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, folks. Hey, good morning. Welcome. Happy Friday. It's just barely morning, Michelle. Good afternoon. We call this a lunch hour show because it's nearly noon Eastern. It's right at noon Eastern. Yeah. Well, it means it's almost eleven for us. Yeah. Yeah. So we're just a little bit delayed. So I just kind of went with the lunch theme today. We've done that before. But yeah you know today was uh an opportunity to kind of explain a few things there's been some developments there's been some fun progress there's just been some uh some things to talk about and share and so today was just a casual opportunity for us to connect with folks and and uh Get out there and say hello to the Buy Here, Pay Here folks. Kind of let them know what's been going on. What's been going on. Lots has been going on. Lots on the personal front and the business front and all of that. I know last time, I think, was it the last show that we did that I was not in it? I think so. Last Friday. Yeah. I've just been... struggling with some health stuff and um so it can be a real uh coming up with things to say that it's just like that's funnier than like it's a real crap shoot oh yeah that's phrases come up around here before like yeah so you want to share with them anymore what's going on with that well uh During COVID, I guess I'm going back further than you. During COVID, I got sick and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. And I spent... I mean, it was hard to get in anywhere. And so I went to an urgent care at university of Utah and they tested me for a bunch of stuff and said, you know, can't help you. We don't, but we'll send to the results to your doctor. And, um, this was COVID was how many years ago? Six. Um, I'm still waiting for a return call from that doctor. Um, and so I kind of took things into my own hand and went to go see an internist and, uh, they, they, uh, they diagnosed me with ulcerative colitis. And I don't know if any of you out there are familiar with that. That is, it's not awesome. And so we decided to go, you know, I got like did all the blood tests, got all approved for everything. And we decided to go a holistic route and instead of doing major pharmaceuticals and stuff. So Spent about a year and a half getting everything kind of settled down. This is before we started podcasting and and it had been in remission for How many years? Four and a half, five years. Yeah. Yeah. And so just had a flare up. And so just been dealing with that again, trying to do it the holistic way. I just, you know, I I'll stand on my soapbox for just a second. Pharmaceuticals scare the crap out of me. Yeah. Because, you know, you watch these commercials and all of that and it's like, and you will grow a third eye. And if you start vomiting, you should probably start, you know, whatever. It's got to be a joke to watch those commercials. Yeah. And I remember when they did the blood work and they said, okay, so we're going to, you just have to make sure you don't have hepatitis B, A, whatever. And we're going to put you on Humira. And... So I did my research, saw a couple of Humira commercials, did my research. And when I went back in, the doctor was like, OK, so you did just fine, that you don't have hepatitis A, B. I don't remember which one it was. And so we can get you on Humira. And at this clinic, a previous doctor had said, make sure you keep health insurance because Humira is extremely expensive. And, um, and so, you know, I, we, Jim and I sat chatting with her and I said, you know, I've decided I'm going to go a holistic approach and cause I'd done a lot of research and I had seen that, um, cannabis was actually something a lot of people had used. Yeah. for it and so i told the doctor it's like i'm gonna go this route and she just the sweetest thing patted my hand yeah she's patting my hand and she's like i get it i get it i get it let's you know um she should keep me on something that was like a pepto-bismol for that that just kind of sued a lot of stuff And she says, let's schedule an appointment again in about three months. And, you know, and Michelle, you're going to end up having to do this. And I need you to just really settle into you're going to need the medication. This is your future. This is your future. And so I said, well, have other people used cannabis? And she said, yeah. And I said, can you prescribe? She goes, no, I don't have a license to do that. I said, well, what's their what's. Again, this was in Utah. This was in Utah. I was like, so what's the success rate? And honest to God, the response was, I don't know because they never come back. And I think Michelle and I just kind of. Yeah. We thought, well, that says an awful lot. It says an awful lot. So, yeah. So, it's known. So, for those who aren't familiar, UC or ulcerative colitis is an autoimmune thing. It's kind of a sister to Crohn's disease. Crohn's disease, yeah. So, it gives you an idea kind of. And so, for Michelle, she's been a real trooper through all this. Yeah. Oh, you want to talk about trooper. Jim's like the trooper. He's had to deal with me. No, it's just, it's really a difficult thing because it's like, it just, it makes you have to stop what you're doing in the middle of something. It was very sudden and urgent. Yeah. Yeah. And so if I have to get up, I get, but I, I, you know, I, um, as far as like using cannabis too, cause it slows your digestive system down. It has anti-inflammatory, all that kind of stuff. Um, I won't do it before we podcast. So it's