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. Hey, good morning, everybody. Is it time to do another morning show? It is. It's like we've been on these microphones, you know, every day for the last couple of days. Yeah, we had our webinar last night. Our webinar last night. Really great stuff, by the way. Great conversation. Yeah, yeah. You'll be able to find it on bhphinstitute.com sometime next week. Right. And again, the conversation was about culture and, you know, it's a subject that is, it's very squiggly line because it's really an intangible. It's not something you can, you know, run a report and say, oh, we've got good culture typically here. So it was, like I said, good conversation. Really appreciated those that joined us. Good takeaways. A couple of quick updates. no firm um items for the morning show for next week I have wednesday pretty well figured out monday we haven't decided I will tell you we have um v8 groups next week we have group two on tuesday night which is the larger dealers of 500 accounts plus I have one seat available in that group and then we have uh the small dealers group that they kind of would call it the newcomers group They meet on Thursday night. There's still time to get in those meetings if you have an interest in joining a V8 dealer group. Yeah, yeah. That's it. That's it? That's it. I would just remind everybody we have coming up in April the NEO User Summit, the 23rd. in Vegas. And it runs the whole day of the start of the Buy Here, Pay Here United Summit. And so the opening activities are that evening. And so Neo is going to be doing their user summit all day long on that monday yeah tuesday it's tuesday right yeah um but we will be there because uh we we uh have a lot of clients that use it and um it's good you know yeah so I'd just like to understand it yeah And see the people, meet the people. There's a lot of people that we work with over there. So yeah, I'd be happy to do that. And got to go back and see the sphere in Vegas. I know it's like live. And so we've been like, what should we go do in the sphere? Just do a tour? Should we see something? I don't know. Any of you who have been there that let us know what your experience was like. And I've heard you don't want to get a high seat because it's just, especially if you have problems with heights. Because it's, I mean, it's supposed to be like pretty steep seating all in there. But everywhere you look, if you get dizzy easy, I would imagine that you almost want to tether yourself to a chair. Yeah. So you don't fall all the way. That would be bad. Wouldn't it? Yeah, it would. All righty. Shall we bring in our guest? We have a guest today, Blake Brown, dealer from Virginia. Welcome, Blake. Good morning, Blake. Thanks for having me. Yeah, of course. We had an interesting dialogue, I guess you'd say, on social media some days ago around this matter of you looking to replace a position in top management. Mm-hmm. And I tell you what really prompted me to bring this conversation in the morning show. And some of the people that were reaching out to me, they were offering, you know, when we posted that where people sending me like resumes right away. And a lot of them were finance people. You know, they weren't buy here, pay here people. They were finance. And I find that this comes up a lot where people kind of have the impression that that you know it's management like it's just management like it's the same it's the same or sales it's just sales it's even the buyer payer businesses so this is part of what I look forward to talking to you about today we can start out let's get a little bit of your background first kind of share with our listeners you know how long your company's been there how long you've been involved in all that fun stuff sure so airport auto sales and service has been uh open for 27 years my dad started it I got involved about 12 years ago spent several years learning the business figuring out what kind of role I wanted to have in it and realized that it was a passion for me and that I loved it and so I decided to buy my dad out he retired four years ago So my role since coming on board pretty much has been to run the entire operation. So I consider myself the GM. I will never step out. I say never, but I will never step out completely. So what I'm looking for at this point is someone to help me to run it. I'm at a point in my life, I'm 36 years old. I would like to start a family soon. And right now, just the idea, which all buy here, pay here owners, dealer principals will attest to this, the idea of being out for a C-section in five weeks or six weeks is just like, oh, my God, the whole place is going to catch on fire and burn to the ground. That's my biggest fear, too, over here is a C-section. Like, I'm always worried about that. Yeah. Well, and it is, it's, it's, it's a, it's adding a different paradigm to what you're doing for your career. And so, yes, it's a, it's a good time. Yeah. And this is fascinating too, because, you know, uh, you may or may not know Michelle and I, um, digging quite a bit on this idea of what has kind of been dubbed as enterprise value and that's really around creating a business that can function well without us being there right and so this is kind of part of what you're in that place where you've invested a lot you've built a good sized business and now it's a matter of putting somebody and the other thing that's happening with us is that we've kind of with our own business, we've kind of shifted our way of thinking and away from how do you do the next step in, in shifting our mind to who do you put in place, who will