#253 - How I Built This w/ Nick Markosian

Hello and welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast brought to you by Buckeye Dealership Consulting. Another great installment of our How I built this series with a friend close to me, good buddy Nick Marcosian up there in northern Utah.

Yeah. Salt Lake City guy. Five locations, Jeff.

Yeah, five.

I had two recon facilities, 270 cars per month, 4300 accounts.

A hundred.

He's holy. That's a lot going on, man.

Yeah, Nick is a go big guy. He has got a vision and he. It's really inspirational. It's been fun for me to be around him on the board and things like that because as he mentions in this episode, it's a lot of your crew. You know, who are your people, who are your mentors, who do you surround yourself with? Other dealers, smaller or bigger, that inspire you and can help you learn and be better. And so he shares a lot about. That is a really, really great episode of a guy who's been to the bottom. He's. He's been up, he's been to broke and he's built it back up. So really just such a cool inspirational story. And before we get into it, we want to make sure you guys are aware of our sponsors so that we don't have to break in during the interview. Pastime. Great, great GPS provider. This is your time of year, guys. Make sure you're putting GPS's start 2023. GPS all your cars. If you're a retail lot, stick them in your retail cars. Keep yourself safe. Don't let stuff get stolen.

Yeah. And also, you know, Nick really went into to 20 groups and things like this. And Buckeye dealership consultant, you know, huge, huge supporter of the podcast. Huge part of the industry. DPG groups. I'm in a DPG group. Some, some new folks have people I really enjoy I was on the phone with last night. I went over what's going on, you know, texting my every day, talking about how can I get better, how can they get better? And it's. It really starts with groups like this and Buckeye is a place to go and see that and also get your reinsurance.

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You are listening to the Independent Dealer Podcast with hosts Luke Godwin and. And Jeff Watson. When I was a kid, I had a great uncle and his name was Rick Warner and he was a really well known dealer in the area, a new car dealer. He had several locations. He was one of the largest new car dealers in the area. And I always just adored that guy. He was very athletic, he had a fused hip, but in spite of the fused hip, he was a really talented tennis player, an athlete. And, and he just had this personality, you know, this charisma. And he was so kind and generous to everybody and I just loved the guy. And so that was kind of the start. But then I had a. I just absolutely loved cars from a very early age. I couldn't remember people's names when I was a kid, but I could remember the cars they drive, drove. And I could tell you to this day, like what my aunt Shell drove when I was a kid, and I could tell you every car she has owned since I was a kid because I'm just a freaking rain man when it comes to that weird stuff. And so I just had a passion for cars. I really liked the car business. I loved going to car dealerships and seeing the salespeople dressed up and the smell of the showroom floor and the smell of the service shops. I don't know, man. You know, some people want to be astronauts or firemen. I wanted to be a car salesman for a very young age.

Did you, did you work, did you work for him?

I did, yeah. Yeah. I used to go in when I was 17 and to the Nissan store because I knew people there because my parents bought some cars from the Nissan dealership and I'd go there and bug the sales manager like every day. You need to hire me. I really want to come on board. Please hire. We're good. We're full, you know, and finally he relented and let me come work for him. And. And like three months before I turned 18, I started. I started coming in wearing a shirt and tie so I could talk to customers. Such a nerd.

That's. So, so. So you did that through your teenage years or. And then at what point or what. How old were you when you decided, hey, I want to go up and do my own thing. Like, I want to start my own car lot. I want to kind of be the one in Control.

