#202 - Jack Carter - How I Built This

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

Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Independent Dealer Podcast, brought to you by Buckeye Dealership Consulting. This week we continue our series of How I Built this. We have the man, the Myth, the legend, Mr. Jack Carter from Turner Burn Motors out of Georgia. Jack, say hello to everybody. Introduce yourself. For those that do not know you or have not heard of you or.

Interacted with you, Everybody knows him, Jeff.

I know, I know. So there's probably two guys. Introduce yourself to those two people. Where you at? What do you do?

Hey, guys. Jeff, you're great at that. That sounded so good for a lot of practice. That's right. Out of Conyers, Georgia, 30 minutes east of Atlanta, so pretty. Pretty heavy metro. Metro area. Got my dealer license in 2013 and have been selling as many cars as possible ever since then.

You. 2013. Wow. I think I've known you since 2013, Jack. Were you. I mean, did you get straight into the association? I mean, right off the bat?

I immediately joined my state association. Well, I immediately tried to join my state association. I entered in a little arrogant and overexcited, and they kind of. They kept me at bay for, I think, a good year and a half. And I just showed up at the meetings until they finally accepted me.

Did you. I mean, I mean, once you. I mean, and you've been involved, I mean, with the national. I mean, going to conventions and everything. I mean, ever since. I mean, I feel like ever since 2015 or 16, because I've definitely known you that long, right?

Yeah, the. I mean, just. I think I was able to immediately recognize the networking and the benefits of being friends with these people. And it's just. It's just helped me tremendously right off the rip. My. My father's always been a member of my state association as a. As a vendor. I don't know if he was a. As a dealer. He was a dealer in the late 70s, early 80s, and even through the mid-80s. And he just pushed the. He's like, man, you got to be involved in your state association. And he was right. He was absolutely right. So.

So, Jack, I want to know. Rewind and tell us. Yeah, let's back up before 2013. And why. Why get into this business in 2013? I mean, it was. It was pretty good times, but it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't amazing. What were you doing before and what. What prompted you to start your dealership?

Gosh so I've always had the love for the automobile, right? I mean, that. That's kind of my base foundation is I just love every single car made and enjoy mechanics, right? So, I mean, I was a LEGO kid, love to work in my daddy's workshop and build stuff. And I was always heavily a part of wanting to know how things work. And so the car just, you know, as soon as I was able to drive, I was love with cars. And so that's kind of. That's like the foundation. How did I get into the car business? I got hired on with a guy purchasing cars, right? I just really like to buy cars. So when I was younger, I was buying cars for a gentleman that opened up a dealership. We were, we were doing it. We were curbstone it, right? We were just buying cars and, you know, out of the magazine, the autotrader magazine, and he was the money, and I would fix the cars and we'd set them at the gas station and sell them. And. And that developed into him getting a dealer license. And I saw the success and I had the contacts with the purchasing. So I was working really hard to buy 15, 20 cars a week. I was transporting them, I was helping get them fixed, and then my buddy would sell them. And that went very well. It really got my feet wet. I never worked in a dealership before. I never worked in his dealership. I was just simply a buyer. And my mechanical knowledge really helped me understand what to buy and what to stay away from. And when a car was good, fundamentally good, and when it was, it wasn't. So I really learned the buying side of the business first. That's got to be. That's got to be where it started. And I just love buying cars today. I love buying cars. It's my favorite aspect of the business. So, you know, I barely made it out of high school. I have no formal education whatsoever. I just immediately started buying cars, fixing them and selling them when I was a kid. I mean, that's how I was kind of forced to do it too. I mean, we didn't. Didn't really have any money. And, you know, I had to buy stuff that was broke. My first car was broke, and I had to learn how to fix stuff on my own. I couldn't afford to take it anywhere to have it fixed. And that's back when, you know, you could go to the Pep Boys and buy the manual and, you know, there was no YouTube, but you could, you could educate yourself and learn how to fix anything.

