#433 - What If You Don't Train Them, And They Stay?
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Term
leads
Leads are people who might buy a car and have shown interest. Dealerships track them and contact them to turn that interest into an appointment.
Concept
overstaffed
Overstaffed means you have more employees than you really need for the amount of work. The point is that if you don’t have enough leads, adding more staff just costs money without improving results.
Term
BDC
BDC is a dealership department that works leads for you. They call people who might buy, answer questions, and set up appointments so salespeople can spend time with shoppers who are ready to talk.
Term
lead managers
Lead managers are the people (or systems) that keep track of potential customers. They make sure leads don’t get lost and that someone reaches out and sets up the next step.
Term
appointments
Appointments are times booked for a customer to come in or talk with the dealership. The idea is to have someone schedule these so salespeople aren’t constantly chasing new leads.
Term
underwrite
Underwriting here means checking whether the customer qualifies for financing and what terms they can get. It’s part of the approval process before the deal is finalized.
Term
referral program
A referral program is how a dealership gets new potential customers from people who already bought or know someone who might buy. It’s a way to create leads without relying only on ads.
Term
repo
A “repo” means the car gets taken back because the payment wasn’t made. It usually happens through the lender or a company hired to handle the process.
Term
collection boot camps
A “collection boot camp” is training for the people who work on getting missed car payments handled. The goal is to resolve issues before the car has to be taken back.
Term
automations
In this context, “automations” means the system does certain steps automatically. For example, it can message someone to pay and then update the vehicle status without a person having to do it at night.
Term
starter interrupts
A “starter interrupt” is a system that stops the car from starting. In payment-related setups, it can be turned off once the bill is paid—so the dealer/collector has to be ready to re-enable it quickly.
Term
turn it back on
“Turn it back on” means restoring the car so it can start again. If it’s not turned back on after payment, the driver may be stuck until it is.
Term
skip trace
“Skip tracing” is the process of locating someone who has “skipped” payments—often by using databases and investigative methods to find the vehicle owner’s current whereabouts. In repossession workflows, it helps agents find the car when the borrower is hard to reach.
Term
parts reconciliation
Parts reconciliation means double-checking that the parts you bought or used match the paperwork and records. It’s like making sure the receipts and the actual parts line up.
Term
clod
“clod” sounds like a software tool the shop uses to automate paperwork. The host says it can read statements and invoices and help match everything up.
Term
timer belt
A timing belt is a belt inside the engine that keeps the crankshaft and camshaft working in sync. If it’s wrong or fails, the engine can get out of time and can be badly damaged.
Car
Toyota Highlander
The Toyota Highlander is a family-sized SUV made for everyday driving and carrying people and cargo. A timing belt is an engine part that helps the engine’s moving parts work in sync, and it usually needs to be replaced at certain mileage intervals. The podcast mentioned it because replacing that belt is a common service that owners should plan for.
Term
timing job
A “timing job” means work that makes sure the engine’s timing is correct. In this context, it’s about doing the timing-belt job properly so the engine runs correctly and doesn’t need to be redone.
LIVE
We don't need BDC agents anymore because people that are just good on the phone or
good by text or appointment setters or application takers like that's going to be
replaced and fully in the next 12 months. Right now a lot of dealerships are
dabbling in it. What I need is a character. I need a personality. I need someone
that wants to be on the Facebook posts and be that you know that larger than
a lack character. There's just a closer.