like, it's, it's, it's a little bit of a, yeah. So there you go. That's, that's Michelle's update. That's why she's kind of just been out of the picture. Yeah. That's a lot of things has been going on and kind of like folks have seen, you know, on the holidays we took a break and now we're kind of, you know, a little bit out of sorts and out of like normal kind of sequence here. Yeah. That's part of what's been going on. And then it's just been a lot of things where we're, um, that's among the factors where we're, we're working to find ways to allow Michelle to, um, participate less in this kind of day-to-day stuff and to be able to step into the tracks that, uh, you know, where she finds a lot of joy and kind of her life work, if you will. And so that's also been part of the thing is kind of finding the balance and finding ways to hand off some of that. And of course, in the meantime, I've been kind of heads down on a couple of initiatives that are really finally snapping into place. And so it's been... In fact, last night, Michelle, you know, overnight was a huge development for us and really for, for a lot of people. It's like, and we, we don't need to go too far into any of those details today. I would just say that the, the work that we've been doing on the AI side is, is different. It's, it's, we're going a different direction. Everyone's looking at, everyone's doing AI. And rightfully so. And rightfully, yeah, because it's, if you're not familiar with what it can do and how it can help, I mean, you're going to, it's, it, it changes though faster than like computer systems do. It's just constantly growing. Yeah. Because of the, why the purpose behind white hat way and kind of the, the, The problem that we spend most of our time looking to solve in, you know, right now in our buy here, pay here space is it's naturally what led us to the place where we sort of aimed at a different thing in our build of agents. And one of the things that our team said, so what is your moat? What is your value prop that other people don't have? And it's just like after really articulating that, it's like, oh, I get you. I get you. Yeah, that makes an awful lot of sense. So we're constantly moving forward on that because the white hat way – um mission is actually you're gonna you're gonna see a spread out beyond buyer payer yeah yeah that that will happen and so we'll we'll start to talk more about um kind of the direction that we wanted and i i posted karen's thing and so karen burnett love you yeah thank you yeah thanks Yeah. So I would say that there's more to come around AI. We'll continue to kind of share this year. The next six to twelve months will be a lot of testing behind the scenes. It'll be quiet. Oh, yeah. But I can say that what we built among the words that are used in kind of describing kind of what we've created is that we built something durable and foundational so that it gives us a chance to. serve a lot of different elements. And so, so again, more about that later, but it just, it's, it's pivotal. We're really, we're aiming to be in beta this year. oh yeah yeah um before too long hopefully but yeah there's not a big lift i mean i think without getting too technical like there there were some pieces that needed to be and we talked on the podcast a few weeks ago about some of the pieces that i had completed now overnight another big stage was completed uh that allows us to now hand it off in a way that is yeah Kind of now it moves into the tech realm and in a really significant way. And so this is going to be fun again. It's not like you can call us and we can put AI agents to work in your dealership tomorrow. That's not where we're at. But I can tell you that what we've created has a chance to help lots of dealers for a long time. yeah it's really funny though because we've we've been really vocal and we do have um a unique uh ability to reach a pretty large audience um and i think so like seven or eight right exactly i just saw a second ago there were eight people um yeah i don't yeah uh the the And because we've been vocal about it, we've been contacted by lots of different organizations and people. It's like, hey, tell us about the thing because we're looking at the thing and there's lots of questions about the thing, which is AI and all of that. And so it's just interesting because we've been really vocal about it. And it's not something that our entire business is not built on the back of that kind of technology. It's like we're bringing technology into something that has a mission. It's like a big mission. And I think, you know, I felt like here I am a guy in my early sixties and I feel like I'm late to figure this all out. You see all these people out there. But then you talk to people. yeah and you talk to people and find out oh well there's a whole lot of people who would have no clue what's happening and how far and you're like you're thinking they're pretty savvy and then they're like i have no idea what you just said yeah and it's like man we thought we were kindergartners in this it's true it's it it is it's changing and there it's just a lot yeah Well, and so the good news for us is that we're a little farther down the track than we thought. And, of course, AI is new to a lot of people. But, again, our aim is just a little bit different. And so we have just chosen a little different course, and we think that's a prudent strategy for us because we're long-term. I mean, we're the tenure approach people. Oh, yeah, and we're the squiggly line people. And so most of the vendors out there, the people – that have a product to help a business owner are very straight lined are very, you know, efficiency and, and all of that, that that's, that's why it's compliance and efficiency and, and that, and we, we, those are very, very important pieces to a business and they will be part, but it is primarily squiggly lines, building efficiency, building community, building relationships, building trust. Yeah. As you and I talked about this morning, I can't say that I'm a person who, while everybody who's watched the podcast for more than five minutes knows that I'm very emotional, right? I get emotional easily. He had to show me. