#342 - Board of Directors Follow Up

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 brought to you by Buckeye Dealership Consulting. We are doing a follow up episode today with our good friend Brandon from Coeur d', Alene, Idaho. If you guys remember brandon from episode 308. Brandon, how have things been, man? We haven't talked to you in like eight months. Are you still in business?

Yeah, we're still, we're still open. Doors are still open. A lot of changes have been made, but it's been, it's been an eye opening experience these last eight months. I can tell you after our first meeting we had, it was, it's been a lot of good things, but it's been great, man. Yeah, we're still up rocking and rolling, staying busy and you know, just getting after it day by day, man. It's been great.

That's, that's great to hear. We're glad you're doing well, Brandon. We, we're glad to follow back up, Jeff. And I tell, I tell people if you didn't listen to episode 308, it probably pause the podcast, go back and catch up so you'll understand what's going on in this process. Right, Jeff?

Yeah, it'll help give you some context. We went through and, and we gave Brandon like, hey, here's what we talked about and he took notes and we took notes. So we're going to follow up on each of those recommendations of kind of the input that Luke and I had for Brandon. As I listened to that podcast. Last time, we did like 90% of the talking and Brandon did like 10% of the talking. So we're going to try to flip that this time.

What's, and what's interesting about this, Jeff, is we've never been to Brandon's dealership. Right. So what we looked at was, well, Brandon shared with us his, his concerns before we did the podcast and also kind of his numbers. And so we did a Internet view of his facility and what we thought could really help him. So it's kind of a neat concept and hopefully it helped Brandon and we're about to find out if it did or not.

Yeah. So give it to us, Brandon. How, how are things going generally Speaking, the first eight months of 2024 compared to the year before. The year before that? Are you, you better year over year?

Yeah, we've been better year over year. Even though there's times where the accountants like, hey, you guys are doing good. Keep it up we don't feel are Talons, we're doing better. So. Absolutely. I can definitely tell you that, you know, Last year in 23, we averaged anywhere from, you know, 18 to 22 cars on an average. So this year, first part of the year was roughly the same. The last about five months, we a solid average of no less than 30 cars a month. And then with that probably 65% or more back end. So VSC's and Gap, which has been an absolute game changer for the business. But you know, even just with the advertising side of it that we spoke about last time about, instead of just, you know, advertising more of the vehicles, but, but actually introducing the people that work here and doing, you know, we, we had a guy, they're out there making reels and making Facebook videos and you know, they're introducing themselves, talking about themselves. So it's been, it's, it's been really, really good. These last, I'd say last six months have been, have been a lot, a lot better than beginning part of the year.

And what's interesting is that, I mean, in my opinion, business has gotten harder in the last six months. And so a lot of times what you'll find is when you, when you make changes to your business, you got a period where things may get worse before they get better. But I'm glad to see you're trending in the right direction. And I mean, when you start talking about the back end that you're doing now compared to what you were doing, that's a huge step forward. That's where retailers, dealers really make the money. And if you can have a good gross on the front and then that back ends added in, you don't have to, you don't have to increase any production to get net profit. And so that's a great thing to see that you've done.

Yeah, it, that's been, it's getting the right people in here, you know, right. That, that know the business or know how to. We can train them and explain to them the procedures and the policies that we have in place. We can mold them. I love getting the green people in here like we were talking about, you know, that way I can mold the way I want my dealership brand. So yeah, it's, it's been a good few months for sure. I mean, I'm not, not any easier buying cars. I mean, that's definitely, man, it's, it's tougher and tougher every week it seems like. And, but you know, as we keep going and finding Those little honey holes until they run out and finding another one, you know, not getting comfortable and really just opening up and brought more broader range of. Of places to buy from.

Interesting. So let's go through this in order of our previous episode and talk about the recommendations we had and what you did. So in the advertising section, that's kind of where we started with your ad spend. You know, what were you were doing now? We recommended that you increase your Facebook and your Google Ad because we felt like you were just a little bit low on the dollar. The dollar per sale. Did you do that? We.

We did. I. I want to say when we talked last time, we were, you know, 500 bucks a month or something like that, or 8, 800amonth. And now I'm on. I'd say average in 500, 800 a week, which is a lot. But at the same time, it's. It's been a game changer. It really has. The more you spend, more you make. So that's kind of where we've been. It slowed down a little bit, but then all of a sudden, boom picks up, you know, and it's. You can tell and you can see the trend of when you're not advertising or boosting the way that you're supposed to be. And then it's like, we, you know, whoever's doing that's not doing it, I go back and check or the life checks, it's like, oh, hey, look at this. We didn't do these things. And now boom. All of a sudden, it takes back off again. So. But yeah, we've definitely ramped up advertising with Facebook and Cars for Sale and Craigslist and stuff like that. So, yeah, it's been really good.

