IA Voice: Welcome to after dark at the Fixed Ops roundtable, featuring Katrina Ness, Vanessa Collins and Ted Ings. This episode is brought to you by BG Products Partners, Beyond Products and now for your host Ted Ings, Vanessa Collins and Katrina Ness.
Vanessa: Good evening everyone, happy Wednesday and welcome to the Fixed Ops Roundtable after dark show, my name is Vanessa Collins and I am joined by the amazing Ted Ings, my peer at Northwood University Katrina Ness and the CEO of Dealer Scanning Cesar Augustus.
Ted: Cesar and Katrina and Vanessa welcome tonight, Cesar I love that hat
Cesar: Thank you, thank you Ted, good to see you guys again, Vanessa and Katrina is great to be here.
Katrina: Yeah thank you, so nice to meet you this evening.
Ted: Cesar and Katrina has been with the Fixed Ops roundtable table since the very very first day, in fact it was the day before the very first one in New York City, I got a phone call a cell phone call and my office put the call through and he said: my name is Cesar Augustus, I said say that again, he goes Cesar Augustus, and I'm in Chicago, and I heard you got an event tomorrow in New York, and you mind if I fly in for the meeting? I go absolutely and he says I have a company, we scan documents for dealers, and he flew in from Chicago the morning into LaGuardia Airport, Cesar I think you told me the taxi cost more than the air flight, is that right?
Cesar: That's exactly, the Uber's ride from La Guardia to your office in New York City was a lot more than the flight from Chicago to New York, which is kind of interesting haha.
Ted: But Cesar, that was an amazing day!!and what it's grown since that time.
Cesar: It was beautiful, it was about 40 or 50 of us crumbed into a conference room and I think it was more than we expected Ted, all the stuff that's happened ever since it's unbelievable.
Ted: Yeah in fact, Vanessa the story is I almost got kicked out, I almost lost my lease that day; because so many of us were in that conference room and were so loud on the floor that people kept coming and saying hey keep it down in there right, but Cesar we had people spilling out into the hall Clint good evening, Sean Kingry, good evening as well and Cesar just you know, amazing to see what's happened.
Cesar: Yes!, and the friendships that we've made and connections and you know we helped each other out in the last couple last ever since then, everyone's helped each other out and it's great to see all of we grow and the industry grows.
Ted: We have! And you've been with us at every Fixed Ops roundtable, can you believe we have No. 23 coming up?
Cesar: It's unbelievable!!
Ted: So a whole lot going on everybody. I wanna thank tonight BG products or exclusive sponsor, your partner beyond products for all they do for the Fixed Ops community and the Fixed Ops roundtable, very grateful to have them, and Katrina in just, I think it's six or In seven weeks we have a big event coming up that tells us about that.
Katrina: Yep so this is our next big event,it will be January 29th through February 1st and it's gonna come up a lot sooner than you think, so make sure you get your complimentary tickets at Fixedopsroundtable.com right now, before you miss your chance.
Ted: Yep all right, so a lot going on, and Cesar you see everybody up, there is a sir like Sir Ed Roberts, Lady Sarah Valentine, so you Now, how about that?
Cesar: Your level of creativity amazes me man! It's unbelievable Ted.
Ted: And Cesar you also came to the very first pop up event that we did in Florida.
Cesar: Hey man I'm whenever you tell me to do something I just say: with Ted tells me to jump, you say how high? And it's been great to help Ted grow in this process, and obviously us grow as well, yeah! That was a lot of fun.
Ted: That was a lot of fun! That was live! That was actually really scary, to do that big event.
Cesar: I will get to do the live events man haha.
Ted: Right uh Shawn Butler happy Wednesday to you my friend, uh I spoke to Santa earlier today Shawn Butler, we have something special coming up with a couple holiday shows for you, I understand, Santa has something coming up uh as well, David Lucas we're gonna see you next Wednesday on the show, so Cesar next Wednesday we're doing a taste of Australia on the show.
