#331 - Dealer Panel Day 2 BHPH United 2024

This is the Independent Dealer Podcast, Education by Dealers for Dealers. Now here are your hosts, Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson.

Hello and welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast. Luke and I are busy down at Vegas, probably sitting poolside in a Cabana at Niada 2024. Oh yeah, definitely not because Luke's wife's coming so she won't allow that. But if you are also here at Niada hanging out, you're listening to this episode probably right before Luke's sess on Thursday. We are going to give you a replay of our session at Buy Here, Pay here United that we did here in Vegas about, I don't know what, four months ago. This is day two of what was called our dealer roundup session. It was a really, really cool session.

Yeah, I love that. I love the way by here Payer United did that. And because at the end of the day, especially these conventions, Jeff, your mind has got all these things swimming and ideas that you need to, to get out or ask questions on something you didn't understand. So I think we, we went over a lot of these things and then we were able to answer questions that, that people had. Which, which was great.

Yeah.

Three weeks ago we did the day one session. So if you listen to our podcast three weeks ago I re listened to it. I was in that session. I learned so much stuff from that. From re listening to it. I was like, wow, these were really great questions, really great answers from other dealers and vendors in the room. So this is really cool because hot topics and the questions we have when we're at these conventions, it's on everyone's mind. And so anyways, hope you enjoyed this one. We will catch you next week. What we're going to do is kind of a couple different sections here right now. We're going to do some question and answer like normal, our hot topics. So please submit questions through the app. If you have questions, put them in there. We're going to do some open questions for the panel. We're going to do some rapid fire questions. So we're going to try to get to everything. The other thing we're going to do, Luke, is a best idea session. How's that going to work?

Best idea. So maybe not everybody's been to a best idea session out of 20 groups. So this is the way we're going to do it. You're going to, we're going to call you in the audience and everybody doesn't have to participate, but I encourage you to participate and we'll do as many as we can. Do. But it's the best idea that you gain from being here. Right, Jeff? And there's probably some really good ones out there and we're gonna post them inside the app and everybody is gonna vote on them after we present. You present your best idea. It's 30 seconds max. So I don't want people going on for forever. I will, as y' all saw yesterday, I will call you out. So 32nd max. And you will win $100 in chips for whoever has the best idea voted on by the people.

Courtesy of tax Max.

Courtesy of tax Max. The deal, guys.

Thank you guys. We go over there and just we turn them upside down and shake them and poker chips fall out and we give them you guys. So that's going to be a fun one. So be thinking of your best idea. We're going to get to that. We're going to pick maybe four or five of you to present best ideas and go into the poll for the money. But first off, let's introduce our panel before we start getting any questions. Cesar, you want to start it off and we'll go down the line and you guys can get to know these guys.

Sure.

Hey, my name is Cesar Torres. I'm out of Corpus Christi, Texas. I've been in the industry 17 years. We sell about 85 cars a month. We have a 13 million dollar portfolio and we have a recon facility. 18 based mechanics. That's it, pretty much.

Hi.

Bob Sesterson, controller, Chief compliance officer, HR expert or non expert, Shannon Motors, Johnson, Rhode Island. Been at the company for 13 years and I'm really excited to be here.

He is not from the south, in case y' all didn't know.

Hi everyone.

Dustin Ireland out of Kansas City, Missouri. We operate in Kansas City, Missouri. Lincoln, Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska. We've been in the industry for 15 years. Dry Fast USA is our current company name. This is our second business in the industry. Dry Fast has been around for four years now. Started right during COVID So it's been a fun time but we're happy to be here. Just Nathan Anderson, Dry Fast business partners.

Guys, we got lots of firepower up here.

We do. It's a heavy hitters. I'm going to start out with the first question here from the app. What is a good lead source? A good lead source or what is your best lead source right now? And let's go backwards through the panel real quick. Where are you finding your best leads that convert to sales for us?

It's Google pay per click. Facebook would be number two. Orleans. Granted We're a new business. Our old model that we got that we sold, referrals and repeat were by far our number one source. But as we're starting over new, that's our best.

Okay. Google is the same for us. We've tried radio advertising and the problem we always find is somebody comes in and they say we saw you on tv, but we're not advertising on tv, we're on the radio. So it's like you weren't getting right information that should know where to allocate your advertising dollars. But the pay per click has been working very well for us.

