#133 - Diversity In Your Dealership with Wendy Pisor

Hello, welcome to this episode of the Independent Dealer podcast, everyone. Quick, quick, thank you to everyone who is subscribing to the podcast and getting the episodes every Thursday and occasionally Monday. And we really appreciate the reviews. Luke, I've been wanting to say that we love that you leave us a Google or a Spotify review or anywhere you listen to your podcast. So keep that up. It helps us move the dealership out. And today we're, we have one of the most, I don't know, interesting, vocal women in the automotive industry that's in the communities and the forums and the groups. Mrs. Wendy. Luke, what can we talk about today?

Well, luckily she's a fellow South Carolinian and that's how we call ourselves, Jeff Linian Linean. And anyway, Wendy's this is a great episode for men and women, I think especially for women because Wendy kind of goes over the things that she's done to be successful in our industry and what you have to be and how you have to wake up every morning to succeed. So thank you Wendy for being with us and say hey, hey, hey everybody.

Thanks for having me.

Okay, here we go.

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 introduce yourself to the audience. Where'd you come from? How'd you get into the auto industry? Maybe a little bit about your history, your track and where you're at.

Sure, sure, sure. Well, I'm in Greenville, South Carolina, top left corner on the map, the upstate here. And I got into the industry actually sort of by accident. I graduated college in 2009, which was a very bad time to graduate college with a music degree. So there was that and I, I went to, I was just kind of like working, you know, whatever jobs I could find. I was, you know, on the phone and doing call center kind of just soul sucking work. And then I, I, one day I wrecked my car on 385. I had a friend who, you know, my car guy friend or whatever who volunteered to take me to, you know, go look at cars and we found a Corolla and he swore it was such a good deal, you know, so I was like, oh, let me, let me see if this guy's full crap. So I got home and I googled it. Turns out the car was worth $2,000 more than what I paid for it. So I was like, oh well hell, put this on Craigslist. But people were putting things on Craigslist then, so put it on Craigslist. Made Fifteen hundred dollars. And I was like, okay, all right, well let's do that some more. So you know, I got my buddy, we, you know, we went to the, you know, the auction that the public can go to and that kind of thing. And we started curbstoning. I didn't know that's what it was at the time. And yeah, I was making more than I was making at my regular job. So I was like, oh well, I'm not gonna do this anymore. See you guys later. And yeah, opened a car dealership. Had no idea what I was doing or what I was getting into. Thankfully I did keep it small to start with, probably a little longer, you know, than I, than I should have. But you know, the only education I had was the nine hour or the eight hour class to which I was an hour late down in Columbia and you know, just googling how to start car dealership, you know, so. But I've learned a lot, a lot, a lot of hard lessons along the way. And eventually I went to, I went to one of the associations, Nida Ciada or something. And you know, I met Darla who's just down the road. Darla Moore is a good friend of mine. She's just a spectacular car dealer and just thought I was the cutest thing ever. So she was willing to talk to me and you know, give me advice and help me. And a lot of people are like that. A lot of car dealers more than I thought would be willing and open to kind of share some of this stuff like I did. I didn't realize turn time was like a thing I should pay attention to. You know. Eventually I went to the master dealer class and, and then I actually I drug my husband into the car business. He, his family was in the car business. He's always avoided it but, but I was able to finally pull him in here and he's just, he's just brilliant man. He's just the best thing that ever happened to me. And since I finally kind of got the courage and you know, the fortitude to get a bigger location, to buy more cars, to hire people, things have really gone from, you know, eking by meager living, you know, most months to really making some life changing money. And that's, you know, that's pretty much where we are now. There's a lot of things we've done to get there that I'm happy to chat about.

Wendy, that's an interesting point I'd like to get on here. It's like, you know, most of us, it's A male dominated business for sure. And a lot of us have our wives working for us. It's just the opposite there that you have your husband working for you. I know that it took a bit for Brian to come into the business. I think when you were still. You're trying to get on your feet and Brian was still working a job as well as working with you before he came 100% in. Can you talk a little bit about the dynamic between you being the boss and him working for you and how that works?