I just started there, you know, it's interesting that so many people that we talk to, this is how they got into business. I love cars, was working on cars, tinkering with cars, and then I started buying cars, and then I tried to build a business around it. And what's interesting to me is a lot of us do love to buy cars. That's because it's easy to us, right?

Yeah, very easy. Right.

So how, you know, how do you understand the business aspect? Because I think, you know, I didn't.

I still don't loop.

So buying for a thousand and selling for 2000 is easy. Right, but then, but then the education begins.

Right? So absolutely.

How have you, have you done that? What was the evolution of that in the last, you know, eight years?

Mark, man, I'm go back to my state association. I mean, I can only imagine what other associations are like, but Georgia's incredible. I mean, it's incredible. They have basically the executive director now, Amy. Amy held my hand. Amy got my, you know, she looked over my packet and made sure we had everything for the deal license, and she's held my hand ever since. And so they've taught me how to be compliant, and they scared me to death about getting shut down or, you know, being fined and all the rest. So they've really just done an amazing job with education. I love my executive director. I love my association. They have held my hand and walked me through every bit of the process of being compliant. So I think they made it very easy for me to understand what was legal and what was not legal. And it was really important to me to be on the right side of this. I never had any vision of my company growing to what it is. I, I just didn't. And all I wanted to do was, like you said, buy a car for a thousand bucks, put a water pump on itself for 2000. And I did that for a long time, but I just didn't, I didn't know of anything else I could possibly do with my life that could generate this kind of income. I mean, I, you know, I, I, you know, I'm not an engineer. I don't, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a lawyer. I don't have a degree in anything. I could never go work for somebody without, you know, being there 20 years to finally get somewhere. I'm too stubborn and want to do my own thing to work for anybody else. And so this was, this was just my path to be my own boss and, and do something I love. And it was the only thing that I could Ever imagine this kind of money being involved in? Me, this is the only thing, I can't think of anything else even today that I would go do where I could turn, where I could take care of my family and, and be a good guy in my community. Besides the car business, I mean, I don't. I have no idea what else I would go do.

Hey, Buckeye Dealership Consulting. Jack is a member. We talked to him a little bit about that. Didn't get to it fully in the interview, but it is a way to build wealth and create that customer service aspect that we talk a lot about in this episode. Luke, how do you use them to make sure you're taking care of your customers?

You know, it's providing, you know, VSI to help your dealership. It's using warranties, giving away warranty, selling extended service contracts. It's all the things doing psi. So if you do have to spend a ton on a car you bought at the auction, you can make it right for the customer. You know, one thing Jack brought up during an interview that I think is really awesome is having vendors talk to each other. So you make sure you're doing the right tax strategy and, and Buckeye is there to do that. We kind of forget about that sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, they're great. They handle it. Give the guys a call. Get your reinsurance company set up ASAP in 2013.

Jack, are you still in the same location? Because if anybody's ever driven from Atlanta, Georgia to South Carolina, you come to Conyers and it's a big building right off I20 on the east side of the road. You can see it. There's. There's dealerships around you. Have you always been there or were you somewhere else and moved to that location? Cause it's a great location.

No, man, I was in the. I was in the top of. I had an office up in a. Above a repossession company, right. And a holding yard on a dead end road with a gravel lot and a two or three bay shop. And I was paying $700 a month for just a single office and access to the yard and access to the sh. And then.

Was it just you?

