#357 - How I Built This: Flying Wheels 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 continue our How I Built this follow up series with one of our earliest. This is going way, way, way, way, way back in the archive. Luke, to episode number 68, I believe.

I'm sure, I'm sure he's been on twice as well, though.

I don't. I haven't been on twice and I'm proud to be an og.

Oh, gee. There's only. There's very few people that have been on three times, Jeff. And yeah, Craig's good. Yeah, Craig's good at it. You know, he's. He's better at being a. A celebrity than we are because he's a celebrity.

Now that the flattery is over, though, over, I think you can humble me too. It's fine. I'm used to it.

Yeah. So if you guys know Craig, you go back to episode 62 and I think episode maybe like 150 or something. Craig, he's very, very experienced with the podcast, the YouTube community. He runs a huge YouTube channel called Flying Wheels. So we want to know what Craig has been up to in the last. Geez, man. Years. It's been years. Craig set the table for us. When we last talked to you, I think you were driving an EV across the country. Was that episode like 150?

Yeah.

How long ago it was? Wow.

Yeah. And you were doing, you were doing a 22, a TV show, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Exciting things back then. Geez, I wish I could go back. So we, we first started, our first conversation was all in Car dealer, creating a YouTube channel, vlogging about our life, what's going on, showing people what it's like behind the scenes for all of us, the goods, the bads, the struggles, and making it relatable to the public. Built a pretty good brand and a level of trust with the community and people and grew my business that way. So it helped expand our reach and our sales. So we were shipping nationwide. I put a car on a video in a vlog, and next day we have people reaching out from Missouri or Minnesota. The next episode we did was.

The.

Growth of EVs, really that pushed through the EV world, which has changed a lot since then. So 21, someone reached out to me and asked if my mother and I wanted to be on a car show. Basically Cannonball Run where we drive across the country from Brooklyn, New York to la. And first one LA wins. We didn't win, but we were the first one in la. It was kind of a time trial, so we'd go from destination to destination and that was a lot of fun and a heck of a learning experience. I raced a Porsche take on across the country with my mother and had an absolute blast and learned a lot about evs. I'd say that I'm definitely an EV aficionado now and probably, to be honest with you, one of the most hated EV owners. And I don't even know if there's one more than me. I tell it like it is, the positives and the negatives and it really creates a lot of drama in the EV world because there's a lot of pro people, a lot of non pro people in the evening.

Well, it's good I have my, my cybertruck hat on today.

See, I just sold my cyber truck and I honestly, I miss it. But it was, it was about time because that those values are plummeting fast.

So yeah, they're plummeting in. I love that you. One of your videos is the most hated car on the road because I, I'm sure you, you got some middle fingers a little bit.

Didn't makes people so mad.

It's crazy.

It's crazy angry about that cyber truck.

Yeah, it brings out a lot of emotions either way. Even still, when we drive ours around, we'll get people just either glaring and every so often you'll get the bird. It doesn't help that we wrapped it in Christmas lights and put a tree in the back of it. So you took a, you took a horribly gaudy car truck and turned it into a spectacle. But Craig, so you've been doing all that. What, what happened after all that? Where did you go? Did you continue down that road or I mean have. Are you still selling cars? Like, I know a lot of stuff's changed, but talk to us about kind of the trajectory of both your channel and your dealership.

Sure. So the reason I love these podcasts speaking with you guys, making my content as. As well I'm an open book and I fail plenty of. And originally the reason I started doing these things is I wish I could tell myself my younger self the things that I did right, the things that I did wrong, the things that I would change. So I put all out there on the Internet for anybody else to do the same that wants to learn from my mistakes and I have a pretty solid following of a younger generation looking to do the same thing, which is. It's rewarding. For me, I really like it. Owning an independent car dealership was fun. I get to buy what I like. Not that what I like is the best idea. It's about the consumer, not about me. So I learned that over and over, and I still buy with my heart, even though I'm not supposed to. But that always made for better videos. So perfect segue. The dealership did well, especially post Covid 21, 22, 23. Dealership did great, but so did my social media platforms. They started to really take off and. And I enjoy it more. So I kind of went full steam ahead on my. On my social media, growing, growing myself as a content creator and Flying Wheels, the brand and not just the dealership. Flying Wheels, the brand grew the dealership though. So separating the two was for sure a struggle. And I'll dive deeper into that as we move along. My dealership had a very reliable manager that was motivated. She still is very motivated. She took a lot off my plate. And I started to sit back. I gave her the main desk and I started to sit back at the desk in the back of the room, and I kind of moved that desk back further. Monthly or time and a long way away. Eventually 1500 miles away now. So I guess I was saving that one. But yeah, I ended up kind of just moving that desk all the way back to Florida, wanting to see if. If I could run a dealership remotely. So if. If you want to discuss that in today's podcast, we can see if that's a success or a failure or learning curve, I think.

