DriveCentric's New CEO Shares His Vision for Automotive Retailing

Brian Pasch0:00Hi, everyone. Welcome to our podcast channel. Today, I have Matt Leone. He is the new CEO of DriveCentric, the leading CRM platform in automotive retail. Today, we want to just uncover some of those observations that a new leader has in his first 100 days and to learn a little bit what's on his radar for product improvement, integrations, and partnerships in automotive retail. Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt Leone0:32Great to be here, Brian. Thanks.

Brian Pasch0:36So I worked with you a number of years with automotiveMastermind. You and Aaron Baldwin were, well, we were just brainstorming on how automotiveMastermind could innovate automotive retail. One day, you call me up and you say, Brian, I got a new opportunity. And I was like, what could it be? What could have attracted him away from a great, great opportunity, great organization? How has the first 100 days been?

Matt Leone1:07Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, I loved my time at Mastermind. I was there five years as the CEO and it was a great company, still a great company. And it was really hard to leave. I love the people there and I love the company. I love their strategy and their direction. But there was probably only one company that could have called me and said, why don't you come over here and help us continue to grow this business? And it was, it was DriveCentric. And when I got that phone call, it was like, you know, I'm leaving probably arguably the best data company in the world with

Matt Leone1:35Mastermind to hopefully join what is the arguably best operational platform to drive operations and efficiencies. And my background is, you know, I've been a chief operating officer for a decade, driving operations and getting efficiencies, but it's really still the heart of what I love and I'm passionate about. And so as an operational tool and a CRM, you know, I think to us is a little bit more than a CRM. It's an engagement platform. It's an AI platform. It's able to really generate efficiencies within a dealership. And so for me, I looked at it and said, what is DriveCentric? And it's really an operational platform. It's not just a CRM. And if I think of it in that lens,

Matt Leone2:14I had three priorities to come here my first, you know, a hundred days, it was, well, if we're going to be the platform of choice to run an operations, I need to make sure that platform's open. And that means whether a dealership or a group uses other partners or other vendors, that data needs to reside in DriveCentric. So an API was top of the list. We have to open up our partner ecosystem. A second priority was once we get all that data into our system, we need to be able to allow that to flow into our AI tools. So enhance our core CRM offering and enhance our AI. I think

Matt Leone2:50we were a pioneer in auto tech AI.

Brian Pasch2:50Correct.

Matt Leone2:50How do we make sure that we stay the front leader in that race? And then the third, obviously, was once we have all of that structured into our system, we need to be able to make sure that we can expand our product offerings out to really run the gamut of operations within a dealership. Far too many features or products are embedded in what I'll call legacy platforms. I started as an accounting ledger and just kept buying companies and wrapping them into legacy products.

Brian Pasch3:16Right.

Matt Leone3:18We have a natively built platform. And from a natively built platform, if we can own and host the data, the dealer data coming into our platform, the lead data coming into our platform, wrapped around with AI. If we just keep building natively built platforms, then it's really efficient because now I'm not stitching together 30 different vendors. I can start to move some of that functionality away from the legacy and I can still really then run the entirety of the dealer operations minus the accounting, which I have no interest in.

Brian Pasch3:48Right.

Matt Leone3:48Yeah. Yeah. I'm not an accounting person.

Brian Pasch3:48You know, for the vendors and dealers who are listening, I mean, I don't work day to day with CRMs. My brother Glenn goes around the country helping dealers with their sales process and moving the needle. And I've been focused on CDP and the ADF XML is a killer. It's brain damage moving data around. APIs are the way to do it. Um, but people have always said if DriveCentric just had an API life would be great. So this is great news. And, um, I'm sure you probably have been flooded with companies that want to integrate. Um, just so you set the record, uh, this is not turn on a switch

Brian Pasch4:48mad dash to, uh, 100 integrations in 30 days. There's going to be a process. How are you trying to prioritize the integrations? Is it based on, uh, dealer utilization, dealer group needs? What, what, what's kind of going on?

