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Car Guy Coffee Early Brew #5 Liner ft. John Labate Part 2
Car Guy Coffee Early Brew #5 Liner ft. John Labate Part 2
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About this episode
John Labate shares his journey in the automotive industry, emphasizing the importance of mentorship and a growth mindset. He reflects on his early career, the influence of his father and various mentors, and how they shaped his approach to sales. Labate discusses the challenges faced during the pandemic and the shift in mindset necessary for success in a competitive market. The episode highlights personal growth, the value of family, and the significance of learning from experiences, making it a rich conversation for those in the automotive field.
Topics:
mentorship
growth mindset
sales strategies
pandemic challenges
family values
automotive industry insights
personal development
competitive mindset
Cars:
Chevrolet Corvette
Car Guy Coffee Podcast #5Liner Edition feat. John Labate Part 2
Welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast #5Liner Edition, where we interview Dealers, Vendors, Sales Guys and Gals as well as incredible Voices in our industry that are committed to seeing the Upshift and Uplift of our culture. Featured in this episode is John Labate, Sales Manager at Daytona Kia. Let’s Brew!
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
Brew Brought to you By Our Proud Sponsors At:
www.vincue.com
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www.purecars.com
Welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast #5Liner Edition, where we interview Dealers, Vendors, Sales Guys and Gals as well as incredible Voices in our industry that are committed to seeing the Upshift and Uplift of our culture. Featured in this episode is John Labate, Sales Manager at Daytona Kia. Let’s Brew!
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
Brew Brought to you By Our Proud Sponsors At:
www.vincue.com
www.fixedopsdigital.com
www.teammxs.com
www.m1-data.com
www.321ignition.com
www.purecars.com
Filter:
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
"... on. Man, he had a shiny suit and he had a yellow Corvette. This guy, you know what, he's Shaka dicing, righ..."
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Hello, and welcome to the Car Guy Coffee Podcast. This interbrew at Drive
Centrics DC twenty has been brought to you by our friends and partners at and Excess Solutions, Fixed Ops, Digital and one Data and Analytics, three two to one Ignitions, Shop Smart Autos and Big Cube. If you want more
bruised or you want to find out how to partner with the cargig Coffee Podcast, go to Carguycoffee dot com. Let's brew that right there. That was
a big wy for you when you got out, was like, I'm not going back to that. And I've literally worked with a lot of guys that
are phenomenal at this job, have great careers in this business, and they had a little checkered pass with something similar and not quite like that, but definitely something like that, and they because of that, they did never want to go back to that. So they yearned for more. But the sports
side, and I want to touch on that for a second, less sports side, being an athlete and being competitive in sports usually you don't have to be the greats, but just sti competitive and when you're in that thing, getting into this business, that does help. It really does, man,
because you have to be that way. A lot of people are like,
I don't want to go catch it up because I want my team members.
That's bull crap, that's means what does that mean? I'm like, whoa
hold on a second, but like I hear that, I understand, but I don't understand that because I let me an alert, let me alert catch that up and sell it and not give me half his commissions because I want it. So I'm gonna catch that out myself. Right, So it's like,
never gonna allow that to happen. But anyway it does. It takes
that type of a person to be able to be I say, in the top two three percent of the automotive right. If you're not like that,
you're gonna you're probably not gonna last in this business song because it's a thick skin business. You have to be ready for it when there's so much.
But it's not really that bad when you're that type of person. And that's
what's amazing about it. And along the way you talked about a lot of
great people. Your father man, that's so great that he was, Hey,
John, what about the car business? Get a job? Right?
