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. morning I'm like over here fiddling fiddling I I mean you know till you go live I'm like constantly camera fiddle fiddle yeah I'm noticing in the image on the screen that my head is like twice as large as yours like what's what's that about I have no idea honey I do have a massive noggin I can't can't buy hats I saw a comedian talking about that one day he's like you know, the hat size, like, yeah, I'm, I'm up on the, every time we go, cause Jim's awesome in a hat. And, um, uh, yeah, every time we go and look at hats, he's just like, they won't carry my size. And, and well, like specialty hat stores have, half. But, um, yeah. Big noggin, lots of information being held there, so. Oh, yeah, we'll go with that story. Yeah, that's the story. It is, it's Wednesday. No, it's Friday. It's Friday, sorry. See, I mean, right, okay. So we're leaving, we're leaving here in Just a couple hours to catch a flight and go spend Thanksgiving with Jim's family in Oklahoma. And so we'll be, all of you Okies out there, we'll be in the state very soon. And he's looking forward to watching some football with his dad tomorrow and starting to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday. They'll be cooking involved and all the traditional family stuff. So yeah, looking forward to that. Yeah. um uh any announcements uh just uh you know kind of concluding that we had our v-eight plus meeting yesterday and then I still haven't sent out the invitation for everyone but I'm making seats available for that monday night session we've got our group three meeting and where our members have agreed to let um dealers other dealers set in who are contemplating va just kind of want to see what it's all about so we'll basically be running through data which kind of on the heels of our conversation today We're talking about data integrity, and so they'll get a chance to kind of see how we present data in VA. So, again, you can get registered for that. We'll get the information over. Yeah, and I think when we've been talking about how we're going to do this, that it'll probably be like a – bhph nation tv event but this one on monday um the one on monday but we're not quite sure if it's going to be a registered thing or I haven't set it for registration you've already done it I just haven't spent any time together so I've got it all set up okay yeah look at you yeah yeah I don't know I just got to get it emailed out why am I here you know why the cute factor I was, as I was getting ready to, to, to get on the flight, you know, I wore comfortable clothes, but I, I took a glance at myself in the mirror and I'm like, you look like an Amish woman. All you need is the hat today. Cause I'm wearing a long black dress, but it's just super comfortable. It's like wearing a blanket when I'm, when I'm flying. So we should get you one. We can both wear Amish dresses. Yeah. Okay. That sounds great. We don't have our best ideas on Friday. We, we don't, but I mean, you know, that's okay. Yeah. uh our our uh topic today we've been jim and I've been talking about for a couple of days this has been a a theme that has come up before and um and it's something that you know we've we've we're very mindful of and, and we've brought it up in different ways before. Like, you know, one of them was who owns your data. And so if, if any of you out there listening have not listened to that episode, and I believe that that was the title. So you can probably search that on YouTube, but who owns your data? And that was a really great conversation, which actually spurred other conversation. And it was brought on because of other conversation on social media and, And it was around when a dealer is moving DMSs, that there were some DMSs that just do not play nice with the data. And they treat it like they own all of the dealership's data. Or they make it super hard to be able to transfer. So that was the first time I think that we really brought up this who owns your data, this idea about data. And there's a lot of other places to go with this. And this is one of the things, one of the, one of the, the streams, avenues that, that we've been talking about just a lot recently. And, you know, also coming out of, we had a really big meeting this Wednesday. That's, that's why we weren't here on Wednesday. So we did a recording and record and showed the, the podcast, but um we had a really important meeting um on wednesday with actually one of our founding sponsors and um and so this is kind of like it came on the heels of some of that conversation yeah there's a lot of um kind of tentacles off of this particular subject like you you're right dating back to when we talked about it before I think that was more in the context of know data has value who does it belong to and then if somebody's holding it what are they doing with it like are they just using it for profit and they're protecting it they're not making it really available and even if they are making it available I think for today it's more about what how how useful is it so we'll get into those pieces but it's like I think for today it's really about Who's going to be the steward or the sheriff of this data, and what are they going to do with it? I think when we did this before, we showed a sales force. I believe they showed it during Super Bowl or something. Matthew McConaughey makes just perfect sense for them. Yeah. it was like if if if data is the new um wild west uh then who's the sheriff around here and and what we what we recognize and and I think this is where salesforce was coming at it was