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#397 - Reinventing the Dealer Model
#397 - Reinventing the Dealer Model
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About this episode
A lively discussion at the 2025 Buy Here Pay Here Summit in San Diego focuses on reinventing the dealer model, particularly the transition from buy here pay here to lease here pay here. Tracy Myers shares his journey, insights on marketing strategies, and the importance of adapting to changing consumer behaviors. He emphasizes the significance of Facebook as a marketing tool and the need for a strong customer experience. The episode features engaging anecdotes and practical advice for dealers looking to innovate and improve their operations.
Topics:
dealer model innovation
facebook marketing
lease here pay here
customer experience
subprime finance
sales strategies
employee training
business adaptability
bankruptcy impacts
marketing trends
Join us for this special live episode from the Lease Here Pay Here Summit 2025 in San Diego as we sit down with Tracy Myers, fourth-generation dealer and owner of Frank Myers Auto. After 15+ years in buy-here-pay-here with 1,800 accounts, Tracy made the bold decision at age 52 to transition into lease-here-pay-here - and he's sharing everything he learned.What You'll Learn:* Why Tracy switched from a successful BHPH model to lease-here-pay-here* The unexpected advantages: bankruptcy protection, cash flow improvements, and abandoned vehicle solutions* Sales training challenges when educating customers about leasing vs ownership* How "Down the Road Motors" helps customers understand the program* The accounting and operational differences that caught him off guard* Why his "perfect hire" philosophy completely changed over 20 yearsThank you for listening. We hope you learned something new. Let us know what you think.-Leave us a reviewwww.theindependentdealer.comInfo@theindependentdealer.comSupport the businesses that support the podcast!Blytzpay for your credit card processing and text communications. Tell them IDP sent you to get 3 free months!https://www.blytzpay.comBuckeye Risk Services for all your education and reinsurance needshttps://www.buckeyerisk.comTaxmax for flexibility with your tax returns. Use the code “Podcast2024” for 40% off sign up!https://www.taxmax.comIgnite Consulting Partners are there to identify problems, create solutions, and help your business thrive!www.ignitecp.comPlease subscribe, leave us a review, and share with a friend.Connect with us online: / independentautogroup / jlukegodwin / sendtojeffwListen to all our episodes on Anchor:https://anchor.fm/theindependentdealer
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Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Chevrolet Tahoe
"...n the road motors. So they come in wanting a 2024 Tahoe or Hellcat or whatever the top three is."
Car
Challenger Hellcat
"So they come in wanting a 2024 Tahoe or Hellcat or whatever the top three is. Ours is a four-door..."
Car
Dodge Charger
"...he top three is. Ours is a four-door truck, Dodge Charger, Tahoe Suburban, any Yukon, any combination of th..."
Car
Chevrolet Suburban
"Ours is a four-door truck, Dodge Charger, Tahoe Suburban, any Yukon, any combination of that, right?"
Car
GMC Yukon
"...ur-door truck, Dodge Charger, Tahoe Suburban, any Yukon, any combination of that, right?"
Car
Kia Soul
"...ean, we sell a car, we sell a 2015 Ford Focus Kia Soul in my case. Yeah, Kia Soul. He sells a Kia Soul a..."
Select text to request an explanation
Facebook's still the best return on investment marketing dollar, guys.
Yes, anyone better than that?
CarGurus, cars.com, repeat the curl, maybe, Google.
It's still, it's crazy.
You would not have thought that 11 years ago that Facebook would still be relevant.
Not for businesses, especially.
I wouldn't have thought that.
And it's more relevant than ever.
It's more relevant than ever.
And I have conversations, arguments with dealers every day that I used Facebook in it.
It doesn't work, or the leads are bad, and I don't believe there are any bad leads.
Facebook works.
If Facebook's not working for you, the message is not right, or your process is wrong.
I feel like our ad reads for Buckeye are better than that.
They are.
They're more concise.
More concise.
Yeah.
And taller.
But to Buckeye's credit, or you can either thank Buckeye or blame Buckeye for keeping
us around as long as we have.
That's right.
Because they've been great sponsors.
They're great sponsors of the industry, the great sponsors of the podcast.
So with that being said.
We'll get it going.
Welcome to this special edition of The Independent Dealer Podcast.
Woo!
Live here, at least here, pay here, Summit 2025 in sunny San Diego.
There's like a thousand people watching us.
Probably at least a thousand.
That's the least.
Okay.
Oh, yeah.
So we have a friend of the podcast here today, and a friend of mine, one of my
mentors probably met Tracy in 10, 15 years ago, 15 years ago at least, probably, 15 years
ago at least.
And he's been on the podcast several times, and we're glad to have him today.
What podcast numbers?
Yeah, 12, 91, and 333.
Man, that's 12.
You go way back.
We didn't even know what we were doing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he might, he could be a record.
He might have beat Tim in appearances.
Tim, you've been on three times, right?
Four.
Well, there we go.
There we go.
I have a tied record.
Tied.
We're tied.
We're tied.
But if you don't know Tracy, if you have, if you want to go back and get more history
on his background, you need a very in-depth conversation we had on a few of those episodes.
But Tracy, for those that don't know you and want the condensed Cliff Notes version,
introduce yourself to the audience here.
Sure.
So the short version is my great-grandfather opened the first Frank Meyer store 107 years
ago.
I bought it from my dad in 2006.
My dad was, someone said they were mostly wholesale.
