#209 - How I Built This w/ Bill Metzinger

You are listening to the Independent Dealer Podcast with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Independent Dealer Podcast brought to you by Buckeye Dealership Consulting. Today we have Mr. Bill Metzinger with us.

Hello.

Matt Singer. Beautiful Bill.

I got that messed up last time, didn't I? I think so, yeah.

What an idiot.

So, Bill, you own Red, White and Blue Autos?

One of the owners. Yes, one of the owners.

Where are you guys at? Give us, give us. Where are you from?

Ashland or sales lot is in Ashland, Pennsylvania, which is about, basically northwest Pennsylvania. About two hours from Philadelphia, about an hour from Allentown.

And just one location.

One location. And then we have a sales area of a sales lot. One location and we have a recon center and sort of corporate headquarters that's about 20 minutes south.

Okay, so corporate headquarters and recon center.

In the same spot.

Yeah, collections, accounting, marketing, everything's there. The only thing happens in sales is sales lot. We have two bays that we have one tech there. Details there as well. We do photos there. But mostly everything with the exception of sales happens at the recon center, slash headquarters.

That makes it a little easier, I think.

Yeah, it's so smart. Kind of a hub.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you're in like a beautiful little utopia where everyone buys cars and pays for them perfectly.

We're blessed.

It's a great community.

I have friends that are in the big cities and our models are certainly a little bit different, but we blessed. I always say that people in our area if, if they're there a year after high school, they're going to be the rest of their lives. So we don't have a lot of transient people. They're not going from city to city to city like a lot of your city.

Like if you grew, I mean if you grew up there, it's tough. You're going to stay there, you like it, your family's there.

Yeah, that makes, that makes collections easier for sure.

Sounds like a great recipe for success. So how did you get into the business, Bill? Give us your background.

I'll give you, I'll give you the two minute version. I choose the investment business from 2000 to 2012 and got out of that business and actually had a small property along in Ashland, Pennsylvania that I had. And a friend of mine at the time always talked about buy her pay year because it's a business that he wanted to get into. And I ended up putting a business plan together in the summer of 2013. The business plan was to do eight to 10 cars a month and have four employees. We opened up in January, we sold 38 cars. February, we sold 62 cars. And we didn't look back. Wow. So, yeah, it blew up pretty fast. There was a need for it in that area. Really wasn't at the time, a lot of competition. There's a little more that came in. And then soon after, about six months later, we bought the recon center because we needed, you know, we needed technicians to basically put these cars together.

So when you started this, absolutely zero car experience.

Zero car.

You're not a car guy.

Not a car guy. Never even changed. Never even changed. All in my life.

Not an idiot like me.

No.

I just grew up as turning wrenches and training.

I mean, I entered it from. A lot of guys will enter this business from the car side of it. I entered it purely from the finance. I think it was a positive, looking at it that way.

I think so too.

Yeah. The car is. I always say the car is the commodity. And it's. No matter what, whatever widget it is. It's. It's the finance side. It's the best side for sure.

Look, looking back, that's. Being a car guy limits you on this business portion of it. Being a business guy doesn't limit you because it's just selling anything, right?

Yes.

I always joke around, I wish, I wish that these were like refrigerators or.

Toasters that we could do this with, find ourselves.

It just be a little harder.

Cars are running around, little explosions constantly.

Exactly.

So.

So within 10 years, right? I mean, how long? Eight years now you've run in this thing.

You've.

I mean, that's some growth, man. How do you manage that? How do you handle that? Is that like. Did you.

Did you.

After month three, did you sit down and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, guys, new pro forma, new projections. We're not going to be here. We're going to be up here.

How do we get there after three months? It wasn't that calculated. We were just trying to get money from. We were just trying to get money. You're bleeding cash. We're blessed to have a partner that, you know, had assets. So we continually brought in assets. So definitely was not that planned out. I would say, you know, at six months a year, 18 months, you're starting to see, okay, we can project this out to maybe 50 sales or whatever it may be. Now we average about 100. But, you know, we did a projection for a long time in that 50 to 60amonth range and continue to, you know, continue to grow. Off of that, you know, continue to get better banking relationship, continue to get better rates, continue to just progress as, as, you know, I mean years seems like not that long, but it certainly just continued to grow and grow and grow over that time.

