#436 - The Dealer who Delivers Cars in Pajamas: How Red White & Blue Went 97% Digital
The Independent Dealer Podcast
#436 - The Dealer who Delivers Cars in Pajamas: How Red White & Blue Went 97% Digital
The Independent Dealer Podcast · Jun 18, 2026
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Concept
buy here, pay here
“Buy here, pay here” means the car dealer sells you the car and also takes your payments. It’s often aimed at people who can’t easily get approved for a normal bank loan.
Concept
brokerage business
In this context, a “brokerage business” refers to an intermediary that helps arrange car sales/financing rather than owning inventory and selling cars directly. That distinction matters because it changes who controls the financing terms and who manages payment risk.
Concept
numbers and trends
They’re talking about tracking business metrics over time. The idea is to look at the data (like how often people pay on time) and adjust decisions based on what’s happening.
Term
collections
“Collections” means chasing down overdue payments. In dealer financing, it’s how the dealer tries to make sure the money gets paid on time.
Term
recon
“Recon” means reconditioning a used car. It’s the work done to get it ready to sell—like fixing issues and making it look and run right.
Term
warranty work
“Warranty work” is when a car gets fixed under a warranty. The dealer or warranty provider pays for covered repairs, depending on the terms.
Car
Honda Accord
A Honda Accord is a very common, everyday car. Here it’s mentioned as an example of a used car people can buy without physically inspecting it first because the dealer shares lots of details online.
Concept
full transparency
“Full transparency” means the dealer shows you lots of clear photos and details about the car. The goal is to help you feel confident buying it even if you can’t inspect it in person right away.
Term
electronically signed
Electronically signed paperwork means the buyer completes the purchase documents digitally rather than printing, signing by hand, and mailing or returning forms. In dealer workflows, this speeds up processing so the car can be delivered and ready to go quickly.
Concept
70 mile radius
A “70 mile radius” is just the area around the dealership where they’ll deliver cars. It helps them plan routes so drivers can handle deliveries efficiently.
Term
repo
A “repo” is a car that gets taken back by the lender because the owner stopped making payments. Here, the dealer says their drivers sometimes pick up repos on the same trips as deliveries.
Brand
Slack
Slack is an app teams use to chat and share updates quickly. The dealer uses it to coordinate deliveries and keep everyone on the same page.
Car
Volkswagen Golf
The Volkswagen Golf is a small car made for everyday use, usually in a hatchback body style. It’s designed to be practical for commuting and errands, which is why a lot of people consider it when shopping for a reliable daily driver.
LIVE
Y'all went from having like fully open retail store to to it's more of a website based
and customers just come and pick their car up. Is it that right? Let's say is that is that still the
case? It's like I just looked at it this morning for the year. It's straight about 60 40. It's 60
percent acceptable. Do the curbside take up and 40 percent through the look right to their walk.
Wait, wait, wait. 60 percent do curbside pickup and 40 percent you deliver to their house. So even
the 60 percent that are curbside are like just coming to pick up their car. They're in and out
Hello and welcome to the in the pendant dealer podcast. We have got a great episode today. We
got Luke who's hanging out in like a beach house somewhere just having fun. You know it's summertime.
We got Melissa. She's at her lake house having a great time and I am stuck here for a few more
days in St. George's Vicky cooking like a turkey. Where are you about to go? Where are you about to
go Jeff? I'm going to head over to the Mediterranean do a little cruise for a couple of weeks. So I
get a break as well. But I'm really feeling I'm done. We're going to get this episode. We're
going to have a great time and then we're all going to go on vacation, right? Yeah. So hey,
I want to introduce Melissa Rowan real quick. She is from red, white and blue. And you know,
we had her brother on an episode a while back. Mr. Billy himself. So maybe Jeff,
do you have any idea what episode that was? No, it was a long time ago and we bug
Melissa for years and because we really know that the brains is the brains.
She's the brains. Yeah. And she's so humble. She doesn't do it. So we finally cornered her
and said, come on, talk to us about the red, white and blue story and how it really went down. So
Melissa, thank you for joining us. Please introduce yourself to the podcast community
for anyone listening that might not know you. Sure. Melissa Rowan, red, white and blue autos.
We opened up in 2014 with very little car dealership experience. We're not car people
at all. And the first one to say I am not a car person. Most of the times I don't even know what
I'm driving. I think it's a Lincoln right now off the lot. I don't know. And we're just more
financial people. We both came from a brokerage business. My brother, he has since moved on.
He's still in red, white, blue, of course. I really talk to him a lot, but he does a lot of
real estate now who's at the hotel this weekend. So he's got a lot going on. So we left pretty
much just me and the managers at this point kind of at the guts of red, white and blue.
