#179 - Creat The Employee Your Customer Deservers w/ Cory Mosley

Welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson. A podcast by dealers for dealers. Here we go.

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Independent Dealer Podcast brought to you by Buckeye Dealership Consultant. Today we've got a little more the Texas convention speak and talk. And today our guest is Corey Moseley. Say hello Corey.

Hey, how are you? Glad to be on with you guys today. Appreciate what you're doing for your industry.

Thanks, Corey. Corey's got a couple of great sessions coming up. They're Monday sessions, he's got two in the morning. Then he's also hosted a bunch of other stuff for the Texas Independent Auto Dealer association convention coming up on the 25th, 26th, 27th of July at Round Rock. So you guys, if you haven't signed up, it's not too late. We got another week or two. You could still book your tickets. But Corey, give, give us real quick your background. How did you get mixed up with the dealer community that seems like a rough crowd to be on their Rolodex? Like if these guys can call you and book you for two sessions and a walk around, you've got to be rolling with some rough folks. How'd you get mixed up?

I mean listen, I mean listen, the car business is, is, is a great business to be in. I'm probably the only person you ever will meet that's not related to a dealer that drove a demo to their high school graduation. So I literally was still in high school when I enter business primarily on the new car side. So hopefully your audience will hold that against me. I've worked with some great used car dealers and pre owned dealers over my career. So I definitely have an appreciation for, you know, whether you're the 30 car store or the 400, 500 car, you know, mega used car dealer. I have an appreciation for that. But. So my whole career was really walking into automotive. I like the idea of a demo. I like the idea of having some control over my income and really using a speaking kind of voice and using a communication, some skills that I learned really. I was competitive speaking in high school and a competitive speaker in Catholic Forensics league and all these different things just as a kid. So it was, where was I going to put this energy? I thought I was going to be an attorney, but that looked like way too much work, way too much school, way too much, you know. I had a mentor that was an attorney. He was young, he drove a beat up Mazda, he always looked tired. He had $200,000 in student loan debt. And his game plan was to stick this out for 10 to 15 years so he could make partner in a law firm. So after I saw that, I got off the bus, got in the car business. And really the rest has been history for almost 20 years now.

That's great. I'll tell you, driving a demo to your prom, I think I did that.

Okay.

But I was in the car business, so I get it. Well, Corey, let's. You've got two sessions and a breakout. What? Let's break down your first session. What is it going to be about? What can dealers look forward to? What are you bringing?

Yeah, so I mean, we're going to be covering a couple different areas. I mean, number one, and I don't know the particular order, so don't quote me on this either one. Yeah, but. But yeah, I mean, you know, one of the ones that we're doing is creating the team that your customers deserve.

Yeah.

That's a Tuesday, that's a Monday morning at 9:30. So put that on your schedule. Monday morning, 9:30. And what I want to say, Corey, is your. Your session titles were so confusing to me that it made it very interesting. You know, I was like, well, great. Like, well, some of them are like, you know, reposition 101, what you need to know. And it's like, okay, I know what this is going to be, but creating the team your customers deserve.

Yes.

I don't understand that. What does that mean?

Yeah, that means. Well, first it means full room for me. Because.

Because. Because here's the thing. My customers got to come figure it out. What do they deserve? I don't know. It depends on which customer we're talking about.

Right.

For sure. So, Right. Instead of making the individual customer, when we look at the high level. Right. And the high level is you want satisfied customers, you want loyal customers, you want customers who will refer your business. So we put a lot of emphasis on how do we make the customer happ. How do we bring this happiness, this satisfaction to the customer. So we may do things right. You may have amenities at your dealership. You may offer certain things. Maybe you do state inspections. Maybe you have a nice lounge. Maybe you don't serve Sanka coffee, but I can get a Starbucks. Maybe you got the Starbucks cake cups at your store. See, all these things are done to enhance the experience. What most people miss, in my opinion is we don't put the same level of emphasis on how we cultivate our employees and our culture. So when I say create the team your customers deserve, if you want Satisfied customers have highly satisfied employees. And a great example. I will show something as simple as I could go into a dealership and look at this fantastic customer lounge, right? Maybe, you know, if you're real fancy, you've got some leather couches in there, you've got, you know, soda, or like I said, you've got some Starbucks or something. But then I go into the employee lounge, if there even is one for the dealership. I go into the employee area where they're supposed to eat lunch or their break room, and it looks like it should be condemned, right? The microwave is 15 years old. The refrigerator is getting ready to break. The tables and chairs are a mishmash of stuff from other places that were pushed together, Right? And then we want our employees to be super excited, super active, help the customers and give them this great experience. But we don't necessarily take the same care in that process.