And how many accounts you have now.

You think we have exactly? Actually at 2000 and about 31 million of AR right now.

Jeez, that's going to be your entire county.

Well, actually, it's funny, our immediate county, probably 15% of our business comes from like within 1012 miles, 15 miles of where we're at, which is our county. But we do service about an 80, 90 mile radius of where we're from. So if you look at, you know, we, we sort of do a, every month looking at the, a spot on the Google map for all our sales for that month and you just to see where the pockets of sales are, deliveries are coming from. And you know, we see a lot of our sales are 40, 50 miles away. So the immediate is not really. I mean the town of Ashland, Pennsylvania has 1800 people. You know, we might do one or two sales a month from that town.

But you're willing to go out 40, 50 miles. You have a 90?

Yeah, we got about 90 miles.

Yeah, that's what we do.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, but we try to stay in the state, but about a 90 mile.

But 90 miles where we're at is, is 90 minutes away. You know, you do 90 miles in Dallas, Texas, that takes you four days. I mean it's just not because every, to go across town takes two hours in our area. To go 10 miles takes 10 minutes.

That's kind of the way it is in my area.

Do you find that, do the customers are they, do they pay less as they're further away from your dealership or the same type of payer? I always feel like when guys start getting out of that like reach, I can't grab them on a, on an afternoon that they, they know it, right?

Yeah, no, not really. I mean we, the area that we're at, we tend to go sort of west out towards State College and north up towards the New York border, Wilkes Barre, Scranton, Hazleton and stuff. And I think it's a lot of the same demographic and the same type of people that again, you're there after high school, you're there forever kind of thing. We're still pretty far away from major cities, but really not. I mean we underwrite the same whether they're, whether they're 80 miles from us or you know, eight miles away.

So that's a very interesting thing to bring up because I typically grade the further they go out they get less points. Okay, but you're saying you don't do that.

I know we had that model and we, we just looked at it as if we looked at it as the same. I mean because the reality is everyone has a Jeep. We use, you know, zitter on and you know, GPS payment reminder and, and shut off. So whether we're buzzing a car that's 80 miles away or 8 miles away, it's really not a big deal.

So let's bring up something else that happens with that distance relationship we'll call it is getting the car's warranty work done and not being in your shop. How have you leveraged relationships in that 90 miles to make it work?

We probably have 30 or 40 sort of premier shops that we have on our list. So first thing we do, customer calls in about a service problem, engine knocking, just an example. We'll come in and they'll say okay, where's the car at zip code. We'll put the zip code into a, basically a Google form and it'll show the shops based off their address of the closest shops and we'll say okay, here's a shop that's about eight miles away, here's a shop that's three miles away. Or we'll sell the customer. Do you have a shop that you work with in the past that you have faith in, that you trust? And that's how we found some of our best shops out of the area was by talking to customers and they say oh yeah, our family been dealing with, you know, Jimmy's garage for the last 40 years. We'll reach out to them and say you're interested in giving us a quote on this job. And that's how we sort of built this network of outside shops. So really now sometimes if the quotes are, if we're not really sure about the opinion of the, of the shop or whatever it may be, parts are too much, whatever they might need a month to get it done. In those cases we'll take a, we'll send a flatbed, bring it back to our shop and turn it around. But a lot of the, a lot of the shops do a lot of our outside work and it even all perfect examples of oil changes. I mean we haven't done an oil change in house with the exception of during recon in years. That's so smart because it tires your no.1. You're going to have an a rate attack doing 20 hour old change. It's just not worth it.

Not worth it at all.

That's.

That's always been the. Like, it's hard for me to wrap my head around that. Okay. 90 miles away, the car's broken down, everybody freaks out in my shop, in my office. And I go, well, hold on, y'. All, we can figure this out. But I like the way you've already got it pretty much set in motion, I guess. But you have to do that early on.

Yeah, it's. And you have to have these, this network sort of stuff. Oh, yeah, it's a non event. I mean, it truly is a non. And with the, you know, with the search capabilities now, even if somebody calls, hey, I'm on my way down to Florida. I just broke down North Carolina. Let's be honest. You can make it happen. You really can. You get on Google and you're searching some shops and it might be a little bit of a pain to make a bunch of phone calls and make it happen, but you certainly can make it happen.

