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. Hey, good morning. Happy Wednesday. Buy Here, Pay Here friends. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in. Yeah. It's a Wednesday episode, which means White Hat Wednesday for us. And happy to chat about all things White Hat Way. Yes. What? Did you fall asleep on me or where did you go? No. It's going to be a busy week. There's a lot of moving pieces right now and things that we're getting prepared for. The conference is coming up. The NIADA Expo and conference. We will have a booth there and also getting ready for our next certification course, which will be couple of days leading into the conference. So yeah, there's just a lot. There's a lot getting ready. So every day it seems like I'm able to tick new things off the list. So that feels good. Had a really good V-Ape meeting last night with our group too, which is some of our larger dealers. And We had kind of a small group. We had a couple of dealers missing out of that meeting. But we had really rich conversations. We wrapped up talking about recon. We could talk another hour about recon. That seems to be a pretty hot topic. Yeah. Yeah. And where we landed was kind of around budgetary discipline and kind of how far one should go on recon. It's not just the dollars. It's like the decision making. And of course, we talked about the benefit of having the the buyers know the model and having the service advisors know the model and you know there's just a whole lot it was just really great conversation I enjoyed enjoyed that and the members seem to as well you came I always ask when jim's done with one of those meetings it's like how did it go and he's like really really I mean usually it's like really really well And he mentioned that one of the dealers, without really knowing it, gave a really great quote for V-Eight. And so it was something along the lines that... Well, it had profanity in it. Okay, so we won't use the profanity, but it was around the... That the person that normally prepares all of the data, submitting the data, they had to do it themselves because the person was unable to do it. And that they belong to more than one peer group. Mm-hmm. And the sentiment was, oh my gosh, this is so much easier than, you know, there's a lot of data points with other peer groups. And they're great and they have value to them, but we try really hard to, or we- You've created an alternative that's a little more flexible and easier for dealers to make happen. And I mean, there's really, really rich conversations around the few data points that we're talking about. Well, you say a few data points. Our summary report now is like three hundred rows. Now, probably there's a call it two hundred rows of data. metrics. They only submit, the dealer submits about twenty five data points each month. But then we take that and do all kinds of ratios and calculations and roll, you know, roll in numbers. Jim nerds out on the data. Numbers. And she teases me about it. Well, it's actually one of those things that I find quite enduring. Oh, you know, endearing, endearing. Okay. Whatever. Okay. Well, they're different things. So make sure. Endearing. Yeah. Okay. I find it lovable. How about that? That works. Some of our dealers, um, appreciate the the data nerd like this you know some of our dealers are more analytical than others right and so this is uh just part of it but but I think for all of us regardless of conversations like having the having good data that we can lean on on any conversation whether it's built on the data or not it lets us get there so well and that's something that we are always talking about you can't measure you can't have it's okay You can't have a solid opinion around something you're not measuring. And you can't fix something that you're not measuring or have a lasting fix. It's like, what is it that's happening? And trends and all of that. To be able to see that what you're doing is actually having an impact for sure. Yeah, so we're coming up to our second White Hat Way certification course. And just been a lot of, the first one that we did was kind of, was a beta. Pilot. A pilot, yeah. So a lot that we learned from that. And we also got, we had someone come as a videographer and video all of the certification course. and that's kind of the, the foundation to our conversation today, um, around this, uh, around the course and around where we're going with the course. Now, can I just want to first, we're doing our second one, just leading up to NIADA. Um, and, and we were learning what is, what, uh, what is more, what, what, what we can do that will encourage more dealers as well as help them retain and become better through. Yeah, we can, we can certainly talk about the benefits of certification, why we think it's important. I think first, what I really hoped to be able to share today was kind of in the context of, you know, you've heard me use the example, like in business, We we try to make sure that if I think about it like an extension ladder where you slide it up and the little thing clicks in place to safety. All of us can kink. Yeah, we can relate to sliding that up and the little lever drops in and it holds that place. So I think of this certification course and the way we've got it vaulted digitally is being sort of one of those steps where we have. We've achieved something in that that I think is significant in terms of what White Hat Way is becoming and what it will look like in the future. So back up and we shared probably a year ago, it might be longer, that we created a repository online. It's nothing more. It's a glorified name for a shared Google Drive cloud storage folder, right? And it has tons and tons of our content from White Hat Way. And we gave the keys, so to speak. We gave access to our founding sponsors. So why does that matter? Well, because... In the work that we're doing and what we're building, we're just trying to make