Same thing. Facebook, Google. We really try to work hard on working referrals. Those close the best, even better than Google or Facebook. So just.

Yeah, referrals close at 70%.

Repeat referral was probably at the top, unsaid, at the top of that list. I think everyone knows that's your best closing.

I have hypothesized, Jeff, we could turn off every advertising source and sell 90% of the cars we currently sell.

We actually have a challenge for our customers. We give them, we present the opportunity for them to receive a paid out.

Auto if they refer five new customers.

That haven't purchased from us before. You know, so we will pay off the loan. Doesn't matter the size of the loan. In a year's time we get a, a lot of referrals, but we only pay off one or two parts. Most people will make it to three or four. You know, they try like hell and it's just good for us. You know, we don't mind paying them off, but they don't know it.

Yeah, do the math on that, guys. If you have one customer refer you three to four customers, new customers that will also refer you three to four, which will also refer you three to four. Was it worth paying off that first guy's car?

Yeah, absolutely.

I bet that not makes sense.

How about like the, the Vista Club villa? We had a good list that you get from that. We actually put it out on Facebook and it.

You have a big check. Yeah. You take a picture of it, post it on social media. You know, I think the last one we did was like 10,000 and some change.

Everybody loves a big check.

Yeah, a big check.

Caesar, you're making us look like cheap skates. We, we require 20 rethink that.

And I think deals on wheels. Is Alan still here for deals on wheels?

Okay.

Up in Montana they do 10 cars and you get a get it paid off. And I know they do multiple a year and that's I mean that's impressive. We do, we do. If you do us three, we'll pay a payment for you.

So I really am looks like a 75 sales. I'll give you an IHOP gift card. Does anyone have any other lead sources that they would say are doing well for them and converting high outside of what we have just mentioned? Repeat referral. Google is a high intent search. Facebook is probably your largest lead source but probably has a slightly lower quality maybe. Anything else you guys are seeing? Instagram, Tik tok Jeff.

Are folks from Atlanta here still here or no? Atlanta offices? Atlanta offices. No, but what is their, their Instagram?

Yeah, it's space it. But they're doing really, really good on Instagram. They're killing it running Instagram shorts and just organic, not paid. So a lot of options.

A lot of options. But I think what's what's interesting is it's digital or referral. That's pretty much it.

Yep.

Okay, moving on to the next we got. Okay, Do y' all run a referral program per vehicle basis? Dollar amount y' all pay as a referral. Did you pay per car for referrals?

Absolutely.

So it's either you're going to pay them off of five, you give them money at each step.

Yeah, we actually part of the deal is 125 per buying referral. And then the fifth one, you get the car. We also pay bird dogs to, you know, new car stores. You know, we get our salespeople to, you know, they have friends that sell cars at other stores. You know, if they can't get them, if they can't get them bought, you know, we'll give them 150 cash just to get the business.

Anybody else paper?

Yeah, we do the 250 bird dog fee and 250 for referrals.

If they get to 10, we give.

Them an extra thousand dollars.

If we get to the 20, which.

No one ever has, we do the free car.

It's.

We advertise the heck out of it in store. But no one's ever did it.

So my average payment is 500 chests. So after we do 100, 100 and.

Then a whole payment, I mean that's.

Yeah, it's like 750 off of three. That's 250. That's pretty good.

Our referral is 100 for the first, 200 for the second, 300 for the third, 400. And then the fifth car, it's 500 for every car they're after. Similar with the bird dog, we do a Hundred dollars for a bird dog. And when they get to their fifth bird dog, we actually give them a job.

I was just like, you hire them.

Come on in, buddy. You're on payroll now.

Let's look.

Yeah, those are good sources. We didn't talk about that. Bird dog referrals. Right? How many of you guys go out and visit the new car store? Talk to me, guy. Is he your best friend at the new car store down the street? You know, you should have his phone number. Right. Because those guys are just getting groomed. And I'm sure you can set up the deals you haven't sent to you.

Yeah. Make sure y' all are thinking about what y' all are going to present here in a little bit for best idea. Yeah.

Let's do a couple more questions, and then we'll open up our best idea to four great souls in the audience. This one is mine. Tips for team building activities.

You're always talking about team building. You and I have a great team.