Well, what.

Before we get there, because we do want to talk about it.

Yeah. Why.

What's the. Why would you take a successful dealership and. And decide that, hey, I get it. The. The social media YouTuber podcaster is a good gig. I like it. I wish Jeff would. We lean in more and do more so that we could. We could just live off of that. But, yeah, Jeff doesn't like to work very hard. I'm just kidding. Jeff. He does all the work. I'm. I just talk. I mean, was that the lure of it? That you just. It's. It's more fun, right? And a lot less.

Yeah. I went to school for broadcast journalism and communications. I've always. I've always loved it. I was a radio DJ in college. It's stuff that I thoroughly enjoy doing. So I started this YouTube channel when I own the car dealership, and I enjoyed it as a hobby. Probably the same reason you started the podcast. You know, it was small. It was a side Project. It was a passion project. That's what Flying Wheels Media was. And Flying Wheels dealership always paid the bills, always took care of my family and the employees and it was consistent and I think we had discussed it a previous podcast. It's a money printing machine. It, it always paid for everything. So it gave me time to focus on passion projects which was Flying Wheels Media and over time Flying Wheels Media. So it was Flying Wheels car dealership, bringing in the income and then Flying Wheels Media was my passion project, my hobby. At one point I was putting in 50% of really 100% into both. I was up at 4am and then going to bed at 11 midnight every night trying to get the dealership stuff done, answer the emails, get home to see sports dinner and everything, get the kids to bed and then back to my computer to edit and review and post. So it was a lot of work to run both. Once I felt like my dealership was self sustainable, I'm saying that loosely, very loosely. I could oversee it and focus more time on Flying Wheels Media. I enjoyed it more. I got to buy things that I enjoyed more. I got to care less, which might not be the right way that I'm saying it. It wasn't as stressful that day to day of owning the car dealership is so stressful. And I'm constantly putting out fires and figuring out. I called myself a professional problem solver. Constantly figuring out why did this person trade in this car? Why was it at the auction? What do, what did somebody not tell me? And then figure it out in house. And then after the fact, after the sale, the any blowback on anything that might happen in a used car is always brings a lot of anxiety and it, it's emotional to me because I'm attached to every customer. I'm attached to every car. It's my name that I created. So if, if a car ever comes back, I can't help but take it personally. It's difficult. So I want to put everything out there into the car before the sale. And as I started seeing prices increase, business costs increase, retail customer volatility, I saw post Covid and still to this day, all of those things pushed me towards media more, which is what I thoroughly enjoy.

Go ahead. Did the income ever reverse where there was more?

Oh, I never did this. I never went to this point. Yeah. So this also happened. Okay. And that's where I started to be able to. That's where that care less comes from. So it was Flying Wheels, then social media, then we became here and here. And then all of a sudden, the social media started to take off. And I know that I could sustain an income and support my family that way, which felt really nice. It felt comfortable. And I felt comfortable enough slowing down with the dealership, which I kind of knew was necessary and coming anyway just in. In these markets, I kind of felt it. And I put all my time into Flying Wheels Media. So both worked in my favor to a point.

And.

And again, having the income from my passion project alleviated a lot of stress from. I have. I have to get rid of this many. Have to move this much metal every month. We have to cover this much every single month. And eventually I needed to separate the two where. If I put. So there were some months where I put too much time into Flying Wheels Media and the car dealership would suffer and I found myself funneling money from one to pay the other, which doesn't work either.

Yeah.

So there's, there's a constant learning curve. I mean, from episode one to two to three that we've been doing, we have three very different topics. And I've learned a lot in since episode one. Tried a lot, learned a lot, failed a lot even.

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I find that interesting because as dealers, we all dream of. That we all dream of, like, yes, this is a. We always say it's five businesses in one. We're constant firefighters. What can we do that's easier, simpler, more of a passion project, Maybe if you do start to lose passion with the day to day of dealership. So as your. As your income started to transition and you saw the media company being a better income source, the dealership was maybe being a little bit of a thorn in your side. Or a little bit of a headache. Was that when you said, I can go full time into. Into the media business? I don't need to physically be in this location anymore. I can move anywhere I want. Is that what kind of made you want to detach yourself physically now and be farther away from the dealership or what made that decision?

