#210 - What is BHPH United?

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

Hello and welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast brought to you by Buckeye Dealership Consulting. This week we are kicking off convention season.

Luke.

We have got some great conventions coming up and one very specific to the Buy Here, Pay Here industry. Buy Here, Pay Here, United.

Yeah, I tell you, I love convention season. It's like, you know, what is Wedding Crashers like, you know, what's your favorite time of the year? It's wedding season, not it's convention season. So it's. It's truly fun getting to see everybody that we don't necessarily get to see on a regular basis. Vendors, I tell you, being around the vendors, that can really teach us a lot of things and, and learning just what certain vendors do that we didn't necessarily know they did and then how they can help us or the vendors we currently have, how they can help us. So we have two of those vendors here today, but they're really great friends of mine and so, so glad they're here. They're very involved with Buy Here, Pay Here, United. That is Paxton Wright from Promolon and Ariad Summer Sommer from iteron. So thanks for y', all for being here and I guess let's dive into it. Jeff.

Yeah, you guys, we really do appreciate your time and we really appreciate. I mean, back there's a handful of vendors. You guys are putting your money where your mouth is on this Buy here, Pay Here convention. There's been some in the past and, you know, you get involved, but for a group of vendors to get together and say, hey, we're going to support the industry and we're going to give education at a very reasonable price situation, all that stuff. Maybe let's go from both you guys, introduce yourself to the community and tell us, why do something like this? Why get mixed up in all this?

First, good morning. Thank you for having us. Really, I feel among friends here. So it's great. Ariad zomer. I'm the CEO of Iteran USA Etoron. We are a GPS manufacturing company, been in business for over 27 years. A bit unique in our industry. Publicly traded for the last almost 20 years on the NASDAQ. Just over 3,000 employees all over the world and we are the manufacturer of the unit. So we actually own all of our solution from A to Z, the software coding, the manufacturing, the advancing. And we are very in tune with any industry that we are playing in. Specifically, the Buy here, pay here is something that's very close to my heart. As prior of me Joining Etoran about 10 years ago, I was a buy here pay here expert coming from subprime finance company. I financed those cars, I skip traced them. I had collectors. So everything that we speak around, the buy here pay here is really close to my heart and close to everything that we do. Buy here Payer United is really all about moving the buyer payer industry with specific related education and a new venue for dealers to meet, discuss and get better. I'll let Paxton introduce himself, then we can dive deeper into what's behind it.

Sure.

Thanks, Arya. I'm Paxton Wright, managing partner of Primalink Capital. Our company's been around for this is our 15th year anniversary. We provide capital to the buy here pay here industry. It's all we do. We do revolving lines of credit for receivables, we do floor plans for inventory. We do sell leasebacks on real estate, we do mortgages on real estate. And we help dealers with mergers and acquisitions. Right. Whether it's succession planning or trying to find the next opportunity or purchase a business, sell a business really just trying to help our dealers with all their capital needs in one place. So, you know, Jeff, to answer your question, I think, I think for Prime Lynn, it just boiled down to, you know, sharing an ideology with a group of other companies that really saw the same things that we saw happening in the industry. We had many dealers that were coming to us and just saying, you know, hey, where do we get more education? You know, dealers that have gone through what they've gone through in the last couple of years with COVID and all the challenges, you know, the trans to employees working remote, the challenges in the collections and the service department, especially with the techs and so forth. How does the sales market work today? What is my best strategy for accessing inventory? And so these are questions that have always been questions, but the answers today are very different than the ANSWERS Even just 18, 24 months ago. And so what we felt was there was a lot of consolidation that's happened in the industry. And as a result of that consolidation, there's just less options for dealers to get access to new information. I'm a former 20 group moderator and Jeff, I listened to you and Luke's podcast where you had Bill Nyland from Tax Max on and you know, he talked a lot about the advantages of going to a 20 group meeting was, you know, obviously there's inherent, you know, advantages of being in the room, but it's really the conversations, you know, in the shuttle to the airport, it's the conversations at breakfast, it's the conversations at the bar afterwards where dealers really get one on one with one another and share their best ideas, their best practices, the, you know, whatever their biggest challenges are. And what we wanted to do was put an event together that allows rather than just 15 or maybe 25 dealers to have that experience, for hundreds of dealers to have that experience.

Let's, let's go, let's talk about pax. I'm sorry to cut you off, but let's talk about the consolidation and what's going to be the difference here and you talked about, I guess is the like mindedness of the Buy here pay Here store compared to, to just an independent dealer as a whole. Why is it important that, that we kind of break our part of the industry out of the hole and do something like this? Why is, why is that more important than being around people who maybe are in a different part of the industry and can maybe teach us things? Why is it important to pigeonhole ourselves into this?