It was interesting. What is the. It was either Henry Ford or someone like that that said if you, you know, the worst place you can cut cost is in advertising. It's a very good saying that I can't recall. But anyway, um, it's amazing. When you spend just barely over the minimum, the return you get on advertising is huge because there's always a baseline, and some dealers never get off of the baseline. I was stuck there for 15 years. Like, you're spending a thousand a month or, you know, 1500amonth, and you think that, oh, well, I'm not. Not getting a return. But when you take that and double it or triple it, the amount of leads you get automatically is exponential. And it takes you from selling 20 cars a month to 40 cars. But pretty quickly, right, Jeff?

And one other thing we recommended was with that ad spend, you, you start using more of your personalities, right? Putting your people, your salesmen, yourself, your dealership in the ads and, and kind of less just about the cars. Is that something that you, you mentioned it a little bit, but did you focus on that?

Yeah, we did. Right after the podcast, we ended up hiring a younger gentleman. And that was his thing. He'd be out there every day if it's snow and he's building a snowman, just being funny and, you know, and then in the meantime looking at a car or something, you know, so it was really cool to have him do that and just introduce them. So when they walked in, they knew, oh, hey, you're, you're, you know, like you're so and so. And it was just really cool to see that. And so right now, with the, with who we have, we've been really trying to implement that on the social media side. So that's definitely something that still needs a little bit of work. But at the same time they, they know what we need them to do and they're like, I got a guy out there right now. I can see him doing it. He's out there making a quick video. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's better.

Can I ask what channels you're using? Is that Facebook? Are you guys doing Instagram Tick Tock?

Yeah, so we have Instagram, Facebook, and then a little Tick tock. I'm not super savvy with tick tock and my new, the younger generation of employees that I have, they're real familiar with this. So they're the ones that are starting that. We do have a tick Tock page, you know, the dealership. We do have our Instagram page and, and then just Facebook, you know, so those are the three main ones we're doing.

I feel you can, are you, can you, do you like, attribute sales to those channels? Are you tracking those? Better to know where these leads are coming from, where the sales are coming from.

Yeah, we, we do. I would say it'd probably be a guess at this point. I don't have the numbers are from, but I would say probably 70% of our sales are from Facebook, which then also could include Instagram because they're just joined together. So as soon as it posts on one, it pushes to the other. So. But I've had customers come in and say, you know, 100%, oh, we saw you on Facebook or we saw your ad on Instagram or we do have our YouTube channel that we do also. That's mainly the Cars. But yeah, so it's, it's, it's harder to, to track either, you know, which one it is, but, you know, definitely Facebook, Instagram.

Well, I tell you, I think last year we didn't really see much on your Facebook page. And I still think there's more that can be done there. I like the idea of the guy building the snowman. I tell you what I would do if I, if I had the cars, you had a lot and I had snow, which we don't have snow around here. I'd build snowmans and I would run a truck right through it in a video. I think that'd be cool. I think you could get a lot of excitement around there for that. Anyway, I want to see more of you in your advertising and on your website. Is that something you're shying away from or what's going on there?

You know, it's just from, from the past of always being, you know, when we first started, you know, everybody wants to come in and talk to the owner. Everybody, you know, hey, is the owner here? Hey, is Brandon here? And it's like. And with everything that I have going on, buying and making sure, transport set up or whatever, it's hard for me to do that. So I'm not opposed to getting out there, making stuff with me or, you know, introducing myself, but it just makes it hard when they walk in and everybody wants to talk to you. And it's like if my door's closed, the salespeople, they knock open the door. You know, it's like, man, I just need a minute, you know, I'm not opposed to doing it, which I, even the wife and I kind of talked a little bit about. I might start doing some little things here and there, but I just, you know, just to introduce myself of who I am, that I'm here but not actually selling cars. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I mean, I get it. My name's on the building. People always walk in and ask for me. And people I've sold car to cars to over the years do it. And I tell you people, and Jeff, you don't have your name on the building, so I don't know how that goes.

But.

People do expect to talk to you at times. But if you train your staff properly, they don't. But I think when people know who they're actually buying from, it helps. I would encourage you to, yeah, to be a little involved.

So my opinion would be, you know, looking at your, your, your footprint here, your website, you're not anywhere on Your website. So I would, I would probably say yes, Brandon, you and your wife and your dog should be on the website like as hey man, here's my story. I'm the owner. This is it. This is our family. This is what we do. Maybe some of that.

Yeah.

