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. How many of you thought that we weren't coming today? Nobody. Nobody sits on their microphone or their desktop waiting for us to come on. Yeah, it's been a really, really, really, really busy morning. And we got a brand new soundboard. And so when we were trying to get everything set up, it was like, I can't. I can't. We were already late. I can't hear anything. And the new soundboard was not. Yeah. So it took us a minute, but we're here. And we know that a lot of you guys listened to the recording. Let us know if the soundboard is pushing the sound out. Yeah. It sounds pretty good from my end. Yeah, I think we're okay. Yeah, I'm enjoying it. So, yeah, happy to have you all here. Happy Monday. Looking forward to another good week. We wrap up the month of March this week, so hope everybody's doing business. Wow. Yeah? Yeah. First quarter's almost done. True. Yeah. So can I get a little mention to our friend Anna Maria Beck? Oh, yes, yes, yes. Anna Maria Beck sent us these. Cool new morning show mug. Yes. So thank you, thank you, thank you, Anna Maria. Yeah, it's a fun gift. How come we've been doing almost 300 episodes and we didn't do our own mug yet? You know, we keep talking about it's like supposed to be coffee time, so why don't we have these? So thank you, Anna Maria Beck. Thank you. A nice gift. It really is. And everybody knows Anna Maria from Digital Attention Online. And now she's helped us get a little more. She does mugs or something. I don't know, but it's a nice gift. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of fun to drink out of something that has your face on it. Don't spill that on the soundboard. I know. Yeah, I don't want to break that. So what do we have? Well, just no real announcements except we've got two ideas for our Wednesday broadcast. I do have Group 2 meeting tomorrow night, Tuesday night, on V8. Which is the big group. So that's the big dealers group. We do have one seat, but it's a little too late to get in there for this month. We've already kind of closed the composite numbers for the month of February, meeting in March. And then we still have... One more group, Group 3, is the newcomer group. They meet on Thursday night. There is still time to get plugged into that group if you wish. So reach out if you want to grab a seat in Group 3 for V8. And then I think that's it. I mean, obviously, we have some stuff coming up in April. We've got to get in the Neo User Summit. Are we... Never mind. Don't never mind. No, not at all. It wasn't even a possibility. No, we have some friends that are coming into town today, and so we may have them on the broadcast on Wednesday. Yeah, I have a couple of topics for them, if they're so inclined. They are colleagues and friends. We haven't crossed that bridge with them just yet. We'll see. We'll have to warm them up a little bit. I know, right? Not everybody enjoys that, but I kind of think that they'll be just fine. I do too. Yeah, because we've got some really fun planning meetings and things happening tomorrow for planning out what's going to be happening with the rest of the year and White Hat Way. And then it's to lead us into the big meeting that we're having on the – okay. So Buy Here, Pay Here United is the 21st, 22nd, 23rd, the 21st. No. 23rd, 24th, 25th. No. What? Look it up, people. Look it up. It's the 24th through 26th. 24th through 26th. The 24th is the day that is the NEO Summit. We're going to be there for that. The 23rd is the NEO Summit. The 23rd. Okay. Tuesday is the 23rd. Please check your... Photographic membership. I know. Okay. So we're going to be there. And at the end of the week, we have a big meeting with some of our founders, our CEO, and others that will be there to further talk about our plans for the rest of the year and going into 2025. There's something about this mug. The coffee tastes better out of this mug. I know. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Today's topic. You know, it's funny because we were, Jim has never seen Avatar. What is it? Okay, those of you who are listening and you know the movie, there's two of them now. I went and saw the last one last year. Because I like movies. I was raised watching movies. My dad owned a janitorial company. I never had to pay to go see a movie my entire youth. And so a love of movies. Jim... There's still time for me. I'm still a child. So I was like, hey, we should do an Avatar weekend. And he's like, I'd rather go fishing. Let me know how it goes. So this is not Avatar the movie. This is a different kind of, it's actually what Avatar, the original, I think before the movie came out, this is kind of what it means. And it's like, who is your target? Who is like the ideal, the ideal customer? Yeah, if you could draw a picture. Client. Like if you could write a description, write a profile. So, you know, for those of us who spend some time around marketing, and keep in mind, I was a car dealer buying ads way back when I was in my 20s. And so I think I've always been fascinated by marketing and especially the messaging part of marketing. Mm-hmm. and obviously to get your messaging right, you have to first understand who your, your target audience is. And so an avatar is kind of a, I barely started hearing the word, you know, five to 10 years ago, but I'm sure it's been around and other with other phrasing, whatever, but sometimes you're described as the persona, like there can be more than one persona, you know, that you're kind of thinking about as you create marketing and, and understand your audience. So for us in the buy here, pay here space, we, you know, we don't, we, our dealers don't do a lot of advertising I was just looking at our v8 numbers last night and they don't they don't spend a lot of money in advertising so it's it's an interesting thing I think that's going to vary by market Well, it will vary by market, but there are some good reasons why it's a good idea to have a defined avatar in your business. One is usually when you are going after funding, money, business loan, whatever, they want to know who your customer is. And so the more refined you can be on who your customer is, the more it will make