My dad hated retail, hated retail.
So when I came from college, I'm like, then we got to do retail, right?
And he said, if you want retail, you can have it.
So fast forward.
And here we are.
We have had, and our niche in the marketplace, he was doing, I was doing retail and it
was competing with every other retail store.
And I had just gone to a conference and someone was talking about the upcoming subprime special
finance boom that was getting ready to happen.
So this is, oh my God, whenever that was, I've been doing this way too long.
That's how long ago it was.
I don't remember.
But that first wave, and I said, oh, that's it.
That's at least an opening, right?
We're always looking for openings.
It's like 0506, right before the big boom, a big bust.
Right before the bust.
Yes.
A few years before that.
So anyway, I came back, I said, I think this is our lane.
He's still the owner, so he has to approve everything.
And he said, I don't care what you do.
Just make money.
Just do it.
Yeah, I don't care.
So we did that.
We got into the buy here, pay here space.
We've had new car stores.
We got deep subprime special finance, buy here, pay here.
And now we're lease here, pay here.
And still doing all those things except for new car space.
I have no desire to be back in the new car space.
You were in there for a small bit, right?
Suzuki.
Yeah.
And made money, sold cars, and got out in time.
So that was good.
Mazda, Suzuki, Azuzu.
And if you know what happened with Suzuki and Azuzu, we knew Azuzu was going out, probably.
Suzuki, no clue whatsoever.
But we were in the Suzuki space for two years.
We were selling average 33 cars a month, which put us in the top 10 Suzuki dealers.
Just didn't do hard.
You didn't do enough.
You know.
But the reason I want to be there.
You know, Mr. Suzuki did not, did not listen to me and he didn't speak English.
So that, you know, if you still had that Mazda store, you'd be doing something.
Yes.
Yes.
Mazda was a good brand.
But once again, if as independent dealers, we like to do what we like to do and we like
our colors to be what colors and the bathroom to be, you know, whatever you want to
do, you get to do it, right?
As long as it's legal and sometimes you don't do what's legal and you know,
you still do it.
But not speaking to anyone in the room, nobody's listening.
Just saying.
But so anyway, here we are today and the lease here pay here is a brand new venture for me.
So I thought this would be kind of cool to talk about why the heck did I do that at 50
52?
I'm 54 now.
I started at 52 on the lease here payer side.
I'm glad that you let us into that.
Why did you start doing lease here pay here?
Is that okay to jump in?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So we had 1800 by here pay here accounts at the time and anyone that has any number
like that.
I mean, it's a lot.
I get bored really easily.
That's the reason we changed our model several times.
That's not a reason to do lease here pay here, by the way.
But I do get very bored.
It's my entrepreneurial spirit.
I just want to try something new because it's refreshing.
It's different.
I get to learn.
I'm a lifelong student.
Man, I love to learn new things and meet new people in different spaces.
That was actually a really big part of it.
But above and beyond that, I saw some real big advantages things to be on.
I do owe Bill a huge thank you because I didn't spend any money with him, but I wasted.
He invested a lot of time with me because I was calling him and emailing him and texting
him for a couple of years, asking him questions and what is this and why do I do that and why
would I do that and he was kind enough to answer all those questions.
So I really do appreciate that.
There's not a lot of folks in the space that would invest that much time without
some type of return other than a friendship.
So thank you.
That was basically it.
I saw more advantages than disadvantages.
So it's real quick for those that are listening or in the audience that don't know those advantages
or disadvantages.
What was it?
What pushed you over the edge to say, yeah, I'm going to reinvent the wheel here because
you had a pretty good wheel.
It was moving.
It was going.
So to say why change?
Why change it?
So for us in North Carolina, I had seen a rapid increase in cars going into bankruptcy.
That was the first thing the first flag that went up and when I started researching,
they can't include the car and I'm assuming it's different in all states, but they can
include at least your pay your car in with bankruptcy in North Carolina.
So we were seeing record numbers at that moment in time.
So that was that was almost enough because we were losing losing a lot.
I mean, and you know, just the personality I am, you get that letter in the mail and
they're going to be a dollar and 33 cents a month for like 73 years or something for
my dad.
You can kid me.
Oh yeah.
Tracy and I both have PhDs and what is that Tracy Papa had a dealership.
There we go.
And we both both had GP HDs.
And so my dad, when he would get that bankruptcy letter, you know, the first thing he would
do run out and repossess the car.
Yeah.
That's the exact wrong thing to do just to let you know my dad would call the customer
and tell them what he thought of them for exactly.
And then he would go repossess the car.
This is old school.
This is yeah.
This is old school way to do.
A lot of stories there.
And I can't write that book until I get done with the car business.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
Like a statue of limitations.
And my dad's still living too.
So you know, and he's still he's still conducting business.
So I've got to be really careful.
Yeah.
So you have the bankruptcy advantage, which I think all of us look at the upcoming
economic outlook and with, you know, student loans going into record default and we
looked at debt being loaded up.
I don't think the bankruptcy filings are going to get soft on us off at any time before
they get worse.
So huge advantage there.
Anything else you looked at that was an advantage to switch in over?
Yeah.
We talked to one of the groups about earlier about Reg Z and Reg M.
I'm an aggressive marketer.
I'm actually probably more of a marketer and entrepreneur than a car car guy.
Aggressive is is a light word for me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I'm a marketing guy and I like Reg M a lot.