Just me. I was buying them, cleaning them, fixing them, advertising them, selling them, processing titles. I was the whole. I was everything. And then shortly after that, my brother joined me which was. Has been an amazing blessing and a big part of Turn and Burn today. I mean, my brother is a jam up man and I love him to death. And anyway, so he started helping me and then we Went from there, but we had that little office. And then I had an opportunity to rent a trailer. A little trailer office on the same road I'm on now. And so we did that for a few months. And then this building, there was a for sale sign in front of this building I'm in now. And I don't know, Luke, what possessed me to think I could do it here? I didn't have the money. I had. I had that first and last. I had to deposit, you know, and first month's rent. And there was no way I could have made it to three months out of my pocket. And I was scared to death. And I signed a. I signed a nine year lease, bro. And I bet I had ten grand in my name. And so I really did something that was really pretty. I mean, it was either brave or stupid, maybe both. And there's a fine line between brave and stupid, man. Man, I don't. I guess I was. I've just always had the mentality that. That I'm never going to be nothing if I don't jump out there and take the risk. And if I fail, I fail whatever, you know, and so far I haven't. But this building was just. It was gutted. They had. Stole the. Stole the copper out of it. The air conditioning system was gone. It was just nasty, full of rats. It was junk. But the location was great. I was on frontage on i20. So we just got down here and got our tool belts out and replaced the carpet and painted the walls and put the sign up, Put a little dinky sign up. Whatever was from the trailer, took the sign down from the trailer and brought it over here. And it's been on and jumping ever since. I mean, it's unbelievable, really. It's a. It's a. I'm talking about it. It's just even hard to believe that it happened. But that's what happened.

What Funny when you. You look back at your decisions and you're like, well, I didn't think I was that smart, but that was a pretty darn smart decision that I made back then.

It was crazy. It was a crazy decision, but it worked out. I mean, my dad helped me. You know, I just reached out to all the people that I respected and you know, they're like, go for it. And I just had a lot of support with people telling me to take the leap. And I did. It was nuts.

Jack, when you got into that building, how many employees did you have then and how many do you have now? What's kind of the scope and size of your current operation.

All right, so we went from. From the little office trailer with four people. It was me, my brother, an office manager, and a title lady that was helping with the bank account and such. So I guess we moved in here with four folks. Oh, that's not true. I had a cleanup man who's still with me today, who's a fantastic immigrant from Cuba. Great story, and I love him to death. So he's still with me, but matter of fact, everybody but the title lady is still with me, and. But her daughter is with me. Her daughter is my controller. Her daughter was babysitting my children before she could drive. And now she. She is the heart and soul of Turning Burn. She's just a kid, and she's. She's in here killing it. So there's 20. Let's say there's 20 people here now.

And so.

Yeah, I know, right.

When you were at the. The trailer there, how many cars you think you were? So tomorrow.

30.

30.

Okay, 25. 30. But they were. They were just cash deals, right? All cash.

And now you're. I mean, I know. I think you've hit 100 a couple times this year. Is that correct?

Yeah, we've hit a hundred a few times. We've kind of, you know, in learning and being better, you know, going to the. Start going to the Buckeye meeting and talking to other dealers, talking to you, Luke, and recognizing that, I. We started financing cars. My daddy pushed me towards that. He worked for U.S. auto Sales for a little. Little stint, and he owned a Buy Here, Pay Here dealership in Decatur, Georgia, back in the late 80s, back when you were buying cars for 500 bucks and selling them for 500 down. And it was 75 a week. Right. And he kept pushing me, son, you know, you need to finance these cars. You need to finance these cars. He really didn't educate me on how to do it, but he knew that that was probably the most profitable thing for me to do. And, of course, selling cars for cash at the trailer, we had a lot of people come in with, you know, that did have a good down payment, and. But I didn't have a lender, didn't have any money in the bank. All my money was in titles in the filing cabinet. And so we just started doing it a little bit at a time. Just a little bit at a time. And my house rule in that moment was, you know, I need half the money down. And I needed half the money down because I didn't have the money to go buy the next car, you know, so just kind of slowly got into Buy Here, Pay Here and again, back to the association, back to Niada. Leaned on people like you, leaned on people that knew what they were doing and started listening. Guys like John Weir have helped me a lot. Just folks with the association that did lending and, and understood so much about Buy Here Pay Here have helped me ease into that. And now we're, I mean, we're pretty much full blown buyer payer. I'd like to be only buyer payer, but. But we definitely still sell cars for cash. There's a cash buyer in the lobby right now.

Same here. It happens.

