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Car Guy Coffee & Fixed Ops Friday feat. David Long
Car Guy Coffee & Fixed Ops Friday feat. David Long
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About this episode
David Long joins the Fixed Ops Friday Show to discuss the evolving landscape of fixed operations in the automotive industry. He shares insights on the importance of unity between sales and service departments, emphasizing that success comes from a shared mission and strong team dynamics. David also highlights the significance of buy centers for acquiring inventory directly from customers, which can significantly impact profitability. The conversation is filled with practical advice, personal anecdotes, and a focus on fostering a positive workplace culture.
Topics:
fixed operations growth
buy centers
team dynamics
customer retention
data analysis
service and sales relationship
leadership strategies
workplace culture
Car Guy Coffee & Fixed Ops Friday feat. David Long
Car Guy Coffee & Fixed Ops bring you the new blend of the week! This blend features David Long, Executive General Manager of Hansel Auto Group, Founder of Pandemic of Positivity, All Things Used Cars, All Things Fixed Operations, and on the Google Dealer Council. His resume barely shows all he does for our industry. Let’s Brew!
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
Brew Brought By Our Proud Sponsors At:
www.fixedopsdigital.com
Car Guy Coffee & Fixed Ops bring you the new blend of the week! This blend features David Long, Executive General Manager of Hansel Auto Group, Founder of Pandemic of Positivity, All Things Used Cars, All Things Fixed Operations, and on the Google Dealer Council. His resume barely shows all he does for our industry. Let’s Brew!
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
Brew Brought By Our Proud Sponsors At:
www.fixedopsdigital.com
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Skoda Felicia
"... Disney references, but okay, I love that, thanks Felicia. So don't trust the data is the same thing. I nev..."
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"... deal. So he just drove by on a twenty twenty one Bronco. Like things like that. You can't go to the aucti..."
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Welcome to the Fixed Ops Friday Show, where we bring you high quality guests speaking about how to take your fixed Ops department to the next level. This
Car Guy Coffee production is brought to you by Fixed Ops Digital, powered by Trade Pending. Let's grove what's going on? Solutionary since Leu Ramirez the car
Guy and I'm here with the one the only oh Win move. What's going
on? Brother? Happy Fixed Ops Friday? Yeah? Hell, hello,
Lou, how are you doing, sir? It's been a while. We've
got a crazy month. But I'm excited for our guest today. So we've
been long, long overdue with this one, so long overdue. I see
if you do it there, buddy, what you did? Heck? Yeah.
Excited about this, this conversation that we get to have with this car guy that's shaking things up from morning tonight, from coast to coast. He
is brewinging solutions consistently, and we're excited to have him on the Fixed Ops Friday today. But you all know what you need to do to make sure
that we maximize this opportunity, and that's tech a car Guy, Tag a car gout and share share Share, Share Share Share, get the word out.
There everybody, because we have for Fixed Stops Friday, the one, the only David lo who Welcome to the show, brother Friday. How you
doing today, buddy, I'm doing great. Anytime I get to spend with
you two guys is gonna be a great Friday, let me tell you.
Well. Cheers to that, Cheers to that. Welcome to the party.
We're excited that you're here. Oh in so much that's cooking inside of the
business right now, and we got to Fixed Ops Friday Live today. Why
is it so important that we have mister David Long on the show today when we're in the dog days of summer. I think everyone's tired. Everyone's just
grinding it out. Obviously, got a lot of people of kids, stuff
going on and things like that. So it's always good to sometimes just take
a break and kind of listen to some of the visionaries of our of our industry. David. You have a good gap when you've had to reschedule two
or three times because David's so darn busy, a lot going on, So I'm okay with that. I'm like, we finally have him. We've got
about forty five minutes probably of his time, and I know his time is very valuable. I look up to David as a mentor of a guy that
I respect a lot in the industry. He's been not only a good client
of ours, but a guy that I can lean on ask him questions anytime.
And he's got some cool things he's doing with the service side of the business to help kind of give back to the industry, just like he's been doing for a while now on the sales side. So you know with that,
I'm fully ready for me. I got, I got, I don't
have coffee, but I've got something to drink, and we're ready to roll here. Yeah, let's get this rocking and rolling. For all of you
that are watching this on the live, make sure that you participate as much as possible. And if you're watching this on the replane, we want your
input as well, So make sure that you have some fun with us today.
