Wake up, Buy Here, Pay Here people. It's a beautiful day. Go grab yourself another cup of joe and say hello to Jim and Michelle Rhodes on the Buy Here, Pay Here morning show. Take it away, you two. Good morning from Colorado. We are in Denver and stopping for the night. Journeying our way back to Utah after a week-long family visit. Absolutely. And enjoyed our time in Oklahoma. Always successful there. Got to see some family members and cousins and relatives and longtime family friends. Yeah. And Michelle was super patient about all the family stuff. It was really fun. I think we told you that Jim's mom just celebrated 40 years, 40 years at the same law firm. She's been working there. working there and it was really amazing to see the tribute of people that came through and the place that they rented was just packed. Yeah. And that was mostly the reason for the journey. So now we're on our way back one hotel night and be back in our own beds tonight. So looking forward to getting settled back in there. Yeah. Yeah. There's no, there's no close airport. So we're like, let's drive. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's a long drive. We have, you've got your V8 meeting tomorrow for group two. That's group four. Which is for mid-sized dealers. And then we have the webinar coming up on Thursday. 7.30 p.m. Eastern. Go about 90 minutes and it's on. You know, keeping your employees sticky, keeping them motivated. You know, we hear sometimes people are having a hard time finding the right people or being able to hold on to people. And what is the recipe for really being able to do like what Anna Marie just celebrated, 40 years. That's a different, that's a different. totally different different paradigm but um but yeah so I mean how do you keep we've we've got a dealer that's going to be joining us he and his business manager and they like are having they have people that have been there for a decade or more so yeah we're really excited to Um, and, uh, Rudy asks, is there a group for newbies? Yes, there is. That's our group three currently. And we do have a space in that one. Uh, we have meetings next week with both group three and group two. I think I have one seat left in group two, which is the dealers that are 500 accounts and above. So yeah, Rudy, happy to talk to you. You can reach out to me. I think my email is a little over there. We'll share it at the end, but just do Jim at white hat way.com and you'll find me. And, uh, We'll get together and talk about it, but yeah, we're happy to have you over there. Okay, so today's topic is just kind of like the things we talk about when we're on a long drive, and I was just taking notes as we were kind of going through, and based on things that we're seeing happen in Facebook and and questions we're getting from our V8 dealers or from our clients. And these are just some of the things that we were writing down. It's like, these are really the questions that we felt pretty strongly that it's a good idea to ask them and have a conversation about the questions. And so we, just to let you know, we will be, a lot of these topics will be either a podcast or the roundup or a webinar or something. And we're putting together our, our agenda. Um, the answers, you know, the big thing for me here is that the answers won't really come from us while we have experience and, uh, probably have even some cases, strong opinions about these things. We think it's more valuable for you to hear from other dealers. And so we, uh, you know, we're just going to go out there and, and, uh, bring dealers together for these panels. And today, today was really just about going through the questions that are top of mind for us. Of course, there are others, but these are just top of mind based on Dialogue that we're currently having right and what we see out there and we've kind of settled in for today We're going to talk mostly about sales and there a couple other Topics kind of in here, but and just we wanted to go through the questions and also go through why? Why what are the things that the events the? Conversations whatever that that we've been having that kind of led us to this would be a really great topic so the first one is in top management hires and what kind of mindsets and skills best serve the company's objective? We may have a chance to make that a topic on Friday. I expect that to be our topic of Friday of this week. Of the podcast. Yeah. So we'll just be posing that question. We have a dealer that we hope can join us on Friday to talk about this very thing because they're in the middle of a hiring decision. And it just kind of, It's among the things that we see that is something that we feel like dealers need to hear from other dealers on this, especially obviously seasoned dealers who have been there and made choices around you know, who to hire. And when you really think about the larger objective for a dealer. So when I say top management, I'm talking about general manager, you know, COO, people who would be, you know, driving a lot of the day to day. And so if they have responsibilities over more than one department. Yeah. Then that we really think about what is the mindset that we'd be looking for from those people? What skills would really serve the larger company initiatives, objectives, business approach? So these are the things