We have a great team. I really like how it's sheep that way. Do you guys on the panel, do you do anything unique or different with your team outside of, like, pizza on Fridays and the occasional Christmas party? Anything you do as a whole office or a team to kind of keep that camaraderie? And the reason I asked that question, just to preface it, is, yes, our employees do have places to work. They could leave us. They could go elsewhere. They could get paid more, maybe doing something else. But I think a lot of employees stay with us because of our family, because they enjoy being with each other. You know, they couldn't imagine going somewhere else and leaving their best friends and their family at work. So we want to continue to foster that. Anything you guys do out of the ordinary, nothing comes to mind. Anybody.

I think it's a lost opportunity for us because, you know, with the exception of celebrating a birthday cake or having a holiday party, we're not doing enough for our employees for team building.

Okay.

We.

We really take pride in that. In this. We. We do a lot of departmental activities, so we'll set goals per department, and we'll go to dinners. We go to concerts. We let them pick what they want to do.

We.

We enjoy that. We like being out and doing stuff, so it's benefits us, too. But I think it goes a long way.

The.

We also one thing that the employees really like to do, like, they like doing food days, holidays, especially big game. You know, we're from Kansas City. We have pretty decent football team. So, you know, four Big games they'll do. Do a pop up or something like that. That, that's something that we get them together and they really enjoy doing. Let them put it on.

I think lunches go a long way, Jeff, to building that camaraderie. And it's not something you have to do outside of time.

We do that a lot.

I think they like it. Yeah. And bringing people to conventions like this is big too.

I know you guys have some input from the audience because I know you guys out here do stuff that we haven't mentioned that's outside the box or is working for you.

I was at a 20 room one time where they, they brought a masseuse in like once a month for them, for all their staff. I thought that was pretty neat.

Massage therapist. Massage therapist.

Not a moose.

I'm sorry. Not a masseuse either.

Can't say that anymore.

Not in your state.

I have no idea what you can say anymore.

Anyone doing anything different for their team, they'd like to share with us or you don't want your employees stolen?

Come on, raise your hand.

Oh, I hear Bill's got something, you know, out of cabana.

One thing we did for our staff. Now granted I'm not a dealer, but with the tax Max team we are, we live in Florida. So Jason March kind of gave us the idea. So we started doing is doing summer uniforms. So we went kind of to T shirts and we started doing lunches every two weeks for the staff. And it was actually very well received. And like you said, I think food.

Goes a long way.

Sometimes it's more the money. My guys are looking at me dirty right now, but I put in a bar. I know this sounds horrible, but we drink a lot of beer in South Carolina. I put a bar inside of my office facility and I'll have beer in the refrigerator and you know, on Friday afternoons when the techs clock out, we'll have a beer or two before they go home. It's great building camaraderie with them.

We did the same thing we in Utah. We did with Dr. Pepper though.

Yeah, exactly. Our monster.

Yeah.

Cupcakes.

Yeah.

I saw a hand over here though. Someone do something unique at their dealership. They like to share a team building.

I think Neo when they were here. They went paintballing yesterday. That'd be fun to hit the people that you don't like. Just pop them real good.

Okay, so let's do one more then we're going to get to our best idea nominees pitches. So again, if you've got A best idea take away from this week, be thinking of it, be a brave Soul, possibly win $100. So we've talked about using AI, right, artificial intelligence in our dealerships. My philosophy is there's kind of different applications, right? There's the application inside of our CRM, our GMS and maybe our collections tool. We can't really do that as dealers, right? We've got to rely on the vendors to integrate those types of agents inside their software. But there are ways we can use it in our dealership to help us be more productive, whether it's our salesman or whatever. Is anyone using ChatGPT or Gronk or Llama or any of these large language models in their dealership to help them be more effective or get their tasks done quicker? Any recommendations or input for everybody?

We're not using. The only AI we're currently using is in our scoring model than in our CRM. And it, it's just a tool. We don't rely solely on it. It's cost us seven bucks every time you use it. So we only use it on an in between deal where they're on the fence. We'll go ahead and AI score them and see how that ends up and kind of help make the determination.

Okay.

That's built into your scoring model. So, software feature.

We haven't went to the chat bots or anything like that.

We are not currently using it.

Okay, anyone on the panel know anybody.

Out there using it to maybe do a video to do, pictures to do?

