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Stay Paid Podcast
From Navy Officer to CEO: When Military Discipline Meets Business Strategy
00:45:05
In this episode, Aaron Sheeks, CEO of PureCars, shares actionable insights on strategic growth, leadership, and data-driven marketing. Learn how to build a thriving culture, align your team's efforts with ambitious goals, and leverage customer data to...
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the Stay Paid podcast where we help agents and entrepreneurs master the latest business trends to unlock growth and create a life of freedom. Brought to you by Reminder Media.
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B
Welcome to Stay Paid. I'm Joshua Stike.
- [00:12]
A
And I'm Luke Acree.
- [00:13]
B
And before we bring on our guest today, we'd love it if you take a minute to subscribe to Stay Paid on Apple podcast or Spotify if you're not already subscribed and YouTube also. YouTube.com yeah.
- [00:21]
A
How are you not subscribed? Yeah, if you're not already subscribed, actually.
- [00:25]
B
Not subscribed, make sure to drop us a review. We will read it here on the show. Joining us today is Stephen Acree of the Acree Brothers realty team, the number one real estate team in Lynchburg, Virginia. Welcome, Stephen.
- [00:35]
C
What's up? What's up?
- [00:37]
B
And our special guest is Aaron Sheiks. Aaron is the CEO of Pure Cars, a trailblazer in the automotive advertising space where he drives strategic growth and innovation to help dealers maximize their digital advertising. Roi. Known for his positivity, professionalism and creative approach to leadership, Aaron brings a unique balance of expertise and passion to his work. Aaron, welcome to Stay Paid.
- [00:58]
D
That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [01:02]
A
And he's married and has four kids, so that's saying something.
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C
Four daughters.
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A
Four daughters too.
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D
I do, I have four girls. I have four and a half year old twins. Identical twins. We balance all of the spinning plates here in the Chic's household, business and kids related right now. So yeah, it's a pleasure to be here. Happy to, happy to chat with you guys. And I am going to make sure that we, that I subscribe and share with my team after this. I think this is, this is going to be fun as we talk a little bit. Otto and wherever you guys would like to talk about today.
- [01:32]
A
Yeah, awesome. Then we're, we're super appreciative of you coming on. I know what was great is Stephen and you met on a plane. I think you guys were somewhere, Arizona or something like that. And it shows you that, hey, you never know who you're sitting beside because last 15 minutes of you guys plane ride, you started a conversation and Stephen then texted me after, he's like, dude, I just met an incredible entrepreneur, business leader. We got to get him on the show and we're thankful that you're willing to come on. I'd love for you to tell a little bit of your story because you've had some success. You're leading a really big organization at this point. But can you tell people a little bit about how you got into the auto marketing game and ultimately business leadership?
- [02:10]
D
Yeah, no. Happy to do so. And thanks again, Stephen, for. For striking up the conversation. We should have did it in the first 15 minutes. But I know that I was so.
- [02:19]
C
Disappointed when I started talking to you and getting the business knowledge. I was like, damn it, Steven, come on.
- [02:28]
D
I'll give the intro here and we'll pick up where we should have started there on the airplane. But yeah, I think. Former former Navy guy. I started, enlisted out of school, learned to track submarines from airplanes and just loved doing, like, nerdy strategic things, I think you could say so. Had a ton of fun. I did 11 years active duty. They sent me back to school, became a pilot, didn't love flying as much as. As one would think, and saw an opportunity to jump in the reserves, so. So jumped into the reserves because I met a great entrepreneur who convinced me that I should quit my day job and learn to sell software to car dealers. And greatest, you know, goes up in one of the greatest decisions of all time. I leave. I leave Government Contract World to go sell live chat to car dealers. We sell 4,000 dealerships in the next three years, and that just kind of skyrockets. You said the superpower word earlier. I always say my superpower was found when I started delivering sales and marketing messages to operators of businesses and showing the value and just like, level of customer service that I was going to provide. I knew that that was my calling. So 10 years later, I'm helping build a big marketing agency for the folks out of New York City at Advanced Media. We were doing a really fun project, and that was the second company that I was a part of. Kind of watching me get stitched together behind the scenes, I just knew that I was capable of doing it. And Covid gave me the push off of the cliff, so to speak. Bumped into my business partners at the Auto Miner. Normally that would be the logo I'm wearing today. I switch them out. As it turns out, these days I wear a few of them. But meet my business partners at the Auto Miner. They had this great idea for a sales and marketing customer data platform. It wasn't exactly what we needed at the time to bring into our marketing tech stack, but it was something that I thought was good bones. So I just said, hey, I'll come drive it. I'll bring it to market. I'll make it what it needs. To be. I'll polish it up and bring it to the show. And it didn't take very long once I made the leap of faith, so to speak. Two years later, we were a three, four million dollars business or something like that. Very quickly we did a million dollars in the first six months of bringing the product to market and that was enough to start the self funding, skin of your teeth bootstrapping journey that is entrepreneurship of riding the up and down wave. I've had the pleasure of riding it ever since. And then I sold the business January of 2023, sold that business to PureCars, became the CEO of Pure Cars. And now I run all of the logos underneath the purecars umbrella. And yeah, getting to tell a really exciting story now with, you know, doing, you know, a few, a few hundred million dollars of revenue versus a couple million dollars of revenue and having hundreds of employees and having real resources to build fun things is I'm having the best time of my life. To be fair. It's. I get all of the toys and I get to and I get to use them to build fun things and help people sell and service the automotive industry at a higher level. We're changing customer experience with technology and how dealers interact with their local communities and their retail customers. We're doing it with technology at PureCars. It couldn't be more fun. I could talk about it for the rest of the podcast, but I'm pretty sure that's not why we're here. I can't believe you. Yeah, I think that's the short version.
