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. Happy New Year! Welcome to twenty twenty five and welcome to our podcast studio in North Ogden, Utah. Yeah. Happy to have survived another New Year's Eve because, you know, it's a wild party with us. Well, everyone who knows us knows that it is a big deal when we can make it to midnight. And I think we almost did. I think. I don't remember. Yeah. There were fireworks and we were home and we typically choose a quieter, you know, kind of New Year's Eve. But it was nice to make that switch. It's been fun building up to the new year. Like there's a lot of stuff shifting, right? Yeah, for a lot of people. Yeah, and there's a lot of work stuff going on for us that changes, you know, in January. So excited about that. Yeah, we really, really are. So this is our first broadcast for twenty twenty five. We are still the White Hat Wednesday. We had talked about that we would be starting White Hat Ways. We need to get a couple of more pieces put in place before that launches as a specific replacement for Wednesdays. Okay. So, um, okay. Well today, today we're kind of going big picture as we do on occasion. And obviously the first of the year is a good time to, to really look at kind of take the, the the wide look big picture I think in my description of podcast I said let's zoom out and um and in particular you know I shared a um a post on social media back on the eleventh of december and I asked people I said if you could solve three problems in the buy here pay here industry you know, what would they do? A lot of people chimed in and, and, um, you know, we were, we, we got a lot of answers around what would I change in my dealership, which is not surprising. That's what it's not surprising. Yeah. And I think that the, the, the, the core of the question is in an industry, um, in an industry. Yeah. What would you change? Not in a dealership so much. I mean, because there are threads that weave into a dealership, but as an industry in a whole. And we saw a few other posts that went out that kind of talk about some of the things that... that we were thinking about. And then there were some that piped in on that, that understood that we were talking about the industry at whole. And so it gave us some really good feedback about what dealers out there believe is challenge. What are the challenges? What are the things? I think, you know, it's obvious, it's understandable that we as coaches would have a different perspective and in the work that we do. and uh you know I've been a dealer like I've been there owned a finance company and dealership and I've been around lhph and buy your payer and so I've been in it I was a twenty group member years ago and I just think when you have that kind of wide view and there are people been in the buy here pay your space longer than I have right but I think my perspective as a coach um allows us to have a little different view kind of the problems that are common threads across the industry with dealers, like kind of what creates their struggles. And, and then just looking at the whole thing, not just dealers, but consumers, vendors, you know, associations, the whole thing, just looking at the whole thing across from a broad lens is, you know, what problems do we see? And you could come up with, I probably could give five or six. I said, when I shared that post, I said, I've kind of identified my top three. I know like if I had a magic wand and I could solve these problems, I know what my top three would be. So I have a blog post. It'll go out later today that speaks to these three things and some, you know, specific specificity. And so I got that, you know, put together and I just, it was kind of the first of the year was a good time to kind of just back up and let's look at, let's look at what's been accomplished and, let's look at what kind of the road ahead is and if I think collectively as an industry certainly as white hat way as we move forward and invite people to conversations and and try to you know work to solve these uh various things I have um I have optimism around you know many of these things you won't you won't it won't be magic wand and you solve them overnight but it'll be you can start to chip away at some of these things. And we are, I think in twenty twenty four, you saw some progress around some of these things. So number one on my list is data. OK, so. You know, everyone knows you're a data nerd. Yeah. Yeah. It's really cute. I got to get some nerdy glasses, maybe. I have some if you need some. So, you know, we know you're a data nerd and and. So, I mean, I want to understand why this is an important thing to you. Like, what are the problems this causes? And what are, as you know... V eight is, is one of the things with, and, and things that we do with our, our dealer clients data is one of those things that we tackle. And so it's like, why do you suppose, why do you propose that that that's one of the problems that gets solved? And, and what, what have you seen happen to a dealership, a dealer, whatever, um, when that problem starts to get solved? Yeah. Um, so I think the, the wide look on that is so, so why did I start VA back in January of last year? It's like, it's because we meet a lot of dealers, especially younger ones, right? Newer ones that are kind of what I call being on an Island. They're stuck on an Island because they're running their business. They're trying to figure it out. They're asking questions out on social media, but they really don't have a lot to lean on. like real hard numbers and real data that they can lean on that says, this is how people do it. This is what's successful, right? So are you talking about, okay, yes, I get that. And I kind of see just from watching a lot of this happen is it's one thing for a dealer to have really solid data in their dealership. And so if a newbie is asking a question on buyer-payer success or whatever, that a dealer can come in and say, this is what I see. But when you can start to overlay and weave in and see where certain things are consistent, where certain things are not consistent, where, I mean, and when I say consistent, I'm this is one of the big reasons why, is are we comparing the same things? And also, is one person's data based on their business model going to apply to yours if you have a different business model? Well, that's part of what happens, is that's why we need it. So there's a couple different angles on this. Let's talk about first, like, if you compare our industry to other industries that have deep analytics and, you know, pick any, you could Wall Street investment world, you know, they have deep analytics around what they do. Our industry is less sophisticated, has been, and it's unfortunate because we originate in our industry, billions of dollars and we solve an important problem. Yeah. And dealers are still in twenty, twenty four, now twenty, twenty five are still winging it a little bit out there they're just having to be kind of these renegade fearless entrepreneurs and go just try and ask somebody on social media after they've already made an expensive mistake you know how do I solve this problem and data is just the first thing it's like having some real numbers because somebody else said it I mean you don't have to hear it just for me others have said in on our social media posts and this