sure that what we create has every opportunity to have lasting impact so that if, heaven forbid, something should happen to you and me, the stuff is there and the founding sponsors would be able to manage that and continue the white hat way. And so, you know, obviously as we add people, our own people will be able to, you know, facilitate that as well. I just think that's why the significance of this. So what happened this week and the reason we're kind of bringing it forward as an announcement is these video files were massive. Like they're large, high definition. They send it in a massive file just so that the video and all that isn't degraded at all. But it's also really big. Yeah. And then, of course, we just it hasn't been a priority until recently. We've we got managed to figure out how to get them converted to MP threes and then ultimately to transcripts. And so I think that's a significant now inside that one folder on the certification. You have that entire course on video. You have the entire course on audio. You have the entire course as a transcript. Mm hmm. So that alone just allows us to go back in and manage that material. And ultimately, obviously, it positions us to move toward what will ultimately be sort of an on-demand solution. We can't say when that's going to happen. And I think we continue to communicate with dealers and partners to figure out the in-person element versus the virtual. Right now, we're favoring the in-person because there's a whole lot of what is talked about in that course that is beyond traditional conversation. It's like, there's, there's a lot of really impactful elements and moments, you know, that happened throughout the course that I think are, are just best done in person. And so I think we're gonna, so as we move towards certification, I think, We can also, you know, imagine somebody's listening for the first time about what White Hat Way even is. Like for me, the simple way to describe it is White Hat Way for us is really about creating an identity that represents a dealer who's doing, in this case, we're talking about a dealer. Ultimately, we build the brand and the solutions in a way that it can extend beyond the buy here, pay here space. But obviously we're focused in the, The buy here, pay here space currently. So when you think about a dealer who becomes certified, imagine what that looks like to the consumer who would view that certification seal on their glass or in their building or on their Facebook profile. And then think about what that looks like to a vendor or would be lender or capital provider. Or even this CFPB. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So it's like just helping them understand what the, what is the curriculum? Like what, what do they learn? What does it mean? Yeah. What does it really mean when, when you carry that badge? And so there's an exam. Our exam in the first one was quite simple, and we knew everybody would breeze through. It'll get more comprehensive, right? But the premise is that these folks sat through the course. We're obviously in this place where everybody knows we've been for this year. We expect to do invitation and nomination only. And that's just because we... We are leaning right now on bringing people into the circle, so to speak, that are known to be customer-centric. I could just kind of stop there, right? It's like, you know, it's like- And that's kind of like the crooks. Is that the right word? of what this is about. It's being customer centric. It's not diminishing your business for the customer. It's about being very customer centric and that you can have a very strong business have a very strong presence, have a lot of referral and repeat business because it's like your customer and your community become very centric to a dealer. So this becomes about putting a badge on. That's why the certification became necessary. When we can step in there and certify that this person is confirmed to be uh, subscribe to and strive to uphold certain principles in business. And, and that's really about, uh, that becomes about sustainability. I mean, I think, um, among the things I put a couple of things up and, um, we've got a couple of things to be able to share, but, um, so one of the things you would do is strengthen sustainability. Like, so, so being able to build on reputation and sustainability is something you think about, go to some small market in Illinois where there's. Ten dealers. Mm-hmm. What's going to separate them? How would a consumer make a judgment if they're new to the area or whatever, how would they make a judgment about where to do business? And so by being able to put this seal on a dealer, it gives that, it gives some sort of attention to this idea that here's what this dealer believes. And imagine that SEAL is on their website or on their social media page with like, go here to learn more about what this means. And that someone who, because we all know that one of the big things, one of the big points of contention is that the dealers have typically don't trust the consumer, but the consumer doesn't trust the dealer to be honest and integrous and all of those kind of things. So that they have the ability, someone who is new to the dealer in the market, there is one extra thing that is a differentiator. Right. Yeah. So it's about having that, that identity, that standard. And, and when people can see easily what that represents, like what is, what is, when I see that seal, what does it say that this dealer stands for? How do they do business that might be different from somebody else? And it doesn't mean that out of those ten dealers, there aren't a couple other dealers in the market that are doing the same thing. It's just that one of them wears a clear seal where people can understand what it is. Unless you're doing your research or something or are familiar with dealers in your community, it's like there's really nothing for someone to go