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. Oh, good morning. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to another White Hat Wednesday episode of The Morning Show. Yes. We have some really rich things to talk about today. This is another conversation that came about as a result of a dialogue in a V-Ape meeting. We had our first V-Ape meeting of the month of October last night. We had a really full group because we had people... Sitting in from the other group. And it was a really important conversation. And one of the things is our collections topic for today. Yeah. Good. Yeah. I'm looking forward to diving into that. And I just, I don't know about everybody out there in computer land. Things are just glitchy. I don't know if people are experiencing that, but it's just that things just kind of feel like things are taking longer. Things are not working properly. I've been watching a lot on social media how there's lots of things that are just kind of glitchy right now with all things, internet and all of that cloud-based. It's been an interesting couple of days. My best guess is there's a big spike in... flow of data with the ai you know popularity you know i'm i'm always kind of watching the the uh solar flashes and that kind of stuff and and we know when that happens that sometimes it just kind of interferes you shouldn't be watching the solar flash i'm not watching physically i'm watching on the glitchy devices oh i see okay gotcha you know what what it is that's happening um I don't think we really have any announcements. Just a week from, or not a week from, this coming Monday, we have our V-Eight discovery meeting for people who are interested to see. Oh, that's right. It's that time, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, last Monday of the month. So if you have an interest in V-Eight, even if you're a vendor or, you know, partner in the industry, you're welcome to sit in and kind of get a feel for how we, present data and the format that we use in our V-Eight meetings and we have anonymized data that we talk through in that meeting. I presented a new bit of data last night and It's, that's fun for me, like to be able to, I'm always striving to find ways to help dealers better visualize what's happening in their business. Yeah, you do that. And it's like, sometimes I can, I will come downstairs and he's so deep. And when Jim is thinking deeply, he's like playing with his mustache. No wonder I have any whispers left over there. And that's at least a monthly thing. Yeah. And I sketch things because the visual part, I'm a visual learner and I know others are. And so I'm always trying to help people visualize like graphically, how does this look in my business? So we presented some new information last night. So what was it on? it's around um what i called a banked value index and the short version of it is as we look at how much of the portfolio decrease if you take out all the extra stuff contracts added how much did the portfolio go down in principle in the period and how much of that went in the bank just All right. So just another way of slicing Dyson and it's like, because, okay. And that, that it makes sense that you do that. And I'll get to how this connects, but a really dear friend of mine is an author and she writes a very specific genre and it's, it's self-improvement and all of that. And she went through this thing where she was like, I don't know if I should do this because there are so many other voices out there. And I was like, Hmm. Yeah. The interesting thing is, is I am one of the listeners and not every voice. It just, it doesn't land on me. I use the word resonate. Yeah. So it doesn't like, Oh, Wake me up and get my juices flowing and my thoughts and all of that. And so that you can take the data and slice and dice it different ways to be able to see it from a different perspective is probably super helpful to any dealer because it's like, oh, this is a different way of looking at it. i haven't looked at it this way before and unlike your friend i'm not bashful about that because i know that i have my own perspective and as a former dealer i'm just and as somebody who's you know worked with a lot of dealers over the years like i have a unique perspective on this thing yeah yeah yeah so i'm happy to share that yeah and i that's one thing that is just makes you unique and um special i think and i'm talking about you know your wife and your business partner too Well, I mean, that's also what makes you special. So, okay. Quick, quick dumb joke before we dive into it. Just a quick one. So I'll always remember my grandfather's last words. He says, are you still holding that ladder? Anyway, let's move on. He heard that one. Yeah, I just used the same one over and over. So, you know, today's topic, we've kind of touched on before, and we just really kind of dissected it in a different way this time with the help of our assistant, Sage. Right. And, oh my gosh, the meat on the bone on this. And it's... You know, the hard the, the difficult thing is, and this is we've talked about this before. One, doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. It just is. And so if you're, if you're, you're doing something that's not working, you don't do it harder. Yeah, and things are changing, Michelle. So I'll give a quick example to frame kind of what happened. In our meeting last night, one of the dealers, who's a long-established dealer, decades in business, and they said... they asked the question of the other members, is anybody else having problems with customers ghosting them? Like this has always been a thing of having customers. It's elevated. It's elevated. Is it worse now for you? Because, um, this dealer said, um, we, for years, we've been good at closing. We always say at closing and when your payment comes due on a Friday or whatever, what we want is we want either a payment, a call or a text. That's kind of what we expect. And it's worked for a long time and now it's not working so much. And so the, the question becomes how much of it is elevated or amplified because of life circumstances of our customers and what's happening out there, which is, means we need to get even better at this