That's, that's interesting because nobody really thinks about that. So. So no, you're. You're saying if we, you know, if we give our employees a great experience to work for us, that it should bleed into the experience they give the customers. Is that correct?

Right. Well, it's an automatic, right, because you don't want me coming to. You don't want me coming to work, putting on a face, right? So Mo. Most owners don't. Most owners don't know anything about the social media that is put out by their, by their employees. So you've got people right now that are leaving your dealership clocking out, and they're saying, I'm so glad to be out of this place, right? Oh, you know, in this he. Double hockey stick location, right? Can't wait to get out of here or whatever. They're making those kind of comments in the social field, in the ecosystem, right? And you don't have any idea of that. So we want them to come in and then now put on this kind of face. And a lot of times it's artificial where you're trying to take care of the customers or they don't really have the skills to deal with it. Because your hiring practices didn't involve you having methods to hire better people or your approach, right? When I came into the car business, I literally got the sell me this pin Corey speech from my first sales manager, guy named Glenn Adif. I remember his name. I remember him from 20 years ago. That's how I got the job. If that is the bar that we continue to set that you just have to hit, that's a problem. I remember an owner telling me, man, if I can just get somebody that doesn't come in here that's not drunk, I'd be happy.

Well, today, today that might be a good thing because it's hard to even find those people, Corey, you know, and it's just not. And I assume this is the way you look. It's not even you kind of mentioned this, not just the appearance of your dealership, but it goes deeper than that, right? It's how you treat your employees as well, right? Because if you treated them poorly, then they would probably in turn treat your customers poorly, correct?

That's right. Because our premises, we pay them, right? That's your reward for working here, right? You get paid. And if you happen to be a dealer who has an above average pay plan or an aggressive pay plan, as we like to use those words, right, where your guys and gals are making a lot of money working for you, then we think that that's the bar. The problem is, right, if you're employing, particularly if you're employing any millennials or any of those people in the business, right? We know that's the anti situation. I had a dealer tell me one time, he says, corey, I don't understand why, why I can't get more, you know, younger people to work here. And he drops his pay plan and it's this five page document that's all about money. I said, well, that's why, because many, many of them are not influenced by that and don't care about that. You know, I learned a long time ago compensation, recognition, right? So yes, no one wants to be underpaid or feel like they're being taken advantage of. But people also want to be recognized and that requires a shift because old school was no news was good news. If your manager was not talking to you, if that GM wasn't calling in the office, if the owner wasn't paging you to talk about something, then everything was fine. Now, as we move into move forward in the business, no news is bad news. Not communicating, not checking in, not having a process to do that will affect long term retention. And again, if I hire someone who doesn't generally care about customers or working with customers or people, well, I'm never going to get the experience out of them. For them to deliver that to my.

Customer, that's hiring people, people is super interesting. Is essential. It sounds like upfront, you know, people who genuinely like people. And I was going to say, Luke, you and I both run buy here pay heres, which I feel like is the most Stressful of all dealerships, you know, versions that we could have gotten into. So Corey, are there any practical tips you could give us? Because my biggest issue is it's stressful, right? I feel like my employees are stressed out. I feel like my service writers are stressed out. I get stressed out. I look out here, we got 10 cars on the front line. I got 50 in the back. I've got cars blowing up left and right. People are late, wrecks without insurance. Everyone's getting stressed out. My philosophy has always just been keep, keep a whole bunch of caffeine in the break room and that's just keep it stocked and as long as everyone's heavily caffeinated, that we'll all be happy. But maybe there's a better. Is there a better way? Is there maybe you could give us a tip or a trick or some sort of a thing we can put into our dealership today?