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C
That's such a short time frame to do what you've done. That's crazy.
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D
2020, I officially made the leap. I quit my job in March or April of 2020. We had a product in market in October of 2020 and then I exited the business in January of 23. So it was just sell, sell, sell.
- [06:18]
A
Is that what you exited it for?
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D
It's in the 20s, in between 20 and 30 we got a five. Yeah. Somewhere in the 20s and 30s there's a little bit, you know, how deals come together and long term payouts and all of those things.
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A
But good deal to be meaning you, you're. You started the business entrepreneurial, grew it real fast. But then they're putting you over hundreds of millions in revenue and hundreds of employees. What is it that you have skill set wise that or as you look and assess yourself, that is allowing that.
- [06:56]
D
I think the military gets all of the credit for me being structured, organized, like overly disciplined leader at 21 years old. I had 50 people working for me, and I managed a $20 million gas budget. You know, you just do things at a younger age than you typically would do in business world. So at 27, the Navy sent me back to school and I became the student commanding officer of about 150 college kids. ROTC unit, how to get dressed, how to do leadership, how. Teaching leadership classes, doing physical training at 5am every Thursday. So my college experience was running a team or an ROTC from a leadership standpoint of other college kids. So I've, I've been groomed, so to speak, by the, by the military all the way up until I was probably in my early 30s.
- [07:47]
C
So do you run your organization like the military? I'm curious.
- [07:50]
D
I do not. I do not. I run my organization like a sports team. Okay. So I am organized and detail oriented and I move really, really fast. So because I'm organized, I plan everything five moves out. I live my life five moves out. I'm working on next Q3, Q4 right now. So I think the Navy taught me how to structure and strategize and play the game. But my motor, the discipline that I personally have drives the culture through the business from before we had employees. I'm. Yeah, I'm first one in, last one out. I'm hot fire in any room I walk into, like, that. That presence is you, man. All of the crazy Instagram quotes like they read, they're kind of accurate on some level. Like when I come in the room, typically it's either to celebrate, we're pumping things up, the energy is big, we're celebrating something, we're selling excitement, or it's ab or. Or he's not celebrating. Like, we're moving. Everybody lock in. There's a different, like, like, we don't shoot the. With me, it's not like, like, we're working, we're moving. I don't have time to not go fast.
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A
Yeah, I see that as a common trait in great leaders, is they have this intensity about them that's almost in. A lot of people would call insane, obsessive crazy. But you think of the greatest leaders that achieve incredible things and you go, yeah, yeah, they're. They're partly are crazy. And that's why they achieve what they achieve, because somebody comes even 60% of what they're expecting, you got a solid team versus, you know, if that leader comes in kind of subpar one. Thank you for your service. That's amazing. Yeah, I appreciate that. And then I'm curious of, like, leadership is a skill set I think you can achieve. And you've been trying and practicing it since a very young age, like you're leading 100 and so college students, stuff like that. What makes a great leader in your mind? What do you try to build up in the leaders you have in your organization?
- [10:11]
D
Vision. And like, not just having a vision, but the communicating the vision at all layers of the business and the language they understand is what I would argue is the reason that I'm the executive of the business and not the number one salesperson of the business. Have being able to both see the vision, create the vision, know what's out there, but then put the plan together that you can, I'll say, put people together along the way to make them want to work for you, to make them see the vision, to be motivated by it, to inspire them to do great things on their journey of obtaining the vision. That's ice. That's the real sales gig for me. Selling clients is fun. It's easy, but it's easy for me. I would rather convince people to chase a common goal that's so big that they can't achieve it themselves, but they'd like to be part of a bigger thing. And then I get in front of it and I push the rock up to hell myself. And what I've found is that if you're really disciplined and consistent in pushing the rock up the hill, I don't have to push the rock anymore. Because so many people have now come, you know, kind of encompass the goal and the vision. And now they're driving it, and now they're hiring people, the next layer down in the business that are driving it. And now it's a. It's a collective effort of moving really, really quickly. As long as I keep the vision out in front, they keep the pace to make it.