Go ahead and ask questions if you want him. I'm sure that David
would be able to get to him down the road owing too. And even
this car guy, what's going on on? Cindy Zeba's up inside of the
cafe today. So glad that you're here saying hey, saying this three great
guys right here. We thank you so much for the love. Cindy,
keep brewing solutions. What's happening? Subprime hero is in the mix, And
look at this beacon. In is the one the old Miller himself. We
are over here at Miller Motors. Right behind me. You got a bunch
of mechanics doing their thing. So you might hear a little bit of you
might hear a couple of things shaking, make everything breaking, who knows.
But let's have some fun today. What's happened to Jeremy? Welcome to the
party. So glad that you're here, all right, So let's get this
bruin everybody. So glad that everybody's here. Keep tagging car guys, Keep
tagging car guys, keep getting this rock and rolling, all right, So real quick, David, there's a lot that's going on right now inside of the fixed ops world, digitally, on the ground all over the place.
What are some of the things that you're starting to feel inside of the climate or some of the Hey, this is the emergency of the moment, because there's always the emergencies of the moment, right what would you say right now or the emergencies of the moment that are brewing inside of fixed ops right now, Well, then it's our time. And what I mean by it's our
time, it's our time in the fixed OP side. Every OEM that I'm
involved with, every OEM meeting I go to, it's off the charts.
The growth is just double digit growth on the fixed OP side. So for
those of us that are not experiencing that kind of growth, it is our time. So we got to figure out what it is we're missing or what
we can do to make sure that before that ship sails out of the harbor that we're on that ship. And one of the ways that we do it,
by the way, is fixed ops digital. And Owen did not tell
me to say that, but I appreciate that. I get no extra compensation.
I don't get anything in the mail. It is absolutely one of the
secret weapons we have is using fixed ops digital to help us stay dialed and that's why some of our growth is where it is right now. That's it,
That's what I would say to start the show. Lou Yeah, David,
I got a question, what do your background? Right? I know
this, but for the audience, is your background in fixed operations or you know, how does your journey, get to to where we're at today or where you're at today. The benefit to doing this for thirty eight years,
I've had a chance to do just about every position, and I have been a fixed ops trainer. I've trained advisors, I've been in the fixed opps
department. But my primary focus when I grew up in the business was on
the variable side. But I kept getting sucked into the fixed side, and
then I'd get back to very I get sucked back in to fix and I happen to love it. The thing I love the most about it is it
changes so fast and there's so much I don't know that when I get involved, I can be like a kid that just started all over again. So
just when I think I have figured out, I meet somebody like Lou or Fred or you Owen or some of these other fixed ops forms I'm in and I'm like, holy smokes, how am I doing this for four decades and not know that? So it's super fun for me. Yeah. The one
thing I was talking to a buddy the other day about it, and I said, a sale side, there's really not that many different ways to do it now. People have different things that they different wrinkles, you could say,
but it's pretty pretty much the same thing, right. You've got to
present the vehicle, you got to make it affordable, you got to talk about financing, you got to sell the car. That is pretty much our
methodology to sell a car. What I have learned and just being in some
of these forums, and we'll talk a little bit about yours. You're a
little bit, David, But just throughout this journey for me is that there's a lot of different ways to do to run a service department, and so it is all over the place, and so when you look at it from that angle, there's not one kind of a one size fits all. It's
you've got to look at your number of bays. You got to look at
what you have as far as technicians and experience and just your business as almost like a unique situation. And so that can make it tough. There are
a lot of ways. There's a lot of ways to sell cars too,
But there's let me just tell quick stories so I'll never forget it. So
I'm thinking I have it all figured out. I'm young, much much younger
than I am today. Have you ever met that, yes, or a
young woman that has all the answers. They have the yeah, but everything
you say is yeah, but yeah, but you don't understand. And I
thought I had it all figured out. And then I said, in a
a group of twenty people, we were considered to be the best twenty general managers in the country. I don't know how that. I don't know how
they scored that or aggregated that. It was probably just they pulled names out
of a hat. But I'm convicted that I know exactly the only way to
run the business, and I know for sure that my way is right.
