#221 - Mike The Chevy Dude

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

Hello, and welcome to the Independent Dealer, brought to you by Buckeye Dealership Consulting. Today we have Mr. Mike Davenport. You guys probably don't know that name. He's better known as the Chevy Dude. Mike the Chevy dude. Thanks for joining us.

Hey, thank you. Appreciate it. I'm glad to be here.

So, Mike, I follow your stuff on social media, which I'm sure a lot of used car guys do. Yeah, it's really, really cool to see your journey. Could you, for anyone that doesn't know you, would you just maybe give us the quick kind of like 0 to 60? How did you get into the car business? We all know you started in new cars, and then you've kind of pivoted the last couple months.

Yeah. So got in the car business in 2000, and January 14, 2000, is the day I started. And I did that because my wife pushed me into the car business, said, you need to go apply here. And we were behind on our mortgage. We had a kid on the way, and they guaranteed me $1,800 a month for income, salary, and then a bonus for every car I sold on top of that. So started January 14th and sold seven cars that month and never been in the car business before. And I'm like, well, crap, if I can sell seven cars in half a month, I can sell 14. And the second month, I sold 13 the second month. So proud to say that January 2000 is my worst car month ever in the car business. So I got it out of the way right out the get go. And then two and a half years later, I went into management, I went into F. And I. And then I bounced around a little bit, which I hate being a job hopper. But I did bounce around from dealership to dealership because I got fired from the finance manager job because they did a takeover, a management takeover, and they fired everybody in the company. And so used car manager, general sales manager, obviously finance, like I mentioned. And then we went through the economy in 2008 and 2009. So I learned valuable lessons in 08 and 09 as a manager, as a general sales manager, that it was really difficult for me to get people motivated to come to work and not see a customer for three or four or five days. And so January 2010, I decided that I was going to leave that dealership, and I went across the river. I live in Southern Indiana. Louisville, Kentucky, is 10 minutes away from me. And so I went across the river to one of the largest Chevy dealers in the country, and told him I just wanted to be a salesman. I didn't want to be a manager anymore. And so they hired me and December 1, 2021. So 11 years later from that store, I, I don't want to say it this way. It's nothing. Drag it, right? I walked out, left a thousand Corvette orders behind, thousands and thousands and thousands of repeat customers and decided I want to start my own used car store with my wife. And like I said, left a thousand orders behind, was selling 30, 40 cars a month and decided to do that. And now we have 12 units in stock.

So.

So culture shock.

You poor bastard. You should have stayed where you were.

Right?

I, trust me, I see those comments on social media.

So Mike, you know, this whole social media thing kind of. It's not me, okay? I like podcasting, I do like some sorts of social media. But I think YouTube is so interesting. When did you start your YouTube? Was that something that you found that helped you sell more cars? How did you get there?

Yeah, So I started YouTube in 2011 and the average YouTuber is only on the platform for five years. So here I am 10 years into it, almost 11 years into it now. And you know, we do 30 to 50 million views a month on, on YouTube between all my channels and I have multiple channels and I have a couple of channels that nobody knows about that I keep private, that we do some different things with. But so I was, I was sitting here just, you know, for a couple years just, just doing videos and they weren't very good and nobody watched them and stuff like that. But I was like, I really want to do this. And 2013 came along and the Corvette C7 was introduced and all the die hard Corvette guys been, been selling Chevrolet for 22 years and they always have something to complain about. Back in 2005 when the C6 came out, they complained that we didn't have pop up headlights anymore. When the C7 came out, they complained that we don't have round tail lights anymore. And so it was always something. And so the biggest thing that I was seeing was people were complaining about how the door shuts, that you got to slam it or leave leave something open in order to shut it all away. So I sarcastically did a video titled how to shut the Corvette door and it went viral. And that's what really got me into the Corvette community. And so I, so I just really went off of that and just started showing everybody everything about Corvettes and all the trim levels and just became the Corvette Expert.

Well, let's. Yeah, let's. Let's also tell everybody your. Your area of the world is where the Corvette is built, right? In Bowling Green, right?

