#422 - From Curbstoner to Dealer: How One Young Entrepreneur Got Legit In California

are addicted to buying right you want to go to the action you want to find a deal so you're buying even

though you're not selling and that's a real problem because that's when they're probably their turn

time starts going up they got all this aged inventory they got a ton of crap sitting in the

back lot well maybe the next one find somebody who can be a salesman whether that's your dad's

part time or whether that's a buddy that wants to come in part time and be on commission but it's

gonna hurt because a you've got a bunch of overpriced inventory that you're probably into too heavy

you're gonna need to get that out man yeah yeah just get those out blow them out at a

break even or a loss and get those non-movers out of here that have been on your lot too long

because nobody wants to see a stale lot no one wants to see a facebook listing that's been up for

four months

hello and welcome to the independent dealer podcast lute one of our favorite favorite

episodes we ever do is when we get to talk to dealers who are i don't know i kind of knew maybe

need some help some advice because we always love to give people bad advice

jeff likes to give bad advice i like to help dealers succeed and you know we got we got a

guy here today that reached out on facebook in the independent dealer group and was asking

a question and it's one of those things that you know you can be in business for a while and then

all of a sudden you're like oh man what is going on so Fernando introduce yourself to the podcast

community hey what's up guys well yeah my name is Fernando Vargas i'm here located in vapor

field california and i got a little dealership going been going strong for five years well

shape four years this past year has been a little tough so uh yeah i'm just here seeking some advice

and see oh yeah that is really oh man i'll tell you five years of business four been good one

happened you can't always figure that they they're all gonna be good for nanda exactly yeah i'm pretty

i'm positive though so i i mean i'm right next door to Fernando right i mean he's only four hours

down the road for me you're doing it on hard mode because you're in california like that just

automatically adds a whole another level of like nonsense and frustration and yeah and like people

trying to sue you every time you turn around so good for you for staying at it yeah yeah i appreciate

it i appreciate it i have thought of relocating i'm not gonna lie but uh we're going strong we're

holding on are you Fernando are you from the bankersville area yeah i'm born and raised okay yeah

bankersfield i've been there i'm gonna go there so tell us how did you get into the business how

did you get started give us a little bit of background and then we kind of want to get into

like where you are now and and anything we can do to help get over these hurdles these headaches man

how did you start uh sure well back i want to say six years ago i was working overnight in agriculture

and machinery so we wouldn't i was pretty much work age 17 18 right around 19 i believe i started

helping them sorry flip the cars nothing crazy we were doing probably like two or three a month

maybe four on a good month but probably average two to three and yeah sure enough one day i just got

i live out in button willow which is like 20 minutes off from bankersfield or even smaller

town that population is like 2000 so yeah it's a really really small town and one day i was asleep

from coming home from work and i got knocked on door and yeah sure enough it was dmv agent

and they were pretty much saying like hey you got to come down to the to the police office

or whatever you want to call it and yeah they just interviewed us for a little bit

which kind of should have to say we know what's going on if you want to do this you got to do it

the right way and yeah i mean it was it was definitely a blessing because i think someone

read this out but well you have to get you have to get legit you have to go

jeff how many times have we heard this curb stoner to deal with oh of course i mean that's

how everyone that's how you get started man you love it you're passionate for it you like cars

you like flipping making money and and uh and you got to get you got to get the licenses so

did you said you were doing it with some folks before there was there was is that still the case

or did yeah it's me and my dad me and my dad's still going full time he's a supervisor in agriculture

place and he does pretty good he's we're really trying to you know get him full time over here

that's the main goal but yeah yeah we're going at it man

together he helped you buy and sell and with his spare time but for the most part he has another

job uh well he leaves like at four or five a.m. man he comes home like seven sometimes eight so

i'm pretty much on my own yeah okay yeah he has his thing and i gotta handle this

i guess he helped you with the with some of the capital to start yeah yeah with the 20 30k it was

he has like 20 something i had like 10k to my name and you know we just got rocking rolling from

there went all in but but you're a young guy so i mean going all in early is is good right

yeah yeah 100% i'm trying to learn the hard lessons right now so i mean that's just going from

flipping cars to running a car business i mean that's a that's a big growth curve right yeah yeah