and that they talk about you know, it's, it's not enough to just, um, kind of guess. I mean, you, you, you're going to make some expensive mistakes early on if you don't, um, you know, have some mentorship or some way to get some help. And I think numbers, even if I'm a coach, I can't, um, it kind of remember when we shared on the podcast weeks ago with the thing that we heard, um, I think it was Paul Hoyt said to us about, um, that, um, What's the phrase? That diagnosis without examination is malpractice. So how do you examine? Well, just to preface, Paul Hoyt is our senior advisor. And a business coach. And a business coach, yeah. Yeah. and so he's uh that's and well you'll be introduced all of our listeners out there will be introduced to him at some point and paul is also something of a data nerd right but I think the point here is that we can't begin to examine we can we can talk loosely around things that anecdotally we heard a guy at the auction say or that somebody else said but until you have some real data to measure because we can't manage what we can't measure and so if everybody will measure and use the same ruler to measure what they're measuring yeah then we can begin to draw some conclusions and share those conclusions with others and I just think when I look at our industry and I look at dms number one and dms number four and man they're speaking a different language you you run up against that monthly um with the v-eight data and it's just like okay um in order to compare apples to apples we have to strip this number of this we have to add this to this and then everyone can come together and have a conversation around something they know they're comparing the same thing and we're pretty good like with what we're doing our v-eight uh summary report each month we're you know, we're at a six or seven out of ten. You know, we're pretty good, but we've got a long ways to go in terms of what can be done to clean up the data and align it up so that everybody's seeing the same thing and they can just make better business decisions. And it's not about everyone having the same business model. It's just about, you know, what are the points, the numbers that we're looking at? And and, you know, you were giving me an example the other day about like recon. And how different dealers add different, like their transport fees are added to recon. And so not everybody does that. And so when you understand that it's like, okay, what are all the elements you have in recon? Then we can strip out the transport fees and we can say, this is what recon looks like. And we have our way of doing that, kind of a rudimentary way of getting there. You kind of have a reference guide off to the side of our summary report that people can refer to within their circle, their group of members. But it's less than perfect. And I think I'm not so Pollyanna that I think you're ever going to have it perfect and that you're ever going to... Because you're always going to have... the renegade dealers, you're always going to have these software people are not always going to cooperate on an industry level. That kind of goes to the crux of one of our goals for this year is to be able to take that you know six out of ten and move that needle up to eight or nine for people that are wanting to look at specific things it's like we are really really comparing apples to apples and so that it does and I listen to you talk after you've had conversations and then you bring it to other meetings that you have and it's like it really starts to shift the conversation and make it more meaningful So let's think about if you're a new dealer and you hop on Facebook and you say, where can I get some help? And a lot of people chime in and say, join a twenty group, join a twenty group. Right. And so that's that's why. And yes, you know, we we are like fans. Yeah, of course. Like deep fans of a twenty. Jim was in a twenty group. I know that process. And know that that, that whole, I mean, the, the relationships that are built and the, you know, the deep, deep, deep dives and things like that, that it's just a really beautiful platform. Peer, peer group and peer comparison. And it's why we started VA so we could have an affordable alternative to a twenty group. So you see these people say, join a twenty group, join a twenty group. Yeah. We have some idea of what twenty group enrollment is across the United States. It is such a small fraction of all the dealers. So twenty groups are wonderful, but it's not being adopted at that. Now, is it value for those people that are doing it? Yes, it's a wonderful value for them, but it's not only reaching a real small sliver of the industry. And so that's that's comparative peer group, which you still want numbers that. are apples to apples and you know one of the things that you've done this year is like they're validated and we've had um dealers that have come in it's like I've never been asked for something like that and it's like get used to it because it will it needs to be validated ecosystem we're creating that's the kind of ecosystem yeah okay so and that kind of flows into another one of the problems I don't know if you're ready there's one other element that I want to touch on inside the data piece and um that is that there's there's comparative there's peer group stuff which we're talking about with dealer or twenty groups and be a that's comparative being able to compare to other dealers and have those numbers be meaningful right that's one thing but there's also if I'm if I'm a dealer myself having being able to string together the data that is helps me track cr let's start at crm lead management So now I've got inventory and inventory matching. Then I've got sales. I've got underwriting, which is going to happen at some stage of that process. You might have pre-qualification and whatever, but for a dealer to have the data to string all the way from their CRM. Based on their business model. Lead management, sales and closing, underwriting, now into collections and portfolio performance and ultimately into sales. financials and cash flow and static pools and the whole thing, like having enough data. So you call me a data nerd, but as somebody who doesn't want to commit malpractice, I need to have information in order for me to be an effective analyst. I need to connect all the pieces. When the thing is not connected, then there's a limit to what conclusions one can draw. And so we're just left to guess, and that's no way to run a business. Well, and it's, it's, it really does end up being, and this is, you know, conversation for us to have later is this whole idea of, is it working? Well, you know, you're throwing the, the, um, spaghetti at the wall and it's like, well, some will stick. Um, and, and it's like, how do we, how do we get better at, um, eliminating guesswork on a lot of this. And, you know, and that's one of the things that as we've, the, the time that we've spent together in the industry is, is, you know, I, you, you see like the guesswork is, well, that's as good as we're going to get is guesswork. And that you're, you're, I've heard from different people that are in numbers is that it's, yeah good luck trying to get um something solid that dealers can all kind of get um behind and incorporate or whatever but so so part of what it is with this data that we're