#199 - Yordi Kharizanov - How I Built This

Hey everybody, and welcome to another installment of the Independent Dealer podcast, brought to you by Buckeye dealership Consultant. Today, Jeff is another installment of our How I Built this series.

Yeah, we've got Yordi out of sky Automotive in LaGrange, Kentucky. Brand new dealer. It's going to be very inspirational for everybody, existing dealers, new dealers. This guy has been at it, risking everything to get into the car industry. So stay tuned. Here we go.

Welcome to the Independent Dealer pod with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson, a podcast by Dealers for dealers. Here we go.

Yeah, absolutely. Good morning to everyone and thanks. Thanks so much for this opportunity to be part of this podcast. My name is Jordica and my wife and I, we run and operate Sky Automotive US. We are located in LaGrange, Kentucky, which is about 20 minutes from Louisville, Kentucky. And I'm sure the listeners probably know where Louisville is. It's the horse capital of the United States. We have the derby. It's a very, very, very cool city. We, we started our operation in 2021. We are retail business. Our model is retail and we sell vehicles in the range of 10 to 15 to $20,000. We try to stay in the premium pre owned inventory, you know, and you know what our model is, we're trying to provide a little bit more value on the vehicles to our clients.

So, Jordi, where are you from?

I'm originally from Bulgaria. My mother is Russian and I'm a first generation immigrant and I became a US citizen about five years ago.

Wow, that's great, Yordi. So before the car business, what were you doing?

That's a great question. You know, I've been in the service business from a young age. I was born in Varna, which is on the coast of the Black Sea and Varna, you know, we have a lot of resorts. This is in Europe. Bulgaria is located in Europe. And you know, in a young age, a lot of us work in the service industry, restaurants and hotels and other businesses. So, so I, at the age of 17, almost 18, I started working on cruise ships and private yachts and which kind of helped me to come to the United States. And I had someone help me come here to go to school. So that's kind of how I moved from my country to the United States. But I've been in the service business for a long time. Just not in the car service.

Well, I mean, there's not a lot, I mean, there's a lot of difference on what you're selling. But if you're great at service, you can be really great. At the car business. Correct.

Yeah, you're right. You know, we are in a service business, but we happen to sell cars and, you know, we just have passion for this particular business and. But services, it's the actual, you know, bone and how we take care of our clients. And to your question, you know, we kind of carry. I carry that experience to this new venture.

Yeah. So you've been here for our guest, been a citizen for five years. Did you know someone in the car business or how did you. How did that evolve from service to selling cars?

Yeah, you know, I. I didn't know anybody in the car service. You know, I really like, you know, as a young. As a young guy, you know, we all grew up with cars and, you know, like, I've heard some other, you know, people talking on the podcast. You know, there's always some kind of passion about cars, and we all have it. We all share the same passion. It's just that for me, I think it was the business side of. Was all of this opportunity that was just passing us by. It's constantly people sending, you know, cars or buying cars. And the idea came, you know, it's like, wouldn't it be cool for us to get our own dealer's license? And here in the state of Kentucky, you have to have your own, you know, a facility. You know, I know other states don't require that. So, you know, that's how we came up with this idea. But I don't have any background in car sales other than, you know, now that we open our own business, that's.

So interesting to me. So you just. One day we're looking around and said, hey, this is what I'm going to do with my life. This is a great way to make money. I'm going to buy and sell cars. What's. What's the next step from there? As. As just knowing nothing. I mean, what did you do? Did you. Did you call the state? Did you just go out and rent a piece of property? Like, walk us through that process of actually waking up with the idea and then opening your doors?