Yeah. So I moved up. I became a manager when I was 23. I was salesperson of the year when I was 20 and started thinking about having my own dealership at that time. And I moved up and then they transferred me to another store and I wasn't happy. And I thought I could do it way better and, you know, just young hubris and had to move to another company. And that's when I decided I wanted to open my own place. And I was only 25 years old when I opened. My dealership was in 2000. Wow. And I did it with a partner. I was going to do it on my own. And it was just more of a, you know, he, he was having lunch with me. He goes, hey man, can I do this with you? And I was like, sure, why not? It was very casual. Didn't think through anything, just did it, you know. And so I, I had a couple of rental houses at that time, and there was a bank, a local bank that was willing to, you know, as the equity in the homes as collateral to do a flooring line. And that's what we did. We, we took the equity out of our homes. We, we started up and then we had maybe like 40, 50 grand in cash. And we also, you know, I was really heavy into F and I, I had done F and I for quite a few stores, so I was able to get banks and lenders on board. That probably would have been extremely challenging to, to have happen had I not had those relationships. So it was really helpful that I'd had that background, you know, with other car dealerships.

So, so to start with, you weren't lease here, pay here, buy here, pay here, like your lease here, pay here now. You were just a retail store.

We were just a retail store. We were doing well. We were generating cash flow. We got up to about 70 units a month. And we opened up a location across the street from our original location. And we decided to try Buyer pay here in 2004. But it was just a side thing. It was those junkie trade ins, you know, if we can't get them bought at the worst lender that we have, then we'll go ahead and try to finance them ourselves. And, and the ACVs were extremely low. 1500, 2000. And we were able to build it up to around 150 accounts without taking on leverage or anything. And it was, it was a nice little side business for, for us when we first started doing it.

And, and that was what years were.

The, that Nick we started doing Buyer Pay here in 2004. And we grew it to about 300ish accounts by 2009. And at that point we'd taken on a little bit of leverage. I want to say 1.4, 1.5 million at that point. So we were able to grow it pretty big without taking on a whole lot of leverage. And that was kind of one of the benefits of starting off with retail. It generated some cash flow so we could self fund our buyer pay here stuff to an extent.

Did you sell as well as buy here pay here when you kind of started rolling into buy here pay here?

We did, yeah. We. So. So when we had those two locations, we, we had a big location and we had a small location, and we started doing buyer pay here at the small location and then, and then did retail at the big location. And that was going really well, but we decided just to combine it. And so we moved everything to the big location, purchased a property next door to the big location, and we were doing both in that time. Separate names, I would say. It's like. No, no, same dealership. We just. Yeah, we just had a different manager across the street. Yeah, it was a good, it was, it worked really well for the time. I want to say we didn't have that arrangement for very long. Maybe a year and a half, two years. But it was great. We couldn't get them bought. They go across the street, you know, and then all of the collections, all the, everything was over there across the street. And it was working well. But we just felt like we could probably consolidate things, save money on a manager, save money on rent if we, if we consolidated into one location.

And that's.

So that was. Yeah, two, four to eight or so.

And then in 08, I guess you start feeling the crunch of the housing crisis or.

Yeah. So in 07, we took on a third partner and we opened a small little dealership in Ogden, 45 minutes north of our place. And we called it. So my original name was West Valley Auto Plaza. We opened Ogden Auto Plaza with a third partner. We were in a little trailer. We were doing very well up there. We were selling like 50 cars a month out of this little trailer. So I got my family involved, we bought some property. I started building a huge facility just in time for the recession to hit. And we, we, by the time that building was finished, we were full on in crisis mode. Our bank, my lender, had been taken over by the fdic. You know, things were pretty disastrous. So we went from selling 50 cars or so a month in a little trailer to 20 cars a month in a four million dollar facility.

Oh, man.

