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. And we're live from Ogden, Utah. Good morning, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Morning Show. I'm wondering if Yeah. Okay, cool. You're good on audio? Yeah. I think so. It all sounds fine to me. It looks good. So just a couple of quick things to share. I would remind everybody that we are going to be at NIADA. I'm speaking on Wednesday. Meg from our team is on a panel on Tuesday. We will have a booth. We will have a booth, so please come find us. But we'll get that stuff out. Like, One, two, one, two, one, something like that. You don't have to worry about it. Just listen for Michelle's laugh. You'll find her. Okay, I'm going to take that as a compliment. It is. It's a compliment. Everybody says you have a wonderful laugh. You know what's funny about that is that my sister-in-law, when she hears me laugh, she's like, it is the exact same thing as John, and I've been to functions where John's friends are, and they'll hear me laugh, and they're like, oh, my gosh, I thought it was John. Huh. because we've got the same kind of. I've been around John some, I've never made that connection myself, but that's interesting. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. But it was a compliment. Yeah. So, yeah. So I, other quick thing to mention, I shared with you last night, we had our first VA meeting of may and so interesting to see the reaction of the dealers. We talked through some pretty, you know, significant subjects. And one of the things that that particular group, had not yet seen the cash on cash return figures that we prepared. I introduced that last month, but after the first, after that group had already met, so they hadn't seen it. So I modeled that out for them. And it just really opened some interesting conversations when you can say, this is the rate at which you're recovering your risk, right? Is the cash risk and how quickly you get it back. Not, not what the, amortization says not what the months to breakout would be, but just actually applying their actual rate of collections to that number is like pretty interesting. And some of them, some of the dealers I think went away realizing, Oh, I got things to work on. Right. Yeah. Well, we had this week, we ran a rerun on Wednesday and Jim and I have been like, we've talked through a lot of different topics. a lot of different topics, and there's some really great topics that we just want a little more time or whatever, but some really good meat on the bone for some of the things that we wanted to discuss. And today I'm going to assume that this has a little bit to do with the fact that Jim went last Saturday. This is and did took the class for concealed weapons. in the state of Utah. So it's like that kind of stuff forefront. Am I wrong? I don't, I actually don't remember where the inspiration came from. I mean, I think there were conversations that day with your brother who was also there. The one that laughs like me. Yeah. Yeah. And so I can't say that that was the inspiration. I would say it's, it's a combination of, this thing you and I've been talking about lately, and this will be a separate podcast topic coming up, but this idea of being able to articulate the vision. And I think folks will be able to see how that ties in to what we're talking about today. We're talking about how to sharpen your aim. Yeah. And then, and then be able to articulate that target. Yeah. And that's something that we've been talking about, like you said, recently a lot about when, you know, we have a lot of friends and family that are entrepreneurs themselves. And so they ask, what is it that you're creating? And so we start talking about a lot of the things and they just, they're sitting there trying, you know, really, really like picking up all of the, but, but that we've missed the mark on, with, on some of those conversations where, um it's because they'll ask a couple of follow-up questions and it's like then it hits and they and they understand it so we've been on this quest um for a year or more it's just like you know you hear all the time like that elevator pitch kind of thing it's like how do we just really really articulate in a very concise and understandable way what it is that our mission is. And, um, and we are, we just continue to get better and better and better. Yeah. I think some of those conversations, that's true. Chat GPT helps a lot because it helps with the language to make it more concise. And so this is a part of what we're doing. And obviously with that, that's again, a separate topic. I think we'll bring that back and dive into that in more depth, but the aim. Yeah. And, and, you know, in my past life, as you know, um, I was a gun shop owner. It was just a few decades ago. Well, honey, I just turned forty in two thousand three. I know it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I picked that up from a comic. I would love it. Yeah. So anyway, I have to do the math and figure out how. Yeah. I'll leave you to that. Yeah. No, it's just it's the idea that, you know, in order to be able to kind of take some of those disciplines that I learned from being you know, I grew up hunting and shooting and shooting some distances and some of those kind of things. There are a lot of things I learned in shooting as a young person. And then later in my adult life became a gun shop owner and then archery technician and kind of pro shop for archery and was a coach. Like we would