The Independent Dealer Podcast Dec 11, 2025

#409 – From Franchise GM to Selling 1,000+ Cars a Year as an Independent 🚗🔥

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Term

service contracts

A service contract is like an extended warranty for your car. It helps pay for repairs after the original warranty is over, so you don't have to worry about high repair bills.

Term

ancillary products

Ancillary products are extra services or items you can buy for your car, like protection plans for your tires or help if you break down. They make owning a car easier and safer.

Term

post-sale inspections

A post-sale inspection is a check-up for a car after it's been sold. It makes sure everything is working well and safe for the new owner.

Term

CPI, or Collateral Protection Insurance, is insurance that protects the lender's investment in a car. If you borrow money to buy a car, they want to make sure it's insured in case something happens to it.

Car

Volkswagen Rabbit

The Volkswagen Rabbit is a small car with a hatchback design, which means it has a lot of room inside for its size. It's fun to drive and is popular for its stylish look.

Car

Dodge Ram

The Dodge Ram is a big truck that people use for work or to carry heavy things. It's known for being strong and having a nice inside, making it a good choice for many drivers.

Car

Ford Orion

The Ford Orion is an older small car that was made a long time ago, mainly for people in Europe. It's not very popular now, but it was known for being a good, simple car to drive.

Term

ACV

ACV means Actual Cash Value. It's how much a car is worth right now, based on its age and condition. This helps buyers and sellers agree on a fair price.

Term

program car

A program car is a car that was used by a rental company or as part of a fleet, so it might have more miles and wear than a regular used car. They are usually cheaper but can have more issues because of their previous use.

Car

Hyundai Elantra

The Hyundai Elantra is a small car that is easy on gas and usually costs less money to buy. It's a good option for people looking for a reliable vehicle without spending too much.

LIVE

and then around two or three o'clock, maybe four o'clock,

I get a page.

Well, it was the guy that hired me to come there,

the new part owner.

He said, hey, I need you to come pick me up.

So I get the vehicle, pick him up.

We pull off parking lot and he goes,

this didn't work out, I hope it works out for you,

but my deal just fell apart.

Oh, wow.

So I literally take him home, get back to the store,

it closed, there's a security guard there,

and the security guard said, are you Ricky Thomas?

And I said, yeah, he said, I need your demo keys,

you got to come and find her at home.

POP!

These stories are so inspirational.

And we have with us Ricky, Ricky from Wildcat Motors.

Ricky Thomas from Wildcat Motors in Kentucky,

and you see he's dressed in blue.

And I guess that's just, when you live in Kentucky,

you have to have blue on, right Ricky?

Absolutely.

Yeah, and the blue grass state, right?

Yeah.

Well, cool.

And, you know, Jeff, it's a retail dealer.

Can you believe that?

Yeah, we found one.

I hope to learn how to do it, Ricky.

You're going to teach us all your tips and tricks.

I'm happy to share anything I can with you guys and everyone.

Well, Ricky, I see you all over Facebook,

and you're always talking about how many cars

your staff is selling.

And I want to reach out to find out more

because I would love to be selling 100 plus cars a month.

So let's rewind and see how you got there.

How'd you get into car business, Ricky?

Or first introduce yourself, and then let's hop in.

Hello everyone, I'm Ricky Thomas with Wildcat Use Cars,

Summer State, Kentucky.

I got into business in 1994.

I was 18 going to college and went in and just applied.

I had long hair and the guy just kept staring at me.

And so I didn't think the interview went really well.

So at the end of it, I went to the barber, got a haircut,

went back, sat in the chair, he walked by and he said,

what are you doing back here?

What happened to your hair?

And I said, I really need this job.

So did the second interview, got hired,

and he told me, he said, so you're in college.

I said, yeah, he goes to the same college

and do this as well to sleep your classes.

It's not a problem.

And was that a sales position?

Sales position, yes.

I was 18 years old in 1994.

And that's at a new car store?

Chevy dealership.

Okay.

And they took you right on the floor,

still in college, I love it.

Took me on the floor.

And then had a little bit of tough time getting going.

Then I had a little success.

And I went to one of my business teachers at college

and I had them look at my paycheck stuff

because I didn't understand taxes.

Because I'm at $4 an hour at my other job.

So I pretty much got paid 100% of what I made.

Well, my business teacher looked at my check and he said,

how long did it take you to make this?

And so he said, it's for a month.

And he said, I would probably stop doing this

and stay with that.

Stop going to college and sleep with selling cars.

And he literally, my business teacher ended up

running in advanced auto parts.

He left and went and took history

when he saw the money you can make in the car business.

That is so funny.

So you got, I mean, you got bit by the bug, right?

You were in the industry.

What was the rest of the path?

Did you go through a couple of different dealerships

or when did you decide that having your own place

was your route?

Well, from there, I sold cars there about three years

and I moved, took a sales manager position

when I was 21 or 22 at a Mazda store.

And did really good.

It was going great.

And I got a really crazy story for you here.

So going great, the, I guess it's a cop controller.

GM, he took, he got an opportunity to buy

the Chevy store he used to work at.

So he comes to me and he goes,

I want you to come back up here with me.

We're going to go do this.

And I'm like, of course I'm young.

I'm like, sure, let's do it.

Well, this is where the story gets terrible.

So we go up there my first day, I go in and it's really awkward.

The guys there, you don't really, you know,

really open to another new person coming in.

So I sort of catch in some TOs, closed a few deals.

And then around two or three o'clock,

maybe four o'clock, I get a page.

Well, it was the guy that hired me to come there,

the new part owner.

He said, Hey, I need you to come pick me up.

So I get the vehicle, pick him up.

We pull off parking lot and he goes,

this didn't work out.

I hope it works out for you, but my deal just fell apart.

Oh, wow.

So literally take him home, get back to the store.

It closed, there's a security guard there.

And the security guard said, are you Ricky Thomas?

And I said, yeah, he said, I need your demo keys.

You got to come and find a ride home.

So that is the terrible, but that's a true statement

of what happened to.

So you, you were working at the Mazda store

and then the Comptroller was going to buy the Chevrolet store

and he thought he had bought it.

So y'all were going down there

and then both y'all didn't have a job in the day.

I should say Comptroller, but he was a GM of two stores,

a Ford store and that store and very good guy.