definitely we we started small though with like three or four cars here in california

once we were rocking and rolling that was pretty smooth yeah so how did you learn how to do this

stuff did you just teach yourself did you go to another dealer did you research online like

you had to get legit how'd you figure that part out yeah honestly i can't even tell you from

the top of my head but i did my research online uh eventually figured it out read some stuff

and i found a course that pretty much shows you a through z how to get everything done

you have to take the course here in california anyways i'm not sure how this in other states but

it's like a seven hour course and they're really helpful they pretty much tell you what you need

to do what permits you need to get what you need to have in place for the dnb inspection how to

set the inspection and yeah dealer one-on-one i believe they were called they were they were

really helpful and they helped me pretty much navigate the beginning so yeah just online research

really and once i found that course it was pretty easy because i could reach out to them

whenever i had a question yeah i mean do it you know doing doing the paperwork and doing the

business portion uh that can be taught pretty easy the hard part is figuring out what cars to buy and

sell yeah how how did you figure that out um well we used to do a lot of Ford edges anyways

and Honda's that sort of stuff like that i found out pretty quickly though we can't do much with

humbers and Toyota's even united auction unless you buy only that with them they even like pretend

to recall and you know something funky so it was like family SUVs Ford edges stuff like that in like

the three four k range that we knew we knew what they would sell for already and pretty much just

just went at it that way with with a little bit of knowledge that we had and slowly we learned

which cars knew good which cars have a lot of problems which cars um stay long so we kind of

just went at it a little blind but we had an idea of what we were doing in the beginning

and how many cars you said the the first four years are pretty good how many cars you sell them on

uh probably around it depends it depends they were lower budget cars definitely

but from eight to twelve i'd say okay when you say low budget now you're already selling cars

under ten thousand dollars so to me that's extremely low budget yeah what was what was

low budget because i'm going uh i mean how much lower can you go yeah i was selling cars for like

thirty nine hundred four nine hundred fifty nine hundred but i'm pretty sure you guys know as well

those those cars are just headaches and even post sales there they could be a headache you can make

good money on a handful of them but eventually you're gonna have an issue with one of them you

know so eventually i did take advice from other dealers on the facebook group which i do think

was good advice to you know go a little higher get out of cheap cars and not deal with that market

so i did do that not too crazy what is the what is the sweet spot for you right now

right around like eighty nine hundred is where probably everything is that on average so um

yeah i went up a little bit but nothing too crazy like i said it's all under ten k for the most

nine hundred percent of it's under ten k so nothing crazy but we did go up a little bit um

did it amount yeah does that did that cause your sales so slow are you still selling the

same amount of cars i was still doing good for a good amount of time um and i wasn't moving them

i think what happened though is once i got to like 150 k worth of the inventory i'm a one-man

operation i'm gonna try making excuses but i think i just got a little bit lost in the sauce

kind of left too many cars you know on recon thinking i'll get to it later and you know

this doesn't go the way you think and let's talk about that let's get into some of the

numbers of what you're doing right now and and where things may have gotten a little off the

rail so you say you got about 150 in inventory right now 150 dollars how many cars is that

return to 22 cars so so you had 22 cars and were you selling 22 a month

no no i think most of the time half of my cars have been recon which you know that's that's

probably not good but most of the time like if i had five with ten in inventory five of them would

be on the lot and five wouldn't be in recon or eight of them would be in recon that's that's pretty

much for the most part how how it usually went all these years if i had to i have to say and

i don't have like a mechanic that works with me right then i i do have you know i've made

great relationships with local shops here and they helped me out a lot but yeah they got their

stuff to do too and you know it's not it's not the best but we get it done okay it's not the

fastest yeah so i'd make one observation at this point luke and you can correct me if i'm wrong

but if you're a one-man band you're a one-man operation and you're buying an eight thousand

dollar car um what do you think a what do you think a realistic goal would be for fernando if

he wants if he's if he's cool just staying there right and we haven't talked about where your goals

are and where you want to be but if you're a one-man band buying maybe you're not fixing them

yourself you're sending them out i mean do you fix any on your own do you have mechanical

ability yeah yeah i do what i can but when it gets a little more complicated yeah like