Yeah. We're an hour and a half away from.

Yeah, so that's normal.

From normal driving in less than an hour in a Corvette. So.

And tons of people like to come around there to talk about Corvettes and do all that. So that is such. Such a niche thing being right there, right?

It is. And it gives me a little bit of advantage that we can get cars in just a couple days after they're built. It doesn't give me much advantage anywhere else. You know, the. The dealership I worked for is a phenomenal dealership, and they did a whole lot of work before I even got there. Before, you know, know they'll do. Continue to do even greater since I'm gone. But they did a lot of work to get Corvette in there. Mr. Bachman did amazing work in the 80s to get Corvette in there. And I just. I think I built that up. And my goal was to get to be a top 10 Corvette dealer out of them. Didn't. Didn't achieve that, or they're in the top 50. I think we're in the top 21 year. But. But I didn't achieve that. So that's. That's my goal. And I go down the road and have my own Chevy franchise going to be a top Corvette dealer in the country. I really love the car. I really love the cars. I love dealing with the people. Sometimes I don't like the people, but generally speaking, that's just retail for us all. But I love dealing with them. I love enlightening them. And they have a trust factor with me that they know that I know the product and they want to do business with me because of that.

So I've sold tons of classic Corvettes and I sell some C6 is now, but I kind of like the C5s back. And it's a. It's a great market. And sell them on YouTube. Is our advertising them. And being specific like you on YouTube's a big deal. I guess the question to me is why are you selling anything other than Corvettes on your. Your lot now?

So. So since I started my lot, December 1st is our official start date that we said that we're. We opened business was December 1st. This is like, it's a business, right? But at the same time, it's a little bit of a game for me. I've been one that. I love the car business. I absolutely involved with the car business 100%. And we want to build this store up 100%. So we're floor planning almost everything. We've made some money into the store. Now my wife and I are not taking any income out of the company. We, we're investing everything back into the store. So one of our first cars we got was a C7Z06. And it was at a dealership for 90 days. The dealership sold it at auction. So I got it and I marked it up about four or five grand over what that dealership had it because I could see the market and we have V auto at our store. So I'm looking at the market and I know this well, uh, I had that, I had that car for like 17 days before I paid it off and really didn't realize that there was a thousand dollars in interest in floor plan fees. So I'm like, oh, okay, well, I'm glad I got rid of this right away. Um, and so that was our lesson right at the beginning. And that's why I haven't been doing too many Corvettes. I've been getting some C6s because I can get them for around 20 grand and doesn't kill the floor plan. Um, so, so that's why we haven't done like C7, C8. So my goal, which we should be able to do, my goal is to have, have enough cash flow in there that we can buy a Z06 and turn around and sell it for profit. You know, those things are gonna, those things are gonna be sold for 30 to 50,000 over MSRP. And you know, they're gonna be sold on top of that for the used car market much higher. So. But we wanna get a couple Z06s in there and be able to sell em and I think we can make some good profit on that.

Hey everybody, real quick, interrupt the podcast and make sure you guys know about Pastime gps. They are a great sponsor of the show and the number one way to go about protecting your vehicles, right?

For sure. It protects your portfolio. It can, you know, as a retail dealer, it can protect the car sitting on the lot. And if you're like me, if you just have cars going to random spots and you don't know why they're there, you could just locate them, right, Jeff?

Yeah, yeah, just drop a gps. I mean, all the auctions are doing it, right? They're putting GPS and everything up front. I just, I'm typically a wireless GPS guy. That's how I do my buy here, pay here. Portfolio because it's and easy to toss one in. But I just recently bought a handful of wired ones because I want to put them on my assets. You know, I'm going to put one inside my car hauler, I'm going to put one inside my lot truck. I'm going to put one inside my loaner vehicles because I want to actively track these things at any given moment to know exactly where they're at or if they get stolen, heaven forbid, for sure.

Passtime, in my opinion, is the best in the industry. That's the only thing we use. And it's great company. Give them a call.

