00:53
Y'all went from having like fully open retail store to to it's more of a website based
01:01
and customers just come and pick their car up. Is it that right? Let's say is that is that still the
01:05
case? It's like I just looked at it this morning for the year. It's straight about 60 40. It's 60
01:11
percent acceptable. Do the curbside take up and 40 percent through the look right to their walk.
01:17
Wait, wait, wait. 60 percent do curbside pickup and 40 percent you deliver to their house. So even
01:23
the 60 percent that are curbside are like just coming to pick up their car. They're in and out
01:46
Hello and welcome to the in the pendant dealer podcast. We have got a great episode today. We
01:53
got Luke who's hanging out in like a beach house somewhere just having fun. You know it's summertime.
01:58
We got Melissa. She's at her lake house having a great time and I am stuck here for a few more
02:03
days in St. George's Vicky cooking like a turkey. Where are you about to go? Where are you about to
02:07
go Jeff? I'm going to head over to the Mediterranean do a little cruise for a couple of weeks. So I
02:12
get a break as well. But I'm really feeling I'm done. We're going to get this episode. We're
02:20
going to have a great time and then we're all going to go on vacation, right? Yeah. So hey,
02:24
I want to introduce Melissa Rowan real quick. She is from red, white and blue. And you know,
02:30
we had her brother on an episode a while back. Mr. Billy himself. So maybe Jeff,
02:37
do you have any idea what episode that was? No, it was a long time ago and we bug
02:42
Melissa for years and because we really know that the brains is the brains.
02:47
She's the brains. Yeah. And she's so humble. She doesn't do it. So we finally cornered her
02:51
and said, come on, talk to us about the red, white and blue story and how it really went down. So
02:58
Melissa, thank you for joining us. Please introduce yourself to the podcast community
03:02
for anyone listening that might not know you. Sure. Melissa Rowan, red, white and blue autos.
03:08
We opened up in 2014 with very little car dealership experience. We're not car people
03:16
at all. And the first one to say I am not a car person. Most of the times I don't even know what
03:21
I'm driving. I think it's a Lincoln right now off the lot. I don't know. And we're just more
03:25
financial people. We both came from a brokerage business. My brother, he has since moved on.
03:31
He's still in red, white, blue, of course. I really talk to him a lot, but he does a lot of
03:35
real estate now who's at the hotel this weekend. So he's got a lot going on. So we left pretty
03:43
much just me and the managers at this point kind of at the guts of red, white and blue.
03:49
Yeah. So you said you both came from brokerage. Could you dive into that a little bit more and
03:56
then maybe we can transition or because I can't imagine somebody being a money manager
04:01
and then coming into this crazy business. So he had his own investment firm and I was a broker
04:07
with him there. So I had my series seven, my series 66, and we were investment brokers.
04:16
And that was down in YMSing, which is maybe about a half hour away from us. And then he
04:23
looked into a buy here, pay here, because we don't have any buy to pay here is in our area
04:27
at all. We will be of one, which is Wayne, but that was after red, white, and blue,
04:32
a lot of the police who got out. But really, we just thought that there was a really big
04:36
need for it in our area because it just wasn't any, I'll be honest. So we opened up and he
04:43
wanted somebody that like he fits like really, really trust and could like
04:48
make, you know, roll it with him. And at first, until now, I 100% said no. It's like,
04:54
nope, nope, nope. Because we worked together before when it's hard to work, but wow. And it's
04:58
just the two of us, you know, so I don't have like another sister calling me. So it was just us.
05:06
And so I was like, nope, nope, nope, nope. And then I finally paved. I said, I'll work.
05:11
I don't want to work for you, but I'll work with you. Like, let's do partners together. So
05:16
um, so he's very, he's very optimistic in life in general, whereas I am
05:25
pretty pessimistic. So I think that's why it worked so well, because if we were both optimistic,
05:30
like, I knew recovery would have blew the place up. And if we were both pessimistic,
05:35
I think we would have not grown or grow what we are today. So he's like 100 miles an hour. And
05:42
I'm like, what if rain him in? Definitely. Well, that, you know, that, that is,
05:48
that's an interesting concept to think about it, because you're right in the buy here, pay here
05:52
space. If you are, you know, if you're optimistic all the time and you're hammered down, growing,
05:58
that's going to create problems. You've got to have that, that person that goes, huh, hold on,
06:03
hold on one second here, you know, good and well, all these olds could go bad tomorrow.
06:07
So we got to, we got to back this thing up. The question I have though is,
06:13
I mean, how would you, how would, I can't even imagine like a person who is in the brokerage
06:19
business and has a firm even know about buy here, pay here. Do you remember how that came up?