I mean.

Yeah, you know what's funny is I know you price fairly aggressively in the market as well as I, and with the inflated market right now, it seems like we're getting, I mean, it's bad to say, but last month almost half our deals were outside finance cash deals, which I don't want them to be because my portfolio is going down. But you know, if they're going to pay my asking price, then, you know, okay, I'm fine with that. Yeah, I mean, have you seen a lot more of that lately here, Jack.

Or what do you think is going on? Gosh, I haven't seen our cash sales tick up. We have since raised our prices. I get nudged all the time. You know, just raise your prices a few bucks. Raise your. And so we do. And we have. And so I haven't really seen an uptick in cash sales like what you talk about, but they're definitely not going away, right? I mean, if we sell, you know, 65 or 70amonth, sure enough, 15 of them were cash sales. So I like the cash sales. I mean, it just, it generates business. I'm not, definitely not going to turn one down. If I got somebody here, a customer with good credit or somebody with just cash in their pocket, I want that person to be successful. I want them to buy a good car. I want them to buy a car from me. And if that's the way they want to buy it, then that's how they're going to get it, you know. So again, just like what you said, I want to put the account on the books, especially with a good person. But also, but above that, I just want to do business. I just want to move a car. I just want to move metal. I want to be able to go buy the next car. I mean, I'm again, it goes back to like love and buying so much. If I saw crack. Yeah, you're damn right. It Is I'm sober, right? So this is my. And so I know when I sell this car for cash today, I'm. I got the money to go buy another one. So whatever. We yank the GPS out of it and sell it for cash and go get another one. So that's interesting. Crazy addiction, huh? It's an addiction. Oh, my God. I agree. I look at my sale list. I mean, I'm building sale list. I'm looking at all the auctions and stuff and trying to get better with that. And I get so excited about a car. So let's get so excited.

Let's talk about your setup in your company now. So you're the general manager, right? Does your brother handle, like, fixed ops, or are you handling buying exclusively? What does your normal day look like, Jack? And what does your brother's normal day look like? To kind of give?

Yeah, so I'm the buyer. I love it. And everybody seems to kind of think that I'm pretty good at it, so they kind of let me, you know, I mean, I'm. I'm the buyer. I don't think. I don't know if I'm the general manager here or not. I think. I'm not. I think my brother's probably the general manager. He's. He's extremely organized. He loves structure. I love chaos. I mean, I. I succeed in the lanes, right? I want to see 10 lanes going and 100 cars in an hour. And he. He writes employee handbooks. You know, he can look at a situation and say, this is step one. This is step two, this is step three. And I want you to do it this way every time. He's really good at that. I'm really poor at that. And when I say poor, I mean, I just assume that people think like me and are going to do what I would do. And he has shown me time and time again that I'm wrong about that. And so I just kind of float around my business. I come in here every day. I look at my sale list. I try to attend the auctions. If I don't physically go to one, I'm watching one online. I try to buy the cars. I love writing the ads. I love being engaging with the customers. I love, you know, kind of floating around and talking to my guys. I. I really feel like leadership is all about taking care of your people, you know, making sure they know you care about them. So I try to shake everybody's hand. I go say hello. I, you know, try to be involved in my. In my people's lives. And tell them how much I love them and how much I care about them and how much I'm glad they're here and they've chosen us. Every day they choose to be here. So I do that a lot. So.

Culture ambassador Jack Carter. I like it, man.

