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, friends. Good morning, everybody. Happy Friday. Happy Friday. We're at the Guymon Library, sitting across the table. We're in Guymon, Oklahoma. She says, like, folks are going to know where that town is. Well, Jim was born and raised here. It's a tiny little town in western Oklahoma. We're out here spending some time with my mother, who's recovering from a pretty serious medical situation. She was hospitalized for a time, and we've had lots of prayers and well wishes. And there's some folks out there waiting for some material from me. And so, you know, this is an opportunity to help them understand we're catching up now, but it's been a kind of a bumpy stretch since coming back off NIEDA short stay at home and then to Oklahoma. And now we're fortunate to be able to use facilities at the local library, which is fantastic. And they've been gracious to accommodate us here and glad to have a space to set up. Yeah. So, yeah, it's just been busy. uh, on, on, on our front was just, uh, um, lots of, uh, for me, lots of cooking meals and making sure medications are taken and doctor's appointments and things like that. So. Yeah. Michelle has been wonderful to help out with all those kind of things, but yeah, that's kind of, what's been happening in our world that today we want to talk about the, uh, the situation with, um, the, the kind of the market, what we're seeing, kind of what we're hearing and feedback. And we wanted to just kind of go past the, the news. Cause you, depending on what news station you're watching is going to depend on what story you get. That was something we were talking about this morning is it seems like people that, and this goes regardless of which side of the aisle that the administration is on the, the, the party typically of the administration everyone feels good and they you know the consumer confidence is up the side that's on the other side it's like oh no no it's going to be bad and and it's down and so um you know based on some of the things that the the stats that were pulled for today's podcast is it it's it's there's this split um right now of um whether or not someone feels like things are going well or not. But overall, it seems that from what stats we were looking at, that there is a trend. that we just wanted to be able to talk about today. Yeah. And, you know, we didn't go to Fox News or MSNBC. We went to chat GPT and had it, of course, pull together as much information. And it did bring back kind of a mixed bag and it gave very specific statistics that we can lean on. And this came about, Michelle, because yesterday we had one of our B plus sessions, which was a follow up on a business plan thing that we've been doing for months now. And so in that conversation, we had some dealers present, you know, in addition to the dealer who was kind of our host, if you will. And that conversation went to that around charge-offs. We were talking about in this particular dealer's case, we had forecasted back at the first year, part of this work with business plan, the charge-offs through the first six months of the year. And when we convened yesterday, that dealer's charge-offs were higher. And that was all measured relative to twenty twenty four. So what we're saying is this dealer is traveling at a higher charge off rate than they had been in twenty twenty five. Now, this is just one dealer, but it sparked the conversation around what's going on in the marketplace. Like, again, depends on what news station you watch as to what you can really get a feel for. And so we just tried to dig in a little bit this morning and figure out. what can we know about what's happening in the marketplace, especially as it relates to our subprime consumer who's obviously, you know, tends to be lower income. And if anybody's being hit by changes in, in employment, whichever indication is employment's fine. Right. Well, one of the things said that employment is up, more people are employed, but confidence is a little bit down. And so, you know, the, the overall was, was around, people are just more cautious. Yeah. Yeah. So we're just trying to get an idea of, you know, why talk about this subject, right? So it's like the, the thing brought back this mixed bag of indicators. And so it's really just trying to figure out what, what is happening with consumers that is causing, and some of our dealers are seeing slower sales. We'll see the numbers coming in this week on, on our V eight data from the month of June, but we're certainly seeing dealers as you talk about slow sales, And I think what we're getting an indication of, and look, there are always summer doldrums. It seems like in the buy here, pay here space, there's a bit of a downturn. People coming off of, you know, kind of a busy tax refund season. So it feels especially quiet, you know, in May and June probably. But we are seeing some indications that dealers are struggling to produce business and certainly to save charge-offs. Yeah. And you know, I, one of the quotes that, that I was looking at when we were going over the notes for today is, you know, talking about government stats, because this is the, a lot of this is based on the consumer confidence index. And so those of you who are familiar with what it is that the government does or different entities that, uh, yeah, government is they will just survey in, um, random people about where they feel a lot of different questions. They're asked the same questions about their confidence in the economy. And, um, you know, it it's, I loved how they, how it put this as, as this stat, isn't just for wall street. Yeah. This is a window into your customer state of mind. And so, you know, it's a, and it's an important thing. We don't, none