That was pretty cool. And I was also in the middle of a divorce and things just. I always say I was a dead dog short of a country song at that point in my life. And it was brutal. It was absolutely brutal. So I got divorced. I got rid of my partners. I. At that point, I had quite a bit of debt with my family. So I. I also foreclosed on that property. And I didn't think it would be a good idea for me to have partners that I'd have to pay and have the family debt. So I was able to work out a deal with them to get them out, Took on all the debt, which, by the way, there was no assets tied to that debt. It was just. It was just unbelievable. I mean, the good thing is we had about 300 accounts. I was also paying rent on a huge old Ford dealership in Salt Lake. And so I negotiated a new rent with them. I was behind on my annex. I was behind on the, you know, the radio stations I was at. I would just. And I. So what I did is I just went to every single person I owed money to and made workouts and said, here's the situation I'm in. I remember it was so bad that at that time, I was floored with the auction. And one of the auction reps came to my dealership and said, we have 40 drivers down the street that are ready to take your cars. Whoa. And I said. I said, why? And they said, well, you haven't been paying your curtailments. And I said, well, how am I supposed to pay cartel? Anyhow, long story short, I took our payroll and I had just refinanced my boat out of my name into my. Out of my ex wife's name into my name. And I hadn't paid off the old loan yet on the boat, so I had two loans on one boat. I took that money. I took my payroll money. I was still short about 15 grand. So I went to the bank with my dad and got 15,000 bucks. And I was able to come up with enough money to keep them from repossessing my cars.

Oh, my God.

Like in. Every. Every day was something new like that.

Yeah.

You know, it was just insane. It was so unbelievably hard and. And freaky and. But, you know, when you. When you're in that kind of a crisis situation, it almost starts to become. You kind of get a little bit of levity about it. It's not. You don't Take life so seriously because it's so. At least I'm still breathing air. At least the sky is still blue. At least the sun is still rising in the east. You have to get down to that level to appreciate, you know, to. To not take it all too seriously and just do the best you can, you know, that's all you can do is the best you can. And it's not like I was alone. You know, that was an unbelievable period in our history and everybody was struggling. So. Yeah, you just do what you can, Nick.

You know, listen, I mean, inspiring to some people that may be on the borderline of, of everything collapsing, but to see where you are now and how. How bad it was. I mean, it takes a special person to, to be able to look at it like that, you know?

Yeah. You know, I look at back at that day when, when the flooring company was there and the rep was there with 40 drivers, and I think how many people would just say, okay, here's the keys.

Yeah.

How many people would. Would do everything in their power? Because I knew that was like a pivotal moment in my life. I knew that if they took my cars, I was done, you know, and I was able to. To just grind and figure it out and come up with the money. And it wasn't pretty. I mean, I broke the law, you know, the two boat loan thing, But I worked through it. I eventually paid off that loan in a, In a reasonable period of time. And I, you know, I just, I just work through things and I don't.

Know, I guess I find it super cool, Nick, is that you had that belief in yourself, right? You weren't just trying to like, hey, I'm gonna. I just gotta like, get out of this and get done and be. You're like, no, just give me a little breathing room. I am a hustler. I'm gonna make this right. I'm gonna get back to where I was. I'm not ready. I'm not gonna throw in the towel. I just need a little Runway to make this happen again.

Right.

That.

That to me is really cool. Well, thank you. I. I think, you know, the, the other thing I will say is I didn't hide. I didn't. I was proactive. And, and that was the thing that really sucked about the flooring company. As I told them my situation and they were, they understood it. I was calling them every day and then they quit taking my calls. And I'm like, something's going on on there, you know? But, but, but, but my point is, is if you, if you go to people and say, here's my situation and you're transparent and I'm going to work it out and I'm going to pay you 99% of the time they're willing to work with you. It's when you run and hide and you lie and you, you know, do all those silly things to try to get a skirt away from it that you get in big trouble.

It's like our customers. Same thing with our customers. The only reason we ever repossess a car is because of lack of communication. Right?

It's so true. It's so true. But it's our, it's, it's, you know, it's our go to thing. It's how we, how we operate. If we're just, if we're relying on our human nature, I guess, and not thinking things through.

Well, it's, it's, it's. A lot of it is just being humble and just taking your ego out of the equation, right. And saying, hey, you know, this is what it is. I'm not trying to hide or act like I'm something I'm not. Let's, let's get this worked out. So what's interesting to me is how, how did you have the, how did you have the, the whatever fortitude or guts to say, I'm going to do this again? Like, like a lot of people would be like, oh, man, it crashed. I don't have the stomach for this. Let me just pay everybody out, and I'm just going to go work at, you know, a bank and, and just kind of be an employee from here on out. I don't want to do this entrepreneurship thing.

