#121 - The Miracle Of The Car Business w Shannon of Gravitational Marketing

Hello. Welcome to the Independent Dealer podcast. Today we are talking all things marketing, the sleeping buyer. We have Shannon Everhart here with the Gravitational marketing Rich Dealer program. Shannon, introduce yourself.

Hi there, everybody. Shannon Everhart here. Thanks for having me on today, guys. I am calling in from sunny Orlando, Florida, home of lots of stuff like, you know, Walt Disney World and all that kind of stuff, but also gravitational marketing home of retailers, if you've heard of that program.

So we are going to talk about Luke. We cover everything from the in market buyer, the sleeping buyer, the miracle of the car business. We're talking about the rules of every advertising piece that you send out. There are certain rules that you need to have in in each of those. Call to actions branding. Luke, anything else I missed, we talked about.

You know, it's just speed to lead is so important and I stress it with our salespeople. Every sales meeting, it's something that everybody has to work on and Shannon talks about how important that is. So I believe that this is a really good program. It's only for certain people, but they'll lead you down the right program. So right path of that program. Let's get going.

You are listening to the Independent Dealer podcast with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson. Thank you so much for tuning in. Let's do this.

The Rich Dealer program and the kind of the basic philosophy from what I understand, and you guys are very, very transparent on your website. You say, hey man, here's the secret sauce. Like we may not give you the recipe unless you sign up with us, but we literally are telling you it's a secret sauce. Here it is. You guys call it the Sleeping Buyer, right?

Absolutely.

And in full disclosure, neither Luke or I are Rich Dealer members. I think we have plenty of buddies that are and a lot of people in the group are. But the philosophies that you guys believe in I think can be applied across anybody whether you're in the program or out of the program. Right. And maybe help us out with that. What is that Sleeping Buyer philosophy?

Well, so I would love to jump into that. You're right. This is, this is what we're going to talk about today. You guys can see start. Your listeners can start implementing right now. It's really about understanding that there really are two markets happening in anybody's business right now and whether or not you're willing to tap into one that nobody else is. So you mentioned the Sleeping Buyer we see here at Gravitational Marketing, which is, you know, runs the Rich dealers program. But everything that's part of the rich dealers program comes from these principles of gravitational marketing. And what we see at gravitational marketing for the auto industry, these two very distinctive markets, it's kind of almost like looking at like an iceberg, you know, what's above the waterline and what's underneath it. And what we are seeing is that everybody in the auto industry is going after what is exposed, what everybody can see, which is a very small sliver of what an iceberg is. So before we talk about the sleeping buyers, have you heard of the active shopper?

Has anybody talked to you about the in market buyer? He's in market, right?

So that's that 2% roughly, give or take, that is exposed that everybody can see. Cause it's above that water line of that iceberg image. And the entire auto industry is going after that very small sliver of the population. So yeah, the in market shopper, we call him the active shopper. And listen, the active shopper is good for business, don't get me wrong. But there's a very small percentage of them and there's really no reason to spend a whole lot of marketing dollars going after them. Because here's what the in market shopper does. You guys know this. They do a lot of research. They are going to shop around, they're going to call more than one dealership. And very importantly, what is not so great about the in market shopper is, is that they shop pretty much based on one criteria and that is price. You either have the vehicle that they're looking for at the price that they're willing to buy it or you don't and they move on to the next person in their consideration set, the next dealership in their consideration set. So what we say at gravitational marketing is you really don't have to go after the in market shopper, that active shopper, because they are going to be shopping you anyways. They're the ones that really go to autotrader and cars.com because they're doing that research. So stop going after that 2% because they're coming to you anyways and really tap into what's beneath the waterline. That big huge piece of that iceberg, which is the 98%, that's how we call it. It's roughly that number, give or take a percentage here or there. Every market's a little bit different. But no matter how you look at it, it's the vast majority of the population. And for some reason the auto industry completely ignores them. And so yeah, we call them sleeping buyer.

Go ahead, Shannon. Attracting that Buyer has got to cost the dealer a lot more money, right?

