#277 - Unfair Advantage Automotive Mastermind Group

You are listening to the Independent Dealer.

Podcast with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson.

Hello and welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast, brought to you by Buckeye Dealership Consulting. Luke, there you are in your dungeon again.

I'm in my dungeon. I was put here. I'm in a bunker. I'm waiting for the world to collapse because we still don't have a debt deal. We may this time next week. I'm not sure.

I can't imagine the debt ceiling. It's like you and Alexa. She comes to you. You always ra her debt ceiling, don't you?

I raise. I raise the debt limit all the time. And then.

You'Ll ask for concessions, and in the end, you'll do it anyways.

Yeah, it's so dumb.

Anyway, so we brought these guys in. They're experts in branding and marketing, right. They're going to help you with your background. You know, we got half a Kramer and we got the 1970s filing cabinet. You guys watch this on YouTube. Please message Luke. Give him some ideas for a better background.

That's the reason my game, Luke. So that's. Well, that's the reason I have it so ugly is so that I'll get these messages and help help deliver content.

I actually think.

Go ahead.

Well, listen, when we first hopped on and we could only see half of Luke's face, Tracy's going to agree with me on this. That might be the deal. Like, you know where. You ever watch that podcast? We can only see half the guy's face. It's memorable.

Yeah, yeah.

Troy's in this poshy, like, Manhattan, like, fl. It looks like it probably costs more than my entire dealership.

No, I am out in the middle of nowhere. Our office is in the woods. We just happened to find some nice office space, though. But we are out in the middle of nowhere.

So let's.

Let's introduce who we got here today. Jeff. Jeff. We got Toy Spring and Tracy Myers, and it's the Unfair Advantage mastermind group. Unfair AdvantageMastermind.com and I go way back with these guys, and truth be known, both of those guys kind of what inspired me over the years to want to do a podcast, to want to speak at conventions. Tracy would be the first. And then, Troy, you spoke at Ciada convention the first time. I remember seeing you. And you may before that at the one in Virginia. Man, that's got to be.

Oh, yeah, that was a great place, man. I love that old homestead.

Or homestead.

The homestead. The homestead. Yeah.

Yeah.

And that was, I mean, at least 10 years ago. Right, Tracy?

Oh, more than that. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, okay. I'm that old.

You know how much I love that I still wear a golf shirt that I bought from that trip?

Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, it seems like you. You are Benjamin Button. You go back in time, you get younger and younger, and we keep getting older and older.

I try, buddy. So the shirt still fits. I'll say that.

The mastermind. The mastermind group, y' all started together 10 years ago, 10th year anniversary. It's an interesting concept, and I've been to, I think, three or four meetings, really enjoyed them. You've got one coming up in August, and we're here to talk about how y' all started this and where you are today. So whoever wants to take the initial, hey, this is how it started. Processing. Hop on it. Do it.

I'm gonna let Tracy take that because he definitely came up with the idea and started it, so I'm not going to take that question.

Yeah, well, look, I appreciate it, and I remember it like it was yesterday because I'm sitting in a conference and. And you guys can appreciate this because you take time away from your dealership, you pay for the flight, you pay for your hotel. You're sitting in the conference and in the keynote. I mean, the conference has just started, right? We're not even into the. The rest of the content. 15 minutes in the keynote, they're pitching a product from the stage. And I'm thinking there's just. There's got to be a better way, as the old saying goes, right? It's like, man, this. And look, there's a place to sell everything because we all sell, right? That's the way we make our living. But as I got through the third day of that conference, I was so frustrated because the majority of the sessions were sales pitches. Some of them were well disguised, by the way. And I'm kind of okay with that.

If the content's good, right?

But majority were not. And I come back and I'm frustrated because I took time away from my family, my dealership, my employees, spent the money. And I'm not saying I didn't bring anything back, because I'm a glass half full guy. I like to think that I can squeeze blood from a turnip if I need to, but it shouldn't have to be that way. And that's where the initial conversation started. So Troy and I go back. Today's my birthday, by the way, so happy birthday. Thank you.

Yeah, Happy birthday, buddy. That was coming, by the way. Happy birthday was coming.

Right, right.