I mean, Reg Z doesn't bother me.
And I'm compliant, but Reg M was it's a lot of fun.
And for those who are listening or are out there in the audience, Reg Z talks about in
the retail space of if you if you say a monthly payment, you've got to say the down payment.
You got to say the interest rate, right?
In the term.
In the term.
And the Reg M expand on that just a hair.
Yeah.
So basically, we're all I'm assuming we're all numbers people here, right?
So if you got 10 grand in the car, you can advertise the car for sale.
This way I do it, right?
You can advertise it for 10 grand.
And if the car, the car could be worth 12 in the lease of your payer space, like if someone's
looking at a book, right?
It's 12 grand.
You can advertise for 10 grand.
That's a really aggressive number for that buyer that shops for that car like that,
which is a lot of consumers, right?
They're like, oh, that's a really good deal.
Or if you're listing your cars in third party listing sites, which I do not.
But if you did, it's going to show up at the top, you know, a good deal, great
deal, whatever.
And I'm sure a lot of, maybe a lot of you in this room do not, but in the used car space
we do.
But in with Reg M, you've got, you've got the other ways to make money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can, you can bring the customer in and you can lease them this car that you advertised
under a lease agreement.
Yeah.
Or you could switch them to something else and make some money.
Yeah.
And we have a mixed, our original store, we have multiple stores still, but our original
store is a mixed floor.
So we have retail and we have lease here pay here.
And they're very, our customer base is very close cousins.
It's essentially the same consumer.
The good thing, and this is one thing I didn't anticipate in this space, is because we
reported to the credit bureau, we're moving a lot of those customers over to the retail
side.
And that's, that's really good, which we could do on the buyer, pay your space
as well.
But it's kind of easier in the lease.
It's easier.
Right.
And you can get the location fee of the lease and you know, whatever that is, and we can
eat it or they can pay it and it doesn't matter.
And you can put that lease car right back on it.
Right back, because I've got the car and I'm not booking it back out for a dollar,
which is probably, might be what it's worth.
I hope not.
But yeah.
The returns are generally about what you would expect.
Just buy here, pay your space, lease here, pay your space, about the same.
Any, any advantages in sales tax in North Carolina on that?
Which with, with a lease.
Oh, absolutely.
Okay.
Cash and deal is, is huge because we have, we don't have sales tax in North
Carolina.
We have a highway usage tax as a tax.
We have the same thing in South Carolina, right?
Yeah.
So it's 3% for us.
But say if you've got $2,000 down, we have to pay for that sales tax and tag
up front and title fee up front out of the down payment with leasing you don't
do that.
Yeah.
They, the customer pays that in their monthly payment.
So I'm all for that.
So there's more cash and deal for speaking in lease, buy here, pay
your terms.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Four to $500 a car easily.
We all know that cash means a lot in this business.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Times that by a hundred a month.
Yeah.
A hundred a month.
And you're talking about a lot of.
Big, big number.
A lot of savings.
I want to touch on the advantages one more time before we talk about the
lessons learned going through it.
Was there anything else you saw that was an advantage from like the repo
standpoint, the ownership standpoint, the, I mean, I know there's a bunch
of the other side of that that I want to ask you about too.
Yeah.
I mean, a lot of things you don't anticipate with any business.
So we have abandoned cars, roadside abandoned, they're abandoned on the
side of the road and the state finally sends you the letter three months
after the fact and say, oh, by the way, you owe us $1,700 in storage fees.
We don't have to pay that with a lease and you don't have to go to the
court.
You can just go get the car out.
So that's, man, that's awesome.
I didn't anticipate that because we own the car.
But they, they notify you immediately.
So you don't know.
They don't notify us immediately.
No.
And by here, pay here space.
The letter comes 90 days later and you owe this much money in
storage because we've had it for 90 days.
Yeah.
Well, now we're like, well, that was the lease car.
It was abandoned.
Uh, it's not the customer's car, our car.
So we just go get, go get the car.
Well, that's nice.
Yeah.
Hey, everybody, real quick to interrupt this amazing interview we're
doing at Leaser Pay Here with Mr. Tracy Myers, but we need to
make sure you guys know about a sponsor of the podcast and a
sponsor of this convention that we were at down in San Diego,
right?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, Buckeye, just an amazing vendor, amazing
sponsor of our entire industry.
They, they help educate, they help make us money, they help
save us taxes and, uh, you know, with people like Bill
Elizondo and Sean Peterson always there, always willing
to, to ask a question, uh, I mean, to answer a question and
to, uh, and to let us ask questions.
It's just, they're an amazing organization.
You need to do business with them, um, and you need to have
reinsurance.
We're getting toward the latter part of the year.
And if you hadn't got it set up, you need to do it now.
Yeah.
It's a great time to give them a call.
You still got a few more months.
You can get it set up, have it up and running for 2026.
So call the folks over at Buckeye today.
Cause I, I hate, it's a lot.
Yeah.
I hate that $2,000 table.
Yeah.
Thankfully we don't have a lot of those, but we do
have them.
That's nice.
So the disadvantage or the surprises you had, let me
talk to it first on the high level from like your team
standpoint, was it difficult to, to train your salesman to
say the right things and help customers understand least
like when a customer comes in the door and you're
traditionally a buyer, pay here and these customers
think they own the car and they're owning it at the
end of this term.
Are you very explicit in that?
Like, no, this is not a $1 buyout.
