Wake up, Buy Here, Pay Here people. It's a beautiful day. Go grab yourself another cup of joe and say hello to Jim and Michelle Rhodes on the Buy Here, Pay Here morning show. Take it away, you two. Hey, everybody. Good morning. Hey, folks. Welcome to a Monday. Oh, it's Monday. It's like the start of new things. Yeah. And can I talk about the new thing? Sure. Okay. You mean the new season for the Indianapolis Colts, I'm guessing. Well, that too. Okay. Super Bowl. Great. I am not a football person, but I certainly did enjoy. I did humor him. When they went into overtime, I was like, we have 15 more effing minutes. And he's like, yes. He's not a footballer. He's like, okay. But the commercials were great. And it was fun because this guy watches football and he just, he doesn't just watch football. He watches football through the eyes of an analyst and a coach. And it's just so there's like, it was funny because our neighbors, we had invited them to go to watch one of the previous games where and both the, the, um, the parties of this, this couple, um, we're, we're just kind of chatting and she pulls me aside and she goes, okay, wait a second. He watches the entire thing. It's like, yes, he does. And, um, they were sick that day that we wanted them to come over. Um, so, but the, the new thing is, is I have been like on this quest to figure out how to incorporate, um, fitness and all of the all of the stuff and um and I have been like wanting to try a made a meta quest um because they have this new program that's called super natural and um and it's an exercise program and and I've seen you know facebook feed you what they want you to buy and what they think that you're gonna but I was like I'm really intrigued And I knew that my oldest son had one and so, or he has a couple of them. And so I went over and I was like, can I borrow one? He goes, yeah, I haven't used them forever. You're going to have to plug it in and all of that. And so it took me weeks to get through how I had to factory reset it, all of this stuff. And so, Yesterday I figured it out and today I started and I have to tell you in 20 minutes, I mean, I had so much fun and then I pulled off the headset and I am dripping in sweat. And I was like, I didn't even realize I was doing that. It was just so much fun. So there's my plug for that because it was fun. It was easy. It didn't feel like it was hard. And I noticed when I start sweating an awful lot, there's something psychological that says you're supposed to be really tired. and you're supposed to be stopping. So it was really, really fun. I had a great, great time. And it was, it was kind of fun. Cause this morning I put it on and it's like, it's not turning on. I can't see anything. And I kept trying all these different things. I'd left the cover on the inside so that none of the stuff would turn on. I was like, Oh, okay. It's rookie. Yeah. Rookie. We all noticed how you changed the football or the subject. We did. So, all right. All right. A couple of announcements. Yeah, we got some quick announcements. Tomorrow evening is a meeting of a V8 Group 2. We've got seats in that one. That one is the larger dealers, generally 500 plus. I think most everybody in there right now is 700 plus in terms of number of accounts. Yeah. And there's room. Probably not for this one that's coming up tomorrow. I'm not sure. No, there is. There is. Okay. Yeah. You just got to be able to turn your data around a little bit quickly. True, yeah. We got to hustle to bring all the stuff together. So that's something we're navigating. Wednesday morning's morning show, we got a free gift for dealers. So I'm excited to have a chance to share something. And it's also a special day. It's Valentine's Day. Our show of love to all dealers out there. There you go. It's going to be a special gift. Yeah, so we got that. And then we got on Thursday morning, we start with our guest today is Melanie Goldman. She's waiting in the wings to join us. And she's going to be one of our... uh panelists the dealer panelists on the uh the sessions on thursday so we start at 9 a.m eastern with growth strategies and then melanie will join us at 10 a.m for revving up the recon pipeline so today she's joining us to talk about recon and then we've got 11 a.m we do 10 ways to boost bhph volume on a budget so I think dealers want to be a part of that one and then uh thursday night of this week we have that same night of the uh the panel we have uh our newcomer group, group three, and then group four doesn't meet until the end of the month. We can talk about that one later. It's going to be a busy week, and we were talking about, like, we need to do this and this and this, and it's like not until next week. It's just there's an awful lot happening this week. A lot going on. Are we ready? We are. We're going to bring in our guest. Yay. All right. Hello, Melanie. Good Monday morning to you both. Thank you. So glad you could join us. Yes. Thank you for having me. And also, of course, you agreed graciously to be a panelist with us on Thursday. And we're going to talk about Recon. We've got another dealer from Texas who's also going to be a panelist there. And we're just going to talk through all the stuff then, Melanie. And we'll do the same today. We just kind of want to talk through Recon. kind of what you've learned in your recon department you're out there fighting the fight like everybody else and dealers are telling us all over the country like you know their recon is their big bottleneck if they could move cars through recon they could sell a few more and always save some money too and recon as well yeah yeah so it's all part of what we look forward to having a chance to talk to you about today I gotta before we go into all the recon stuff though I want to hear a little bit about your company history