Yeah. Yes. And there's a second part to that. So I live in the Northeast. It is a rust belt area. And I'm just. I'm worn out from buying things that scrape off as we're under it. If it's on the left and I'm getting rust in my eyes, I couldn't imagine. Volcanic. Yeah, it's. It's really tough. And constantly purchasing things. We changed our dynamic, what we were selling, which is a different topic as I noticed. Markets change, our inventory style changes. So I have a friend in Florida that owns a buy here, pay here, and he sells Kias and Hyundai's and he just repeats over and over and over what we do in the Northeast is I buy per season, one season ahead. So I know SUVs and trucks are going to sell now. I buy them in the fall. I know that tax cars are going to sell in February. I buy them in December. I know that convertibles and. And motorcycles will sell in the spring. I buy them in January, February. I'm always one season ahead.

Yep.

I don't love. I did get into this business because I love cars. That is my. Ultimately, it's my passion, whether it's on video or at a car dealership. I got into this because of my love for cars. And generations back is the same way. I still buy with my heart. As I had mentioned already in New Hampshire, shoveling, jumping dead batteries, buying per season and knowing that by the 4th of July, if I still have a motorcycle, I'll put it in storage. That thing has to be gone by mid July or I own it until next spring. I don't like always thinking that way. And when I started, originally I started in Florida and it was buying fun stuff all the time. So my end goal was that.

So. So you see. Go ahead.

L. Oh, go ahead.

So.

So you. You mentioned in your email to us that the stuff you were selling in 22 and 23 didn't sell in 24. What happened there? Because I think a lot of people have. Have experience had. Was it price or was it the season is messed up on you?

I'm glad you keep going back to these because I jump all over the place. So that was a point that I wanted to talk about and then I moved on to something else. So I buy what I like and it makes me happy. But that doesn't always. That's not always what sells. And when people had money and people were spending money, I could buy a Corvette, I could buy a Mustang, I could buy a Ferrari, a G wagon, it doesn't matter. People are going to buy it. And then I noticed that slowdown tremendously. So things have changed. And if I'm the dealers out there that are listening, I'm sure would almost unanimously agree that things have changed. And the way people spend their money has changed too. I saw that coming. I took tremendous losses on a lot of cars that I bought for Flying Wheels Media because it made fun video.

Yeah, the fun stuff.

Oh God, my ev, that my. I had an audi e tron GT that I loved. I think I lost $38,000 on it for a year. Cyber, cyber truck I took a beating on. Now those are cars that I wouldn't normally have bought to sell at Flying Wheels car dealership. I know that generally, but I bought it for Flying Wheels Media to be fun, to make the show, to entertain. And some of the videos paid for the losses, but they're still losses. So I wouldn't have ever thought to sell those at my car dealership. But what was selling originally a few years ago, those higher end cars aren't selling in Danville, New Hampshire. And I noticed the calls from shipping nationally were slowing down as well. And we changed our demographic to more affordable vehicles again and really went back to the basics. What I started with, when I started this car dealership, we didn't have a lot of money. I wasn't, I didn't have a line of credit or floor plan. We're paying out of pocket for things. So we were buying inexpensive cars like sub 15,000. We went back to that. We are. I won't go under five. I try and I try to stay away from that. Then I get into real headaches, but I find myself 6,500 to 8,500. Is that real magic number where people can either buy it with cash or finance it without. Yeah, yeah, finance it without putting themselves out there too much. And when people aren't thinking about that lake house, that boat, that jet ski payment, that fun car payment, they're focusing on their. Their what's important right now. That's what's important. Being able to afford a vehicle. So we went right back to basics.

That same thing happened in the buy here, pay your business over the last Two years. And Jeff, I don't know if you saw this, but you know, there were, there were times in 21 and 22 where I was selling 30 plus thousand dollar buy here, pay here trucks and SUVs and they would move. I mean, just like you put them on a lot, boom, go boom, gone. And they were $800,000 a month payments. And man, let me tell you this, anything over 20 grand in the last six months on the buy here, pay here lot will not budge. And you think, oh, it's a buy here, pay here. It's. They're not all that focused on, on how much it costs anyway. They are, they are very in tune with what it cost. And that's funny that it's, it's happened across the board. Even with someone like you who's has this, you know, this different way of advertising than what I have. You can bring people from all over so you would figure that your market wouldn't change all that much.