Well, so I think fundamentally there's a couple of things that come to mind, right? So number one is this idea of projecting the expectation already. So we know it's hard, right? We know buyer. And I've worked with buyer payer dealers. I've been at the desk when the customer's calling in with the. To keep the code typed in for the week so the car doesn't get cut off. And you know, customers are calling in with the story of the week as to why they can't make the payment and all these things. So I think one of the things that happens when we bring people in our organization is we don't necessarily properly set expectations, right? So hey, this is the, this is the world we're in. This is our typical customer. Yes, we want to treat people with respect and integrity and all these things. That's great. But here are some of the realities. So I think so many people are shell shocked when some of these experiences happen now. You guys are hardened to it, right? It's par for the course and, you know, kind of how things are going to go. But a lot of times your employees don't really know what to expect. I had a dealer tell me one time, he says, you know, I'm having a problem with my gsm. I told them I want them to be more like the Ritz Carlton because everybody wants to be like the Ritz Carlton, right? In service.

Gold standard Carlton.

Those are all the names, right? So just, you know, I want them to be, I want them to be like, treat our customers like they're at the Ritz Carlton. If, if a customer doesn't know where the bathroom is. Don't just point. Walk them to it. And he says, they're not getting it. And I said, well, let me ask you a question. His name is Norm. I said, norm Norman. But I said, norm, let me ask you something. Did it go something like this? You called the meeting? He said, yeah. I said, you stood up in a meeting and said, hey, I want us to start being like the Ritz Carlton. We need to go the extra mile with people. And then you basically ended the meeting somewhere along the way. He said, it wasn't quite like that, but pretty much. So I said, let me ask you a question. Has your GSM ever stated to Ritz Carlton, what's his opinion of a $900 hotel room? See, there are people who think the place to get a great steak is Applebee's. Now, I'm not knocking Applebee's, but if any of us on this, any of your viewers, or the two of you, Jeff and Luke, appreciate a good steak, Applebee's is probably not the top of your list.

It's not. It.

Not anything.

So you have to. So managing the expectations and helping your employees understand what. What is. What is potentially going to happen so they can project how to deal with it versus being kind of shocked by it.

Right?

So that is so true because I, you know, I got made fun of by my employees because I didn't know how to use an ATM machine, just never had to use one. And I said that out loud. And they go, what are you. What are you even talking about? I was like, I just. I don't know. I don't know how to use one. And so, of course, they don't know anything about a Ritz Carlton or flying first class. They don't. They don't know those things. So you're right. Expectation is a lot. And then training that expectation, something else.

Right, Right. So if you have a difficult customer. Right. So again, it's now saying, hey, this is our. This is our customer profile. Right? So they range from this to this. These are some of the typical things that. These are typical things that are going to happen. And empathy in buyer pay here is huge. Right now. You have people that have some great stories that come to you with great different reasons, but empathy is going to be important in training. Empathy. Empathy can be trained for a customer. Now, that doesn't mean we're training our employees to get run over by customers or those things, but a skill like empathy helps situations get diffused very, very fast.

Right.

Just taking that time and using techniques like that, using techniques like, you know, repeating back to the customer. Right. Diffuses. Sometimes people just want to feel heard. If you think about customer service related issues or things of that nature, sometimes people just feeling heard is ultimately the way to diffuse a situation. Because we don't know what situation they came from, we don't know what they're going through, we don't know what's happening. So those type of soft skills, those type of skills training will go a long way, particularly in buy your payer scenarios. But preparing the employees for that. Now, I'm also not suggesting, you know, I'm not suggesting we import Italian marble from Versailles to build a break room. I'm just saying let's have the same level of care, right. I've got people who are charging the guys, you know, customers are getting coffee and the receptionist is like 50 cents to the salespeople. So the guy can't even get a cup of coffee in the store. Like it's not free. That doesn't create a culture.

Right.

Of everybody. So I mean, if your biggest challenge in your store, if you're really dialing in on coffee expense, you've got some other things that you probably need to be looking at operationally in terms of profit margins and sales. Right?