So, and the only reason I bring that up because I'm just thinking about how long. How far back Troy and I go as friends and how social media kind of brings people together, because we definitely met on social media first, and we just had common interests. And sometimes those parlay into real life, and sometimes they don't, as we know when we actually meet the person. And they just always connected with Troy, and we met, and they were even stronger in real life. So we. I kind of pitched that to him, and I said, man, there's just got to be a better way. And he said, well, you know, let's. Let's make that happen. And that's. That was 11 years ago. And approximately a year later, we launched that first Mastermind group meeting in Charlotte. And our goal was pretty lofty. Our goal was to have three of those meetings a year, to have a core group of dealers, new or used, that were heavily vetted, that weren't in the same market. The event was going to be completely free, meaning it was paid for by vendors. The vendors could attend, but they couldn't pitch. They couldn't sell their product in the sessions anyway. Of course, you can do whatever you want to in the hallway. No boobs, no speaking slots for the vendors, and they still had to write us a check. So that paid for the hotel, the food, everything. All you had to do is get to the venue. And that was a.

Troy.

We do two and a half days to start with. We start with a day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm just chuckling because I remember those first couple of calls to the vendors and saying, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't. But we need to check.

Oh, and we only had one vendor per category, so CRM, dms, et cetera, et cetera, which made it more difficult, too, because our pool of vendors was really limited. But our goal was always education, education, education, and the dealer could attend for free with no pitching. And those first couple meetings, I remember, Troy and I, we actually had to back vendors down because as vendors want to do, when that conversation got brought up in Mastermind, they would stand up and, man, they would take that hard, hard left, right? And sometimes it was out of nowhere. It wasn't related to anything they say. Yeah, I agree with that. But here's what I'm selling, and here's what I can do for you. And yeah, those first. The first two meetings, we lost three vendors. I mean, they. They got one, got angry and packed their stuff up and left.

Oh, yeah. I wouldn't have been as good of a moderator, Tracy, if it wasn't for vendors.

Right? Exactly. Yeah, but. But Troy and I looked at as a positive because we knew we were on to at least fulfilling our vision of not selling dealers anything during the sessions. And it just being education. We wanted it to be intense and it was. We wanted them to be exhausted when they left because their brain was kind of numb. And I know ours were. I can't speak for all the dealers there, but we gradually grew that and that model worked as far as attendance. But monetarily we felt like looking back because it's easy to look back and see where you make mistakes that most dealers that we talked to after about three years they kind of. I think the mindset was if we don't, we're not paying for it, there's no value to us. A lot of the vendors dropped out, which was how we were paying for everything. And anybody that's ever put on a conference at all. I mean look at it this way. If a hotel room is 188 bucks a night in, in Charlotte. Right. Which is average for a, you know, three star hotel. Just think what that conference room is going to be for two and a half days.

Yeah.

In the thousands. Right. And the coffee is going to cost. Somebody's going to sponsor that coffee pot. I always joked about the coffee because like 3, 500 pot of coffee for the coffee break. Which is, you know, is ridiculous. And the vendors start dropping out. Not all of them, by the way. We have some that are still with us. Like Promax has been with us since day one and they're still our number one. They believed in our concept and vision and they believed in the long. The long game.

Yeah.

Which was important to us. That long game was like we told the vendors, look, if you stay and build relationships, surprise, surprise. Right. Get to know these dealers on a first name basis. Participate on the dealer calls. Which is something that we did in between the quarterly meetings. We had a weekly dealer call. And Troy and I laughed about this a few months ago. That was before the audio sites that are up now, you know, Twitter. And they got on Twitter space. Twitter spaces and you know, some of those things. We were doing it on old phone. Phone lines. Right. And before zooms.

Yeah.

But I said if you will join those and listen and participate and on the message boards that we had. And nobody uses message boards anymore, I don't guess. Right. And Google groups, you will build business. And Promax still swears that, you know, the roi that they gained from that very first meeting and all those relationships that they built from that first meeting, they still have those. And they. They did a ton of business, but you had to see that. And in our industry and a lot of industries, it's, you know, that low hanging fruit. What can I get right now? Which is. And salespeople, too, right?

Yeah. It seems like this, and I don't. I don't know, maybe conventions and things ebb and flow, but it seems like this has been a new. In the last year or so after Covid, that conventions have spiked. There's more of them. More people want to be around each other, More people are wanting to learn. Have y' all seen that out there? Because I know y' all have been to several conventions here lately doing these mastermind groups.