Well, we're extremely cooperative now. We did have a learning curve where I was like, oh my God, don't buy that. What are you doing? And you know, we had just a regular old, you know, husband, wife dynamic for a while. I just happened to know a little more about the car business, you know, than he did. I'd been in it. I started the car lot before we were married, before I had even met him. I met him in 2012. I started the car lot in 2010. So I learned a lot of hard lessons and you know, and he was fine to. My husband is not most men. I mean he was fine to here listen to my experiences and learn from them without having to make, you know, the same mistakes that I did, you know. But yeah, I mean now I would say, I mean he is, he is caught up. He's definitely. We more co run the business. He has a background in staffing so he's, he's great with managing and you know, making sure everyone here feels heard and cared for. And I mean people work harder for you if they, you know, know if they care about you and care about, you know, what, what the company as a whole is doing for sure.

What, how many employees do you have now?

We are at six. Our goal is eight. We're just a small, I guess, small to mid sized dealership. Our goal is 50 cars on the lot. Our turn times just under under 40 or so days. But yeah, we, I mean right now we have a hard time getting inventory just like anybody else, you know, because of the whole Covid economy.

But consider yourself a prime dealer or subprime. Where do you fit in that model?

I do mostly prime because I do like to sell back end products. We're too small for the, for the reinsurance but we did find a retro plan that worked well for us. So we're trying to pump money into that, you know, really trying to think about, you know, think about the end game. You know, I don't, I don't want to die at this desk you know, I want to make some money, get out of here. So prime customers just have more of, they have more capacity to buy more products. You don't have to, you know, you don't have to pay as many fees. And I mean, I still am on board for Westlake for, you know, just the occasional deal that can't be done either. Either way, I love to try and help people, but I'm not, I'm not bending over backwards to help somebody that hasn't paid back their last three auto loans, you know?

Sure, sure. So there's another dynamic that I think we should probably go down here. Wendy just had a baby a year or so ago, and us guys that run car lots, we don't understand that if our wife has a baby, you know, we keep working. How does that work for the women out there listening? How does it work to be, be a new mother, to go through that and still have a business to operate? What is that like?

Well, I mean, when you get pregnant, you've got like a nine month countdown clock to get everything in order. And that was actually one of the things that drew Brian in, was because he knew that, I mean, I was going to be out, you know, I ended up having, I hadn't planned on having a C section, but sure enough, she came out through the sunroof. I couldn't leave the house for like six weeks, you know, so I'm, you know, I'm there, I'm trying to breastfeed, I'm, you know, like working on credit applications on my computer. You know, I, I work from home for six weeks. But if I hadn't worked on transitioning the car lot to a place where I didn't have to be here every second of the day and, you know, things could continue running without me, we, we would have been up a creek for sure. But I think getting, getting to a place where you can step out, you know, I mean, if you can't right now, start with lunch. Like, what, what can I do to where I could leave for an hour and the place wouldn't burn down? Like, what can I, yeah, what do I need to train people on?

I think what you, what you did is what a lot of us want to do, right, Jeff, is be able to step back. And it's, it's funny. Women are a lot more smarter than us sometimes, Jeff, where they, they figured out how to, how to make it happen and Wendy did. So that's kind of neat. Something we should all learn from those. Nick.

Jeff, I think, you know, and Wendy can correct me, but they look at, I think guys get tied up in the dealership being their reputation and being their ego and being who they are. I'm a car guy. I'm a car dealer. This is in my blood. I'm gonna be here selling cars until the day I fall over dead. Where women are like, this is a means to an end. I want to live my life, I want to spend time with my family and I want to enjoy God's creations. And this is going to help facilitate that, you know, and I can side on Wendy's side. I didn't come from the car side. I didn't come from, you know, I didn't work at a new car store and grow up with a friggin wrench in my mouth or, you know, some of those stories. So I came at it from the financial side where I was like, wait a minute, I can loan my money out at 24.9%.

I am the kid that grew up on the showroom floor in the new Ford store.

Luke will die, you know, with one foot in a friggin Buick trying to fix a stereo. And no thank you. Wendy, what are you doing to help facilitate that?

Yeah, how are you getting, how are you getting to your goal?

