Hosted by Jeff Walter, Founder and CEO of LatitudeLearning
The Training Impact Podcast was created to explore an often-overlooked dimension of learning and development: how training programs drive real organizational impact, especially in partner-driven ecosystems. In this episode, Jeff Walter sits down with Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media to explore a different but highly complementary angle of performance: how modern content, branding, and media strategy fuel scalable growth.
While the conversation is rooted in marketing, the implications extend directly into training, enablement, and organizational performance. At its core, this episode is about alignment. Alignment between message and audience. Alignment between brand and execution. And ultimately, alignment between strategy and results.
One of the most important themes Adam highlights is the shift away from simply “creating content” toward building a strategic media engine.
Many organizations still approach content as a checklist activity. Post on LinkedIn. Upload a video. Publish a blog. But Freddy Media takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of focusing on output volume, they focus on outcome alignment.
Content is not the goal. Influence is the goal. Revenue is the goal. Brand positioning is the goal.
Adam explains that the companies winning today are those that treat media like an operational system rather than a marketing tactic. They define their audience clearly. They understand what that audience cares about. And they build content ecosystems that consistently reinforce value.
This directly mirrors what high-performing training programs do. They do not just deliver courses. They create structured systems that drive behavior and performance over time.
A recurring theme in the conversation is why so many companies struggle to gain traction despite investing heavily in marketing.
Adam points out that most brands suffer from one of three core issues:
First, lack of clarity. They do not clearly define who they are speaking to or what problem they solve.
Second, inconsistency. They produce content sporadically without a cohesive narrative.
Third, lack of differentiation. Their messaging blends into the noise because it sounds like everyone else.
Freddy Media addresses these challenges by helping organizations identify their unique positioning and then operationalizing it through consistent, high-quality content.
This idea of consistency is critical. Just as training programs fail when they rely on one-time events instead of ongoing reinforcement, marketing fails when it lacks sustained execution.
Another key takeaway from Adam is the importance of repetition.
In many organizations, there is a constant pressure to say something new. New campaign. New message. New angle.
But Adam challenges this thinking. He emphasizes that authority is not built through novelty. It is built through consistency and repetition of a clear message.
The most successful brands are not constantly reinventing themselves. They are reinforcing the same core ideas over and over until they become synonymous with those ideas.
This aligns closely with effective training design. Learners do not master skills through one exposure. They master them through repetition, reinforcement, and application.
In both marketing and training, the goal is not just awareness. It is retention and behavior change.
Freddy Media’s approach positions content as a scalable growth engine rather than a cost center.
Adam explains that when done correctly, content becomes an asset that compounds over time. A single piece of content can generate engagement, leads, and brand awareness long after it is published.
This is especially powerful in digital ecosystems where content can be repurposed across multiple channels. A podcast becomes clips. Clips become social posts. Posts become conversations. Conversations become opportunities.
This layered approach mirrors how modern learning programs scale. A single course can be reused across roles, locations, and use cases. When structured correctly, both content and training become reusable, scalable assets.
One of the most compelling parts of the conversation is Adam’s emphasis on authenticity.
Audiences today are highly attuned to inauthentic messaging. Overproduced, overly scripted content often performs worse than simple, direct communication.
Freddy Media encourages clients to embrace a more human approach. Speak directly. Share real insights. Show personality.
This is not about lowering standards. It is about removing barriers between the brand and the audience.
From a training perspective, this is equally important. Learners engage more deeply with content that feels relevant and real. Authenticity drives engagement, and engagement drives outcomes.
Although the conversation focuses on media and marketing, there is a clear intersection with training and enablement.
Both disciplines are ultimately about influencing behavior.
Marketing influences how customers perceive and engage with a brand. Training influences how employees and partners perform within that brand.
In both cases, success depends on clarity, consistency, and reinforcement.
Adam’s insights highlight that organizations should not treat these functions in isolation. Instead, they should align messaging across marketing, training, and operations to create a unified experience.
When a brand communicates one message externally and trains something different internally, performance suffers.
Another key topic discussed is platform strategy.
Adam emphasizes that not all platforms are created equal. Different platforms serve different purposes, and organizations need to be intentional about where and how they show up.
LinkedIn may be ideal for thought leadership. TikTok may be better for reach and awareness. YouTube may serve as a long-form content hub.
Freddy Media helps organizations identify where their audience spends time and tailor content accordingly.