everything's gonna take way too long you know you got a bad buy you're trying to get here

exactly yeah yeah i mean i'll take the whole day you know so there's some other things to do

can't really can't really do everything yeah i mean like what eight cars a month how many

that he needs to have a lot you know a one-man band if you're a one-man operation i think buying

fixing and selling ten to twelve okay ten so you're doing two to three a week let's say yeah

realistically you go buy one or two at the auction two or three get them home try to get

them fixed get them sold because because at that point you've got yeah 20 an inventory yeah yeah

i mean it's hard to do everything on your own jeff and i'm i think that's what i'm saying like

where's that line and what i'm trying to draw the picture of so everybody knows where i'm driving is

like fernando you need to know that like there is an inflection point where you can't do it on

your own anymore yeah you've got to build this thing in a way that you can start bringing on a

part-time somebody a full-time mechanic like the numbers have got to work for you so yeah

you make it a business and not just a job or a side hustle right yeah yeah 100 yeah right i mean

right now you got yourself a job i mean i think yeah that's and that's fine because you're working

for yourself you're doing your own thing you're young that makes a lot of sense um you know if

you were really good at buying cars you'd probably look at getting somebody's really good selling

cars right um but but you know there's uh there's only so much one person can do now you'll you'll

hear stories of these these one one guy operations that are selling 30 cars a month you know your

stories of them might be missed i don't know um it's it's hard to do but anything i think i think

ever if you think you could do over 12 a month as a single person buying selling recon and everything

i just don't think you're gonna yeah not in that not in that price range if you're selling

if you're selling 20 to 30 a month as a single you're getting cars handpicked by a buyer that

come front line ready that are low mileage off lease you're dealing even 30 to 40 thousand

dollar area that's right you're never leaving the office you're you're just selling and yeah that

could that could happen but there's few and far between with digulars out there doing that yeah

yeah for sure i pretty much do everything right now so and and let's talk about that for now so

the lesson that you think you've learned from the post and right now is and you mentioned it

just for a second you got lost in it man you're busy yeah you're doing this your turn time is not

where it should be right because your home runs on stuff you're not just a little base hits and

singles is that you think that's kind of what you're thinking 100 percent 100 percent kind of

i remember the first time i made two grand on the on the car which was like my first year

business i thought like damn like this is this is great but after like a second or 30 year

probably around like the fourth years when i started you know some i would get some that

would make four or five grand on sometimes but as you guys know that that's pretty rare it doesn't

happen i think that that it's uh make trying to you know trying to have a business where you're

making four and five thousand dollars a car is is unsustainable honestly yeah especially especially

in the the price car you're you're dealing with you know in this price range i think what do you

think jeff uh gross profits gotta be that 1500 dollar range or am i wrong on that um i think

maybe what happened for now is we all got romantic with post-covid times when we were ripping three

and four grand on a car right because the market was moving so fast and there was so much demand

so yeah now we're back to the grind and and yeah i mean you're gonna make 1500 dollars

and you don't sell any back end products i assume i do have yeah i do have gwc and

immediately i do need to get better at it because a lot of the customers i do like right now i'm

doing a lot of west like most of my customers right now are 90 of them are probably like west

lake and i'm not sure if you guys know how the structure works exactly but i try to add the

warranty on there and they just the numbers don't work out anymore most of the time so

yeah i don't do a lot of warranties unfortunately hey sorry to break in real quick but make sure

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set up asap yeah so so what's tough is sometimes you'll get stuck in the no man's land right because

the west lake people are a little less price conscious yeah buy something that might be a

higher market value but then you got no room to put a warranty on it because you're already max

loaned a value with west lake whereas if you kept your gross margins a little lower up front

maybe you'd be attracting some cash buyers that would be attracted to that car and you could

extract yeah everything and they might pay for a warranty they might go to a credit union

and finance themselves so you got to be careful either it's very hard to be a hybrid subprime

and retail lot yeah honestly yeah yeah exactly that's what i got the most out of that post honestly

i kind of had an idea but that just kind of confirmed even further because i have you know

this 2014 for fusion again i'm looking at right now i got it you know didn't need much a little bit