of us just look up what kind of government. Statistics and all of that that are happening right now, you know, we're busy. running our business and seeing all of the things, but it's, it is important with these kinds of things to see overall. Cause we talk about all the time, you know, dealers that we've worked with across the country will say, well, our customer's different. It's like, no, your customer's not different. It's just, you know, you have a different geography and, and when you're seeing things like this, which is a national survey, this is like in general people that are spending and this, This survey also, it encompasses all tax brackets. And so I think that the thing that's probably the most alarming to what's happening is probably around the franchise world because it's, you know, the stats are showing there. they're just not buying the same way because of this confidence that people are hesitant. Yeah. And I can make the case that, you know, and this is not based on stats. This is just based on many years of being around the industry. When you're talking about a consumer in our segment, who is at the lower income level, you know, of just consumers across auto buying, they're going to be across typically in the lower income segment. So if there is financial, I'll call it financial anxiety, Like if there is some sort of financial anxiety out there or apprehension, then it's going to be felt often by that consumer that we're talking about here. And while it says that they're consumers, even consumers who are employed or even earning more, they're actually spending less. So what that tells you is there there's some kind of pent up apprehension about spending, which suggests a degree of uncertainty, which is what financial experts talk about. And look, Michelle and I aren't here as financial experts as much as we are people who see from our experience with the dealers, you know, what their window is into their own interactions with consumers. So that's mostly what we're coming from. Go ahead. Well, Mark Anderson piped in comments as our charge us through the roof. Customers are out of money. Overall cost of living is consuming so much of the consumer's cash flow. We've been talking about that for a year or more. The environment has changed on this. We are rolling into rent to own on a trial basis at one location, giving our customers the ability to walk away and help out cash flow. which is an interesting way of approaching this too. Thanks, Mark, for the comment. Yeah, for sure. I think we've got some real takeaways for today, which we'll get to. I think you already heard me say that folks are spending less. I mean, that's what these studies suggest. And we can refer you to the actual studies. Among the ones that were referenced, there was the University of Michigan study. There's one by something called the Conference Board that reported an increase a drop in confidence especially about the future so I think there these studies were a mix of all consumers most of them are all consumers but obviously you can apply what you can know about all consumers and spending and buying habits you can apply to this segment that we're in yeah and you know this is it's this is an indicator I think everybody when we have conversations with people there is so much uncertainty around everything um right now and so when you don't feel um you know you you when you don't feel confident um it just it's a natural thing to kind of pull back or change how you spend and we know and by your pay here people typically are not buying a play car right they're buying a vehicle to get them to and from work they have to have this vehicle It's not the one that they're going to drive on the weekends. It's not the one for them to go camping in. It's not the one, you know, all of that. This is their primary getting them to and from work vehicle. But that, you know, we say that we, I think we think frequently that our consumer is different than everybody else, even just in how they're perceiving things. I just don't know. They watch the same things. They're, you know, they're plugged into the same kind of stuff. and so I there you know there is this is this is I I can understand just from watching I watch the spectrum you know jim we were talking about it's not fox news it's not cnn I watch all of it and then you know kind of pay attention to to what people are thinking and it's it is um there is just a um a pulling back and the spending less which is which even though they're earning more because it's showing that that unemployment or employment is up, unemployment is down, yet they're still very cautious about how they're spending. And so, you know, translation for buy here, pay here. You're going to probably have fewer impulsive buyers and more price sensitivity for those that are are that that is that's something that matters. And as we're watching things happen in our economy, you know, we've been talking about for a while that there's, everyone in the industry that's been here for a long time has known that there's going to be an influx, that there are people that are shifting from one tax bracket into another. And we've seen this happen in the past. So there are more people that are our customers or our potential customers that are still approaching this through the lens that they had having better credit right and so they're just going to be more more cautious yeah you can definitely have that I think I want to I want us to shift into this part about you know is it time to adjust if um behavior is changing and and you know the the gpt thread offered us some um some suggestions which I think are on point but I think just as a as coaches who work with dealers who work with consumers I think there are a couple