Why Dealers Are Pulling Back on Advertising Amid FTC Scrutiny

This episode explores the growing impact of FTC advertising compliance rules on automotive retail with David Spisak, CEO of Disruptive Growth Solutions.

Spisak breaks down why the FTC’s expanded enforcement efforts are creating significant operational and financial challenges for dealerships, while also acknowledging the industry’s role in prompting increased regulatory scrutiny. From social media posts and vehicle listings to vendor accountability and declining dealer profitability, he explains how compliance now touches nearly every aspect of dealership operations.

Key discussion points:

•  How the FTC’s 16 compliance categories affect every dealership department and marketing channel 
•  Why outdated vehicle listings, emails, and social media posts can trigger costly violations 
•  The industry's responsibility for creating conditions that led to stronger FTC oversight 
•  The financial and reputational risks dealerships face from compliance failures 
•  How reduced advertising activity may be contributing to weaker sales performance 
•  What dealers, vendors, and industry groups must do to adapt and advocate for a more practical regulatory framework 

Spisak argues that customer protection is essential, but effective enforcement must balance accountability with realistic expectations for dealers operating in today’s marketplace.

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 Why FTC Matters

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:07

Welcome to Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick. Hey everyone, Jim Fitzpatrick. Thanks so much for tuning in to another edition of Inside Automotive right here at the CBT Automotive Network. Look who I have here with me, Mr. David Spizak. If you don't know this gentleman, you haven't been in the retail automotive industry all that long. But uh I think you're gonna like what you see with David. He's uh the CEO of Disruptive Growth Solutions. He's also the host of the wildly popular David Speezak show, uh which you definitely need to tune into and keep that on your podcast uh lineup. But uh David, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule there to join us on the show.

David Spisak 0:45

Jim, it's an absolute pleasure and thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It's always a great time to chat with you, whether it's on screen or off-screen.

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:53

Absolutely. Likewise, I feel the same way. So let's let's kind of dive in here. You know, last time we got together, which was just last week, and uh, we were talking a little bit about some of the things that are happening in the marketplace right now. Obviously, the dealers are, you know, their heads are spinning. We're dealing with affordability and we're dealing with uh tariffs you know, beginning of last year, still dealing with them. Now all of a sudden we go into war, now we got gas prices. Lo and behold, the FTC comes around and says, you know what, we don't like the way you guys are advertising your cars. We think we're gonna go ahead and throw some million-dollar fines on you uh to just to just to uh you know shake things up a little bit in retail automotive. So dealers obviously are out there with their heads spinning on all of

The New Reality Of FTC Enforcement

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:35

this, but today let's talk about the FTC and what what this really means to dealers. I know it's something that is near and dear to your heart, you're passionate about it, as I am as well. And uh and and you know, if you were a dealer today, what would be what would be at the at the top of your at the top of your mind as it relates to the FTC?

David Spisak 1:54

Well, first of all, um thank you to the FTC. Um you know, life was just so easy for dealers uh before this. And you know, there was no headwinds whatsoever. And frankly, they were getting bored with how easy it was to sell new cars. So it's wonderful that we have something new to talk about.

Jim Fitzpatrick 2:16

Yes.

David Spisak 2:17

So the FTC, I I genuinely think this is one of those things that happens, and most oftentimes when when we get bureaucrats involved, Jim, where there oftentimes, I have no doubt there was good intention. Hey, let's protect the consumer. Who doesn't want to do that? Hey, let's make sure that the consumer is getting an honest representation, whether it's on advertising, they're getting a great experience. Listen, you know, and I know every dealer that we know has is obsessed or committed or passionate about delivering a great client experience and making sure that is as seamless, frictionless, you know, easy as possible and transparent. Right. This is this is like pulling it out of the file of you know, uh things that are obvious, right? So every dealer knows that. We've been talking about it for years. So lo and behold, you know, the FTC decides, of course, a couple years ago they were all over the FI department again. Shocking, but now they are jumping all over this advertising thing. No, no, don't get me wrong. I know plenty of dealers, and so do you. You had Andy Wright on not too long ago, right? You've had Brian on. Oh, yeah. And there's plenty of dealers who have been complaining because there's situations like on third-party marketplaces where people just don't play fair. That's right. And they're not corrected by those third-party marketplaces. And so it puts me as an honest dealer, if I'm them, in a very disadvantaged position. Right. And it becomes a very uncompetitive and very unfair circumstance. I lose customers and I also lose revenue, of course. That's right. But here's the problem: the problem is good intention going bad. The problem is collateral damage. I'm sorry, Jim. My popularity is at an all-time high. Um, turn that off.