As they go around the room, luckily for me, I was the last one and not the first one. That i've been the first one, not
the asked one, I would have a completely different reply. So as they
went around, I started thinking, Wait a minute, I see that person's numbers and they're crushing it and they get to the three down. Wait a
minute. They can't get that kind of result with that process. And then
they get it, and I'm like, holy moly. By the time they
got to about person eleven, I thought, holy crap. It's not about
the process. It's about the conviction, the belief and the buy in a
process more than the process. Does that make sense? And it was that
day that I started to realize that there is a lot of ways to do it, but the only real way to do it is the way that you can get everybody bought into sort of rowing in the same direction. Because if
it's the best, most profitable process and you have all these people running in different directions, operating their own little sub business, that best process is not going to work out. So the best process to pin that point down is
the process that you get complete buy in support and then follow through on man good stuff. Put that one, not write that one down the wow yea
yeah, And that's pretty much kind of what I was trying to, you know, lud to a little bit is this. There's so many different ways
to do it. And one thing David you really big on, obviously,
is is getting people to get that buy in and talking about that belief system more than it is the process, because you know, throughout the year of the years of the process is going to evolve, it's going to adjust.
But having the right teammates and having people all bought into the main mission, which is customer retention and serving the customer, that's the core right and then everything else falls under that, So I always lose the popularity contest when I say this, and for guys like you that it's really not about selling parts fixing cars, and people get upset with me when I say this, it's about running a profitable business because great processes, great culture, great customer retention
without profit doesn't last very long. They'll go very far. Yeah, So
I tell people say, are you in the parts and service and sales business?
I see, I'm really not. I'm in the net profit business because
I can't care for the owner. I can't care for my family, and
I can't care for the families that I support if we're not profitable. Come
so true, So true fundamental business action. Steve Episola jumps in here,
saying variable ops and fixed ops are both critically important, but the two departments can't be run like two separate companies under one dealer. Roof, it's today's
reality and tactical error. Unify the dealer customer ownership experience before and after the
vehicle sale. If anyone desires anything more than the one time transaction, come
on. Robert's over here throwing a little bit of an amen to that,
saying, see you are one hundred percent Charu and that's a CGC ofproof comment.
Thank you so much, Stephen for jumping in here. Anybody disagree.
I think that we're all beating the same drum over here. We have to
be unified in order to have a team assembled on a basketball court or a football field. They all are understand that we all get the score together,
no matter who gets the touchdown, no matter who gets the basket. Every
single hand involved is designed to put scores on the board, from the coaches to the water boys, everybody's part of the party. And when we are
beating on that same drum, when we are wearing the same logo and living like we are, that's when we're unified. Unified and uniform doesn't mean that
you are exactly the same, right, It doesn't mean that it is necessarily a carbon copies of each other. The sales department is still going to be
the sales department, but they have to run in tandem. And I think
this is why we love doing these shows so much, because we get more of the conversation with people that are wanting to understand that there's so many bites of the apple with the customer relationship and there's so many different touch points for us to keep engaged with the customer, but we lose sight of that sometimes right after the sale or sometimes right after the service. Right and until we
get the language to where we're passing the baton back and forth and keeping them in the family, we're going to keep seeing them go different directions, whether it's to buy someplace else or to fix someplace else. And that's why I
love how Fixed Ops Digital does push the envelope to make sure that it is cutting edge, to make sure that customers are constantly in contact and coming back to the store. So I absolutely agree with that. David, Thank you,
Steven, thank you Robert, and everybody else that's part of the party inside of that recognizing that is what most leaders want. And David, I
know that you're a great voice to so many people inside of the industry.
What would be one of the first points you would have focused on when you're pulling your leaders together to say, listen, we have to have a unified language. What are some of the first things that you start to get them
marching in step with That's a great question for us in this culture. It's
a non negotiable, like it's not that we're not going to have issues with each other, it's how we deal with the issues. So I have this
thing called step zero. Have you ever heard of it? I think I've
heard you explain it before. Yes, please. So you talked about process
and everybody has a five step process, a three step, a ten step.
Well before every single one of our processes, we have step zero.
And step zero is all about the attitude, the energy, and the approach.