of points that we can see that are going to be relevant things to contemplate as a business owner if this sentiment we'll call it and this sort of financial anxiety is going to persist then what might we do as dealers the the consumer um confidence that all of the different surveys there are a couple of things that they, they, uh, collected data. And that, that was a conclusion of is that more people or customers are cutting back in general, more people are buying generic or, you know, not the expensive brands. Cause they're just trying to cut back traveling less. Now we do know that our consumer, they're not typically travelers. Um, but you know, it may be like the, uh, the trip to Vegas. you know, things like that. Um, cause our customers do do those kinds of trips. It's like, that's their, and they're buying more secondhand goods, which to me says that there's probably an awful lot more, um, that's moving on things like Facebook marketplace and, you know, the, the secondhand stores and things like that, that they're, that they're, they're probably, if people are buying more secondhand, that those are, are, um, are happening more, but you, we talked this morning about this travel thing. Yeah. And again, our consumer and buy here payer, it's not like they're doing exotic travel or going away to the Bahamas for a week vacation. It's not that kind of travel, you know, that consumer that we serve, they might have, you know, we can get away to go camping at the local lake or whatever. There's that kind of travel and recreation for them. But I think what we're really talking about here is If you look at a broader indication, look, this is just one example, but I pose the thing in our our conversation yesterday with our VA members like coming from vegas in in the late june we were just there and my own observation like that was the slowest I think I've ever seen vegas you walk through the casinos they're very sparse um traffic out on the street is pretty sparse all the ubers that we talked to they said this is it is dead and so you know it's like how much of that is typical it didn't feel typical to me because conference is always in june in vegas and so it's felt very atypical so it's just one indication some of the others in the room who were also in vegas you know echoed that idea and I and I um from my perspective on a global scale that people aren't traveling as much everywhere because vegas is usually just packed with people that are coming in from out of the country and I didn't I didn't see less citizens of the United States and more foreigners, it was still that same balance, but it was just less overall. So again, just one indication, but if that is true, if people across the country are spending less, it is an indication of consumer confidence, right? It's an indication of spending confidence. And so people are going to kind of hold their money. And so I think this is, you know, when we think about should we adjust, I think for me, the answer is yes. I think we, and one of our dealers and a member yesterday said, you know, if we don't get efficient. And he, more specifically what he said, if we're the last dealer to cut costs, like adjust expenses, then that doesn't bode well, right, for dealers. So that means those are going to be the ones to potentially fail. So there's cost cutting. I would be especially looking at operational expenses. Why? Because if you go back to the Ken Shilson thing that we've talked about a number of times in recent podcasts is like, He used to say, go back and double your charge off and determine what that impact is on your business. Will you still be able to stay afloat? Maybe you got a lender and a borrowing base. What is that going to do to your borrowing base? We've seen that have a really profound impact with a lot of our dealers who are with lenders, right? So I think there's an efficiency question. Let's get ourselves healthy. Let's cut our costs. Let's make sure that we're lean, that we're going to be efficient in terms of our operating expenses. And then I think it goes to my mind goes to affordability. Like, I think it's probably going to be wise for us to adjust our buying. Are we are we able to still get a consumer to pull the trigger if our payments are running six fifty a month as an example? you know, are we going to get enough applicants who are comfortable stepping into a six fifty and even if they're comfortable, will they be able to manage it? Right. So this is the question that is is something I think dealers are going to want to look at is should we be adjusting our cost? I'm saying have have a second tier. I'm not saying abandon your business model. That's not what I'm saying. I'm simply saying have a tier of financing that is going to allow you to get to a more affordable payment, still keep the terms sensible in terms of length of contract. And so that's going to be in cost of car. And it might be a time for us to adjust. I always used to say, Michelle, as a dealer, when... The market shifts and cost of car went up for me as a dealer. What that meant to me was that I maintained discipline to the number because I used to always say when I was going to the auction, I was going to buy a number. not a certain car okay so the difference would be for me that mine was driven off of financial model right so I was chasing a particular number so what that meant to my consumer who was shopping is that if the market shifted and cost of cars went up that simply meant that what they were going to see on my lot was a car might be a couple model years older might be a little more miles because I was sticking to a certain financial model, right? And so that's what I think can happen here. And beyond that, dealers might want to add another tier of financing