This strategic distribution is critical. Even the best content will fail if it does not reach the right audience.
Similarly, in training, even the best content will fail if it is not delivered in the right context or format.
A significant part of the discussion focuses on measurement.
Adam notes that many organizations track vanity metrics such as likes and views without connecting them to business outcomes.
Freddy Media encourages a more disciplined approach. Measure what matters. Focus on metrics that align with business goals, such as engagement quality, lead generation, and conversion.
This mirrors the evolution of training programs from activity-based metrics to performance-based metrics.
Just as training programs must connect learning to business outcomes, marketing programs must connect content to revenue and growth.
One of the biggest challenges organizations face is scaling content production without sacrificing quality.
Adam explains that this requires systems, not just effort.
Freddy Media builds structured workflows that enable consistent content creation at scale. This includes planning, production, distribution, and optimization processes.
This is directly analogous to scalable training programs. Without systems, growth creates chaos. With systems, growth creates leverage.
This episode provides a powerful reminder that content, like training, is not just a function. It is a strategic capability.
Organizations that treat content as a system, align it with their brand, and execute consistently will outperform those that rely on ad hoc efforts.
Key takeaways from the episode include:
Clarity drives impact. Define your audience and message clearly.
Consistency builds authority. Repeat your core ideas over time.
Content is an asset. Treat it as a scalable growth engine.
Authenticity matters. Speak directly and honestly.
Alignment is critical. Ensure marketing, training, and operations reinforce each other.
Measurement should be meaningful. Focus on outcomes, not vanity metrics.
In closing, this conversation reinforces a broader theme of the Training Impact Podcast: systems drive performance. Whether in training or marketing, success comes from structured, intentional execution.
For more information on Freddy Media, visit their website https://www.freddymedia.com/
For more from the Training Impact Podcast, follow us on Social Media
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Jeff Walter (00:00)
Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome to the Training Impact Podcast where we explore scaling channel performance through training infrastructure. My guest today is Adam Getke.
Adam is a partner at FreddieMedia and responsible for Freddie Dealers Services. Our focus today is going to be on innovations happening at the generating leads at the local level and all the fun things that FreddieMedia are doing. Adam, welcome to the program.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (00:24)
Hey Jeff, thanks for having me. Happy to be here.
Jeff Walter (00:25)
So yeah,
so as listeners know, the first thing I like to do is kind of understand the human story of how you got where you’re at. partner of Freddie Media, first off, what is Freddie Media? You’re a partner there. What do you all do? And how did you end up there?
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (00:45)
So, Freddie Media is a media company at its core and what Freddie Media does is they manage ⁓ a large network of social media influencers in the automotive space, in and out of the automotive space. What they really specialize in is partnering with different technology companies or companies that serve automotive or any other business in general.
they partner with those companies, they help them with their marketing, they engage with the media personalities, so the media influencers, they help them use the influencers to build up their notoriety, to build up their awareness, and to market their product. Specifically, one of the areas that I’m involved in is with automotive. So as I came into it, we have select partners that we work with, and we do full circle. So what we do is,
We help them with their marketing. We engage these media personalities in social, and then we help them sell their product into the dealership network. So I came from automotive and I can maybe get into a little bit of my history. I spent 22 years with an automotive group. I started off in sales in 2003. I taught high school before that. So I moved into automotive retail sales thinking it was a summer gig. I really loved it.
Jeff Walter (01:52)
Yeah, fine.
Ha!
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (02:07)
took off from there and the rest is kind of history. So when I started there, we had one dealership. I worked with the owner of the dealership group, built his group up to 18 stores. So I worked in basically every capacity along the way. I was in management, spent a little time working in fixed operations, worked my way through the general manager position, VP.
And when I left the automotive group, ⁓ I was the COO of the company. The other unique thing of the group I was with, we transitioned from being a privately held company to being an employee owned company in ESOP, which is very unique to the space. So we transitioned into that model and ultimately became employee owned. So, you know, I just was looking for maybe a little bit more of an opportunity to build something special.
Jeff Walter (02:35)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (02:57)
And I met John Frederick, the owner of Freddie Media, through training. Actually, he came in and trained my whole entire staff at Van Horn on social media, on how to engage customers on social media. So if you know Russ Richardson, better known as Russ Flips Whips, he came in, trained our entire staff. I got to know John because he managed Russ at the time and helped him build his training company.