Well, I mean, I tell you, I mean, I'm the kid that grew up with a single mother. We were poor. I didn't like that. So we're trying to fix that. I'm not a car girl. I am, I'm a money girl. I would like to have money and I would like to take all of the, all the wealth that we're able to produce here, shovel it into other investments. We're, you know, we're kind of on the commercial. We want to get into the commercial reality, kind of into things. We're working, we have a triplex, we're renovating now, you know, and then we want to bulk up to the, to.

The larger, like apartment, commercial, residential, multifamily.

Yeah, or you're saying commercial, storefront commercial, like multifamily.

Multifamily.

Okay.

Bigger than duplexes, but, but just being able to get the car dealership to just churn out as much money as possible so you can put that into other things. A car dealership is the least passive income I think you could possibly have so much work here. But I don't, I don't care about my name on the building. I don't care that people know that I'm like a prominent, that people think that I'm a prominent business Person. I don't care about any of that. I care about this place making money. I do want to pour into the people that work here. I do want to give them what they'll need, you know, to do the same thing that I'm trying to do, you know, to become the best versions of themselves, personally and professionally as they can. So that's important to me. But mostly just let's make some money.

You know, it makes an interesting argument, Wendy, when you say that in my brain, I say it can come across as like, you know, you and I have that attitude of like, yeah, this is a money machine. It's a factory. It prints money for me, and I use that money to buy other things that are less of a headache. It could look at as a greedy person. But when you say no, what I. In order to facilitate that, I have to empower my employees to be as good at their job as humanly possible and develop them as managers, as potential business owners someday so that they can run my dealership, because I don't want to be there every single day. So I would argue that the car guy that has to be at the dealership seven days a week and have his hand in everything is technically a worse developer of people and maybe more greedy because they're not sharing their responsibilities and they're not developing their people. They're trying to have their name on the top of the dealership and be the go to be all personality, you know, so you could argue that, you know, your philosophy is actually a better business. Builder people.

I think what Wendy, you know, Wendy's pointed out something that, you know, that she's a new breed of car dealer. I'm the old breed, okay? And it's taken me a while to. To move away from spinning wrenches and, you know, making sure I buy every car I was selling every car. You know, it's a hard. It's a hard way to move away from. But there's so many people that have come into the industry, male and female, that have looked at it more as a business, not as the car business. And I think it's. It's. It's an awesome topic. And it's taken me a while to learn to be a manager. And I noticed some of the stuff that was going on my service department last month, I was not managing them properly. So I'm having to develop myself into a manager. But it sounds like, Wendy, with you and Brian, that you're a little ahead of a lot of people when it comes to that. How does one Be that manager instead of a car person. I'm assuming you're still buying cars, but are you selling them? Where are you in the process right now?

Well, I still, I'm still at the point where I do whatever it is that needs to be done throughout the day. But the people that work here, we have, we have cradle, we do cradle to the grave, but the people that we're working on developing, I mean we're going, we're going even, you know, I guess we're going back into the womb. We're going pre cradle where we're allowing them to be involved in the car purchasing as well and then all the way through the financing. I mean we do have a title clerk on the other end of it.

So let's stop real quick because I've never heard anybody say that they're allowing. You're allowing salespeople to be in on the purchase. Is that what you're talking about?

On the purchase of the vehicle? We don't go to auctions. Auctions are a money pit. You don't know what you're gonna get. You gotta transport it. The fees are outrageous. We buy from our community and we do a, we have, we have a very simple, you know, it's basically a digital form that they fill out. You put the vin, you put the miles, you put the trim and all the damages on the car and you know, it comes back with a, with a value, with a value we'd like to pay. And then of course there's negotiations and that's where we would come in.

So how is your salespeople sourcing those cars? Are you advertising you buy or are they on?

Yeah, absolutely.

Auto Trader every day looking. Are they on Marketplace looking? What's going on there?