So I'm going to come here in the back corner and I hope I don't squash this fire to share my idea. But we, I use it to respond to my Google reviews. So I take all my Google reviews and once a week or so I will copy and paste their review into a specific chat that I have set up. And this chat knows that it's responding to a Google review. It knows it's my agent, it knows my dealership. So I've kind of pre programmed it on those parameters and then it will spit out a review, right? And I can change it. I can make it cutesy, I can have it respond in like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Donald Trump type, you know, lingo to kind of change up the funniness of it. But I'm using that to respond to my Google review reviews much more colorfully than just being like, hey, thanks for the review. This does kind of a really fun job of responding to reviews.

Hey.

L did a whole session here today about using AI to do videos and images.

Yeah.

Terry McCauley from Big Time Marketing did a whole session earlier today about using AI to create videos and images and.

And things like that.

Send out in your emails. And he was showing this one of the tools that actually creates an avatar of yourself and makes it very realistic looking. You can have, have you talking, but it's completely automated. Like he said he did one of the promo videos for this event while.

He was on vacation.

He didn't do it. He had, he had his avatar set up and he just like automated it and it looks like him, I mean it looks just like him talking.

Never really knows.

So we have probably, I don't know, maybe a year ago, started using ChatGPT and turned out relatively quickly. We realized it was extremely valuable to go ahead and pay the price for a subscription to 4.0 because there you get access to an entire third party platform of externally dependent developed generalized pre computer transformers. And so I can take a spreadsheet that I get from somebody and I can throw it into my GPT for spreadsheets and it'll tell me all about the spreadsheet.

I don't have to think about it.

Or analyze it or any of that. And once you start using that resource, you're. If you haven't started, you will. If the tsunami is coming, it's like smartphones and mobile phones that all of us have now. In 2007 when Steve Jobs stood up and said, here's this thing we call.

It.

Just for reference, how much does ChatGPT 4.0 subscription cost a month?

$20.

Per user. Per user. I mean that sounds like a deal. Because spreadsheets, I mean, just being able.

To, it's even better than that. When I wanted to go develop a investor pack for private party financing, I basically gave chat GPT 4.0 all of our core values, our mission or this and that. And I said, tell me, write me an investor pack. And within, I don't know, it was about 30 seconds, I had a day's worth of work completed. So if you haven't started using it, just promise that you will. So Jeff, go ahead and experiment now.

I'm going to nominate that for the best idea. Can we do that?

Can I do that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So can somebody put that on the phone?

And what I would say when he says start using it? Guys, right now, like literally download Chat GPT on your phone. It's an app you can put on your phone, sign in with your Gmail account and just start playing with this. The very first conversation, just say you are a Google review responder, respond to this review and then copy and paste your most recent Google review in and it will spit it out. And you say, no, do it again, more funny, or do it again, more serious or do it again more professional. And it will continue to spit it.

Out and it'll learn how you want it.

Policies and procedures. When I wrote my cell phone policy, I just said, write me a business cell phone policy. It's, it's out of business cell phone policy.

I think we had not to put, I think we had somebody else how.

Many attorneys in here. But it wrote my policy and procedure manual, filled in a lot of the blanks I had.

Okay, so this is what we're doing right now and it's been working very well since we target the Hispanic market in our community. When you are from Mexico, you speak differently if you're from Colombia and you're from Colombia, you speak differently if you're from Peru. So what we did is here video of me with a one minute ad saying, so if you're from Peru, come here and just with your passport, take this car, whatever. And we used 11Labs, which is an app, an AI app, to translate all the information from the video and put it into text. Then 11 labs translated that text into audio. Then, then we went to Hanjin, which is another AI app, and we uploaded the video that we had recorded for Peruvians and we say, now put it in a Mexican accent. So now we started doing videos for Peruvian, Mexicans, Colombians and so forth for every country. And we started targeting through Facebook, people that have lived in Peru, people that have lived in Colombia, people that have lived in Mexico. And now they're receiving a video from someone that is a cranny from their country and it's converting, it's giving us higher conversions than a general video. And those are the apps that we're using. We're also using them, for example, for a podcast that we're doing where we are interviewing people in English and we are translating everything into Spanish through 11 labs and HN. So those are the ones that I recommend.

There's only, there's only one podcast.

HE SNATCHES THE MIC yeah, give me that back.

Yeah.