on at all. Yeah. And I go one step further with that. Imagine you're in a market with ten dealers and three of them are running ads that say, trust me, I'm a used car dealer or a used car salesman. Well, and that's that's one of the beautiful things about one of the products that inside of White Hat Way certification is that White Hat Way. drops information about what it means to be a white hat way business. And here's the business in your community that is that, that carries this seal. So it's, it's not, trust me. Yeah. it's, this is someone you can trust. Yeah. It's a referral in a way. Yeah. It's a, it's an endorsement. It's basically a, you know, that way you've got somebody, because I, I said it works better if I'm selling you as a trustworthy used car dealer than for you to try to sell yourself. Mm-hmm. So it's just for somebody else to come in who's established the standard and say, we've tapped this person as being a trustworthy dealer in your market. Okay. So that's, that's what certification really represents here. So it's like, this is why I think the, having the certification documented, logged, archived in a way that, you know, we can now sweep it, which we've already run it through chat GBT, the nineties some odd pages of the transcript. We've already run it through chat GBT and start to, uh, fine tune the curriculum. I was not unsatisfied with our six sessions that we did in February. It's just we know that there will be opportunity to improve those, to find phrasing that better expresses the thing. And so this is where we look forward to having a little help from ChatGPT as we move forward and all the AI components. Absolutely. It was interesting. You ran that entire transcript through ChatGPT asking it to pull out quotes. Oh my gosh. And we're going to be using some of those. And just some really impactful... That's not like my favorite word because it's like boom, boom, boom. Impactful. But You could say positive impact. Positive impact that it's, yeah. No, I think it's part of why. And so I think people will understand as we move forward with that certification that it's really across the industry. You know, we mostly talk about it in the context of dealer and consumer. But imagine what it looks like for... A vendor, you know, one of our founding sponsors to know that they're doing business with a dealer who is white hat certified. If you're a lender like LHPH Capital and you're meeting a dealer who's wearing a white hat certified seal. Who is one of our founding sponsors. Yeah, that's right. So it's like when you think about that, that is part of what... The value will be also in the sphere of the vendor side of it. And look, we anticipate that we will get to the place where we can certify businesses. We're not there yet. We're starting by certifying individuals. And so the business can say, you know, we have a white hat certified owner. We have a white hat certified sales manager. But we're not yet able to certify a business. Yes. So just be aware. That's kind of the direction it's going near term. But we ultimately expect to end up there because it's part of what we know that, you know, the first thing that had to happen, Michelle, was to just kind of develop and substantiate the brand itself, what it represented, the identity, right? Well, and this just ties into what you were just talking about, unlocking future access to coaching capital and brand aligned partnerships. Right. um because it's and we're going to be launching uh before before the conference in vegas white hat way community and so there's a lot that's being worked on behind the scenes to get ready to really launch this and it's just a community of people and to be a part of the community you don't have to be white hat way certified but it's also it's it's like let's that we're creating something for people to come and have conversation come and and um uh uh support each other in white hatway principles to just um and for business and and uh dealer yeah yeah we're we're quite close to announcing how yeah Lots of folks can get involved in plugging into the White Hat White community. So look for that in the coming days and weeks here. But I would say the fun thing for me to visualize is imagine we're at a conference, the conference coming up in June, and we're able to go over and introduce to one of the founding sponsors you know meet white hat certified you know john doe and imagine what that handshake represents in that moment they both know what they know yeah they know what their core founding principles are and this is something that I um you know I I as I'm watching um a lot on social and they're talking, I've, I've been with AI and with all of the different things is how business is becoming. It's how, how it's shifting, how it is morphing, how it is growing, how it is, you know, blossoming. And one of those things, uh, that, that, uh, I, one of the content people that, that does a lot of, of, uh, branding and, and business and in the business world, all different sex was talking about how, when we, that, that one of the big ways that business is going to be growing is where business Businesses will start to come together with similar foundations. I think that right here, we talked about adopt a standard that separates the best from the rest. Where they see the growth in what... what new avenues businesses can, can step into is standardizing certain principles, standardizing certain practices within an industry, not within a business, but it's like becoming or having certain things that, that consumers just there that they're going to know that there are certain standards that are being, um, uh, and principles and, you know, sometimes procedures that, that they know that they know what to expect. Right. In doing business. Yeah. Unless we come up with a topic that's super, you mentioned the standardization. I think this is the right time for me to share that. Last year, going into the