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Monster Motors online is now on TV creating a
sense of urgency and excitement:
Use their auction format to name your price for a car
Services
Online Auctioneer
(MRMT-OTC.PK)
Monster Motors, Inc.
5251 W. 147th St
Suite 6b
Oak Forest, Il. 60452
239-333-5555
Dan Enright
President
Interview conducted by:
Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor
CEOCFOinterviews.com
Published – June 22, 2007
BIO:
Dan Enright is
President and Director of Monster Motors, Inc. His early career was in
Automotive Sales and Computer Technology. Mr. Enright then migrated to
international trade, product distribution, institutional and municipality
transactions, Internet product sales and web consulting while growing a
large Transportation and Parking Company. He brought a previous Internet
venture public in 2000.
Company Profile:
Monster Motors, Inc. is a public
company trading on the OTC under the symbol MRMT. Monster Motors is an
online auto auctioneer that facilitates the buying and selling of vehicles
from dealers and private parties to the public. The Company’s immediate
focus is the localization of the used car online auction market. Currently
more than 7800 unique cars and trucks are for sale on seven local community
Monster Motors auto auction websites.
CEOCFO: Mr. Enright, what is your vision
for Monster Motors and how do you get there?
Mr. Enright: “Our vision is to become a
national/international contender in the automotive online scene. Presently
in multiple cities, we use a bottom up approach as opposed to a top down
that a lot of the other online companies use. We are focusing on local
markets first, the traditional bottom through the parent site
MonsterMotors.com. We are achieving our goals through relationships in the
marketplace. The number-one relationship is with Viamedia, Inc., a cable
representative coast to coast in over thirty markets. Through Viamedia, we
expect to be represented by one third of all the cable companies in the
United States. They will show our television commercials promoting sellers
to buy from the used car dealers and private parties listing on our local
community auction sites, while marketing to used car dealers and private
parties that can list/sell their cars on our local community auction sites.”
CEOCFO: How
does your process work?
Mr. Enright: “When somebody comes to our
website to investigate an automobile for sale, they are able to contact the
seller directly; in fact we encourage that. We feel that our process allows
the buyer and the seller to get together as quickly as possible. Some
websites do not encourage or achieve that goal as quickly as we can. We have
an auction format, which causes a quicker reaction from the public. It
creates a sense of urgency and excitement to be able to name your price on a
car.”
CEOCFO: Are
people typically physically looking at the cars?
Mr. Enright: “They will do both. First,
they will go online, because 80% of all people that purchase cars now go
online before they purchase a car. It makes a lot of sense to purchase a car
from their living room or office as far as the review process, investigation
and decision-making process. The communication process between the buyer and
the seller becomes so much more effective between email, telephone, and
being able to view the car online. With that said, in a local environment
people also have the opportunity once in communication with the seller to be
able to go look at the car personally at a close distance and further make
that buying decision.”
CEOCFO: Why
do you focus on a local market format?
Mr. Enright: “The majority of all cars sold
in America are within 50 miles of the car. Therefore, it makes perfect sense
to concentrate on a local market.”
CEOCFO:
Please tell us about the cities you are in now, where you are going to be
and how you targeting strategy.
Mr. Enright: “We are in Chicago, Tampa,
Kansas City, Columbus, Las Vegas and Omaha. As an example, we are going to
be launching cities at a rate of one to two a week as we move along. We are
targeting cities based on our cable partner relationships such that when we
get into a marketplace we will be able to advertise an unlimited amount of
commercials into that marketplace from knowing each local site. As we go
across, by the time we get done we anticipate being in over 100 major
metropolitan cities not only in North America, but also internationally.”
CEOCFO:
Your cookie-cutter approach is effective!
Mr. Enright: “It is quite the
cookie-cutter basis. There are some key elements here and that is having the
right domain name in the local markets; for instance like in
ChicagoAutoAuction.com as a domain name is very powerful. In a city that has
more of a regional slang to it, you could be in Philadelphia which is called
Philly or in Las Vegas, we call it VegasAutoAuction.com. Getting even closer
to the local environment in Texas, we are utilizing LoneStarAutoAuction.com.
In Denver, MileHighAutoAuction.com, and in Indiana, HoosierAutoAuction.com
is also an example.”
CEOCFO:
Please tell us how the dealers feel about advertising online and being part
of the project.
Mr. Enright: “In the 1990’s when you
approached a dealer they would say, ‘I hate that online’ and the response
was, ‘but your customers love it’. Now they have embraced it 100%. Almost
every dealer out there now has an online presence. The ones who have a
significant presence are very successful at utilizing all the tools that are
available and some of the new tools like streaming video and the instant
communication that can happen between a buyer and a seller. There are
internet departments now that are staffed with IT managers, and people who
are highly trained in utilizing email and web-based communication to further
communicate with a customer.”
CEOCFO: How
do you generate your revenues?
Mr. Enright: “There are several ways to
make money, if you look at Google as an example; advertising is really the
key to their success. We are very much advertising based and the solution is
also for us to provide the product for the dealer to show their inventory
online. We get paid directly from the dealer or through our cable partner
representatives. They use us as a bundled product into their advertising
sales.”
CEOCFO:
When did you actually start development?
Mr. Enright: “I mentioned being in this
process in the 1990’s, but really about 4 years ago, we dug in and started
working on this online auto auction process. We have launched Las Vegas a
year-and-a-half ago as a test market and then at the end of 2006 we fully
implemented and started launching certain cities with our cable partners.”
CEOCFO; Are
people looking more to used cars today?