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C
Yeah, I love that. What would you say, like, the difference of painting the vision to the executive versus the person on the sales floor versus, you know, your personal assistant, whatever it may be. You know, how does that look practically for you?
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D
They speak different languages. They all speak the same language. Right. But they. They speak different languages on what they care about and how they talk about what they care about or how it impacts their day. So we won't pull my string on executives versus consultants, but there's a reason, like the executives in a business can get in a business and understand the human action that puts numbers on spreadsheets. If you know how the actions, what they're doing, how it impacts their day, how to make them move Faster, move slower. What really gets the people to do more. You manage those levels, you manage those expectations, and you, you get way more. You get so much more than saying, I need you to hit this target with this thing on this spreadsheet. I don't manage that way because people don't work that way. So I don't know if that. That makes sense, if that makes sense. But if you really understand your business at a high level, you know what the people spend their time on, and you're building and constantly trying to make their lives easier, getting things out of their way, which in turn allows them to drive the business forward faster.
- [13:05]
C
It kind of goes back to Luke. I don't know if you sent me this video or Steve, but it was Steve Jobs is what I was watching. He was talking about leading by example. He was talking about management styles. He's like, we went into a stage when they were in their growth mode where we ended up hiring a bunch of managers. And the thing is, they knew how to lead people, but they didn't know how to do anything. Right. And so I liked your example before, like getting in kind of the field. Right. And leading by example, because that is, people want to see people that are doing the work. Every time that I jump out of sales. Right. Because we're not at that position, our business slowly goes down. And the reason being is because they don't have anyone to look up to in the field with them. Leading by example, that saying, hey, I'm not just a manager, I'm doing the work. You know what I mean? This is what it takes to do the work. And so I feel like. Back to, you know what Steve Jobs was saying as well.
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A
Yeah. He hired professional MBAs, he said, and smart, but couldn't do anything.
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D
I won't get overly emotional about it, but I am notoriously known for telling really smart, intelligent consultants that are probably really, really incredible that they are absolutely useless to me.
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A
Yeah.
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D
And it's. And it's telling them to do something else. And it's not them personally obvious. Their skill set will not work in my business at the pace that my business has to move. And I don't have time to teach them to get caught up. I'll teach my own people. Right? So it's, it's, you know, it's a whole. It's a whole cycle.
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C
That's why I feel like coaching doesn't.
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A
Works if the person's that's coaching you has actually done what you want to do.
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C
Exactly. If they're, if they're like exactly what you're trying to accomplish, they've accomplished. But like if it's this principle based coaching, it's like you can get that in so many different places. Like I just, I need you to jump almost into the field with me and say, here's xyz. Here's what you're going to experience when you do make this move. When you shift the splits this way, right? When you are scaling out and you take on more variable expenses instead of fixed expenses, right. What does that look like you need?
- [15:18]
A
Like those, those nuance, detail. That's what you need. My theory is that the more, or at least my experience, I shouldn't even say theory. Experience has taught me the reason why you have to do servant leadership, which is in the trench, is not because you need to do the work necessarily. It's great to prove to your people that you're willing to work and all that stuff. But it's more that you can't lead from theory. In essence, it's like you could sit back here and I, I love sales. You guys love sales. I can write a good sales script. Let's say I can teach you the principal sales. But when you actually get in and start making the sales calls and testing the script, the nuance starts to show. But then as a great leader, your job, it's not that you're there. I tell my sales guys this all the time. It's not that I need you as the team lead or the manager to make 100 calls a day to prove to me that you're willing to work. It's that I need you to get in and start digging with the shovel because you have the power to speak up the ranks. That says, hey, we're using the wrong tool. It shouldn't be a shovel, we need a pickaxe. But you'll only know that if you're actually using the shovel. It's the only way you know it otherwise. In theory the shovel seems like it should work, but until you get in there, you don't realize you need a pickaxe.
- [16:31]
C
That's so good.
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D
You, it's, it's, it's. You could, I could apply it to 10 examples of my business today. It's absolutely true. If you're a small business owner, make like 500k a year to even let's say 5 million, let's say 10 million. If you are not it, daily actions aren't driving revenue 60% of the time. If every day you're not doing revenue driving activities 60 plus percent of the time, you're not running your business. Your business is running it. So it is like, you have to be the pacesetter. You have to be the. Like, it's your business. You have to show everybody else why it's okay to go and make money. Like, you make money because you're proving it's possible and that they can do it, too. If you turn that over to someone else, it's their business.
- [17:15]
C
Yeah, that's great.