When I look at your Facebook page, I'm fine with you not being the face of your sales team. I agree with that. I don't want to be the face of my sales team. I don't want people asking for me. I want people asking for my salesman. But when I look at your Facebook posts and I go back through July, as far down as I can scroll, you got a lot of cool photos of the customer that bought the car and the car, you know, the happy customer photo is great. I don't see any of your salesmen in it. I don't see any videos of your salesman introducing themselves or doing walk arounds. So I, I don't know if that's going to another channel or not getting to the Facebook page, but I would say that's maybe a missed opportunity. Is like, hey man, more of the salesman. Let's put the salesman's personality out there on our Facebook page.

And I, and I would say that you're. I forget. Brandon, are you from Coeur d'? Alene?

No.

Okay. You've been there a long time or.

No, almost nine years. Ten years. Yeah.

I mean I would lean into it. That's a, you know, that's a pretty small area up there and I, I would think that it's. There's such unique terrain and, and activities and things. Man, lean into to what brought you there or, or whatever. And the same with the sales people too. Because I think that like Jeff says, the, the more you personalize the car buying process, the, the more likely people are to buy from you. You know, I, Carmax and Carvana might be the total opposite of that, but I think what makes independent dealers reputable and, and to really differentiate yourself compared to the Carvana and the Carmax is to be there and is to show them that you're part of the community. And we would love to see that on your website, I think, and on your, your Facebook page. I think you've done a great job so far. Just take it to the next level.

Yeah, I agree. 100. I definitely think there's a lot of change that we can do. And you know, like we, we talked about, I mean, yeah, it's, it's. I don't know why those other videos wouldn't be showing up we had tons of. They were. I mean, like, you should get one. You're popping up pretty soon. But yeah. And I don't know if it's just because it's not on the actual page or if they're putting it on their personal page. I'd have to look and see where he's got his. Getting ready to post too. But yeah, a lot of them are on the other guy's page, so. But like we've talked about with them too, is I need them posting on our page and everything else.

So.

Yeah, definitely. Things we can move from that too. That's. That's a great idea. And I definitely need to start doing that more.

Or even just the dog. You know, you got the cute little bulldog on there. Is that thing still alive?

Oh, yeah, she's sitting right here.

Yeah, like that. I mean, that little bulldog for sure. Every single photo. And like, it can be your mascot and your salesman. You know, we did that for a while with a small green puppet. You know, we had our guy already approved and he was the mascot, so I didn't have to worry about salesmen coming and going and building brands and not. It was Artie. He was the guy that was in all the shots and the photos and he was the salesman. So it kind of created this iconic feature sales image that can last past for sure. My salesman. Yeah, you know, things like that. So.

And you could go, I mean, what is your dog's name?

Kimber.

What is it?

I'm sorry, Kimber. Like the gun I got you.

I mean, you know, it's Kimber certified. Right. You hold the dog up in the back of the truck and. And he has home with it because I think that's a huge. A huge mis avenue there because yeah, he's. He's all over your face. You know, he's on. He's the. He's the front of your Facebook page. Lean into it, man. Lean into him.

Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, guys, you know, one of the. The keys to Brandon's success here lately has been back end product, Jeff. And there's no better way to sell back end product and profit from it than have your own reinsurance company. And Buckeye is the place to go, right?

Yeah, we didn't really have time to bring that up with Brandon, but that might be a follow up conversation of, hey, man, you're getting pretty good penetration on these products. Why not own the product yourself?

That's right.

You know, you know, the quality of the car. You're not selling anything that's like, you know, too crazy. You know, Subarus, Jeeps, trucks, those are all pretty basic, easy to fix. He's not in the exotics or the high ends. That might be a little, you know, scary. So anyways, that might be the next step for Brandon.

I think, I think that's definitely his own reinsurance. Yeah, for sure. Because you got to participate. Not only would he be making a thousand dollars, he could end up making $2,000 per contract and scrolling some of that away. So we'll bring that up to Brandon next time we talk. I know the first time we talked about it he was a little scared to, to wade into it, but don't be scared. Right now is a time to start tax preparing for 2024 and reinsurance is a great way to do that. And Buckeye is a place to go.

So moving along with those vehicles, we talked about narrowing your price and your focus. You know, you kind of, your website was all over the place. You had $50,000 and you had 10 and 15. Have you narrowed your inventory price point at all or is that.

Yeah, we have. I definitely. So a lot of the stuff, if you go to the website right now, you see I've got, I've got a few trucks that are, you know, I mean I'm about to have an escalate hit the market for 80. But you know, it's their consignment vehicles or fresh trade ins that you got to kind of take in. But the stuff that I'm, I'm buying, yeah, I'd say our niche right now is about 25 or less stuff that I own. And you know, it's, it's hit and miss. I mean I've got some really kind of one off stuff out there that sells, you know, that's still up here, the super low miles that you might pay up for. But I definitely took that into consideration last time we talked, you know, trying not to buy these things. One, you know, if you got flooring or you got your own money out there, definitely it's expensive to have that tied up. So really been working on that, working on trying to figure out the time frames. You know, the more expensive stuff seems to be taking anywhere 45, 55 days to sell the cheap stuff. You know, within 10 to 12 days it's, it's just rolling out of here. So kind of where we've been, we've been trending to go down. But you know, I've got, I love consignments. So if the consignments make sense and I can make some Money on them. We definitely get them listed and get them out there. I've got three or four of them out there right now that are pretty expensive but I think they'll move.

