28 Jan 2026 · 24 min
Jeff Watson and Luke Godwin identify what burns out used-car dealers: tax season cashflow crunches, stale inventory, and poor delegation. They recommend pricing aggressively to move stock, cutting expenses ruthlessly, automating payments with software like Blitzpay, and documenting processes so you can actually delegate.
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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. Luke, man, how's it going, man? How you doing?
I'm on the road, baby. It's.
Get your haircut. That looks good.
Yeah, kind of high and tight. I gotta get ready for Vegas next week, buddy.
Yeah, dude, I'm stoked, man. We head down this weekend. Some Vegas stuff. Getting ready for buyer pay here United. You guys are going to hear this. Hopefully you're on an airplane headed to Vegas to meet up and have a good couple days out there.
Yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun.
Yeah, we've got compliance unleashed beforehand. Steve Levine, obviously you guys have picked up his book, you've read it, and we're gonna get together and hang out and that's the best part of this. Luke's coming up to St. George for a day or two. We're gonna get some golf in, maybe go to the lake, do some surfing, play some pickleball. What do you think?
Let's do it, man. I. I love. Yeah. So I played pickleball this last weekend. Yeah, I'm getting better.
Yeah, we'll bring you to the courts and give you a. Give you the run through. You know what the best thing about these things are, Luke? It reinvigorates me to the business. And honestly, guys, if you haven't been to convention, whether it's state, national, I hear pay here. United Used Car Week compliance unleashed. So many opportunities to get together with other dealers and commiserate about our issues, you know?
Yeah.
Drag each other down, but also build each other up and get re motivated.
Yeah, that's the biggest thing. Burnout's a big deal in our industry and it's a big deal in any industry. But it's getting this time of the year takes its toll. You just came off of hopefully a really good first quarter. Cars are hard to buy, especially with tariffs. That's. That's created another issue. But then you got to pay your taxes, you got to what you owed from last year, then you got to pay your first quarter with holdings. It's a bear. And in buy here, pay here. If you use a bunch of your cash to get through that first quarter, it's even tougher. So people can really start to get down and, and hopefully you come to these conventions and it gets you back up and gets you motivated again.
Yeah, it's so funny, man. So. So speaking of that it is the first quarter, which is, you know, prime time to just be stressed out at all ends, right? If you're retail, you're, you're really hoping that tax time hits. You're heavy on inventory. Like you said, you've got cash going out all directions, right? Because you're stocking up on inventory. All your flooring lines are at their extent of their days because you stocked up in December or January. You've got old age units that you're stressing about. I don't know if I'm going to move that frickin transit van. It's been here, it's almost had a birthday. I've had that stupid thing. And so, you know, some of those things stress you out. But then, but then, like income tax, man, why can't I fight a good accountant? Like why is he, why am I calling? Why am I texting him at five o' clock yesterday saying hey man, you gonna file an extension or what's up?
Yeah, but you know, it's kind of like finding good accountants. It's kind of like us trying to find good, good employees. It's hard and you know, it's. What are you going to do? They don't have, they have too much work and not enough people.
So.
I get it, man. They, they got it, they got it burning for both.
Yeah, well, I mean, I just want someone just, just make me a priority. Just call me, just text me. So I'm logging in last night at like 11:45 Eastern time, trying to make my tax payment because apparently that's supposed to happen. You'd think at this age I've been paying taxes for freaking 25 years. Like you think I would know that I need to make my payment at least if they're going to extend my taxes. So I'm trying to log in. I'm sure enough site doesn't work. Down for maintenance or something, whatever. I'll pay my penalty. Those types of things wear on you, man. They, they wear on you. And it's tough. So how, let's, let's talk about some tips to stay motivated in the business and avoid the burnout. Because we know you burnt out. Luke threw in the cat. He's done. He gave up. What, what were the things that at least got you to 35 years? Because you probably could have thrown in the towel 10 years ago. Five years ago I could have. And now I'm gonna push through another five or 10 years, but I gotta find, keep me motivated and keep me in the business and keep me Excited.
The. The biggest thing that I see going to other dealers that can just kill motivation and burn. And burn you out the quickest is being unprofitable.
