Rewriting the Vendor–Dealer Playbook with Jade Terreberry

Jade Terreberry brings her data-driven hustle and people-first mindset to the table.

The Auto Collabs crew sits down with Jade Terreberry—formerly of commercial real estate lending and dealership operations, now leading analytics and insights at Cox Automotive. With her roots planted firmly in the car world (thanks to a dad who spent 40 years winning national Honda sales contests), Jade shares how her love for data and love for people collided to shape her journey back into automotive. She’s a natural mixer of entrepreneurial instinct and analytic rigor.

Jade dives into how dealers and partners can lead through innovation—and why transparency and communication are non-negotiable. She’s all about closing blind spots in dealership decision-making with multi-touch attribution, geolocation, audience segmentation, and real-time feedback loops. Expect big wins in aligning technology with human trust, stretching the meaning of “partnership,” and testing iteratively rather than repeating old mistakes.

🕒 Takeaways

0:00 Intro with Paul J Daly, Kyle Mountsier and Michael Cirillo

2:48 Jade’s dealership DNA story – Growing up in a Honda shop, learning negotiation at age 7, then shifting to real estate/finance before finding her way back into cars.

7:41 From traditional sales to data-driven marketing – How owning a business taught her that decision-making by data, not gut, is key—and why the box’s always moving.

11:53 Vendor–dealer collaboration – “Relationships work because you make each other better,” Jade explains how industry partners should act as strategic extensions with shared goals and trust.

20:31 Innovating with audience segmentation & analytics – Jade outlines how Cox uses tech to “close blind spots” in spend, performance, and funnel activation in real time.

24:37 Passion & leadership DNA – Her rallying cry for auto: love people, test often, allow risk, develop innate DNA talent, and never make the same mistake twice.

Connect with Jade Terreberry at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jade-terreberry-596092104/

Learn more about Cox Automotive at https://www.coxautoinc.com

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Transcript

Michael Cirillo: 0:00

I'm happy to report that there are no mosquitoes in my office today.

Unknown: 0:09

This is Auto Collabs. Oh,

Paul Daly: 0:12

that's good. I was wondering why half your face was swollen.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:17

Poor guy, I know bigger in Texas. And all he talks about is that everything's bigger in Texas, including the mosquitoes, unbelievable, where you

Michael Cirillo: 0:26

just gonna hear and then you're gonna see my shirt go up like this, and then I'm

Kyle Mountsier: 0:34

gonna Collabs. Yeah, the bugs will be singing. It'll be amazing.

Paul Daly: 0:40

Oh, man, hey, today is a new guest for the show, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Terribery. We had fun at ASOTU CON. She was on some panels, and I think that's the first time I ever met her in person. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:50

I got to jam with her on a webinar, and then also on stage with with a few extremely bright people. You got to check that out. But I'm excited to get to know her individually, as opposed to all having to be, you know, paying back with a few different people. So we hope that you enjoy this conversation with Jade.

Paul Daly: 1:14

Jade is so much fun to be here with you on the show. And we have to say you took the wardrobe request very literally, you

Jade Terreberry: 1:21

bet I did. Wouldn't give up an opportunity to wear this shirt. I've actually worn it every day since the conference.

Unknown: 1:27

That's good

Paul Daly: 1:32

thing. I got multiples, right? Yeah, 33 of them. Yeah, you should see my closet at home. I always explain to people's like, no, no, you don't realize I don't only have multiple versions of the shirt, different colorways and things like that. I also have multiple versions of the same color. Which one it's probably to the point now we're in my closet, it is probably more than 5050. On my shirts are either more than cars or, you know,

Michael Cirillo: 1:57

see, this makes sense now, why you walk around in public saying, I swear, smell. Yeah,

Paul Daly: 2:03

I don't do that. I don't do that. But Jay, thanks for giving us some time today. It was awesome to be with you at ASOTU CON, and just just great to be a part of what you're doing and how you're serving the industry. Well,

Jade Terreberry: 2:14

we had a great time at the conference, and I got to tell you guys, it was an impressive event. It was actually my first time attending first of what will be many in the future, just incredible feedback all the way around. And you better believe we'll be there every year forevermore, and are excited to do it again with you next year.