Hello and welcome to the independent dealer podcast. Luke how's the summer
looking for you man? Y'all geared up for some hotter temperatures and some
exploding vehicles? Man it is hot in South Carolina right now. It's 95 degrees
outside. Whoa. Yeah it's sticky. It's hot. It's cars will be blowing up soon so
just get ready for it buddy. I'm ready to do some AC work because we can make
money on that. Yeah I'm not ready for the warranty engines. Every time it gets
over a hundred here it's like cars just spontaneously combust so I'm getting
prepared for that and one of the ways we're doing it is just making sure my
staff know up front. Side note also get your free on ordered get your motor oil
ordered. Apparently we're gonna have an oil shortage. I don't know so but one
thing I'm doing is I'm prepping the staff mentally for hey shop it's gonna get
crazy right. Be sure you have outlets. We need outside shops. We need extra
people to call when we have heavy line. Let's not get blindsided. Yeah I tell
you so many people I have this conversation with people sometimes
about is it better to have your own shop or to outsource you know and we talk
about that and depending on how many cars you sell a month and what happens
when you when you have your own shop you get afraid to outsource and I think
that's like I can do it cheaper. That's right I think it's a drawback and so
what it took me years to figure this out Jeff we would we would do as much
recon as we could in our in our shop and as much as much after the sale work
you know policy work and warranty policy right that's right as much but sometimes
on the heavy line like you were talking about man just get a shop that's good
at doing engines and good at doing transmissions transmissions is a
different story those are easy but engine work man send it out like it's it's
just it buries your shop and stuff that doesn't help and it backs up recon and
when you back up recon you can't sell cars and if you have angry customers guess
what that's not fun yeah at all and it's it's a mentality for yourself and also
for your sales or your shop manager whoever's handling that outside work
because for us when you say is it better to have your own shop or is it better
to go outside I say both yeah but but more importantly I think what we talk
about is like the training and hiring those guys and that's one thing that I
get us into today is when we talk about prepping and having good employees
because I do feel like it is an employer's market or becoming to be more of an
employer's market I agree I've noticed that my employees aren't really
seeming like they're shopping around right I see when I do put an ad up I get
quite a few responses I don't know that wage growth has gone up like it did
you know during the post-COVID era so yeah I don't know if everyone's feeling
that or if that's just a geographic thing but and with AI and these advances
and making people more efficient we really need less quantity and more quality
in our yeah totally great quality is is great I mean sometimes you need to throw
bodies at things but but if you have a really great employee that's so much
better they work their weight in gold and they can do so many different things
you know one probably one really great employee does the work of three marginal
employees and oh 100% look at your salesman sales team you got one salesman
that's the rock star that's doing the bulk of the work and then you've got some supporting cast
yeah I agree and it's it's frustrating to see that it's frustrating to see potential
when employees and it not not come to fruition right you see you hire somebody and you like
man this guy's got it right and he comes out and he or she comes out knocks it out for the first
month or two and and then you just see it go downhill now it could be lack of motivation
from the person which happens but it also could be you're not training that employee and keeping
engaged because if you if you stop engaging employees it gets the employee just pulls back
and say oh man that maybe he's about to fire me because you're not training me
where in reality that's not what's happened at all but they don't know yeah absolutely let's
let's go to the beginning of this and let's I want to get your input and your ideas and tips
that we can share with everybody for hiring as we go around the shop and kind of look at these
different locations because right now I really need some advice I'm trying to find a salesman
slash manager for my second location it's kind of on an island it's a little bit of a hard you
know nut to crack because you got to have that person that's internally motivated to be a one-man
band at a location with 20 to 30 cars you know I've just never been able to find a long-term
solution there and what I found is you cannot hire in sales in general I don't think you can hire
off of a resume like that just the resume means nothing because you have people with zero to
little sales experience that I think could be really great as a salesman and you have people
with a ton of sales experience that are absolutely horrible so I struggle with the you know just
posting it on Indeed and then sorting through dozens of resumes thinking I'm going to pick
a needle out of a haystack that's hard hiring quality sales people are hard in general and I
think it's resumes don't don't show the whole picture um with your store like that Jeff you
probably need somebody with experience yeah it would definitely help in sales because they're on
an island right you hire a true sales professional and it could be from the car it doesn't have to be
from the car business but just let's say it's from the car business that's familiar with that area
