#87 - Real Success In The Car Biz w/ Cosmo

Hello. Welcome to this episode of the Independent Dealer Podcast. This week we have a real treat, Kind of a lightning rod in the Facebook profile. Mr. Constantine Cosmo is going to join us or Cosmo, and talk a little bit about how he got to where he's at. What do we cover, Luke?

I tell you, Cosmo is open book. And he may like to talk more than I do, Jeff. But it's so amazing. His story from just getting into the actually immigrating to our country. 05, opening a store till today, selling over 80 cars a month with 40 employees. He wants to be a dealer advocate. He started this Facebook page and just a real open book and someone I think everybody listening should get to know.

Yeah, it's great. It's great. Get to know him, his history, some of the goals of these online groups. And we all know there's a bunch of them out there, and there's so many that we can gain different kind of insights from. Right. They all kind of have their own little niche and their own benefit, and we need to be in them, and we need to be active in them. Chime in. Speak up. Anyways, here we go.

You are listening to the Independent Dealer Podcast with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson. Thank you so much for tuning in. Let's do this.

All right, Cosmo, thanks so much, man. Really appreciate you being here today. Super excited to get your insight and opinions on what's happening in the used car world right now. But first off, give me your background, man. Like, I mean, how did you get into the car business? Where'd you come from? I've seen your post, I've seen your dealership. You got some nice cars up there, man, like you are. I think you've got one car that would probably total everything I have on my lot. So give us your backstory, man.

So anyways, basically, I was born in Europe, and I came into this country in 1990 with my sister and my mom, my dad, literally. I was five years old, and we moved to Syracuse, New York. We immigrated in. And my father wasn't in the car business. Nobody really was in the car business other than, you know, when we come to this country, you know, immigrants kind of stick together. And a lot of the Russian, Ukrainian immigrants up in Syracuse, New York, were in the car business. They were body shops or mechanic shops or bought and sold cars and dealerships. So, like most of the immigrants, my father basically would go to the auction with a couple of these guys and buy a car, and that's what he used. It was a Way to save money. He was able to get more car for the bang for the buck, basically. And ultimately, as we kept going and I got older, I really just loved cars all my life. That's since I was a little kid. Matchbox cars, little cars that you put together with glue, whatever it is, I liked them. So I was about 12 years old and I started to basically go with my father to the auction randomly. As you know, they needed a vehicle for the family. And I was like, hey, why don't we buy one of these cars? And I can detail it. And I learned how to detail, and I know from one of my buddy or my dad's friends owned a body shop. So he showed me how to buff a car and this and this and that. So I learned at 12 years old how to use a wool buffer and then spray painting. I watched him do bodywork on stuff. So I was like, I could do this. So here I am, Syracuse, New York, buying rust buckets at the auction for a thousand dollars with my dad and bringing them to the driveway and going to AutoZone, getting some. A box of Bondo and some metal screen and, you know, doing the thing and spray painting, detailing. Next thing I know, we're putting cars on the swap sheet and I'm selling cars. At 12, I wasn't even old enough to drive and I'm selling cars. So my father, he, you know, he, like I said, he wasn't in the car business, but here I am. You know, we register the car. It was pretty much curb stoning, which, like I said, I frown upon now because I'm in, I'm in the industry and I understand how it works now. But, you know, at the time, you know, you didn't know any better and you just thought, hey, this is a good way to make some money. So we'd go to a little night sale, I think it was Lafayette Auto Auction in Syracuse. And I'd buy a car here and there and it kept going. And when I was old enough to get my driver's license and I was in high school, same thing every couple weeks, I would go buy a car. I would clean it up, I would detail it, fix it, whatever needed, I would put it in the swap sheet. By the time the title came back from New York State, I was ready to sell it and buy another one. And so, you know, I graduated school up there and I moved down to Hickory, North Carolina, because my sister was living here. So I would come and visit and I like the area. And I was just sick and tired of the snow and the cold in Syracuse. So I came down here and I always wanted to work for a dealership, but I never really had the opportunity because I was a full time student up in New York. And so I went to a job interview at a Ford dealership and they hired me on the spot. I mean, he, you know, salesman are kind of tough to come by. And I do have more of an outgoing type of, you know.

Yeah, you're a people person. I can tell. I can tell you. You're not too recluse.

Yeah, yeah. So basically he's like, look, I'll hire you. He's like, when are you moving down? I was like, I'm gonna move down in a couple months. So I had the job set up ahead of time. And that's where Cosmo came apart. I mean, you know, we're sitting in the interview and he's like, do you have a nickname? And I'm like, I mean, not really. I got a few people that call me Cosmo. And he's like, well, there you go. He's like, that's your new name. Because the rednecks down here are not gonna be able to pronounce Constantine.