So you have a reinsurance set up, right?

Yes.

Okay, so Buckeye. Buckeye's great supporters of the podcast and how. Let's talk about that. How did you get into the. When did you start your reinsurance? Was this something you knew about right off the bat or.

Yeah, actually, day one.

Wow.

Hard to believe. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Listen, I go down far and I had some good. I had some. I hired consultants, I hired Chuck and David. We brought them on before we even started in business, so.

Interesting.

Yeah. So he started a business. Yes.

It wasn't just a green car trying to sling cars and actually talked to people.

I knew what they were talking. Yeah. What a concept. Right? But no, we, we came in and we started from day one. We're different company with now, but we started from day one with it, you know, setting up the reinsurance. It started off with basically debt cancellation back in the day and a warranty. And then over time it just, we added some other products like CPI and Gap as the years went by. But, but we had a reinsurance company from the, the very first sale that we did. We had. We. I mean, it hurt on cash flow early on.

Yeah, sure.

That's one thing that, that we sort of weren't told.

Yeah, people. Didn't people tell you that?

They didn't tell us, like, you're going to reinsure all this capital, but you're not gonna have any profits for many years because you're just starting a port.

But it helps you tax wise. So that's always a great thing. Yeah. And so what is the. Is that. I mean, is the reinsurance going to be the best decision you've ever made in this business or do you have something that you look at and go, actually, this is the best thing I've ever done.

I mean, for, for, for a looking at your future kind of thing. And that's the future. You know, I can certainly look at it as the, you know, as the best thing. That is certainly the best thing we did as far as financially goes.

Yeah.

Does anything else? No, but as far as it matters a lot. But as far as the business aspect of it, I think trying not to. Shameless plug here for us, just trying to sell the best car that we can and, and offer complete transparency to our customer. From day one, we always believe that we, we didn't want to, you know, we don't want to be the snake oil salesman. We don't. We just want to put it out there. Here's the deal. We never wanted the hard sell. Never. We. So with putting out a good product, trying to be as honest we possibly can about it, you know, it's a difficult industry sometimes, but to be, to be supportive in the public, to sell vehicle, to be transparent, I mean, to adopt that model. Day one, like I always say, I will not sell a car unless it's a vehicle that I will hand the keys to my wife and kids to drive across country. And I know that might not be a common theme and for everybody out there, better be.

Want to stay in business.

Right. So that we live. We sort of live that model and, and try to end it. And it built our reputation, it built our. Our Google following, our Google reviews, our Facebook following and stuff like that. So it's. I think it was a good decision. It's an expensive decision.

Yes, it is.

I always tell people it cost a lot of money to have a great reputation. It does, because that means a lot of goodwill, that means a lot of warranty, that means a lot of body work. That's not going to make you any money going in, but it's a quality of the product that's going out, and that's so important.

I think repo rates go down with the quality of the product, especially with bodywork and things like this. Because if you're proud of something, you don't want to let it go back, right?

Yes. Something you're proud to drive. That was one of our common catchphrases. To have something that you're proud to have, something you're proud to drive.

Speaking of your Google reviews, I didn't look it up today, but I looked it up back when we're in Sarasota and I think you got 2000 plus Google reviews. I mean that's, that's Ballin right there.

Oh, don't ask for them. That's the, you know, there's all this software out there that pushes you to do reviews. Yeah, we don't, we don't have a, we don't have software. And we might.

You ask.

We ask.

Yeah.

If you're happy with their service, could you please. But we don't send them in a separate room and lock them in there and.

Yeah. Make them do it. Review.

So yeah, that's. Yeah. And we have like Darner, 40,000 Facebook likes, which, you know, it's a lot. And then you know, a couple, whatever. A thousand Facebook reviews as well. So that's.

How big a deal do you think it is? Those Google reviews out there, how much traffic does it drive to your store?

You believe? I think the Facebook, I mean the Facebook and Google, we promote them on our Facebook marketing. But I think it makes a big deal. I mean it's in the world we live in right now. I mean, what's the first thing you guys do if you want to buy something? Amazon.

Look at the review.