He's super successful to this date.

Got a store there in Lexington, it's absolutely rocking.

It's just one of those things that just,

next time, well, I never did that again.

But if I ever did that again,

I would give some people some time to get it set up

before I just would go and jump in like that.

But so that started selling cars at a Ram store

for my old boss at the Chevy store that originally hired me,

which is a great mentor.

I owe him a ton with everything I've accomplished in life.

And about 03, the opportunity to come back up

to go that same Chevy store again, to be the sales manager.

And I had to prove myself

because I never got that opportunity.

So I took that job, worked there till 2010,

went through the GM, bankruptcy, tobacco,

literally it got so tough during that

that I bought a zero turn mower

and mowed my neighbor's yards

to keep my mortgage payment paid.

Oh wow.

We were, they let go a lot of people.

That's when we first, I ever in my career saw where

you started doing two or three people's jobs

and half the money that you used to make for your one job.

It was happy to have it.

Yeah.

Then the owner there ended up purchasing a Hyundai store

because I'm very loyal.

I worked for that gentleman for 17 years.

And I went there as a GM in 2010,

and I was there to COVID.

Oh wow.

But during the stand at Hyundai as a GM,

I talked the owner and let me start a used car lot

that I ran my phone, which is at this lot

and a little mobile home.

I cashed in my 401K.

It's another story about the GM money or the GM tobacco.

I got my 401K statement one time

was eating dinner, my wife, Amity and I,

and I said, if this thing ever gets back to the money

it says we had, I'm cashed in it.

But in IRA, you know, I've been on myself.

And it took years for it to ever get back there.

And I did that.

So I talked to my owner and said,

hey, I'd like to do this.

I think I had 80 something thousand dollars,

about 30 or 25 little cheap cars and just started it.

And that first year we sold 258 cars by phone.

I had two cells, two people.

And then we just kind of grew the next year with the 266, 320.

And then COVID hit.

And when COVID hit in Kentucky, they shut us down.

We had to go home.

Like there was no couple of people stayed open with service.

But when COVID hit, they sent us all home.

And then that's two weeks.

My bills started piling up crazy.

I didn't have any choice.

So I just went back and just went down to work

and just started selling cars.

45 or 50 that month.

Kind of got some things under control.

And this is at your, this is at your dealership,

not the other dealership.

Exactly, at the other one was still closed.

And then the owner called and he said,

we're gonna do a two phase reopening.

You can come phase one or phase two, whichever you want.

He said, I'm just trying to help a few people

that need to make some money.

So I contacted the people who worked for me at Wildcat.

And they were getting that big government money.

So they didn't want to go back to work.

I couldn't open my business back up.

So then my wife and I spoke about it and she's like,

you're happy.

Let's try this.

You've always been your dream.

So from that day on, I never went back to the new first year.

Hey, just to jump in real quick

and make sure you guys know about Buckeye Risk Services.

Still a great sponsor of the podcast

and a great partner to have at any dealership.

Yeah, sure.

Retail, buy here, pay here, no matter what.

Tax planning is so important

and using a reinsurance company

not only helps you with your tax plan,

it also helps with generating wealth.

And when you get toward the end of your dealership,

you need something else to pull money out of.

And it's a great way to just force savings account, right, Jeff?

Yeah, yeah, forced savings account.

So if you are a dealer, buy here, pay here, retail

and you're doing 20 to 30 cars a month,

all the guys at Buckeye,

you will not regret getting a reinsurance company set up.

You can sell your service contracts.

You can sell your ancillary products.

You can reinsure for your post-sale inspections.

You can, of course, set up your CPI,

collateral protection insurance

if you're a buy here, pay here customer,

massive opportunities to build wealth

and forced savings for rainy day funds.

Good, give the guys at Buckeye a call.

Wow, and that was in 2020.

Let's say, let's call it April, May of 2020.

And did you ever see, like, was it just a sprint

from their own that you went from,

hey, we sold 50 cars to 60 cars?

So I mean, how does that work?

We went from 320 and 19 to 644 and 20,

and then 899 and 21, everything was rolling great.

I used to not have a floor plan.

We started to try to grow, a house came available.

We bought it, we did some flatten it

and made it a lot a little bigger.

Then I bought a service department, all connected.

Everything was rocking.

And then this big showroom came available beside us.

So we went back and forth on doing that

and we ended up doing my wife and I made a decision

to purchase it.

And now currently we're sitting on close to 16 acres.

Wow.

So the overhead went wild and our employees started going up.

Then about the time, you guys remember in the end of,

oh, like probably 22 or 23 when the process dropped

about 15% in a week, two weeks.

The books just dropped.

I was stuck on a lot of old inventory

because we didn't have to turn them

because you couldn't get cars.

It's never an issue.

And then kind of hit some tough times.

I had to regroup.

So real-time, that's what I told you all in the message

I sent you at one time about Listen Your Guys Show.

I sort of work at seven days a week grinding.

Just trying to make this all work, push it through.

Made some changes with marketing, advertising,

website, just everything.

And then everything started clicking

and we went to 1297 and 23, 1369 and 24

and currently we're sitting at 1,440.

So with two months ago.

Damn.

Cheese, man.

That is a rocket ship right there.

I mean, we were talking to this a little bit before

we got on air and you said at some point

you felt like you had to have inventory

for what you were doing.

And I think a lot of us got called in that situation

when the code money was there,

we could sell higher price inventory

but then we all kind of got called with our pants down.

Talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, I had what everyone would consider

the Cadillac floor plan.

Like if you ever went to the auction,

you talked to guys and they're like,

who do you get your floor plan with?

And you tell them like, oh, you do, that's awesome.

Well, the problem was with the Cadillac floor plan

that I had, 80% of my inventory had to be five years

or newer and under a hundred thousand miles.

I had 20% of my inventory or my lab that could be anything.

Well, I'm turning that 20% four times a month, 200,000,

I'm turning 800 to a million a month.

And the other side, the 1.8 million was flat,

losing money, it didn't match with my customer.

So I kept trying to go to that floor plan lender

and show them like the math on it and they just weren't,

I got basically told that they just wasn't interested

in that customer that I was chasing,

that I was going after, that I did business with,

that wasn't the customer they were looking for.