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think I have a couple of answers. I think one thing that really helped me, that I've noticed, so I'm, you know, we have a guy, Jeff and I are on the board of directors of the Used Car Dealers of Utah. And I called one of the other members and he's just getting going. He's really, he's a cool kid. He's just getting going. But like, I, I thought about him and how he's approaching the beginning of his business. And when I first opened, the very first day I opened, I was on the radio, you know, I was advertising. I was building my brand. I was getting that going. And most dealers, 98 of dealers that are just starting out would never even think to do something like that. And I thought to this kid, he, the kid that I was, I'm referring to that's on the board with us. He was. I called him up because we needed a vote, right. And I called him up, and he said, oh, I'm so sorry. I haven't been able to do that yet because I'm on a test drive with a customer. I just thought, yeah, that's. That. That guy's gonna be on a test drive with a customer 20 years from now. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And so I had a way of building. I had a vision. Head of how I want my business to be structured, how I want it to run. And I knew that I could do it. I just knew I could do it. So, I mean, for example, I went to the radio company. I owed him 20 grand. I said, I'm broke. He said, what kind of payment are you going to make? I said, how about a thousand bucks a month? And then he goes, okay, but how are you going to continue to do business if you're not advertising? And I said, I haven't really thought about that. What do you think? We worked out a deal where I could continue to advertise on a station and pay off my debt and then keep things rolling. And so I think that's one of the big things that's led to my success, is just my willingness to. To advertise, my willingness to spend marketing dollars. I've considered an investment, and I feel like it's an investment that's paid off for me tenfold. But the other component is, Jeff, is I had mentors. I had people in my life. I had other car dealers that I loved up to and that I wanted to be like. And I was on the phone with my friends every single day during that period, and they were just basically helping me come off the ledge, you know? And having mentors, I think, has been one of the most powerful things that I've had in my career, is just being able to look up at other people that have done or been through what I'm going through or have gotten to that next level. And I'm always looking for new mentors. I joined a new buyer pay here group about three years ago. These guys are like 7,000 account guys, and I'm seeing what they're doing, and that's what I'm going to do, you know, and that's extremely helpful in my career.

I saw you down on Facebook, I guess, last week at your. At your 20 group in there, and I was like, man, there's some big boys in that group.

Yeah, yeah, they are. And I bulldog three years ago, but I'M catching up.

So how did you find those people? Like back in 2008, 2009, you had this group of mentors. Like, how did you connect with them then? And how did you. Do you, do you feel like you have any advice for dealers that say, hey, I might be small and I want a mentor, but how do I get someone like Luke to take my phone call or give me advice or be a mentor to me? Any advice for dealers like that that might be looking for those people?

I hate to sound like a commercial for 20 groups, but that's it. I just joined a 20 group, met some my to this day. So I joined that 20 group in 2006. To this day. My two closest friends came from that 20 group. I played. One of my buddies just got married from that 20 group a few weeks ago and I played saxophone at a ceremony. I mean, this is a guy I met 20 years ago and we're that close, you know. And then my other buddy, Gus Camacho, we went on a biking trip in Mexico together just, just last week. And those, both of those guys were in that 20 group. They were my mentors there. And to this day, I'm super close with them. So, yeah, I think in mentorship, mentor is a very important thing. I see a lot of young dealers that are struggling and they have nobody in their lives to look up to. And a lot of them just think that the answer is for them to figure it out on their own and to never be the student, always be the, you know, never have the humility to try to learn something new. And I just see them struggle and I feel bad for them because there are, because there are so many people out there and people that are successful in our business, they're extremely generous. They're more than happy to talk to you. They're more than happy to teach you if you have that approach of humility and that, that student like approach where you're willing to listen to them rather than tell them everything. And, and that's what I've found throughout my career. And it's been awesome.