Right. So you're seeing that and you're reading the same, you're reading the same review over. Sure. One out of 50, it's going to be somebody that you might have repoed and then they don't like you anymore or whatever it may be. But you know, when 99 or 49 out of 50 are quality, it's definitely, it's definitely positive.

Yeah, I mean that's, I think that sells cars.

Yeah.

Yeah. So Bill, let me ask you this then. On the flip side of that, are there one or two things you could look back on and you'd say, man, these are. Maybe I chased the wrong ball here. Maybe I had my eyes off the prize. Or maybe I, maybe, you know, we went down this road too long and it was really not profitable or a bad idea. Any of those things stick out to you?

Nothing, nothing drastic. I mean, I think there was a time a few years ago I thought about, let's get a larger group of maybe some lower priced vehicles and maybe not do like sort of like having second thoughts about the bodywork sides up like that because you still have a lot of people that are, that are great people. They don't have that income, but they need the $8,000 car, they can't get the $14,000. And then we, you know, we did try that with sort of back end, you know, back end payments at the end to try to make the payment work. But so really. But no, knock on wood. And I'm truly knocking on wood. We didn't really have that, that blow up or that thing we look back on and say, what the heck were we thinking?

That's funny when you talk about the, that trying that lower end because people have been telling me for years, well, you're missing a whole segment. But I'm like, but that's not what I want to be. You know, there is, there is a buy here, pay here, down the store.

That is that. Yeah.

But now there's a lot of money to be had.

There's a lot of money to be made. I'm not.

Right.

I'm not dissing that product. It's not what I am.

Right, right.

And you got to know what you are to be successful at it, I think. Right.

And a lot of it is, I mean, as far as making the blow up mistake, I mean, and everybody could. We. I could have one next week. But, but I think it helped having the right consult, good songs. I think it helped tremendously to have a 20 group that every four months you go in and you're sharing this. And then I have, I have three or four of my best friends are car dealers since getting into this business. You know, the Chad Randash and the Mark Jones of the world are. I consider them best friends. And we text daily. You know, Matt King, a lot of these guys are very close and, and we're sharing this stuff on a daily basis. So, you know, they bring in their experience along with our eight years of experience. And I think it just keeps you from making that, you know, from making that, that big mistake.

Yeah, I can't agree with that more. How long have you been in a 20 room?

I started, my first meeting was the summer after we opened up. It was, it was in San Francisco and I sat beside Chad Randash and I talked to him.

You know, that's, that's so crazy. We've been in business. This is our 37th year, 36 year anyway. But I didn't get in 20 group until my dad was never in one and he came from a franchise. But I didn't get into it like seven, eight years ago. And the leap that I have seen from, you know, then until now is just tremendous. If I'd have been in this thing since the beginning, who knows?

Yeah, it's a humbling experience. Oh, new people joining and you see new people coming in. Even experienced guys that were 10, 15 years in the business. They walk into a 20 group meeting and they think, oh, we're in a big shot of the town. And they come into a 20 group and they leave. We all left humble.

Oh, yeah.

Meeting or two. It's a humbling experience when you have your peers that, that, that are really on it.

You don't, you don't know as much when you walk into a room with people bigger than you, you know, or.

Not, and some smaller. I mean. Oh, yeah, yeah, great operators. I know guys that sell 15, 20 cars a month. It's like, boy, these are just tremendous operators and very profitable stuff like that.

Something always. And I know this is weird, but you probably get it coming from a place where it never snows and place where you were at probably snows a lot. How do you all deal with operating a business when you can't go anywhere, it's too cold to do anything?

What's that like? I mean, it's certainly an expensive day whenever it snows because basically all your tax, instead of turning wrenches, you're paying guys 25, 30 bucks an hour to shovel snow or to clean off cars. You have to clean off cars, you know, two or three days a week, you know, but. But it's three months a year. I mean, we, we know it's weird every time you get that three or four inches, you know, the next day or two days after, you're going to check the, you're going to check the, the accident slack, and it's going to be three or four wrecks from snow. I mean, you just know it going in and it's just.

That'll hit your CPI a little bit, won't it?

Hit the CPI a little bit. On the flip side is you guys, you know, guys in Arizona, probably a lot more cars over here.

Yes, we do.