And they literally told me to,

it'd be my best interest to find a new floor plan.

So once that come up.

That is, that, that's one of the stop right there.

That is why that a floor plan company

cares what your customer is.

I mean, and then just say, you know,

we just don't want to deal with that customer.

Your customer, you are their customer,

not the customer, yourself.

Exactly.

And I would show them,

I would show them the reports with correct sentence,

were the top 10 in the nation.

And they just, when I said that,

that just sort of, that really paused the guy.

He was just like, that's just not, you know,

what we're wanting to do.

But it's actually been a blessing in the skies

because after that, I met,

I met up with AFC at the local officer in Lexington,

Heather and her team, Amy and Amy,

and got everything flipped over

and I should not be happy.

It was probably looking back.

It's probably one of the light bulb moments.

You know, when you have those in your life,

everything just changed.

It was a game changer for me.

And I know people talk about their fees

and different things,

but my average inventory before,

when I was the old floor plan lender was 160 days.

I looked before we got on this podcast here.

I'm running it 43 days is my average inventory term.

That's great.

So if you turn the units, it doesn't matter.

It's cost of new business.

What's crazy, Ricky,

it would take me 43 days to find the car

on your massive footprint of a dealership.

I've literally,

I spent the last 20 minutes as you've been talking.

And if anyone's watching,

I've literally been Google-earthing your dealership

and it's taken me 20 minutes to just street view

around your dealership.

I mean, at first I was like, oh, this is cute.

He's got this little like service center

and maybe he sells out of this front corner.

And then I was like, no, there's another building.

Oh, and then there's the original double wide trailer.

And then I headed East or whatever

and there's a massive new car store with your name on it.

You have like five dealership properties wrapped into one.

Well, we don't have a new car store.

It used to be the people that set this up,

it could have been.

I think they were trying to get a new car store,

but we're standalone independent only.

Right, but it's a new car store building.

This huge white building right here.

Yes, thank you, yes.

Okay, that's what I'm saying,

like you own this entire corner of the country.

Is that on these two major freeways?

Well, one's a bypass in front of us

and the major road is the one in front of the mobile home,

highway 27, that's where it probably gets 70 times

the traffic is the other road, believe it or not,

maybe more, but.

Okay, I was gonna say, when you said you had acres,

you were dead serious and like these cars

are like, they're across this entire freaking,

I mean, the value you have in this real estate alone,

like forget selling cars,

you just gotta carry this real estate

for five or 10 more years and then.

Right, and I'm glad that you mentioned the real estate

because that's another thing,

because a lot of people listening to this

are trying to start out.

Amity and I, my wife and I, we went to the bank

and with all the years experience we had,

we tried to get money to start the used car line.

And we got to know over and over and over.

They just, I mean, unless we could bring,

so one person recommended me getting real estate.

So we bought and built two, four flexes,

let them gain some equity and sort of pulling our equity

and now we have 80 something tenants.

But that's what allowed us to do what we're doing.

The car business probably would have never happened

if I wouldn't have got the real estate

to be able to pull money from,

to be able to function the car business.

And I know it sounds crazy,

but anyone out there gets you a piece of real estate,

pay it down, you want to do something, get your equity,

cash it out and bet on yourself.

For sure, for sure that,

that's how we've always been able to have,

to fund this by your pay your store,

it's called real estate we own

that we could just take loans out on it.

And it's so smart, but you've got to have good jobs

to buy that real estate.

A lot of people just jump right into their own store

without understanding what it really costs.

Yeah, and at the beginning,

try not to take on much debt,

try to do everything yourself.

And I see a lot of people that start businesses

and they have great intentions and they do pretty good,

but then they don't ever want to go to work

and it just doesn't make it.

And I hate that and I'm not trying to call people out,

but that's at the end of the day,

most businesses don't make it

because people buy boats and don't run their businesses,

unfortunately.

Yeah, I mean, when you say debt though,

I mean, like I can't imagine you didn't buy these properties

without some debt financing, right?

I mean, did you pick cash for this place?

You're going to hear my famous saying is,

I'm just trying to outrun the mortgages.

I guess I got mortgages and mortgages and mortgages, but...

But mortgages are one thing and debt is another.

Okay, Jeff, no, I don't know.

If you're making a distinguish between a mortgage and debt,

I mean, a mortgage is debt, but if you're saying...

They're the same to me, but I get what you mean.

They're the same.

Yeah, they're the same, but if you want to talk about,

if you owed a bunch of money on non-appreciating assets,

that's one thing.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

Boats, things that don't put money in your pocket.

Liabilities, like your lake house and your boat

and your whatever.

Which I don't have either one of them.

I don't have a lake house or a boat.

I just work and try to outrun the mortgages.

You've truly not made it

if you haven't bought a ridiculous boat.

But what I was pointing out was, again,

how cool that you've done this.

And when you say you've got, you know,

200-something cars in inventory,

I mean, sped across, what'd you say, 13 or 14 acres?

I mean, you got a compound here.

Close to 16 acres, and we're actually over 300 cars.

We don't have all of them put in yet.

No wonder you sell golf carts

because you probably got to use them

just to get around the place.

You know, that's what led us in

to being a golf cart dealer a few months ago.

Everyone, it's so easy if you pull up

and just ease people around,

especially the electric ones

where you have a conversation with them.

You got a few gas and you can't really have

a good conversation on it.

But we just opened another service center

that we're gonna have 19 lifts total.

It connects.

We just got a new property.

We're gonna have 19 total lifts.

We got a collision center here.

Body shop got an incredible paint booth.

That's gonna help my,

well, you were talking about time to line.

I got rapid recon along the way,

and I got to give them a shout out

because that was an absolute game changer for us.

Not only does it help me with the time of the line,

but once the car is where it's set,

where our property is so large,

we can literally, we name segments.

So you can pull rapid recon of the last six

to the stock number,

and it'll tell you within just a small area

where the car is set and it takes the customer to.

Oh, that's crucial.

Very, yes.

That is pretty awesome, yeah.

And how do you do key management?

This is a weird logistical question.

Like, do all the keys live in one of these random buildings

on this compound, or the keys have their own homes

out amongst the foliage here?

It's actually a great question.

The showroom has its keys,

and the White House has its set of keys.

The Blue Mobile Home has its set of keys.

