How AI Is Transforming Dealer Prospecting with Bill Egan

Efficiency and personalization are becoming essential differentiators for dealership profitability. On this episode of Driving Solutions, automotiveMastermind VP of Product Bill Egan explains how new predictive and AI-powered tools are reshaping how dealers prospect, communicate, and close deals more effectively.

Egan outlines how automotiveMastermind is addressing the industry’s biggest outreach gap: using AI to craft initial, personalized messages that help sales teams connect with the right customers at the right moment. He also breaks down how tools like Mastermind CoPilot and the Behavior Prediction Score model are streamlining workflows, strengthening CRM integrations, and expanding predictive insights across the dealership—including future applications in F&I.

Find out:

• Why AI-powered prospecting remains underutilized in dealerships
• How predictive insights guide which customers to contact and with what message
• The role of Mastermind CoPilot in generating one-click, multichannel sales scripts
• How the Behavior Prediction Score model helps forecast buyer intent and deal structure
• The impact of two-way CRM integration with DriveCentric
• Future AI applications in F&I and real-time consumer engagement

Driving Solutions is the go-to podcast for dealership professionals who want to stay sharp, informed, and ahead of the curve. Hosted by Jim Fitzpatrick and powered by CBT News, each episode brings you real strategies, smart tools, and expert insights to help you run a more profitable operation.

Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and visit CBTNews.com for more.

Chapters

• 0:03 Welcome And Episode Setup
• 0:40 AI Co‑Pilot For Prospecting
• 1:49 Behavior Prediction Scores Explained
• 2:50 Deep CRM Integration With DriveCentric
• 4:21 Personalization, Feedback Loops, And LLMs
• 5:35 The Future: FI Tools Move Upstream
• 6:31 NADA Invitation And Closing

Transcript

Announcer: 0:03

This is Driving Solutions exclusively on CBTnews.com.

Jim Fitzpatrick: 0:08

Hey everyone, Jim Fitzpatrick. Welcome into another edition of Driving Solutions right here at CBT News. Efficiency and personalizations at the dealership level have never been more important. Today we are joined by Bill Egan, who's Vice President of Product at Automotive Mastermind, to discuss how the company's newest innovations are helping dealers work smarter, connect with customers faster, and ultimately close more deals for dealers. So, Bill, thank you so much for joining us on the show today.

Bill Egan: 0:36

Oh, thank you very much for having us. Appreciate it.

Jim Fitzpatrick: 0:38

So let's jump right in here. Automotive Mastermind has uh really leaned into AI this year with uh Mastermind Co-Pilot. How does this help sales teams become more efficient and close more deals?

Bill Egan: 0:52

Yeah, so when I look at like AI capabilities, there's a lot of different ways people are utilizing AI tools today. And they're using it to communicate directly with customers, large language models going back and forth with them. But one real gap that I've seen in the AI is how do you use it for prospecting? And how do you actually craft the initial first message? At Mastermind, we've been using our BPS scores and our behavior drivers to really kind of articulate to a salesperson why a customer should be coming into market. But really, we want to take that one step further and then now be able to actually craft that message. And so, how do you put all that data together, all those kind of insights and scores to then really say, what is your first message out to this particular customer, whether it's an email, a phone call you're gonna reach out to them, or a text message and say, okay, how do I craft this? And then how do I go initiate that to get a customer to say, yeah, I'm interested.

Jim Fitzpatrick: 1:43

Yeah, yeah, which would be a beautiful thing, right? That's that's that's the goal. So-

Bill Egan: 1:47

Tell me a little bit more.

Jim Fitzpatrick: 1:48

That's right. That's right. Can you walk us through how your new behavior prediction scores take that to the next level?

Bill Egan: 1:56

Yeah, it really kind of breaks it down. In 2024, we released our new BPS scoring model that still has our normal overall BPS, but it's now broken into an in-market score, a vehicle score. So what's the vehicle the customer's likely to go into next, and then a deal score. And so when we look at those all together, now we're really able to dissect and understand what a customer is going to do next all the way through. So who's in market, what vehicle they're gonna buy, and what other uh competitive vehicles they might be considering. And then how are they gonna structure that deal? So lease cash finance and how they're gonna actually build it out. And it's not looking at just this, what did they do last time? It's really looking at their entire garage history and everything that we know about them, demographic changes, um, lifestyle changes that are all happening to say, okay, now we need to put the best vehicle in front of them and structure that deal that we know that they'll probably take advantage of.

