True car changes to become dealer friendly v2

1. Is It Time To Reevaluate Your Opinion About TrueCar?
By Ralph Paglia
I have seen many issues polarize dealers, and at times energize them during my 30
years in the car business. Very few issues have rallied so many people in the auto
industry to cry out than the advent of TrueCar’s advertising campaign in the Fall of
2011. In fact, since the creation of the two automotive professional networks I am
involved with, AutomotiveDigitalMarketing.com and DealerELITE.net, there has
been no other issue that has attracted a tenth of the visitors to these sites, or
engagement in the form of comments and subsequent posts… From October 2011
through January 2012 the most popular subject matter on many online sites
catering to people working in the car business was the thorough vilifying of
TrueCar.
Meanwhile, the outcry from dealers reached a crescendo of volume that was enough
to get many State Attorneys General and State Dealer Associations to “investigate”
TrueCar for potential violation of everything from brokering without a license, to
operating out of compliance with advertising regulations.
Amazingly enough, despite all the name calling and personal bashing that executives
at TrueCar received, not a single “cease and desist” letter was sent, or lawsuit was
filed by TrueCar against those of us who pushed our criticism of TrueCar beyond the
boundaries of civilized and professional discussion or debate. In hindsight, I am
very surprised that TrueCar took such a beating without resorting to legal measures
against some of the worst name callers and accusers, including yours truly!
After receiving several phone calls and speaking with Scott Painter in December
2011 I put off visiting TrueCar’s headquarters at their invitation until just a few
weeks ago. My first encounter with TrueCar executives on a face to face basis was in
March 2012, at the Automotive Leadership Roundtable in Miami, FL. Bernie
Brenner from TrueCar’s board came over to my table and asked me if I would sit
with the TrueCar team during the lunch session and discuss changes they were
making to their business model. Curiosity piqued, I accepted. Looking back on that
lunch, I gave the TrueCar executive team a fairly strong rebuttal… I was polite, but
explained my objections to their business model as inserting an unnecessary dealer
expense. Mike Timmons, Bernie Brenner and a couple other TrueCar executives
were polite, rational in their explanations and determined to convince me that they
had seen many of the problems with their pricing models and were making changes
so that TrueCar would make sense for dealers as a means of acquiring incremental
business at about half of what the NADA average cost of advertising is Per Vehicle
Retailed (PVR). At the time I remained resolute in my stated opinion that TrueCar
was a bad deal for car dealers. However, I will admit that maintaining that opinion
in the light of new information, changes TrueCar was making and the logic around
their affinity model was already starting to erode the certainty I had in my position
on TrueCar… Not that I was admitting any of that at the time!

2. The next time I saw any TrueCar executives was at Digital Dealer 12 in Orlando last
April… Bernie Brenner approached me and asked me to bring any dealers who were
avid TrueCar haters to him so he could meet them and listen to their grievances.
Seemed like an odd request, but he was sincere and the entire TrueCar team was
looking for people with negative perceptions of their company so they could show
them all the aspects of their business model that had been changed, so that with new
information these dealers might reevaluate their perception of the benefits of doing
business with TrueCar.
What I have since learned is that from the beginning of January through May of
2012, TrueCar experienced a large number of dealers cancelling their TrueCar
agreements and dropping out of the TrueCar program. This, combined with various
state legislative issues is what prompted TrueCar to make so many dramatic
changes to the way they do business. They simply had to change in order to move
forward. Something that more people in the car business ought to consider!
When I accepted TrueCar’s invitation to visit their headquarters in Santa Monica, CA
the timing was perfect… I arrived the day before a “all hands on deck” meeting
where every TrueCar employee who works out of the headquarters was traveling in
to attend. During my visit and tour I was able to spend more than an hour of quality
time in detailed conversation with Scott Painter. Mike Timmons arrived a couple
hours after I did and took me on a tour to meet various team leaders and
department heads in the two building that TrueCar operates out of. I met many
people and watched a team of TrueCar employees working directly with dealers all
over the country, helping them to put deals together and sell cars. The people I met
were intelligent, well spoken and knew what their part of the TrueCar mission was,
and how it tied into selling cars. What I found was hardly a bastion of evil, nor were
there any indicators that they were trying to eliminate car dealers or harm anyone
working in a dealership. Like many companies I have visited, such as Edmunds,
Kelley Blue Book, Dealix, AutoUSA, Cobalt, Reynolds, ADP and others, what I found
at TrueCar was over 250 people who are educated and intelligent going about their
specific duties and focused on generating more car sales for their participating
dealers.
So, what about all these so called “changes” that TrueCar has made since the end of
2011? Let’s take a look at ten of them, why TrueCar made the changes and their
intended impact.
10 Key TrueCar Changes – January to April 2012
In late 2011, TrueCar started receiving significant feedback – much of it critical –
from the automotive retailing industry including dealers, dealer associations,
manufacturers and industry consultants. In the first half of 2012, TrueCar made
substantial changes to address industry concerns. By no means is TrueCar finished
with implementing changes and revisions, but they do feel they have taken the