that we want to talk about. Some of like what kind of a background? too would you would you be looking for for some of these different key positions yeah this came up and how important is their background to them we've had people in some of our dialogue in the last week or so we've had people you know they're reaching out to us about various things especially we have one dealer who's looking to fill a position and we kind of socialize it out there you know on facebook and what have you and some of the people we're hearing from are suggesting that you know you can hire a good finance manager and so obviously this is among the questions that we want to ask Would buy-here-pay-your-dealers, seasoned buy-here-pay-your-dealers, would they be open to hiring a finance manager from a new car or retail background who'd never... run a buy here, pay here store. So these are among the questions that, you know, we're going to bring forward. Again, we have our own experience based on what we've seen and observed. And, you know, in my own business, we've seen plenty. But it's like, I just want to hear from other dealers. Like, what do they think when it comes to making those kind of decisions? So that will be on Friday is what we're thinking. The next question is, should outsourcing be considered in any strategy for growth or scale? Right. And this has been a big topic on, um, a lot of social media. Um, and one that's just like, it's, it's been, um, it's yeah. Lots and lots of opinions and, and some that are very, this are very that. And so it's a question to be asked. Cause I, I do know for us that, um, that, uh, when I say us, I mean, Jim, because I married into buy here, pay here, but the, that, that there has been a shift in, in what, what you think about some of those things. Yeah. Yeah. Outsourcing in particular is I think you gotta be careful. Like there's, there's outsourcing, which as you and I talked about, there's, there's outsourcing, which could be, It could be onshore or offshore. Right. And then there can be. But really, we're just talking about when it comes to growing and scaling a business. So we want to talk about that element of how can outsourcing be part of a strategy? And we want to really hear from dealers who have done both. They have done, you know, insource and outsource in various departments and hear from them with their own experience. We've got dealers doing that. both. We've got dealers doing, you know, different departments. So obviously BDC is one of the hot button topics right now. We've heard a lot about collections, outsourcing collections. There's a lot of dealers that don't want to have to have that within, within their, uh, their location. So yeah. And we live in a time when a sharing economy is part of how we're evolving. And so it's just an interesting time for buy here, pay your dealers to examine that. So we want to talk to some dealers who have done both. We want to talk to some that have outsourced and they manage the team and outsourced through a third party that manages the teams. And so we just want to ask questions of dealers and let's dig into those. The next one is, can private money be part of my solution for growth? And that's been a pretty big topic in V8 and along with our clients recently. And so we did kind of touch on it the other day in the podcast and had a few people that just like, thank you. This was a, this was a, this is a hot topic. Yeah. We actually chose to have a bonus meeting. One of our VA groups on this subject, because it is just such a, you know, kind of a front and center conversation for some of them. It's a priority. And so we, we definitely want to flesh that out. We, we, we have experience in that area now and can help with cash flow. But I think what we really want to do is- Well, the next one is now, and this leads into it, is now the time to prioritize debt reduction. Right. And yeah, that's that's a big one. Yeah. How do you do that? I mean, obviously, if you can be disciplined within your current line of credit or your own funding structure, can you can you reduce debt with your own cash flows? So, yeah, we just that's part of it. You're right. Private money would tie into that as as one way to get there. But these are just things that we see is we just want to ask questions of dealers and see what they say. Next one, how much of our day-to-day frustrations are self-imposed? And this is something that we've tackled before. And it's really, it's kind of time to bring it back because it was when we first started the podcast too. And it just says it's been a thread through a lot of different things as we look at the you know, we talk to dealers every day that are, that are wanting to go to the next phase. And sometimes that's phasing out of the business. Sometimes that's, you know, phasing into a new part of the business. And, and so, you know, those, it's usually frustrations that it's like, I, someone's got to, something's got to give. And especially with the wanting to phase out, it's like, it's there, you know, we've, we've heard just some frustrated dealers out there. And so We were kind of thinking about what it's time to kind of talk about again, how we can alleviate our own frustrations and how much are self-imposed. And that's, you know, I noticed that in my own in my own world when I'm starting to feel