Disher 28:50

You you you you it's it's it builds momentum, and then if you gotta uh check on something real quick, you're not supposed to put somebody on hold until you have their phone number. Okay. And the hold is supposed to be brief and you're supposed to be excited. Yes. And the hold is to satisfy the customer that you've actually checked.

Jim Fitzpatrick 29:03

Okay. So if done the right way, just could maybe it's the way I was talking about. And there's a whiff them, there's a whiff them there. So what's in it for me? The customer's gonna hold because you want they want to know, is the car in stock, and then more information about it. Yep. Yeah, so they're gonna hold for at least a little while.

Kyle Disher 29:16

And it justifies the fact that you needed their number. You know, I'm gonna check on this for you real quick. You call it from homework, your cell, yeah, and the number there, yeah, and your last name spelled and your first.

Jim Fitzpatrick 29:24

Right.

Kyle Disher 29:24

Oh, actually, you know what? I could probably check on this for you uh now. Can you hang on just a second? It gives it like it gives a reason why you had to get the phone number. So it justifies it a little bit.

Jim Fitzpatrick 29:34

Yep, absolutely.

Kyle Disher 29:34

You want to

Pixel Motors Game For Sales Skills

Kyle Disher 29:35

hear something funny? I haven't told you this. Uh uh, every morning at 8 a.m. is my favorite meeting of the entire day.

Jim Fitzpatrick 29:42

Okay.

Kyle Disher 29:42

So the name may change. I filed a trademark. I might not get the trademark. I think I will. Pixel Motors. Pixel Motors. So we're making a video game. It started pretty small, okay, and now there's 15 photos. Unknown callers. Oh, I'm sorry. I'd have been so happy if that was a uh call me back. Yeah. That was not a telemarker. Um, so Pixel Motors. Uh uh, we got a video game where you customize a character, yeah, and then you learn how to sell cars just by playing the video game. And in the video game station. Oh, yeah. It's gonna be on Xbox, PlayStation. Uh uh, if I get approved, which it looks like I'm going to.

Jim Fitzpatrick 30:18

Right.

Kyle Disher 30:18

The uh iPhone, Android, all the major places.

Jim Fitzpatrick 30:21

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 30:21

You customize a character and uh you you literally play the game and learn how to sell cars.

Jim Fitzpatrick 30:26

That's pretty cool. It's uh it's gonna be fun. That'd be fun.

Kyle Disher 30:28

And the phone-up piece, when you take an inbound call in a video game, the way that it works, because it's a small screen for most of it, uh, the customer has a question, and then you have three options of what you can say to them. Okay, and it kind of just leads you down the call guide. It's pretty slick.

Jim Fitzpatrick 30:40

That is, that is.

Kyle Disher 30:41

The first day, if you become a developer, have you have you seen the movie Suckers? Yes. So the very first day, I have a talk, I'm like, look, man, car dealers are nice people, they're not really like this anymore. I want this energy though. So I make them watch Suckers the first day, the devs. Uh-huh. And then I have them watch the flash.

Jim Fitzpatrick 30:57

They don't want to run for the door after they see that movie. No, they're getting paid either way. They get to watch it on the clock.

Kyle Disher 31:02

So uh but 8 a.m. every morning, I'm I'm I'm

Accountability With Weekly Shops

Kyle Disher 31:05

I'm working on that game. It's gonna be out by late September.

Jim Fitzpatrick 31:07

Very cool. So clearly, uh, Kyle, this is an area that, you know, if a dealer just trains their people in this one area and then uh and then checks on how their people are doing, because I think that's the other thing. We're not holding enough people accountable. We said we do the training, we give them the manual to you to you to your point, you've got the sales sheet right there that they can read from, make it easy. But if somebody's not coming back around and checking whether they're listening to the phone calls uh, you know, uh or or recordings, I should say, or checking while they're in the in the BDC to see that these calls are being handled, you got nothing.

Kyle Disher 31:40

You got nothing. Most of our dealers are self-serving as this sounds, it's very inexpensive. We have a package where we mystery shop the store every single week via the phone and then the internet, and then we have a learning management system that has over a thousand videos in it. If somebody flubs a mystery shop, yeah, we assign content based on the shop. Oh, cool. So we're certifying or recertifying, and then we send our dealers a report every single morning, and the report says, here's your amount of inbound calls with no appointments from yesterday, here's your unconfirmed, here's your confirmed. So we try and make it super easy for them.