Yeah, I'll just, you know, I'll speak real quick to, like, the digital dealer that we were just at that was. It was packed, really. I mean, it was. I felt like it was. It was good to see, you know, a lot of vendors were out. So, yeah, as I think you guys know, you know, both Tracy and I have a lot of friends in the space. Right. So I remember texting my wife saying, you know, everyone's here. So everyone was out, you know, to kind of see each other, you know, get that camaraderie going again. I think that the dealer body was also very strong, at least for us. I mean, we felt like in our sessions that we had some really good attendants. So. Yeah, I mean, overall, I think that's. For me, that's been kind of the name of the game the last nine months to 12 months. Luke, you're right.

What is.

What's it.

What's the difference between. Yeah, what's the difference between a mastermind group and a 20 group? You know, we talk about 20 groups so much here. Jeff, do you. Have you ever been to a mastermind group, Jeff?

I wouldn't know the difference.

That's what I'd say. So what. What is the difference? So, Tracy, you've sat in 20 groups. Troy, I. I think you've. You've been in them before.

Yeah.

So, yeah. Biggest difference to a composite, but.

Yeah. Right, right. We were talking about this at the first digital dealer that we were at and did the mastermind at rather. I don't know if it was. When it was over, a dealer looked at us and said, you know, this is like a 20 group. The idea session of a 20 group.

Right.

And we had searched for eight years of a short description and a way to describe what we did to people. Right. And. Oh, my God, that's it. So now that's kind of the way we go into these. If you've ever been to a 20 group meeting, this is a. Whether it's a day, day and a half, three hour, whatever, how long our mastermind group meeting is. It's a. It's essentially that. It's just the idea session because. And that was always my favorite part. I mean, the composites are great and they're important if you've got. If they're governed properly. I just. I'll just say that. And 20 groups have evolved a ton. You know, when I was in my first 20 group in 0405, I was in 2. I was in a buy here, pay here in a retail. And in both 20 groups, we had members that got kicked out for fudging the numbers. And then we got to thinking, well, how do we know everybody's not fudging the numbers? Right. And of course, a lot of that has changed with technology because our controller used to fill in the, you know, fill in all the composite stuff.

Right.

And send it back in. But anyway, that's the biggest difference. And we. It's just a lot of fun. The dealers control the conversation. All the topics are theirs. It's not the Troy and Tracy show. Yes, we're the moderators, but. But our job is to simply, like the title says, moderate the conversation. The dealers at the beginning say, look, what are your challenges? What are you good at? What do you suck at? Let's put those on the board and let's talk about them. Because chances are, if you've got 50 people in a room, and I think there were 80 some people in that dealer session. A digital. Digital dealer.

It was a lot. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was over 50, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. So we had a full board of stuff and we started with. I don't think we got through the first five. Right. In three hours, I think we got through five topics, even though we had a full board of topics to talk about. So. Because those spiral say, okay, let's talk about. And when we started this, by the way, it was Legion marketing lead gen. That was pretty much because all these.

Facebook dark post that came up all the time in those first couple of years.

I remember.

Right, but now you know how to do it. Facebook dark post.

Yeah, now. Now it seems to be inventory acquisition is number one.

Hiring, too. Hiring has become.

Yeah, and those were. There's. Those were nowhere in the conversation. Ten years ago when we started but the dealers give those, those topics to us and we guarantee there's somebody in the room that's really good at what they're bad at. And our goal is to connect those people so they can have relationships outside of the Mastermind and plus have that conversation inside or for like we were a digital dealer, we have dealers with totally polar opposite opinions and our moderation skills come to. Whoa, we have to stop because now this isn't productive anymore. You know, you're getting very reality show ish.

Hey everybody, real quick, just need to let you know about primaland Great company. You know, if you go back to episode that we just put out a couple weeks ago was really, really popular on the YouTube channel. So episode 272, if you didn't listen to it, go back, listen to it on the podcast or on the YouTube channel. These guys lay out a ton of tips on how to get a line of credit, how to be attractive to a bank.

Yeah, and it's. I tell you right now, if, if you don't have a line of credit, you need to get one, Jeff. And the reason is this. We are in a prime situation with interest rate rising and people, banks tightening banks, subprime lenders pulling out of our market. You need to be ready to go if you're a buy here, pay here dealer and when, I mean be ready to go, you need to have the capital to deploy, to buy inventory, to grow your portfolio in the right way. And let me tell you, primaland is the folks to help you get that.