3. necessary actions to ensure TrueCar is acting as a key auto industry partner. Listed
below are 10 key recent changes:
1. Changed Website Experience Nationwide and Billing Model in Certain States to
Address Regulatory Compliance Concerns
What TrueCar Heard: Through trade publications, dealer association
communications and social media sites, there was a lot of attention on whether
TrueCar’s novel business model complied with the existing regulatory framework in
certain states.
What TrueCar Did: Completely overhauled its website experience to address state-
specific concerns related to advertising regulations. Among other changes, dealers
no longer communicate price offers relative to invoice through the TrueCar website
experience. Additionally, “bait and switch” concerns have been addressed through
website features expressly clarifying that TrueCar users who use our website to
explore the new car market are configuring “virtual vehicles” – not vehicles that are
actually in inventory at our participating dealers. TrueCar has also implemented a
subscription-based billing model in certain states. 30 of the 50 states continue with
TrueCar’s pay for performance model, while 19 other states have variations
designed to comply with that state’s laws. Lousiana remains a state not served by
TrueCar.
2. Overhauled Display of Information on TrueCar Price Curves and Dealer Portal to
Address Dealer Concerns
What TrueCar Heard: Though not our intent, TrueCar heard loud and clear from
dealers that the TrueCar price curves and Dealer Portal did not provide the most
contextualized, relevant, and informative display of information to assist consumers
and dealers.
What TrueCar Did: TrueCar’s continued success depends on providing services that
result in a better car buying experience for dealers and consumers. TrueCar
changed the TrueCar price curves in January to provide more robust,
comprehensive data that allows consumers to understand what constitutes a “fair”
price in the current market. They also switched from providing “network-pricing”
information in the Dealer Portal (which focused on the pricing of other TrueCar
dealers) to providing “market-based” pricing information driven by recent
transactions in the dealer’s local market area (not just transactions by TrueCar
dealers).
3. Reduced DMS Data Received From Dealers
What We Heard: A small number of industry consultants used social media sites to
spread misinformation that participating dealers’ sales matching data is used to

4. create the TrueCar price curves and/or that TrueCar actively markets to customers
found in the dealers’ DMS. To be clear, these are both myths.
What TrueCar Did: TrueCar only requires dealers to provide customer contact
information (name, address, phone, email for buyer and co-buyer) and basic vehicle
information (VIN, make/model/trim, year, new/used, stock number, sale date) in
order to perform the sales matching, billing (in states with performance-based
billing models), dealer scoring and analytics and reporting aspects of their business.
TrueCar does not directly access dealer DMS systems and we never have. All data
extraction and compilation is handled by respected third-party vendors, Digital
Motorworks (DMi) and Netlink. All dealers also have the option to “push” their
sales matching data via FTP to TrueCar’s third-party vendors; the data received by
TrueCar is the same whether the dealer chooses automated or manual sales data
reporting. To address concerns that TrueCar was receiving extraneous data from its
third-party vendors, TrueCar worked with both Digital Motorworks and Netlink in
February to remove all unused fields from the data feeds sent to TrueCar, reducing
the fields to just those listed above.
4. Rolled Out More “Dealer-Friendly” Dealer Agreement, Including Indemnification
What TrueCar Heard: Some dealers told TrueCar that the dealer agreement needed
to be more fair.
What TrueCar Did: In February, they rolled out a new dealer agreement, the key
aspects of which include: (i) dealers can cancel at any time for any or no reason; (ii)
more clarity and control on how dealers provide sales reporting data to TrueCar;
(iii) confirmation that the dealers’ sales reporting data is NOT used to create
TrueCar price curves; and (iv) confirmation that dealers’ sales reporting data is NOT
used to send marketing-related communications to customers. In April, we added a
limited indemnification provision to the new dealer agreement. The decision to
indemnify dealers is another manifestation of TrueCar’s commitment to their dealer
partners and underscores that they are fully invested in standing behind the
valuable services that TrueCar provides.
5. Launched TrueCar National Dealer Council
What TrueCar Heard: Many dealers, dealer associations and manufacturers
expressed concern that TrueCar was making major product, process and policy
changes without incorporating feedback from dealers.
What TrueCar Did: In April, 2012 TrueCar launched a National Dealer Council with
20 Members representing 24 states, 35 unique makes and 281 franchises. The
purpose of the Council is to ensure TrueCar is actively listening to dealers, and the
Council is chaired by Gary Marcotte (former SVP Marketing & Strategy at
AutoNation). The inaugural full-day Council meeting in April was excellent, with
great feedback from the Council Members. Going forward, the Council will meet

