The Independent Dealer Podcast Sep 18, 2025

#397 - Reinventing the Dealer Model

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Kia Soul

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Four to $500 a car easily.

We all know that cash means a lot in this business.

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.

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Yeah.

It's a great time to give them a call.

You still got a few more months.

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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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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Original notes

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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