frustrated and I'm writing things down. I'm like, OK, that's me. That's not that's not an outside thing. So again, it's a question for dealers for today. I would say it's mostly in the context of the sales department. If we think about, you know, and of course, obviously in sales at the front end of our operation and it and the decisions and the success we have in sales and closing and underwriting. are going to affect the rest of our business so that's why I really wanted to focus first on sales and I asked the question I think if you if you use this question as the backdrop for these other questions that are coming up on the sales side then it's like for us obviously we work in operations a lot we see things we hear the questions and frustrations coming from dealers and and everybody can ask themselves those these questions right how much of of what they're experiencing is you know there's there's things that we can control there's things that we can't control there's things that are internal things are external right and so we we so this is about just examining those things and figure out which of the things are fixable and which of the which of these frustrations that we deal with in daily operations um you know are kind of self-imposed based on our own processes or whatever or choices right Okay, so the next one is how much effort should we be putting into selling a buyer with poor credit? And this is something that I've had to ask Jim a lot of questions because I was like, I don't think I understand. I don't think I understand what it is that you're asking. And so, you know, it's... When we when we dove into it on the drive yesterday, it's it's more, you know, they land on the lot and that we are we're selling and selling and selling and selling and selling them to get them to buy. And so how much should we be selling? But once someone arrives on the lot, that's a poor credit customer. And part of that question is, what should we be selling to? But it's like, how much should we be putting into selling? Yeah. And as a former dealer, I've always been fascinated by this element of our business. And especially, you know, as you travel and you see. dealers in other areas of the country, you see dealers in larger markets. We see more of this in larger markets where people are competing for a customer who is in the marketplace. And so I think in smaller markets, this is less true or less of a challenge, but I'm just fascinated by the whole thing. And I look forward to asking a panel of dealers how they feel about this, because how much effort should we be putting in? And again, I have my own ideas here, but I don't want to slant the question. I don't want to impact the answers of the dealer. So I would say, we can wait and see what they have to say. But I just want to know, how far should we go in trying to sell this customer, right? Yep. This is a big one. Are car dogs a smart hire for buy here, pay here, lease here, pay here? We'll need to explain that to some of our listeners. Yeah. So those of you who are not, we hear the phrase frequently, well, he's an old car dog. We're talking to clients or whatever about they're looking to add to their sales team. And it's like, he's an old car dog. Or she. Or she's an old car dog. And so you want to explain what that is? Yeah, I mean, at least in the context I've always known in the time around the car business. Keep in mind, I worked a short time in the new car side of the world before I got into buyer-payer years ago. But I would say that typically the context is somebody who's been around the car a lot, a long time, is kind of a seasoned person. you know, salesperson, they're typically more old school approach, but they've been effective. Like they've traditionally sold, you know, consistently a fair number of cars, like, but they're just, they're car people, they're car salespeople. And they're, and you, some people would say, they use the phrase dogs because they like chase cars on the lot. That's kind of a part of the mentality. One of the things that in this, in, in the context of this conversation that we've had with, um, with some of our different colleagues and clients is the idea that, um, Oh, criminy. I haven't had enough to eat yet this morning. I just totally lost it. It's all right. If it comes back, I'll let you all know. Yeah, I would say that the thing that happens with this part of it is obviously in our line of work, it's different. And I find it fascinating. I talk to people who tell me, you know, it's the same, Jim. It's sales is sales and sales in the in the buy here, pay here environment. So this is kind of a, this is kind of the question that I could also ask at the same time is, is sales in buy here, pay here the same as it is in the other? What I, what I was thinking about is that when we hear about old car dogs, it's one of the things that goes along with some of these conversations is they don't do computers. Um, and they, you know, that, that's part of that is like, well, they've been in the business a long time, you know, I'm not going to be able to teach them a new trick, old dogs, new tricks, remember? Um, and so that that's been one of the, um, but they're really good. They're, they're old car dogs. They really know how to sell. So is it that important that they be able to navigate a lot of the new softwares