coach archers on, you know, how to, um, how to shoot. Right. And so I think the thing that comes about from that, that applies to our buy here, pay here business in particular, or any business, really everything we're going to talk about here today would apply to most any business. And I think it's really about how to create the language. So, so part of this is about language, right? We're talking about that with the articulating thing to be able to express as specifically as you can, what it is you're aiming for. But let me kind of take you through. I loaded up some stuff on kind of an, of an archery kind of analogy here. So, you know, you've got a target on the screen there for those not seeing the screen that you invite you to check this out on YouTube. We've got a couple of things that we're referred to here, but that, that, target is much like what you would expect to see on archery range. Doesn't matter if you're, you know, a boys camp in the summertime or whatever that's going to look like. This is what archery targets often look like. And let's say, Michelle, you're my student. And last week we had a, you know, more like an ongoing training thing. And so last week we practiced and you were getting better. All the arrows hit the target last week, right? So you kind of, everything pretty much landed in that white ring. so when today we look at that and we think okay so today we want to get a little more we want to try to improve right our success and our accuracy and what we're doing and so one of the things I would be doing if I were coaching in that situation I would say last week we did we did well we you know for being new you you're pretty inexperienced and you've managed to get all the arrows on the target this week I want to try to work on getting that dialed in a little bit more. And one of the ways we could do that is if I pull out a black marker before you shoot, I'm going to walk down the range and I'm going to pull out a black marker and I'm going to do this to the target. I'm just going to put a big cross on it and I'm going to put a little dot in the middle. And I'm going to ask you, Michelle, do you want to change anything about everything that we did last week, the way you hold the bow, all the stuff is the same. All I'm going to ask you to do is focus very much on that black dot in the middle of that yellow circle and I want you to, as you, as you visualize that thing, as you shoot, I want you to imagine the arrow going right into that black circle, that little small black. Okay. Okay. So it's like, I'm just asking you to do a couple of things. So everything about your setup, all the equipment is the same. All I'm really asking you to shift is your mental focus. Okay. Okay. So this is something guns, anything is like, I'm just asking you to get more precise in your focus about what it is that you're going to do. So now, Without ever shooting, you can imagine if I bring that to a student, don't you think that just based on that alone, I'm probably going to land a lot more arrows in red at least. Oh, yeah. So I want to ask you. Yeah, I agree. You know that would be the outcome. You know that would be the outcome because the more focused you get, the higher the likelihood of hitting the spot. Um, so I, yeah. So this becomes a lot of brain science, right? And this is, you know, we're no, we're not scientists over here, but you, you just know that this is, this is about, and so a lot of my, my study of, of kind of brain science in the past is like thinking about really about athletics. I was also an athlete in school, high school level. And so I, I just learned a little bit about that and, and following athletics over time, you watch these athletes that are ultra successful. And one of the things that you recognize in that is that they learn, they develop a practice where they get very precise in their visualization. Like it is, it is like down to the, you know, at the end of the season, this is what the last day of the season looks like and all of the stuff, like they just map it all out. And this is what success looks like. This is what, this is what it looks like to have a successful outcome. yeah you're great which I because I'm I'm just like I from my own personal practice is there's like you add one more layer to this and it's just you are so much more guaranteed success yeah so that kind of starts to get into this and I put manifestation in here so in a lot of circles manifestation and we have a lot of people who are you know in our in our circle friends and family people over we have these wonderful conversations and Some of them are, you know, in that category that you might describe as woo woo. Right. And so, you know, it just bleeds more and more into the regular population every day. Yeah. But I think when I hear the word manifestation, it's often used in kind of an ethereal context. And and people are familiar with that movie, The Secret. Right. So they think about that sort of thing about manifestation. My own. knowledge of manifestation is evolving, but I can say that it mostly is rooted in this idea of visualization in order to achieve success, in order to realize an outcome. Like, so that's the phrase I use and kind of think about this is visualization translates into a realization. OK, because when you visualize it and you get ultra focused on what success looks like and what tomorrow looks like. This is the exercise we take many of the dealers that we work with when we're doing more