Actually, no. We can actually, with some very minor tweaks, start talking to the sleeping buyer, usually using the exact same marketing dollars that you're using right now. We just need to reposition them, and quite frankly, you know, gravitational marketing myself. We don't care how you reposition those dollars. We just want to make sure that you got them, you've got the right message, and that you're using those dollars. And to talk to that customer, that 98%.

Yeah. Because, I mean, that buyer is more of a. You've got to really pull him into the market more than. They're not there. So it's gotta be a different message. Of course you got it.

But here's what's really cool about the 98%. Did you guys know, I don't know if you've heard this one before, but there is the miracle of the car business. Have you heard this?

No.

The miracle I know is where people go in with a lot of money and they leave with a little bit of money. That's the miracle I've always heard.

Okay, so here's the deal then. This is what makes working in the auto industry for me just so much fun. And I think you guys will agree to the miracle of the car business. Get ready. Everyone would love to drive a nicer, newer car. So if you approached me and said I could have what I'm driving right now, but a little bit nicer, a little bit newer for about the same that I'm paying, you've got my attention. And I just bought a car not too long ago. I'm all ears. Because the miracle of the car business is that everyone would like to drive a nicer, newer car. And so the 98% makes that opportunity to use the miracle of the car business, plus the marketing dollars that you're using right now, and combine with a message to talk to them, and it's like. In some cases, it feels almost like turning on a light switch. Because for the first time, guys, these customers, you're actually talking to them. The auto industry pretty much ignores the 98%.

Mm.

The 98% has problems. And they're the common problems that every dealership, everybody listening to us right now is solving right now. But nobody is telling their customers, Nobody's telling the 98%, that you know how to solve problems. And actually, you have been doing it for forever, and you're really good at it, and you actually really enjoy solving people's problems. They're the common Problems that every dealership has to solve, which is credit. They're stuck in a lease or alone. They're worried about their car payment even changing a little bit, or maybe they haven't had one in a while, so they don't want one. The price of the car is overwhelming. Down payment for some people is scary. But, I mean, I'm a testament to this. I've recently purchased a nicer, newer car with no money down. And my credit's good, not great, but just because it would help me.

So it makes me. I want to draw a parallel for everybody to kind of paint the picture in their own life of when they are shopping right now. So it happened to me just two weeks ago in Costco washer and dryer sale. For whatever reason, washer and dryers are on sale right now, right? They're trying to push stuff, and there's the whole push of like, well, they're not coming from China anymore because they haven't produced them, so there's gonna be a shortage and blah, blah, blah, blah. Any. My washer and dryer worked fine.

Yeah.

But the deal they had was so good that I can buy these new ones, sell my old ones, and barely be, like, hardly any money to upgrade, right? So it wasn't that I had a broken washer and dryer and I was scrambling to, like, go get the first one I could find. It was literally like, oh, hey, no, you're right. Now is actually a really great time to just upgrade while mine are still working. So they got me. They dragged me from not being in the market at all, not even thinking about it, to like, oh, you're right, honey. We could use a larger capacity washer. That's great. Let's do this. It makes sense, right? You upgraded it, talked me into it, and the wife nudged me and it happened. And I think that's pro, you know, Is that the philosophy of this? It's catching those attentions of like, wait, what a minute, I can upgrade. Like, I can get.

But here's the thing. We're not talking about washer and dryers. You know, those washer and dryer Is usually hidden. I love that you are a man who appreciates a washer and dryer.

He's not a real man. I'm not sure what happened.

But really, the car. Oh, my goodness. Is what everybody sees us driving around. It's what the dudes pick the chicks up in, right? It's what, you know, our co workers see us driving to work in. Hopefully sooner than later for most of Us, but yeah, it's what we park in our driveways. It's what our neighbors see. And so it's a. The car is a reflection of who we are as a person. And when that doesn't match, you're out of sync in life. When your car doesn't match who you are, when you're getting into a car every single day, not really sure that it's going to get you necessarily from point A to point B. And. Or it's not the style or the look of who you are, who you want to be. It really has the power to hold you back. It's crazy. But that commodity, the car has that kind of power over us. That's why the miracle of the car business is so amazing. And we need to. And I'm going to say a word that sounds a little rough, but I mean it in a positive way. We need to capitalize on that. That business.