You didn't just get the job, you got the car too. You came
in for both, got them both. Speaking of those people, I'm sure
there's been some mentors along the way, for you're being a mentor to many, and whether you know it or not, other people who probably look at what you're doing and they're mentored by that. But to you along the way,
who've been some of your greatest mentors. I actually have had made a
list of him when you because when I cheated and watched the other five liner, I saw you were going to ask me about my mentors, and I gave you a sneak peek. One of my biggest mentors was my is my
father. He's he's a He was a pro. There were many times,
many years where he was not only selling cars at the dealership, but he was a promoter in the music business. So he would be booking. He
would be booking national tours with bands and festivals and stuff, and on the phone with that and selling his cars. It's tough if you were to do
that today, but that's it's just the type of guy my dad was and is that he's around his buddies on the car Carl come back and they say, just come on back to the dealership. You sell your ten twelve cars
and book your shows and we just watch you back. Yeah. But so
my dad's one of my mentors. One of my other big his mentors was
is Mike Dashner, which is my first general manager. Not my first,
but when I started, after I think about six months or so after I started, he became my general manager. And he's a great guy. He
Okay, I'll tell you who Mike Dashner is. Mike Dashner is the general
manager or was. He's at a different store now. He was the general
manager at West Herd Dodge Chrysler Jeep in April of twenty twenty, where I was the number one salesperson. So he talked because I called him and I
leaned on him and I was like, I remember one day, Fred, I'm like, I'm gonna sell I'm gonna I'm gonna do some posts. I'm
gonna sell some cars online. He's like, all right, let's do it.
And I'm like yeah, and he's so, let's work a deal.
And I was like, he was always he's always been there to click me.
So yeah, how long are we going to talk about this? You
know what I mean? Call me every day crying in my ear that you're
not selling car. What are you gonna do? Should you stay in the
business, how's it going? Joking around? Let's just do it? And
I was like, it's funny because I was frozen for a second. I'm
like how and I didn't know how, and it's I'm here's me twenty years of business. But I just I guess it was in that initial shock of
I was feeling maybe I was crying in my mind. I was so feeling
so sorry for myself that I just forgot the basics. And he literally was
like, let's just wing it, man, Let's just you find somebody wants a car, you call me and I'll work the numbers. So I'm like,
yeah, okay, you're right. Like that's how shell shocked my mind
was during that time where it was like the whole world and he was my first general manager. And the reason why he's he became a mentor so much
to me is that probably two thousand and three, probably two thousand and three or two thousand and four, right around the middle of that, right I was selling cars. I was number one, number two, or number three
on the board. Every month for my first couple of years, I was
top three at least it was always fighting for top of the board, many times top of the board and stuff. And I was starting to get going
showing up late, and I was I think I was going through a planning a wedding and stuff. It was one of my worst years selling cars because
I was planning a wedding. Listen. But anyways, he brought me in
the office and he was like, listen, you got to decide. He
had told me he was going to fire me if I was late again, and I was late again. So he goes, all right, listen,
you heard what I told you the last time. So he goes, you
got to decide. You're really good at this, but you got to decide
this. I'm not. You're treating this like a job, and you tell
me all the time, and you have aspirations of treating like this like a career and you could be really good, but you have really got to decide.
Are you going to You're going to take you use your talents and do this and do what I know you can do, or are you just gonna, you know, be five minutes late every other day. I'm gonna fire
you, and you're gonna who knows what happens to you? And it was
a big turn There was a little more exchange there, but it was a big turning point for me because I was like, man, he's right like I've been because I had that initial time where I was really good and leading the board, and then I just got to the top top three and I coasted and someone I may have a six car month, then I may have a sixteen car month, and I was going back. But I wasn't that
eighteen twenty, twenty two, twenty five, thirty six every month like I turned to be after that conversation. So he was a huge mentor for me
when I became a sales manager and he still is a mentor. It's like
I say it, just he helped me through the pandemic. Hey Dealers,
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When I became a sales manager, Jim Ziggler big mentor of mine, Yeah, I have the lifetime. And I always remind him of this too,
But I had his training course for sales manager free lifetime. That's what he
used to advertise when he do his training. I was like, really,
lifetime free. What I didn't realize is that, and he does, he'll
you come free anytime I do sales manager. But I didn't realize. I
got to a new dealership and I was like, hey, Jim, I'm gonna come for the thing. And he's like, all right, who are
you bringing with you? No problem, You're free for your lifetime. And
so I went to a couple other dealerships and brought the new managers with me, and I still to this day, I still have things that I remember from him. Every deal's got a heartbeat, the feel of the wheel seals,
the deal that hit commit when you're penciling, hit commit that don't pencil whip him and used to love one of his lines. I don't want to
mess it up right now, but it's such a smooth line. He's like
the customers here it is, sir, at six hundred dollars a month.