Yeah. So you said you both came from brokerage. Could you dive into that a little bit more and
then maybe we can transition or because I can't imagine somebody being a money manager
and then coming into this crazy business. So he had his own investment firm and I was a broker
with him there. So I had my series seven, my series 66, and we were investment brokers.
And that was down in YMSing, which is maybe about a half hour away from us. And then he
looked into a buy here, pay here, because we don't have any buy to pay here is in our area
at all. We will be of one, which is Wayne, but that was after red, white, and blue,
a lot of the police who got out. But really, we just thought that there was a really big
need for it in our area because it just wasn't any, I'll be honest. So we opened up and he
wanted somebody that like he fits like really, really trust and could like
make, you know, roll it with him. And at first, until now, I 100% said no. It's like,
nope, nope, nope. Because we worked together before when it's hard to work, but wow. And it's
just the two of us, you know, so I don't have like another sister calling me. So it was just us.
And so I was like, nope, nope, nope, nope. And then I finally paved. I said, I'll work.
I don't want to work for you, but I'll work with you. Like, let's do partners together. So
um, so he's very, he's very optimistic in life in general, whereas I am
pretty pessimistic. So I think that's why it worked so well, because if we were both optimistic,
like, I knew recovery would have blew the place up. And if we were both pessimistic,
I think we would have not grown or grow what we are today. So he's like 100 miles an hour. And
I'm like, what if rain him in? Definitely. Well, that, you know, that, that is,
that's an interesting concept to think about it, because you're right in the buy here, pay here
space. If you are, you know, if you're optimistic all the time and you're hammered down, growing,
that's going to create problems. You've got to have that, that person that goes, huh, hold on,
hold on one second here, you know, good and well, all these olds could go bad tomorrow.
So we got to, we got to back this thing up. The question I have though is,
I mean, how would you, how would, I can't even imagine like a person who is in the brokerage
business and has a firm even know about buy here, pay here. Do you remember how that came up?
Well, I mean, it's just, I don't want to say it's just members. I don't want to take it lightly
like that, but maybe, you know, we could sell anything we could finance anything. You know,
it doesn't matter. And we just have to be able to collect on it and have the numbers and have
the trends and have all that to the Wicklick. So really, it's just, that's just what we decided
to do. That's what he decided to do. It's the need burned in our area. We're just very fortunate
that we live in this bubble in Skopje County in Pennsylvania that nobody's taking cars to another
country. Nobody's even leaving. I'll be honest. So it's very rural Pennsylvania. You know,
it's a very family owned business because some, you know, our salespeople, one of the sales
ladies that's been here for 10 years, I went to high school with them. So like, it's very,
very family oriented. We were not, you know, crazy boss, crazy people at all. I mean, so I think
but more to answer your question, I think it just had to do with we always didn't financial people.
My dad was self-employed, not in the car business at all. And I just think it's the numbers.
Your business is only going to work for you. I just don't think it really matters what you
sell. Now comes with that, comes recon, comes warranty work, comes collections, of course.
And then, you know, the 20 hoops came in for that or mentors coming for that, like Mark Jones and
Shabran Dasch. And we believe in our nose a lot that the guys of the middle business,
forever, that spot it from their parents or work, if ever. So we just
opened our minds so much and took in much information.
It's interesting when you say you have kind of, you know, you're just,
we, yeah, that's pretty much what we, we just took it all in and just made it our
own and their ideas and just throw it right.
Yeah, it's great. And you say you're in kind of a family type tight knit community, but
you've been able to grow. And that's what's unique is you've got an area that's maybe a
little landlock or a little protected, which is a great thing. You don't have cars going all
directions like some folks in large metros do, but you've still been able to find the clientele.
And that's also a unique factor. What would you say has been key to the growth? Because you could
have stayed a small one shop operation and just operated in kind of your small town community
county. But what, what was that key to growth? How have you guys been able to scale to that?
I think it's, is it four locations now? Well, so we have one sale spot.
Okay. So we only had one sale spot. So everything goes from recon
to the sale slot. And that's nothing else gets sold out at that location. We did talk about opening
up a second location, but we're just not there yet. But okay, we do only have one sales location.
And when we have a recon center and then we have another location where we come used to be one
part. Okay. That there are free evening locations. It's about a 20 mile radius around all of those.
Yeah. I think this, I think there's something that's unique is in the reason,
the reason it seems like it's multiple locations, but y'all went from having like fully open
retail store to, to it's more of a, a website base and customers just come and pick
their car up. Is it that right? Melissa, is that, is that still the case?
Yes. It's like, I just looked at it this morning for the year. It's straight about 6040. It's 60%
unstable. Do the curbside take up and 40% through the look, right to their walk, right?
Wait, wait, wait. 60% do curbside pickup and 40% you deliver to their house. So even the 60% that
curbside are like just coming to pick up their car. They're in and out. That's crazy. That
everything is done ahead of time. Everything, other than the state paperwork, but they have
to physically, because it's in triple again, stuff like that does, but everything is done ahead.