And it's the attitude we bring to the room with one another. It's
the energy we bring into the space with each other, and it's the way we approach each other. That's step zero. So it's zero tolerance. And
if I have an issue with Owen, Owen's gonna be the one that knows about it. Lou is not gonna know about it. Owen and I are
gonna sit down and we're gonna clear the air. And it might get uncomfortable,
but we're gonna lean in and we're gonna get past it. If we
can't lean and get past it, guess what we're gonna do. Agree to
disagree. No, we're gonna call louin. Oh yeah, and then Lou's
gonna come in and he's gonna hear Owen's point, He's gonna hear my point.
He's gonna be like, you know what, I hear you guys.
But here's the there's three sides to every story. There's David's side, there's
Owen's side, and then there's the side that makes the most sense to the company. And then we all agree at that point on how we're gonna take
the hill. And when we close that door and move forward, we're moving
forward in lockstep. We're not moving forward with a chip on our shoulder.
We're not moving forward bad energy. Next time that person comes in the room,
We're not moving forward with a hidden agenda and some sort of undercurrent of negativity. It's man, we're gonna go out. We're going to show our
team that we are united front and we're all on the same page. We're
all on the same team. They just saw us have conflict, right,
not hiding the fact that we had conflict, but they got a chance to see how we resolved it, and that makes us stronger as a team.
So that for me is step zero, which is the most important of all steps to any process ever. And that's why I say we have zero tolerance.
Yeah, I love it in having a team that you have a short memory basically when it comes to that stuff. I think is very important because
in family, there's a lot of times you have resentment, you have long term brudges, that's family. But when you have your work family, you
have to have a short memory because the thing's going so fast that if you take that conversation that's maybe not pleasant or some sort of a disagreement and you carry it on, it's just gonna snowball. And that's when you start to
really lose the culture. And I'll honestly you lose the efficiencies and the effectiveness
of what you're doing as well, because there will be strife across the board.
So I love it, There's no doubt, Step zero, I love it. I've never heard it before. That's awesome. And this this will
be the last time you guys invite me on the show. But I'm taking
away here. You know who that is? Oh? Oh, what what's
dor what's the significance with Dori short term memory loss? Yet you're moving right
on, You're onto the next thing. You forgive focus and fly right.
That's Dory. Guess who this is? Man? You've got a friend in
me. If I'm going to ask all the time because I'm pissed off about
something that happened yesterday, you don't have a friend in me? Does that
make sense? And here's the last one. This is the reason you're not
going to ever in me. Back o, SpongeBob. So I need to
be able to soak in what you're telling me and not listen to reply, but listen to understand. So we got SpongeBob that needs to be soaking it
up so I can fully understand and feel where you're coming from. Got to
make sure you always are a friend in me. And when you piss me
off, the minute we get past it, I gotta be dory and keep swimming. Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming. If I could just have
one leadership meeting, these three characters are all you need to think about to run a company. Isn't that crazy? I can't wait for the funny feedback
we're going to get on that. All the cartoon toys in David's office.
You are so corny, you are so weird. How do you run one
hundred million dollar business with cartoons on your desk? That's how? I don't
know. Just for to protect them. We do not own the rights to
use these because that's pretty big business start to bestic, right, And but that's what's important. Remember that we have so many different characters inside of our
stores, inside of our dealership, inside of our departments. But there's still
one big Disney. It's one big magic Kingdom, right, and it's all
designed to still flow together. Though there's different sentences, or there's different parties,
or there's different series, or there's different entire themes, it's still all Disney and it still all has the same flow. And you can tell when
this is a Disney production and when this is a not so Disney production and independent right, right exactly, And that that's so awesome now seeing that this is right now. So many things are happening on the used car side,
on the understanding this morning, David, you were even talking about how to be cautious of the data it is that you get, because although there's so much data out there, don't always believe the data without verifying right inside of that, what are some of the things that you're seeing are are having to be brushed through a little bit different when putting together the campaigns and finding the people that we're reaching out to to drive to our Fixed Ops department because though we have lots of people to talk to, right, we can't create a
flood and an overwhelming effect to our staff. So inside of that, how
is it that you're picking the people that you go into your campaigns with as you work with somebody like Owen and Fixed Ops Digital and driving that traffic to that department. You know that's a you have Russia all that's so great?
Hi, Robert, Robert, good dude. I didn't know you were in
the show this morning. So on All Things Fixed Ops today, I had
some feedback. You can't have that as the topic. That's a weird topic.
I'm off obviously with cartoon characters in my office. I'm all for weird.