Paul Daly: 2:31

That's amazing. This is where Michael says, Enough about me. Let's talk about what you think about me. Hey.

Michael Cirillo: 2:39

I mean, I love that we recorded that. Tell us. I'm curious. Tell us how what's your journey been into into the car business?

Jade Terreberry: 2:48

Well, I grew up sitting in a high chair watching my dad practice for national Honda walk around competitions. He was the top Honda salesperson in the country for many years. Was at the same dealership for 40 years. Which dealership was that? So that is, was Bill Gatton Honda in northeast Tennessee. Of course, has since been acquired through a buy, sell, and he's long since retired. But, you know, I feel like I grew up, live, eat, breathe, car business, you know, answering the receptionist desk phone better than any receptionist there at age seven, age eight, and and I kind of had to negotiate for my life, because my entire family had been car business. And so, you know, if you if you wanted to eat or get new shoes, it was a relate, education overcome. It was a negotiation that's, that's how we lived. And so I this business is in me and part of my blood. And of course, as as most who grow up in the car business, you know, I said I want to be in sales. I want to do something that is as far from the car business as I can possibly get. And so I spent about a decade in real estate and commercial finance and commercial development, and then landed back in the car business. And I tell you, I love it more and more every day, and the change and disruption, which I hope is some of what we will get to talk about together today, but that's where I think real opportunity is created. And before I came to the Cox side, I was actually with a dealership group in Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina, and we had Hyundai, Honda, Ford, Volvo, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge Ram and Nissan franchises across those states. You have said that a couple of times. I've said it more than once, muscle memory, straight muscle memory, yeah. But I tell you, we had in you all will appreciate this. That's what your listeners. I had GMs from 35 years old, straight out of nada, you know, dealer school, dealer Academy. And then we had the, you know, 75 year old Ford truck guy that all you need to do is advertise in the trading post and send out some postcards and do some traditional TV, and everything was going to fix itself. And and so when Cox started becoming Cox, before it was anything really other than auto trader and Kelley Blue. Book. Vi auto was on the radar, but I was still in dealership world, and it was a mid size organization, like I said at that point, 17 store points. And I am a research and data maniac, as you all know, of my 10 years now with Cox, I spent five of those leading sales and business and operations analytics for all of our consumer brands and brands and and so a data crazy person, but we had all of the products and companies in these little stores in northeast Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, southeastern Kentucky and Northwestern North Carolina that Cox was looking at acquiring those companies. And so they start sending executive teams in to visit and figure out how we were using these tools. And we kind of laughed today. I actually when kbbs instant cash offer was trade in marketplace back when it first rolled out. Oh, I was in dealership world, and I recorded the first training videos for KBB on how to use it at point of sale. Doing you have access to those silent walk around. You bet we can dig those out of the archives. Let's do it and

Paul Daly: 6:06

have, like, really, like, puffy, curly hair, like,

Jade Terreberry: 6:13

and if I, if you all next year at the ASOTU conference, you know, if you want to have a little rain come down, and then my hair will be about this big. It's I go to great lengths for for straight years. But anyway, the bottom line is that was really when digital marketing, and, you know, pump and pump out, reaching outside of audience or outside of market to gain audience and distance retailing was barely starting to become a thing and and I realized it was dealership organizations the size of the one that I was with that would become outdated, antiquated and no longer be able to play on an even playing field with the Publix and the hybrids and new form retailers, and there was going to be so much buy, sell activity. And so that's why I decided, after, you know, many years of working closely with Cox, so we were the first dealership group in the country on the Cox rewards program. We were the first ones with geolocation beacons in our stores. And that was a long time ago when, you know, we were like, dot radius and polyagonal geo fencing was like the only way you could track people with devices. But I just, I thought, I can have a much bigger impact on this industry and make it, you know, kind of bring it into the future. If I come to this side, and man, what an awesome journey it has been. I love it more and more every day. I