I'd love to say that that's what it is. A lot of the conversations that we've had and what I've like, unfortunately I missed you guys at the Niada. But I think we all spoke, the three of us spoke there and I spoke about growing your business through social media, which is what I did. My brand grew because of social media and we were pushing stuff all over the country. It comes in and it goes out everywhere. But that doesn't change the way people are spending. So we'll still ship stuff nationally, but that $6,500 car there might not, it might not be worth it for someone to ship. When I picked up that higher end stuff, it was going all over. So it is definitely more locally now. It kind of has to be that way too. And there's more to it. Like I had said, I moved to Florida. So it's my manager, my manager taking that stuff on and we really went back to basics, ground floor stuff. So I have her starting from the very beginning.

Yeah, let's talk about that. Because I want to know how the logistics worked on that. So you say, hey, I'm sick of the rust, I'm sick of the snow, I'm heading for sunnier pastures, which I think we'd all love to retire to Florida about now. But how did you physically do that? Did you say, okay, you're going to run this thing, it's your baby, I'm just going to take a small little percentage of what you make every month or I'm going to charge you rent or I'm still 100% involved. I'm just going to be remotely buying stuff. Like, talk to us about the logistics of how you set that up and has it been successful?

Yeah, absolutely. And no. The answer is no. That it cost me a lot of money out of pocket for a long. A lot of months. And then each month I noticed it get more positive. I wasn't expecting that. I would have loved to just see a seamless transition where we're still making money right away, but there's a learning curve for both myself and my manager, and we both want it. So, number one, the. The dream is to run remotely, right? Like, if I could have a business on the other side of the country that's running itself. To say that aloud is my dream the reality. That's not a reality. Especially in a car dealership. It does need to be overseen and my manager doesn't. Didn't have a ton of car experience when she started years ago, but I saw her drive, I saw her passion, I saw that she felt connected to the business. And I want her to feel like it's part of hers and not just an employee. That was a big, big part for it. Knowing that she was on board and her knowing that it wasn't just she's.

The.

Now the worker bee for me to make money. That's not the intention, and I don't want her to ever feel that way. And when she can know that that's not the intention, I feel like she's incentivized as well. So I want to make sure that she's content and feels like she's doing well and that this is now her baby. And when she feels like it's her baby, then it's our baby to discuss about. She'll call me to vent. She'll call me when she has questions or problems. She now buys for me. She handles the recon process. Not physically, but she handles the. The recon process and the repair process. And then she gets it marketed and up for sale. And we have a small staff in house, which I had to focus on making it small and manageable for her. And then I'm on the back end for everything. So we speak every day, whether it's through text or phone call, and then we do a numbers review. I try to do them weekly to see where we're at and making sure everything's on point. But there. There's absolutely a learning curve on both sides where once I was gone, I paid out of pocket to make sure that everything was sustainable. And there Was, to be quite honest with you, and I don't love to put everything out there, but there was a day where that balance said zero because she wrote a check out of the wrong bank account and complete error. Not her fault at all, but there was a zero balance one day and we had that discussion of like, hey, we can only do this for so many more months. And then with her passion and me putting in more time and effort to make sure she was confident enough to do it, it started to climb up again. And now we're positive, which really, I'm proud of her. And it makes me feel good. It's rewarding on my side. I. I should have, I had that thought in my head, like, I could sell off my inventory. I could rent out my building. I could maybe even sell the dealership. And the idea of that would probably be the easiest upfront if I could have that done, close the doors and. But I still. It's still my baby. I still want it. I don't want to give up on it. I want to be. Have my hands in it somehow.

Yeah. Let me ask, what, what, what, like, takeaways would you have for dealers that want to do a more of an absentee owner remote? Like, were there any big kind of epiphanies that you said, oh, thought it was going to operate like this. And in reality it's more like this, or here's something I put into place as kind of a fail safe or a fallback that has actually helped, you know, make this, make this be a little less painful.