Cesar: Oh my gosh
Ted: Katrina and Vanessa, David will be coming in live from Australia where it'll be Thursday morning and we're gonna taste some uh foods from Australia and uh we got a couple of couple specialties in store Vince, good evening there we go, the story of the Fixed Ops roundtable and Sean that is amazing and you're right behind him Sean, so a lot of great stuff there and a lot of things happening in our industry so um, thank you Sean so my daughter Sean Sean my daughter, came over the house after Thanksgiving and the first thing she said to me was let me see the ring I want to wear it and she goes, this thing is really heavy so it's a bit ostentatious so all right so Cesar take it away you got a lot to talk about tonight with dealer scanning in the some of the charitable things you're doing around the country tell us a little bit about first of all dealer scanning of what you've been up to
Cesar: yeah I know it's been an incredible year as some of you know I mean most of you know and those of you don't know we are the best document scanning company in the country in the industry and we have a simple to use product that makes dealerships lives easy our bread and butter is making sure those repair orders are scanned and safely stored in our cloud storage and make it easy for you service advisors or anyone at the dealership to pull up the repair order without having to frankly waste hours looking for a repair order in the file storage room.
Ted: Cesar come on, this is the end of 2023, is that still necessary you know around the country
Cesar: some people everyone knows someone in their family that's late to adjust to technology right, um you know there's people still watching movies on VHS there's there's still people using landlines uh people don't adapt well and it's the same story for the auto industry um these are the examples of our dealerships that believe it or not, are still paper filing I just got a call from a big dealer that I've been knocking on their door for 5 years and they called me the other day, five years later I've gotten dealers one in Michigan lately that they talked about document scanning for 10 years it's the truth people are slow to adjust so there's about 30 to 35% of the auto dealers that are still paper filing which is wow kind of unbelievable but it's good for business.
Katrina: so how is document scanning more efficient than traditional methods like having boxes and boxes and how many papers in your dealership cause I don't think it's obvious enough.
Cesar: You know what Katrina is so true because it's not obvious enough right so just to walk it through, a simple example let's say that you have a repay order so you close the repay order 6 months ago and it was filed it was taken to the file room and it was put into one of these boxes six months later they said the customer comes back or let's say god forbid your dealerships on their audit and you have to go pull that repay order well what happens if that person misplaced that repay order you never gonna find it never and you have dealers that are taking hours and you know this to be true Ted it takes hours to find one of these repair orders and that's just time just wasted instead of spending it with the clients, instead of spending it in revenue producing tasks you spend it in time things that are quite frankly a waste of time and then employ morale you know who wants to be in a in a file room looking for a piece of paper no one wants to do that with our system, you simply scan easily go into our portal. You look up the repay order number last 6 of the van customer name and it comes up in less than a couple seconds.
Katrina: That's awesome.
Cesar: believe it or not so people don't believe this and that's why 35% of the auto dealers are still paper fine.
Katrina: But then I go to my dentist and I go to my orthodontist in my eye doctor and they have the same setup, they have all these files on the wall sweet like I feel like every industry should get behind this you need to expand go outside of the car business going to every industry in the world because honestly everything's moving online and you can see the efficiency of it.
Cesar: You're exactly right and you be amazed there's just, I have dealers that literally tell me um we just don't wanna change, we've done it this way for 40 years, yeah we've done it for 50 years and the controller or the GM it's in you know going to the 80s and they just don't want to change and there's just those type of personalities that are true and the personal world and obviously true in business.
Ted: That is amazing Cesar! Again this is actually occurring today and that it is still gotta go in and you actually gotta sell this thing don't you?
Cesar: It's unbelievable, I'm telling you, I got a call from a dealer that I've been knocking on the doors for five years and I said wow you finally called, they're like: oh yeah well, someone said you guys are really good. They are finally coming on board, it's just, it's the reality.
Ted: Okay, now is your system tough to use by the way, is it difficult? I'm just curious!