What is. What is. What is your real name Cosmo?

So it's Constantine.

That's not bad. I was. Rednecks from the south can do that.

Listen, hey, listen, I've been down here half my life now at this point, almost. I mean, I can still say it, but it is what it is. I don't know, he was like a big Texan. He was like just old country boy out of Texas. And, you know, he was the manager of the Ford store.

It's funny, people may not know the Hickory area. I do. It's a really. It's a. I mean, it's become a suburb of Charlotte, and it's a big car town that. And was it far city or what was that other.

Right around in there? That's a big wholesale Aristotle everything around here. I mean, it seems like this is a very big car town for sure.

Yeah, sure.

So how did you make that transition? You were. You were selling cars at a new car store, and one day you woke up and said, I'm out of here. I got to do my own thing.

So, pretty much, yeah. So I stayed at the Ford dealership for about a year, and the local BMW Mercedes dealership, which was Hendrick at the time here in Hickory, they're no longer there. You know, the manager kind of kept saying, hey, you need to come work for me. You need to come work. You know, we went to church together. So he's like, you need to come work for me. You need to come work for me. So I left the Ford dealership and went to work for Hendrick BMW Mercedes. And after several months there, it was like, man, I really, I mean, I'm 20 year old kid, I mean I, we were living in an apartment, my wife's going to college, working at Target in the photo lab. I didn't have a pot to piss in. And I'm just sitting there like I want to become a dealer. So we legitimately, with $2,000 and two credit cards, set out to open up a dealership. It was at the time seemed like such a great idea and such a bad idea at the same time.

And about what year was this?

This was 2005.

Okay, okay.

So July of 2005, July 1st, I got my dealer license and I was basically the detailer, the mechanic, the title clerk. I did it all. I sold them, I cleaned them, the whole nine. And we did that for a few months where basically I just kept on flipping cars. Actually, some of my old managers at like the Ford dealership, they liked me so much they literally fronted me a couple cars that were trade ins. So I mean at the time I didn't have the money to buy them. And I get in there and he's like, here, just, I traded for this Ranger and I traded for this Accord here. You just take them, they're like a couple grand apiece. When you sell them, bring me back the money. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is perfect. And then we obviously got a $30,000 floor plan from, I believe it was, I think it was MAFS first. And then we got a $30,000 floor plan from AFC also. So at the time, that's a month or two down the road whenever we opened up, that's kind of how we took off and started going. So I hired one of my old sales associates that I worked with at Ford. He was working for a local buy here, pay here lot. And so one day, you know, it was getting to the point where I couldn't go to the auction and I couldn't get the cars cleaned up and I just couldn't do everything at once because at that point we already had, you know, 15 or so 20 some cars on the lot. So I hired them, I said, hey, come on in, this is what I'll pay you. All I need you to do is, you know. And he set up my first website because he was like A big computer kind of a computer kind of deal. So he set up our first website, built it, you know, and it kind of worked for a little bit, but. And that's how we took off, you know. And we're about 40 employees now. Let me tell you something. So been lots and lots of days that I did not know if I was going to be in business.

Okay. So I don't want to skip over that. That's, that's to me is so cool, man. So 2005, you started with a single car and a lot you were slinging everything. Fifteen years later, which I think we've all been down that road. Most of us have been in it 15 years or so. And I think about where I was 15 years ago. But you, I mean 40, 40 employees. What does that. Do you have your own body shop? Give us the makeup real quick of your dealership. Do you do recon? Do you do buy here, pay here? Let us just get familiar with your current business model.

Yeah, so basically we do not do any buy here, pay here. You know, we do third party financing. We're set up very similar to a franchise dealership. The way we run things here, you know, we set ACVs on cars. We don't keep it an open drawer system, the whole nine. I mean we have CRM, you know, the whole, the whole kin caboodle what you want. But yes. So we have a sales department here. We have a full service department with five full time techs. Service manager, parts manager, service director. We have a marketing manager and a guy that takes all my photos and pictures, does all that. I have an auto spa which I opened up. I bought a building not even an eighth of a mile up the road. It used to be here in the back with service, but we just were running out of room. We just couldn't keep up with the, with the volume that we needed to do between detail and service. So when a building came up available right up the street, I went ahead and bought that. That was about a year and a half, two years ago.

How many cars you sell in a month?

So last year we did 974 cars retail. So that's what, 81 point something. Our goal was a thousand. I really just, you know, number in my mind, I'd love to see a thousand. And we missed it by 26 cars. And you know, I look back and I'm like, man, that's a week.

Yeah, you probably could have picked that up somewhere.

Are you doing any.

Could have.