activate those things, right. Who will take those actions. So it's kind of the, the who versus how piece. And so I think that's what we're talking about here is finding the right people to plug in. This is a really important, this is you, you're looking for somebody who will oversee all departments. Correct. So that means, you know, this, this means we can't be just sales savvy. We can't be just collections savvy, right? We need to be able to, and so it's strong on management, but they really need to have some buy here, pay here experience, right? I feel that they do. Yes. I've talked to people who want to transition from another industry to mine who think that it is just management and it's just, I just need to learn the details. I don't think that that would work. And I may be speaking for myself and not by Here Pay Here in general, but I think that you have to have buy here, pay here experience in order to successfully run an operation. I don't think you can come from another industry or even one singular department. If you've only ever been in collections or you've only ever been in sales, I don't think you can transition very easily, at least not without several years of training. Maybe if someone were to come on board that had only been within one or two departments, I would think that we'd need to work alongside one another for a year, at least. And then, you know, let me let me step out for a week, you know, let me be unavailable, you know, but for a week and see how it goes. And then, you know, progress from there. Yeah. We have a dealer that we're familiar with who has a sizable operation, thousands of accounts, and is bringing in a general manager who's not from the industry. But just to your point, they're really shadowing. They said they're going to shadow. I think they're about six months into a two-year shadowing sort of process. If you had that scenario and you had somebody who brings the right certainly customer-centric sort of philosophy. In the end, we're in the customer business, right? And so people in customer business, so if they could do that part well, they could learn the rest. It's just better for you if somebody were able to show up and be up to speed and hit the ground running, right? Right, right. I mean, ideally, I would find someone that has more experience than I do, you know, someone I find that I'm really strong on the sales and the collections side and the back end, right, the finances of running the company, not so strong in service. And so if I could find someone that has some buy here, pay here experience specifically in running a service department, that's the person I would love to, you know, bring on board, have them shadow me, you You teach me some things. Let me teach you some things. And, you know, hopefully we'll shake out at the end of it with someone who can be me in my absence because that's what I really need. Great. So let's break down for just a minute because you touched on some pieces. And I think it's important for those of us who kind of been in this and I've been a dealer myself and have been a general manager over seeing an entire operation with multiple locations. So I feel that pain. I feel like I know what you'd be looking for. But for anybody who might be listening, that is. maybe coming from outside buy here, pay here. Let's think about what the departments are. You have inventory and buying, then you have the sales element and not to mention just deal structure and pricing and the sales. And recon. And then you step into recon, right? The actual recon preparation of the vehicle. Now you have your sales department, then there's an underwriting process in there. Now you move into collections and you touched on service. That's not even talk about titling and all the administrative stuff, right? You've obviously got, everybody's got an HR element to what they do. I'm just trying to touch on all the different kind of elements of departments in a buy here, pay here business. It's not like we have a shoe store and we buy shoes for $5 and sell them for 10, $10 shoes, bad example. But, uh, but anyway, I, uh, I would not buy a $10 pair of shoes. Yeah, I would. I just expect more the next day. Well, they're throwaway. It's their flip-flops. Yeah, no, you get the idea. It's a very complex business. It's got a lot of complexities. It's got a lot of moving parts. And we always talk about just trying to keep all the balls in the air that is a buy-here-pay-here. uh, department or business. Uh, that's why I think it's, you know, we want to talk about this and make sure if you're going to hire somebody to really run the day to day, you have to have somebody who can kind of stay big picture and not, you know, burrow too deep in any one department. And the key to any successful operation is that you have managers in each department. I mean, I could not be recruiting for someone to come in and help me with the big picture part unless I had a great sales director and a great finance director and a great service director. It just wouldn't be doable. Gotcha. So you want to share with me a little bit about kind of your current initiatives and kind of any challenges that you're facing, just whatever you can share. Sure. So we, we are about 6 million in accounts receivables and I have two locations. So the biggest struggle I'd say that we have right now is service. Our sales are strong. We've got a phenomenal sales director who, who also oversees underwriting, and she's been with us for seven years, so she does a fantastic job. Our finance department is, and that's collections for us, we call them dedicated loan counselors. They're each highly