Like I See It: Obstacles and Opportunities Shaping the Future of Retail Automotive

​Dale Pollak believes that the car business--and the dealers who make their living in it--are in more trouble than anyone cares to admit. After four decades and three best-selling books, Pollak has witnessed the trials and triumphs of the retail automotive industry from a vantage point that few get. While car dealers are making good money, he warns that the industry is at a critical turning point, with too few paying attention to how inefficiency and lack of transparency are sapping the industry's true potential. Amid the ever-faster confluence of technology, the Internet, and changing consumer preferences, the future prosperity of the industry is far from secure.

Like I See It offers practical solutions, such as making the sales process more customer-focused and digitally driven to encourage sales, managing new and used inventory to mitigate margin compression, and ending factory bonus checks. It spurs much-needed conversations and sets guideposts that help dealers, OEMs, and solution providers improve how they do business. It also shows dealers how to stay relevant, evolve to keep up with the changing times, and deal with issues like high personnel turnover and the coming disruption of ride-sharing, self-driving cars, and Millennials who don't want (or can't afford) to own a car.

Pollak believes that success will come to dealers who recognize that each customer engagement is a chance to make a positive impact and create a bond. He offers a collectively minded approach that will help build a better, more profitable, and prosperous retail automotive industry for tomorrow.

Dale Pollak's career in the automotive industry spans more than two decades. As a dealer, technology entrepreneur and best-selling author, Pollak has helped over 10,000 automotive dealers in North America make dramatic improvements in their new and used vehicle operations.

Pollak pioneered the Velocity Method of Management(TM). It maximizes a dealer's profitability through the use of new and used vehicle market-metrics. Pollak crafted this approach during his years as a Cadillac dealer in Chicago in light of his unique circumstances of not being able to physically observe his used vehicle inventory due to blindness.

His investment and market based approach served as the foundation for vAuto, Inc., the company that he founded in 2005. Since then, the company's technology and tools have been adopted by thousands of dealerships in North America. In late 2010, AutoTrader.com acquired vAuto, with both companies now operating as a part of the Cox Automotive family. Pollak continues to guide strategic product development/integration for vAuto and other Cox Automotive companies. Prior to vAuto, Pollak helped build and lead Digital Motorworks, Inc. to its successful acquisition in 2002.

Pollak has written three books that detail the application of the Velocity Method of Management(TM) in dealerships. The latest, Velocity Overdrive: The Road to Reinvention, was released in 2012. His latest book, Like I See It: Obstacles and Opportunities Shaping the Future of Retail Automotive was released October 2017.

Pollak holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Indiana University, a law degree from DePaul University's College of Law, and is a four-time winner of the American Jurisprudence Award. In addition, Pollak received the 2010 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and in 2011, Pollak was inducted into the Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame. In 2014, Pollak was named as Poling Chair at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.