Yeah. And again, you know, you're right. You know, there's an idea and, you know, you have to put your idea on a piece of paper and create some kind of a plan of action. And I think that that was the key for us to kind of look around and start. Start studying what. What other dealers are doing. And again, you don't know what you don't know. And if you don't have the right support or a friend or Someone that actually can point you in the right direction. It's very difficult in our case. I'll tell you what I did. When we started looking into creating our own existence as a business, as a dealership, I figured out a very, very simple way which worked very well for me. I, I pulled the entire dealership list from the dealer association into an Excel sheet and I sorted all of the independent dealers from the franchise stores and I resorted that file with independent dealers that are around 50 to 100 miles to where we want it to be. And then I start traveling to all of those locations to quietly study how those buildings are built, what the layout is, what the location is. And I know it might sound funny to you and the listeners, but this was basically our process to kind of understand how other independent dealers have set up shop. Which then that kind of led us to the next step of figuring it out. Where are we going to set up our shop? Where can we afford to set up our shop? And that kind of led us to think about how do we mitigate risk in starting this new venture? And in our particular case, what we did is we decided to purchase our own piece of property. As you know, almost a lot of businesses, they're destined to fail in the beginning, and we were trying to mitigate the risk. So one of the things that we realized very quickly as a new potential business is, is about rent and lease exposure because we just didn't want to kind of spend a lot of money on rents. Not sure if we will be able to even make it through the first year. So that is why we decided to find a bare piece of land, hire the necessary people to do the engineering, excavation and everything else necessary to actually build the property. And this is how we were able five years later to create our own dealership. And it's been very painful. It's been a long process. I GC'd the whole process because we didn't have the money to hire a GC company. So I had to learn what a construction company does very quickly, let alone trying to even dream about when would be the time to open the dealership.

Well, that's, that's really neat because there's so many dealers that like you're talking about, get trapped in a bad lease or a bad property and they can't get ahead. But it sounds like you really thought this out and wanted to build, you know, start building land wealth by having your own piece of property. And I was looking at your pictures on Google, it's a wonderful looking shop. And Building. That's. That's pretty impressive that you. That you really studied it and decided this is the way we're going to do it. I mean, is that. Is that how your brain works? I mean, it sounds like it to me.

Hey, real quick, everyone, make sure you are signed up for tax max. We are in the midst of the fourth quarter program. Coming up on first quarter here. Pretty soon, you need to get signed up. You need to train your staff on how to file people's taxes right in your dealership.

The money's gonna be out there, Jeff. You just gotta make sure you get yourself. And one of the best way. Best ways to get it in our industry is using tax max.

Yeah. So if you're a new dealer like you're Yordi, you just barely started. This is a service you can offer to your customers that's gonna help them buy those cars. You know, people come in with cash, maybe they're a couple bucks short. You're able to front that money for a couple of months, assuming your cash flow is gonna allow it, and you're going to defer that down payment until tax time. So I'm constantly looking for ways to scheme here at the dealership and help people understand that it's the way to get into a car now, because guess what? My inventory is, it's thinning out every day, and it's harder and harder to replace them. And I guarantee you, that nice third row SUV I have on the front line, it's the only one I'm going to have for the next six months. So if you want it, you got to get it now. Use that tax money.

Use the tax money.

Get it done.

Yes. You know, it's a lot of vision. It's a lot of dreaming, and that's where we all start. It's an idea that you have to put on a piece of paper, on a napkin, or whatever you have handy and kind of start working its way into what, you know, the reality of it. And what I've realized, you know, it takes time. You know, it took us five years from the time we found the property until we open our doors for operations. And for a lot of people, they say like, five years, it's a long time. But five years go very quickly. So my point with this is that now we're sitting and just kind of smiling and looking back, and we know that we did the right decision to go through this hardship to build our own property. And another thing to point out is on the independent dealer page, a lot of times you have you know, existing dealers kind of mentioning that there's time when they have to move to a new location. And that's very hard when you build, like, you know, this network of your clientele and business and suddenly have to go somewhere else and start all over. It's not that easy.

Yeah, I definitely think part of the used car business model is, you know, ideally controlling the land that you're on. You know, it can kind of be a real estate play. Like, much like they talk about, you know, McDonald's and some of these places, it's less about the burger and it's more about controlling the real estate that's under the store. So really, hats off to you. You know, you kind of went at it. Most people would just try to get a license and start selling cars out of their driveway or some little rented piece of land. But it sounds like you went all in from day one.

We did. And I think, you know, for, for our listeners and anyone that is thinking to go that route, obviously we're all different. You know, we have the different capabilities to make successful, you know, venture. It's just that if you decide to go through our process, you know, the way we look at it is that we're serving our communities, we're serving people outside of our communities. But, you know, we, we are able to embed our existence in the, in, in the community, and it just makes it to a better story. You know, when, when, when you talk to the local, you know, the local officials, the mayor, you know, you know, everyone else around you, it's like, you, like that you're a landowner. You are, you know, on top of that, you're a business, but you're also a landowner. So there's kind of more skin in the, in the game, if you would. And also, it helps the clients when you start selling the vehicles to kind of say, hey, you know what kind of welcome home. This is my. This is my home, my business. I own the land. You know, I'm here to serve you. So that was part of the thinking process. You know, why we chose that route.