- [17:16]
A
I want to go back to one thing you said that I'm realizing, like, we're weak here at Reminder Media. I think on. I don't know what your thoughts are on this, Josh, but it's. You said you were weak. I don't know what you're about to say. Luke, you said you, you are very organized and structured, but you move fast, and that is a great combination. I move extremely fast, but I'm not organized and structured. And I've realized, okay, that's a weakness of mine. You had mentioned. I think you said you're five weeks ahead. Is that a just a example number? Are you truly five weeks ahead? Like, how do you, how do you get ahead in your planning? How are you thinking? Strategic planning? We're thinking about that right now for Reminder Media. I know, Stephen, you just went through goal setting. Like, I think that is critical that most people. I'm realizing that's an Achilles heel, I guess, me rambling here. It's an Achilles heel for us that we're constantly not finishing things and we're switching too fast because we're not living in the future, we're living in the. The day to day. Reactive.
- [18:20]
D
No, it's a, It's a great question. I think most businesses live in the window, just as you described it. I think, like, if the president of Pure Cars lives in that window and she fights fires with clients every day. We're a media company, right? We've got new clients coming and going on a monthly basis. So she's fighting that fire. To your point, I live my life kind of big strategic moves, five moves out. So if I, if I say, hey, if I build this product, it's. I'm going to be able to do this or this with it. And then my favorite word that I teach on is insurance. I. I am like the world's greatest insurance man of my decisions is how I think about everything. Which also, Luke, means you're having more fun than me because I'm totally crazy and I just work scenarios in my head like a million times a day. But I literally, if I make this move, what happens? And then if they make that move, what happens? And I live this, like, five moves out. Okay, I like it. I like the next five moves, and I have proper insurance of risk. I'm going. And so I just move knowing that, like, okay, if it fails, then I go to step two, and if that fails, it's three. So I just move five moves out knowing that every day we're just down.
- [19:30]
A
Oh, sorry, Stephen. But do you document that down on paper? Like, do you document your moves down? Like you're. How do you treat. I'm, I'm. Here's how I'm doing it. Just so maybe you can coach me a little bit. I have an Excel doup, and I have basically years out till 20, 28. And the way I'm thinking about strategic planning is I'm. I'll give you an example. We sell postcards. It's a newer division for us. You know, we're doing direct mail. I. I want to Try to do 13 million cards, you know, this coming year, which would be a. A decent growth for us. So I'm writing down, this is the only way I know how to do it, is basically go, okay, I'm at point A, I'm trying to get to point B. 13 million. What is in this graph from point A to point B? What are my assumptions of what's keeping me from being at 13 million cards? So, one is my sales per caller is not enough. I'm at 400 some thousand. I need to be at 520. Okay, why is that? Is it leads? Is it that I've hired the wrong salespeople? Do I have the wrong scripts? Which means, do I have the wrong leader? So I just start documenting all my assumptions, and then I try to vet those assumptions with data. And just thinking, as raw as that is, okay, this is my highest assumption of what needs to happen. And then I work to go lay out a plan to attack that assumption. In essence, is going, hey, I believe that the biggest thing holding us back from point A to point B is we need to hire better salespeople in our postcard sales division. In order to do that, here are the tac, the tactical things that need to happen. Here's the timeline plan. Let's go. Like, that's how I think about it. Like, is. Is your similar.
- [21:11]
D
No. Okay, yes. Yes, but no. If I was to ask that if my goal was to sell 13 million postcards next year, the first thing I would do is say, why? Why did I pick 13 I probably should have picked 16. So I have an 80% attainment rate to still land at 13. And I won't be pissed off next year when I'm. When I sell 10. When I wanted to sell 13, you sold 13 instead of 16. Right. So for me, I always set a goal that's 20, 10, 15, 20% higher than what I want to be. So that way, if I miss, I'm still happy with where we landed. Now, if. If you're happy with. If you're 13 is your BHAG, and really, you'd be happy with eight. Great. The next question I would ask is, what do I have to offer to my customer that would make them want to buy 13 million postcards? Like, what's the offer? What's the promo look like? If I put it in the field? Where does 13 million come from? And then, so I would go from the customer, and then I would come back to your math, and I would say, okay, well, if they're willing to spend $10,000 a month or $10,000 a quarter or whatever the number is, typically by volume and this type of offer or promotion, well, then I would. I know I need to saturate that market maybe five or six or eight times, depending on the conversion rate, in order to generate enough activity to get the final number that I want. And then I'm going to take humans and operations to go get that number. So instead of letting my humans drive the number, I'll go figure out the number and I'll figure out the ops to get there.