Done, a room full of dealers like herding cats, keep them all in the same direction and keep them going. So it sounds to me like it's more of a hot topics session. Like you get a bunch, you guys all kind of talk about what are the hot topics, what are the key button issues? So tell me, is that still what people can expect on August 3rd when they come out to Myrtle beach and join you guys? Is it a, is it a day long discussion and, and we talk about hot topics. Is there a format or an agenda that comes out beforehand so we know exactly what we're getting into? Because for me and my first impression.

Of the, of your.

Your convention or whatever you call it, the mastermind group, I always thought it was just mostly advertising and marketing. Like I just kind of thought it was a, it was a marketing thing. I never really understood or knew that it maybe got into the nuts and bolts of, you know, hiring and a dealership operation. What can they expect on August 3rd?

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think I'll just share with you what I know Tracy's passion is for here, and also mine is there's going to be a whiteboard at the front of the room, and it's going to be empty. And our hopes and aspirations are. When we ask people that come into the room, you know, what do you want to learn today? What are you struggling with? What do you need help with? You know, what would make your life better if you were better at it? You know, let's write those topics down. And luckily, I think Tracy will even tell you. I don't know what happened over the last 10 years, but people have decided that they don't mind talking. At first, we used to be like, come on, now. Come on, you know, like, give us. Give us something to talk about. And nowadays they're like, I got some. And so we write down the topics, and our goal really is to make sure that by the time that they leave the room, that they've got actionable items. We call them writer downers. Remember good old Rap and his nuggets? We had a. We had a great attendee that we, you know, he used to say, that's a. That's a nugget right there. Put that in a bucket. So our goal is for people to leave and say, hey, the time in this room was super valuable. And I didn't just get, you know, like, pitched from one person. I didn't listen to a deck on a screen from a. From somebody that's at one company talking about a linear topic. It's really, I need help with this topic. Is there anybody in the room that can help me either Trace here myself, or somebody in the audience and, you know, just. Just to go to your marketing and advertising branding kind of thought. I think a lot of people thought that because, you know, Tracy's awesome at it, you know, to be frank, and it's what I do for a living. But, you know, he's a dealer. And I think a lot of people don't necessarily realize my retail career, you know, when. When I got out of that, I was a platform manager and ran four sizable dealerships, you know, and kind of. So. So. So I think when people come in and ask about hiring or managing or inventory or anything, you know, as deep as it wants to go, I. It used to be maybe 70% marketing and advertising, Tracy. Nowadays it's 20, 30%. So I kind of like it when it gets off topic because it really allows us to kind of deepen in and show people there's a Lot more substance to this than just marketing and advertising.

And I think what's good about Yalls format and what dealers really like nowadays, because people. Dealers listen to us for the same reason. And it's dealers helping dealers. It's so easy to listen to another dealer who's had success at this. Explain it to you. And I know that is a big part of what y' all do. Y' all are there to facilitate that conversation. Right. But dealers really appreciate getting that. That information from other dealers. Right?

Yeah, I would agree with that. And that some. Some days that makes it harder for me because I'm a vendor. So.

Yeah, yeah.

No, really, there's a lot of dealer speaking opportunities. There's a lot of dealer to dealer peer networking. I love it. Personally. I think it's great.