Cesar: Hahaha no, this is the magic of our system!! You basically just click a button and it scans the repair order and that is it, it will read the repair order number off of the document and it puts it into our system and the reason we made it this way, so that anyone in the dealership can scan it, you can give it to a receptionist while they're answer the phones, you can give it to a cashier, or you can even give it to their service advisors, that are busy flying around helping customers, but all they have to do is load up the document and click a button and that works. So we're about volume in making this as simple as it can be.
Vanessa: Wow wow yeah, so that is that part of it kind of seamlessly integrating into the dealership and contributing to like the streamlined workflow, or is there something else as well that um helps it seamlessly integrate into the dealership?
Cesar: Yeah so, a little bit about me I studied computer science and I went to school to learn this and I was in the senior in college I was hired by James Lexus Down on James Family, so that's used to be the largest Lexus dealership in the world and I Learned to use the DMS systems, back then was Reynolds, later on they moved to CDK and I Learned how to use that from a programmer's, you know point of view. Which allowed us to integrate into and find out how we can help the scanning process by working with the dealership data, working with all the DMSs and giving our clients the best reporting tool available in the industry, so what does that mean? Basically what we provide and no one else provides this, is that let's say that in a dealership you closed 1,000 repair orders, well you're hoping you scan 1,000 repay orders but the reality is that you might only scan 900 and you're missing 100, well our reporting and our integration with the DMS gives you that snapshot of what's going on how many repay orders are closed, how many are scanned, how many are missing and most importantly, which of those are warranty repay orders,
Ted: So Clint um, I was kind of prepared for your question tonight, so a little backstory; I'm in a dealership doing some training Vanessa, in Albany New York the diploma auto dealerships and who do I bump into while I'm doing training it's Cesar, okay. Like six months after we did the first Fixed Ops Roundtable, I go what are you doing? He goes I'm installing a scanning system, I go you are? He goes yeah!! Right now I'm showing everyone how it works. Can I take a video Clint of how it works? So Clint this is for you, this is how the scan works:
Cesar: Hahaha.
Cesar Video: What's up, I'm here at Paula Chevrolet, we're just installing the new scanning unit, I'm showing the ladies how to scan and repair order it's so simple, you basically take your typical repair order put it on scanner, bring up the scanning application, click on the scan repair order gonna scan the front and back, if there's any stages that are stuck together I'll tell you that they're stuck together or if there are any multifeeder I'll tell you, so right now you just all you have to do is put in the repair order No. 7 3 1 8 6 4 okay,
Paula Video: So now it's in there.
Cesar Video: Yeap, so now click okay click view, you can review the contents of the repair order very easily, it's right there, and you have this small battery test receipts, put them inside and click scan all their items
Paula Video: And it won't get stuck in there?
Cesar Video: They won't get stuck, but if he does i'll tell you and it's very easy, we'll test one out, but you can view it what I'm gonna do later is I'm gonna add a viewer to your machines so that everyone can look it up, I would be able to number
Paula Video: That'll be great, okay.
Cesar Video: It is that simple!! I'm done man, I can go back to West Palm Beach now!
Ted: It's that simple! How many pages a minute does it scan? and this is in front and back?
Cesar: Yes, 70 pages per minute front and back very easy, and we provide life warranty on the at equipment, so if anything breaks, basically FedEx overnight, FedEx it in it's yours
Vanessa: That is so efficient!! That's amazing!!
Katrina: Such a great service to you know
Cesar: You with Ted, you got to be ready for action, because you'll bust out that cell phone and start recording and
Ted: Oh yeah!!
Cesar: Five years later there you are man you're showing the video!
Ted: I'm ready to go live man, at any moment!
Everyone: Hahaha!!
Cesar: I know
Ted: So yeah there you go Clint boom right there it is so
Vanessa: Hahaha!