That's, that's so true. Because there's so many of us do stupid things like that for our customer, for our employees.

Right.

And then, then we, you know, then we take three weeks off and go skiing somewhere or, or whatever. And it's, it's just such a disconnect and it's hard to, it's hard to think about that if you're looking at expenses and saying, okay, we were using too much money, but it can create a bad culture. And I. Culture. Go ahead.

I was going to say, look, and there's so many unique ways. Like, you know, what's a gym membership cost in your town? Right. 20 bucks. Dyn95 if you get the, you know, one that's no frills. Right. So how easy I've got, you know, you've got 20 employees. What's that a month to say, hey, we're concerned. We want to show you that we're concerned about health and wellness here. We're investing in you. And if you go to 24 Hour Fitness, where we made a deal with them, we're covering the cost of that.

Yeah.

Trust me, only half of them are going to use it. So.

But, but here's the deal. You care, right? Hey, you know, every month we're going to Make a small donation. Again, this is not, I'm not talking because I'll get that when I talk to Independence. All core, that, that's new car dealer. They got new car dealer money, right? I'm not talking about that. It would, you could simply take an employee and say, hey, every month, you know, we're going to pick an employee and we're going to, we're going to make a small donation to your favorite cause. What are you involved with? What are you guys involved? What charity are you involved with? Those things individually are separate, together they're powerful. Because now the culture of working here is, hey, we give back to the community. Hey, we support the charities of our organization, you know, of our employees. We have some health and wellness, you know, benefits there. But that creates, that feeds into the culture and that becomes powerful in terms of. Because it's not just about having people stay. People will tell me, oh, I don't have a lot of turnover here. Great. Tell me how engaged your employees are. Every scenario has three things, Ron. You've got engaged employees, disengaged employees, or actively disengaged. And most owners don't know where their employees fall. They think because they come there, they may show up on time, they may do their work, that that makes them engaged. But you could have people that are just hanging out in the weeds, right? They're not doing anything outstanding, so they stay off the radar. They're not doing anything to put you on their radar because they're not doing their job. But, but they're certainly not going the extra mile for the organization.

God tell you it's. And this is such a really important topic right now. With so many people quitting their jobs, looking for new jobs, starting their own businesses, the only way we can continue to grow is to actively engage our people and to give them other benefits and just pay and time off.

What do you think, Corey? So from a practical standpoint.

Where do.

We start as dealers? Is it the hard benefits? Is it having the free coffee, the free soda and the whatever? Or is it kind of the soft benefits of like I have a dealer buddy who brings a coach in every Friday and every employee can sit down with them for 20 minutes. That counts. Counselor slash coach, you know, I mean, do you see those like fringy benefits? Is it just time with the boss to have a sit down interview every so often?