Six hundred dollars a month, What do you think I'm stupid, No, sir, but in the event that you were, I didn't want to miss the opportunity. That wasn't one to use on your customers. No fun talk,
It was fun. It was fun. Yeah, I love those things.
But so he Jim Zigler is a mentor. Also Jonathan Dawson. I
would have to give a shout out to Jonathan Dawson. He's a great guy.
He came to a dealership. Also, I can't forget John and Tony
Gabrielli, who were I worked at. I worked for Dashner, my first
mentor, for the first five years of my career as a salesperson. The
last couple of years I had wanted to be a sales manager, but they wouldn't promote me. They kept bringing other people in and they didn't want to
lose a top sales guy that type of thing. So I had to actually
leave that dealership and go to another dealership that gave me my first start as a sales manager at their Mitsubishi store. And that's John and Tony Gabrielli.
And then through them they had hired this guy Jonathan Dawson. At the time,
like who's this new guy Jonathan Dawson and all this stuff, and he became a great friend of mine. He actually got me a job, an
awesome job in two thousand and eighteen, or my dream job at the time, as a sales manager at a Landmark Dodge in Atlanta. And I tried
to make it work to be working out there and move the whole family.
It didn't work out. But and then last but not least, Okay,
my biggest mentor, this is what makes me so lucky. One of my
biggest mentors I sit next to every day, my general manager, one of my best friend on this Jerome Kramer. He is so he literally is a
mentor to me. We have we're in Daytona, We're at Daytona, Kia.
But I have followed him. I followed him to a dealership in the
Melbourne. When I was in New York. He called me down. And
so we come from the same we come from Rochester, New York. We
come from some of the same dealerships. So we've always had like these parallel
careers. I remember when I first got my first sales manager job in Rochester,
New York. I was thirty years old, right, and at the
time it was sixteen years ago. At the time, that was pretty young.
Like I wanted to be a sales manager in my twenties, but I didn't make it. I was thirty exactly when I start. And I remember
walking around one day and I go, man, I'm the youngest sales manager in Rochester. I was like, man, because it was mostly old guys
and they're like, no, you're not. I was like, what,
Yeah, Jerome Kramer, he's twenty six and he already owns half a dealership and stuff whatever. I was like what, And yeah, that's who was
this guy, Jerome Kramer. I got to find I got to see him
to meet him, and we met at a car show and I go look over and he's got like a snake skin suit on. Man, he had
a shiny suit and he had a yellow Corvette. This guy, you know
what, he's Shaka dicing, right, You guys know Shaka Dice. So
Grant cardon twenty nineteen when he was doing his big conference, right he I think I don't know if he had Shaka Dicing on it or somebody else.
In the car business. But Jerome Kramer is such a such a big name
in our business, but not big in the sense of like everybody knows about him, but the people that matter know about him. That Grant Cardon actually
called somebody from his office called him in twenty nineteen to say, would you like to could you talk about the financing in the car business and be a part of it, And then they even mentioned at the time he had no idea was Shaka Dice. I knew through Dawson. But they go, we've
talked to maybeum shock at Dice, and he goes, I don't know who else shock at Dice, but he doesn't. He just he's very self made.
He's a wonderful guy anyways, awesome man. So he's strong and he's
always been. We crosspath. Then then he called me down in Melbourne and
then finally he pulled me out of the house in out of COVID from August to twenty twenty and I sit next to him to this day. The reason
why he's such a huge mentor to me is that I have in my if I'm due, I've been twenty two years in this business. For nineteen and
a half years I had a giveaway mindset. I had it. I didn't
have a gross mindset. He has taught me the gross mindset. When we
were coming up, I was always I was known as a guy that could hit hit big numbers and bring stores break records for volume and these numbers.