Well, I think for, you know, the state national organizations have an obligation to serve a much broader range of dealers. And Buy Here Pay Here United is focused on exactly one thing and that is the Buy here pay here industry. So all of our agenda topics, all the focus of the event is really built around providing the most value possible for Buy here pay here dealers. We have no obligation to any other types of dealers or segments of the market. We just wanted to create an event that focused on those dealers and those dealers alone. And I know that this something that Ariadne has some really good thoughts on. So I'm going to hand it over to him as well.

Well, I think it's not necessarily more important per se, but it's very specific. So we want to focus on the things that are relevant to Buy Here Pay Here. And you know, needless to say, if you're independent dealers, there is, there are some things that are, you know, you kind of bring the same worries to the table. But as buyer payer, when you finance your own vehicles, when you service the collection and the recovery aspect of it, that's very unique to the Buy here pay here and it's covered with many regulation and compliance. You know, some of our members obviously are expert in compliance. Just the last few days, you know, the ftc, changing the safeguard rules and so forth, those things that keep happening. And when you are dealing in the buy here pay here you want to make sure that you have a place to get that specific information. So again, Paxton is 100% correct. Those national and state association are super important. We support them. We are members. We actually encourage our dealers to be members. We want to make sure that they are very strong and keep pushing the lobbying aspect and bringing the dealers together in different venues. But still we couldn't sit aside, keep getting the same requests from dealers. How can I get more? Where else are you presenting? What else is new? What's the technology that's coming? What's the risk that I need to specifically in buy you payer be aware of? And that's exactly what we're trying to achieve here. I can even one thing that Paxton mentioned, 20 groups. Obviously 20 groups are great and you know, I personally enjoy every time that I have the opportunity to just listen. I learned so much from those conversations between 20 groups. But dealers in training groups, at the end of the day see a lot of their groups and we wanted to create an opportunity to meet more dealers from all across the country with different sizes and to have dealers the opportunity to bring more people in their dealership. So we build this conference with the concept of different tracks that follow. Whether you're in a collection or in the inventory or HR finance, whatever, whatever the case is, your people needs to be educated as well. That's what we're trying to do here.

And Ariadne, you know, you come from a very unusual place than most vendors is because you've actually boots on the ground. You've had a huge portfolio. What you know, what's the difference between today and when you were fully involved in the subprime industry? What has changed in and what can your insight bring to this conference that will help us become better dealers?

How much time do we have? You know, it almost, you know, when I was in this industry finance percentage of advances are nothing compared to what we have today. The cost of inventory was nothing compared. So the risk that dealers and buyer payer operator are taking today is by far much stronger. So technology comes to help you to either be more efficient or to protect yourself. But all those things are changing. Compliance, speak about compliance. We did not have to deal with all this obviously to a certain level, but not as today. So all those blind spots that an operator, whether you are brand new to the industry or you did it for the last 20 years, if you're not, you know, working towards getting updated, there is a chance you are taking higher risk than you should or not being as efficient as you can and not being profitable as you can. So when I look back or where I see how things change really in any aspect, it's changing dramatically. And you need to be on top. The fact that we have a person like even Paxton here sitting providing dealers with lines of credit is something that in my days, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, we're just not there. Much, much harder. Banks did not understand that industry at all. So they still don't. They probably still don't. You're absolutely right. That's why, you know, the founding members, if you will, of Bayou Perry United, we try to bring people that share same philosophy, first of the same excitement to our industry, right? And the true understanding that we can, when we support our dealers, they are successful. Therefore, we are successful. It's as simple as that. It's not only that we find it personally interesting, we find it as the right business approach. And I can say that on all the members in Bahia Perry United, so things not forget about my time. That was over 10 years ago. Things changed from last year, from two years ago. And you need to keep, you know, to stay on top of it.

That's pax. What have you seen? I mean, you've been. What have you been doing this for 15, 20 years maybe? What have you seen that's really, you know, made you and your company want to make sure that you protect this industry and get us more educated and provide more education possibilities?

You know, change in any industry is inevitable. You know, it's constant. I think what's. What's special and unique about Buy Here, Pay Here United is that, you know, Luke, for all the dealers that are listening, change is different for each one of them, right? If you've got a couple hundred notes and you've been in the business for a couple of years, and, you know, maybe you're just a single point location and you're trying to grow your business, man, you're wearing eight, nine different hats, you're putting out fires every day. There's all sorts of different challenges that you face versus a dealer who maybe has, you know, eight locations in multiple states, you know, with a separate office for their finance company and, you know, just a much larger operation. The challenges for each of you are different. And so what we wanted to do was build an event that focused on all of those challenges for all dealers. So what we've done is we've actually tiered our curriculum similar to how you would in a college environment, right? We have 100 level courses, we have 200 level courses, we have 300 level courses. So a dealer is going to be able to look at the agenda, look at the different tracks, whether they want to focus on, you know, collections, whether they want to focus on finance or you know, whatever it may be. And then within that they can actually say, you know what? I feel like I'm an expert in this area. So in the service department stuff, I'm going to go to the 300 level courses because I feel like that's a real strength of mine. But a weakness of mine is maybe managing people or how do I, how do I handle, you know, work remote employees, which may be new for many of us. Right. Ourselves, you know, primal end included. Um, so, so then you may go to a 100 level course. So I think the focus of this event is for it to be able to attract to a very wide audience of Buy here Pay Here dealers, regardless of your size or scope or geographic region.