This is not a, you own this title at the end.
This is a, this is a rental.
Yeah.
With our sales staff, they don't disclose any of that.
That's done by the, the, the closer, the manager, one of
the managers.
Yeah.
That's just getting to me.
I know you can train your people to say whatever, but
it's just,
They're never going to say it.
If you leave one thing out, it gets even trickier or
hairier in the lease of your pay here space because
they, I don't know that they understand it at all.
It's still how much down, how much a month, period,
case closed.
And we run 24 months on ours.
They love 24 months and they, and we, so we really
promote the 24 months and we promote the, the early
buyout fee because look, I know there's differing
opinions on this, but if they're going to give it
back, they're going to give it back.
I would rather them come to me and say, look, I
just don't want this car anymore.
Here's the keys.
And here's the keys.
And by the way, here's $500.
I am surprised how many times people actually walk
in with a credit card or the cash just ready to
pay the 500 bucks.
To get out.
That's kind of insane.
We still have people that just drop the keys and
walk away and, you know, sue me for the money.
And that's part of, that's part of the business, but
I didn't anticipate.
I would actually do that on some customers that, you
know, let them out of a buy here, pay here
contract.
Give me $500.
Have a good one.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I really get concerned with and my main
hang up to leasing.
And we talk about this all the time, but I
want to hear from your standpoint and what
perspective you've had over the last two
years is the ownership of the car.
You know, customers having ownership.
And in my brain, I just think they're going to
drive it until the wheels fall off because they
know it's going back in 36 months.
They're at the 30 month and they're like, I'm
putting wheels on this.
I'm not even going to put gas in it.
Like I'll just go downhill both directions to
get to work because this isn't my car in three
more months.
Oil change.
Yeah.
We'll never get oil change.
No.
Our reality is they're doing that anyway.
They were doing it and buy here, pay here.
It was getting worse than ever.
We did free oil changes.
They didn't care.
We had less than 18% of our customer base
who took advantage of free oil changes.
That's insane.
So then I stopped giving them away.
So if they're not going to use it, why offer it?
You know what Joe Lascotti used to say on the
free oil changes, right?
What?
He said that there's no intrinsic value in
free.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I don't disagree with that.
That being said, we have tried to make our
underwriting better so we get a customer that
cares about their future.
And we call it, internally we call it
down the road motors.
So they come in wanting a 2024 Tahoe or
Hellcat or whatever the top three is.
Ours is a four-door truck, Dodge Charger, Tahoe
Suburban, any Yukon, any combination of that,
right?
For under $500 a month.
So instead of saying that ain't going to
happen.
Yeah.
Most stores would.
Yeah.
We say, look, you can get there, but here's
where you're at now.
This program will help you go from here to
there.
I love that down the road motors.
Down the road motors.
I like that.
Yeah.
That's what we call it internally.
We don't say it to the customer.
What do you mean that's?
That's what it is.
Customers can understand that sometimes.
They do.
And the ones that do, man, they make great
customers, right?
The ones that understand it, and that's
where, and this isn't downing underwriting
systems at all.
You need underwriting, but that's where
that person that has, that can sit there
and talk to the customer and you can't,
no underwriting system can put that
feeling into it where I think this
customer gets it.
Where the light bulb goes off and you
know what you're right.
I understand this.
I get this program and I want to complete
this program.
There's no better feeling than I think
everybody out there can understand that.
There's no better feeling than seeing a
buy here, pay here customer come to you
and buy a car, pay it to the end,
buy another car and then go and get
a refit at a credit union.
That is like, you're like, wow, I've
helped this customer.
Yeah.
We see that, right?
Well, we're actually seeing another
advantage we didn't see is people
coming in with their lease cars.
Eighteen months later, they want to trade
it up.
We look at it and we're trying to help
people.
Yes, we're trying to make money.
We're not trying to fool anybody here,
right?
You or them.
We're here to make money.
They're to make money.
However, we're still here to help
customers.
And if we see that we can refinance
that car through a lender, then we'll
buy the car back from them, put it
back in inventory, and we'll resell
them the car, but now they're owning
the car instead of leasing the car.
And we'll explain to them they can do
that with the leasing too, but I don't
know.
There's something about, well, now
you're with cap one or whoever the
lender is.
It's a variable.
It doesn't matter.
Do you offer, I mean, is that in
leasing, would you offer a buyout
program?
Hey, you made it 36 months in this.
You just want to pay for two or
years and own it?
Yeah.
It's there.
You'll give them the opportunity
internally.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Okay.
There's a huge value, not a huge
percentage unfortunately, but there's
a huge value of moving, graduating
in their mind too, from a lease
program, an in-house lease program
to a cap one or, you know, whoever
the lender is.
I mean, yeah, how much better would
you feel about yourself?
I mean, yeah.
And there's something like, look,
I don't want this on the books
anywhere.
I don't want to be known.
I don't want to transition here in
a second to the next part of our
interview, but before we do, is
there anything else, any other
lessons you learned from leasing
that hard or good or bad, your
team, your management from a
document, an accounting standpoint,
like anything like that that just
maybe threw you for a loop or
something that the audience should
be paying attention to?
Yeah.
So the accounting throws me for a
loop daily.
And that's why I'm talking to
Chad about, you know, eight
times a week, you know, seven-day
work week.
So thanks, Chad.
But it's just different.
And if you're done by here,
pay here like we did for so long
and had that many accounts, you
know, the differences are just
enough to screw with you,
especially when you get older.