Service, each service building has their own set of keys.

So the key is always close to the car.

Because that's everything.

Man, I can't imagine the amount of this.

I think I would lose keys every day.

So based on the latitude and longitude of this property,

you've got to set up in districts or compounds.

Yes.

You could set up.

I love it.

He's like, we have to go to the White House.

Well, my question is that you demolish

the east wing of the White House,

are you building a ballroom over there?

No, the house is just literally white.

So that's why we just call it the White House.

The White House.

We have our title clerks is in that location,

and then we have a salesperson, and then our BDC.

We just, that's something a lot of dealers

are going away from BDCs,

but I'm actually just getting into it.

In fact, we've hired a lady with a lot of experience,

and we're trying to get her some more.

But another thing that we do is, with SEP Social,

that is one of our, another thing

to help me kind of turn the corner.

We have the AI, we call her Sarah,

which is so awesome watching people come in here

and ask for Sarah.

We bring in all their stuff with them to buy a car,

and we just tell them Sarah's our appointment setter,

but we'll be happy to take care of you,

and Sarah will get taken care of on the commission.

And we do the transfer of the cuffs real easy that way.

But, and then we also digital attention online,

and Maria Beck, she started making content for me

about four months ago, and this has been huge.

They come to the dealership, we did recordings,

wait on my coverage zone.

I didn't personally like it, but the team loved it,

and the response from the community,

it's been terrific.

Now you had your few haters,

but that's why I share a lot of the Facebook stuff,

and we had, this is gonna blow your guys mind,

in October to this point, we've had 1.5 million views.

Wow.

On your content.

On our content.

Just Facebook.

5 million views.

And that's, is that Facebook, TikTok?

Instagram.

Everyone just a moment here to talk about BlitzPay.

BlitzPay is my payment process provider, PPP, PPPP,

whatever it is, but they're wonderful.

They get the money in the bank,

and that's really what matters.

And it's simple to use, Jeff,

it's so simple, and it helps us

with our collection process.

Yeah, you know what I've really liked,

and I'm gonna fine tune this even more,

is their cash pay network,

which is a crucial component,

because we do have a lot of customers

that wanna pay cash,

but I don't wanna take cash in the office,

it's dangerous, it's scary, I gotta make deposits.

So we're pushing it more and more and more,

and then there's always the few customers

that don't quite understand technology and push back,

but we're educating them more frequently,

and it's really making my anxiety go down,

because I don't have large cash deposits

in the end of a Friday.

Yeah, I'd hate for you to lose any more here.

Yeah, yeah, it's stressful.

But the self-help options are really

what makes the difference.

You don't have to have customers calling you,

hey, run this card, run this card, run this card.

No, they can help themselves

because the portal is so easy, it's mobile-friendly,

it's all right there on their little phone,

which everyone has,

and they can take care of their payments themselves.

That's the most important part.

Yeah, everybody's called, let's pay, get them to hook you up.

So I say that, and I said I would challenge you

on your shout-out.

So talk to me about sales,

like how many sales can you accredit to that lead source?

How many sales?

Do you feel like, I mean, do you track source,

like how these guys are coming into your BDC a lot?

With, we use Rockstar for a BDC.

So what I did was to be able to do this a little bit

to keep it clean to where multiple AIs,

I say our Rockstar AIs, name's Alfred.

So all the cards.com, Carburews, Carfax, AutoTrader,

all of those leads go in through Rockstar,

and Alfred works with them.

Alfred.

Our AI, yes, and so that's how we keep track of that.

And then all the socials, we put them,

and then with the digital attention online,

we put all those in another bucket,

and then they got virtual assistants,

they set appointments.

It's very easy, but now specifically on the numbers,

I've not dove into it.

I could just go by the, when we started before I used them,

we did 860 was our best year,

and since then we went from 1290 to,

probably gonna be 1700 is my guess,

we're gonna end up this year, total sales.

They may lean into that new avenue.

I'm sure that everybody in your town,

and probably within a 50 mile radius,

when they think about buying a used car,

they probably know that I need to go to Wildcat.

I mean, is that what it's basically about?

That's what it's about.

We're trying to build the brand,

with the socials, it's not like you're,

in my opinion, you're gonna see it

just racing your car and saying, I gotta get in there today.

But what we're doing is,

building the brand is trying to burn that image

of when they're ready, come see us.

Kind of like popcorn at a movie theater,

same type of thought process.

Whenever, you're just, you're on their mind,

is what I'm trying to say.

I'm always trying to stay in front of them,

the best I can, and changing it,

since social is great with what they do,

but what Ann Maria does is, when you do those videos,

people will interact with that more.

They'll watch that, they'll watch it real,

to where you're not gonna read,

they over and over and over the,

if you got good credit, you don't care about

all the different ways someone can get you on a bridge.

Doesn't matter to you.

So you're already scrolling past that, in my opinion.

But the other one, if someone's throwing a football

in front of the business, or my son's pulling up

in a truck and gets out and says, hey, I'm Maddox,

are you, you like trucks like me,

come see us at Wildcat Use Cars,

they're gonna remember that.

And that's what I think is really,

I mean, I can see us in some prime months next year,

I can see us hitting 200 cars.

If I can get my time to line down a little better,

and not have to, what we're running into right now

is we're having to repair cars we sell,

because we're selling them before they go through the shop.

Which pushes us back on the next opportunities.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

Oh, for sure.

That's definitely, so let's run down that rabbit hole a little bit.

How many employees do you have,

because you sold, you said 170 cars last month,

or something to that effect?

178 in August, yes.

All right, so how many employees are doing that?

In sales, we have 17 counting the management.

I thought something that many people

will disagree with this for years,

but I tried keeping the number of salespeople down,

that number down, because I'm a salesperson,

I'll always be a salesperson.

The problem I ran into that is,

once that salesperson gets their month made,

they don't push.

So I got away from that philosophy

and I went to the, I need 10 per person.

You flooded them, you flooded the four.

I don't wanna say I flooded the four,

because we have all the opportunities,

but I still have guys that'll sell them the 20s,

and I still have guys that'll sell four or five.

And I need that guy to sell them 25,

he offsets two people selling five,

but I still get the magic number of 10.

Does that make sense?

Do you let the five people stay?