that you you see that they you know every indication says that they're trustworthy right
because that's going to matter a lot hiring at an island like you're talking about but I think
if you're not hiring that caliber person that that's internally motivated that has been in
sales for a long time and understands what it takes to make it happen um you're just going to
fail in that in that particular situation you can hire you know if you're if you're on top of your
like your your lot there if you were there every day Adrian's working the you know
working the deal and showing a new guy ropes you don't have to hire that seasoned sales person you
could hire somebody that you just see potential and maybe you saw them out or maybe they're a
son or a daughter of somebody you know that you could hire that and train them up but when they're
on an island you can't you can't do it yeah and what I also like is I've I've gone away actually in
the past I I always said my ads is send me a resume we'll reach out to you and now I've kind of flipped
that around and I want you to bring your resume to me you know I want you to bring your resume
to the location and because a that means you're serious you're not just hitting reply to every
single job posting out there but b I also get a feel for you you know how what kind of impression
do you put across to me in the first 10 seconds because that's exactly what you're gonna put across
to my customers in the first 10 seconds right and we know that that's incredibly important
that we have salesmen that our customers want to buy from you know they buy from people they like
they buy from people that they can connect with and that can build rapport and make them feel
comfortable in the in the experience so if you come into my car lot with the resume and you've
got walls up and you've got an attitude and you and there's just a weird vibe like that's just not
going to work well you know even in today let's just say you're hiring somebody and you're in a
place where a lot of people are moving to Jeff and let's just say a person was moving from
from Southern California to St. George and maybe they can't walk him with the resume
I would encourage you to get them on a zoom call or get them on a google meet and do what we're doing
right now because that will show you a lot and in today's in today's selling this this happens a
lot right the face time happens a lot so the way they present themselves
virtually is going to matter a lot as well so um and phone calls phone calls are big right
and so yeah how do they sound on the phone are they welcome are they welcoming on the phone or
they just like hey what you doing no I don't yeah I don't want that my my my new philosophy on the
low level conversations and kind of like the initial uh appointment setting is and you can correct
me if you feel like it's different we don't need bdc agents anymore because people that are just
good on the phone or goodbye text or appointment setters or application takers like that's going
to be replaced and fully in the next 12 months right now a lot of dealerships are dabbling in it
what I need is a character I need a personality someone that wants to be on the facebook
posts and be that you know that larger than life character there's just a closer they're just a
people person and they're a closer and and they're just being fed leads constantly and their whole
job is just to make people feel comfortable and close the deal and they'll they'll get paid well
because that's what they are so um Jeff I think that uh if I just said yeah I agree with you that
this podcast will be terrible so for sure so give me the devil's avocado and the devil's
avocado as you call it here is that I don't want that I won't I want great bdc um first and foremost
and um and I and I've I've gone back and forth on this so much that who who even knows that I'm
arguing at this point but but currently in 2026 as of as of january of 2026 this is may 20th of
2026 so this goes back to january okay I I believe that a strong bdc and you can call it what you
want so you call it lead handler or or whatever with human a human lead um and I'm
okay with ai doing some of the work I'm fine with that but a human led person taking incoming leads
and working that lead properly is more important than the person sitting in the office what I what
I have seen a lot of people doing here lately is yes we have a bdc and yes we have sales people
and I go well that's that's great I love that um what is your salesperson doing all day long
and I look at them and they were they're selling cars I go okay then what is your bdc doing all
day long they're answering leads they're setting appointments they're answering questions they're
responding to nonsense yeah okay right so so I think I think people get called up and they have
too many people in that process um for the amount of leads they have because if you if you really
look at the people that are selling that ask the people that are selling anywhere from you know
25 cars a month to 40 cars a month they really only have to handle about 200 leads a month well
handling 200 leads a month doesn't need to be handled by by 10 people um handling 200 leads
a month should probably be handled by two or three people or less and so you can get overstaffed
trying to build different departments that you don't need so I think that if you had if you were
let's just say you were a 30 car a month lot if you had two stellar bdc people with the help of AI
lead managers and one I'm not even gonna call it salesperson because as soon as I call it sales
people they're gonna um they're gonna want me to pay them like salespeople you know I'm gonna
I'm gonna call it a key grabber a signer um a deliverer whatever you want to call it yeah