You know, and got people in Florida have a lot more paint damage from salt. So. Yeah, we all have. There's, there's no, there's. There's probably no perfect place.

Yeah. South Carolina, when in the summertime when it's 100 degrees, cars overheat a lot.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's just like, you're like.

You know, you have guys that lose a third of their. They lose their whole lot.

That'd make me nervous.

So it's. We all. No place is perfect.

Yeah, we get, we get that every once in a while. But another thing that you do. I mean, you're very innovative, I think, in. In our industry. And I think it's from your outside perspective, looking in, from not being a car guy like a bunch of knuckleheads. And so, you know, you did a lot of things during COVID that sped up your transition to being virtual. You know, what are some. What's some advice that you tell other dealers out there if they want to figure out how to become more vroom like or Carvana like. What does that look like in our space?

I mean, I think first you gotta just back up and look. What does the customer want? What is the customer asking for? What do we all want, for that matter? We want this, the fastest process possible. You know, we don't want a drag. We don't want to wait a whole Saturday, or we. We want to. And we want to do it on our own terms. So if we want to log on two o' clock in the morning and start a process to buy a car, we want that process.

And our customers do that.

Oh, there's no question about it. So we. So we see that. So we evolved. I mean, we probably knew that, you know, from the Carvanas and the brooms of the world. I think we all can assume that, you know, they are the sort of leaders in that space, and eventually that we're all gonna have to get there. What Covid did is it just brought that timeline from a 5 to 10 year to a 5 to 10 month. I truly feel that it forced it. So Pennsylvania, you know, we're very aggressive with shutdowns. We were shut down for 90 days, but we. But we. We adopted a delivery curbside pickup model and 90 days. I just told the story earlier about this. 90 days later we were supposed to open back. We, Pennsylvania, opened back up. And my sales ladies basically said, why? We were. We had our best three months we ever had. Why are we gonna open up these doors? And that was July of whatever, 2020. And they came back, and we waited until that following February of 21 to open up. Nobody walked in our door except for employees for almost a year. And it was the best year we ever had in business. So that sort of proved it was. It was almost like a beta test, but it was a live beta test that we had to. That we had a force just to make this work. So now we're at the point where half the vehicles that we sell are delivery, 45% are curbside pickup, and about 5% are people just roaming around a lot trying to buy a car.

Yeah, so, you know, the old adage is, you know, there's an up out there. Go get him.

Right.

And so that's really changed our industry a lot over the last five years, maybe 10 years, but there's still those people out there. I mean, you say 5%, you really think that's a true number?

It is a true number. Now we track it. That we know. Like, we know exactly what it is. It's actually 4%, to be honest. It's 96. 4% that actually. Yeah, we pulled it two months ago. But I mean, I could get it real time too. But yeah, it's just a. It's a. It's a very, very small number. And you know, but the whole. Our whole concept, I mean, you talk about the up, there is no ups at our place. We do a shared. We do. We don't do commission. We do hourly. Everybody's hourly with a little bit of a bonus. So that's out of the question. All the things that cause conflict, I always say all the things that cause drama, I don't. Anything to do with. So you know, the commission structure. Okay, it's Europe. No, we work as a team. We Elmo and Auto Raptor CRM. And they're seeing it. So anybody can. Anybody can work elite. Everybody's worked. BD sales staff, they're all working as a team to get the vehicle to deliver to curbside pickup. And they just. They have an hourly rate to do that particular task.

So if a customer is out there as a real up. Do you send them a virtual application and all that? Is that how that works?

So if they show up on the lot, I mean, we're. We're anti. Hard. We're probably the least hard sales car dealership in America to the point that if somebody's walking our lot, they can literally be out there for an hour walking around. And no one will go out. No one. Because that's our process. You know, the detail guy might be walking through to grab a car and he'll. He'll nonchalantly say, hey, if you need anybody, just go on.

Just.

Just go on. And they'll help you out, grab the.

Keys to whatever you want.

