Back then, dealerships didn’t even have a DMS.

Over the past 45 years, we’ve gone through five waves of technology: DMS, CRM, the internet, social media, and now AI.

Across all five waves, the average salesperson has continued to sell only about 10 cars a month.

David said, “I’m pretty sure the technology has evolved big time. I’m not so sure that we’ve evolved.”

Then he said, “It’s not the golf club. It’s the golfer.”

David is right that the average number of cars sold per rep hasn’t moved. But I think he’s wrong about why.

Here’s what he missed: Those tools primarily help dealerships capture and manage demand after a consumer has entered the market.

The internet and social media didn’t create more car buyers. They made it easier for the same buyer to contact more dealerships. Then DMS, CRM, and now AI gave every dealership more capacity to pursue that buyer.

But the buyer still buys only one car.

When a shopper is comparing several stores with similar inventory, the dealerships and salespeople can appear interchangeable. The decision comes down to who has the right car and who offers the best deal.

Now look at what that leaves the salesperson.

Price is ultimately controlled by the desk. Inventory is determined by dealership management and the factory. Neither is within the salesperson’s control.

So the problem isn’t simply the golfer. It’s that we’ve spent 45 years giving the golfer tools for the wrong part of the game.

Every tool in David’s timeline becomes important after the consumer has decided to shop for a car. By then, the salesperson is already competing against five other dealerships selling roughly the same cars at roughly the same prices.

What the salesperson can control is the relationship and trust they build with consumers before those consumers start shopping for a car.

And that starts with a warm introduction.

We teach salespeople not to ask:

Do you know anyone shopping for a car?

That question starts the relationship too late. If someone is already shopping, they’re probably already talking to multiple dealerships.

Instead, ask:

If I made it super easy, would you feel comfortable introducing me to three of your friends? They don’t need to be shopping for a car right now. I just want them to save my contact information so they already know someone in the car business when they need help.

Once that introduction happens, the salesperson can immediately be useful by offering a free market analysis:

• What the person’s current car is worth today.
• What financing offers and lease specials are available.
• What replacing their vehicle could look like if they decided to buy today.

There’s no pressure to buy. The salesperson is simply helping them understand the market.

Sometimes, that information helps someone who wasn’t planning to shop realize that now may be a good time to buy.

And when a salesperson has already been helpful and earned someone’s trust, they become that customer’s first and only choice.

That salesperson didn’t win by competing on price. They built a relationship before another dealership even knew the customer was in the market.

That’s the difference between waiting for internet leads and creating sales opportunities through relationships and trust.

So the question isn’t technology versus people. It’s whether the technology removes the constraint that’s actually holding people back.

The post David Spisak – Car dealership technology: Avg. sales rep still sell 10 cars a month appeared first on Blabber.

✓ True: A great experience is the prerequisite. No reward fixes a bad experience.

✗ False: Experience alone produces referrals. It produces referral intent, not referral behavior.

Create a hunger to refer

Demand lives in the starving crowd. Referrals present a unique challenge. The people who have the demand and the people who control the supply are not the same people.

• Demand: Salespeople have a demand for referrals. They are hungry for referrals.
• Supply: Customers, partners, friends, and industry allies control the supply of referrals. But they are not hungry to refer.

The appetite lives in one person; the action lives in another.

So how do you make the people who control the supply hungry to refer? Invite them to feast at your business banquet. Ask them to make a referral. Give them a reason to act. Make it easy for them to act now.

Organic Referrals

Some customers will make an occasional referral without being asked, offered a reward, or given an easy way to refer. One here. Two or three there. These referrals usually happen in the moment.

A lot has to line up for even one organic referral to happen:

• Catch the moment: Recognize when someone they know is looking for your product or service.
• Remember you: Recall your name and find your contact information months later.
• Do the work: Think about what to say and write the introduction text or email.
• Repeat: Do all of it again and again for free. People rarely keep spending social capital without receiving something they value in return.

Bottom line: “Great experience alone” isn’t a referral strategy — it’s a referral lottery.

The organic super-referrer

Why some people refer without a cash reward and why that does not scale

Meet the Natural Super Referrer

Imagine a marketing consultant who constantly refers people to one SEO agency without receiving a cash reward.

• The SEO agency owner is a personal friend.
• People ask him for marketing advice every day. Referral opportunities come directly to him.
• He has complete confidence in the agency. He trusts its work, pricing, and ability to deliver.
• Every referral strengthens his reputation as the expert with the answers and connections.
• He is getting paid in status, reciprocity, and friendship. The currency just is not money.

Now Meet the Typical Happy Customer

Consider a homeowner who loves the HVAC company that replaced her furnace.

• People rarely ask her for air conditioning recommendations.
• She is not friends with the owner.
• Six months later, she is unlikely to remember the technician’s name.

Now consider a car buyer who loved his salesperson.

• Most friends do not tell each other when they are shopping for a car.
• In a survey of 1,510 consumers, 74% could not remember their automotive salesperson’s name.

In both examples, making an introduction takes work. The customer has to find the company’s or salesperson’s contact information, think about what to say, and write the introduction text or email.