and I'm gonna pay this person not a salesman's salary of let's call it eight or 800
let's say if you had 30 a 30 car guy or girl they're gonna make 85 to 120 right
but if I have a deliverer that's delivering a hunt that's delivering 30 cars a month basically
probably make 50 60 50 to 50 to 60 right and so if I pay my my bdc manager or whatever you
would call it that $85,000 and his job or her job is to set appointments underwrite
mine my database um I think you're gonna make you're gonna in the in the long run be way better off
because I've I've seen salespeople um try to work deals and try to close deals and try to uh they
say oh yeah I'm calling low balance people oh yeah I'm working the people we sold three weeks
ago they're not doing it all right not three months ago three years ago and they're not doing it I
won't I want somebody that's really trained to to call my old leads work
referral program uh take the incoming leads and I want them to be professionals at doing that and
I want my my delivers signing docs putting gas in the car and demonstrating the car when the
people show up that's all I want to do it yeah okay so so let me just put rebuttal
that for a second uh with with the way I feel like things are going in 2026 you know someone
that to answer leads get applications done and mind your database I think that's all AI right
that'll be replaced in six months 12 months whatever it is right and it won't miss anything
it won't fall through the cracks it won't not answer at 1am it won't ignore a customer won't
say the wrong thing so and and that's all by text message I don't know if this is ever going to come
around through voice I'm not sure AI will ever get there with voice so that's fine but through text
message and just reengaging leads I think the AI can get there setting the appointments the easy
thing my opinion it's well closing the deal I think is the hard thing getting my customers approved
easy I can deal and get their info that's the problem it's just a series of questions
and filling in blanks say departments are one thing form is showing up to another sure but a lot
of that has to do with uh yeah the quality the the engagement the reputation of the dealership what I
see is the issue is when the customer does show up now if your bdc agent is landing them on a
specific vehicle before they even walk in great I'm if they can handle that and make that work
via text message then hooray for them because I don't think that that's
super possible these days most people show up and they think they're getting the 2021
forward focus but you got them approved for the 2012 Ford focus because that's what they can afford
and that's where I think the magic is these days is helping that customer come in and realize that
they're not getting the z71 today you know they're getting the Ford focus today and down the road
they could get the z71 so that's where I see the biggest rubbing is closing ratios I can dump
more leads into the crm just by up in my facebook ad I can dump more of that I can have more leads
I can have more applications but my closing ratio is I feel like you really harvest the money
that repeat the referrals people don't want to send in their friends and family and come back
and buy a second car because they had such a great experience with you know Luke the salesman
I agree a great sales person does that I don't know how many great sales people there are left
exactly I think I already find I think I interview them and I think I have to pay them well
I 100% agree that you have one if if you have a great sales people a sale a great sales person
you need no bdc well they still can't get to everything you want one salesman handling 200
leads so those 200 leads are worked by ai and or bdc agent you remember and they're just funneling
people down to real closers who are building the relationship building the value switching them
cars to maybe something that makes more sense or works anyways so with all of that being said
I want to move on because sales is in my personality still something I got to meet
the employee so that would be my advice and my tip have them come in have that applicant come in
if you instantly know in the first 10 seconds that they're not the one
let them know the hiring manager is not available right now he's not in the office
send them out right I don't want to sit down and spend 30 minutes with everyone that shows
of my doorstep I don't have that kind of timing but so you've got to have a smart way to to weed
these people out Luke as we work from sales and we work back in the house for collectors I think
we're having the same situation with collectors you're going to need fewer of them but the ones
you do have are going to have to be better at it because they're not going to be handling level
one anymore you know hey can you run my card hey can I make my payment Friday hey you know
how do I get ahold of a service or warranty issue you're going to have level twos is all
you're going to have is the well-trained let's figure this out get this customer back on track
collectors hey sorry to break into real quick but make sure you guys know about buck guy long
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enough for teaching me so much about reinsurance over the years and coming up with new products
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contracts gap I just just been great Jeff it's absolutely been a great way for me to build wealth
put away some money so if you are a buyer pay here lease your pay here or retail dealer it works for
all dealers you can set up a reinsurance company you can insure your own stop giving money to those
third-party providers that aren't going to cover your stuff anyways keep it in-house call the guys