You know what's, we don't do consignments in, in South Carolina but I know a lot of people that do. North Carolina is full of it. And you know, the only thing I.

Would.

The only thing I would caution you about a consignment is it, it can mess up your, your inventory, right. It can cost you sales because people are, it could probably help yourselves too. But when people come in and they, they see a $60,000 truck and, and they really can afford a $25,000 truck, sometimes it's hard to, to get them back the other way. But if it works for you, keep it up. I, I tell you, if I was in your town I would lean so far into Subaru, Toyota and Jeeps. You know, I know you're big on Jeeps, more of that type stuff and less of the, less of the one offs because I really think that Subarus are just got to kill up there. Right?

Yeah they do. And when I say one off I mean in like you know, a 2015 Subaru or you know, 09 Subaru, 35,000 miles. Kind of like that type of one off. Yeah, that's great.

That's a great one off.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and right now too we've been buying so heavy to replace what we're selling. You know I've got my whole backlots full of stuff going through recon right now so A lot of stuff you're seeing on the site too. We have a lot of stuff not listed. There's going to be you know, five or six listed today. Today, we listed a few yesterday so definitely have a lot of the Subaru market because what I do so. And I'm sure you guys, you don't have to deal with it as much because our weather changes so drastically up here. You know, I buy about three months in advance so right now I am stocked up on Subarus. I've got a ton of them out there just because I'm buying for my winter season right now and then when we get in the winter I'll start buying for my spring season and you know, just keep kind of moving. So I'm usually about three months ahead on my buying aspect of it. So it's, it's been really good and, and it's, it's worked for us. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Do you so do you feel like when you say you're three months ahead so you're buying those cars and they're taking three months to get through your recon or you're sitting on them?

No.

Three months or you're.

No. So like you know within the next three months we're gonna have snow. So I'm buying right now predicting how much you know what we're gonna have for snow. So I'm buying my Subarus and stuff right now because as soon as snow falls Subarus are gonna, they skyrocket every year they just, they, they skyrocket up until the snow's gone and they fall off through the summer. So I can buy them a little less right now and then come towards, you know, January, February time we got some snow on the ground. I'm in them really good but I mean, but I'm selling them before we get to that point. So I'm able to make my money right now and still you know, people are coming in and they're. I got a lot of trade ins of like two wheel drive trucks. A lot of people are moving up here. They're two wheel drive, front wheel drive cars and they're buying Subarus now because they know how the winter is. So a lot of dealers, they just stock up only winter time for Subarus. I try to buy them before then. So people are getting ready for winter and they're buying them now if that makes sense.

Yeah, it makes total sense. That's a convertible deal down here. You buy the, you buy the convertibles in the heat of the summer when they're too hot to drive in the cold winter. And then you, you sell them in the spring for sure.

But you got to sit on them for six months.

You got to sit on them, you got to make sure you buy them.

Right philosophy.

So talking to you Brandon is if you're buying them now and you're not willing to sit on them for three months till the price peaks, then you're just selling them at today's prices anyway.

But if you're selling them, you're selling them, it doesn't matter.

Yeah, there, you know, 1500 profit on the front end of a Subaru is pretty damn good considering, you know, so.

Then it's season, then it's not seasonal. You're not like you're stocking up for like the rainy season, you're just kind of.

No, but I'll like right now in this time. I'm buying a lot more Subarus now than I would have say in you know, August or not, but you know, May or, or April, you know, I'm buying them now.

And Luke would argue that you should only have Subarus.

I. I think so. I mean I would. If I were you. I would only sell probably Subarus and Toyota suv's and Jeeps and that would be it. I, Jeff and I go back and forth on this because I want, Yeah. I want to open up a Subaru store in Utah and Jeff won't, won't help me.

You let me know, my friend. We'll figure something out.

Yeah, they all get shipped up there. What's, what's interesting, I find, and just to put a final note on this is when I do buy a car for a certain season or time frame, I have a really, really hard time holding out until the peak season to sell it. Right. So like, you know, you don't have to or something like. Right. But if I'm going to take a lower, a higher turn time with a lower gross, but then I can't go replace that car in the, in the season when I could sell it again. I'm still going to have.

Sure. And that's.

Right.

So if you have the.

Just keep buying them.

Right, Right. So that's what I'm saying is people that are like, well, I'm gonna buy 50 Jeeps and then I'm gonna sit on them until Jeep season and then I'm gonna sell them. It's like, yeah, good luck with the gamble.