expanded engagements. We take them through this visualization thing. Right. And and it really is because you until you know what. it is that your aim is and and I and I we talked to dealers all you were saying that when you spoke with the dealers last night that they all said full steam ahead full steam ahead you know it's just grow grow grow and all of that what does that look like what because it's one thing to say um you know grow grow grow and it's like this is what I want but you have to get really clear about what it looks like to have grown. And then, you know, that also helps you with deconstructing that visualization to like, what are the things that, that potentially, because I mean, gosh, darn it. When you're, when you're talking about manifestation, you have to be willing to pivot because you have that, that this, this is the thing. And then like when you're doing target practice, the wind comes up. And so you have to be, you know, account for the different things. This is the end goal. But, you know, account for all of the, you know, the different stuff that comes along with it. And I love this. I love how it ties into what it is that you were talking yesterday. And we this is something that we are going to be revisiting. We've talked about vivid visioning. And it's, it is, it's like, get really, really, really clear about what that looks like. I think dealers can expect to see us take them more carefully through a vivid vision exercise through the podcast even. So I think this is part of where you can expect to see us go in the coming weeks. But I would also say, and I did load up some things. Let me kind of take you on through some of the stuff that I think would help. And when it comes to articulation, Um, these are some language tips that I put together. Okay. So kind of just touches on what do you, this is the first time I'm seeing this. Yeah. Yeah. I just prepared this this morning, but. Language tips for setting, buying your, paying your business and LHBH business targets. Yeah. So I'm, I'm suggesting common phrasing, thinking about things that I heard in the meeting last night. Right. So these are the things that dealers say. And, and of course they just, just light talk, you know, in a conversation. But I'm challenging everybody, and this again, any business, it's like when you say, when a dealer says, I'm looking to freshen my inventory. Now, if I'm having that conversation with my used car manager or with somebody on our team and I'm asking them to accept responsibility for that, instead of saying, I'm looking to freshen inventory, I would get in the habit of replacing that crazy with something like I want to liquidate all inventory that's greater than the difference between the target and the wide target. So it's like drilling, drilling, zeroing in on get specific. Like it's up to us. We have the vision in order to realize that outcome. We get, we have to get better at articulating what it is that is the outcome looks like. And it's not only in articulating to yourself, but to articulating to your team, because there is woo manifestation when you speak it as if it is done or as close as you can or setting very specific goals that using language is so powerful. And this kind of comes into some of the things that we We, uh, Jim just really worked with me and kind of pounded this. It's like, we're not trying we're doing yes. It's like, stop saying I'm trying to do this. It's like, this is what we are doing. This is because, because two with your team, when you say this is what we are doing, not I'm looking to what or whatever, this is what we are doing. And they, they know what that pinpoint is. Sure. again, your likelihood of accomplishing that goal just dramatically increases. And I think part of what you can do, and this is just kind of a basic management tip, I would say that if I set targets that are achievable, because if I say to the team right here, we're going to liquidate all inventory over nine days, and they're going to say, good luck, boss, whatever, if they don't buy in. Right. So why wouldn't they buy in? Because we've talked about this kind of thing in loose terms in the past and we didn't achieve it. And so that's why they don't buy in. But when you say to them, I'm going to liquidate all cars over ninety days by the close of this month. And then on the last day of the month, there's no car on the list that's greater than ninety days. They begin to buy in to this. What you speak becomes reality. And now our ability to achieve that, and it translates to the team, right? It affects the culture. It affects the buy-in. Yeah. And one of the really powerful things in a team as well is you as the leader come and say, this is what the goal is. How do you suggest we achieve that goal? And let them buy in by coming up. It's like, this is the goal. This is what it looks like in ninety days. Right. how would you do it? How would you do it? How would you do it? And then working together as a team, because when you can get them like focused, it's like, Oh, Oh, Oh. And you, you see teams, the whole team all locking in on that target, all locking in. And it's like, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? What can I do? Back to our archery target. If you're that student and I say, we're going to focus on that little black dot. Okay. And now are you going to hit the little black dot every time? No, but by having that focus, and that target that objective that that level of discipline to stay