#56 - Shawn Hays - Build Your Brand

Hello, and welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast. Today we have got a incredible treat. We cornered Sean the Sales Hustler Hayes. Sean, we're so excited to have you on the podcast.

Hey, thank you, guys, man. It's a pleasure to meet both of you guys, and I'm excited for today's show. I probably talked and threw a lot in there, but anytime you guys want me back on, I would love to do it as well.

Welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast, the.

Podcast for auto dealers to learn and grow together.

Here are your hosts, Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson.

All right, here we are with the one and only Luke. I'd probably say if we're judging popularity by Facebook friends, Sean is probably the most popular person we've had on the podcast.

That's awesome, man. Yeah, that's cool. I've been a member of the Sales Hustler group for a while on Facebook, and it's pretty neat.

Sean's got a great movement. We've got Sean Sales Hustler Hayes here with us. Sean, real quick, give us. This is what we call the 0 to 60. Give us your 0 to 60. Where did you come from? A little bit about your background, what you're doing now. For those of you that don't know.

You well, I'll kind of synopsis down, obviously. I was born in Ohio, Canton, Ohio. I was not really good at high school. I liked high school for sports and social media, but really wasn't into the study thing, so I knew I wouldn't go to college, right? So I got out of high school not knowing what I wanted to do. Dabbled, went down the wrong roads, had many, many doors I shouldn't have went in, but went in and stayed too long, if you catch my drift. And then kind of got lost along the way, man. Kind of got lost along the way. Bartended for 10 years, kicked around, until one day somebody came into my bar and said, you should be in sales. And that was when I was about 27 years old, so I started in sales. Really funny story is when I went in there without a college degree, living in Chicago, Illinois, I kind of moved to the big city because I was always from a small town and wanted to live in a big town. So it's so funny. He asked me to come in and interview. I go in and interview with his boss, and his boss says, no, you don't have a college degree. You're not qualified. So here's this. I knew I could do the job, so I basically made a deal with him and said, what's the lowest amount of money you would pay any of your sales associates. He told me. I said, well, look, I'll take less. I'll take less, okay? In fact, in 90 days, if I don't exceed your expectations of what you thought I would be, we'll both walk away from it. So that's how I closed him down that day. He hired me begrudgingly and I ended up being the number four rep in the whole nation of I think there was 194 sales associates in this company. So it was a nationwide company selling pagers, papers, alphanumeric, and cell phones in downtown Chicago. Knocking on doors. If you've ever done that, man, you knock on doors, the gatekeeper don't want you to come in. You ask for a business card, you find out who the decision maker is, you go back to your office and you pound the phones for the next half of the day. So that's what I did for years. And I did really well in it. Kicked around a little bit, and then I moved to. I got married, divorced, moved to Florida. And that's when the car sales industry started. Because I didn't know what to do again. Here I was again, starting on my life over, didn't know what to do. I didn't like the sales that I was doing before. I hated door to door sale. Man, I was good at it because talent and hard work is all you need, but man, it's a grind. And I just hated knocking on doors for the simple fact that the items and products that we're selling, they weren't residual. So every single day, every single month, every single year, I had to go do it again. And that grind will get to you. So when I stumbled into car sales, it blew my mind that people come to me already interested, at least a little bit of an inkling into my product. Instead of me pitching you 10 minutes of your time for me to convince you that you need my product. You know what I'm saying? So it opened up a whole different world to me and it blew my mind and I hit the ground running.

That's interesting. And I tell you, anybody who's done that cold calling and door to door sales, it makes. If they're good at that, they're going to be incredible. In the car sales, where'd you start as your car sales? What, what brand did you start in?

Hyundai. I did that for. I did Hyundai for 10 years. Great.

Is that. And that was probably in the infancy of Hyundai, right?

Yeah, it was 07. I stumbled into the business and this is a really cool story here because I didn't know what to do. I just lost my corporate America job, right, Because I got a dui, which actually is one of the best things that happened to me in my whole life. It changed my whole trajectory of my life and who I became and who I am today. But at that time, it wasn't right. So I stumbled into. I lost my corporate America job that I got because I couldn't drive anymore. And once I got out of that whole situation, I now had to start over again, right? So one of my friends said, hey, my buddies opening a Hyundai dealership down there, brand new dealership down in Cypress Gardens Boulevard, which was Winter day before, okay. And I was like, I don't want to sell cars, man. I don't want to be a car salesman. I'm not a car salesman. Anyways, luckily, the general manager, who at that dealership, he pursued me for three weeks. He's a member of Sales Hustlers as well. His name's Gerald Jackson. But still to this day, we're in conversations with how my career has blossomed since he. He literally closed me to get in the business. So, interesting story there.