Matt Leone5:02It's a great question. And I did my due diligence before I came to DriveCentric and I did my homework, but I knew about DriveCentric from, you know, my times at automotiveMastermind and we tried really hard to integrate with them. So as a vendor trying to integrate with DriveCentric, I know what that was like. And, you know, I talked to the founders who are big advocates and supporters of mine. They're still advisors and still very deeply involved in the business. When you're building a native product, you know, you, you really are heads down focused to build a startup company. And part of that is I can't be distracted because

Matt Leone5:36you have to build the world's best tool in order to do that. All of the other noise becomes noise. And so as we were building out this product and the founders were kind of building this out, they knew eventually they had to build this out into an ecosystem, but I'm thankful that they chose the path that they did because I arguably would say we have the best operational CRM engagement platform that's modern built out there. And if they had been bogged down and distracted with all this other stuff, Oh, it probably would have never got to where we're at now. And now it's just the next chapter

Matt Leone6:07in the right time. It's not just because I came here. I think the entire company realizes what we have to do. It starts to answer question of, do we take the route of traditional, um, auto tech vendors out there that are charging for access to that data? Well, on our committee, it's not even our data. It's the dealer's data. And we have this view within DriveCentric of we are the honorary hosts of that dealer data. And we want to enrich and cleanse it with third party data and auto data and household data. We want the vehicle data coming in there combined with that first party and perhaps

Matt Leone6:40even zero party consumer data. And we'll host that data as much lead data as possible to come in is my top priority.

Brian Pasch6:47Great.

Matt Leone6:47Every lead in the world should be coming into DriveCentric. And so if you're a auto tech partner out there, we will get to you as fast as possible, but that is 100% top priority. The second priority then is we have to be able to strategically look at how do we make sure that data can come back out for all the different bolt on systems that are out there. That's a little bit more of a dicey question because we obviously feed to the credit bureaus. We feed back into the DMS. We, we already have that. Our data is flowing out to the OEMs for lead data and that, but there's so

Matt Leone7:23many other tools out there in the partner ecosystem that somewhat compete with our tools, right? We're an AI pioneer. And what we really want to own is that engagement process from once a lead is identified to desk. And if we can own that dealer's operations, whether it's F&I, service, sales and marketing, we want to be able to run the engagement part of that. But we're not going to get into other channels. We're not going to own the website. Those are leads that need to come in. We're not going to own, for example, you know, the, what an agency specialized stuff. We're not going to own

Matt Leone7:59that. And so having that as our second priority is picking the vendors to be able to say our data is flowing out where our customers want us to have the data flow out. And then we can control the engagement part in the middle, I think is a perfect world, how we're going to stack rank the prioritization. Cause you're right. The floodgates have opened and I want them to come up. I want to get to all of you. It's just going to take a little bit of time to sequence it.

Brian Pasch8:21You know, for the dealers listening in, I want you to understand this is a strategic move. Behind the scenes, before you became CEO, DriveCentric and some of their largest customers had been working on data projects. I think you're absolutely right. DriveCentric was heads down. We know a number of companies we've talked about this privately who have said yes to everyone and they've gotten nowhere, right? And so in that context, I think that by heads down, focusing on building market share, which DriveCentric has done in a very competitive marketplace, in a tech stack that dealers don't like to change very often. DriveCentric made dealers want to change. And now with this new API

Brian Pasch9:07integration, I think that the reason why CDPs have gotten so much attention is because the ecosystem that CRMs have been built in have been old tech, spaghetti code, multiple layers of different tools. And so having clean data, a consolidated customer record, actionable insights outside of what the dealer provided themselves wasn't really possible. So are you seeing that bringing in almost like a CDP light features into DriveCentric so that dealers don't need yet another tech stack to manage?

