#229 - NIADA 2022 Las Vegas

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

Welcome to Niada 2022.

Are you blinded from this region right here yet?

Maybe it is a hot and shiny day here, Luke, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It is. It's very, very temperate. Less humid than what I'm used to. So I kind of like it.

Yeah.

So we're excited for great content. Couple of days of learning, education down here at Niada 2022.

Yeah, you know, had a good time last night at the, at the opening ceremony. That was fun. And today, getting kind of, getting kind of moving now, but a lot of fun coming up with a keynote speaker. Yeah.

Anything you specifically are looking forward to, Luke?

I need to talk to some vendors. I've got. I've got some issues at the office that need to be taken care of. Some things maybe we're not doing right using their products. I've got a list. I had each manager department bring me a list of things that weren't functioning right within software that we're using. And they're like, can you get this fixed for me? So I've got four emails on four different things that I've got to get fixed.

That's good. You did your homework. You're here to hold some of these vendors feet to the fire, maybe look at some new ones. I know. I'm going to talk to some website people, I'm going to talk to some CRM people, I'm going to talk to some of my current providers and see what new features they have. And I might drop into a couple education sessions.

You know, I think we're going to have some tomorrow, maybe a dealer panel to bring to everybody. And I think it's going to be fun because there's not many dealer panels here this year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So not nearly enough.

So we're going to bring those to you. Stay tuned right here. Talk to you soon. Hey, guys, here we are. Convention Expo Hall.

2022 Expo just opened, which is awesome. Always the best stuff is found here, right, Jeff?

The best. Well, the only stuff is found here. There's nowhere else to find it.

There's knowledge.

Other places back here, there is knowledge. Here is stuff. We're gonna find the newest and the best stuff and we're gonna bring it to you right now in a little section we call interesting and new in the expo hall.

Yeah, it's not the same old, same old vendors. We're talking about people who you've never heard of, right?

Yeah, we're gonna try to find some People we never heard of.

Exactly. Something new, something fresh.

So here goes. Hey guys, here we are. First Booth, we heartland and we tackled Bernie. Kalyn, give us your 60 second elevator pitch. What do you do? How are you going to help independent dealers?

Perfect. So we process payroll for independence. We have one source, payroll source. They can get online, they can do all the payroll stuff anywhere they want. And all of it's the same. So they can change prices, any type of numbers they need to the payroll. The card processing is the thing that I do the most.

Okay.

We do payroll, car process. We're introducing surcharge. So when somebody comes into a service place and they spend $1,000 on it, right. We can charge 3.5%, pays their bill. So it takes care of the, the expense on the service charge, which is the big thing. So people are doing it all over the United States and, and I just told the guys to go. The big thing about it right now is we're all used to paying fees for doordash and Uber and everything else. We're all used to fees. If you're ever going to switch from not having a customer pay credit card processing to it's now that's a big deal.

You know, I went to that a couple years ago, Jeff, having a surcharge on payments and it, I mean, it saved us 40 grand a year. And in the service department, I mean, I'm probably losing quick math, real quick. Six to $8,000 a year in service charges. So that's awesome. If you could do it there, that would help.

That's awesome. People are, people are saving more than that. Like, especially with like Jenner, we just talked to, has three, three dealerships. How many did you have?

Just one.

One.

Okay, 24, right? Yeah. The number's exponential, but it, and it's, it's acceptable. You know, it wasn't before. And how long ago did you do this?

We made the switch in the middle of COVID so in 2020. So. And it's. And it's saved us a lot of money.

That was, that was definitely the time to do it. And everybody was spending, everybody spending money then, right?

Yeah. I think that's one thing that dealers don't think about sometimes is like whenever our customers are paying payments to Verizon or whatever, you know, any, anybody, they're paying a surcharge. So why aren't they paying us surcharges? That's a good way to get involved. Thanks, Bernie.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Appreciate you stopping by, man.

Hey guys, here we are with Jason from Spot AI. It looks like a camera system. Jason, what do you guys do? How are you here to help independent dealers.

Thank you, Jeff. So Spot AI we're an IP camera agnostic platform where we unify your cameras all on one dashboard. Makes it easy to search, share and scrub through footage. And if you have multiple dealerships, our system will load balance your systems all on one dashboard. So no more worrying about, hey, does my NVR work? What happens if one has too much memory, one has little. You don't have to worry about anything like that.