of paint and i mean it probably like right around on the foregrain like 39 something and i listed it

for you know 9900 and now it's been three months and still here so now i have it at 6900 and i'm

giving a ton of interest and i'm sure i'll sell it this week but yeah that's even even when they

don't need a huge amount of recon i think it's better than especially in my market to just you

know put them on the law at a great price because i'm competing against price you know

placing it in mark yeah pricing is so key in retail um and what's what's unfortunate is you

find you'll find oh i bought this car i know it's going to sell for this and the best way to

determine what a car is going to sell for is you put it out there for a week and you don't have any

interest you just gotta start dropping the price yeah and there will be a there will be a time

when you drop the price enough where everybody starts calling and then at that point you can kind

of go back up a little bit but yeah it's an interesting retail is so interesting in that

and it's so price specific yeah yeah i mean if i want to track those cash buyers i am in that

you know price range of cash buyers if i want to compete with other other people in the area

i kind of have to you know give great deals in this crash range i feel like to track cash

buyers because if i raise the price i'm just attracting 500 to 550s and you know that price

it gets cut by like a grand and a half or two grand anyways and fees from west lake so yeah i

definitely do think i i'm i have a great idea like a much better idea of what i need to do

moving forward i feel like but uh yeah it's still i don't understand and then what i would say is on

top of what you said there is it's okay and dealers that are listening it's okay to be a west lake

and a cac dealer and have high prices so make sure you know that's who you are when you're that size

you got to be one or the other in my opinion i could be wrong yeah but yeah you're okay to go

after the west lakes and the 500 credit scores and price them wherever you want to price them and

just advertise you're approved you know no credit bad credit doesn't matter so if you're okay and you

mark it up proportionate to absorb the fees the west lake's going to charge you right so there's

a business you had there i'm just saying don't get caught in the middle now with all that being said

i think the next step you have fernando is you've got an issue of if you do go after the west lake

people that's a lot of work if you just want to put prices on your cars and have cash buyers come in

and go to the credit union get a check or a money order a signature loan or whatever that's a little

less work but you still are at the point where i don't know if you need to decide which one you're

well i do know which one you should be you might need a salesman you might need someone to help

you out to work those leads make sure everything gets on marketplace make sure stuff gets to recon

fast make sure you have time to negotiate with customers because if you're trying to do it all

right now you're definitely scaling to the point where that's you can't get to it all yeah um yeah

so i agree you're stuck in the middle you gotta get it you gotta get out of the middle and

either there's nothing wrong with selling cheap cars either jeff i mean yeah there's

there's nothing wrong with it um i'm gonna ask you i'm gonna ask you something about the marketing

side uh for one i go and i google fern county movers in your 4.7 good job

well yeah i'm working on him no that's good and you just need more you just need more of them but

if i go and and try to locate your your uh your dealership it's got you on the wrong street

and it looks like a house google does yeah i fixed it with apple mats i i needed content

they got the address is all mixed up and it's it has been causing some issues but

yeah on google was the only only place to show on there and i i really need it well you say yeah

we say that only google considering google is the most important thing out there so you guys

you gotta get you gotta get that straight um yeah that creates a real problem because if i was going

to your dealership and actually i just found your dealership on uh on google and um it took me i had

to go across to a different street to find it right so yeah you need to make sure because if i if i

saw that if i was going to buy a car and typically whenever i'm doing anything i want to see pictures

of the dealership i want the i want the view i want to be able to see where i'm going and

if i if i went to google to find you and saw was the empty dirt lot or a house

i'm not coming to you and yeah things things like that things like that are super important

okay for sure i'm gonna get on that as soon as we get out this call for sure that's a great point

playing your google listing it's super easy you do it through your email you know well it appears

it it appears it even sees it do you not have your google listings like on google whenever you look

up a vehicle no do you own your google business page oh um it's i pay a network solution and the

work center sets up my website so you should have your google listing you should own that as you're

personally because if you don't for one you could have you could probably already fix this um but

you don't want somebody else to own it because if you end up not using them anymore then you're

kind of you're kind of screwed right jeff yeah i don't understand uh yeah i don't understand that

definitely well let's talk about that afterwards and we'll guide you in the right direction and

