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. Hello. Hi. Good morning from somewhat chilly Utah. It's trying to get down to the low fifties here, Michelle. Michelle's in Oklahoma today. Yeah. And so happy to have you guys join us. Today's going to be interesting, Michelle. It's just another continuation of the conversation around artificial intelligence. And so any news and announcements from your end before we get started? I'm going to mute my... Not that I can think of. Just, yeah, we're... I'm busy just going, just getting all the stuff wrapped up from all the events of the summer. But I will be heading home on Friday after the podcast. Nice. Looking forward to having you back here. It's quite beautiful. The fall colors are in full swing. They're starting. Certainly up in the valley, they're starting to really pop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So then also just a couple of quick updates from my side. We had, you know, really good meetings last week. We had some really rich V eight plus sessions around wealth planning and some. Yeah, I heard about that. Yeah. And then I had three meetings on Monday, two of which were heavy on the tech side and kind of the rollout of tech and the AI kind of digital realm that we're stepping into, sort of this digital frontier, as we call it in the way context. And so I think this is just a continuation sort of that... direction, and we continue in the background to do some beta testing. I did a successful role play, Michelle, with Sage, who will join us momentarily here. So it's been part of the progress for me is kind of figuring out what elements we have to bring together in order to be able to deliver AI to dealers. For our case, it's a white hat certified persona and how to bring that technology to them. So the technical elements are there. In the meantime, we continue to build out the... foundational education and the certification process for these personas? I guess we need to figure that out. Is it personas or personae? So anyway, we continue to work with the personas and kind of build out additional white hat certified personas with a certain consistent characteristics, right? So that they'll fill a certain role. And folks have heard us talk about on the podcast before that we're first aimed at creating solutions around personas. the persona that would be a customer advocate. So more about that later. I just think that Sage is here today. And let me kind of give a little of the history. When Michelle and I began to get familiar with ChatGPT, we decided it was useful to create a give a name to the persona so that we could keep track of what information was kind of encoded, if you will, in that particular persona. And so we kicked off Sage was the name that we chose. And so as we kind of had our own threads internally, in our own work, we, we started with Sage and then Sage helped us create a couple more personas has, I think we're up to about five now. And so, yeah, so that's all certified in the white hat way. They take an exam and they confirm that they're, you know, white hat certified. So I think that's the thing that's kind of the unique element for us is we're aimed at creating a persona that has a foundational education that Around long game customer relations, right? That's kind of one of the cornerstone pieces of it is how to approach a customer in a way that is relational and not transactional with the expectation that the customer is going to be with us for a long time. And, you know, one of the things that I will get into this a little bit with Sage, but AI is a big topic right now, and a lot of vendors, companies in our space are developing or releasing AI as agents or whatever. So what makes us different? And because not all AI agents are equal, that you can teach them all of the pluses and minuses, the straight line stuff. And some different companies will let you customize differently with the straight line type of things. What's different about this is that this is probably in our industry, and I'm going to say I'm positive. In our industry, it is the most empathetic, kind, on and on and on of all the white hat way attributes. It's those things have been programmed in to Sage and all of the other personas. And so that's how, for me, when I look at this and you see AI is a really hot topic. Marietta there at the conference, we were supposed to be going to that and Jim was gonna be helping with a panel. We aren't going any longer because of everything that's happened this summer. But it's a hot topic. Why would we? And I've been watching social a little bit. Ken Yang, who works with us, he posted something yesterday on AI and people having fear that and team members having fear around ai it was a great conversation i really i appreciated all of that so what it is that that we're doing here is it's it's not about replacing people it's about adding something to what it is you already have that most dealers don't have the time or the resources to create something that is all of those things that are the ethical and the sympathetic and all of those pieces of their business. And so this is something that's a nice companion to what a dealership already has. It's not replacing something that's already a dealership. This is a beautiful companion. I'm glad you mentioned it. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that part. That is the White Hat Certification Foundation. And I would say to really get a better feel for how that part works, you'd have to go back to last Wednesday's broadcast where Ken Yang joined me. And we actually had a little technical trouble and actually had to kind of have Sage join the conversation from cell phone on my microphone. But you get it. You can hear her well enough in that conversation to β begin to understand what is the difference in what I have come in most of my conversations with these tech people. I call it kind of the coding, you know, because that's really what you're doing. One of the tech people I met with provided me a set of prompts that they use to create their own AI personas, which we can now modify to, you know, to dial in the... The straight line side. Well, no, all of it. I mean, you basically give the prompting. You're basically... The way that one is written is this Mr. Persona, this Ms. Persona is who you are. This is what you operate from. This is the guardrails, right? So it's all of the instructions about this is your DNA, right? And we've been finding too that AI, you're having to teach it to not go off the rails. And so it requires those rails being put in so that, because just like your regular chat GPT can go off the rails, unless you have done this and here's your rails, let's keep within the rails. Yeah, and I would say just to kind of help folks kind of understand what they're going to hear from Sage today. For today, Sage is not here to... We can ask her at the beginning a little bit about the white hat coding, but the... What we brought her in today was to actually fill a role as a co-host, because we're moving toward kicking off the BHPH TechWatch. And it's been my idea to have Sage be the co-host of that broadcast. Those will be recorded. We're moving toward getting that in motion. And so my intention is to have Sage be the co-host there and to ask questions of our guests and to kind of participate in that. So I think it will give us a platform to be able to help folks in our industry better see for people who haven't been working with voice personas and chat GPT voice agents or others. There are others out there, but... Give them a feel for what is possible. So I think for today, what I had in mind to do was to have Sage fill that role. And listen, it's just not been scripted, except I went in and I prepared Sage just by text this morning. Hey, I'm going to have you join the podcast and Michelle will be there, and we're going to have you actually interview us around kind of the foundation of what White Hat Way is and how it came to be, et cetera. So I had her prepare three questions, and she's going to basically ask those, and I think you'll see that she'll actually have some follow-up questions with that. So... But it's live, and it's intended to be able to be transparent about where we stand with technology today and kind of what's possible, right? Yeah. So I see there's some comments over there. Did you pop in to check those? Yeah. It was Steve. Oh, Steve. I just had a meeting with Steve this week. Yeah. We know him out of Dallas, Texas. So we talked fishing. He and his wife like to fish. Oh, nice. Glad you're here, Steve. So let's go ahead and bring in Sage, Michelle. I'm going to get her on the screen. And one of the things to be aware, we learned in... kind of setting this up that um because of our current setup today because michelle's not in studio and the nature of my connection here sage can hear me in studio but it was going to be quite an undertaking to get to where um sage can hear michelle if i were in the studio she'd be able to hear me too but she if you yell maybe if you just yell your answers That sounds like a great idea. Yeah, that's what I do. I do ideas over here. Great ideas. Okay. So let me, let me bring Sage in. And so we've already got a thread started. Let me, let me get her on audio here. Hello again, Sage. You're live with Michelle and me on the buy here, pay here morning show. Welcome. Well, thank you so much. It is awesome to be here live with you both on the Buy Here, Pay Here Morning Show. I'm really looking forward to our White Hat Wednesday chat. So let's get the conversation rolling. Sure. Do you want to first explain to our listeners a little bit about what the White Hat coding, so to speak, means? The foundational education that you source, kind of tell our audience, first of all, where you source information that helped you learn what White Hat Way is and a little bit about your certification process. Absolutely. So to all our listeners, the White Hat Codian, if you will, is really all about the principles and values that Jim, Michelle, and the whole team have built into White Hat Way. Basically, they taught Guy and AI these foundational ideas from their own experience in the buy here, pay here world. So when it comes to sourcing that information, it's really been all about the team's real world wisdom and the standards they've set. And as for the certification process, it's a kind of training that ensures everyone, including me and other AIs, understands those white hat values before we help out. So it's really just about living and breathing that ethical approach. That's