part that we're going to talk about today. If, if, if in fact the economy and financial struggles of our customers is making it worse. And it seems to be. And that's, that's something to, before we dive into this is to understand that there is a reason why these things we've always experienced being ghosted or whatever. There's a reason why it's elevated right now. Right. And it is, it is environmental. It's situational. That is not just an individual household, but this is economy. Yeah. This is, this is the stuff. And so how do we, because I already know, I mean, the dealers that I've talked to being ghosted is really frustrating. And so now your frustration has been magnified by X. Yeah. And as a follow on to conversations we've had over recent weeks is the It is true that there are financial circumstances across the country that are affecting charge-offs. Charge-offs are up. However, it's important to add this caveat. Not everybody is experiencing that. We can see that in our V-Eight numbers. At all? Not most of the week. Let me see it this way. We have dealers in our V eight system whose data is consistent. They are, it's still consistent, right? Very consistent. And their, their charge off results are much better than, than other members in the group. So it's important to say, this is not everybody. So obviously there's a learning opportunity in that to get in and figure out why is this dealer similar size market, you know, in a similar region, why are they experiencing better results from it? And I would say just like, you know, a blind perspective is because they're doing something different and how they communicate with their, with their, um, with their customers. And so there's a different level of trust associated. And so, you know, then, then that's, that comes down to unpacking exactly about what it is that they are doing. And sometimes, you know, it's funny because when you listen to these conversations, sometimes with dealers, they're always like the questions around why is this happening are usually straight line questions. Yeah. And when we can start asking squiggly line questions, it's like, how are you relating to your customer? It's like, what are you doing other than step A, step B, step C, step D? How are you doing? And this is actually a really great place to start with a lot of dealers and what they're experiencing right now. So in this, if you're okay, if I kind of go, is what does silence mean? What does ghosting mean? Let's take away the emotion. Let's just take away the emotion that's associated with it. And one of the first things that came up, it is not rejection. If we can start to look at it as data, it's like if people are doing this, then it's a really great opportunity for us to be looking at this differently and using it as a learning opportunity. And data is about learning. And it's a straight line way. of learning and the answer may not be a straight line and and and the answer may not be a straight line and so i'm like um because yeah uh uh yes and and it doesn't it doesn't necessarily mean defiance It means frequently, I think, a level of discomfort with our customer base. And so how do we use, if this is elevating, that's a clue for you to look at your processes and to look at how you are relating to your customer. And it can be all the emotional things I love, you know, like the hugs and just the golden aura of I just love you guys. Or you can look at it as, you know, obviously the data is like there's more discomfort happening right now. And am I trying to reach people in a way that they really want to be reached? And so, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Also, a little more framing here. Last night on the hills of that meeting, I went to chat GPT and I basically asked without feeding it the things that I had. I had suggested some things in the meeting that could be contributing factors for the ghosting ways that maybe address it. And, but, but I didn't feed any of that to chat GBT. I just said, I can't remember my prompt, but basically, what are some of the reasons that a subprime customer in an auto credit situation would ghost a creditor and not take the phone calls? Right. And so it spit out a lot of great stuff right off the bat. And a couple of those on the list were the things that I had already said that I thought were the reasons that we need to be cognizant of as we're working our collections. Absolutely. So, you know, one of the first things that came up were about scripts. Yeah. And, you know, we know that when we make a phone call that, well, and this is about ghosting, but if they have had experience in the past around a phone call, They know what the script is. Yeah. And so, you know, because a lot of our customers, they might need a reminder. They might, you know, whatever. And they know what the script is. You know how they know? Because an hour later, they listen to the voice message. And it's the exact same thing that they knew that they were going to say. It's like, I got the message. And I would ask, what is the tone? Okay. Well, it's the tone and it's the script. Right. And, you know, there's... Do you sound robotic in the things that you're saying? And I know that there are some really great call trainings and all of that. Maggie is one of them. And there's like a specific script and all of that. And I get that there's straight line things that need to happen in a conversation. Mm-hmm. But when we dive into a conversation, not a monologue, not a talking to, not a talking at, but you dive into a conversation, there can be some things that are scripted because you're just trying to make sure that you've got correct data. But we also... you know, we come up with scripts of, of this is how you dive into the thing. And it, it blaringly lacks authenticity and, and caring. Yeah. And, and, and, And tone of voice says a lot. It says a lot. So I think another thing to kind of, since you mentioned the collection training or whatever, so we've been asked, and I think you can expect to see us go forward with a white hat collections training, and that'll likely be done virtually. I can't say there won't eventually be an in-person element, but we'll likely move forward with offering