And it's just everything.
This is the way it is, you know,
but that's one of the another
going back to the beginning.
That's one of the things that
excited me because I do like
change and I do understand if
I'm complacent, the store gets
complacent and I don't want to
be complacent.
It's not as much about the
money, even though that's nice.
You know, it's always about
money.
Well, yes.
But I want to be excited about
what I do.
Which goes back to, I think
Mark was the first speaker.
He talked about that, right?
We got to be happy with what
we do and if we're happy with
what we do, then we're actually
good at it.
So I've really enjoyed the
change as much as it's been
frustrating sometimes.
And that's a great segue into
this next section.
You have been at it a long
time.
Right.
You have been in the industry
a long time, doing a lot of
stuff.
Yeah.
And I mean, I like to talk.
He likes to talk.
Tracy loves to talk.
Tracy's been doing a lot of
talking.
And what we call him is
Tracy-ism.
Quick break in here, Jeff,
to talk about Blitzpay.
A great company as well.
Partners of our industry and
a great way to get your money
in the bank.
Yeah.
It's been awesome for me.
My collector's been out
dealing with some family stuff.
So she's kind of working
half in the office, half at
home.
And with Blitzpay's online,
she's just so easy.
She logs in from anywhere.
She has all the tools she
needs to jump in between our
DMS and Blitzpay and make
sure she's still getting that
money.
So collections, they got hurt
a little bit last week.
But not as bad as it could be
if she was stuck having to
work it from the office.
So it's really awesome that
you have these remote options.
For sure.
And it works great.
My collectors have been
one week on, one week off.
So one week at home, one week
in the office.
They alternate.
And they do it too.
And it is just like them
being in the office to take
payments and to take notes
and to collect.
It is an amazing product.
The collections portal of it
and just the
ability to collect the money
and get it into our bank account
quickly.
That matters so much.
Yep.
Giving folks over at Blitzpay
a call today.
Oh, I don't like this already.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Where's the boat?
That was on the first slide.
We missed it.
So what you don't know, Tracy,
is because you have said so
much and so many of you said
are on record.
They are on record.
I don't like this at all.
Tracy has been on multiple
podcasts, written a book.
Two books.
TV shows too.
TV shows.
So with the help of some
deep research in my chat GPT
created a PowerPoint here.
Thank you.
Well, we wanted to keep
with the ship.
And you took the ship theme.
So what we're going to do here
is we're going to ask Tracy
to either back up,
rebuttal or reinforce
some of his statements that
he's made in different
interviews over the last
two decades of his life.
And see if he still believes
in these Tracy isms that he
stated.
I'm not sure podcasts are
around in 2000 back in the
day.
It was not.
However, it was a
if you remember like the
inner circle groups.
It was the inner circle
recorded phone call that
they sent out to their
members on in 2004.
Probably a CD.
The president.
Yeah.
So it was like the
forefather of podcasts.
Okay.
So for people not watching
online, we may need to
read these out.
Yeah.
Yeah, we will.
We will.
Okay.
So this is the Tom Scott
podcast from 2004.
So we're going back.
I don't know.
21 years.
He says to Tracy,
what is one thing you would
attribute to the success of
your dealership and Tracy?
Tracy said.
Tracy,
my dad said,
surround yourself with good
people and they'll push
you to the top.
So people,
people,
people.
Do you still believe
in that statement?
Or would you like to revise
said statement for the
audience?
I believe that statement,
but I'd like to add two more
P's.
Okay.
People processes product in
that order.
A little Marcus Lomonis.
Yeah.
Okay.
People.
I said it first.
Tracy, before you.
That Marcus guy.
Whatever.
What a hack.
He is.
Absolutely.
People first.
People always first.
People can be a thorn in
your side.
How do you deal with that?
How do you deal with the
difference in good people,
average people and great
people?
Like what?
Fire fast.
Higher slow.
Is that the key?
You do higher slow.
And we don't have,
we have hardly any turnover.
I'm really slow.
You got a lot of people
working for you.
We do 33 at the main store.
Yes.
My longest tenured
employee is 21 years.
That's my sales manager.
My sales staff goes from
12 years down to
my last hire,
which was my son.
And he's three years.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Look,
some things rattle me,
but I understand that you bring
something different to the
table than you bring to the
table.
I'm good at certain things,
man.
You know, I was in,
my dad put me in every
position in the dealership,
except I was in finance one
day.
And I said,
if I got to stay in this,
there's no windows.
If I got to stay in this
box and look at the screen
and look at numbers all day,
I will quit the car.
But just,
you got to get me out of
here.
But that's,
I think that was an
important day of my life.
I just remembered that.
And I'm like now.
And he also said,
I don't know if this is in
there, but he said,
you know,
you don't know how,
you don't know,
you don't have to know how
to do everything.
You just have to know how
to hire people that can do
everything.
Yeah.
So that was good
because I don't,
I don't like doing everything.
Yeah.
Like cars.
This is,
I'm an anomaly in the car,
but it's because I hate
buying cars.
I hate it.
I hate the auto auctions.
I hate going to auto auctions.
I don't want to sit inside
of a car.
I don't want to praise it.
I don't want to come with a car.
I want to sell it.
I want to sell it.
I want to sell it.
I want to talk to the people.
I'm the guy on the floor
and I'm talking to everybody.
I'm shaking hands
and kissing babies
and tap dancing.