5. periodically with TrueCar senior executives to provide guidance on how TrueCar
can improve the services it provides to dealers.
6. Initiated Dealer Associations Outreach
What TrueCar Learned: TrueCar had not historically communicated with state and
large metro dealer associations and paid a price for not directly engaging this
important constituency.
What TrueCar Did: In March, TrueCar hired Pat Watson, VP of Industry Relations, to
directly communicate and work collaboratively with dealer associations on how to
help our mutual partners – dealers. Pat is the former CEO of the South Carolina
Automobile Dealers Association, where he worked for 38 years.
7. Started Participating In Key Industry Conferences
What TrueCar Learned: Prior to 2012, TrueCar did not have an active presence at
key industry conferences, which was perceived by some as an indication that
TrueCar did not care to engage directly with the industry.
What TrueCar Did: In 2012, TrueCar has sponsored and actively participated at key
industry conferences, including Automotive Leadership Roundtable in March and
Digital Dealer 12 in April, and the upcoming AutoCon 2012 in September. TrueCar
will continue to have an active presence at future conferences, including Digital
Dealer 13, Driving Sales, J.D. Power Automotive Internet Roundtable, various 20
Groups, trade associations and dealer group events.
8. Improved TrueCar’s Social Media Response and Presence
What TrueCar Learned: Social media can be a powerful medium for individuals in
the automotive retail industry to share opinions and shape stories.
What TrueCar Did: Mike Timmons, EVP of TrueCar and an auto retailing veteran
(VP Operations AutoNation; ran brokering company; has sold cars) has taken
ownership of monitoring and responding as appropriate to social media related to
TrueCar and industry-related issues. Additionally, Mike has directly reached out to
key TrueCar detractors to understand and address their concerns, as well as to
correct any misinformation, and he will continue to do so. In the future, TrueCar
will be taking a more proactive approach to leverage social media to showcase our
product and company changes.
9. Increased Communication With Manufacturers
Before: Previously, TrueCar’s communication with manufacturers was sporadic and
reactionary, sometimes leading to significant misconceptions.

6. What TrueCar Did: In the past four months, Larry Dominique, EVP Data Solutions,
with over 27 years of OEM experience (former VP Advanced and Product Planning
and Strategy, Nissan, plus stints at GM and Chrysler), has met with key decision
makers from 20 manufacturers to listen to their concerns and inform them as to
what TrueCar is all about. Going forward, TrueCar will continue to directly engage
with manufacturers to discuss ways that TrueCar can improve the services it
provides to dealers.
10. Added More Dealer Support
What TrueCar Heard: Dealers have told us they want more face time and support
from TrueCar dealer-facing personnel.
What TrueCar Did: In the first four months of 2012, they added 13 new employees
to the TrueCar Dealer Development Team, including Ken Potter (VP Dealer
Development; former VP & GM of Internet Brands / CarsDirect; former GM of two
dealerships), Amir Rizkalla (Director Account Management; formerly of Fisker
Automotive and Toyota), two Area Sales Managers and four Account Managers.
TrueCar is currently looking to hire 9 additional dealer-facing employees in the next
60 days, including six more Area Sales Managers (Philadelphia, Charlotte, Atlanta,
Seattle, Des Moines, and St. Louis) as well as two more Account Managers, to ensure
that we continue to provide dealers with the support they want and need.
After traveling to TrueCar headquarters on a Monday and then visiting Southern
California dealers, I returned home to Phoenix on Tuesday evening. Later that week
I had an appointment with the owners and management team at Courtesy Chevrolet
in Phoenix. This is the same Courtesy Chevrolet that I worked at from 2005 to 2007,
and I have a close bond with the leadership team there… During my visit, which was
to convince them to attend AutoCon 2012, I mentioned visiting TrueCar
headquarters earlier in the week. The response I received from the owner and
several managers was “we really like the TrueCar program, they have gotten a lot
better about invoicing us and the business we get from them seems to be purely
incremental… deals we would not otherwise have made.” These statements and the
discussions I had with the team at Courtesy, as well as all the information I had
witnessed firsthand during my meetings at TrueCar, and from the conversations I
had with at least a dozen TrueCar employees lead me to a conclusion I feel very
certain about. It would be foolish for any dealer to ignore the changes that TrueCar
has made and not reevaluate whether to do business with TrueCar based on the new
information available and the changes TrueCar has made to the way they do
business.