Well, and what we talked about in the beginning, kind of circling back, we talked about how the model ended up not working as far as from a monetary level. I mean, we were. We were dishing out from. As a company, we were dishing out a bunch of money out of our pocket, which, look, we didn't do it to. To get rich or to make money. We're like, look, if we can educate, we can provide value and we can give back to the dealer community, which has paid our adult bills, as Troy, as always said. And it's true, we'll be happy. But it got to a point where it's like, okay, now we're. We're spending so much, we're taking away from our families and our businesses, so it wasn't worth it. But we're real fortunate that this is our third year with the ciada, which is the Carolinas Independent Auto Dealers association, which Luke and I are both a part of. Not that we need to disclose that, but it's super important because it's a great organization. And John Brown said, you know, and look, he didn't have to say it, but he was always looking for ways to grow the convention and to make it better. And our biggest expense, well, our only expense really is the venue. And we're like, look, if we can find a venue and dealers are there already, and we knew the CIADA was there already, maybe we can put two and two together and provide additional value, drive some more dealers that have never been to the CIADA convention, and maybe they'll see enough value to. To come to ours. And that's where that conversation started. So they've been a really good partner for us. So it's a win. Win. And we brought our vendors about 80% of those end up staying over and being a part of the CAADA convention. And those are vendors who have never been there. And about 30% of those, they've never been to an independent convention at all. They only do digital dealers and nadas and things like that. So now are they all in their proper space? Probably not, but that's part of kind of what they get in the, in the whole package. But some have been super successful and say, man, we, we didn't know this type of progressive deal was here. We always looked at, and talking from what they've told us, they always looked at independent dealers as not as adaptive as new car dealers. Right, right. And not as technologically advanced. And, and they, they were wrong on a lot of cases. I know just as many new car dealers that aren't as advanced as, as used car. They're definitely not as crafty as we are.

Yeah, I was just going to say that, Tracy, about the independent. They're crafty as heck.

Well, look, when, when the economy turns and lenders start dropping off. Right. Or pulling out of the market, I should say. And they do. It happens every time. Luke knows this, Troy knows this. And I've seen it. Let's see, I got, I came here to this dealership. I was 22, 23, I'm 52. So I've seen what, four cycles? Because it's, it's about eight, what, eight year cycle, eight to 10 maybe. So this is my fourth cycle. And when the lenders leave the market or they leave the independent space, we have to get really, we have to get. Maybe crafty is not the right word. Creative. Right. We have to work harder, we have to work smarter. We have to find ways and we, all the good dealers really find ways to make this work and come out on the other side and be more successful and take market share, which is, it's always amazed as a dealer, it's amazed me about me because I, you know, when, like during the pandemic and everybody's rock and rolling and my dad would say, man, you can be dead and sell 100 cars now or, you know, or if you're doing 25, you're selling 50, right? If you're selling 50, you're doing 100. I mean, it's crazy, right? And groceries were crazy and money's everywhere. And Troy and I would talk and we'd see dealers in these forums on social media and they're like, man, we're not doing anything. It's dead. We're not making any money. And cars are Too high. Okay. You really just need to get out of business. But now that we're coming into a space, and we are, we already see it, we're not all the way there yet. I don't feel this is all opinion. Right. But you look at projections, I think we're getting to that point where, you know, things have tightened up and they'll continue to tighten up. So we've got to be super smart about this. And we're going to see that, that market shift. And I don't know, either the brakes, we're going to hit the brakes and just slam on the brakes and hit our head against the steering wheel, or we're just going to drive through there real cautiously and we're going to come out on the other side. And that's what. Yeah, that's what our goal is at the Mastermind meeting, to help people get through that.

And by the way, the marketing and advertising conversation will come back strong when inventory is back and right. As I've said for the last three years, there will come a time very quickly where you have, you know, more cars and customers again. You know, we can already last. We could already see last year. Yeah. Right. And so you know what's going to happen when that happens? Advertising will come back in the Masterminds. You know, that'll be a topic of conversation. I need to drive traffic. I need more leads. You know, last three years that we've been doing it, Tracy, that hasn't necessarily been, you know, top of mind or, you know, the, the thing that they needed the most. That's what, that's where vehicle acquisition came in. All of a sudden. We weren't about selling cars. We're talking about buying cars for two and a half years.

Right. The marketing conversation almost went away. Dealers weren't other than a minority, but they weren't even bringing it up. And it was top two. Now it's. Okay. Can we talk about marketing? Because Troy and I still like to talk about marketing.

Right.

I mean, what's so funny is over the last three years, if you had the car, people would find you and they would buy it.

Yeah.

So you didn't, you didn't really have to market, but now that is definitely shifting.

It's coming back for sure.

Sure. And yeah. And for those don't know, Troy owns Dealer World. They've done work for me. Great company. Troy has a background in. In automotive for years. Before you open. Open Dealer World. Right, Troy?

Yeah, 18 years or so before I opened Dealer World.

Yeah.

I was in retail for 18 years and been doing this for 15 or so.

All right, Jeff, we got to talk about our friends at Buckeye Dealership Consulting.

Indeed.

