561 episodes
The Dealership Model Built to Survive Any Crash | Jack Carter, Garrett Jones, Luke Godwin
08/09/2026 | 57 mins.Today I'm joined by Jack Carter, Co-owner at Turn & Burn Motors, Garrett Jones, President at Ella Blvd Motors, and Luke Godwin, General Manager and Owner at Godwin Motors.
These three operators share the specific moves working right now: Luke Godwin took his dealership from 63 percent leveraged, in his words "up to my neck," down to 36 percent today by pausing car buying to let cash flow catch up.
Garrett Jones rolled out an AI collections bot thirty days ago that lifted payment penetration by 40 percent without a single staff member touching the customer.
And Jack Carter turned his cash car side lot and daily social videos into a trust-based sales engine across a metro of four million people.
Topics:
02:35 $2 Million Cash Minimum Today.
07:20 Will The Car Outrun The Note.
09:55 Buy Here Pay Here Is Art.
17:40 Bad Attitude Fires Customers.
32:15 Selling Too Fast Kills You.
46:00 Reinsurance Makes You The Bank.
This episode is brought to you by:
1. Digital Dealer - Join us September 22–23 in Detroit and register today at DigitalDealer.com. Use code CDG25OFF at checkout and bring your team for a generous discount. Visit @ here for more info.
2. CDG Circles - Connect with verified dealers all inside the CDG Platform. Learn more @ here.
Check out Car Dealership Guy’s stuff:
For dealers:
CDG Circles ➤ https://cdgcircles.com/
Industry job board ➤ http://jobs.dealershipguy.com
Dealership recruiting ➤ http://www.cdgrecruiting.com
Fix your dealership’s social media ➤ http://www.trynomad.co
Request to be a podcast guest ➤ http://www.cdgguest.com
For industry vendors:
Advertise with Car Dealership Guy ➤ http://www.cdgpartner.com
Industry job board ➤ http://jobs.dealershipguy.com
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Car Dealership Guy Socials:
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Everything else ➤ dealershipguy.comWyler on Sponsorship, Hudson on "No Sell Nell", L'Ecuyer on AI | Daily Dealer Live
07/09/2026 | 46 mins.Today's show features:
- David Wyler, President and CEO at Jeff Wyler Automotive Family
- Chris Hudson, General Manager at Mark Miller Subaru
- Caleb L'Ecuyer, Sales Professional at Coastal Chevrolet Cadillac Nissan
This episode is brought to you by:
Presidio – Today’s episode is brought to you by The Presidio Group, one of the automotive industry’s leading buy-sell advisors. Visit Presidio’s new Research & Reports portal for M&A insights, blue sky multiples, exclusive benchmark data with NCM Associates, dealer sentiment, and analysis of the trends shaping automotive retail at thepresidiogroup.com.
Check out Car Dealership Guy’s stuff:
CDG Circles ➤ https://cdgcircles.com/
CDG News ➤ https://news.dealershipguy.com/
CDG Jobs ➤ https://jobs.dealershipguy.com/
CDG Recruiting ➤ https://www.cdgrecruiting.com/
My Socials:
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Everything else ➤ dealershipguy.com- Jonathan Kienle's team once sent a salesperson to chase down a customer's canceled check, and he crashed the loaner car doing it, and Kienle says that single moment is exactly why he stopped trusting cash, checks, and credit cards to handle his dealership's biggest transactions.
He walks through how switching the default down payment method saved his group $168,000 in fees so far this year, with $300,000 in sight by year's end, and argues that most dealers are needlessly eating card fees and fraud risk on payments that don't have to carry either.
Jonathan Kienle is the Director of Operations at Walters Automotive Group and Kienle Motorsports in Riverside, California, where he oversees five stores spanning Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Audi.
A third-generation dealer, he started at the family store at 14 cleaning the parts department, worked nearly every job in the building, and spent two years cold-calling at a Ford store before his father would let him back in. Joining him is Truett Dwyer, Co-Founder and CEO of Clerq, the payments company he credits with turning down payment collection from a source of risk into a documented driver of profit.
Kienle speaks candidly about the moment that convinced him legacy payment methods weren't worth the risk anymore, how he trained his finance team to make the new method the default instead of the fallback, and what surprised him most once the savings started compounding.
This episode of Industry Spotlight is brought to you by Clerq.
Topics:
02:40 Dad Made Him Start At Ford First.
06:50 Canceled Checks Left Dealers Chasing Customers.
07:10 Credit Card Fees Destroy Margins.
08:00 Salesman Crashed Car Chasing A Check.
09:55 Clerq Is Venmo For Dealerships.
11:00 Debit Cards Have Daily Spend Limits.
12:40 Dealer Didn't Believe Solution Existed.
14:30 Clerq Guarantees Every Transaction.
16:30 Checks Expose Customer Bank Info.
18:35 $168K Saved In Credit Card Fees.
23:45 Dealers Need Fast Payouts.
28:20 Focus Drove Way More Savings.
Clerq - Clerq's instant bank payment solution modernizes down payments, deposits and other large transactions - helping leading dealerships drive more sales, cut costs and reduce risk. Visit here to learn more.