Well, there's lots of software you can use. You have to have a very, very, very strong bdc. And each salesperson is like, is their own bdc. But we do the kbb, it's a cash offer program. We've got a big old sign outside that says we buy cars. I mean we bought a car from that yesterday. There are different, there are different programs you can use to scour Craigslist and Facebook and all that and buy cars locally. I mean part of, part of our unique selling proposition is. I mean we'll have a work. We're female led, we're family run business. You know, people love that. But we also locally source our inventory. It's kind of like farm to table. I don't know, like your neighborhood.

It's all organic grades.

It's organic. It's organic.

385 to table.

Well, I mean. I mean, no, no, no good southern woman is gonna drive a Yankee car. So it's really for everyone if you buy your cars locally and then you don't have to pay auction fees. You don't have to pay. You know, so we. We really. I mean, sometimes you get shorter on cars. There's nothing you can do. You got to go to the auction. But the auctions just the worst.

They're necessary evil. But I mean, how many cards you sell them on?

Yeah, and. And I. And I am a smaller dealership, so we sell about 25, maybe a little more. A little more during COVID you know. Sure. But, yeah, that's a time.

And I mean, that's time intensive to source 25 cars a month from the public.

And I tell you, I pay probably the same that I would pay in auction fees, Paying for software, paying on people to dial, paying on those things. I probably pay that. But I can shake the hand of the person that's selling the car. I can get service records from them. I can have all the time I want to check that car out. And I'm not competing against as many dealers. I mean, other dealers are trying to do this in my market, in your market right now. So you do have to compete against those. But you can get people in here. And that's been one of the big game changers that has increased our profit per car, that has decreased the number of unhappy customers you have coming back because their car fell apart because there was an auction issue. And, yeah, having happy customers is extremely important to me.

I'm sure you saw a decrease in recon. How. What's the difference in the recon from the car you buy off the street compared to the ones you used to buy at the auction?

Oh, good. A lot, A lot. I mean, I would say we. Well, we get to plan for the recon.

Yeah. You're doing a lot less transmissions, I bet.

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I mean, I don't think. I have not bought a car. I have not bought a car that needed a transmission or an engine from the public that I didn't know beforehand that it needed that. And I tell them, hey, this is. This is what it costs to replace that. And this is coming off your offer. So. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's a huge.

It's a huge argument. And I sometimes try to make that is. It's like. It's exactly what you said, but add up. Add up your fees, add up your transport Per car. And then look at that recon and say, I can essentially completely mitigate my recon because I know exactly what that car is going to take because my mechanic can look at it before I actually make an offer. Whereas at the auction, and even now, you literally can't even put your hands on it anymore. You know, you didn't hear it start. You're going off of 10 pictures and a green, yellow light, red light maybe. I mean, it's the auction.

Stressful.

It's getting crazy. I think. I think it's gonna get worse and worse and worse down there. As they try to keep us out of the lanes. They get, you know, they get rid of test driving. They get rid of, you know, even previewing becomes more and more difficult.

Yeah.

Down there.

Luke.

I mean, Luke's on the road like three days out of the week, Right.

Well, not anymore. I'm at the house now. But yeah, you know, but how many.

Bad have your bad buys increased because of that? Because you're not physically putting your hands on it anymore. And. Well, this thing looked great online, but you roll up on it and it's obviously got a leak or a tick or a.

Sure. I mean, it's, you know, I. I just know that out of a certain, certain percentage of cars I buy, either where I put my eyes on them or not put my eyes on, they're gonna be bad or it's gonna require more recon than I. Than I think, you know, I would. I actually was talking to our friend o' Hare, who's a wholesaler we've had on here before. I was talking to him about, you know, actually employing people to sit office and do what you're talking about, Wendy, and pay them a commission on cars bought. And you know, and it's. I think I'm going to move to that soon. I think maybe he and I are going to put something together. But I. I really like that model. It's a good model. I think it works. It works. I mean, Carvana's buying. They've got 1500 cars a week that they can sell just in Columbia, South Carolina alone. I'd be willing to bet you CarMax is selling. They're selling 200 plus cars a week, actually, if you count Greenville. Don't even think about that. They're probably selling 400 cars a week or maybe 300 cars a week. So that's 1200 that they're buying. That's just in South Carolina. So if you look at CarMax, we want to bet you they're buying probably 20,000 cars a week that they're having to wholesale off the street. Off the street. So there's got to be, there's, there's got to be a way to do it out there. And it sounds like Wendy's. Wendy's on the right path. And I think a lot of it takes a lot of time. So does buying cars at auction too.

