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. Good morning. Got a fun little intro for you if you want to tee that up. Okay, let me do this. Nope, let me do this. And then we'll do this. Today I want to talk about a tool every dealer knows by name, but often underestimates in practice. The SWOT SWOT analysis. But we're not doing it the same old way. We're going to do it the white hat way. In our world, strengths aren't just about what we sell or how fast we can turn a unit. Strength is knowing you've built trust deposits in the bank with your customers, your lenders, your vendors, and your community. It's the quiet reputation that lets you sleep at night and keeps people coming back year after year. Weaknesses? Those aren't just operational hiccups. They're places where we risk breaking that trust. Maybe it's an inconsistent follow-up process, or maybe we've slipped into short-term thinking, grabbing today's deal at the expense of the next ten years of loyalty. The white hat way says, let's be brutally honest about these because fixing them is an investment in every future handshake. Opportunities in our lens aren't just the next lot down the road or a seasonal spike in demand. They're the growing need for ethical, transparent dealers who communicate clearly and treat folks with dignity. And they're in the way we show up in our communities because every sponsorship, every event, every honest conversation is an open door. And yes, threats. The erosion of industry trust is real. So are the regulatory changes that can catch you off guard if you're not prepared. But here's the white hat difference. Instead of ducking those challenges, we use them to lead. Compliance isn't just a box to check. It's a competitive advantage when you do it with integrity. So when you sit down for your next SWOT, remember, this isn't just a matrix on a whiteboard. It's a mirror. It shows where we've been, where we're strong, and where we need to grow. Done the white hat way, a SWOT isn't just analysis. It's a roadmap to a business people can believe in. all right the end so just kind of a um you know an additional way um a new way to be able to tell the story and um so for us I'm I'm not one to read you know from a script much and so I I kind of uh wanted to go that route so so today we're going to talk about swat you got any announcements or anything uh not anything that's pressing that needs to um we talked about right the second we are sending out some invitations for, um, for guest appearances on the show. So, um, the, those of you get them, I hope that you guys can join us. Sure. Uh, so yeah, SWOT analysis, we've talked about those a bunch of different times in different contexts and, um, and we were talking about, um, have we ever done one on the industry in general? And so that's kind of where this came from, was like, where are we as an industry for a SWOT analysis? And so let me bring up, add to the stage. Let me take this off. You want to? Well, yeah. So, you know, for today, we just want to kind of share with dealers a way to think about SWOT. We think, you know, we would advise making time to do a SWOT analysis. And of course, we've done plenty of them with clients. It's often where we start when we're meeting with a new dealer just to get familiar with how they view their own business. Right. This is an important way to think about that. And so you get feedback from the dealer principal, management, from the team in doing this. And for today, we also wanted to introduce the white hat angle to all of that. So this is an opportunity for us to really kind of run through the different elements of a SWOT and be able to kind of introduce these other core values as we go along there and highlight where those things might show up in a SWOT. And in particular, you know, I'd like focusing on the opportunities that emerge out of that. But in order for us to identify the opportunities that we're in the best position to take advantage of, then we first need to understand our limitations and our current position. So we might just dive into the strengths first. Yeah. First strength that we're talking about is lead with trust deposits. White Hat Way teaches that trust is an asset. In the SWOT analysis list, when you're doing this for yourself, list truth-based strengths like repeat customers, strong lender relationships, and transparent sales processes as strategic advantages. Right. So when you think about that part of it, I would just say that the white hat angle is really, we're not necessarily thinking that every dealer out there is necessarily operating in this way as much as this is a way to think about when you did run your business through that lens, And you ask yourself in terms of long-term strengths, like what are the things that really position us to be, you know, in a, had to have lasting strength and lasting, you know, kind of profitability and sustainability, all these kinds of things. And so this is why I think, you know, we want to talk about trust deposits as a way to, how do we earn trust with the consumer? And is it a strength of ours now? Do we do we can we call that a strength today? Yeah. So, again, this is just as this is through the filter of White Hat Way and all the principles that are in White Hat Way. The next one is long game reputation. We talk about the long game all the time. And it's it comes from conversations we've had with kids and some of this, like it's a ten year approach or a ten generational or generational approach. And