Yeah.

And I think, and I think also if you want to try to compare this conference, this summit to other convention, there there's. We identify things that we want to give to people that they can really have in other environment. First, we received hundreds of topics from dealers via our submit a topic on our Buy Here, Pay here United website. And we made sure to include what dealer wants. Topics like protect your business in a climate of increased regulation or how to get more down with no cars on your lot. Things that currently dealers are struggling with. And you know, the nice thing is that we are in our vision, we end every day with a dealer led open forum which is really a unique opportunity for dealers to ask any question and any person in the room can answer. So you know, as a dealer, get your answers directly from dealers like yourself or from experts that sits in the same room and probably struggling with the same thing. Some of them already resolved it, some have different way to look at the problem. But that's something that we feel is very unique to this summit.

Yeah, I want to jump in there and talk about the agenda because I'm looking at it right now and it's very, very obvious that you guys took these topics from dealers. It's not something you just grabbed off the shelf and you had a presentation already put together so you're just going to do it or it's very self serving. Like I'm looking at these breakout sessions and most of the time I go to a convention and during breakout sessions I'm like Luke, what when are you going to go to? I don't know, what one are you going to go to? I don't know. You know, we're kind of like picking, no offense but you know, we're just kind of like whatever's best. This one I'm looking at and I'm like, oh, man, how can I go to two at the same time? Like, why are these both at 9 o'? Clock? Because I want to go to both of them. Why are these both at 10? So these topics are great. I mean, I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, man, you guys get on the website, look at these topics, you're going to have to bring two of yourself to the convention. Or who do we bring, Luke?

That's right. I want to ask Paxton that because Paxton hit on something I think that some dealers really struggle with. We're talking about these single. These single points where you only have.

For you and your buddy, right?

Yeah.

So how does a dealer that's really small bring. Go to a convention properly? And how do you make sure you bring the key person to hear what's being taught? I mean, that's a struggle for some of us that aren't huge.

Luke, It's a great question. And I think it's a. It's an individual one for each dealer, right? I'll tell you. And I draw on this experience from my 20 group days. You know, if you're part of a dealer performance group or a 20 group, you know, it's oftentimes you hear people say, like, well, man, how do I take the time away from my business to even go attend this, right? Because I am doing nine jobs and I've got to go to the auction, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. And what I tell those dealers unequivocally every single time is that if you can't find 48 to 72 hours to really make a huge change in your business, right, to go learn something new about the industry, to learn something new about what it is you do for your profession, then you're the perfect dealer that needs to be there. Those guys who think, man, I don't have enough time to do this. I can't get on a plane, I can't spend two days there. You know, I don't have this, I don't have that. Then this is exactly why you need to come to this event. You need to learn what are the things I need to do to build the right culture, the right team, the right processes, the right procedures within my organization so that me as an operator, I have the ability to take two days and actually go to event and get the education I need. Because that education is what's going to move your business forward. And so it's almost a question of if you say, well, how do I do it? It's not a question of how do you afford it, it's how do you afford not to go.

You know, Jeff, you are correct about the agenda. So we actually invited seven high performing dealers and finance companies to lead what we call the dealer advisory board and to help us create an agenda that is relevant to buy here, pay your dealers. And we've been working with them for the last, what, few months now, Paxton. And changing the agenda and updating that, finding the right speakers. And those dealer advisory board that we are super proud of will be announced very soon and everybody will see that we really picked different sizes from different locations. We want to make sure that this summit gives opportunity to all dealers in different shapes and form. That's on one end. The second point that you ask, how can you multiply yourself and be in different sessions? That's, you know, to continue on what Paxton said before. That's why we build those tracks. And really from the beginning, as you started by saying, we went to our pocket to make it affordable, very affordable for dealers to bring more people from their dealership. So, you know, it's actually the whole summit cost the dealer499 for the first person from the dealership, but then it goes down to 199. So we have dealers that bring two people, three people. We have one that brings eight, Paxton. I think or so. So dealers are bringing their teams.

Yeah.

And everybody wants to be Vegas in mid April is great, you know, I.

Mean, especially after two years of Corona.