and the DMSs and everything? You might have somebody who's good at the software, but they can't sell their way out of a paper bag. So, you know, it's kind of the expression that you hear sometimes like, you know, so if you can't, if you can't sell like there, so that's part of what we'll try to flesh out is, is where did the car dogs fit in our strategy to, in terms of building our buyer-payer business and creating more sales. So a lot of these questions that are coming up are kind of related to the same thing. Next one is, do we truly have a high percentage of low quality, poorly qualified sales leads? And that's, you know, we hear that all the time. It's like, oh, well, we're not selling as much because we've got bad leads. Yeah. Based on what? Like what metrics are used and how would we be measuring that? We hear this from dealers. We hear this from you know, some contractors and people in the field and obviously marketing people who are getting paid to produce leads. And we, you know, people measure quality of leads in different ways. And so I think the main question here is, do we hear it? Is it true? Do we really truly have a problem with quality leads? So is the problem the leads or is it sales process? Is it the actual sales training? I mean, these are all obviously kind of tied to the same question. But we want to bring some experts and bring some dealers who can help answer that question. And I think what ties into that or threads into it a little bit, too, is people say, well, our customer here is different or whatever. It's just so let's have a conversation. We're going to have a conversation about that. And on VA, we're tracking very little about this. So we're not digging too deep. And we can't with VA. We're trying to keep it simple. But it is a question I think we see in our work. And we want to bring others to the conversation to say, what is, what is reasonable percentage that we should be expecting if we're well-trained and, you know, obviously there's lots of threads of this. The marketing has got to be effective to reach the right customer and then to convert the right customer, at least into a lead inquiry. And then obviously to go to another first. So we're going to, we're going to break that down and figure out what is, what is truly a percentage of bad leads. Yeah. Um, this next one is it's, uh, yeah. What percentage of my sales are coming from leads that are more than seven days since they were created or more than 30 days. And we've just been seeing some really interesting things, um, recently that we just, we wanted to bring to the conversation and, um, And we see frequently with a lot of new dealers, clients, that if it's passed a lot of times, like three days, there's no follow through on the leads. And sometimes... that leads into it's a poor quality lead or it's a whatever kind of lead. And so they're very related. And what we've been watching and what we've been starting to really measure is it's going to kind of get to the crux of some of that, of some of the things that we've been looking at. We'd like to be able to talk to dealers about that as well and see what their experience has been. Yeah, and I can just tell you that as a consultant advisor, if we showed up and we were starting to be able to break down the process the sales department and the effectiveness of the sales team, et cetera. This would be among the questions that we'd be asking or wanting to analyze. And so this is why we ask dealers to maybe let's ask ourselves, you know, is this something that matters? And I would say it's a good way to really look at the, if you want to talk about quality leads, So again, this kind of ties back into the same thing. Are leads quality? Are they just getting dropped? You know, because customer didn't respond, whatever. Like we would want to find that out. We would recommend dealers ask them. And it kind of ties also into the old dogs thing. Because a lot of the times when we talk about the old dogs, they're not really good at follow through. But when someone lands on the lot, they're going to leave with a car kind of thing. So, yeah. All right. So the next one is, are we prioritizing celebrating the right things company wide? And it's also part of that is not just celebrating, but are we are we rewarding in a way to the right things company wide? And, you know, where where are we experiencing within our organization the high fives like that was awesome. You did a great job. Those are you know, this this is something that we're really we're happy about. We're excited about what are the things that we are excited about and celebrating. and high-fiving and all of that. Yeah. And I would say, you know, I put prioritizing because when we say celebrating, it's like dealers. There are a lot of ways we could have gotten to this question. Like it's where do we, where do we currently place value in terms of bonuses, incentives, like where, you know, if I asked dealers, You know, what is your average salesperson paid? What is your average collector paid? Maybe look at that and ask yourself that question and then just say, OK, so what does that say about how I prioritize, you know, my different departments and what it is that I'm most focused on producing? And ask yourself how that affects, you know, other elements of your business. So these a lot of