Oh, I mean, that's number one. That's huge money. You're on a sinking ship. Nobody wants to be on a sinking ship.
And. And unfortunately, there's. Dealers have been in business for 20 and 25 years. Next thing you know, they have a bad year and they lose money. And then. Then they don't do anything to adjust it. They're like, oh, it's going to fix itself. And then in the next year, they lose money again. And that nest egg that they had built up, it starts unravel because they're having to pour money in. And. And really the best thing they can do is, is fix the problem. But. But what happens is they get demotivated and they throw the towel in.
I mean, dealers aren't unprofitable just because they're complacent or lazy. Well, they are, but sometimes you don't know how to fix the problem.
Yeah. And then you hire. Yeah, you hire me and I come in and help you try to fix the problem. But. But these things happen. And unfortunately, our business changes. And if you're not going to convention, if you're not talking to other dealers, and if you're not involved, you don't see the trends changing before it's too late. And then all of a sudden, somebody moves into your town and outwits you and. And you've lost that market share that you had for so many years.
Yeah. It's so true. And we see that on the Facebook group all the time. Hey, man, how is everyone's tax season?
This is.
This is slower than tar molasses going up a hill. Like, and then someone else chimes in and they're like, best month ever, and I'm like, 50 miles from you. So how does that happen? Right? How does that happen?
It happens because you took your alpha ball. You didn't prepare for tax season, which. Which I see a lot of dealers doing is out of dealer this week. Who did prepare for tax season. They killed it. Right. They had a really good tax season, but now they're in April and they don't have cars. That is the best situation to be in. Now, it might hurt your April, but it's a great situation to be in. This dealer's profitable and they're doing things the right way, and. And they're on a good trajectory. But the people who waited till February to worry about tax Season, they didn't have a good tax season.
Yeah. And what's funny to me is, so I spoke to a dealer yesterday that I was helping with some of that ev tax credit stuff, and we just kind of started chatting about things. And he's been in the business a long time, same situation, kind of struggling with burnout. But one topic we got on was the. The art of losing money on a car and just knowing that you have to turn. And I think that's one of the biggest things that dealers get stuck in is it's like, well, I have to get 18 grand for that because I'm into it. 18. Like, no, you need to turn inventory. And that's from a retail standpoint, pretty important from a buy here, pay here. But that motion, that excitement, that freshening up your law, the salesman getting something done, like all of that motion creates momentum.
Yeah. And I would even tell you to not even allow your, your, your salespeople to see what you have on a car. Just, just block it. They can't see it. And it doesn't matter if you win or you lose because they're looking for these big grosses that don't matter. So maybe you need to change your pay structure or maybe you just need to block what they see. Price the cars right, get them out. For sure, that stale inventory will cause all kind of problems and taking first profits, best profit, first loss, best profit, best loss. You always got to remember that.
Yeah, that is true. I have that issue because of my buy here, pay here mentality. I think there's a but for every seat. And eventually someone's going to want that, you know, Malibu with the bad paint. Probably not true, because guess who's going to buy it? Somebody I don't want in it. So I got to turn it. And if I got to cash sale it and retail it just to get it out of here, or heaven forbid, wholesale it and take a loss. Like I need that parking space to have a Honda Accord in it.
And yes, that's right. And I would argue also take it and send it to Mako or one of those places, put a $300 paint job on it, price it extremely low retail, like $25 cash or $35 cash. Burn it out, get it out of there. Because turn that cash into better, better inventory.
Yeah. And part of this, and part of it is having your reinsurance company. You can still capture some money. It doesn't have to be a loser. And if you can sell some back end product, obviously you've got your buckeye. And you're going to sell them a warranty, you're going to sell them Gap. You're going to do something to try to capture some money, even on a loser.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Even in the retail side, because you're selling vehicle service contract and maybe some Gap. And, and then on the buy here, pay your side, the Gap and the cpi, there's always ways to make money, even if you're losing on the front end of the cars.
Yeah. So what else are you seeing, Luther? What, what have you done other than being profitable, which is a. I get that's a mountain of an obstacle to climb. Like, that's not something we're just going to flip a switch tomorrow and it's going to be on. But what other tools or, or tricks or things have you done to. To stave that off?