Are you doing any outside service work for other People or just, just getting your cars ready?

No. So we are. So all of our customers that buy from us, we have like a VIP program that they become part of. So they get discounts on parts and labor, they get free loaners. We have like six car loaner cars out there that we loan out to people when they're here for service. We don't advertise it because to be honest with you, the recon is the hardest part of my business as it is for most dealers. You know, I have a hard time getting the cars recon in a realistic time frame.

Yeah, I agree.

So you know, it's like it hurts us but helps us at the same time. You know, we almost have to suck it up and deal with it because you know, these customers that come to me, you know they're going to continue doing business with me, they're going to buy more cars, you know, a very loyal clientele base that I have. So for me, it's like it's hurting me because yes, it's keeping my, you know, it takes forever to get the cars through reconditioning because I'm putting customer cars ahead. But at the same time it's the smart thing to do because one, it brings in outside income for service. Two, it gives those customers an opportunity to keep coming back and become the dealership of their family, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And you're, you're, you're so right because I deal with the same thing. Cosmo. It's almost, it's a double edged sword. You don't want to take in that customer pay, but the customer pay breeds more things that you can, that you can do. So if you figure out how to, how to fix the problem with customer pay and recon, I would love to hear the answer.

Man, I've been fighting this for 10 years. So when we were at my first location, the first original location I opened up was literally just basically a dirt lot with a double wide on it and like a, I built a, like a 24 by 24 building just to detail in. Like literally put the trusses on the shoulder and helped our contractor put them up, you know, here. When we moved to the new location in 2009, we opened up the service department at that point. Never had a service department prior to I actually the place that was servicing all my cars, the one main technician there that did all my work came to run our service department. To be, to be honest, I didn't purposefully poach him from that guy from that other shop because I have a Lot of respect for the other shop owner. He was a great guy. But I actually gave him an opportunity back in 2009. I said, hey, I'm buying or I'm gonna lease this building at the time. And there's a big shop in the back. And I really am not in the service business. I don't have any of the tools or the equipment's gonna need. Do you want to sublease that for me? And you got my cars to work on, bring, you know, the mechanics down there, and you got me my customers. And he was like, I'm not really interested in doing that. So then, you know, I had no choice. I mentioned the shop to the. To Nathan, which is now still my service director. And I told him, I said, hey, I'm. You know, we're moving down there. I'm gonna need somebody to run the shop. And him and I were friends on top of just doing business together. So ultimately, of course, he took the opportunity. So I kind of poached him away.

Well, I. I've got the same exact story. I had a guy who did all of our recon work, another shop, and in 20, 20, 12 or 13, when we opened our shop, I approached him with the same exact offer, and he turned me down. And the guy's about out of business now. I hate that. But, you know, it's. It's the way it goes. Hey, Kazo, what's the. What's your car like? What do you normally sell? What's. What's your bread and butter?

So according to last year's numbers, Mustangs and Mustangs, Camaros were our two most sold vehicles. It's kind of weird, but we kind of sell a little bit of everything, ultimately from exotics, which I've cut back down on that. About a year or two ago, I was doing a lot more exotics and things like that. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, some Bentleys, a little bit. You know, just dabbling in them. A lot of Porsches, which I still do, a lot of Porsches. But, you know, I realized that there's really not a lot of money to be made on those cars. It seems like every dealership is just willing to bring them in and sling them out with. With a very slim profit margin. And I can't invest or I can't fathom or make sense of investing $200,000 in a Lamborghini Huracan to be able to make 5,000 or $4,000 in that car after it sits here for four to six months.

I wouldn't Sleep at night, man, I wouldn't sleep.

There's been lots of nights that I have not slept at night.

Do a single alternator and something like that, it'll knock you out.

Oh my gosh. So we. Yeah.

So tell me this, Cosmo. I'm super curious, like, what has been in those 15 years?

What.

Maybe tell me the biggest lesson you learned from, like, from a downside that you could share with the dealers that are listening that would help them beat that learning curve. Like, is it, is it that you got too deep into exotics and maybe chased the wrong thing and didn't stick with what was making you money? Or was it the growth, I mean, the growing pains for what you've done? It's got to be crazy.