Indeed. If you.

I've just barely get my taxes wrapped up, Luke. Just barely had my. My taxes finalized. I know it's like May, but my reinsurance company helped a lot to be able to put that money away, reduce my taxable burden. You know, looking at the money they save me, it's. It's a big deal to have that money put aside.

It is a big deal. You know, I switched from my old reinsurance company, and now I'm 100% with Buckeye. Let me tell you, the switch from the old one to the new one, it's been seamless. The guys there helped me the whole way. I look back, just over the 10 to 12 years that. That we've been doing reinsurance, when you want to talk about the amount of money it's saved on taxes, that's cash money, buddy, because cash money. I would have had to borrow more money from Primalin or whomever if I didn't do this. I'm telling you, reinsurance is a way to help protect your company and help grow your company as well.

Yeah. And we talked about earlier having money to take advantage of what's going on right now. You can borrow that money back to yourself. Right. The money you put aside when you have a borrowing basis in that you can bring it back into your dealership for buy here, pay here deals at a. At a. A decent rate.

That's right. A lot better rate than if you went out, borrowed that money. So. So many uses to a reinsurance company. We're not the best people to tell you about it. I can tell you a lot. But Buckeye, those are the best people to tell you about it. You need to give them a ring. They'll hook you up. And Tracy, of course, owns Tracy Meyer or Frank Myers automax and a couple other dealerships in the western Salem area. And just one of. One of my mentors, when it comes to the speaking side of. Of what we do, as in the association, and I. I want to invite people to CIADA as well, to the convention. Tracy, I would think that the CIADA convention is one of the top three state conventions out there, and I've been to several, and we just have a really good show. We have a bunch of dealers there. This heads it off. It's the day before, correct, Tracy?

It is, right? Yeah. It's the day before. And you can come in that day and you can just Stay the day with us, the mastermind, and head back out if you, if you can't clear your schedule and you can only do one day. And there's a airport in Myrtle beach, small airport, which is awesome if you've ever flown into it. It's kind of ridiculous. It's so small, but it's pretty awesome. Or recommendation is to stay for the whole convention. You do not have to be a member of the CIADA to attend. And the educational content is not state specific. They have those breakout sessions for north and South Carolina. But the dealer education that they have is stuff that will pertain to majority, if not all dealers. And it's just a good show. And Luke can attest to that. We're not saying that because we're members, but when I was president of the association, I think I went to either eight or nine other state associations and I went to the other two biggest ones. Right. And I agree with you. I think we're in that top three as far as conventions. And I went to like five others. And those five others, I'm like, I went to those first.

Yeah.

And I'm like, man, we. It's almost should be a prerequisite for our members that are, that are committed to, to. To go to one of those to see how good we have it. Because I think sometimes we have those binders on and we don't know how awesome our convention is. It's really well done and put together and it's, it really is a show this special. It is special, yes.

You know, I saw the beach.

But.

I mean of all the ones that I go to, you know, there's always one that's really great. Attendance is good and this was great. And you know, the shows were good or this was good. You know, there's, there's like a little just specialness in the air of this one. I thoroughly enjoy going to this. So.

Well, if I can say this, and I've told John this, John Brown, our executive director, I told John John, it seemed like when I came in in 2000, 2001, ish, that and the convention was good, don't get me wrong. But to me, and this just one person's opinion. To me there was education, but that definitely wasn't what it was focused on. And I felt like that there was, it was a good old boys club, which is nothing wrong with that, Right. We all like our friends. But I get to see, you know, Luke out of, you know, a couple times a year with our state association and NIDA and maybe Another conference, and he's not that far away. But it's just our schedules just don't line up right. And there's, you know, another hundred friends that I have that's like, Luke, that, you know, we appreciate each other and what we do for the industry and our commitment to what we do every day.

And.

And we get to see each other, right? And bounce ideas off each other. And the first question is probably, hey, how's business? Right? And that conversation, three hours later, you know, the wives are pulling us away and like, dude, we got to go. But we learned so much. And that has nothing to do with the. With the educational sessions, which are, you know, John and the board work really hard to put those educational sessions together as, like, Troy, you've been there a couple times, this vote and, you know, the engagements there. And that was after John made that. Made that commitment to making that convention just not average anymore. Because I remember when it was all tied in classes, and I know Luke does, too. And it's like, oh, my God, if I got here, another update on the general assembly. And I mean, I'm not saying that stuff's not important, but I'm just being real here, right? Because I'm not on the board anymore. It's like, dude, I want something. I can make money on this stuff.