Let me ask you this, Jordy, because I'm sure a lot of new dealers are going to be asking this question, and you don't have to answer it if you don't want to, but how do you afford to build? Was this. Because I know a lot of people are probably like, look, I'm just trying to get enough money to put cars on the ground. How am I going to come up with, you know, even if I go the SBA route I've got to have 20% down or 10% down or how did help us out there? How do you can, how can you even afford to build a building and then still have money to put cars on it?

That's a great question, Jeff.

It is, it is a great question. And I don't mind sharing how because I think this is the whole point of this series is to help someone else to educate them. So we're not coming, we're not coming from a background of where our parents are wealthy or we kind of got lucky with financial instruments or you know, we had, we had full time jobs and this has been in the coming for a long time. What we have done is we have been very regimented, we have saved our money and what we were able to save. We had a very good base to actually put a good performer estimated pro forma and say, okay, this is how much cash we have and what else do we need in order to make this happen? So if you look at the pie charts, there's a certain percent of what you have available, you know, working capital. Then you have, you know, for the, you know, working capital for the business. And then you have, you know, money to start the construction. And then, then the rest is like financing. Where do you get the financing? And as you guys know, and probably our listeners know, we're all in the same situation. It's hard to go to a bank and talk to a banker and say, hey, guess what? This is who I am, this is my idea. And guess what? Immediately, because you're a car dealer, they always say, no, it's very risky, I will not give you a penny because that's how the business is. There's no assets, there's nothing for you to show and back up your venture. And what we did is actually like anybody else. We use HELOCs, we use credit cards, and basically we just milk the process as much as we can. And that's why it took us five years to build this, because we were not in a hurry based on our financial situation to build it overnight because simply we could not afford it. And I remember I will go to bankers and they will say, I'm sorry, I cannot help you. And what I'll recommend for you, it's the term they use. It's bootstrapping. I'm sure you have heard it. And I kind of knew what bootstrapping is just through my own thinking. But they explained it to me. You have to go ask friends and family to give you money. So also I have to Give credit to my parents and our parents, you know, that also helped us. So, yeah, that's how we put it together. And, you know, go ahead.

I was just saying there's so many people unwilling to do that, and it's hard for me to talk about that because, you know, my grandfather had a dealership, my dad had a dealership, so. But you hear so many people that kind of just take the leap without that cushion. And I think that ends up being the downfall of their, their dealership because they didn't put forth the effort and the savings that you have. Is that, is that part of the culture you came from? Is it just you? What is it?

You know what, I think this is an excellent question. I talk about this with my wife Stephanie all the time. And back home, back home in Bulgaria, we are exposed to opening your business and people having their own business through an early age. You know, here in the United States, it's, you know, the common kind of path for young people is, you know, you get a college degree, you go work for a company and you create a career and kind of, this is, this is kind of how you make your mark in your legacy. And I don't know the percentages of how much, but I think in general, my observation is this is perhaps how every majority of people go, you know, to, you know, to move in their life, you know, life path. Back home. It's like, you know, everyone is trying to hustle and get their, you know, their own business. So from an early age, you're exposed to, to, to this, you know, experience. And when you come here to the United States as an immigrant, you know, you know, you bringing all this experience, and that's why you start learning the processes. You know, you read the agreements, you read the procedures, you read, you know, you go to the, you know, to the state and start reading what are the requirements? And then quickly you realize that, hey, guess what, perhaps I can do that, you know, and, but, but again to your question, I've taken some of that with me from my previous experiences, you know.

You know, and what sticks out to me too is when you talked about earlier, you put together a pro forma, you put together the numbers. And I think so many dealers there, they love cars, they love to talk to people, they love to sell them, and they just think they can go out and open a shop and start slinging metal and. Whereas you looked at it from more of an entrepreneurial business standpoint, okay, what's it going to take me cash wise? What's my operating Cash, what's my investment, you know, what's my turn time need to be, what's my ACV going to be and how much cash is that going to take to floor? You know, like, so looking at it like I'm starting a business and not just I like selling cars, I like stuff that goes fast and I'm going to make some money flipping them.