I tell you, it's people in the car business. A lot of times we in our room with ego and, and the only way we can, can leave that room and go to the next room is to drop our ego in that room. And, and I tell you, the first time I walked into a 20 group, I, I had a big ego. Still probably do, but I still have learned that I can learn so much more for people that are bigger, bigger than me. And it's so true. I met those people in 20 group. I have stayed in contact with them. So best friends have come from that.

And you know what blows my mind is just how few dealers are in 20 groups. And like Jeff and I are on that board. There's 10 people on our board. We're the only two people in 20 groups. And I'm like, why? What are you thinking? This. You could, you can become an egg. There's got to be a. You got to be able to see a path.

Yeah.

So I could never see the path to getting to the next level without, without mentors.

I want to ask you that question because you're the kind of guy and, and I, and I see your ambitions as so many dealers and even ones that we've recently interviewed say, more money, more problems. I make as much with me being at the car lot nine to five, selling 10 cars a month as I did when I had five car lots selling 200amonth. And my, I was going all over the place and I couldn't be home. And I wasn't at this and I wasn't at that. Talk to us about your lifestyle, creep. You know, your work life balanced, the fact that you have five locations and 200. How many hundred of employees and all these things. Is your life worse or better?

I. That's a good, really good question. Regarding the, the 200 car a month guy that's making less selling 200 than he is. You know, I, I agree with him. In the short term, that's absolutely true. You're gonna make less money with more locations. Right now all I'm dealing with is higher overhead and, and not very many more accounts than I had six months ago. You have to pay a price. There is a price to pay for growth. And in the short term, your overhead is not going to make sense because you haven't built, you haven't matured the accounts. You haven't built the enough accounts to cover your operational expenses. So you have to be willing to stick it out. You have to believe in the bottle. I've had my struggles where I'm negative cash flow, I'm borrowing money, I'm constantly broke, and I'm like, what the hell am I doing? Look at the bottle. And, and I, I remember a real pivotal time for me was 2018. I was opening broke and, and stressed. I hired a fractional cfo. He modeled out what it was going to look like for me based on my existing sales and everything. And I was like this close to being positive cash flow and for things to turn around. And it gave me the, that I needed the hope needed that things would turn around. And sure enough, boy did it ever. Especially when covet hit, you know, and so, so, you know, you got to believe in the model and that, that, that goes back to mentorship, you know, and to seeing, seeing how people, other people struggle through the negative cash flow portion of the growth story and buyer pay here and how they got through it, what they did. And you know, a lot of times it's just fake it till you make it. Pretend like things are better than they really are, you know, and I've been, I'm really good at creating that alternate universe.

Yeah, you live in your own bubble. And to that point though, I mean really, a lot of times in the industry, it's only as good as it is between your own two ears. Right? Everyone kind of talks about so true struggling, oh the things are so bad. And other dealers are like, no, it's great. Everything's great. It's always great.

You know, one of my mentors, one of my mentors from my first 20 group, Guy disrespect the heck out of. He said one time, I said, well, well, Eric, how do you know when to, when to. How many cars you can buy and when to stop buying? He said, I don't know, I just keep mine. And I was, and I was like, well, okay, here's a guy selling 150, 160 cars a month and all he's doing, I don't know, Luke, I just keep buying. I, I guess it's just that, you know, focus on, on getting it done.