Jim Fitzpatrick 32:09

Yeah, wow, that's pretty cool. Yeah, so yeah.

Kyle Disher 32:11

So most most of our direct clients are on those three things.

Jim Fitzpatrick 32:14

Right. So training, training, and more training. Yep, and then this is what I'm hearing.

Kyle Disher 32:18

And then helping people hold folks accountable because when they see that mystery shop, yeah, and they're like, oh, it just I like them when they're positive meetings. I don't like a negative meeting. I want the miss I want the mystery shop meeting to be, you did it again, you nailed it, you know. But you know, there's at first they're rough.

Jim Fitzpatrick 32:34

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 32:34

They go from like people are terrified for the Monday morning mystery shop meeting. Oh, sure. Then they start getting excited because they start it's not that hard to do a good job.

Jim Fitzpatrick 32:41

Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Disher 32:42

So our mystery shoppers are lay downs.

Jim Fitzpatrick 32:43

We're easy. Yeah. What percentage of customers call the dealership prior to coming into the store?

Kyle Disher 32:48

I don't know the the the the new stat.

Jim Fitzpatrick 32:50

Okay. Uh let's put it on the screen. It's got to be pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, right. It's got to be pretty high.

Kyle Disher 32:54

Or the internet. I mean, the they they they're hitting the internet. Oh, it's 100% if you count the website too.

Jim Fitzpatrick 32:59

Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. And uh, but then people are gonna call like you just did to get more information from a sales associate about that particular car. Is it in stock? You know, what tell me the history behind it? I want to talk to you about my trade-in, what are the next steps? Because so typically customers are looking for that guidance throughout the sale.

Kyle Disher 33:16

When they call, they're done. It's a done deal. Yeah. They have one or two questions, they're begging you to come in if you treat them the right way.

Jim Fitzpatrick 33:23

That's right. And in these two calls, if you made 20 calls right now, and we don't have time for 20 calls, but if you made 20 calls right now, what would your guesstimate be of the number of uh people that would go for an appointment to try to set up an appointment with you?

Kyle Disher 33:37

I think it's 63% of our mystery shops. Okay. And we are absolute, we couldn't, it's 63.6% uh out of 120,000 mystery shops this year. And we're like, when we mystery shop, I don't even like listen to our mystery shops to make feel comfortable, because we literally go, uh, hey, I'm calling on stock number one, two, three, four, five, the black silver auto. We call just on an in-stock unit. Yeah. We call on an in-stock unit on their website and give a stock number and it's 63%.

Jim Fitzpatrick 34:05

Oh my god.

Kyle Disher 34:06

You give salespeople this much of a curveball, they just fold.

Jim Fitzpatrick 34:09

Jesus. Now, and then what was the percentage of the people that will follow up with you after you've made that call?

Kyle Disher 34:14

Oh, it's low. Uh for the the stat I gave you earlier was internet, it's 33% of people follow up on the internet. Oh my god. On the on the I mean, I get I get I I gave my real phone number to two dealers. Managers aren't calling me right now. No. My phone should if they called, I would answer. My phone should be ringing with a manager right now.

Jim Fitzpatrick 34:29

That's right. Because it tells, I mean, the fact that you called the dealership, you're in the mode. You're in, you're you're in the funnel right now going, I'm calling around at dealerships, I need a car, I'm gonna keep calling until I find somebody that's willing to help me, you know, sell me a car, right?

Kyle Disher 34:43

And they're crazy. And again, what would happen if two salespeople right now in any dealer USA walked out and greeted a customer on the showroom floor, yeah, and then just kicked them out without the manager.

Jim Fitzpatrick 34:55

Oh manager, they would lose their minds. But this happens every day. That's a very, very good point. Yeah, there's no question. Wow.

Kyle Disher 35:03

That's and most people don't engage the trade, too. That's the other big opportunity, yeah, is uh low engagement at trade-ins.

Jim Fitzpatrick 35:08

What are you driving now? Yeah, for sure. Oh, cool. We want to buy your car. Oh, yeah, we'll give you top dollar, you know, even if you don't buy ours. I mean, it's it's it's it's so easy, and yet they're not even going for that.