that they maybe aren't carrying now to be able to make sure they can get to a payment that a customer can feel comfortable. Because one of the suggestions that brought us chat GPT suggested, and I think it's right on point is, When we're working with our team, this can be our BDRs who are working in the CRM and kind of lead management. This can be on the sales floor working with customers. The phrasing it says is train your team to listen for hesitation, not just objections. So in sales, we're used to thinking about actual verbal objections. But what we need to recognize here, which is tricky in the BDR relationship on the CRM side, is can we identify hesitation? And this is part of where I think we have to be able to communicate with customers. And I think the chat thread is problematic. I don't know how much you're going to be able to learn in terms of customers' hesitation. If you quote them a payment, and suddenly the thread goes quiet, then they get ghosted. We got to be aware that this consumer is probably going to be a little more payment sensitive. And I don't know what it means yet in terms of down payment. We saw our dealer who we had as an example, he's an East Coast dealer. And his down payments were fine. He was still seeing down payment. Volume was down, which is obviously there's a question about the relationship of down payments to volume. But what we were seeing with that dealer is that they were still seeing a decent average down payment, but will the customers pull the trigger at a certain payment? And this is the part that I think I would be advising dealers to adjust and make sure that they've got a program available that can allow a customer to get to a payment. Yeah, you know, it's an interesting thing. We talk about measuring and measuring and measuring and measuring. And, you know, I'm not deep into the numbers. So this is something that I'm just asking the question. We can look at it because I don't know that you're going to have an answer for it. But if we look statistically, those that are charging off, what was their PTI when that loan was written? And was it because I for me, an outsider looking at that if their PTI was too close to that line that we try to, to, to keep it at, um, it, or was it over what we, what, what is the average that you're doing? Oh, I think we, we hear dealers they're aiming for twenty percent in that. We hear, I heard a dealer say yesterday, twenty-three percent grows. So that's roughly what you're doing. So, you know, if you're, if you're selling cars that are twenty-one or twenty-five or, or whatever, to their PTI, are those the ones that are charging off more? And so it's like, it's one of those things that you, you can, you can guess, you know, you know, the charge us for going up, but doing a postmortem in general of all your charge us every month and saying, where were they on PTI? Where were they, you know, and, and looking possibly even at your underwriting after the fact. And it's, it's like, we know that the things are changing in the, in the, in the economy and all that we know, and we've been talking about this for over a year that grocery prices are way more. And it doesn't for people that are middle income or, or upper middle income, it doesn't hit us as hard, but for when, you know, a dollar, is what you have to spend. And now what you could buy for a dollar is now a dollar twenty five. It's like, I'm not buying it or I, you know, I've got to just shift. And, you know, we don't. Dealers that really, truly care about their consumers success, we don't want to take food off their plate. We don't want to take a roof off of their over their head. Yeah. I mean, and so it's like That PTI, I'm just wondering if maybe what the answer to that is, is that we figure out how to do it at a lower PTI and in a shorter term. Well, I sat in a session, and Ronis Cavender won't mind me mentioning that. Ronis is a well-known and respected dealer out of Georgia, been in business a long time. And he talked about how he shifted his own model. So the first half of my career, I was doing this. Second half of my career, I shifted. We started being a little more selective in our underwriting. And he shifted to a much lower PTI and he's still doing business. So he just, what he succeeded in attracting a consumer who had a little more income. My question would be, in some markets, can we afford to do that? Can we get enough volume at that? I like the idea. The question is, can we do both? I mean, can we still reach for that customer and create a reason for that customer to be attracted who has a little more income? And can we still satisfy the customer who is otherwise a good candidate for the program, but their income is such that we might need to be at a twenty percent? I'm simply saying I'd like to serve both until I verified that I had enough volume to satisfy my business plan, right? I have to create a certain amount of volume to sustain my business and my cash flow. So that just means we got to find that balance. And I think one of the things, Michelle, we don't know, we're certainly counting on the see are the underwriting software out there to help us in terms of analyzing that PTI and what the results have been. But I think you could deliver a deal a year ago that was just fine on PTI. But if the customer's confidence is now shaken and they're a little more nervous about spending, one of the things I just asked, I'll try to answer it before we finish up. While you were talking a minute ago, I was able to go to chat GPT and ask the question. about insurance rates to auto insurance, because this is another area of hesitation for customers who are stepping in. It's like part of their payment. And so now that with their auto insurance, they're at