so a dealer's reputation built on years of doing right by customers is both a market differentiator and a protective moat. during challenging times. This is where the reputation is and the doing right in the market is where you start to create trust deposits. We've talked about challenging times and, you know, how do you create that moat? And that for us, that moat is your bank of trust deposits. It's, you know, what are you putting in there so that when you have challenging times, Do you have a buffer? We've used examples of like Southwest Airlines when their entire system went down and they had created enough trust deposits that when those challenging times came, they were able to be buffered from what someone who didn't have that same kind of moat, it could have destroyed them, but it didn't because they had a lot of those trust deposits. Yeah. Or what we sometimes call relationship equity, which if you have a lot of relationship equity, that would certainly have to be counted in your strength column, right? You would have to you would have to recognize that. And we'll talk about how to market that. We move into the opportunity side, but you know, we first just have to identify, can we call that a legitimate strength at this, you know, at this stage of our business? So we've talked in strengths about truth deposits or trust deposits. And so, you know, what kind of things are we doing to build stronger relationships and all of that? And then the second is what's your long game reputation is it's, you know, doing a couple of trust deposits in a short amount of time isn't really long game. It takes time. It takes an effort. It takes something that is a very consistent thing that you're doing. So we go into weaknesses. Sure. So when you talk about weaknesses, among the things that come to mind would be Policies and procedures, protocol and consistencies within that. As we do an honest self-assessment, and this is why it's important to involve management and team members to get internal assessment on... What are our current weaknesses? Where are our bottlenecks? Where are we failing our customers? Right. So this becomes an opportunity for us to recognize. And like with anything, anything that's a weakness can become an opportunity. But we have to first get honest with ourselves about those weaknesses and kind of areas where we may be inefficient and we may be paying a price for it. You know, we've we've talked a lot about how inconsistency does erode trust. And, you know, being firm with what your procedures and your policies are, it's, you know, it's, it's very similar in this business world with our, with our clients, our customers in buy here, pay here, as it is like with the relationship we have in our families. When, when our children don't have very consistent, this, if this happens, this is going to happen. Um, that if, if it changes all the time, then they, you're the, that, that relationship is diminished. That relationship is weakened. Um, that, that in everyone, uh, every human, I think really appreciates consistency. They know what they can expect, even if it's a negative or it's like, it's a, uh, um, Like if you don't make your first payment on time, the car will be revoked. It's just and that's that's just everyone knows that everyone does that. It's like just make your payment on time and then or we're going to have to do this really, really quickly. We're going to we're going to we're going to they know that you're going to to be repaid. um, you're going to be stepping away from this relationship if we don't have that kind of, um, uh, uh, uh, consistency and code or that, that, that rule that, that that's going to, that's, what's going to be happening. So everyone knows, I mean, it can be different things other than that, but it's about inconsistency in how you treat your, um, your clients really erodes trust. Yeah, I think that's the big one. I mean, consistency obviously can help consumers have a lot more confidence in you, build a lot of trust, as you say, and obviously transparency comes into play there. But certainly the idea of eroding trust is significant. And we just know that it's important to create some consistency. Michelle mentioned the timing of enforcement. I mean, whatever the policy is going to be, you just would want to be consistent in that so that, you know, and also be transparent about that so that you're the customer understands what it is that the policy might be in this case. So again, just as an opportunity to think about what is a weakness that we currently have that, and in the end, the goal for us would always be to identify those weaknesses that can be improved, areas where we can make progress and have a chance to to first identify and then ultimately improve those things that we had listed as weaknesses. Yeah. And again, we're putting this through the filter of white hat way. And so consistency is something that would be a white hat way filter for you to look at this. Another one is short-term thinking. And we kind of talked about long game reputation as a strength, but do you have policies in your, in your business or things that you do that or decisions that are made that are for immediate gain at the expense of the tenure approach. And so, I mean, can you of course correct those so you can, you can help develop those long-term relationships? Yeah. And I think where this one comes into play for me is really, we work primarily with dealer principals and their management team. And in that, realm, one