experienced, incredibly empathetic, you know, deliver the customer service experience that I desire for my customers. But service is just an ongoing struggle, as I think it is for all of us. So describe what are the challenges that you're experiencing in service life? We divide service into post-sale and pre-sale. So your pre-sale is obviously your recon process. And if you've got a good process down, then your turn time is going to be 14 days or less. At least that's our target. That side is doing pretty well. We've got a good process down. But post-sale is an ongoing struggle for buy here, pay here because you have... what we call B-backs. The customers just bought the car and all of a sudden there's some lights on the dash or it had been sitting on the lot for too long and so the battery wore down the alternator and now we're replacing an alternator and all of that. So one of the ways that we've combated what becomes a voluntary return situation, you know, or the customer drops the car off and we don't know it's there, we're not getting it serviced quickly enough. I've just invested in a snatch truck. So, and they're really difficult to come by right now. I sat on hold for four months with a deposit until one could be manufactured. I tried going the used route and they're worth the same when you've put 100,000 miles on them as they are what you can buy on brand new. It's crazy. So I bought a brand new stash truck and that has put us in a position, thankfully, through tax time that if I had a be back scenario, customer just bought the car and they've got a service issue rather than wait for a third party tow truck to bring the vehicle to me And then did we catch it? Did we get the key? Did we get it in the shop? We're just sending our own tow truck out to get the car and get it started. You know, the repair process started as quickly as possible. And then we'll even deliver the car back to the customer, which has ironically gotten me some five-star reviews, even though we had, you know, mechanical issues. Yeah. I mean, you went the extra mile, pun intended. Look at you. You're all awake this morning. Yeah. I barely have had just the right amount of coffee. Yeah. So, yeah, I think I get it. And you're right. People are struggling with service and recon. I mean, just trying to get cars through recon. We're obviously having to buy cars that, to stay in our budget or our financial strategy, we're having to buy a little older car, maybe more miles than we used to, and recon's taking longer. And then I'm curious to know, like, what your split is. You said you have some of your shop dedicated to post-sale and some pre, like, is it 50-50 or what's the split there? Uh, no, it's more, I'd say 30, 70, 30 is pre-sale and 70 is post-sale. Gotcha. So are part of the challenges with your recon and, and I apologize if, if you covered this is like, uh, having the staff to cover it and get it moved or, you know, just how long like lifts, what, uh, besides the getting it on site so you can get it started. Is there other stuff? Right. Right. well I've got the staff and I've got the space um I've got the lifts and the equipment and all that it's it's the management of that process right right so having a service director and advisor ideally in place that are going to get on the phone with the customer as soon as they told their dedicated loan counselor that there was a problem because that's the only person hearing about it typically right is the hey I need your payment well I'm not paying because I my car's broken down right so Getting someone on the service side, in front of the customer, on the phone with the customer, then coordinating the vehicle coming in, making sure that it gets repaired, billing it appropriately. In our case, we finance repairs for my customers. So making sure that that's set up quickly, because if you don't jump on it fast, then within three days, they're putting a down payment on another car somewhere else. Yeah. I think that happens on the moon at this point. They're always telling our clients because they said our customers are different. It's like, no, they're not. No, they're not. It's the same. It's definitely one of the things we see. You'll get to know me and realize I'm a smart aleck all day long. Um, so let's talk a little more about this position, the position itself. Like I know when you and I first talked, you talked about a COO. I said, you know, we, whether you call it a GM or COO, I think you're, you're currently the dealer principal and acting as what I might consider as the CEO, but it's the title is less important than the role that you play in the job description and kind of the So you want to talk about the position itself, whatever title we choose for it, what do you want this person to be able to fulfill in your company? I see the best title as being COO because I essentially want them to be able to ensure each department is running as it should. So I've got processes in place. It's just ensuring that the folks in the organization are adhering to the process that's in place, right? And when there's not eyes on them, they won't. That's just, that's any industry. So, that and then holding each department accountable for meeting the standards that we've set forth, right? There are two things I really loved about what you just said. Processes and accountability. Thank you, thank you, thank you that you have processes. So that's fantastic because there's a lot of dealers out there that don't. So this makes this position easier to like step into because you already have your processes. Things are written down so they can just even look at those and, and run