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, took a little bit of a delayed connection there. Yeah, yeah. Happy Friday, y'all. Hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving. Yeah. Spent a lot of time with friends and family. Hope you had enough Pepto-Bismol to get you through the evening and all that good stuff. Yeah. We had a nice time with family. We did. We did. We head back to Oklahoma tomorrow after a little bit of family time. I wanted to show something, though, so hold on. All right. I don't know if y'all can see that. That's been our view from the bed, our bedroom. And you can see way over off in the distance is the great Salt Lake. We're at pretty dang high. One of the local ski resorts that I used to live by. Yeah. So staying with a friend and one of Michelle's friends that I inherited through marriage and she's been a wonderful friend and great host. And we've really enjoyed the space here and being able to be, in the mountains before the snow hits. Yeah. You know, it's supposed to start snowing this evening up here, so. Yeah, they weren't able to open up Thanksgiving Day weekend for skiing, so. Yeah, yeah. Do we have anything, any announcements, anything? We're heading home tomorrow, so we'll be back in our home studio. No big announcements, except I would just remind those folks, you know, we've got the end of the month comes this weekend, and so for our dealer members in V-Eight and those dealers who are contemplating getting into V-Eight, Now be sure to grab your inventory values and your notes receivable value, principal balance for all receivables at the close of the month so that we can have clean numbers for December. Absolutely. I think that's it. Shall we jump into our stuff? Yeah. So we're going to be talking about, we're going to be doing, showing some video of one of the dealers that we've done questions with around the just their business and how they feel about their business and, and, um, some of the things that they've done and struggles. And so you want to go ahead and. Yeah, let me explain who this, this is a dealer, Jeff Owings. I got to know him through our VA dealer groups. He's a, he's well known in the industry because he's been involved a lot of twenty groups over the years and, um, and is also a great mentor to many. He's been really generous with information. And, you know, so we're doing our pick six today. He picked six questions to come and answer, and we recorded several days ago. And so now we're just going to play that. There's a chance we're going to break this into two parts because, you know, he gives a lot of good information, and we may just cover like the first three questions today and save some more for next time because there's quite a lot of good stuff there. So shall we get going? Yeah, absolutely. Introduce you to Jeff, I think, whenever it starts. You want to share it? It's in there. There you go. Screen. Go ahead. Welcome friends. Got another pick six conversation with this time dealer, Jeff Owings out of Arlington, Texas. Glad to have you here, Jeff, and glad to have our audience get a chance to know you better. I know you're a long time, Twenty Group member. A lot of folks out there in the industry know you, but for those who don't, you might share a little bit about your background. Well, thanks Jim. Glad to be here. I've been doing this a long time, my whole adult life, you know, since I've done it, this is my forty-first year. I really enjoy this business. So I love learning. I've been in groups the entire time and continue to join other groups when they come along. I'm a big fan of the industry. Yeah, for sure. And I have enjoyed getting to know you, Jeff, as a member of one of our V-Eight dealer groups. And so as I've gotten to know him, I understand why he's widely respected. And obviously with those decades of experience, you've learned a thing or two and you're generous about mentorship. And today's another example. We're going to talk through some of the things that you have learned in your time in this buy here, pay here world that we live in. So let's start off with the first question I had for you was, What are some of the KPIs that you look at on a daily, weekly, whatever interval you choose or whatever you spot, but what's some of the KPIs that you lean on regularly? Well, I thought about this question and, you know, I have, I don't, wouldn't even know where to start. I have so many of those. I would, if I counted them, I'm sure they're over thirty that I look at daily and I don't only look at them, I prepare them myself. I don't have anyone build a dashboard. I know that's options for people, but I like to do them myself. I like to fill the numbers and put them in myself. The one that I've noticed when I've spoken with you in the past that you've taken the most interest in, I thought would be a good one to share. And it's one that I call the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I don't know that many dealers that do this one I've got a few friends of mine that have started doing it. It takes a while to have any real meaning. What it basically is, is every single sale we do finance, you know, it's got the car, year, make, model, miles, customer score, PTI. It's got, you know, just a spreadsheet that I input as we sell a car daily. And then we follow that stays on that spreadsheet forever. they're moved over to a closed. And so I'm able to look at the, let's just say this car, John Doe bought it and I had ten thousand dollars all in. There's a day where that account's closed. whether it's paid off or CPI insurance, or just paid off the last payment and handed them the title. So there's good ones, bad ones, and the ugly ones, which would be a skip or left in a pound or