of the areas that's most significant here is just day-to-day decision-making. Are we consistent in our decision-making? And is that decision-making short-sighted or long-sighted? Because the white hat approach is going to be making sure that we're thinking long-term. Is this customer going to be with us a long time? Are we thinking about referrals and repeat business? And so do our, if so, do the decisions that we make day in and day out across our policies and exceptions to policies, do they reflect that long-term approach? Because we all have pressures and it's natural to feel certain pressures to react in that way and so this can cause us to be inconsistent when we're not careful and keep our eye on the horizon absolutely now in most SWOT analysis the strengths and the weaknesses are typically internal so you're looking at your internal processes you're looking at your you know your team and the things that happen inside the building um and then we're going to move on to opportunities and typically opportunities are things that are outside the building they can be things inside the building but it's typically things that are outside the building in a traditional traditional SWOT analysis so the first thing is are what are the mark um Opportunities. What are the market needs for ethical dealers? Highlight underserved customer segments hungry for dealer who communicates clearly, honors commitments, and treats them with respect. And so this is about marketing. This is what's going outside of your brick and mortar. It's like, are you marketing yourself as an ethical dealer? That's a really big opportunity that's It's trust forward marketing. I think, yeah, on the marketing side of that, I think you first have to just work with the marketing and branding folks to confirm. We believe and we think the evidence supports that there are. there is a reasonable percentage of customers who do favor doing business with a dealer that's high ethics um trustworthy right so so we think that's an area to to promote and to um create a brand identity and awareness around that strength that you would bring so as an opportunity it's it's that differentiator again it's a way to separate yourself in a marketplace Because, you know, as we always talk about in the marketing thing, you run ads that say we have cars or we have down payments and everybody's got cars and down payments in the buyer payer space. So what really separates you, especially when you are thinking long term and you want customers who are thinking long term? Then that's a way for us to begin to identify that in our marketing and to tell that story better. It's an opportunity, I think, is the storytelling side and brand building, brand awareness. Those are all long term sort of things. in terms of today's campaign to get customers in the door today to layer on campaigns that are more long thinking. And so one of the ways that you could do that, and we've seen it with some of our dealer friends out there, is when you get a really great review is use that as a marketing piece because it's through the mouth of someone else. It's not, trust me, I'm a car dealer. it's a customer of yours that says something that's positive about the experience that you had. So that's a real great opportunity most dealers can take, and that's a pretty easy thing for you to do. Another one is community engagement as marketing. And this is something we've talked about a bunch of times, and it is just such a beautiful opportunity. We've talked to dealers, had them on the show, That it's like it's it's engaging with your community, not as a sales tactic, but as a trust building exercise. And so when you are engaging in communities and it says like trust forward outreach, sponsorships, community presidents presence are market opportunities that align directly with. with white hat principles so are you out there helping um different uh little leagues um soccer teams those kind of things if you if there's a farmer's market that needs sponsors um you know are you helping out with those kind of things these are actually can be used as marketing dollars but it's not a sales activity it's a we're out there and we are helping community programs community clubs are just our community in general even if it's something like your your dealership has adopted a part of a highway and you figure out how to make it just amazing so people you know when they see that sign this this the dealership has adopted this highway it's they're not they're looking at it as like wow look at how nice they Obviously, you need to do it. But yeah, so it's taking the opportunity to engage your community as marketing. Yeah. And I think this is so difficult for a lot of dealers to take their sales hat off for a little bit and create some goodwill. But I do think it's a wonderful opportunity for those dealers who do truly have a commitment to a long-term brand build. then being able to conduct goodwill in the community without making it a social post or without making it a marketing post is yeah, it's, it's, um, it's a fun way to be able to go into the community and offer some help and people are going to sometimes say, I've had it happen. I can't think of any exact examples now, but people will say something like, gosh, Jim, you're, you're really a good dude. And I'll be like, spread the word. I'm trying to get the word out, you know, so just have some fun with it. It's like, get the word out that we really just genuinely care about our customers. It's