conference, we made a request of the industry, the DMS providers to help standardize something. We made a little progress. We've got some more that I'm going to revisit soon. But we're about to announce the next round of that because we, and so we're getting feedback from dealers about exactly what they'd like to see, because this is another area where I think we can help with standardization. I try to stay away from that mostly because I think our used car industry, you know, there's a limit to what will be accomplished with all these, you know, kind of wildly independent operators and some of, I'll just say it, a lot of our, Some of our providers don't play nice with other providers, and so it just makes it challenging to ever get to any kind of real collaboration. However, we can ask on behalf of dealers, as Huawei, we can ask on behalf of dealers that we create certain things in the interest of sustainable success. And having a measuring stick to be able to help folks be able to create that. And the more we have different ways that are standardized within the industry, the more It's that apples to apples thing. And so when you're having a conversation in any peer groups, at any conference or whatever, is that you know you're speaking about the same thing. Because we see in social media, as the conversation starts, dealers will answer having made a lot of assumptions. Yeah. And then those that understand the danger and making assumptions are the ones asking a lot of questions. It's like, well, how do you do this? And what are you doing? Because these are all factors into what it is you're asking. And so the more that we can create a standard for how we report certain things, for how we, you know, the process within a DMS, how many dealers have we worked with where, It's like, how do you do repos? And it's just like all the frick over. And why is that something that's not standardized? Well, because there's no real accountability for that. And systems vary. The software varies in terms of what they offer as a process for booking a repo and that sort of thing. So I have reasonable expectations around that. I think there are certain parts of operational elements that you're probably never really going to get standardization because you're just always going to have multiple DMS providers who think they have their... True, but you can have, like, this is a number that represents this, and this is a number that represents this, and being able to have them... Like, we know that when we're having this conversation, they represent the same thing. That's the kind of standardization. So what you're going to see us request is a couple things. The first two that we'll bring will be around... um the the reason behind a repo in other words when we can get in the system that the dealer will choose from a radio button or drop down that says you know you're going to choose from one of these eight categories or other so what we're working with is dealers to make sure when we submit that list of the dms providers we've got feedback from dealers and we're asking for something that you know, everybody's going to have a different opinion about it. It's like, but let's get vast opinions and start measuring and stuff. And that's, that, that's the thing is that we, we can, we can do a postmortem after a repo and we can say, you know what the, but where are we at? where are we recording that information so that as we do all of the repos that we're looking at our history of all of these things, it is typically this, or it's typically this. And being able to mitigate risks through that too. That if it's this, man, there was something that I just recently saw on social media around this exact question. Where I was like, interesting. Where they're saying it was typically not around the... I think it was around a specific make of vehicle about why there's a problem. And it's not... People assume that it's because of the transmission. And that's not the reason why. That it's not because the car broke down. It's for other reasons. And so it's just... But you've got to capture the information to ever know. And so where we start with something very simple, and it just baffled me. As a dealer myself back in the two thousands, I used to think, why don't we have this? Like, why don't we have consistency in the way that we, we report these things? So that when I sit in a twenty group meeting, I'm talking about the same stuff. I've got to be able to refer to my percentages. I lost this many. what percentage due to accidents. Like I know that stuff. And I, and I have the same method of measuring that to dealers on another software across the room. So I just think this is the part that's why I way is happy to step forward and be that voice on behalf of dealers and rally the support of the people, you know, in the community who support the mission and, and we'll, we can start to affect change and positive change around those things. So, but we got to just clarify the ask. Yes. And as we, as we further develop and strengthen the foundations of what it means to be White Hat Way certified, one, you know, one of the things that we talked about a couple of years ago was blue sky value. Right. And, and that, you know, dealers like there's, you know, The best you can do is this and this. Well, this is one way that we are working to create that, even if it is just within the industry. Because if a dealer has made the decision to get out of the business and they're White Hat Way certified. Mm-hmm. then anyone that's White Hat Way certified understands already an awful lot about that business. And then, you know, when we add in the layer of like V eight and you're tracking certain things is that those businesses we start with, how do you create blue sky value within the industry? And this is one of the ways that we are working diligently to be able to help a dealer not just develop a relationship with their community, but