Ted: and he's right, even he could do that so Cesar these are not very complicated, actually marvelously simplistic in how it works but it's so effective and it's easy and you worked out this over a long period of time from your history and software that you worked at all the wrinkles before you ever took it out to a store
Cesar: Correct, and it's just a simplicity of it that keeps clients happy and makes it well quite frankly it allows us to keep our prices low and it allows us to offer just value constantly and because of the simplicity, so we give very few calls, customer service calls, because we're not making that person becoming scanning analyst, they're just going through the workflow and scanning as much as they can and without reporting it allows us to give you that peace of mind that things are getting scanned and then the manager the service manager is not micromanaging the scanning person so there's accountability in both ways and it just works.
Katrina: Wow!
Ted: Cesar, you've been rolling this thing out Cesar, must be very expensive to get this system in my store
Cesar: Yeah Hahaha! it is
Ted: I'm giving them all the softballs to hit tonight go ahead
Cesar: So we we have an incredible offer: it's $500 a month, unlimited scanning lifetime warranty on the equipment if anything happens we replace that equipment, but more importantly it's a month to month agreement, so we don't hold you on a three to five year contract and even more importantly Ted and Vanessa, is that the data is always belongs to the dealership, what does that mean if the dealership ever leaves or the because the people do leave because they change companies and they change Dms, you let us know we'll give you all your data, no Ransom fees, we basically um we believe that is the dealership data, so unfortunately with other companies that data the dealership has to pay and so we don't play that and it makes it easy, I get we get lots of referrals from dealers that left us, because people ask them and they're like oh what a Dealer Scanning
Ted: So Cesar, tonight you're meeting two young ladies, who are gonna be very high up in the automotive industry, likely running some of these companies
Cesar: Yes!
Ted: You've got some big introductions tonight and you know Dealer Scanning as its foot in the door already you know.
Cesar: I know, I'm excited, yes!!
Ted: Yeah.
Cesar: Please remember the guy with the the funny hat
Katrina & Vanessa: Hahahaha!!
Ted: But everyone there's so much more to Cesar Augustus, that I didn't know when I first met him and I've Learned over the years, um you know we talked about you know he's been involved with Tony Robbins for a long time, actually helping with the events and actually adding to the Fixed Ops Roundtable with you know why don't we try this, let's try that let's change this up you know. Especially when the world changed three and a/2 years ago, but Cesar also has a big heart and he gives back whenever we get around to charity which we've done a lot of in the last couple years, Cesar is always the first one to donate, the first one to get things started and he's doing a lot of charitable work around the world which I know he doesn't like to necessarily, you know talk about uh, but Cesar I'm gonna ask you to share some of that tonight, because I don't think a lot of people know that the work you do a dealer scanning benefits um youth all around the world and talk to us tonight uh and I've got some pictures to show as well to kind of help tell your story.