So let's, let's get a couple more of our best ideas.

So that's, I think that's a very good idea as well.

Chat GPT putting together your investor pack. We're going to credit that to Igo Motors. They're going to be our first nominee. Do we have any other best ideas, takeaways? From this week that would like to enter into our. Our challenge here. Our best idea. I know we got something.

You can't enter twice.

Come on.

Which one do you want? Pick one. What are the other. All right, here we go. We got one right here. And who do we got? Stand up.

I want to see.

We got naked. Because a lot of this is vote on character. Okay, Kenneth? Okay.

This kind of throws on the last remark, but we do this.

And I. I think seeing the AI Presentation where they translate everything Spanish and.

Then the tracks in Spanish even go to the auction.

You hear the auctioneers speaking Spanish. I think it's important to at least have a bilingual person in your staff.

To bring in another market.

So the idea is to have bilingual staff members.

Bilingual staff member.

Yeah. I think it's a great idea.

Jeff.

You.

You.

That's not artificial most. That's real. A real.

Not.

Not a real. Real intelligence, which is hard to find.

Which one?

Bilingual or the intelligence?

Intelligence.

The intelligence.

Okay.

Both are very hard to find.

They are both very hard.

Yeah. Okay. Do we have another one? All right, who's the third contestant in the best idea session?

He is.

He's wanted to get it twice. I can get it twice.

He might as well just hand him the money.

Yeah, he's probably better than you at it.

I actually wanted to share this one and the. The AI One you can have. That's really not even an idea. It's like everybody should be doing. If you're a reasonable size dealer and you want to help your employees. One of the things we found that was really cool was we went out and bought a piece of property that's kind of a vacation ish sort of place. And we use that every single week. We give opportunities for one or more of the employees to go to that place and have a vacation. And it actually more than pays for itself. And the good. What we get from the team. We were talking about team building, and I was thinking that's really worked very well for us. It didn't cost all that much in our case. We bought a houseboat on a lake, and it sits at the marina. You know, does nothing unless somebody's in it. So it works out very well. And then it becomes, you know, a place where you and your wife can occasionally go when.

And that's there. And there's a taxi that is there as well. Wait.

Wait a minute.

Yeah. Yeah, I like this. Wonder if I can buy a mountain house that way.

Well, you talk about that, but Bayern plays at boat slash house or a boat House. Yeah, Great idea. We bought a set of wave runners for the, for the employees. We'll see how that goes. If they don't, they don't kill each other. That one will go over well. Pretty excited for that. We have room for one more. One more. Best idea. Anybody have a great idea they want to share with the crew As a takeaway from this week, we got all the way in the back corner here.

So we're talking about, you know, the best takeaway for me is when we're talking about collectors connecting with the customers more. And so I just started thinking, I think once every Friday to pull two random customers for each collector and whichever collector can tell me the most about that customer on a more personalized basis, not just their payment history, then they get a $50. I think it'll make them focus more and be more engaged with customers and.

That goes a long way. When you engage your customers in collections, they are way less prone to turn that car in or not make a payment or miss a promised to pay. It's the personal connection that your collectors make with, with your customers is. Is really the, the backbone of your collections. So that's a great idea.

Okay, I think I've got the poll added to the app. So if you guys want to log on, we're going to do a few more questions, kind of a rapid fire question and answer while you guys vote for the best idea sessions. So if you go to the app and you go find the poll section which is kind of that top right box there in the middle, go ahead and vote in the poll for who is going to receive the hundred dollars. And do we have any questions from the audience? I'm going through the app here, but does anyone have anything that popped up to them or any questions they want the panel or other people in the room to answer?

Yeah. Any specific questions to ask the panel is you've got some really big dealers in here and have a lot of knowledge. I think that there would be some really good questions.

I.

But I.

We had a question right behind. With your guys.

SA's operation. Just have more.

See if I. If I. We see the same struggles as the.

What's your biggest thing or that you always. It never gets better. What's the biggest struggle?

Struggle.

Yeah. Despite your bigger business, just never gets better. Can we start with Cesar? Get down the line. What's the biggest problem you all deal with day to day.

In the park or just in general?

Or in general?