twenty five or whatever percent. And I know some listening are going to say CPI solves that. Right. You can pay extra for it. Yeah. So I don't know what that means about rates for CPI or full coverage, but it's another consideration when the customer is hesitant about stepping in. And so I think what those dealers who are likely to do business are going to be, in my mind, those who can create a structure that has an affordable payment that doesn't cause the dealer to have to stretch term unnecessarily. Any dealer can adjust to a lower payment and stretch term, but that may not be a sensible or sustainable approach. So because we have to obviously stay ahead of the depreciation of the vehicle and keep a sensible kind of amortization so this is the part that I think you know dealers are going to have to be watchful and I think what what we're really trying to zero in on today is that let's recognize that the psyche of our customer right now across the country is probably you know this the among the phrasing used in here was that the psyche is is a little fragile It's like a little bit, there's some uncertainty. This can happen when there's changing of regard, but there's a lot of other elements that are driving some uncertainty here. This just means that we've got to be mindful of that. If we're going to continue to produce business and to save charge-offs, we've got to be aware. This matters, we're not watching Wall Street. We're not reading the Wall Street Journal every morning. And dealers aren't necessarily watching the Wall Street Journal. But I can promise you that those lenders who are supplying lines of credit to buy, hear, pay, they're watching Wall Street and kind of the indicators and kind of the markers in the industry. And this Consumer Confidence Index, too, is a big one that Wall Street does watch. Yeah. And I think if I were a lender into the space, I would want to see my dealers... adapting to the shifting market and make sure that they're able to accommodate because I do, you know, if I'm a lender, I obviously want to see my dealer do plenty of business. I want to see them create volume and have a healthy structure and have a chance to be successful. But I think if we just try to stay where we're at and just do what we've always done, then we run the risk of seeing our volume drop off and seeing our charge offs increase. And I think this is where we want to make sure dealers are adaptive. Yeah. And are able to make those kind of shows. We are always, we're always through White Hat way. It's like being transparent. It's just like, let's be really, really open about all the different things. And, you know, earning people's trust. Because if they're hesitant, if it's with someone that they trust, someone that they've, you know, has been, that trust has been earned, they'll be less hesitant. Right. Um, you just need to, to make sure that you're putting them in a vehicle that they really truly can, can weather the storms of, of an economy. That's just, it's, it's, uh, for a lot of people that, that confidence in it, just, it's pretty, pretty shaken. Um, and so one of the things that says this is don't oversell, right. Earn trust by being transparent. So don't oversell it. And it's just, and when you talked about. Um, you know, salespeople are trained to look for objections, look for objections. This is a different animal too. This is a hesitation. This is, you know, it's that's objections. You can, you, you still get through them. People do that. That's a tactic. It's just, it's part of the sales process. A hesitation is different. And it's like, I need the car. I want the car. I want a sign, but I just don't know if this is going to work. Yeah. And I think, you know, I'm glad this came up because I, we don't talk about it enough, but it's always been my belief in sales that the sales people that are most effective are especially for the long term do a lot more listening than speaking and I think this is especially a time for us whether we're in a bdr situation on the front end of the sale or in the building this is a time and obviously you can apply it in collections too this is a time for us to do a lot more asking questions and listening let the customer explain what they're thinking and what they're feeling because I think we need to be aware of sort of the sentiment right? It goes beyond just what's in the bank account. And so I think we need to be able to figure out and be mindful that I think if we can be better listeners and be aware of kind of what we're dealing with in terms of the individual psyche and the collective psyche of our industry and those consumers that we serve, it's going to make a big difference. Well, and when you ask questions, because you're and genuinely are asking questions because you're interested in what is happening in their world. People feel understood. Right. And, and I'm talking about, you don't ask a question and then start blathering off all of the things that you have to solve their problem is you ask questions and you ask another question, you ask another question. And part of that, that process, when you're, when you're in your discovery is, is, you know, you ask the questions, they give you the answer. and then you kind of pare it back, what you heard, which makes them feel even more understood. And if you can get through, like, what are your needs? What's your situation like? And all of these things, and not just asking the textbook, but it's, I love Candice, because Candice Owens from Nebraska, she's fantastic. Give me a Candice Price. Candice Price, I'm sorry. Thank you. Wrong Candice. Yeah, right, yeah. Wow, that's right. Uh, but she, you know, they they'll ask questions and they'll find through asking those questions that there might