06:26
Well, I mean, it's just, I don't want to say it's just members. I don't want to take it lightly
06:31
like that, but maybe, you know, we could sell anything we could finance anything. You know,
06:36
it doesn't matter. And we just have to be able to collect on it and have the numbers and have
06:42
the trends and have all that to the Wicklick. So really, it's just, that's just what we decided
06:47
to do. That's what he decided to do. It's the need burned in our area. We're just very fortunate
06:53
that we live in this bubble in Skopje County in Pennsylvania that nobody's taking cars to another
07:00
country. Nobody's even leaving. I'll be honest. So it's very rural Pennsylvania. You know,
07:06
it's a very family owned business because some, you know, our salespeople, one of the sales
07:12
ladies that's been here for 10 years, I went to high school with them. So like, it's very,
07:18
very family oriented. We were not, you know, crazy boss, crazy people at all. I mean, so I think
07:27
but more to answer your question, I think it just had to do with we always didn't financial people.
07:32
My dad was self-employed, not in the car business at all. And I just think it's the numbers.
07:40
Your business is only going to work for you. I just don't think it really matters what you
07:45
sell. Now comes with that, comes recon, comes warranty work, comes collections, of course.
07:50
And then, you know, the 20 hoops came in for that or mentors coming for that, like Mark Jones and
07:55
Shabran Dasch. And we believe in our nose a lot that the guys of the middle business,
07:59
forever, that spot it from their parents or work, if ever. So we just
08:04
opened our minds so much and took in much information.
08:08
It's interesting when you say you have kind of, you know, you're just,
08:14
we, yeah, that's pretty much what we, we just took it all in and just made it our
08:17
own and their ideas and just throw it right.
08:20
Yeah, it's great. And you say you're in kind of a family type tight knit community, but
08:27
you've been able to grow. And that's what's unique is you've got an area that's maybe a
08:32
little landlock or a little protected, which is a great thing. You don't have cars going all
08:36
directions like some folks in large metros do, but you've still been able to find the clientele.
08:42
And that's also a unique factor. What would you say has been key to the growth? Because you could
08:47
have stayed a small one shop operation and just operated in kind of your small town community
08:52
county. But what, what was that key to growth? How have you guys been able to scale to that?
08:57
I think it's, is it four locations now? Well, so we have one sale spot.
09:01
Okay. So we only had one sale spot. So everything goes from recon
09:06
to the sale slot. And that's nothing else gets sold out at that location. We did talk about opening
09:11
up a second location, but we're just not there yet. But okay, we do only have one sales location.
09:16
And when we have a recon center and then we have another location where we come used to be one
09:20
part. Okay. That there are free evening locations. It's about a 20 mile radius around all of those.
09:29
Yeah. I think this, I think there's something that's unique is in the reason,
09:35
the reason it seems like it's multiple locations, but y'all went from having like fully open
09:42
retail store to, to it's more of a, a website base and customers just come and pick
09:50
their car up. Is it that right? Melissa, is that, is that still the case?
09:53
Yes. It's like, I just looked at it this morning for the year. It's straight about 6040. It's 60%
09:59
unstable. Do the curbside take up and 40% through the look, right to their walk, right?
10:05
Wait, wait, wait. 60% do curbside pickup and 40% you deliver to their house. So even the 60% that
10:14
curbside are like just coming to pick up their car. They're in and out. That's crazy. That
10:20
everything is done ahead of time. Everything, other than the state paperwork, but they have
10:25
to physically, because it's in triple again, stuff like that does, but everything is done ahead.
10:31
So everything is over. How are you doing that? I want to know how, how do you instill the level
10:37
of confidence in a customer that the car they're going to pick up is what they're getting without
10:42
touching, feeling, driving a Honda Accord with 120,000 miles on it? Like, how do you, how do you
10:49
do that? They take it for a test drive. They're not locked, obviously. But I'm telling you, I
10:54
bet you we had of a thousand cars we sold last year, three, maybe decided at that time not to
11:03
buy a vehicle. I should think, yeah, very, really good name. A warranty is really good, but feel
11:09
good. They have a piece of mind. We put a lot of pictures on the web. So our website is arm
11:15
off pretty much. And so we put all these inside, outside, top, bottom, all these pictures, we put,
11:22
you know, what we've done to the car, like they're, it's full transparency. And then they come in,
11:27
they throw out all the paperwork online. It's all done. It's electronically signed. It's ready to
11:32
run when we got the car. It's outside. It's free. They pull in. They see it. Everybody can't be.
11:39
And then it's a couple of minutes to drive. And Melissa, did this, did this happen because of
11:47
COVID or were y'all moving to this prior to COVID? COVID. COVID. It's that simple.
11:54
And I thought I recalled that. And it was due to the regulations in your area, right?
12:00
Yeah, you walk us through that.