Mike, I'd like to rewind just a little bit. So, so the dealers, guys that are listening that are either new and. Or maybe they are working for a dealer, whether they're a salesman at a new car store or f and I. Or maybe they're working for a used car lot and they're thinking about stepping out and doing their own thing, right? They're having some success, maybe. Explain to us what was your thought process? I mean, if you're at a new car store selling 30 to 40amonth, you're making really good money. I imagine for you to say, hey, I'm going to leave this comfort of what I know and my customer base and all these Corvette orders I got on order and everything and step out on my own. What I mean, words of advice like, where were you at? How do you do that, man, I'll.

Tell you what, scary as hell.

Like I can't even imagine, man. I mean, you're like, I'm going to go, I'm going to go sign up on a bunch of stuff and Mike.

Has brain damage, just to let you know.

So, yeah, so it's, you know, so I, I don't want to sell cars over msrp. New cars, right? So I've said this from day one. And you can go backwards years and years into my YouTube videos that I preached, don't spend, don't buy over MSRP. Obviously we didn't see these last two years coming and I still believe don't sell over MSRP. So when it was when I was approached and they're like, hey, listen, you're gonna have to sell for over msrp. I just didn't like it. I, you know, and I sell a car for 30 grand over MSRP in my pockets, about $15,000 of commission. So that's what I walked away from. And so that was something that I just, I couldn't sleep at night. I really seriously Couldn't love the money. The money's awesome. But just seriously couldn't sleep at night.

Well, it's hard too because you're documented, you're documented on YouTube. Don't pay over MSRP. Don't pay market based adjustments. Don't pay whatever this nonsensical bottom line is on the, on the buy sheet. So I bet that was probably ethically hurts.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because I've taught people so many over all the years and millions and millions and millions of views of how to ethically buy a car and if a dealership is not doing the ethical thing, how to avoid them or how to negotiate that stuff off. And generally speaking, I was talking to dendems. Prior to 2020 there was no over MSRP. It was still there, but it wasn't as prevalent as is. Almost what appears to be every dealership in the country now.

Yeah. Or slightly abusive.

Yeah, yeah. So to start to leave all that and to do it, it's been nothing but a great experience. Here we are five months into it. I just hired my first employee. It's still just me and my wife. I hired a title clerk because, because I'm horrible at doing titles apparently, as I've learned, shredded one, lost one, just put the wrong name on.

I don't even know why you shredded.

I put the wrong name on two titles. Just totally screw everything up. And then when I, then when I got the title for one, I put down the wrong mileage on the title 20,000 miles higher. So I had to get that title recorrected with the right mileage. So I screwed everything up. And it wasn't that I'm bad at my job, it was, I was just, my bandwidth was, was done. Right. So I'm, I'm doing everything that an owner, general sales manager, sales manager, salesperson does on a day to day. My wife is buying the cars so she's doing all that stuff. And so, and you know, she's never been in the business before so she's obviously been around me for 22 years. But you know, she's learning all this stuff and taking in V Auto and I'm not telling her one thing hardly at all of what to do. Like this is how it's done, right. Those words have never came out of my mouth with my wife, with my wife because I want, I want an outside perspective from her because she's extremely smart and she's doing a really good job of buying cars with somebody who's been in the business now for five months.

I Want to stop you right there. Not women in general. A wife buying cars. I can't imagine the arguments that Alexa and I would get into if she was the one buying cars. Because when my dad was buying cars, I would just chew him out when he came home. So let's just walk down that rabbit hole. And how did she end up buying cars? And you just got to talk me through this.

So I think my ADD kicks in. And I'm not one to, like, take medicine or anything like that. So the. So my ADD kicks in. I just can't focus on buying cars. And I would just buy. I would just buy them. Wrong. So she got into it, and she's really analytical, and she really likes that data stuff, and she really loves V Auto. She. I'm telling you, it's. It's amazing what my wife does. It's like, she'll tell me, we had someone yesterday. Like, I'm looking for a one SS or a two ss, one LE car, blah, blah, blah. And it's like. And she's like, that guy's smoking crack. He's 10 grand off. So she's like, well, let me go. Let me go check. So she pulls a ss, one LE car, looks at the van and. Or pulls it, puts in V Auto. She goes, yep, I was right. 40. 45 grand is where this guy needs to be at, not 35 grand. So. So she's really into that data, and she loves that. So that's where we're using our strengths to run this business really good. But it was a. My wife and I have been together this year will be 30 years, and we're 45 years old.