And Shannon, for the record, nicer, newer car is trademarked by you guys, right?

Yes, you're right. It is.

Okay, so if anyone thinks they want to go out there and put. That's catchy. It makes sense. Don't use nicer, newer. Use bigger, better, or some other situation there because they will sue the crap out of you.

We are protective over our stuff because we have. We have a great group of members that are using these strategies, and so they want to make sure that we're protective.

Of course. Of course.

Luckily, we haven't to sue the crap out of anybody, but yes, we are protected.

Our trademark desista work.

That's right.

Shannon. This can't be for every dealer, right? Because let's just say that I am not. I'm not good like you're talking about at getting people that are upside down into another car or I don't have the banks to. To make all these deals work. I'm sure y' all have some internal criteria you have to meet to be this. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Well, I mean, we really. To execute this strategy, you really obviously want to be spending money in marketing right now. You need to be able to apply some of these dollars. But the good news about this strategy, which we really haven't gone into, I want to make sure that I leave your listeners with something that they can implement today for sure. The strategy of how we Talk to the 98% can be implemented right now, and it can be grassroots. So you got to start somewhere. For some of our dealers that are listening right now, you're right. They're not spending you know, a healthy budget yet necessarily in marketing. And we're talking 5, $10,000, depending on the market. And again, I don't care if you're doing that on digital or in radio, it doesn't matter. But for some of those dealers out there that are really not in that place right now, grassroots Facebook, these methods, these strategies should absolute, absolutely be employed.

And Luke, I think, you know, obviously you're casting a very wide net. You're not going after the 2%, you're going after the 98%. So you are trying to catch a lot of stuff that is going to be upside down in their ride and you really can't help them. They have zero down payment, they have zero job time. So I can imagine, Shannon, maybe you can correct me that when you do send out these large, large marketing messages, you're catching a lot. You're gonna have to have a real good filter system. Right. Because you're gonna get so many leads and I bet a lot of them are gonna be dead ends.

Yeah. So here's the thing. When it comes to. You're right, it is a wide net. We like to say the rising tide lifts all boats. So when you put this messaging out, when you tell the sleeping buyer, hey, we know you've got problems, one of those five, usually a couple of those five common problems that every dealer is already solving right now. When you tell your market, hey, we know you have problems and we can help you. We've been helping everybody for a while now and we'd love to try and help you, too. You're right, it does bring a lot to the table. The dealers that we're working with are receiving more leads than they've ever received. And it's important to know we're not taking leads from one source and trying to push them into shopping for a car. These are leads that are authentically driven to the dealership. So they are receiving more leads than they've ever gotten. So the filter system has to be. You have to be the fastest on the phone. So we call speed to lead. And you also want to be the best on the phone. And we can help with that as well. But ultimately you're right. You're going to cast a wide net. We're not going to be able to help everyone.

Yeah.

If we try to talk to as many people as possible, which is the filter system, which we can help with as well. We want to talk to as many people as possible because in doing so, we may not be able to help that customer today. But that Goodwill could then forward onto, you know what they tell their friend they couldn't help me, but, man, they treated me with dignity and they gave me some great information. And I feel like what they said they were going to do, they did. You should go and call them. And before you know it, it's got a life of its own.

Yeah. And I'd much rather sell the best 50 people out of a 200 group than just the best 50 out of 60. You know, like, if I'm trying to hit my 50 goal, I definitely want to look at 60 apps, you know, not 60. Yeah, I want to look at 160 or 260 apps to get that goal.

Is this a strategy more geared toward subprime than prime business?

You know, so the membership that we have, the rich dealers membership, really, when you split it right down the middle, I'll say it's about 50. 50 of independent and franchise dealers. A lot of them love subprime, but I wouldn't say that it caters to that. But we're certainly not. The 98% is not really a high line audience.

I think those are definitely more planned out sales. You're not going out and picking up a $60,000 G Wagon on spare of a whim.