What made all that stuff you learned from door to door knocking, this, that, and other. What's the number one thing that made you a great car sales guy?

Well, I got great training when I was door to door, and I learned the process understanding sales, understanding people and what they need. And I think that's a lot of times what people in sales don't do. They don't understand that every single person that you come in contact with, you have to understand who they are, where they come from and what they need. Right? What they need. Like, some people need you to close them. Some people need you to step back and let them close themselves. Some people need, you know, they need ABC to equal B. Right? And some people, you just need the flash. So I understand that every single gatekeeper, every single decision maker, every single person I was coming in contact with, I couldn't use the same word tracks. And that's why I don't like word tracks. I really don't like all that. I just understand that people are people. Everybody needs something different. Find out what they need, not only just what they need in your product, but what they need inside. And you can get in there and build a relationship with them. And I feel like my sales just went crazy because I understood what people need because of all the knocking on the doors and getting through decision makers and gatekeepers.

Yeah, it Definitely seems like your history of doing door to door sales and also I got to assume being a bartender and learning to be empathetic and learning to sit on the other side of the bar and get in people's shoes has, you know, guided your philosophy in car sales now. And probably, I mean, I see that coming through in your sales hustlers group, right? And your philosophy there of be different and brand yourself. How? I mean, what led you into looking at the idea of being a car salesman but being different? You know, I mean, you buck the cliche of car salesman, right? Isn't that the whole point of sales hustlers is to be better?

Well, I did, but here's the funny thing. And I didn't do it for 10 years. I was the typical guy sitting on a golf cart, standing out on point, waiting for things to happen. I did it through Hyundai. And then when I transitioned and moved to St. Augustine, so I worked in Winter Haven for five and a half years at the same dealership. I went on vacation to St. Augustine, Florida with my wife and son, and they had a Hyundai dealership there. And I'm like, I hate winter in Florida, right? It's hot, it's small, there's nothing to do. Right. St. Augustine was just the beach, right? And it was like, great. So I was like, let's move here. And that's what we did. So I worked there for five years, but I did the same thing as I did back in Winter Haven. I was always the number one rep. I was always the number one in sale. That was just because of my talent and hard work and, you know, hard work ethic. But yeah, then I got bored. And this is what happens a lot in our industry. At every single position. Sales manager, gsm, gm, people settle into a routine. They become comfortable in that routine, and they get bored in that routine. They get bored in that life, right? And that's what happened to me. I got bored and almost got out of this business that made me successful, which is crazy, right? You're like, why would you want to do that, dude? You're making more money than you ever made in your life. You're finally successful and found a career that you can actually stay in. Your wife's happy, you just built a home, your son's going to college. Why would you want to change anything? Well, it's because I became bored. And one thing I've learned in my life is when people become bored in their marriages, people get bored in their careers, and they get bored in their personal life. They start Questioning. They start looking for things to take up some of that boredom. And that's what happened to me. I almost lost something that was great in my life because of boredom. So I said, hey, I don't need to get out of business. I don't need to get out of business. The business is good. I'm good in the business. I just need something to spark my drive and excitement again. Okay. Like it was when I first got into it 10 years ago. All right. When you have no competition anymore and you don't have goals set. And that was my problem. I didn't have goals set short term and long term, and because of that, I became bored. And when you don't have a bullseye to shoot for every day, you become monotonous, you become routine, and more sets in. And that's what happened to me, man. So that's why I started social media and branding myself. It was just to protect me, not for. To get out of the business I saw is an opportunity to. I saw a couple people doing it. There was, like, Mike Davenport and, like, one other guy, but I didn't see them doing it the way I envisioned. You could really build a brand, right? They were doing some videos and some stuff, so I attacked it with every single thing I had, like, all in kind of thing. And that's what you have to do. I think life, career, and marriage, you have to be all in, man. If you ain't all in, you're half out. And when you're half out, you're thinking about other things to do that you know are usually not good. That's how people get in vices, you know, that's how people lose their marriages. That's how people lose their careers, is they just started getting happy in the water, half in the boat. They're never really truly in all the way, and they start. They start filling their time with other things.