I know you guys been there for decades and are you just outside indianapolis are you in indy proper Yeah, we are south of Indianapolis, about 45 minutes. We have two locations, one in Morgantown, Indiana, one in Columbus, Indiana. We've been in business for 43 years. Business was started by my parents. And then I took over running operation in 2016. But I've been involved you know, from the beginning I was scrubbing white oil tires at seven years old, you know, all the fun stuff. Yeah, absolutely. No, that's good. And we've been fascinated. Like part of the reason I reached out to you is I've been really fascinated by tracking your story on social media. And as Michelle kind of alluded to before we started the broadcast, like we, we have so much fun following you on social. So you, you climbed to, it wasn't, uh, it was like the base camp. Yeah, I prepped to Everest Base Camp last May, 17,500 feet. It took a couple of weeks, about five years of planning to get there. It was very much A life goal, a life changing experience. I can't wait to go back. Oh, wow. Yeah. That was on your, on your bucket list now to climb. I don't know if necessarily I do want to do a lot more through hiking. It's a, it's a lot more fun starting in one village and hiking to another one, starting one place and then spending the night at another. So that's a lot more fun than driving to a park. And hiking a trail and coming back and getting in your car and driving home. That doesn't feel as rewarding as through hiking. So I would like to do a lot more of that. But yes, traveling to Nepal and experiencing Kathmandu and then being up in the mountains was an amazing experience. amazing experience that's wonderful and michelle obviously enjoys following you for the adventures I enjoy following you for all the fun memes that you throw out there that's my favorite part so I you have a great sense of humor yeah and you're pretty ridiculous I'm just keep it up I i must be ridiculous too then because I quite enjoy the the uh it's it's a smart assery we'll call it so uh Absolutely. Absolutely. You got to laugh at yourself. There's no way we survive this. Oh yeah, for sure. It's all good stuff. But yeah, I also can't, can't get away without mentioning that you were named 2023 Indiana dealer quality of the year, right? Yes. I'll get there. Congratulations on that. Thank you very much. They, I was surprised. I didn't even know that I was being nominated and, um, I was surprised at our state convention when they named me the state quality dealer. Yeah. Wow. That's really great. That is fantastic. What a beautiful tribute. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I was very humbling to know that. You're nominated, voted on by your peers. So it is quite an honor. I will be competing for National Quality Dealer of the Year. I'm actually planning on taking my entire dealership with me to the NIADA convention in June because without them, there is no me. So I cannot in good conscience say, stand on a stage and potentially accept an award without my crew. So I plan on shutting the dealership down for the week and taking my entire staff plus ones. And this is about the biggest thing that's ever happened to us. We're not a huge dealership. So, you know, we're going to take our flowers and we're going to celebrate. That is amazing. And what a beautiful culture of celebration as a team you're creating. Yes. Because it's not, hey, we're going to watch on a screen and see Melanie stand on a stage. It's like, we're there with you to just, yeah, enjoy the experience. That is so amazing. I love it. I consider this... you know, national dealership of the year, not national dealer. Cause like I said, I might have the vision or the idea, but it takes my team to carry that out. And I have all the respect for my staff and appreciate them and know that I can not do this alone and that, It is their dedication and their determination and their ability to step up and take on the challenges that I give them that has propelled us to this point. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. I mean, this is recorded. So there's a beautiful tribute recorded to your team. Love it. Absolutely. Yeah. So we've got to talk about recon. That's what we're here for. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, and obviously we want to hear other parts of your business. So you mentioned two locations. Do you also have two service departments? Do you have one at each or do you just have one that you share? No, at our Columbus location, it's pretty much just a satellite location. We do have a small one car garage attached, but that's just for tiny things. That's not for doing recon work. So we do have at our main location in Morgantown that we opened in 1981. We do have two garages and a detail shop as well as our office. That's where we do all of our recon. So there's something that goes along with recon. And this is like, again, as I mentioned to you before, I have really enjoyed watching the adventures of Melanie. And you made a decision to go to Avotech. Yes. And so talk to us about why you made that decision to go. Yes. So I'm currently enrolled at Ivy Tech in Bloomington in their automotive maintenance light repair program. So basically, when I took over the business, I... First got my hands around accounts receivable because I needed to know what was going on with the money. And then I got my hands around sales. But, oh, I never could quite get my hands around the garage. I always relied on a service manager or a tech or somebody else. I tried to control and manage the things I could, but I was ignorant of a lot of, you know, how to fix a car. I, you know, my parents started this business when I was seven years old and vehicles are a way that we make money. So plus my family was the floor model family. You