Yeah. Well, man, you know, I think everybody knows that a mechanic shop can be a black hole. You throw money into a lot. So normally that's our biggest struggle, making sure that the mechanics stay efficient, you know, that they don't over recon vehicles, making sure that they close tickets. You know, there has to be a lot of accountability in the shop and it's probably the place where, you know, the biggest amount of money is spent and you know, without the correct oversight, it can really hurt the pocket. So, you know, that's probably our Achilles heel. I mean, we do well with it, but we stay. It just takes so much effort to make it run efficiently.

I mean it's for sure every. I don't think everybody can say that huge.

Thanks.

I think our biggest problem is employee turnover and, you know, not having a full HR manager on staff. Each department head is usually responsible for their own hiring and it just kind of bogs down what you're trying to do in your own daily work. By now recruiting is a full time job. So we have really struggled in retaining people, but biggest, biggest struggle is bringing on new people.

I think everybody's had that problem over the last little bit as well.

We're going to have a follow up question on that later, but let's get through.

Yeah, I think we have struggles in every department, but the biggest struggle I think that Nathan and I go through is getting every department to work together. You know, it takes every spoke of that wheel to make that wheel turn. I think that's, that's the biggest thing that we face every day, I think, is making sure, you know, as owners, we obviously want the whole thing to work. When you get employees that are in their own department, department and start kind of segregating themselves. So keeping everybody together, I think that's the biggest hurdle we face next.

Sean.

It's, it seems like we're real big in measuring things and data. We'll get involved in one thing and really hold people accountable. And the numbers seem to get where.

We need them to be.

And then we look back a year later. We're not really, really checking that. And they've really dropped off and it's. We've just got to constantly be monitoring.

Yeah, let's get to some solutions on those problems. You know, Luke, we talk about this all the time on the podcast is the sooner us as dealers, principals, managers can start, can keep working on the business instead of working in the business, you know, the better off we are. Right. Because we're, we're fixing some of those problems. We're putting them together. One of the questions is, and let's do these rapid fire. I want to get to as many of these questions as we can. So answer these for us. And also audience, if you have some answers, please raise your hand to bring value. What recruiting tools work the best and why? Recruiting tools. Where are you finding employees, mechanics, Any tips, advice you can give the audience?

You know, we probably use indeed, when we use Indeed, we use Facebook, we use employees. I mean we try to get people that, you know, can recommend somebody, a family member at this point, you know, like anybody else in this building. You know, we're not, we're, we're not very picky. We're just trying to get, you know, good health. Doesn't really matter where we get it.

We got a heartbeat, a good guy, right? Heartbeat. They're good to go.

Not quite.

Anyone using anyone on the panel using anything other than Indeed in Facebook we.

Use car careers and business had good success with them.

Okay, I've heard, I've heard of that. Which one?

Car careers.

Car careers.

Is that something where they went for.

A higher level position?

You don't really need it for entry level because you're bringing those people in from across the country, states, you're, you're recruiting.

The other side is in local markets as well. We've had really good luck with them, hired a lot of people from that platform.

Anything, anything different. Now one thing I found with it.

Indeed recently is actually talking to our local rep and by just having her tell me, don't just copy and paste your previous ad, post it brand new and you'll get right up on top. And you know, I just hired a new bookkeeper and I literally had somebody hired within two weeks.

Hey, all a great application for chat GPT guys. By the way, job postings, job descriptions, just tell it what you want, tell it the pay range, tell it the benefits and it'll, it'll write it out beautifully.

Anybody else in the audience have something that's different than what they said that they would like to contribute over here.

While he runs over there? One, one we had which was the best idea and I think one of our 20 groups. I'll share with you guys. I haven't done it yet, so if anyone's done it, let me know if it works. But they got on the tool truck and they, they went to the tool truck guy and they said, hey, we, I want to do $1,000 raffle for tools off your truck. Please collect names and phone numbers of mechanics to enter this drawing and then we'll give them this thousand dollar gift certificate. To buy tools from your truck. So the tool truck guy was motivated to try to, you know, get names and numbers and mechanics that needed tools or wanted to enter this drawing. And then all those names and numbers went to the dealership. And the dealership now had a database that they could mine, talk to, phone call. They knew people. So that's kind of a funny little trick to get the names and phone numbers and mechanics from neighboring repair shops.

For technicians. One thing that's been really valuable for us recently has been wrenchway. I don't know if anybody here knows what it is or anything, but put.

Your ad on there.