You know, this is, you know, we call it the 98%, the 2%. I just call them Americans. People that have gone through divorce, bankruptcy. You know, I've gone through my own. We all put our pants on one leg at a time, and we just.

I think it works great for your audience, Luke. More so than mine, because, you know, it depends on even where you're at in that subprime spectrum. You know, upgrading to my vehicle is not much. I mean, you got to be on a bicycle to upgrade. If I'm talking newer, nicer, and you're getting into mine, you keep rolled in. But for Luke, where I know your ACV is a little bit higher, that definitely opens up a broader area of, hey, this is actually newer, nicer than what you're driving that argument. So, Shannon, let's move on to the message. Now. Everyone says if I'm gonna be a rich dealer, I have to put on a pickle suit and yell and scream into the radio or a big tall.

Hat like Tracy Meyers.

Yeah.

And I gotta be in your face and yelling and screaming at people.

Nope. You know what's funny, though, is that those guys stand out because it's really important, because this is actually a really important piece of the program. They stand out because that's what's authentic to their personality. This program only works when you are authentic to your personality. So we have lots of dealers who are not wearing pickle suits and tall hats and it still works for them in their market because it's authentic to who they are.

Mm.

And to that point, I know a local rich dealer who was a rich dealer who I don't think is in the program anymore for one reason or another. But I know that his radio message was not authentic to his personality because I knew him personally. And then when I heard him on the radio, it was this forced high pitch. We only have 10 more cars till.

The end of the month.

You know, Mickey Mouse kind of thing.

Yes. I was just gonna say.

And he could have done it. He could use your message. And I think people can still use that message but stay authentic to themselves. Right?

Yeah. It's like any sale if it doesn't feel natural and, you know, I can't, you know, keep saying authentic, but if it doesn't feel natural, like two human beings just. I mean, we've never talked before and I feel like I know you guys for years now and that's just, you know, because we're being real people just wanting to share with each other.

Right.

Anything outside of that is forced. And no, thank you.

Share with us something we can be doing. Is there a practical example or a practical tip that as dealers you see us just doing wrong or maybe something we could be putting into our marketing? I can think of a handful that I know I've seen on your guys website, which I try to teach. I continually remind my social media girl, like, hey, you posted this. But there is no urgency, there is no scarcity, there is no pain and pleasure payoff in this post. Why are we putting it there?

I love that you are. Look at you knowing all the buzzwords too. I love that. So let's kind of start at the basics. And this is kind of good, a good place if anybody's taking notes. Write these things down. You can, you know, take a listen or take a look at it later and consider it later when you're talking with your social media person, you know, like this is something or maybe revert back to definitely make sure you make a note of that miracle of the car business. Because that I think in and of itself is something that you guys could be training every single department on. Because it matters in every single department a little bit differently probably. So I'm all about training. I'm all about exposing and teaching this kind of stuff so that right in and of Itself is a great meth, is a great message. The miracle of the car business. Everyone would love. Would like a nicer, newer car, which really.

And just to. Sorry to jump on your thing. I want you to finish it. But it does have something to say about your cars. And when you paint those in a picture of. I don't want to say ego, but you're playing to ego. Just like anything I think is playing to what you said earlier. The sex appeal, the I want to show my neighbor. So it's a little hard for me to push this 98 Taurus out. But guess what? If I got $400 rims on that thing, now we're talking, it just might move, right, Luke? I mean, you might have to tin. So I think about those things and I look at all the cars that are aged on my lot. They are the least sexy.

Okay.

And if I just tinted them and put wheels on them, Never know.

I think, I think. I think that's such a. The miracle the car business. It's funny, I've. I guess I've heard it said, but haven't really related it. But I think if you, you know, if you are buy here, pay here, let's just, you know, or you have a. You really keep up with your portfolio inside your CRM and you see when people are getting to the point of needing to trade, this is the message that you should be marketing to your customers. It's time to trade up. I can get you in there without any money, down with the same amount of payments, get you into a. Not, say, a nice renewable car, but a better car or something that's newer to you. And I think that's the message that we should all be saying. Right?

