Look, we need to have a real conversation about something that's probably costing your dealership more money than you realize: you're not speaking the language of today's car buyers. And before you roll your eyes and think "here we go with another millennial lecture," hear me out—this is about cold, hard cash leaving your lot.
The LotTalk crew recently sat down with Brett, their millennial COO, and what he revealed about how his generation shops for cars should make every used car manager sit up and pay attention. Why? Because millennials now make up 22% of the US population—that's 74.2 million potential customers. And if you're not catering to them, you're essentially telling one out of every five shoppers to take their business elsewhere.
Here's something that might sting a little: when Brett described his car-shopping process, he said the first thing he does when landing on a dealership website is assess the trust factor. And you know what kills that trust immediately? Pop-ups. Those "Unlock Instant Price" buttons, the "$500 Coupon" offers, the chatbots asking if they can help before someone even sees your inventory—it all screams desperation, and modern shoppers bounce faster than you can say "dealer fee."
Chris Keene put it perfectly when discussing a Toyota dealership's website: "Just show me the damn price."
Compare that to Carvana's approach. Love them or hate them, they've figured out simplicity. Clean vehicle photos, one clear price, zero pop-ups. No games. And the data proves they're taking market share—not because they have better cars, but because they've removed the friction from the buying process.
Here's a stat that should terrify and excite you in equal measure: 57.2% of US consumers now use AI to help them shop online. Think about that. More than half of your potential customers are asking ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, or Cars.com's new "Carson" AI assistant to find them vehicles.
Chris demonstrated this live during the podcast. He searched for a Ram 3500 Laramie Longhorn in black near Mustang, Oklahoma, and within seconds, AI tools across multiple platforms served up exactly what he wanted. But here's the kicker—if your vehicle merchandising isn't tight, if you're missing something as basic as exterior color in your inventory data, you're invisible to these AI tools. You're literally not even in the game.
As Brian Benstock's quote reminds us: "AI won't replace humans, but humans with AI will replace humans without AI." If your competitors are AI-optimized and you're not, you've already lost.
John Anderson asked a simple question: "How many people do you know who've bought something off Temu?" The answer might surprise you—millions. And here's what's wild: most of us have never seen a Temu commercial outside of social media, specifically TikTok.
Meanwhile, 90 million people click on vehicle listings on Facebook Marketplace every month. That's up from 20 million just four years ago—a 5x increase. But Facebook is primarily reaching older demographics. The younger buyers? They're on TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram.
Chris shared a perfect example: his 22-year-old son, who's about to graduate college and buy a vehicle, regularly sees cars on TikTok. If you don't have someone at your dealership who knows how to leverage these platforms, you're missing an entire generation of buyers.
The solution isn't for you to become a TikTok expert overnight. As Chris said, "Put a guy on a horse he can ride." Find someone on your team who lives and breathes these platforms and empower them to represent your dealership there. Design a compensation plan around it. Make it worth their while.
John Anderson dropped some serious wisdom about the inventory mistakes dealers make this time of year. He's seeing dealers who struggled through the fall now planning to massively increase inventory for the spring selling season—without fixing any of the underlying problems first.
Here's the brutal truth: if you're heading into January, February, and March with 30% of your inventory sitting at 31-60 days and another 15-20% past 61 days, you've got 50% of your inventory aged beyond where it should be. You're not going to get a high rate of return on that inventory when it sells.
Chris illustrated this perfectly with real dealer data showing a store that jumped from manageable inventory to 271 units. Their sale rate collapsed to 22%, meaning they could only move 44% of their inventory in 30 days. When they corrected course and dropped to 174 units, their sale rate improved by 17%, moving almost 80% of inventory in two weeks. Then they made the same mistake again, inventory back up to 234 units, sale rate back down to 22%.
The lesson? You can't stock your way to success if your processes aren't clean. As Renaldo Leonard put it: "If you run a lean inventory, it gives you the flexibility to take advantage when it's time to take advantage."
John shared something brilliant from Brian Benstock: instead of obsessing over KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), dealers should focus on OPIs—Overlooked Performance Indicators.
What are your OPIs? Here are a few to consider:
John suggested a brilliant exercise: have your entire staff ask their families to shop your website over the holiday and provide honest feedback. You'll get every demographic range represented, and you'll see your dealership through fresh eyes.
Here's the hard truth that all three hosts agreed on: 2026 isn't knocking at the door anymore. It's standing in your doorway, and as Renaldo said, it's "about to go full Seal Team breach."
The shopper index is down right now, which is normal for this time of year. But instead of panicking or making rash inventory decisions, this is your opportunity to get your house in order. Lock down the fundamentals:
As Renaldo's father used to say: "If you don't have it in order, don't come out and wash—it'll come out in the rinse." The rent cycle just hit. If you haven't gotten out of this year what you planned last January, now's the time to plan what you really want from 2026.
Stop trying to fire a BB gun at a freight train and expecting it to stop. What you're doing might not be working, and that's okay—but you need to try something different.
The dealers who will thrive in 2026 are the ones who spend November and December getting watertight: clean merchandising, smart social media presence, AI optimization, and lean inventory management with rock-solid processes.
As Chris, John, and Renaldo emphasized throughout this episode, the devil is in the details. Poor performers who address these issues will become good dealerships. Good dealerships will become great. And great dealerships will become world-class.
The work needs to be done now. Your future customers are already shopping differently than you think. The question is: will you be ready when they arrive?
Need help getting your dealership ready for 2026? The LotTalk team offers free inventory analysis and consultation. Visit LotTalkPodcast.com to connect with Chris, John, and Renaldo directly.