Sure. Well, you have to know that there's, there's that chance of failure. So if you go into it knowing that that is a possibility, that fear can be a real thing, from there, focus on what. I always like to work backwards. And like, even if, if I went to the restaurants as a kid, I cheated on the kids menu, and I went backwards through the maze to figure out how to get to the start. And I like to do my life that way too. So I want to be here. What do I need to be here? I just had this conversation with my son. He wants an end goal of something. And I said, all right, how do you afford this? You need X amount of dollars. How do we get that many dollars? Start by the, by the end, we can get to the beginning. All right, you need to start here. I knew what I wanted at the end of the. Which we're not there yet. I knew what I wanted at the end. I said it to her too. I know if I'm Here, and you are comfortable here. That's the end goal. And we're both satisfied and we can sustain a profitable and successful business together. If we can't get there, it's not going to work. So what's the next step? And we worked on what was her end goal for a salary, for income, to make sure she was safe, that. That she was comfortable. And ultimately that is the end goal, is to make sure everybody's comfortable and happy financially. And once we knew that that number is, is what will work for both of us, we said, how do we get there? We have to sell X amount per month and make a gross of X amount as well, Y amount to get there. If we can do that, it's successful. If we can't, it's not going to work. So there were the first few months that didn't work, and then eventually we again saw it start to get to that point, and we're still working towards that number. She had never purchased a car at auction before. She had gone to the auction with me to pick up vehicles. She'd gone there for fun, to visit. But I took her under my wing a few auctions, and then I kind of watched her from behind after that. And then I just let her go with a few thousand here and a few thousand there. And now she calls and says, hey, Craig, I bought this, this, and this. Or she'll call me from the auction, hey, Craig, what do you think about this? Here's what MMR is, here's what nada is. I think based on the condition, it should be comfortable here. She's really putting in the time, and it makes me feel good enough and confident enough to give her money to spend.

All right, guys, it's that time of the year as well as if you haven't got your reinsurance set up, it might be too late, but you need to look forward to it next year. Buckeye Dealership Consulting is the only place I trust my reinsurance company, Jeff.

Yeah, and of course you can get it. You can. They will set you up any time of the year. It doesn't need to be with a calendar changeover, but you should start putting that money away into your own reinsurance company. Obviously, as we start looking at income tax burden, which is going to be the next big hurdle we got to get over. This is how reinsurance really, really helps defer that. Kick that income tax down the road and maybe into a different bracket. Income bracket that would be better for you. So I know for me, it's going to help a lot. It's going to save me a ton in income taxes this year. So it's never too late to get it set up and get it going on that. Super interesting that dealers will leave their dealership and still expect some outrageous number. Right? Like you said, you figured out what that number was and you worked your way backwards. Sometimes these dealers go and they're like, well, I still expect to be making the same amount I was making when I was there. Or I'm going to put some crazy burden on my son or my manager, whoever I'm passing this down to, to try to cut me absentee owner a check when I'm bringing no value to the dealership anymore. Like, so it's smart that you worked in backwards and said, hey, I either sell the place and lease it out and make 5,000amonth or I need to make 10,000amonth. And let's work backwards for us to both be profitable in this situation. Right. That's really interesting. Also, Craig, I want to know. This is going on. You're in Florida. You're making the phone calls. What's. What's the YouTube channel doing during this time?

So these are actually perfect segues because it has been such a learning experience for me. I. So the Flying Wheels. I knew that I'm not fully involved anymore on Flying Wheels Auto Sales. So I can't expect to be making the same while I'm being replaced and expecting someone else to do my job for me. Can you.

Can you get on the phone by dad and talk to him about this? Just kidding.

I get. I don't get. I have enough family stuff going on. I don't need to get involved in yours. So I knew if I was throttling back, I should throttle back my income. And we had already done this thing on our podcast where Flying Wheels Media had gotten here, which made me feel comfortable enough to step back from Flying Wheels Auto Sales and I'd still be okay. That was where I knew that I could leave if I have to. Like, if I had to shut Flying Wheels doors, I could and we'd still be all right. So that helped me transition to another part of the country and start over and experiment and try new things and see what else is out there. I don't want to do the same thing every day. I never have wanted to live that way. I like new experiences. We've shared the same Christmas in the Same House for 14 years. We've gone to the same Christmas parades. So it's nice to have a Christmas parade this year in shorts and sandals and have my kids experience something different. But with that being said, we had already talked about. I started this channel based on the life of a car dealer. So people followed to see what it's like for the life of a car dealer behind the scenes, the good and the bad. And all of a sudden I don't have anything to shoot that is car dealership related. And to be quite honest with you, I'm not going to swear, but I will say people were paid pissed. There were some people like loyal viewers, followers, fans, however you want to say it. There were some people that were genuinely upset because they follow me for my flipping 400 to a Ferrari. I want to see you buy a car and sell a car and that's all I'm here for. I want to know what drama is with this customer and that's all I'm here for because I want to know why I hate what did you transition?