And he was the guy known as like how does he make so much money on every deal? And subprime hero over here? He was huge in subprime,
and he was huge in subprime in the late nineties and early two thousands, Like he was like teaching banks how to do it, you know what I mean? And so he and he's been a finance mind. He literally
was on the floor for three three months when he started in his business and then went to finance. It was just a unique story. It was a
small store, similar I think to what you guys sometimes have going on is that you're wearing all these different hats. And he did that. So he
came up with a gross mindset and and finance background. My whole parallel career
was I wanted nothing to do with finance. I could care less about it.
But again, now in Florida, it's a whole different ballgame. But
in New York, some places still do it. They make the deal at
the desk without regardless of credit. You go into the finance department after they
make the deal. I know it's I know it's it's crazy, but and
that's how it was brought up on. So my points is that the reason
why not only is a good friend, but he's and he's hired me.
Here we're opposites, right, So I'm I was the volume guy, super salesman. I tell you how to sell a car on eBay and Facebook,
on this, on that, and he was the quiet finance manager, big gross and knew how to structure a deal. Just his philosophy is literally,
asked for all the money all the time. You're worth it. You know
what I mean? You're yes? And that's that was my first mentor that's
how he taught me the game. It was like if you if you don't
ask for it, then how you're gonna get it? Hey, dealers,
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Go to the teams dot com. Back to the show, and I
get that. But at the same time, he taught us how to deliver
a great such a great service that you got it every time, And that was a key respect man that you that you see that and that you found that with somebody else and you found the balance with him, And that's amazing, bro. And and to have mentors like that along the way, you
name drop a lot of great people, the incredible people, incredible people, people that I look at and also, wait, I almost forgot one of my other ones. I want to do an impression of him. Okay,
you gotta guess, you gotta guess who it is. All right, all
right, guys, we're gonna we're gonna move. We're going to Miami Brooklyn.
Okay, we're talking about dude. I love it. These are my
patrons. I call them b Yeah, I knew exactly. Miami. You
can bring it, I will. I have to credit I have to credit
out patron for definitely. We had a lot of conversations. Like I say,
during that COVID time, I was literally home all day talking to anybody anything correlated. I just was eating it up. And why not? What?
There's so much education during that time, if you took it right, there was a lot. There was. You remember how many YouTube or excuse
me, Facebook lives that were going on with education. People were getting together.
That was like the most. If you took the time during that time,
there was an opportunity and I saw it. You saw it. That's
where you're at, where you're at right now, where we're at right now, and there's still opportunity because the people who did it then are way ahead the game and they're still doing it. And just know that things are still
not perfect. We just went through that pandemic. But then we just went
through a chip shortage. We went through a used car shortage. We went
through values of used cars going crazy. Now they're dropping again. Interest rates
are going higher and they've ever been in a decade, feels so we're going through it all. But the great news is that there's people like you at
dealerships to guys through it and seeing, hey, we've seen it, we know what it's like. It's gonna be all right. You just got to
put the work in and have fun and have lots of fun doing it, right, Lou, that's right, making sure that you do the things that bring you joy. Whether or not joy is being brought to you, somebody's
got to be the one that brokers it. And you kept yourself still committed
to be able to have people feed your ear even inside of a dark spot of uncertainty, which is really what so many people went through. So many
people went through that, right. And the things is that when once we
came through all that, we said it even then, hey, guess what, there's gonna be another challenge next year, everybody. And guess what then
the year after that, there's gonna be another sum Okay, there's gonna be something that's gonna make you have to dig deeper than you've dug before to pull out better of gold whatever you're reaching in for from yourself. And you're doing
that now. That's why we're so excited to be able to team up with
you to see you take Carguy Coffee to the next level. For you to
be able to show what it looks like caffeinating the culture out there with originality, right. We want the good quality beings. You can't fake a good
cup of coffee, right, And that's what you're doing right. And with
that, though, there's a lot of hills, there's a lot of dirt that we got to dig through in order to actually cultivate something that does yield a good crop. With that, we get some hard lessons in the in
between. So for you, John, what has been the hardest lesson you've
been I mean you've been in, you've been put up, you've been put out and lay it off, You've been through a lot out of all that.