So everything is over. How are you doing that? I want to know how, how do you instill the level
of confidence in a customer that the car they're going to pick up is what they're getting without
touching, feeling, driving a Honda Accord with 120,000 miles on it? Like, how do you, how do you
do that? They take it for a test drive. They're not locked, obviously. But I'm telling you, I
bet you we had of a thousand cars we sold last year, three, maybe decided at that time not to
buy a vehicle. I should think, yeah, very, really good name. A warranty is really good, but feel
good. They have a piece of mind. We put a lot of pictures on the web. So our website is arm
off pretty much. And so we put all these inside, outside, top, bottom, all these pictures, we put,
you know, what we've done to the car, like they're, it's full transparency. And then they come in,
they throw out all the paperwork online. It's all done. It's electronically signed. It's ready to
run when we got the car. It's outside. It's free. They pull in. They see it. Everybody can't be.
And then it's a couple of minutes to drive. And Melissa, did this, did this happen because of
COVID or were y'all moving to this prior to COVID? COVID. COVID. It's that simple.
And I thought I recalled that. And it was due to the regulations in your area, right?
Yeah, you walk us through that.
We bought two, we bought two delivery trucks, and we have two delivery drivers, and they're out
every day. And we have a 70 mile radius, but 70 miles in Pennsylvania, might be two and a half
hours of all the odds. So we have a map that we, that we go to. And yeah, so the delivery drivers,
they go every day. Sometimes they take two, sometimes they sweep around picking up replants
to pick up. They'll sweep around a repo a lot and pick up a repo or two. So we don't get those
to come back. I mean, it's a, it's a pretty slick system. And the drivers, we use Slack,
I was talking about that earlier, but we just, we have a Slack channel that it's just the
liveries that we've all picked up saying we just schedule it. And, and why, and I mean,
if people can remember back six years ago at this point, I guess the county shuts all down,
right? The state shut us down. They said that we were not essential.
So the only thing that was essential was collections, which meant all.
Thank God they last collect. Because how do you come back? I'm not, but we, yeah, so the service
department couldn't work. And so the kind of work. That's, that's nuts that the service department
is not essential, but go ahead. Well, I guess because we didn't really offer outside, we didn't,
we don't do outside oil changes and things like that. It's just fine. So,
so yeah, so we couldn't, we couldn't sell a car, but I think it was about six weeks. It was like
the second week of April until like the end of June. But when we opened that up, they were the
three busiest months we've ever had, June, July and August. We opened that up. It was crazy.
And during that time, did you, did you and Billy go, okay, you know, for the safety of our, of our,
our customers and the safety of our employees, we need to find a new way to sell cars? Is that the
way that conversation went? Yeah, yeah, we needed to be able to, because we were, nobody was allowed
in the building how to do everything outside. And I was like, you know, we were, we were brainstorming
all the time. And we were like, and we continued to pay every employee the whole time. We gave
everybody 40 hours. We into make them do an important normal and all that stuff. Everybody
got paid for 30 hours for the most six or eight weeks that we got. And yeah, we were just like,
we got to, we have to do something. I don't even know who's idea it was, but they were like,
what about delivery? Like, uh, uh, interesting. Let's go try it. But we had to go through the
state to make sure that we could do all of that. It's simply just do that. So, so they go, they'll
go to a Walmart parking lot and make a person, they'll go before or after work. I mean, people love
it. We do. What it makes me think about, and I'm curious, how do you, do you feel like it hurts
any kind of customer loyalty or like buying to you guys? Because I kind of feel like during the
sales process, when my salesmen are interacting and getting to know them and finding the right car
and all that building rapport and I'm your buddy and you're going to bring me lunch tomorrow,
kind of attitude, send in your friends and family. Now that we're best friends, like,
do you feel like you lose that at all when it's so there's no interaction? It's all by text and
email and we call them. It's all over the phone. Um, most of it's over the phone and you send,
you know, to follow up and things like that. But so I don't know if you know this, but up until
probably about three years ago, we only had women in sales. We had poor salesmen, their moms,
they're great. Like they're just, and I think that they built such a rapport with all of our
customers that when they come in, they're getting hugs, they're bringing them prizes. They're like,
they just like love. Now we did hire one and he's great. I'm not saying anything about Sean,
but I just think that they build such a relationship with the customers on the phone.
And then when they came in, they're like, oh my God, miss, oh my gosh. And also our delivery
driver is, is, he's a military guide. And to me is a yes man, no man. And people,
we get more reviews about our delivery people than we do about anybody in the whole company
with pills. It's so great. And they just, they just love him. He was so kind and four girl and
we bought me take it on, you know, when we went on the test drive, he's like, so I don't feel it.