12:01
We bought two, we bought two delivery trucks, and we have two delivery drivers, and they're out
12:07
every day. And we have a 70 mile radius, but 70 miles in Pennsylvania, might be two and a half
12:14
hours of all the odds. So we have a map that we, that we go to. And yeah, so the delivery drivers,
12:21
they go every day. Sometimes they take two, sometimes they sweep around picking up replants
12:26
to pick up. They'll sweep around a repo a lot and pick up a repo or two. So we don't get those
12:31
to come back. I mean, it's a, it's a pretty slick system. And the drivers, we use Slack,
12:36
I was talking about that earlier, but we just, we have a Slack channel that it's just the
12:41
liveries that we've all picked up saying we just schedule it. And, and why, and I mean,
12:48
if people can remember back six years ago at this point, I guess the county shuts all down,
12:53
right? The state shut us down. They said that we were not essential.
12:57
So the only thing that was essential was collections, which meant all.
13:01
Thank God they last collect. Because how do you come back? I'm not, but we, yeah, so the service
13:06
department couldn't work. And so the kind of work. That's, that's nuts that the service department
13:12
is not essential, but go ahead. Well, I guess because we didn't really offer outside, we didn't,
13:18
we don't do outside oil changes and things like that. It's just fine. So,
13:22
so yeah, so we couldn't, we couldn't sell a car, but I think it was about six weeks. It was like
13:27
the second week of April until like the end of June. But when we opened that up, they were the
13:33
three busiest months we've ever had, June, July and August. We opened that up. It was crazy.
13:40
And during that time, did you, did you and Billy go, okay, you know, for the safety of our, of our,
13:46
our customers and the safety of our employees, we need to find a new way to sell cars? Is that the
13:54
way that conversation went? Yeah, yeah, we needed to be able to, because we were, nobody was allowed
13:59
in the building how to do everything outside. And I was like, you know, we were, we were brainstorming
14:05
all the time. And we were like, and we continued to pay every employee the whole time. We gave
14:09
everybody 40 hours. We into make them do an important normal and all that stuff. Everybody
14:13
got paid for 30 hours for the most six or eight weeks that we got. And yeah, we were just like,
14:19
we got to, we have to do something. I don't even know who's idea it was, but they were like,
14:22
what about delivery? Like, uh, uh, interesting. Let's go try it. But we had to go through the
14:27
state to make sure that we could do all of that. It's simply just do that. So, so they go, they'll
14:34
go to a Walmart parking lot and make a person, they'll go before or after work. I mean, people love
14:42
it. We do. What it makes me think about, and I'm curious, how do you, do you feel like it hurts
14:47
any kind of customer loyalty or like buying to you guys? Because I kind of feel like during the
14:53
sales process, when my salesmen are interacting and getting to know them and finding the right car
14:58
and all that building rapport and I'm your buddy and you're going to bring me lunch tomorrow,
15:01
kind of attitude, send in your friends and family. Now that we're best friends, like,
15:06
do you feel like you lose that at all when it's so there's no interaction? It's all by text and
15:11
email and we call them. It's all over the phone. Um, most of it's over the phone and you send,
15:18
you know, to follow up and things like that. But so I don't know if you know this, but up until
15:23
probably about three years ago, we only had women in sales. We had poor salesmen, their moms,
15:31
they're great. Like they're just, and I think that they built such a rapport with all of our
15:35
customers that when they come in, they're getting hugs, they're bringing them prizes. They're like,
15:41
they just like love. Now we did hire one and he's great. I'm not saying anything about Sean,
15:46
but I just think that they build such a relationship with the customers on the phone.
15:52
And then when they came in, they're like, oh my God, miss, oh my gosh. And also our delivery
15:58
driver is, is, he's a military guide. And to me is a yes man, no man. And people,
16:07
we get more reviews about our delivery people than we do about anybody in the whole company
16:11
with pills. It's so great. And they just, they just love him. He was so kind and four girl and
16:17
we bought me take it on, you know, when we went on the test drive, he's like, so I don't feel it.
16:23
I guess I wouldn't know. But it seems like it's working. You've got great people on the front
16:29
line. We still need you. Like at this point, I think here they were like 93 and a half a month.
16:35
So that's a good solid number. 8 to 9,100 is a great number for us. It's a, it's a great
16:42
number. And to think about doing that out of, you know, one real sales location, because there's so
16:49
many people trying to do that at three and four locations. And it creates so many different call
16:54
structures that, that just create additional expenses that aren't needed. Hey, sorry to break
16:59
in real quick, but make sure you guys know about Buckeye. Long time, awesome sponsor of the podcast
17:05
and who I use for all my reinsurance products. I can't thank them enough for teaching me so much
17:10
about reinsurance over the years and coming up with new products and new ways to get my portfolio
17:16
secured. My customers have options of warranties and the service contracts gap. I think it's just
17:22
been great Jeff. It's absolutely been a great way for me to build wealth, put away some money. So
17:26
if you are a buyer, pay here, lease here, pay here or retail dealer, it works for all dealers.