and girls over at buckeye risk services and get set up ASAP let's go back before uh text to pay
options um before texting really took hold of collections and before gps uh gpses were everywhere
right we go back we can go back to a prior time and we go guys and we can start talking about
how many collectors did we use to need per account right and that number years ago uh was
typically 200 to 250 remember that back in the day jeff yeah you okay you used to right used to
used to used to need you don't used to need that but jeff is picking on my uh south carolina slain
here so okay and what do you need you don't need that anymore so right now right now you're talking
about 400 accounts for every collector right wow that's a lot it's a lot but on a monday that's 150
pastu maybe and of that 150 pastu you're right jeff blitz is going to go out there and it's going to
work however many blitz is going to work right it's going to do a good job and so let's think of their
ai their ai is fine it's fine jeff um so it's going out there and it's working and all the automation
you could build inside of blitz right it's texting people and it's hitting people so
the people that are one to five you don't hands off you don't really need you don't need to do
anything really right and so then you have your fives to tens or so and and ai and automation can
work pretty well with the fives to tens but then you need the people who are working the phones and
doing their job and so we all of a sudden went from from prior to covid to now where you've you've
taken and dropped you've increased the amount of accounts per collect about 100 of us like overnight
so is it going to increase another 100 are we going to be looking at one collector per 500
accounts over the next two years i would argue maybe yeah i think i think to the to the degree
that ai can get better at the severity of the issue right like you said one to five is no problem
it's basically like hey where are you at when are you coming in what card do you need me to run
and then of course you go okay wait you missed a payment now we're talking about promise to pays
and hardship agreements and proof of hardships and and so what's happening now is those collectors
that are still there that are handling the 15 pluses or the 30 pluses every touch is a major
issue yeah that's the difference before you might look in their action queue and say okay they made
you know 300 notes today or 300 actions you know that's uh you know 10 promise to pays and a bunch
of phone calls and a bunch of text messages but guess what now it's going to be like oh they made
50 notes but guess what all 50 of those were potential repos and they saved all of them right
so now every single touch that that employee is making is saving you 5000 dollars because
they prevented a repo that day or that week so yeah that employee that collector now needs to
be better trained better skilled better equipped and just probably paid better too yeah for sure um
i've argued this for years that the sales people and buy your pay your stores are paid way too much
and the collectors aren't paid enough um and it's a lot of truth in that it's a little tongue in
cheek but but um they are they are both equally important the collector is way more important
in the long run right the quality the quality touches of those really good collectors who come
to gowan consulting groups uh collection boot camps um they get better and
and that's what we want to see another thing that i that i noticed talking talking about our some
sponsors here the integrations between blitz and it iran and how like you know you can say okay
this customer is turned off on friday at six p.m if they didn't make the car payment and now
it iran will know if they try to crank it send them a text through blitz they can pay it and turn
it back on how i mean those type of automations and that and that it's not that automated intelligence
man that is that's cutting down on all these after-hour jobs that collectors don't have to do
anymore oh yeah i mean from a and a compliance and a headache standpoint it's huge when i used to
starter interrupts it was the scariest thing because i was like okay if i shut them off
i gotta be available in case they pay and so i can turn it back on and i don't want them to be
stranded all weekend and so you would like shut it off and then you'd just like sit there by the
phone waiting for something to happen yeah so with automation and things like that i definitely
ends this technology and the partnerships between these get better that makes a lot more sense
and and saves us so much more many more steps i mean think about that even from a collector
standpoint like i know my collector she spends a lot of time just tracking down where the car went
you know or finding a repo agent or figuring out who we got to pay and who like how to get the car
release like is those techniques that takes time that is my gosh that's mind-blowing yeah i don't
know why repo assignments aren't easier that seems like something they let's pay or somebody to get a
hold of they are if i don't know and this is they are not a sponsor of this podcast by any
stretch of imagination but do you use rdn at all uh we we don't well no yeah i'd say no okay so if
you get a rdn login like i have i used to have to call everybody and find a local repo
agent and sometimes those repo agents were amazing they were just amazing um but sometimes i would
call and i would and they they would go blank never hear anything they weren't insured all these type
things man i started using rdn and no matter where that thing is in the country i put it in this
little porter click a few buttons and i get updates daily the car is repossessed it is