on that and when you release it you imagine it hitting that black dot then I'm going to be able to back up and say look at that all of them inside the red circle I bet you didn't expect last week you could be able to do that yeah yeah that's part of it too is that we have to we have to celebrate right with our teams like the good things that happen, even if by chance you don't hit that exact thing, it's like, look at what we've done. Look at where we've gone. I've got a couple more of these examples. Let's show those. Not phrasing like I'm looking to grow the portfolio this quarter. I love this because it's like I hear this all the time. I'm looking to do this. I'm looking to do this. It's like, okay. Let's break it down. What does it take? So if I said to my team, I said in this quarter, our target is to finance ninety. I'm just threw some numbers in here. The idea is to get specific. We're going to finance ninety. We're going to limit our charge off to sixty. We're going to focus on thirty net sales. That would be the outcome of financing ninety. Net sales is kind of my own term for, you know, finance ninety and charge off sixty and increase the portfolio by twenty three accounts, allowing for some payoffs and two hundred fifty K in principle. Again, just throwing numbers on there. But by getting that specific, this is the this is the aim. So everybody on the team, I have articulated that in a way that the team know this is the objective. And because I articulate that objective that precisely the chances of us achieving that becomes so much higher. Agreed. Agreed. And I just, I love to in this teams look to their leader for direction for direction. And, and they look to their leader for clear direction. And when we're not clear, then they, they can, Wander and, and it's just, it's, and so too, when, when we're, when we're doing something like this, you know, hopefully in our, in our weekly team meetings and things like that, these goals, these targets are, are, um, re-articulated. Re recalibrated if need be. And that as you go, you celebrate each step of the way, the successes towards that, that will help your team immensely to be able to see that. And when you can start doing this kind of stuff, then the next quarter, when you've got the next goals. it becomes more possible to them. Right. So taking this same one, I said that our, and this was a target, finance, whatever, increased by twenty three accounts and two hundred fifty K principal. What if I only came in at twenty one accounts gained and two hundred K in principle? I still achieved what I was originally thinking, which is I'm looking to grow the portfolio. True. So instead of saying, right. And then and then, too, it can become a game with the team where it's like, oh, we almost hit the mark. We're going to do it this year, this month. And you know, we've talked about this a long time ago in the podcast. We talked about this thing where early on in my coaching days, I kind of settled into doing weekly objectives with people or weekly initiatives rather with things that were dealers that were kind of stagnant. And it worked. We started chipping away and set targets that were achievable and we'd go knock them out and then the team buys in and then we're knocking out targets week after week. we don't hit them a hundred percent of the time but we hit them high enough percentage of the time because we were purposeful in setting those targets that we set them in a way that they're achievable the team says I realize I can achieve that I set a reasonable target I knocked it out and I'm better I look now I look back at the quarter and I can see that oh wow I made a lot of progress and it didn't wasn't aware in the moment but last one I was kind of on the same same track of course Instead of saying I'm looking to improve cash flow, if instead I said by the close of July, I'm looking to reduce expenses from forty percent of P&I collected to thirty six percent of P&I collected. Four percent. Four percent. So I can do that two ways. I can increase my P&I collective. I can reduce my expenses. But my goal here is I. So what happened? I increased cash flow when I achieved that because I'm very specific about and I helped the team and everybody that's working with us to recognize this is the target. This is the outcome. And when I can express that and articulate it well. that my chance of actually achieving that outcome just goes up sharply. Yeah, I again, I think what a great opportunity as like an entire organization team meeting when you're talking about as a dealership. Here are one, two, three goals. These are things that we're doing. And as a team, you're developing your plan around how to do that. What a beautiful thing as well. to be able to educate your team members about what these things mean. And so here's the, there's a couple of layers that I just, I will help you get that target. One, what carrot is dangling if you achieve that goal? That it's really, and it's not just, yay, we accomplished the goal, but some kind of carrot. It doesn't have to be, you know, the same thing. It's some kind of a, some kind of carrot for the team that the team can buy is like, yeah, I want that. Yeah. I want to be able to do that. Yeah. And, and as an individual and as a co as a collective, you know, what is that? What is the carrot? Because, because it's, it's like, you know, when you've got a big goal, it makes that big goal more achievable. Like personally, if you have a reward