Is it, well, here's what's interesting, Jeff. There are organizations where people don't even know the owner. They wouldn't know the owner if the owner was standing in front of them because there's this disc, right? Oh, well, you know, there's a hierarchy here and you know, all these different things, bravado, the ego of it all these other factors that are going in. I want employees that will run out in traffic for me, right? There's people, there's team members I can call right now. I'm like, hey, I've fallen. Can you get over here right now? Right? And they're going to come from wherever they are to help. So I think a starting from there's a three step process. I always say to fix anything, right? What are we doing now? Why do we do it that way? And is there a better way? Right? Number two is the tricky question or the tricky answer. Because when we go, what are we doing right now? Then we go, why do we do it that way? 85, pick whatever stat you like to support the case, right? The overwhelming percentage of people go. That's the way we've always done. And in the automotive industry, particularly generationally, that's the way my dad did it, right? We hear a lot of that. That's the way the guy before me did it. Or I hired a sales manager and he brought his process with them. So that's why we do it that way, right? So number one, figuring out where you are. Number two, what does the dealership stand for? Now, as much as we love to profess our integrity, our ethics and this type of stuff in our industry, we also know it's not always that way. So there are some dealers that will never work out their culture because they're culturally corrupt themselves. So if you err on the I want to be a great deal, I want to take care of my customers, I want to take care of my people. Then number one, what's the mission in the organization? What does the organization stand for? And do your employees know that? Right? Is it just a place to work or is it a place culturally that they want to be to work in their careers or build their careers? And then number two, what are some of the things that you can do that are ancillary that build a package. When I first came into business, one of the first dealerships I worked for was a General Motors dealership. And I came in and I didn't know any better. And they said, you know, we have this benefits package for our customers. And I don't know what we were charging 279 or something like that for it. And I'm like, wow, this is fantastic. And I'm reading it's like three day 150 mile money back guarantee. And it's like fix right the first time lifetime parts and replacement. What I didn't realize guys was that that was stuff that the manufacturer was giving. Anyway, the third page in a General Motors manual back then said we have a 3 day 100 mile money back guarantee on all cars. I went downstairs to the service department. GM Goodrich, right was the name they used to use the toll. The top of the wall said fix right the first time life. So these were all little things that could be that every dealership could do. It was the packaging that changed the presentation, right? We go through a drive through window, we order. They ask you what number you want. Nobody actually says can I have a hamburger? And with the fries and a Coke anymore. They don't do that. They go, let me have a number one or two and number three. So what I'm saying there is these little things, right? If it was a gym membership, it was this coach that you can get some coaching 20 minutes a day. If it was a chair masseuse that comes in. It's not always about the thing like the universality of let's all just start doing this for our employees. It's the collective of what it means and what it projects. So just as you would put together a benefits package for your customers as a reason to do business, what does that benefits package look like inside your organization that also must connect with what they value? And I'll give you a quick example and I'll throw it back to you is the dealer says, hey Corey, I put some extra money aside, I've got some extra money to share. I'm going to get iPads for the service department, not for the service, for the customers. For the customer lounge we get some iPads. Okay, great. David. David's the dealer's name. Okay, sounds fantastic. David, let me ask you a question. Do your customers want iPads for the service lounge? He says, well, what do you mean? I said, well, you've got, I mean you've got, you know, 100 ros a day, 200. You've got customers coming through service department. You've got a database of 25,000 people. You've got emails for these people. Did you ask the customer? Did you say, we are looking at our dealership? We are looking at making some enhancements for our service department and we're considering these options. What would be most valuable to you? You didn't. Oh no, I didn't even consider that.

Right.

So why wouldn't you ask Your customers, what will be valuable. So now you go out by $10,000 worth of iPads. Of course they get broken, stolen. All these things happen. There's nothing to improve CSI or customer satisfaction. Right. So I pose that question back. What are collective things that would matter to your employees that they could connect with culture? You know, when's the last time you did an outing with your. With your team? When's the last time you celebrated something? When's the last time you guys went to the park and had a barbecue? It's not always the right. It's not a cash spiff on Saturday for the first unit rolled, right?

Yeah. That's the argument I have, though, Corey, is sometimes what I do ask those questions. It always does come back to cash. You know, I'm like, oh, we could do this thing where we go do this, and then we send the winner down here. We all get together and do this thing. Half of them don't show up. Half of them don't come. Even though. So as. As me, though, as the owner, I want to know.

I want to know, do I need.

To push through that and be like, hey, guys, I know you would rather have the $30 per employee, but instead we're going to spend that $30 going to the movie together or going bowling? Because I know that's actually good. You don't want to spend more time with me because you're with me all day long, but that's going to be a better culture builder than me just giving you 30 bucks today.

Well, I want to know why. So half of the people don't show. Why? Because if the answer is I don't care.

No, the answer is I'm with you guys eight hours a day on Tuesday night. I want to be with my family.

Great. So now, so then we need to do stuff. We need to do stuff that incorporates the family.

Yeah.

Well, yeah. I mean, it's a movie. Everyone can go. We bring the family, but they, you know, everyone just has their own agendas. And I guess what I'm digging at, the bigger thing is we need to, like you said, looking at those things that the employees value and those things that will make a difference, we think that it's having soda for everybody, but not everybody wants soda, you know, in the break room.

That's the reason you asked. Yeah. If you just don't do what you think's right.