Right? Yeah. And just knowing that short term pain equals long term gain, you know, hard then easy, that you have to understand that yes, it's going to be hard, but it's not forever. And once you get it going, it's easy. I mean, to answer Jeff's other question about my lifestyle, I have greatly a great, I've built a great leadership team and I know how to delegate. And the way to delegate is to make your expectations extremely clear to your people, have them agree to those expectations, and then hold them accountable to those expectations. And sometimes you guys make mistakes like we, I've overwhelmed some of my people. So we go back to the drawing board. Okay, what can we take off your plate? What, what you delegate to your, to your lower level people, you know, and it's just a constant experiment, but as long as you're clear with your people and they understand what their role is and you hold them accountable to that in answer to your question, I'm gone constantly for my dealership. I go on vacations a lot. I go to 20. Group stuff. I'm heavily involved in the NIADA, as you know, Jeff. I live an amazing life, I think. And the other thing is I have a lot of balance in my life. I'm way into riding bikes, cycling. I play the saxophone, and I do stuff with that. I have my two little kids. I have young kids and old kids and my young kids. I hang out with a bunch, and I have balance in my life. So if things aren't perfect at Worth there, there's other. There's other things I can hang my hat on, you know?

Yeah, I think that's what so many people think. Like, oh, you know, if I get to two or three dealerships and I have 50 employees and I'm selling 200 cars a month, that I'm not going to ever see my family, and I'm not going to be home for dinner, and I'm not gonna be able to be in these things. And I, I, you know, is that you're. You're designing your own trap. Is that because you just didn't build it right?

That's the paradox of growth. You know, the paradox is. Is the revenue. Because you have so much more revenue, you can hire people to do stuff. So in. In. The irony is that it's easier in a lot of ways. It's. We. I can't even imagine having four or five employees and running a single car lot. That, to me, sounds like. Frankly, it sounds like hell. Because I still have to do.

There's no way, no way I want.

To do that again.

You're the one dealing with the hot cases and everything else. Like.

And again, when you grow, yes, it is hard. Yes. On. On a P. L Statement, it makes no sense because you've increased your overhead in the short term and you're. You've. You've got the. You've got the revenue of one store. It takes time. It's hard. But then it gets easy, and then you can start to really. Then you have options. Do I want to grow or do I want to pay off my debt? Do I, you know, do I want to open up a recon center and. And take my dealership to the next level and take on leverage in order to do that? And in the short term, be. Be hurting for the next couple of years, you know, not hurting, but just, you know, tight. Or am I. Am I cool? Am I good? Am I And how old am I? That's another big question. How old am I? And what, what do I want? What do I want out of my life? What do I, my business? And those are the questions that I asked. You know, myself went right before I blew my company up again and opened up this year, you said.

So I think that's a good testament too to like you said, Nick, you got with a fractional CFO and someone that knew the numbers and knew the industry well enough to model out what that looks like. You know, based on my footprint, my desire, my retirement, my ability, my, you know, tolerance for, for risk, what's my optimal footprint here at my place, when do I become cash flow positive? Because I think a lot of us, sometimes we stop, you know, we like, we get scared or we plateau out and we never break through to the amount of sales or the amount of employees. We're too worried to hire that key guy, whereas we need to hire it and pay the money to get to that next level or else we're all going to, we're going to be constantly stuck in this little stagnant, you know, roundabout where we're the ones buying the cars and we're the ones dealing with hot cases and we're the ones not home with our family for dinner and.

You'Re burned out and you're exhausted and you hate your business. And I don't ever want to have that kind of relationship with my business. I want to love my business and I still do. And I, so I delegate, delegate, delegate. Get the stuff off my plate that I don't like that other people are better at than me so that I can, that I can enjoy my business. Because what's the point? If you're not enjoying what you're doing, why the hell are you doing it? You know? And then going back to your other, your point about being afraid, you know, fear based decisions are never good decisions. Decisions based on fear are something that I try to avoid all the time. And if I'm making decisions because I'm scared of something, it's the wrong decision. If you see the vision, if you see the potential of your business, don't let fear enter into that equation. There could be a whole host of other reasons why you don't grow. You're getting close to retirement age, you just don't want to take it on, take on the problems associated with growth, whatever, and that's fine. But don't let fear get in the way of your vision. You know, and what you, what you, what you think the potential of your business is.

Yeah, man, that's good advice.