The typical happy customer has goodwill but none of the structural advantages. Referral opportunities do not come to them every day. Referring does not strengthen their identity or status. They do not have a personal relationship with the business owner.

Even the Super Referrer Is Reactive

• He refers when someone happens to mention a need.
• He waits for the right conversation to occur.
• He does not proactively send the agency’s information to fifty of his customers who may need SEO someday.

Organic referrals depend on the right moment happening by chance. A referral program does more than wait for those moments. It creates them.

Bottom line: Every company has a handful of organic super-referrers. You can’t build a pipeline on them — there aren’t enough, and you can’t manufacture their conditions. Rewards and friction removal are for the other 80% who like you but will never refer without a formal referral program.

Should You Partner With People Who Are Well Positioned Instead of Paying for Referrals?

Trigger-rich partners are companies that complement your product or service and allied salespeople who serve the same buyers without competing with you. They are the most powerful referral sources because they reduce one of the biggest barriers: timing.

Opportunities to refer land in their laps:

• A marketing consultant knows which companies need an SEO and SEM agency.
• A sales trainer knows which companies need a better CRM or more leads.
• A real estate agent knows which homeowners and buyers need a kitchen remodeled.

But choosing the right referral partners and deciding how to motivate them are two different decisions.

The marketing consultant was never truly referring for free. He received status, reciprocity, and friendship. The currency simply was not money.

The question is which of those currencies your company can actually offer:

The post Should you pay for referrals? appeared first on Blabber.

Car Salespeople Are the Second Least Trusted Profession in America

A Gallup survey published in December 2025 asked Americans to rate the honesty and ethical standards of people in different professions.

Car salespeople ranked near the bottom. Only 6-7% of Americans rated car salespeople as having high or very high honesty and ethics. Car salespeople ranked second to last — just a few points above telemarketers and nearly tied with Members of Congress.

That’s not an advertising problem. Dealerships and OEMs can’t fix this by pouring more money into ads. That’s a profession-wide trust crisis.

But here’s what makes this fascinating. Ask anyone who works in the automotive industry. They’ll tell you the same thing. People reach out constantly asking if they know anyone that works at a Toyota, Mercedes, Subaru, or any other dealership.
People don’t trust car salespeople. But they desperately want to find one through someone they already trust.

Because when a friend says “my guy works there, he’ll take great care of you” — everything changes. That salesperson is no longer a stranger trying to take advantage of them. They’re an insider. They’ll help you. They’ll make sure you’re taken care of.

Same profession. Same dealership. Completely different perception of the car salesperson.

The introduction changes everything.

Video 1: Someone Is Charging $1,000 to Negotiate Car Deals — and ~400 People Per Month Are Paying It

Watch Tomi’s video

Tomislav Mikula — known as Tomi — is a former car salesperson who calls himself a Personal Car Buying Advocate and founder of Delivrd.

He charges consumers $1,000 to negotiate car deals on their behalf. He has 136,000 followers on Instagram and 612,000 followers and 10.4 million likes on TikTok.

He creates videos of himself negotiating car deals for his customers live. People watch and see exactly what it takes — the insider knowledge, the back and forth, the time commitment — and think it’s worth $1,000 just to hand it off to someone who knows what they’re doing.

People are not paying Tomi because they can’t negotiate. Tomi even says it himself: don’t hire me if saving money is your only goal. You can save more money by not hiring him.

People hire Tomi because they’re afraid. Afraid of being lied to. Afraid of being taken advantage of. Afraid of making a $40,000 mistake they’ll regret. The whole process feels stressful and designed to work against them. They don’t trust car salespeople. They don’t believe them. They want someone in their corner.

That’s the trust gap in action.

According to CNBC, Tomi is on pace for 400 to 700 deals a month by summer — potentially $700,000 a month in revenue across his team of 15 employees. That’s around $46,000 per employee per month. They all work remotely and don’t work the late nights and weekends that car salespeople do.

The average car salesperson sells 12-15 cars a month and makes around $500 per car — that’s $6,000 to $7,500 a month. Tomi’s team built a business out-earning most salespeople by solving the one problem the industry hasn’t: trust.

Video 2: This Dealership Owner Proved Car Shoppers Need a Trusted Insider

Watch Mike’s video

Mike Davenport is the owner of Mike’s Car Store, a used car dealership in Georgetown, Indiana. His dealership has a 4.9 star rating and over 800 Google reviews.

When his employee Connor wanted to buy a Honda Civic, Mike handled the entire deal himself.

Mike is exactly the kind of insider Tomi’s customers are paying $1,000 to find. Connor didn’t need to pay anyone because he already knew Mike. He had direct access to someone who knew the business inside out and had his back the entire time.

Mike made this video to prove you don’t need a broker. But what he actually proved is you do need someone who knows the car business inside out and will look out for you.

Connor came out nearly $3,000 ahead of what Carvana would have given him on his trade and paid nothing to a broker. Not because he didn’t need help. Because he knew someone who works at a car dealership and had his back.

Most car buyers don’t have a Mike. They don’t know anyone who works in the car business and will look out for them. But they wish they did.