make sure you own that list that business listing and you can update it sure okay for sure hours

but what it was all that stuff and so most of your marketing is just facebook marketplaces

is that the case yeah i 90 percent of my buyers 80 to 90 percent are facebook marketplace i say

yeah i mean that essence yeah it makes sense it's it's i mean i think that it calls zero

makes the most sense of using that as uh and most people are looking at a facebook marketplace

anyway for for cars which blows my mind but that's i that is how it's how it's working yeah your

website you got to do some work on your website that goes out you need to do some work on your

website you got to get some action yeah yeah um like i said i do i keep my offer up on my facebook

a1 but my website i definitely need to to be a market date on that it's kind of hard to try

making excuses i definitely should have it but like i said you got to do mainly this isn't

important now but you got to do the things you got to do here you know take care of our customers

and d&d stuff all that crap so yeah for sure when you're a one-person band that's that's the way it

goes right yeah exactly i'm fresh kind of thin but i could definitely improve on that that's not

too crazy that's not too hard to to date you know another another recommendation i would have is that

you know when i look at your when i look at the inventory you're carrying it it doesn't seem

like very desirable inventory and i know you're trying to be cost-conscious on what your your

final price will be but when you're selling you know terrains and darts and you know fusions and

and traverses and things there's not a lot of people out there looking for um so you're getting

people whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa yeah i'm gonna push back on that go push back let's

go let's go let's ask i mean i look at his inventory that i mean here's the the other thing i'd say

is just you can't stop buying terrains and akadia's and traverses man that's what i just said well

it's not about cars not desirable you can sell that car that is a hot hot car people will buy it

but it's a pile of crap and so you're buying it and you're doing timing chains on every single one

of them and it's costing you a fortune because they're stuck at your mechanics guy's place all

the time because they're just they're just not good cars yeah i was doing pretty good with them

for a little bit but then i the market just tanked on them as well so i kind of well that's

because they are made like a hundred thousand miles guaranteed well the good thing is this

tax season and you can get rid of these cars yeah you can just take them back and turn them in

yeah for sure well so is is bakersville is it uh is it like southern cow vibe or is it uh

you know i wish it was a little more more southern cow vibe but it feels like a desert out here really

it's pretty huge not humid but it's mostly warm most of the year you know summertime gets to like

115 on a bad day so it's one of those cities that yeah aggregate both of them dependant yeah uh 100

percent okay i mean you know it's uh i think it's a market that uh could use a little different

inventory would be my opinion we have about 500 000 people in the city so you know it's not too small

but uh yeah that's a big that's a big town bro exactly yeah i i just got to figure some stuff out

so do you get any sell reports to see what uh what is selling in the area sell reports i do not

honestly if you don't i can't even tell you what that is from well i mean west lake could give you

their top sales report for for that area um cac could give you the top sales report for that area

if you want to stay with that model if not you'd have to get a cross sell report and kind of

try to dig down into the lower price stuff to see what's selling i think i do think inventory is

is something you need to to work on okay for sure for sure what are you i mean it's probably hard

for you to guess my market but what would you recommend if you had to um yeah i don't know i

truly don't know i you know it's just by far darian and john darian don't have a lot well i have

i have a toyot at honda bias um just because that's what i've always sold the margins are

are slim but i think your margins are slim anyway so um people are not a search speaks

pennish i do i do how much of your clientele is spanish speaking um i'd say

right around 50 because a lot of people they are hispanic but uh you know most people here

speaking english is fine so there's probably like 40 that don't all right jeff sorry to break in but

we gotta talk about putting money in the bank and how do we do that i do it through blitz pay the guys

on top of it i have had little to no issues since i switched over from that other company

for sure they to me they're probably the best services when it comes to answering phone calls

and taking care of things that i've ever seen a vendor um and the backing automation i've actually

been working with that for a couple dealers here lately and going in and changing up these automated

texts that go out super simple they work uh the customers click and pay it's fantastic

and also they got this ai thing jeff pretty cool yeah i'm stoked they got the audio ai the phone

caller and hopefully very soon the texting version of that so it'll help my collector be

way more efficient in the future um i'm super stoked to see the ai get integrated into the