Wow.

So we've been together since our second week of high school, freshman year. But I've always worked, and we know what the car business hours are like. So with her not working, I was the one having to do all the work and bring home the money for the house to survive. And she was basically. Well, we always joked is she was a single parent, and so she's the one who handled all three kids and did the school stuff and whatnot. And she worked harder than I did. So it's just. She's just more focused on buying the car. So our true testament was like, make sure we don't argue with each other, which we don't. We never argue before this. So it was like, we're going to spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week with each other. Let's not get into arguments or frustrations and stuff like that. So it's it's going good.

Yeah.

That's a, that's a huge change. You go from being a salesman where you're literally seeing your wife like an hour a day, you know, half hour when you wake up at a half hour when you go to bed, like we typically do as car guys. And now you're with them 247 making financial decisions and business decisions. That's a, that's a huge transition also.

It is.

And like I said with the Corvette that's buying that C7, it's just learning. Right. And we're really open minded and want to learn everything about it. About it. And of course everybody's like, man, you picked the worst time to get in the car business or to own your own dealership. And I'm like, no, it's not. It's probably the best time to do it because my wife is learning. I've been through 0809. My wife was through it through me. Right. But not in the business. I said, so 0809 we had all sorts of inventory, no customers. So now we have all sorts of customers and no inventory. So let's build that foundation. When it's rough and we might have recession coming up, I don't know. That's the talk. I'm not into politics and I don't pay attention much to news and stuff like that. I just kind of go with the flow. So if we do run into some downtimes and people aren't wanting to spend money, I've been through that already. So it's perfect that we build the foundation of this car lot to where it's at and be able to go through and build it up to where it's going to be at.

That's I tell you. And you have such a great fallback with this, you know, with this social media presence that you've built and the income you can get from that. And you mentioned something while we were off camera, you know, and talking about, I guess, or maybe Jeff did, about how the car lot can be. Can be so much of a movie studio almost, I think is what Jeff called it for you to do your other craft. Can you just talk about how you use that and how the two meld together.

Yeah. So the question is how I intermix social media with the car lot. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. And how it, it helps you. I mean, how, how they feed off of each other, I guess would be the best question.

Yeah. So you know, the social media is what's made me successful in the car business. Right. So The. It's. It's really weird. So, like, I hate social media. I really do. I don't want to be on Facebook. I hate people who just think that they can just write anything they want to write and think that it's keyboard warriors.

I'm sure. I'm sure you see that all the time.

And, and none of that affects me. And luckily been in the car business for 22 years and it's like, I deal with this stuff. I deal with this stuff face to face. What's your rate on a keyboard? Is Nothing. But ultimately 99.999% of it is all good. But in the way that works is I just have to covertly show a vehicle and not sell it. Right. And all of a sudden, lo and behold, I'm getting phone calls on that car and whatnot. So I can use this as an example. We had an identity theft vehicle happen, and everything was adding up that it was identity theft. But we just couldn't put the nail in the coffin. So we let the guy ride. Half an hour after the guy rides, the real person calls up like, why'd you pull my credit?

Oh, gosh.

Oh, no.

So I do a video that we got the car stolen and I knew where the car was going. I had a pretty good hunch of where it was going. It turned out to be right. Well, we got the car back and ta da, we got the car back. And you won't believe what they did. They modded our car. And it's kind of clickbait. Ish. It's not clickbait, but it's clickable. And what they did is they tinted the windows. So nothing too crazy. And I showed some things that they had kid. They had kids in the car and car seat. And you're driving around in a stolen car with your kids. And this is a Dodge Challenger, right? Oh, yeah. So I put this video up that we located the car, and three minutes, three minutes after I uploaded the video, someone calls me and buys it, you know, and so all the comments are like, well, that's a. That's a rebuilt title. Now it's a salvage title. Now it's like, no, it's not. It was gone.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and, and, and so now. So now we got UGC user generated content. So now I can make another video of what. What makes a. What makes a title. Salvage. Right. So. Or rebuilt title. And explain the difference between a salvage title or rebuilt title, because nobody understands that either. Even that's true business. Well, when it's Got a rebuilt title. You use car managers like, well, it's got salvage title. No, it's not salvage.