Cesar: Yeah thank you Ted, yes it's almost like you get to learn to know you were taught to be humble, but then if you don't tell people your plans then you know how you can make it bigger. So years ago, I'm a huge soccer fan, I'm originally from Colombia and I'm a huge soccer fan and I'm a computer geek and so a couple of years ago we started a nonprofit soccer and Technology Academy in a very very neglected area of Colombia, and we're basically taking kids off the streets and we given them uh professional coaches and we're teaching them the skills that you learn through working in a team environment, um but we're also teaching them some values we haven't read some pretty cool books, like the 7 habits of highly effective teens, before agreements uh, we're actually one of the few, Ted this is pretty cool! We're one of the few uh soccer organizations that brings the book to the soccer field, so our kids before practice they read part of the book and they talk about the book, the seven habits of highly affected people um of the four agreements um, we're about and these are pictures here of our of our young ladies um, we have about 60 young ladies; aged from six to sixteen and you know we have two wonderful young ladies here!Our our goal is to uh make sure these young girls don't get pregnant, uh by the time they're 16 or 17 uh so by providing them an environment that they can trust and they can thrive, um they can you know learn about a lot of the things that they don't learn at home, or even school uh, so we're helping them through that. This picture here is of the team that was able to travel to Cartagena and these kids have never seen the ocean and it was their first time ever visiting the ocean and it was great because they won a state championship, they were able to play in the national championship and these are 13 of our kids, boys and girls, that were able to make it, so it is just an opportunity to give back uh we are gonna this year launch our English education part of the of the project, which we're gonna bring an English teacher to the soccer field, so that before practice these kids can learn English! And the reason is that we wanna teach them English, because English is the universal language, we wanna teach them technology skills, because we want these kids to be equipped with the skill sets, so that when they graduate high school they can continue on to college and then they can work from down there, so they don't have to leave their countries they don't have to leave their communities and if they become valuable through speaking English and having technology skills, then they can be a benefit to all! So we're just excited, it's the project that keeps growing. We've had partners, we're in plans to launch this in Brazil with one of our friends Marcos Rossi, we have plans to launch this in Jamaica and Mexico. So it's growing and it's part of the work we do, um but it's because we have all these dealerships that believe it or not have a huge impact on this, just scanning paper! You know, like I said, document scanning might not be exciting, but the work gets done and the impact is huge for hundreds of kids down in Colombia.
Ted: What I ask you about Marcos Rossi in just a moment, because he was at our keynote speaker a year ago and I know how you and he met uh with to Tony Robbins and Marcos has an incredible story, but before I do real quick part of the story is also that you are equipping these young people with things such as athletic shoes, talk to us about that, because that's been a big part of your mission and I don't think a lot of people know what you're doing there
Cesar: Yeah!! So man we've I like to say someone's garbage, it's another man's treasure and here in the United States we're just so blessed with the abundance that most of us have and a lot of kids here play soccer a couple of weeks, couple of months and those fleets go into the attics or the garages, so we have uh little brigades around the country that pick up use soccer cleats and we ship them down to Colombia and some of these kids are playing barefooted and you know we've delivered over 50,000 dollars worth of cleats to boys and girls and you know it's just amazing! I mean the impact goes both ways, cause a lot of the kids here know that those cleats are being used by kids that needs them, so we're teaching the kids here to be in contribution and then we're teaching the kids down there that someone cares and that matters, that they're being seen and they're proud to wear the kids shoes and they say I'm gonna score a goal on behalf of this kid, or that soccer team it's just beautiful man, this the kindness of people that provide gifts that not only pleads but support money all the things that make this happen, so it's it's just a blessing.
Katrina: That's so awesome! So why such a big focus on giving back and why soccer in general?
Cesar: So you know the secret to living is given, there's an energy vibration um about giving and you know I come from a Christian framework, I was taught typing some people don't have that experience, but that doesn't mean that the giving shouldn't be part of someone's life, so our focus is to just share the resources that God has given us and be good stewards of that, and I believe there's an energy a positive energy that supports life, so the universe God whatever you wanna call it supports that, which supports the universe, by giving you just helping creation unfold, I truly believe that and that's the philosophy of our company, our team members and it's just it's even you know we we see the results we see the impact and it it's just an opportunity to to keep growing and the impact on these kids and these families just make it all worth, so it's just a blessing.
Ted: And Cesar sees things where others do not see them yet, about a year and a half ago the Katrina he approached me he said: I have a gentleman I like to have him speak at the Fixed Ops Roundtable, he's not an automotive but he's a visionary, he's a great speaker, he's a professional speaker, motivational speaker around the world, he speaks with Tony Robbins, he's an athlete, he's a DJ, he's all these things.
Cesar: Scuba diver!