Sean, we believe in training so much. You know, on the podcast here, we talk about training all the time. Two things. If I wanted today to mimic the things that you did to make you a great salesperson to my staff, how would I. What's the first thing you say? Hey, this is what your salespeople need to be doing that they're not doing right now. What do you think that is?

Well, first of all, I want to make sure that you have the right people in place.

Sure.

Okay. I'd say, number one, because a lot of times you got people in there, no matter what you do and no matter how much you try to motivate or inspire them. They ain't gonna do what you want them to do, right? And we, as managers, what do we do? We say, oh, well, that's just Billy, or that's just Tommy, you know, he'll be fine. The problem is when that becomes a cancer on your floor, right? It becomes a cancer. You gotta make sure that these people that are working for you every day are in the right position. You hire them on character, not just abilities. They gotta have good character. They gotta have a good work ethic. They gotta have not only talent, but you gotta have the right things in place. And then you got to make sure that the sales managers do their job. So if you're a gm, which I start tomorrow, I started as the GM at CMA Chevrolet, right? So I'm going to make sure that my managers hold everybody accountable. I'm going to hold them accountable, I'm going to hold the sales staff accountable, and they're going to hold me accountable. And I think accountability from the leadership and the managers is where it lacks, okay? That's what I've noticed over the years, all right? It's not so much the salespeople. The salespeople are only a product of the dealership and the managers that are managing, right? So, yes, you can have a guy like me that comes in who I don't need you to tell me what to do. I don't need you to motivate or inspire me. I have that within me. But I'm only 10%, right? The other 90% need things in place. They need processes, they need accountability, they need pushing, they need coaching, they need teaching, right? And that's where I think lacks. So I would tell you to answer your question is you got to make sure that your leadership people are the right people in place and that they carry your directives out and keep them accountable, because that's what happens. They become friends with them and they're like, oh, that's just Tommy. That's Billy. You know, don't worry about it. And that's where it all falls apart. So I like to run a tight ship, right? And I want to keep everybody accountable.

That's so hard to do. I mean, especially as you, you know, if you've had salespeople or people in your organization have been there for years and you. Maybe you weren't as accountable as you should have been with them early on. You know, getting back to that point is really hard. You have any, you know, anything that you can add to how to maybe, I guess, put the. Put the horse back in the barn and fix those problems.

You know, that's a great question. And I guarantee you, Luke, that that is the majority that have troubles right now. It's because they weren't always holding themselves accountable. And now you're like, how can I hold that person accountable? He's been, he worked here three years and he'd be like, well, what are you going to tell me to do that when you haven't been doing it right? But you got to have a restart. You just have to have a restart. Say, look, I had an epiphany, all right? You have a meeting with everybody and you say, look, this is the way it's going to be, okay? I'm going to hold myself accountable and I want you all to hold me accountable, but I'm going to hold you accountable. And what used to happen is not going to happen. And if I have to make examples of people, I will. I don't want to. I love you. Now, for real, you have to have. And people are sometimes scared of the conversations, but you know what? That's what our salespeople want. They really, really do. They're just like, and I don't mean this, and like, they're like kids. They're not. But what I'm saying, I'm referencing to parents and children. Children want accountability. They want you to be straight with them. You know how I raised my son, I didn't take all the topics that I shouldn't talk about. I sat him down and I had conversations with him, real conversations, said, hey, man, what's your goals? What do you want to do in the future? Right? Maybe we shouldn't do this because that's going to lead down the wrong road. It's okay. Instead of saying, that's the way it should be, you're going to do it the way I need you to do it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You need to have conversations with these people. You need to sit every single person down individually and say, hey, let's talk about your short term, your long term goal, okay? You don't want to stay where you're at your whole life, but you don't know how to get there. I'm going to help you get there and guide you, okay? But you're going to have to change some things that you used to do that I allowed you to do. We're not going to do that anymore, okay? And here's what it's going to bring. You see, people like that, they like structure, they like discipline. And if they haven't had it. They don't like it, but they will. Right. And then you have to counsel them in a leadership way, like say, hey man, I want you to get that new house. I want you to get that promotion you want. Right. The problem is, and here's what I've noticed, guys, is that a lot of people in our industry don't have goals. They don't, they don't even know what goals are. It's a, it's a funny thing to say. It's like all goals, right? But they don't, they don't really have a bullseye. And the only way you're going to achieve the level of where you want to, or you say you want to is to have daily, monthly, yearly, long term goals. You have to.