It's rebuilt.

You know, big difference.

You read your, you read your comments and that alone creates content, Right. Ideas for content. Because you see the good ideas, the bad ideas, the good feedback. What's so interesting to me, Mike, is, you know, we've talked about this in the past on the podcast is it's kind of the Gary Vee attitude of you're a social media company first that happens to sell cars.

Yep.

And we've seen a handful of dealers, you know, do that, like with some of our YouTube friends and even some of the independent dealers that are on our Facebook page that just steer strong into Instagram or TikTok, and they're creating content through social media that's elevating their dealership, you know, and a lot of people are like, well, how are you going to sell a car on TikTok? You know, it's like, you do it, it happens. It's name awareness. It's brand building. And people see the brand and they come to you. All car dealers know that selling is just being likable. It's just people knowing who you are, knowing what that to expect when they get there, and liking who. Who you are. So just putting yourself out there, you know, continue to create that. That recognition. And the other thing I say to that point, Mike, is, man, I would love, I would love to have a small dealership like that where all you're doing is having fun and I know you're taking your dealership serious, but, man, wouldn't it be great, Luke, to just be able to be like, what can I do? That's the craziest thing today that I could turn into a video.

Go by the.

Go by the.

Go by the most insane car.

Yeah.

Either high end or low end, and figure out what to do with it. I think, I think it's. I think it's really neat.

Yeah, that's.

That's some of the stuff that we've talked about. I've got on this board back here. I have all sorts of different things wrote down for things that we want to do, and I just haven't done them yet. I'm a little scared. So we wanted to have a goal, which we haven't done. We haven't done this video yet. We talked about it back in February, but we wanted to sell 20 cars in one month. And where we're going to do that is just going out and buying a bunch of stuff that we can sell for under $10,000 and go through the process of fixing cars up and this is what we've done to it and stuff like that, and produce all that content and then come out and come out in one month and say, okay, here's all these cars and just park them in the back and they're not for sale until we can launch videos and sell them that way. And one of the key things that one of my mentors has said to me with the social media is I'm an entertainment channel, right? So when you look at my content and I always love when car dealerships get on there and they put me in these Facebook groups and blast me, I think that's hilarious because they have no idea how much money they're making me by doing that. But, but most importantly, you got to look at it that I'm an entertainment channel. Yes, I'm educating, which, which was where I go into a. I say I'm an edutainer, but. But I'm an entertainment channel. And I just so happen to teach people in the car business stuff. And generally speaking, if you look at what I do, the people who don't like my content or they're going to badmouth me and they're in the automotive space is they're probably doing that. Why One, and it's unethical stuff. And two, they just don't get the whole idea that you can be ethical, you can be transparent in this industry and still make a profit and still do good and still make great people inside your dealership and organization. You know, our goal, our ultimate end goal is to own a franchise store. And the reason, the reason we're doing the car dealership is because this is our retirement. This is our retirement setup. So when we're 65, when we're 60, when we're 55, whatever the case may be, we want to be on a beach in Florida all day long drinking. That's all we want to do. I just sit on the beach, have the best tan in the world and just do absolutely nothing. Just pay every month, go in and click my dividend check from the dealership and continue living the way I want to live.

So that's alone.

Does that happen? Mike, share me your timeline because I got a question.

Mike. So the long term goal is a franchise store, Chevrolet store, I would assume.

Hey everybody. You know the episodes have been sponsored by Buckeye Dealership Consulting and they are so much more than reinsurance, Luke.