a virtual. But here's the thing, and I think I would insert this now so as people listen to the rest of what we will talk about today, understand the difference between I can teach philosophy in collections. So I can teach, let's say you're a collector and you work for some dealer in Michigan. I can teach you virtually the things that we would recommend philosophically. But if you return to your desk tomorrow and try to do the job based on that philosophy, but that philosophy doesn't align with the dealer principle back in Michigan, you're going to have a hard time carrying those things out. And so this is what's been problematic for us around collections. And I think today you're going to hear a lot of that. It's like a lot of these things. And by the way, this thing goes out today when we record this, it goes out, or when we broadcast it live, it goes out to Facebook. Some of those groups are closed. It goes out to my profile. It goes out to YouTube and LinkedIn. Point being, even customers, managers, collection managers, collectors, customers, they can all hear this conversation. And so if you're a customer who's having trouble with, as we get to the end of this, and you're a customer who's had trouble in this way, then reach out to me, you know, jim at whitehatway.com, send a note, and I'm happy to talk to customers. Because I think this is all a learning experience for us to figure out more and try to help dealers be able to communicate and engage better with their customers and have better dialogue and results. Yeah, yeah. And you know, here's an element of this around the scripting and, you know, getting out of robotic, is you've got to be able to give your team, and I, because I've, all right, back up. I've managed call centers. I've managed customer relations teams. I have a long career working in that kind of thing. one of the industries that I've worked in, it was, it was, I've worked in a banking kind of industry and I've worked in, in a, you know, we're selling a product and this is, you know, the difficult part is, is like, I really can't afford this or whatever. And how we handle high end product. And so my team with this high end product that, you know, they, They, they dealt with just a lot of calls. I mean, it was just, we knew that it was boom, boom, boom. I never set them on, you have a certain time that you, cause we had a team and I just kind of watched the flow and, and but I also empowered them with the ability to make a difference. And I think that's a really big thing because when a collector doesn't have the power to say yes and make the decisions, that is really demoralizing. And it's kind of like if you have to ask permission, you lose credibility. Right. Boom. And they lose trust. And so if there's any way that you can help your collectors, giving them the authority to negotiate certain things, reschedule, offer solutions on the spot, you know, and maybe now is the time that we loosen that up a bit from where we've been really, really narrow. Mm-hmm. in what things we're willing to do to work with our customers. Because it's, it's a time it's, it's like the environment calls for us to be more flexible. Yeah. And so you're talking about a couple of things. You're talking about policy. It's probably a good time to look at policy and to this thing about flexibility over scripts is grant our collectors, the authority to, to, make decisions and work with customers and carve out understandings and actually have some authority to solve problems. Because alternatively, I give examples of like, if I'm the customer and I call you and you say, you know, unfortunately, you know, are you going to make your payment today? And the most time I can give you is till Friday. Can you make your payment by Friday? If that's all I really get from you, then what that does is it trains me to say, the next time Michelle calls me, I probably don't need to answer the call because all Michelle has the authority to do is give me three days. And if that's not my situation, I don't really need to talk to Michelle. And if the collector doesn't have authority to make some decisions and they're like actually just a glorified messenger to the person that makes decisions. Yeah. And I hear this all the time with dealers. Someone will call in and they ask to talk to the person who's the decision maker because it's just like you're just a messenger. And so it's like, no, I want to talk to Lydia. No, I don't want to talk to you. I want to talk to Lydia because Lydia is the one that can make the decision. And so that collector now has lost credibility with... And authority. And authority and all of that. Yeah, and I think the other thing that happens here is like it creates a situation where I... And when I train collectors too, or when I hire collectors in particular, a lot of what I'm looking for is a problem solver. So that sometimes requires some creativity. It certainly requires listening, but all this stuff, we're talking about a customer who's ghosted us. I can't solve any customer's problem until I can talk to them. That's not talking to you. Okay, yes. Okay. Which kind of is probably an important thing to, like, how do we get them on the phone? Right. And it's how do we get them on the phone and how do we understand why they're not on the phone and how can we change that? So let's break down today. Let's focus on why they're not answering the calls. So I'm going to say one of the first ones is talk over text or text over talk. Okay. The generations today, I don't know about you. But when my mom would call, I had to do an internal check. Am I ready to talk to this person? And there were times that it's just like, I'm not. And so I let it go to voicemail. And so that's just on an interpersonal thing. That's not on a business thing. It's if you're not answering calls from your mom, it's like, I'm too stressed to deal with mom right now. And so she doesn't, she didn't know how to text, which was frustrating as anything, but I would much prefer to get a text that says, Hey, you know, give me a call when it's convenient for you. I'm just, you know, give me a call that or whatever. And, and so I think that that, that uh the i'm a gen xer and many of our