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:04

See that you're only on CBT for a few minutes and all of a sudden your phone's blowing up.

David Spisak 4:08

No, I'm telling you, all they do is see me with you, and now I've got the paparazzi all over me. But Jim, it this is another one of those things

Sixteen Compliance Categories To Track

David Spisak 4:15

where you got collateral damage and it's good intentions gone bad. Let me just share a couple things. So there is, from what I could see, at least 16 different categories. 16 different categories. Now, if I'm a dealer, like I had nothing to do. I was playing Sudoku or Solitaire all day. And now I have to monitor 16 different categories in multiple departments. My new car and used car department. If I have more than one store, of course, you can multiply that out. But it's worse than that. Because my marketing, as you know, what they consider marketing or advertising is frankly anything. It's social. And it's not just if I have paid social. No, if my salesperson goes on, as you know, and says, hey, just got this new car in, 30,000 bucks. Guess what? Advertising. Hey, Stillantis just came out with a new rebate, and you could stack this rebate with this rebate. Bam, there's $53,088. Have a nice day. That's right. So I have to monitor everything everybody does. I have to monitor the feeds that come out of my email, out of out of all of my marketing channels, my CDP, everything. Think about this. If I sell a car today and that car goes away at 12 p.m. CDT, I have to have that car off the internet. Technically, I'm in violation. If somebody says, I'm interested in that car at 3 p.m., oh, wait a minute. That's right. That car was sold. It's unavailable. Oh, it's not available. That's a bait and switch. Yeah. That's right. There's actually things, Jim, in this that you could get hit. One thing can turn into two or three different categories. Some of them, like the third-party marketplace, it's not just a violation. How many days was it up there? Ten days? Oh, all right. That's $530,000. So it is, it's just it doesn't make sense. That's right. At all. It's preposterous. There's no way somebody can easily, effectively, and

Why Honest Dealers Still Get Hurt

David Spisak 6:10

accurately audit every source, every person, every day.

Jim Fitzpatrick 6:14

Do you think though, David, that in line, you know, I've been in the business since the 80s, and um and I know you've been out for um, but don't don't you think at some level we kind of brought this on ourselves in within retail automotive? I know that there's a lot of dealers that do it right, and forgive me, dealers out there that are listening and go, damn it, we you know, we are clean as a whistle, and I commend you for that. But there's a lot of dealers out there that do, in fact, play a lot of these games. To your point, even for the third party, to be r to remain competitive on third-party lead providers and and to be competitive on your websites and what have you, where they hide the thousand dollar dock fee, or they put on a car that's got a ceramic uh coating on there, and they don't tell the customer it's already installed and we can't take a trade. Yeah, you can't get a trade, or this has a military rebate that we included, but you've never been in the military, or whatever the case might be, to in an effort to compete and sell cars. But I think at some level we we've gotta kind of uh man up on this a little bit, and uh if that sounds too sexist, and say, look, we gotta fix it. You know, we we've got to change the way that we're doing business. All of those 16 things, uh, it's crazy. There's there's no question about it. And I think there's gotta be some kind of a uh coming of the minds, coming together of the minds in the industry that does say, all right, let's figure out a way forward. There's gotta be a little a little maneuverability here so that dealers, to your point, you know, they sell a car and somebody does go on in the middle of the night, and that car is, you know, still on your inventory. And I mean, though those are very valid things. There's no question about it, and scary. Um, but what what is your take on that? Do you do you think there's a little bit of culpability on our part that we're we're we kind of we kind of push the envelope over the years? Now, I this this might be market specific. I come from the South Florida market, and that's where I cut my teeth. It is like the wild west. We had two there's two thousand dollar dock fees down there. It's like standard.