So much more. Actually, I got an email yesterday about getting all my Numbers in for our upcoming dealer performance group. They have all kind of ways to help you become a better dealer, from reinsurance to consulting and everything in between. I think, Jeff.

Yeah, education, consulting on site. You know, the pros there will come out, they'll look at your dealership, they'll tell you what you're doing right or doing wrong. They'll connect you with all the people in the industry and vendors that you should be using, whether it's accountants or lawyers or. I mean, these guys are connected and they are committed to the industry for sure.

For sure. Committed.

Yeah. Give the guys at Buckeye a call. Any questions you have, they're going to answer it for you.

Yeah. Chevy store. And I haven't told anybody this, but Kia, I love Kia and Hyundai, right? And sadly, generally speaking, there's not an ethical Kia dealer out there. Right. You know, every one of them plays games. So, you know, I'm sitting here thinking, get a Kia dealer and all of a sudden be like, hey, I'm the Kia dude now, right? Because that's, that's, that's what my, this is ugc, my user generated content. I have people all this time saying that I see the Kia dude in the future and they have no idea that I have this thought process behind my head. So, so it's like they, I want to do that because I can, I can, like, I could dominate the Kia world, right? And just be like, this is the, what we're doing and it's ethical and no doc, no high doc fees, stuff like that.

It seems like with the Kia world, you got to have like a, your service center has to be like four or five times bigger than what you would typically go to and just stacks of, stacks of motors, engines, stack of engines sitting there. But other than that, I love it. Yeah, I agree with you. That's interesting. That. Go ahead.

My question is, does, does your, I guess your social media leads to the new store, not necessarily the, the car lot, right, Mike?

A little bit of both. You know, we're trying to invest every penny that we make in the car store back into the car store. And you know, we're, we're, you know, we're, we're in a little shotgun style building right now that if we get 30 cars in inventory, we're going to be, is going to be tight. The lot's going to be real tight. So, so that's kind of what we're looking at now. And you know, we want to build, we want to build another building and you know, build something that we can, you know, house a couple hundred cars on, you know, I've already got, there's a property down the street from us that I've been looking at that needs a lot of work, but there's, it's just vacant land. Just needs a lot of lot of work to make it build ready. But that's, that's something that we could put on there and just do just house so many cars and then have a detail facility, have a, have, have service facility in there and just you know, be a big independent store for the local community to do it. And one thing I haven't, I don't know if you know this or not. So one of the things that we're doing with the store is after every 100 cars we're starting a non profit and we are going to give a car away to somebody who's in need. So basically the infamous on this is the word empower. So I was homeless for a little bit and just got kicked out of my house when I was 17 years old from my parents. And so, and just always, they're always, always behind the eight ball, right. So I was walking to work and riding a bicycle to work in northern Indiana for over two years and, and I couldn't do anything other than work at Pizza Hut because that's where I could get to work to. Right. I couldn't get to other places in the town because I didn't have, I didn't have the empowerment to do that and help myself. So that's been, that's been like. Our goal is, is with this franchise with the store as well, is to set it up so that way we can help people and empower people to do better in their lives. And usually generally speaking that's with an automobile. You got an automobile that's reliable, dependable. Now you can go out there and get it out there. And we have an idea that we think we can help people build credit as well. Maybe this person who does get a car, they probably don't have the best credit. So we have an idea of we can help build credit too. We're still working on this stuff through attorneys and through fair lending and stuff like that. But, but we have an idea that we can help those people when they get a car for free. That that car can actually go out there and help them build credit and, and, and do stuff as well somehow reported.

But it's, it's true. Mike. I was thinking that the other day as I was kind of thinking about our audience and the independent dealers out There and how we are kind of the, I mean we are like the authentic, like rough and cut entrepreneurs. You know, we source the inventory, we fix the inventory, we sell the inventory, we do all these things and we're providing freedom. I mean really a car is freedom. Like you said, empowerment. Like without a car in my community, you can't go anywhere. I mean, good luck walking, public transit, non existent. You're not going to see your family. So without a reliable car, you're just not free.

Same thing in our community.

And you got to remember that as dealers we're providing freedom, mobility and that's so huge.