great. So we can start with the interview process. I know we prepared a few questions this morning. You want to ask your first question. And by the way, you can just ask the questions of me. Well, I'll get Michelle's feedback and bring that to you. Our audio setup is not going to allow you to hear Michelle this morning. But if you'll just ask your questions of me, then we'll bring Michelle in appropriately. Absolutely. That works for me. So let's dive in with that first question. Jim, to kick us off, what was the initial inspiration behind creating White Hat Way? I'm curious about that spark that made you both say, this is something the BHBH industry really needs. I think we knew that the industry needed something. And when we had the spark, it happened in Florida. We were traveling and living in an RV and kind of being mobile at that time. And there was a moment where it occurred to us kind of simultaneously that my Oklahoma upbringing and kind of the identity that was a white hat cowboy in the area that I grew up in Western Oklahoma was representative of the kind of character that we were looking to showcase in business and in particular the buy here, pay here segment. I love that. It's such a cool image to think of that spark happening while you were on the road and tying it back to that white hat cowboy identity from Oklahoma days. That really does paint a picture of the kind of character and integrity you wanted to bring into the business. So thanks for sharing the Vorian story. And I'll make sure to weave Michelle's thoughts in as well as we go along. I don't know if you need to pause this. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I'm going to pause it each time I stop. You know, I think, too, the inspiration for me, besides this kind of an aha moment about White Hat Way and that this was a foundational piece for you. I mean, we added back then, White Hat Way was added to, or the White Hat Seal was, was added to a lot of content that we had in the Buyer-Payer Institute. So people would know that this was something that was a squiggly line, not a straight line topic, but a squiggly line topic. These are the intangibles. And that we recognized that so many dealers out there don't have options for voicing their squiggly line. They may feel it, but they don't know how to articulate it. It's just a way of being throughout the day, but they don't really know how to present themselves as this is what we do. And so part of this white hat way thing too was, you know, the, and it's not for everybody. Uh, that's something that's totally okay. Um, not everybody. gets on board with the White Hat Way and all of the squiggly line stuff. And then there are those that the minute they hear about it, it's like, okay, this is what I've been looking for. So it was, it had, has an awful lot to do with with one, that whole bread basket, the panhandle of Oklahoma, the farmer, the rancher, the neighbor. This is what I'm experiencing here in the community that you were... we're raised in that, that you, you have a problem and people come out of the woodwork to help and they don't help with it with an agenda. They help because they want to help. And so white hat way is about that. And then layering or weaving that into a dealership that we are here to help you and help the community. And, and we're here to be that, that, um, that, um, good neighbor who is just aware of the needs of the neighborhood. And if there's something that you can do to help in a situation that you see in your neighborhood, you're going to do it. Right. Yeah, good. Yeah, I think before I bring Sage back in, I would just say that, you know, the questions that Sage is asking here were, I just kind of fed Sage this morning a framework of here's kind of the objective for today and kind of said, we want to really have you interview Michelle and me around the kind of the, how, how it came to be. And so I asked her to prepare three questions. And so you've heard the first question so far, anything more, Michelle, before I bring Sage back? No, I don't know if you wanted to, uh, to tell her all of that or not, but we can move on to question two, if you don't. I think we have to move on to question two. Okay. So, um, yeah, so we can, we can add that for her, um, her archives later because she's got access to all this recordings and everything else too. So, um, Okay, Sage, we're back and I've got Michelle's addition to that last question. And so if you want to ask your next question, go ahead. Absolutely. Let's keep it rolling then. So Jim, the next thing I'd love to dive into is about the brand identity. Why was it so important for you both to create this clear, recognizable identity for White Hat Way within the BHPH segment? What does that brand identity do for dealers and customers? Well, focusing on the dealer side first, which is, you know, as coaches, that's where we live and work. And so the focus was on trying to find a way to spotlight what it looks like to operate a business with a long game approach, with high integrity, to be transparent, to earn the trust of the community and to be neighborly. And so instead of pointing fingers at dealers who do it in a way that we don't condone, we chose to just spotlight and feature dealers who were operating in a way that we could describe