data's actually I mean it's it's kind of a currency as well and I mean it's because there's so much there that is rich in value. And, you know, that whole conversation we had around, you know, who owns it? It's like, well, if they have access to the data, how are they using it? Because most of the people that collect data understand what value they have in data. Right. And so it's, you know, that was kind of where the conversation started. But today, we're going to take a look at it from one of those different avenues. Yeah. And I've got a few things teed up here, we can begin to talk about. So let's, let's cover this first one, like, When you talk about data management, who's going to hold it? Who holds the keys to the vault? And right now, it's been my observation in our industry that there's big buckets of data. It's mostly private, big companies. There's just a lot of private data. It's disjointed. It's not really being swept together and sort of aggregated in a way that... And listen, I have reasonable expectations about that. It's not all... Not all buckets of data are going to really integrate in a way that's meaningful, right? But still the point is, are we going to mine this data for the industry's benefit? And if so, who's going to be in charge of that? Well, it's the data mining from people that are collecting massive amounts of data. It's like, are they willing? Mm-hmm. to step in and it's like how can we better the industry um in a whole and um you know art is just is to me the biggest question to start with is is well yeah you know who can be trusted yeah to set the standards so as as we're as we're coming off of this meeting um that was actually uh a flavor of the conversation that we that we had about what it is you know currently um that there's not an awful lot out there in the industry that is um that is making data available anyway right and um you know sometimes it's behind a paywall or whatever right so there's things like that to consider and obviously people need to be compensated for their time and resources and what they built it's not a question of that nobody's nobody's suggesting that you know should give data away I'm simply saying that and by the way this is not a white hat wednesday but white hat way is not just for wednesdays anymore y'all like it's kind of white hat way is something we need to talk about all the time and I think for me As I'm sitting here speaking on behalf of dealers, buy here, pay here dealers, lease here, pay here dealers across the country, I'm recognizing, and it's kind of the way we've talked about it before, I recognize from where I sit that the dealer's job is harder than it needs to be. I mean, they don't have enough information. And we see that time and time again through our V-Ape meetings. When we put new data, comparative data in, transparent, validated data in front of them so they can have confidence in what they're looking at. And some of them are going back and making immediate business decisions and changes based on what they see, right? So I think dealers are capable of managing their own ship and kind of deciding what they want to do. But I think our opportunity and responsibility is to collect information and make it available to dealers so that they can make better judgments. I'm not saying every bit of it will be free. You got to build the thing and you got to whatever. But you make available what you can. And I think... And obviously, there's a way of being able to share data because we do it frequently on the podcast from rich data that we've been... um we've been collecting since the beginning of the year since you started v-eight and and so I mean it's and we're still so small but you saw the other day I put that post out there that our v-eight groups currently represent about fourteen thousand customer contracts and about a hundred and seventy million in receivables so that's still small that's a drop in the bucket across the industry But we're being able to take that pool and create some really useful, comparative, and transparent information. People can see the stuff that's coming in. They can understand who's in their group. By the way, I stopped real quick to say, nobody's suggesting anything that would compromise privacy. We certainly recognize the privacy of a dealer, privacy of a consumer. This is, again, why you need a sheriff. My title of the thing was, who's the sheriff? Who's going to protect The data, if you brought it in and people cooperated and there was a data bank, if you will, who would be the sheriff? And I'm simply saying, look, White Hat Way is prepared to be a voice and take a leadership role in that endeavor, in that effort, whatever that's going to look like to go and build and start to pull that data together. I just know people, we have relationships across the industry, and I feel like in the right direction, There would be a lot of people who would make their data available to contribute to the greater good and the greater effort. And that to me is the is the the underlying question about it, too, is that this is this is part of our are we in business now? to help dealers. I mean, like truly help dealers. Are we in business to help dealers only behind a paywall? Right. And, um, are we in business to make a buck? I mean, it's, there's, there's like different layers to this. And so, you know, we know that, that there's so many vendors out there that are out there to help dealers. Um, we know that, that they're, you know, that they're, they're, it's a business. And so there's a buck to be, there's a buck to be made. Um, because you know, it's, it's