You got to, you got to. You got to make these people know that you let them know you love them. And so I focus on that a lot. And my brother pretty much runs the. Runs the day to day stuff. I love talking to the sales team about new ideas. I love talking to the mechanics about how to be more efficient and thinking of ways to help them make more money. An example, my sales team hasn't really been focused on selling cars to service customers. Right. And so we've just been talking about building this little process about when somebody comes in for service, the cashier needs to immediate, immediately look at how long they've been on the books, right? How long this person been on the books. If they've been on the books a year and a half or so, please get with sales and tell sales that this person's been on the books a year and a half. So we're trying to work on things like that. We're not really aggressive sellers. And I don't know that I want to be aggressively pushing people to buy cars, but I think there's some middle ground there where we can pay closer attention to what's happening around us and capitalize on opportunities that sometimes we just don't pay attention to. So that's an example of something I'm trying to evolve in. So I just try to involve myself in trying to make things better in every department, every day, all the time, little tweaks. And one of the things I need to get better at is letting those things take place and happen and being patient enough to see the results of them. You know, I'm quick to be, you know, come in with one big new idea one day, and then I'll have a big new idea three days later, you know, so just.

Just throwing grenades at them, just hoping that they can figure it out. Yeah, great idea.

Yeah, just stir it up constantly. But, you know, I try to lead with a very positive attitude and be happy and, you know, pushed everybody to be better and do better. I want them to feel part of it.

Hey, everybody, we are in the middle of tax time. We've talked about it episode after episode after episode. The money is going to be out there. Tax returns are bigger than ever. Now is the time to make sure you're filing people's taxes in your dealership and intercepting that tax money before they can spend it on a new Xbox or PlayStation or something.

Yeah, I think. I think years ago, Jeff, I read an article that talked about 98% of the money is spent within 48 hours of someone getting it. So the best way to ensure that you get it is use tax max. If you use tax max, you get the check and you can use it, then give them the rest.

Right. We all know that cars are more expensive, they're harder to get. We talk about that in this episode where I don't have stuff on the front line, so why would I wait until that second week of March or February or whenever these taxes finally get released to all of a sudden compete over the few cars that I have out there? I'm selling cars today with tax money so that I'm not just having to go for a mad dash for that 48 hours when the cash is actually on the street. So it only makes sense to be able to extend your tax time longer given the constraint, given the increased tax return money they're going to have, given the competition of other bills that these people have right now. So it gives me an opportunity to get my money, my hands on that money now. Yeah, Jack, I think that might be the answer for this question. But what would you say is a key to your success over the last 15 years, 13 years, whatever it is, what's one thing you would recommend other dealers do that you feel you've kind of nailed.

Something? I know that I'm good at, and it ain't much, but one thing that I know I'm good at is taking it on the chin. So you have to treat your customers. You know, if I sell a car that's the first car of five, I'm going to sell you, right? And if they don't have a great experience with the first one, you're never going to get to number two. And if they don't have a great experience number two, they're never going to get to number five. So I think you just help people. You bend over backwards to help them all the time. And you, and you, and you do it with a smile. You do it as if you're eager to make sure they're okay. And so that's something that I've really focused on is making sure if somebody buys a car for me, they get a good experience. Right. Like, I'm quick to pull somebody out of a car if they're having problems. They've been in service two or three times. They just bought it last month. You know, let's put you in a. Let's put you in a good car. You've got doubts about this one already. So I know it's going to be hard for me to collect my money. Let's just swap this deal. Let's put you in another car. And there's been a lot of people in the industry, I think, that disagree with me about how fast I'll do something like that. But I feel like you got to keep them on the books, keep them happy, keep them paying, do the right thing, help them find parts, help them with the water pump, help them with the wheel bearing. I just try to help my customers as much as I possibly can. And so, you know, you turn them into advocates. Isn't that the goal? Right? You don't want them to just. You don't want them to just be a customer. You want them to be an advocate for your business. And when somebody attacks me, like on social media, I'll have somebody jump all over me or whatever I've got. I don't even have to defend myself. People, my customers jump on a post and talk about how great we are and the things we've done and what we did.

I've seen that. I've seen that happen with you, and that's. It's amazing. It is.