Yes. And I think, I think that's probably the main point here. It's a business. You have to be able to understand financial statements. You have to be able to look at your numbers, cash flow, you know, contracts in transit. There's all of these things that, you know, that you have to consider at the end, you know, again, once you open, but again, even before you open, like, you know, it's very important to look at the numbers and what's possible. And I'll be honest, when we put out pro forma, I didn't know about construction and how much things cost. Um, I'll tell you, the first time we received a 25 ton of, of rock, you know, our shop, we were paying almost thousand dollars and. And our performer quickly kind of went nowhere, you know, because we had to adjust it. And this is just part of the process, you know, because like I said in the beginning, you don't know what you don't know. And it's good to find good people that will help you. They're not going to feed you everything, but at least they'll point you in the right direction. Those are people that, that have your interest and they will kind of say, hey, you know what, perhaps you should look in these areas. And that's how you can figure out, you know, what's right, what's wrong.

It's funny, you talk about gravel and dirt. The first time I was building, building our first shop, I think I had an estimated it was going to be for the land, bringing in dirt, this, that and other. It was going to be something to the effect of, let's say $12,000, which is an astronomical cost when you think about site work. What I was thinking, this was 10 years ago. And then all of a sudden it rained and we had some bad dirt. They had to pull out other dirt. I ended up spending like $25,000 in dirt. Blew my mind. But it's all the things that come up that you don't expect that cause your business to fail and cause your business to go sideways. I mean, were there any times during this process where you were like, oh my gosh, we're not going to make it to the end, it's not going to work. Or I mean, where were you there?

Yeah, and they were, they were those times and especially, you know, when you have like monthly bills of 10 to $15,000 coming at you and you know, and you're looking exactly what's left, you know, after, you know, because there's only so much money. Once you put this pie chart of what's possible and suddenly like, obviously, you know, your budget is blown out of proportion because again, of these unknown factors, nothing is perfect. You know, things change daily. You know, there's problems, there's issues. You just got to be able to deal with them and just find a solution. That, that, that was my job. I had to find a solution. It's just that, you know, we were in a position that we were going to kind of fail, but that's why we kind of extended the process and we, we, we. It took a little bit longer, but allow us to kind of weather the storm and the financial impact of these charges because we took a little bit longer, you know, and that's part of the learning, you know. You know, if you develop your own property, every municipality, every city is different, you know, and if you can have that benefit to extend the project and they don't put a deadline on you, then guess what, you can help a little bit with that cash flow, you know, as much as you can. Again, you cannot, you know, build this for, you know, for a long time. But that's kind of what helped us to, to make it a successful finish.

You know, it's funny to me that you were, you were learning how to be a general contractor at the same time you were learning to be a car dealer. You know, that's so funny that you were going through and had a full.

Time job and yeah, sounds like you're.

Working and a full time job, you know, and that's, that's, and that's, you know what I think the moral of the story? Everything is possible. You got to put your mind into it. And you know what I always say, you know, while other people are sleeping, there's still time during the day for you to set up and up your goals and just execute them, you know, and if something, it's, you know, you're curious about it and it's, you know, it's, it's something that you don't know the answer. You just got to break it down into pieces and just kind of follow those pieces and suddenly you'd be like, aha, you know, I figured it out and now it's not a problem. Then you deal with the next thing. And this is. This is just part of managing the process. And you're right, it was very difficult. And I'll tell you, that's a great point, because what I did in the beginning to learn how to operate a dealership, and I'm nowhere close to what you guys are doing and other successful dealers, but I was doing what I call silent learning. I was watching what other dealers are doing. And that was part of that example that I gave you to basically break down with other independent dealers how they have set up shop. The next step was to look at their websites, who they are using, how they are putting their pictures. Then, you know, there's all these things that, you know, this is how my mind actually works. And slowly, slowly, I kind of figured out the things that we like, the things that we don't like in order to create our own model.

It's so true. Doing that market research is so important, and there's so many dealers out there that, you know, you can learn from and you can ask directly, you know, and that's the great thing about the dealer community is 99% of us that are active are very open to sharing everything we have with a fellow dealer, because it's really no skin off our back at all. Hey, everybody. Buckeye Dealership Consulting, a great sponsor of the podcast, as you guys know, it, is the place to go for your reinsurance products and your training right now. So a guy like Yordi, we didn't mention this to him, but start your reinsurance company from day one, right?