collections process and blitz pay is on the cutting edge of it so if you're taking credit cards at all

whether you're buy here pay here lease here pay here even retail dealers can take advantage of

this and use blitz pay for their credit card processing incredibly competitive rates super

easy interface call the team over at blitz pay and move your credit card processing today yeah i mean

if i think you you probably know what sells in that market i honestly think your inventory

makeup is not a problem other than you've just got some cars that are just junk and i would just

stay away from them and you'll learn that as you buy you're not buying enough volume maybe to always

see a trend like the 3.5 eco boost in the explorers i would just avoid that all together but i would

get the regular 3.5s all day long and and you'll see something pop up a fort explorer will sell

in the hispanic community they absolutely love us right yeah i did cgf i did mention the fort

explorer because i think it's really your car it is that engine sucks but so you'll you know what

will sell just start start avoiding the ones that are giving you recon headaches all together

or do more research before you get into it i wouldn't mess with b&w's and europeans but that's

yeah yeah moving forward i did have an idea no more europeans for sure yeah honestly i would stick

to the bread and butter domestics you could chase the hondas and the toyotas but they're just more

expensive and i'm sure they move i know hondas and toyotas move great in the hispanic community

um and if you want to cater more towards third row and people movers and basic commuter cars like

those are always solid staples people need them yeah but you are competing a lot on those ones

so yeah i don't think it's so much an inventory issue as i personally think you have an attention

and a sales issue because you're stretched so many ways and that's where i led too earlier is

maybe it is time to start bring a buddy in part time and pay him commission

to be the one answering the phones talking to people making deals happen moving this inventory

like i don't know and you stay buying and and helping out i don't know if you're at that point

yet but i feel like you you are man i don't know jeff what yeah i see and here's you know you

mentioned that you were looking for a 20 group and as i said joining 20 group i don't think we're

at a 20 group level yet are we jeff no no i think i think there's uh for one there's a lot of other

things that you can improve on before you get to that um uh and jeff's right i you can't do everything

by yourself but also you can't have expenses that you don't need either so you're kind of

in there you're kind of well you pay him on commission right if he sells a car he doesn't

do you do you enjoy that part more fernando which part of the business do you enjoy the most the

buying the selling man it's hard uh probably the buying honestly probably that's buying

hey see car dealers in his blood we love to buy cars i knew what you were gonna answer

because i know how many cars you have an inventory yeah are addicted to buying right you want to go

to the action you want to find a deal so you're buying even though you're not selling and that's

a real problem because that's when your problem their turn time starts going out they got all this

aged inventory they got a ton of crap sitting in the back lot well maybe the next one maybe i just

need to buy it on maybe i need to so number one a find somebody who can be a salesman whether that's

your dad part time or whether that's a buddy that wants to come in part time and be on commission

but it's gonna hurt because a you've got a bunch of overpriced inventory that you're probably into

too heavy you're gonna need to get that out man yeah just get those out blow them out at a break

even or a loss and get those non-movers out of here that have been on your lot too long because

nobody wants to see a stale lot no one wants to see a facebook listing that's been up for four months

like yeah for sure you got a mover yeah for sure i moved six last month which you know

was slow month but a slower month but yeah i had to sell a few at this counter mainly to move on

if there was that all yeah they were they were definitely aged most of them were definitely aged

so yeah i would blow out those aged ones man if they're over like 90 days just get them gone by

the weekend somehow and that'll create more extension and excitement maybe you'll get a trade

in you can rip you know get those and get all those traverses and akadia's out and replace

them all with explorers yeah yeah i have um like a bmw at a shop this jaguar i know how bad

jaguars are i've had this one for like two years i have oh yeah there's a cup yeah there's a couple

of them that i have that you know we're almost ready but we've had them for like six plus months

at this point so do you think at that point it's better just come i lost it send it back to option

do we can with that area yes 100 yeah it is it goes against everything that's probably bred into

you to take a loss and lose and throw bad money away but like tells dude yeah it's walking down

that shop that mechanic is pissed that it's still sitting there like you can't get any stuff because

he's busy with his old stuff and if you have a car that's just retail old just cut the price

whatever you think whatever you think it would do at the auction i mean essentially cut it down

to that because you yeah but we're all for retail nets and you are to send it to the auction i did

that yesterday uh i slashed my prices i'm pretty much all my age inventory like i said that fusion