Sure, no complaints there. Bellagio is a great property. Reasonable room rates. There's really no reason.

We got good news. Last week the state of Nevada lifted their mask mandate for being indoors in the convention halls. So if you prefer to wear a mask and protect yourself, by all means, please do so. But for those who choose not to, now you actually have the option to not wear the mask, which we were concerned may impact the attendance. It certainly hasn't shown that, but it's nice to know that that mandate has been lifted.

And I think we can also mention that we work hard to negotiate a very affordable and, and favorable rate at the Bellagio. We want to make people, you know, want to make sure that people not only are coming to educate themselves, but really after, you know, this Corona time, people have the opportunity to enjoy themselves. And you know, we negotiated a rate of $135 a night at the Bellagio. Obviously they're going to add some, some of their fees, their resort fees. But it's $135.

I mean, that's great. That's a great hotel, too. Just amazing place that's so excited to be there. And I thought one of the cool things was knowing the vendors are going to be. There's no. There's no exhibit hall. None of the vendors are going to be selling to you. So even if there's some of those dealers out there that for some reason don't like vendors, I love vendors. They, you know, y' all are some of the smartest people out there when it comes to our industry, you're not going to be selling to us. You're not going to be wearing your, you know, your Iteron shirts and your Primal End shirts. And I think it's just going to be in a convention that's different than any other and that we can really mingle together, talk, not worried about being sold to, and get with other dealers that can help us make more money and be better operators.

I want to tell you, when I go to those conferences, first of all, you're absolutely right. The concept here is not there's no expo, there is no sales approach and so forth. We are, as vendors, as leader in this industry, we're coming to learn as well. That's how we make our offering, our product better, by listening to others. For dealers that are using those solutions, what they need, what's their pain point that we can maybe support, or maybe Paxton can support, or Buckeye. For us, it's also an opportunity to learn and to teach whatever we've been asked, but also to learn. And that's really the excitement here.

Yeah. So I want to put one thing out there to put a kind of a pin in this as we wrap it up, One of the biggest things for me, if you're a dealer and you're out there listening, manager, small shop, big shop, whatever it is, you learn. But part of the biggest thing I take away from these conventions is being reinvigorated to be passionate about my business. And I think a lot of us dealers, we do struggle with that right now. I mean, most all business owners right now are just being beaten down by personnel and inventory and, you know, margin compression and compliance and, I don't know, snow or whatever you guys deal with out there. But so you go to these things and you get reinvigorated. So if it's nothing else and you think you know it all or you think you don't want to learn it all, or you just, whatever it is, go. Because it's going to get you re passionate about your business for another couple of months, hopefully longer. But that's one of the biggest thing I take from these, is just that fire to go back to my shop and work harder.

Yeah, you see, you see the passion in everybody's eyes. I mean, obviously you guys with the podcast, doing an amazing job to keep that alive all the time. I mean, when you listen, whatever Bill Metzinger speaks about his business, you want to say, man, I want to do that too. That's the concept in conferences as well. That's what we want people to hear from dealers, to hear their story and as you said, come, you know, empowered to change and be better.

Sure appreciate you guys being here. Jeff, you got anything?

Yeah, I'd like to just wrap up real quick. We're going to give a shout out to the. To the founding members. So Berkshire Risk Services, Buckeye Dealership Consulting, Clifton Larson, Allen Ignite Consulting Partners, of course, Interon, of course, primaland and Tax Max. Those are your six core members that came together that put this on. And I'm hoping it's going to be an annual thing. We didn't talk about this as much, but it's. BHPHUnited.com is the website. Go get registered today. You get it. You get that rate that area talked about up until the 10th of April, and you can add in all your people, get your flights booked. It's not crazy expensive right now to get in and out of Vegas. It's April 10th through the 12th, so we are.

It's a two and a half days. We started the tents with reception, but then we dive into work on the 11th and the 12th.

Yeah, 11th and the 12th. And looking at the agenda that day of the 12th, I mean, that's. I'm there at every single session, man. Some of those closing sessions, geez, that's topics I wanted to see talked about for years and years. And you guys are handling them. So we're super, super excited to be there and just glad you guys are doing this for everybody.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for having us. We look forward to meeting everyone.

And if you. And if you're really. If you're really adventurous, Ariad may take you to climb a mountain or something. I'm just saying.

That's me. It's already in the planning. There is a hike.

I'll be setting up two times. I'll be setting up tea times with Luke.

Yeah, I'm gonna be with both of them at some point, I'm sure. Thanks, guys.

All right, Appreciate it. Thank you.

Dealers Helping Dealers. Please leave us a review and subscribe Be Independent Independent Dealer Podcast. Dealers Helping Dealers Please leave us a review and subscribe the Independent Dealer Podcast.