David Spisak 8:18

It is, it is. And you know, it's funny you say that because I was reviewing the dock fees across the country, and they ranged from a low of $85 in California, which makes sense. It's the most inexpensive place to own a dealership, right? I mean, labor's cheap, real estate's cheap. $85. Do you know that the California New Car Dealer Association uh repeatedly has tried to get for years to get that number up. Now, when I was when I had the store, I know it was $53, $55, right? So, you know, in 40 years, hey, way to go, we've come up $30. Yeah. Um, they tried to get it increased to $395 and it got and it got approved by both sides of the house. I know, I know, and then and then got turned down. That's right. Vetoed by the government, but then you go $300, $500, $1,000, $1,500. Yeah. And like you said, it's a wild odd west. So, you know, we've got stores out there that have both docs and and delivery fees. Yeah. We've got stores that take liberties to the degree. Yeah. And it instead of $700, like there's stores in Florida that are $700, $800, stores at $1,200, stores at $1,500 and more. You know, it so have we brought this on? Yeah. Do we have some culpability? No. We have a lot of culpability, right? And and the reality is we should be doing a better job. We should have been doing a better job. It was my assertion years ago when all the talk about agency was was being bantered about, yeah, that that we brought that on. Because here's the thing. When, give you a perfect example, during COVID and during the chip shortage, how many dealers, Jim, were selling vehicles,

Dealer Culpability And Fee Games

David Spisak 10:00

caravans, they couldn't sell, they couldn't give this car away. Right. Right. But then all of a sudden it was 10 grand over.

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:06

I know.

David Spisak 10:07

And there was a lot of research, first of all, that created the lowest brand loyalty in the history of this business, the lowest dealer loyalty in the history of this business. And there was, I believe it was 30 or 32 percent of all people that said they paid over MSRP will never go back to that store again. Not for parts, not for service, not for anything. Right. So when you do that, we we we really fed right into the OEM saying, you know what? We might be doing the agency model. Yeah. You should be dealing with us. We're fair, we're transparent. Right. You're 100% right. Yeah. And while the stuff with the FTC, uh, it's not justified in my mind. It goes way too far. It's impossible to manage. It's a but the reality is, I hope everybody takes it seriously as a wake-up call because this is no joke. And there are stores out there that literally could not handle um five or ten or fifteen violations. It would ruin them. That's right. They're literally, you know the stores around them.

Jim Fitzpatrick 11:09

No question about it. Especially for these younger, I say younger, but but newer dealers out there that finally, their GMs that finally got their own store, put all their life savings together, and they're, you know, they're working car deal to car deal, making sure that there's no CITs so they can make payroll. And uh, you're right. One big million dollar fine, $500,000 fine, and those people are either done or in a very, very tough situation, to say the least.

David Spisak 11:36

And we're not even counting, I mean, the financial side would be catastrophic. The reputational damage would be the nail in the coffin. That's right, because two. Yeah. So it and it's and it's you don't win either way. Yeah. If I've had a store 30 years and my store gets hit gets hit, right, with 15, 18 fines and you know, three million bucks, yeah, then I've got customers going, oh my God, how long's this been going on? He's been doing it for 30 years. He finally got caught.

Jim Fitzpatrick 12:07

That's right.

David Spisak 12:07

And if I've only had the store for six months, oh my god, yeah, this person should have never been approved. You can't win as a car as a dealer. I know. It's funny, isn't it? That you know, you don't have to have a high school degree.

Jim Fitzpatrick 12:19

Uh-huh.

David Spisak 12:20

And you could get hired. And within two years, if you work hard, you could be making six figures.

Jim Fitzpatrick 12:25

Oh, yeah, for sure.

David Spisak 12:26

You know, you within 10 years, you could be a dealer. You could come in this country, don't speak the language. You know these people. I do. I know them, yeah, for sure. And they own multiple stores. This, no, who who's who contributes more money on balance to the municipalities, the tax base, to support the communities, fire departments, police departments. We can't win. I know. No matter what. So the thing is, here we go again. It's just the latest thing in the line of many things you and I have seen since the 80s. I got in in 1981. And yet it's another opportunity to prove we're smart, we're resilient, and we will do, we will adapt and do what's right uh in every case to make sure that we are viable

Fines And Reputation Can Kill Stores

David Spisak 13:10

going forward. But the reality is, Jim. Help me out. This whole thing where the FTC is actually encouraging dealers to rat out other dealers.

Jim Fitzpatrick 13:20

Well, that's a whole nother thing.

David Spisak 13:21

Don't give me wrong.