I'm so confused.

So that was a lot of big words.

Yeah, because you know, I know nothing about cameras, so I know we have cameras, but. But yours brings the cameras I currently have into one platform so I can look at them all the time. I mean.

Okay, yeah, exactly that. No, exactly that. So if you already have cameras at your place, you don't want to rip and replace, you just want it to work on one dashboard. That's what we do. You plug our box in, it'll find all your cameras. Puts it on one dashboard, you're good to go. Takes about 20 minutes.

So if I have. So I have three different locations with cameras. That's right. I can put them all on the one screen essentially and I can look at them.

Yeah, if you have IP cameras, we work with most of them. You plug our box in 15 minutes, pulls it all on one dashboard and there you go, that's it.

What if I have like the hardwired Cat 5 type like A. No, don't worry, they gotta be IP cameras.

So we work with most IP cameras. But if you have what you're talking about, coaxial cameras, we do work with them, but we don't recommend because it's technology from the 90s, you'll see it definitely the 90s through a potato, if you will.

Yeah, and I got like a horrible NVR in my dealership. You guys get rid of that, it goes cloud based or what?

So we provide a on prem solution that's hybrid cloud. Basically what that means is I send you a box, you plug it in, three plugs, Internet Power Camera network searches for all the cameras, puts it on one dashboard. All of it's stored 30 days, 24, 7 on prem. Anything you share or save stays in the cloud permanently.

Does it have a mobile app? Can I watch my cameras while I sit at home? Yeah, I don't want to see your cameras. I don't know what's on there. But as long as it's mobile based and I can keep an eye on people while I'm gone.

Well, I mean, that sounds pretty handy because I'm always switching back and forth from this camera to that one if I'm looking for something.

Yeah.

Very interesting.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Jason.

Jason.

Gentlemen. Thank you.

Thanks for stopping by.

Here we are, guys, at CAR now with Maddie.

Maddie's already making fun of you, Jeff.

I.

It's probably fitting. I don't know what she does.

Yeah. So what is CAR now?

We can add chat, live chat to your guys's website. We have different call to action, such as valuing your trade, getting your pre qual, and then we have digital retailing, which who doesn't want to understand what their finance or lease payments are?

So in other words, it's a widget on your website.

It's a widget in my website that.

Does all these things that can quote people. Like, I know you want a whole website to do it, but it sounds like this is a good way to.

Absolutely, yeah.

Okay. A step in the direction.

Direction of what you want.

John, your digital retailing piece, does it talk to my dms? How does it know what cars I have and what that customer can.

A lot of times, depending on the dms, we can push that deal over into the dms, depending on which one.

And it's running a deal essentially virtually behind the screen to tell the customer how much the down payment is and all this stuff.

Yes. And dealerships have full control over what their markups are and what they want to show the customer. So depending on the processes that the dealership already has in place, we can add those to the digital retailing process. If you guys don't want to show the pre approval information, we can hide that.

So the customer could submit the app and then you could get the customer right there and then go from there and tell them if they're approved or not. If we want them to, they can.

Get a Pre approval within 30 seconds through 700 credit.

It's very interesting.

Yeah, 700 credit.

It's a guided conversation. So customers want instant answers.

Do I have to control this chat or does AI control this chat?

It's a guided conversation, so it's more AI driven. But a lot of the times, I mean, we have, we have real life conversations going, but then we also have AI depending on what the customer is.

Wanting and the time of day and.

The time of day. So if somebody's on at three in the morning, they can get that pre approval right there. They can get a value on their trade right there. So all very useful information for people at three in the morning car.

Now I like it.

And if people want to learn more, they go to carnow.com. holy crap. They own that domain. Carnow.com thanks, Manny. Hey guys. Here we are with John of Moto ix.

It looks slick, Jeff.

It's slick.

You're excited, I can tell.

I saw the word AI. John, what do you guys do? How are you here to help independent dealers?

So we actually launched the first and only artificial intelligence powered solution in any vertical that has an engine. So it doesn't matter if it's power sports auto franchise. So Alma is actually the AI or digital assistant. She does the work of about five people in the store. She works 24, 7, 365. She does all your follow ups. Imagine if you have a customer that you drop because they have bad credit. You know, your salesperson's not following up with it, but Alma will. And she has a different AI talk track based on response logic or drip marketing where she'll follow up with every customer even if your salesperson doesn't. So on every CRM in this market, and nothing against my peers here, but the two reasons why CRM fail in the industry is because the salespeople don't enter the data. And we don't blame them because they're not paid to and they don't do their follow up well. You don't have to worry about it anymore because Alma's gonna do it.