There are a lot of them are in training, yes.

They're in training, because we do,

I don't do a lot of meetings, I'm a one-on-one guy,

so I look at every transaction as a teachable moment.

I don't put people in rooms and berate them,

and I had that done to me years ago at a place,

and I said, I'll never be that guy.

I'm not a big meeting person.

I think one-on-ones, you can really have a conversation

with somebody and explain how you want it done,

and build a culture based on that, that's my goal.

Okay, so you got 17 salespeople.

I gotta ask real quick about the pay plan there,

because I think a guy, you know,

I've got a salesman who sold, you know, three last month.

What?

And their pay plan, you know, it's like,

hey, they're on a unique pay plan.

How do your team members get paid?

Is everyone on the exact same compensation plan?

Are they hourly plus commission?

Are they straight commission?

Like, I can't imagine keeping a five car a month guy around

when you got 25 car a month guy.

Well, our deal set up, I'm gonna eat what you kill.

So if our guys, the guys that sell more, get paid more.

The guys who don't sell very much,

they basically don't get paid much at all,

but they're on the same pay plan.

It's a stair step pay plan.

Zero to seven units is 20%,

seven and a half to nine and a half to 25%.

10 through 12 is 30%, and 12 and a half up

gets paid 35% of the front end reps.

Wow, okay.

So he could sell five a month and make ends meet

if he's got some good grosses, right?

Well, no, not really

because you're gonna pay 20%.

So that's the point of, and also something I do,

a lot of places I work in the car business

would do a bonus.

Well, I wanted to create like a team effect.

So I do top four places

because I don't want when someone sells a car

for the person beside of them to be bitter.

I want them to be excited about those on the car

and not hurt them, seeing the company do well.

So we do a fast start every month

and now do a strong close,

a very aggressive strong close from the 14th on

and tell them a lot of bonuses.

Yeah, okay.

Trying to push people.

Yeah, but still the person selling four or five cars,

he can't stay very much money.

He can't stay, right?

Okay, all right.

It's kind of meant to,

I don't want to say weed the person out

because that's,

but then the day,

and sometimes we find other positions in the company,

you know, that some of those lower sales guys

can make a perfect service advisor

or help with used cars

or they have talent,

it may not necessarily be the best salesperson in the world,

you know.

And so when they,

so service department,

how many people are in the service department?

Service department, I've got to grow.

At the moment, I've got a service manager,

again, I've got two service riders

and I've got six mechanics.

You need more mechanics.

I need more mechanics.

The problem I run into on some of the warranty jobs

is when we tear a car down

and went the way on the inspector to come

and it ties the rack up

and that's been something that's,

can now also while you're on service,

I send out to five external shops.

Yeah, you got to.

Yeah, I got to that volume.

Yes, have to.

And then we use four outside detail shops

and then we also have five detail people on staff.

So how many total employees are there?

33 total employees plus my,

every one of my family works here,

there's five of us and we all grind

and try to make it work.

And I don't necessarily consider us in that number,

but we are number, you know,

if we were here,

they'd be somebody doing our job.

We'd have to put them in that number.

Yeah, you live in that little house

that's out on the corner.

That's the White House.

White House, yeah.

Yeah, that's the White House.

Is that your residence?

That is the BDC

and our titles all happens in there.

I'll tell you what, man,

I make such a big deal out of it, man.

You guys back East,

I mean, everyone thinks the West has more space,

but we don't have like usable space out here.

I feel like we're stuck on top of each other, man.

I mean, an acre of land out here in my area

costs about a million dollars.

So for me to buy the eighth of an acre next door to me,

I'd have to cough up about a million bucks

to expand my location.

So it just doesn't, the dollars and cents don't,

it doesn't add up.

You have a freaking,

you could put a shooting range in the back,

like ski shooting and you still wouldn't hit anyone

because you have so much land.

There's like a,

there's like a fish pond.

Do you have a fishing lake in the middle of this thing?

Well, actually I had to,

when we got the showroom,

we had a little bit of a drainage problem in there.

I tried to buy the piece of property

that separates the mobile home from the White House.

The state owns it.

They wouldn't sell it to me unless I did some,

I wouldn't even call it.

Like a retaining pond, a drainage?

Yes, a hundred percent.

That's exactly right.

I don't know what,

that's what the end of it is,

but it's called something else.

And so we had to come in and dig that up and set that up.

And it's just part of it.

You know, I want to throw some catfish in there

so we can fish on those.

Yeah.

Well, I'm jealous of your space is what I'm saying.

Like you've got the space to say,

hey, I need a detail area.

I know, you know, like you've got all this,

you've got room,

but I get it like the logistics of saying,

instead of me having five detail guys,

I really need 15 detailers.

That's what we really do.

That's insane.

You know, that's not.

We really do.

And the goal is to build,

if you've been to a desk

and ever walked back to their detail area,

the goal is to one day have a drive in on one side,

the two lanes,

and then go through stages and then come out completed.

And that would be help my time to line a ton.

And that is on my radar.

Just I'm not there yet to be able to pull it off.

Yeah.

I'm going to go visit.

Who's that dealer we talked to in Fredericksburg?

Sullivan.

Donald Sullivan.

Yeah, Donald.

Actually, I want to write that down

because I meant to get that name.

I want to go visit that person.

He said that episode and that was,

he said something so powerful in that,

that your recon,

your cash can get away from you so fast.

And that is so true.

That's something I battle.

He's getting too many cars out of there

with too much cash tied up.

And I've been having this for a very,

Donald Sullivan, right?

I think he went,

he went to NIA in QD.

Yeah.

And it just reminds me of the fact that,

yeah, you're at the point now where you need,

not a detailer,

you need a guy that shines the lug nuts.

Like I got a full-time guy and all he does is like,

like shine wheels all day.

Well, with that, with that amount of assembly line.

I mean, with that amount of car, yeah, exactly.

But with that amount of cars,

you need somebody riding around,

washing these cars all day too.

We have a wash truck

and we pull the guys to do that from time to time.

So the middle parts gravel,

I got a quote on blacktop and it was,

it was $400,000 and obviously I can't do that.

So we just wash them a lot.

That's all we did.

Man, that's,

I mean, that's incredible.

Let's talk about your lenders because Ricky.

Yes.