something. Right. Well, I put in all of the, everything that we ever received from the customer on that spreadsheet. And, uh, then the difference of that and what we had in the car is what what we made theoretically on that vehicle there's all kind of other expenses along the way of collections and things but and some repairs but just basically the car and then what we collected and i'm able to take that list over years and years and sort it however i want to to see which years makes models miles cost PTIs, customer scores, car scores. I can sort it in numerous ways. And what I want to do is continue to refine the types of deals that make the most money. And then that includes, when we receive from the customer, the reclaimed, repossessed vehicle. So that's called the good, bad, and the ugly. I love that. Good, bad, and the ugly. It's kind of like doing a post-mortem. on individual cars by keeping it all on a spreadsheet, which becomes something that you can slice and dice and look at as data in lots of different ways. It's a great idea. It takes a lot of discipline, too. And I don't know if they ever miss any of them, but when you can get a fair share, a good amount, over the course of three years, That's an awful lot of really great data. And he's got way more than three years. He's got, yeah, years and years of data and thousands of accounts. But yeah, the postmortem, you know, is, is typically kind of reserved for a charge off analysis where this analyzes the charge off, it analyzes the payoffs, it analyzes all types of sales. And so, yeah, so it just gives him a good feel for, performance, whether they were good, bad or ugly. So that's why he landed on that phrase. I like that. And I like, you know, we are constantly talking about you can't change what you don't measure. I mean, well, you can change it, but you don't know whether or not what you're changing is really working. And you really a lot of times don't know if there's a problem that can be fixed if you're not measuring as you go along. And so keeping a stream of data you know, we've had a few dealers that we've worked with. Tommy Brandes is one that he's got years of data that he's been collecting. And I, it really, it's powerful stuff, um, that you as each individual dealer, cause I mean, business models vary so incredibly much. And so it's being able to, to, to give you a better look into it. And if you ever have a, um, a consultant or a coach or someone who's coming in to, to help in some way, that kind of data is very valuable for them to look at. Oh yeah, for sure. This is, um, like I said, this is Jeff's own deal. Let's resume the video because I think he explained something else I'm thinking about on this subject, but we can resume. You want to share that? There's no reward in starting that today because it takes two, three, four years for it to be meaningful. But if you're going to be in the business a while, I would get started on it. Yeah, it's really incredible. I think it's a little bit different than what some might call static pool. I mean, it measures different things. And for you, you're looking at very specific things. I think that's really useful. One of the things you touched on at the beginning that I don't want to breeze over because I don't find very many people talk about this Jeff and that is you talked about that you do these yourself because you like to feel the numbers it's interesting that you use that phrase because I've said the dealers you know it's important sometimes that we touch this stuff right that we that we know it we feel it and uh and so I think that's a significant part of what you talked about so you might explain for those uh listening that you know haven't experienced that it's like why do you feel like it's important to personally touch that stuff well when I when I hit a dashboard um and I pull up uh just say number of sales for the month and revenue and gross profit. I like punching those numbers in. If I glance at it and let's just say it's at this point in a given month, it's thirty sales. Later that afternoon, someone might ask me, hey, how many sales are you guys at? I'm like, man, I should know that. I just don't. I like to punch the numbers in. and um and i you know i'm just more aware of all the things uh the gross profit the pace you know what what is ourselves pace for the month if we keep selling at this rate or what is our charge off pace i i'm uh i think that's just probably me but i'm i'm definitely i'm more able to answer those questions and be aware of them if i've punched them in myself Yeah, I get it. I think it just kind of keeps you plugged in and keeps you aware and informed about what's going on. That's good stuff. So what about your buying experience? Decades of doing this, you bought yourself a ton of cars and you've kind of shifted your business model. We'll talk about that soon, but talk to me about like buying tips. What are some things, especially for folks that are newer to the business, what would be some tips that you would offer for being better at buying? I see a lot of people post different things on Vine, and I hear a lot of answers, and I like them all. I like all of the things that people look at. They're online. They look at every single picture. They just study it, spending a lot of time to do it online versus people that are there touching the car, trying to be the first one to start them and that sort of thing. on top of all of those, because I think those are pretty commonly discussed. There's a couple of things that I like to do, especially if I'm branching into some kind of new type, different car that I've not bought much or don't have much experience with or hadn't bought in several years. I keep carpart.com up on my screen and I look at