#379 - One Woman, One Vision, One Lot

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 this special edition of the Independent Dealer Podcast, brought to you live by Buckeye Dealership Consulting here at Biker Payer United 2025.

Yeah, look, he's got a fancy shirt. Yeah, he's got a fancy bag. It's. It's the Day of the lady.

It is. We've got some amazing female dealers here that are kicking butt, taking names in the buy here, pay here space and in all spaces. And case in point, Ms. Fernanda.

Yeah.

From Nashville, everyone.

Yes.

Thank you for joining us. Introduce yourself to the podcast community a little bit about where you're from, maybe the. The type of dealership you run, and then we'll ask you some questions.

Yeah. Okay. First thing, thank you for inviting me into space. My name is Fernanda. I'm from Nashville, Tennessee, and my dealership is GC Motors. We do some retail sales, and also we started with the bike year per year.

Great. You know, she really has a tennis.

She sounds authentic. Yeah.

Just like you're from Tennessee.

I mean, I'm originally from Venezuela and I've been living here in the US for 10 years.

Wow, that's amazing. Well, we're glad you're here. Yeah. Yeah.

So tell us. Tell us about your current dealership, and then we're going to rewind as to how you got there. So you're currently doing a handful of retail and some buy here, pay here. What's the makeup of that? About how many buy here, pay here? How many retail do you shoot for each month?

Okay, we just start pretty much. We started like six months ago. It's a new dealership, but we've been doing the first month. We started, like, for 14 retail sales, and we do four by year by year. And the last month, for example, we've been doing like six right here for here, and 20 retail sales.

That's awesome.

That's good.

Yeah, yeah, crank it along.

And that's. I mean, six months. I was. I said this not long ago, but just this year, aggravation to get started, get off the ground. I mean, most people don't make it. And that. She's able to make it and get through six months and sells 25, 26 cars. That's great.

When you say we explain that, what's the makeup of your. Your dealership, your employees, your personnel?

Pretty much. I got my team, I got a salesperson, and I got my mechanic. That's what I said. We. Because we Are a team. It's not just me. Just because I'm the owner of the dealership. It's like we need to work together to make it happen.

And so it's you a salesperson and a mechanic.

And a mechanic.

Okay. And do you do all your service in house or do you send some of it out?

No, we do all the service in the house. I found a very good mechanic.

Oh yeah, Sounds like it. What, what price car do you sell?

We start and we. We can start in 2000.

Okay.

We sell like cheap cars, retable cars. And the expensive ones that we have right now is around 10.

Okay, cool.

Fantastic.

A lot of people started that. That price range.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So let's talk about that then. So right now there's three of you doing, you know, 15 to 20 cars a month for the last six months. How did you even get started? Like, where did that come from? Like, why, why go off on your own? Because you were in the automotive industry for a while.

Right.

So tell us that story.

Okay. I started working for a dealership like seven years ago. And I was on the collection side and the paperwork side, doing the tags siloed and all that stuff. And I'm working for them for almost two years. And after that I get curious about the interest business and I get my insurizing and I open my office. Also have an insurance agent.

Okay.

I'm not republican in the state of Tennessee. And also we offer all the vehicle services like silos, registration and for individuals, for dealers. This is how restore.

Okay. So you did it for other dealers?

For other dealers. Okay. And also I help dealers to be open in Tennessee to get the license.

To get their license. Okay.

And I was doing some retail with my. My friends. They have a dealer, they let me buy some cars and this is how I started the business. And last year I say, okay, I'm ready, I'm open. My own one. Yeah.

Just ready to go.

Yes.

That's impressive that you. I mean, you're. You're in a country where English in your first language and you have the courage to. To go and, you know, open your own insurance agency. Yeah. And build that up. Help other dealers and decide that, hey, car business where I want to be.

Yes.

Why?

Yeah, you know, the money's there.

Okay. Yeah. You saw.

I saw opportunity. I saw opportunity. And I work with cars. I like the industry. I like pretty much everything that I do. And that's what I decide to jump on it business.

Do you know much about, like, the mechanics of them?

Okay.

Not really.

You don't have to. I mean, yeah, probably some of the better dealers don't know crap about cars.

Yeah. But I'm trying to learn pretty much every day to get better. And this is especially because, you know, this industry is for men. But now I saw a lot of women's on it, and I'm here with. Trying to get it better.

Yeah. Yeah. There are a lot of women here this week.

Yeah.

And a lot of very smart women. Not that all women. All women are smart, but I mean, a lot of people that we need. I mean, that we can learn from.

Yeah.

Did you have any difficulties when you were. When you were getting your license and getting set up and finding a space and funding? Like, where did you get flooring lines from? Like, how did you find the money to do the things that you were doing?

And I started basically with my own money from my other business. But also I get a. A floor plan.

Awesome.

Also I got a floor plan. And yeah. The difficult was to find the spot. Find the spot. That was. I think it was.

How'd you go about. How'd you decide? Because Nashville's a huge and growing metropolitan area. Real estate's not cheap.

My Diller is not in Nashville.

Okay.

Like, Nashville, natural area. It's like an hour and 20 minutes for Nashville. Okay.