- [22:43]
A
I love that. So I love the starting with the customer. That. That is a. I have not been attacking it that way. I've been attacking it from the people side or the operations side, which is. That's a, a great way to think about it. Go back and look at it that way. How do you hold people accountable? My. My struggle with setting a. A BHAG goal is when my people miss it, what happens is they know they missed. They're bummed, they're. They missed in a way. But now I can't. I. I've run into this experience in driving reminder media. It's like they've missed and also created a culture that it's acceptable to miss. And I'm starting to lean way more towards going, no, it's got to be hard, but it's got to be obtainable, and there's got to be buy in. So like the VP of sales, Kathy, she's amazing, but she's got to buy in and believe in the Plan and be part of the plan obviously of getting 13 million. And if she doesn't hit it, she needs to know, not in a threat culture, but she needs to know, hey, you'll lose your job like if you don't win as quarterback like the Cowboys. Right now that coach and I hate the Cowboys, but that coach should lose his job, right? That coach freaking lose his job because he's losing. They haven't won at home since.
- [24:03]
B
By the time this comes out, he probably will.
- [24:05]
A
Yeah, he probably will be done. But you get what I'm saying at the goal. This has always been my complaint with Grant Cardone and I love Grant in so many aspects. I think he's, you know, sets the path in a lot of things. But it's like I can't hold you accountable because the goal was really not obtainable. It was just 10x.
- [24:22]
D
Your, your vision should be carved into smaller chunks that are more attainable by folks that can't see the full vision. For example, if I want to sell 13 million postcards next year, I'm going to give the VP of Sales a pacing number a month that is in line with what I really want to hit. But then I'm going to align PayPal ins or bonuses around the number that I'm willing to live with and I'll bonus to the big and I'll bonus to the bigger number. So if I know I need to get to X, then I'll pay plan to 100% at x and then if I want more out of them, then I'll incentivize the bonus pay or I'll pay more for the bhag, so to speak to continue to motivate them in smaller time windows allow them to impact their their pocketbook in a. In a shorter window which allows you to drive behavior 12 times a year instead of one time a year.
- [25:11]
A
Gotcha. And so in that would that same philosophy then applied down in your mind to if they come below what you're willing to live with, you'll cut them at that point. Like in the sense of cutting them from the team and that analogy you used earlier versus if they're 80%, you'll keep them in essence?
- [25:31]
D
Well, I think that depends on that comes into your sales organization as a whole and are you meeting it as a whole. So every great sales team really runs in three buckets. There's the top third that you never have to worry about because they make money. There's the middle third that you wish would be the top third and you're you're trying to, you know, give them love and encouragement and teaching and pouring into them. Right. And then there's that bottom third that you probably should have fired six weeks ago, but you waited because they're good people and they got something in their life. Right. It's like every sales team you've ever been part of.
- [25:59]
A
True. Yep.
- [26:00]
D
So never know. So I mean, it's just so I'm. It's going to sound harsher than I am in real life, but I just fire people. If you're in that bottom third, either tell me how you provide value to my organization and I'll happily like, if you're good people and you have great culture and you're like working hard helping people, what else can you do to help my organization? Like, maybe you're in the wrong seat. But if you're like in the wrong seat or you're not in the wrong, you're in the right seat, you just are bad. Just go away. Like there's so many out there that are good, that want to be part of our culture, that want to go win. Like we. I overpay, overpay for performance so that I always have that performance mindset on a month to month basis.
- [26:45]
A
Super smart.
- [26:46]
D
So my top guys are making, you know, they should, they make way more money than the executive layer because they're producing the revenue. The revenue. Now I build the pay plan in a way that the company gets whole after the salesperson gets whole.
- [26:59]
A
Yeah, that's so smart. We, we've done something similar at Reminder Media where our top, you know, salespeople in the sales bonus plans, I mean you'll, you'll make more than executives. You're, you're uncapped. You make tons and tons of money because it drives everything. You're leading with revenue. Sales drives everything.
- [27:16]
D
That's it. That's it. It's the heartbeat. So just always feeding the heartbeat. I mean that's if you're the leader and you're not driving the heartbeat, that's where business lives and dies in my mind. So I mean you have to set that coming in. So the difference, like love Grant, you know, tied to Grant in the auto world in a bunch of different ways. So like, huge fan of ten Xing. Everything in my life. Like his book is probably in the small stack here, couple over there, probably. So like read everything and believe in a lot of those pieces. But that's not human. There's a line with human behavior that you have to dance as an operator or you're Going to spend more. You're going to spend more time recruiting and training and hiring, and that's expensive. So there's a. There's a. In my world, it's people then culture than numbers. I leave my whole organization, I only care about three things. People first, and then the culture and then the numbers, because I can get the third one. The numbers are easy. Anybody can go sell big numbers. But you take. It takes great people and great culture to be able to do big numbers. Otherwise, you're a really successful salesperson working for your business.
- [28:19]
A
I also find that the. The greatest teams I see, you have the visionary, the person who can almost be a little bit psychopathic and how they are driving, hard charging. And then you have the operator who actually serves as almost a buffer to play that line with the people. But if you just have the operator playing the line with the people, then it's a unmotivated culture. And if you just have the psychopathic leader, you never scale people. And it's like that balance is what we are. I've seen work, and I'm trying to get that down at each department level now.