I know you use a lot of CAC

and they, you know, it's great that,

that part of the world needs CAC.

My part of the world needs CAC.

But you said that you brought on another lender

that's really helped your business.

Talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, Capital One in September,

we brought on Capital One and I went all in with both feet.

I let them take over the website with the navigator program.

The leads, I do every single month,

I do a Capital One sale every month.

It doesn't matter.

And they also offer direct mail,

which I wish I could give you something about.

But Tracy Myers, I actually messaged him

and he said he had good luck with a 10,000 piece mailer

and I'm going to try it in December,

but that has just been an absolute game changer for us.

Plus Capital One is everywhere.

I didn't know people don't realize this.

They're the number one subprime lender in America.

Everybody thinks credit acceptance is.

Credit acceptance is nowhere close

to being as big as Capital One is.

Interesting.

And it's amazing that one lender can change

your business like that.

How many lenders do you have?

We have 20, what's the deal tracking me?

I think I got 24 lenders.

You use most of those every month or?

We use, the majority of, we have four credit unions.

We use a lot.

Capital One's huge, of course credit acceptance we do.

We've done 500 something deals within this year.

Trying to give another good one.

There's a couple, I wouldn't call them,

they're mid majors, local banks that are in area.

Now we get to the point to where you guys know

when you do the phone call and you ask to sign up

for the lender, they want to know your numbers.

Everything's going great.

In the moment you use the word independent,

the tone changes.

And then they're like,

we just don't do business with independence.

But they love everything about you.

Everything, your facility, the numbers.

You got a service department.

But I'm starting to get to the point now

to where the lenders will reach out to us

because they're buying the reports

and seeing how many liens we find out there.

I mean, that's been really, really good for us.

But the only issue you run into, I'm guessing,

and is like to be a CAC dealer and a cap one dealer

and to carry the inventory that's gonna appease that market,

you do limit yourself with certain lenders, I'm sure.

There's some guys that they're just like,

look, we're not gonna loan on a $15,000, 180,000 mile Dodge

Ram, like that's just not our hit box, right?

You're exactly right.

And what we have to do is we have to kind of realize that

and just not click on them.

As long as you don't overload those lenders with loans

that they know they're not interested in proving,

they're happy to have you.

But another one that we picked up,

I'm very proud of this one.

It was very hard.

Actually, along my journey, when things was going tough,

my wife and I went to NIDA and I did the walk.

And when I say I'm comfortable, there's a lot of people,

as you guys know, you walk through and you're kind of like a baspate.

You know, people are zipping at you and coming at you.

And I ran into this incredible guy, Matt Cohen, with Rockstar.

And actually, we talked and he literally lives in Tennessee.

I won't say we're very close to me.

And we got set up and that's one of the other

one of the things that changed us when we started.

We didn't even have a CRM.

Like we didn't have.

We just did the old school books.

Like Han wrote everything out in the technology that's come from that.

It's just been huge.

But I went and spoke with Ally and Capital One at that event.

They both told me no, which is fine.

I just kept on asking.

I actually went back to NIDA and spoke to them right after that.

But we picked up Ally a few months ago.

And that's been another lender.

And it's so many other things, too.

Ally and Capital One put us on autoplay.

They want to see every deal.

So I don't have to.

It doesn't matter if it works their program.

Every single application that runs through Wildcat, use cars.

Ally and Capital One looks at it.

Wow. It doesn't mean they approve them.

But they don't have a look to book.

And you would be amazed at how many times they approve deals.

It's not in their program parameters.

So if you would have thought to yourself,

they're not going to do this one and not clicked on it,

you would have lost a deal.

All right, Jeff, we're getting close.

We are getting so close to getting that money in the bank.

You can smell it.

Those checks are just flying out, right?

I smell those checks.

So we were doing our refund advance right now.

We're in the fourth quarter.

We're doing some estimates with their last pay stub.

And when the tax man says, hey, this is good to go,

they let you print the refund advance check.

So we're not too far away from that, which is really, really exciting.

The second we start filing in our location,

we are also going to be able to start printing out the refund advance checks,

which is a huge, huge helper.

And honestly, when you look at the customers and they say,

oh, well, this is going to cost me a little bit more,

it doesn't matter because they're getting the money now.

And it's completely worth it for them to get into a vehicle today,

as opposed to waiting another eight to nine weeks.

Yeah, just imagine the amount of money you say by buying a car

in December than when you buy it in March from the same person.

Because prices go up, unfortunately, during tax season.

But if you buy it early, you're good to go.

Yeah. And what I tell my customers, I say, look, if you wait until March, April,

that car won't even be here.

If it's a third row SUV, if it's a truck, if it's in demand, it won't be here by then.

So act now.

Let us file your taxes.

Let us get you the refund advance so we can get you on the road today.

It's super easy.

Call the guys and girls over at tax max.

Use VIP code to get 20% off the VIP package.

Do it right now.

It's not too late.

And don't forget to use it for collection strategies to Jeff.

So it's so interesting.

And that's because you have them integrated into your CRM and your leads management.

So everything that comes through or gets desk or is that inside the DMS?

Like at what point are these things?

Because I don't really understand how these big subprime banks,

how do they really get their tentacles in you to get all that data?

That's how it was just part of it to for them to sign me up.

They had to be there.

They wanted all the clicks.

Hold on.

They want to look at everyone up.

They want to see as many as they can do.

So we literally got a deal of track and set them up for that.

That's the only two winners I have that do that.

But when we desk deals, we start every deal unless they're exceptional credit.

We literally take it to step four and see a get the approval, pencil the deal or do

the approval sheet, then at that moment, we aggressively start trying to find a

better place to hone that deal.

But the time and dealership is a huge thing.

Like these people, you know, we're an o'clock, so I try to get them pushed

through in and out as quick as possible, doing the best job possible.

Yeah, that's hard.

I know a lot of dealers use CAC as an underwriting tool or a desking tool, so to

speak, verify pay stubs, verify all that stuff.

CAC's world class at it, and they'll give you a callback where you're like,

okay, here's my fallback.

Here's my worst case.

Exactly.

And I structure the deal off of that, and then when I get the better call,

then it's better for a dealership and the customer as well.

But it does take time, and that's what you're balancing is how quick can

you guys get things into CAC and get a get a callback?