Right. But so here's the interesting thing with that, I can reverse that model. Right. So it's not always that I have to bring everybody Together now all of a sudden, that guy that would prefer to be with his family and, and prefer to go to movies with his family.

Great.

Here's your AMC gift card from us. To go to the movies with your family.

Your family, Right.

So the value isn't always that we need to coalesce and be and be collective together. The value is can I, and can I do it at random? No contest, nothing. They didn't have to do anything. It's. What's today? Wednesday. It's Wednesday and I'm going to walk up to an employee and go, hey, here's a Regal Cinema gift card. I know the Dalmatians movies coming out this weekend and I know you have three kids. See, most a lot of owners, Jeff, don't know that information.

Right?

I know, I know employee birthdays, I know, I know wedding anniversaries for our team. People who've worked for me over the years and work for me now. I know wedding anniversaries. I know kids names. I know kids birthdays. And it cost me $4.59 to send a card. The value of that is so impactful. I keep a voicemail on my phone from 2014 from a guy who worked for me. He was in his 60s, so I'm 30 years, I'm almost 30 years his senior. A guy who obviously has had life, has raised kids, had done things. I keep a voicemail because on the voicemail I helped him get a better job. So he left me to go to go work for a manufacturer, you know, via working for me. And I carried this voicemail around because he expressed to me that even though he worked for me for about a year, that the care, he had never seen the level of care for an employee in any company he'd ever worked for as a grown 60 plus year old man who had worked at several places. And I keep that voicemail on my phone just as a reminder. And these were, everything that I did was easy to do. The computer tells me, right? The computer tells us all the Facebook friends, we say happy birthday to Jeff. We don't even know half those people. But the computer tells us. So that becomes the impactful thing. You know, pull, Jeff, pull that guy in the office. Hey, Tim, you know, I know it's, I know it's your son John's birthday, right? Because the computer told me people won't process it that way. They will just process the level of care. Hey, I thought it'd be cool. I know whatever the Marvel movies coming out, here's, here's A gift card for 40 bucks on me. Take. Take them out. The. They will value no matter what they say. Oh, I would rather have the spiff in cash no matter what they say. The value they will put on that and then the value beyond that. Because that guy goes home to his wife and says, guess. Look what Jeff did. Guess what Luke did. I can't believe they even remembered it was Chris's birthday. And then the wife processes that, you gain external loyalty.

And we've talked about this before, but is it your opinion that all of this, your dealership culture, is all a product of you, the dealer? Well, like, if your culture sucks, it's because you suck as a boss.

What's the saying, Jeff? The fish rocks from the head down.

Yeah.

So we were calling on a dealer one time, and he said, isn't the fact that I never returned your call, shouldn't that have been an indication for you that I'm not interested? And my answer to him was, that is a. If that's your belief system, then that's a terrible way to. I hope you don't train your salespeople that calling a customer and just because they don't return the call right away or fast enough is an indication of lack of interest. Because every data point that we know in terms of how customers buy and the historical timeline, it could take. It could take a buyer 90 days to make a decision. Now it could take a buyer six months to make a decision. So if I live by that general manager and that owner's philosophy that making a few phone calls to a prospect and not getting a call back means I should delete them or throw them away, because that doesn't mean they're interested. Woe be him trying to grow his sales. So he, yes, was a byproduct because his belief system is adopted by the rest of his team.

Hey, everybody. Sorry to interrupt the podcast. We need to throw a shout out to Buckeye Dealership Consulting, our sponsor for the episode.

Yep. It's all about reinsurance, Jeff. Reinsurance and consulting coming up, I think. But if you don't have a reinsurance company, Buckeye's place to go. And you should start one today. Drop what you're doing, get it done. We've got convention coming up. Buckeye will be at most of all conventions. Stop by, say hello, let them tell you what you should be doing in your dealership to make more money. Right, Jeff?

And tell them that the independent dealer podcast sent you over to see them. We want those guys to know that we're Doing them good here, right?

Yes, sir.

Awesome. Okay, guys, back to the episode.

Corey, that's a. That's awesome. I could go on this forever. But let's get to your second. Your second session here.

This is the bonus, the extended. I know, it's a podcast.