- [29:01]
C
Help me out, though, going back to Luke's question, because I'm still a little bit confused about it. So are you preaching the BHAG goal to your people? Are you preaching the 80% goal? Right. That you're like, this is what I can live with. Because it goes back to Luke's point when you don't hit your goals, this what I found with our culture. You don't know what to do. How do I coach these people? Because I can't really encourage that. We didn't hit the goal. Right. But I also know that that goal was, you know, super big at that point. And I'm happy that we hit 90%. But, like, I'm preaching to them, you know, hey, great job. We did 90% of our goal. Right. And it just doesn't sound good.
- [29:39]
D
Do you have the ability to get the final 10 that they missed?
- [29:42]
C
Do I personally have that ability? No.
- [29:45]
D
Yeah.
- [29:46]
C
I don't. Yeah.
- [29:48]
D
So I just don't miss. So if I think they're going to miss by 10%, I'll go get it myself. I think that's the. So that's where I'll put on the player hat for long enough to cover the difference and covering. And if that's when I go play. So it's like, okay, they're gonna miss. And I can see they're gonna miss.
- [30:06]
C
Is that playing at your level, though? Going back to the Executives and bonusing to be able to hit the goal. What is the playing is you getting.
- [30:13]
D
On the sales floor calling. I go right to the customer. I go do an enterprise deal or strategic partnership deal. I go do a deal that will allow them to eat off of that deal to go chase. So I'll go do a strategic partnership with another agency that maybe wants to resell some of our products, but maybe is a referral partner. So if I can incentivize their pay plan, then they'll go sell for my team and my team will go work with their team to drive revenue. And now I've given them activity to go chase the number that I gave them a new path, I gave them a new revenue line. I'll give them somewhere to cover the difference.
- [30:50]
C
That's what Ryan Young did. He actually called me up. He's like, hey, we're behind our goal. I want to see what it's going to take to get to win you over. You know what I mean? To do business with us.
- [31:00]
A
Super smart.
- [31:01]
C
But it was super smart because he's back and then he's doing Instagram posts. So you get a lot of marketing and stuff from that.
- [31:06]
A
Yep.
- [31:07]
C
But yeah, to drive the revenue back up.
- [31:09]
D
That's a good point.
- [31:10]
A
Yeah, it's super.
- [31:11]
D
I'm still salesperson number one. I think to Luke's point, I'm the creative beater of the drum. But if I, if I'm on every team call, I'll wear them out of like, not everybody moves at my pace. So I have to have a buffer. I almost have always had to have a buffer. So I have a people buffer I'm trying to create.
- [31:30]
A
I don't know if it will play out or not. You just have to ask me in a year. But I have this theory and strategy on, like, if I can create the insane person and the almost the CEO and COO of every mini department, I think those departments will thrive in essence, the same way the company will thrive. So it's like I need the visionary, but the operator buffer. And that's what I'm trying to create at each level at this point. Because I think long term it will create these mini companies that are essentially driving the big company.
- [32:03]
D
You just, you nailed it. So I like, I have three or four logos running underneath the umbrella. But we're all, we all use the same machine, so to speak, of media resources and creative and design and ops, and we all leverage the resources of the machine. But they kind of do their own things to generate revenue in different Ways. I am a. I'm a duo. Everything we do in our business is done in pairs. If you go sell something, you take a sales engineer, there's a ying and a yang. If the president of Pure Cars is the. If I'm yang, she's yang. She's spreadsheets and organization. She drives performance like she's fantastic. And she does it in a different way than me. So it allows us to bat the ball back and forth in a way that's just like fun and great for the people. But if we're. Now it's a solid focus, Luke. I'm trying to create it at every single level. I did it at the, at the VP level. We're doing it at the director level. Now we're giving them almost partners in crime and assigning revenue units like targets to. Hey, this is your pod. This is your team. Your team needs to go generate $15 million in recurring revenue. It's so smart because your bag.
- [33:08]
A
It's just come out of experience even looking at you and Cody.
- [33:11]
C
Stephen.
- [33:11]
A
Right. It's just. It's the exact same thing. It's like you just when those two people come together, the ying and the yang, all of a sudden you get magic starting to happen to the different giftings. Let's switch gear in our last few minutes here because I want to hear your thoughts on using data to drive marketing. Obviously pure cars and what you're doing there. You're changing the game for a lot of auto dealers and stuff like that. Would love for you to share kind of what is your platform, what, what do you believe in terms of marketing and using data to drive that in your sales campaigns.