Yeah, that doesn't make sense.

Yeah. But if it pays off, it's peak. If you'd been out and bought a ton of those Model 3 Teslas from Hertz that were for sale six months ago and you had the guts to buy as many as you could and sit on them until today, now they don't exist and all the prices have gone back up. Right.

Right.

So that takes a whole lot of capital and a whole lot of faith to say, yeah, I am going to ride seasonal waves on purpose.

And you know, we still. And real quick to just touch on that too. So with the Subaru is like I am all year long STI wrxs the legacy. But like right now ramping up on like the hatchback. So like the, the legacy or the outback, stuff like that, that don't tend to. They're not the best sellers they still sell, don't get me wrong. But they're just not the best sellers. Everyone. The younger generations want these STI WRX's. So those I'm buying year round and then I stock Up. I, I always have a minimum of, you know, 8 to 10 Subarus, but right now, within the next week we'll probably have 15 to 16 of those.

I love, I love that. That's awesome. I, yeah, I, I'm a huge Outback fan. I think they're just the most wonderful cars are put on the planet. Anyway, Jeff, what else?

Your turn time has, has increased though, overall.

Yeah.

This year.

Yeah, they have 100. It has, yeah. Since the last meeting. It has. Absolutely.

Great.

Okay, so let's transition to the last. Or not the last piece, but close to the last place, which I think is one of the key things that happened for you was the employee situation. Right. We felt like you had maybe some people at the wrong seat on the bus and you needed to maybe focus and get a dedicated, dedicated F and I person. This specifically was out there to work, get you more lenders, get more back end product. What did you do with your personnel since the last time we talked?

So the last. Since last time, it's been a. It's a whirlwind that's come through here. We've got pretty much everyone here besides one or two people are new. Not that they. I made them leave on bad terms or fired anybody, just. It just wasn't working out. So I did get a, an F and I guy who knows the business really well. When it does come to the financing side, he has got us other lenders on board. And then I'm pretty sure, I think I had Cuddle back then, but you know, with just having cuddle and then him being more, more taking the time to actually get a hold of the cuddle rep instead of just like, I got it. So we call our reps out from cuddle or Route 1 and they come out and they sit and talk with us and they help us get these different lenders on. And he's had lenders in the past that he might have used that when he's brought over with us some different credit unions, which has been a game changer which that now and the way we had it before. Right. My last guy was paid on the back end and on the front end. Well, now that's totally changed. So my finance guy is strictly backhand. He makes no money on the front end. So it's the only way he gets paid is by selling, you know, VSC or Gap policy. And so that's where it's been a huge game changer. The last guy we have being Kate both, like you guys said, he was a rockstar salesperson. But he is not a finance guy. He already made his money on the front, so there was no reason for him to push the back end. And now with having the right salespeople that we have, they know they only get paid on the front end of the deal. So they're working as hard as they can to keep their gross, whole gross and make as much money as they can. And my finance guy now has just been killing it, just selling, you know, as many different products that we can from, you know, key fob replacement, wheel replacement, undercoating, you know, ceramic coating, vscs, gap insurance. So, I mean, just so many different avenues that I didn't even know, you know, I had no idea that these things. And they go, you just ask. And 90 of the time you're like, yeah, we'll take it.

Yeah, that's great. Because I mean, most people are payment buyers, right? And so if something has $10 a month, most people don't care, right? And then they see the value of it in the end. So I love that you made that change. So many of us are so scared a lot of times to, to pull the trigger on someone who's been at the dealership forever. And, you know, if you do it properly, like you talking about, we didn't fire anybody. You know, once you start talking to people or make a new position and it cuts into somebody's payroll, what ends up happening is people leave sometimes.

Yeah.

And it's for the best, the better. It's hardly. It's very rare when you, when, when somebody leaves, you don't replace them with better people. And so just keep that in mind, everybody listening. Because you can get better. The only way to get better is to have better people working for you. For sure.

Yeah. And my thing is, I just, I got afraid last night. You know, I didn't want to. I thought I was ruining relationships of people that I've had working here for four or five years. You sit them down and you actually have that tough conversation of pretty much like, hey, you're not doing what we have trained you what to do. Not that we're letting you go, but I need to change differently. And then like you said, we let one guy, like, he was here and he was doing it. He started changing, then he just went back to the old ways. And I. He sat. He's like, I can't do it. I'm like, well, hey, you know what? Hard feelings. And then we were able to replace him with somebody new who actually we were able to mold and only knows what we Do. So it's been so nice. So they're not like you were talking about earlier. There's no bad habits. There's none of that stuff. They know our policy, our procedures from when a car lands, when it goes out the door. They know exactly what we have to get done. And it's really, really changed everything. I mean, honestly, that's the one thing I, I could tell anyone listening is don't be, don't be scared to, you know, you know, slow to hire, quick to fire type thing. You've got to. Unfortunately, this is a nature of the beast business and if you don't cut it, you got to go. And that's how I had to come to terms with it.

