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. Hey, happy Wednesday. Welcome everyone and happy birthday to my Michelle. Oh, thanks. What do you mean no thanks? Thanks. She's not really awake. I'm not, not yet. We're a little slow starting today and a little bit late getting the broadcast out, but, uh, but, uh, allowances please for the birthday and, uh, kind of a sleepless night. So we're talking a birthday month. I don't see why not. You know, I see a lot of people that it's like it's my birthday month. Yeah. But it's almost over. So maybe we can start it today for the next 30 days. I get allowances for. Okay. Let's negotiate. So, yeah. So just a quick update. I wanted to obviously take a moment to observe Michelle and all her efforts. And, you know, obviously just a wonderful life partner and all the things that she does for us. For us as a company and for White Hat Way as a mission and for the podcasting. Yeah, I woke up this morning and checked my phone and he'd already pushed the broadcast. And I was like, oh. Yeah, we're celebrating Michelle today. Among other things. I wanted to take a moment to observe, you know, your birthday and... And just kind of celebrate you and all the wonderful things you do for us. Thank you. And so look at me. I managed to get through that without getting super emotional. I'm over here emotional. We also just have plenty of things to update from the conference. You know, we're obviously in Vegas this week for the NIADA convention. Yesterday was day one. Quite a few things happening yesterday. Yeah. our session at 2.30 yesterday. It went really well. Yeah, there was a good crowd. I mean, the room was mostly full, and the subject was exit ramp. We had, you know, three panelists who were able to contribute to that conversation. And I did record it, but I was not able to hook into their audio, so it was just the audio from my computer. So we may post it somewhere. Yeah. It's yeah, the video is fine. Audio is a little suspect. So we'll see. But we had a great, great panel. Yeah, we had a good conversation. It was good questions. They didn't want it to end because it was just like the questions started coming in after they finished their presentation. And it's like, no, we got more questions. But yeah, it's all good. And the feedback was excellent, you know, all through the room and afterwards. So, yeah, it was really great. And then a major announcement. We did talk a little bit about it last night. We did just a quick live broadcast from the expo hall. We had the privilege of being able to open up the expo on their podcast stage, and we were there for the whole expo time and pulled a bunch of different people up to talk about the expo and their businesses and all of that. but yeah, so we, we made the announcement last night and, um, but it, there was a really special announcement that was made during the opening session. And that is that our very good friend, Brent Carmichael is now, uh, starting January one of 2025, we'll be joining NIADA as their director of dealer education. That is huge. That's a big move. That is huge. We're excited for Brent and for NIADA. And, uh, Yeah. Brent was my moderator when I was in a 20 group years ago as a dealer. And so I've known him for quite a long time. He's been with NCM now 17, 18 years and just wide respected, super knowledgeable. And so it's a really great move for them. And of course that'll take effect January 1st. So that's exciting news for sure. And then, uh, Let's see, what else? Last evening, we went to the Jeff Allen comedy event. Yeah, it was great. We've seen him on Dry Bar Comedy, and it was fun. We spent a bit of time laughing. So, yeah, it was a good experience. It was a good time. Yeah, it was quite interesting to be in the room with the guy that we see in that context regularly. Yeah. But yeah, yesterday was really great. I think having a chance to interview, we were able to interview representatives from each of our founding sponsors last night while we were at the podcast desk. We'll be releasing some of those soon. We recorded those instead of going live, so you'll have the opportunity to see that. Yep. We also had Gordy Tormolin come over, the outgoing president and now starting the chairman of the board. Chairman of the board. I mean, in Vegas. Yeah. He's now the chairman of the board. So we didn't totally lose the chairman of the board when Frank Sinatra left the planet. Yeah, that's right. Now Gordy is. Yep. And so we got that going on. And yeah, I think that was it. I mean, I think we got a little bit of editing to do yesterday. We went live from the podcast desk and then we quit presenting, but we continue to broadcast live for a time. So you were aware. We were live? Yeah, well, we continue to go live for a period of time. Oh, yeah, that's right. I didn't realize that I didn't stop the broadcast. And so, yeah, whoever doesn't watch that, sorry. I don't think there was any swearing or foul language or anything. Thank you. I don't think we said anything bad about it. You know, like you always think, run through quickly, like what happened there, what was recorded that we weren't there. So we're broadcasting across multiple channels. It was great. It was absolutely great. But it's really good to see everybody out here. If you aren't here, and we know that most of those that are here are probably in the middle of a session right now or getting ready for a session because I think it's only a little after 8, that come. It's a really great opportunity. We have a lot of fantastic vendors out here and lots of new updates with softwares and just coming to the conference, besides the fantastic education that you get, you get an opportunity to see what's the, the newest things, um, for the industry to be able to help you run your dealership better. And, and the, the, the interesting thing I, I, we were talking with, um, one of our founding sponsor, Chris Machika from pastime. And he, he made the comment. He says like, we, I think it was him. Um, the, the, The technology is moving very quickly, and it's going to really revolutionize this industry. And so staying on top of what it is that's coming, because with all of the open, the chat, GPT, AI, all of that, it is just moving at a very quick pace. So make sure you come next year because I'm sure that whatever it is that they that was presented this year, it's just going to get bigger and better and and help dealers more. So and, you know, there's there's not really a lot of ways for a lot of the the. vendors out there to be able to talk to dealers other than at a conference and an expo. And so it's really a great opportunity, well worth the money to come, well worth the money of the ticket, all of that, to be able to talk to a lot of the different people that are here and the fantastic conversations that happen in the hallways, at the meals, when the cocktail hour, whatever. It's just fun to sit down and listen as, you know, they've got these massive tables and someone will come and sit down and then someone else will come and sit down and it's like introducing everybody and, you know, just it's fun to watch, especially newer dealers when they're sitting at a table with a very seasoned dealer and they just start firing questions. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it's really great to watch dealers that have been in the industry for a while mentor other dealers. Yeah, it's always fun to be here. Certainly for me, I've been around it for 20 plus years. Obviously, Michelle's meeting a lot of people and a lot of people approach us. It's so interesting when people approach us and express gratitude for what we do with the morning show and people we have never had a chance to meet. We see people that are people we've known for a long time and get a chance to see them again. It's embarrassing when we see people and we say, hey, it's great to meet you. And they're like, oh, we met last year. Sorry. We meet a lot of people at these events. It's always embarrassing when that happens. Well, it's also like, I don't know, I'm going to blame menopause brain or something because I am so bad. I don't think I can use that one. But, yeah, no, it's just it's always fun to be here. It's menopause, not menopause. Menopause brain. Yeah. But also people that you know from social media, you know, they're just a number of people I met just yesterday alone that are people that we know from social media, but never had a chance to shake their hand and actually talk to them in person. And so that's always. nice you know bonus of being here and I just said there's a lot of momentum clearly it was it's always at an idea it's difficult to tell because you have both independent retail dealers and buy here pay your lease your pay your folks in the building but I think our session yesterday was a pretty good indication that there's a pretty good and obviously we recognize a lot of them yeah someone that I was talking to I think the the night of the opening cocktail hour said something that it's, it's, it's becoming, um, more and more heavy with, uh, buy here, pay here education at these conferences. And I mean, there's, there's plenty of education that goes both ways as well, but, um, it's that there's, there's becoming more and more, uh, uh, uh, sessions of, uh, speakers that, that are very specifically aimed towards buy here, pay here. And it's, it's really great because it just, it gives, it gives dealers an opportunity to, to, um, choose some, some very specific niche, uh, conversations or things that are, um, that are more generalized about, about the industry. And they can move, they kind of have it in tracks where there's a buy here, pay here track where they don't have, uh, you know, a conflicting session. So if you're a buy here, pay here dealer and you want to follow the buy here, pay here tracker, shouldn't be any conflict, but obviously there can be, as you said, general sessions, that apply to both. We're seeing more and more dealers bringing their teams too. And so when you have more than one person, you just like go take notes, you know, do the things. So yeah, really great. Happy to see the momentum was able to see Jeff Martin and of course, Teresa, the new director of membership, I think. Yeah. And so, you know, you could just see the momentum and the enthusiasm around this event event. And we do think, um, you know, we're going to continue to recommend that, uh, all dealers, all independent dealers make time to participate in this event. If you're not here this year, let's make sure we get you scheduled for next year. And don't forget, if you're listening and you're not currently a member of your state association, get that on your list of payables. Get your membership over there in your state. Yeah, and if you don't know who to contact or don't feel like you have an association in your state, you can reach out to NIADA. They'll point you in the right direction and get you enrolled. the your um membership dues that come around every year and they're they're around 400 something like that yeah um they they go to the state and the national organization both of them that's how the national organization actually gets a lot of their revenue through through that um and uh you know, you, you well, money well spent considering, um, all of the things that they're the watchdogs for everything that is happening in your state or on the national level. And just listening to the stories, um, from people that go to the policy conference. And that's actually something I'd like to do this year. Um, that the policy conferences that, that, you know, you're able to, they're able to get, um, get the ear of a lot of the legislators. And then there are people that we have within the organization that are very closely connected to everything that is happening on Capitol Hill. And they're out there lobbying for the industry, which is, you know, you hear about lobbyists and sometimes they have it's like a four letter word. But in this industry, it is so essential that we've got good people out there speaking in behalf of all of the dealers out there, whether they be buy here, pay here, independent dealers. It's, you know, it's well worth it to do that. We've got a couple of client meetings today. You folks will excuse us if we wrap our day a little early and celebrate Michelle's birthday. So we get over there. Hey, Jared. Thanks for tuning in. So our, our, a former dealer friend in, um, in Arizona. Yeah. Happy to hear from you. But yeah, we, uh, we should wrap up. We got, um, things to do in preparation for some meetings. We're going to run over to the, uh, the conference for a time and, uh, and then we'll be, maybe go do something fun for my birthday. Yeah, absolutely. That's on the, that's on the agenda for sure. Thanks for tuning in folks. Have a great day, everybody. Thanks so much for joining. Let me, uh, actually do, uh, wait, wait, wait, wait. don't see it oh there it is wait okay okay everybody you're ready okay