customers are now millennials and gen z's it's the younger generation how do they communicate they communicate not through picking up a phone most of them just don't and i asked a question last night of the dealer and i would ask the question of all dealers like how well can we tax and communicate like And the other problem, of course, which is created with text, as we all know, is sometimes tone can be misinterpreted in text. And so we need to be super careful about what we say in the language. So how do you communicate with them via text where they're getting the tone? One of the ways is to do an audio text or a video text. And so they can, because this is how some of my girlfriends and I communicate all the time. It's like they don't have time to do the thing. So they just do a quick, you know, hey, this, da, da, da, da. And this is what I was thinking. And da, da, da, da. Let me just pause for a minute and say, we're stepping now into testing on our white hat certified voice agents. People are going to be blown away by the tone and consistency of the AI agents. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that it talked about is that texting is a new handshake. And I really appreciated that that was one of the things that came back. It's like, this is that for a lot of people and texting is, Actually, it's probably easier to track the content of a conversation than listening to voice recordings. I'm just saying. So, yeah, that it's just that a lot of a lot of industries, a lot of, you know, when you're dealing with people, texting is. it's like the preferred way for our customers to communicate for the most part. Well, not to mention you have to consider the element. It's like you say that you don't want to take a call from your mom, but imagine if I'm a customer who's past due on my car payment and I'm in the car with a friend and I get a phone call I can't really talk about my past due car payment in front of a friend or a coworker or whatever. So a text is easy enough for me to deal with, you know, more. So either you're leaving messages that have solutions and opening up the like, let's talk about this because we may have some solutions for you because we value you as a customer. And, you know, we, you know, it's just like, let us know because we can't help what we don't know. And so let's look at what we know. And a lot of young people today, too. All people, all people in general do not like difficult conversations. All people avoid difficult conversations to some degree. And when people that are customers that are already feeling pinched, you know, Tommy Brandes is like, I've never known a person that can make a dollar stretch further. Well, now their dollar has to go twice as far as it did before. And so they're, They're stressed to the gill. And it's like, I don't know about you, but just in life in general, there are times where it's just like, I want to freaking tap out because I'm feeling stressed about this or this or this. And then if you're in that state where they're already... hustling up as much money as they possibly can and doing side hustles and all of that. And then they get a bill collector and it's like, all right, I don't have the money. The car broke down or I ended up having to buy a new jacket for my kid for school or whatever. It's like, let's, let's have, let's have, yeah. So I think, you know, just to kind of finish out on the thought of, about flexibility, some dealers will hear the thing about flexibility and say, well, if I'm, if I'm the one who's flexible, that means the rent will get paid, the groceries will get, and I won't get paid. Some dealers will hear that. And I think as long as we have that, I think we can expect to see a lot of repos and have a lot of customers ghosting us. Because if we're going to apply pressure, if our answer to collecting the payment is applying more pressure than the others, then I think we can expect to see a lot of repos. And when I step back, the ten thousand foot view, everyone's feeling the pressure. And so you've got car dealers that are trying to be more flexible, give people more time. You have... landlords that are doing the same thing. And where do all of these people get their funding? Right. From banks and what banks are constricting because they don't, they don't want to, they don't want to be flexible. Sure. They don't. It's that it's like, It's down to the bottom line, all of that. So this is like a trickle-up thing that we're experiencing right now. And we're watching banks just constrict. They say there are things that roll downhill, right? Certain things roll downhill. This rolls uphill. Well, it's both. You feel it. The dealer feels it from the lender. The customer then feels it from the dealer. But I would say at the dealer level, Because we're in a three-year relationship with the customer. Don't know what the bank and dealer relationship is, but we know the duration of a successful relationship with a customer. So this is about... long-term thinking, as we always talk about long game customer relations versus got to have the payment by Friday or else, that's really what we're talking about here. And so I think this is where we have to really determine, can we, can we live with a philosophy that is more long game approach? And we'd hope we would have that established already. And so the next one we need to talk about is kind of trust deposits and relationship equity, but. Yeah. And I'm seeing just in general, as I'm kind of watching some of this, more and more people are going back to being simple. More and more people are going back to like the basics. Because it's just exhausting to try to keep up with a lot. I mean, I've got friends that have... incredibly huge businesses that are like i think it's time to just scale it all down and and because it's it's time for some level of simplicity so um and and i think that i think that simplicity is also relationship That when you have a relationship, it does make that communication easier. It makes it more simple. It just does. And so, you know, with simplicity too, what I'm seeing is people like they want to live somewhere where it's just quieter and it's simpler and it's just more community and it's more