So I mean, we are paying retail at auction, literally paying full nada retail at auction. So why not do it on the car that you can actually put your hands on and drive, right? That's great. Wendy, what else are you doing at your dealership to help kind of automate and step away a little bit? Do you have any other, you know, kind of philosophies other than empowering your employees to kind of run the whole process, buy the car, sell them, finance and anything else you're doing there?

Oh, I mean that, I mean that's the biggest thing. I mean, you're going to have to hire somebody else to do it. You can't, like, you can't, you can't step away to, you know, you can't put up a vending machine. I guess, you know, that's what you want to do. But yeah, I mean, just hiring people and, and working with them until you can, until you can trust them, you know, and you know, really empowering them to do, you know, to do the work of the dealership, you know, start to finish. And I mean, my hands gonna be in it. I mean, trust but verify. I'm gonna, I'm always gonna have, I'm always gonna have a part in it until the day that I can completely step away. But that, that, that, that's been a game changer for me. For I was around, I was in the business for, you know, oh, I don't know, eight years, a long time where it was just me or just me and like one other guy and I didn't really trust him. And I had, you know, just awful things happen. People stealing from me, had. I had a fake workers comp claim, you know, all that stuff. But so it really kind of like burned me to where I was like, you know what I'm just gonna have. This is just gonna be a job. But it's my job and I created it. But I didn't try to make it into anything bigger than just what I could make it until, you know, until recently, you know, I had to say, hey, I need help. I'm having a baby. I need, I, you know, I need the help of my Husband. I need to hire people. I need to do some things. I need to get some people in place and get them trained. And when I did that, I made more money than. I mean, of course my expenses went up astronomically. I mean, my expenses are so high to me, and I know they're probably not even. Not even high comparatively, when you look at other dealerships, but to me, they're so high, it made me so nervous at first to really step out there and do it. But with just. With a few relationships, some training, I went to the master dealer certified Master dealer program. There's some great stuff there. And just trusting and training and not having to be up my business's ass, just like everything business does all the time. Not micromanaging. But, yeah, I learned my lesson. And I think the biggest thing for us, I've wrote some things down, sourcing locally, going after back end. We're doing a retro program or in for. Instead of reinsurance. We're too small for reinsurance. So I would.

I keep hearing you say that, but that's. That's not the case. You're not too small for reinsurance?

Well, the retro program, I'm losing an admin fee, and I'm losing. I think it's like 9 or 10, 9 or 10% of whatever's in the. In the pool. And I lose whatever tax benefits that also, you know, that also come with it. But for us, it works well. You know, they just send us a check every year.

Who are you with?

Premier Dealer Services. They do both. You know, if you would rather do the regular program, but the retro program was a lot easier.

Hey, just to interrupt the podcast real quick, Luke, our friends over at Dealer Rent, I mean, I think we're doing some good for them here at the podcast. Dealers are jumping on board. They see the importance of having their own reinsurance company.

If you don't have your reinsurance company, I cannot say this enough. Do it. Stop today. Call Taylor Byrd. Get him on the phone. Call Tim. I'm not sure if Tim's in the office every day, but you call them, get them on the phone and get started creating wealth and not just getting behind the car business.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Tax deferred monies you're gonna put in your left pocket. You're gonna save it for a rainy day. It really makes me think that it's, you know, all dealers have got to put it in. They've got to put it in their business. You've got to start now.

If you're giving somebody else Warranty money, you're losing money. If you're not doing this, you're losing money. I mean, it's that simple.

And we're gonna get the guys on soon to talk more in depth. I really want some more training on my CPI product. I'm not getting the P.E. i need to. We'll get into some more depth on.

That soon, you know, but, but managing my own stress level, you know, not letting my stress bleed on over to every. To everyone else has been a huge. A game changer for us as well. But yeah, those are, those are really the big things. Hiring a tax consultant I would definitely recommend.