dude it's it's great so yeah there are there are options out there but um but you know sometimes
about here pay here people are cheap um yeah and yeah we are right and we we're used to paying
250 for a repo 350 and everybody in my area started going up to 400 dollars well guess what
they wouldn't get the job done so now i'm just going with the the higher option i thought it was
higher guess what it's the same exact price mm they're covered properly they give me updates
they skip trace they do other things that these people weren't doing i was keeping
do you pay monthly for that access no absolutely not i don't know you just no you just have already
in gives you uh uh you get a lot you have to get a login from a repo company we use big time out of
Atlanta and they gave us a login it's it's all seamless and it's it's great yeah that's awesome
that's so great um and and why i say that is uh when we are hiring again we're looking at those
most important things and we keep moving from the sales side to the collector side and the
mechanics side right now now we talk about a job that isn't going to be replaced by ai anytime soon
it will continue to be enhanced i think by ai so i look at like you know my shop manager
and my parts reconciliation and i'm currently in the process of building out
some automations through clod where i can just upload all my credit card statements upload all
of my uh shop invoices and it will run through and match everything up and say okay everything was
accounted for everything you paid for ended up on a ticket somewhere you're like hey there's a
little discrepancy with lkq or a little discrepancy with auto zone go look into this so we're fine
tuning that process to make sure that every part gets moved in and then i'll take the next step of
like core returns and inventory and things like that but just automating that process through
making it better through some ai stuff yeah because the amount of leakage in your shop um everybody
everybody that's complaining about any sort of 400 dollars a year 400 dollars
there i promise you thousands are walking out of your shop every month that's terrible and scary
yeah so when we talk about the hiring thing and back to the employee part of it for shop
and mechanics we know that that's not getting easier and it's not going to get easier anytime
soon do you see anything or or what have you seen from other dealers that are making that hiring
a mechanic or retaining mechanics better easier because to knock on wood i haven't had a real
difficulty in years we've got a couple good ai mechanics that have been with me they seem content
um i've had some turnover in my c level stuff you know my lube tax my tire tax and that's kind
of where i struggle with getting what we what we've gone to is we do put out the nd dad we do
want them to bring the resume by but we've gone to a working interview and i don't know again i'm
not an attorney so i don't want to chime in on the legality of this i'm sure whatever we're doing
we're crossing our eyes dotting our t's so we're getting that done but um that has been such a
great hiring tool for us to just have them come in and do three to four hours of a working interview
we'll give them a job we'll give them a part they'll bring kind of a light set of tools
and we'll just see if they really can do what they say they can do all right i love that we used to do
that without detailers and we had a detail shop and uh we we eliminated people real quick right
we pay them forty dollars you know and some of them would would do ten dollars worth
of work and some of them would do seventy dollars worth of work and you knew you knew which was to
hire real fast um hiring techs are still going to be a problem um there's it's not solved overnight
and it's it's hard to do to get the right ones in place uh working getting them to work is great i
always would take my a tech um bring them into the interview and ask very technical questions
to see where to see exactly how good this tech was and um see where they came from see if they
job hop hopped a lot sometimes it's okay to call the past you know maybe you know who they used to
work for or read down the line say hey what went on here and and i've had them some of them say
this guy's great you need to hire him um i don't know why he left here or and we
would hire him back and i've also had people say you don't hire that guy he's terrible
um so there's all those type ways to do it and i think the best way to find techs unfortunately
is to get your techs to talk to their friends and get them to come in and then if you find a young
guy that's motivated and maybe is not the the smartest guy on the planet and you bring him in
as a as a lube tech and you just teach him a uh you know teach him what our vocational schools
used to teach them and work them up man you create long lasting employees and just really
really good mechanics that way and it's it's long and it it's hard it takes time but you will get
the best bang for your buck by hiring people with very little experience and training them up
hey guys real quick to interrupt the episode and make sure you know about a great sponsor
and support of the podcast blitz blitz i love it jeff that is kind of like goes from the facebook
to just facebook you're gonna reuse that joke aren't you it was funny you all will get that
reference in a future episode but uh blitz has changed their name a little bit because they're
launching more products you know they're not just a payment platform not just a processor
but they're also collections platform and analytics platform and who knows what else
robin and the team are going to get into but they've got the technology know how