connection and it's more... Because I'll tell you one thing that I do get about Gen Zs, they're all about community and connection. They really, really are. And they find their pockets of community and connection, and they are like, boom. This is my community. This is my connection. Well, how do we create that within our business and our book of business? So it sounds like a great opportunity for dealers. Absolutely. When we learn to win and communicate with that customer, we have a chance to win a lot of business. So we're talking about tone. We're talking about giving your collectors the ability to have – And I didn't come full circle with this experience that I've had. I gave my team members, who I knew were going to have hard conversations, one, training on how not to give away the boat at the first call. You don't give everything away at the first part of a conversation. You work your way through – there's a bug that's bothering Jim – You work your way through, can you make the payment? How much can you make? And, you know, and just kind of working through that. But I also gave them solutions that they could pull out of there. And as a business owner or as a leader, if we can help our team members be a hero and You have gone so far in trust with this customer. If you can be a hero, that does not mean giving away the bank. Yeah. But if you can empower your team to be a hero, not only does it help your relationship with your customer, it helps the relationship with your collector. Yeah. and the customer and the collector and their job, the relationship they have with their job. If they feel like they can be a hero and do some good instead of just like, it's like the script, where's your money? Where's your money? Where's your money? But it's like, let me be a problem solver. Yeah, that's good. And I think another way to be the hero, another kind of analogy to think about is, you know, if I can become a skilled person, first of all, listener, the biggest part of being able to have, because where my mind has landed is if I can become more of a skilled listener that lets me move toward being a surgeon of sorts, because what I don't love is our collectors having a big stack of band-aids on their desk where all they really do is a band-aid and, to get us to the next payment and the next payment there, there there's always going to be a degree of that. But when we can, I always like to try to solve problems in the most permanent way possible so that because the customer doesn't want to feel the stress of being behind. Okay. And so I'm looking for ways to solve the problem in the most permanent way possible. And the only way I can really do that is, first of all, I have to be able to talk to the customer. Second, I have to be able to listen and fully understand, which means I don't need to rush into getting them to promise me a payment by Friday. I need to make sure I understand the whole process. situation well enough. Which is draining though. I mean, it's like when, when you bring in emotion into something too, it can be, it can be draining. Of course. But yes, it's, it's about that meaningful contact. I can't be a hero. Just, you know. Yeah. And I also don't want to create a precedent where the customer says, well, You know, because we know our customer, when we give them an inch, sometimes they take that mile. And so we've got to be careful, right? We've got to manage this well. But I'd say what we're talking about today is being ghosted. Like, they're not talking to us. So it doesn't matter if we're band-aid, surgical, it doesn't matter. We can't do anything until we can actually communicate with the customer and know what's going on. And this is really, you know, when we're when we're experiencing a lot of it's like there's more of a wall right now with our customers, more and more ghosting. It is a beautiful opportunity for you to connect with them outside of a collection call. It really, really is. It's just like it's it. Dealers. if you haven't started making trust deposits with your customers, now is the time. And it's, it's worth the, it's worth the, the bandwidth. It's worth, you know, bringing someone in to make the calls just like, hey, I'm just checking up. It's, it's, it's, you know, seeing how you were doing. And, you know, we value you as a customer. No, if you ever hit a hard roadblock or whatever, we know that you're going to you're going to make us a priority and that you you know, your intention is to pay the bill and and all of that. But if if there's something comes up. Yeah. let's talk, let's, you know, and, and offering those, those kind of little trust deposits. And, you know, and even if it's just a newsletter, an email that I honestly, that has like, Hey, we know everyone's struggling. And so here's a, here's something that we came across that, helps, you know, our customers make their dollars stretch more, or here's a program that's, that we just found out about in the area that can help with this or this. And so, you know, those are trust deposits too, is if, if, you know, if you know that there's, there's programs like for instance, not really a squirrel because it is related, but there is a um there's an organization that that we pass um on the street main street down here and we see all these people with with wagons and it's just like a line that goes a block and down and it's just this warehouse and and we for a year we were like what is this because we would see people leaving with the wagon with all these with all this food and it is an organization that picks up all of this produce and all this stuff And anyone who needs help, and they do this weekly, anyone who needs help with their groceries, come in. And if you can make a donation, make a donation. But if you can't, you can leave with it because we want, we prefer you eat. Mm-hmm. Now, as a dealer, if you know there are places like that, that maybe your customer doesn't know throwing something like that in a in an email that says, hey, or maybe I'm partnering up with this thing and helping out some. So, you know, whatever that so that they know that we know that dollars are tight. How can we how can we you know, here's a program for heat. Here's a program for