like, So we don't have to sell ourselves in that regard. We just show up and do the stuff and the word gets around as a result of that. And so it's harder for dealers to stop selling for a minute and just go and connect. And let that pay dividends down the line. Don't sell, sell, sell. And there are so many opportunities in every market, in the smallest of markets to the largest of markets. There are organizations that need help and that are asking for donations or whatever. you know, another just kind of fun, uh, example. And I see these popping up more and more is like a gathering of food trucks on a night, once a month or whatever. And, you know, if you've got a, a side lot that you keep stuff for, you know, um, that can be opened up and then have food trucks throughout a few picnic tables. And it's just like, this is your gift to the community is that it's just kind of a pop-up of a place to come maybe have, um, a local band or something come and, or musician come and play. And it just, it can become an event that you're sponsoring. That's a gift to your community. It's not a sales event, but it's like doing something that, that is fun for the community. And people really enjoy those kinds of things. Yeah. Keep in mind when you're doing this SWOT analysis, the real intent here is to first just identify those opportunities, which means got to again be open and and go through identify gaps that uh you know might be listed on the weakness um section but we're really in this case looking for opportunities that may have been overlooked you know we're simply and we have to gain perspective you know as michelle and I do swot analysis with dealers we'll typically try to extract from them all the things that they see about themselves and then at the end we will add those things that we also see you know, based on our observation of the company going in. And so this is kind of the idea is get perspective from other folks and be able to get new ideas in there as a result of this kind of analysis. Yeah. Okay. So the final part of this are threats. And we're going to look, you know, when we do a SWOT analysis in a dealership, we will sometimes have a list of threats that are internal. And it's like these things need to change today. But we're talking more about threats that are coming from the outside. And so, you know, one of the first ones that talks about is that is that one of the big threats we have as White Hat way is are the erosion of trust in this industry. That, you know, it's it is it has a the industry has a reputation. And so that is a threat. It is a threat to all of us. And so how are we overcoming this? And this is recognize that unethical competitors and industry wide reputation issues are external threats and then plan to stand apart through visible integrity. So we know it's the industry trust reputation. So stand apart visibly. Find a way to be able to overcome those threats by finding a visual way of standing apart from the rest of the industry. Yeah, I would say just, you know, threats to a business tend to be, in my mind, as an operational coach, my mind goes to obviously legal compliance and some sort of threat from something external that, you know, we made a big mistake or we continue to make a mistake repeatedly. And suddenly we find ourselves in the crosshairs of compliance. That can be catastrophic for some. And then the other one would just be. operational breakdowns that are making us vulnerable to actual failure of the business. We heard recently about a really expensive theft, right? We heard about an internal embezzlement theft thing that was an example of something that can really be catastrophic for a business. It can take the legs out from under the business, in which case we really want to make sure that we've identified those kind of things that could be perceived as a threat. Those are the more tangible things that you know can be identified operationally speaking but there are a lot of intangibles that would be also a threat to the business the success the profitability of the business the overall health of the business so you have to you know in a white hat context I would say we want to look at those intangibles and figure out what are the what are the elements in this business that are you know culture all the pieces that are intangible that can be a threat to the success of our business and so this is why we think it's important to analyze all those pieces honestly and to be uh to recognize and not just pretend that you know that's going to be somebody else that won't be me right that's sometimes the approach that that we can bring in business is that I'm not gonna be in the crosshairs, that's for somebody else. So this is why we think it's important to assess those things. Yeah, and then you mentioned a second ago about compliance. And so regulatory shifts, shifts in what we see it every day. Obviously, the federal side of this that there's been a lot of shifting. We talked about this last week administratively that there's been some shifting around compliance, yet there are more and more states that are stepping up to address those things where the federal CARS rule and CFPB has backed off. And so White Hat ways focus on compliance as a competitive advantage. means threats like new lending and collection rules can be reframed as opportunities to lead. Right. So certainly those are things, and you can see again, the threats, the weaknesses, those are things that we can flip into opportunities and hopefully