looking at is how do we come to you instead of you come to like how do how do we help a dealer wherever they are in their business be able to string things together in a way that is giving them a really clear picture also compared to other dealers. Yeah, and we're going to continue to cooperate with the DMS providers because the DMS is the system that's in the best position to solve a lot of these problems for dealers. And that's why last year we asked for the White Hat Way Portfolio Summary Report. DCS went out there and did it. Mike Downey reports that AMS has also done it. We just haven't had a chance to verify and test it over there. So we look forward to being able to show that there's this functioning in the same way. And there will be others. There are others that are still in communication with us about solving that. And I think the fact that we asked for it in June and we still don't have it is an indication of it's not a simple thing. It's not like you put some programmer over in the corner for a couple of hours and you come out with it. It's a little bit tricky, but it's like we're going to persist on that because we just see that dealers dealers don't know. And the V eight thing has been a real kind of a microcosm to be able to illustrate this thing. That is it's, it's wow. It's a bigger problem than folks might realize. Like just the fact that dealers can't reconcile their principal and their portfolio is like, what? Like, It doesn't make sense. It's, it's, so it's, we're going to persist. We got to just, this is something White Hat Way can do on behalf of the entire dealer community. And so we're going to just persist. It's like, it's something that we, we recognize the challenge in a way that some of the DMS people apparently don't. And so it's something that we're, we're just got to make sure that we can highlight, you know, what, what that looks like and, and, and what problems it solves. It was interesting. We were, we were meeting with our senior advisor yesterday, kind of just kind of wrapping up what it is that we've accomplished this last year and where we're going for next year. And, and we were, we were talking a little bit about this, this issue and, and, and it was, you know, our, Paula's comes from business he doesn't come from the automotive industry at all he comes from business he's been an advisor um for businesses that uh that have uh yeah big businesses um and to to have to say okay so we're a little bit behind and we don't you know that this is this is Um, it's, it's a little bit, it's different than this kind of thing. And, and even saying things like, you know, it's not, everyone is in the cloud or whatever. And, and then, you know, him saying, okay, so we can do this and this and this. And, and, and I, I had to interject the other day or yesterday that. that some of the big dms's buy here pay here is a small fish in a big pond for what it is that they do and so being able to get the um get some of the bigger ones to pay attention and do this thing because buyer payer is not their bread and butter Yeah. And I can say that some of the bigger ones that we work with, I can get to the numbers. I mean, they have the reports and I can now coach a dealer on how to do it. And I think, you know, one of the things that's happening later this month is we're hosting our first V eight mastermind. Right. And that's only for V eight members, but we have a dealer who's coming forward to share, Hey, this is what we've compiled in the way of data. this is our business plan to grow us from where we are to where we want to be. And so we're going to have, and the guy CPA is going to be there and we're going to dig in and just have people have our fellow members come in and say, what's wrong with this plan? What would you change if it were yours? And you know, just so it, but you need data to be able to have any meaningful conversation around that. Like is to, for me to say is your twenty twenty five plan, um, Within reach, you have to kind of look at the last two to three years, right, in a way that you can trust the numbers to be able to know what's achievable. I don't know if you want to have me there or not because it's like my job this year is to ask why. I mean, there's going to be a lot of why asking. Why do you want to go from A to B? What will it bring you? Why is it important to you? Yeah. How will it change your quality of life? And, and, you know, one of the things that tangent, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm, I'm going down. One of the things that, you know, we, we talk to dealers, it's like, I want X amount of locations and I want that. And they do it. And then they're like, you know, nope. And then they, they, they constrict again. So, and, and that might not be like across the board that it's, it's, it's not a wise thing to do, but it's just maybe they didn't have, they weren't comparing apples to apples. They weren't, they weren't, they didn't have the correct data to be able to, how do we, how do, or they didn't have the policy procedures. So it's like a, it's like a, you know, you open up the book and every single location is doing the exact same thing in the exact same way and all of those kinds of things. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, so my tangent on top of your tangent, which will be a small one. Lucky you. And here's an example, again, around the data, is what we're seeing through V-Aid especially, and this is all new information to me because I don't get a chance to see. We see it with our own clients, but we don't see it in a broader, you know, counts, if you will. But this idea that we have dealers in our V eight thing, we've been running kind of a simple cashflow snapshot and how many accounts they are away from positive cashflow. And for everybody, all the members that submit the expense information and what it's showing is that, know suppose you're a dealer at at three hundred accounts and you're building a business plan to get to four fifty well what we're seeing is some of these dealers have fifteen hundred accounts are still a hundred and fifty accounts away from their positive cash flow which changes the conversation like are we sure that's the direction we want to go are we sure that's going to solve the thing Because this is kind of, and this, again, you need numbers in order to really draw any meaningful conclusion. So that's why we've talked about it. Let's go. Let's next. It's important. The next one to me, I would say that we can kind of tie it at the same thing. It would be third on my list in this blog post is, is ego. So ego, if we just, this is not directed at anyone. This is broad brush across an entire industry. And we, we know from working, I've worked with car dealers for twenty plus years and I've been one. And I just know that part of what makes a buy here, pay here dealer successful as an entrepreneur is this sort of go, go, go mentality, fearless, you know, figure it out, march ahead, take the risk, learn from it, go to what's next. And sometimes what happens in that is you meet a lot of people that kind of have their mind made up that they know how to do it. Because it's worked for them. or they think it's working okay yeah so it's like they believe that they know how to do it and sometimes it just takes dealers again collectively if I just think about across our