I got to know John and when I decided that it was time for me to move on, talked to John and we decided to go and build this other venture where we took what he currently had built, this great company that’s based around these influencers and the media and marketing, and we attached it to, further attached it to automotive so that we could help bring these companies into automotive. And with my knowledge and background, I’m able to speak to dealers and kind of say,
Hey, we’ve got this great product. Here’s how it can work. Here’s how we can integrate it. Here’s how we can bring the solution in. And ultimately every dealer wants to know what’s the ROI? How’s it gonna make me money? And I can communicate those things. And that’s kind of the partner projects we have are clear products that bring ROI, bring return to the bottom line for a dealer.
Jeff Walter (04:02)
Right.
So that’s interesting because I was just so usually and so you’re coming from the dealer side. You have the OEM. I’m assuming the dealer group ended up with a number of brands under its its belt or was it all one one brand when you were back with the dealer group.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (04:29)
⁓ No, we had really everything other than Toyota, Subaru, and then if you look at like a step above that, so BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, that level.
Jeff Walter (04:37)
Right.
Right, like with many dealer groups, end up with a bunch of different OEMs and a bunch of different brands. so, you know, it’s interesting because I hadn’t thought about it as you were talking, hadn’t thought it, you know, usually when you think of, social media and bringing influencers in to drive product, you usually think of it from the, in this case, the manufacturer or the brand owner, right?
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (04:48)
Correct.
Jeff Walter (05:08)
you know, it’s like, Hey, and in automotive, it’s like, Hey, we’ve got this vehicle and let’s, let’s get some influences out there or, know, even on other consumer products, you know, Coke, Bud Light, you know, this jacket, this fashion. And it’s usually at the, you know, the brand owner is you’re thinking, let’s use social media, get the buzz for the brand out there. And then, and then if I’m selling and servicing,
through a series of partners, and in the automotive it’s the dealerships, or if you’re in a franchise, my franchisees, that will just build brand awareness and then drive traffic into the local store. But it’s interesting, because when you said they came in, we were looking at the partner, the dealer. And so help me understand, it’s easy for me to get my head around the first one, right? The brand owner.
Get going out into social. think most people would they kind of understand that right? understand the brand owner doing that but you’re on you’re at the dealer level so how How does that work or like help help me understand that? I mean it makes sense, but I don’t understand it Which is a usual situation for me I understand I’m like, oh that sounds good having a clue what it means, but it’s a you know But help me understand what that means
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (06:16)
Yeah, yeah, so that’s it.
So
before this venture with Ross Richardson, Ross Flips Whips, before this venture with training with him, I was not a social media person. I didn’t have any social media accounts, but I started noticing it. Like I started noticing it on LinkedIn, because I was on LinkedIn and I use LinkedIn to find employees. You know, I always kind of kept the profile there and I would reach out to people periodically.
or look just to look people up that I was potentially going to hire. So I was seeing more and more posts on there about the automotive industry and not necessarily from the aspect of like a product. I was seeing it geared at directly at the consumer and Russ was the person I was seeing and it got my mind going. And then I then I got on Instagram, I got on Facebook and I started seeing more of it.
Jeff Walter (07:11)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (07:22)
And what I was thinking and what Russ brought to light is that there’s a lot of power in that. So like Russ’s story is he worked at a Lincoln dealership in Pennsylvania, in Pittsburgh area, sleepy little Lincoln dealership. And he basically doubled the amount of sales at that dealership. He had been there for a while, but he started doing social media. He doubled their sales by posting on social media. So when I…
heard that story and saw what he was doing and saw the engagement, I started to understand how much trust is built on social media and how much if you have a network of salespeople doing this, right? Like think of all your salespeople building their own brand. So think of it as tiers, right? You’ve got your OEM as a tier and call it tier one. And then you’ve got maybe your tier two is your local market, right? So like maybe your OEM at a local market.
Jeff Walter (08:06)
Right.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (08:19)
Tier three is at the dealer and call it tier four is the salesperson. So you could have branding or you could have social from the dealership or dealer group level, but then think about each one of your salespeople being this, their own brand and delivering their own message out to the customer. That’s what we’re empowering them to do and teaching them to do is say, hey, be your own network, build your own network, take your own message and go out with it.