I definitely want to make sure we go back to the formula like, you know, the notes taken just so that people have something to implement later. But what you're talking about and your question actually, Jeff, about what's the one thing that dealers aren't doing enough of or doing the wrong thing of? Be honest with you. It's. For me, it's the conversations that are happening on the phones. So, you know, we at Gravitational Marketing and in the rich dealers program, we're gonna flood you guys with leads. Leads that actually came to do business with your company. They heard something, they saw something, they went online. They actually filled out their real name and phone number. Not everybody, but a good majority of them. And now the conversation has to match what we said in the messaging. And that is the breakdown that I see in most dealerships and it literally breaks my heart because the conversations are too much about really the. You know, if I hear another BDC asking cloth or leather to somebody in the 98% who would just have something nicer new in their life. Cloth or leather? Are you kidding me?

Yes.

You know, sunroof. Okay. But what they're really. What they're really saying when they go through that checklist is, I mean, if you guys can help me, I would love all that stuff. But first, you guys don't even want to do business with me. I don't think you know that. We got to break that down. That's. That's the biggest to me, especially with our program. We're going to give those leads, and now you got to make sure that you know how to talk to them. And it's not rocket science, either, the generation of the leads or how to talk to them. It's really not rocket science, but it does take some work.

Yeah. I guess the biggest thing is the training, retraining, training. Again, we fall into bad habits. I hear it all the time, unfortunately.

Shannon, do y' all come in and train the dealer to do all these things with part of that program?

We sure do, actually. Yeah. You know, since you guys were kind enough to invite me on here today, we actually set up a little something special for anybody that would like to learn more from us. I'll be happy to fly out. Should we do business together so we can talk about that at the end? But yes. And usually it's me that goes, but not necessarily. Some members of our team go as well, but usually it's me. I'm kind of the nosy Rosie of the organization.

I've always heard and tried to incorporate your marketing message. May say one thing, but when people show up to your dealership or get on the phone, it's totally different. And if they go to your website, it's totally different. So if they hear something on the radio, it should match your website, should match your dealership. Can you go down that road a little bit? I know you started on it.

Well, yeah, so let's. Let's kind of go up to the top where we said, you know, with the formula, and then I'll talk about what it looks like, too, with how that actually comes to life. So really important for the formula, everything that we do at Gravitational Marketing and what we recommend for speaking to the 98%, you've got to make sure that you answer two very important questions. So these are the questions you want to write down. The first question is why should somebody choose you? And really important ladies and gents, it's not. Has nothing to do with how long you've been in the business. Has nothing to do with your customer service. It doesn't. Because that's what everybody else is saying. A really great kind of clue here. I would write down on your notes next to this would be sane is lame another one of our trademark phrases, Same as lame. And so the entire industry is saying, oh, we've got great customer service. We've been open for 45 years. Then that's not something that we can own. That is lame. Lame, by the way, just for fun, is defined as pathetically lacking in force and effectiveness. So we don't want to do what everybody else is doing. And your personality is really one of the best things that you own to actually drive this message. So why should somebody choose you right now? You want to think about what those reasons are. And the second question to follow up to that is, why should somebody choose you right now? Why should they get up off their couch and come and see you? Especially with everything that's going on right now in the world? Why should they actually go to your website and fill out their real name and phone number? Why should they do that? Why should they act right now? And so to help answer that, you want to make sure. And Jeff kind of teased a little bit of these elements here, that you always have three very key elements baked into every bit of your messaging. You answer those two questions, and you always have scarcity, urgency, and believability into what you're doing. A great example of this campaign and how this works, guys, if you think back to 2008, cash for clunkers, it is a great case study of why should somebody choose you? Why should somebody choose you right now? And then the scarcity, urgency, and believability. I mean, for crying out loud, the President of the United States was endorsing it. So it drove a ton of cars into the market, a ton of business into the market. I think the statistic is the most traded in car was a Ford Explorer. So it wasn't even clunkers that were coming in necessarily. But the idea behind that formula is what we have generated into a creative message that our dealers can depend on, can rely on every single month having those questions answered and those elements baked into it every single month.