I want to ask you that, Nick. Then, well, what do you feel the potential is? And it sounds like you said you're kind of doubled down again, back in the growth phase. So to kind of continue this, this journey through your life. You know, you guys are, you know, now at five locations opening up, just opened up, I think two recently, maybe in a service center that's about to open. Are you back on the offense? Do you see the lease here, pay here model, buy here, pay here model really kind of taken off again in the next three, four or five years or.

I do. You know, there's not a whole lot of competition in Utah. There are no large dealers like me in the area. I mean, the second largest dealer in our area is half my size. And I think there's a lot of really cool things we can offer our customers that our competitors can't because of our size, because of our investment in fixed stops. So I think there's a lot of potential left in the market. I also think with rising interest rates and tightening up of subprime lenders, there's going to be a tremendous opportunity in the next couple of years for our industry. And I'm super excited about it. I think 20. I mean, obviously all of our expenses are higher, but I think the dealers that are willing to. There's still profits to be made in spite of the higher expenses. And I think the dealers that are willing to put their necks out and deal with that expense are really going to thrive in the next couple of years. In terms of how I get, you know, I've looked at different dealers in my 20 group and, and how different dealers have operated and the. I think based on just the P L statements, the brain damage that the dealers are dealing with and things like that. But the dealer in my, in my group that I think has nailed it. He has two large locations, he's selling about 250 cars a month. And to be able to deal with two locations rather than five smaller locations is ideal. You only have two management team. Things are far easier and simpler. He has virtually no debt. He's just kind of cruising along at around 5,000 accounts. He doesn't have to have that middle level management to manage all the different stores. That added expense of that. So you have that model, that 5,000 or so accounts. And that's really appealing to me. I like that. I don't know, maybe I can see a vision for me to be, you know. And then you look at these dealers that have opened like American Car center you know, they opened up 50 locations and took on private equity money and that guy cashed out with private equity and made a whole bunch of money and that business is falling apart. And then you look at the guys with, you know, 8,000, 9,000 accounts and they're very successful and they're thriving, but their overhead is extremely high and extremely management heavy. And I think what I've concluded about the buyer pay here business is it's only, there's only so much that's scalable. You know, it gets to a point, it's a hard business. There are so many different facets of it that you need to be expert on. You know, the collections aspect, the financial aspect, the fixed ops is a whole other, I mean there's just a lot of moving parts and I think that it's not necessarily easier or more profitable to get bigger. But I also know there's operators that have done it. And so I don't know the answer to your question, Jeff, is I don't really know where my business is going. We're going to see how this five location thing works. I know that I needed to open up another service center because we were outsourcing like 200 grand a month in repairs and we weren't able to keep up. And so I know that building this reconditioning center is going to be a huge win for us. And even though it's a huge investment and it's making me nervous, all that 200 grand that I'm spending it at the other shops I can bring in house. So it's instant revenue, you know, so I, I, that's kind of a no brainer for me. But I don't know, we'll just see what happens. I, I don't know what my tolerance level is for, for, for, you know, 9, 10, 20 store. I don't know. We'll see what, we'll see how this five car thing works out and see what I want to do. Yeah.

I think it's interesting when you were saying you scaled to the point of, of being able to have the managers handle things but not getting so bloated. You know, I kind of joke around all the time that there's so many easier business models, you know, so many easier business models. So to be an absentee owner of a buy here, pay here, at least here pay or even a regular retail lot is so difficult because there's so many moving parts. But, but you're right, that's probably why the small dealers buy here, pay here, even the semi large ones survive as opposed to the national ones. Because when you get on that national level, there's just so much stuff can spin out of control so fast.

Yeah. I mean, and the only one I'm aware of is Drive Time. Right. You have the regional ones like America's Car Mart and Superior and American Car Care center and US Auto and Atlanta, and there's quite a few big ones, but they're not, they're reach. They're all regional. They've only grown to a certain size other than Drive Time. And you. Drive Time is a private company and you kind of wonder how, what their PNL looks like, you know? Mm.

Yeah.

Well, and it's every time they've been acquired by private equity or whatever. I'm not aware of one that succeeded. Yeah, I, I haven't heard of one.