Jim Fitzpatrick 13:22

That is unbelievable. I say, don't give me wrong, but very believable. And you know as well that if you've got a dealer that is, you know, um uh doing right by their market and the consumers and and doing everything on those 16 items, they're going, yep, check, check, we're we're all good. Uh, and but they've got the next store down that they're competing with that isn't plain fair. They're gonna want to report them. They're gonna want to report them just out of survival mode. I'm not saying they should. I don't know what that looks like, but it's gonna turn into the uh it's gonna turn into the the McCarthy hearings from the 19th century. It is the 40s, right? It is.

David Spisak 14:00

It's it's it's it's like I think uh, you know, like FTC has turned into Vice Squad. Yeah, right.

Jim Fitzpatrick 14:05

Yeah, exactly.

David Spisak 14:06

And I'm I I'm I'm ratting out the big drug dealer, right, to save myself. So, but I could be, I could be this is the whole thing I had a problem. You you'll get this. You've got obviously the the wonderful your small business network as well, the American Small Business Network. But how many times have been small businesses have been bitten in the ass because some uh unethical person started making reviews about their business that were not true?

Jim Fitzpatrick 14:32

Oh, yeah.

David Spisak 14:32

And now here's the thing Yelp doesn't even allow me to contest that. Yeah, that's right. Unless I pay I buy the Yelp business program, and then I could at least say, yeah, that's baloney, but I could have one restaurant, you know, saying bad things about the restaurant across the street. This restaurant has to figure out how to do deal with the collateral damage of that and how to fix the reputation when they did nothing wrong. Meanwhile, this person is having everybody walk over there. Yep. It's a it's a problem. We had actually one of our restaurants, we opened up a restaurant in Houston, and you know, Steph Curry, his wife, is a partner in in one of the restaurants. It's called International Smoke. Nice. And so we think let's open up an international smoke in Houston. Okay, well, the Houston Rockets, the Houston fans hate the Golden State Warriors and should have never gone there. Right. Hold other discussion. Right. But you know what's a proof of this Yelp thing? We were getting bad reviews on that restaurant a month before it opened.

Jim Fitzpatrick 15:34

Oh, wow. Wow.

David Spisak 15:36

A month before it opened. Reviews on there. And that's crazy. It wasn't even open yet. Wow. That's right. So now we have this thing with the FTC, Jim, where

Reporting Competitors And False Accusations

David Spisak 15:45

I have to defend myself even if I did something nothing wrong. And by the way, we were talking about this. If the attorney general or the DMV comes into any store in the country, public, private, I don't care if it's open if it's owned by Pope Leo, they're gonna find something.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:04

That's right.

David Spisak 16:04

And all they need is to find one thing to pull out that industrial microscope. And next thing you know, the microscope's on their entire dress.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:12

100%. You're exactly right. And they're gonna do that. That's why the 97 letters were sent out, because that was the warning shot. That was the fire across the bow to go, we're coming, but we wanted to make sure that we warned everybody, you know, uh about this. And uh I think it's gonna, you know, it it's got some attention now. Every dealer is worried about it, but wait till the next wave of fines comes out, you know, uh across the country, and then every dealer in the country is gonna go, okay, halt all sales until we can figure this thing out, right?

David Spisak 16:42

I I wanted to call out and commend you uh for something. I mean, first of all, what you do in the industry and for the industry, remarkable, absolutely remarkable. I can't think it's been over 10 years now, right?

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:55

Coming from you, that means a lot. How many, how many years, CBT? 14 years. We're in our 14th year. Wow. Yep, fantastic. It just keeps getting better.

David Spisak 17:03

But I'm calling this out, Jim, because it's such an undertaking to put together an event, any event.

Jim Fitzpatrick 17:09

Yeah.