Ted: I go fascinating and he goes let me show you his picture and it was Marco Rossi, Marco Rossi is in a wheelchair and has no arms and has no legs and I said Cesar you just told me this is a an athlete, a swimmer, a DJ, a motivational speaker, he goes that's right, he goes I like him to speak at the Fixed Ops Roundtable, I said all right let's have them be the keynote speaker and he came on as a keynote speaker and that was Cesar probably one of the most incredible keynote we ever had! That and one of the most motivating and emotional ones! I can ever remember and he brought everybody on with him, and let me tell you something, I'll never forget that and I thank you for all you've done, also you know to help change his life you know and make him more mobile as well and others you know all around the world and the things you've done.
Cesar: Yeah, I know, Marcus is an incredible human being, he's actually here this week, in West Palm Beach, so we're hosting him and he just magnifies the gratitude that we have, mean I Learned to thank God for my hands my legs, you know Marcos every morning you know we feed him breakfast, this morning I had to shave them, because he's here with his assistant who's his 15 year old son and he's like dude I can't let my son doesn't know how to shave himself, so can you shave, but he magnifies what we sometimes take for granted, uh it's not fault of our own, we never I mean if you have your arms you never miss them, but um he just reminds you of the blessings that we all have and you know guys he became the first driver in the history of Brazil! He changed Brazilian law, this is the country of 200 million people, he changed Brazilian law to become the first person to be able to drive a car with no arms or legs, and he drives now he called me. He picked me up in Rio de Janeiro, he drove me to Sao Paulo. It's one of the most incredible experiences, because this dude is like a 15 year old with a new car!! And it was quite the impressive experience; more like a roller coaster!! But he broke through that, I mean He's a driver.
Katrina: Wow amazing!!
Ted: And he's a lawyer too! Yeah I saw a lot of the videos you recently posted with him too, so great work with that Cesar!
Cesar: Yeah so I mean we're working with him, he also wants to bring our project to Brazil, cause he sees the need down there, so with him partnering up with us, other companies that are part of this journey, they're just it's a blessing! And it all started with scanning, document scanning, our dealerships you know being with us for some of them for more than 10 years, uh and staying faithful to the platform and obviously us doing our work and keep adding value, um it goes beyond just a task! It is really impacting the world.
Ted: Cesar, we're very grateful for you and for your friendship and a lot of the great comments coming in tonight, from folks like Clint and Jim Sabino and David and you know Sean Butler and uh you know what a fitting time of year Cesar to have you on dealerscanning.com, is Cesar's company dealerscanning.com and you can visit them there, uh you've probably seen him on the Fixed Ops Roundtable, you see video commercials and the sky's the limit my friend!! We got a lot going on so uh congratulations to you, Merry Christmas, Happy holidays.
Cesar: Yeah thank you, Merry Christmas to you guys as well and Ted thank you just always for your mentorship always you know opening up this industry to me as a young guy into the industry, I appreciate all the help and all the guidance you give me and wonderful young ladies to meet them today and to know that I know we'll know each other for a long time and I just wish you nothing but the best!! And I'm glad to see you guys here.
Vanessa: It was so nice meeting you Cesar!
Ted: Super stuff, alright so Vanessa I'm gonna ask you again if you give our audience one more reminder on the big event coming up!! When is it? What is the cost to get in? And tell us about that if you don't mind absolutely!
Vanessa: So our next big event is the Knights of the roundtable, it is happening January 29th through February 1st, you can get your complimentary tickets, yes complimentary tickets! Now at fixedopsroundtable.com, so make sure to secure your seat at the roundtable!
Ted: love it! So Vanessa, looks like a medieval theme this one come on
Vanessa: It is medieval! all the Renaissance vibes and we are just so excited for it!
Ted: Excited as well! Everybody on behalf of Vanessa and Katrina I'm Ted Ings, thank you for coming tonight! We're gonna see you Monday here. We have a lot of great shows coming up this month and next. Cesar, thank you for everything, thank you for coming tonight.
Cesar: Thank you guys for giving me an opportunity to speak and share our foundation and our mission! And thank you for everything Ted!
Ted: No better friend than Cesar Augustus, everybody dealerscanning.com, check them out, we'll see you all on Monday night.
Cesar: Good night!!