Yell at me, man.

Or the. Or the people who just are there to motivate you for that day. And then, then they're gone and they're like, oh, my gosh, we paid this guy to speak, and he's horrible. Anyway, so let's nail down the dates. How do people register and all that good stuff.

The website's the easiest way. Unfair advantage, mastermind.com. you can. Don't let it confuse you if you don't know, like I said, you can do one day or you can do the whole convention. Doesn't matter. If you have any questions, let us know. There are. There is a. An outline of the day on there. And we didn't used to do that. We had break. Break times. There are speakers that are showing what we found out. And this is after surveys and after 10 years of do. Actually 8 years of doing this. Dealers actually told us that 3 hour mastermind without a break is brain melt, right? And Tron, I was like, it is.

On the moderators, too, to be honest. Yes.

No, no.

We're like, thank God people ask me. That's got to be so, so easy, right? Compared to speaking. I'm like, no, it's absolutely. It's so much more Brain taxing.

Well, we wanted to go in there and give so much value that they left and wouldn't forget it. But they, they were leaving. Like, man, we just, you know, we don't remember anything after three hours. So what we do now is we'll go approximately an hour and a half to. Hour and 45 minutes on the Mastermind. Then we'll have a guest speaker. And they're, they're a hard 15 minutes in and out with no, no pitching, no. No sales. It's content and, man, I love it.

It's education.

It's education. Those 15 minute bursts are so, to me, they're so refreshing because, you know, I'm kind of under the assumption that most successful entrepreneurs are have ADHD or worse.

Right.

It's like, what, what? So 15 minutes is perfect, you know, and then we go right back into Mastermind. Then we'll go to lunch and have all our breaks. So. But yeah, come in on that day and if there's any way to stay, because I come the day before because we are on the beach. Not close to the beach. We're on the beach. And this property is amazing.

It is.

I highly recommend this property too. It's really nice. We've been there for several years with the convention and with the Mastermind group meeting. And it's, it's, it's first class, so it's unfair.

AdvantageMastermind.com August 2nd is a dinner. Looks like from 6 to 9 or something.

Yeah. For the people who get there early. We do have a VIP dinner if they're there. Oh.

Yeah.

And then it's. Yeah.

You guys coming to the VIP dinner? Are we getting some commitment? You're coming to the VIP dinner and hang out. That's a good time.

Yeah, I will, I will. I will try to be there. And all day August 3rd. All day August 3rd. It's a great session. The whole day is, is really run by dealers run by Troy and Tracy as well. You will, you will get your money's worth. How much does this cost?

So, yeah, there is no cost.

So you'll get your money's worth. I promise.

We will give you your money back if you don't get your money's worth.

Yeah, Money back guarantee. That's awesome. I seen half of Luke's face. Money back guarantee.

But it's really great. You'll take a lot away. You'll learn, you'll meet other dealers, you'll network. You'll learn what other dealers already know. You'll learn what these guys know. So I really recommend it. I will try to see you there. I will, I will do my best to get there. And any closing arguments, closing statements by either one of you.

I mean, I just want to say thanks to you guys too for doing what you're doing, you know, with the podcast and you know, the independent dealer deal. It's been fun to watch you guys go and grow with that. So no, I mean, I'll just second down on everything that we just said. It's on the beach, it's free, it's not speaking, you're not going to get pitched. It's really sit in a room with a whole bunch of other like minded people that can help you solve maybe some problems or issues or things that you want to get better at. You know, I love what Tracy came up with 10 years ago. Quite frankly, I'm pretty proud to be a part of that. You know, if you really look back like that was very beginning, humbling beginnings of dealer world. And you know, when Tracy asked me to join, it was, it was really a big deal for me in my life. It's been very special. So we want to keep it grounded to what it began and that is come into the room, get the information you need to go back to your store and make some immediate impact with some actionable items. That's what you can expect. That's it. To get there.

And it's no, I mean, there's no size limit. The smaller the dealer, the bigger the dealer. Doesn't matter, right?