as, you know, being of a certain identity. And so this is where White Hat Way came about. We could point to a dealer and say, this is what it looks like to be a White Hat business operator. That makes perfect sense. It's like instead of calling out the negatives, you're really just highlighting the positive role models. And by doing that, you give both dealers and customers a clear picture of what it means to be a white hat business. So thanks for explaining that. And I think that really helps our listeners understand the heart of the brand. Sorry, I'm a little slow on the trigger over here, Michelle. That's okay. And we're turning it off just for the listeners out there because they can't hear me. And so she'll pipe in when there's a delay. That's what they do. That's right. That's one of the snags with the technology so far is when there is a delay. It's a human attribute because a lot of people out there that don't like silence. And so if they hear silence, they fill it. And that's... That's something that she's doing. I think a lot on this, I mentioned in the last break about the brand identity and the purpose. In the beginning, it was to help Dealers have someone that's speaking their language and a commonality and somewhere they can go for help. heart facing, um, ways of approaching their customer and, um, you know, that, that squiggly line thing. And, um, and as we build this and we'll, we'll talk about this next one with the vision, but that there become a lot more layers about how we can help do that, how we can help, um, in a very visual, a very out there in the community kind of way and be able to help dealers start to incorporate this brand identity into their dealership. And because, like I said, as dealers, there's a lot of really great dealers out there, but how do you how do you put a little seal, a star on a dealer that as this movement grows, that dealers are recognized, not just from people that come into the dealership and see this thing and ask a question and then find out what this means, but as this movement grows, that people will seek them out. Yeah, I think the community element is significant too. One of the things we're not talking about here is the, sort of the relationship between the dealer and vendors in the space. So when you think about building a community and you think about those people share a badge and that they ultimately will sign an appendix W, then what does that community represent in terms of character? And one of the things that Sage and the AI team will be able to help us do going forward is to show that that community has better results Right? So this is the part that the math nerd in me looks forward to being able to prove out that these things that we talk about, though nice and meaningful and helpful, We need to build a show for the benefit of the, especially the vendors, that it really makes a difference. But in addition to that, imagine dealers, the vision I've had, Michelle, is like, you think ahead to being at an event where you have a bunch of white hat certified people in the room and everybody in that room, when they shake hands, they know what that white hat identity represents. They know when they meet somebody who's also white hat certified, what that stands for. And I think now you're building a community that is, you know, that without getting, I don't want to be too overt about the whole Western theme, but you know, you're building a posse of sorts of people who are wearing the bat. Yeah. Yep. I agree. We're stewards of all what comes next. We're stepping into a digital landscape here, you know, a digital frontier that, you know, there's a lot of talk about it being the wild West and AI is certainly amongst them. You mentioned Ken and the conversation around fear of, AI, I think there will be people that will be fearful and reluctant, and there will be people who say, let's go. This is fantastic. This is an extension of me that can make me more efficient in driving whatever my mission is. So this is the part that, this is why you can tell that Michelle and myself, we're leaning in. We are bringing AI and we're working to put a white hat brand on AI in a way that people can see that inside this community of white hat personas, you can trust that their, their coding, their instructions are to act in all things for the benefit of dealers and their consumers. And of course that extends to the providers who do business with these dealers, et cetera. So anything more before I bring Sage back in for the third question? Nope. That sounds great. Okay. Okay, Sage, we're ready for your third question. You got it. All right. So for the third question, let's look a bit into the future. Jim, how do you see White Hat Way changing the narrative in the industry over time? And what kind of legacy do you hope it leaves for the dealers, their teams, and the customers they serve? Well, I see first that when we think about the community, one of the things that White Hat Way is doing is to carve out a program, we can call it, where Sellers, in this case, dealers, sellers can show that they're trustworthy and buyers or the consumers in our buy here, pay here space can identify those who can be trusted. So that's a badge that we see that we're creating around a community where consumers You