buy here pay your industry if I look at our industry from thirty thousand foot view and I say what is it that keeps this industry from advancing part of it is dealers feeling like they know what to do And and they don't go get help. The low enrollment in twenty groups. Yeah. The low participation percentage wise of people who go to these conferences, state and national level, the number of people that go is low. So what does that tell you? Oh, I don't need to go. It's not going to be worth it to me. You know, I I know what to do. I feel good about my plan. So the first thing for me would be back to the comparative things like. You're maybe sitting on an Island and you may be making some mistakes that could be avoided if you met so-and-so. Yeah. And so I had a chance to get exposed to these other ideas. So if I'm sorry, friends, Facebook can only take us so far. Like we can't. And I've been watching some of the conversations on Facebook and it's just like, ah, there's a whole lot of malpractice going on there. Yeah. Um, yeah, but I, yeah. It's just because we're, and I've seen people. Well, again, define malpractice based on Paul. Paul is like giving a, a diagnosis without actually an examination is considered malpractice. I'll give a shout out to Brett Buick. I saw that Brett kind of took that position with somebody who was asking a question and he chimed in and offered some, some suggestions and he, I, so Brett said, there's a lot more to learn here. Oh yeah. Right. So if you just stop there and said, well, in order for us to really, you know, answer, there's a lot more to learn. And that's, what's challenging for folks like me who see that stuff and you want to chime in, but it's like, wow, there's just way too much to know. And, and, you know, when we were talking about this this morning is, is, because, you know, we just talk about buy here, pay here. She seems resentful. I'm not at all. I'm picking up a tone. No, is that I, you know, ego for a lot of people is like, oh, it's like, you know, button, chest, and like, that is a thing. Mm-hmm. But that's not the thing, the crux of the thing that we're talking about. I mean, it is. It's like I got the answers and I can do the thing. And we see that happen and people answering stuff. But some of it is, and I appreciate this, people asking the question is in the right direction. And it's about understanding. And it's interesting to watch a lot of times it's people that are asking the question frequently are new. Yeah. And so they really don't know what it is that maybe sometimes I'm not even asking the right question. But because we do go through that, it's like new dealers don't even know what questions. They don't have any idea, but it's the I should know better or I'm so far down the track that I'm embarrassed that I don't understand these things. Or you asked, we talk to dealers all the time that are like, I'm kind of embarrassed to say this. And that's the ego. That's the ego part we're talking about. It's like shed that it's okay to ask and it's okay to not, or to, to, to realize that, that what you're doing maybe is not, um, the most, uh, uh, educated way to, or not educated, but, um, uh, it's might not be the best way to do it. Um, there's a lot of other ways to do it or that you're not getting a complete picture in the decisions that you're making. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say somebody else who could speak to this better than I do, because a lot of the, there are two people that I can say that I formed most of my opinions about leadership. And so a lot of what we're talking about here with ego ties back to leadership. Why? Because when we when we bring ego to the thing and we think we know how to do it and we're not prepared to turn to whether it's our team or mentors or whomever, then we're, we're running the risk of not being an effective leader. We're, we're operating in our own business. Yeah. It's the thing about, you can't manage what you don't. Right. So, but it's also when we're in order for us to lead a business, a mission of, you know, whatever, then we, we have to be able, we're going to be more effective when we can draw on the other resources that are available to us. And, and that means accepting that we don't have it all. And so the other person that I feel like is a heavy influence for me fairly recently, the last couple of years, a guy that I know actually knew him from high school and he became a three-star general. And in Jerry talking to us about leadership, I learned so much from him about leadership in a really short conversation that I mean, talk about someone who understands the principles of leadership. At a level that few people get to experience. So we're talking about somebody who was the commander of U.S. forces in Japan when Kim Jong-un was shooting missiles into the Sea of Japan. We really need to get him on the show and talk. But I think what I learned from Jerry and his experience what helped him ascend and ego, you know, aside, like he's just like, it wasn't me. All I was doing was driving a team of very effective people. What, what he has, what he, he, he doesn't have a big ego, but what he knows is he knows how to pull people together and find the answers and, and, and solve the problems. And so back to ego, I could march into a room and say, I know how to do this. Everybody shut up. Here's step one, two, and three. And if it doesn't work, because there's something, somebody over there in the back row knows that I don't know, right? And so we march ahead and it fails. I suffer in terms of credibility as a leader with my team. Whereas if you can get the whole group bought in on the strategy, then so there's different elements right to what we're talking about here. But I think if you go find Simon Sinek, just look up Simon Sinek, S-I-N-E-K on leadership, you'll find a ton of stuff on YouTube. It's totally free. If I could give any one thing to dealer stepping into twenty twenty five is go find Go consume a lot of that stuff that Simon Sinek talks about in terms of leadership. And so there's there's because in order for us to build a successful business and and you can apply much, much of what he talks about, you can apply in your personal life, too. It's like, how do we become effective, you know, as leaders? And so this is why ego to me is the first thing we've got to be prepared to do is put ego aside. Well, and it's an interesting thing because when I first started with you and we would be working with clients or even on the morning show, but mostly because it took us a while before we got to that after I joined, is that when you use the phrase, we need to... is there's no room for other people's ideas. There's no room for, I may not know all the information there's. And so it's like we, so to change, even just to shift that, because I see this an awful lot on some of the Facebook, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this. And, and it's like, I'll tell you what will solve your problem. You need to do this. And, and that kind of, that kind of, energy you bring to trying to mentor someone else doesn't leave room for I'm wrong for one thing or I may not have all the information for another and so you've you just like drilled into me it's like please don't use you need to do this it's like we or you have to do this It's we advise that you do this