Kyle Disher 35:19

Shout out to my man Javier at Simpson Chevrolet in Southern California. He's the platform there. This is his study, not mine. Yeah, he's way better at this stuff than me, and he's the biggest Chevy dealer in Southern California.

Jim Fitzpatrick 35:30

Yeah.

Kyle Disher 35:30

I don't think he'll mind me sharing this. He looked at leads, internet leads, and phone-ups. The close rate tripled when they had a trade involved in the deal. You're three times more likely to make the deal when there's a trade involved. No kidding. Yep. Oh, that's interesting. And he tracked it across all four of his stores.

Jim Fitzpatrick 35:44

Very interesting. Huh. That's that's I'm surprised at that. Interesting. So um

One Deal A Day Takeaway

Jim Fitzpatrick 35:50

the end of the day, dealers um that are listening to us have this conversation here today. Um you don't need more advertising, okay? You don't need more cars, even in this case. All you need is to pay attention to the calls that are currently coming in to your store. Listen to those calls. Make sure your people are trained. And then when you train them, check again to make sure that they're doing what they've been trained on. Um, you know, Kyle's uh uh demonstration here today, you probably know in the back of your mind, yeah, that sounds about right. And that that my salespeople are probably doing that too. For every dealer that's out there, who would want an extra deal a day? Another 30 cars a month, another ninety to a hundred thousand dollars in gross profit, just one deal a day, okay? If you don't think you're burning through one deal a day right now by not taking good care of the customers that call and going for the appointment and then following up with them once they did call, you're crazy. You guys know the business. You know, you know in your heart of hearts that if you were doing that with every single one of your customers, you'd be c you'd be picking up that extra deal a day. Maybe two or three deals a day, depending on the volume of your store. So this is a no-brainer. This is no brainer. No brainer at all. And and I again, I hope dealers watch this segment, listen to it. They might even give you a call and say, hey, get in here, I think I need you. But uh Kyle Disher, founder and CEO of Rev Dojo, and uh we love having you in, man, because you bring this to us. And it's I think it's an eye-opener for a lot of dealers, you know. It shouldn't be, because I think, like I said, I think in their heart of hearts they know that this is probably going on in my store. Right.

Kyle Disher 37:18

I've been on the road two and a half months, and all I've been doing for the most part is either hiring or training. So I'm out there a lot. I mix it up every single day, and I just want things to be better. Can I give a shout out to you, by the way? We are not in Jim's basement. You guys should see this. The whole production team out there. Oh, yeah. Everything is beautiful.

Jim Fitzpatrick 37:34

This is very, very impressive at all. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have been in this location for almost 10 years. It's beautiful. Yes, thank you very much. And we're glad you made it into the studio. It's always better in the studio. Always better in the studio. Yeah, that's right.

Kyle Disher 37:45

Did I just get an invite for next time I'm in Atlanta?

Jim Fitzpatrick 37:47

You're always invited.

Kyle Disher 37:49

Yes.

Jim Fitzpatrick 37:51

You're always invited to the studio. We love having you here.

Kyle Disher 37:53

So last thing is this will be fun if you don't mind. I'm gonna hide this somewhere. Let's let one of your staff find it. What? Let's do it. Come on. I plan on giving this away.

Jim Fitzpatrick 37:59

How much money do you make, man? Giving away $100. No, it's it's my cost room.

Kyle Disher 38:03

We're worse for we're gonna hide it right there.

Jim Fitzpatrick 38:04

We're letting Montreal if he finds it. We'll see if he finds it. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much, Kyle. Really appreciate it. This is good stuff. Good stuff. And dealers, pay attention. You're you're the phone's ringing, people want to give you money, and you're not taking it. Uh, you just got to make a few tweaks in your training and then check what's happening, you know, through listening to the calls and uh making sure that these customers are being taken care of. So thanks so much.

Kyle Disher 38:26

Dealers, we can help you. It's a lot easier than it seems to be. You put a few little tools in place and people will be rocking.

Jim Fitzpatrick 38:32

That's right. Yeah, it really is easier. Thanks. Appreciate it. Appreciate it.