What were you giving?

Crazy.

So crazy. Yeah, but what was your. I was trying to. Trying to grow, trying to expand open my horizons for flying wheels and focus on. My end goal is to. I love cars. I want to talk about cars or what's going on in the world with the automotive industry. Okay, go ahead, somebody.

Were you trying to be like savage geese and. And you know, go out there and test drive a new Porsche and get up in air? I mean, is that, is that what your passion is? Is that where you want to be?

If I had the answer, I'd probably be doing it. So I bought the Cyber truck because I wanted to know what it's like to own a cybertruck and talk about it to everyone else that couldn't own a cybertruck. So I made a why I love it. I made a why I hate it. I made a here's why. I have to sell it right now. I've done a lot of those videos where I bought something and in the meantime I've done a lot of one offs. So I've bought something for myself, talked about it, fixed it, cleaned it, sold it. And I always said when I retire, I'm not at retirement position, but I've always said when I retire I'll still do what all three of us are doing, but on a much smaller scale. I love, I love the hunt, I love getting the deal. I appreciate the car more when I know that I got a great deal on it. I love working on them to a point. I love cleaning them and I even love selling them if we're making a profit. Those are all My favorite things to do as a hobby. And I would say that that is my passion project or my passion.

If I can wrap. If I can. What you basically went to was from being a nuts and bolts, like, let me show you the. The grimy day to day of being a car dealer. You know, you transitioned maybe more into like, I'm going to be kind of. Maybe more of a reporter or maybe like one off spotlights on simple cars that I did, or maybe flashy news or flashy something. And you feel like your basic viewers were like, no, no, no. I want to see how the sausage is made. I don't want to just see fancy food. Like, I want to see the kitchen and how you did it, not just the end product. Was that it or.

It's. Exactly. And it's funny that you use that term because in the last podcast you said, do people really want to know how the sausage is made? And he thinks we know things about sausage a lot. What's in the soup? The answer is yes. They really wanted to see that stuff, and they were upset when I bought a 2022 Range Rover from Boston and shipped it to Florida and sold it wholesale. And we did okay on it. But that's not what's interesting. What I found was what people wanted was realistic stuff. So when I did the flipping $400 to a Ferrari series, it was, I bought a car with $400. I had no money. When we started our dealership, I start. I don't need a dealership. We're going to start with $400. Buy a car, fix it, clean it, sell it, and just keep rinsing, repeat till we can afford a Ferrari for that $400. Took the channel off. People went wild. Once I got that Ferrari, though, it took me two and a half years. People were mad, like, oh, must be nice to have daddy's money. But, guys, you just watched me for two years try to afford this Ferrari, and now you're mad at me because I have a Ferrari. So that's the world. They just don't want to know that I have a Ferrari or they don't care that I bought a new E Ray, which I thought would be cool. They just want, like, buy that Grand Cherokee and show me how to sell it and make money, which I respect. It's. It's the grinders. I have a lot of grinders that follow, and they want to get their hands dirty and they want to know how to make money, and they want it to be real. And from what I thought would have Been a fun, easy transition into some cool stuff, some fun supercar stuff in Florida, which I'm still going to do. I've learned that stick to the basics. It's what works. It's what made flying wheels start to work again in New Hampshire after I left. Once we went back to basics, it started work. And same with my channel.

Interesting.

It's so interesting that you say that that basic back to the basics works in social media. YouTubing. Because how many times, Jeff, you and I have talked about, every time we kind of move out of our basics in, in the car business that we do, we get burned, right? And that doesn't mean that you can, that you shouldn't tweak your business and make it better. But to, to totally go from let's just call it one ACV all the way to another ACV doesn't always work. So it's, it's very interesting that, that you, you found the same thing in a different business.

Same thing. And I think all of us, every single one of us listening and talking right now, our industry changed so much in four or five years and a lot of us lost sight of what it was like in 2018. It's not that world anymore. And everything changed. And at one point we could buy a brand new car and make a ton of money on that brand new car. It doesn't even make sense when we say that out loud. But for a good amount of time, a few years, that's a real thing. And we're not there anymore. But in some people's mind, it's still, we can spend too much on stuff and we can sell it for too much on and it's going to work. It doesn't work. I mean, it might be working for someone that's listening, but it's not working for me.