I totally, I totally agree with that. So you recommend. You know what I'm, what I've noticed a lot of people doing is setting, getting with their salespeople or their managers each month at the beginning of the month and setting those goals. Do you see that being a important thing in our business?

Sure. Absolutely. Well, we don't do one on ones enough consistently and correctly. You know, we sit down like, think about this. This is a typical, this I've set on many sales floors in my life. And this is a typical thing at the first day of the month. Hey, Sean, how many are you going to sell this month? 25. Hey, Bill, how much are you going to sell? And they write it down. Nobody tells. Okay, well, wait a minute. What does 25 cars mean? Like how many people? What's your closing percentage right now? Well, I don't know. Well, the hell, the hell are you going to say you're going to close 25 deals?

That's right.

You have to break it all down. Success leaves clues. We got to know the, you know, the analytics of what it takes for you to sell 25 cars. If you have a 25% closing ratio, then how many people are you going to have to talk to? How many people a day? How many people a week? Right. And when people see that, they're like, oh, oh.

Yeah, we, yep. We harp on knowing your numbers because if you know that you're closing 50% of your, your appointments that show, well, you got a pretty good idea of how many appointments you need.

Right?

So then you just start working it backwards.

I always go from the point where I want to go and I work it backwards, just like you said. It's what exactly what I do. And I teach, I teach other people to do that now. And you know, all Those. I had 40 salesmen under me at Dan Cummins, and that's what we did. We broke it down that way. Like, okay, well, you got to know your numbers. If you don't know your numbers, don't even give me your. How many cars you're selling, okay? Because it's not going to work. I forgot to answer this earlier, but he was kind of asking me, why the branding thing, why you have to do it today and you just got to do it right, but why? Well, when I got into business, usually about three a customer come in going to three or four dealers, right? And then I saw that traffic slowing down, slowing down, slowing down for the guy that stands out on the fresh shop, right? So I was like, well, if that's the case, something's going on here. So I got online and found out and went to a couple conferences, found out the average customer now went from four to about one and a half now. So if every customer is doing the research of not only the car they want, but the dealership they want to buy from, then they got to know me. Because if not, yeah, I'm going to do better than the average person in my dealership just for pure work ethic and talent. But they're not going to come ask for me unless I get my face and my name. And exposure. It's all about exposure in today's market. It really, truly is. You guys know that you're doing this podcast. Why? For exposure. Are you trying to help people? Yes. But there's an end game to you.

What are some practical ways or things we can do today to start, you know, any tips or tricks or ideas that we could just kind of like, maybe get over that self confidence or, you know, the hurdles of just putting our face out there.

Yes. First of all, the people. People have fear, first of all. And why people don't want to brand themselves, Right. The other thing is they do it once or twice and they don't see a return. That's the second thing, right? And the third thing is just laziness, right? Those are the three reasons why people aren't doing it right. And when I sit people down and I have that conversation with them, I'm like, look, take the last one out. Laziness. Laziness is not an excuse. You're gonna have to get. You're gonna have to work. Anything ain't good in life. Every single thing I've ever had in my life or seen somebody else have in life, nothing came easy. And everything was a grind. Okay? But when you. In fact, you're gonna have to accept and love the grind. I love the grind. In fact, I love the grind better than when I actually achieved what I was grinding for.

Right.

I love the process. So I take that out. It's like, look, you have good work ethic. You're just going to have to be more consistent about it. Consistency is huge in social media. Absolutely. If you're not doing every single day, okay, for three years, every single day or two and a half years? Every single day at 8:00am, I did a live video every day, Every day. Now what's that do? Well, people knew consistently I would be there. It allows you to build a following. People know where to find you. Think about this. If you're watching a TV show and one night it's on at 10, the next night it's on at 8. One day it's on, not on the next week. It can't develop a consistent following, Right?

Yeah.