Jeff Walter (08:23)
Okay.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (08:47)
and let’s develop sales together. So we’ll train you, we’ll give you the ability, we’ll let you post. Now, you know, it’s a moment you kind of jump off a cliff too, right? Because you’re taking a hundred people and you’re going, go ahead and post on social and represent the organization. So, you you hold your breath for a moment, you kind of put guardrails on it.
but you want engagement, right? So you gotta let them go out and do their thing. we taught our people how to do that and now you have all these people and think of even a small network of people, right? So say you’re a small, you’re a salesperson and your network is a thousand people. But when you’re posting this and say you’re posting every day, how many people are you reaching and making them aware that you’re selling cars and that…
Jeff Walter (09:26)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (09:43)
You’re in this world. And the more and more you duplicate that and do it over and over again, you’re just top of mind all the time. And I like the chances of taking what is essentially free, you’re not spending any money on it, and you’re just constantly staying in front of people. So like when you look at marketing or you look at any sort of advertisement,
Jeff Walter (09:44)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (10:07)
You don’t necessarily know how many people you got in front of with your campaign. There’s some ways to measure it, but let’s say traditional. You put something on the radio, you put something on the TV, you don’t know. When you do social, you know exactly how many people you’ve reached. You know exactly how much engagement you’ve had. And now the really great thing is they’re coming up with ways to actually track that.
Jeff Walter (10:13)
Right.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (10:34)
different technologies where you can track exactly how much engagement you can actually track what the leads are. can look for AI can look for buying signs and actually engage that person. There’s AI responses that you can engage that will actually answer your DMs in social media. So it’s just evolving every day. when you look at, when you look at how many people make buying decisions based on social media, it’s incredible.
Jeff Walter (10:56)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (11:02)
You know, when you’re scrolling, I don’t know the stats on it, but anybody that scrolls social media has bought something at some point because they scrolled past it. And that’s exactly what you’re trying to do. Even though a car is a big purchase, you’re trying to get that person to engage and you’re trying to get them to look at you, watch you, because essentially what they’re doing is they’re building trust for you. They get to know you and they feel like,
Hey, I could reach out to this person and maybe they’re gonna help me buy a car.
Jeff Walter (11:33)
So okay, so let’s go down that so that that helps That helps me in understanding. Okay, it’s you’re down at the deal level You’re you’re down at and you’re you’re posting to build trust in that brand right And then also down at the individual level and people are connecting and it’s like yeah, you know, I’m following Adam He’s posting interesting content. I’m consuming it and and you know
And it’s interesting you use the word trust, because I truly believe, and I heard this, I’m not the guy that said this, but I heard this, I think a year or so ago. They said, the only natural resource a society has is trust.
And it’s, and as I pondered that it actually floats all the way down from the societal level through all the intermediaries down to the individual relationships. And it’s, and it really is. And so, so I can see how you, how at the, you know, say salesperson or the dealer staff level, you’ve got the technician out there posting also, cause you know, and that’s your whole service side. You’ve got the salesperson, that’s all the sales side.
But what kind of content are they putting out? where do they get their content? Again, I’m going back to…
It was easy enough to sit there go, okay, you’ve got the brand owner, whoever that is, in this case, the OEM, and they’re sitting there going, hey, here’s these vehicles, here’s people using it, here’s features, functions, problems it solves, towing capacity, all that kind of fun stuff. So what kind of content is happening at the grassroots level, right, related to that?
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (13:08)
So that’s the interesting thing is that the content that performs the best when you look at what a dealership or a salesman can produce is not content about a particular car. You can sprinkle that in, it’s got to be, and this is kind of what we were taught is, and it really does work, is that 80 % of it needs to be entertaining and engaging. So think of like more skip type stuff, funny things that happen.
Jeff Walter (13:24)
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (13:36)
⁓ Even like an example is even bad things that happen at the dealership, right? Like some of the things that get the most engagement are, hey, check out this car that we got. The transporter drove underneath an overpass and the car was up too high. And that will get a ton of engagement.
Jeff Walter (13:52)
Ha ha ha!
I can
see that getting a lot of engagement.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (13:58)
Okay, or
yeah, like those things that happen or like, hey, we, this car got dropped off and lo and behold, somebody hit it in the back of the lot. I gotta call the customer and tell them, you know, we’re gonna give the customer three options. We’re gonna have them, they can get a new car, they can back out, or we can fix the car and offer them a discount on it.