I guess I wouldn't know. But it seems like it's working. You've got great people on the front
line. We still need you. Like at this point, I think here they were like 93 and a half a month.
So that's a good solid number. 8 to 9,100 is a great number for us. It's a, it's a great
number. And to think about doing that out of, you know, one real sales location, because there's so
many people trying to do that at three and four locations. And it creates so many different call
structures that, that just create additional expenses that aren't needed. Hey, sorry to break
in real quick, but make sure you guys know about Buckeye. Long time, awesome sponsor of the podcast
and who I use for all my reinsurance products. I can't thank them enough for teaching me so much
about reinsurance over the years and coming up with new products and new ways to get my portfolio
secured. My customers have options of warranties and the service contracts gap. I think it's 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 here, pay here or retail dealer, it works for all dealers.
You can set up a reinsurance company. You can ensure 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. Melissa, to your talking about women
salespeople in the buy or pay here business, I think they are probably the best, honestly,
because of exactly what you're talking about. Looking back over six years of doing, doing it
this way and prior to that, you had six years of doing it another way. How much better is it this
way or would you rather be back the other way? No, I mean, we really like the delivery and we
like the, you know, kind of closing by the time, because for me personally, I haven't thought of
a lot of cars in my day, but I know the worst part was going to the car dealership. I'm sitting in
that lot and going back and forth with the manager, can you lower this a little bit more? My kids are
making, it's a four or five hour deal and we have, you know, we have 10 appointments on the books on
Saturday morning, five wood show, one, you know, two were supposed to be able to get 10am, the
smaller 12, while the other two people are there. They're waiting in the lobby like,
no, who is the time? And if they do in the time, they don't want to be doing that.
And I'm not judging anybody who does it multiple. I mean, that's, but they allow them
money for a lot of people. I'm not saying that. It just, this is a better process for us. And
just really, you know, even with everything that was AI and if you don't do it, you're going to be
left behind. And I just think we're just always trying to get forward as, and stay with every,
like every trend that we keep, you know, with social media and the AI and all that. I feel like
we just have to because you're just going to be left in the dust. Well, what's, I mean, that's so
true. I mean, if you look at Carvana sales numbers compared to Carmax sales numbers currently,
it shows you that people want the model of Carvana versus the model of Carmax,
which is a bit counterintuitive, but they're selling in my area. They're selling,
they're out selling Carmax two to one almost and nobody would have thought that six years ago. I
mean, it's just, just unheard of. I think it's so neat. If someone wants to come into your dealership
and buy a car traditional way, is that even allowed anymore?
Sure. Oh, for sure. Yeah, we, I would say though, of the hundred cars we sell, maybe
three to five are walk-ins. So we have walk-ins. Three to five? That is nuts. That is so nuts.
And yeah, really, like during tax time, you might have to step because you might have got
their check on Friday. Let's go car shop on Saturdays, but no walk-ins.
Does it, I mean, do you advertise this? Is like, if I go to, if I'm in your area,
and do I know that's red, white, and blues brand and it's delivery,
shop why you sit at home in your pajamas, is, do I know that from your, from your marketing?
Yeah. Yeah. Our Facebook's very heavily, you know, curbside pickup and delivery,
get approved and yes, you know, and as long as you have, you still have the app. And as long as you
give us everything that we're supposed to give us, you're qualified in our system.
And then we'll give you the ones that you're qualified for on a link to those to our website,
but has 15 pictures of the car, you know, so let us know and we'll click before you. We'll
do all paperwork and tell us when you want to begin and really use magic look now, you know,
for the last couple of years with you magic loop. So we have this schedule everybody and I see
they're ready with morning and they're green at night, which means if you're supposed to come in,
there's very few that are currently on the point and we've worked on 99% shall write to be a perfectly
honest. So you have 10 on Saturday morning and two freaking show up. That's the opposite.
And what I like about that is it looks like from your website, you're able to condense your hours
of operation because you don't just have to hang an open sign and hope that you're there when people
show up. I mean, you guys are up at 8am to 5pm and only nine to 12 on a Saturday and you're still
delivering that many cars. That's that's great because you're pre scheduling them, you're letting
them know this is when you can pick it up. This is when we're open. Like for me, I feel like I got
to be open 24 hours a day just to catch that 8pm shopper that might want to come in and
Well, Jeff, what's interesting is they are open 24 hours a day because of their website and the
way it's in the way it's set up and the customer feels like they're open, but there's certain
times when they can pick it up or get delivered to them, which I love. I think I think it's so
helpful for schedule employees work cycle and it's better for psychology wise across the board.
And you don't you don't need a lot that's on a main drag because you're not looking to get
walk-ins and eyeballs. No, no, yeah, we're going to try and you won't freak over. We were open
9am to 8pm and then nine to five on a Saturday. But that's a whole other staff.