Yeah, it literally gets that point. So we are the most non. Hard sell you'll, You'll. You'll. You'll ever find in the car business. But it just worked for us. And people know, I mean, our reviews a lot of times will bring up the fact of the. No, no pressure, no stress. I don't feel like we want people. We don't want to force somebody to buy. We don't want to make a sale. We want to assist somebody in. The person that works at Walmart at the checkout counter is not making a sale. Right. They're, they're, they're closing. They're facilitating a deal, they're signing that. They're, they're giving, they're running the, they're running this over the thing and they're running and, and they're paying for something. That's sort of the concept. I'm not saying the salespeople don't sell it all. They answer a lot of questions, but they're not there to hard sell. They're there to answer questions until somebody is satisfied with everything they need to know and then let the customer make the decision, oh, yes, okay, now I'm ready to buy. And then we facilitate that process.

You ever getting pushback from customers that feel like you're not helping them enough if they're out there walking around and nobody's talking to them?

No, not really. I think they appreciate. I mean, I would, I mean, who? Seriously? You go into a clothes store, I stopped at, you go boss the other day to look for some. As soon as I walk in the door, I have a guy, that's me. And I always say, like I said to my wife, I would have bought a couple of shirts, but this guy's breathing down my neck when I walk in. So what do I end up doing? You make a quick laugh because this guy's following me and you bail out and you bail. So I don't understand how corporate America didn't sort of figure that out.

Well, Amazon did, I guess.

I mean, Amazon did. Yeah. Those big. Yeah, that's why they're the biggest companies. Apple figured it out. Yeah. Did Apple ever sell you a phone?

No.

Absolutely no. Absolutely not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Some really nice commercials. And I watched commercials like, oh, I won't.

You can win. You bought a phone, you need that. There's no those. Those Apple people are not trading. They're not trained in sales. They're trained in how to assist customer service, answer your questions, educate you.

And that's really what our salespeople are, especially because, you know, we're selling financing. We're selling a program, a great car, reasonable financing that gets you to work and get your kids to school and all that. That's what we're selling. So if they really want it, they're going to come to us and we just take care of them and off they go.

Shouldn't have To. Shouldn't have to. And then along with the credit reporting and long warranties and peace of mind, and you see, checking all the boxes. You check all the boxes, and that means they're ready to buy. And I think you'll get a good customer, which probably helps our delinquency numbers. It helps our. I think it just. It goes right down the line. It just helps. It helps all the numbers to be a better business.

That's so interesting. So you have different philosophies, and when you come up with these ideas or these things, is it something that you just instinctively know, like, yeah, what do I got to do? Well, I got to buy two flatbed trucks or a trailer and a truck to deliver these things. Go get them. Let's do this.

Yeah.

Running by Monday. Or these things that you process through. Like, how's your decision? Oh, I wish.

It's definitely not b. It's okay. We sort of. Sort of joke, and my sister is one of the partners and our controller and extremely bright, but she always jokes with. Oh, here we go. Ready? Aim. Fire. Yeah. Yeah. You know, what's it, though? Fire. Fire. Aim. I'm sorry, I don't even know that part. It's the complete opposite of what you're supposed to do. Sorry.

Ready?

I get. We get all the. I sort of gather all the information quickly and then. And make a decision and. But seriously, I mean, how much? Okay. You look about the delivery process.

Sure.

You got to spend, you know, $75,000 on a truck and $5,000 on a trailer, and you put up some Facebook posts around it. What's the downside? Yeah, the downside is, okay, it doesn't work. And I sell the truck for 70.

Yeah.

And I keep the trailer for personal use.

Everyone's so scared that they're going to do something and it's going to like, well, what's it going to do? Yeah, you might spe a couple days or weeks training on some new process.

You know, I have analysis paralysis at times, and then sometimes I just go. And I feel like when I just go, sometimes it works really well for a while, but then I didn't come up with every possible problem. You know what I mean?

But you'll never. You'll never. You'll never do it. I mean, some of you have to get it out there, and then you. Then you have to continually defend our. When we first did it, we had a. For signing documents, we were sending drivers with iPads to people's houses. Okay. And then they would do the documents There. And we found out that people don't have good cell phone service. That wasn't working. It was a headache. So guess what? We, we did some research. I have a, I have a fantastic general manager who's our first employee and he did a lot of research on docuscience. So we end up using that product and if something, if we have to tweak it down the road, guess what we'll do? And we continue to tweak the process for every single, every single aspect we're always making. And it's not me making the tweaks. A lot of times it's that manager or an employee that will say, hey, can we start? You know, perfect example, we had a car that, that we delivered the other day and it was all salt in a rope and it was a white car and it basically got there and the car was black.