Kyle Mountsier: 7:29

think you also just said some words that most people have never heard in their

Paul Daly: 7:33

life. Plagal is one I've never super nerd which is super nerdery. Yeah, Kyle knows what it

Kyle Mountsier: 7:41

is. What do you think in I mean, obviously you're, you're, you grew up around the car business, but you definitely have a, like, very progressive, not just do the walk around bent. Did that? Where did that bent come from? When did you become curious about technology, marketing, data science, that type of stuff.

Jade Terreberry: 8:02

Yeah, well, I owned my own businesses for many years on the real estate side, and what I learned through those years is database decision making is everything, and understanding how big your blind spot is, and understanding where every dollar and every minute or going is like the core of entrepreneurship. You all know you, you know you self drive, self motivate, self guide in everything that you do, and self

Paul Daly: 8:32

console you

Jade Terreberry: 8:34

get your own self, self, wardrobe, self, wash clothes when you have to, but it you cannot get ahead of the pack unless you are unique and different from the pack. And so it's really understanding the competitive landscape and finding where are those niches that that you can be unique enough to come outside of the box, so that people think of you when the time is right for them, but then you have to stay in the traditional boxes enough so that when they they are the time is right, and they don't know you, and they've never heard of you before, but that you're in front of them. And so it's kind of those two, those two pieces of marketing that I've always thought, you know, marketing and demand generation are everything, no matter how good you are at selling and overcoming objections and having processes and optimizing those processes and pulling the right levers if you don't get in front of the people, if you don't make the connection and you don't understand how to build the trust and credibility which comes from database conversations, and that's key and critical in real estate and finance and in automotive. Just, you know, was a little bit behind there. And so that's where I just, you know, really latched on. You know, I believe being outside of the box is critical to be the leader and the winner in anything. But you got to recognize the box is always moving. What worked yesterday is now right on top of your head, because everybody else. Watched you and it worked, and now they're doing it. So you've always got to keep your running shoes on and be navigating and understanding and not afraid to test and iterate. Just that culture of testing and iterating, again, basic entrepreneurial spirit. But that's one of the things that makes car business so so dynamic and so resilient. We figure it out. I

Paul Daly: 10:19

think there's like an element of the often overlooked element on the industry partner side. We've been bouncing this idea around a little bit more, and we kind of, like, I don't know, tested some messaging around it with ASOTU CON, and we're leaning in a little more. But it's this idea that, typically speaking, you know, dealership or dealer and industry partner relationships can be perceived as or like default to contentious, right? And there's this real core to our ethos that like this, collaboration is the most important thing for a thriving industry. Because, first of all, no two dealerships are alike, so no tech stack is the same, and no need is the same. No marketing need is the same. And in order to make find the fits the fastest, we need a deep level of collaboration. And I think for that, we need to lean on industry partners who are really committed to an idea of innovation, right? And that can be kind of like a become a vanilla word, because we use it sometimes. But the the principle behind it is need to be pushing the boundaries, and this is the point I want to ask you about, and combine that with a real orientation toward leadership. You know you've done things like you've run for Roswell city council, you obviously have this mindset to to lead and communicate and inspire people forward. What is your thought on how industry partners can do that from their position, knowing that they're not a dealer, right? And they're, you know, so there's always a starting point. But what are some thoughts around leadership in innovation coming from the industry partner