know, we didn't fix things. We bought the floor model because it was already put together and you could handle the price. So we, you know, we don't have mechanical ability. So, you know, I've been to a lot of classes on lots of topics, but even had joined a service group. But finally, I had decided, you know, I need to know more. And I really want to get my hands around this. So in spring of 2022, I enrolled at Ivy Tech. I take one class a semester. So far, I've completed four classes, a basic mechanical and electrical class, an engine performance class and a brakes class. And then come this semester, I'll be taking electrical too, which is electrical is very, very challenging. And I have mad respect for techs that are proficient in electrical. So I have learned so much. My goal in going was to understand the mechanics of a vehicle, of course, to be able to communicate better with my techs. and to also be able to be to be able to communicate with customers and with my sales staff and kind of be that in between because techs of course you know their job is very technical and sometimes their explanations can go over the head of my sales staff or customers so I wanted to be able to be that in between to put it in some layman's terms for my customers or my office staff. And I wanted to be a better purchaser. You know, I wanted to learn more. So when I buy cars, I could do a better job. But it has been so much more than that. Not only have I learned about vehicles, it has brought me much closer to my techs. I think sometimes Techs can have the idea that the boss is way up here or the office is way up here and the techs are down here or lowly. And that's just not the case. They're so vital to our process. And, you know, I have homework. And so I go to the techs and I need you to help me with my homework. We need to open the hood. You know, we need to inspect everything. this or inspect that. And they just love, they love that. Every time I come back from school there, what'd you learn today? And so there became a lot of camaraderie with me and with the shop. So that's, yeah, that's an unintended consequence that has been wonderful for our business and And for, yes, for our company culture, I've worked very hard the last couple of years on company culture. And this has definitely helped that. So this is so wonderful because I think I, I kind of anticipated based on what I was seeing that I probably thought I knew what your motivation was in doing that. And you haven't even mentioned that. Like I thought you probably were doing it as a way to assess production and performance in that department. That's probably a secondary benefit, but that wasn't your primary motivation, obviously. So I'm glad we had a chance to talk about this before we get together on Thursday. I don't automatically assume that my techs aren't performing. I don't, I treat my employees like they're adults and I like to have the assumption, I try to be positive and I like to have the assumption that everyone's doing the best that they can do. If there's a problem, I'm here to solve it so they can move forward and get the job done. But Yeah. Assessing their, how much they're doing per hour or whatnot. Now I, you know, that's just me. I'm there are others out there that do a much better job, I'm sure. But no, I really just wanted to get a handle on myself being better because like I said, I go to all kinds of classes on collections and classes on sales and whatnot. And, but yeah, So why wouldn't I, is my question, why wouldn't I take classes in mechanical to be well-rounded? You're going to be going to a lot of O-Techs because buy here, pay here business has a lot of different departments, as you know. You've already gotten quite familiar with some of them, and I'm sure that you're going to benefit as a buyer. Of course, now cars are more electrical, more computerized than they were back when your folks started the dealership, right? Absolutely. 20 years ago. So it's a changing environment. So it's good that you're, you're in there and able to get that deep in the process. So, you know, congratulations. That's awesome. And I'm hoping that outside of this, this broadcast and the thing we're doing, the dealer roundup we're doing on Thursday, I would love to be able to have a conversation with you about some of the things you just talked about, because it really hits home to some of the things that we're trying to teach and, And it's about team culture and keeping team members. And, you know, and, and a lot of the research that I've done on it, it's like you have intrinsically figured these things out and you're doing them. And so, yeah, I, I will put that on the calendar for another. I, I, I have great people and, And I have the last six months, I've really put myself down in the shop. I've been down there full time. I say that running the dealership is my part-time job because I really, once I came back from Nepal I wanted to get my house in order as far as my garage and make sure that things were running the way I wanted them to. And I was done relying on service managers and others to carry those things out. So I've been, down there full time and I've been the one sourcing the parts and I've been the one pushing the work and it's been great. And believe it or not, my staff actually likes me being down there surprisingly enough, but I also, for I want communication and I tell them you know I didn't hire you just to keep your mouth shut and hang parts uh if I ask you to do something I if you don't think it's right or you think something else needs to be done I want you to speak up I want you to debate me I want you to bring it to my attention because don't assume that just because I said it that that's you know that there's not a better way so it's not my texts aren't argumentative but if there's an issue