- [33:45]
D
Look, salesperson number one. Let me see if I can do it in an organized fashion here. But, but purecars today is the largest direct to automotive media company in the country. So we were the biggest Google shop, the biggest Amazon shop, and the biggest meta shop of all dealer advertising in the country. So we are, we. We are really a data house. So I say all the time, purecars is a data company. We just happen to do a lot of advertising because in order to do great advertising, you have to have great data and things like infrastructure and to be able to be do things programmatically in a completely automated way at an individual rooftop level. You know, I may have 1500 Chevrolet dealerships across the country that have to look different and ad copy has to be different and pricing rebates, everything different. It's a really messy, messy media world that we manage in auto. It's a Data game. So we're a data company. We've built our own products that are both creating our own ads and ad copy, but also our own identity graph. So I have the first built, you know, built the first automotive specific identity graph that's bringing in first party customer data, second, third transactions. I'm tracking every adult human being in North America inside of our data platforms today and I'm able to target them with pinpoint accuracy at a unique human being level. That's my jam. I build systems at a human being level for marketing and outbound from everywhere, from life cycle marketing, things like email, text message, direct mail, video, email, those kind of, we know where it's going and we're going to send it to you directly. But also custom social media audiences, AI enabled, Amazon audiences. We're doing a bunch of audience creation and things like that out of our DMP on the purecars world. So giant data marketing nerd hiding under a salesperson's skin. And we take that solution out to dealers, we take it out, we tell great stories. I say storytellers control the world. At purecars, we've built them in a platform that says, hey, I know how many Chevys are sold in this zip code and how many were in that one and how many you sold versus they sold and whether you should have got that person or not because they saw your ad but didn't convert. And so we get at a really, really granular level of how do we move more metal for our car, for our dealers, but really for their shoppers. My thing is I want to make sure that Steven sees the right ad on when he should see it and on the platform that he's searching for. And it should be delivered on the device that he uses the most. And I should stop delivering that ad when he converts. So I cut down on ad waste. So for us it's cut down on ad waste, cut down on fees to multiple vendors, run it all inside of the best tech stack and automotive. And we slice and dice that in different ways, whether it's the Chevrolet direct or it's to, you know, Josh, Josh's Chevrolet of Pennsylvania.
- [36:48]
A
Now what are you finding when you're looking at all this data? I'm just curious, what are like the conversion rates that you find on, you know, paid advertising, like social media and Facebook and stuff like that versus what you're seeing for like email open rates and stuff? Do you have that level or is it different per dealer?
- [37:08]
D
It's a little bit different and it depends on how we run the Ad. So I think for example pmax inside of the Google ecosystem, they're doing their own AI enabled audience targeting specific at the VIN level at individual vehicles. So now if you go to Google and you search, I'm making sure I'm serving you with the vehicle that you're, you know, you're searching for and where it's at and it's in stock and what dealer is and pricing those pieces. Those are, I mean that's. Dealers will pay $18, $20 a click on those sometimes because we know that they'll convert. I think typically somewhere in the four to five dollars a click range is a solid, a solid performing ad for us in most VIN level type campaigns. Certainly way cheaper on branding type of campaigns. Social still the best place to put your money if you want to get really hyper targeted. There's more favorability, more targeting options inside of Meta than there is in Google today.
- [38:01]
A
Do you guys use TikTok at all? Have you, have you ventured into TikTok?
- [38:05]
D
It's actually a good question. I was thinking about going to the Formula One race with the TikTok folks that's coming up. They called and said, hey, do you want to come and swap notes? It's a big priority for me next year. I wish TikTok had a automotive revenue model that made more sense for media companies in our space because the content is so variable and a lot of it's in vertical video and they don't have a revenue stream that would justify me spending a lot of resources to go get so hopeful that there's, it sounds like maybe changes in their business model, but that's, that's a pretty good one right now. AMC Amazon is the winner for us in automotive world. They're looking to sell vehicles direct to consumer. They're doing it today with Hyundai and many, many markets across the country. So I would like to be Amazon's media fulfillment arm to automotive. Wow. So those are the type of things that I'm working on right now is if you're going to come out and do a deal with Hyundai. Well, Amazon, you're not going to run your own automotive media ads. We're the number one provider in the program. I'll run those ads for you. Let's partner together. And now we're doing big vendor partnerships.
- [39:10]
C
Yeah, that's what do you, when you're looking at the funnel. Because I recently bought a Denali 2500 Sierra Denali and I was going to really like. No, but the point is like I started that search probably a year Prior. Right. And so, and I was thinking about it in terms of how I think about real estate, you know, where I am as the consumer in this process. And I noticed that I get ads from, you know, certain people early on, but the truth is I don't recognize the brand. I wasn't even, there's no way I'm just going to go back to them to buy the truck, right? So the people that got me were actually the people that hit me at the right time, right.
- [39:54]
D
With the price.