for yourself at the end of it, it just does. And so it's like, when we achieve this, that we're going to go, you know, do this or that we are going to buy the thing or we're going to whatever. So, I mean, I really strongly suggest that that along with that that there that as a leader that you actually that's that would be something that would be really fun unless you have something that you're like very this is what this is what the reward is is you can say all right everybody the reward can be one of three things or one of two things you guys choose amongst yourselves what you want the reward to be the woo of the layer so it kind of got like here's the goal here's the reward How does that reward feel to accomplish? So when you add like, you know, everyone's going to get an extra extra two hundred dollars, whatever. What would you do with that two hundred dollars? How would it feel to have that? Because it's like to me, it's like the whole manifestation thing, clear directives, reward system and really, really just learning to And this is where some people are like, that's real woo, but it is so flipping powerful when you can feel what it feels like to accomplish that goal. And then every time you're looking at the goal and you're thinking about the goal is, is kind of make yourself until it becomes second, second nature, feel what it feels like to accomplish that goal, because that is like this internal fuel to keep you moving towards the goal. It's like, Oh, it feels, Wow, that's going to be so awesome. and you know and like like it's already happened that you feel what it is that that your goal is I do think that's excellent I think it's um I would just say to remind everybody it doesn't always have to be dollars I mean not all our people are motivated by dollars I think if we just in management meetings if we just celebrate in my example the used car manager hey good job we got those we got all those age units off of the inventory and that was the goal and we don't have to talk about that we lost money on the wholesale we don't have to it's We did what we said we were going to do. Good job. Glad we got that done. Like that alone, that praise goes a long way. So I think you can, people can start to imagine and you can, you can help the team and create that culture where the team says they can understand what it's going to feel like to have that be the case. Right. And so I think this is some, there's a lot of interesting elements in our buy here, pay your business that, You know, we can we can create. But I think the first four businesses for the dealer principal or whoever the leader is that we're listening is like whatever that outcome is that you're looking for. You have to get clear yourself first and you have to set a reasonable target. And when I whatever's, you know, what's what's achievable for you? and your team, like you got to figure that out. Like what's reasonable for me, you might set it much higher. Like I, you know, what's achievable for you and your team. It's just recognize in this goal setting context of management, recognize the, the potential negative impact coming up short. So when we've set goals too high and month after month, we fall short. Think about how that feels in a management. I mean, so you, you, you want to be able to stretch every month, but But this is, you know, there's a lot of dealers out there where the dealer principal is like, it's a small team. I mean, you've got less than a dozen people that all work with it. And so that makes a lot of sense for the dealer principal to be the one to do this. If you've got a GM and a dealer principal is offsite, that would be the GM. If you have a collections department, your collections, your manager over the collections department, if they've got a team of four or five or whatever people, this is an exercise for them to go through as well. And it's imagine what can happen when you can get your team leads your, and that could be the dealer principal again, like if it's small, but your team leads to really jump on board with this kind of process, what you can do as a dealership in, strengthening and strengthening your your business your portfolio and also strengthening you know the the culture within the team because people when when people can come together with a goal that they can accomplish morale morale just like whoo oh yeah it's it's so powerful so you know it's the act for me along the the moral of the story is be clear about what you want to accomplish. Um, uh, and, and have, you know, from there, it's like, you'll allow your team members, allow your whatever to kind of set some goals for the, you know, for themselves or whatever. It's like, this is how I'm personally going to improve to do the thing of some kind of reward. that when it's accomplished and really get them involved in envisioning what it is, how it will feel when that is done. Because I'll tell you one thing, teams nowadays, they appreciate being able to accomplish these kind of things, but that are especially, I'm going to go, this is going to sound like I'm off the track, but it's not because this is like a very foundational thing. They want to know that they're going to personally experience, have a better experience by accomplishing this goal. And people feel good about knowing that they contributed to the success. And, you know, because we talk and I see a lot of these younger people that are now in the workforce and all of that. They want to know that there's