Jeff Walter (14:18)
Interesting. Yeah.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (14:19)
I’m gonna call
the customer and then I’ll post another video, I’ll tell you what the customer chose to do. Right, like transparency, showing them that you are up, like that’s a great way to engage the customer. So when you look at the best way to engage the customer, it’s not about, hey, Jeff, I’ve got ⁓ this special, I’ve got this lease special, hey, check. Now, if you have a very unique car, you may wanna show that car.
Jeff Walter (14:41)
Right.
Right.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (14:46)
but it needs
to be 80 % engagement, 80 % transparency, all that, that has to fit 80 % of your bucket, 20 % is gonna be selling. So 20 % of it is gonna be, hey, check out this car, we’ve got these specials going on, or hey, I wanted to give you an update on what’s going on with Ford this month. Ford’s got some really great deals. They got 0%, they’ve got this amount of money on a F-150, and hey, this lease special is incredible.
Jeff Walter (14:56)
Okay.
Right, right.
Right. well, so is a good way to categorize, you know, to categorize that if you were, if you were counseling someone is the most engaging, interesting stuff. When you were talking about all those examples, the, the, the, the phrase that came to my mind was like day in the life type stuff, right? Like this, like,
I’m an automotive sales guy and this is all the fun. mean, not even fun. Here’s all the day in the life stuff that happens. You get stuff like, you know, things going to get, you know, cars get your new car gets hit. Look at this. You know, it’s, was already dedicated. It was already, you know, somebody already bought it. What are we going to do? Or, you know, just recently up north in Michigan, you know, they got dumped like 36 inches of snow. Here I am sitting in the showroom. You know, like
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (16:03)
Yeah, like ⁓ I just saw
one of our previous, one of the guys I used to work with, he’s a general manager, he did a time lapse video of clearing snow in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. So they got hit with what you’re talking about, massive amount of snow. So he did a video, it was great, it was him brushing a car and he’s like one down and then he pans the lot and it looks bad and he’s like.
Jeff Walter (16:06)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (16:31)
178 more to go. And then it was a time-lapse video of like them clearing a lot, which I’m so glad I wasn’t there, because it looked disastrous.
Jeff Walter (16:40)
That’s
I got buddy up north and he’s like It’s been yeah, we got this warm weather cleared every almost everything out and then boom they got nailed but but but is that is that the like, know again if you’re kind of doing that if you’re giving some advice is At the local level at the grassroots level and and it gets back to that building trust And the and the entertaining it’s like, you know, it’s kind of the behind the scenes day in the life you know, interesting like
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (16:48)
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (17:05)
things we go through, like clearing snow off of 200 cars, Like unusual things that happen, or I’m thinking on the service side, comes in and here’s what a, I’m rebuilding a transmission and here’s what it looks like after I take it all apart. And that’s like, of like most of us.
never get to see the inside of a transmission. That’s interesting. you know what saying? It’s like, is that a good way of kind of saying, you know, as opposed to here’s the product and look at all its features and functions and all that. But is that, is that, have you seen, that what’s, is that a good way of categorizing where they should go with it?
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (17:40)
Yeah, you know, it’s really there’s a couple different strategies you can look at. Like when you’re looking at the service side, you’re right. There’s a guy we work with, Curtis Gardner. He goes by TechNar on social media. He’s on our roster of influencers. He does all of his, it’s around like motivation for technicians, but he also has some transparent types of things where, hey, know, check this out. So he’s gearing towards like,
He’s got a couple different audiences. He’s got people that work in fixed operations, like technicians, advisors. He also has a customer base that wants to see what happens in a service department. So when you think about it in sales, same thing. You’re gonna get a certain amount of people that are in the industry that are gonna watch you. But really the engagement you want is amongst the customers and why.
Jeff Walter (18:15)
Mm-hmm.
All right.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (18:35)
Why do customers engage with that? Well, the automotive industry has created a lack of trust over time, right? Nobody really trusts a car dealer. You can get on TV and say like, hey, we’re the greatest dealer in the world. And everybody says that, right? Never talk to a dealer that says that they’re not transparent, they’re not there to serve the customer, right? That everyone does.
Jeff Walter (18:43)
Right.
Right, right, but how do you credibly signal? Right. Exactly.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (19:01)
But the customer doesn’t believe it. When they arrive at the door, their guard is up. But now you can
remove that or a certain level of it by engaging them on social media. Because I tell you what, you’re on, know, Jeff, if you’re on social media and you’re posting and I reach out to you, I DM you on social media and you respond and go, hey, Adam, I would love to help you with your car purchase. Here’s my cell phone number. Call me anytime. Schedule a time to come in. What is your level?