from what we've seen this, that we advise you to do this. And if it's like a really, really like it's, it's like right on the edge of need to, it's like, we strongly, strongly advise that you do this. Um, Let me give you a quick example. And it can kind of help people get ready for a podcast we've got coming up. I think we decided on next Friday, the tenth. By the way, this coming Friday, we have Brent Carmichael. Brent Carmichael. He's going to step into the chair of Director of Education. And he starts on the following Monday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the following Friday, we have Kristen Acosta from a dealership in Iowa. And so here's my point of this. When we talk about... So you talked about saying need to, or you should do this, or, you know... I had to have a conversation with some of our V eight people. So in a V eight meeting, think about what a V eight meeting looks like. Virtual meeting of dealers in different pockets of the country. They have a comparative report to look at and talk about. And sometimes dealer one will say to dealer six, you need to do this. I don't care what anybody says. You got to have more down payment. Right. Or whatever. And I'm sitting over there saying, you better look a little closer at those numbers because, you know, sometimes I have to stop them. You're, you're telling people that, that they should do a certain thing because that's the way you do it. And that's the way you believe it should be done. But can you, can you let your ego aside and say, maybe there's another way to do it an additional way. Doesn't mean your way is wrong, but maybe there's an additional way to do it. So this is again, an example of when, and I ask our V eight members, when they come to the meeting, bring an open mind, right? bring a beer or two if you like, but bring an open mind. If it helps you keep an open mind, bring a beer. That's right. So, but it's, it's ego. It's like ego has us and it'll, it'll, it'll fool us. It'll take us down an errant path that can sometimes be expensive. And so, you know, it's, it's why I think as a collective thing that it's, it's on my mind when I watch, do, do I have ego? Of course we all operate from some level of ego. It's just that when we can, in order to be effective leaders and in order for us to make a good business decisions, and especially if you're, if you're really looking to scale your business, then in order for you to grow and, You got to be able to involve the team. You got to get them to buy in. And, and that usually means not running it like a dictator, you know, and I have my ways and this is the way we're going to do it. And you can live or die by that. But unfortunately too many people die by it. And I, and I love, I love that, that you, it's, it's interesting as, as I've sat back and I've observed, um, how the conversations, because I am by far not a subject matter expert in buy here, pay here. There are other things that I have a deep understanding on. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing is that, you know, I've I've Even with those that advise you, if they're telling you this is the way you need to do it, this is a cookie cutter, this is here's the thing, throw the box in, make sure you fit in the box, that also is a dangerous thing to do. And I see that too, where it's like, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this, here it is, and then gone. And that's, it's a hard, that's... So it kind of ties back to our conversation around trust and everything that we talk about in terms of White Hat Way. It's like your question about why. Like, could I show up at a dealership and say, if you follow these twenty seven steps, you know, you'll have some degree of success. And if they follow that to the letter, will they have some degree of success? I think it's a high likelihood now. Is there other things to consider? Like, this is the part of our challenge in this business, and I think this will always be the case. I can't write a twenty seven step business plan for you that's going to work the same as somebody else. So, you know, we have to consider what the strategy, direction, mindset like, you know, there's just a lot of things to consider when you step into strategy building and deciding, how you want to build your business. But I think the things that we've talked about already, having good data is going to help us know asking why, what, why do we want to do? You're going to hear that a lot. So I think in twenty twenty five, as we step into, we want to ask a lot of people, why do you want to do what it is? What, what, why is your strategy this? Talk to us about what is to be accomplished here. What does it gain for you personally as the dealer owner? Yeah. I mean, because the, one of the things, as you know, it's been a real thing for me is I want to help dealers build their business in a way they're not tethered to it. Right. So that just means, so, so is this going to create for you? If I can get you to step off the hamster wheel for a minute, talk to me about your personal life and what you want your personal life to look like. What's your lifestyle going to be? It's an interesting thing because I mean, we, we work with a lot of dealers and there are, I, it's, it's, It is such a challenge. So many dealers are so tethered to their dealership, so tethered to their dealership. They're not the sales team. They're not the collections team. They're their high-level manager. And to get them to leave the building for a meeting so you can have a real... you know when when we're on a zoom call we don't know who's listening to a conversation in the building and so sometimes it's like hey can you get out of the how freaking hard that is for some dealers it's just like can you once a week or every other week get out of the building for two hours yeah And have a conversation. And without them saying it back to me, what you can hear going through their head, but Jim, I can't be away for an hour. The business will fall apart. And I would say, well, why don't we spend an hour talking about that, you know, outside the building. So yeah, I, I, uh, there's a couple, we've got a couple of comments and I'd like to, before we go to the last one, George spat. Social media in general and Facebook in particular show us classic examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Unfortunately, many have gone so far as to actually label themselves as consultants. Happy New Year, by the way. And then Rudy Enriquez, good morning. This industry is full of doers and not engineer nerd types. True. The nerd will question and try to optimize, tweak, and think and never get anything done. Doers just shoot from the hip and stuff gets done and then continue on. But bullets go errant too. So it's like finding a nice combination of doers and nerds. It's like that. Yeah. So Rudy's kind of drilled in on this thing about that. I have talked about, I remember way back on social media and LinkedIn before you and I met having conversations, I chimed in on something where people come forward and say, execution is everything. Right. And I think I don't, Really buy that. And part of the reason I don't buy that is because I think, first of all, that discounts the role of the innovators and the visionaries and the people who are kind of have the grand vision. Now, sometimes this person who's