livelihood. Is it, it's a living thing. And we're asking for a step up in understanding that the richness of what is there can really elevate the industry, not just dealers. And there are things that, you know, it's not like carte blanche, everything, all of the things that make businesses unique in their understanding of things. That's not at all what we're discussing here. It's about what pieces can help the industry grow. raise and improve. Because, you know, we've got the CFPB and all of that. And so data can help with that as well. It's like, do you really need to do X? Is this the best way of being able to conduct business that is profitable for you and helps to ensure success of the customer and those kind of things? I think that's the crux of what kind of data we're talking about. How do we help dealers be better and how do we help dealers help consumers be more successful? Yeah, and I think part of how that would happen, the other piece of this for me, the next element was whoever's got the data and they want to use that information in the context we're talking about, are they presenting it transparently? So my definition of transparency here would be, You know, suppose I stand up on a stage in a breakout session and I say to a group of dealers, you know, the average down payment, you know, amongst our dealer groups is eighteen hundred and seventy four dollars. Well, that's interesting. But like, how many is it? And what's the market size? And has it been quantified? Is it quantified? Can I understand? Like, can I see? And without compromising privacy, I think it's it's. It's something that I challenge everybody to do. I've done it many times on the podcast here and I continue to do it. We would challenge people to speak about their data in a way that is transparent and more thorough so that dealers have good information. They understand what they're looking at and that they can make a judgment on. you know, around that information for themselves. Like, you know, they're still going to be the renegades and, and make different business decisions. But I think the first piece is just having trusted information. And the way you have somebody trust the information is you, you let them see the elements, enough elements of it that they can gain confidence in what they're looking at. Yeah, and that's one of the things that happens in the VA meetings, and the dealers there know, one, that everything has been, or not everything, there are validation checks. Mm-hmm. so that this is valid data. This isn't just your bookkeeper or whatever that's just coming up with numbers and filling in the blanks. So it's validated. And it's interesting because we've had dealers on that's like, this is the first time I've ever been asked to validate anything. And so we validate the data. And from that, when you have the conversations about here is where the stuff is, And it's validated. The dealers can look at that and go, okay, this is real data. And they can quickly do the measurement. What am I doing? And then go, all right, everybody. how is it that you do this? And that's where you were talking about how dealers will watch and pivot on a meeting because it's like, oh, I've been looking at this the wrong way. And we have dealers in there that have been in the business for a very long time that still find value and pivot points. We had one the other night. It was just a longtime dealer and he looked at the numbers and thought, wow, I'm I'm way different than I thought I was compared to the rest of the group. Yeah. And because you don't have enough information to really compare. Yeah. And so that's part of it. So what kind of value is there in a dealer being able to just look at, you know, as, as very transparently that, that there's collectively, this is, this is an aggregate of a lot of data that we're getting. And this, this is, this is what we're, what we're seeing, what we're yeah. Yeah. You're asking me what is the value of that? Yeah. So, yeah, well, obviously it's tremendous whenever the dealer can see, you know, what maybe the rest of the industry is doing, especially folks who compare, you know, to them. And obviously that's what a twenty group has done for a long time. We know that twenty groups have high value and excellent ROI for a lot of people. We also know that that's a pretty low percentage of dealers in the country that participate in a twenty group. Well, not only that, but, I mean, we have a number of dealers that... aren't even members of their state associations. And so they don't have access to, to the conference data and that kind of stuff. They could get on the website and look at some of the publications, but that there, there are a lot of dealers out there that just, they really are just kind of feeling like they're just an isolated Island. Yeah. And they're renegades and they're pretty comfortable most days just marching ahead, you know, based on what they know and what they can learn from Facebook and whatever. But, I think that it works for them. And, and, you know, we're, we have a good fortune in our by here payer space where we've got pretty good margins to work with. So we've got some margin for error, but it's just still, there's an optimum kind of way to maybe function. And so we just want to put that in front of people. And, and I'm, you know, as a coach, I've kind of, um, Traditionally, I've always been in this place, but I find that especially like in a V-Eight context in a meeting as a moderator, I'm just trying to draw dealers out, put the information in front of them, let them decide. I know better. It's not