What has been the hardest lesson? The hardest lesson for me was I
actually already already alluded to it there. I just feel like there's a glare
here. I already touched a little bit on it. But the hardest lesson
for me was really to shift my mindset to the gross mindset. I can't
stress it enough. It makes me. I feel a little awkward talking about
it sometimes because I love I love sharing stuff out, I love communicating with everybody, just blanketing Hey, maybe watch this you'll get some car tips.
Watch this, you'll get some how to buy a car tips. Watch this,
you'll learn how to sell a car. But when you start talking about
gross and this is on my Facebook, and I'm like, it's my customers and my friends and family are on there and stuff. But I'm not really,
I'm not afraid to talk about it because but for I guess for a while I was. It's almost profit is not a dirty word. I'm serious,
man, I've been doing it. I've been in the business for twenty
two years, and for nineteen years, spanning teen as a salesman and six as or a five I'm sorry, fourteen a salesman, whatever my math as a salesman, five years as a salesperson I gave. I did not have
a gross mindset. And yeah, it's easy to say I gave away cars,
right, But I had a mentality that I thought I was helping.
I thought I was helping the salesperson. Hey, man, he made a
quick deal. That was easy, right, you just you got him first
pencil? Yeah, what do we make, boss? It's a mini?
What do you mean it's a mini? Well he came in off the internet,
did he? No? That was the last guy or whatever, whatever
reason. You could imagine how many different ones. But I had that mindset
to make. I wanted to make the sale. I wanted volume, so
I wanted to make the sale easy for the salesperson. I wanted to make
it easy for the customer. I wanted to make it easy for the manufacture
to keep giving us more cars. I thought I was making everything easy,
but really, now in retrospect, I was making it a lot harder on myself because all those deals, like I literally and you guys know, any dealership you're at, there's a gross guy usually like a gross guy and a volume guy, and the gross guy is always messing with the volume guy, like, dude, why are you giving these cars away? You know what
I mean? You didn't have to do that. So the guy says he
thinks his trade's worth ten, it's really worth seven, but you got to start out at nine because you're scared he's gonna be mad. You know what
I mean, that stuff I used to do. I gotta admit it.
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Back to the show, let's go. And when you have a salesperson
that comes to you and say, hey, boss, we got a good one. I got a deal they boss, I got a deal man,
We've got a great one here. Boom boom this guy, yeah, all
right, five thousand for the trade. Boom boom. What would we make?
Oh man, it's a mini dude, you know, Like I didn't understand it then now I understand it. Where it's like boom, first pencil?
What we you know what? I make? Twenty four hundred dollars?
You know what I mean? Now? The time frame hardest lesson I ever
learned. The time frame is very unique. Okay, because I'm sitting next
to my buddy who and my mentor Jerome, and he is very gross mind to the point where I knew if I didn't have my gross average up to a certain amount, I wouldn't be working next to him very long. He
wasn't gonna just allow me to run on his coattails anymore. What happened was
because I still remember. One of my other sales managers reminded me the other
day. I remember summer at twenty twenty where I had to tell you,
John, you can give a soul away, don't give these teller rides away.
He had to peel me back. Hold on a second, you know
what I mean. You're making five hundred, two hundred dollars on a taller
ride. Wait a minute, And so here's the timeframe, right, twenty
twenty summer in twenty twenty, we saw where the market was going. We
didn't everybody didn't know. Is this going to continue? Where we're going to
get another wave? What about Omicron? Whatever? Right, So I'm telling
you guys, December twenty nine, thirty at night resolution time. I literally
said this because here's the thing. I love Jerome. He's one of my
best friends. He's my mentor. I've known him twenty plus years. He
is not a teacher. He will not teach you. You have to copy
him, you have to just you know what I'm saying. I finally realized.
And he jokes about it. You think I'm gonna teach you what I
do? Then why do they need me? And he's that kind of sense
of humor, but he truly does not. Is not the guy that's gonna
be like John. Now, look if you go to this bank and they'll
give you two thousand dollars more and did it? He just does not gonna
do it. So well, story short, my hardest lesson New Year's Eve
for twenty twenty one, the brink of twenty twenty one, I said to myself, John, he's not gonna teach you. You have I don't care
if the guy goes to the bathroom three times a day, follow him in the bathroom, do everything the exact same way that he does it. Watch,
I don't care if he's what are you looking at? Watch every stroke
he puts on the keyboard. You know what I mean? And I did.