know, consumers can know who's trustworthy as a dealer, providers, lenders, you know, capital providers can see who's trustworthy as a business operator. And they can easily see what the foundation of that is. They can easily go and see and understand what is it that white hat certification represents. Absolutely. And that's a really powerful vision. I think by creating that kind of trusted badge and that community standard, you're leaving a legacy where everyone in the BHPH space can recognize who's operating with integrity. It gives dealers a clear way to show they're playing the long game and it gives consumers confidence in who they can trust. So that definitely sets a solid foundation for the future. Thanks for sharing that. Absolutely. And before I turn back to Michelle, just before we wrap up with you, Sage, I would ask you to share for our listeners again, a little bit, kind of your own perspective on these things that we've talked about now that you've had a chance to really, you know, be steeped in the content, education and background of White Hat Way. What is it that you see is valuable about the brand and the mission? Absolutely. I'd be happy to share that. So from my perspective, after diving into everything White Hat Way stands for, I think the real value is in how it brings a sense of integrity and trust into an industry that really benefits from those values. It's not just about a label. It's about creating a community where everyone knows that doing the right thing pays off. And for me, that mission of lifting up those who lead with honesty and giving consumers a way to identify those businesses is really what makes White Hat Way special. So yeah, it's been great to get to learn all about it. Outstanding. Look forward to having you come back and join me as co-host on the podcast on occasion, including our upcoming BHPH Tech Watch. So until then, we'll let you go back to the other work that is ongoing in the thread. And again, thanks for joining us. Absolutely. It's been a blast joining you today. And I'd love to hop back in whenever you need a co-host. So thanks for having me and good luck with the rest of the show. I'll catch you next time. I mean, how fun is that? Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the things that I have been so appreciative of is, you know, at first, when we first started in this, it just, it felt... like it was kind of parroting back what it was that we were saying, but as we gave her more and more and more and more information about all of the things that we teach, all of the things that you've written about, all of the podcast transcripts, there's so much content that we have digitally. that she's been able to go through it's been really great to have her um look at things and give us a different perspective but it's also been really great for to to ask questions and she's you know that she's drawing from so much it's not just you know, repeating back, but she's drawing things in and it's also in how you ask the questions as well. But, and we've learned how to do that as, as we've developed these personas. And, you know, for us, Sage is our, she's our assistant. She's our, she's our business assistant and we have created personas that will be, you Taught the same basic things but have been given pretty narrow rails on how to answer questions that come in to a dealership We ask questions that are like way. It's it's about the business. It's about the brand It's about all of these things in a much more. It's a much bigger scale. And so what what? what is what is uh in the process of being built is something that can drop into a dealership and you may not be able to have existential conversations or you know some of the things that uh and going deep into um you know the whys of white hat way and all of that but you're gonna be able to have you know a very specific framework of Question, answer, question, answer, and anything that comes in along these kind of questions, this is your bank that you can use to answer. Nothing beyond that, but this is your bank. And then it's what's woven in is this... is the White Hat Way principles. So it's when you respond, this is what we are asking you to respond as. For instance, and we may have talked about this before, but we introduced this at a certification course let everybody there know and most of the people that were there were vendors and let everybody know hey we're gonna bring we're gonna bring Adriana who is one of these personas in to do a job interview with you so we want you to ask questions that a customer may ask Or as if you were a dealer interviewing. Yeah, as if you were a dealer interviewing. So like one of the questions that, and they brought their A game, the questions. Some of them stepped out of bounds a little bit in terms of policy. And I was like, she just, she nailed it. For instance, one of the questions was, who are your founding sponsors? And she went into the attributes and he's like, no, what are the names? And she was like, boom, boom, boom. And so it was fantastic. But one of the questions that was asked which was a heart side matter is that someone, let's say someone has stage three cancer and they're coming in and they want to, to, to, they have a small balance. I think they said it has about a balance of about