We talked about this before, Jeff, but Mike, what you're talking about is why I keep buying and selling cars is because I know that us being able to sell someone a quality car and actually keep them going to their job, you know, helps their family. And the more we can do that, the better off we are. That's a great thing you got going there. And there's so many, to Jeff's point, there's so many independent dealers that are doing that in their community. It's a great feeling.

Mike, to wrap it up, I know we've taken a ton of your time and we really appreciate it. Any other words of wisdom you have for kind of new car dealers or dealers that are hoping to kind of start out on their own and get their dealership up and running?

Yeah, two things. I've had a lot of people reach out to me since I've started this and I haven't had an opportunity to really discuss with them because my time's so limited. I went to bed last night at 11 o' clock and I've been up since 1am that's how much sleep I got last night. And I'll probably be up till midnight one o' clock tonight probably. But if you're thinking about doing a dealership, do the research. I took a year and a half to do this project. This isn't something that all of a sudden that I'm like, oh, let's do this. If you go look at the Indiana State registry and look at when I formed Mike's car store, it was in 2020 and we didn't do anything until the end of 2021. So it wasn't something that it was really, really fast moving. It appears to be fast, social media wise, but it was not. It was very thought through, very methodical and stuff like that. And Grant Conan teaches the best thing is nothing happens without action. Just go out, do stuff. And the more you do the luckier you get. And for the franchise people, I think they have a. I think they. And maybe they don't care. I don't know. That's their business and that's fine. But you have a due diligence and responsibility in the industry to protect it. And by us charging over MSRP right now and taking advantage of customers in a buyer's market, you're working against yourself. Because we see what Ford's doing, We with, hey, we're going to sell all our EVs directly, but the dealerships can be the delivery center for them, and it's going to cut out profits and they're going to go that way. And with the new Ford Lightning that just came out, Ford sat there and says, you're not going to be charging over MSRP or else. And there's dealerships charging 50 grand over. It just came out this week, 50 grand over. I'm watching it. And I think us as dealers who write the front of the checks, assign the front of the checks for our employees and for our communities and the charities that we do, we have a responsibility to protect the automotive industry. And charging over msrp, charging bullshit addendums is working against us, not for us. And customers are gonna remember this, I promise you. Customers are gonna remember for sure. And they want. And dealerships want to sit here and like, oh, no, customers aren't loyal. Customers aren't loyal because you made them not loyal. And I have amazing loyalty with my clients. And even when I left, I had a customer that I've sold 15, 20 cars to, sold her parents car, sold everybody cars. They're probably 50 cars deep through that circle. And I didn't want her to trade in because it was a jeep. And there's 150 jeeps in the Louisville area. Just a slow mover. And I don't want to wrap up 40 grand in a Jeep. As I mentioned earlier, how much floor plan costs. So I just said, hey, you just need to go back to Bachmann. Just find a good salesman. You'll be fine. They'll treat you good. Yes, you've dealt with me for all these years, but they're going to treat you fine. And so she bought and I called her. And how'd it go? Well, good. I was like, it will. It'll be fine. And that right there builds the loyalty with that brand, not with me, a car salesperson. So they'll remember that the car salespeople build the brand, but the dealership keeps the brand going. And by doing all this extra goofy stuff is working. Working in reverse, unfortunately.

Yeah. Well, Mike, we really appreciate your time. Obviously, anyone listening, you guys can find Mike on every single social media platform. Mike or Mike. Chevy guy. Chevy dude.

Chevy dude. He's literally guy, which I'm glad I do. Chevy dude. Because back in the World Series, when the guy fumbled through giving away the thing, everybody was like, chevy guy. Chevy guy. Chevy guy. Chevy guy. I'm like, I can't compete with that SEO. I can't.

And everybody on everyone on Twitter right now is some guy, real estate guy or car dealer guy. Like, that's like the thing right now. So thank goodness you're a dude and people can find you. You're up till one or two in the morning creating content for us, so make sure you guys are subscribing and watching his stuff. It's great.

Yeah.

Thanks, Mike.

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