Yeah. I promise you, this guy is so freaking dialed in on how to make money and how to do it the right way. He will have a reinsurance before we know it, and hopefully he will call some of the best in the business. And that is Buckeye Dealership Consultant.

Build equity, build retirement. Tax deferred. It's a great product. So get a hold of the guys at Buckeye. You kind of learned how to make the car lot. You know, you've got it up and running, but now you've got to, you know, you've got to get it, keep it going day to day. So you, you know, you figured out how to make the baby, and now you got to raise the baby. Where are you learning that stuff from?

And I love the analogy because, you know, it's our baby. You know, we're responsible for every single inch of that property. We're responsible for every single thing that happens in that business 24, 7 and that's the difference between working for somebody and owning your own business. I heard something very interesting somebody said about mitigating risk. You know, when you go to work for someone, somebody else is mitigating the risk for you. Now in my position, in our position as business owners, we're the ones who mitigate the risk, you know, and to your point about, you know, now running the business, you know, we are, we are, you know, we're basically going through the same processes that you're going through the same processes that everyone else is going, trying to get inventory, you know, trying to get good inventory, trying to make sure that it goes through our processes for recon and remarketing so that we can, we can make a profit. But part of the learning, you know, for me has been, you know, it's just been hard, you know, because here in Kentucky, I don't know how other states are. You know, like I said, you don't have this pre education to, you know, kind of understand exactly what you're getting into. You know.

Yeah, let's, let's go down the, let's go down the path of we figure out how you got your dealership put together. How about the pitfalls of actually being a dealer in the day to day operation of being a new dealer and selling cars and buying cars and figuring all that out. What have been some pitfalls? What's been some real success that you've seen?

Yeah, I think the success is again, it's kind of looking around you and kind of seeing what other dealers are doing. Again, at the end we're in a similar boat. It's just everyone has a different model. You know, that's kind of how I look at it in a different operation. But at the end we're selling similar type of vehicles. The success for us has been that we have just put a lot of effort into studying Zylon is studying. And also we have few mentors that actually have helped us throughout the process as well. But the success is kind of, you know, understanding kind of where to buy good inventory. Also another success is, you know, what is your support structure? And what I mean by that is in the beginning when we started, like I didn't have, you know, any vendors because our model, we outsource all of the processes. You know, I'm talking about, you know, detailing, dent repairs, mechanical work, tire repairs, all of that stuff that's necessary to bring that vehicle back to its beauty. Everything is outsourced. And again, I know some successful dealership, they actually house all of Those process. And I understand why. It's just in our case that that is our model and again, our financial capability at this point. So. So the, you know, we just got lucky to find good vendors and good people to onboarders, and that's how we built our confidence. You know, now when I go to auction, you know, like everything else, you know, I can look at a car. I'm not a specialist, you know, but I can look at a car and what I've learned, carry it for the past six months. We've been open for six, seven months, you know, and I can take those experiences and say, okay, let me take a picture. Let me send it to the painter. Let me send it to the den guy. Hey, what is. What would it cost for this to fix, give or take? You don't have to give me 100% because you can. And then I go back and kind of reconstruct the process and say, okay, if I pay for all of these items, here's my dealer fee, here's the vehicle. And then I look on car gurus and I look at different platforms. What I, you know, what I think it's called a market analysis, you know, to see what somebody else is selling their car. Then the question for me is like, would I be successful if I put all of these expenses? And then that kind of helps us to. To figure out if this vehicle is for us or not, you know, so. But the success is kind of like, it's the same channels. Is it a local auction house? Is it CarMax? We have done very well with CarMax. You know, CarMax Auctions, and there's nothing to, you know, to be. Not to share. That's where our bread and butter is. There's a lot of good cars that come through CarMax, and that's where we buy majority of our inventory. The pitfalls, it's again, like a lot of tools. Successful dealers, again, they have a lot of tools. They spend a lot of money for market analysis for carfax. You know, all of these things that you need to be able to make a good decision. And I'm sure you guys, everyone else that is listening, they're doing the same thing. It's just that it costs money. So we're kind of like, you know, trying to, you know, make sure that we spend the money wisely. Is it autonic? We use autonic. You know, we advertise on car gurus. We advertise heavily on marketplace, you know, and those are the things that kind of. You figure out and you're Trying to be very, very careful not to overstep your financial exposure, you know, but it's really interesting.