Jeff Walter (19:27)
Yeah.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (19:31)
walking in the door now. How do you feel walking in the door?
Jeff Walter (19:34)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it’s interesting.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (19:35)
You got a little bit different feeling coming in.
Jeff Walter (19:39)
you
you
Jeff Walter (19:40)
But I hadn’t thought about it before. You think of all the cable shows, and there’s a bunch of them that are, they’re the behind the scenes thing, right? They’re the, I’m a bakery, I’m a wedding dress place, I’m a junkyard, I’m a trucker driving on ice roads in Canada in the winter.
and they get massive audiences because people are curious, right? ⁓ And it sounds as we’re talking about it like, you’re doing a mini one of those, right? Like that’s what you’re saying to the folks to do is like, be the ice road trucker, be the Klinefelds and the wedding dress. And you’re not talking about the Vera Wang and the product, you’re saying, hey, this, and that builds trust because
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (20:14)
Hmm
Jeff Walter (20:25)
because you’re kind of going open kimono and saying, here’s world you don’t see very often. And that’s interesting. I never connected it like that. That’s really interesting. That’s really interesting. Thank you. That really kind of puts things in place for me. shifting gears a little bit, there was something you said early on. And I was like, huh, I wonder how that works. Because I was just talking to, I did an interview just yesterday.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (20:26)
for rest.
Jeff Walter (20:49)
with a brand owner in the fashion side and the social influence, using social media influencers on that side. so again, you kind of understand it. They engage these social media influencers. They give them the product. They create content and they get traffic back and they’re a direct to consumer brand. And so that was really interesting.
You earlier said ⁓ engaging influencers. I get the whole making the salesperson and making the dealership and people dealership, you are the brand, go out there, be the brand. But you’re also talking about going and getting third party influencers at the… So how does that work at the grassroots level?
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (21:35)
So think about anybody that’s on social media that operates in a space. So we’re particularly in automotive, but you could relate it to fashion and you could talk about the fashion industry. So one of the genders is like the original influencer, Build a billion dollar company off of social media influence.
Jeff Walter (21:43)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (22:00)
When you think about that and take her in general, right? She’s very prevalent on social media. Whatever product she goes on there and promotes, people are gonna look at it and most likely buy it.
Jeff Walter (22:14)
Yeah, so I get that, again, I get that at the brand level, but at the grassroots level, don’t understand it. Like, I get it at the OEM level, right? But how would you put together a set of influencers at the dealer level? Or who would you look for as influencers, I guess is a better way of stating that.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (22:31)
Well,
You mean as far as your staff.
Jeff Walter (22:36)
Yeah, well, you are you earlier, were you talking about the staff or you were talking about going in third party influencers?
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (22:44)
No, I’m talking about when you’re looking at the dealership, you’re gonna empower your people that are on the front lines.
Jeff Walter (22:49)
⁓ and they
become the influencers. ⁓ okay, okay, I misunderstood that, okay.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (22:52)
they become the influencers. And you use influencer as,
you know, that’s a loose term when you say influencer, you know, influencer doesn’t mean you have to have a lot of followers. Influencer means that you’re gonna be on social media and you wanna be posting about what you do and you wanna get engagement. when you’re more relevant, right, the more relevant you are. So if you’re a salesman at ABC Chevy and
Jeff Walter (23:12)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (23:19)
I’m posting about ABC Chevy and what I do and what’s going on, and I’m there every day, that’s more relevant to the customer. If I bring somebody in, that’s a little bit different.
Jeff Walter (23:28)
Okay.
Right.