They help you generate ads and videos. And, I mean, we have constantly on our website a QR code. Every once in a while, we throw it up on Facebook. And it's not a go and hire a tech right now. It's something that you need to get going and get started and just have it out there. And, you know, we're starting to see a lot of the success from it.

You know, you make a good point there. Collecting couple things. Abh. Right. Always be hiring, always looking for talent. You know, is it a great customer service rep? Is it a great waitress? Is it a great hostess? Is that a great salesman? Did you run into a mechanic somewhere? And then the other thing, when you post those ads, post videos of your dealership, right? People want to work somewhere that looks fun. It looks exciting. I'm sure all our dealerships are open and clean and inviting. So putting those videos in your ads, I think can attract, you know, attract people that might otherwise just see words and not really know what they're signing up for.

One other quick thing that we do is, you know, nobody knows your culture better than your employees, so they're going to know somebody that'll fit or not fit. If they make it, they hire somebody. We'll give them a thousand dollars if they make it 90 days.

That's a great idea. I used to have a lot of success with techs bringing in other techs. Hadn't had that much success lately. I cannot talk this afternoon.

Have you ever really been that good at talking? So everyone's entered the poll, hopefully. Guys, we're gonna. We'll give this away here in a minute. I don't know what our time is, but somebody's gonna turn these mics off or turn the lights off when we're done.

How much time we have?

Anybody?

Sean, are you here?

This is 157 here.

All right, we got five minutes.

Okay, let's do maybe just Some quick rapid. I don't know if we have any questions. We hadn't got to. What's a good 30 day recency percentage? A good 30 day recency percentage, Luke?

90 to 92% is our goal and we're, we're monthly payments. So it might be a little different for somebody.

Anyone do leasing? Any of you guys do leasing? What benefits of leasing? Give us a quick synopsis. Those that maybe are new to it or don't know. Why do you choose to do leasing?

So we got.

That's all right.

So we got into leasing in Rhode island and what we were finding is we give a 20 day temp tag and at the end of the 20 days, they weren't able to afford their sales tax and registration. So by doing leasing, they pay the sales tax with part of the weekly or monthly payment. Registration is maybe $150. So we kind of flipped our whole business model because of the sales tax and registration. And you know, at the end of the day they know what the car is worth. They can buy the car at the end of the lease the residual and you know, it's worked out really well for us.

So leasing has tax advantages in some states. It has some ownership advantages, depreciation that.

May be going away soon. There's Chad, I think.

Things like that.

Yeah, it's essentially the same business as not your pay.

You're just different. Bankruptcy protection. Yeah, the heart comes straight back to you. You get a ton of toll violations.

Easier to revo.

Caesar, how do you have such great CPI penetration? Are you paying spiffs to customers, insurance people to get people into your CPI program?

You know, I think it's because we're in the state of Texas and Texas doesn't require a valid driver's license. So a lot of our customers, you know, well, okay, in Texas you can lose your driver's license for having, you know, vacuum, child support. You know, there's different things. So, you know, a big percentage of our population that we sell to don't.

Have valid driver's license.

So when they go try to get insurance, you know, full coverage insurance for their vehicle, you know, it's almost as much as a car payment. So that's the reason we have, you know, high, you know, they're 87, 88 penetration in our CPI.

I wish, I wish I had that. Wow, it's so impressive. Cesar. Great job.

Yeah, you know, for like the, the account that we have, we collect almost 100 grand. Months believe 96,100 CPI.

That's incredible. Anybody else have any break, you know, 80% penetration. That's not the state of Texas.

Okay, okay, let's wrap it up. We're going to give our poll result results. Guys, thank you for the questions. We couldn't get to all of them. Some of them are very nuanced questions. Right. So those are conversations to have with any of the guys in the purple shirts. If you feel like you can get your questions answered. Of course you can email Luke and I at any time. Infoindependentdealer.com if you have questions you want follow up, feel free to email us or grab these guys right now before they head to the pool and get those answers. That's what this is all about, right? Get answers. Dealers from other dealers. Luke, who do you think won the poll? Who do you think won the best idea? It was a close one, really.

I think it's the deal with the church chat GPT. The use of that.

Yeah, I think it's Igo Motors for putting together their chat GPT.

Thank you for listening. Please leave us a review. We'll catch you in the next episode.