Matt Leone9:50Yeah, a hundred percent. I think these worlds are going to collide at some point. And that some point is in the relatively near future, which is there are a lot of tech vendors out there. And I've done a lot of business cases with a lot of groups where we've looked at their entirety of their tech stack. And it's amazing to me when you look at how much ascent in data has these data points to in sales, in marketing, in operational tools, and how many vendors are being used out there. It's great because that means there's innovation happening. It's what I love about the auto world is there's just so much

Matt Leone10:20tech and innovation happening, but it's also hard. It's complicated to manage that many vendors and that many integration points and that many fees just to push all the data back and forth. Everybody charges a fee for it. Why don't we simplify this world, right? In my world that I think of is there are lead generation tools out there. They're going to exist. And I want those lead generation tools to generate leads. Those leads should come into one centralized platform. And from that point on, the engagement that happens and then the desking that happens for those leads, whether it's digital retailing, whether it's service, whether it's F&I, whether it's sales and marketing for new and used

Matt Leone10:57cars, that's a process of which needs to be managed. And then from there, what's left over is just the accounting, right? And the accounting is I'll push the data back and let your general ledger handle it. Let the DMS handle that. But if that really becomes a true statement where vehicle data, lead data, and household consumer data is centralized, then you can start to think about eliminating a tech stack. And you start to say, okay, I've got bolt-ons wrapped around my legacy CRM. I've got this concept of a CRM, whether it's Salesforce or it's Tealium or it's Fullpath or an Orbee. How do I consolidate this to

Matt Leone11:33one operational platform? I know it would be foolish to say, hey, DriveCentric is fully there. And this is the one and only tech stack that you need in your dealership. But I think those worlds are going to consolidate. And in the interim, from new CEO of DriveCentric is, I realized that today's world is I've got to integrate with these partners. These are great companies with great tech.

Brian Pasch11:53Yep.

Matt Leone11:53And why would I limit that and limit what DriveCentric can do? But over time, I look at it and I say, dealers are going to have to make a decision on profitability, scalability, vendor management, and saying, how much of my data do I want to pass between 30 or 40 different companies? Can I consolidate this? And our vision at DriveCentric is, we want to be the operational platform. And integrating with companies like Mastermind, integrating with other companies are feeding and good quality data is step one of that journey for us to get to a true point where I could say DriveCentric is the end-to-end native built AI platform to be able to drive your operations

Matt Leone12:32of your dealership end-to-end. And the accounting will leave to somebody else and we'll leave that to be that conversation. And everything else kind of is in our wheelhouse.

Brian Pasch12:43Great. You know, for the dealers listening in intently saying, hold on, this is kind of interesting. The CRM, people have always said, Brian, why do we need a CDP? Shouldn't the CRM be doing some of these things? And the answer is, well, they haven't historically, right? Matt, we have the Modern Retailing Conference coming up in November. So it's September. Now, two months from now, your vision on greater API integrations, better functionality. What might you be able to show at the Modern Retailing Conference in mid-November about the impact you're having on product direction? Will you have some more things to share with us at the conference?

Matt Leone13:26Absolutely. And so I'll be there. Thank you for allowing us to sponsor that event. And I'm excited to talk at it because as I'll be about a hundred days as CEO of DriveCentric at that point. And, you know, my vision was open up DriveCentric so that we can get the data in, fuel our CRM so we can invest in the core. And I think a lot of people that saw some of the investment that went into DriveCentric, was it the founder-led sort of scrappy company that got to the market share it did, couldn't go away. And I really want people to walk away from the conference knowing,

Matt Leone13:59hey, this is a company that's still innovating. This is a company that's investing and doubling down on their investments. And this is a company starting to open up to really own the total of... And there's, you know, a new company that's out there that's sort of using the concept of a natively built platform. And I look at them as the perfect example of a promise to the market that may not have been fully fulfilled yet, but it's the right path to go down. And I look at OEM tech stacks that are out there. I look at, you know, auto tech partners are out there and say, there's all just one big

Matt Leone14:35ecosystem. And how do we make sure that we can all work together somewhat efficiently and effectively? And if you've got a really good operational tool, you got to take away the mindset of it's a CRM platform. So at the conference, what I'm hoping people can take away from is, because even when I came into DriveCentric, I questioned, is CRM even still relevant? Is that still something needed in the world? And I think because of AI, it actually has become the most critical system, mission critical in your dealership. And it's not workflow and reporting and the traditional things the CRM was meant for. It's really because the CRM is your end-to-end operational system for mission critical

Matt Leone15:17things outside of accounting. And if we can get people at the conference to hear that, I think what they'll see is examples, concrete examples of where we're opening up the API, where new data that's enriched in clients are going to get flown in, and why it's going to benefit a dealership by making the AI smarter, more efficient, more effective, so people can get on to that concept of efficiency using AI in a safe, trustable way. And that's what I'm hoping they take away from.