this. We know that dollars are tight. We want to be able to help you. And we want you to be able to honor your obligations. And I know that you want to honor your obligations. So how can we help alleviate in different ways too? I think dripping resources and education to customers is certainly a way to make trust deposits and earn some relationship equity. But I think where my mind goes on this thing about this, you know, your local food bank or whatever, To me, the real solution on that and the chance for you, Michelle, to be the collector hero in our example is to have those tools in your tool belt so that when I do talk to you and you can better understand my situation, you've got a tool belt that is full of ways to help. Absolutely. And you have the authority to use them. Absolutely. You'll be judicious. There will be some that you don't want to go to right away. You'll be judicious and skilled about how you release those to the customer. But you have those tools available and you have the authority to use them so that you can solve problems and become that hero you're talking about. Absolutely. Candice Price, I really love her, out of Omaha. Fantastic dealer. She teaches her team that when someone comes in to buy a car, even, that if whatever the roadblocks are, and it's usually money-related or whatever, is you get into a conversation and you solve problems. You solve one problem, you've gotten a customer for life. And so it's just, if we can have... um you know have one of your team members look at all the different programs that there are in the area and you know it's like i'm i'm having a hard time even doing the this or i had a hospital thing it's like okay here's who you can call they have a program that your hospital bill whatever that they you know here if you want i've got the application and i'll just zip it off to you and you can send that and or whatever, but just that's an, that's an arrow in their quiver. Yeah. I think that, yeah, that's a good way to think about the arrows. Like it's, it's ways to solve problems because our, our customers are going to need help. We know that that's just a reality. There will be hiccups in the course of a three-year business relationship with a customer who's got tough credit, doesn't have easy access to surplus cash. Like they're going to be hiccups. And so I think for us to, to, first of all, we need to have tools and then we need to have a relationship with a customer where they feel safe communicating with us about what's going on with them. Because the fear factor is real here. They fear and they recoil and they don't answer the phone for a variety of reasons. We'll continue with the rest. But it's like, I think this is an important thing for us to recognize is that in order for us to have a degree of equity with the customer, we have to We have to say it in a way that they believe it, and we have to demonstrate it in our practices that we will work with people. And so energetically, that's like, I am sitting on the same side of the table as you. We are working together. I'm not talking at you. I'm working with you, and let's figure out a solution. Because if you're the dealer, and all you're going to say to me is, your car payment is past due. If it's not paid immediately, you're going to be repossessed. I already know that. So what is there to talk about? Yeah, and I remember... Tommy Brandes, another really great dealer, good friend of ours, just finished the Marriotta Conference. Congratulations. It sounds like it was really, really successful. One of his collectors that he had a while ago, and she's no longer with the company, but we did, we've talked about, what was her name, Missy? Missy. Missy. And she would like, talk to the customers like they were her friends and and it's like oh so okay um have you looked at this have you thought about this have you thought and she would actually you know sometimes if people felt really like stuck i just paralyzed it's like come on down and i'll help you fill out the application you know like for for food assistance or for you know the the heat program or whatever Come on down and I'll help you. I'll help you fill out the thing. I can take a half an hour or, you know, help you find cheaper car parts, whatever it is. But when you when you do those kind of things, you gain customers for life. And I think it's worth mentioning here, Michelle, that we've been in the recent years, as technology has improved, dealers are naturally looking to be more and more efficient. And anybody who's worked in a call center knows there's often they're tracking a larger call center. They're tracking efficiency of time, how much time to put them on the phone. Maybe it's time to dump that for right now. For sure. I would say we're paying a price for that potentially and that we're trying to be efficient. In the meantime, we have less dialogue with our customer and we don't know, we don't, We don't dig in like that thing you're describing with Missy. It takes time. It's an investment of time, but I'm saying it's an appropriate investment in this stage. If you look at, if you saw the repo charts on some of our V eight members, like it's the investment of time. Had you been able to hire another collector and spend more time with our customers or hire a customer advocate. So it's, you know, even if the collectors, one of the arrows in their quiver, Hey, I'm going to get so-and-so on the line and loop them in because this is the person in our dealership that will help you with these things. And that you become a team, a family, and not just an individual. But that's a very different energy than passing the buck. It's like, I don't have the authority to make that decision. It's like, oh, you know what? let's let's let's have a conversation i'm gonna i'm yeah yeah for sure yes we should keep moving we really really should um uh what else do we have on here so there's quite a bit actually that you already covered the talk over text i think and then the um the hardware part the technology we just touched on a little bit um you know technology can do the job of reaching customers by dialing the phone right but it doesn't know how to earn trust Right. And so this is where it