you know, they come to me and they say, Hey, I know you said you wanted us to do this, but I really think we need to do that. And if they can give me a good enough reason and it makes enough sense, then, you know, we'll go that direction. So, and sometimes I can't, but they're heard, they're respected. Um, and that goes so far in, in your employees wanting to do a good job and, and wanting to step up, um, Because like I said, I treat my staff like adults, not children that I constantly have to mind and helicopter. Well, I can say that's helpful because Michelle has recently started to treat me like a grown-up. And I got to say, that really helps me a lot. It's so much better. No, it's all good. So have your techs been with you a good while? Um, yeah, I've had, well, um, one of them has been with me. They've been with me a couple of years. One's been with me a year. The other two have been with me a couple of years. So, uh, but you know, sometimes decks come and sometimes they go. Uh, I have in the last year, I have made a strong effort to get rid of anyone in my dealership, not just in my garage that had negativity, had drama, uh, because I just, I wasn't going to have it. It's amazing how one dark cloud can just cause havoc in your entire dealership. You know, one dark cloud in the service department can affect the sales department can affect everyone. So. I made it a priority that we hire happy people that, you know, everybody, if they had a choice between working or drinking a margarita on the beach, we'd all choose a margarita on the beach. But if you have to work, I want you to like your job. I want you to enjoy coming here. Enjoy the people that you work with. So that was very important. And once we made that change, then, like I said, everything else started to fall into place. Beautiful. I thought she was going to say she put a margarita machine in the break room. That's a great idea. It can only be opened after six o'clock. Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, I got to say the, you know, a lot of what I'm hearing you talk about there, it's like Michelle said, we're often trying to help dealers in what we call squiggly lines. And I think what you're learning in your work, and you've been learning this as you go in the dealership over these years, but we I would say it's easier for you to set the timing on a v6 engine than it is for you to set tune the the culture in your business like that's a challenging thing for dealers to get their arms around and sometimes you know they don't even really see it in the way that you see it and recognize the benefit of all these things that you're doing and so that's just a secondary benefit that you're seeing or maybe we could say it's a primary benefit like without culture it's pretty hard for you guys to function right So I want to get back to one specific thing on the recon thing, though. So talk to me about how the recon process for you guys has an impact on sales. And maybe before you answer, let me ask it maybe more specifically. Like, are you amongst those dealers who does recon definitely hinder your sales? In other words, if you could recondition 10 more cars a month, would that translate into 10 more sales a month for you? Could you really move through them that quickly? Or are there other factors for you? um well you know it never hurts to put more vehicles on the lot so we can always be faster and that's a goal of mine uh we have sped things up in in recent months since I went down to the shop full time and we've cut some costs uh but yeah I mean I'm constantly looking for ways to I don't want to hinder uh quality with quant because of quantity because my goal is I never want to see that car again I want that car to come back in two years when they're ready to trade in so I don't want to see that car back in a week then it sat on the lot and then there's a check-in july I don't want the customer calling me two days after they buy the car because we skimped on some things that we shouldn't have skimped on So it's trying to find and I don't necessarily always do it. It's trying to find that right balance in how much do you recon so you can get it out the door versus, you know, so you get it out the door quickly versus the quality of making sure it's right. We do go through 140 point inspection of the cosmetic and mechanical to make sure that that everything is safe first of all you've got to make sure the car is safe before anything else so if we if we are going to cut things because of cost it's going to typically be something cosmetic not not ever something safety related because in my mind we've got to go this car's got to go at least two years and most of our customers struggle enough with the payment let alone them having to change out the brakes or the tires so we like to make sure that both of those are good Yeah. Got it. Got it. Yeah. I think it's all, it's all part of what we're trying to understand in the recon process. So, you know, we're hearing a lot of dealers say that that's a hindrance for them in terms of their ability to, to sell is that that's the bottleneck, right? It's kind of, they get stalled in the service department. Can't get them through. I want to ask too, do you guys take, um, customer repairs into your shop or you only do your own inventory? Okay. So we've cut down the customer repairs. I used to be flip flop. Now, uh, we sublet a lot of our customer repairs. Um, I used to want all the customers to come in so I could control everything. But, um, And I was subletting out the recon work, but I found that it makes more sense to sublet out the repairs. People can go try to build relationships all around your coverage area where you sell. Let people go places that are closer to their home or closer to their work. They're happier. We do have a service contract. So