a visionary and the grand vision is not necessarily the same day to day doer. Right. Frickin' men. One of the companies that I worked for, that the president, CEO, founder was a creator. And he knew because he'd been in business long enough. It's, and this is, it's like Jerry Martinez, like all of it is he is the creator. And so he can map out and frame something and then he high, it gives it to doers. And so, you know, in a whole thing, in a whole, you know, the whole entire ecosystem. Yes. Execution is like so important, but execution is not everything. And, and it, it does. And I've, as, as we continue moving forward with, with some of the things that we're working on, Jim becomes more and more the creator. And then we have the who that are the executors. Yeah. And I'm able to shift more into the other thing you can find from Simon Sinek is the golden circle. So I'm really fortunate to be at this stage of my career and had discovered this concept that it's snapped in place for us. The whole concept of why, like start with why, which was a Simon Sinek book. And so this is kind of, it drives us and it helps us to, I think back to Rudy's thing is like, we put ego aside and we can we can draw on the contributions of all of those people at the table whether they're you know the people who execute or whether they're the idea people or you know whatever it's like let's draw from all of them let's don't shut them out and say our idea we got this like we know what we're doing over here right and so this is kind of the ego thing one last thing we're we're So the last one for me is is there's like three or four things wrapped up in the same thing. But it's really a thing that's always been something for me. And that's around messaging. Right. It's like, how do we message ourselves better? I've seen a lot of conversation around this. Yeah. You know, there's there's messaging can go into so many different rabbit holes. And and it did. One of the strings that I read through was about, OK, so how do we. how do we develop trust in our community? And, you know, this is, this is something that we're beating that drum all the time. And it was really great to sit back and listen to dealers pipe in to like, here's what I've done. Here's what I've done. And, and it is, it's, it is that messaging is, it's like, that's the broader concept or broader context is like, And it's because it's all about that. What kind of message are you delivering to your consumers? Whether that be the message is they always follow through. The message is that, you know, whatever their social media is showing, the message is, but it's about what's your message. So maybe it helps to take it out of our industry for a minute and just think about To me, it's the separator. It's like, what is our unique value proposition? And additionally for us is with White Hat Way, we think dealers who are going to be most drawn to White Hat Way are the ones who are playing a very long game. They're interested in making the investments now to, to establish a reputation, a business that is sustainable. Okay. So why is that important in the subject of messaging and marketing? Because when we can draw people to our business that are, the right fit they're the they're the consumer that's a good match for the way we do business okay so if I take it out of the car business I just say you know we got two dry cleaners across the street from one you know bob that marries dry cleaners across the street from me and if they're both running ads that say we shirts for two ninety five and somebody over here saying we clean shirts too you know it's like So what separates you? Why would I come? You clean shirts, you clean shirts. I got to make a choice here. What's going to make me decide where to do business? So back to our dealership world is like dealers. This is a broad brush, folks. This is like, you know, when we look at what we see across how dealers advertise, it's too often it's, Hey, we have cars, we have cars, we have cars, right? So, okay. Well, most people who have used car dealers license, if I drive by your place and I see that your sign says Bob's used cars, I expect you're going to have cars. the question is why, why should I turn into your entrance? Right. It's like, so, so this is kind of just farm boy marketing here. Right. So this is kind of as somebody who I had a real interest in marketing, had some business classes in school and had an interest in marketing way back. And in particular around messaging and, you know, keep in mind, I was a partner in a business of retail and sporting goods business when I was. Twenty four years old. So this goes back because I'm way past twenty four now. Um, so anyway, it's like, the idea is it's something that I've paid attention to throughout my career and all kinds of different businesses. And I think what, if you're playing a long game and for, so for me, the thing, the blog post is around this idea of, um, I'd like to help dealers across this industry get better at selling trust. We're working on some very specific things with White Hat Way to be able to go forward with some marketing that will go into their markets and be able to sell them as trustworthy businesses. Because this is one thing that Whiteway has in common. This is one of the things that drew Pastime, LHPH Capital, Dealer Re to us. They're longstanding providers. They have built their own businesses. Part of their pillar principles are trust. They want to be trusted providers. So one of the things we look forward to being able to do is tell the story about why they're trustworthy, right? So this is where White Hat Way can do a better job of telling that story, right? And so this is part of what I see my career being. And this is part of why as we step into the twenty twenty five, I look forward to dialing in more of that messaging. And until then, look, dealers who aren't going to be part of White Hat Way program, I still want to see them learn how to get better at telling their story and earning trust. Why? Because our poll said that ninety eight percent of dealers believe that being trusted means translates into more sales. Ninety eight percent of dealers said it's the highest percentage we've ever had on any poll we've ever put out there. It's like ninety eight percent say if I'm I believe that if if I'm trusted that I'm going to sell more cars. You know, I was as as you were kind of walking through that and around the trust, the word that came up to me is like, when we can really communicate that we are an asset to communities, That we are an asset. We are not a liability. Right now, if you're looking assets or liabilities of businesses in communities, buy here, pay here is considered a liability more than an asset because it's predatory, all of that kind of stuff. And so it's the same thing as paycheck loans, title loans, pawn shops. Predatory. predatory things is that they are not considered an asset they're considered a liability and and are they are they helping people get better or are they pulling them into um staying on that uh that uh poor credit merry-go-round yeah um that kind of thing so I you know I was like was thinking about that trust and asset are very closely tied and to be an asset and your community and an asset to your, your consumers, your customers. It's like, how do you do that? How do you become an asset