And we don't manage them well enough, especially in the independent space because we don't have enough managers around to get it done right.

So, Luke, let me tell you this. What if Alma told you as a manager in real time, everything that was happening with your customers as it's happening. So if your salesperson dropped the customer, you get notified immediately.

That would be wonderful.

Yeah, it's all real time.

I would wonder. All those advertising dollars I've been spending, I'd always sudden had all these people that I could sell cars to. And I'd be like, why didn't. Why that advertising work before? And it wasn't my advertising, it was my.

You nailed it. So one of the biggest things that we found is the average dealer is getting about 1,000 leads a month. But it's like Donald Rumsfeld. You don't know what you don't know. So you're not tracking your floor leads and you're not tracking your phone leads. Alma's capturing 96% of your leads and she's getting them on the floor with a Simple mobile app touch, and she documents the CRM. Imagine Alma's literally going to document the CRM for you. Picture this. If a customer goes to your website that submits a lead today for you, it's going to come in ADH format, go into an email. You got to hope somebody takes it. You get back to the customer an hour, they say, oh, yeah, I love the car, but can you call me tomorrow? Then they got to manually enter the information, manually enter the vehicle information, put a 135-day- follow up, and then we got to hold our breath and hope that they call tomorrow. And they won't because they're going to have all new leads tomorrow with us. Alma, first time in history, captures the data, documents the CRM for the salesperson, finds the first available salesperson in your store and rings their phone live. And when your salesperson accepts that lead, it gets the customer on the phone while they're still on the website at their second highest level of excitement prior to the purchase. So now you can get them while they're looking at the website they're excited about, even if they're tire kickers. Raise your appointment rates and raise your sell rates.

And even if the salesperson doesn't answer, you can buy an extender for their chair. It'll shock them if they don't.

Well, it's funny, does a lot of crazy things like that. So if a customer schedules an appointment through the system and they're 15 minutes late or longer, Alma will literally dial that salesperson's phone and say, your appointment's late. Would you like to call them now? If the salesperson presses one for yes, Alma will dial that customer and document the CRM while they do it.

That's pretty slick.

It's revolutionary. There's nothing in the industry like it.

Thank you.

That sounds crazy. Thank you, John.

Thank you.

Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt the podcast, but we need to tell you about Buckeye Dealership Consulting.

We do, and we're here at the convention at Buckeyes setup.

Right.

This is the first time we've ever done an ad for them in their booth. But you guys know Buckeye Dealership Consulting. They have reinsurance, they have consulting groups, they have performance groups, they do it all.

Training, reinsurance, everything inside the reinsurance CPI via warranty or service contracts, warranties, everything. That is anything when it comes to f. And I can be done through your reinsurance company and should be done through your reinsurance company. And Buckeye is the right place to do it.

Yep. They got a ton of products they support the industry, they support the independent dealer. Call the guys at Buckeye. Get your reinsurance and your consulting going.

Yep. Welcome to day two, Jeff. It's been. Been fun. Or maybe it's day three. I don't know.

It's been real.

It's been real. A lot of good expo stuff yesterday.

Yeah, the expo hall was packed. Front to back, left to right. Hopefully you guys got a lot of good information from some of the new vendors we brought you.

What was your takeaway from that? What was one of your favorite vendors you saw yesterday?

One of my favorite vendors is probably some of the new technology. I'm interested in making sure my website is front to back usable. You know, I want to take a step towards the Carvana thing. Everyone knows it, listens to me. So right now it's still just a bunch of little widgets and maybe someday they'll put them all together in one platform, but I might have to just widget it together for a while.

Yeah, and I don't think there's anything wrong with the widget if the widget works right. Because if you.

It's.

I think you're going to get one of two things. You'll get a bad website where all the things work or you're going to get a really good website where all the widgets work. So I think it's one of those things you're going to have to figure.

Out and you're going to pay a ton of money for every little widget vendor.

You know, speaking of that, what do you think a good website cost a month?

I have no idea. I've paid $99 a month for a very long time, so I can't get off. It's worked well.