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm interrupting you really quick. He was showing me a clip from Joe Rogan podcast with jelly roll. on it. And how Jelly Roll started getting really emotional about his weight loss journey. And he started crying. And Jim's like, at first, he's like, you have to watch this. And then Jelly Roll starts crying. And Joe Rogan's like, dude, it's okay to show emotion. And Jim's like, see? Yeah, so yeah, I just own it. There's not much point in hiding from it. But I think the thing that I was getting at with the AI side is that I'm emotional, but I don't understand all the elements of emotional intelligence. But I was able to, in our build of the AI thing, part of what I was able to contribute to the thing was we framed out what a White Hat way AI agent would look like. then had ChatGPT come to me and ask me all the questions. These are the pieces that we currently are missing in order to really build what you envision. And so it started feeding me the questions. The result was six modules that are now constructed fully and ready to go. Not modules that are going to dealers, but modules that are helping to build the framework and the core DNA of all this. We've been very purposeful. We've built it in a way that developers can take it and run with it. But I think the emotional intelligence piece is where I was able to answer questions in a way that ChatGPT brought the emotional intelligence. I think you saw in what we just went through this morning, is that it is really dialed in in terms of, it took all the best parts and even picked up some things that we didn't necessarily expressly put in there. And it has built something amazing. It's amazing how it's like, when you start to really develop your, because I mean, anyone, everyone has access to ChatGPT, to Gemini, to Grok, to all of that. There are free versions, there are paid versions. And it's just amazing as that platform gets to know you, how it fills in the gaps. And in a way that it's like, oh, shit. I hadn't even... Okay. That was something that I was blind to. It was... Yeah. And it'll... just fill it in because because it has a different understanding of all of the things that are involved and and yeah it's just it's it is really really quite amazing and it's what one thing that is i love about it and we've been playing a little bit with with uh gemini as well is just asking gemini so what is our um what are the optics on what it is that we're doing and it was like yeah you yeah you guys got a lot there's a lot out there yeah that's um there's a lot that we can draw from pull in to help to develop around the brand around the brand and some of the um some of the the conversation right too right yeah it's it's really rich and so we're this is me excited remember this is my excited face this is what i look like when i'm excited but i michelle can tell you i was super excited about last night it started, the floodgate started open last night. Oh my gosh. He came in a couple of times. It's like, Oh, this is so amazing. I actually stayed up for a little bit last night. You did. You were late. Yeah. Well, I've been waiting for days for this part to get finished. And so once I could kind of flip the switch and it started to flow, then I was eager to get in there and see, is it really done? Is it really ready? And of course, You know, it's better done than perfect. But this is so near to perfect in my mind of what I envisioned when we set out to this. It far exceeds what I really set out to create. So part of, if we can move on to the next bit. So AI, done, check, is podcasting. And we are, you know, we've always had White Hat Way or White Hat Wednesday. And we're really making a break that we don't know for sure if it's going to be a Wednesday thing or what. But we're breaking off White Hat Ways. Mm-hmm. as a podcast in its own right away from the buyer pair morning show yeah and so we'll have both of them going but white hat ways will not be specific to buy here pay here Yeah, it'll be kind of broad. All the things that are at ways. It's about business and customers and yeah, all of that kind of and personal. Yeah. And one of the things you're going to hear from us, you know, we're just kind of leaning in on this. This is our method of coaching. What Jim and Michelle really bring is sort of the life and family part of coaching in addition to business. And so this is a year where we bring those things together. We talked weeks ago about This being a year of intention for us being more intentional about how we step forward. And this is the right time for us to to step more into that kind of comprehensive coaching and storytelling will be, you know, the podcast track will do that. And so we're having fun reaching out to others that will also play a role in all of that. And so it just it's it's a way and people will hear. Everything that people hear will certainly apply