17:31
You can set up a reinsurance company. You can ensure your own stop giving money to those third
17:36
party providers that aren't going to cover your stuff anyways. Keep it in house, call the guys
17:41
and girls over at Buckeye, risk services and get set up ASAP. Melissa, to your talking about women
17:47
salespeople in the buy or pay here business, I think they are probably the best, honestly,
17:52
because of exactly what you're talking about. Looking back over six years of doing, doing it
17:59
this way and prior to that, you had six years of doing it another way. How much better is it this
18:05
way or would you rather be back the other way? No, I mean, we really like the delivery and we
18:11
like the, you know, kind of closing by the time, because for me personally, I haven't thought of
18:18
a lot of cars in my day, but I know the worst part was going to the car dealership. I'm sitting in
18:25
that lot and going back and forth with the manager, can you lower this a little bit more? My kids are
18:30
making, it's a four or five hour deal and we have, you know, we have 10 appointments on the books on
18:37
Saturday morning, five wood show, one, you know, two were supposed to be able to get 10am, the
18:43
smaller 12, while the other two people are there. They're waiting in the lobby like,
18:48
no, who is the time? And if they do in the time, they don't want to be doing that.
18:54
And I'm not judging anybody who does it multiple. I mean, that's, but they allow them
18:58
money for a lot of people. I'm not saying that. It just, this is a better process for us. And
19:02
just really, you know, even with everything that was AI and if you don't do it, you're going to be
19:08
left behind. And I just think we're just always trying to get forward as, and stay with every,
19:15
like every trend that we keep, you know, with social media and the AI and all that. I feel like
19:20
we just have to because you're just going to be left in the dust. Well, what's, I mean, that's so
19:25
true. I mean, if you look at Carvana sales numbers compared to Carmax sales numbers currently,
19:30
it shows you that people want the model of Carvana versus the model of Carmax,
19:35
which is a bit counterintuitive, but they're selling in my area. They're selling,
19:40
they're out selling Carmax two to one almost and nobody would have thought that six years ago. I
19:46
mean, it's just, just unheard of. I think it's so neat. If someone wants to come into your dealership
19:53
and buy a car traditional way, is that even allowed anymore?
19:56
Sure. Oh, for sure. Yeah, we, I would say though, of the hundred cars we sell, maybe
20:02
three to five are walk-ins. So we have walk-ins. Three to five? That is nuts. That is so nuts.
20:09
And yeah, really, like during tax time, you might have to step because you might have got
20:14
their check on Friday. Let's go car shop on Saturdays, but no walk-ins.
20:19
Does it, I mean, do you advertise this? Is like, if I go to, if I'm in your area,
20:27
and do I know that's red, white, and blues brand and it's delivery,
20:31
shop why you sit at home in your pajamas, is, do I know that from your, from your marketing?
20:36
Yeah. Yeah. Our Facebook's very heavily, you know, curbside pickup and delivery,
20:42
get approved and yes, you know, and as long as you have, you still have the app. And as long as you
20:48
give us everything that we're supposed to give us, you're qualified in our system.
20:54
And then we'll give you the ones that you're qualified for on a link to those to our website,
20:59
but has 15 pictures of the car, you know, so let us know and we'll click before you. We'll
21:05
do all paperwork and tell us when you want to begin and really use magic look now, you know,
21:10
for the last couple of years with you magic loop. So we have this schedule everybody and I see
21:15
they're ready with morning and they're green at night, which means if you're supposed to come in,
21:21
there's very few that are currently on the point and we've worked on 99% shall write to be a perfectly
21:26
honest. So you have 10 on Saturday morning and two freaking show up. That's the opposite.
21:33
And what I like about that is it looks like from your website, you're able to condense your hours
21:37
of operation because you don't just have to hang an open sign and hope that you're there when people
21:42
show up. I mean, you guys are up at 8am to 5pm and only nine to 12 on a Saturday and you're still
21:49
delivering that many cars. That's that's great because you're pre scheduling them, you're letting
21:54
them know this is when you can pick it up. This is when we're open. Like for me, I feel like I got
21:58
to be open 24 hours a day just to catch that 8pm shopper that might want to come in and
22:03
Well, Jeff, what's interesting is they are open 24 hours a day because of their website and the
22:08
way it's in the way it's set up and the customer feels like they're open, but there's certain
22:13
times when they can pick it up or get delivered to them, which I love. I think I think it's so
22:19
helpful for schedule employees work cycle and it's better for psychology wise across the board.
22:25
And you don't you don't need a lot that's on a main drag because you're not looking to get
22:29
walk-ins and eyeballs. No, no, yeah, we're going to try and you won't freak over. We were open
22:36
9am to 8pm and then nine to five on a Saturday. But that's a whole other staff.