You know, I'm paying about $1,000 a month for my website and I think that it really, to get what you need, you got to pay up. And you know, it was funny, we were walking by the person that provides your website yesterday and it said, I think the thing was, does your website suck? And you said, yeah, it does.

I did not say that. But also they have new features. So one of the suggestions I would give dealers is when you come to these things, you visit your current vendors. Because I found out that my current website has a feature I didn't know about, that they are rolling out new that I can get on board with. I don't have to go pay a new vendor to get that feature. My current vendor just developed the feature.

Are you going to have to pay more to get that feature?

Not Right now he's going to put me on some sort of a program, but even if I did, it would be marginal compared to buying a whole new vendor.

So today, what are we looking forward to Today?

We got some interviews with dealers. We're going to do some podcasting. It should be a great, great day.

A panel today. Hopefully we'll roll it out in the next couple weeks. Should be pretty good. A little mix of lease here, pay here, buy here, pay here, and retail dealers. And I think it'll be very interesting.

Yes. More great information from dealers for dealers. Stay tuned. Hey, guys, here we are with Ben Carter from Turn and Burn Motors. Ben, how's the convention been for you this week? What are some of the big takeaways you're getting?

It's been great. The convention is wonderful. You know, one of the big takeaways is focusing on recon, which is something we're doubling down on right now with a new facility. So that's been very helpful. Just looking to jump back in here in a few days.

So we all have problem with recon, right?

We all have problem with recon.

Is that your limiting factor in selling cars, you think?

I believe so. Recon and detail, which go hand in hand, are definitely are limiting factors.

And so I've been to your store in Conyers, right outside of Atlanta, the east side of Atlanta, and it's a big facility already, but it wasn't enough to handle your volume. And so you and Jack went and bought a new facility and put in a bunch of new lifts. Can you talk about what spurred that and why you think that's going to lead to more recon capacity?

Yeah, you know, so we have a 11 lift facility now. The new facility is 8,000 square foot. We're going to be putting in eight new lifts there. But recon is always the holdup. Right. It's the slowest spot. You got to have trained technicians that know what to look for. You can't have too many people looking at one car because everybody's got a different opinion. So we just feel like by moving recon off site, we can up our service at our current facility and that we will be able to manage recon a lot better with the separation.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I think some of the smartest dealers are making a bigger commitment into their recon operations. It's cars aren't getting any easier to fix. So you don't have one mechanic that can get two or three done a day. It's like one mechanic takes an entire car and it's not changing. I mean we keep thinking it's gonna change, but it's not gonna change. It's just gonna get worse.

It just gets worse with the technology in cars.

Gets worse with the technology. Technology and the volume that you need. So it's just, it's a double wham. Yeah, just plus parts, delays, plus parts. Like you know, one thing you said though, which is I find very interesting and when we were talking last week to Gary. Gary, right. So Gary, he, he was talking about one of the big reasons people are buy your pay here stores could go under is because the lack of service after the sale. And you brought up moving that recon away from your dealership allows you to do more service in house. Can you talk about how that really ties into collecting properly and running a buyer payer store?

Yeah, absolutely. If you got a car that's not going to hold the note or you're not committed to fixing that car throughout that term, they're not going to pay you. Especially if you offer warranty or service contract. You really need a good mechanism to get your customer back. Timely manner. Get that car fixed. Keep your customer happy. So we're, you know, part of moving to the new facility is doubling down on the current facility for service.

That is so interesting that because you know, we were talking last week also about having the service away from your facility. But I think if you have it at your facility for the customers, you can get them to pay and you can make sure their car gets ready faster. One last thing, Ben. With a new recon facility, you need four new techs. How in the world are you going to hire those new techs?

Oh my. It's been very difficult. So big Facebook marketing, advertising. As far as looking for text, word of mouth through the current text that we have referral programs telling our techs if they can find us somebody, you know, we'll pay them 500 bucks after 90 days, make sure it works out.

I'll tell you what photos. A spacious recon facility, new floors, new lifts. That should attract some folks.

Are you putting air conditioning in the new building?

We are not putting air conditioning.

Don't tell them.

Yeah, we have a good ventilation system, several fans, exhaust fans. It's not going to be too bad. It is insulated.

I put, I put AC in my recon facility. This year was a $12,000 commitment and I don't know that it's making a huge difference. But I can tell you this. When I walk in from the outside in there, it's A big difference.

A happy tech is a more productive tech.