And I'm,
but I'm not buying cars.
I don't like either of those
things.
So I don't know what's left.
Mopping floors.
I do.
I'd rather do that
than buy a car.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
So speaking of people.
This is the Bob Berg
interview from 2002.
So we're going back even
a little bit further.
the perfect hire. When we talk about people, who are we looking for at our
dealerships? You're a perfect hire. And Tracy, you said, someone that's experienced,
someone that can come in, go to work, start producing an immediate ROI for the
dealership. Man, that sounds just like my dad. Someone with experience. Yes. Someone
that's experienced. You still agree that the perfect hire is someone with
experience. Absolutely not. Exactly. Thank goodness. I'm glad you went out on the
same page. Absolutely not. Probably the worst. I don't know the rest of these, but
that may be the worst thing I've ever said. Okay, so give us some context. Why is
that horrible advice? So look, and just this is all reflective. That's all we
have, right? So our experiences. So I remember that when I went to work for
the Toyota store, it was literally the expression, there's the desk, there's
the phone, there's the keys, there's the bathroom. Good luck. That was my
training. Well, they had 78 salespeople on the floor that worked from 8 a.m. to
midnight, seven days a week. Sunday was 12 to midnight, by the way, noon to
midnight. So everyone that came from a different store, which I didn't, but we
had guys came from Ford, Chevrolet, yes, normal car business in 1989. We all
were trained differently. I wasn't trained at all. They were all trained
differently. And I saw that it was just a bit clustered. Now they sold a
ton of cars because of the Toyota Buick store in Atlanta. But I don't know.
Toyota Buick, what a weird, gross combination. It was weird. But man, I
love selling Buicks. Those older ladies came in. When they had a baby, was it a
Saturn? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Yeah, but I like bringing people in that have a
great attitude, have customer care experienced, maybe worked as a server
in a restaurant and it's so, so good. Like nice restaurants, not Applebee's,
but like, not that there's anything wrong with Applebee's. What? Like really
nice restaurants that works as a server and they're closing up until 11, 12
o'clock Saturday night. And you say, look, you're going to be gone by
five o'clock on Saturday and you'll get, you're working 40 hours. You
may, and you can tell them, you'll make, you'll probably make less
money doing this, but you'll be a lot happier and your quality of life
will be better. And majority of the time they come right over. We hired a
single mom. She was 24 when she went to work, 23, 24 when she went to work
for us. She's been with us nine years. She was at Verizon. Man, just that
gut feel, that, that profile just, man, she was so good. I wanted to buy
everything the store from her because she was so great. She said she
averages 31 cars a month with me right now. Wow. She worked two and a
half weeks last month. She went with her family. She took her daughter and
her significant other to, no, I said she took them. They went to China on a
two and a half week trip. But that's the way we can change lives in the
business if you find the right people. Isn't that amazing when you see
that someone who's used car lots, you can do that. Yep. And she drives
a 80,000 BMW and yep. Yeah, we took an assistant hired an assistant
who had no previous experience and she was making, you know, $11 an hour
somewhere and she made $85,000 the last year she worked for me. And I was
just, it's just so awesome to see that happen in somebody's life. Well, we
taught her our process. That's the short, short version. So that's what
I want to get back to you when you say the perfect, the picture of
your perfect hire, you got a 10 year new car guy, you got a 10 year
hostess, server at, you know, somewhere fancy like P. F. Chang's
or, you know, somewhere classy. You're taking the, you're taking the
service worker. Every time. Hire for attitude. Every time. You can
teach competency. Yes. And you train well. And you can teach
people to sell. Yes. Yeah. Interesting. All right. Moving right
along. We're gonna, this is going to kind of play into this a
little bit. I hate you so much. Tom Hopkins sales training
call 2006. So Tracy's maturing in his, his opinions. This
year I bought the store for my father, by the way, 2006. And
so Tom says, Tracy, do you feel your business model is scalable
and could be easily duplicated? Could I scale this and duplicate
this? Is this, is this a P. F. Chang's I can have multiple
locations. And Tracy said,
absolutely with the exclamation mark. I mean, like, I mean,
like, you know, yeah, yeah. No rest of the answer. The rest
of that story is there were 13 Frank Meyer stores. And I'm
so OCD that they were all different. Not in a bad way. They
all made money. And they all, we all sold a lot of cars. But
man, they all had this different flavor. And I didn't like that.
They didn't have the flavor of the store that I was in all the
time. That makes sense, right? If you have multiple stores,
you understand if not just trust me, the store you're in
just have they all worked. I mean, I'm good at bringing in
talent and training the talent and the processes were the
same. But man, the vibe was just different at every store,
which blew my mind. I thought it might be a little
off. It was way off. So what I ended up doing, which I know
that's why I know this is wrong. It wasn't easy. It was very
difficult, especially for me, is I ended up having the
managers become partners, they got to buy in, we changed the
name of those other stores. So you know, still part of the
group, but it's not part of the group separate businesses
all together and eventually just sold those stores to them
with a small franchise fee.
And you know, it's not only were you wrong here. Just to
point that out. Thanks, Luke. But it's not you. Like, let's
just talk about, you know, different explosions we've
seen in the in the buy here pay here space over the last
week or or months or years or whatever. I mean, trichlor,
you know, just spectacularly exploded last week, trying to
duplicate the buy here pay here industry or the lease here pay
your industry and it, it's incredibly hard. So it's you
thought you could do it and many of us thought we could do it.
