TRUE CAR and ZAG Cyber Bandits, Parasites or Good for the Car Business?
Jim Ziegler asks...
I am hearing a lot of discussion about True Car and ZAG. I continually scratch my head and wonder if desperate dealers are doing the marketing limbo "How Low Can You Go?"
Are we so bad at what we do that we have to line up and pay vendors to lose money? AND, who is giving these people access to your data that is used against you?
Who owns these companies and what might be their ulterior motive? Sometimes I ask questions to which I already know the answer.
Am I wrong?
What do you think... JIM
Jim Ziegler's Guidance and Recommended Action Plan:
Ten Areas We Need to Concentrate on to Bring This Monster to It's Knees...
- Government investigation of ALL Data Aggregators taking consumer information from dealers' DMS. Sadly enough, dealers who do business with TrueCar are exposed to liability charges. Cut off all access to unecessary data, no matter who takes it from the dealers DMS and make it illegal to "resell identifiable consumer data" and "transactional data".
- Educate Your Fellow Dealers; If anyone takes financial transactional data, they expose the dealer that allowed it to violations, especially if it is passed on to other vendors or shared.
- Educate Consumers to what they're doing with their information...
a. You buy a car from a dealer, do you really want your personal information, and maybe even your financial information, passed along and sold and shared by "God knows who?"
b. These People Charge the Dealer $300 which the dealers have to build into the deal
c. Your Privacy and the Security of your Information could theoretically compromise your identity if you do business a company that takes data from the dealership. - Educate Investors and potential investors they could possibly be mislead if anyone is telling them this is a safe investment because of all of the dealers pushing back, associations pushing back, and government regulators in many states coming after TrueCar's business model as NOT compliant, in some cases they're saying it is Not Legal.
- AMEX, USAA and all of their affiliates do not want the bad consumer relations this push back is creating with their members and customers.
- Cancel your dealership's Affilation with TrueCar. Tell people with TrueCar certificates that YOU don't honor TrueCar and you feel the company is NOT reputable. Educate consumers as to perceived data exposure if they buy from a TrueCar dealer. Make sure that each consumer knows that using TrueCar actually increases their vehicle cost by $300 to $400.
- Make the dealers selling at huge losses take all of those deals. Big problem right now is too many Nissan Dealers and others are taking huge losers to get the factory money. The TrueCar reverse-auction business model will continually push those numbers down until the factory money is non-existent. Consumers need to hear from many dealers, "We don't do TrueCar"
- Keep calling your National and State Dealer Associations demanding they get involved and stay involved... No excuses.
- Get the Manufacturers into the game. If GM, Ford, Toyota, and other majors change the rules about how we advertise and do business to protect the dealers, we can cut off their ability to set pricing. So keep it up at every dealer meeting. Call your Dealer Council Members and protest to your factory reps. Tell the manufacturers, if they want showroom and facility improvements, we need the ability to make fair profits.
- Tell everyone you know. Educate other dealers and industry people. Watch the Painter interviews... I believe this is the first time a vendor has publicly announced they intend to bring down the dealers and hijack our business, taking our profits and starving us out with our own data. Painter has said manufacturers and dealers should go bankrupt and he, in his God-like way "will control distribution..."
When the TrueCar-Yahoo Deal kicks in we need to stand firm and "Just Say No" we don't honor TrueCar deals.
Read this article as a reference: http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20110831%2FFIN...
AND, if you doubt the mission... read this... http://www.zag.com/websiteASSETS/whitepapers/ZAG-WhitePaper3.pdf
Comment
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Comment by James A. Ziegler on February 7, 2012 at 9:14pm
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There is a race going on right now as several new vendors are developing "Clearing Houses" for DMS Data to protect the dealers. All vendors will have to go through them to extract data and they will be monitored closely. It's going to be a huge business... Dealer Data Security.
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There's only one question on the table.... "Is TrueCar still insisting on access to the Dealers' DMS? That's sort of a make it or break it deal breaker. If they are, with their alleged new business model they have no reason or right to that information SO we must assume they are just lying about having honorable intentions.
Something is starting to stink here.
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Comment by Michael Timmons on February 7, 2012 at 8:19pm
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Jay, it was a pleasure meeting you as well and I invite any additional questions in the future.
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Comment by Jay Prassel on February 7, 2012 at 8:14pm
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@Michael Timmons: It was great to have met you. I asked a lot of direct questions to you (and the TrueCar team) and you were a real professional, quality guy. I can now respond as an educated consultant to my dealer clients.
I thank you and the TC Team for the hospitality shown at NADA.
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Jim, I respectfully approached you when you were walking by yourself, addressed you as Mr. Ziegler, introduced myself and extended my hand. I understand that you have no interest in being pals but I thought it was the right and appropriate gesture to say hello.
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Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on February 7, 2012 at 5:25pm
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I understand that TC is keeping access to the DMS as part of their dealer agreement....and make no mistake , they will log and confirm sales....any attempt to "adjust" a now monthly fee model to reflect any consideration of units sold in the past period will still constitute brokering. If they do not intend to track deliveries there is no need to have DMS access...PERIOD....in my opinion
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 7, 2012 at 2:00pm -
Hey Chris, I've got this guy "Robert M" <webguy1627@gmail.com> emailing me directly now; it may be related to the "Robert Mankowski" dubious poster on this thread. Can you please require a TOS for a real dealership, company, consultant, or vendor website for this guy, regardless. The email was pretty hilarious.
Michael Timmons: I am NOT saying this is the case, but if this is more TrueCar "employee shenanigans" like "****edbythedealer.com, please find out and put a stop to it.
@ Robert: If you're real, step up. And if that email I just got wasn't from you, let me know here.
Thanks!
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I just sent my lengthy preceding posts in an email newsletter to 135,000 dealers, industry executives and dealer employees...
Larry that's great advice....
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None of it matters. Because the truth is... when we win the data wars... Because... If you kill the data supply, you kill all of the beasts at once.
The bigger battle is Data-Control and even getting legislation about Data Reselling and Sharing with third parties. All of these pirates are shaking at the thought because none of them can operate if we kill the data...and that goes for the manufacturers too.
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Comment by Larry Bruce on February 7, 2012 at 12:44pm
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Jim you have done an outstanding job bringing a BIG industry problem to light. Now I think its time for dealers to reflect...
Bottom-line:
1. READ your agreements with all vendors that need to integrate to your DMS thoroughly!
2. Have your own data sharing and privacy agreement made with your attorney, make every vendor signs it and make sure it says that agreement supersedes any other agreement written or implied.
3. If you can seed the data from your DMS with your employees addresses. Assign an employee to each vendor and track if that employee gets a call or a mail piece with YR, Make, Model or VIN then be relentlessness in finding the source of that data if that happens.
4. Get a report of everyone getting data out of your DMS and if you dont know them and / or they haven't signed your Data Sharing Agreement cut'em off until they do. If they won't find another Vendor I assure you there are Vendors in the industry that just wanna do the right thing for the dealer.
5. Understand that any data transmitted electronically from your DMS, Website etc. can and may be aggregated and sold if you don't want that to happen make the receiving party signs your agreement and if they won't... don't do business with them.
It's your data no matter what anyone else says so put your rules on it and enforce those rules.
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