Yeah. And just, you know, what are we paying tax right now? Because that's a, you know, Atlanta is a big market and I think it's similar to South Carolina. What are you having to pay to get a good tech?

Right.

I believe a CTEC is going to be around $25 an hour and a tech's up to 40.

I think you're dead on it. Cool.

All right.

Anything else?

And you can't pay them too little. That's the problem. You just, you get what you pay for. That's for sure. Yeah. Then they're gone.

So, you know, just circling back a little bit instead of moving service off of off site and doing it the other way. We chose this approach because one, you get your customers looking at the cars on the front line. You get opportunities for trade ins, you get opportunities to sell them new cars. So I didn't want to push service away. I want to keep service close.

You did say that. Yeah.

Well, cool. Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

Thanks, Ben. Have a good rest of the week. Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt the podcast again, but you guys know Pastime, Great sponsor of the podcast and a great asset for buy here, pay here and retail dealers for sure.

Protect your assets. That's all it's about.

COVID your assets. It's a great game.

And Pastime does it best, in my opinion. So if you're a retail dealer and you've got cars all over town, you got people test driving cars, stick a wireless device in there, they don't know that. And if they decide to leave, you know where it is. Right.

If you get your stuff stolen. For us, in our buy here pay here, we use wireless because it's just easy. It's easy to deliver a buy here, pay here unit on a Friday evening or a Saturday because they just plunk, drop the little wireless guy right in the headrest, car's on the road, and.

For someone like me, sometimes sell really high end cars. It's the double protection I get with a wired unit and also the wireless unit in case one fails. And sometimes or somebody pulls it off. I still got that backup. But I'm telling you, the asset in the buy here, pay here industry is our accounts. And this technology has made it so much easier for us to do our job. And passtime, I think is the way to go. Give them a call, Jeff. We got NQD nominee. NQD nominee, yes, nqd. And so most people don't know what that means. National quality dealer this is Kelly Midgett. He's our Carolina's representative and glad to have him here. Let's talk about your business and what you do in the community. Kind of got you here.

Well, thank you for having me. We're from Manio, North Carolina. Got a hybrid dealership. We do about half buy here, pay here, half prime finance. I just kind of stumbled in the car business. I was a detailer and I couldn't afford to. I was a mobile detailer and I couldn't afford to have a brick and mortar location. So my idea was to sell one car a month and that would help pay for the rent. And so now we're selling 20, 25 on average. And we're just. We try to be very active in the community. I feel like I've been blessed with more than I probably deserve. And so I just try to give, you know, as much as I possibly can.

That is so refreshing to hear. And how long have you been in the business? Because you're a young guy, I mean.

Yeah, this is my 12th year owning the dealership.

Wow.

I started detailing when I was 16 at Lake Norman. Chrysler Plymouth, Dodge Jeep, Eagle, back in the day and just detailed my way from Charlotte to the Outer Banks.

I was about to say, hold on, you started at Lake Norman? How in the heck do you end up, I mean, eight hours that way in North Carolina?

My dad's side of the family was from the Outer Banks, and so we went every year we visited and I just happened to go one year, one summer, met a girl, you know, started just started a life and just kind of ended up there. Never thought I'd end up at the Outer Banks, but I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else now.

It's hard to get there, Jeff, if you don't know Outer Banks is like you got North Carolina and then you got way out in the ocean.

You have the east coast, right?

Yes.

South of D.C. north of Florida, north of me. Fly over country. Sounds great.

What do you. What are the things you do in the community that makes you feel proud and like. Who are some of the organizations you give to? What's great?

Our latest and greatest, our favorite now is the After Prom. It's a organization designed. They have a big party after prom every year and keep all the kids indoors, safe, away from the partying and the drinking and the crazy things that they could be doing. They recognized that prom night was a high fatality night for prom goers. And so their aim was to get the kids off the street. So we started off Years ago, giving away one car at after prom, and they give away 20 or 30 thousand dollars worth of prizes. You know, all these kids are going to college. They have a full dorm room. Everything you need to move into a college dorm, they have everything. That's one prize. Surfboards, kayaks. They called me and asked if we would do a car. And I was like, whoa. Nobody's ever asked me to give away a car before.

That's a big ask.

Well, I mean, they ask every day.

Well, right, but this is a. This is a different kind of ask. And I said, well, I thought about it, and I said, let's do it, you know, so we gave away a car. The next year, we gave away another car, and now we're up to two cars a year.