David Spisak 17:10

And you're putting together this event I saw in DC. Yep. The lineup of speakers is phenomenal. 100% on point. But the reason I'm saying this is we're a news cycle society. We really are. Yeah. And I don't care the war in Iran, right? The straight off horror moves or it's tariffs or it's whatever, right? Might be happening. But it's always the next news cycle, the next news cycle that happens. Well, it's funny, when the FTC came out with their stricter guidelines, compliance on F and I, it wasn't a matter of a month or two before that faded out of everybody's brain. I know. That's dangerous. And this one's even more important. There's way more at stake. That's right because, again, reputation, financial, and everything else. So I do commend you because this is something that honestly we can't talk about enough until we can get to a resolution of one or the other. Sure. Where we've put dealers in a position to where they firmly understand and have a grasp of what needs to be done and what actions they must take on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Or we get the FTC to come to their senses. We're not saying don't take care of these unscrupulous dealers. Absolutely do. Don't we we're saying take care of the customers. We believe in that. But come on,

Washington Event And Industry Wake Up

David Spisak 18:30

you got to do it in a way that doesn't harm great dealers in the process. That's right. So I appreciate you doing that. I look forward to being out there.

Jim Fitzpatrick 18:38

For those of you that are wondering what we're talking about here, it's June 16th in uh Washington, D.C. at the Salamander Hotel. And uh we're so excited to have everybody come together on this issue. It's the CBT News Auto uh uh leadership summit cu covering uh fair pricing and compliance. And um we're you know everybody's welcome to come out. We've got just a great, as you said, a great lineup of speakers. Uh I don't know that everybody's gonna walk out and go, okay, that was done. We just went to the event and we're good, everything's fine now. But at least bring to bringing together um this brain trust and these important individuals that have a stake in this, both on the dealer side and the vendor side, by the way, and of course OEM executives to say, how do we come together? How do we start this conversation? Uh, ask the necessary questions. Everybody that is there will have a voice. You know, there'll be QA's throughout the entire day, and we want everybody to stand up and give their give their opinion, give their take on this, give their suggestions on what we should how we should move forward. And uh, we're excited about it. So we've got a great turnout already.

David Spisak 19:43

I think it's fantastic. And I and I do want to touch on one thing that you just mentioned, because interestingly, it's really

Vendors On The Hook As Partners

David Spisak 19:50

not being mentioned um very much at all, and that's the vendor side.

Jim Fitzpatrick 19:53

That's right.

David Spisak 19:54

So everybody's talking about the dealer side, but man oh man, if you're a website provider today, boy, you you said level up, you know, man up, woman up, level up. If you're a website provider, I'm guessing you're pretty busy. And if you're not, I will tell you this if you're a website provider, yeah, and you're not actively auditing the websites, if you're not doing things to protect every one of your dealer clients, you're on the wrong side of this. And while you will not get tagged, there's no culpability for you, there's no exposure for you, not in terms of the FTC, but I promise dealers are going to remember because you've heard this a million times, Jim. We're long past the time when any dealer wants another vendor on the paywall. But they are happy to take on partners because every great business and every great leader needs partners. So I hope every vendor out there, if you're touching marketing, advertising, messaging in any way, social search, you know, websites or or uh any digital anything, you've got to be an even better partner today.

Jim Fitzpatrick 21:01

Yeah, no, no question about it. And I will say, tell you that, you know, my son runs Force Marketing. You were nice enough to have him on your podcast. It was a great show. Awesome conversation. And he's got, I think now 1,600 rooftops that he handles the marketing for around the country. And he said, I I can't tell you, Dad, how many phone calls that I've gotten where, you know, the dealer says, now, John, you know, you guys at Force, you've got this, right? You've got our back. You're gonna you're gonna fix all of this. You're gonna make sure that he isn't going to advertise anything that they shouldn't be advertising. He's like, Time out, we got to get together on this because you know, you've got managers and GMs and partners that are screaming at me, how do I compete? You can't put these numbers out there, even though they're legitimate numbers. We're not there yet. All my competitors are you know, are eating my lunch online and what have you. And so it's it's not easy. It really isn't. He's doing what he can, but it's but it's really a major situation. And it is to your point, with Those third party lead providers and of course those uh website uh providers to to dealers as well.

Sales Slowdown And OEM Incentive Pullback

Jim Fitzpatrick 22:05

We're all in this thing together and we gotta we gotta figure it out, you know. Nobody's got the uh the silver bullet.