they become a strength. But I think we just, we want to make sure that we've got a good thorough assessment and that it's kind of got multiple perspectives reflected in there, not just maybe the dealer, you know, in their own view of their business. And because we can sometimes, you know, have some blinders on, or we just simply just don't have the same perspective, don't have the same angle. So it's just, it's important to bring in those, um, those other thoughts. And so I think just from a pure white hat perspective, it's like, this is where we just think when you approach a SWOT analysis with a really long term mindset and the idea that how do I make my business as healthy? and sustainable and valuable as we possibly can. And this would be the lens that we would be looking through as we perform a SWOT. Absolutely. And when you say valuable, it's just not just to yourself and your team, but to your customers and your community too. you want to be an asset to the community absolutely so just a quick rundown of what kind of some of the things that that we've talked about on a white hat way perspective what are um what are the things that we should be striving to attain in this kind of analysis strengths you're going to lead with trust deposits um create a strength where you are your uh Your roadmap is about a long-term reputation with your customers. Weaknesses, making sure that you're watching for gaps in consistency. Also, any that you're looking for short term thinking that you may be having some struggles with. So and then the next white hat way opportunities is market needs for ethical dealers. So so you're out there highlighting the the needs that there are out there in your marketing for customers to have ethical dealers. So you're drawing that parallel of yourself and what your customers need with people that they can trust. Another one is community engagement in your marketing. How are you connecting with your community? How are you participating in your community. And then threats are erosion of industry trust. We want to differentiate ourselves. We want to be seen as an exception, honestly, to what it is that the market sees in the industry as the reputation, as predatory. We want to separate ourselves from that because that is a threat to every business out there and the last thing is those regulatory shifts be prepared and when you are when you are creating your um your policies and your procedures through the lens of white hat way your um ability to be a target for compliance for regulate regulatory um things it diminishes And so we really encourage that as you're looking at this through the White Hat way lens is what are the regulatory shifts and are we being consistent? Are we being compliant? Are we taking the opportunity to be something other than what the industry sees the industry as or the the market sees the industry as is being predatory. Right. So I think we can wrap up there. I just think you've got an opportunity to go back and perform this kind of thing. Of course, we provide this sort of analysis for dealers and can do it over a virtual format over some weeks. So if you'd like to engage us for that sort of thing, you can always reach out to Jim at White Hat Way or Michelle can probably put up my phone number there where you can reach me by text. And I'm happy to talk about that at any time. It's something that we think can be a really useful engagement for your company and to help help you come away with the actionable items that are going to allow you to, to convert some of those weaknesses into strengths and, and take advantage of some of these opportunities. I want to put in a quick mention before we wrap up about V eight, we're in data week. So dealers have been turning in their data and we will be moving toward our first meetings of the month next week. It's not too late. If you're a dealer out there looking to get in V eight group, anywhere from zero accounts to two thousand accounts we currently have groups in those sizes so if you're a an active dealer or somebody who's just getting into it uh please reach out let's find a seat for you in a va dealer a very affordable way to get comparative numbers and meet with other dealers and get questions answered and obviously if you're one of those that has like zero to whatever um the smaller ones it's more it's more just learning from the numbers of others right in that process. So again, if there's anything we can do to help, please don't hesitate to call or text. We can come and do a SWOT analysis on your dealership. And it's not just a white hat way, but it's also operational. It's really a very holistic SWOT analysis that we do, which would show both sides of of the business from a white hat perspective and also an operational perspective. Anything else you got? Yeah. Join us back here on Friday. We're expect to be able to talk to you about the cash impact of our repo spike. You know, most of our dealers out there are seeing a spike in repos in recent months. So we're going to bring some data to show how that's impacted cash. Oh, that makes a big difference. I know that we were talking about doing that last week, but, just didn't quite feel like we had all the data that we needed to be able to do it, but it's going to be a really rich conversation. So that's on Friday. All right, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us for White Hat Wednesday. We really appreciate your guys' support. Have a great rest of the week and we will see you on Friday with