So, yeah, over the years I've, I've had lots of opportunity, you know, lots of times I didn't know, like I said, if I was going to be in business the next day. I mean, you got to think about, I went through as a very young business. I was 23 years old in 08 and I would open up in 05. And at that point I was still mainly floor plan, you know, I was still in my old lot. But my wife and I got married in 08. It was just. 08 was a very trying year with the economy and the gas deal that happened. I remember losing a hundred some thousand dollars in a month and that almost bankrupted me. I mean, I couldn't. I almost, I mean, it took me probably a year to dig out of that. I remember it was ridiculous just because I had so many SUVs on the lot that all sudden dropped to half price or better and I'm stuck with them and I'm just like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? Nobody's wanting to buy anything. The banks were cutting back on their loaning at that point. We weren't really doing back end because I was so new. None of the banks really signed up with us at that point. So we were still doing outside finance through local credit unions or secondary banks or whatever around here. So the income source was very, very tight. It was all on those used vehicles that were sitting there. And when that market dropped, it was, it was very. It hurt. I still remember nights when you're laying in bed and you're. You got butterflies turning, thinking, I gotta make all these elements tomorrow. I don't know how I'm gonna do that. I mean, just. And so you start thinking about those things. And I mean, I remember, I mean, I remember getting sick in the middle of the night, just from, just from thinking, the stress and, you know, and I said I was a 23 year old kid at this time. I opened up my dealership July 1st of all five. I was 20 years old. I turned 21 the July 25th of that month. So I was not even old enough to drink. And I had a dealer license.

You know, what, what is the one thing that you did during the downtime that saved your business? Because I know a ton of people went out of business, but what'd you do? What was the one thing?

You know, I think that I'm very spiritual. God had to do with it. I mean, and I know that, you know, people say, well, you know, you got to put your pants on and get to work. But it was God. I mean, I prayed a lot. I have a very good relationship with the Lord. And that really kept me going through those tough times. I think it was, you know, you can call it coincidental or luck whenever. Once or twice you bail out and money comes in at the right time. All sudden you need 27 grand in order to make these bills. And you know, that 27 grand is in there. And all sudden, two hours prior to it having to be there, it shows up somehow. You sell some cars, you know, whatever it is. So, you know, once or twice that can happen and it could be coincidental or lucky, but when it's happened as many times as it's happened to me, there's no other answer to me in my mind as other than God. And I mean, that's great. I mean, that's. God literally runs my family, my business. When we do Bible studies here at the dealership on Tuesdays, I mean, I try to surround myself with the people that have that same mindset and spirituality because, you know, it's very important as a team that we do things ethically, we do things godly and whatever. Whether it's taking care of a customer, employee situations, whatever it is, you really just want to make sure you're doing them right. And the. And I'm telling you, through all those times and opportunities, you know, it seemed like things just worked out. I mean, it wasn't anything like I didn't, you know, I'm not Superman. I didn't just snap my fingers and, you know, make something new up. And it just worked. Things just came. It just everything just worked. It just, you know, those days that seriously was to the point where I didn't know if I was gonna be able to make my floor plan, you know, I mean, I Remember one time I drove down to my floor plan lady office, and she was a great, great woman. And I told her, I said, I don't know if I'm going to be able to make these curtailments that are coming due this week. I was like, I'm just telling you, business has been slow, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm sitting in her office and she says, look, she's like, you know, you got another couple days. Just do the best you can. Let me know what, you know, if something happens. Because I'm trying. I'm a very proactive person. If I knew there was going to be a problem, I want to get ahead of the problem, you know, and just so happens, like, I had to have the money by Thursday morning and Wednesday night. We sold, like, a cash car. I had made up enough on a couple of other cars that it literally just. It was just enough. And it was the craziest feeling in the world when it literally happens that it's just enough.

It's amazing how that does happen. I think if you run your business ethically and morally and by the book, you. You do see that things go well for you. And that's. That's amazing that you have set testimony there.

Yeah. So back in the day, whenever I first started, I was buying and selling cars that everybody else was kind of scared of. So back when I first, you know, we're talking about six months to a year into being in business, I was buying the little Honda Civic sis and Integra gsrs and all these little Rice pocket cars that, you know, had a aftermarket supercharger been modified. Well, back in those days, most dealerships were scared. Those cars, they stayed away from them. They didn't want to deal with them. A Chevrolet store trades for a GSR Acura that's got a supercharger on it. They want it gone. So they take the auction or whatever or they call me, and those cars would actually bring less money than a regular one. What I would do is I would market that vehicle to the clientele of, hey, this car's already got all this money spent on it. So I was able to make very good profit margins back then on those cars. I mean, I remember buying cars for $12,000 that were worth wholesale, $15,000 because of modifications. But in my mind, I was selling those cars for $20,000 because, hey, it's got the modifications done. So again, even all the. Into the Volkswagens, I mean, up until, I want to say, the last eight, eight or nine years, I was Kind of, kind of my niche and my specialty was those cars that everybody else was kind of scared of. Those modified Corvettes, modified Mustangs, all that stuff that. And it worked for me, like WRXs, Evo s, you know, Evos and STIs and all those cars that everybody else ran away from. I was the one that was buying them. And it just worked. We established ourselves as being the niche, specialty, you know, kiddie type cars. And it worked for a while. There was a lot of headaches that came with it. I promise you that. You know, you sell a kid a Evo and he goes out here, you know, launching it and breaks the transfer case and I'm the bad guy.