Yeah, two that might be two more people. And it was before she half a desk, half a front desk
person. That's another half a BD person. That's another, you know, we have one BD person that
takes in all of the apps and schedules. I mean, she's amazing. She works from home 100%.
She schedules everybody's tasks, everything that we're beginning to do. Sales moves in and
just work their tasks. And it's just, it's just as well. Let's talk about that. Yes. Yeah, I really
want to know how you can do that because you're obviously remote, your husband's remote. Mostly
your whole sales operation is remote. So what tools are you specifically using to make that work?
Because I don't even comprehend not like when I'm out of the office, there's zero communication.
Like I'm out of the office. There's some occasional emails. But for me to be working, working remotely,
quote unquote, and like try to do that as a real job and move things forward, how do you guys
accomplish that? Well, our sales location is they're not remote. Just the BD though. She's
remote. Won't be switched up. But yeah, but the sales location is in Ashland and there's
four sales people there in Ashland and five times. But we use Magalup. We use, again, Slack,
very heavily. We have tons of channels. And then they all work through Matibu. And we don't,
we thought we looked at secure clothes. We might roll into that once we roll into the new DMS for
AMS because we're AMS now. So I never roll into something new. So once everybody has all their
new stuff, we're probably going to look back. But we're using DocuSign right now. And so we build
the path for everyone. And so you're working through a couple different locations. So, you know,
you can't walk out back to recon and check on things. So there has to be amazing communication
between all of your site managers or managers. Can you kind of walk us through? Because I think
a lot of times, as buy here, pay here dealers, we're not as sophisticated when it comes to
building layers. Have you all done that successfully? And how do you communicate
successfully through meetings, through whatever? Yep. So Tara is our collections manager. You
know Tara Carl. She was been with us for 10 years. She's phenomenal. And she has her collectors
that she fully manages. We talk a lot. Looks like a lot. So I trust her enough to, she can make
a, she can make a decision probably inflections better than I can. She lives and breathes that
every day. And we get into kind of reports that would show if something's off or wrong.
And then we have that, you know that Bill's son Zach, who he runs Rekind. And he has a full
staff there. And then he has that 15,000 panics. And then Dylan is our sales manager who is actually
Phil's son-in-law. So it's a whole family. What happens when someone has to go on a field like
Fisher? Yep. So, you know, we have Dylan who's running a sales location. And I talked to Bill in
three or four times today. So as long as the communication is up and again, sales are there
and I'm asking, I'm knowing questions a day too. I'm like, why isn't this,
why are these tickets open? I'm sure I've been crazy, but I've been doing job carbon
questions. This, this is still work at the end of the day with deep jobs. And if anybody were
going to do in their job, they do. Do you have certain days Melissa, where you, where you go to
each location? Or do you trust the folks there enough that you don't have to do that? Yeah.
I go to affluence sometimes that they're just in a cool, which really, I don't really,
I don't really have a lot to add. You know, as far as when I go up there, I can just,
all the market just, you know, message them. So, and they feel so comfortable with me because
they've, they've known me for like, years of my life. All my, all of our sales people have been
here almost, almost all the markets in years. Wow. So you going up there, what am I going to do?
Yeah. I mean, so do y'all have set meetings in the morning where you go, okay,
all, you know, all managers will meet this time, this day, or, or is that, or is that not us?
No, we have, we have a monthly meeting and then we have a, you know, a full manager slash now
where we run everything through. I just sent a couple things this morning, sent them a couple
of my favorite loans that paid off and how they did and, you know, things like that. So we're
always, we are, we're just always, it's, um, I think we would, can do it more this way
than I think we would if everybody was in the office in under one move. I think there would be a lot
of chatter and a lot of water cooler talk. Oh, yeah. Cause we've done it. We did that for the
first same years, you know, that everybody, we only had two locations, but you know, when everybody's
under the same roof, like, go with the coffee, what do we want for life and start talking about
lunch, 10 o'clock in the morning? It's like, no, no. We're not talking about
lunch, 10 o'clock in the morning. Let's get, let's get to work. Yeah. That is so crazy. So
have you tried other communications? Cause I've run into that issue at the car lot is like,
how do we communicate? There's so many avenues. Like, am I using Google chats? Am I using Slack?
Am I using group me? Am I just doing text message groups? Like, have you tried other ones and found
that Slack is the best for this kind of like constant inner office communication? Cause even us,
like we've got posted notes, we've got a text channel. We've got like, like there's just too
many avenues of communication that either we're not checking or we're not getting to like, do you
feel like that's the best one? For sure. We don't email each other at all. Oh, wow. Really? Not at
all. Never. Unless it's an outside company, you know, that we need to share that. Yeah. But
most of the times I'll just pull the attachment through the Slack because then I know it's there.