Mr. Enright: “I think they are looking
at both new and used cars. There are certainly more used cars sold than new
cars. With the gas prices going up, they are looking at the hybrid and they
are going from the larger trucks to the smaller trucks and the smaller cars
are selling at a quicker pace. The used car prices have come down a bit due
to the gas prices, which makes it reasonable for people to buy used cars and
specifically online which a lot of people do not know. When you buy a car
online, statistically it has been proven that you will save a percentage of
money if you buy online as opposed to going directly to the dealer in
person.”
CEOCFO: How
does the auction process work?
Mr. Enright: "You go online, view the
different vehicles that you are interested in, you decide what price you
want to pay, you name your price and you type it in. At that point in time,
the process goes that there is a timeframe in the auction process, which
will say seven days to ten days for a part. The other people who view that
car decide if they want to bid on it also. If you are the highest bidder and
the dealer does not have a reserve price that is over that price, then you
will win the car and you will go down and complete the transaction in person
with the dealer or the private party.
CEOCFO; Are many private parties taking
advantage of the service?
Mr. Enright: “The industry standard runs
about 8% to 10% for private parties, but the majority will always be dealers
that are going online, because they have the bulk of the inventory to be
sold. However, we do have a few private parties and that is picking up every
day.”
CEOCFO: Are you planning to capture the
online auto auction market internationally?
Mr. Enright: “We certainly are! We are
looking toward Europe and the Middle East.”
CEOCFO: Are
the markets similar and how would you do the marketing?
Mr. Enright: “We are certainly more
sophisticated in that process in the United States today than some of the
other markets throughout the world. However, Europe is a bit closer. The
advantage here in the U.S. is that we have vehicle data collectors. A few
years back, used cars started having window stickers similar to new cars,
which explained all the benefits in the pricing. That was handled by an
outside third-party vendor, now it has caught on and now it is multiple
third-party vendors that come and take the photographs and install all the
information, VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) numbers and so forth into
the computer and then put it online to all the different companies that
display those cars. Europe is a bit behind on that. It is just beginning so
there will be a learning curve there, but in the Middle East that does not
exist at all. We will definitely maintain some relationship with media
companies throughout our markets.”
CEOCFO:
What are the challenges going forward and how are you ready?
Mr. Enright: “We have a tremendous
growth rate at the moment and we want to keep up with growth. We are opening
a new office in Chicago with anticipation of a further office in Colorado.
We have been nationally based; we have to be territorially located so we can
reach out in each market and communicate, travel, and visit the dealers and
so forth. Our cable partner brings over 200 on the ground sales that is
handling our product.”
CEOCFO: It
seems so simple, but it covers it all!
Mr. Enright: “Being an entrepreneur and
I have been in a lot of businesses, I have been successful in some and
failed in some over the years. I have been in automotive, online and in
computers and it was a natural connection for me to put the two together.
The amount of people that go online is incredible. Who wants to go to the
car lot and have a salesman work you over? More women go online to research
and buy cars than men. Not only that but with such ease. People come in more
knowledgeable than the salesmen themselves.”
CEOCFO:
What are the barriers to entry?
Mr. Enright: “The amazing thing about
the internet is that there is a very low barrier to entry on any business.
The key here is can you set up a website, because anyone can do that. The
key is relationships and technological know-how to solve problems for the
industry as well as provide the latest technology to the owners, sellers and
buyers so that this becomes a much more efficient process. That is better
than an expensive proposition at this point, because a lot of these
technologies are being invented as we speak.”
CEOCFO: How
do you keep up?
Mr. Enright: “For us it is having
programmers. One of my main partners is in Omaha. He is very wise to
transition and how people think. People can set up a business and think that
this is the way it should be run because that is the way they think it
should be run. The fact is what makes it successful is how human beings
react. Humans will follow the same trail over and over, that is why some
websites are more successful than others. Even though some are better, the
ones that are better are not necessarily the most successful ones. It is a
matter of habit, logic, being user-friendly and convenience. You almost have
to be a psychologist to figure out how people think in order to make it work
in these electronic frontiers. That is why one site will be more successful,
because they have somehow figured out how people think. This is really a
young man’s business and the whole internet is a young persons business.
Younger people have been around the computers since an early age. We have a
staff that has a wide age range, but in a younger year from their twenties
to their forties with varying degrees of skill and efficiency.”
CEOCFO: Why
should investors be interested?
Mr. Enright: “Automotive is the
number-one advertised business in the world. There is more money spent on
advertising than what anyone else spends. Everybody is now going to the
internet to purchase cars. The newspapers and whole print media have quickly
been going out of business due to the fact that people are going to the
internet. They are trying to play catch-up to what people are already doing,
so all the money has bee focused on the internet and companies like ours can
successfully pick up the pieces of this changed environment and quite
honestly, we are doing it effectively. Revenues are increasing at a great
percentage every single month.”
CEOCFO: Do
you have any final thoughts for our readers?
Mr. Enright: “I mentioned our cable
representative partners and one of the things we have in this great business
relationship is to communicate who we are and what we are very effectively
because of the amount of advertising availability that we have at our
disposal. Through that as far as growth, we are shortly going to be coming
out with a national ad that will be shown in all markets that talks about
Monster Motors the brand and in each local market we talk about the local
brand, whether it is ChicagoAutoAuction.com or DCAutoAuction.com. That is a
tremendous relationship we have with cable companies such as with Verizon
and their FRS, which is their fiber optics system. Verizon is conquering the
market with fiber optics 50x the speed of cable when it comes to internet
delivery. Because of this we can start expanding into streaming videos, live
feed and we can start putting through information to the public that it is
so much better than anything on TV today. EbayMotors is the number-one
seller of cars in the world today. In competition to them there is nobody
except us. We are the Burger King to the McDonalds, when it comes to online
auto auction.”
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