with that. You probably don't want somebody to come in and rework all the processes. It sounds like you're open to some improvements on the service process, but otherwise you don't want somebody coming to rewrite the whole thing because you're, You know, you've invested a lot getting in that place and a lot of the parts work quite well. So you're just wanting somebody to come in and learn it. And I think the key thing that, you know, I'm realizing as we talk about this is one of the things that somebody with experience at Buy Here Pay Here would easily come in and see how these departments connect to one another. Right. That whole synergistic element would be lost on some people. And so I think this is a part that without saying, you know, you'd like to be able to find somebody who understands why these processes are the way they are. Right. And you've got some really great ideas. There's some some stuff that is we don't hear it described in that way as far as your customer support. And so I think those are all fantastic parts that you certainly want to maintain. You're going to want to bring somebody in who's very customer minded. Right. So so that's got to happen, even if they never speak to a customer. So that kind of just goes into like skills, experience and background. And just like Jim said, I mean, obviously, you're going to need someone who who does well with people, does well with probably de-escalating situations, too, if need be, because they'll be the person that things filter up to if if need be. So what other kind of skills, experience, background are you looking for? Education, I think is, is a broad, right? Like I have an MBA. I don't know that I've ever used it in what we do. You're using it. You understand things about running a business too. So. Sure. It's not a requirement for me that there be any particular degree. For me, it's definitely a customer service background. And like I said, for me particularly, service is pretty important. I do see in other businesses where someone with strictly a finance or sales background could probably transition. With one of my shortcomings being service, I would really like someone specifically that's overseeing a service department, both post-sale and pre-sale, not just one or the other. And then I feel like we could teach the collections and sales side as long as, as you said, they've got the customer service mindset. Yeah. So are you involved in, like as an entrepreneur, are you involved in other businesses? This is your primary business. I'm involved in other businesses, which is one of the challenges that I'm facing right now. I'm pulled in a few different directions. So I'm currently actually on site at an Airbnb property. So I bought a residence in a national park and I'm turning it into an Airbnb. which of course is a totally different state than my business at the moment. But, you know, answering phones and emails and all that all day long. It's hard to do that, obviously, unless you have someone on site that can oversee operations. So that's why when I asked you how soon you're looking to fill the position, you said yesterday. Yeah, I get it. Yes. So, no, I follow. And I think we hope that we dropped her. If you're still there, Blake, we lost your image. So we'll continue here and hopefully you get reconnected. So the I would say the thing that I see in Blake's situation, not different than what we see with others. I mean, she's looking to be able to be. you know, absent at times, you know, she's going to be available to her business obviously, but she's going to want to be able to know that she's got a capable manager in place who, you know, can keep all the day to day running. And I can say that one of the things that Blake and I talked about, you know, days ago when we agreed to have her come was that this idea of having, I socialized with her as a, as a fractional, c-o-o something because there are fractional cfos out there there are these different fractional roles and she she immediately said no I really I need somebody on site and based on what we've heard from her already we're all right so we would that happen so it's all good I think um I was just sharing that you know you and I talked about this idea uh could a fractional work in your case and you said no I really need somebody on site and I think we've talked enough now that we understand and agree that you really need somebody there with that that size of a business honestly i think she's done I think I think it sounds like at the airbnb we might have a little internet internet improvement to work on so she's got so it's what part of what I find uh this is a conversation that we've seen come up or that we've um recently with uh different people like one of the dealer that we worked with yesterday on the the webinar was someone that It's like I want to be able to step away was down wintering in the south. And it's like I wanted someone that could that could take care of this. And so this it's very similar, you know, wanting to be able to step away, to be able to start a family, whatever, and also wanting to step away because it's time for you to to go on to the next phase of life. And you really don't want to get rid of the business. And so, you know, how how how it's been an interesting conversation to listen to how people have found, how they've, in some cases, they've developed a team member into being able to run things. But it is something that we see people talking about an awful lot. yeah so you know we obviously feel your pain like we you know kind of what you're looking for there and it's an interesting thread for us because we and that whole