Expenses being too high, you got to keep your expenses low. And this kind of goes to the profitability side, but if you feel like you're paying everybody but yourself, that will burn you out really quickly. And so keeping those expenses low, your floor plan, if you have to have one, you know, don't, don't load up if you don't need all those cars. You know, some dealers think that I'm going to sell 30 cars a month. I need 60. Well, figure out how to do it at 40. Right? Keep those expenses low because the lower your expenses are, the more chances you have to be profitable, but the less stress it puts on, on your, on your mentality. And the stress on your mentality is what creates the burnout.
Well, how do you balance that? So my, my argument is expenses on personnel, right? So if you're, if you're trying to run too lean of a ship, you've, you're wearing too many hats. And that could cause burnout from you and your staff. Right? Because you're like, oh, I need to, I need to fire this guy. And I'm just going to spread his responsibilities out because I got to be lean on my expenses. Luke told me so. And now all of a sudden I'm wearing five hats and I'm here seven days a week, 12 hours a day, because I don't have.
Yeah, I think there's a balance. You know, pay your really good people a lot of money, but get rid of the ones who are creating problems for your. Problems for you. Just use your resources to the best of your ability. And you, most people probably have too many employees now. You know, sometimes you go into places and they have too few employees, which create Stress as well. So I think it's a fine balance. But you can look at expenses that you don't need, some advertising that maybe you don't need or some software that you don't need. The first place I would cut is not with people I would cut. Unless you have bad people cut those. But other, other expenses go out the way first.
Yeah, you're talking about your software and that's one thing. We've talked about this in previous episodes. You need to do quarterly or annually audits on all your expenses, pull your credit card statements, look at your QuickBooks line by line by line by line. Sit down with your staff and say, do we still use this product? Let's look at an invoice for the, you know, uniforms in the shop. Like why has that ballooned to $1,000 a month? Because we're ordering rugs and mops and uniforms it doesn't need because those guys just want to sell more stuff. So they just keep guys more stuff. Why do we have three different softwares back there? Guess what? So that's a whole episode in itself, what I'm using. You don't have too few, too many employees, Luke. I think you have inefficient employees for sure. Right. It's like they're used to coming in and having an eight hour shift, but burning four of those hours. Chit chat, nerds shopping Facebook because they haven't been delegated enough responsibilities and held accountable on the productivity. And I think the D word is a dealer's biggest downfall, is the delegation word. We all think we can do it all. We all think we can do it better. We all want to take it on ourselves. We don't want to teach and delegate and follow up. And I think that is the real killer. Like that is the of burnout.
I agree, I agree. If you don't have people doing the minutiae that you're doing, that creates burnout. And honestly, there are so many ways to use AI right now to help your employees and they may not know how to use AI. So if you go in there and teach them how to, to do certain reconciliations using AI or to write certain descriptions using AI or to build spreadsheets using AI or let's AI make your spreadsheets better. These are things that can save so much time in your dealership that, that we're not doing. We need to really focus on using AI to help us and to help our employees. And it's super easy to use and it's cheap to use. So I'D encourage everybody to really delve into to an AI product to make you, make you more efficient.
Yeah, yeah, I'm excited for that integration. You know, we've, we talk to dealers and vendors all the time about how are we using it to be more efficient. And we do know dealers who have used it in, who have found softwares that work well and they've used it to be more cost effective. You know, to eliminate entire BDC departments, five or six employees, like two employees, because they're using technology and AI to be more efficient. It helps your employees from burnout. I think it helps you in a way of like you said, being more efficient. Have I delegated enough responsibilities to the point where if I'm gone for a period of time, will my dealership burn to the ground or will everything keep humming along and I'll be just when I go on vacation, like I was gone all last week. My dealership does better when I'm gone. Like there's only about two or three things that I have to be here to do. I've got a little stack of titles I need to sign off on. I've got charge offs I need to process and I've got a couple of bills and those are really and I guess buying the majority of the inventory still mine. So I have four or five crucial functions at the dealership. But everything else, like my guys have the authority.