Let me stop you there, because putting myself in your shoes and Remembering, you know, 15 years ago when I was in the lane buying cars, and it really mattered to me if that car had good tires. It really mattered to me if that car had a dent or a scratch or seats or. And that's such a refreshing thing. And I think all dealers at any level can, can, can, can take themselves back to that place of when they used to really count every dollar of recon, and it mattered to them when they bought the car. You know, I think we definitely get to the point, and I know I do, where I'm looking at the auction list this morning, and as long as the car is sitting on the wheels and not on the hood, like, as long as it's right side up, I'm like, I'm going to buy it. But I think we start losing that kind of almost pride in purchases when you have a limited credit line or when you're like, hey, I only have 20 grand to spend this week. I got to get the best 20 grand worth of cars out there, whether that's one or five or however my business model is. But, like, it matters to me. That's such a refreshing thing. I think all dealers can be reminded of for sure.

Absolutely. And I think, I think it's just that this is part of the learning because these things matter. And again, it's the math, you know, how much you're going to spend. And at the end, like a lot of your guests in these podcasts have said, it's like, you know, it's a gut wrenching kind of experience to spend 10, 15, $20,000 on the vehicle. And you hope that's going to work out. And that's why we were, you know, our first car was a 2011, I believe, you know, Acura MDX. And the reason I bought it, because, you know, who wouldn't drive an mdx? It's a luxury car, it's a very nice car. You know, they have their, you know, just issues, but in general, you know, it's a car that perhaps will sell. And that's kind of my thinking because I'm looking around and I can see these cars, you know, they're put on display and suddenly they're gone. So that, that was kind of our initial, you know, kind of approach to, to. I didn't want to reinvent the wheel. You know, I just wanted to kind of follow a path and perhaps sell our service. You know, I always tell to people, I didn't design the cars. You like a specific car because the model, the quality, whatever, it's just I'm trying to cater to perhaps what the majority of the population likes and then sell our service and somehow back up that, you know, what, we're there for the long run. You know, that's where the success has been. You know, I'm sure you guys saw our Google reviews. We have 32, I believe, Google reviews so far since we opened. And I have one metric which I'm very proud. It's nothing to be against any other dealer, but this is a metric for us that for the time that we have been open for the six short months, I think we have more five star reviews than dealers that have been open for years and years, you know, prior to us. And I think, and I know Jack with Handsome Motors, I think he kind of mentioned that as well in one of the previous episodes that, you know, you have to go above and beyond to earn someone's respect in the five star because this is what exactly sells the cars. I'm having a couple coming tonight from, from another two hours away. And the reason they're buying our car, which is a good car, it's because of our 32 five star reviews. So these, these are some of the takeaways, the successes. And again, like I started, it's about service. We just happen, we're in the service business just happen to sell cars.

You know, it's the beauty of being the dealer that is also the seller and interacting with the customers is you take so much pride in that interaction and so much pride in that car and getting those five stars. And then as you start to grow, you maybe get distant from it and your employees don't take that same kind of pride of ownership. Or maybe as dealers, we lose the ability to communicate that to our people to make sure that they know how to treat a customer the way we would treat them. So you're already looking forward. What is your goal? Let's just paint that in the last couple of minutes we have with you. Where do you see this going and what's your goal for the next year? Five year, 10 years?