And again I'm talking about car sales three point zero here because I already know I know one point zero and two point zh. I already know how
to sell a car, how to desk a deal, and even how to get a deal bought. But that gross mindset and the way that he structures
the deal, and I literally I didn't go from a I didn't go from an angle of trying to learn. I just went from an angle of copying
him, imitating him. So now he leaves the building, I'm you know
what I mean? I did everything like he did and what so what it's
funny how coincidental it is that market adjusted right, perfect timing, because I just started doing a good imitation to him in January. You know, in
February I started getting a little better. Well, then the market turned to
you. You couldn't give cars away, you couldn't possibly like you'd have to
look at the six cars you had left on your lot and like literally get pointed at when you walk in because you know, this guy was gonna make ten thousand off the one you just sold for sixteen hundred dollars or whatever.
So it was perfect timing. And then twenty twenty one was such an amazing
year, and so my hardest lesson to learn was the understanding the gross mindset starting from And it's funny because I used to tell him. I'd be like,
I do it. I remember in twenty nineteen he asked me, we're
in Melbourne. He's why aren't you starting? Why are you starting from the
top. Every time, like I told you, I was like, I
am what do you mean? He's, oh, you are, and I
was like, yeah, I'm doing it. Well, he's around there.
But there were a couple deals, even twenty a couple of deals. He'd
leave for the night. I'm going back to starting from five hundred under invoice
whatever. Stupid me. I didn't realize. I realized it years later in
twenty twenty one. I was like Jesus, because now I'm in that mentality
and I'm looking at other deals. Yeah, dude, it's not hard from
the look of a deal. And see I started an invoice or five hundred
below invoice. Dude, if you were doing the following, we had it
a den them too, but at least not MSRP. But we had a
dund them on top of that, a smaller than like twenty four ninety five or whatever for the package. This was in twenty nineteen. Dundham's got crazier
this last couple of years. He's if you were following, if you were
doing the way I'm doing it, so every one of your deals would be started at that. I don't care if you gave him ten thousand for a
five grand trade, But you're not gonna tell me you're gonna go back and switch to under invoice and then do his trade, you know what I'm saying.
Like he could see basically on the numbers that, and I was like, how did you know? And so I finally got it, and again
I got it at a time when you were forced. We were all forced.
So it was like, literally I was mad at the car gods in twenty twenty, but the car gods touched me from the heavens on in twenty twenty one and said, buddy, you're gonna have to pick a different profession if you don't want to give cars away in this market, because the is just ain't happening. You're going to piss off every buddy. And now,
if you averaged out, he hates to hear this. I don't even mention
it to him, but he's very competitive. But if you averaged out twenty
twenty to present day, my average. I beat him in every category used
and new. Now, I will give him a little defense that he sells
more cars than me, especially from twenty twenty. He's got like probably one
thousand or eight hundred more cars than me over that three year period, So of course he's going to be lower. But I beat him in the gross
average new and Yeah, now who's volume and the gross guy? I'm just
saying, and he basically I say he cloned. It's like he cloned me,
you know what I mean? It's always That's what every GM wants is
somebody that can leave with the dealership the beautiful day. His little Gianni Heyn
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that are friends and proud sponsors and one Data and Analytics are brewing the automotive And once again you're right, my friend, and we want to invite all of our audience to go to m one hyphen Data dot com to see how they can help propel your business forward with the right data insight. Go check
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now back to the show. The mindset I never could understand. It was
the biggest lesson, my favorite lesson by far, because here I am in this business and I've got the charm, I got the smile, I got the lines, I can talk to anybody, I can persuasion, product, knowledge, experience, but I never had it was literally the one the missing piece for me. And knowing what I know now and knowing the capabilities I
have now, sometimes in the last five over the last five years before I got to Daytona, Kia, I wondered why sometimes maybe I wasn't as respected or as sought after as I thought I was, because here I am putting all these big numbers out. He even said to me, because I hopped
around quite a bit from like twenty fifteen to twenty nineteen, Literally I've worked at twenty dealerships, and twelve of them were in that time period. You
know what I mean, there was And he even said to me, you think if you were making four or five six thousand dollars a deal, you think any of them dealers would ever let you go anywhere? You know what
I mean? And I'm not saying so. That was my hardest lesson was
finally learning that car that that gross mindset, and it's been the missing piece to me. So now I'm just I love it. It's so much better
when you have a deal when you especially with a salesperson, because they get so excited, especially if they close on the first pencil. That's the biggest
reason to flate. Some says leaders. We're going to always do well,
but when you see them doing really well, man, buying cars and living life and doing things that are amazing. And you said it very early in
that profit is not a bad word. But at the end of the day,
here's a deal, he said gross. He didn't say rip people off.