something that they're going to gain personally. Yeah. from the accomplishment of this goal. And that's where that reward thing comes in. It's like, how am I going to, and it doesn't have to be money, but it's just, you know, something that they, that it can, some people are really motivated by serving others. And so we accomplished this, we're going to be able to do this thing and, you know, or just lots of different things, but, but, but keeping in mind when you're coming up with your goals, And this is also very interpersonal, understanding what motivates your team members. But what is it that motivates them? It can be money. It can be more freedom. It can be service. It can be all sorts of different things. And so just really understanding that our team members more and more want to be able to experience the benefits. They want to experience the benefits. the benefits of achieving goals rather than just, well, it made the dealership more money or it or whatever, but it's just, how can we experience the accomplishment of these goals? Good. And I would say that dealers, if we think about just buyer payer dealers, people that are in twenty groups, people that are in V eight groups, Now that we've called this out, they can recount, they can think back on conversations within these meetings. And there are dealers in the room who speak this way, who speak precisely about what it is they're looking to achieve instead of just in generalities. And there's an old phrase that I don't love the phrase, but it sort of applies here. It's like the difference between hoping for business and being open for businesses. The hope thing is like, well, I hope we can do this or I hope we can do that. When you replace that phrasing with we're doing this, our target is this, and you get precise about it. I think that's the part that I would drive home for dealers is regardless of what that target is, recognize that the words that come out of your mouth, the words that you choose to articulate what it is that you're looking to have happen, the more specific you get about that, the greater the chance of success. Just because, I mean, human beings, and it doesn't matter if it's chat GPT, the more specific the direction that you provide, the greater the chance you're going to end up with what you are looking for. And so I think it's all kind of the same for me. It's like, it starts there. It's like, we got to get clear in our head and we got to, We've got to choose our words thoughtfully and make sure that we articulate. And so I'm having fun with our own work. We are working all the time to get better about articulating what it is that tomorrow looks like. And as I told our team not long ago, the vision for me just expands. It just continues to expand and grow. Be prepared for it to be even better than you wanted or that you envisioned. Because that's a real... When you really start to use these kind of tools in a team way, you know, it's, again, better to bottom line, better team, you know, where they're meshing and they're working with each other. When a team can celebrate something together, I mean, it just, it's those kind of things create camaraderie. They create a better experience, not just for themselves, but for your customers sometimes. I mean, this is like the trickle down for, for this kind of thing can be, um, you know, when you, when you layer in their love, respect, transparency, all of the white halfway principles, when you layer those things in, is it just, it's the trickle that comes down from that is amazing. Yeah. And we can kind of wrap up with this idea for me, as we talk through this, it occurs to me that. Efficiency and success stimulates culture and culture stimulates efficiency and success. So there's kind of a loop that's created there. And so I think, again, it's up to us when we articulate the team is going to have a greater chance to be successful. And then we're all going to share in that success, which is really going to drive culture. That's the most important thing is let is, is really find ways to help to, to offer the opportunity for a shared success with your entire team. Yep. So I would say to do this, get your Sharpie out and go back and mark on your targets, more precise aim. One, Karen Barnett, especially when people are motivated differently, this practice provides great individual and team value. There's a lot of different places you can go to learn about what um because there really are it's kind of like you know you signify love languages it all everyone everyone feels motivated for different reasons and for different things and so if we can really like leaders in business if we can be students to human nature to like and and oh my gosh how much better the experience can be for everyone because when you learn What are the carrots? What are the things? We won't be using humans much longer. I'm kidding. It's a joke. It's a joke. Of course we will. All right. I am looking for, there's my media assets. I was a loss for a second. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll have a marketing conversation next Friday. So be sure. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We do. We have a marketing conversation next Friday. Enjoy your your weekend. It's spring. Beautiful time of the year. And we know that you guys are busy. You have a lot of choices of where you spend your time. Thank you for spending a little bit of time with us. All right. Have a great afternoon, everybody. Thanks again.