my name on their building, so I don't need to tell them how to do business. I want to just put the information in front of them and let their fellow dealers talk about it. That's the whole premise of a peer situation anyway. And I just want to get and collect good information and put it in front of them. So I think, you know, this is what we're trying to do, obviously. And V eight is a subscription, right? People pay for that. So, so it's really not so much about that, but I just mean that is a white hat product, right? A white hat way product that we created for the betterment of the industry. And I think if you think about pools of data privately, Like, how are they using it in a way that can be a benefit? Well, and that's, you know, yes, a lot of the data that we're collecting is via our our our clients and V eight. But I mean, how often are we like, here's something interesting that that we found and we're taking it to the air and we're giving it freely for all those that are listening to like, how can we help elevate your business? How can we help? because that's that is what white hat way is primarily about is like how do we help businesses um understand um uh the business and help their their customers succeed and I think that really goes back to and especially when it comes time for us to present that information we bring we bring some kind of um what would I call it like aggregated or summarized data yeah from a from a V eight group or multiple V eight groups and we bring it to the morning show. Well, those dealers in VA, they paid to be in those, um, you know, in those meetings. Right. And so when we bring the data, I'm, I'm sensitive to that. I mean, I recognize, and we, when it's, it's one thing to share the numbers, it's another thing to see the numbers on a screen and be able to discuss it with your fellow members and decide what it means. Yeah. Well, that's what the peer group is all about. Yeah. But I think it still goes back to this idea of trust. You know, do the dealers trust us? You know, and when they sign up, we're signing an Appendix W with them, right? That's important. Like everyone that we sign has an Appendix W company, which means we're pledging. If you're wondering what Appendix W is, please go to wyatthatway.com. Yeah, you can find it there. You can also find the episode that we did when we introduced Appendix W last year. So you can find that episode when we kicked that off. But yeah, Appendix W is just it represents something that we're basically stating our intention. It's a non-legal document that accompanies agreements that we sign. It basically says we're stating our intention to operate with integrity and and lots of other things, right? To be honorable in what we do. So I think this is really where I'm coming from is that I'm saying here today that I'm happy for White Hat Way to serve as the interim sheriff to the extent that we're trusted and I think we're widely trusted across the dealer, uh, you know, groups and, and we, you know, is there somebody listening who questions our intentions perhaps, but for every one of those, there's multiples of people who know that we're really showing up and working to, you know, make the dealers experience better. So we're just always working that way. But, um, I think that's, that's part of it for me is just kind of being able to demonstrate that, um, We're trying to do some good here, and I think we are in a position to be able to do some good for the industry. And we're just mostly it's about leading the conversation. It's about leadership and being a trusted steward. And we're not alone in that. We would be bringing others to that conversation. But first thing to do is just have the conversation, talk about it, make sure we all agree that it's an opportunity. I view it more as an opportunity than a problem. But, you know, we're just, we're behind as an industry, you know, automotive, and now you got AI. Yeah, when you're talking about being disjointed. Yeah, yeah, we are. And we grabbed the domain whitehatway.ai a long time ago. Why? Because... we recognize that it's going to be important there's a nice opportunity for us to put ai to work on behalf and sweeping this data pool and all this stuff put ai to work in a white hat way on behalf of dealers and ultimately consumers will benefit as well and so this is really what it's about is about you know can we can we put somebody as a sheriff who can be trusted to go and and pull that data together and and make sure that they're being it's being done for the benefit and the cool thing is that I've been able to watch is is that um with v-ape and with what we do with the morning show and all of that is that we we are very very very very nimble We can pivot on a dime if we need to and be able to get good information out there in such a real-time, timely type of way. And there's so much value in that because the industry does change. There are things... lots of factors that come into play, um, a month to month and, and, um, it's, it's, uh, you know, we're, we're in a position to be able to really be able to help dealers that are, um, looking daily for ways to, you know, how, how do I help my business? How do I, how do I improve what it is that I'm doing? And it's just, it's a very consistent, um, it's a very consistent thing. And, and I, I'm super grateful that, that, that we have that opportunity and, you know, we try to be as transparent as absolutely possible in, in all of that. And then this next part is about what figures would be useful or meaningful. And I think this is a part where- I think that changes, but yes. It