sense, your business model, what kind of car you want to sell, all of those kind of things. And so it's a really good idea to know who your customer is. And it goes kind of beyond marketing because if you know who your customer is, really, really understand, then you buy for your customer, you market to your customer, you create an atmosphere in your dealership for your customer. So it's important to understand those things. So for instance, let me give you an example. Um, uh, I'll just, just, just really basic avatar, um, single mom who is working hard, has kids, um, and, uh, you know, as maybe like a nurse or a, um, you know, something like that. So, you know, you think about when you're, when you're thinking about those kinds of avatars, single mom, you want a place where children can be occupied, right? because it's likely that she'll have to bring the kids with her when she comes to look at a car so that's something important to understand about your avatar is that likely we'll have children with them another thing is if she's a nurse she might be working nights and so you might want to make sure that you've got time set aside um that would work for her for for that kind of person's schedule you know maybe have a day that you can do appointments at a different time or whatever. Another thing is that it may be just like a commuter car. They need to be able to get to and from work really simple. They've got two or three kids and And so, you know, what kind of vehicle would be there? You know, how will they want to pay? Will it be something that, you know, since they've got kids, can you do something to engage the kids to encourage her to come in frequently, you know, for drawings for, you know, you've made your payments on time for so long. And so come get some water guns for the kids or something like that. This is just like one avatar of many. There's others that we've seen that their avatar is like the doctor or the lawyer that just has really bad credit. That can happen. I think for my perspective, it's like most of us who have placed an ad in Facebook. We go in and we can choose the audience. We can customize the audience. There's lots of layers that you can choose from in terms of what you're selecting. But I think for today, I was really suggesting that Folks, take a moment to look. You can hop on YouTube and find some marketing folks out there who would give you more specific information about how to identify your avatar. And I think what Michelle touched on is certainly relevant. I think what I'm suggesting, though, is instead of just knowing your audience segment, try to identify the profile. Yes. Or maybe more than one, but certainly try to drill down to who is this customer that I'm trying to reach? And in some of our own studies recently with some of our clients, we're learning stuff about age groups. We're learning stuff about, you know, certainly income. A lot of studies out there about payment profiles, too, based on age groups and all of those kind of things. And just to be clear, we're not talking about anything remotely like discrimination. We're talking about just trying to understand who is the customer that is most likely to do business with you. Yeah. And you can best serve. Yeah. And, you know, it's kind of like going back to that, you know, the nurse kind of thing. Yeah. You know, we're beating the drum frequently. Don't sell cars. Sell solutions. Sell the program. Sell who you are. And so one of the things that is like with the nurse type situation, you know, what are the problems that having your car will help solve for her? Mm-hmm. So that you take that, you know, you understand who your avatar, you understand what their problems are, and you address those in your marketing. What are the problems? Because I don't know if you've ever heard of like, they talk about story marketing. And it's like, it comes from story branding. I don't know if any of you are familiar with story branding. But people get drawn in to a story. They get drawn in. And usually that story is there's a problem. And you make it hurt because there's a problem. You mean in telling the story. In telling the story in your marketing or whatever. There's a problem. And then you are the expert. So it's like who we are. And here's the solution. And so at the end of the day, this is what life will look like. um if you if if you let us help you um solve your solution solve your problem or this is what it looks like if you don't and it's really really effective marketing and it doesn't have to have that entire thing in one ad but it's like these are elements and pieces of of what that story marketing is about and it's so important to know your avatar for stuff like yeah and on a purely financial level We can spend less when we know where to go with our marketing. We can be more efficient. So in the description I wrote for the thing, it's like we shift away from a shotgun approach into more of a rifle-like sort of precision in our marketing because we understand who the customer is. We understand how to reach them. And one thing about this is, you know, when you talk about you know, storytelling. And to me, that's sort of an outward part of marketing. The part we don't talk about enough in marketing is the research and the inward and the data collection information. So, and we're, you know, we're in a data age where we've got all this intelligence at our fingertips and some of us more than others. I mean, some of us can get to it, you know, at a greater depth. But the reality is there's lots of information available to us. And, Facebook is able to create, and perhaps other platforms as well, but I know Facebook, there's talk about lookalike audiences. Okay, so who is that? And so I think it's, when I talk about surveying customers, instead of just selling, selling, selling, here's my story, here's my message, hope you buy, here's my story, you know, I would say, first, we got to go make sure we understand who the customer is so that we can tell the story. It's like, I've always believed in just education. So let's take it out of a sales environment and say, I'm just trying to tell a story that is compelling to you and that will resonate with you and that you