Yeah, that's the tax portion of it. Can really get you. If you're not. Did you, did you get the big, big tax guys for car dealerships or are you using somebody locally?

We use tax law solutions. They are local to us here. I mean, I'm sure they work with folks outside of that. But yeah, there's just different strategies that really any business could employ to save, you know, to save money on taxes. So that's kind of what we do.

Yeah, I would, I would always recommend a car specific cpa. If you don't. They. They're really good at that.

Yeah, yeah. Right, right. Yeah. We don't actually use. I mean, I do have a cpa, but we don't use an automotive cpa, but we have a CPA and we have like a tax attorney.

Mm.

So one thing I want to touch on to Wendy was. And Luke, I know has some experience and insight on this as well, but you specifically as a couple female, I find it so hard. I really, I have a three person sales team. I really, really would love one of the three to be a female because I do feel that as a female in the auto industry you have certain, you know, leverages and talents and you know, and stop me where I start getting stereotypical or sexist or whatever the.

Word is, but I'll let you go ahead and say it.

Females, let's let him make a fool of himself.

Females, could. They can just get away with so much more. Because I don't think as a consumer you have your guard up. When you step onto a used car lot and see a friendly female, you're like, oh, this lady's not going to take advantage of me. She's not going to try to pull the wool over my eyes like the typical slick talking used car guy. And she can be a slick talking female, but they can just say and get away with so much more. And I've always Wanted to have a female salesperson, and we've had them come and go. I just can't seem to keep them here. What is it? Who do I need to look for? What are the personality traits of someone that wants to make a career out of automotive that's a female?

I think you're kind of looking for the same thing in everybody. You want somebody that hustles, somebody that wants to make money based on what they do, not based on how long they're sitting there. You know, I get. I think. I mean, God, I don't want to be sexist either. I think a lot of us are, you know, just by nature kind of looking for security. So maybe like a. Maybe like a higher base pay and a lower. Lower commission. Higher base pay might be. Might be something.

I think my best salesperson is the best salesperson we've ever had as a female. And she is. She's amazing. She is so personable. She was in the hotel tourism business before that. So I think you need to look for someone who's just really personable. Jeff, that. So millennials, sub millennials, whatever they're called, really do, like, a strong base pay. And during a training period, I think that is so important. And you can phase them out of that base pay when they get confidence in their paycheck. Right. So I think starting them with security and then showing them what the security is doing to their actual paycheck, it's cost them money and say, okay, we're gonna continue to give you, you know, $400 a week, whatever you want to pay them as a base, and then start paying them a percentage less than what a normal salesperson would move and then move them all the way to, you know, once they start hitting 20 cars a month or 15 cars a month, you can say, this is what you can be making so you don't have to stick with that pay plan. Once you get them confident in themselves and know that they can do that job. I think female salespeople are. If you don't have one in the car business right now, listen to everybody, go get one. They're great, you know, service advisors. Females are great there too. Females are great everywhere. But I'm saying in the car business, these are things that wouldn't typically be thought of as a female role, but once you get them in place and get a market, it's just. It changes your whole. Your whole business.

So is my hypothesis correct, Wendy and Luke, is my hypothesis that women can get away with, quote, unquote, murder as a salesman? That they can just. That the guards just. Down with them. Do you see that? Do you see that? The.

No one's allowed to get away with any murder here. I don't know.

You know what I mean? Like, they could. They could be like people. I don't know. I guess I just. That's my vision.

Does it really happen Everybody's mother is a woman, you know? Like, you already have, like, an innate sense of trust, you know? And I mean, sorry, but like, all the, you know, men. Men have caused a lot of the problems in the world. Men start the wars. You know what I mean? So, I mean, if you're looking at a man and a woman, I can see how people would be more inclined to trust. Trust a woman or think maybe she's less capable of being dishonest or whatnot. And maybe she's not. Maybe, you know, maybe she's awful. But yeah, having. Having a diverse group of faces in your car dealership has to be good. You know, when someone comes in off the street and they can see someone that's like them, they can see someone that's like their sister, that's like their mother, like, they're. They're automatically gonna feel like they can trust you more. But, you know, I mean, just simply being trustworthy is another way to do it. You know, I just.