be other things that they can help with other than a car. And that when people feel like they are heard and understood their trust levels go up drastically. And so, you know, even if, and we've talked about this before as well, if you can, if you can teach your salespeople and your collectors, both, What opportunities are there out there? What programs are out there? What is their, what is their problems? The things that are maybe making them more hesitant than normal. And if, if there is something in your community that, that can help with that and you solve a small problem while they're sitting there with you, it's like they will, that trust barometer, that trust bank, it just will, it will, it will fill up an awful lot more because a customer will feel hurt. heard, understood, and that you genuinely care about their success. Good. I think it builds up trust and I think it builds up loyalty. And I would just say, you know, don't believe what you're hearing folks. Customer loyalty is not dead. Don't buy into that. It's not dead. You just have to earn it. You have to earn it. And I think one of the ways you earn it, kind of as you talk through that, I'm thinking one of the ways we earn it is to listen to the customer. And even though, because I got pretty skilled as somebody who was working in new car sales and some of that before I, and even I was in retail business before that. I would get pretty good at um sort of a phrase of kind of adopt at least the mindset and sometimes I actually use the phrase about you know if I could would you in other words and what I'm really bringing to that is like when I meet with a customer is like talk to me about what would be the best case scenario for you like I just need to hear and then I get quiet and let them share with me what is it because customers will tell you under what circumstances they will buy if you'll just shut up and listen that is such a hard skill to learn, but it can be learned. Some people naturally have it. Jim happens to be someone that has more of a natural, more of a natural skill to listen, but the listening. And I struggle with that. Yeah. Where there's a, there's a moment of hesitation and you want to fill it. Sure. And, or you've take that hesitation as, you know, when there's no, you've asked a question, they haven't answered that. It's like, I, you get very uncomfortable. And so part of that is just stopping and listening. And Jim, one of his favorite things was, is if there was a difficult conversation, he would ask the question and then his pen would be dropped and his hand would be taken away from it. And he just wait. And that is a skill, but it is, I mean, even if it's a hard question, people want to be understood. Yeah. And I think the part that I'm saying is even as a, I could go to work in any BDC tomorrow and without having any authority to negotiate payments or anything, I could ask a customer, what are you looking to do? What would be the best case scenario for you? If you could buy a car, what would you be looking to do in terms of down payment, payment, et cetera? And if they come back to me and say, I could really be comfortable at three hundred a month because I need to save room for insurance, I can say to them, You know, I don't it's not going to be my decision, but I can tell you that's a pretty low payment. I don't know that we'll be able to get there. And so I'm I'm able to without the authority, I can I can work with people. And obviously, I'm going to need to be able to bump them up to find a balance that is workable for both the dealership and the customer. But I can listen first to them and let them see that I'm interested in trying to get to what works for you. Yeah. Right. Because otherwise you hear me talk about a lot of us are guilty of running a customer through a cattle shoot sort of process. This is the way it works. This is what you have to do. And if you fit this, this and this, you can buy a car. Look at how efficient we were. You know, and I know we focused an awful lot on the sales side, but most of this translates to collections as well. And when, you know, we're talking charge offs, this is that is a result of collections. Yeah. And it's the same things. It's the listening. It's the being empathetic. It's not the where's your payment, where's your payment, where's your payment. It's like, hey, in the best case scenario, what would work for you? And then finding a common ground. And, you know, I can hear already in my head. That, well, the consumer is going to say, I just don't want to have to make a payment this month. It's like, okay, well, I appreciate that. That isn't a solution. Um, so what can we do? Where can we, and, and helping them find solutions to whatever the challenges, because people don't just fall off of their contract. Because they were meandering around and both it's there's usually things that are happening. Um, in their life that, that, you know, everyone experiences it and there's an awful, I don't know about you guys, but I know in my world right now, there is a, there is a lot of life happening on the screen. There's a lot of life happening to a lot of people. And, and, and it's, there's, there are, there are struggles. I mean, just in our family and all of the things and it, whether it be a health crisis for a lot of them, it's a health crisis or it's a job crisis or it's a something that people that this is just not, it's, it's, it's happening everywhere. And it's just really, really a time for us. to, to be empathetic, to be smart about our business decisions, but listen to people because there are a lot of people from all tax brackets right now that are challenged and and it is, it is a time for us to not, to not separate ourselves from our consumers, but