Chris Austin: The Leak in Your P&L That Selling More Cars Won't Fix

Chris Austin is the Chief Revenue Officer of StrategicSource, a Minnesota-based outsourced purchasing organization with 25 years of deep roots in automotive retail. Having grown up inside every department of the business, from sourcing and auditing to client services and executive strategy, Chris has sat inside the budget meetings, contract negotiations, and financial blind spots of dealership groups ranging from single-point stores to 80-location operations across all 50 states. He doesn't just understand dealership expenses. He knows exactly where they disappear.

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What we discuss in this episode:

In this episode, Chris Austin pulls back the curtain on the expense problem hiding inside nearly every dealership in America, the suppliers on autopilot, the contracts nobody is auditing, and the price increases slipping through unnoticed month after month. We're talking about an industry where the average dealership is overspending by 25% on indirect expenses alone.

One client recently discovered a 72% increase in their uniform costs they had never caught. Not because they weren't smart. Because nobody had the time, the benchmarks, or the system to find it.

We go deep into:

• Why 95% of dealerships have no dedicated purchasing function — and what that's actually costing them
• The difference between reactive and proactive expense management
• How decentralized contract management is silently eroding margins
• Why selling more cars is not the answer to an expense problem

This conversation goes places most dealership financial discussions never do, and if you're responsible for the profitability of any automotive retail operation, what Chris shares here will change how you look at your P&L.

Listen to the episode featuring Chris Austin for even more insights!

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Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fixed-ops-roundtable/id1608656237

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Thanks, Chris Austin

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