There's a difference, and there's a way to it. If the customer
is treated right and they're willing to pay the price and we ask for it, there's nothing wrong with that, and you customers agree. I think there's
a lot of customers that know and I've sold that come to me and said, hey, I know I'm paying more here, but I wouldn't buy a car anywhere else. But there's an experience that they get. Butich, just
like coffee, you can go to one coffee shop to another, and there's so much more expensive Starbucks, go get a Starbucks. You're spending six dollars
of Starbucks. Is that coffee really that much better than a coffee you can
help? No, it's not that you pay for the experience. They write
your name on the cup. People love that, they put down what you
want inside your drink. It's an experience. So we do the same for
them. We give you all an experience that's above all, and they're willing
to pay for that experience. Just like delivering cars to people online. They'll
pay more for that sometimes because it's convenient for them. So we got to
remember that. And gross is great. I love Gross. So I'm a
gross guy myself. I love Volume two. But it's about the gross at
the end of the day. It's how I get paid. But it's a
beautiful thing. And it really hearing that, man, and really knowing that's
a lesson that you learned. It's and some people would never admit that,
And I love that, and I think it's great of you to say that, because there's a lot of things that we all have room for improvement in, right, and that's a beautiful thing. But as we grow and we've
learned about your why, man, what a great why. So many layers
to that. We talked about what got you in the industry and how you
started and the things that you've done before that actually gave you. Talk to
you and gave you the confidence say hey, I got I can do this right, so I'm gonna get in here. Then you got in the industry,
you had mentors along the way. You named a lot of great mentors
and for the most recent one sitting right next to you every single day helping you get to what your hardest lesson learned so far is to help you be able to develop gross profit and man. Now that you have that tool in
your arsenal, let's talk about your greatest reward. You've done a lot of
great things in this industry. You've had some stuff come to you. What
has been your greatest reward for all the twenty two years of this industry that you've done. My greatest reward just really to have family would be Can I
answer family for my why and my greatest reward? Yes, this is the
John Lebody grew Okay, and it totally makes sense that it's pull cycle that way. When I growing up, I didn't I didn't think much about like
family I did, but I wasn't a teenager or like in my early twenties thinking oh I'm gonna get married someday and I have kids and have a home and a house, and excuse me, it wasn't like really top of my list. And but I'm I'm so glad that I have my son. And
I was married at one point then unfortunately that relationship ended, and so lucky and happy that I met Michelle and seven years ago and we've had two beautiful, healthy kids, and I was able to we're married again. I was
able to start all over again. And it's just it's I'm very grateful for
that because I do. Because I look at some of my some of my
friends that I grew up with, people that I know that just some of them really have no interest in marriage or kids and they're my age. It's
and it just blows my mind. That's cool. I think that's awesome when
they're focusing on their lives. But like I say, I can't I can't
say one person's right or one person's wrong. But when I just start to
if I ever start to imagine myself at this point in my life without a family, home, happy home, I just so that's my greatest reward.
But like I say, because I like learn and I learned to be a better husband, a better father every day, I'm still learning as I go.
All let's honor that. Let's share that on. Let's share on the
families. And you do. You have a beautiful family there, and it's
it is there's something special about that that's a big driving force in all of us. LOSE has a big family. I have a beautiful family that's it's
not quite as big as LOSE, but I do have I have me and my wife, my son. But I'm blessed. I'm blessed to even have
that because, like you said, I know a lot of people who don't have that. One of my best friends in high school, but he's not
one that wants to be alone and it just happened to work to be our age and just didn't work out that way for him. Right now, it's
still not And if you're still young, we're all young enough. Man.