Yeah, within 24 hours. Oh yeah, yeah. That happened to us just recently.

That's happening.

How are you sourcing your inventory? That's 80 something cars a month. Are you the buyer? Do you have a buyer? You have a war room. Are you doing everything online? How are you getting it done?

So a little bit of everything. So I have a couple guys that basically are out there touching feeling cars for me and I kind of know which auctions they're going to be at or whatnot. And so sometimes I'll have them pick something up for me. Sometimes they'll be at an auction, say, hey, did you see this car? Is it something you're interested in? And then I'll give them a figure to go off of then ultimately, you know, that's how some of them get here. Trades is a big thing for me. So we really try to promote trades I make. On average, we make more money on our trade ins than we do on the cars that I buy when they average it out. Because you're able to save the auction fee, you're able to save the shipping, and usually you're able to buy it for, you know, a buck or two back of MMR instead of, you know, a thousand or so more than mmr. But as you can see behind me, I, you know, I have six. Wakes up, but I have six screens there. So I mean, I do a lot of Internet buying. In fact, you know, whenever OVE launched, you know, I was one of the first dealers to get involved with OVE buying. I remember they kind of asked me for ideas and recommendations and things like that. What I thought of it. When Simulcast was launching, I was one of the first people to kind of experiment with that. I've always been very pro. Let's see, you know, let's get on the Internet. And I've been shipping cars from all over the country for a decade.

Yeah.

California, Texas. It doesn't bother me. If it's the right car and I can still make some money on it after paying that shipping bill, then I'm gonna buy it, obviously. I do a lot of local auctions, too. There's, you know, states of auto auctions right up the road. I usually do get on the Internet for that one because I can work a couple auctions at once. Manheim, Pennsylvania, is a big one for me here. Lately, it's gotten very, very difficult to make any money out of that auction, though. It's always been top of the market. They call it top of the market. Their restaurants call top of the market. When you go in there, you know, it is the big house, as Bob Holinsetter calls it. However, lately, like I said, it's just very, very difficult to make any kind of money on them, Especially after, you know, you're fighting basically the whole world for that car, and then you're paying the crazy auction fees, and then by the time you pay to ship them here and then you do any kind of reconditioning, which my reconditioning is almost $2,000 a car average. It's just. There's nothing left. I mean, you know, I'm taking very, very short deals. You know, CarMax has been good to me. Believe it or not. I've been buying cars from CarMax for. Since I've been in business. I used to go to the Virginia auctions, and literally, I was on the road three weeks out of the month until my kids came into play. So for many years, I stayed on the road from driving from Orlando to flying to going to Baltimore to Virginia to pa, Pretty much everything in between. But I also have a lot of dealers. I have a lot of connections made with a lot of dealers. So I got guys that call me from Texas and Las Vegas and Virginia and even Charlotte that have done business with me in the past. And they know that I'm a straight shooter. They understand that I'm here to make money. But I also understand they have to make money. And I put a fair number in the car, and I give it so. So some of that comes from there, too. So, like I said, it's not one particular source. It's a little bit of everything together. Acv. Recently, I started using them. I know that's been big on our page, on our group, that we started a lot of conversation about acv. And they have their downfalls, honestly. There's some things that they need to work on. But the good thing is, man, I'll tell you what, talking to them, talking to Joan, even, he's very receptive there. You know, I actually flew up to Buffalo and they wanted myself and Alan to fly up there and basically just talk to them about the good, the bad. What are we seeing that could be better? And, you know, there's very few companies out there that are like that, that will reach out to somebody and say, hey, we want you to come up. We want to show you how we do things. We want to show you our process, and then you tell us what you think we could do better. And they're very receptive. I know that they're working on the updating and arbitration policy. I don't know if I'm supposed to say anything about that, but it is what it is. It's out there now. Yeah, it is what it is. But, I mean, you know, I bought 60 some cars in the last 90 days off of ACV. It was kind of a little bit of my honey hole there in the beginning. And then obviously, everybody found out about them and it got much, much bigger really, really fast. So my honey hole kind of went away. But it is what it is.