David Spisak 22:11

You just uh rompted in my brain, I thank you. This year's not been easy. No, um and if you go back, Q Q4 was not was not uh good. Right was not a positive quarter. October, November, and December all failed to beat the previous year. Right. In January, we fell a million short on the SAR, as you know, 14.9 versus 15.9 last year. Yep. In February, we kind of caught up even 15. In in March, we got our butts kicked because last March, of course, President Trump announced the tariffs and things. We went up to an uh 18 million SAR. Yeah. No way we were gonna catch that. We get that. No. April, typically a soft start, better finish. It was it was kind of blase. Yeah. You know, it's just okay. May is the magical sales month of the year. Oh, it's the month that everything turns on full blast. That's right. Jim, I got a prediction. I think it's gonna be underwhelming. And I think it's gonna be underwhelming for a number of reasons. And it's not this the street of whore moves, it's not gas prices, yeah, that's impacting some brands, some stores, some locations more than others. I think it's the FTC situation because it's turned everything on their head. So many dealers have pulled back, and these honest dealers that can't even advertise what their OEMs are advertising, all of a sudden I'm in conflict with the OEM. So they're pulling way back. And I I got dealers around the country, and it's very, very few that are saying that they're having a good month versus even a great month. That's right. But most of them, it's been a it's been anywhere from abysmal to underwhelming.

Jim Fitzpatrick 23:58

Yeah. Do you agree? I I do agree. I do agree. And uh, and it's unfortunate that we're we're talking about that because uh or or that's the case right now. Um I do think it's all of it. I think that the FTC situation was just kind of the the icing on this cake where it was like, you gotta be kidding me. You know, we got affordability, we got gas prices, we got the war, we've got uh even interest rates on home mortgages are is up right now. So it's just a it's a pain point all the way around. Your credit card interest rates are more, which means you're making higher payments. I mean, it's it's just there's a squeeze taking place. Um unfortunately, you know, this thing started back, you know, uh 18 months ago when Trump came in. Um again, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, but I mean he comes in, you know, uh like a bull in a China shop with tariffs. Everybody's trying to figure that out. The OEMs are like, well, we'll absorb as much as we possibly can for as long as we can, but we can't do this forever. And uh, and of course now we're we're seeing that, you know, and uh And here's here's the other thing the OEMs, I got you, partner, I got you.

David Spisak 25:03

We'll absorb this. Yeah, they absorbed it right out of the dealer. Yeah, you know what they did because what have they done? They pulled back on customer incentive spending. That's right. So yeah, you absorbed it, yeah, but if you pull back on customer incentive spending, guess what? We're gonna sell fewer new cars. That's right. And then you pull back on dealer incentives. Guess what? That affects my my bottom line because you know, we're back to the days to where dealers have to rely on that money below the line in order to be able to be profitable. That's right. And that money's down, as you know, 30, 40 percent or more. That's right. So it's it's a it's a it's uh very nebulous. You know, it's harder and harder to get clarity, and there's so many layers and so many nuances, as you know, Jim. So, you know, but the one thing that I can count on, you can count on when it comes to dealers, they're not going anywhere. No,

OEM Partnership And The Scout Example

David Spisak 26:00

they're not going anywhere. Might get punched in the face, might get knocked down a few times.

Jim Fitzpatrick 26:04

Yeah, people still need to drive cars, they're not gonna stop driving cars. They might drive different cars. Now we're talking about getting back into the sedan business and the smaller cars, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, lo and behold, with the Chinese threat, uh Jim Farley comes out and goes, Well, wait a minute, maybe we can build a $30,000 EV pickup truck. Oh, where'd that come from? Where's that been? Where's that been? Was that hidden behind the Chinese factories that you're you know, he said, I'm driving a Chinese vehicle right now to figure out, wow, this this thing's incredible. I know it's a whole nother show, right? But uh but it is make China great again.

David Spisak 26:41

Um wow, so yeah, it's it's amazing how so oftentimes, and don't get me wrong, they've got very long terms, right? Turn that aircraft carrier that is an OEM. You can't just go like this and flip on a dime. But you have to say, when it comes to anticipation, we haven't had a really great track record over the last 20, 25 years since the year 2000. Right, right. So it's just like, you know, they come out with Hemi engines and all big engines when the gas is six bucks a gallon and then come out with cars when gas is two bucks a gallon. It's just like it's not easy. No, and by the way, they are under assault as well by by direct to consumer and everything else. No, yeah. But it, you know, it's it's not easy, but they've got to figure it out. And all I care about from a dealer's perspective, because you know me, I'm a staunch dealer advocate, yeah, is the word partner infers there there's two sides. Right. And that means there should be transparency, right, on both sides, not just one side. Right. And that means the partnership, it should be equitable. Many brands, Toyota is by far Lexus up here. Yep. There's many other brands that I think are very, very solid. And there's other brands, as you very well know, that's right. That they don't do a very good job at all of being partners if it's just talking to somebody about Scout brand. Right. But hey, you know, why why on earth would VW when VW dealers have been struggling for years? Right. They need to be able to do that. You come out finally with something hot.