And then if I'm having to switch it and reenter all that same information

into into cap one or allies, I do a lot of double that entry.

I wish I spoke to him at CA.

I wish they would let us push from them into the track.

But for whatever reasons, it's way higher than the regional Andrew I deal with.

He's like, I hear you, but I can't make that happen.

Yeah, I've told him so many times they would get so much more business

because most people's not going to take the time and enter that data

twice like we did.

There is not going to do it.

They will take the path of least resistance.

Absolutely.

Is there a lender that you want that you don't currently have

that you think could could take your business to another level?

You know, that's a great question.

I've been trying to get Wells Fargo for years.

Well, it used to be that was our number one lender when I was at the new

course stores, and when I came here after COVID, they basically,

from what they said, they dropped a lot of independence.

Yeah, I'm seeing those notices.

I think which if they're smart, they'll get back into it because the new

course side, you guys are in the groups and forums reading what they're doing.

You know, they're going to eventually chase business.

And that's one that I think could get us more because that name in our area.

People have had loans with them.

You know, it's just a well branded name.

I think that that would help us a ton.

That is so interesting.

That's real quick with the few minutes we have left.

We never, we haven't talked about how you're sourcing vehicles

because that's a lot of cars you have to source.

Yeah, did you mention or some of these employees you ran through?

Do you have a full time buyer?

Like where are you?

And as you lower your ACV, that's an even harder car to find.

But how are you finding so many cars?

Well, that's another thing.

Whenever I kind of made the turn and trying all new angles, I used to

not go to Mannheimer or Dessert.

I would just do independence only and answer your question of buying.

I buy 100 percent of cars.

Wow, street purchase that comes in while I'm at an auction.

But I'm trying to train my son Maddox and Orion.

He's in college, but I'm trying to teach them.

But I struggle, excuse me, with the let someone buy.

And here's why.

And this is probably ruffle a lot of feathers.

I'm at the auction.

I see those guys break out those hundreds.

Transit assist.

I watched that same car bring 1500 to $2,500 too much.

So somebody can get 200 bucks.

And I'm just not interested in that.

Yeah, but I mean, Ricky, you get to a point where I mean, you're having

about 200 cars a month.

Yeah, are there abouts?

I mean, that's more than a full time job.

I mean, if someone told me right now, you got to go buy 200 cars next month

with an ACV average of 12, 5, I would be hard pressed to do that.

Yeah, yeah, I could do it, but my shop would quit.

My shop would absolutely leave me and my arbitration would go through the roof.

And I would just be shooting from the hip.

How do you keep the quality there?

Well, that's a great question.

Now, here's something that's come once we got the larger banks.

We're starting to get trades.

See, before if you go back a year ago, if I sold 100 cars, I might get

eight or 10 sellable trades.

Well, this month we've retailed 140 so far, and I've probably taken in

25 to 35 retailable trades.

Wow, that's good.

So that and then we have those air number without auction fees, without

transit, without post-sale inspections.

Yeah, that's been huge.

But on the behind the cars, I've just got I've got three places I go on a rotation.

And typically, you know, like when I listened to you guys on Sundays,

I'd drive to West Virginia and look at cars.

And like this week, I speak about 30 something.

And then this week, about 20 something, just from that one spot.

And the beautiful thing about that, they run such a great business.

I can buy them on Monday around 11 or 12 o'clock.

And sometimes before I get to work on Tuesday morning, they're sitting in the

parking lot six hours for me.

It's great service.

Yeah, that's impressive.

And so you're only buying in lane.

You're not doing any online.

Right.

I will do online.

If I go touch them, walk them.

I'm a I'm a see them, you know, hear them, smell them that because this car I'm

buying, it's not a program car.

I can't I wish I could.

But that's even more work because now you got to look at 200 to find 20 that are

that are worth buying and you're going to get bid through the roof on 10 of those.

So you're only taking 10 home.

You're right.

It is sometimes about 20 cars.

I made mark 70 or 80 on my sheet, you know, and another thing too.

I only do 99% of the time I only do green light cars and I buy post sale inspections

because it's worth the money for them to find the fault before it leaves and the

pay the transit both ways and get it back, tie up the four plan money.

So that's something that I do, but a lot of dealers don't.

That's cool.

That's, that's, you know, they're prerogative.

Yeah.

Yeah, that can add up real quick, though.

Those post sales at that volume.

It does and then transportation costs is huge, but at the end of the day, going

and buying 18 wheelers and putting people out with insurance.

I don't, you don't want to do that.

Yeah, I just, I don't think I can, I don't think I could manage it efficiently

to make it make sense.

Got plenty of parking space.

Ricky.

So with a couple of seconds, we have less.

What advice do you have for dealers?

Like maybe obviously we talked about getting some great lenders on board for

our retail and subprime dealers.

Like obviously your lender portfolio is crucial because at times, some are good.

At times, some are not aggressive.

What else do you feel like you either did really well, or maybe you did really wrong

that you'd like dealers to hear about?

What I should have done from the beginning is got, and it's a huge

sponsor years, but I met Buckeye Brett and I should have got, I've had

ranchers for a while, but I didn't have it long enough.

I should have been in it way, way long ago.

If I would have done that at this point now, my life would be so much easier.

Yeah.

Um, it would give me one more capital to finish that detail shop that we're

talking about some of the things that I'm handcuffed at the moment that I know

makes the business change, but a dealer starting out is don't take on too much

debt, keep your, keep your staff lean, stay at work to work.

Um, just grind and make it happen.

Don't tell anybody else because at the end of the day, we're, we are an odd, I'm

not saying odd, we are a unique group of people that's driven.

And unfortunately, you know, you can, you can't, your employees don't

want the same outcome as you do.

They just want to check to go home, you know, and if nothing wrong with that,

that's great.

Yeah, they don't have the same vision or drive and nor do they get rewarded

the same way if it's super successful.

Hmm.

That's true.

Yeah.

Sure.

We always say it's a, it's a really good way to make great money, but it's

not easy, not easy.

Yeah.

I've had, I've had more, um, bad months in the car business than I have

good months since I was placed when I took on debt before the debt.

It was, I mean, it was, I don't want to say easy, but you never really had

the stress, you know, now I have stress.