I've got folders, you know, a picture folder in my phone of just people defending us and, and what creates that is being so good to them. They've never had an experience like it. And I don't. I'm not saying you jump overboard and give your money away. You know, you can, there's. There's some tactics there, but I think you just got to be really, really good to your customers. Make them feel like you care about them, make them feel like you love them. Because we do. I mean, it's a genuine thing. And just be a reasonable person. Treat people like you would want to be treated. Everybody that buys a car from me, I want them to be able to give that car to their daughter. You know, I want them to have a successful experience. I want that to be a great car and then be really glad they. They met us and they dealt with us and they chose us. And I think if you just focus on that, you can figure out all this other stuff, all the compliance you can figure out. You can figure out how to hire. And it, it, you know, it brings employees to bring. The tech I bought brought. I was just telling you guys about before we started, he's like, man, I looked at y' all's reviews, you know, before he came to work with us, and I've heard good things about you. And I think that's the key, that's the cornerstone, that's everything, is to just. Don't let a water pump harm your reputation, you know, don't let a tire harm your reputation. Don't let anything like that stand in your way and recognize that if you've already captured a customer, you know, one of the things that I think irritates me the most about other businesses, like cell phone services, for example, they treat a new customer better than they treat an old.

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Right. And we need to treat our current customers way better than anybody out, you know, way better than anybody out there. If you got somebody that's already trusting you, that's been there and already bought a couple cars from you, man, you can't, you can't be nice enough to.

That guy, you know, help, help us with this. I mean, you know, and there's some, there's some people out there listen to this podcast that are really young in this business and they don't have a lot of capital like we, you know, we all were when we first started.

And tell me about it.

And somebody they just sold two days ago, the engine goes bad or transmission goes bad and they don't feel like they have the money to, to fix that problem. How, how does a dealer get past that and move to the point where we are currently.

That is such an excellent question because I think that that's, that's probably one of the biggest struggles, right? I mean, I look, as a white male, I have been told no by my local bank. Now let me tell you this. A bank that I have had a checking account with since I was 16 years old. I'm 41. Same checking account number. It's like a three digit number, right? That's how long I've been with this bank. They have told me no more time. It's so funny now I go in there and ask them, just playing with it. Now they tell me no. So I didn't have any money either, right. And I have struggled. I mean, I can't. I've spent years and years, years thinking, oh, no payrolls this week, you know, and been scared to death. I have had panic attacks at home about paying bills and what am I going to do? And I got, I got this money coming in, I got money on the books, but I don't have any money in my hand. And as far as fixing somebody's car when you don't have the money, I've seen this a lot, Right. Like being involved with the association. I've seen a kind of a bad dealer. I've seen him sell a car, use the money to pay off his floor plan, and not have any. He doesn't have any money to fix the car if something happens. Yeah. And then you got a mad and upset customer. Right. But I think you have to figure that out. You've got to come up with a way. And it starts with making sure you bought a good car. Right? I mean, that's where you make money. You buy a good car to start with. You buy something that's right to start with. Don't buy anything Rusty. Don't buy anything with that's been overheated. You know, you saw you can solve almost every one of your problems in the car business by buying a good car to start with and inspecting it properly. Yeah, absolutely. And then the next thing you do is you don't sell that car until it's right. Right. If you get in a hurry and you feel like, I gotta have some money, I gotta have some money, I gotta sell this car, and you let it out of your hands, and it's not right. It's coming back. And it's gonna come back and prevent you from selling three or four more cars that you don't even know about. It's going to stop you from doing business with somebody you ain't even met that's never going to meet you because of what they heard about you. So, so much of this process, our entire process begins at that purchase, and then it continues on with your. Your recon and making sure it's good. If it's not good, flip it, wholesale it, sell it as a mechanic special. Don't sell a bad car to a good person that you know, all they've got set, 4,500 bucks or whatever. Don't do that. If you just never do that, then you won't put yourself in that spot. Yeah.

And I think we've all found, like, certain. Certain cars we just shouldn't sell. I don't even care if the thing's running like a top today. I'm just not going to sell it because I know it's going to have problems next month. But something you said really drives home because, you know, we talked about this before the podcast started. You've got 150 cars in inventory and 22 on your website. Right. And Luke's got the same Problem. And I've got the same problem. I have more cars in the back than I do in the front. And I might be tempted to be like, ah, this one's good enough, let's just push it out. Oh, this one's good enough. Let's just push it out.