to them? And it's, and it's not just so that they can take, you know, some it's like, well, of course I'm an asset. I give them a car. It goes, yes, that's part of it. but how do we in general in our communities, because this is something that we really, we focus on in white hat way is it's not just about the dealership. And once you step on our property, you're going to be treated. It's like, how is this dealership in a community? Something that is an asset to. Yeah. Community at large. And the other thing that we have working against us is we, in messaging, if I say, okay, I like what Jim and Michelle said, I'm going to go out and, and try to sell trust. Now they hop on social media and run a Facebook live and they say, trust me, I'm a used car dealer. right it's like that classic old joke trust me I'm a used car salesman right it's like you when you're trying to sell yourself it's not that you go out and say I'm trustworthy in order so let me get as specific as I can about this because the way that we believe that you build trust and this is why we say it's a long game you start making trust deposits okay you and so the way that you do that is you're one you're transparent You got to get ready to be transparent. And if you're transparent and some people don't like what they see, then you're going to hurt yourself. So when I say being transparent, it's like, let them know if you, so, so let me say, let's, let's, Jim's used cars and I'm a, I'm a good guy in my market. I really, truly care about my customers and I support them. Okay. So I think one of the key ways that you earn trust is because customers are don't on the day they're buying a car they're with you you know whatever the online experience is it's getting shorter and shorter I used to say they're with you an hour and a half you know well now they can do most of their stuff online and the actual time they're in the building taking deliveries an hour yeah so so what is the experience of the customer leading up to that we've been selling them maybe they just moved to town maybe maybe they moved here six months a year ago they don't know us know us and so they're they're going off of our they're here doing business, but of course you're trying to sell me a car, you know, or if I'm Jim, they, they, they, I'm, I'm trying to sell them a car. So the best way I begin to earn trust is show the customer that I mean what I say. I do what I promised after delivery. I follow through. This is thing. People talk about follow up in the car business. I would ask you to replace that language with follow through. So follow up is sometimes in the sales capacity of, of following up and, and Hey, you still in the market for a car? That's what people think about follow up. I'm talking about follow through. And I'm talking about when I can show and let my customers tell that story. They promised me this before I bought the car. they then followed through and did what they said they were going to do. And they continue to do it. And not just for me, the people I work with, they had the same experience. So, so now those people can tell that story. You can get better at telling that story because now you're, you're, you're making trust deposits and you're showing, how do you become trusted? Well, by doing what you say you're going to do, right. You, you, and, and showing that you, you, you mean what you say and that you really are in it for the long haul. And you really do take care of your customers because it's, it's, you can say it on the front end of the purchase, but you're, you're in a sales mode and you're, you know, and so, so it's really once the customer buys, that's your opportunity to show, Hey, we're still who we said we are. We're still following through on the things that we promised you we were going to do. And I want to show up and be proactive about that. I want to do it before they ask for it. Right. Rudy piped in and said, I don't think trust can be sold. It's earned over time. The actions you do sell your reputation to the public. Let me add to what Rudy said, though. The part I'm really suggesting here, Rudy, is he's absolutely right. I think trust, I put it in the same category as respect. You have to earn it. But once you earn it, let's get better about telling the story. Uh-huh. Okay? And what we're also, White Hat Way, is not just about how do you earn trust of the people that step on your lot. Right. It's about how do you earn the trust of your community. And so we're also looking at how do we engage with our community so that with other businesses in the community, with people that might not need a buy here, pay here. Yeah. It's like, oh, these people are an active part of the community and we trust them. We know who they are because we see their stuff. They're out there doing the things. We like who they are. It's like, how do you not like someone who's out there trying to actively help or whatever? It's that known, liked, and trusted. When you trust is a byproduct of other things. And I think one other thing you could tie to trust is this, this definition of integrity that we see that people say one definition of integrity and character is that you, you do the right thing even when you think nobody's looking. Yeah. Okay. So this is, and so how that relates to us in the car business in particular is I would ask you to think about the word disingenuous in this context because we, we miss an opportunity and, when we go out and we try to tell this story and we try to be, we try to have some goodwill, but it gets wrapped into a sales event. So I say, come down and get a free hot dog. And while you're here, we're going to hit you. Or if you do a test drive, we'll give you a free hot dog. So that's really a promotional event. But I'm saying we see dealers try to go do some sort of promotional event, what we would call a goodwill event. But they end up wrapping it in something where they invite their salespeople and the salespeople are out there giving coupons off of buy a car. It's like you turned it into a sales event when you had the opportunity to just earn some goodwill today and not sell cars today. And so that's where we missed the boat because we just come off like we're salesmen and our real mission is to get in your pocket. Yeah. Well, and Rudy is like, true. How do you how to communicate that you are worthy of trust? And so, you know, the the topic today was as a industry in general. And, you know, we we like as an industry in general, that that what we're seeing and what we're tackling as White Hat Way and coaches, consultants, all of the things is one thing. Being able to help dealers compare their numbers in a way that it's like it's a true comparison. It's apples to apples. And then this trust thing, I know that that was the end part. This trust thing is how do we... find a voice as a industry and NIA data is a great job on that. And there are others that are out there that are really trying to, to, it's like, how do we, that they're, they're working on CFPB and all of those kinds of things becoming trusted. We're looking at this from a kind of a different angle. It's not just about regulatory agencies, it's communities. How do we, how do we start to be able to frame a buy here, pay here dealer and or a white hat way buy here, pay here dealer is an asset to communities. It isn't that they are. And so that's