22:42
Yeah, two that might be two more people. And it was before she half a desk, half a front desk
22:51
person. That's another half a BD person. That's another, you know, we have one BD person that
22:56
takes in all of the apps and schedules. I mean, she's amazing. She works from home 100%.
23:02
She schedules everybody's tasks, everything that we're beginning to do. Sales moves in and
23:07
just work their tasks. And it's just, it's just as well. Let's talk about that. Yes. Yeah, I really
23:14
want to know how you can do that because you're obviously remote, your husband's remote. Mostly
23:20
your whole sales operation is remote. So what tools are you specifically using to make that work?
23:26
Because I don't even comprehend not like when I'm out of the office, there's zero communication.
23:32
Like I'm out of the office. There's some occasional emails. But for me to be working, working remotely,
23:38
quote unquote, and like try to do that as a real job and move things forward, how do you guys
23:42
accomplish that? Well, our sales location is they're not remote. Just the BD though. She's
23:47
remote. Won't be switched up. But yeah, but the sales location is in Ashland and there's
23:54
four sales people there in Ashland and five times. But we use Magalup. We use, again, Slack,
24:01
very heavily. We have tons of channels. And then they all work through Matibu. And we don't,
24:09
we thought we looked at secure clothes. We might roll into that once we roll into the new DMS for
24:14
AMS because we're AMS now. So I never roll into something new. So once everybody has all their
24:20
new stuff, we're probably going to look back. But we're using DocuSign right now. And so we build
24:25
the path for everyone. And so you're working through a couple different locations. So, you know,
24:36
you can't walk out back to recon and check on things. So there has to be amazing communication
24:43
between all of your site managers or managers. Can you kind of walk us through? Because I think
24:47
a lot of times, as buy here, pay here dealers, we're not as sophisticated when it comes to
24:56
building layers. Have you all done that successfully? And how do you communicate
25:00
successfully through meetings, through whatever? Yep. So Tara is our collections manager. You
25:07
know Tara Carl. She was been with us for 10 years. She's phenomenal. And she has her collectors
25:13
that she fully manages. We talk a lot. Looks like a lot. So I trust her enough to, she can make
25:22
a, she can make a decision probably inflections better than I can. She lives and breathes that
25:26
every day. And we get into kind of reports that would show if something's off or wrong.
25:33
And then we have that, you know that Bill's son Zach, who he runs Rekind. And he has a full
25:40
staff there. And then he has that 15,000 panics. And then Dylan is our sales manager who is actually
25:46
Phil's son-in-law. So it's a whole family. What happens when someone has to go on a field like
25:52
Fisher? Yep. So, you know, we have Dylan who's running a sales location. And I talked to Bill in
25:58
three or four times today. So as long as the communication is up and again, sales are there
26:03
and I'm asking, I'm knowing questions a day too. I'm like, why isn't this,
26:06
why are these tickets open? I'm sure I've been crazy, but I've been doing job carbon
26:11
questions. This, this is still work at the end of the day with deep jobs. And if anybody were
26:18
going to do in their job, they do. Do you have certain days Melissa, where you, where you go to
26:24
each location? Or do you trust the folks there enough that you don't have to do that? Yeah.
26:30
I go to affluence sometimes that they're just in a cool, which really, I don't really,
26:35
I don't really have a lot to add. You know, as far as when I go up there, I can just,
26:39
all the market just, you know, message them. So, and they feel so comfortable with me because
26:46
they've, they've known me for like, years of my life. All my, all of our sales people have been
26:52
here almost, almost all the markets in years. Wow. So you going up there, what am I going to do?
27:00
Yeah. I mean, so do y'all have set meetings in the morning where you go, okay,
27:05
all, you know, all managers will meet this time, this day, or, or is that, or is that not us?
27:11
No, we have, we have a monthly meeting and then we have a, you know, a full manager slash now
27:18
where we run everything through. I just sent a couple things this morning, sent them a couple
27:22
of my favorite loans that paid off and how they did and, you know, things like that. So we're
27:27
always, we are, we're just always, it's, um, I think we would, can do it more this way
27:35
than I think we would if everybody was in the office in under one move. I think there would be a lot
27:40
of chatter and a lot of water cooler talk. Oh, yeah. Cause we've done it. We did that for the
27:48
first same years, you know, that everybody, we only had two locations, but you know, when everybody's
27:54
under the same roof, like, go with the coffee, what do we want for life and start talking about
27:58
lunch, 10 o'clock in the morning? It's like, no, no. We're not talking about
28:01
lunch, 10 o'clock in the morning. Let's get, let's get to work. Yeah. That is so crazy. So
28:08
have you tried other communications? Cause I've run into that issue at the car lot is like,
28:13
how do we communicate? There's so many avenues. Like, am I using Google chats? Am I using Slack?