to help dealers in a lot of aspects of their business yeah data is hard to process from just
everyday dealers but blitz is going to harness that they're going to harness ai and they're going to
combine that with payment platforms and payment process which is amazing so if you need a payment
processor you need a a friend in the industry or a partner blitz is the only company i would
recommend i think we've talked about that in previous episodes this is a shop having the
mentality of like the the teacher and the apprentices you know you've got your aid tech
who's the guy who's been at it for 30 plus years and you're not going to worry about him turning
wrenches and him flatting and beating the clock you want him to do some work but you want him just
to be checking in constantly on all your bs and c's and just teaching and educating and making
sure they did arrive before they go to the next step and really becoming like you said a trade
school you know i think a lot a lot of mechanics sees uh lube tech tire techs they want to move up
and they they're fine working learning on the job i don't know a single one that doesn't want to
tackle a bigger job than what you're giving them right something more fun more entertaining
we hired this guy years ago and and he's a really good tech i really liked him and he
he was a school dropout but the guy would come to work and we'd do his job and finally he said hey
you want to do a uh timer belt on a on a uh toyota highlander right or raf or somebody that bro it
took him two weeks since this time and oh man i was just getting so frustrated but sometimes you
have to go through that frustration um to get him trained properly and at the end of that he did
know how to do timing belts um because he had to put it together take it apart put it together
take it apart right and the masters had to come over there and show him and you know lesson learned
from my side and his side but in the end he's he's a really good tech he's at four down unfortunately
he left um and he left for much all kind of reasons but good kid and i'm glad to see that he's
he's going from a guy who's who started with me at $11 an hour he's probably making $35 $40 an
hour forward now and i love to see that transition um into you know into a real career i love to see
it yeah it's really it's a really hard thing because most cynical owners will say well what do you mean
that means they're gonna learn on my dime that means i'm gonna pay them three times to do a
timing job and i'm gonna pay for the parts and when it blows up i'm gonna pay for my hx we go
on and fix it again for the fourth time so this kid could learn how to do it the right way and then
the second he does learn he's gonna parlay that into a bigger better job at a new car store
he was with me for four years before he before he left so yeah you know it's it it worked out
good for me and good for him and i think in the long run if it if i wanted to keep him i would
have a little yeah different slight differences but but it's that old saying of you know what if i
train them and they leave me and it's like well what if you don't train them and they say stay
so right you gotta understand that yes you are gonna train them and you're gonna pay for them
to be trained which means then they're gonna come back to you in six months and ask for more pay
which is so funny like well you know you blew through thousands of dollars screwing up and
now you want me to pay you more because you figured it out yeah well that's how it works
right i mean that's how it is in every industry when they pay for more education i mean look at
the school industry education they will pay you to go back and get your masters so they
can pay you more months than for more money that's right so it's just the way it is so i don't think
dealers need to get caught up in that um worrying about i think what education and raising them right
is more important one last position i think that so many dealers are missing is a really good
numbers person chef um data person numbers person and and that may not be a full-time
position in your dealership but um am i with you am i dealership it was me right you know
but there might be a lot of dealers out there that unfortunately don't
have the the knowledge to be a numbers guy if you know what i mean yeah i'm not an accountant
yeah i'll learn to be an accountant um so if you don't have that skill set that's fine
hire somebody does have that skill set because when i when i came in to work for my dad
he's a sales guy and and a body guy but what i was able to do was i was able to harness what
the company was was currently doing uh refine the accounting portion show that we were making money
put money in the bank instead of in his pocket and learn how to distribute the cash when the time
was right um we totally transformed the way our business operated it was all because i
i wanted to look at this number wise not just gut-wise and there's so many people out there
need to hire that person either whether it's fractional cfo's or if it's a comptroller in-house
or go and take take less take schooling for you to learn how to do it you need to do that because
it's super important in our industry yeah and does it have to be a person i mean again i you know
we've kind of woven this ai theme through this hiring employee conversation how do i because
here's the biggest thing right like i follow all the twitter guys and i see everyone building these
apps with claud and claud code and blah blah blah and all this stuff but dude that's a lot of work
that would be a full-time job for me or a pretty serious part-time job when i get into these things
and i start dabbling beyond just the basic stuff that i have now right like even saying that i'm