Well, I think that's a great transition, Cosmo. So, yep, we. We know that. You know, we had Joe on last week, and he's trying, and he's listening to the dealers. And I think you've kind of taken up the, I don't know, I want to say, the responsibility or the rally cry to bring dealers together, you know, more so from almost. Not as an activist, but almost as an activist, like, you're bringing the dealers together to say, hey, guys, like, you can't keep us in these little pockets where Cosmo Motors doesn't know what, you know, Godwin Motors is paying for this subscription, or they don't know that these guys are getting a preferred deal. And when you bring people together like you've done through the Facebook group you created, it creates that transparency. And I think we've seen that with a couple businesses, right, where you started connecting the dots and dealers have started connecting to each other to say, hey, wait a minute, I thought that was just me. Or I thought that was a weird quirk, or I thought maybe I thought I was paying market for this service, and it turns out that I'm the only one being gouged or that this is a complete flaw. Like, where's. Talk to us about that, man, your philosophy there.

So, yeah, so that's ultimately what launched me to open this start this group is. You use that word transparency. That is one of the most important things to me in pretty much anything I do. I don't want to be buying cars. And then the guy next to me bidding is getting a better auction fee than I am just because he's a bigger corporation. I think that, you know, if you're selling cars at an auction and you're a seller and you can bring them anywhere you want, sellers can get a discount on a fee. It is what it is because that's not going to really affect a market. Whereas if you're charging a buyer a a $700 auction fee for this car and buyer B gets a rebate check and he's technically only paying $300 for that car as an auction fee, you know what's going to happen? You know, there's going to be better, better differentiation of what we can pay for a car versus them, you know, and so on so forth. They can market their car cheaper. And so you're helping a huge conglomerate and a huge corporation that really doesn't need the help. So they're big volume dealer. But that's what I was trying to preach to Cox is why are you guys giving a discount to these big guys? Do you realize that you don't need to discount their fees? They're still gonna buy your cars because they still need the inventory just as bad as everybody else. There's no need for you to give them rebate checks or discounts on fees just because they're buying, you know, 500 cars a week or whatever from the sell. You know, just throw numbers around. You know, don't take my numbers figuratively, but ultimately that. And then, you know, the Cargurus thing, that, that was just a big spinoff. Yeah, that was the thorn.

Of course it's crazy and I mean, six months ago I had it out with the rep because of this exact issue. And it just blows my mind that we are going to give money to a site that's built for the consumer. It just seems like that business model is backwards. The consumer should be paying to get access to Cargurus pricing structure and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the other issue that we, you know, my rant on Monday was, you know, again guys, it's their frickin website. They built it, they spent all the money to grow it. Either use it or don't. And if they want to sell all of their leads to Carvana, unfortunately that's their right because it's their freaking dot com. But you brought that out. Can Dealers, can we come together and could we wreck a $10 billion company?

So this is the deal. I really wish that they would just be receptive to doing things ethically and without deception. Their site is set up to really deceive the consumer. I truly believe that. I don't think they're helping the consumer at all. In many ways, you know, their pricing model of hey, this is a great deal or this is a bad deal or this is, you know, that's not accurate at all. You know, you hear all these dealers talking about and the reasons why, you know, they cannot decipher a vehicle whether it's going to be a good one or a bad one, just off a base basis of miles and year and maybe color and a couple of little options that don't even matter.

All cars are not created equal.

100% nada. I mean, you don't know if that car's got new tires. You don't know if that car has been smoked in. You don't know if that car has been a rental car. You don't know if that car is keyed down the side. You don't know if the paint job is two different colors. You don't know if that car's got structural damage. You don't know any of that. So how can you tell a consumer, honestly, how can you tell or anybody tell consumer that's a great deal. You need to go buy that car.

What you're driving at is all cars are not created equal. These guys are putting them up there as an authority to the consumer. That what they say is, is the gospel is actually the fact of the matter. But what the consumer doesn't know also is there's a lot of pay to play, right? I mean I can pay more for gurus to boost my ad and put it in front of you more often outside of the market and all sorts of stuff that's these back end algorithms and pay to play game plan, right?

100%. So ultimately again it doesn't go they, you know, when we say third party, it's supposed to be a non biased, supposed to be a legit honest source. Unfortunately, that's not what Carter is shown to be doing. Now again, you know, I didn't start to put Cargurus out of business. By no means that I want to show the transparency, that I want to bring up these issues and to see if other dealers were having the same problems. And you know what, Cargurus dug their own grave. They are the ones that showed the world and the dealers on what was right and what was wrong. And, you know, I think that the dealers coming together have finally showed that, hey, we're not going to stand here and take this. We're not going to let you take our leads and sell them to other dealers. That's.

Yeah, I'm still. Jeff, you here?

Yeah, sorry.

What, what, what, what blows. What I find super interesting though, is the reaction was not really. I don't know, I mean, again, it was back to the same defiant thing. Like, you know what, little car dealers, we're not gonna let you dictate how we run our business model. That's when we all just say, you know what? Okay, I don't want to participate on your website anymore. You know, I'm not going to pay you for leads. I'm going to spend my money elsewhere. I'm going to invest in my own dealership, my own brand, my own website, my own marketing, and not be so beholden to these third party sites to.