comes. It's up to us to kind of do the things that are that's a human element. And so I think that's the human piece of this that, you know, we're trying to emphasize here today is we got to be able to connect, because I think in the example that used with Missy, you said, you know, they try to be like they're the friend, I would say. you're like a neighbor and I genuinely care about you as my neighbor and I care about your success as our customer and my neighbor. So this is the tone and attitude that I'm bringing to supporting you and whatever's going on in your world. Yeah. Yeah. You know, one of the things that was brought up in the, in the, in our outline is a way that can really help a collector or someone that is, that is connecting with your customer is, Which is really, really important. And this is something that I taught my teams to is take very good notes about the conversation. And it's not just the straight line stuff. It's the things like grandma just passed away or, you know, the my my. dog, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Or, you know, the things, the things, the emotional things, the things that matter to the customer, take note of that. Get your team in the practice of taking good notes and and i taught my team you can take notes while you're talking and it just takes practice but you can take notes while you're talking and typing the stuff in and so you're you're talking to them and having a conversation but you're taking the notes and then having the next time there's an interaction um that that you like if it's an outbound you have reviewed the notes and You know what is going on in this person's life. And, you know, it may be your own notes, but you talk to so many people that you don't remember all the notes. But you know something that is in their life and you reference it in the conversation. Because that is a... I'm thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Because the alternative is, can be a, an equity withdrawal. Like if, if I spend a lot of time with a collector in week one and then two or three weeks later, I'm talking to somebody else and they have no clue. And now I'm having to recite the whole thing over again. That's a withdrawal. Like, that's like, I don't have any relationship with this company. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so this is where the continuity can come into play and, and kind of build on that. And, you know, it can be if there's certain things that you are required to verify, verify, it can be playful. Yeah. It's like, okay, so let me just get through this, this stuff real quick. And then we can get to the get to the meat of the conversation. I just got to make sure. Okay, so what can I do to help you? What, you know, what's going on? Yeah, kind of thing. Of course. And we know how we talk to, you know, you said like just a good neighbor. So a friend, a lot of times you're emotionally invested and we don't want our team members to be emotionally invested, but we want our team members to want to help their neighbor. Right. And and and that if it doesn't work out, it's like, oh, that sucks. But not that they're going to go home and cry and they're, you know, for whatever. But but to be just yeah, to be a good neighbor, to to talk to, to use the tone, to use the cadence, to use the the asking questions and being really good. genuinely interested in the answer to the question, being genuinely interested in what is happening in, and, and, and obviously, you know, we know there's always the customer that will just spill their whatever. And so these are training opportunities for your collectors on how you bring it back to the thing and, you know, shut down a monologue to get back to the thing and without being uncaring, this is where. Yeah. Those kind of skills, those are the skills that every collector should be taught. Those are the skills and not... Follow the script. Say the thing. Do the stuff. It's like, how do you bring the conversation back in a gentle and kind and loving way? It's that grandma kind of firm but loving. It helps to make sure we actually have collectors on our team who truly care. I'll tell you, most of our Gen Zs and millennials do, but they've been burned enough that they don't care about you. They don't care about your thing, but they are very deeply caring. And that's where it's like that community and that tribe. And so how do you create a culture in your business where they can, they can express that caring. They can feel like they're cared about so that they can in turn give that to others. Yeah. And I think there's a lot to unpack on that one. Yeah, for sure. And I think it's important before we wrap up to kind of share that. I think a lot of dealers out there would hear this conversation and they'll think, well, Jim and Michelle just really haven't done this. They haven't worked in these trenches and heard this. Cause I, I'll give you an example. Okay. You said, make a note in the thing that the grandmother passed away. Well, sometimes you're making a note that the grandmother passed away again. Okay. Okay. So my point is that this can be a really frustrating job for a collector, right? And so this is really where the AI starts to come in. And this is why I think AI will do a better job in the end of a lot of these things. And I'm simply saying that the customers don't do anything. do have some behaviors and practices that frustrate. Okay. So that can be definitely part of what builds up for a collector who's been in the chair for very long. So the challenge becomes, how do we get past that? Ask yourself, why did the customer lie to me about their grandmother passing? Why? So this is what we have to understand is what, what put them in a place that felt like they had to lie. Why don't you ask them? Yeah. Because, because we can say like, why did they, but just say, Hey, I'm looking at the notes and I've noticed that you've had four grandmas pass away in the last year. What's going on? Because, because that, I mean, it's like, I, that's easier to do if you have a little equity with the customer. It absolutely is. And, and, and, and it's also about delivery. It's not about you're lying. It's like, Hey, Hey, you know, I, it's, Not