No, I agree.

Yeah.

Once it gets out of the hands. And, and that's one thing. Nick, to wrap this up, what is some of the. Or share with the listeners something you've learned? I know you've given us a couple of great learnings from your history already, but is there anything else that you would share with those people listening as far as words of wisdom or things that have, have been great lessons for you or that you've heard through your journey?

Oh, just that last great little nugget. Right.

And, and I know you, Nick, talk to us about spending money to make money.

Yeah.

Because I know you fully believe in marketing and advertising.

Yeah, I do. And, and I think it's really, you know, I, our customers come in and we're, we ask, where have you heard about us and our customers? Most of our customers say, where haven't I heard about you? Everywhere. Everywhere.

I've heard about you.

Yeah.

And that's, that's kind of what you want to hear. You kind of want to be everywhere. I mean, obviously there's a limit to how much you can spend. And ironically, I spend way less on advertising now than I did when I was growing and trying to build my brand, you know, and that's the beautiful thing about it is you make that initial heavy duty investment to get people to, to know who you are, you come out on the other side of it just refreshing their memory, you know, doing a few TV campaigns here and there, doing a few radio campaigns here and there. And then of course, you all have to make that monthly investment in digital. That, that's just part of the bedrock of marketing. But if you, you can spend a lot of money on digital and if they don't know who you Are. It's, it's, it's. You're fighting against that. That's that skepticism that the customers have because they don't know who you are, you know what I mean? Versus if they've heard of you. They've seen your plaques all over the place, they've seen your bus board, your billboards, they've seen you on tv. They're like, oh, those people, Yeah, I know them. And that just builds instant credibility. And your leads go way up. Your, the interest goes way up. But, but to answer your final question, you know, I'm very generous with my employees. I took my employees to Cabo in the spring. A bunch of my employees, I just took them to, oh gosh, that Trans Siberian Orchestra. I got a suite last night for, for the people that are in my department, my collections department, my county department. Last. You know, I'm very generous with my employees to the point where it almost makes me feel uncomfortable. But then I think to myself, okay, I'm paying in compensation lectures for BDC people, for managers. I'm one of the lowest in my group in compensation. Now that's not to say that my people don't make a lot of money. What it's. What I'm trying to say here is I get more out of my people, I think, than other people do because I, I'm a good person to work for. They like working for me. I'm kind to them. I sit down and chat with them. I take them to cool things. You know, I bought my controller and my BDC manager a trip to Scotland a couple months ago that our local chamber was putting on. I do cool things like that that if they. I try to make my dealership more than just a paycheck, you know. And we also do a lot of really cool community things. I sell cars to, to kids that are just got placed in housing for $1,000 out the door for a state and Im ready car. Like we do the licensing, everything. Thousand bucks out the door. Don't want to give it to them because I want them to earn it. But we've done six or seven deals like that since we started it. In the summertime, we're involved with our local football teams. We just gave away a bunch of turkey. My employees donated money and I matched whatever the donation was. It was enough to buy 130 meals for local people for, for Thanksgiving. I think doing things like that, just the return on that, not just from, you know, feel, feel good about the company, but the return on that and your employees and how they feel about working for you and the place they work at is a tenfold return on your investment, at least. And we just don't have turnover. Our people work super hard and they're happy. And, And I. And I love that. And that's, that's. That's what I want to. You know, if I were to die tomorrow, that's what I hope my employees would say about me is that I was generous, I was cool to them, I was fair with them, and I provided a great place for them to work. That's it.

Well, that's. That's a great way to end, I think, Jeff.

Yeah. Yeah, that really makes me think about a lot of stuff. Nick, thank you for your time. I know you're driving, and so we appreciate you didn't reckon to anyone and you're generous with your advice and your time. We really appreciate it.

My pleasure, guys. Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for the call. Dealers helping dealers. Please leave us a review and subscribe the Independent Dealer Podcast.