Well, so hold on. So this is a lot of discussion forums. A lot of times, you know, I'm staunchly against me giving away a car. We. We give to another organization that gives a car away. How many of you totally given away?

Four, five, five or six now.

Five or six?

We did two. Two. Two different years. So there's four, five, six, Six or seven. Some somewhere in there. At least six.

That's a lot of money. I mean, that's a lot of money.

Especially this year. This year was like the. It was a little harder. The cars, you know, they're a little bit more expensive. And of course, we go through them, we make sure they're safe, just like they're gonna be on the lot. We put a warranty on them, just like they're going on the lot. And, you know, it's a. One of the best ones we gave away. A girl was literally in tears. Her family had one car, and it broke down the week before prom. And she said, I'm going to prom. I'm gonna get this car. And she got the car, and she was just literally in tears the whole time.

These cars are going to teenagers.

Teenagers. Yep. Going to teenagers.

So that's one of the. I guess one of the things to get them to go to this party and stay out of the party and is to win these prizes to win.

The more we can have to attract them in there. And the cars. The cars have been a big draw. You know, we've seen the numbers go up with the kids at a 10. That's our latest and greatest. That's our big one we're doing now. Our biggest one years ago was. And we gave away a car. We auctioned it off at. For the hotline is a women's shelter. It's a local women's and men's alike, I reckon, abuse shelter. And they would do a Christmas tree auction every year. And what you do is you go in and decorate a Christmas tree with all these different things. Could be gift cards, could be whatever. Well, we put a car under ours and the car had to stay outside, obviously, but they auctioned it off. And that was a big. That was a big one that year.

I mean, that's so neat. What you do for your community is wonderful. I mean, we all do a lot of things, but to hear these NQD nominees. Yeah. And how much they give back. And this is what small business is about, right, Jeff?

That's why he's a quality dealer.

Quality dealer. Everybody needs to strive and aspire to be as involved as you are. Thanks, Kelly.

Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you guys having me.

We are here with Josh from my Value Car Rentals in Venice, Florida. Josh, do you do daily rentals?

Yes.

You do weekly rentals? Yes.

That's where I started.

I love this. So you know. You know my thought process on rentals. I was in the rental car business, and what a freaking nightmare. You feel that way?

No.

Gosh. Just did it wrong, I guess.

I know this sounds like we could. We don't have enough time to ask you all the questions I want to ask you, but what I do want to ask you is, so far, convention. What have you learned? Any key takeaways you're taking back to your dealership that you can share with us?

Well, I learned about different websites you can use to help promote your cars, because I'm in the rental business, so I'm just learning about the selling business because after renting for a year or two, you need to get rid of them. So that's why I'm here, to try to learn that kind of stuff. So I'm learning a lot of stuff about different ways to get customers in your door to buy them. You mean different ways to market them.

Yeah.

That's where you make your money in the rental car business is when you can sell those rental cars.

Exactly.

Because I used to do that. I used to have a fleet of Toyotas, Corollas, and Camrys. Yep. And it was great. I mean, it was wonderful until I lost my insurance and had too many lawsuits because of people crashing my cars. Florida's laws are probably a little different than the crazy South Carolina lawsuits.

But.

But that's.

I mean, it's like you are just a. You're, like a hair away from leasing. Right. I mean, like, it's a hair away from leasing a car. Because if I understand it, you're taking payments daily, weekly, monthly, whatever. I still own the car because it's a rental company. But then once I've used that asset to the point where it's about ready to blow up, I'm going to sell it my residual and make a bunch of money at the end.

There's one main difference between the lease and the renting. It's that 30 day number.

Yep.

If it's less than 30 days, it has to be rental. If it's over 30 days, it has to be a lease. So I had a guy in a car, right? Hit day number 31, got an accident, didn't rear out his contract.

Guess what?

Insurance company said we're not paying for it.

I've seen that.

So I would go repo a car on day number 30. If they don't bring it back.

Yeah. Or give them another one, what do you do, swap them out?

Yeah. Well, no, they just have to sign the contract, that's all.

Yeah, you just gotta roll them over to a new contract. Yeah.

That's all it is. All about the paperwork.

Yeah.

There's a lot of rules of rentals.

Well, Josh, we. We're gonna need to check back to you when you really start selling those. Those rentals that you've been doing and see how it goes.