So.

Yeah, what it also looks like to me is you, you align the incentives of the employees with the incentives of the dealership. Right. So your F and I guy gets paid on commission when he sells F and I products. Your sales people, are they all on commission? Are they hourly or salary? Everyone's commission, their commission as well. So you're aligning their benefits. How many salespeople? One or two?

Two. As of right now, we're looking to hire probably two more here by the end of next week.

Wow. Wow.

Yeah, that's, that's gonna, you're gonna. Yeah. You know, in, in a retail environment and when you have a commission based structure like that, you tend to find that you hire salesmen until your numbers don't increase. Right?

Yes.

And, and so if you want to hit 40, you got four salespeople on staff, that's 10 a piece. What you may find is you may end up at 50 or you may end up at 35 and you need to get rid of one person. Right?

Yeah.

So I like it, I like that you're adding staff because if it's commission based, it's really not costing you anything.

Yeah, 100%. And you know, and it's just having those people here to be able to answer the phones when someone else is on it or another. Oh yeah. You know, or even answering leads from podium at 9:30 at night, sit on the couch watching a movie or something because you don't answer that lead. And they, and they know. And so right now, the guy we have here, the other one, like they're good at doing that. So they know if that lead comes through, it's their lead, they got to take it. That's. We assign it to them, boom, it's done, it's theirs. And the next morning there's usually an appointment. So really, really Good.

Hey, everybody, one more time. Make sure we talk about our friends over at Blitzpay. The guys to go to and girls to get your credit card processing. We use them. Luke uses them. It's really been such a convenient and easy change for us. We're almost 100% converted from our previous credit card processor. I kind of did the slow. The slow roll. You know, I wasn't ready to rip the band aid off and jump ship month to month. I've kind of let it roll out over six or seven months, and it's been really, really great for us.

Yeah, it's great product, especially with collections. You're in the buy here, pay here. Even retail customers can use this because how many people use their card for down payments gives you so much ability, so easy for your people buying from you. So call Blitzpay, get them to hook you up, and I tell you, their customer service. Jeff, I've said this before, is freaking outstanding. It's hard to find that with vendors nowadays, but Buckeye for sure and Blitzpay for sure.

Yeah, I Definitely. Having two salesmen and trying to do 30 retail or, you know, going beyond 30 retail would be very, very hard.

Very hard.

It's very hard.

They're missing a lot of leads. They're missing a lot of deals. They could be working.

Yeah, I think. I think adding one more person, you're gonna. You're gonna get to 40 to 42 almost immediately because you may. You may see the guys, guys, girls that you were having that are at 15 or 18 right now. They may drop one or two to start with because the other person is going to pick up one or two of theirs. But I think everybody's going to grow over the next 90 days for sure.

Yeah.

So a couple other things. Did you stop doing outside service in your service department? No.

That was a tough one. Yeah, that. That was a tough one for me after talking, but I did. Now we didn't stop at 100. We still do some oil changes. Nothing any. No big jobs anymore. We've really kind of cut that out. You know, we have different shops. We might have them drop them off here. They've got a service contract and we send them out to a trans shop or. Or something like that. So we very rarely now are we taking on any big jobs. You know, we were talking last time, I was trying to grow that side work days and get this. And just, you know, and, you know, after sitting down, talking to us about that in our last meeting, it was. It just made sense, actually. Picking your brains about that, you know, because you guys have been in the business a lot longer than I have and it's. And you know, you guys have tried that. And I love Jeff, what you said last time is, you know, you were looking at buying that property across you from the place. But like, the guy said, well, how many more cars a month you need to sell to make that difference in money? And that's where it hit me, like, smacked me in the face. I'm like, you know what, you're absolutely right. So we went and we, we take, like I said, we'll take some small stuff. You know, we will do oil changes if someone comes in an AC recharge and something like that. But mainly, and, and right now with selling 30 cars a month having, you know, 30 to 35 or, you know, a steady 60 to 70 cars on the lot, I got a lot of inventory to get through for recon. So I don't have that time. And the longer that my car sits, it's more money if I have a floor or if I got, If I got 40 grand sitting on a, on a, you know, on a truck or something out there that I need to move. Like, I don't, you know, hey, let's get my stuff through before the other people. So, yeah, sure, cut that back. Definitely, definitely cut that back.

Yeah, Very important time to line, right.