these things obviously tie together, but they're all meant to really drive toward what? what is going to improve my effectiveness? And really when we think past all these day-to-day questions that we ask the dealer, you know, what is the objective? Like if I was able to sit with a dealer and what's our three-year objective or 10-year objective. And, and now do these things that we're asking these questions, how do they serve that objective? And so this is part of why we want to, you know, dig into these elements because it helps us to know what, you know, where are we currently prioritizing and, and are we, is it worth relooking at some of these things to place incentives in other areas? And so again, we're kind of focused for today, mostly on sales. And, and so we can obviously dig into others going forward. So to let you know, we have next month is the next dealer roundup. And what we were doing this year is every other month, we're doing a three session, typically a three session session, dealer round table or like we'll put together a panel of dealers to talk about certain subjects. So just put this on your calendar, Thursday, April 18th. And we're going to start it an hour later than we did last time. I think that we decided we didn't want to be up at that early. So it will be starting at 10 a.m. Eastern. So it'll be eight hour time. And here are the three subjects. And so we talked about some of these already. First is, can you teach an old dog new tricks? So old car dogs and diving into that conversation about, how, um, how we're staffing ourselves. A lot of, a lot of layers on this question. So yeah, we can, we can, we could probably spend most of that session, you know, on, on that one question, but yeah, that's the other one. And then the next one, the next one sourcing BDC. So this has obviously been a buzz topic lately. Uh, we're just going to bring experts and, um, and we're going to bring some data of our own and talk around the data and kind of share what we're seeing, you know, with some of our clients and, uh, And let dealers just answer for themselves. Like, what are they seeing? And I really want to hear from dealers who have done both, right? Because I think if you've never done it, then probably you're not able to speak as thoroughly to the subject. So we want to hear from people who have done both. And we know, too, from our experience, there were some things that it just took a little bit of time, a little bit of tweaking kind of stuff. And then the last topic that we're going to be talking about is private money, the answer for me. And this is this is a big one right now. We're still our money is tight still. And we've had a lot of people that have been asking questions on social or asking questions during. our client meetings or V8 meetings about private money. Sure. And, and is it for you? And, you know, a little bit about what is it that, what, what is the difference? Yeah. What, what kind of things need to be prepared for that kind of stuff? Yeah. It's mostly coming up right now in the context of, well about three things if I'm new and I don't yet qualify for traditional you know or or kind of institutional type of money then you know what would be my options for capitalizing and and obviously There are some early stage sources that are very pricey. And then the other pieces would be private money related to debt reduction. And as just as an alternative to something a little more affordable in the way of financing. So this will be a big subject. It'll continue to be a subject. And we're making it one of our panel discussions. Absolutely. So again, put it on your calendar, April 18th at 10 a.m. Eastern. And we're going to have the three sessions. So it's going to run. Usually the sessions are about 50 minutes. So just three hours. And don't forget, just like with the webinar that we're doing on Thursday, whenever you have a ticket for one of these events, that includes the post-event recordings. And so you will have access to those as soon as they are released. Because we know that things happen and you're maybe not going to be able to move your schedule around to be able to listen to all the sessions or to be there in the evening or whatever. So when you have a ticket... that it does include the post recordings so that you're not gonna be missing anything. And so again, we have your V8 meeting tomorrow with the group four. And then Wednesday, we have our Rick Reeves tribute. So we'll be doing that for the podcast. And on Friday or Thursday, we've got a busy week, don't we? On Thursday, we have the webinar about keeping your talent sticky. How do we keep them motivated and engaged in our business? And then Friday, we're going to be talking about management level hires. Absolutely. And then we've got the dealer roundup coming up in April 18th. I think that we should. I want to sleep in my own bed. It's been too long. I don't know about you guys, but there is just... pillows should we have a conversation about hotel pillow now okay all right well everybody hey thank you so much for joining us today we really really appreciate you um being a part of you know making us a part of of your of your morning and and uh or your week so we just yeah I just want to just big thank you for that so all right let's uh do this all right guys great day we'll talk to you