It doesn't matter. We've helped people that had better, matter of fact, you know, and Tracy, I won't mention names, but we helped a guy, right, that was in our hot seat a while back, you know, one employee basically. And we just said to him, like, listen, we're going to wrap our arms around you and help you and to see where he is, you know, two, three years later.

I think actually, I think we've actually had him on as a How I built this guest.

You have?

Yeah, he's just a really cool guy and it's just for me, it's fun. See to me that, that story, and again, I won't mention, but that story is everything Mastermind is about. That guy went into that room to learn. You know, we picked up on the fact that he had a lot to kind of garner from it and sat him in a hot seat, grilled him for 30 minutes, took it like a champ. Right. Tracy, remember that moment and to look and see what he's doing with his business now, you know, just to me, that's what Mastermind's all about. It's. You would change the life there, I think.

Well, the hot seat's pretty special, and it is a part of Mastermind. So anybody out there that's listing this coming. If you want to participate in the hot seat, it's. It's an hour. More than an hour of pretty intense stuff. Right. So we basically just tear. You tear your business apart, tear it down to the foundation and try to build it back up. You gotta. You be pretty bold. And this guy was bold. Yeah, Everyone like Wendy. Wendy was in that seat and she's doing big things now. So that's not for everybody. And that's why we can, you know, other than time limitations, we can only do that once for Mastermind.

Yeah.

You learn as much from the outside looking in as you do if you're in the seat, in my opinion. I've heard other dealers say that when you take away everything because you look, the reality of it is, you know, I'm not that smart, but it's pretty easy going in. When I consult, dealers are in the hot seat. And you go in. It's like I was working with a dealership and they're like, my service business is horrible. Can you help me? And I've got a service, service center, but I'm not a fixed ops guy. And I told this dealer I wasn't a big stop scout. I said, look, do me a favor. Just scan your last 100 public ros. Right? Customer pay ros. And shoot them over to me. And he did. And I mean, you saw the problem right away. Well, you know, he's doing oil changes, right? There's one line item per ro and it was the, you know, the 24.95 oil change. I'm like, look, here's your problem. You know, you're not discounted. You're an order taker.

Yeah.

And. Oh, how'd you see that? I'm like, bro, I looked at your last hundred ros.

But.

And he has two. He's the dealer, but he's got blinders on because he's there every single day. They've conditioned him, this dealer, they've conditioned him to say, well, that's all they want, boss. That's all they want, boss. That's all they want, boss. So guess what? That's all they want. We can't sell anything but oil changes. And he actually. So, you know, six months later, the oil change doubles in price. His productivity number of oil changes is cut by a third. Right? But he put incentives on for three, three line items or higher, you know, so he's, he's happy. I just, I was guessing, I think.

If you're, if you're taking applications for dealers to come in and tear down other dealers, I think Luke would be first on that line. Really good at the tearing down part.

Yeah, yeah, you say that's the hard part.

Throwing stones part. That's Luke. Oh, okay.

All right.

That's what he does. Seven miles on the treadmill and the morning getting ready to tear people down. You still doing that, Luke? You still on the treadmill a lot or what?

I, I hate a treadmill, but I run outside. I, I, oh, you do?

Oh, yeah, I think maybe only because I see at a conference, in a gym thing, you know, occasionally, so, you.

Know, I run 25 to 30 miles a week plus.

Wow.

Yeah, that's impressive.

I mean, I'm, I'm a lot older than I once was is what I'll say. All right.

Aren't we Jeff?

Jeff, you got any closest credit to.

You guys for putting this on. Like I said, it's free to everyone to show up. Tracy and Troy volunteer their time to get in front of a bunch of dealers and try to make sense out of stuff. So guys show up Ciada. And maybe we can get these guys to come to other state associations too, because I know like here in Utah, we would have had a ton of dealers that would have stuck around for a full day or half day before or after to have a hot topics discussion because you can only cram so much into a format and a formal situation. But these open types of discussions, I think, like, you know, even at Buy Here, Pay Here, United, the dealer forum at the end of the day were some of the best conversations because it's all dealer submitted questions answered by dealers. So anyways, guys, appreciate your time. Thanks for doing this and thanks for being here today. Make sure we know about it.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Appreciate you both.

Thanks a bunch. Appreciate it, guys. Dealers helping dealers. Please leave us a review and subscribe the independent dealer podcast.