28:17
Am I using group me? Am I just doing text message groups? Like, have you tried other ones and found
28:23
that Slack is the best for this kind of like constant inner office communication? Cause even us,
28:29
like we've got posted notes, we've got a text channel. We've got like, like there's just too
28:35
many avenues of communication that either we're not checking or we're not getting to like, do you
28:41
feel like that's the best one? For sure. We don't email each other at all. Oh, wow. Really? Not at
28:48
all. Never. Unless it's an outside company, you know, that we need to share that. Yeah. But
28:54
most of the times I'll just pull the attachment through the Slack because then I know it's there.
28:58
I want to go ruling through my emails. All the time and all conversations and everything. I mean,
29:05
literally everything. You have everything in Slack right now. And we have a lot. Sorry. Sorry.
29:11
You said earlier that you, which I thought was nuts. Like, if there was something you thought,
29:16
not nuts, but just so smart, that before you kind of ask people, you go and search Slack and make
29:23
sure it hadn't been talked about before. Yes. It's actually soft numbers. You know, hey, I thought
29:28
that people went to auction. Why didn't you sell yet? And I just spoken instead of saying,
29:32
where's the car? Ruin every, you know, in reality, everybody else. I just search and say, oh wait,
29:38
I asked for that. I could just happen. I asked, what about that little two weeks ago? And I
29:42
did a bit of advice. So then I can really say, oh, I have to not get to it. So no reply to me.
29:48
Where is it? Oh, you know, or it's like, oh, no, it did sell an auction. We just didn't get the
29:52
check yet. I'm waiting for the check to be applied. But it just teaches people that it's like,
29:57
do you really don't blame me? Just look it up. It's all in Slack. Man, that's, it would be hard
30:03
to train. It seems like it'd be hard to train people to get there. How long do you, how long
30:08
have you all been using Slack and how long did it take you to get everybody kind of on board?
30:12
Because I think that a lot of times, Jeff, and you probably agree with this, a lot of times we
30:17
start using something and then we abandon it too quickly before we get very used to it.
30:22
I mean, we just started using it. That's what you're using from now forward. Now, this is how
30:26
you communicate and write about, you know, you, you know, if you need to call, you can call,
30:33
you can call through Slack. It's all the huddle. You know, so you could just do it through there,
30:37
but that's pretty much, we just run everything through there. Yeah.
30:42
That's so interesting. What about cameras? Are you able to log in remotely to any kind of cameras
30:48
if you're trying to like see what's going on at the lot? Is that part of your management style
30:52
or is that not? No, I don't want to be a big brother. You know, no, I really don't. Again,
30:59
if the numbers, the numbers would tell me, I truly honestly believe that if, if I see that we're not
31:06
closing on a Friday at 93.5% of the rain, Lindsay, what the hell is going on? You know, if we're not
31:13
selling 45 cars a day, what's going on? And, and I asked those questions, don't think I don't ask it.
31:19
You know, oh, wait, it's a slow week. What's going on? Do we need to increase Facebook?
31:23
Do we need to increase Google advertising? What do we need to do? No, we're, you know,
31:27
what are the circles and where they check mention rate every single day and track it.
31:32
And I, I'm such a data person that I use a lot of Kim tables. I don't need to use
31:37
pivot tables, but in Excel, but I pivot table everything. So I have one spreadsheet that I
31:43
get at the end of every month, but I do trims for because I just need to know the trends.
31:52
And it's, but it's really cool because when you screenshot it at the end of the year,
31:55
and you say, here's 12 years worth of data, you know, our, our, our average, uh, you know,
32:03
age of customer was 45 when we started, now it's 35. Is it because more people are on social media,
32:09
younger people are on social media? I just, so it's just, it's just great. We're just very,
32:14
we're very daily driven. And if there's a hit at the end, you get to just jump out. If refunds
32:18
up $200, what happened if warranty crosses up 10,000? Are you getting tell what happened?
32:24
Hey guys, real quick to interrupt the episode and make sure you know about a great sponsor
32:28
and supporter of the podcast Blitz. Blitz. I love it, Jeff. That is kind of like,
32:34
goes from the Facebook to just Facebook. You're going to reuse that joke, aren't you?
32:39
It was funny. Y'all will get that reference in a future episode, but uh, Blitz has,
32:44
has changed their name a little bit because they're launching more products. You know,
32:47
they're not just a payment platform, not just a processor, but they're also a collections
32:51
platform and analytics platform. And who knows what else Robin and the team are going to get into,
32:56
but they've got the technology. They've got the know how to help dealers in a lot of aspects
33:02
of their business. Yeah. Data is hard to process from just everyday dealers, but Blitz is going to
33:10
harness that and they're going to harness AI and they're going to combine that with payment platforms
33:15
and payment process, which is amazing. So if you need a payment processor, you need a friend in
33:22
the industry or a partner, Blitz is the only company I would recommend. And are you the one,
33:28
are you the one putting the data into the, into the spreadsheet or do you have managers that are
33:35
responsible for doing that? Most of it comes from the DMS. They're taking half, you know,
33:42
they have to do it in the month numbers. They, they definitely do have to give them the all
33:47
for sure. And then your numbers, you know, as we call numbers, sales numbers come every day.