one of the things we're working on where the C and, and, and as a by-product people like the CFPB and all of that, we'll start to see we're coming at this from the other side too, that it's not just, it's not just us, you know, how do we protect the dealers? And we know we have to protect the consumers and, and, And, you know, how are we being fair to everyone at the, at the table and, and, you know, and honoring and respecting that the governmental agencies are about protecting people, but we're, we're out there trying to, we're out there, um, teaching dealers and helping the industry to be able to rise in communities and that it will, it's like a different angle towards this understanding that there is a huge need that's being filled And that those that are doing it with, you know, how do we differentiate, too? Right. And, like, these are honest, hardworking. They're going to do what they say they're going to do. Yeah. And that they are an asset to the community. How do we actually help dealers become visible so it'll help the industry in a whole? Yeah, so that's marketing storytelling. it's storytelling through marketing and when I say marketing I'm also just meaning socialization like through social media and through socialization in your community I think the way that I would choose to operate and the way I did operate as a dealer is like we're not over here taking advantage of people. We're trying to support people and we're trying to make sure they have a good experience and that obviously we have a business to run. But if you follow us around long enough, it's kind of never said it, but in the back of my mind is like, you follow us around long enough, you will see that we practice what we preach. We really are trying to make sure the customer has every opportunity to be successful. Absolutely. Yeah. Like follow, follow us. And so you'll see. And so this is where I think dealers, as an example, you could start to figure out how to take folks inside these conversations that happen in your service department, introduce them to your service manager, take them inside a conversation you guys just had about, you know, a customer who had a warranty matter. And so, you know, talk about that stuff because this is where, the rubber meets the road so to speak in terms of because we're we're used car people we sell cars and we and people see us through a lens of sales people yeah so the question is how do I would I choose to do business with you because you do what you say you're going to do you have a reputation in the community of doing what you say you're going to do you follow through and it's a whole separate conversation I look forward to coming back and talking about this whole idea when you step into doing more than what is promised because I what we're trying to do is create boundaries we want we want we want to have a level playing field we want to make sure we're transparent and clear about what we do and that we do what we say we're going to do and that we expect the customer to do the same yeah right so um uh white hat way jim and michelle all of the things that are you know uh under white hat way incorporated um v-eight fire pair institute coaching I mean all of that is under that Part of our mission this year is to really help the industry in two of those three things. And that is helping be able to message and a byproduct is like create a higher level of trust of buy here, pay here dealers. And the other thing is this whole being able to help dealers get really clean information in front of them so they can compare in a way that it's like it's clean so those are two things and so what we're asking dealers to bring is um, to, to be open minded and, and to, to look at the things that, that can help their business throughout this year. Cause that is, you know, this, this whole, the ego part of that as, as a problem, um, is, is, you know, we're just asking for dealers, all of those that are out there listening is, is be open to learning and, you know, every, every, uh, Every business owner that's out there that is like someone, Simon Sinek is learning every day. Elon Musk is learning every day. I mean, some of the giants in industry, Warren Buffett, all that, they will say, learn every day. And when you bring that to your business, that is saying, I don't know everything. Right. and that you're open to other ideas, to looking at things from a different perspective, and that we can all rise from some of those other pieces, but just being open to, all right, let's just be open to learning and open to understanding. We don't know all of it, and our business model Although it works for us from our perspective is that we're open to the idea that there may be different perspectives and different ways that work just as well and possibly even better than the way that we are doing it now. So be open to learning and being open to understanding. And we do this every day. Mm-hmm. We don't, you know, you said, I learn every day. And it's because you bring to what, when you're consulting, it's like, there are straight line things that it's like, I've seen a lot of different ways of doing it. This is probably one of the better ways of doing it, that kind of thing. But that you're, I mean, we have conversations every day where Jim's coming, and he's like, I learned something today. And so learn. there's a I think the shortest way to say that around some of these things is like there's no shortage of opinions out there like and so this is kind of what george is saying about social media whatever there's there's opinions and some people can call themselves a consultant but it's like I think um I I think where we can kind of wrap up from my standpoint is like you I would just challenge dealers. I think if you, to make sure that you see the world in a similar way to what we're talking about, listen, these dealers are busy, right? They're busy. They're, they're turning away. They're, they're trying to build a business. And I would just say, Two things. Go find Simon Sinek's Start With Why. Maybe watch the expanded version. There's some five minute stuff on YouTube, but probably find the twenty, twenty five minute presentation that he does around Start With Why. And then the other one would be look up some of his stuff on leadership because leadership, he talks a lot about culture. and how how leadership you know and culture he wrote a book called leaders eat last oh yeah too which is a really good book to um that was suggested to me I can't tell you decades or how probably when it first came out so it's been over a decade um but yes uh so be open to learning and um this is going to be a great year for everybody there really really is and I I see it I feel it and it's not just in buy hair pay here I just I I see a lot of um really positive things that are happening for got friends in all different industries Well, thank you for doing that, Jim. We really, really appreciate it. And we also really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you for making us part of your day. This was a long episode, but we covered some really big things and we're going to see just more and more creation of things that are going to help dealers. Hope you guys have a great rest of your day. Don't forget to always learn and also ask yourself why. All right. Have a good day, everybody. Thanks so much.