It's just impossible, I think my men's five step process. How
tough is this? Yeah, we do this every day. We can do I can
leave for two weeks from the main store, the original store
and you know, everything's still there. So why can I do
it everywhere else? But that's really difficult. And these
stores were in difference. Most of these were in
different states. We had some in North Carolina with
North, North, North Carolina, Atlanta, and the one on the
coast, which was about four and a half hours away. Yeah. And I
think part of this is when you say I think anyone in the
audience could would raise their hands and say, do you
think your dealership is easily scalable and
duplicatable? We would say probably not. Right? I mean,
it's and it goes back to that other side of people. It is
such a people centered business in the lease here pay here
buy here pay here space. There's so many nuances to
just keeping it's even it's even more that's owner is owner
centric as well. Unless you want to become super homogenized. Is
that the word? Yes, very vanilla. Yeah. Like a and this
isn't a slam they make they make a bazillion dollars like a
car max. Car max is very vanilla. Not a bad thing. But I
didn't want to be that. Yeah, I think the large scale
multi operation location success stories are far
fewer. Yeah. Way fewer than the implosions of you know, even
even some of these franchise models that just can't survive
past and the franchise stores franchise car stores are easy
to do because the the franchises keep such a thumb on you. Well,
we'll look at like by writer. Well, but we can argue we can
argue that that you're dealing with used cars and so new
cars. That'd be the last time I met by franchise. Yeah. I
didn't mean OEM. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay, okay. The
Brian Tracy show 2008 we just got a couple minutes left. We're
going to get through these last few Brian your family has built
one of the most successful privately owned car used car
dealerships in the country. So what sets you apart from your
competition? It's all about the experience we provide our
customers, we all sell the same cars that we buy at the same
places and the market dictates what we pay and what we
can charge looking at it that way. The only way to stand
out is to be different to have the best people and to
provide the best experience. Agreed. Thumbs up, sir.
Yeah, I think you're, I think you're spot on there. And you
show that in your dealership. Yeah. If you've ever been to
this dealership, it's it's like a fun house. Is that a good
way to describe it? Yeah, I like it. Yeah, I mean, you walk
into the floor and they're banging gongs and everybody's
wearing funny hats. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, get a little
beers that make you look skinny and make you look
arcade. That's pretty cool. But I think to drive home
this point, what you're saying is we sell a commodity,
right? Yeah. I mean, we sell a car, we sell a 2015 Ford Focus
Kia Soul in my case. Yeah, Kia Soul. He sells a Kia Soul as
well. So what are we competing on? I'm not competing on
price, right? Because I can't do that. But I can compete on
experience. Well, even if you can, why would you? It's a
race to the bottom. And I'm not the question for the work
is too hard. Yeah, to be in that race to the bottom. I'm
completely out on that. So, so any more? Can you expound on
the best experience? Yeah, that's good. Because experience
is going to be a different definition for everyone. And
without getting into detail about my experience, I think
it's a reflection of you, the owner, which is what we just
spoke on whatever you think that best experience is, I think
that's what needs to translate. That needs to be the
definition for your store. My definition was I had gone car
shopping. And I thought as a, you know, as a child, I
thought it was the most boring thing I'd ever done in my
life. So of course, I'm gonna make this fun. So in my
20s, when I'm doing this, I'm like, man, we're going to paint
the walls red. And Tom Hopkins, who's a mentor of mine,
say, don't paint the walls red. That means anger. And I'm
like, Yeah, but that's kind of cool. So, you know, the walls
are red. And everything's loud. And we, I curate a playlist
and in music, it's beats per minute, the beats per minute
never go air supply mode. If you've been to Alexis store
before, the music is like, nausea, it's good music is
like, it's so soft, right? These beats per minute are
like, and so myself, give me your money. Yeah, yeah. My
sales manager is like, who's been with me 20 years, he's older
now. And every time I add something to the playlist with
that love, you know, it's always that high energy. What the
heck is that you put on the playlist balls? It's crazy. So
it helps when you got I think that's a really good point
though. I mean, that's like, that's a little thing that I
think dealers overlook is like, what what music are you playing?
I mean, do they have any on and everyone's just sleeping
and staring at each other? Or do you have once again, that
the zone is all right, does the does the show or smell good?
Does it look good? Is it lit? Well, do people have you? You
know, do they look the same? Like, what is the overall
experience? And I know you know, as a Disney, it's like,
what is that Disney magic at your place? Because even
though our customers might not have great credit, they
want to they want a great experience like they do. And
that's okay, I think. That's the reason they go to
chilies and cheese factory and all those types. Yeah, have a
great experience guys. Okay, I think we just have one or two
more. Okay, you are the brands do also the case this came from
your book. Yes. People buy from people 14 years later. Do you
still believe that people buy from people on I guess? Who
else would they buy from? So what do you mean? So no, this
is ironic, because when this came out, people were talking
about, I think CRM was the buzzword. Okay. And home
deliveries and free COVID. I mean, so that's why that's in
the book. Because they were like, robots are going to take
over and car max is you know, automation is taken over. Now
we're talking about AI is I don't think they're going to
replace us. It'll be an add on it'll be it's not gonna be a
substitute because we still like to talk to people. And
regardless what anyone says, we still like to
negotiate. Yeah. Most people still like to negotiate. There's
small percentages that say they do not they pay more for that.