But the topic this morning was don't trust the data. And I don't
believe there's love the Disney references, but okay, I love that, thanks Felicia. So don't trust the data is the same thing. I never trust
what I see on the surface. I always need to do it a deeper
dive before I make any decision, and oftentimes I'll reach out to an Owen or my performance manager that I absolutely love. She's an absolute rock star,
and I'll gather feedback from that perspective, and then I'll dig in and get other feedback other than what meets the eye from my perspective, and then the decision, hopefully with the right input, gets made in a way that's going to help move the business forward. I'll give you an example. If I
have an advisor that has a really high effective labor rate, he's not getting or she's not getting a high five and a belly bump into what until that comes to no, until I understand if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's like on the sales data. So on the sales side,
if somebody has a seventy percent look to book and I'm high fiving and celebrating and everybody sees it, that is not necessarily a good thing. It could
be that they're only finalized the appraisals they believe they're going to take, and they're not finalizing all the appraisals. A high effective labor rate could be a
result of oh, that looks like a late model car. Oh, my
stomach hurts. I got to use the restaurant every time a late model car
comes in. I got to leave the drive that could be a function to
that. So if I don't dig in and figure out what the whole truth
is, not just the truth I see on a report, I'm gonna make bad decisions every day. That's why I say, do not trust the data
until you have more than one data point. So I hope that answers your
question. So, David, that was this morning. Obviously Friday's All Things
use Cars, right, and you're way over I think one hundred some episodes on that. Obviously, that's been a great resource for you know, all
the people in automotive probably used car managers, sales managers, things like that.
Correct. You now started All Things Fixed Operations, which is Monday mornings,
and that's the one that I have not missed an episode. I think
I missed one episodecause I was on a plane. But how did that come
about? What made that decide that, Hey, I want to spend another
Monday, another morning on Clubhouse because I'm sure you got so much going on, you had just one more day you needed to do Clubhouse in the morning.
But what made that sort of come about? What was your vision on
that? And are you seeing that kind of come to fruition? Well,
first, I am seeing it come to fruition. So the clubhouse relationship started
when COVID happened and we couldn't go out and meet in person, and I was feeling this sort of emptiness, not because I need to interlate with everybody, because I got we have five hundred people here. I could go hang
out with. What I knew I wasn't getting was outside perspectives. So I
started with a few people. I said, I got this idea. I
want to start all things used cars. That was one hundred and fifteen weeks
ago, And every single weekend go back to my show notes one hundred and fifteen weeks back, and I can pull one or two things out that I didn't know when that sixty minute session started. Think about that, I've been
doing this almost forty years. I can go in and get that and then
on my And then I started thinking, well, shoot, it's not really my wheelhouse. I'm not really great at it, So why don't I be
comfortable being uncomfortable and started all things fixed operations room and really be vulnerable to hear and learn things that I probably just don't because you don't know what you don't know, right, I can't ask a question I don't even know is a question. So I get a bunch of people. I think there's four
or five hundred people in all things fixed operation, and there's almost three thousand people and all things used cars, and I get all these different perspectives, right, I mean, and some of it, some of that I don't agree with, but at least it makes me think and get more solid in the convictions I have. So it tests my sort of steadfastness on what I
believe. But that's why it started. Owen one I didn't want I don't
like leaving. I work hard enough. I don't like jumping on a plane.
So I thought, how can I get enough people together or I get perspectives without having to jump on a plane, And that's where it came from.
Yeah, it's been, Like I said, I've been a pretty big advocate of it, participant of it. Obviously, we're a sponsor as well,
and we enjoy it. I enjoy it because coming from the variable side,
I spent eighteen years mainly as a consultant agency guy. We did some
service marketing, but it was a lot of direct mail and different things like that, kind of coming up through the industry. I never really actually sat
in the back. I wasn't in the back of the shop learning the business
from that side. So for me, it's all about educating myself. As
you said, being vulnerable and getting on that show is awesome because so many different people. You have trainers, you have fixed ops directors, you have
gms, you have yourself and Michael Well and these guys are all awesome fixed operations professionals that bring their perspective and so as a digital marketing company and as a technology company, it allows me to really absorb and then debrief afterwards and go, is there something that I can do to help that issue, to help that challenge because always feel like that's a vendor's job is to solve problems or help dealership solve problems. And that's what I've gotten out of it so
far. And how do we have fifteen episodes? Sixteen episodes something like that?