- [39:55]
C
With the price. And they hit me so much. Right? So it's like, how do you look at that when you're looking at the funnel? Because why spend money when those other companies are just spending the money? So you can see the trucks and find out what you want and then you can hit them at the bottom of the funnel when the right time comes and just bam, bam, bam, bam. You know, with those ads. I'm just curious how you think about that.
- [40:16]
D
It's the world I, I don't even. Branding to me is for like sponsoring baseball teams and doing, and doing SEO. If I, in my world, Chevrolet is the brand, they do a ton of branding. People know who they are. So if dealer A wants to win versus dealer B, you better have the right car in stock at the right price and you better be hyper targeted at the actual shopping window. It's about 90 days prior to purchase. So a year out from now, like, I, I don't really want to be in front of you, to be fair. I do, because I want you to come service with me if you're thinking about shopping. I want you to want you to get to me because as soon as you do, then I'm going to hyper target you. I'm a rule of sevens. I want you seven times on all, every channel I can until you either convert or go away for the next 30 days. I just want to absolutely inundate you with the right price, with the right car, exactly what you're looking for until you either convert or go away.
- [41:11]
C
Because you're gonna buy in like a day. You know what I mean? Do you just go through like seven? We got our target person seven times.
- [41:17]
A
Okay, Geico. I believe it was Geico. It might have been Allstate. I think it was Geico. I was on a panel in Arizona with a bunch of marketers and we were all speaking on marketing. One guy who worked in the insurance marketing field said, geico's trying to hit you 37 times a month, different platform. So that just gives you an idea. There on the, the frequency I've been.
- [41:39]
B
I think Liberty is beating them.
- [41:40]
A
Yeah, I know. Liberty, Liberty. But that, but that shows you. I've been preaching that a ton in the real estate industry is just that you cannot almost.
- [41:52]
D
It's.
- [41:52]
A
It's really difficult to hit people too many times. It is really. It's kind of like telling a salesman it is really hard to say something so bad on a sales like so aggressive that you'll lose the deal just because of what you said. You're losing the deal because they didn't see the value. It's not because of what you said. So don't be scared of like offending somebody, asking for the order or whatever. It's like that same concept. It's really so hard to hit people many times.
- [42:21]
D
Dude.
- [42:21]
A
Aaron, this has been amazing, man. I feel like we, we're just getting started. I appreciate the free Gucci today, brother.
- [42:26]
B
Awesome air, man. Oh, go ahead.
- [42:29]
D
No, I was just gonna say thank you. I think I learned a little bit of something today too. Sorry if I felt like I was on the soapbox, but this was. I enjoyed being here. Learned a couple things myself.
- [42:38]
B
We appreciate it. Before we close out, let people know how they can connect with you.
- [42:42]
D
Oh, man, I'm. I'm as. What does Dion say? I'm not hard to find. I'm all over social. So Facebook, Instagram, Aaron Chic's real life name there on the screen. Come find me purecars.com I think they've got my ridiculously tall hair wave right there on the dashboard on the homepage. Send me a message on LinkedIn. I, I will. You will be surprised how fast I respond back to you. Magnificently fast in customer service. If I can be helpful to, to you guys or any of the listeners of the podcast. Would love to be, would love to be helpful as, as you guys see fit. And again, I'm going to make sure my team, you know, logs in, subscribes here and smashes the, the old share button once we get this thing out out to the masses. It was good to see you guys. Thanks for having me.
- [43:25]
B
Awesome. Appreciate it. Stephen, thank you for joining us as always.
- [43:28]
C
Absolutely.
- [43:29]
B
You can get all of the links that Aaron mentioned over at the show notes@staypaidpodcast.com you get the videos of all of our episodes there as well and as well as how to subscribe. If you enjoyed this episode and want to show your support, go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Drop us a five star review along with a comment. And the best way to support the show is simply share this episode with somebody that you know. If you want to get a hold of me or Luke, you can email us@podcastmindermedia.com and of course you can catch us on social media as well. We are at Stay Paid podcast for this episode of Stay Paid. I'm Joshua Stike.
- [43:59]
A
Guys, I'm Luke Acre. Aaron, thank you again. Stephen, thank you for being brave enough to make the connection on the airplane. So that's a lesson to everybody. Don't be afraid to talk to your neighbor. It's how great relationships start. Here's the action item for the episode. Because you can listen all day long, but if you don't take action, you'll never change your life. The action item in my mind was the strategy. When we're all in strategic planning right now, planning our goals, instead of starting from the operation, start from the customer. Ask yourself, hey, if you want to sell 20 homes in real estate, if you want to do 13 million postcards, what is it that your customer needs and wants and would make them buy 13 million postcards? I thought that was a great, great takeaway. Sit down. Ask yourself that question, because that's truly why you're in business, is to serve your customer. Remember, the difference between top producers and mediocre producers in every business is top producers take action. Take action on that today.