Somebody's making it work. I've definitely stepped away from some of my basics and it does make me think like, oh man, I'm chasing some of these shiny pennies, which we talk about before. And it's like, and I get you're pulled even more because you've got the YouTube channel and you're like, well, wait a minute, maybe if I buy this, you know, Hummer, Mustang or Ferrari, I'm going to get some, some views because it's a sexy car and it's a sexy story. But I think what's interesting, you found that the people that pay attention to you are the practitioners, right? They're the actual people doing the work. They want to see how you get From A to B. Whereas some YouTubers and, and social media folks, their audience is more the general public. Right. They publish stuff that's, hey, here's the news about cars and here's what's going on here. And, and their subscribers are just kind of your average Joe that might be interested in the car industry. Whereas you found your subscribers, or at least your hardcore followers are the ones that want to know how to do it because they want to do it themselves. Did you see, and I'm guessing you got that not just from comments, but you saw views go down. Have you seen your channel suffer because you aren't technically an operator right now?

Last thing, Jeff. How do you get your money in the bank, buddy?

Yeah, you need a really good payment processing company.

Yep. And Blitzpay is what we use. It. It works great for us and it works great for our customers. And that's what really matters. It saves us money and it saves us time and it saves the consumers some time as well.

Yeah, it's. It's a great system. It's super easy for the customers to use. So it's just, it's different. It's different than your typical credit card processor that the customer might never see or have any interaction with. These. Blitzpay has the customer facing portal which really empowers the customer to handle their own payments. Right. To change their credit cards out to pay with cash if they need to, to set up auto pay to. To jump in and you know, say yes to promise to pays when you set it for them. So it's really a cool deal. It's all done through text and an easy, easy payment portal that they can set up and get going themselves. So call the guys at blitzpay and get your credit card processing started out right this year.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. And I. It's odd to even think that it's two. So the two businesses are so different. One is social media and one is auto sales.

Yeah.

The same repercussions on both. When I changed the car dealership, I noticed it go down. When I changed my YouTube, I noticed it go down. And when I went back, really paid attention to what was working and started to focus on that, I saw them both climb. Two very different industries. Yeah, they're both automotive based, but two very different industries. And they both started to climb again. And it's almost like you sometimes lose track of what was important or lose track of what the people want. I mean, you guys are the independent dealer. What if you started talking about groceries? In the next episode all your listeners are going to go, what the heck is this? And even though I had a dream of, of something, it would be a much slower transition than just a six month. Hey, guys, I am changing my channel to this. No, you're not, Craig. No, you're not. Go back to what we want or we're not listening, we're not watching. And there was a time when I, when I was moving, moving was really, really difficult. I ended up starting to get rid of all of my YouTube cars. So I bought stuff for views. I bought stuff that was fun, that made me happy, that was definitely interesting on camera. And they would sit, and I still have a Skyline and a Humvee that I might end up dying with. But I bought those things not for flying wheels in Danville, New Hampshire, to sell. I bought them because they were interesting on camera. And I ended up having to sell off a lot of things and a lot of them at losses too. So there was a good run for like three, four months where I'm like, I took a loss on the heavy. The heading would have been I took a loss on X. I lost so much money on this Cayenne and it's a real thing. I was really losing money on that stuff. And that's not what. The car dealership was still making money when we were doing that. But the video was showing. I lost money. So for a while we were, we had a video channel that was teaching people how to make money. And then I went on a three month run of here's how to lose money. And I almost lost a lot of faith in people like, oh, Craig really isn't that great at his car dealership. The car dealership was fine, but those YouTube cars just, I took a beating on for a while. So again, I, I needed to, it took me a while to learn that. I needed to focus on what works and what the people want. If you've ever seen the movie Joe Dirt, he, he goes to a firecracker stand and he just sells cherry bombs. And that's not what it's about. It's about the consumer. I always think of that. It's about the consumer, not what I want.

Yeah, for sure. What, so Craig, what's, what's next for you? You're. You're in Florida now. You're not a Florida dealer yet.

Yeah.

What does the future look like?