Feed me leads 100%. So basically, I held out, canceling Cargurus. And, you know, when that webinar thing came out, I was like, you know what, I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna see what they say, and I want to just see if they're willing to participate, if they're willing to make some changes, if they're willing to listen to the dealers, if they're willing to, you know, allow, you know, true transparency on their site and not deception. Whether it's pricing, whether it's sending my customer 15 other cars to click on, whether it's selling their trade to Carvana, whatever it is. I want to see if Cargurus comes out and says, hey, guys, you know what, we're thankful that you guys brought this to our attention. We're here all ears, wanting to make this better. We want to make it an honest, transparent relationship between you and the consumer. So what can we do better? What can we, what can we change? What can we, what formulas can we modify? What parts is it? And they can clearly tell what we don't like. They're on there. Carter's guys are all over our page. They see exactly what we're writing, they're reading it and they are laughing about it. And that's the sad part. You know, when I'm watching that webinar and I signed off early because it was so disrespectful to me. It was such a spit in the face. It was almost like, why are we even here? Why are you wasting everybody's time? So, you know, it Seemed like, like you said non, basically. Nonchalant, basically. Look, your little dealers are gonna cry. We're not changing anything. You guys are ridiculous. They use the word ridiculous question. You know, here's another ridiculous question. That word was used. You can go back and watch it, you know. He said, well, here's another ridiculous question. I mean, are you kidding me? So these people that are paying your guys bills are asking you a question and you're going to say that it's ridiculous? That is absolutely absurd. And that was the most that showed me right there that these people are not taking us seriously. They don't have a clue about the car business for the industry. They're just some number guys are sitting there at the front of their screen pretending like they care, but at the same time telling everybody to basically go screw off.

And Cosmo, I had, I had this, I had this discussion with Cargurus really high ups, probably four years ago, the same exact discussion that you're talking about right now. And they essentially laughed at us at that point and told us, yeah, you can either pay our fee or not, it doesn't matter to us. And we're still back. It's probably been four to five years. We're back to the same exact situation we were four or five years ago. So that's. It's funny that it's come all the way back up again.

So about a year or two ago there was a group, and I'm not gonna name any names, but there was a group on Facebook that claimed that they wanted to help the dealers with Cargurus. You guys probably know who it is. And I'm not, like I said, I'm not gonna get into names, but there's another group that got started, but that group was started for the person that started it for their self benefit in order to self market themselves to other dealers and things of that nature. You know, there was things that I did not agree with that was being said in that group. And one of the main things that I joined the group for was whenever the traction took off about car gurus being, you know, a nuisance back. This was two years ago, so. And it seemed like we were gonna get somewhere and then it seemed like it all went away very, very quickly. Like all of a sudden ties, nothing more about Cargurus. And the traction was very, very good at that point. And this is a big size group also. And I don't know and I can speculate on what happened, but regardless of the point, they basically just dropped everything and everything got forgotten. About Cargurus and went on. And a couple months ago, there was something else that got posted in Agaru and me and the. The founder and the owner of that group kind of got into a discussion on the page. He did not agree with what I had to say. He. I didn't agree with what he had to say, and he legitimately kicked me out of the group. He did. I did not cuss him. I did not yell at him. I did not belittle him or anybody else. I wasn't prejudice or racist or anything towards anybody. And he legitimately kicked me out of the group and then mocked me. And that's actually what pushed me to start this group. Because here's a group. Here's a guy that started a group to literally help himself, and here I am starting this group. I want to help the industry. Like, I legitimately. It's like Jeff said, I really just want to connect all the dealers together so we can all have a voice, so we can all discuss the issues, so we can all connect, even to the third parties. I mean, like I said, whenever a Joe from ACV came on and said, hey, guys, I'm here. Here's my cell phone number. If you got a problem, reach out. I want to help. I want Auto Trader to do that. I want Cargurus to do that. I want Cox Enterprises do that. I want a Destin to do that. I want all these companies to come out and say, guys, we're here. We are listening. We want to better the environment for all of us. What can we do? And I. And listen, I understand. It's got to be reasonable, so it's got to be rational. These companies are there to make money. You're not gonna get Mannheim to do a $200 auction fee. That's not. That's not reasonable. Because they have brick and mortars. They gotta pay employees. They have overheads. We all know what it's like to run a business, so. But there needs to be fair. It needs to be, you know, the seat, the CR issue, you know, that that's been blown up. It seems like the two main things that we're complaining about are on Cox's end is the CRs and the fee. And it's kind of like if we can just come together and these third parties come together and can sit down and communicate. I don't need to get paid. I want to do this. Trust me. I have a lot of time on my hands. Not really. But in all reality, I'm willing to donate my time because not Only just to help myself, my friends that are in the district. I have a lot of people that are really, really good acquaintances that are in the automotive industry. I want to help them. I want to connect them with the third parties. I want to basically, I mean, I do want to middleman it because I want to be able to fix the broken. I want to make it to where it's a smoother environment. I'm not trying to put anybody out of business. I don't want to hurt anybody. I legitimately just want to make it an even place playing field and keep things to where it's good for Goodwin Motors, it's good for cosmotors, it's good for, you know, Mitchell's foreign cars. It's good for, you know, A, B, C, auto sales, whatever it is. Because, you know, in all reality, there's never going to be where everybody's happy. That's never going to happen. Not. Not everybody's gonna be happy. You got wholesalers, have one. I mean, look, one of my great friends, Alan Hillel, he owns Alan's Auto Sales. He's one of my administrators on the page with me. He was one of the first people to help me with this page whenever we're launched. Him, Chris and Steve. And, you know, he's a wholesaler. He's a big wholesaler in Long island and New Jersey and Mannheim, Pennsylvania. And he and I will even bump heads on what he thinks the entry play policy should be, what this should be, because we have two different outcomes. I'm a buyer, he's a seller. So, you know, but there's gotta be a fine line. There's gotta be somewhere in the middle where there can be a common ground found and things can be adjusted that's fair for both, that we can all live with. Because right now everybody just wants to fight and argue and complain about it, but nothing ever gets anywhere. And it's just like a bunch of kids all running different directions. You can't gather them together. And that's where this group is. You know, we get people that come on this group almost every day and say, man, you know, all you guys are doing is complaining. It's not about complaining. Listen, we all have our problems. We all have our issues. And there's different thorns and different sides for each one of us. Whether you're a small guy, a big guy, a franchise, an independent, a wholesaler, a buyer, whatever you may be. You know, so, you know, not every post is going to be exactly fitting to your lifestyle, to your business, to your. I Had a guy the other day get upset with me on the page and call me a troll because I simply commented and said, hey, that's great, but I wouldn't be able to stay in business for that type of profit margin. And he legitimately took that as an offense and I didn't. And I'm. By no means.