All right. Well, the same thing is what you're trying to accomplish in social media. You're trying to get a following, and the only way you can get a following is to put consistent, good content out there. So that's a number one. All right. Second thing is, hey, man, you have fear. Why? Because of the way you look or your sound or something like that. Look, those people see you the exact same way when they come in your dealership and they see that you're overweight, right? They see that you have a bad voice, they see that you're ugly, Right? And it don't matter. You still sell them a car, right? So there's no difference whether if it's video or if it's in person, it's period. So get past that. In fact, don't even look at it. Do the video and send it. Don't watch yourself if that is something that you have to get over. Right? So I just have conversations with people and tell them exactly that. Don't worry about the fear. Be consistent in it. Do it every day. It's not going to happen overnight, but in a year, two years, three years, your whole life will change. Think about this. Y' all think about this. I've now spoke at conferences, held my own conference, got two promotions in two years from salesmen that no one knew. No one was asking me to be on podcasts, nobody was asking me to speak at conferences, nobody was asking me to write books, Right. In two and a half years, I went from GM and part owner of a dealership, all because of exposure, right? That's it. Did I get any more talented? No. I was just as good today in sales as I was two or three years ago. Other than maybe a couple tweaks here and there, I didn't work any harder. I had the same work ethic. Okay. The difference was now people know that I can bring value to them. Now they know what products and what things I can do. Right now the exposure has opened up other opportunities and that's what I try to tell everybody. Stop being like this. Stop being closed minded. General managers, owners, GSM sales managers and salesmen. Every single people. I don't care. There's no level that you get to that you shouldn't keep doing social media, period. I'm going to do it more now that I'm a GM than I did as a salesman.

The brand of the dealership and yourself still. It's not just about driving sales directly to yourself, but it's again, it's about putting the personality of yourself in the dealership. And you say that it reminded me of that quote you put, put up maybe a couple days ago and I'll put you on the spot if you can remember, but it said something about, didn't you say exposure leads to recognition and recognition leads to something and that leads to. What was it?

I think I said exposure. I think it was exposed something to exposure. Exposure to influence. Influence to money, right?

Yeah. Go to Sean's page and look that up. That just really, I mean, I see a lot of stuff on the Internet, but that stuff spelled it out in a way that just said yes, like, duh. Exposure leads to recognition. Recognition leads to influence. Influence means leads to you know what you want. Yes, that's it. It's so, so interesting.

We're all chasing the dollar, right? We're all chasing the dollar. You want a happier life, you want a bigger home, you want. And none of that really matters to me. That's not what I'm saying. Doing it for. I want you, everybody to understand I love what I'm doing, okay? My life has changed tremendously, okay? And it will keep changing because I have taken, instead of waiting for opportunities to happen, I've created my opportunities through exposure. And that's what we have to do. That's what you're trying to do with this podcast, right? You're trying to get more exposure so you can have more influence so you can what? Have more opportunities, Right? And that's what it's all about. And that's what we have to start thinking about and stop worrying about all the little things like what do I look like? Oh, I have a pimple today. Oh, I, you know, I had this or my hair's not right or. Yeah.

It'Ll be awkward and it'll be sad. I mean, I'm sure if Sean went back and if you looked at your first couple, you know, morning meetings, you'd probably be like, oh, my goodness, what was I doing back then? What was I thinking? I was stuttering and stepping over my words and it was awkward and the lighting and the audio and everything was weird. But it doesn't matter, right?

No, it doesn't matter, man. You can get better at it, but if you don't do it, you won't. You know, I'm going to pass you by. A lot of guys like me are going to pass you by. You're going to be sitting in your dealership thinking you were the number one salesman at that dealership. And all of a sudden, some other guys, some other sales hustlers who are doing what I'm trying to tell everybody to do are going to blow by you, and you're like, what the hell happened? I used to be the man here, right?

Oh, yeah. And it's so true. Even dealership level, I mean, we look at guys in our groups who have embraced social media and really leverage it, and their dealerships are flourishing, you know, whereas other people that don't get involved, they don't get educated, they don't use the tools, they're still trying to put out newspaper ads and advertise on some site, you know, like, they're not growing.

That's so important you talk about that, is that, you know, some of us have grown up in the car business that, and we all depended on, you know, the leads that the dealership were able to generate. And Sean, to me, it seems like what you've done as a salesperson is generated your own leads. And there's so many salespeople that don't understand that, and there's so many owners that don't understand that you need to be encouraging your, your salespeople to develop their own leads and not just depend on us. Now, that might get a little scary for some, you know, for some owners and operators that say, oh, no, if they get their leads, they're gonna, they're gonna steal my customers if they leave. But I think that's a short sighted way to look at it. Do you agree with that, Sean?