to, to, jump in and it's like, what can we do? How can we help? Let's give our listeners some takeaways for today. I think the big takeaways for me would be as follows. In order for us to have a chance to win, this is what I would call the expected winner of tomorrow. the expected winners of tomorrow are going to be the ones who engage their customers. They are in communication with their customers regularly, not just when a payment is passed through. So that's that's what when we talk about engagement, we're talking about preemptive, proactive engagement that has a lot of goodwill wrapped in it okay so now we're in communication yeah we're in communication so in the course of doing that we build a level of trust we we create those trust deposits that we talk about and in order to do that we have to be good listeners we're going to communicate we're going to engage and we're going to listen okay the other thing we're going to do is create simplicity in the process right that's going to be true on the sales side it's going to be true on the collection side we're going to we're going to make life simple for the customer and and make it easy for them to be successful Okay. The other is going to be affordability, right? Kind of wraps into what we're talking about. It's got to be simple. So I think the dealers who are going to win are going to be the ones who can make terms affordable without compromising their own deal structure and success. Okay. So when I say affordability, I'm not saying give the cars away. I'm not saying give them lower payments on the same car. I'm saying those who create an affordable solution will be, I believe the winners of tomorrow. And then, have creating predictability and certainty which kind of goes back to trust when we can as a business we can help the customer feel sure that if they step into an understanding with us today suppose we're meeting a customer for the first time when they step into an understanding with us today that we can they can sense that we're going to be there with them tomorrow and so this is a lot of what I talk about engagement it's one thing for us to say at the day the customer's buying a car They're uncertain. They're moving ahead with a little bit of, and you don't want to have customers back on Monday morning with buyer's remorse because they stepped into something. So this goes back to what you're saying about overselling. We don't want to oversell and have the customer step into an agreement and now they're uncomfortable. and their increased chance of failing. So what we have to do is show them that we're gonna be there to support them through whatever it is. And so if they step in and commit to that payment, that we're gonna work with them and through whatever life's challenges may be tomorrow, that we're gonna be there. So show them some predictability and certainty about tomorrow. And I think you'll win that customer. And like I said, this is just, I would just say that we're going to have more, we've got a chance to do as much business or more. The opportunity is still going to be there. The question is going to be, yeah. And so, yeah. So I think we just have to be ready to, you know, create solutions and be able to communicate in a better way. And, you know, that communication is, let me ask dealers out there, is it worth, spending possibly or attributing more time with your team for reaching out and communicating just in a hey how are things going we just wanted to just check in with you not a collections call and we've been talking about this quite a bit lately but but but you know a lot of dealers it's like no news is good news that is not good news because you are missing where people are about ready to trip And and if and if people feel like you genuinely care and those quarterly calls to all of your customers, it's just like just checking in, making sure everything is OK. How's the car? You know, all of those kind of things. People feel like they're understood and heard and that they matter and that when they feel like they matter. they're going to be more likely to pick up the phone when it is a difficult conversation call. Or they're going to be more likely to call in you if they are hitting a roadblock. As long as when you're making those reaching out, it's like, hey, let us know. We don't want to have to chase after because then it ties our hands more. But let us know what's happening so that we can find solutions that everyone can work with. Good. And so please, please, please continue just talking to your, uh, talking to your consumers and Tommy, good morning. And I know Tommy it's his thing is it's care. Um, uh, yeah, I can't cars and relationships, uh, create a relationship. Thank you. Create a relationship car, car. Um, and, and it is, it's about creating those relationships with people. And, and it's, it's, if we're waiting for the collection calls, or just the sales process to create a relationship, you've lost. You have to create those relationships, especially in a market that is uncertain. Yeah. Earn some loyalty. I'm telling you, it can still be done. Is the consumer different today? Yeah, they're different. Can we still earn loyalty? I think you can. Yeah. All right. So we'll be back on Wednesday with another My brain is like, I think that my brain is shut down enough that when I have two things to do at once, it's not possible. Women, I don't know, gender, women have the ability to just be thinking about ten thousand things at once. This one right now, one thing at a time. Hey, everybody, again, thanks so much for joining. We know you are busy, and we really appreciate you listening and also checking in on us. Yeah, have a great weekend. Yeah. All right, so we will talk to you guys on Wednesday. Have a great day.