that helps our customers out. But we also have tried to schedule appointments only on Wednesdays if we can help it. So that way we can do some recon Monday and Tuesday. We've got Wednesday for customer appointments, and then we can go back to recon Thursdays and Fridays. Now, that's not perfect. It doesn't always work out that way, but we try our best to funnel those. We also try very hard to get customers to drop off vehicles the night before so we can get started on them first thing in the morning if we can. Absolutely. That's really a good lesson right there. I mean, the thing you've learned through that. I just had a conversation not long ago with a dealer out of Alabama. It's Nathan Sy, Michelle. It's the same dealer who's going to be the co-moderator at our panel on Thursday. And so he and I had a conversation many months ago about that same thing, about the customer work versus recon work. And so it'll be an interesting thing to explore further on Thursday. So, you know, there's a lot of dealers. Yeah. There's a lot of dealers out there that, uh, um, are, uh, debating or, you know, they're, they're, they're kind of going through this. Should I have a shop? Should I not have a shop? Um, and there's a lot of different, uh, different viewpoints on that, but from yours, um, do you think that it is a good value add to a dealership to add a shop if you don't already have one? You know, I'm going to give you the answer you hear all the time, buy here, pay here. It depends. I think we are in a rural area. We don't have as many options just to go to a dealership. We have to go at minimum 20, 25 minutes just to get to a dealership. So in a rural area, I can see it being more advantageous to have a shop. If you are in a very urban area where you've got lots of options around you for shops, maybe you can work out arrangements with those and get your work done at multiple sublets. If you have the ability, If you have the knowledge and the ability and the space, then I would say go for it. But, you know, just like everything else, it has to be managed. And trust me, I have made so many mistakes and all my mistakes are painful and expensive. So it has to be managed. It has to be watched. You just can't set it and forget it and just assume, you know, that it, that everything's going to run through the shop smoothly. So if you are going to do it, be prepared to manage it. That's great. I like it. I like it. I think that can be true of some of our other departments too, but yeah, that's great advice. I think that's what dealers need to hear early on. It's like, it's yeah, the mathematics support doing it, but there's more to consider than just the math. Right. So there's a lot of factors in all that, but yeah, yeah I think you know this we appreciate you making time I think you covered all the things I wanted to to hear about anything you wanted to add um no I i I don't know like I said I don't know if there's ever a perfect answer I think it's a constantly evolving um something works for a while and then you know you have to change it up the cars are constantly evolving so we're just over here doing the best we can um but as we know I mean we can always do a little bit better and every day we try to do just a little bit better yeah that's part of why we do the morning show live is just you know it's the most recent it's the most current information we can all bring and talk about and so yeah it's all you're right it's always evolving the market is evolving the type of car that we buy is changing I mean there's just a lot of stuff you know that's on the shift all the time so It's important for folks to hear from other dealers like yourself. And so, again, we're grateful for you making time to join today. I'm glad you're going to be a panelist with us on Thursday. Looking forward to getting into some of those subjects. It'll be just more of the same. We're just going to chat. Yeah. And then the other person that's going to be on the panel with you is out of Texas. Edgar Rodriguez. Edgar Rodriguez. We had the opportunity. Are you familiar with Edgar? No. I don't think so. Okay. We met him at the Lease Here, Pay Here conference. And, you know, lease here, pay here, buy here, pay here, shop is the same. But it's just really, it's to listen to him and how he has... created the systems and process. And I'm just, I'm looking forward to that conversation because it's a beautiful balance of two different pieces that are as essential as the other. And I, it'll be, it'll be really good. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. um and for being there on thursday if you want to hang around backstage for just a minute we'll just wrap up the show and we'll join you over there yeah thank you all right well yeah I you know I like her even more yeah just watching her on facebook and you know it's like she just does cool stuff yeah and has a great sense of humor facebook you feel like you know them you know at some level before you can talk to them yeah that's true that's very very true Well, thank you everybody so much for joining us. Um, it's a Monday and everyone, I mean, there's, there's going to be a lot of people that are on the, in the, in the country that are like super on a super high from who won Superbowl and those that are not as on a high and hope that we were able to add a little bit of joy to your day today. Um, uh, for a Monday. So we're looking forward to seeing you all on Wednesday where we, it'll be Valentine's day. We have a little gift for you. And then Friday we're, We are going to be talking about. Oh, Friday is going to be. I forget which is Wednesday. Wednesday is the free gift. And then on Friday is going to be charge off. Charge offs. Okay. How to process charge offs. Well, thanks so much, everybody. And we will see you on Wednesday. Have a great day.