I'm actually in New Hampshire today, despite this entire podcast. So I flew home to just check on the business. I do come back maybe monthly, maybe every five to six weeks, just to check on everybody, see how they're doing, go to the auction with my manager, Lauren, and bump into some faces and stuff like that. So it is nice. It gives me an excuse, an opportunity to come home, which I love. But for as far as Florida goes, I've been buying wholesale, selling wholesale, which is nice. You know, we have our license nationwide, so I can ship stuff home, buy it. Buy it rust free in Florida, ship it up to New Hampshire, which has been tremendous for us. And eventually we just started the process of getting our retail in Florida. So we'll. We'll get our sales tax ID and start then to start looking for a location. Everything's a lot more expensive down there, though. So. Something else I didn't anticipate when I lived there originally, people would go to retire. Now it's. Everything is more expensive. You can be New Hampshire rich, in Florida poor. It's very different.

Yeah, yeah.

Desirable communities, right? I mean, I think Luke, you mentioned it the other day with a property you bought, and I was like, wow, what? I was like, that. That can't be for the whole property. Like, that's got to just be like the outhouse, right? And he's like, no, that's. That's all the land and everything. And I was like, there's no way. So it's sticker shock.

The closer you move to the coast, the higher stuff gets, right?

So, yeah, it's.

It's. It's just the way it is, Jeff. And I guess with you, Jeff, probably the closer you get to the mountains, maybe the higher it gets.

I don't know.

It's just.

It's.

It's just everything. Yeah, I don't know what it is. We got plenty of land, and it's just really expensive. But, Craig, so what city are you in? Can you tell us that?

I'm on the east coast, near West Palm Beach. Okay, so did I just say west coast? I'm on the east coast near West Palm Beach. I don't know what I just said. And yes, as you get closer to the ocean. We're near the ocean. When I. When I sold my house in New Hampshire, my big, big house with three stories and a big basement and three acres. I spoke to a realtor in Florida, a friend of mine, and I'm like, yeah, so I think I probably want to live on a canal. I want two stories. I want to be able to get to the ocean. I also want a pool, and I need some land. And she's like, all right, what's your budget? I'M like, I think, I think if we sell everything in New Hampshire, I should be able to just move laterally. And she laughed at me, I swear. I did my research, but got expensive. It got, it's, it's coming down again. It's coming down tremendously. I get emails daily on price cuts in Florida. So we chose not to buy right away. We took, we took our money, we rented for a year just to make sure we like the area and everything, which we do, and we're looking to buy. But it's, it's definitely, it's more expensive to live there. The housing prices are more expensive, the land is smaller, and the things I didn't even anticipate, like, excuse me, I clean my own pool, I mow my own lawn, and I enjoy doing it here in Florida. It's. I have a lawn service, I have a pool service, I have a bug service, I have the mowing service, I have an HOA fee. All the things I didn't even ever have or think about. Now our whole other expense in Florida that just, it, it hurts to write that check. And I think someone, some, one of my neighbors put a Merry Christmas sign in their yard and the HOA wasn't happy about it, so. Oh, I'm used to that. Live free or die. Do whatever you want. And once you.

But no state income tax, right?

No state income tax. Yeah.

That's nice.

There you go. I know sales tax in New Hampshire. I went to sales tax in Florida, though, so there's that. Yeah, it was a, that's another learning curve. It's a big. Been a big six months for sure.

So.

Good, man.

Hopefully six more months. I have a lot of positive. Just to say the past 12 months to six months was a lot of learning, plenty of errors. But then also I'm glad we're doing the podcast now and not three months ago, because we are back facing up and positive and having good months, which is really, really a big relief.

Yeah, for sure. And that's. Man, we look forward to hearing about the next year because I'm sure it's going to. You're going to have a bunch of good stuff going on.

Yeah, we'll have a, we'll have another car dealership in Florida. And I'll tell you all the mistakes I made about that.

Well, we'll be able to, we'll be able to watch your channel. Right. Flying wheels. I mean, you're going to document the whole build out, finding the property, buying your first car, floor, all that. Right. This is going to be.

Yeah, all of it will be on the Internet. I am an open book, which is fun and not so fun sometimes. Everybody knowing my business isn't always great, but I enjoy sharing it. If even a few people learn from it, it's really worth it.

Yeah.

Yeah, we feel the same.

That's awesome, Craig. Well, hey, appreciate your time. We're definitely going to catch up to you again. Not going to take three years to get the update, but. But really, thanks so much for joining us.

Yeah. I love you guys. I love being part of part of everything you have going on. So thank you so much for including me.

Thank you, buddy.

Yeah. See you later, guys. Thank you for listening. Please leave us a review. We'll catch you in the next episode.