in their own world of buy-here-pay-here, right? The people who have been with us on the buy-here-pay-here side, it'll still apply. Yeah, and we've kind of toyed with this. We've talked about it. And we do have a couple of other podcast tracks, channels, some that are more developed than others based on the topic and all of that. And this has been one that is... It's yeah, it's, it's been needing its own individual voice for a while. Um, and yeah, so we're, we're really, we're excited about that. And I'm like right now working on just a lot of the, the pretties that go with the, the, the thing and, and, uh, Yeah, it's going to be a good thing. So we've got AI, we've got podcast. A couple of other things. Some quick mentions on the VA dealer groups. We spent time at the first year, especially our January meetings, getting feedback from our members. And that has allowed us to kind of tweak the format a little bit we've kind of some of our groups have voted to move to a daytime meeting as opposed to evening which will be interesting to see how that works and then um the other thing is that we've got we've added a quarterly element so we we introduced just this week um a quarterly uh kind of deep dive on expenses we'll dig into operating expenses in in all of our v-eight meetings and and that lets us because we're only a ninety minute meeting monthly you know you often don't have time to cover all the pieces yeah yeah so so by pushing operating expenses to a to an extended format um in the in a quarterly basis and then we'll also be doing our trend analysis and and uh kind of goal setting around a quarterly sequence and so that's part of what's kind of evolving in that way so all good stuff we continue to work on that we've kind of worked to simplify some of what uh we because we have a ton of data points and so the other feedback we got is we simplify and kind of hit the high levels there will continue to be growth in v-eight and and um that that uh I guess you would say that it's like one of the more straight line parts of what we do. And yeah, there'll continue to be growth in that. And Jim's always, he gets so dang excited that he'll be like, I've been meaning to build this thing. And then he'll be heads down for a few hours, sometimes a whole day, and then come out on the other side. And he's like, you need to see this. I am not a numbers nerd. I, you know, but I, I, I can appreciate, I can, I really do. And so. I'm not into gardening, but you show me gardening. I do. This is not, you guys aren't going to witness a fight. There's not going to be a fight. Yeah. Yeah, so I do. I get excited with him because, yeah, those are some really cool and important things. Yeah, it's ways to help me to... We're in Visualize for myself. I mean, you saw in our most recent conversations about that. There were things that I saw visually that, oh, wow, I didn't even recognize that this was... a trend with this particular dealer. So it's, it's helpful. I want to share a couple of things on our poll results. We've got, if you want to share the, the, I'm going to share a screen here and can get it up there where, are you seeing my screen? Yeah, I can. Can you share it where we can see this post? Yeah. So this particular, I guess I need to share first the thread. So book values on the twenty ninth of January, a poll that says book values on BHPH sold units in your DMS. How do you get them, if at all? And mixed results. Some people said they have an add on in their DMS. Some people said it's included with their DMS subscription. uh thirty seven percent was the largest group said we don't do that at all and i was able to share in our v eight because i started having these conversations with our v eight people we had a a bonus session on our v eight plus track on ltv and so the part of what's going on here is we're talking about ltv and i shared in that group that i asked one of our groups of larger uh operations you know portfolio size five hundred to two thousand accounts and i remember one evening i asked you know how many of you are tracking or watching ltv and virtually none of them yet yet the reason it's important to me and the reason we're going to work to incorporate that data into our reporting on an ongoing basis is because we've seen scenarios. And the one I give most often is we were working with a dealer that darn near did not get their credit line renewed because their LTV ratios had moved too wide. And I'm not kidding you, after probably almost twenty years with the same lender, they almost did not get their credit line reviewed. So this is an example of real world stuff where it may not matter to you as a dealer. In fact, it doesn't matter to most dealers. But we have to ask ourselves, why does it matter to the lenders? Why does it matter to the bulk buyer? And most dealers out there have a lender in the picture. Or even if they don't, the thing I always say is, look, we need to have liquid value in our business. Absolutely. We need to know what that exit liquid value looks like. While we don't have any plans to exit, the circumstances should change. We need to know what we own in terms of its marketability. And this is why I think LTV is going to become important. And so I think this is why we're going to continue is, you know, you can have data and not use it. But I think what we want to show is, you know, what that can mean. But let me take you to the other poll. Let's see. I have to go back and share that, I guess, myself one moment. So make sure I'm sharing the right one. I'll do a song and