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I think so many dealers struggle with not being the same and not saying how long we've been in business, how long we've done that. And then, you know, how to get that person in the market is a huge problem too. And then scarcity. I mean, used cars are scarce. New cars are not typically so we're not as used car dealers aren't necessarily dealing with commodities. So I think we see that it's just putting all that together, it's just hard for a dealer to do.

It is. And you know, this is not your area of expertise. What you guys do really well is buy and sell cars. And so while, you know, and listen, there are some great marketers out there that run dealerships. You know, you said Tracy Myers, he's a great example, I think of that, where he's found that passion. But that's not the norm. And so that's where companies like Gravitational marketing and programs like rich dealers come in. We believe that life and business should be enjoyable, simple and prosperous. And that's what this program is doing for dealers. They're able to actually enjoy the business again. We've simplified lead flow, you know, generating leads every single month. We've simplified that for them. And then we help simplify the additional processes and then that prosperous, obviously we mean in a healthy profit for the business, being able to employ people, but also being able to have a life that includes, you know, enjoying your family and getting to travel. This is all a reality. I get to see it. I work with 125amazing men and women that are running dealerships of all shapes and sizes all over the country. College towns, military towns, doesn't matter. And they're all using those two questions and those elements to get their message out there to the 98%.

And if we, if we were to sign up and become a rich dealer, once you pass, everything is a package. You know, this is what you do. Is that how it works?

Yep. So the way that it works, and there is a bit of a caveat, so I think it's a good place to kind of do the asterisks here. We do have market exclusivity. So for anybody that's listening, what you want to do is make sure that your market is available. You guys have mentioned that, you know, a couple of people in the program already. All of the dealers that we work with have exclusive territory around them. We would never put another dealer in their backyard. They would be competing with each other. So you want to make sure that your market is available. But, yes, what comes with the program is that creative package, really importantly, that has the creative message that speaks to the 98%. There are some important brand boosters that the program as well. I'll go ahead and tease a little bit since you guys know and probably your listeners do, too, the dealers, for the people that those trademarks belong to us, that promise to the marketplace comes with the program as well. And really importantly, I think too, is the community. As soon as our dealers join our program, they're immediately connected via email to all the other rich dealers that are in the group that have been with us for 16, 17 years in some cases, and walked this walk and said, trust the process, speak to the 98%, do what they tell you, and really still serve the 2%. But you get to decide how much of that work you want to do on the 2%, because you're not as reliant on them anymore.

Jeff, should we go down the roi?

Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say that was a great situation. I mean, I feel like we wrapped up a great promo there for rich dealers. I'm on board. But I did want to talk to you, Shannon, about the philosophy of the ROI that rich dealers believes in. And I think dealers do get hung up on this part a little bit when they're presented with the program, because you gotta spend money to make money. Right. And I don't think a lot of dealers look at that. We look at what's the minimum we can spend to make money. Right. That's. Everyone's trying to get their acquisition costs down. Look, well, it's $100 per car, 150. I think the benchmark is maybe like 125 or something for 20 group members, from what I remember. I'll look. But rich dealers is a little bit different, right?

Yeah. We would say at those numbers that you're leaving opportunity on the table that you can take advantage of. So, really importantly, about the 98%, you know, we talked about the 2% at the top of the show about what they do. They research and all of that. The 98% does not do that research. The 98%. If you are the fastest on the phone and you know how to talk to them on the phone, Then you really essentially stop the shot. They don't call anybody else. If you are able to bring them in and take care of them, they are happy to pay you for the expertise that you bring to the relationship. So the dealers that we're working with are having really healthy growth somewhere. 2,500, $3,000 usually. You know, on average, it makes up for what I'm about to say, which is really the way that we see the machine working is that for every $500 that you spend in marketing, you should be able to sell an additional car.

Mm.

Anything less than that is leaving opportunity on the table. You're not spending enough money in order to drive the business, in order to scale. And everything that we're talking about is about growth. I mean, it should be right.