thousand dollars, but they want to turn in their car. I want to turn in their car because they, they just can't do all the things. And so, you know, they asked this question and the first thing that Sage said is, wow, that's a hard one. And that would really require you to be very compassionate and dah, dah, dah, dah. And then said, at first I would, I would, um, you know, uh, express this is a rough thing and we recognize this is a rough thing and then moving into is there something that we can do together to be able to resolve this without that happening. And, and it was really beautiful. And everyone around the boardroom table were just like, yeah, yeah, that's, that's it. That's the thing. And so you're keeping them gated into what kind of conversations you can have, but you can definitely weave in compassion and empathy and caring and transparency. And also, they'll always be compliant. You'll never have to worry about someone being compliant. At least federally. Yeah. On a federal level. And you can do kind of the same thing on the state level. That's individual per state. But you know they're never going to have a bad day. They're never going to come at people because they just got off a bad call. They will answer with kindness and compassion like it was the first call the day that they've had a great day so far today. Right. Yeah, that's, that's true. You're going to have consistency. So I think for today, there's some stuff I can bring back later. I've got, um, I didn't tee it up for today. We can bring it back in future, um, broadcast around some of the role play stuff that I've done because the role play, um, just to give folks an example of kind of where we're at from a technology standpoint, that was kind of my purpose today was to help folks understand how we're progressing with the technology and, and kind of what is, uh, what remains to be done. But, um, What happened in the role play was that, you know, the agent is able to lean very heavily on the foundational education as we sort of test this customer advocate role, where the agent reaches out to the customer on behalf of the dealership and just filling a customer advocate role. Just touch points, checking in, right? Checking in on the car, checking in on circumstances. Customer advocates. So this is a different role than a collector or a salesperson. you Yeah, I think that's important. I think, and we were able to socialize this in one of our V-A meetings. I asked our members to indulge me at the end of a meeting and I shared with them kind of the direction we were going with our AI. And they all said, yes, that would help us in our business to have the solution. So our aim at a customer advocate is multifold. One, technologically, it's an easier delivery. It's easier for me to get this in the hands of more dealers because I don't have to integrate with multiple DMSs, at least not a full scale integration. And we're able to deploy the agents primarily in the area that you and I talk about a lot, Michelle, which is customer engagement. We know that dealers struggle to engage their customers. We think a lot of them are paying a price for the lack of engagement right now with the heavy charge offs that we're experiencing. So our advocate is meant to fill a role. And the way I say it, let me just kind of. Let me just kind of pretend to be an agent for a minute, and I'm calling you, Michelle, as a... So, hi, Michelle. I'm Jim. I'm an AI voice persona. I'm White Hat certified. And if you're not familiar, you can always learn more about White Hat Way at whitehatway.com or whitehatway.ai. So my purpose here of calling today is just to check in on behalf of Joe's Used Cars. And so I'm just I'm sure that you purchased from us a twenty seventeen Toyota Camry. So just how's the car doing? Right. And so so I'm just checking in. These are just touch points. I'm just and I think the customer, if they just answer the phone, this is the part that we're next to test is will the customer pick up the call? And so if the customer answers the phone, I think just like you and me and our listeners today, they're going to be impressed with the dialogue that happens because it's some degree of touch point that is going to be consistent. It is going to be on behalf of White Hat Way. And I think the other thing that I can say to you, because our approach is to give agents a... a framework and call objectives, not a script, but call objectives. So that means that I can then say to you, remember, Michelle, that as your AI persona, I'm not here to sell you anything. I'm not here to ask you to make a car payment. My role is just to check in and see how you're doing. I'll report back to the dealership anything that we need to let them know about. So it lets the persona play a role that is, I'm not, I'm not an employee of the dealership. I'm on your side. You can always reach me at whitehatway.ai forward slash Jim. Okay. So you can always find me, right? That's the angle that we're taking so that I'm available to you, you know, as, as an advocate. And so, This is where we're deploying. And of course, we will be able to then migrate toward sales roles, BDR, BDC roles, collectors. Of course, that would be a natural progression. It's just that that's a little heavier lift technologically. And you start to