Luke, Time to line is huge. It, it. And I was talking, you know, it's funny, we'll just go off on a quick tangent. I'll take it a step further when you talk about time to line. So I have a 12 BAS shop, four full time technicians, and you even get to the point where you get cars that your technicians can't fix for some reason. And actually Alexa and I were walking this morning. I said, another shop called me and said the car is ready. I said, that's great.

What.

What happened? And I said, I don't even care what happened. Is it ready? Yeah, it's ready.

Yeah.

The difference is this. I took that trouble car, sent it out and got it ready. That was $14,000 just sitting there because we couldn't take the time to, to figure out what was going on. And, and we sent it somewhere else. We forgot about it. We moved on to the cars we can get ready. And, and all of a sudden we have 10 cars ready and this other car is fixed again. So so many dealers that I have visited that are in a, in a bad situation is because they either don't have the money to send the car out to get it ready or they, they don't have to know how to get it ready to. The more time you have cars sitting, the more money it takes and the closer you are to going out of business. So everybody listening, get the car out, get it fixed, get it. So move on to something else or just wholesale it and lose money either way.

Yeah, that's. That's what I was just going to say. And that's been a big thing to these last few months is really sitting down, going, all right, look, we went through a. It was five months ago. We went through it that month was. We still sold a lot of cars, but there just wasn't a whole lot of gross there. So it was kind of really tough month. But I got rid of a lot of old inventory that had been sitting. So. And you got to do that every once in a while. So I, I've talked to other dealers and anyone listening, man, I'll tell you, just take your licks at one point, get, get them gone. You know, you have to. The more you sit on, the more fees you got if you have them floored or it's your money sitting there from another bank. Like my wife and I get into this all the time. It's like, you know, hey, let's just move it. I'm gonna lose three grand. Well, it is what it is, just moving. You gotta, I mean, how long is it gonna take you to get another one here? So you got to do it. I got a couple out here that I. Only a few left that I'll have that on. But for the most part, man, like I said, I just keep trying to buy the best buys that I can and hopefully not fall into that. But it's nature of the beast, right? There's no way we're ever going to be able to stop that.

If you, if you ever get to the point where you're not losing money on a car every once in a while, you're going out of business probably because you, it's just going to happen. If you buy as many cars as it takes to run a business, you're going to lose every once in a while. You're not going to make money on every single one of them. And if, if another car dealer tells you that they don't ever take a loss, they're lying.

Oh, yeah, no, I agree.

Yeah. It's a very hard mentality to have, especially when you come from a buy here, pay here world where you think to yourself, there's a but for every seat, right? I've had cars that have had birthdays on my car lot. And, like, I'm Like, I'm determined this thing will sell to somebody. There's no way I'm wholesaling that PT Cruiser. Somebody's going to want it. And guess what happened? Somebody does want it. And they want it for about three months until they turn it into a trash can and shoot it off, Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So it's like, okay, what did I really make there? I could have wholesaled it and lost three or four grand, or now they shot it off a cliff and I lost eight grand. Right. Like, absolutely. There are definitely some times where it's like. Like you said, Luke, it's part of your business model. Just know that it's okay. Right. All those opportunity costs. What could you use that money for? Even the mental of the fact that you have that car there, it's just, oh, no, we got a truck. We need more trucks. No, we got two of them. Those two have been there forever.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah. And it, like you just said, the mental side of it, too. Not coming in going, oh, my gosh, that thing's still sitting here. Why are we not moving? Go out there, look at it go. Drive it. Why is this. Why is it checking? But whatever, you know, and just taking those licks. And I gotta. I'll admit, 100. I do have to get better at that because I'm just like, dude, I'm like, you know what? Hey, I think there's a butt for every seat 100. But, man, I just. You gotta come to terms with it and just. You gotta let them go. And you gotta let them go. Yeah. And it is what it is.

So, Brandon, let's. Let's wrap this up with the most important thing. Have you been able to free up your time? Have you been able to grow sales? I know you've been doing a lot of stuff, so you're probably, like, still in the building phase where you've got your hands and everything. So it sounds like you've had some turnover and a lot of growth, but do you feel like you see the light at the end of the tunnel where you can free yourself up to maybe enjoy your personal life a little more?

I do. It's. And it's like we said, it's getting the right people in place that'll help you run the dealership. It's really nice to have someone like Dennis in here that owned his own business back in the day, so he knows what it takes to run a business, which I love. I truly love that because he does have our best investment interest in mind. Phenomenal guy, great family guy. Just an all around great dude. So having him here has been really nice. Yeah, I go to the gym every morning, get time to myself and work out and just kind of let off scene. My wife and I were able to go to Vegas for our 23 year wedding anniversary a couple weeks ago, and I didn't have to worry about anything. I was like, you know what? We're going. So we were able to go for three days and just have a really nice time. I mean, don't get me wrong, your phone still rings, but it's nothing too terrible. But yeah, I definitely have.

We're.