Yeah.

You know, being honest with people, talking. Yeah.

You hit on something very important. And it's not just a female. It's a diverse environment. We are a diverse society. And, you know, we've had so many things in the last two months really come up and shed light on some real issues that we have. But being diverse inside your dealership is very important. People want to buy from people that look like them. They want to buy from people they trust and they want to buy from. A lot of women want to buy from a woman. Some men would rather buy from a woman than a man. So diversity is so key, and your. Your dealership should make sure that you have diversity. If you don't, you're. You're not. You're selling yourself short. You're selling your community short. You're not living up to your potential.

In my opinion, it's definitely easier to have to just staff the place with people that are like you, you know, you gotta worry about, oh, well, do I. Am I gonna offend somebody? Or whatever. But it's definitely worth it. It's definitely worth it to try, you know, to try and. To try and employ as many, give opportunity to as many. To as many different people. As you can and into, into, you know, pour into their life. I mean, I, we try, we try to have like. We try to have like, superfood snacks here. You know, we, we have, you know, like almonds and walnuts and pomegranates and stuff. Instead of donuts, green tea available for everybody. You know, pour into everybody personally. Let, Let them have their car wash. Let them have their church car wash in your parking lot. You know, let them. If there's ever anything anyone wants that doesn't cost me, especially if it doesn't cost me anything or doesn't cost me much, I go ahead and do it, you know, why not? Yeah, match the profit at this, this is what we did this past weekend. They had a car wash. We matched the profit for whatever charity. I, I didn't even write it down. But, but, you know, I just, just if you care about them, if you care about them, they'll work. They'll work harder for you most of the time. And, you know, you get a bad egg. You get, you let go of them.

Yeah, it's great advice. I just feel. Yeah, I can't. You do need to stick to that. I get it. And we're going to review this and go over it. That diversity thing really kind of hits home right now. So that's interesting. You have to put that in play here.

Yeah, it's tough. I mean, most of the people that work here are actually my family. My husband's grandma does our books. You know, you don't have to worry about your grandma stealing from you. So it's been, you know, it's been a. We've been slowly adding as well.

Yeah, that's so great, Wendy. Anything else? Closing words of advice or education you could give the dealer community or females that are listening to this that maybe want to step out and have their own dealership or maybe they have their own dealership and they, they're battling some stuff or wanted to get into that area.

Well, now, now is a, now really is a great time. Great time to be a woman. I, I don't, I don't necessarily feel. I mean, because I did step out and do my own thing. I don't, I don't get a lot of, like, the, like oppression things that may be happening to some people. I mean, I do get, I do get vendors on the phone that call me honey and ask to speak to my husband, you know, and we just don't work with them. Oh, yeah, no, thanks. Three sweeties and you're out, you know, but you have to go get it, you just have to be aggressive. And I think that men, by nature are just a little more aggressive or a lot more aggressive in some cases on average, than a lot of women are. And women need to see. They need to see their goals in just a finite, realistic manner. This is what I want, and here are the steps. This is how I get there. And then you get up every day, you go in and you just kick its ass until, you know, until it's yours. And I think men are taught from, you know, from birth that that's a possibility. And, you know, women are given a doll or whatever. You know, I kind of think, you know, men. Little boys get blocks, little girls get dolls. You know, that's.

I think that's great advice, Wendy. And I know that there's a lot of men out there that can take the same advice and. And hopefully put it to work. And I know there's plenty of women out there that want to be more successful than they currently are, and I believe this is. This is a good way to move forward.

Yeah. And I know that advice is a little vague, and there are, like, super specific things that we do that have made a difference to our bottom line, and I'm happy to chat about those. But, yeah, overall, you know, just finding out what works for you and then just doing it. Doing it so hard. Yeah.

Thank you, Wendy.

Awesome, Wendy. Thanks so much.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Thank you for joining us today. Hope this episode inspired you to take positive action. Remember to subscribe so you get each episode the day it comes out, and we would love your help spreading the word. Leave us a review and share this podcast with your dealer friends. Dealers helping dealers learn and grow together.