Jim Fitzpatrick: 2:50

Sure, sure. Mastermind's partnership with Drivecentric is uh designed to simplify workflows. How does uh integrating predictive analytics directly into the CRM tools change the way sales teams operate?

Bill Egan: 3:04

Yeah, it really comes down to an efficiency play. Um and we look at having to use two disparate systems, always trying to figure out what am I trying to do with this customer, what is mastermind know, what is Drive Centric know? And as a salesperson, I'm keeping multiple different tabs open to really figure out how do I craft my next message uh to this person. And so with this full integration, which I'm happy to announce is our first full CRM integration, where we're actually going to provide all of our scoring data, all the BPS, the behavior drivers, the replacement vehicle information directly inside of Drive Centric. So we know you're working out of the CRM seven, eight, nine hours a day. Hey, let's make sure that our data and all the cleansing and all the analytics side of it is available right where you're working uh most of the day. And so with this, we'll be pushing all of our data into Drive Centric. We'll also get all of the Drive Centric lead data inside of our system. So when we know we can update our scoring models, but also with the marketing that we do on behalf of dealers, we can also learn when to stop marketing to people. Uh they've got a lead or an opportunity. That's when you want mastermind to stop. And so having this two-way integration uh is going to help uh both from a communication perspective to customers as well as the efficiency of the salespeople.

Jim Fitzpatrick: 4:19

Yeah, for sure. That that that would be nice. So, in such a competitive retail environment and one that we're in right now, um, how does co-pilot new predictive scores and CRM integration help dealers create a more personalized, profitable uh customer experience as you look ahead?

Bill Egan: 4:37

Yeah, so when we look at the future phases and where we're going with these integrations, really it's making sure that it's at the hands of the salesperson at anywhere and any time that they need this information and be able to bring that together. The other side of that, though, is too is the next phases of co-pilot where we get into the interactive side with our salespeople. So let's provide some feedback. What things are you hearing from uh from the consumers? Do you want to make this longer, shorter? Do you want to emphasize, say, a private incentive uh in this particular messaging, or do you really want to be more focused on future appointments and those kind of things that are going to be happening, which we both systems will have? And so as we look at it, we're gonna be bringing our large language models as well as the models that uh Drive Centric has built and some of their AI tools and capabilities they bring. How do we bring those together and how do we then all kind of bring that data uh into a centralized place that then will allow us to then be even smarter in the predictions as well as the messaging that goes to consumers?

Jim Fitzpatrick: 5:35

Looking down the road, what role do you see data-driven tools and AI playing in shaping the next generation of dealership operations?

Bill Egan: 5:44

I think it's really going to get a little bit more into this kind of the sales process and really kind of maybe bringing up some of the F&I type of capabilities and tools sooner into the actual selling process. So we've got partnerships and things with our with our sister companies, SP Mobility. They've got new partnerships and capabilities that we're really trying to look and understand and track. Um, you know, what are the F&I products people did purchase in their last one? What are their warranties, extended warranties, wheels and tires? How can we craft those into our messaging up front with the customer to actually build some additional profit uh into the deal when we're actually doing the initial outreach to consumers? And so I think I think some of those F&I tools and things like that and the profitability is actually gonna be shifted up and AI could help us get there.

Jim Fitzpatrick: 6:29

Yeah, that that is fantastic. You guys are gonna be at NADA this year, right? In Vegas? We sure will. Looking forward to it.

Bill Egan: 6:35

We're gonna have a big booth with uh mobility, and we'll be right next to Carfax, and it'll be uh it'll be a great time.

Jim Fitzpatrick: 6:41

That's great. So dealers uh that are listening, interested in these programs, as you know, it we're just really like 90 days away, I think, from uh NADA or or thereabouts. So um make sure that they're on your list, on your short list of of uh places to visit when you're at NADA. But certainly before that, um if you're getting ready to go into a huge 2026, as uh many dealers are, um, then it's a great time to reach out to Bill Egan and his team at automotive Mastermind to get maybe a jump on all of this. They're doing some unbelievable work at Mastermind, and uh it's it's it's information and technology that you need at your disposal by you know in in a in a very competitive world that we're in right now, especially in in the automotive space. This is what you need in your corner. So Bill Egan, thank you so much for joining us. Vice President of Product at automotive Mastermind, thanks so much for joining us once again on CBT News. Very much appreciated. Love to do a follow-up with you to see how things are moving along on this.

Bill Egan: 7:37

Absolutely. Thank you so much, appreciate it.

Jim Fitzpatrick: 7:39

Great, thanks.