Bloggers

Benny Mazzier

With over 10 years of traditional and digital marketing experience, I’ve been able to create winning marketing formulas that helps your brand stand out, stay relevant, and move more units, among the growing competition in automotive online advertising. The first 5 years of my career were in direct mail, before moving to the yellow pages. It was there where I was tasked with training marketing reps and business owners on the digital transformation. I was lucky enough to travel across the US to remote Google offices and train them as well. To increase my overall knowledge of both traditional and digital media, I got a job as the digital sales manager at the NBC broadcast television affiliate in St. Louis before starting my own company.

The automotive industry and advertising have always been a passion of mine. Most dealers have used direct mail, the yellow pages, and broadcast television as a media outlet. My experience and continued education allow me to understand both marketing and car dealerships.

Chris Sondesky

Chris has spent the past two decades learning every aspect of the retail automobile industry. From his time as a buyer responsible for 50+ units/week including transport and reconditioning, getting his hands dirty working as a technician, managing sales department operations as a General Sales Manager and later a General Manager, to his executive roles with the highest performing agencies in the county, Chris’s background in the industry is tough to match.

The past 5 years have focused Chris’s deep retail experience towards problem-solving the critical challenges that affect every business unit across the automotive vertical. From advertising & marketing, to inventory management and merchandising, to staffing & training solutions, along with net efficiency improvements, Chris’s continued operational excellence reinforces the exceptional track record maintained throughout his career. Chris has advised and trained executives across all tiers, including tier 1 OEM, tier 2 regional & dealer groups, and tier 3 dealerships, all tiers which that require an in-depth understanding across every facet of retail operations management and the guided strategies that achieve net profit increases.

Dan Kommeth

Dan Kommeth has over 25 years of experience in the automotive industry, including roles on the OEM side of the business as well as retail. He has served others in the capacities of sales, service and operational management. He has been General Manager of three Lexus dealerships (New Mexico, Ohio, and Wisconsin) and served on various corporate and charitable boards in the community. He is the owner of the automotive blog www.theautogm.com and seeks to provide value to everyone he comes into contact with.

Jay Jensen

Jay Jensen is a Lead Coach at Car Motivators. His philosophy is to invest in one person & having them succeed and grow in your company, not invest in 40 people and have all of them fail. Sales are building a foundation of trust and relationships. Customers are someone you sell once. A client is someone you sell to forever. It’s building a team that wants Clients and not customers.

John Fairchild

John Fairchild has had a lifelong passion for cars and has been working in the Auto Parts and Repair Industry since 1980 at age 15. John has held just about every position in a Dealership; from clean up to General Manager, his methodology “s3 Service Sales Strategies©” helps Dealers address gaps in financial and customer satisfaction Key Performance Indicators and deliver a level of service customers rave about!

John Sevier

John Sevier has been a BDC Director and Internet Director for the majority of his career in automotive and has a lot of information to share based on his experience and those other automotive professionals within his network. John definitely brings Automotive News you can use.

John Sternal

John Sternal is a veteran public relations professional with more than 20 years of experience serving clients in a variety of industries on both the agency and corporate sides. John’s creative approach to PR is a leading reason why he’s been able to get press coverage in newspapers around the country and leading magazines like Forbes, Cigar Aficionado and Good Housekeeping, among many others. He is also the author of a brand new e-book, called the PR Toolkit, which helps small businesses learn the ins and outs of PR so that they can be successful at getting their own press coverage.

Owen Moon

Owen Moon is CEO & Co-Founder of FIXED OPS DIGITAL, an automotive service solutions company specializing in Service, Parts, Collision, and Tire Marketing and creators of Dealer Wallet, a conversion tool designed specifically to give service customers a digital-first experience. For almost 20 years Owen has been helping dealerships with both traditional and digital marketing strategies to help sell more cars and drive more service revenue. Owen has been a content contributor for publications like Auto Success, Fixed Ops Magazine, Modern Dealership Magazines, and a speaker at automotive industry events like Digital Dealer, Innovative Dealer Summit, and the Fixed Ops Conference.

Paul J Daly

I’m all-in on the human element of business, creative, hard work, and organizational clarity. Work is hard, but meaningful when you focus on the important things.

Sandy Zannino

Sandy writes blogs regarding “Best HR Practices” for car dealerships, things a car dealer really needs to know! Sandy Zannino is a principal at Innovative Auto HR Solutions and started in the car business in 1998 as a dealer’s assistant and corporate office manager. She became the head of human resources while continuing her duties as running the corporate office with a staff. A process-based problem solver with a broad range of experience—Sandy has found a way to save dealers money, allowing them to retain more profits, and minimize risks and exposures.

Sean Kelley

Prior to entering the car business, Sean believed leadership was the key to ensure his Special Operations team would survive two combat zone deployments. Sean Kelley #thecarbizcoach has since applied those same leadership principals to automotive management, and successfully lead dealers for a decade: lowering turnover, increasing profit, customer retention, satisfaction, and setting first-time regional records. Sean Kelley as built a massive following with thousands of coaching clients in his Facebook group, and is a featured writer and vlogger for www.dealershipnews.com. Sean’s passion for coaching and people development led him to be Chief Business Development Officer of DriveCentric CRM where he helped them double their annual revenue. Now, as CEO of Car Motivators and President of Next Sale App in Missouri, Sean and his coaches work with dozens of dealer groups, and hundreds of sales managers across the country to achieve great results through their people and technology. Sean creates winning cultures with his unique self-developed approach to coaching and people development named D.R.I.V.E.C3.

Steve Roessler

Steve Roessler, the “LiveWithDrive” guy and his team brings a new modern approach to engage your customers at your dealership. Working with over 100 dealers, Steve’s passion is helping dealers change their communication strategies at dealerships to improve the customer’s overall experience.  His infectious personality provides a motivational approach for dealers to bring a change in their culture on how every customer should be treated.  People sell People.  Steve is also very passionate representing DriveCentric into Automotive World. Per Steve; “I really enjoy presenting on topics such as 70% Engagement Strategies”, “Personalized Video to Humanize the Customer Experience”, “Giphs – Less is More Strategy”. My goal is to help dealerships focus on customer experience through more Texting and Personalized Video. If we can start talking to the customer on a personal level vs sending templates, the results will increase and the brand of the dealership starts to change in your market.