Jim Fitzpatrick 28:04

That's the vehicle that they need that the VW uh dealers need. That they don't have, they can't compete.

David Spisak 28:10

I know and and after all this time of waiting and being loyal, you're gonna yank that out

The Dealer Playbook Pre Owned Fixed Ops

David Spisak 28:15

from them?

Jim Fitzpatrick 28:15

Come on, it's crazy. It's crazy.

David Spisak 28:17

We deserve better than dealers deserve better than that.

Jim Fitzpatrick 28:19

No question about it. Would you would you like to would would you be a dealer today? I mean, or would you or are you better off on the sidelines reporting on it and it's not a good idea? I wouldn't even hesitate.

David Spisak 28:30

I would, because here's the thing, Jim. I don't want the OEMs mad at me, but let's just face reality. Okay, in my brain, new cars are never gonna be the same again. Yeah, you can't fix affordability. Even at zero, I I've done every data check there is. Yeah, if you go down to zero percent interest, the payment is still $230 higher than it was in 19. Yeah. And average household incomes is up less than 10%, but the cars are up 40%, and the insurance is up 70%. It doesn't work. So here's the thing. Yes, I would be a dealer. Yes, I would align myself with the with one of the greats that are out there that are great partners. And I would absolutely be a master at pre-owned, at FI, and at retention with my fixed ops department. By doing that, I can compete, and there's dealers out there that are doing this. They could compete, they could be great partners to their OEM, they could compete with the Carvanas and CarMax's, and most importantly, they could be sustainably profitable.

Jim Fitzpatrick 29:31

That's right.

David Spisak 29:31

And yes, I would do it in a minute if I if I was in the right situation, but I just got too many other things going on, and I'm kind of having fun in my own.

Jim Fitzpatrick 29:39

I mean, you're running the number one podcast in retail automotive, so that alone, you know, is got has got you busy.

David Spisak 29:45

I'm having fun with that. I'm having fun on LinkedIn advocating for dealers. I'm on there three times a week every week. And uh I I I fortune I get maybe a million, million, two uh people stopping by every month and a lot of good engagement,

Newsletter NCM Shoutouts And Closing Banter

David Spisak 30:00

which is wonderful. We just launched a newsletter uh recently about to release our hey, you're like this. The one that's being released on Tuesday.

Jim Fitzpatrick 30:08

Right.

David Spisak 30:09

Uh in fact, I want to put something in about your event if it's okay. Thank you so much. Because the my newsletter is different. Hey, first of all, it's operate, it's all operator. Okay. And two, um, I don't do any advertising to speak of. I will call out um great organizations, yeah, but I don't take any money from them.

Jim Fitzpatrick 30:27

Yeah.

David Spisak 30:27

Wow. Because I want to do it because I think it's something a dealer should pay attention to. That's fantastic. But this whole theme of next week's is FTC.

Jim Fitzpatrick 30:35

Wow, that's great. Well, thank you very much. That's uh the more awareness we can bring to this topic, uh that then the theory's good timing with your advantage. Yeah, the time, uh yeah, that's the way we felt. We got called by um a vendor of ours and said, CBT has got to move on this. They've they you know, they're they're the ones that can bring this together. Obviously, there's others that can do it as well. And we jumped in and said, let's go. Let's we're ready. So because we we agree. And um, you know, it's it's should like you said, it's all about timing. And the the dealers are, you know, they need direction, they need to have their voices heard, which hopefully that's what happens at the event as well, and for the right people to hear those voices. So we're gonna have Senator Marino and FTC and NADA and and many uh state associations as well.

David Spisak 31:20

Oh, Don Hall. I saw Don Hall as well.

Jim Fitzpatrick 31:22

Right there, Don Hall. I mean, come on. If you don't come out of your dealership to see Don Hall, then I don't know. Don Hall.