dance. No, that's the wrong one. Actually. That's the one we just, we don't know. Okay. So if I, I think I have to change my sharing settings. Okay. I'll get it. Okay. The other one was, um, on, uh, Let's see. I'm trying to remember now. Let's get it on the screen to remind myself. Oh, yeah. What percentage of your BHPH customer base owns or is buying a home instead of renting? Are you seeing that on the screen now? Yeah. Yeah, I am. So I don't know how many people have data. Obviously, if you have a CRM that captures some of that information in the application stage, you might have some actual data there. But You know, this is one of those where I felt like I knew where the answers would land, but I don't I don't want to guess about anything. I just ask the people. And we had pretty high participation, like fifty nine people respond to this poll that went out on the thirtieth. And they said seventy nine percent of people said it's less than ten percent own a home. It would be interesting to me just because, you know, I like that's the kind of numbers nerd I am. It would be interesting to me to see how that has changed and shifted because of the current economics, the economic climate that we're in, where foreclosures are like rampant across the US and how how that is. They're seeing more people because of the economy. needing buy here pay here that own a home yeah i think this is reflective of i think for people who are not in the buyer bear space and when you to really understand kind of what is different about this business, this is kind of what often in buy here, pay here, the customer base is called unbankable, right? They don't qualify for conventional financing. So it stands to reason that they're not gonna qualify for a mortgage. Now there can be, but there can be a couple of different things that would put people in this ten percent bucket where they would actually have some home ownership. Some of the dealers who commented said, you know, our customers claim that they own a home or they're staying with somebody else, whatever, but But the reality is what we're trying to figure out is what percentage actually have their name on a mortgage or own their home outright, even if it's trailer home. But what this says is most of them are renting, as we suspected. And this is far from a scientific poll, but it's really just important to recognize that it's part of the customer base that we serve. And it's important to just kind of keep a lens on that. yeah yeah right yes i don't know that well i i wanted to there was an article i read yesterday in cnn um and i it was around how repos are the highest that they've seen since oh wait okay um so it's like repo rates for, for autos, um, really, really high. And there was a Senator that was talking about, we, we need to make sure that, that they're going to do an investigation and look into our people being, um, are they being taken advantage of? And are, you know, are businesses repoing rightfully? And, you know, we are currently in a pandemic. administration or whatever that the CFPB is not, it's not out there being as scary, you know, showing their teeth. They were, yeah, it's, you know, it's probably a good idea, even though the teeth have been taken out of that for right now, that we would just be aware that there's conversation happening right now on Capitol Hill around this trend and and and it's and it's not a trend that is um it can appear really predatory um but it's like in the in the current economic climate that's just there's reasons why it makes sense that those those numbers are going up but just you know heads up to ali it was in cnn i think yesterday right um that they talked about it yeah and one last thing um i had a conversation with brent carmichael first time oh yeah with him in a good while yeah great guy just really really appreciate you know i don't need to share the particulars about his situation but he he was out of um moderating for a time now he's back and uh and of course they're they're heading into convention time and i met with him the reason i bring it up now is i shared with him that i would um I would send in some suggested, some convention topics, some session topics. And so I'll probably put out a poll to see what dealers would most like to hear. And we'd like to know if folks are planning to attend that. I know we've got BHBH United between now and then. So a lot of our buy here, pay here dealers will be there. but we certainly hope and expect to see a lot of buy here, pay here folks at the NIDA convention, which is in Denver this time of year. And so look forward to that. So it's not that far from where we're at. No. And we'll have Brent back sometime, probably in late March or something, talk about the agenda once it's kind of dialed in. And so we'll have him come and talk to us, but looking forward to that. All right. What else we got? I think that's it. I got to get to the golf course. I'm going to play golf. It's supposed to be like seventy five degrees. I was so I guess I've been asking the the local. You're going to. Seventy degrees. Yeah. I get excited. Weekend before last, we were minus three. It was miserable. Get used to the swings. Alright, everybody. Thanks so much for joining. We appreciate you taking time out of your day to join us and Yeah, let us know too. If you don't see the poll, reach out to us. Let us know if there's something that in particular you would like to have Jim speak about at the NIAD conference. All right. Have a great day, everybody. Thanks again. Have a great weekend. See you.