I do, 100%. You know, I'm gonna be a proponent of building your brand at my dealership. Okay. Period. They're not like, don't worry about who has the leads or who keeps them or whatever. If you keep your people happy and you hire the right people and you promote within when, when needed and when deserved, these people are going to leave you. The problem is, is we're selling you as an owner or a GM out of fear. Sometimes we're fear selling instead of out of having a leverage position. Look, I give you everything you need here, right? I give you a place, I give you inventory, I give you, you know, a phone, computer. I don't charge you anything. All you got to do is go promote yourself. And I don't care who you say the customers are. If I treat you well and you like working here and I promote with them when needed and when deserved, you're not going to go anywhere. And that's the fear base that a lot of GMs and owners have. Oh, I'm scared they're going to take my customer. Well, why don't you sit down with them and ask them why they're going to leave and try to prevent that in the future. Instead, we just let people walk and let people go. But I don't worry about that, man. Think about that lead you pay for. The average lead that comes in that we close costs what, five to seven hundred bucks? Five to seven hundred bucks when you average everything in or. I got a salesman out here who's aggressive, hungry, and wants to build a brand. It cost me zero. He can take those customers if he chooses. When he leaves, I don't want him to leave. And I hope he doesn't leave. And I'll do everything I can to keep him to stay. But at the end of the day, that cost me zero. This cost me 600 bucks, which is a better, smarter decision for my company. And they got about a 70 to 80% closing ratio right over here. Because that person has built rapport. They feel trust in them. Right. They know who they are in their face. Now this one over here, this is the one that grinds out that I make no money on. There's no money to be made. They shop for different dealerships. They just look for the lowest price. And I paid $600 to get that lead.

Right.

The lowest gross.

Yeah, right. You don't make any money on it. They complain the whole time. They're kicking and screaming. Right. They shop you amongst everybody in the nation and want you to match a price they got in Iowa. Right? Right. You're like, wait a minute, that's Iowa. You're like, okay, there was A two.

Wheel drive truck in Iowa.

Yeah. This person over here who comes in already knowing the salesman, already feel some social proof, trust, which I say, social proof, that's huge. Right. And they're a lay down. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean, you know, they're, they're easier to close. Right?

Well, you closed them on, you closed them on yourself earlier because they loved your social proof. They understood you.

Right? Exactly. And I think it's very important that you show all sides of yourself on social media. Okay? This is a problem that a lot of people have because they can't get traction. It's because they're not being themselves, they're not being real. People see that. They see it really, really fast. And I know you want to present this perfect image of yourself, but it's okay. I tell people, look, I did go through bad times. I almost flunked out of high school. I barely graduated. Right. I was suspended many times. I had a dui. I made so many mistakes in my life. The problem, the difference is now people feel like they know me. Right. I feel like now I've controlled that narrative. There's nothing that can come out of my past. And somebody says, well, you know what? He did this. I already told everybody all that, man.

Yeah.

I call it the Eminem approach. If you tell everybody, okay, remember Eminem on that last battle, right? That last battle he did in that 8 mile movie. That last battle, he went up first and he told that guy he was competing with every single thing about himself. I'm white, I live in a trailer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. My mom's on drugs. That and the guy didn't know what to say. Now if you do that in your social media and you tell people, look, this is the real me. I'm going to learn, let you see me and you're going to go along with me on this journey. Then, man, it just opens up people to you. You feel like a real person, then you can give, you know, I don't know, it just, it really helped me being open with people. I didn't try to live a perfect life on social media. Now I don't. There's a couple topics I don't mess around with.

Right.

I don't get involved. I don't get involved with too much. You're not going to see a lot of politics out of my time.

Yeah. Or football.

Yeah. You're not going to see a lot of, you know, faith based a lot because a lot of people get in arguments about that stuff. But it's okay to say, look, I failed in my life so many times. This is why I've learned and I can teach you. I just think that's the best way to go about it.

I think part of it is, I'm sure you'd agree with this, is you do need to use your Facebook page. Don't be afraid to tell people what you do. You don't have to go create some second Facebook page. That is Jeff the salesman, you know. No, it's me. This is what I do. And if I'm posting things on here that offend my family and friends or that aren't relevant, that's fine. They can unfollow me because this is my livelihood. This is how I make my living. It is my dealership. And if I'm scared to tell people, you know, those things, then I'm in the wrong industry. Right? Yeah.