Yeah, you're going to the third thing that eliminates burnout. Jeff, when you're talking about your processes and your procedures, if you don't have good processes and procedures, you're destined for burnout. And you know, having those things in place that you know what your responsibility is, your other employees knows what your their responsibilities are and you have a procedure that they follow to get those, those done that will help elimina burnout.
Yeah. And one thing is when we talk about those softwares like I know with my collector and obviously our plug for blitz pay and being a payment processor. Right. I mean it helps her be more efficient. So when I'm gone there's not like, you know, we have very few in office payments anymore. Right. We're directing everyone to self help through their portal or the cash network. And that really, really helps because now I don't have to have just a payment processor. Like back in the day you had to have a clerk that was just processing payments on Friday morning and that would be the majority of their day is just running different credit cards. That is, it's such nonsense. So now my front desk girl doesn't have to worry about just running credit cards. She's handling all the insurance, she's handling CPI claims, She's handling warranty stuff. She's doing a lot more, you know, titles. She's handling all this stuff and not just being a clerk. Yeah.
I had this discussion with a dealer this week that they essentially have one person. All they do is, is take cash all day long. And I'm like, I'm like, y' all really need to get away from this because it, it's an inefficient way to handle this. And they weren't doing, they weren't doing other things that could help them in this process. And you know, it's Blitzpay is great for that. And I can't wait to see what their AI is going to do. And I've, and I've started using AI to, to help me with the deposits that are coming in there.
So.
Really, really neat stuff that I think the blitz bay is gonna, it's gonna do in the future. That's gonna be great.
Yeah. So the other thing I want to talk about is, you know, we talked about being profitable. We talk about, you know, expenses play into that. We talk about delegation and you know, dealers offloading, some of the, you know, responsibilities they don't enjoy as much. Now we say all that and, and that's easy to say when you're running a profitable dealership. Right. I have the ability to pay my top guys really well to handle things when I'm gone there. It wasn't always the case. Right. When I started, I was paying myself, you know, three grand a month, you know, very minimum. Keeping everything in the business. I was there. We were grinding all that stuff. So when we say this, guys, when you're listening, don't think that you're going to get there in the first two to three, to five to 10 years. Right. Like that's.
Yep.
Unfortunately you are going to be grinding. You are going to be there seven days a week. You may not be profitable and it may all fall on you and you're not taking a week long vacation. I get it. Like don't, don't get the cart before the horse.
Yeah. I don't think my dad took one for 20 years.
Yeah, that's a different mentality. But with that being said, there are things that dealers need to do and I want to split this into two parts. There's purpose in the dealership and there's purpose outside the dealership. Right. I think you have to have a bigger purpose and the Dealers that really thrive, I think, past the 35, 40 year mark. Not just the old school dogs that know they're going to die at their desk, because that's just how it is. But the new school dogs that say, I'm here for a purpose. Like, I'm growing people, I'm growing a charitable organization inside my dealership. I'm growing this place to, to be a leader, to put leaders into positions to help maybe dealers, my employees, open their own dealership someday. Right. Or be contributing in, in society. Like there's so many internal purposes we can have and also external purposes that our dealers facilitate for us. Right. Speak to that.
Yeah, I think that's, you know, if you go back, way back in the day and listen to the How I Built this with Eric Freeman. Eric is a person who really has, has thought about this and he wanted to open new dealerships to help the people, the great people he had working for him. And he also was very working to, you know, support these causes outside the dealerships. It's so important. If you don't have a purpose and your purpose is only to make money, you're going to burn out at some point, so you got to do that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you liking, a Sky lounge or something?
Well, yeah, and we got some folks behind us, just make a lot of noise and we're back here in the business center, so, you know, who's to chill out?
Say we're recording.
Yeah, yeah, they're a little bigger.