Well, it's very profitable. The ones I sold, though, because of the depreciation. 2% a month, you mean? So then I got a car, say, oh, I got it for $8,000. Oh, it's worth 14.

Yeah.

How can you lose?

Yeah, I don't think you can. I'm on board. I'm renting everything.

Thank you. Okay, so another dealer here, Farah. And you're from Mesa, Arizona, correct?

Yeah.

Awesome. So first time to the.

It is first time.

Our first timer here. So what brought you to the convention?

Just, it's. I need. It's time to kind of get more involved and speak to other dealers and just there's challenging times right now in this industry and our country, and it's just time for us to kind of reach out.

Yeah.

So how long have you been in business?

About 10 years.

10 years?

Yeah.

Wow. Okay.

You made it past the 10 year hurdle. You're fine. You don't need to be here through.

A pandemic and everything. We're okay.

What's your business model?

What do you mean?

Like, are you about here pay here? You retail?

We do point of sale primarily with subprime customers, but we're kind of really trying to expand to really provide a service to all our customers base.

So one thing that I found interesting, that you have an all female sales staff now. People know that I've had female sales people, and I love them because they're great. They relate, they're not threatening. Talk about how you got to that. And is that. Do you tell people that, hey, this is how you need to do it? You think?

Well, I mean, I think it's what works for me, and it's something that's authentic for me. You know, right now it's all. Obviously we're, you know, try to be diverse and include everybody, but, you know, especially when you're coming in terms of financing and our leadership is also women. It's just. It's a good model for our customer base. Women are a very large, significant part of, you know, car buyers, and it's important that we represent them.

Yeah. I grew up, as I grew up in a single family, a single mother, and she raised me. And so it was. I have a soft spot for single mothers, you know, and it's a lot of our buy here, pay your customers are that. And then I had a sales lady that was like, she was so great.

The best salespeople I've had have been females. You can relate. You can say whatever you want and get away with it for the most part. I mean, it's just so easy. But how do we attract them and keep them in our dealerships? Because my issue is that the female salesperson, they've got a lot going on. They got a lot pulling them all directions, especially if they have kids or, you know, how do you get them into the dealership and keep them there?

It's about being a good place to work.

That's my problem.

Right. It's about being a good place for women. Want to be there and feel empowered. And that's not just women. That's anybody, you know, but understand that these are, you know, potent mothers and have, you know, there needs to be a little bit of flexibility with that, you know, understanding that three mothers working for me right now, and that's.

That's huge, the flexibility. Because you never know when your kid's gonna be sick.

Yeah.

Or have to go to baseball practice or got in trouble.

School.

And you got to go to school to figure it out.

Yeah.

It's about flexibility, I think. Yeah. And you deal with it because you're a mother as well. Sure. And if you're not, you. You've been around a bunch of mothers. So you get it and you understand it's hard sometimes for you and I to relate to that.

Yeah. It's like you percent of our workforce.

You know, I mean, it, it's honestly. And it's the same thing. You could talk about how do you attract diversity and it's just being a good place to work where you value it. We talk about those things at our store. You know, we talked, we just had Juneteenth and we, you know, commemorated Juneteenth and we talked about it. And that's. I mean, that's just really the future of where it needs to go. You just need to be an inclusive place and they come. Right. You attract who you are, you know, and if you want good talent, you got to be a good place.

So there's so many.

She's cutting me deep.

She is cutting me deep, you know. Yeah. And you know what's crazy is that people want to buy from who they look like and talk, you know, it's. So if you have a very diverse, you can attract all buyers. And, and it's.

We have every minority represented at our store right now. Every single one. We have Spanish speakers and you know, we were just talking. It's not just having that one Spanish speaker. It's. We have three right now. And it's a team. So when someone who only speaks Spanish comes to our dealership, we can properly support them. Not just that one person who, you know, and it's for service issues, for signing for financing, that we can communicate effectively.

I've never gotten into selling a lot of Spanish speaking people because I've never had, I've never been able to hire and keep a Spanish speaking person.

And it's scary, right?

It's your culture, cars to people that you can't communicate with because you don't know the language.

Yeah.

You know, and that's. Again, we're having a good team and training well kind of comes into place, but the market's there, you know, and we all just need to kind of clean up.

Very nice. I like.

I'm recommitted.

Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you, guys. Dealers helping dealers. Please leave us a review and subscribe the independent dealer podcast.