But yeah, yeah, it's been amazing so far, and I think it's only going to get better as it continues to grow in popularity and people know it's out there, so join us. Monday morning, eight am Central
Monday morning six am Pacific. Automotive News did a great article on it and
since then I've gotten a lot of people and a lot more interest. So
again, this isn't self serving. I don't know. It's not about me
selling any thing. It's all about me pulling people together and selfishly. It's
so that when I leave that sixty minutes, I can leave it better than I started it. Right, So that's why it came to be. Yeah,
you put yourself on mute for most of it and absorb it in.
I've noticed that about you is that you're not controlling that that room as far as from it's the David Long, I'm going to lead the every discussion.
You're just simply bringing people in and getting their perspective and just kind of makes sense of it. Sometimes if people if they go get a little windy,
you sum it up really well for him, right, Thank you. Well,
I'm sure there's some people that wish I could hit that mute button a little more often, But thanks for saying that. No where is no where
is no. If there's anything David definitely does do, it's keep the conversation
moving along, keeps everybody knowing where we're at on time as it does come to an end. But if you operate a very effective room and good conversation.
So it's always good when we can get in there to get in there.
So thanks you shout out to all those do participate in our contributors in those mornings, there's a lot of really great Lou froze up again. Oh
well, hey, you should have a funny look on his face. That's
a good there. Take a screenshot of that. David moving along here until
we get Lou back handseled. But your organization, what are you seeing?
What are some of the maybe some of the initiatives you guys are doing.
Are you guys looking to acquire stores? What if you could tell me all
the secrets obviously, what are you guys seeing from your store? That is
the focus moving into the rest of this year and has we move into twenty twenty four, Anything that you guys are doing that maybe the average listener would say, oh, that's actually a good, good thing, you know, that's something that we should maybe focus on. So well, we always want
to buy more stores. That is a focus. Is it a primary focus?
No, but we are i wouldn't say aggressively pursuing, but open to and have looked at and are considering. In the middle of considering and a
few more, but I haven't said that. Well, here's what our focus
is on is basics, like really dialing in the basics and increasing raising our standards in areas we know we have more there. So here's what I just
said, areas where we know there's more there, were basically focused like laser focused on making sure that the basics are tight enough, the intensity is there and everybody's clear on the mission. That is our primary focus right now.
And by the way, we just came off of an all time record year, as most people did, but even more impressively, we're tracking an even better year this year, especially on the used car side. Well, and
I think, tell me if I'm wrong, but you probably have less turnover.
You've got more people like making money their feet, they're supporting their families, like you said, so they're bought into the mission. And so I
always look at things and say, every time you have to start over.
I mentioned that last Monday, that usually the education or the expertise or the intellectual property goes away with the employees. Not that you want to do that
on purpose, but a lot of times this is the way it works.
And so having the same people in the camp, your on your team and in your environment year in after year is only going to make you stronger, you would think. I think when I was thinking about coming on today,
I don't even know if you want to go there or how much time we have left. But whether you're on the variable side or the fixed side,
there's a silver bullet that I'm finding is impacting everything, especially the profitability of the company, and that's the buy center play because it impacts parts and service so directly. It impacts the sales department so directly, it impacts the income
of the employee. If you don't have a buy center, buying direct from
the from a private party. I would tell anybody that's listening or anybody listens
to the replay, that is the single one thing you could do to make us the biggest impact on your over all year over year performance. That's so
true because I know when the inventory problem started to first happen. I was
talking to some of my good dealer friends that I really get a lot of insight from the industry on because I'm not in the trenches every day on that side. It was, oh, you know what, we're having some inventory
problems. We're going to try to maybe buy some, but it should be
a short term thing, right, and then it just continues on. And
now we're what eighteen months, almost two years into this, and if you do not have a plan to get inventory on your lot, the auctions aren't going to save you anymore. Buying centers are obviously becoming more and more popular,
and it's a whole new process for the dealership. You got to find
a team that can handle that and then really make it effective for you.
But but yeah, if you didn't start it eighteen months ago, you don't want us wait till tomorrow and start it now. Well, here's what's interesting
is you probably know this, but I have South Dakota, Texas, I could go on and on, Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan and several other state that I've opened buy centers. I have my consulting business, and almost
every one of those is averaging twenty five purchases per agent, wow average.