Oh yeah.

So my, my, my, my general sales manager said, hey, I'm getting on the, I'm going to get on the website and, and find some sort of shields for the front of our trailers so they don't get so bad. And then, and I'm also going to make a policy to tell the drivers that if they're ever that bad to run the car through a, run car through a car wash before it gets delivered. Okay, so that was two tweaks. It was him making that decision. He was just telling me what he's doing. So give people the flexibility to make decisions. And that's another thing that really helps. It doesn't always have to be, I don't have the franchise and great ideas. Let the smart people and let the experienced people that live and breathe it every day make those decisions.

How many employees do you have?

45.

Okay.

Yeah, 45. Yep, 45. Including porters.

That's a lot going on. You ever envision the buy here, pay here industry? Are you. Because I think you're so far ahead on this. Just having a warehouse, no lot and all your cars are inside and you're just delivering them to them every day.

It's absolutely. I've spoken at many meetings and had that conversation. And so I think the Future is a 40, 50,000 square foot warehouse and with three or four delivery trucks and BD sales service and also a place that you do curbside pickup. I truly think that is the future of business. And it doesn't mean another thing is the, the prime real estate. On that, on that topic, the prime real estate's gonna be these, these $10 million facilities that sit on 8 acres on a busy highway, you don't need them. Because I tell people, people that come to do curbside pickup, we joke. The salespeople said we were ever in Ashland, Pennsylvania. Oh, first time ever here. So what would it matter if we were three miles down the road in an industrial park? Because they're just going to put the address wherever you are, putting the address in the nav and they're going to pull at the front door. They're not coming because they see our light up sign. They're not coming because, oh, we're going to drive by again. Years ago, even a couple years ago, that might have been the model. The model of future is if it's going to be delivering curbside pickup, it's going to be in big open areas.

One other thing it does, even if you have a hot customer, they're not around all the other customers. So you can calm the situation down a lot quicker and get it resolved a lot faster.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the process. I mean, I say it a lot. The last six times I was at my dealership and I'll pop into the sales for an hour or two here and there. The last six times I was there, the last two weeks, there wasn't a single customer in the lot in the show.

Yeah.

And that would concern a lot of people. There's no one here. But I have three sales ladies on the phone, and it's a hop in place. There's no customers. But then at the end of the day, I'll look at the recap. We saw five cars, we had three deliveries and two curbside pickups. But if a curbside pickup is anywhere from eight to 12 minutes, that it takes the odds of me seeing that two customers a day to do curbside pickups. It's, you know, you know, one in $20. I have a chance to actually see a customer lot. So it's a whole. It's. It's just a different. It's just. That's definitely a different market model.

We got a lot to learn.

Yeah.

And Bill can help us learn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, we're here at dpg.

Yeah.

And we're Phoenix now.

Yeah, yeah.

Awesome concept. You're enjoying yourself right now.

Absolutely. Having a great time. You guys are doing a good job yourself. This is great for the independent dealer. It's a big thing. We need it. And I really appreciate what you guys are doing and appreciate what Buckeye's doing as well. You guys, a lot of great stuff coming down the road. And they are having.

Having all of us here together, you and I have never been in a 20 group, so I would really never get a chance to talk to you. Like, you know, and some. There's some really big guys, you being one of them here, that I would never get to see. And I can sit and go ask them a question and sit with them and they. They're going to talk to me. This is. This is innovative.

Yeah. I love the concept. I hope that in the future it's. It's something like this, which I think it's going to be once a year and then a couple of 20 group meetings. But this is to have everybody. I mean, I was in 320 groups over the years and to see the. My previous members that I. That I considered close friends, and especially my first group that was sort of a beginner, a starter group that were smaller dealers. Yeah. And to look back and sit at dinner and thank those gentlemen for. For what they taught me that first year, two or three, and how it helped evolve the business. I mean, it's priceless.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah.

Cool.

Bill, thank you for your time.

I appreciate it. Thank you very much, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Dealers helping dealers. Please leave us a review and subscribe the independent Dealer podcast.