A dealership referral app makes it easy for every salesperson’s customers and friends to introduce them to people they know. So more people already have someone they trust when they are shopping for a car.

Video 3: The Parody That Hit a Nerve

Watch Raul’s video

Raul Tomsa — known as Vincierge — is part of MotorWerks Auto Group, which includes a Mercedes-Benz dealership. He has 11,100 followers on Instagram and 7,664 followers and 52,200 likes on TikTok.

Raul made a parody video joking about charging customers just to look around or take a test drive. Because any salesperson knows the frustration — customers come in, take two test drives, ask a hundred questions, and leave without buying. His joke: what if we charged car shoppers just to help them buy a car? $250 for two test drives. $350 for three. $450 for unlimited.

Then Raul got on a live with Tomi and realized his joke wasn’t far from reality. Tomi helps people find vehicles, gives a really great car shopping experience, and charges $1,000 for his services. People are paying it. Tomi told Raul that if customers are getting taken care of well, you should charge people for buying a car from you.

So Raul asked his audience a real question: would you pay a dealership upfront to shop for a car if you knew you’d get a fair price and an amazing experience? What would make a customer actually want to pay upfront just to work with you?

The answer is peace of mind. And peace of mind starts with the introduction.
Consumers don’t need to pay $1,000 to Tomi to get that peace of mind. They just need a friend to say “my friend Raul works at Mercedes, he’ll take great care of you.” The referral app makes it easy for Raul’s customers and friends to send that introduction to everyone they know in 6 seconds — and rewards them when their friend buys a car.

What All Three Videos Are Really Saying

Over 50 million cars are sold in the US every year. Most of those buyers don’t know a single person who works at a dealership.

But they wish they did.

Because when they find out a friend knows someone at a dealership — that changes everything. They don’t see that person as a car salesperson anymore. They see them as an insider. Someone their friend already trusts. Someone who will look out for them instead of taking advantage of them.

The Problem Is Not the Salesperson. It’s the Introduction.

Mike and Raul are proof that great salespeople exist at dealerships. Salespeople who will look out for you, get you a fair deal, and make the whole experience feel nothing like what people dread.

The problem is most car shoppers meet their salesperson by filling out an online lead form or walking into a dealership cold. They don’t know who they’re going to meet. And because car salespeople are the second least trusted profession in America, they walk in guarded, skeptical, and ready for a fight. That changes the entire experience — for the customer and the salesperson.

Most Salespeople Are Uncomfortable Asking for Referrals. They Shouldn’t Be.

Most salespeople hesitate to ask customers and friends for introductions. It feels like asking for a favor. It feels pushy. It feels like using relationships for personal gain.

That hesitation is understandable. But it’s wrong.

Think about what you’re actually asking. You’re not asking someone to buy anything. You’re not asking them to spend money. You’re giving them the chance to be the person who connected their friend with exactly what they were already looking for — a trusted insider at a dealership who will look out for them. People pay Tomi $1,000 for that. Your customer can give it to their friend for free — and get rewarded for it.

Most people have a friend or family member who will be shopping for a car in the next 12 months. That person is going to fill out an internet lead form, walk into a dealership cold, and deal with a stranger they don’t trust. Or they’re going to pay someone like Tomi $1,000 just to feel safe.

When you ask a customer to introduce you to people they know, you’re giving them the chance to be the hero. The friend who knew someone. The protector who made sure their family got taken care of. The go-to person their friends rely on when they need advice.

That’s not a social risk. That’s a high social status moment.

And if you took great care of your customer, they already want to tell people about you. They just don’t know how. The referral app gives them a way to do it in 6 seconds.

You’re not asking for a favor. You’re giving them one.

Every Car Salesperson Already Has What Tomi Is Selling

Tomi built a $700,000 a month business because car salespeople aren’t doing what he does. But they could. Every salesperson already has customers who had a great experience. They already have friends and family who trust them. They don’t need a broker to step in between them.

The salespeople who figure this out — who position themselves as the trusted insider their customers refer friends and family to — won’t just sell more cars. They’ll earn more, stop working late nights and weekends, and stop chasing internet leads who are strangers that treat them like the enemy before they even say hello.

Ali Reda, the top car salesperson in the world, sells over 130 cars a month working only Monday through Friday and leaving by 6pm. He refuses to take dealer-driven opportunities. Today, if someone doesn’t come in asking for him, he hands them off to another salesperson. Only repeats and referrals. That’s what building a business on warm introductions actually looks like.

That’s what Blabber makes possible. The referral app that turns every happy customer and every friend into warm introductions. So the people who need a car already know who to call before they ever fill out an internet lead form or walk into a dealership cold.

The industry doesn’t need more brokers. It needs more salespeople who act like one.

That’s how the best salespeople have always built their business. Blabber just gives every salesperson the tool to do it at scale.

The post The Introduction Changes Everything: What Three Viral Videos Tell Us About Car Buying in 2026 appeared first on Blabber.

• What referral leads are?
• Why referral leads matter?
• How to get more referral leads

What referral leads are?

Referral leads are potential customers. Someone they trust introduces them to a salesperson. That person could be a happy customer, an industry partner, a family member, or a friend.