David Spisak 31:28

Don't Don Hall is my favorite ranter in the United States.

Jim Fitzpatrick 31:34

But Don is a good thing.

David Spisak 31:34

I mean, don't you don't you know don't you cross a dealer? If you're out there and you cross the dealer, you better pray Don Hall is not in your path. You gotta love Don Hall. He will he will go off.

Jim Fitzpatrick 31:44

He leads from the front and he knows what to do in this situation. And we are so honored to have him there as well. So he's uh he's he's a great, great voice for our industry, that's for sure. No question about it. He is. So David Spizak, thank you once again, uh, CEO of Disruptive Growth Solutions, and as I said earlier, the host of the wildly popular The David Spizak Show and uh and podcast. Check it out. I think you're gonna really like what you see. He's got, I was just looking at your lineup of guests here, and it is uh it looks like the who's who in not just retail automotive, but in the automotive industry as a whole. You've got everybody on there. So kudos to you.

David Spisak 32:22

They are they have been very fortunate to have, and you know it's the guests that you know. I know I'm ending it.

Jim Fitzpatrick 32:28

I'm looking at these guests going, wait a minute. I tried to get that son of a how come how to do it. So hey, how did David go? Call me.

David Spisak 32:34

I I I've got friends in low places, call me. I'll be happy to help you. I I do want to lastly call out, though. I'd be remiss if I didn't do that. I've been very fortunate. Speaking of, we none of us do this alone. I've had a great partner with NCM, you know, with the reverse rate company and Accessa, which I sold to uh Reynolds and Reynolds, but also on another product I have Net Profit, uh, which is just a mind-boggling, just the most advanced benchmarking solution out there. But I just want to call them out because you talk about a company, it's a company like 80 years old, and I look at them as a burner and they just keep reinventing. Yeah. And I was just there last week, and what they're doing now to transform the whole NCM membership and to help dealers. So if you're a dealer out there, I'm saying that because what they're doing on the institute side, what they're doing on the on the dealer advocacy side, and some of the other things they're doing to reinvent their value for members is it's extraordinary. I can't wait to see the next six months to a year, what they've got coming out.

Jim Fitzpatrick 33:33

Yeah, first class operation, needless to say. And like you said, they've been around 80 years. The CEO doesn't look a day over 80, 80 himself. Oh my God. You know.

David Spisak 33:43

I bet Paul in 2012. He looks exactly the same.

Jim Fitzpatrick 33:47

You know, you'd never know the guy was 89, 90 years old. No, I'm just kidding. But uh said that in case you watched. No, no. Again, thank you so much, David, for all your support, first of all, about the about the program that we've got coming up, and I appreciate that very much. It is a major topic, and uh it's great having you in here. We can talk about it. We I got like 20 other things on this list right here that I wanted to talk to you about. Chinese VMs. Am I gonna come spend the weekend at the house? And use cars. And so I gotta have a lot of people.

David Spisak 34:16

I'll come by because there's some things that nobody is talking about, but they're having profound impact on dealership's profitability. So we'll do that. Like I said, I think maybe I'll just invite myself over to stay at your cabin or your house for a weekend and we'll just stay out all night and talk about the car business.

Jim Fitzpatrick 34:35

Maybe you don't know my Did you meet my wife Bridget? We won't be staying all night.

David Spisak 34:40

Love Bridget. Yeah. So I just imagine you getting the grill out, right? And that's what we do. That's right. Is it that get on the boat and we'll talk car business, right? Then we'll come in on the sand and talk car business, walk into the house, talk car business. We'll lay down on our sleeping bags, talk car business.

Jim Fitzpatrick 35:00

That's that's what we do. That's what we do.

David Spisak 35:04

All right, Jim.

Jim Fitzpatrick 35:04

Bridget is my partner, and I if I bring up the car business in the house, she's like, Really? Are we gonna do this now, right now, in the house too? Okay.

David Spisak 35:11

So you know what I can imagine Bridget saying, really? Car business today? Today?

Jim Fitzpatrick 35:18

I like that. I see what you did there. Very clever, very clever. I'm gonna close it out on that. All right, David. Thank you so much. Uh, let's get back together again, because I got like I said, I got questions here. So thanks so much.

David Spisak 35:30

Look forward to it. Yep. Thanks for having me. Thanks.