I want to go ruling through my emails. All the time and all conversations and everything. I mean,
literally everything. You have everything in Slack right now. And we have a lot. Sorry. Sorry.
You said earlier that you, which I thought was nuts. Like, if there was something you thought,
not nuts, but just so smart, that before you kind of ask people, you go and search Slack and make
sure it hadn't been talked about before. Yes. It's actually soft numbers. You know, hey, I thought
that people went to auction. Why didn't you sell yet? And I just spoken instead of saying,
where's the car? Ruin every, you know, in reality, everybody else. I just search and say, oh wait,
I asked for that. I could just happen. I asked, what about that little two weeks ago? And I
did a bit of advice. So then I can really say, oh, I have to not get to it. So no reply to me.
Where is it? Oh, you know, or it's like, oh, no, it did sell an auction. We just didn't get the
check yet. I'm waiting for the check to be applied. But it just teaches people that it's like,
do you really don't blame me? Just look it up. It's all in Slack. Man, that's, it would be hard
to train. It seems like it'd be hard to train people to get there. How long do you, how long
have you all been using Slack and how long did it take you to get everybody kind of on board?
Because I think that a lot of times, Jeff, and you probably agree with this, a lot of times we
start using something and then we abandon it too quickly before we get very used to it.
I mean, we just started using it. That's what you're using from now forward. Now, this is how
you communicate and write about, you know, you, you know, if you need to call, you can call,
you can call through Slack. It's all the huddle. You know, so you could just do it through there,
but that's pretty much, we just run everything through there. Yeah.
That's so interesting. What about cameras? Are you able to log in remotely to any kind of cameras
if you're trying to like see what's going on at the lot? Is that part of your management style
or is that not? No, I don't want to be a big brother. You know, no, I really don't. Again,
if the numbers, the numbers would tell me, I truly honestly believe that if, if I see that we're not
closing on a Friday at 93.5% of the rain, Lindsay, what the hell is going on? You know, if we're not
selling 45 cars a day, what's going on? And, and I asked those questions, don't think I don't ask it.
You know, oh, wait, it's a slow week. What's going on? Do we need to increase Facebook?
Do we need to increase Google advertising? What do we need to do? No, we're, you know,
what are the circles and where they check mention rate every single day and track it.
And I, I'm such a data person that I use a lot of Kim tables. I don't need to use
pivot tables, but in Excel, but I pivot table everything. So I have one spreadsheet that I
get at the end of every month, but I do trims for because I just need to know the trends.
And it's, but it's really cool because when you screenshot it at the end of the year,
and you say, here's 12 years worth of data, you know, our, our, our average, uh, you know,
age of customer was 45 when we started, now it's 35. Is it because more people are on social media,
younger people are on social media? I just, so it's just, it's just great. We're just very,
we're very daily driven. And if there's a hit at the end, you get to just jump out. If refunds
up $200, what happened if warranty crosses up 10,000? Are you getting tell what happened?
Hey guys, real quick to interrupt the episode and make sure you know about a great sponsor
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It was funny. Y'all will get that reference in a future episode, but uh, Blitz has,
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they're not just a payment platform, not just a processor, but they're also a 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. They've got the 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 and 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 friend in
the industry or a partner, Blitz is the only company I would recommend. And are you the one,
are you the one putting the data into the, into the spreadsheet or do you have managers that are
responsible for doing that? Most of it comes from the DMS. They're taking half, you know,
they have to do it in the month numbers. They, they definitely do have to give them the all
for sure. And then your numbers, you know, as we call numbers, sales numbers come every day.
But that's like my name focuses like the accounting and the data and things like that,
but then we don't have, you know, I do the HR and benefits for you on the worker's top and
all that side of the thing too. So yeah, it's definitely, it's a lot.
Well, I mean, it just sounds like you are, you're truly working off of what the numbers are telling
you and you're not going with your gut. And, and maybe that's a portion of being away, being
disconnected, not being on site allows you to be data driven and not gut driven. That's so, yeah,
that's so many of us are emotional because we see what's going on. Right. They're not,
they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. You know,
and I don't expect 40 hours of hours out of, I don't expect 40 hours of productivity out of
a full girl. Like, that's crazy. So, you know, but it's, I just, I truly honestly believe,
and I thought the better company that I just really want to treat adults like adults.
And I do think, you know, or if, if I have a, one of her,
whatever, so they'll leave their granddaughter is graduating, please fall at 10 o'clock on Tuesday.
Go. Go. I'll see you in 45 minutes. I'll see you in an hour and come back because I just don't
think that they should miss it. Like, for what? And, and I think that really keeps the attention
of our employees so much. And that's why everybody's here for so long, nobody agrees.
It's not that we're paying everybody $500 an hour. That's not why they're staying in.