And I'm not talking about ones that I've been working with for two years.
I'm talking about ones that are sixty days in one specifically is going to buy sixty cars this month with two buyers. All. That's a pretty good number.
And here I guess when the last time I bought a car from the auction was two years ago? It might be three and forty of my inventory
two day at this moment is from private party acquisitions. Wow. And that's
when you get the better cars too, if people take care of their if they're taking care of their stuff, which obviously you're hoping. You saw me
smiling and giving a thumbs up to somebody that was driving by. So every
time somebody buys a car from my buy center, they drive it around and I got a service lane right here, so they slow down and they're waving and they're all happy. It's like it's a big deal. So he just
drove by on a twenty twenty one Bronco. Like things like that. You
can't go to the auction and buy. And the average investment is eighty two
percent and the average margin is over four thousand dollars a car. This is
from people we would have never met, in cars we could have never found anywhere else. Can't tell me that's not going to impact the whole company anyway.
It's fun. I get excited. Well, you got it. You
gotta have good inventory, you gotta have unique inventory these days and I don't think you're gonna find those at the auction, and then everybody's outbidding each other there and pretty soon it is a race to the bottom, right when you're trying to buy from an auction with everybody else. Yeah, sure that's often
the case. But what's awesome for any dealer inside of the community is to
be the one that says, hey, I don't just want your check, I gotta check for you and your ride. I want to make sure that
if I can do all things. And that's what I do love about the
shift that has happened with everybody getting creative about trying to find a way to find cars is they started having to deal directly with the customer at a different time and it's proven to be very good to the bottom line, to the interaction that we have with the community and the customers. And if you're not
again you hear David saying it, and we would beat that drum as loud and proud as we could. Start a vehicle buying center, get something happening
to where you are talking to the public about what you can put in their hand for what's inside of their driveway and start a relationship from their folks.
Goodness, it's good for everybody on that side. Blue. You'd be shocked
to know the very last thing we ever talked about in the buy center, if at all, he's asking the customer to buy a car from us.
It's a simple front sight focused only a bye. It's not a hey,
now that we bought your car. Do you want to get none of that?
Ever? It's a buy center. It's not a buy and try to
sell you something center. It is a buy center. Oh like, there's
a guy here yesterday sold us his third car. Wow. Yeah. Anyway,
I get really boned up about it because every single one of the stores that I've held, sixty five buy centers from here to Brazil, every single one of them that really invested in the time and energy it takes is killing it. Why do you think there's not a buy center on every corner?
Impact in parts and service departments? Why do you think, oh, knowledge
and how to set it up? Well, there's a lot of humorist in
this business. So everybody thinks they know how to do everything. It's really
because it's too hard, right, So that's why. But anyway that you
guys asked me that would be the one thing that I would say could impact all departments. The quickest is open a buy center. Well, let's talk
a little bit, and I mean maybe expand on that. I know buying
centers. Obviously you're buying vehicles from the public, But what about that service
to sales relationship? Are you seeing that being a big part of your guys's
world as far as cars coming into the service lane and then you get you have a process to appraise that vehicle and then and then work towards a trade.
Is that something you guys are focused on. Everyone does it a little
bit. But you know, I've heard people hiring people internally that's all they
do. They just sit in the service lane and help those customers. What
do you think about that? So we stink at it? We're no good
at it. I can tell you right up front. So we have QR
code, somebody can take a picture and get an appraisal of their car in two minutes. In any one of my service departments, we do not do
a good job mining our service department. Who does the best job that I
know is I know Patrick Abat does a great job. I know that Brian
Benstock does the of anybody on the service drive, we get the low hanging fruit. We got a great relationship from parts, I mean from service advisor
to sales, so there's a symbiotic relationship. But we're not as intentional as
we should be to really maximize that opportunity. That's just the truth. So
you think it's an opportunity, You just it's kind of something that you guys have necessarily put a lot of stock in at this point, maybe due to personnel or just other initiatives. But you do think there is some value to
it, right, huge value. There should be two percent of all your
customer pair orders should convert, and we do not come close to that.