That if you can premium for that. That's a niche of a niche of
a niche. Right. We talk about it, you know, how much easier it
is to to sell to a repeat a referral customer, right? It's
because of this. Yeah. And that goes to the last slide when
you talked about experience. And I think that's a good
litmus test for everyone listening at their dealerships.
What percentage of your sales last month were repeat and
referral? Yeah, mostly referral. How many of your sales were
referrals? That says a lot about how you do your brand, how
you do business and customers trusting you with their
friends. Yeah, we have a celebration when customers buy
a car and it's confetti and it's a big mess. But thank God for
our cleanup people, right? And funny hats and they hit the
gong and we sing and it's you know, it's like chilies. More
like the Mexican restaurant, I guess, whether they're
like that. So but we sold a car, it was seven, seven, 10
minutes after seven, we close at seven, they've been there all
day. It's one of those excruciating retail deals, right?
Special finance, like, I don't know how you go say the
lender, but they go through like 17 phone calls, right? All
the customers there before the funding is immediate once, once
they leave. But my God, they're there all day. So we're
like, Oh, thank you very much. And the customers looking
at the interwatch and they stood up and like, I don't get to
go on the red carpet. And they have been complaining for the
last three hours. They had they had watched the videos, right?
And we failed that customer we had that that was a learning
lesson for us, right? No matter what time it is, no
matter what time it is, we need to bring that like
Disney always needs to bring the magic. That's part of
what we do. Yeah. And that customer had had watched that
on Tik Tok or Instagram or somewhere and they want to
do that. And even though they like every 10 minutes they
would do that after they've been there like five hours. But
when it came to bang that they wanted to hit the gong and
they want the confetti cannon and the whole deal. So yeah. So
I think that was that wasn't important. Okay, we have time
for just one more, I think. So this was from 2014. So we
wanted to point out this was 11 years ago on the dealer
playbook with Michael. You said, where do you see the
future of automotive marketing for independent dealers? The
future. So this is 11 years ago. You said, Facebook will
continue to expand its pay to play business model measuring
the organic meaning that organic algorithm will all
but disappear. And I got that right. But it will be the
next TV or radio for businesses. Infinite dealers
in a bracelet will be able to gain market share cheaper.
I think you're right. I look into my ball. I got that
one right. I think you're right there. Yeah. I would
definitely say that the the organic algorithm is gone.
Remember back in the day, we used to say like post and
share. Yeah. Remember that nonsense? Whenever we'd make
a post and that's how we got it out. Now it's all pay to
play, right? And it is still the best return on it.
Facebook's still the best return on investment marketing
dollar guys. Yes, anyone better than that. CarGurus,
cars.com, repeat girl, maybe Google. It's still
it's crazy. You would not have thought that 11 years ago
that Facebook would still be relevant. Not for businesses,
especially. I wouldn't have thought that. But that's
more relevant than ever. It's more relevant than ever.
And and I have conversations, not arguments with
dealers every day that say I used Facebook and it
doesn't work or the leads are bad. And I don't
believe there are any bad leads. Facebook works.
If Facebook is not working for you, the message is
not right. Or your process is wrong. Yeah.
Usually the process is wrong. So I see that so many
times. That's a different story. Yeah, that's that's
long tail. Facebook's long tail customers, long tail
follow up instead of I want the car, I saw your
message I want to buy today. That's not what Facebook
does. That's the car group. That's what we're used to.
It's car dealers. Which is more of a Google. But when
you say Facebook now would you include Instagram,
TikTok, other social medias? Or do you still say like
I'm not spending the kind of dollars on these other
platforms? It's still if you unless you have
unlimited resources, meaning money, Facebook, Facebook
is the ocean and everything else is a small pond.
Everything else is a small pond. I mean, there's
Google. However, the six minutes of most of us
can't afford Google just because man, there's
the keyword is so high demand. It's hard to compete
against Corbana and drop time and service is
even worse. Yeah, you go to all change near me
or whatever man like Jiffy Lube and stands five
minute staying your car while I'm getting the oil
changed and you know cut your hair all those
places. It's crazy. And by the way, I'm not
getting my old changing five minutes. I don't care
how to keep things. They didn't really change
it. They just swapped the sticker. You're good.
I can't drain the oil in five minutes. How are
you changing it? Tracy, to wrap this up,
put a pin in this conversation. Your transition
from buy here, pay here to lease here, pay here
and some of the the things that you learned
we went over. Do you have any closing words of
wisdom for the audience? Either as it relates
to your transition from over to lease here, pay here
or even to wrap up some of those
traciisms that we had? Yeah, look it's still
about people. I think coming to events
like this and I'm not saying that because
I'm here. I mean I'm at every conference
or pretty much every every conference I've
been to like seven state conferences this
year just because I like to learn but
find people that are where you want to be
and just soak it up because someone's
always bigger than you, better than you,
making more money than you, faster,
faster than, better than, cheaper than
and most people in this business are
super giving. That's what you know
we've we've all been talking for
years. So if you don't understand an
acronym go ask somebody because they'll
tell you, right? There's a lot of
acronyms and all about it, yeah.
But if you're, if you're the big fish, you
know, if you're the big fish in the pond
you need to find a new pond, type of
situation? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, when it
comes to this type of group. Smartest
one in the room, find a different room.
That's right. Traci, thank you so much
for your time. Thank you for listening
audience.
Thank you.
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