I don't believe in business pages. Until you get big enough to need a business page, it does no good for you. A business page just cost you money. It's pay to play in Facebook land. Right. You're not going to get any kind of organic reach out of a business page. Some people start those business pages and they can't get any reach. I went straight to just regular Facebook page, personal Facebook page, but I turned it into a business page. On a personal page, it has better organic reach. So I would recommend everybody do that.

And you weren't just spamming people with cars. That's the other thing, guys. You got to provide valuable content. And if it's just funny and entertaining, that's one thing. But it can't just be car, car, car.

But people want to buy you. They don't care about the car.

That's it. That's it. People will always say that. Why don't you talk to your customers? Why don't you talk about cars that are specials? I was like, you guys don't see my vision. My vision. They know I'm a car salesman. I don't need to tell them that in the cars that I have. What I do need to tell them is I want them to be so loyal to me. And so they follow me on a daily basis. They feel like they know me, that when it comes to buying a car, when they're ready, they wouldn't buy it from anybody else. It doesn't matter what my inventory has. Do you know what I mean?

And they'll trust you on what to buy, and you can move them to the car that they should buy.

That's it. That's it. So I kind of took a different approach. In fact, a lot of people along the way, even my business partner, Dave Benson, told me I was wrong. He's like, man, quit doing this. You're speaking to these salesmen out here. You're talking to salesmen, right? You should be talking to your customers, showing salesmen how to do this, talking to their customers. I said, no, man, you don't see my vision? My vision is to gain loyalty and trust just through value. Giving value to people every single day. Just providing value and not asking anything in return. I read the book when Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, jab, jab, jab, right hook. Okay. That was basically my philosophy. Just keep jabbing you with value, value, value, value, value. Then I can sell you a product.

That's right.

And that's the way I think everybody should do it.

Yeah.

That's awesome, Sean. You know, do we have any more questions? I just.

Sean, how can people get ahold of you? How can we get in contact? Where would you like. I mean, people need to pick up your book. You self published a book, correct? Build your brand. And it's. It's going to tell people how they can get out there, why they should do it, how they should do it, how do they get a hold of you?

Basically. It's basically a blueprint. It's every single thing I did, I broke it down and wrote it. Right? And it basically tells you how to build a brand and what pitfalls to stay away from, what things you should do, what things I did and failed and what things I were successful for me. And basically it's just a blueprint. It's free. Okay. All you have to do is pay shipping and handling and you can go to www. Build your brand the book.net that's build your brand the book. Get it on there and it'll come to you. I think we sold. Since I self published it, I think we sold 4,200 copies so far, which is pretty crazy, but. Or you can get on my Facebook page, Sean Hayes, your car guy. I have a YouTube as well, but whatever. Or you can call me, man. Anybody in the industry that needs anything, just pick up the phone and call me 904-466-8939 and I'll take your call, man. I'll help you out.

Sean, that's amazing, man. That's a.

That's where we're going on the podcast.

We really encourage people to reach out to people who are not necessarily better in the business, but have more knowledge in the business and can, can lead those people to getting better. Because that's what it's all about, man. We appreciate you doing what you do for salespeople and for managers in the industry.

Well, you know what? One thing before I go is one of the things that changed my career in the trajectory career was not only the look in the mirror moment that I had, but finding mentors in my life, people that were, that are already past me on the journey, people that can help me along the way. I can pick the brain, I can lean on them when I need to ask questions. And don't be too proud about that, man. Don't be too proud about that. Get a network, your network of people, your network that will help you, man. It's helping me. Propel is my network. So I would recommend anybody don't be too proud about that, pick up the phone and call them and ask them, hey, can I, can I ask, can I bend your ear for a minute? And people will help you, man, you just gotta, you just gotta call and ask them.

That's so true. You know, I can remember the first couple 20 group meetings I went to and I walked into those rooms thinking I knew everything and I was the big dog. I got humbled so quickly. I mean, so quickly. And I picked up a few mentors within our 20 groups and it's the best thing I've ever done for me and my business, man.

Do you know how much I'm not going to know being a gm, Going from car salesman to GM part owner in two and a half years is kind of unheard of. So there's going to be a lot of things I don't know. And I've already reached out to people in this industry that I trust and love and said, look, I'm going to put you on speed dial if I need some information. And they're like more than help. And that's what we all have to do do. We all got to help each other. And you not only got to help other people, but you got to accept that you might need some help along the way too and reach out 100%.

Thanks, Sean.

Awesome. Appreciate your time.

Well, my pleasure, guys. Take care. Sa.