Yeah. You know what I wanted to. That's a great question because again, it's very important set of goals and I'm a firm believer. Just write those on a piece of paper and just look at them every day. Just wake up with them and go to bed with them and just start kind of breaking those big Rocks into small gravel pieces, you know, and suddenly you will get your answer and everything's going to work out. You know, we set up very, very modest goals for this year, you know, before I kind of go for what we are hoping to achieve, you know, for this year, we wanted to break even. And we are. We're definitely beyond that point. We're very blessed. We're already profitable. And I'm not bragging, it's just that this is the reality, you know, if you put your mind and soul and have the good backup of your family and friends, you know, everything is possible. So our goal was to break even, and we're beyond that. So that's one thing for the goals. And the second thing is I wanted to experience two wholesale vehicles. So yesterday I was able to wholesale two almost brand new vehicles to a franchise store. I also wholesale a vehicle to an independent shop. The reason I set those goals is because I wanted to create more connections. It's very difficult to connect with people at the franchise level because there's so many people in front of you. And as you know, these relationships are important, where you can get them to be able to be more successful in the buying side of the business. And to be honest, I just feel very proud that I was able to show, you know, the big brother, if you would, or sister, you know, and be like, hey, guess what? I can operate on your level. I'm trustworthy, you know, and I can deliver for you. Because, you know, market is crazy, there's car shortage, and here I am. I'm going to do my. My best. I can pass these units to the auction. But, you know, what is the right thing to do? And that's how you build relationships. So that, that was. These were the things that personally I wanted to achieve, you know, for the future, definitely, I would like to get involved with our independent dealer association. I would. You know, I'm dreaming about becoming a certified dealer, you know, through the National Dealer Association. I know there's a cost for it and, you know, we want to grow our business. We want to buy another property, like auxiliary property. Because right now, kind of like location matters, but it doesn't. And I'm sure you guys have heard this. Like, right now everything is on Internet. If you have a good process and good transparent process, people will come to you no matter where they are. People travel distances. So that's our goal. We want to expand and we want to keep in the retail model for now. Another goal is probably financing. I follow very closely the independent page on Facebook. Which has been a. Just an amazing, amazing, you know, assets to us as a new dealer. And I'm very grateful for that and all of you that have contributed. And the goal is to be able to add financing options, because I know that that's where we can make a big impact and just continue to grow our operation. So that's something that is just. We're taking baby steps. We want to learn to crawl and walk before we run. That's kind of our agenda. Again, we're landowners. We're sitting there. We can weather the storm. We have done the right thing to mitigate the risk. And I think anyone that is willing to do that and has the means to do that, it's not a bad approach. Again, we're all different. And another thing I would recommend to the listeners, you know, don't try to just compete with everybody. Just. Just. Just get your own process and just be happy with it. Just kind of. Hopefully you can see some, you know, good results. And. And that's what will stimulate you to. To the next day. And then if you're happy, everyone is happy around you. And that's what I think we have been able to accomplish, not only for us, but for the people that we are able to touch every day.

Well, you're already at. I tell you, listeners out here, this is a real roadmap to success, something that you should follow. And you already. I know that you're going to help so many dealers who haven't quite started yet, or maybe even some that are a couple of years in having. Having. Having those issues. It sounds like you have a roadmap to success. Anything else you got there, Jeff?

No, I think that's great. I mean, the biggest thing I take away from this is it's like everyone can learn from everyone, right? Jordy's been in it five months. I've been in at 15. Luke's been in at 50. Like, we even. Despite the baby face. And yet I'm coming away from this. And it's about relationships. You know, Yordy has built a relationship with his city and the people that are in charge. He's built relationships with his customers directly. He's building relationships with vendors and other dealers in the community. It's just. It's. It's just such a great reminder. Yordy, appreciate your time. Thanks for being here with us.

Absolutely. Thanks for this great opportunity, and thanks for doing what you're doing, guys. You know, it's. You know, you have taken, you know, a great step in leadership, you know? You know, and you're taking time away from your busy schedules and, you know, maybe you don't get the benefits of hearing the thank yous, but a lot of people like myself are very grateful what you do. And I want to also give a little plug to Dan Real and his wife, you know, for starting the page. You know, it's been just. This is. This is something that is beyond explanation how beneficial has been to us and anyone else. It's just that the credit is just huge and I just wanted to give him a little credit if I can. Thank you, Jordi.

Thanks, Jordy.

Absolutely. Take care, guys.

Perfect. Go, man. Thanks.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for this opportunity, man. It's. Guys, it's just. It's just been a hard process, you know, a lot of times, like, you know, like, you know, we're not all blessed to be. To come from just industry, you know, and that was my dream. I've seen a lot of friends that had businesses, their parents and, you know, my dad was just a military guy. My mom was just, you know, she. She was a music teacher and. But again, we just hustle. Life. Life is hard. Life is hard here in the States, you know, it's just. You got to hustle. You just gotta. You gotta do what you gotta do to. To make it, to feed your family. And we're just blessed, you know, And I. And now I'm just happy that I'm in a position to help others, you know, Jack has helped me a lot, Dan, you guys, and that's the right thing to do. So if there's any other opportunity to help through our process, we're available, you know, but thanks again.

Thank you, buddy.

Thanks, man.

Have a good day.

Take care.

Take care. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

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