I don’t have to tell any of the readers here that it takes A LOT of work to build momentum.

My professional colleagues are in the throes of this work day-in-day-out.

The truth all of us know: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN OVERNIGHT SUCCESS.

The same is true about getting to the point where Dale Pollak would give me a number of hours in the middle of the day to talk about the industry and some deeper topics as well. This story actually began about 2 years ago.

The spark: 

I had met Dale briefly at a dealer event and sent a follow up email asking if he’d be willing to be interviewed for a podcast I was starting. Its important to note this was NOT the ‘Dealers Compressed’ podcast I’ve been producing since the beginning of the year. It was actually called “The ReInvention Podcast”. Although I recorded 8 episodes, it was never formally launched. Dale agreed.

You see, as the founder/CEO of Image Auto, a cosmetic reconditioning company serving over 100 dealers and dealer groups, I decided I wanted to more fully understand the problems our dealers were facing and do whatever I could to

It was a nice interview, but it was just one of MANY points on the journey. I did more interviews with people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Adam Robinson (CEO Hireology), Glenn Pasch (CEO PCG) and more. I attended conferences, read articles, talked to our dealers and then…stepped up the game when Dale released his latest book, “Like I See It”.

The smoke:

That book hit me right between the eyes. It addressed all the issues I was seeing, hearing and learning about and added some profound and practical insight in a way only a visionary like Dale could. I knew this was the perfect opportunity to get serious about trying to make an impact on an industry full of people wanting to be better…wanting to thrive.

I felt like Dale had placed a golf ball on a tee and handed me a really big driver.

February of 2018, Dealers Compressed was born.

It actually started as an idea to create simple, one minute quick-cut videos that summarized each chapter, but as usual, once the creative juices started to flow, a full-blown production ensued. This was the point where leveraging my creative agency, Congruent really kicked into high gear.

Before I knew it, we had concepts, scripts, shoot locations, crew and gear. The result was a fully produced content series complete with polished animations, visuals and frankly, something our industry really hasn’t seen before.

Of course, I told Dale what we were up to and really peaked his interest. When I let him know we were finished filming and gave him some details, he emailed,

“Paul, Wow, that’s really exciting.  How will you position your video, and how will it be used?  I’m very intrigued. Much thanks, Dale”

When I send him our first episode prior to release I had a panic moment.

I JUST GOT FACT CHECKED BY DALE POLLAK!

I’m happy to say that we were able to satisfy his inquiry. Maybe he was just testing me.

We then launched dealerscompressed.com with a new video weekly. I thought, we need to deliver this in podcast format too, so we did. I decided to give a few minutes of introduction to each podcast and we were off to the races.

The format evolved, the audience began to grow and we’re connecting with more and more like minded dealers and industry partners. The progressive type, the change makers, the trouble makers…my favorite type.

The fire:

I sent a request to do a sit down interview with Dale at the vAuto headquarters in Chicago and guess what…he said YES. 

As a result of all this learning, creating, producing and overall hustling…my community is growing and more and we are getting better, together.

In June of this year my auto reconditioning was acquired by Dent Wizard International and in addition to helping them better serve dealers, I am digging into Congruent with some, what I believe to be, game changing creative branding and marketing offerings for auto dealers. I want to give the industry something to talk about as we help progressive-minded dealer groups significantly LOWER their ad spend per unit by deploying sophisticated (and fun) branding and creative marketing.

I’m looking forward to speaking at the upcoming Driving Sales Executive Summit as well as NADA 2019.

When all is said and done…I’m still not sure Dale understands what I do.

Frankly, I’m still trying to figure it out, LOL.

Be patient.

Work your face off.http://pauljdaly.com

Pursue Clarity.