Yeah, I read that thread that was, that seemed a little interesting reaction and.

I By no means listen. No, by no means that I mean anything negative towards them. I mean I have a lot of agent inventory. I really was looking up like, well, mean, you know, I mean I don't like seeing 90 plus year old units and I have plenty of them, you know. But in all reality I have a different business plan. He has his business plan, his works for him and what they're doing, mine works for me and what I'm doing, you know. But it seems like there's so much frustration and I don't want frustration at one another. We need to come together and help one another. And it seems like the participation in the group is much lower than I want it to be. I really wish there was more people participating and giving advice and commenting. You know, it seems like we got there 100 or 200 people that keep, you know, they're, they're into it. And then you got 9,000 some that are just sitting there just watching and reading and it's like, come on guys, you know, when the dealer posts up, hey, what are your guys averages? What are you guys using? You know, it's like some dealers are scared to give up their secrets. It's like, get over it. Let's just help one another, you know.

Yeah, so many don't want to see, so many don't want to step out. But it's a great. Again, people complain, but what it is is you're putting out your pain point. You're seeing if anyone else has got the same situation and how they've got around it. So yeah, there is a difference between just constantly complaining and looking for a solution, which I think is, is that secret sauce there? When those dealers chime in and say I get it that you're having an issue with turn time or you don't like this advertising source. But here's what we're doing, you know, so the constructive of a large group like that is. I mean it's great. We're learning from everywhere, right?

Absolutely.

Well, thanks, Kazner.

That was there for man. I hope it helps everybody, you know, all the way down to some of our vendors. I hope that they find help from this group, too. And that's what I'm here for.

And this has been so great. Seriously, we really appreciate your time. And if people want to connect with you, I imagine go to the Real Success in the Car Biz page and a number of other groups that I'm sure you're in. And I know you're an open book. I know you're in there commenting and helping and building.

So, I mean, I mean, I'm willing to help anybody. I'm not. Like I said, for me, it's. It's not. I don't need money. I don't need. You know, I've had people say, well, we'll pay you to do this and this. I don't. What do you need? Let me help you. Because there's times that I made a lot of mistakes that I wish that somebody said, hey, don't do that, because you're not going to end well. And I've made a lot of mistakes. And off of my mistakes, I want to help others.

That's awesome, man. Thanks, Cosmo.

Absolutely. Thank you guys so much.

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