Well,
and that’s why I was confused. So you’re talking the strategies to turn the at the grassroots level, turn the staff into influencers. That creates the trust. And that’s like all things being equal. I’m going to go to dealer A versus dealer B because I’ve been following Adam. I see him. And he’s giving me insights in what’s usually the second
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (23:44)
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (23:58)
biggest purchase anybody makes outside of their home, right? And so I want to trust, and I trust Adam because I’m following him. Yeah, it’s very cool.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (24:07)
Yeah, so it kind
of leads into, it kind of leads into one of the things we’re working on right now, which is the CarEdge dealer network. So when you look at CarEdge, the way CarEdge was built was it was Zach Shefsky and his dad, Ray. So Ray was in the automotive industry for 43 years. And when he retired, Zach simply started filming his dad about
Jeff Walter (24:16)
Okay.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (24:35)
Hey, here’s things to look at when you’re going to buy a car. Here’s things to watch for. Here’s what to look for. Here’s how to approach it. So as Zach is filming this, he created a YouTube channel called Car Edge and it got a ton of engagement, ton of viewers. So he kept building that viewership, you know, 300,000 followers, 500,000 followers, million followers on YouTube. And then what he did is he turned it into, because people were demanding it, a car buying service. So
He took it and said, hey, I’m going to scrape inventory. I’m going to post it. You can engage with this. We’ll get you the out the door prices and we’ll actually help you get to the dealership with an out the door price so that you don’t have to go through, you know, the unclear, untransparent pricing of a car dealership. And it’s not like anti dealer. It’s literally just creating a straight line from consumer through to dealer. So if you think of the traditional way, the consumer comes in.
Jeff Walter (25:28)
Right.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (25:33)
They’re shooting all over the place. They’re going different directions, right? They’re trying to look for a car and a price and a dealer. It can be very confusing because they might see a price online and if they engage that dealer, they won’t even give them a price sitting at home. They might go to the next one and that guy’s price comes back and it’s got $5,000 of add-ons and they’re like, I didn’t say I wanted any of that. This just creates the straight line.
Jeff Walter (25:48)
Right.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (26:01)
connecting the buyer directly to the dealer, making it seamless. So that’s what Zach created is a nice straight line from the consumer to the dealer. So what we’re doing now, there’s about 100,000 people visit the Car-Rage site per day. Zach does a show every day. It’s got about 30,000 viewers on a YouTube show every day. And these people are engaging at a high rate.
looking for that easy way to get to the dealership. So we’ve created is the Carriage Dealer Network. So we’re bringing this to the dealer and we’re saying, hey, we’ve got these people that are highly educated because that’s where people start their shopping. 92 % of people go to YouTube when they start looking for a car. We’re bringing that consumer directly through, we’re delivering them at the doorstep. They’re qualified and they’re low down the funnel.
Jeff Walter (26:33)
Right.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (26:59)
they’re purchasing. 40 % of the people that engage with CarEdge end up buying a car. So it’s a large amount of people compared to normal third party channels. Huge amount of people buy a car on that platform. What we’re doing is we’re creating a really warm handoff. So we’re taking this CarEdge buyer that Zach and Ray have built all this trust with, we’re taking that trust and we’re saying, hey, this is the dealer. This is the trusted preferred dealer in the network.
we’re transferring that trust right over to the dealer. So we’re making it a nice warm handoff right to the dealer. And you know, these deals are some of the nicest, easiest and the best deals that are coming through the door for our partner dealers.
Jeff Walter (27:43)
So, and it’s interesting because that’s on the transactional side of getting the sale. But the interesting thing you said at the beginning of that was he first started off with filming his dad, but he continues to create that content every day. So he’s continually reinforcing the trust, right? It’s like, not like, I’ve got this library of 200 videos of my dad. And that’s just, you know, evergreen content. And now we’re this transactional thing. It’s like, nope, it’s every day.
It’s another episode, another episode, and 30,000 viewers. That’s lot. There’s some networks that would like that on some of their shows, right? That’s awesome. But it’s reinforcing the trust, right? It’s like, Zach’s out there, he’s doing another show, another show on another topic, another thing.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (28:20)
And it’s every single day they do the show, Monday through Friday.
Yeah, and it’s always kind of the news that’s going on. like, you know, right now there’s a lot of news around the FTC and what the FTC is doing. there’s a lot of the FTC is cracking down on transparent pricing for dealers. And this is exactly, you know, Zach’s mission and message. So he’s been talking a lot about that where the FTC, I think sent out 93 letters to dealers.
Jeff Walter (28:35)
Yeah.
really?
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (28:58)
kind of as a warning of you better get your pricing right. And I believe that they’re gonna make an example out of somebody and they’re probably not gonna go after somebody small. They’re gonna make an example out of somebody.
Jeff Walter (29:14)
Right.
They’ll take some large multi-unit dealer and slap him, you know, and make an example out of him. So that’s the truth. So when you’re saying the truth of pricing, it’s like, hey, you know, it’s what everybody fears to bait and switch like, hey, know, buy this car for a buck and you get there and they go, ah, it’s really two bucks. That type of thing.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (29:21)
Correct.