Check out Car Dealership Guy’s stuff:
For dealers:
CDG Circles ➤ https://cdgcircles.com/
Industry job board ➤ http://jobs.dealershipguy.com
Dealership recruiting ➤ http://www.cdgrecruiting.com
Fix your dealership’s social media ➤ http://www.trynomad.co
Request to be a podcast guest ➤ http://www.cdgguest.com
For industry vendors:
Advertise with Car Dealership Guy ➤ http://www.cdgpartner.com
Industry job board ➤ http://jobs.dealershipguy.com
Request to be a podcast guest ➤ http://www.cdgguest.com
Car Dealership Guy Socials:
X ➤ x.com/GuyDealership
Instagram ➤ instagram.com/cardealershipguy/
TikTok ➤ tiktok.com/@guydealership
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Threads ➤ threads.net/@cardealershipguy
Facebook ➤ facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077402857683
Everything else ➤ dealershipguy.com Fixed Ops Friday w/ Dave Rogers, Pam LeJeune, & William Demaree | Daily Dealer Live
04/09/2026 | 59 mins.Today's show features:
- Dave Rogers, Fixed Operations Director at Piazza Management Company
- Pam LeJeune, VP at The Moran Group
- William Demaree, Group Director of Fixed Operations at Tom Wood Group
This episode is brought to you by:
Carmax – CarMax Auctions. Access thousands of cars weekly at 50+ locations nationwide through our 100% online auctions. From high-end to high mileage, CarMax Auctions has the inventory you need to source smarter and accelerate sales. Register now for free at carmaxauctions.com/CDG.
Check out Car Dealership Guy’s stuff:
CDG Circles ➤ https://cdgcircles.com/
CDG News ➤ https://news.dealershipguy.com/
CDG Jobs ➤ https://jobs.dealershipguy.com/
CDG Recruiting ➤ https://www.cdgrecruiting.com/
My Socials:
X ➤ https://www.twitter.com/GuyDealership
Instagram ➤ https://www.instagram.com/cardealershipguy/
TikTok ➤ https://www.tiktok.com/@guydealership
LinkedIn ➤ https://www.linkedin.com/company/cardealershipguy/
Threads ➤ https://www.threads.net/@cardealershipguy
Facebook ➤ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077402857683
Everything else ➤ dealershipguy.com"That's Flushed Money!" What ChatGPT Really Looks for Before Recommending a Dealer (+ How to Fix It) | Zach Billings, CEO at Wikimotive
03/09/2026 | 49 mins.Zach Billings is the CEO of Wikimotive, a search marketing agency he has led for over two decades, building it into a bootstrapped, U.S.-based team of 50 professional writers serving dealers across the country.
Free of outside investors, Wikimotive recently ran an all-staff exercise to rewrite its mission statement around a single measure, dealer outcomes rather than its own bottom line, and it has pruned services, including a legacy organic Facebook management product, once they stopped producing results.
Topics:
01:15 ChatGPT Visibility Is The New Goal.
04:35 Content Beats Technical SEO.
07:55 AI Slop Makes Dealers Identical.
14:10 50 Writers Beat AI Repetition.
21:50 AI Search Is Only 1% Of Pie.
27:10 PMax Campaigns Waste Dealer Money.
38:30 Vendor Consistency Beats Chasing Shiny.
This episode is brought to you by:
1. 800% Elite Auto Club - 800% Elite Auto is a whole-dealership solution. Get started today @ here.
2. CDG Circles - Connect with verified dealers all inside the CDG Platform. Learn more @ here.
3. Wikimotive - Wikimotive delivers organic and paid search solutions to hundreds of dealerships from rural rooftops to multiple top-5 national dealers. Visit @ here for more info.
Check out Car Dealership Guy’s stuff:
For dealers:
CDG Circles ➤ https://cdgcircles.com/
Industry job board ➤ http://jobs.dealershipguy.com
Dealership recruiting ➤ http://www.cdgrecruiting.com
Fix your dealership’s social media ➤ http://www.trynomad.co
Request to be a podcast guest ➤ http://www.cdgguest.com
For industry vendors:
Advertise with Car Dealership Guy ➤ http://www.cdgpartner.com
Industry job board ➤ http://jobs.dealershipguy.com
Request to be a podcast guest ➤ http://www.cdgguest.com
Car Dealership Guy Socials:
X ➤ x.com/GuyDealership
Instagram ➤ instagram.com/cardealershipguy/
TikTok ➤ tiktok.com/@guydealership
LinkedIn ➤ linkedin.com/company/cardealershipguy
Threads ➤ threads.net/@cardealershipguy
Facebook ➤ facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077402857683
Everything else ➤ dealershipguy.com
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About Car Dealership Guy Podcast
The Car Dealership Guy Podcast Network is your front-row seat to the people, companies, and trends shaping the future of automotive retail—delivered across three focused formats:
The Car Dealership Guy Podcast (Tuesdays & Thursdays)
Hosted by Yossi Levi, these deep-dive interviews feature top dealers, operators, and innovators driving the industry forward.
Daily Dealer Live (Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays)
Our live-streamed show, also released here in audio format, brings real-time news, sharp takes, and high-impact guests—think CNBC for car dealers.
Industry Spotlight
Hosted by Sam D’Arc, this segment highlights standout dealerships and vendors with tactical insights and stories from the front lines.
Follow us on X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for highlights and behind-the-scenes content from every episode.
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