Absolutely.

I got to get cars to the front line, so I'm going to cut corners and what's that going to do to us? You know that exact argument where it's like, yeah, man, I really jumped the gun on this one. We put it out before it was really ready. We didn't even mechanically inspect it because I thought it looked good and now it's coming back to bite me.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So you said something about selling as a mechanic special and I just, I want to talk real quick about. I think one thing you, you haven't touched on is your, your presence on Facebook and your social media advertising that you do. And you, you will describe a car on Facebook as, I mean, literally being a piece of junk to sell it, to sell it to someone. And I just, I think it's so liberating to, to have someone like you talk about social media advertising, how you have to be upfront and honest about everything you do. And you're talking about, about that here. Can you kind of walk us through how you advertise on Facebook and your method of doing that?

Yeah, so, so you gotta be, you gotta be different. You got, and you gotta capture somebody, you gotta capture their attention. None of us read ads about, I mean, you guys have seen advertisements about cars that, you know, they got power steering and power brakes and air cruise control. Nobody gives a damn. Everybody knows that. But I think if you take, let's say you take a trade in. I had this deal where I was making Facebook posts about today's beater trade. That's what I called the post. Today's beater trade. And I called the car a beater because it is a beater. And so if you just start with today's beater trade and call it what it is, this is a wore out old car. It's sloppy. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't stop great. It doesn't do anything great. It's just a wore out old used car immediately. The very first thing that happens is the defenses of the buyer disappear. They go away. They know you're not trying to get over on them. You know, if you call the car exactly what it is, the defenses go down and then down the road, you know, you can say, look, man, that's why this thing was half the money. I advertised it as junk. I told you it was junk. So. And I think it's so refreshing for the consumer to see a car dealer call a car exactly what it is with no attempt to sell it. Listen, it will sell. I can, I can. I can describe a car as the worst piece of junk on the planet. And if it runs and drives, and my price is fair, if they're like, well, where else can I get a car that the man. The man says it runs good, it doesn't overheat, it's not ticking or smoking or knocking. And it shifts and goes down the road. And with any luck, it'll last me six to eight months. I mean, where else are you going to see that kind of honesty, Jack?

It's so key is you're not trying to take everything off the table. You're willing to tell them the honest truth about the car at the expense of maybe making an extra grand or two. If you'd maybe tried to fluff it or try to sell around the problems or try to get top dollar. You're like, look, my integrity and me being honest about this car is worth that extra grand or two I might have made.

Oh, yeah, it's absolutely worth it. And it just creates so much. It just creates such a good relationship with the person. One thing that I know that is true, right? It doesn't matter how much a car is, and it doesn't matter what's wrong with. If the buyer finds out what's wrong after they left, they're mad at you. If they find out what's wrong before they buy it, they love you. Yeah, because you told them it's same car, same money. Same car, same money, same person. But if they find out after they paid you, they're mad at you. If they find out before they paid you, you're a hero because you told them about it. The same car, same money, same everything. But, you know, everybody's got these defenses about what a used car is and who's selling them. And if you can. If you can eliminate that, you're way ahead of everybody in your town, you know, And I just, like, I don't wholesale any. Like, I don't. I mentioned wholesaling earlier, but I don't. I don't send anything to the auction ever. Never ever. Why would I. Why would I pay for transport? Why would I pay those fees? Just be honest about what the car is. Just be honest. And the market works. Our free market works. It works beautifully. And There are so many people that need a cheap car. There's so many, many people that can work on a car. There's so many, you know, our. It works. Just price it right, tell it what it is, and I mean, I sell those cars in two or three days, tops.

So, Jack, we know what. We know what we think it is that you did, right? It's all about honesty. What is the thing that you. That you could tell every deal out there don't do. I've done this. It's no good. Stay away.