Brian Pasch15:44You know, dealers who are DriveCentric customers or maybe shopping for a CRM, I want you to lean in for a moment because the vision that Matt just shared is aligned with my vision that dealers need clean data, actionable insight outside of their own data set to train AI on the next best action, the next best offer the best path to increase lifetime value and retention. And through data partnerships, that's possible if the CRM really transform into a retail communication platform where it touches all aspects of the customer journey, both in sales and service. So I want to encourage dealers, stay tuned, watch the announcements from DriveCentric as they come out, but get yourself a ticket to the Modern Retailing

Brian Pasch16:33Conference, November 16th, 17th, and 18th in Palm Beach. And here's the reason why. Matt and the team will be there with examples of the new API integrations, a path forward. If you're a tech company, this is a good time also to see the promises being delivered because obviously people can talk the talk, but actually delivering innovation is what we talk about at the Modern Retailing Conference. And well, this is a breath of fresh air because dealers have said CRMs primarily have not evolved past the core functionality of lead management, some basic workflows. So we'll see a little bit of what the future looks like in November. Matt, congratulations. I couldn't think

Brian Pasch17:17of a better person to lead DriveCentric in this next stage of its growth. You're a data person, you understand data integrations, you understand data partnerships, you understand data hygiene, and coupled with the core tech of a retail platform that DriveCentric has built. It's a marriage made in heaven.

Matt Leone17:37Thanks, Brian. And I'll just add one thing to that, which is the race on AI is so competitive right now and moving so fast. You know, as a pioneer in AI for DriveCentric, that's another area of which I love learning more about and seeing just how much innovation, how many new companies are coming to market, and how many niches that have been created out there. And if you're a dealer, you know, coming to MRC or you're a dealer out there flooded by new tech that's out there. You know, one of the things I'd hope people kind of take away is, you know, it starts and ends with, do you have good quality control over that data? Do you have good data the

Matt Leone18:15AI engine can trust? And if most of them are bolting on to a legacy CRM or a legacy DMS, you and I know it's not great data.

Brian Pasch18:21That's right.

Matt Leone18:21And so you have to make sure that that data is in a usable way that you can then let your sales reps sleep at night so that AI can take over and make them more efficient, but not make you look foolish. And I think that's what you can come to the conference and listen to is, yeah, there'll probably be some bolt-ons that kind of wrap around that do some niche things, but at the heart of it, you have to have an operational platform that can really trust, secure that data, and then let AI make it more efficient. While you're not replacing the human fully, fully, you're simply making the dealership run 24 hours, seven, eight, a week.

Brian Pasch18:57I buy into that statement 100%. AI needs clean data. And why not have the CRM be the cleanest, most accurate, and with the vision, all the leads coming in with third-party enhancements, with trusted VIN verification, with trusted address verification, with filling in missing email and phones when the data is bad or missing. This is the future of automotive retail and AI will be part of it. And so we're excited to see what it looks like. At the Modern Retailing Conference, AI will be center stage as well. We'll be having a number of companies talking about how they're using AI to change the modern retail process. So don't miss getting out to the conference.

Brian Pasch19:43Go to modernretailingconference.com, get your tickets, and I'll see you with Matt in November at the beautiful Eau Resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Thanks for listening in, and make sure you listen to all of my podcasts by searching the Brian Pasch Podcast. It's that simple. Thanks for your time, Matt.

Matt Leone19:57Thank you for your time.

Brian Pasch20:03Thank you. We'll see you next time on another podcast interview.