does. And I think, but it takes somebody who really understands the moving parts that is the buy here, pay here business and to understand the difference in business models and approaches and to understand some of the software limitations that we have and all the different pieces. But I think mostly it's about understanding the way most buy-here-pay-your-dealers look at their business and how they judge their business and how they make decisions about what's a relevant number to consider. And so I think this is why whoever's going to be that sheriff, it's going to be important that they... have that depth of understanding and I will just say look if the sheriff ends up not being us we're prepared to contribute our knowledge and understanding one other quick thing on this is to the extent that white hat way were to be the steward let's say we're the chief steward you know don't call the sheriff whatever you're the chief steward of the data then one thing I can tell you is that if if we hold that key to the vault then it'll be available to many across the industry, you know, with the set of rules around who gets what and sensitive to privacy and what have you. But I can just tell you, if we're the ones who hold the keys, it'll be available for the benefit of the industry. I think that's a really important thing to say. You know, it's because that, can that be true? If you think about who you know that owns data now, How is it made available? And what do they really know about what they're presenting? So as far as knowing what it's like to be inside a dealership and knowing about pricing cars and just on and on and on, all the stuff that is a buy here, pay here operation. And so I just think it's important that people know what's meaningful and when they sweep the data, they kind of need to know what they're looking for, what's relevant. As a dealer. And I mean, that's, I think, one of the really important factors in there is that the eye of... importance goes through the filter of a dealer first yeah that's like yeah so it's like um and and you know you're in a unique position we're working with different people that are in unique positions um as well uh more to come on that. Some of the people that are coming in as moderators and helping with the next phase of growth of White Hat Way, dealers. And dealers that understand the challenges Not just from being a vendor that comes into a dealership, but they know it intimately. They know the challenges. They know the questions. They know the hardships and the things that a dealer would be experiencing. Yeah, so I think it's just really about making sure that whoever's kind of the... spokesperson for that data and and that's not just actually standing on a stage presenting the numbers or in a virtual meeting it's also about just whoever's working with an a team of analysts to sweep that data and decide what data is relevant and what's not that you know In working with data, even the statisticians themselves would throw out data that is anomalous, top and bottom and whatever, throw out the stuff that is insignificant or doesn't fit. Then beyond that, you need somebody with experience to be able to know You know, where numbers can be trusted to line up and where they wouldn't. Yeah. We see it in V-A. And, you know, the cool thing is, is as we're growing this, the White Hat Way, growing V-A, growing those things, is that we're pulling together dealers that are part of this process. Mm-hmm. That it's, so it's, Jim has, has the, has, has been a dealer and experienced that and a consultant and a, you know, all of these things, but pulling more people in so that this becomes, you know, we've, we've always said we're spokespeople for White Hat Way. We're not, you know, we're not White Hat Way. We're spokespeople for White Hat Way and we're bringing in dealers. It'll be around well after we're gone. Yeah. but we're bringing in dealers that it's like they, these same type of people, what kind of things should we be looking at? What kind of things are we struggling with? And that they'll be able to, to pull in what are, what are the topics that are, that are important that we can, we can break down. Yep. I think we covered the pieces that I had in mind and I'm seeing that we're getting a little bit of internet connectivity questions. So we might want to wrap up before we end up with a technical issue, but yeah, but I'm hardwired. That's just you. Oh, okay. So they can still talk to you or hear you. Yep, exactly. I mean, you know. They can shout across the table. Exactly. All right. So anything, closing thoughts before we... No, just a quick reminder about our V-Eight Plus. Look for that in the email or some of the Facebook pages, etc. We'll put that out so that dealers can hop in there and grab a ticket for the V-Eight meeting on Monday night. Yeah, and for those of you who have been on the fence about joining V-Eight, we have limited seats left in the groups that we already have created. And there are a lot of perks to getting in before the end of the year. One of those perks is that for new members, pricing is going up in January one. We've been working on this for a year now. And so those that have been in are... You know, they've had access to a lot of different things that will be different coming next year. So if you're interested or on the fence, please reach out and let us know. We do have limited seats in all the different sizes. And because at the end of the year, that changes. All right, everybody, have a great day. Thanks so much for joining, and we will see you on Wednesday. Have a great week.
