#40 - Monday Minute - Staff Size

All right, happy Monday, everybody. Hope you guys are having a great week so far. Monday minute coming out a little bit late today, but I got Luke on the line here. Luke, one thing I've really been thinking a lot about is making sure that our operations are right sized. I mean, how many employees is enough? How many employees is too many? How productive should we expect them to be? Like, can I really just compare myself to, you know, you and say, well, Luke's doing it with six people. Why can't I, Why do I got to have 12?

Man, that's such a, that's such a, a rabbit hole to go down whenever you start comparing your operation to someone else. It's just the, it's just the wrong way to do it, you know, especially in our business. Jeff, we, you can say, how many staff do we need? You know, Right. And if, if I'm selling, let's just go with, you know, 30 cars a month. You know, the next guy, the next guy could do it with one person. Honestly, you know, if he's, he's making about, if he's making a thousand dollars a car, he's buying his cars ready to go. You know, how many people do you really need?

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything's going through CAC or credit unions. It's all, you know, something with 20, 30,000 miles on it and he send it through detail shop. And yeah, that's a one or two man operation. Right.

But you know, also with me where I Average started to 35amonth, well also have 700 plus accounts to service. I also have a big service component to my business where we're getting all our cars ready. We've got outside detail, we've got. Last month was about 42% customer pay work in my shop. So that's a big difference.

And also you're running a full repair shop and detail center.

Oh man. And you got, you know, I've got a comptroller because I've got Goblin Motors, I've got our rfc. I've got the service department. That's a totally different business. So we've got, we've got a lot of different things going on. And so my number is going to be a lot higher. Plus I've got me working in the business. I've got my dad working in business. Do I count him? You know, do. Yeah, you know, who all do you count? You do all your marketing in house. You get all your cars ready in house. Man, there's, you know, it's such a, it's such a, every Bit. Everybody's business is so different. I know you. You and I talked about it the other day, about how many employees you and I had. And I think. I mean, this has been, what, last week? We talked about that before the two weeks ago.

Yeah.

And. And we were about the same.

Yeah.

And you just. It's hard to compare. And I think. I think once you start comparing yourself with other dealers, you can get frustrated.

Right? Yeah. And it's one thing to get guidance. I think that there's a million ways to skin a cat. Right. So we're all doing it a little bit different. Guidance is good to know maybe what you should be paying or what these responsibilities should be, but you don't know their business. So when they say they've got three salesmen and they're doing, you know, 30 cars a month, you don't know what all else that salesman is doing. He's also posting to Craigslist. He's also posting to Facebook. He's also doing some cleaning and some light repair work, and he's scrubbing the floors at night. You know what I'm saying? Like, you just don't know what all is involved.

That's, you know, that's so funny, you know, because if you really look at it, you know your average salesperson is going to sell eight to 12 cars a month. Right. So if you just did the math, you're gonna need three salespeople to sell 36 cars, right.

Mm.

So then if you. You throw F and I on the backside of that, you got one person doing F and I, almost 36 cars. Well, then you've got four. Then you've got four people. Well, yeah, you got. You got to have a buyer. You got to have this, you got to have that. And it. It adds up, you know, if. And then if, God forbid, you're not making any GROSS on those 36 deals. Yeah. You're gonna run yourself out of business real fast, Right?

Yeah. That's what's really interesting. And I think that's the balance every dealer needs to ask themselves. All right, I can grow and more money, more problems. Okay, I gotta add staff. And now is my net check at the end of the month. Is it any bigger? And I'm gonna say there's definitely a point of diminishing returns. And I think that probably lands somewhere in the 20 to 30 car range, maybe 20 to 40 car range, until you scale above 50 or 60 and you start getting to those upper numbers where you really get more of an economy of scale, where, hey, I Can add an extra five or six or seven sales. I don't have to add an extra title clerk. I can add, you know, I can push my guys from 10 sales a month to 15 sales a month without adding an extra salesman, you know? Yeah, so you gotta ask that question, like, man, I could stay small and just be a two person operation and sell 20 cars a month and probably have a pretty soft lifestyle and take home a good check, you know, Or I could put it to 100 cars a month or let's say push it to 50 cars a month and have a whole lot more people, support more families and more people around me, have some flexibility. But I'm probably going to take home the same check, you know.

You know, that's for sure. And, you know, right now my operation is with one. I guess what I'm getting to is I don't necessarily need to add any more support staff at the moment. What I need is, is at least one more salesperson, maybe two more salespeople to, to really get things going in the right direction. I could see exponential growth at that point. But, you know, it's. There's a lot of things involved. Do I want to work harder?

Do.

Do I want to work more hours? I mean, I'm already working probably 55 hours a week. I mean, how many more hours can I work, honestly?

And that's a huge component. People gotta ask themselves, yeah, you know, like, are you a part time owner, owner, operator, or are you there six, seven days a week, bell to bell, running yourself ragged? You know, I mean, I argue that all the time. Hey, you know what? Hire that out, man. And that's something again. That's a whole. Another whole nother conversation to have. But, you know, you, you probably shouldn't be the guy that's posting stuff on Craigslist or you probably shouldn't be the guy that's detailing the car on a Saturday morning. If you want to grow, you got to focus on what's important and delegate the rest.

Yeah, man, you. You killed it right there. I think that's a. That's a wrap.

Awesome. Thanks, Luke. Have a killer week. And look forward to Thursday's episode coming out. We talked to one of your buddies and it was. It's a real good one.

It is.

I'm looking forward to wholesaling. Wholesaling. Do you got a wholesaler in your back pocket?

You got to have one.

Luke's got a couple. All right, buddy.

All right, Jeff, talk to you later.