Yeah. I think, obviously, the marketing message and all those things are so, so important and the process and all this, but literally, just dealers understanding that it takes money to make money, I think is a good game changer for a lot of dealers. Oh, I just want to sell 50 cars. I just want to sell 50 cars. Okay, so are you willing to spend 25 grand a month in advertising? What's crazy? I spend five grand right now. Yeah, you're right. And that's why you're never going to get to 50, you know, so you spend to where you want to be. Right. So many dealers think that they need to get to 50 in order to have those big advertising budgets. But fortunately, you got to be spending at 50 to get to 50.

Well, and what's great, too, especially with some of our dealers, when they start with us, you know, they're not ready necessarily to spend the full budget that their market can handle today, you know, for lots of reasons. Maybe they need to work on getting some additional lenders into their. To their group. They need additional employees, they need to train, all kinds of things. You know, not so much maybe with traditional media, but certainly with digital media, it can kind of be a bit turned up and turned down. And so we will run at the pace that the dealer is able to run at. It can be somewhat customized to that to make sure that we're growing at the right pace, that we don't overwhelm the business.

Yeah. But it also comes down to dealers knowing that there is a saturation. Right. There is an impressions per customer. Right. That you need to be reaching X amount of views. And that might be more of a digital conversation, but getting that message in front of them multiple times.

Unfortunately, we are all about conversions. We want conversions. We want Leads. So we don't really look at impressions and pages and all that. I'll tell you that are, you know, we talked a little bit about what is the. How does the process work? You know, how do we put this messaging out and then actually see them come in to the dealership. We can talk about that really quickly. But they, you know, it just, you know, I've actually kind of lost my training.

Luke, did you find out what the benchmark was for Nada?

Yeah, and I looked at that.

Just if you look at Nada is 500 a car.

Yeah, but Niada is cheaper. It's like 183 and I think that's pretty, pretty close probably. I've seen 242 and different places and I, you know, it's, I guess what my. Shannon, what would do you have a cost per lead that you're looking at?

You know, that's a good question for the digital team. I would not know that. And every market's a little bit different and as far as we're concerned, we don't care what you're using media wise. So I personally don't know what that is off the top of my head. But I can tell you that we have great success with Facebook and Google in driving leads at a really good cost per cost per lead. A low cost per lead. In fact, kind of toot our own horn a little bit. Facebook actually reached out to us a couple years ago to find out what the heck we were doing. We are part of a beta test program and specific to the automotive industry too. So we're actually in the middle of some beta testing right now with Facebook. So we're doing some great things there. It's just not my area of expertise.

I get your ads.

I do too.

Program.

Yeah, we're doing both. Yes, yes.

I clicked on something.

Okay. So we're getting all these leads and you know, it costs us money to advertise, which is going to be a cost to get into this. But I'm also going to probably have to staff up. I mean, you have recommendations for those type things. When I become a rich dealer, in.

The very early days of our relationship, we would take a look at the entire organization and what talking to the 98%, what the opportunity really looks like for your dealership. We put together what's called a plan of attract so that we can kind of phase this out and go at the speed that the dealer is comfortable with.

Because that would, I think, scare a lot of people up front if, you know, let's Just say, I've got my normal staff right now and I'm selling 20 cars a month. Whatever, whatever the normal dealer would do, which, you know, if it's retail, you probably would have maybe three or four people, right? Well then all of a sudden I say, hey, rich dealer, I want, this is what I want to do. And I want to sell 50 cars a month. Well, you can tell me what that's going to probably cost, advertising wise. Then when you hit me with the personnel side, I might really go nuts. Right. So how do you get dealers? How do you drag them into that?

So basically what you just described is kind of breaking things and then rebuilding them back together, which is kind of something that we love to do. And our dealers, we kind of. What's the word? We massage them into that way of thinking because we're going to. One of our common phrases is test and measure too. And so we want to sometimes stick our toe in just a little bit, see what the results are and then make another decision. So for somebody that's selling 20 cars right now and they want to get, sell an additional 30 cars, you know, the first milestone would be like, well, let's get to the first, you know, the next 10. What does that look like? You don't need to go out and hire everybody right now. But what do we need first? A sales manager? I mean, you're working seven days a week. That's not really realistic. So those are the kinds of conversations that we're having. We're not just flooding dealerships with leads. We're really getting into. Remember that, esp. What is going to make life and business more enjoyable, simple and prosperous?