Jade Terreberry: 11:53

side? Yeah, well, I would first say I think in anything, be be valuable, be relevant and and be visible and be aware. You know, I think what, like I said a few minutes ago, what works today may not work tomorrow, but relationships are at the core of everything. I'll bring this to Cox. You know, our biggest differentiator, like we say, that, is our superpower. And we, you know, we have all of these great products and the best of the best tech stacks, we believe, but it is the strategic relationships and partnerships where we are are truly extensions of dealership staff, dealership leadership. And I am big believer in lead by example, but I also believe that leading means being able to tell the story, get the buy in, drive the culture. And it's one of the things that I see is the biggest challenge for a lot of our dealership groups today that are trying to figure out how they how they step into this transformed experience that consumers want. And it's one of the things that I love so much about the ASOTU conference and really the group of progressive mindset dealers that follow your organization so closely. But not only do they lead by example, but they tell the really compelling stories to all of the people that represent their brand, their image, that have any opportunity to interact with a consumer, any in any channel, and they all exude this in the same level of commitment and relationship. And so I think that like leadership separately, but when you said, like, vendors and dealers often have this rub, it's like it's it's always a fight to get more for less. Or, you know what is, how do I make those dollars go further? And those are really important conversations. But when you have somebody who is an extension of your organization that understands deeply your goals, your desired outcomes, the levers that you pull, your processes, where there are opportunities to optimize, and that it really only comes from, from a partnership and a relationship that is a two way street, I say again and again. Like relationships work because you make each other better, and that's both in business and personal, and it's why most relationships have a self life or a shelf life. And you know, and that that teeters, that doesn't mean that you're always both giving, but, you know, sometimes one side's the leader, sometimes the other side's the leader, they're kind of pulling and challenging each other to be better and be different. But that is leadership and partnership and a right hand in hand. And you know, if you have the right vendors and partners, that's what it should feel like. They challenge you, you challenge them. You keep each other on the cutting edge. You hold each other accountable, but you trust each other deeply because you have that that relationship, and you are strategically understanding and aligned on where you're going and where you want to go. But at the base of that, it's all because you're aligned on the why you're doing it.

Michael Cirillo: 15:05

That fundamentally requires, I think, way more communication than anyone's willing to admit. Right?

Jade Terreberry: 15:11

Tremendous amount. Yeah. I mean, no matter how much data you have or how good your products or technology might be if you do not trust each other, which comes from, like, you know, the basics of selling. Who do we go back to? You know, Zig Ziglar, or one of the, the Great augmentino. But people buy first because they like you, trust you, like your service, like your product, like your company, generally, in that order. And number one is like you. So like the biggest thing, like, make lots of friends. Man, love people. And that's one reason. Like I, I literally bought numerous of the shirts because, like, in, in all of like, like, I have a Fab Five that I trained my old real estate teams on, that I trained my old car dealership sales teams on. But what number three is love people and love the ones that are the harder relationships even more, because when you break through that big naysayer. And it's not about like just controlling the conversation or the normal part of the sales process, but it's when you when they really believe that you have their best interest at mind and at heart, and you are able to prove with data the why you are counseling them the way that you are, though, and that comes to negotiating a car deal, closing it in an F and I office. I was, you know, an F and i Director, spent many years and, you know, love that side of the business, the finance side of the lending automotive business as well. But it is all about that people connection that drives every bit of leadership and partnership and really making a relationship work, where you

Kyle Mountsier: 16:43

like to pivot, just go, Michael, you got it? Oh, I'm

Michael Cirillo: 16:48

just so curious. Because, like, I'm ready to walk over hot coals and, like, broken glass. I'm like, so pumped, and we're

Kyle Mountsier: 16:54

ready to watch you do it. I'm here for it. That's a whole YouTube channel. Cirillo walks on glass, you know, is

Michael Cirillo: 17:03

this in your DNA? How did you stumble upon this view of business and leadership and and all of that? I mean, were you raised this way? Is it? How? Where does this come from?

