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How Dennis Dillon Auto Group Built a Winning Private Party Buying Program

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Scalable Car Buying in 2025 

Most car dealers think the best used vehicles are found at auctions. They're wrong. The real gems are sitting in your customers' driveways. Dennis Dillon Auto Group figured this out, and it transformed their business.

We recently visited Dennis Dillon Mazda/Kia/Nissan to learn how they did it. We talked with their used car manager, Bryan Bough, about their private party buying program. To say we were shocked by how simple their process was while still outperforming competitors is an understatement. They had so much success that, believe it or not, local wholesale buy centers began closing their doors.

They didn't just tweak their existing process; they completely reinvented how they acquire used cars.

The old way had many problems, including high auction fees, unpredictable quality, and missed local opportunities. Dennis Dillon's solution: go directly to private sellers.

It sounds obvious in retrospect, but executing it well is hard. Dennis Dillon succeeded by doing two key things:

1. They centralized and streamlined their acquisition process via the VETTX platform.
2. They found ways to build trust with private sellers.

The results were dramatic. But to understand why, we need to examine how car dealerships typically work and why Dennis Dillon's approach was so different.

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The Auction Conundrum: A Familiar Tale

Let's face it: auctions have been the go-to for many dealerships, but at what cost? Dennis Dillon faced the same challenges you might be experiencing:

• Quality Roulette: As Bryan (UCM) would say "Not all cars at the auction are bad, but all bad cars go to the auction," as the saying goes. It's a gamble every time.
• Fee Frenzy: Between buy fees, transportation, and reconditioning, profits were being eaten alive.

Auctions can be addictive: they’re quick, easy, and only a click away. But they’re a short-term fix for a bigger issue—self-reliance. When you establish your own acquisition pipeline, you gain true inventory independence. No matter how the market shifts, you’ll always have a steady channel of vehicles coming in.

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The Pivot: Tapping into Private Party Potential

Dennis Dillon's eureka moment? Realizing that tools exist today that allow them to buy like they’re in 2025 not 1995. 

Streamlined Lead Management

Managing leads from private sellers initially felt overwhelming. Emails from Craigslist, messages on Facebook, and phone calls were scattered across multiple platforms. To address this, they adopted VETTX a private party vehicle management platform. This new system allowed them to:

• Store all listings in one place, eliminating confusion. 
• Communicate with sellers efficiently and track interactions.
• Ensure no leads fall through the cracks.

“Going through your emails from Craigslist or pinning down who you talked to on Facebook is just disorganized,” one team member said. The centralized system brought much-needed clarity. Additionally, VETTX allowed auto-text outreach to potential sellers, simplifying initial contact and ensuring seller intender opportunities were claimed promptly.

Daily Discipline

To stay consistent, the team developed a daily VETTX workflow:

1. Cleaning out all the fresh listings 
2. Filtering out spam and low-quality entries.
3. Prioritizing high-potential listings and setting competitive target prices.
4. Leverage automation to schedule follow-ups and maintain seller engagement.

The use of custom workflows allowed the team to handle hundreds of leads simultaneously, ensuring no opportunity was missed. Their “last one wins” philosophy—maintaining follow-up over weeks to outlast competitors—was particularly effective in closing deals.

Key Insight: “Your salespeople should focus on selling cars,” Bryan emphasized. “You need a team dedicated to acquisitions.”

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Overcoming Hurdles: Trust and Volume

Transitioning to private-party buying wasn’t without its difficulties. Initially, the team faced two major obstacles:

• Gaining Seller Trust: According to a 2024 Deloitte automotive consumer study, “71% of U.S. consumers prefer to purchase vehicles directly from private sellers or through online platforms”. Bough and team actually saw this as an opportunity for growth. Many private sellers were hesitant to work with a dealership, fearing low offers or complicated processes. By offering a $3,000 range upfront and providing transparent appraisals, they built credibility. Bryan noted, 

“I bring people into my office and let them look at my computer while I’m buying their car.”

• Managing Seller Influx: On weekends, up to 70 new listings met the team’s criteria, making prioritization crucial. By focusing on the most complete listings (VINs, phone numbers, etc.) daily, they avoided analysis paralysis and kept top opportunities from slipping away.

To handle more leads, and increase the close percentage the dealership plans to hire five or six additional team members. These buyers will focus exclusively on private-party acquisitions. VETTX was intended for team use, buyers, and managers using the platform without ever needing to communicate outside the application. 

‘“The communication, not only internally—with me and my buyer who’s in there chasing cars—being capable of putting numbers in there without having to be face to face… allows me to work from a distance if I need to, and be able to let the ecosystem keep running fluidly, even if I’m not in the building.”

Quick Disclaimer: Do not confuse this approach with paying for ICO leads. Private party acquisition can be viewed in two ways: inbound and outbound. Dennis Dillon is excelling in the outbound method, targeting locally listed vehicles. Many dealers, stuck in the inbound approach, spend substantial amounts of money—$20,000 to $30,000 per month on ICO lead generation—to acquire leads.

This practice is not only a significant waste of money, but the conversion rates can vary widely because many leads lack serious intent; often, they are simply looking for a price quote. With a well-designed outbound program, you can acquire just as many, if not more, leads while saving tens of thousands in lead generation fees. 

The Results: What Worked and Why

By cutting out the middleman and going straight to the source, they improved many aspects of the business—not just the bottom line.

Better Vehicles, Bigger Profits

Leveraging VETTX, Dennis Dillion was able to achieve the following:

• Lower Repair Costs: 25% lower recon costs per car than the national average.
• Faster Turnover Rates: These vehicles acquired off the street required less time in the shop. Less shop time = shorter time to line (T2L) = faster turn.
• No Per Car Fees: The national average auction fee is in the ballpark of $985 per vehicle. If you multiply that by the 20–30 cars they buy through VETTX, plus the lead-generation fees they save, you can quickly see why they can easily afford two full-time buyers and a complete end-to-end software solution. 
• Higher Margins: The dealership earned an average of $7,000 per car by combining front-end sales, financing, and service revenue. That’s a total of 67% higher than the national average for used cars.

In one year, they purchased 647 cars, with only 65–70 still on the lot. They consistently secured 20–30 cars per month from 200–300 leads, achieving a close rate of 10%. Their average turn for street purchases was 30 days—20% faster than the national average of 37.5 days.

Your Roadmap to Private Party Success

Against popular opinion, Dennis Dillon proved private-party buying is just like anything else. The more time and focus you put into it the better results you get. Here’s what they learned: 

1. Centralize Your Processes: Use one platform to manage all leads and communications.
2. Build a Dedicated Team: Assign specialized roles to focus on acquisitions.
3. Embrace Transparency:  Fair offers and honest communication build trust.
4. Leverage Technology: Automation saves time and helps manage growth.
5. Stay Persistent: Consistent follow-ups often make the difference in closing deals.
6. Focus on Community: Building local relationships pays off in the long term.

Challenging Assumptions: 

There are many lessons to learn from the Dennis Dillon Auto Group, but the key takeaway is to always challenge your assumptions. With new technologies emerging every day and a wealth of knowledge available online, there are no excuses for not experimenting and exploring new business avenues.

Remember, dealerships exist to serve retail consumers. As Bryan Bough, the Used Car Manager, emphasizes, private party acquisition is the best way to fulfill that mission.

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