Just give them the, give them the stink eye. And we do that, guys. And so many dealers, we see that they have charitable arms in their organization. Right. And, and we talk about millennial workers wanting to work for a purpose and not just a paycheck. That's hard, man. I get it. We're not saving the planet. We're not cleaning baby ducks with oil. We're not like saving the fishes or whatever. But we can do things inside of our dealership to make sure that we have employees that are excited that we have a bigger purpose that, that maybe even ourselves. We get excited to go to work because we know that we're dealing with our, our work family that we enjoy. And that's one thing that we have a hundred percent control over. You are the owner. You can, if you've got a bad apple, get rid of them. If you go to work, you don't want to talk to somebody or you don't get along, or this person doesn't mesh, or they don't bring you joy. Like, you can let Them go you can find someone else. Like don't, don't come office and hide yourself in the, in your own room because you don't want to interact with the Karen that happens to be working your front desk and more than likely.
Other people in the office to have the same thought. And so if you don't get rid of them, you're going to probably lose some of your good people. So make sure that you culture is so important and we talk about this and it's, it's one of those things that's really hard to figure out. But if you have one bad person, they're going to ruin your culture. So if you think they're bad, the rest people probably think they're bad too.
Yeah, yeah. It's like they talk about family but it's the kind you can pick, you know, like yeah, you can fire your mother in law but fire you know, your salesman who's, who's being a jerk to people and isn't a team player and is just a big grouch the whole time. Like brings the attitude down. So surround yourself with those good people and then find those activities outside of the dealership. So I want to talk on that a little bit. You know, I take a lot of time off right now. Luckily I'm able to do that and we have purpose outside the dealership. You know, vacation, travel, My wife and I enjoy that. Lot of family stuff, a lot of church related activity. You know, I find a lot of joy in, in, in that side of the spirituality and the church stuff. And, and to be honest, when I go and I'm gone for a while, they come back remotivated to work the dealership. And it's not just going to dealer conventions or things like that. Sometimes it's just going out and sitting by the pool for three or four days. Right. And just, just being able to unwind and, and unstressed and then come back and make sure that I'm not the grouchy one in the office. You know, that's so hard. You know, sometimes I come in here and I'm just so head down, don't bother me, don't come into my office, don't bug me. And I know that's not a good vibe for the dealership when I come in. It's the negative one.
Yeah, for sure. You can't ever do that as the owner. When you do you need. Yeah. And when you do you need to take a vacation. One other thing, you talk about the spirituality part of it and you know, you And I both are big on this, but, you know, find a Bible study midweek that you can go to. That's what I've done. And, you know, go in there and talk with a bunch of guys and sitting there and. And you can kind of get your stuff out there. And then also you go back to your office rejuvenated in the afternoon. So there's so many, so many ways to do that and also to participate and given in your community. Big deal, too. So those will give you purpose and it'll be a reason to make money if you can give it away.
Yeah, you know. You know, we've done this little side note that's kind of fun here. I buy those. Those, like, remote control airplanes, remote control cars, like the little crawlers. So me and my top guys, we just kind of got habit of, like middle of the day, we'll go out with these little RC cars that go like 50 miles an hour, and we'll just rip them through the parking lot.
Oh, that's so great.
We'll get together after work with these little rock crawler rcs. And then that's like. It's like a small toy. And of course, we take the side by sides out. We take the jeeps out on the weekend, but sometimes that midday, you know, go to the park and fly some stupid remote control airplane.
That.
That's exciting for me. It's exciting for my guys. We have fun. Maybe for y', all, it's something else. Maybe it's bowling. Maybe it's going out shooting. Maybe it's. Yeah, you know, going to the bar for a couple of minutes, just being able to take a break. And yes, you've got 50 things on your desk right now, but go, like, take your guys to lunch. Chill out. Like, you need that.
A good. A really good friend of mine has this saying. He goes, that's tomorrow Luke's problem. That's not. Today's Luke. Yeah, he's one of the happiest. He's one of the happiest people I know. So just keep that mindset that, you know, that stack of paper on your desk, probably not gonna get any, Any, any lower. So just keep doing. Yeah, just keep doing the things that. That make you happy. I mean, at some point, you're gonna have to get things done, but be happy and have your people happy and you won't burn out, I promise.
Yeah. All right, buddy. Well, safe travels. See in a couple days.
All right, man. See everybody out there and look forward to it. We got to get a bunch of interviews out there. So anybody want to talk to us while we're out there? Walk up to us, say hello, and. And let's do it.
Yep. Okay. See you.
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