Jade Terreberry: 17:14

Yeah, I believe a lot of it is DNA, but a lot of it is just the love for people and the love for data and bringing those things together, and a lot of that can be taught. You know, not everybody has great business instincts where you can train them to be something in a role, but the basics of creating like within a dealership organization, a culture where people are doing everything they're doing for the right reasons, like I've said for a long time in sales, like sales is really it's getting people to do what you want them to do for their reasons, but you can't understand their reasons until you have investigated and investigated and deeply grasp what they are trying to accomplish and and I don't think you can really do that sincerely if you're not sincere, like it has to be born in units. Why Everybody shouldn't be in sales or shouldn't be in the car business. But you know, people who have

Kyle Mountsier: 18:15

I disagree with, I think everybody

Paul Daly: 18:16

should be in the car business.

Kyle Mountsier: 18:19

I knew Paul was going to feel that same way too. I think everyone should be in the

Jade Terreberry: 18:23

carpet, maybe not in the consumer facing part of the carpet that you don't have to interact I know customer or a client, very

Paul Daly: 18:34

many of those, for sure. I'm sorry we interrupted you because, but you were going

Jade Terreberry: 18:41

because it was a great topic, but, but, no, I just, I kind of leave, leave that one there. But I do think that the the DNA part is is big, but there's just a, you know, there's a self drive and a self passion that is also an innate to the car business. You know, you look at most folks that are are on the front edge and doing the really cool things in this business, and they've had a very similar path. You know, we all laugh like, oh, we all grew up in the car business. We did. Or, you know, they started in reconditioning, and they worked all the way up through and now they're at and now they're inheriting, you know, huge chunks of organizations that are growing and so, you know, I do think that part of leading is also recognizing when you have those people that have that DNA, and developing them and giving them the right opportunities to To decision make and spread their wings and and not. I don't ever like the term like fail forward. I don't think that's it. I think, you know, test and iterate. You can do it in a way, but you have to take risks. I mean risks. Taking risks is also a DNA thing that most people have or don't have, that is required if you're. Going to find those niches, and you're really going to be in the top 10 or top 20% of your space, whatever your space may be, whether it's automotive or not. And so don't be scared to fail or make mistakes. But you know, just don't make the same mistake twice, right?

Kyle Mountsier: 20:14

Well, I do want to pivot. I want to ask, because early, early on, you said, like, I hope we get into, you know, talking what the most innovative things that are happening right now, or what you're trying to discover and work on, what, what are the things that are like the most pivotal to you, or the things that you're you're driving toward the most right now?

Jade Terreberry: 20:32

Well, I think closing the blind spot for dealers on how they are decision making, on spend and time spent within the organization, for all of the people that they are paying and all of the overhead that they have. Obviously, I'm probably the biggest data dork in the room, but maybe not because you guys are kind of dorky too when it comes to data. But no, I just I think that dealerships have spent so many years making decisions on what they can see in a CRM, what they can see from a tangible, trackable lead, and now there is just like technology has totally opened up our ability as an industry, not only dealers, to decision make, but like for us as Cox automotive, we spend money to drive audiences in a totally different way today than we even did two or three years ago, because now technology allows us to watch that whole consumer journey and click path. What do they do in all different places of the funnel? How many times do we have to touch them depending on the age demographic or the psychographic, or where they live, or what stage of life they're in today, and how do we adjust that and change it with technology, when they move from one stage to another, from this hour to the next hour? You know, we talked about it on stage when we were together in Baltimore, like, you know, these updated audiences. That's refreshing, like every four to seven seconds, in most cases, on the back. And, you know, just it is no longer like an either or, or a cost per this or a cost per that. And I think that's my biggest mission right now across the whole industry is, you know, again, the way you said, there's often this animosity between a vendor and a dealer. And if you feel like that, you're probably working with the wrong vendors and partners, because we should all be opening our books being as transparent as we can be. I mean, the amount of flack and heat that I took when I fought back in, you know, 2016, 1718, and if you remember, we had some competitors back then that felt like ankle biters, 2015, 2016, and then they almost ate our lunch, and we had to totally break our site, totally break our measurement strategy and our go to market approach, change how we were partnering and consulting with dealers. But we were the first ones to go out there and put third party multi touch, attribution, tagging, tracking on our sites. So like when we added clairvoy to our sites, auto trader and Kelley Blue Book in 2018 battled with leadership and with the industry. And you know what I said? I said, if our baby is ugly, we want to be the first ones to know it, like we need to know to the core what's working and what's not, and that is the philosophy that we've taken. Is we have, you know, totally rebuilt all of our consumer platforms with a consumer centric focus, which sometimes is hard to explain to dealers. Took us a long time to really get buy in and understanding of our relevance algorithm that serves listing listing sort order on our sites. But when we drive the most consumer value, then that gives us the opportunity to drive the most dealer and OEM value. And so, you know, you've got to really, really think about how that flywheel works and and so I think blind spot change of thinking is the number one thing that I want every dealer to be thinking about. Technology exists that now gives you a better and really transparent way to hold your partners accountable, but to get past the days of cost per this and cost per that, because you're just throwing money down the tubes because your your decision making with like 10 to 15% of the view, when you can flip that on its head, and decision make with 80 to 90% of the data. And then when you have that data, what does it do? It gives you the ability to activate on those audiences based on where people are. So every dollar goes further because you're serving the right message to the right consumer at the right time with the right call to action and landing them back in the right spot to get to the next step without having to redo it.

