What You Missed at ASOTU CON ’25: Danny Zaslavsky on Main Stage

In today’s fast-paced market, innovation isn’t a side project, it’s a survival strategy. But too often, “innovation” gets thrown around like a buzzword instead of being used as a true business advantage.

At ASOTU CON 2025, Danny Zaslavsky, President of VINCUE, hit the main stage to cut through the noise and break down the real mechanics of innovation in retail automotive.

This session explores the real-world mechanics of iterative innovation: How top operators test, refine, and scale what works without overwhelming their teams or disrupting the customer experience.

The most transformative ideas come from the front line. Innovation starts with people, moves through ideas and processes, and is only then amplified by technology, not the other way around.

People > Ideas > Process > Technology = Innovation

Too often, we treat tech like it will fix a broken process. But as Danny pointed out: “Technology scales the process, it doesn’t create it.” When dealers mistake tools for strategy, they stop being the driver and start riding shotgun in their own business.

True innovation is driven by leaders who are visionary, relentless, results-driven, and most importantly, humble. Humble enough to embrace the constant evolution and adaptation this industry demands. That mindset is how you stay ahead of the curve and it’s exactly how these dealers are doing it.

To bring the Innovation Feedback Loop to life, Danny welcomed a panel of high-performing, forward-thinking dealers:

• Brian Benstock, Owner/Operator of Paragon Honda, Paragon Acura, and White Plains Honda, the top Honda and Acura stores in the world. Brian has built a legacy on seeing what’s next and acting before the industry catches up.
• Patrick Abad, GM at Beaver Toyota of Cumming, who has reengineered core processes like appraisals and merchandising to drive profit and turn, all while keeping his team focused and his culture strong.
• Dinos Constantine, COO at Holler Classic Automotive, who’s mastered the art of treating his group like an enterprise, aligning people, process, and performance across multiple rooftops.

What dealers took away from this session wasn’t just insight, it was a masterclass in iterative innovation. The panel shared how top operators build innovation into their culture, not just their tech stack, and how they stay grounded in purpose even while chasing big ideas.

The discussion emphasized the importance of using screens to drive behavior rather than distract from it, designing processes for both efficiency and profitability, and being bold when testing new ideas, while staying disciplined when it’s time to scale.

While the stages of the Innovation Feedback Loop are easy to understand, they can be hard and sometimes scary to fully embrace.

This session showed how the most innovative automotive leaders have built their careers by staying on the front side of change. Their insights help all dealers learn to trust the process, lean into change, and turn any obstacle, or opportunity, into a new win.

This session wasn’t just inspiring, it was a roadmap. For dealers who want to stop reacting and start leading, this was a playbook for transforming pressure into progress.