In today’s episode we have a very special guest Ryan Leschel, Digital Content Marketer at the JM&A Group a division of JM Family Enterprises a $17.1 Billion diversified automotive company, ranked # 20 on Fortune’s largest privately held companies list, as well as #26 on Fortune’s Best Places to Work lists. He shared with me what the content marketing team has focused on during C19 and beyond to strategically and creatively better serve their customers (dealership owners, c-level management, F&I and sales management), to make their dealership partners improve the buying experience during these unprecedented time in the automotive industry. Now, I know Ryan because I had the pleasure to work with him and I quickly realized he had a knack for writing pillar content and understanding the relationship to demand generation strategy. I also got to know him on a personal level, and know he’s had an incredible experience, serving our country in his early 20’s across the globe with the Marine Corps. His content marketing background includes being a successful intern with ESPN (Radio Broadcast team), producing interesting content based sports shows and events, managing over 40 demanding clients and their content/SEO strategy at a niche boutique agency in South Florida and now he’s working with the 8,000-pound gorilla in the automotive Finance & Insurance niche space, with JM&A Group, where he and his colleagues in the marketing team are developing all the demand gen and educational thought leadership content to drive sales growth in the billions for their partner dealerships across the U.S. in the process. We have a very real and candid conversation around his view of Content Marketing targeted to the changing demographics of the Millennial and Gen Z automotive consumers. Also we explore the unique paths his team took during C19 to differentiate themselves from other folks within an ever-increasingly competitive and noisy automotive financial services market. He also dives into how his time spent around the globe as a Marine Corp military man and his journey has shaped his work mindset, leadership style and so much more both at work and in his personal life. He gives us some of his book recommendations to get 1% better and he shares the advice he would give a younger Ryan if he could go back to the future.