The industry’s first 20 group dedicated to customer-focused vendor leadership was launched in Las Vegas on Oct. 16, 2023, according to a press release. At the inaugural meeting, the group gathered, set a vision, created leadership roles and named its first leadership team.
The idea for creating the Vendor 20 Group (V20) came from Brent Williams, the founder and former CEO of SnapCell. He brought this idea to Dave Spannhake, founder and CEO of Reunion Marketing, and David Kain, founder and president of Kain Automotive. Their discussion on a Busch Gardens roller coaster ride was the lynchpin securing that partnership and plan.
They agreed to leverage the Dealer 20 Group model to create a vendor version that could improve support of retail automotive customers. Over the next five months, they contacted several trusted industry leaders to become founding members of V20.
The first meeting included several of automotive’s finest companies, including:
- ActivEngage
- Automotive Marketing Gurus
- Certified Solutionaries / Car Guy Coffee
- Clarivoy
- Cognition
- DealerOMG
- FourEyes
- Orbee
- Presidio Technology Partners
- Real Time Feedback
- Reunion Marketing
- RevDoJo
- Sanford Marketing Group
- Silverback Advertising
- STELLA Automotive AI
- TradePending
- Volie
By the end of the first meeting, V20 set its vision toward creating a positive impact by hearing the needs and challenges of the dealership body and leveraging its size to make an impact in solving those challenges. The group also agreed to collaborate on industry-leading best practices and share findings with the industry. V20 elected its executive committee and agreed to three in-person meetings a year, built around industry events such as Digital Dealer. The inaugural Executive Committee consists of:
- Executive Committee Chairperson: Dave Lemmon, director of business development at DealerOMG;
- Senior Executive Committee Member: Lou Ramirez, co-founder and CEO of Certified Solutionaries / Car Guy Coffee;
- Junior Executive Committee Member: Kyle Disher, founder of RevDoJo;
- Moderator: David Kain
- Advisory Roles: Brent Williams and Dave Spannhake
“This project took just five months from concept to launch,” Spannhake said. “Twenty of the industry’s best companies met and proved that they will be able to share concrete plans to best serve the industry in a first-of-its-kind collaborative environment.”