as you develop a relationship with your community and you have, you know, there are certain things that we've, we're coming together as a standardization and all that, that, that business becomes something that other dealers that understand this, it's like, Oh, okay. Um, you know, we, we can help or, or we can, we know someone who is interested in getting into the business and, or whatever, but it, it creates a better way to represent who you are as, uh, as a business when you have that, just that symbol too, that certification on your business. Right. As it becomes much more valuable too. Yeah. So again, I think for today, it was just a matter of announcing partly for our founding sponsors and partly for dealers to be aware that we're... you know, we've succeeded in getting the content archived and now we've got chat GBT going to work on it, you know, make it more efficient. Yeah, it's fantastic. Oh my gosh. It's, I keep seeing these things that say, Hey, just create another one of you and it can take care of all of this stuff. And it's just what, what would take me or you or even one of, you know, a team member to, days to be able to comb through stuff done in thirty seconds or less you've got the so love chat GPT this and that's that's part of why this has been why we why we took all of the certification through the transcript and then dumped that into chat GPT and asked it to we're asking it to start um start clarifying and and um structuring the message and things so that as we develop the certification course it will become more remember we talked about the targeting um last friday it will become more clear more targeted just something that is is so clear in what it means, what it represents, and how, you know, giving you an arsenal of tools to be able to really lean in and leverage what being a White Hat Way dealer means. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, what it is. And I just got to, as we wrap up here, I got to open show something that, just for fun, as a way to kind of tie some of what you talked about. Uh, together. So you want to, you want to add that and share that? So we just chose that. Um, we chose that yesterday. Um, or yeah, yesterday I think. And so this is an indication of, uh, uh, just a teaser about, you know, where we're going with, um, White Hat Way, especially as it relates to AI. So there's a whole lot of things that are going to be, you're going to see us tie in the trust element with White Hat Way and the AI component. So yeah, we love where AI is going. We think when people can harness that in harness is the word I always go to, but it's like, um, when we can channel the, uh, the power that is saddle the power. Yeah. So when it's, where do you want to go? Obviously we have a Western sort of, uh, environment in the photo, but, We got so many through Freelancer. Those of you who are looking for having something redesigned or whatever, Freelancer is awesome. One of the reasons why I really like this is it reminds me of Oklahoma where you grew up. I created an initial rendering with ChatGPT and then I took that rendering to Freelancer and let them kind of dial in some alternatives. It worked out quite well. Like it just is meant to represent, you know, kind of illustrate what it is that White Hat Way is working to do in the industry and how when we work with our partners and we And we don't have to solve all these things ourselves, Jim and Michelle. We've got all these partners that we can bring their resources and drive the thing. Yeah, yeah. And it's, yes. I'm really looking forward to what we have on the horizon. Just to let you all know, like we said, the first year of certification, it's going to be by invitation only. Each one of our founding sponsors have a scholarship for the certification too. So as they get to know dealers within their portfolio of ones that exhibit the makings of a White Hat Way dealer. Just so you all know, next, we've already nailed in or that what, what our plans are, what our intentions are. So I'm not like totally nailing into the scene. Our intentions are, is to do another one around the Tennessee buy here, pay here dealer forum. Nashville. Nashville, so that as dealers are traveling, that they have the ability to sandwich something in. So that one will be by invitation only. And then the next one that we have coming up will be in Utah. And that one will be one of the first ones because it will be for twenty twenty six that those that are interested in participating um we will start to to open that up to um others that that would be interested in in participating in one of those um one of those certification courses that are live we've found that I mean i really like having it close to my home. And it was a great experience. And so January in Utah is a great ski time. So if you're a skier, keep that on your radar. And we'll be opening up, applying to attend. That should be opened up before November. So yeah. Okay, what else we got? Anything else? I don't have anything else. Let our folks get back to their stuff. Well, you know, again, we're... Sorry. I know. I know. This is what I'm looking for right here. Music. Music. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really are looking forward to where White Hat Way certification is going. If you're going to be at the conference and want to learn more directly from us and we will have all the people that will be in the booth are White Hat Way certified as well, come in and ask questions. Learn a little bit more about what it is that we're doing We'll be talking about V-Eight. We'll be talking about the podcast. We'll be talking about a lot of things that are part of the White Hatway Incorporated umbrella. So thank you again for joining. Have a great rest of your day. And we'll be back on Friday talking about AI and marketing. And we have a special guest for that coming up too. All right, everybody. Thanks so much. We'll talk to you on Friday.