will remember. Well, if I'm going to do that, then it's helpful for me to know who you are so that I can present it in a way that you receive information, right? So that's just kind of education, whether I'm in a classroom environment or whatever. So this is the same kind of thing. Not everybody's going to receive information the same way, which is why we have to do A-B testing. But it's also just a testament to the idea that we need to make sure we understand the customer that we're trying to reach. I've got clients who have very different targets. Mm-hmm. They have different markets, they have different business models, and their strategy is different. And so it's important to, you can't just throw, you know, kind of shotgun type of ads at every market and expect the same results, at least for the dealer when their strategy is different. So it's like, that's the part that we recognize is something that, you know, we all can work on it. We all can work to make sure we better understand the consumer that we serve. And part of that can just be surveying the customers who buy from us. Yes. Right? Yes. The ones who do business with us. So we're taking that same medicine. In our work and coaching, we feel like we're really settling in to understand who the folks are who are most likely to reach out to Jim and Michelle for coaching or whatever else that's really coming into focus for us, which is going to help us to be much more effective in reaching the folks who need our services, need our help. Yeah, so it's like shotgun. We can be out there and shotgun them. We're shotgunning this morning across YouTube and LinkedIn and all this stuff, but we're not obviously selling anything here today. It's just education. But yeah, so it's, you know, there's, yeah, there's a lot of really good reasons why it's a good idea to understand. You know, when people say, you understand your customer, understand your customer, understand your customer. And this kind of goes a little bit deeper. And so, you know, we as an industry are always trying to find ways to set ourselves apart from our competition. And then some of the dealers that we work with, and we talked to a lot of them, you know, there really isn't any in their small community or whatever, but then we do have another segment of our customer. that is, that has a lot of competition. And so they, you know, it's how do you set yourself apart? How do you get people to choose you over someone else? And, you know, one of the best ways to do that or one of the better ways to do that is to be different, is to reach them differently, is to speak to them differently and to speak to them in a very, like, I understand you kind of way. yeah and to to avoid being a billboard in space so that's a term I picked up I met somebody here in utah is in the marketing realm and they talked about a billboard in space so it's like I've created a great ad but nobody's seeing it it's out there in space because it's not reaching the audience that I'm aimed at and so this is like you know If I could buy billboards, just to follow with the analogy, then obviously some roads might be better for that than others because they're going to reach this customer that I'm trying to serve. And now go another level and say, when I can understand the customer and their interest, their income, and kind of maybe even areas where they live so that I can choose my zone in serving ads, and also I it may be that my particular market I don't need to spend a nickel on instagram maybe that is not my audience right and so this is the part that I say for us to really we have to first identify where are they is that target customer and of course when you aim with rifle precision at that customer of course you're going to reach some others and you're going to end up doing business with some of the others on the periphery of that But by being super precise, we increase our chance of attracting tomorrow the customer that is most likely to do business with us. So that's obviously, from a pure efficiency standpoint, I think that's where we want to be. And one of the other things, as Jim was describing about efficiency, I was thinking about the... White Hat Way is about transparency, about honesty, about integrity, about all of these things. And so when you're working on your avatar, what are the challenges people have with buying a car in our industry? And taking an opportunity to address those, because one of them may be, I don't understand contracts. I don't understand what this is. And so even potentially saying, hey, we're going to explain everything to you. And you're not going to leave here without all of your questions answered. And if you have other questions, we're going to help you find the answers. That kind of thing as well. It's about that transparency, that honesty, that integrity, and that you know, that you're just, you're there to help. And so what are the things that, whether it be in their daily life or in the process of buying a car or in the process of paying for a car or whatever, contracts, all of that, because we all know there's a lot of people out there that don't understand contracts. And so, you know, there's like another opportunity to be able to zero in on what it is that a doctor and a lawyer probably would. I'm not sure. You're not. But a lawyer. A lawyer should understand contracts. And then, you know, how can we help them? We can help them learn how to fix their credit. Yeah. So, you know, or whatever it is that it is. But I think we covered the parts I wanted to cover. We've got to get on the road. There's more stuff to do on this Monday morning, just like you folks have lots of stuff on your Monday list, I'm sure. So we're going to wrap it up here. But thanks for tuning in. And thanks again, Anna Maria, for the cool mug. That's a really nice gift. Thank you. We really, really appreciate it. And this new board doesn't have the music stuff. So, yeah, we've got to figure that out. I usually do it on the board. Oh, that. Oh, yeah. So clunky. Great to see you or hear you. Thanks so much for joining. We will see you guys on Wednesday and hopefully we'll have a couple of special guests with us. Have a great day, everybody. Thanks.