Oh, I tell you, man, I'm going to be at your session. I just, I love what you're talking about there, but it's best practices kills sales growth.

Yeah.

How not to be a victim again. Another very, very nice title that I go, what? Right.

Yeah.

What do we need to be doing here?

Yeah, I mean, listen, step one, if you're going to be a professional speaker, you better be good at titling your presentation. So. So people come, right? So. But premise there is very simple. People love best practices. They go, oh, let me get some. Can we get some best practices for, you know, handling a customer? Can we? Best practices for taking a sales call. Best practices for bringing a customer into the service lane. The problem with best practices is that is mastering average. Because a best practice is generally something that is done redundantly over and over again that has attained some level of success that now is spread across the network. Right. So how you may answer the phone at your dealership, maybe was a best practice picked up from a phone trainer, Right. Or what have you. So that's the problem. If you're in a situation where growth, you're in growth mode and you want to go into growth mode. Well, let's not be out there googling around or hiring people that are going to come in and give us some good best practices, because that's going to stop your growth. Because everybody now is doing it, right? So if I call every dealership in the area and they go, you're calling about the big sale. How diluted is the effect of that? Now it becomes the law, what we say, the law of diminishing returns. Right. Doing the same action over and over again at some point will reduce its effectiveness.

That's so true. I mean, if you want to be average, just do what everybody else is doing. If you want to be noticed and you want to get above average, do something different and do it well.

Right. Well. And Luke, most deal. And I'll talk about this in a session. I'll give you a little taste here. But if I say the word itis, to you, anything that ends in the word itis usually sounds bad, right? So like bronchitis, you know, bursitis. Right. These are all like bad medical conditions. So most dealers suffer from what I call. Who else? Itis okay. And who else itis works like this. Oh, well, Corey, man, this sounds great. I think this could really impact our business. You know, it's something that maybe we want to do. Let me ask you who else is doing it? And the answer to that question influences whether or not it will overtake whatever you thought was good. However you thought this could help your business, if you don't hear a name that matters to you or a name you respect or that you give gravity to, then that could affect your whole opportunity to take advantage of getting a competitive advantage. Right, Right. Well, you know, we've only got 10 dealers doing it right now. Oh, well, come back to me, you know, when this is more proven. Okay, I'll come back when I have 22,322 dealers on the program now. I'll bring it to you as a competitive advantage. That doesn't make any sense.

Sure.

I tell you, I can, I can look back, I can look back at all the things that, that I think I was on the cusp of but didn't continue to do it because other dealers were doing it yet. And I, man, that's, it's cost me a lot of money, right?

Yeah, I'm sure it has. And you know, in auto I always, I have this, I have this analogy, right. I will get a deal with the list. If a dealer is lose has lost $100,000 a month, I just use that as a round number. A dealer that's lost $100,000 a month, I will have much greater attempt, I will have their attention at a much greater level because they want to know how to get it back. Then if I said, hey, Jeff. Hey, Luke, based on my information, you're missing $100,000 a month in revenue. See that skeptic. That is met with high skepticism because there's no pain factor associated. Right. A loss means something used to happen. It doesn't anymore. Oh man, how do we fix that? Not how do we, how do we address what we might be missing? And that's the psychological piece and the component that affects things like not being afraid to go first.

That's, you know, car dealers are hard headed and we're slow. So, you know, thank goodness we have people out there like you that's trying to make us better. Right, Jeff?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we all like.

Jeff's having some epiphanies. I like Jeff moments in this thing and I love it.

Well, I told you, Corey, when we did this, the reason we have these podcasts is so that we can learn, and then we just share with everybody else once we figure something out. So, yeah, I've got my notes and I'm definitely. All the sessions that you are going into next week. Yeah, I will definitely be there. This is stuff that is. It's timeless and it's constant, man. All I can think about is, I know this, I know this. We've heard this. We've heard this, we've heard this. Why can I not put this into action? You know, why have I not done these things or taken these steps? It's like Luke said, he was on the edge of something, but he just didn't stick with it. You know, it could have made a big difference because it was maybe game changing. He got insecure or he got tired or bored or lost focus and went back to what was, you know, normal or what was accepted or what was easy.