So I do know there's a value there. It's just not a hill I
can fight, yet understandable get it however, so I can talk to you guys about it, because the appointment customers should get a link that they could get their appraisal or at least let us know if they want their car praise when they're in, because I don't believe in a salesperson walking out. This
is just me say I'd like to praise your car while the advisors try to do a walk around and take photos and do a menu. I don't think
that's the way to go. But I do believe the night before the customer
comes in, if they had the opportunity to say yes or no, I think that is a pleasant way to do it. But maybe I'm wrong,
right, I'm not good at it, so I probably shouldn't even comment on it. Well, I believe that the biggest woman in the world is the
room for improvement, right, So with that being the case, I'm sure that a lot of other dealers and it's operations folks could pay attention to that and say, yeah, we can definitely sweep the corners inside of that room.
We can definitely clean things up a little bit and streamline that because it is it's low hanging fruit, not so low hanging fruit, budding blossoms, whatever the case is. It's all fruit. It's all moving in the right
direction, and we have to continue to try to see what we can squeeze.
If a branch isn't produce cool, let's move on and grow. But
we have an operation that we can always find a way to get better and challenge you all if this is an area that you need to dig into it, if you need some solutionaries to help you see what maybe you don't see holler at us. We got your back. I know Owen, we'll try
to help you out, and I know that we will help you out.
It's just very important that you are intentional in where you want to go.
And just like David is saying, that's just not something that we're tackling now, but it is on the radar. Glad to hear that and excited for
that. But solutionaries, those that are watching this right now on the line,
make sure that you do let David know that you appreciate him taking the time to spend with us here on fixed Ops Friday. If you're watching this
on the replay, make sure that you shout him out, ask questions, and just reach out to him. One thing that I do know about David
is he is an open book. If he knows, he'll share with you
and be glad to point you in the right direction. But I'm just so
thankful that we even had the time with you today. I really want to
get this rocket and Roland. We already alluded to the forgive focused live.
But before we go ahead and do that and head out for the day, anything else you got out of here for missus David Long. No, I'm
just you know, David, thanks for joining us. I know, last
Friday of the month. You're right home from a vacation, hopefully got a
little recharge when you're over in Hawaii. It's sound like you had some fun
and we'll have to bring you back again and we'll little talk some more and look forward to another fixed operation all things fixed operations on Monday morning. And
obviously I'm always around, but I'll definitely be reaching out to you. I
got a couple thoughts on some of the discussion. I'd love to jam with
you a little bit off off screen a little bit, so I love it.
Can I say two more things, yes, sir? Okay. First,
if anybody has a topic that they want a table for all things fixed opp or all things used cars, send me a message on any one of the social media sites, or send me a text message if you have my number. That's the first thing. The second thing that I really have to
say, there's nobody in the auto industry that's as blessed as me. You
want to know why, because of people like Fred and Lou and Owen and Cindy and Robert. The list of people that I have that sort of surround
me and love me and help me and are there for me for whatever I need is ridiculous. So I just want to say to anybody that's watching that
knows me, I am so grateful for all the things that people do for me without looking for anything in return. And that's why I am so free
with information and time. So thank you to the auto industry that's been great
for me for almost four decades. You have me till twenty thirty, and
then you'll never find me again. I'm gonna have a beard, I'm gonna
be selling ice cream on a beach somewhere and you won't even know I'm still alive. You have till twenty thirty and then I'm gone. I'm disappearing.
But I just want to say thank you to everybody that's always been so incredibly kind to me, especially Fred Lou and thank you now, David. You
obviously got a good track record yourself, and you help a lot of people that you don't ask for anything returns. Painted forward has always been my mantra
in life, and I know it's yours. And so when you do that,
good things will happen, and you surround yourself with good people and another reason why I enjoy every moment I get to spun with this earth. So
thank you. Yeah, we definitely do on on that. And speaking to
mantras, let's go ahead and drop some of these f bombs. Everybody there
goes saying thank you. David appreciates you well, everybody, you know what
it is that we need to do. We need to go ahead and forgive
focus and fly so we can end this show right, So go ahead and help us out with your hands on your shoulders one time, everybody loud and proud, forgive focus Fly one, two, three, forgive Focus Fly, keep growing, growing. Everybody appreciate you joining us by Fixed Ops Friday with
Oh Moon and the one the Only David Long. That's right, everybody,
We'll see you all soon. Make sure that you tune in for the Fixed
Oups Friday flashbacks and make sure that you are ready for the next guest again, David Mionnor you. We appreciate you having an incredible day. We're out, everybody,
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