At the end of the day, you've had a great life, You've had a great career, and there's going to be some great things coming folks.
I just want you to know, check it out. We're going to be
showing a lot more of this guy as the months go by, We're going to be seeing a whole lot. He might even who knows, take over
this whole show who I'm good with that. And if he gets into Hollywood,
I'll be your agent and friend. I'm telling you, I'll be happy
to help promote you and find you some gigs. I guarantee you do a
great job. Always. I always wanted to get into Hollywood some way.
Why not do it through you, my friend? You got people, and
I want to just put this little comment out there, AJ says John car Guys inc. Here, we love your hay, boss. I got a
deal videos shoot a fresh round. Listen. That might be something that we
can be focused showing up on this show for you all to see. We'll
be doing some stuff, but with some great content behind it, some intentional content for you all to learn something, for the buyers to learn, something, for the sellers to learn, something, for us to have some predictions.
What's going to happen in the future, folks. This guy is a
talent. He's more than just a car guy. He is a family man
that loves people and he's all about helping others, and that's what it's about he got into his business because he got to help others real and it's legit.
There's no criminal act here. We're doing it right way, my friends.
So get out there and have some fun. Go out there and love
on this guy. Go share. So listen, folks be looking for his
stuff. We're ready to have him on the show. John, You got
any last words you want to say before we get out of here today.
No, I really just appreciate you guys for having me on. I told
you before recently in a post that for the word consistency, you guys embody a word of consistency because no matter what, you just keep pressing forward.
You're in a hotel room, now, you got the studio, You're going on all these different platforms, and you just keep going. And I love
it, man, So stay consistent. And a lot of I've been wanting
to I've been trying to imagine the last couple of years how I can have some type of outleter vessel like this, and you guys, literally the whole setup and everything that you do in brewing Solutions is pretty much exactly what kind of I had been visioning in my head. And eventually I'd like to do
some things in the future, and look, it's unwritten. I feel like
it's just anything that we can make of it. But I feel like,
you know, there's some things to be that I want to talk about in the car business that I really think people need to see, need to hear both sides of the story and get a little raw with some stuff. Speak
about the trojan horse, the electric vehicles and the trojan horse of trying to put car sales people out of business, and the car vanas of the world.
And one of these times I was thinking, probably not a time now, but I wanted to play. I wanted to play that game they play
sometimes on these shows. Relevant, irrelevant, no, no, underrated,
overrated or perfectly rated. Dude. Listen, listen, folks, that is
coming. We're gonna We're gonna be all this stuff happened. We got a
lot of news. This is twenty twenty three. Not only is he going
to be elevating his game, but you're going to see the Certifought solutionaries, the Car Guy Coffee Crew, elevating this team. We're gonna grow this team
this year, and I think we're gonna be starting with guys like him.
This direction guys just like him. Right now, let's go giants, Let's
get them, go to see them win. I know we're over here in
Ego Country. We love you Egle fans out there too. It's gonna be
a heck of a game. It's gonna be amazing. But listen, that's
right. We got here in Miami. Baby, we live, kids,
we live. I love it, folks. We've been bruined solutions and having
a great time right here on this show. I'm fellowing ours a supprime hero,
and I'm Ramrez the Car Guy. And you've been ruined solutions on the
Car Guy Coffee Podcast with the one the Only John Love. But that's right,
but listen, we gotta let you guys know something else too, because we already put it out there. But you got to get that stamp of
approval and everybody, well even top of the show is one hundred percent CG B damn get you some of that, all right, car guys, bar ows go represent if you were blessed by the story, by the message by the Car Guy that we've had the privilege of being able to move with, make sure that you reach out and and let him know that you impacted.
Thank you so much everybody that was part of the show. If you were
watching on the replay, you can still reach out and let him know that you got something inside of your crump that was worth sipping up. We appreciate
you all for being here today. God bless, good evening, good night.
Thank you so much John for brewing some solutions on the Cargat Coffee podcast.
We're Out.
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