I've done so much wrong, Luke. What have I really done? All right, so in with Buy Here, Pay here in particular, I have almost sold myself out of business many times. Like, I have sold a lot of cars in a short amount of time and harm myself financially bad. Like put myself in a terrible cash position over and over and over again to where I was really just sweating bullets. And I'm still not great at it. I'm a lot better at it. But if I think my biggest mistake with the car business is getting into buy here, pay here and not understanding cash flow, cash position, how to structure a deal, not focusing on the numbers. I would only look at my DMS and look at sales. Well, look, our. Our potential profit is X. I would only look at sales, and I didn't have the sense to look at deal structure and understand cash flow and understand what I just did to myself by being, oh, I just sold this car that's going to make seven or eight or nine grand or whatever that. Ten grand or whatever that number is. But I'm actually in a negative $4,500 cash position and do that, you know, 30 times a month without some serious capital. And I almost put myself out of business, I mean, probably dozen times. Just eager to do business, eager to sell a car, eager to. Eager to do something. And I just didn't understand buyer payer at all. None. And so I, you know, I really. That way.

You're not the only person that did that. I promise you.

I can't be right. I mean, we all. I look at sales and think, man, we really did great. And then at the end of the month, it's like, what do you mean, negative? 200,000. Yeah, we don't have any. That's what's funny.

And I think it's those transition times where you're growing because you're like, oh, man, Yeah, I sold 50 cars and I had to go buy 50 cars to replace them, but then I can't make payroll on the 5th because I put it all in inventory, you know, and so maybe a lot of buy here payers, we start growing too fast and we're outpacing that cash flow that comes back in from those payments.

That's right. And then the mistake that comes with that is also not having a great accountant or an accountant that is specializes. You know, I had an accountant that she had customers that were painters and customers that were, you know, I mean, just every industry in the world. And she's a wonderful person and she did me a great job, but that wasn't her specialty. Now we've moved on to somebody that, you know, it's like I'm going to pay them a lot of money, but they never cost me a penny. Right. But it's somebody that gets it right with the, with the, and, and has tax advice. Buckeye. Right, Buckeye. Working with my accountant right now. And those two vendors are speaking with each other and helping me. I mean, what a crucial, what a crucial part of this operation is having people like that on your side. So accounting not understanding buy here, pay here. I totally wet the bed in that department. And still I'm not, you know, it needs to be better even still. And as Luke, you've mentioned several times during this about being young and getting into the business and you know, I think if you're going to get into buy here, pay here, and you don't come from wealth, then you've got to, you got to have some type of capital source. Right. And, and it's so hard to, to find that relationship and do that without being involved in your state associations, without going to NIDA meetings and events and without having proper accounting. I mean, you're never going to get on with a, with a lender of any merit without proper accounting. And I should have started, if I had started doing that right out, out the gate, just right off the rip, I'd be a lot farther than I am today. So.

Jack. Yeah. I mean, you, you've. This is a. Everybody better have their notepad out because there's a lot, a lot of great information here and we appreciate you being with us. Jeff, you got anything else?

No, no, that's great. I mean, I think the number one thing I just wrote down is just customer service. You know, again, exactly what Jack said. The hits like customer service. I'm always looking for the next sell. I'm always looking to grow. We're always looking to increase. But like, are we, are we doing that at the expense of our current customers? Because we're just not given the time and attention that they need. So, Jack, thank you for that reminder.

Absolutely, man. I mean, I want to be. I want to be the. I want Turnerbird Motors to be the Chick Fil A and the Publix of buyer pay here with customer service. And, you know, that's why we frequent those other businesses.

Yeah, agree.

That's why. And people will pay up, you know, I mean, you can get. You. You can name your price if you just roll out the red carpet. I love it.

Thank you.

Thanks, Jack.

Appreciate it.

All right, guys, thank you so much. Y' all have a good day. So glad you joined us. Please take a minute to leave us a review and share this podcast with a friend, the independent dealer Podcast Dealers, Helping dealers.