setting up a you know a reconciliation for my parts and i have a reconciliation for my bank
account and my office supplies and and i do some of these little things inside of ai but how do i
like it would be a lot of work for me to try to build out real sophisticated stuff like the stuff
that i get from you know fractional cfo or some of these really experienced guys i just don't know
as a as a average dealer i just i can't build it sophisticated enough with my knowledge to really
have it do me any good i guess is what i'm saying yeah i think uh i think you could hire it out
or you hire the right person and ai can definitely help with that situation um it's just not quite
there yet you still need that person to explain it to you because just because you have the numbers
don't mean you know what those numbers mean well know what they mean and know how to change them
and that's the that's the next step i think to the whole thing that we sometimes get caught up in
is it's like okay well i got these numbers i know what my girl's profit is i know what my sales
number where i know what my leads were i know what i converted i know what i didn't but i don't know
how to change them like i don't know how to sell more cars i literally don't know how to sell more
cars that is it sounds like a crazy thing but um so what do i tweak what nom do i turn right
yeah that's that's where a consultant comes in jeff that's what i paid to do
well you know uh so i i think to put a pin in this whole conversation though and we can wrap this up
when we look at our employees uh and if everyone in the right seat on the bus
and our do we have standards and goals and are we holding people accountable
because we know we spoke with luke and luke told us hey if you have x amount of leads you
need x amount of salesmen and each salesman should handle this many leads and convert this
many leads into applications and this many applications into sales and each sale should
have this gross margin right but you have that standard on your salesman so then you
know hey mr salesman that desk right there that desk you're sitting in has got to do this
and if you don't do this two months in a row i'm finding someone who will and we can't be afraid
of that and that's that's what i think i'm probably driving at and and like my thesis around this whole
episode is we we hold our we hold good we hold great hostage to good right yeah you know like
my salesman today rolled in 45 minutes late is he gonna get fired it's not his first time
are you reading about if he sells two to three cars today and he might keep his job
but if i just see him groom customer after customer like has been the first top of this day
then i'm gonna have a real problem but i'm scared of having an empty desk
yeah there's people out there that can fill it yeah i hope so all right buddy
cool bud well big good talks hope you guys learn something out here next week see y'all
About this episode
Worrying about turnover turns into a bigger staffing conversation: train and engage people, then build workflows that scale. The hosts debate whether BDC agents are still needed, arguing that human-led lead handling matters more than office presence, with AI helping route and follow up. They also cover hiring sales and technicians with better screening (working interviews, technical questions) and using automation to prevent repossessions. The episode ties it all back to interpreting metrics and adjusting processes, not just collecting numbers.
Original notes
In this episode of the Independent Dealer Podcast, Jeff Watson and Luke Godwin get real about one of the most pressing challenges facing independent dealers in 2026 — building and keeping the right team. From sales to collections to the shop, they break down how AI is reshaping every position on your lot, which roles are disappearing, which ones matter more than ever, and what it actually takes to hire and retain people worth keeping.
What You'll Learn:
Why the BDC agent as you know it is going away — and what kind of salesperson you actually need to replace them in an AI-driven dealership
The debate: human-led lead management vs. full AI automation, and where the real closing magic still has to happen in person
How the collector-to-account ratio has nearly doubled and what that means for who you hire, how you train them, and what you pay them
Why hiring mechanics without experience and training them up beats poaching experienced techs — and how to run a working interview that cuts through the noise fast
How the Blytz and Ituran integration is eliminating after-hours headaches and cutting down the busywork your collectors shouldn't be doing anymore
Why every dealer needs a numbers person — and what happens to your business when the person running gut instinct finally meets a spreadsheet
If you're a buy here pay here or independent dealer trying to figure out how to staff smarter, hold people accountable, and stop letting good be the enemy of great, this episode is for you.
Support the businesses that support the podcast:
Buckeye Risk Services - Reinsurance and wealth strategies for independent dealers. https://theindependentdealer.com/buckeye
Blytz - BHPH payment processing with fast funding and text-to-pay.
https://theindependentdealer.com/blytzpay/
Ituran GPS - Asset protection and customer management for BHPH and retail dealers. https://theindependentdealer.com/ituran
Follow & Connect:
Website: www.theindependentdealer.com
Facebook Group: @independentautogroup
Luke Godwin: @lukegodwin
Jeff Watson: /sendtojeffw
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The Independent Dealer Podcast
Jeff Watson & Luke Godwin
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40:12