it all through the day. But if someone If someone says, hey, or I'm looking at and there's a car that I hadn't bought in a long, long time or ten years or I've never bought, I like to pull up on carpart.com the motor cost and the transmission cost. You know, it's amazing that you can pull up a pretty new car. I deal in a little bit more expensive cars at this point in life than most buy here, pay here dealers. pull up a pretty new car and there'll be a motor for three hundred bucks. Wow. And I'll just like, well, that is a sign for me that that's a good engine. because no one needs it. So yeah, I'm not afraid to buy that car, but let me look at the transmission and it may say forty five hundred bucks. So if I'm not necessarily smart enough to know all the positives and negatives about every type of car, a cheat sheet for me is looking at the price of the engines and transmissions for that year making model. That's great. You're the first person I've heard say that. That makes so much sense. I think that's the first person I've heard ever say that. And that is really smart. Yeah, for sure. I think, uh, yeah, it's an indication. I think we're of what makes Jeff, you know, successful and, and, uh, some of the things that you pick up on over, over time. And I think one of the things you'll also hear in some of the Jeff's remarks about account management is, you know, he he's learned to kind of Plan for worst case scenario, if you'd like a better explanation. And I think if it's seeming like, Michelle, we may need to cut today short because it looks like our streaming is lagging a lot. I can't tell if our viewers would have the same experience, but we're seeing delays and lagging. And so it may make more sense to save some of these other questions for next week. But yeah, you'll find with Jeff that he kind of plans on a lot of his modeling and his work is kind of worst case scenario. What does it look like? You know, when the customer is not successful in this case, what does it look like when the car is not successful so that I know what it's going to cost me to get it back on the road. Right. And so that's that's part of what he considers. And so I think this is, you know, good, relevant information to be. aware of. And, and, um, so again, I think for today, just like two really great nuggets. So, um, you know, what, one of the things we talk about frequently is measure, measure, measure, you know, his is good and bad and the ugly, um, he'll go through and spreadsheet things like the PTI, the, the, the make model year miles, how much, how much, uh, payment, how many payments came in And I'm sure that there are things in there. It's like, why did this contract end? And that could have been a charge off. It could have been a payoff, any number of things. So really great. It's really important to measure, measure, measure, measure. And I do like that thinking forward. And I know in my personal experience buying cars, I usually will go to Consumer Reports and things like that. And it's like, what is the most reliable? the easiest to fix, the least expensive to fix, that has the comfort, luxury or gadgets that I want. And I like, you know, we're not buying for me, but it's kind of that same type of way of looking at what is going to be a good car for us to have on our fleet, on our inventory. And I think all dealers are obviously trying to buy cars that are going to prove to be dependable. And they know that they're machines. They break. And so the question is, what is it going to take to get it back on the road when it does break? So yeah, that's part of it. And they're also buying some cars with miles typically. So yeah. I think we'll say, let me kind of share with our listeners what they can, if we come back and hear part two with Jeff. We also asked the questions about since you started, how's your model, your business model shifted and their approach or philosophy around collections, which is quite interesting. You're going to want to hear that one. and then changes in underwriting practices since he started and he's made a pretty recent one. That's a really great, a great question to ask. Yeah. Yeah. And then we wrap up with, you know, scale of one to ten, you know, how do you, how much do you love this business? And so we talked about that part too. And I think you can already pick up from parts with Jeff. You can maybe guess what his answer is going to be, but yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I think we've also got recorded already with Nick Duman out of Pennsylvania. We featured Nick on Wednesday for his turkey giveaway promotion. You'll want to come back and hear Nick's answers. And then we'll be reaching out to some other dealers even today and getting some folks scheduled. So we'll have some more come in and answer the questions. The Pick Six. So if you're a dealer out there listening and you want to be part of the podcast, by all means, you know, find that link. We'll get it shared again so you can find your way to that and book a time to record with us and share your thoughts on some of these subjects. But in the meantime, thanks for tuning in. Sorry for the kind of internet lag here. We're just trying to pick back up what we just talked about. We hope everybody did have a great holiday. I know that there's a lot of people out there that are moving about, traveling about. Because this is usual today for many of our dealers and industry. And so I hope you guys have a fantastic day. All right. Have a great day. I can't thank you for joining me now that you're busy. You have a choice on where you spend your time. Thank you for spending your time with us. All right. We will see you all on Wednesday. And we'll be back in our home studio then. See you next week.