Well, yeah, it’s it’s it’s a multiple things. It’s posting a price that includes rebates you don’t qualify for posting a price that has you got to have a trade. You got to finance that has qualifications to get that price.
Jeff Walter (29:43)
Okay.
⁓ okay, okay, so it’s more like it’s a buck, but it’s a buck
if you’re one of two percent of the buyers that qualify for these six things. Okay.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (29:59)
Yeah, in
every state, what I’m learning is every state has different laws on this. So some states are very, you know, consumer friendly and they really crack down on this. Other states, it’s kind of the Wild West where there is no regulation around it.
Jeff Walter (30:03)
Interesting.
Very interesting,
very interesting. Well, so when folks engage Freddie Media, it’s that what you’re focused on is that the dealer and it’s trying to bring that system down to them to turn their, I mean, is that primarily what you’re focused on at Freddie?
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (30:31)
So at Freddie Media, yeah, we partner with companies and we’re really, like I said, we’re using that influencer network to market their company. And then we’re also helping them sell their product or their service into the automotive industry. Because ultimately we speak automotive, we understand that automotive world. So we’re using kind of our expertise all the way around.
Jeff Walter (30:37)
Uh-huh.
Right.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (30:57)
We have great experience in automotive. We have multiple people on staff that worked in automotive. We also have great marketing people that are on staff. have great marketing CMO with our company that can take the product and we can, between all of us, we understand what dealers are looking for. And when it comes to selling it to the dealer, we also understand what matters the most to the dealer.
and getting down to communicating that to them so that they can understand how to fit it into their operations, make it the most useful, get that adoption that everybody wants, and ultimately see that return.
Jeff Walter (31:35)
Very cool and going forward with Freddy, where do you see the company going in the future?
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (31:40)
⁓ You know, I think we’re on the right path right now. We’re gonna keep going down this path. You know, we selectively take on partners in our space because we don’t want to go broad. We really wanna go deep with the partners. We wanna help them build from where they are and we wanna build their company up as large as they wanna take it. So we’re not looking to gain that…
Jeff Walter (31:53)
Right.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (32:05)
know, numerous clients, we’re looking to go deep with the clients that we have. know, we’re, automotive is our space. And that’s really where we’re gonna stay and where we wanna go is in the automotive industry.
Jeff Walter (32:08)
Right.
Yeah, all right,
very cool. And yeah, I know you have a hard stop coming up, I just want to say I appreciate your time. So if somebody wanted to get a hold of you or Freddie Media, how would they get a hold of you? And we’ll have a link in the show notes. But what’s the best way get a hold of you, and what’s way to get a hold of Freddie Media?
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (32:35)
Best way to get ahold of me is my cell phone number, 920-207-3122 or adam at freddymedia.com. I’m pretty much always on, so you can call me, text me anytime you want. You know, I’d be happy to talk to dealers. You know, one of the things we do really well is consult with dealers. And when we do consulting on the consulting side, when we talk to dealers, we never charge them for that. We’re simply looking at
Helping dealers, we may recommend some things that we have in our arsenal, some products that we work with, but we don’t for time, for expertise, for whatever you need on the dealer side, we don’t charge any sort of fees for that. That’s all, we’ll offer up anything we can at as much time as we possibly can with a dealer. We may recommend in some things that would fit and that could help you. know, our real goals on the dealer side.
are to help you make more revenue, save you money, and increase the bottom line. Those are the three things we’re looking to achieve for every dealer, and that’s the companies we partner with, we need to see a clear path that their product will bring that to a dealer.
Jeff Walter (33:43)
All right.
Well, Adam, thank you so much for your time. I greatly appreciate it. And it’s been really insightful. It put another piece of the puzzle in place for me of how you have an approach to getting that grassroots marketing going.
and turning it into, if I think of that day in the life reality show type of, that’s what you want to do down at the grassroots. And let the brand owner do the, here’s the brand and what it represents in the products. It’s really interesting and it’s almost turning everybody into a Carlos Bakery type of place, right? The cake boss. Yeah, it’s turning every dealership into a Carlos Bakery. really, it’s really, like that really,
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (34:23)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Walter (34:30)
It really did put a puzzle piece in place for me. So thank you for sharing that with me and with the audience as well. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. And ⁓ so thank you. And to everybody out there, thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time.
Adam Gaedke of Freddy Media (34:36)
Yeah, thank you for having me. This was fun.