Kyle Mountsier: 24:38

That's awesome, Jade, I don't think you're a passionate person at all.

Paul Daly: 24:43

No one not picking up any of that. Yeah, you

Kyle Mountsier: 24:45

have. You've definitely displayed passion and also drive to make so much better for the industry. Thank you so much for hanging out with us, sharing us a little bit of your passion and and your history in the industry. And. We can't wait to chat again. Thanks for joining us here on Auto

Jade Terreberry: 25:03

Club. Thank you all, and I am likewise grateful and thankful for the great job you all are doing for this industry. Much appreciated, and thanks for having me.

Paul Daly: 25:14

I don't think she has enough energy. No, no energy, zero. Pass more energy, more energy. As

Michael Cirillo: 25:20

I said, Here I booked a fire walk while we were talking. I'm doing this. No Zig Ziglar. I'm like, I'm in.

Paul Daly: 25:28

I mean, that is the that is a great example, though, of the level of passion that people have across the industry for all the different areas, some for data, some for people, some for both, right? They're not mutually exclusive. And I love the fact that she owns, like, I don't know, five to seven love people more than you love cars, T shirts,

Kyle Mountsier: 25:45

I know, and, and, and also just, you know, there's so many people that you find that it's like I tripped into the industry. This is one that's, oh no. I grew up watching my dad do the walk arounds, you know, and, and it's so in her blood that she tried to leave for 10 years to real estate, that she had to come back. Oh,

Michael Cirillo: 26:01

I wish the whole thing there. Like, I wanted to ask her, but I just couldn't interrupt the flow of energy. But I wanted to ask her, sincerely, like, so what was it like growing up in a home with a car sales person as a dad, you know? Like, because, like, I don't know what that story is like. I don't

Kyle Mountsier: 26:20

know. Ask my kid about eight years

Paul Daly: 26:24

different. They get good, weird. You know, I have to say my my youngest daughter, Elise, is like, you guys know, a lot of people in this community have met her. She's usually working the Swag Shop. I truly feel like she's the kind of person that could be top sales person in the country in

Kyle Mountsier: 26:40

something she's going to for sure, for sure, for her love people more than you love car shirts next year. Oh, yeah, exactly to Jade,

Paul Daly: 26:51

right? She got, that's why Jade has so many, yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 26:55

got a hold of her at least was screaming, that's amazing. Well, hey, listen, we had a lot of fun. We got to hear a ton of passion, and we thank you for listening hanging out with us here on Auto Collabs on behalf of Paul, Michael and myself, we'll see you next

Unknown: 27:10

time. Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news and automotive retail media and pop culture, you can get it now@asotu.com that's asotu.com if you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time. Welcome to Auto Collabs. You.