thing about enterprise value we're also are we when we very first meet dealers like and they're brand new to the business early on we asked them to think ahead to what it looks like to be an absentee owner like Can we think about at the early stages positioning ourselves so that we're not tethered to the building? And while you're not tethered, you're obviously able to be away. Your business is large enough. It's moving at a fast enough pace. And there's the price for being inefficient, you know, could be significant in your case. So you don't want to be away for very long, but certainly I think it helps us to understand, you know, know kind of what you're looking for and we hope that you know you being part of the broadcast today will help us disseminate that and help kind of you know there will be others who have been a similar place and I think this conversation could be beneficial to others as well because you know it's just we we see it having been there and having like I said having managed stores myself and sometimes with with full almost carte blanche. Like I managed a pretty significant operation years ago with a gentleman who was, he was really a passive investor. He wasn't in the car business at all and not even really the finance business. He was really just an investor looking for return. And so I ran the business for a long stretch until we put somebody else in there. And it was just, you know, you just see in those scenarios kind of what that person really needs in terms of day-to-day management. And I can say in that case, it was more than just the day-to-day management. It was sort of the whole brand, you know, I was really representing the brand of the company. And so all the things that go along with that, you know, or something that, you know, is going to matter. So that's why I say, you know, this person you hire is really also going to have a lot of, a lot of impact on the brand. They're going to have a lot of impact on your reputation in the marketplace. And so we just know that, you know, they certainly need to be good at day-to-day management, all that thing about processes and accountability. You would be able to find plenty of managers who are good at processes and accountability now it's a question of what kind of acumen do they bring into the buy here pay your side do they really understand you know the relationship of these departments and and how they all work together so so anyway we we wish you lots of luck we're going to continue to send you any applicants that we we meet that might have an but we know that one of the requirements for you is they're going to, they're going to live in Virginia and work in that dealership and run the day to day. So it's a, it's not a, it's not a fractional thing. And I'm sure you're looking for somebody who will come in there and, and really, you know, latch onto it and stay. And we, we always are always looking for that scenario. Right. But, Okay. Yeah. Do you want, if there are people out there that are listening or hear the broadcast later, would you like them to reach out to you directly or would you like them to reach out to us? They can reach out to me directly. It's important to me to have an initial conversation with them anyway. Honestly, aside from the resume and the background, for us, culture is actually the most important thing. And so our core values are honesty, loyalty, and respect. And I need to know that they align there before we'll even discuss, honestly, background and experience. And your email address, Jim's like, he's typing it in. I'm typing it in from memory, but is it airportva.com? at gmail yes airport da like airport is that it or is it airport va gmail.com okay so let me uh um yeah people listening they can write it down gmail.com right No. Does it have Blake in it at all? It doesn't. No. Airport. We're going to put it on the screen because, you know, some people are just visual. And we're not really good on the fly. Yes, that's it. Thank you. You're welcome. So if this is something that you have interest in, please reach out to Blake at airportva.gmail.com and wish you the best of luck. And if there's anything else we can do to help you. Please let us know. I appreciate you both very much. Thank you. You're welcome. Stick around for just a second and then we'll say proper goodbye after we've closed the show out. Okay. Okay. All right. Perfect. Thanks. Okay. Well, I, I, that's, that's a, it is good stuff. And like, you know, we mentioned is this, this is the kind of the thing that we are seeing play out in a lot of different places. People like, how do I do this? What do I do? What kind of a person do I need? All of that. So I appreciate that Blake came and confirmed what I've said to people. And I'll say it again. buy here, pay here is different. It is. People who understand buy here, pay here. So, you know, it's like, we just got to make sure folks know. It's not saying people can't learn. There was a time I didn't know buy here, pay here, right? I came out of franchise, you know, sales and sales management and learned buy here, pay here, but I had some training and I made a lot of mistakes and, you know, but that was, you know, what, I don't want to say how many years ago. It was many years ago. Decades. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate you making us part of your Friday morning. And I hope that you guys have a fantastic weekend. And we will see you on Monday. And we'll be brainstorming some different things that we can talk about on Monday. And if you've got any suggestions, please feel free to reach out and let us know. Have a great day, everybody. Thanks.