Is there any technology or software or processes, flows that come along with that as far as handling those leads?

So it does not come with the initial membership, but we do have the support to help the way that the leads kind of flow ideally is. Doesn't matter again, what medium they come in. I don't care if it's digital or traditional media. Most of our leads come in through what we would recommend is our for the People website. And so you probably, if you know, you know, a couple of our dealers, if you go to their website, you'll see that their website presence. This is kind of answering a question from earlier. What does this now start to look like for the customer? The website looks like it's talking to the 98%. It's got advice, it's got articles, it's got education on there. And yes, it does drive them to enter their real name and phone number into a forum so that we can help them. Really the next best step, what that looks like, guys, and what we train our dealerships to do is to be on the phones with them within the first minute. Nothing makes my heart sing more to hear a customer go, I'm still on your website and I just put this information in. And for someone that's representing our dealership say, hey, that's great. What were you looking at that Websites, you know, it's great, but I'm here to help. What were you looking at? A truck, suv. And so that will train as well through that. And we do have some software to help get our dialers on the phones fast enough or as fast as possible. And then we layer from there. What additional media do we need? More leads? Do we need to staff before we need more leads? But that is really the ideal flow is to start talking to 98% drive those leads into a nice lead conversion website, which we can help with for very little.

That's. It's so interesting and there's so much to go along with. With just the advertising and so many people don't understand. So many dealers just think, hey, I buy more cars, I sell more cars. Well, you don't have the personnel, then you won't. But if you don't have the leads, you won't. What comes first, the chicken or the egg? And you know, it's hard to figure out. I think Jeff has seen that lately with staffing problems and I know I've seen it before. So it's good that you are able to help dealers understand that process.

Shannon, another little on the road tip. I see way too many dealerships taking way too many concessions when it comes to hiring. With everything that's going on right now, you guys should be super selective about who you're going to bring back or you're gonna bring onto the dealership into the dealership family. Right now you have that luxury to get some of the best talent out there and you should absolutely take advantage of that.

Send them my way if you find them. I can't hire a chicken right now. I can.

Until we get rid of the $600 extra a week. It's gonna be hard.

Yeah, I mean, I'm about paying them more than I pay myself and I just can't get the phone to ring. Shannon, wrap this up for us. How do we get ahold of you? You mentioned something about maybe an offer that guys can have if we call in girls. Also anybody. What's. What's up?

First, things First, I am available for any questions anytime. My email address is really easy, but it's very long. Shannonravitationalmarketing.com S H A N N O N so anytime I love talking about this stuff. I hope I probably have indicated that I like talking about this stuff a little bit here on today's call. So really, if you have ideas that you want to bounce off, if you want to tell me that I'm crazy, I love talking about this stuff stuff. So please feel free to hit me up anytime. If you're really interested, though, in having the 98% coming to your dealership, what I would recommend you do is go to iwantsleepingbuyers.com and from there what you'll do is sign up for a consultation with one of my team's growth strategists, and that's when they'll take a look at your market, make sure it's available, and then look at what the opportunity could look like for you and your team and your market, and then go from there. And then if it makes sense, if all of that works out and it makes sense, then make sure you, you know, mention that you were on today's webinar because I would love to come out and see you and meet your team and help implement some of these ideas and strategies into the dealership.

Shannon, do y' all ever make it to any of the conventions?

I do, yeah. I've actually spoken at nada before. We do some local nada stuff. Yeah, I love talking about this stuff. So I'm always open for an opportunity to put some makeup on these days and chit chat about what I love so much to talk about, which is helping people drive nicer, newer cars. I'm one of them, you know, so I'm passionate about it.

Very good.

Awesome. Shannon, thank you so much.

Absolutely. Thank you guys for the opportunity. Anytime.

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