33:54
But that's like my name focuses like the accounting and the data and things like that,
33:58
but then we don't have, you know, I do the HR and benefits for you on the worker's top and
34:06
all that side of the thing too. So yeah, it's definitely, it's a lot.
34:12
Well, I mean, it just sounds like you are, you're truly working off of what the numbers are telling
34:17
you and you're not going with your gut. And, and maybe that's a portion of being away, being
34:22
disconnected, not being on site allows you to be data driven and not gut driven. That's so, yeah,
34:28
that's so many of us are emotional because we see what's going on. Right. They're not,
34:33
they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. You know,
34:38
and I don't expect 40 hours of hours out of, I don't expect 40 hours of productivity out of
34:44
a full girl. Like, that's crazy. So, you know, but it's, I just, I truly honestly believe,
34:54
and I thought the better company that I just really want to treat adults like adults.
34:58
And I do think, you know, or if, if I have a, one of her,
35:03
whatever, so they'll leave their granddaughter is graduating, please fall at 10 o'clock on Tuesday.
35:10
Go. Go. I'll see you in 45 minutes. I'll see you in an hour and come back because I just don't
35:15
think that they should miss it. Like, for what? And, and I think that really keeps the attention
35:21
of our employees so much. And that's why everybody's here for so long, nobody agrees.
35:26
It's not that we're paying everybody $500 an hour. That's not why they're staying in.
35:31
You know, they're, they're staying because they just have a little bit freedom and they
35:34
get treated like adults. And that's just what a lot of people want. You know, they just, they're
35:39
like, I'm adults and I just want to be treated and restored and feel like I'm part of the team
35:46
and making, and they all, they are for sure. Yeah. So much of that comes when you manage it by
35:52
the numbers and not by the feeling like we talked about before, like I'm here in my dealership and
35:58
I'm listening to these guys or I'm seeing them chit chat and then I get after them like I got a
36:02
babysit them. And it's like, no, if I just took a step back and looked at the numbers, did he get
36:06
his calls done? Did he get his applications? How many is he delivered? And dealers, we don't,
36:11
we don't look at those data points or get them regularly. Well, how's your month going? Well,
36:16
I don't know. I'll know at the end of the month when I pull my numbers and put them together.
36:19
Like, well, are you tracking? Like, and what did you miss? Well, I don't know. We just didn't get
36:24
the sales. Well, did you get the applications? Did you get the approvals? Like, what, what did you
36:28
miss along the way? Like, like you were talking about, if you're having a bad week, you're going
36:32
to go turn up Facebook for three days, five days, whatever it is, to bump that up, to make sure you
36:38
meet your goal by Saturday. That is so interesting because you're looking at the data and you're
36:44
seeing the dashboards and little knobs you can turn every day to kind of tweak here and tweak
36:49
there. Is that, that is, makes so much sense because I never would look at
36:56
my advertising at, in that type of lens, Melissa, like, I would wait 10 to the month to go, well,
37:01
I guess we, we need to increase advertising the following month when you can do it right now.
37:07
Immediately. I mean, everything is in real time. I just, yeah, you're just going to miss it. You
37:13
know, you, you might miss 10 sales if you only until the end of the month. And then at that point,
37:18
it's over. So what's going to even, when we, you know, looking at it, you know, we, we just,
37:22
we also look at it every day. Honestly, every day, we have the daily report that we do every single
37:27
day. And then it carries over for the month and then it carries over for the year. And it's for
37:32
10 days. How many is on the web? It's how many we have an inventory? It's the BCV. It's the recon.
37:39
It's everything. It's what the charge office payouts charge us every single day. It's how much
37:44
I have left on my Barling bits. Let's be honest. I mean, you know that every single day. What do
37:48
I have availability? How many cars from the Microsoft? You know, these are all the same
37:52
questions that everybody's been asked. And it takes us 12 years, but we still, you still need
37:59
to have enough cash to buy cars. Like this week, I was like, we have 150, you know, whatever, we
38:03
plan, we can buy like this week. We're fine. Okay. Sounds good. I don't need to spend, I don't
38:09
need buying on a 15 cars this week. Well, I think that means it's looked at all the time.
38:16
No, I think you're, you're exactly right. And so many of us don't, we wait, we wait until
38:20
the end of month to figure out why we had a bad month instead of trying to, trying to do it
38:23
in the middle of the month. Melissa, we've kept you here for a while anyway, but you are up.
