The 5 Things I Learned at VINCUE UNLEASHED 2023

How do I describe VINCUE UNLEASHED to anyone who wasn’t able to attend? A lot of ideas come to mind, but the main thing I keep coming back to is community.

This was our very first industry conference where we invited our dealers, industry partners, and major thought leaders from inside and outside of automotive to come together to discuss challenges, share wins, and ideate new solutions both inside and outside the software. The energy, passion, and joy that everyone brought to UNLEASHED created a shared sense of purpose and community – truly bringing alive the spirit of #TeamVINCUE.

There were a lot of takeaways from UNLEASHED, including objective learnings and practical applications of managing people, process, and technology … as well as some more subjective insights like:

• I don’t know what the fire department says but turns out we can easily fit 150+ people into our offices and still have room for coolers full of beer and some of Kansas City’s best BBQ. 
• There is a real Ted Lasso, his name is Donnie Campbell, and apparently some Kansans really do have a Southern accent.
• Planning 10 hours straight of conference content is probably a little too ambitious for one day.
• You give grown adults enough whiskey and offer them a slide, they’re going to chance bad backs and joints to take a ride.
• If you’re going to compete against Bob Kain, you better come prepared because the man lives to win.

Whatever your favorite part, I hope everyone walked away from UNLEASHED with new information, new ideas, and a renewed passion for the work we do everyday in automotive. I look forward to hearing more from our attendees, but in the meantime here are the 5 things I learned at VINCUE UNLEASHED 2023.

We all know that being in retail automotive isn’t for the faint of heart. You have to be competitive, scrappy, resilient. But in this market and in the future of our industry, it’s not just about grit and hustle, you have to be smart. You have to innovate. You have to plan for all the knowns and unknowns of an industry changing rapidly to meet customers’ modern retail expectations.

That forward kind of thinking is what drives our team every day, and at UNLEASHED I got to see firsthand how our dealers are doing the exact same across their dealerships. As we heard from attendees, we learned how our dealers are staffing differently, managing teams and processes in new and creative ways, and utilizing technology across operations, sales, and finance in ways that didn’t even exist a few years ago.

The dealers that choose to work with VINCUE truly are some of the most strategic, innovative, and future-focused operators in the industry and we are so excited to grow with you.

One of our biggest value propositions is that VINCUE consolidates multiple functions, databases, and softwares (and licenses!)  into a single inventory operations platform. But that scale also means it may be difficult for our dealers to learn the full breadth and depth of features, functionality, and solutions beyond their daily activities. 

However, when given the opportunity to see more of VINCUE’s full solution set, many UNLEASHED attendees immediately turned to their Performance Managers to learn more about certain features and put together a plan to start using them.

Specifically, our dealers were most excited to learn about features like Deal Finder, Description Builder, and our BOOST digital VIN specific advertising engine. 

For most dealers, these features are already live and available with their current subscription, and they were able to start using them right there at VINCUE UNLEASHED. I would encourage all VINCUE dealers to ask their Performance Manager what more they should be using VINCUE for during their next monthly performance call!

No one at VINCUE believes we can solve all problems in automotive. The external influences, challenges, and competition we face is bigger than any one strategy or software. That’s why we created #TeamVINCUE, to bring together any stakeholder in automotive that’s committed to the success of the dealer body as a whole – including other innovative product and service providers. 

Even though it was our first year, there was a lot of industry interest in sponsoring UNLEASHED. But we didn’t want our dealers to feel overwhelmed and we wanted sponsors to be real contributors to the event so we limited the number of sponsorships and focused on inviting just a few of our long-standing partners. 

The ask wasn’t just financial, though. We challenged our partners to sit in the same seats as our dealers, participating in all the sessions, panels, activities, and competitions. Each partner at UNLEASHED represents the experience of working with thousands of other dealerships across the country, and we asked them to invest that knowledge as much as their dollars. 

We didn’t get to invite all the partners we would have wanted, but I am so proud of the sponsor partners that attended VINCUE UNLEASHED and I am grateful for their support!

We have always believed in a rising tide that raises all boats and we’ve always seen the dealer body as an entity that understands that – even when it’s full of direct competitors. 

The truth is that our industry is a prime target for massive external investors, retailers, and corporations. But they don’t know what we know about automotive, they don’t have the generational knowledge and experience that we the collective dealer body share. They don’t understand that we can learn, adapt, and compete together to protect our markets. 

#TeamVINCUE was started as an idea, a placeholder for this sentiment. Over time, #TeamVINCUE has evolved into more concrete terms and currently represents a community of dealers and industry partners that share our passion and vision for modernizing automotive inventory operations for the next generation and beyond. 

We will always be competitive with each other, whether it’s building the highest Jynga tower or fighting for customers in the same market, but together we care about automotive and we’re committed to winning together!

If you attended UNLEASHED, you got to hear directly from our Founder, CEO, and CTO, Chris Hoke, and Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Danny Zaslavsky. Together they shared a vision for the future of VINCUE that is rooted in all the things I’ve already mentioned, as well as more than 10 new features for 2024 that will be released at no additional cost to our dealers. 

Then they listened to our dealers pitch features and functionality that means the most to them – most of which is already being worked on by our developers right now. Together with our dealers, #bydealersfordealers, we will continue to evolve and help you unleash the true highest authentic value of your inventory. 

VINCUE as a company, as a product, and as the #TeamVINCUE community is already strong enough to stand tall in our industry, offering dealers the right data, tools, and capabilities to compete in a modern retail marketplace. But we’re just getting started, and together, #ByDealersForDealers, we will redefine automotive inventory operations for the next generation and beyond.