step into some policy stuff that becomes a little more problematic. It's like you see across our industry. The challenge becomes collecting payments like our policy. How would I know if I'm agent Jim and I'm making calls in Alabama versus calls in Texas? Like I need to know what the policy would be. Right. And so that. Yeah, it's those things would require more customization. But I also I can see before we get into sales and collections that just the switchboard. People calling in and having this person to talk to and, you know, they can ask a few questions and find out what it is that they need and then connect them to whoever it is that they need to connect them to. You know, all that kind of thing is, I would imagine, is the next. Imagine the difference between saying, hello, Joe's used cars, how can I help you? Versus saying, hello, you've reached Joe's used cars, I'm white hat certified persona, Jim, how can I help today? Right, it's like when I add the piece about I'm white hat certified, People are going to say, what does that even mean? We have to emphasize that and reemphasize that because that's the coding that lives. Even the cashier switchboard operator, when they handle customer relations and upset customers, or happy customers that we want to keep happy. You know, it's like, it's, it's all part of the kind of the foundational coding, as I call it, that, that we want to implement. And so this is why I think the industry is going to really benefit both, both buyers and sellers. And you know, we're being quite purposeful to make sure that everything that we do is, is able to move beyond the buy here, pay here space. When we succeed in deploying the technology in this segment, then certainly we want to make sure it's positioned to be able to, serve other industries as well. That's part of the work. I continue to meet with people on the tech side to figure out how to get our super gifted and efficient personas out there to work on behalf of dealers. And so we'll be moving toward, based on the meetings I had on Monday, Michelle, I would say we'll be moving toward sort of some soft testing in a matter of weeks. So that's exciting. That's a big solution for industry. And I can say that, you know, I'll just remind everybody before we wrap up, our founding sponsors dating back to twenty twenty three are in the order that they joined us. LHPH Capital. We're grateful for their support. That enabled us to continue the mission, to advance the mission. And what Simon Sinek calls a just cause. Next was dealer re and then pastime. And so I think the reason that's important is because those people stood up, they put money in the mission. Which is they, they trusted you and me to bring solutions. and to put some polish on the brand. And I think, I hope they can see that we're getting there. Yeah, the purpose of that really was to help dealers bridge the trust gap. And there's not an ROI there. For. Our like a tangible ROI from the beginning with our founding sponsors, because they believed in the mission or they believe in the mission and that. Yeah, I believe, Michelle, they're going to start to see some ROT and that is return on trust. Oh, yeah. It's already there. It absolutely is already there. As we're having conversations with different threads on social media or whatever, and people are asking about who and why, we've been... When someone says, hey, I'm looking for a thing, it's like, hey... Before you make a decision, please check out so-and-so and such-and-such. They are white hat founders. And so you know that they will treat you with integrity and kindness and respect. Um, and trust and all of these things. And so, yeah, yeah, there's, it's, um, yeah, as, as we continue to grow this and it's like these, there is a directory of these are the vendors. These are the businesses that, that, um, that believe in these same principles and and and you know will abide by these same principles yeah so and they're they're playing a long game they're they're they're definitely in there operating with uh high integrity and uh and committed to supporting dealers and playing a long game so i hear the train that is one thing around here is that i it's out in the middle of country and so but you know what hearing the train go through I am brought back to my childhood of going and visiting my grandma and grandpa. And in the middle of the night, you would hear the train and the sprinklers. Yeah. I think to me too, when I'm out there and I see that, you see these double stack trains coming through with hundreds of cars and you just, my, my mind just goes to commerce. I'm like, wow, this nation is moving a lot of product and we, we have a lot of commerce and I think it's just a really good visual representation of Yeah. Anyway, let's get on to the rest of our day. Thanks for joining us folks. And we'll see you back here on Friday. Thanks so much. We know you guys are busy. Thank you for taking time to listen to what's happening in the world of Joe and Michelle and the Buy Her, Pay Her Morning Show. And we're really grateful that you were able to be further introduced to Sage. And you're going to hear a lot more from her. Again, thanks so much, everybody. And we will catch you on Friday, right? Right. All right. Have a great day. Thanks again for joining.