But still Nashville is kind of growing.

It's growing. It's growing, Growing. Every day.

Did you buy the property or did you.

Okay. And you commute back and forth every day?

No, every day workers, they open the literature pretty much with a computer. Yeah. The actions.

And your salesperson's there every day.

My salesperson there every day.

And is that the town that you're outside of? How did you. How did you decide that? I mean, that's being that far outside of.

Yeah. I saw an opportunity.

Okay.

And the rent price was good. Was something like that made me choice. Okay. That place.

Yeah.

And it's a big place. It's almost AC and I have a 2 office in there, the garage facility. I got pretty much everything.

One day.

Would you like to buy?

What. What else have you found in your growing pains over the last couple months that have been difficult? What. What's been the hardest part about getting off the ground and getting going?

Of course, the car prices.

Yeah.

Stomaching like putting that much money into a vehicle. Yeah.

What do you. Do you have a certain brand that you like to sell or.

We sell a lot of Nissans.

Okay. Yeah.

Nissan's.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Price point for the Nissan's a little lower. So I could see How? Yeah, that's good.

And as far as collections go on the buy here, pay here, notes, obviously, I'm guessing you handle all that.

I handle it, yeah. We don't have any collections right now. I mean.

But your customer base is heavy.

Spanish speaking, like you know pretty much all my customers. Yeah, I mean all the customers that we have right now for right here, but here are Latinos.

Anything specific about how you're structuring the deals with with them? Do you have guidelines as far as how much down payment you require? Monthly payment, documentation of income?

It depends on the, on the vehicle and depend on their profile. So I'm trying to ask for the customer where they work, bank statements, prefer address as well. And we started down payments in $2000? Yeah, 1500 depending on the cars and depends how much they can pay. And the only thing that we require is like a half the insurance, the full cover insurance is that part? Sometimes it is.

She's got an insurance agent. So you're making it all.

Yes.

Then she knows that they drop it, you know, right away. Right.

You're the insurance.

You're the first one to know if.

It looks like ounces or you know, all that good stuff. That's neat. So what do you like better, insurance or cars?

Cars.

Okay. There's just more profit in cars. Is it harder work though?

Let's say it is. Yeah.

Well, you know what I always liked about the insurance business and most of us are in reinsurance with Buckeye or whatever. And it's, it's. You never run out of product to sell with insurance. And you don't have to recon the insurance to sell it.

Right.

You can just sell the product there. It's always there. It's, it's all about sales. There's a never ending supply of insurance you can sell. And I always thought that that would just be a wonderful business. Never opened it, but I always thought it'd be great.

What do you see is like moving forward? What's your next like hurdle or step that you want to accomplish? Is it more flooring line? Is it more money for buying your pay here? Is it pre sales?

What is it increased sales?

Okay.

And, and the both sides and retail environment here. But we're here for buyer pay here.

Yeah.

Learning everything is possible.

So what, what have you learned today that you didn't already know about? Buyer here, pay here? Because you're very young in the business.

Yes. One of the main things that I learn, not just on the pay right here side, it's just how important Are the customer. How do you have to take care of your customers to. To keep it then happy and keep making them come back to you?

That is probably the most important thing to learn in a buyer pay your business. It's very, is. It's very relationship driven. People pay you because of the relationship you make with them, plus the car they get. If you do it right, you hardly have to advertise because there's so many people coming back. That's a good thing that you've learned early. And Hispanic customers seem to be very loyal, don't they?

They are. They are. Another thing that I learned is it's very important to have your target customers. Like, you need to know where are your customers, where they come from, what they need. And that way you can buy the inventory and get that customer.

Yeah, that's super important because in different regions, people like different cars. And you don't know what you don't know, do you? How so if you, you live an hour and a half from. From your office.

Yes, I know.

I mean, it's hard to be involved in that community. Could you see yourself like moving there, moving your insurance agency there?

I'm trying to move my dealership closer.

Okay.

That's what I'm trying right now. My dealership close to my house, close to my other office. And I was trying to do all in one place.

That'd be great since. Yeah.

That way I can have more control everything. Because right now, feeling that I needed to keep growing, if I don't do it that it's too much. About an hour and a half away from what I leave. So 30 minutes more from my other office. It's a challenge. But I take it, I take it. If I don't take the re. It's. I never started. So that's what I decided.

And most people will take the risk. You've already, you've already ripped the bandaid off. Now it's just time to go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's the beauty of the person, the small dealership is the personal touch. Right. That's why we're not going to be replaced by Amazon or even the big guys. We see that.

Yeah.

Grow huge. Yeah. They collapse because of relationships.

Yeah.

They lose that personal touch. And small buy here, pay here is really good because they have that relationship.

Yeah.

That personal touch.

I mean it's, you know, we're only 20 years removed from people paying in cash every Friday. And you knowing that customer by name, you know, their kids by name cars, you know, know exactly what they drive we're not that far removed. And probably it's some smaller towns that still like that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

They're so, like, that small.

Yeah. Well, Fernanda, thank you so much. It's been great chatting with you. We're so excited about your journey and.

We'Re going to need to keep up with this.

Yeah, we'll check in for sure.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you for inviting me.

Yeah.

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