You know, they're, they're staying because they just have a little bit freedom and they
get treated like adults. And that's just what a lot of people want. You know, they just, they're
like, I'm adults and I just want to be treated and restored and feel like I'm part of the team
and making, and they all, they are for sure. Yeah. So much of that comes when you manage it by
the numbers and not by the feeling like we talked about before, like I'm here in my dealership and
I'm listening to these guys or I'm seeing them chit chat and then I get after them like I got a
babysit them. And it's like, no, if I just took a step back and looked at the numbers, did he get
his calls done? Did he get his applications? How many is he delivered? And dealers, we don't,
we don't look at those data points or get them regularly. Well, how's your month going? Well,
I don't know. I'll know at the end of the month when I pull my numbers and put them together.
Like, well, are you tracking? Like, and what did you miss? Well, I don't know. We just didn't get
the sales. Well, did you get the applications? Did you get the approvals? Like, what, what did you
miss along the way? Like, like you were talking about, if you're having a bad week, you're going
to go turn up Facebook for three days, five days, whatever it is, to bump that up, to make sure you
meet your goal by Saturday. That is so interesting because you're looking at the data and you're
seeing the dashboards and little knobs you can turn every day to kind of tweak here and tweak
there. Is that, that is, makes so much sense because I never would look at
my advertising at, in that type of lens, Melissa, like, I would wait 10 to the month to go, well,
I guess we, we need to increase advertising the following month when you can do it right now.
Immediately. I mean, everything is in real time. I just, yeah, you're just going to miss it. You
know, you, you might miss 10 sales if you only until the end of the month. And then at that point,
it's over. So what's going to even, when we, you know, looking at it, you know, we, we just,
we also look at it every day. Honestly, every day, we have the daily report that we do every single
day. And then it carries over for the month and then it carries over for the year. And it's for
10 days. How many is on the web? It's how many we have an inventory? It's the BCV. It's the recon.
It's everything. It's what the charge office payouts charge us every single day. It's how much
I have left on my Barling bits. Let's be honest. I mean, you know that every single day. What do
I have availability? How many cars from the Microsoft? You know, these are all the same
questions that everybody's been asked. And it takes us 12 years, but we still, you still need
to have enough cash to buy cars. Like this week, I was like, we have 150, you know, whatever, we
plan, we can buy like this week. We're fine. Okay. Sounds good. I don't need to spend, I don't
need buying on a 15 cars this week. Well, I think that means it's looked at all the time.
No, I think you're, you're exactly right. And so many of us don't, we wait, we wait until
the end of month to figure out why we had a bad month instead of trying to, trying to do it
in the middle of the month. Melissa, we've kept you here for a while anyway, but you are up.
You won the Mid-Atlantic or Pennsylvania is a Mid-Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic quality dealer,
which is awesome. And now you're up for NQD. Can you kind of talk about what that means to you
and, and being recognized like that? Well, I looked back and saw it was like, why sometimes it's a
woman one. So Donald would have been the last winner. And I think it's been how many years a lot.
So I was very likely that three of the 11 are women. So that'd be my far very happy.
But I'm super excited. I mean, I just, I just feel like we put so much into business. I mean,
it's just like my whole heart and soul is ready to do, which I know everyone does, of course.
And everyone sacrifices in life for, you know, this business. But yeah, I'm, I'm completely
be honored. I mean, I've been working with the Mid-Atlantic, you know, what used to be PIADA for
a while with Tommy Brandes and Bert and excited to be nominated. And yeah, we're, we're heading
out to Denver in two weeks and I'm coming up early day weekend. So maybe we can, maybe we can
What is your focus on giving back to your area? Is there something that really grabs you up?
Yeah, we do a lot. We do like a big trophy giveaway. We do a ton of, you know, obviously all
kids with baseball, you know, whatever. We just did this golf classic. We did a make-a-wish this
year. So we kind of the witch to a kid who he's sponsored and a husband is a dirt track racer.
And so we sponsor a bit dirt truck and victory loan and the pace truck and all that stuff. So
we are definitely really, really well known in the area just because we were low and, you know,
and, and everybody knows not, this isn't like meant to be, you know, everybody knows us. I don't
mean it that way, but like, we're just known in the movie and we have a very good reputation,
a red, white, blue, and a really good reputation. So we're just like not knowing it's that
swine, new car dealership, you know, we have a good reputation and we stand behind everything.
And yeah, I'm honored, completely honored and super excited as well. And I don't really know
any of the other nominees. So I'm excited to read some of them.
Well, good luck, Jeff. You know, one of these days, Jeff, you're going to get,
maybe try to get NQD, maybe?