But yes, I do have my hands and things. I'm trying to be better about letting go on certain things. So we. We got some camping trips planned this year, so hopefully be able to step away and do that and just, you know, spend a little more time with them. I am coaching now, which is again, or still I should say, I'm going to coach my little one. So I could leave here every day early and go do that. Some football stuff. So I do feel like I am starting to see the light on the end of the tunnel. I can feel the business, like just chugging, wanting to just start running on its own. And I think we're getting there. I think we're really close. I think hopefully by the end of this year, we'll be. We'll be at a whole new level. And with the right team in place, I think we're unstoppable. I really do.

That's great to hear.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They talk about that flywheel, right, Luke? And that good to great book. That's what makes you know, when you say that, you're like, yes, it's the flywheel. Once you get it going, it's hard to get it up and spinning. But once it's spinning now, it just takes that little bit of maintenance and attention, hopefully just to keep those things going. And you'll have salesmen leave and you'll have bad cars and you'll have some of these hiccups happen. But you've now gotten to the level where, hey, maybe 30 is a bad month, right?

Yeah.

30 is your new baseline, and it frees you up. You've kind of gotten out of that. I got to be here every Saturday. I got to be here every hour to keep tabs and make sure things happen. That's. That's a really good feeling, man.

Yeah.

And a lot of this to you guys. Honestly, you. I Have to give you guys credit for a lot of this. Just having our first meeting, being able to go through and really getting slapped in the face. I mean really, that's what it was. It was you guys as, as other dealers that have been doing it for a long time, like, look, you're doing it wrong, you know, and then, and that's what it took for me to hear, to be like, you know what? Yeah. Because you know, you hear from, like there's times my wife will say, hey, you're doing it wrong, you know, or hey, remember what the guy said on the, on the podcast. I'm like, yeah, I know. I, so I have my, my wife there and just support me with all this. I'll tell you, it's, it's, it's been a game changer this, this year and just being able to sit with you guys. I commend you guys for what you do. I love what you guys do and I just hope other dealers are also getting stuff out of it just because it's not a podcast, you know what I mean?

Well, thank you, Brandon.

Yes, thank you. And I don't. We really, really appreciate that. Let's end on what you're going to be doing in the next six months. What are you focusing on? What's left on your plate? What, what, what are we, what's still going to happen?

So I do need within, within the next six months. My plan is to have my two other bays set up and running. So I have four bays instead of three. Are, you know, I have the other lift but I want to get my four base set up and running. I do want to get one or two more techs just to run through my stuff. A full time detail person back there. And I want to hit our goal. I want our, I want our store to be a 50 car month store minimum. Looking at purchasing the property right behind us. That'll open up huge. I can stock a bunch of more cars. So next six months, that's my plan is just to grow this place and then get the right people in place to where now I can just step back. I don't have to be in here every day. I can do some stuff from home. I can do my auctions from home. Instead of having to come in here and watch what's going on, I need to, I need to get better about that and just being able to, you know, kind of just take a break, step back and know that my people have it in place. And I pretty much just come in and just say hi. That's That's. That would be my sick. Well, I'd say that'd be my year goal, but six months for sure. I'd love to see the store at 50 cars a month.

That's great. We're looking forward to seeing Jeff. We need to make our trip up to Coeur d'. Alene. And check this out.

You guys. You guys let me know when you want to come up and I'll make sure we'll get that handled for you. We'll. Whatever you guys need. I'd love to have you guys up here for a day and check it out, walk around, show you around.

Let's book our next 20 group meeting up there.

I think, you know, I. I threw that out there the last 20 group.

Yeah, I've been. I've done a 20 group there and it was.

I have, too.

It's great.

I. I love Coeur d'. Alene. Coeur d' Alene Resort right there on the lake. Oh.

So. Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Well, cool, bro.

Thanks so much, man. We look forward to talking to you again soon.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you guys so much. I appreciate it. Have a great day.

All right, buddy. See you.

Thanks.

One, one more thing before you start recording. Hey, you want to just say hey, if anybody else is looking for us to help you with your business to do that or no?

Oh, yeah.

Hey, hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Before we let you go, we love talking to Brandon. We had a great time. It was so much fun to diagnose his business and dissect it and give him some advice. If you are interested and want to chat with us either on a podcast or off a podcast, we're always available. Reach out to us info the independentdealer.com you can look us up on Facebook. Contact us any way you want. Luke. Luke just loves slapping people in the face.

I tell you, I just love talking business and I love talking to other dealers because it really helps me. Jeff, I'm being selfish here. If you do come on the podcast, number one, it gives us content and hopefully number two, it helps you. And for us to see someone succeed, man, that's. It's worth what we do every week. So if you need help, please reach out. And Jeff, we're doing this and we're not charging anybody. So, I mean, how bad could it be, right?

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