Now I've literally, like I said, I got around my mortgages and the old saying

that I use my wife and I, we joke about with five cars a day, keeps the

banker away.

And that's all the time.

Oh, I love that.

Love that.

Yeah.

You got to make print that out a little letters, put it in the break room.

Oh, it's just, there's so much truth in that statement.

It's just, the hamster wheel is going to keep going and keep moving.

Yeah.

Well, Ricky, we appreciate your time, man.

Well, I appreciate the invite and, and you, you guys don't realize during

those tough times listening to your program, it's a big deal.

I really appreciate it.

And it's awesome to put a face with the voices and, and that affordability, that

change when, when that got driven in my head, that's just absolutely was a game

changer in my business.

Getting away from the cars that we all like to have instead of, I just want

the ones now that they'll sell.

Yeah.

You know, it doesn't matter to me if the customer loves it, I love it.

Yeah.

And if they can afford it, if they can afford it, right?

That's, I mean, that's, that's really good philosophy.

I probably need to, I probably need to take advantage of that as well right now.

Yeah.

And one last thing I'd like to say about credit acceptance, this will help a

lot of dealers that do business credit acceptance.

We'll go in the resources tab on their website and look, your repos run, they,

they post them and you can literally see the car that, I know the car off

service and spent the money on.

I try to buy or bid on 100% of my repos because it protects the back in money

because you're getting a percentage of what they bring at the sale goes back

in your pool.

So if you don't go bid on your car and you let someone just basically steal it,

that hurts your pool and not only you got all that recombination, it's just gone.

I can purchase it, get it back, spend a little on it, get it up, get it retailed

back out and currently we have, I've got almost 1200 accounts, active accounts

with credit acceptance.

So it's, that's just something I think each dealer, no matter how small or big

they are, go get your repo, drive it, check it out, buy it back.

Obviously if it's done, it's done, but if it's not, you know, let that VN relive again.

I love that.

That's a great idea for everybody out there that is CAC and, you know, just keep

grinding.

I love it.

Yeah, you don't want that repo customer back, but you want the car back.

That's for sure.

Well, actually, I'm starting to see that repo customer back.

It's so wild.

We'll have a customer get repoed and they'll come in and be like, something

that happened and we're getting them down with other lenders and luckily we're

keeping the relationship good because, you know, and that's why the thing about

when I was telling the beginning, I fix everything because people, people don't

let their car go back if it's running.

When it stops running, they either take that next payment and a little bit of

money and go get another one.

And a lot of times if you just help fix them, we've taken them from a CAC

customer that was a low 400s to the credit union now at 5%.

You know, we're trying to ride the journey with them.

That's it.

That's interesting.

That's great.

It's called the, it's called the cars scheduled for auction report.

Yes.

And that's, if people will get one thing out of it, you can thank me later, but

that will protect your pool.

If you're, and a lot of times too, you get those cars back so cheap because

people are afraid of them, you know, but you know the history.

You can go to your service department and pull up your R.O.

want to be like, this is what we fixed on this car.

Do those cars run a regular auction or does CAC have an auction inside of

there?

Well, the ones near me run at Odessa, Lexington, but now sometimes it's

wherever geographically the car is located.

Now, obviously they would have one in Oklahoma City, in Elantra.

It didn't make any sense for me to go to Oklahoma City and try to get it.

But, but yeah, it's, it's right there on that report and it's got, it's got the

VIN number and you can walk to the lane, check it out.

I just think that would help so many dealers.

Well, Ricky, we appreciate that.

We appreciate you coming on.

We appreciate you trying to help other dealers because that's what we're here

for. So, uh, man, keep, keep going.

Love it.

I appreciate it.

I say this all the time, but I do, I generally mean it.

We all win together in life.

And if I can help somebody else, that's awesome.

That's makes me feel good.

Thanks, Ricky.

About this episode

Ricky Thomas, owner of Wildcat Motors, shares his inspiring journey from working at a franchise dealership to selling over 1,400 cars a year as an independent dealer. He discusses the challenges faced during the GM bankruptcy, the impact of COVID-19 on his business, and how he leveraged real estate to fund his dealership. Ricky emphasizes the importance of building a strong lender portfolio and shares insights on sourcing vehicles, managing inventory, and creating a positive work culture. His story is filled with valuable lessons for aspiring and current dealers alike.

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Original notes

In this episode of The Independent Dealer Podcast's "How I Built This" series, we sit down with Ricky Thomas of Wildcat Used Cars in Somerset, Kentucky. 🚗💥 Ricky shares his incredible journey from getting fired on his FIRST DAY as a sales manager to building a 16-acre independent dealership empire that sells 1,000+ cars a year! 🚀Here's what you'll learn: 📚🔹 How Ricky went from 320 cars to 1,400+ in just a few years 📈🔹 Why he built a real estate portfolio BEFORE scaling his dealership 🏢🔹 His strategy for maintaining 43-day inventory turn (down from 160 days!) ⚡🔹 How Capital One and Credit Acceptance helped him reach new heights 🤝🔹 The social media strategy generating 1.5 MILLION views per month 📱🔥🔹 His unique pay plan that motivates salespeople to help each other win 💰🔹 Managing a massive operation with service centers, detailing, and collision repair 🔧Key Takeaways: 🎯✨ Started with $80K and 25 cheap cars in 2016✨ Now operates on nearly 16 acres with 33+ employees 👥✨ Uses real estate equity to fund dealership growth 💡✨ Focuses on affordability over flashy inventory✨ Leverages digital content creation for massive brand awareness 📸✨ Bids on his own repos to protect his CAC pool 🏆Whether you're running a small lot or scaling to multiple locations, Ricky's story proves that with hard work, smart partnerships, and a focus on affordability, you can build an independent dealership that competes with anyone. 💪Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more dealer success stories! 👍💬🔔Support 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! http://www.blytzpay.com🔷 Buckeye Risk Services for all your education and reinsurance needs http://www.buckeyerisk.com🔷 TaxMax for flexibility with your tax returns http://www.taxmax.comConnect with us: 🌐Website: http://www.theindependentdealer.comEmail: @independentdealer.comFacebook Group: @independentautogroupLuke Godwin: @dwinJeff Watson: https://www.facebook.com/sendtojeffw

The Independent Dealer Podcast

Jeff Watson & Luke Godwin

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