No, no, no, that sounds like a lot of work. I don't like, anyways, but I will be there,
obviously, as the Utah State President. I'm excited to be out at National in two weeks and
see this whole process. As a state nominee, you are then qualified for the next year
to be national nominee and you don't know the, what do they call that, the
class, the ballot. And so that's really hard because, you know, this doesn't come around twice
to get a state, state quality dealer is once in a lifetime. So to go up and then,
so you have one shot. And if you happen to go up against like some really strong candidates that
have got a lifelong of this, that or the other, that's a, that's fun and scary all at the same
time, but super cool.
But I think, I think it's more based on like, right, isn't it more based on like your immunity
service loan and, you know, things like that, like my, my daughter, it's a nonprofit. So like,
you work a lot with her nonprofit and things like that. So, I mean, I definitely
feel like I should be in that boat. And I'm excited, like, I'm excited to, to even just be
on it, to be honest.
Yeah, I've, yeah, I felt the same way. It's, it's, it humbled you very quickly. And, you know,
good luck. You know, we're going to have a few of these folks on and I wish them all the luck,
but yeah, yeah, awesome. Melissa, thank you so much for being here. And we like so generous
with your time. I know, like you said, you're at work, you're in the office. This looks like
you're on vacation, but you're not loose. The one that's going to go sit by the beach.
And you probably have all sorts of slack conversations that have built up. So we,
we really do appreciate it. And anyone that listens to this episode, it's gonna air before
NIDA in a couple of weeks. Talk to Melissa, because I still have 50 more questions I want to
ask you about how you're doing this. And it's honestly, one of those episodes where I took
notes, I've been doing stuff, like, I'm going to change things because I just love that model.
And I love what you guys are doing. And it all builds on itself, like to remote delivery,
you got to have reputation and you guys have reputation so you can do this type of business
model. So super cool. I really appreciate this.
Yeah, call me anytime if you need, I don't want to say if you don't need help, obviously, but
if you need help or any questions or how we do the flow or anything like that, or what reports I
go and what I'm recording, reporting on, not saying that I'm doing everything perfect. I'm for
sure not, but we're at least able to make very educated decisions based on the information
that we have. And that's pretty much as much as I can ask for.
Well, thank you, Melissa. And I know everybody out there will learn a lot here and go say,
hey, next time you see Melissa. Thank you. All right, see you guys.
About this episode
Red White & Blue’s Melissa Rowan explains how the dealership went “more of a website based” and built a pickup-and-delivery model where “60 percent do curbside pickup and 40 percent you deliver to their house.” COVID-era restrictions pushed sales outside the building, with customers buying via “text and email” and paperwork “electronically signed.” The operation scales with recon-to-sale flow, route-based delivery, and heavy use of Slack, dashboards, and DMS data to stay data-driven instead of gut-driven.
Original notes
In this episode of the Independent Dealer Podcast, Jeff Watson and Luke Godwin sit down with Melissa Rowan, co-founder of Red White and Blue Autos in Pennsylvania and Mid-Atlantic Quality Dealer of the Year — now headed to NIADA nationals. Melissa came from investment brokerage, not the car business, and built one of the most quietly efficient BHPH operations in the country: 90+ cars a month, 3.5% delinquency, out of a single sales location, with a model that's almost entirely remote delivery.What You'll Learn:How two investment brokers with zero car experience opened a BHPH dealership in 2014 — and why the numbers-first mindset turned out to be their biggest advantageHow COVID forced Red White and Blue to pivot to curbside and delivery — and why they never went back, with 60% curbside and 40% home delivery todayWhy their show rate is near 99% and how full online transparency, all-digital paperwork, and a reputation built over 10 years makes that possibleHow Melissa manages multiple locations remotely using Slack as the single communication layer — no email, no cameras, no micromanagingWhy tracking a daily report every single day — not end of month — lets her turn up ad spend mid-week and never miss a sales goalHow staying selective with 500+ monthly applications keeps their charge-off rate under control while still selling nearly 100 units a monthWhat being nominated for National Quality Dealer means to her — and why three of the eleven nominees being women mattersIf you're a buy here pay here or independent dealer trying to figure out how to run leaner, trust your numbers over your gut, and build a team that doesn't need you watching over their shoulder — this one is for you.Support the businesses that support the podcast:Buckeye Risk Services - Reinsurance and wealth strategies for independent dealers.https://theindependentdealer.com/buckeyeBlytz - BHPH payment processing with fast funding and text-to-pay.https://theindependentdealer.com/blytzpayIturan GPS - Asset protection and customer management for BHPH and retail dealers.https://theindependentdealer.com/ituranFollow & Connect:Website: www.theindependentdealer.comFacebook Group: @independentautogroupLuke Godwin: @lukegodwinJeff Watson: /sendtojeffwLike, subscribe, and share this with a dealer who needs to hear it.
The Independent Dealer Podcast
Jeff Watson & Luke Godwin
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43:20