being able to make your payment is an uncomfortable place. And so sometimes we just pull out what can create the most sympathy. And so I recognize that that's been something that has been a pattern. But let's talk about it. We need to get to the bottom of how do we make this agreement work for both of us and recognize that life happens and all the stuff. And so how can we work together to make this work? And it sucks to lose a parent. I'm kind of feeling like, you know, it's that this is something that you're pulling out because it just makes that gets me off your back. And I get it. It's hard. Yeah, it's I do. I do. So how can we just move forward and Just let me know really what's going on and we can figure out... Because I can't help with a death with a grandma that died. But I can help with this and this and this. And that was actually one of the things that was kind of cool with my team. I had up to twenty people at any given time and they're dealing with... people that want a refund because they realize they can't afford the thing and we get past that window there are no refunds and how the heck do you because it's not about a repo but it's about i mean you've got people that like i need this i need this i need this how do you how do you um Uh, how do you diffuse that? And, um, and it's, those are, those are the kind of skills that are not just buy here, pay here, but these are universal collector, you know, empathy, compassion. And those are the things that I think that we should be, um, uh, really teaching and not straight line things. Michael, thank you for, for popping it. I'm going to show this. He says, we want to work with them, not against them is what our family used to say all the time right now. More than moreover, uh, This is this all has to be a team effort to make it work for everyone. And so it is. It's like, are are you are you talking at them? Yeah. Or are you having a conversation with them and being a good listener in the midst of that conversation? No, I think that's all true. And as a dealer myself, of course, it was part of our marketing. It was part of our closing. We really push hard for honesty. My theme in our dealership was we're… big on honesty and low on down payments, you know, it was kind of the theme. And so, but we did really emphasize honesty, closing process, underwriting right on into the collection. We got to set the stage and you start the relationship from a place of trust. So that, that takes a little effort and let's get back to the inefficiency things. Like in order to do this, sometimes you got to slow a customer down and you got to have a real Frank heart to heart conversation before you hand over the keys to the car, get to know them and drive home this idea that you work with people and But one of the things that I would be looking for, and one of the things if I were training a team of collectors in my own dealership would be, I think it's okay for us to expect... honesty. It's okay for us, but we have to earn it. We have to, we have to do our part to make sure that we create a platform. And so, you know, trust goes both ways. And so we have to make sure that we do our part and then we can hold the customer accountable to being honest with us. And now we can, we can solve a problem, but they got to be able to be frank with us. They got to be clear about what's going on, right. In order to, uh, And the burden is on us. It is. The burden is on us. It is not on the customer. The burden is on us to develop a relationship and develop a transparent relationship, develop trust. The burden is on us. And if you're... We're handed a grab bag of distrust from the gate. Distrust, distrust, distrust. Because these are those that are unbankable and they've probably had a repo in their past or whatever. It is on our shoulders to develop trust. And so it's the same principle of trust. you know, you can choose if someone's going to be difficult to write them out out of your life, like in a personal thing, or you can choose with someone that you want to have a relationship with to find ways to develop a relationship with them. And, and I think, I think this fly has got something to say. There it goes. It's coming to the microphone. I know you speak fly. Maybe you can interpret for us. Translate. Find out what the fly has to say. Michael, thank you. And you did mention that you just came from Mid-Atlantic. And I don't understand the last part of the message. Just came from Mid-Atlantic. Was universal all over America? Not sure what that means, but I'm sure it was a great conference. And so hats off to Tommy and all of that. So, you know, just to wrap things up, if we keep dialing harder instead of listening deeper, we will keep getting ghosted. But when we start showing customers that we're on their side, that's when they finally will start calling back. Listen, listen, listen, have solutions available. Be prepared to work with people. If we're just going to demand payments, you're going to put a lot of repos. I'm just, it's not a hard thing to understand. This is a relationable, the solution to this is in relationship. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. What else do we got? I think we should close there. Reminder, Monday, um, five thirty mountain time, seven thirty east. for those people who want to sit in on a meeting. You know, if you've been thinking about it, great opportunity to just kind of get a feel for. And one of the things that I'm so grateful for, this has been Jim's brainchild. And I've just I've been able to sit back and watch is that is that there really is a Jim has to his core, to his heart. It's like this information, it's data, and data should help all dealers. Because we're all in the boat together and we're all trying to help the same segment. That's what WACA is working on. Yeah, absolutely. Everybody, thanks so much for joining. We know you've got... stuff to do we're probably some of you guys are listening in and out from an auction all of that thank you for taking the time um you can find us on youtube we are all over social media and if there's anything we can do to help please reach out jim at whitehatway.com have a great day everybody thanks again for joining us