6900 now so i'm trying to hit them this week those akadia's and traverses you saw i've listed them

both for 6900 so i'm sure i'm moving you know bad i have some adventures right now so still make

like a grand and a half and 2k so that's you know that was kind of a plan to move forward like i'm

gonna just move these make a grand or two whatever you can and i'm gonna just buy maybe in the 5k

range try to make 2k and just you know really move them nothing nothing sitting no more because that's

i think that's what cost me a lot of money do you have a do you have a floor plan i do um but

now i kind of paid that off it was just a headache really especially you know with my recon times that

was all over the place and it's funny it's funny uh floor plans a lot of times makes you increase

your inventory and all it does is increase your cost it does it you don't sell a lot more cars

if not if you don't manage the rest of it properly so yeah i'm glad you paid that all that's that's

a good idea yeah it's definitely a tool if you can manage it correctly but i don't think i was managing

the best so there's a lot and and there's a lot of people that don't so don't uh don't

reach yourself up up for that and if you don't need it the expenses are going to vary for me

and for like them cut cut that floor plan save that expense yeah and stay disciplined right yeah

that way you don't need it because you're going to stay disciplined you're going to stay slim

if you sell a third row whatever go buy a third row whatever right yeah yeah you find that people

like the dodge dart go buy another one like yeah and just just keep that super tight

i'm saying anything else that you found was super interesting from that post that you feel like

was a valuable feedback from the dealer community um well a lot of people say that you know we're

in the terrible market and this is like the covid hangover and all this sort of stuff but on the other

don't listen to them yeah exactly on the other hand i do see other people absolutely killing

and having their best years best months so i'm sure you just got to find a way and you can make it

happen that's what i'm trying to do right yeah and that's i mean the positive attitude is is

where you need to be uh if you believe that we're in a covid hangover you're going to continue to

have a covid hangover so yeah yeah yeah i mean i like that the positivity that's that can be found

from other dealers is is great sometimes um the negativity that you find from other dealers can

hurt sometimes yeah you see a lot about there but like i said there's some other guys come to him

they're similar to my age there's something to do that was like 25 years old i'm sorry he's 18

i love that killing it so i know it's possible yeah yep howdy does he man it's all as good as

it is between your own ears right that's what we always say man is really loves company

and they everybody wants excuses to you know they all want excuses as to why things aren't good

so that they can all just sit on their thumbs and say business is usual it's just the market

no yeah yeah exactly that's what i don't want to be mind everyone in your neighborhood's killing it

and doing great you're gonna panic and you're gonna make drastic changes to try to get there so

don't settle yeah man my dad would always be like yeah i guess it's a bad market and just go out of

business yeah that that wouldn't make sense we gotta be away yeah if other people are doing

it i know i could do it so i'm not i know that we could figure it out that's right my dad would

always be like if you called him and see how everybody else around town's doing it's like no

i don't want to know appreciate your time buddy this has been great hopefully helpful man and

i hope you check back in with us um let us know how things are going if you need anything else or

or whatever man just just holler man appreciate your time i i appreciate you guys and i appreciate

the advice i'm definitely gonna work on that google and close up yeah everyone uh how i need to move

forward and where i'm going wrong so definitely i could check in with you guys like by december

something that'd be great yeah i want to see you know i'm sure i'll be i'll be a lot better

in the position that i am right now so that'd be great cool buddy we're rooting for you take

care all right i mean you too appreciate it take it easy

#422 - From Curbstoner to Dealer: How One Young Entrepreneur Got Legit In California

About this episode

aged inventory

commission-based sales

blowout sale

independent dealer

Facebook marketplace for car sales

flipping cars

getting dealer licenses

curbstoner

car flipping

dealer license course

Ford Edge

headaches

recon

one-man operation

gross profits

GWC warranty

Westlake

reinsurance

Ford Fusion

cash buyers

BMW 550S

sell reports

Blitz Pay

buy here pay here

lease here pay here

3.5 EcoBoost

Ford Explorer

GMC Acadia

Morgan Six Plus

floor plan

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