38:30
You won the Mid-Atlantic or Pennsylvania is a Mid-Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic quality dealer,
38:37
which is awesome. And now you're up for NQD. Can you kind of talk about what that means to you
38:43
and, and being recognized like that? Well, I looked back and saw it was like, why sometimes it's a
38:50
woman one. So Donald would have been the last winner. And I think it's been how many years a lot.
38:58
So I was very likely that three of the 11 are women. So that'd be my far very happy.
39:07
But I'm super excited. I mean, I just, I just feel like we put so much into business. I mean,
39:13
it's just like my whole heart and soul is ready to do, which I know everyone does, of course.
39:19
And everyone sacrifices in life for, you know, this business. But yeah, I'm, I'm completely
39:25
be honored. I mean, I've been working with the Mid-Atlantic, you know, what used to be PIADA for
39:30
a while with Tommy Brandes and Bert and excited to be nominated. And yeah, we're, we're heading
39:36
out to Denver in two weeks and I'm coming up early day weekend. So maybe we can, maybe we can
39:45
What is your focus on giving back to your area? Is there something that really grabs you up?
39:51
Yeah, we do a lot. We do like a big trophy giveaway. We do a ton of, you know, obviously all
39:57
kids with baseball, you know, whatever. We just did this golf classic. We did a make-a-wish this
40:03
year. So we kind of the witch to a kid who he's sponsored and a husband is a dirt track racer.
40:10
And so we sponsor a bit dirt truck and victory loan and the pace truck and all that stuff. So
40:14
we are definitely really, really well known in the area just because we were low and, you know,
40:21
and, and everybody knows not, this isn't like meant to be, you know, everybody knows us. I don't
40:26
mean it that way, but like, we're just known in the movie and we have a very good reputation,
40:31
a red, white, blue, and a really good reputation. So we're just like not knowing it's that
40:37
swine, new car dealership, you know, we have a good reputation and we stand behind everything.
40:43
And yeah, I'm honored, completely honored and super excited as well. And I don't really know
40:49
any of the other nominees. So I'm excited to read some of them.
40:55
Well, good luck, Jeff. You know, one of these days, Jeff, you're going to get,
41:01
maybe try to get NQD, maybe?
41:03
No, no, no, that sounds like a lot of work. I don't like, anyways, but I will be there,
41:11
obviously, as the Utah State President. I'm excited to be out at National in two weeks and
41:16
see this whole process. As a state nominee, you are then qualified for the next year
41:25
to be national nominee and you don't know the, what do they call that, the
41:31
class, the ballot. And so that's really hard because, you know, this doesn't come around twice
41:39
to get a state, state quality dealer is once in a lifetime. So to go up and then,
41:44
so you have one shot. And if you happen to go up against like some really strong candidates that
41:51
have got a lifelong of this, that or the other, that's a, that's fun and scary all at the same
41:58
time, but super cool.
42:00
But I think, I think it's more based on like, right, isn't it more based on like your immunity
42:05
service loan and, you know, things like that, like my, my daughter, it's a nonprofit. So like,
42:10
you work a lot with her nonprofit and things like that. So, I mean, I definitely
42:16
feel like I should be in that boat. And I'm excited, like, I'm excited to, to even just be
42:24
on it, to be honest.
42:26
Yeah, I've, yeah, I felt the same way. It's, it's, it humbled you very quickly. And, you know,
42:32
good luck. You know, we're going to have a few of these folks on and I wish them all the luck,
42:37
but yeah, yeah, awesome. Melissa, thank you so much for being here. And we like so generous
42:44
with your time. I know, like you said, you're at work, you're in the office. This looks like
42:48
you're on vacation, but you're not loose. The one that's going to go sit by the beach.
42:53
And you probably have all sorts of slack conversations that have built up. So we,
42:57
we really do appreciate it. And anyone that listens to this episode, it's gonna air before
43:02
NIDA in a couple of weeks. Talk to Melissa, because I still have 50 more questions I want to
43:08
ask you about how you're doing this. And it's honestly, one of those episodes where I took
43:11
notes, I've been doing stuff, like, I'm going to change things because I just love that model.
43:16
And I love what you guys are doing. And it all builds on itself, like to remote delivery,
43:21
you got to have reputation and you guys have reputation so you can do this type of business
43:25
model. So super cool. I really appreciate this.
43:28
Yeah, call me anytime if you need, I don't want to say if you don't need help, obviously, but
43:32
if you need help or any questions or how we do the flow or anything like that, or what reports I
43:38
go and what I'm recording, reporting on, not saying that I'm doing everything perfect. I'm for
43:42
sure not, but we're at least able to make very educated decisions based on the information
43:48
that we have. And that's pretty much as much as I can ask for.
43:52
Well, thank you, Melissa. And I know everybody out there will learn a lot here and go say,
43:56
hey, next time you see Melissa. Thank you. All right, see you guys.