Yeah, yeah. And I think the key is when you have, you know, at the conference, when you have 45 minutes, you have an hour with people, you know, that's exactly what I want to have happen. So in 20 minutes or 30 minutes, Jeff, your wheels are starting to spin. Maybe some things that you had put to the side are now reactivated. Right. Because 45 minutes is not a full day. It's not three days. It's not immersive. But what I'm going to do is we're going to cut right down the middle, and we're going to get right to the heart of a situation. And I want to reactivate people that maybe, you know, had forgotten something, weren't executing, and they're going to learn some new things that they haven't. And that's going to be. I want people. I have one mission when I do it, when I speak in an event. I want you to leave that session better off than you were before you got there.

Yeah.

Corey, you just pinpointed exactly why people should be at conferences or listening to podcasts or whatever, and it's to re energize you and to get your wheels spinning again and make you hone in on what you're doing. Because it's so easy to get unmotivated just by yourself working day in and day out, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And you're in your own bubble, right? So you're in your own bubble. And as a dealer or owner operator, you're also at the top of the food chain. So you're not collectively. And again, let's assume you have smart people working for you, but it's just not looked at the same way. Right. So you need peer to peer connection, right? So this connection that you guys have established, peer to peer connection is important. And then, you know, being able to, as I say, you can't see the picture when you're in the frame. So being able to step outside of that becomes so, so powerful. During COVID I got the bright idea to take an executive education program at Wharton School of Business and I hate school. And I don't know why I did I say I don't know why I did it. I did it because there were elements. It was focused on scaling and private equity and some other things that some other ways we can bring value to our clients. But I realized, right, ultimately you constantly have to be in a learning mode. But I quit. I actually quit it. My wife said, dude, you a paid for this and you know, you want to be able to say Wharton when you talk to people, right? So she knows my ego. But my point is she came to me with two scenarios that said I need to go back and finish this. I need to go in whether or not I was learning some things that I already knew because I've been in business a long time on my own, right? As many of you guys have. So there's things I knew and there were some things I didn't, but I had to buckle down and go, yes, I need to finish this. Yes, I need to get the information for the value that it for the, for the projected value. That's why conferences are important, right? It's not about just that you don't know anything or I mean there's going to be plenty of people at this event that are, have outstanding businesses. But here's the chicken and the egg. Do they have outstanding businesses because they continue to invest in accessing information, trying new things and doing new things. That's always that. That's always the tricky part. So there's a ton of value there and I'm glad you guys are going to be, I know you guys are going to be participating too and I'm encouraging people to attend your sessions.

Thanks, Corey. So those that'll be in Round Rock will stop in on this. If they're not going to be there, they can't make it down to the associations convention. How else can people get a hold of you, Corey, if they want to connect with you or learn more?

Yeah, sure. So my website is Corey Moseley.com we made it nice and easy. C O R Y if you put the E in, you'll have to deal with my mother on that one. But Corey moseley.com so we've got a wealth of things for businesses of all types. So we've got some downloads, a lot of resources. I have a 15 day business growth video series that I send you a video every day at 8:30 in the morning for 15 days covering different topics of sales, marketing, getting better people. You know we're talking about people, right? Rescue hires. You never want a rescue hire. A rescue hire is a person that you hire because you think they're going to come save. Whatever the problem is that you have. Those are the worst kinds of people, right? Oh, resume looks so good. This guy knows it. This guy knows everything about parts, right? So because you're going to a rescue hire desperate already to hire somebody and those people usually never work out. So there's little nuances like that. Five minutes a day, 15 days, 8:30 every morning in your inbox. That's the way we just, you know, a way to just try to help. My gift to anybody out there trying to build their business.

Awesome.

Thank you, Corey.

We look forward to meeting you in person.

Yeah, I love it, you guys. I'll be interested in hearing your feedback and I know you guys aren't shy, so make sure you're up front. Right. So we start to fill that room out.

All right.

Because I'm going for standing room only.

Standing room only.

We'll get it packed. Thanks, Cory.

I appreciate you guys.

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