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. Good morning. Sorry for getting a little bit late here with technical difficulties. When you travel and you take your stuff with you, sometimes it doesn't want to play nice. So we finally scrapped all the equipment and just got us on the laptop. So hopefully everyone is able to hear well. This is not where we are. It's a pretty picture. We're in a cement city in Vegas right now. I look at that and I remember Florida and miss the time out there. So we're out in Vegas yesterday. Just did the Neo User Summit yesterday. It was great to be there. We appreciate the hospitality of the Neo folks. It was good to be there to get a little bit of information about the latest releases and kind of what's on the horizon and roadmap for them. And of course, it's always nice to be able to reconnect with dealers. Lots of dealers that we know. I was frantically taking notes the first couple of sessions as they were going through all of the new things and the releases and all of that. There's some good stuff that's coming and hopefully we'll be able to... A lot of our clients are on that software. We're here the rest of the week. Business meetings and some of the key people live in the Vegas area. We thought, why not? So that's why we're here, but one of the sessions that I went to, it spurred a question in my mind, and Jim and I talked about it afterwards, and so we thought this would be a good thing to talk about today, about seeking better data for dealers. Yeah, and it's kind of been on the forefront of my mind anyway, because we've had a number of dealers asking, including some in our V8 groups, about benchmarks. I mean, a lot of times when people refer to benchmarks, they're talking about the kind of the measuring device that 20 groups have traditionally used or 20 groups have referred to benchmarks for a long time. And we have, you know, I think you gotta be careful. Like I'm a data nerd, right? I've been around this business for 20 plus years and I've been interested in the data element for a long time. Um, And obviously with V8, we're getting some level of data flowing in, but there's a couple problems in our industry. And one of the things that we really want to talk about today is kind of the location of data. We talked about many months ago, kind of who owns your data. And that was kind of a hot button topic with a lot of our dealers. many of them hadn't really thought about like the DMS. Yeah. Well, it, the question was spurred because we had some clients that were trying to switch DMSs and the DMS that we're moving from didn't want to release any data. And, and so it was like, but it's my data. And so who does own your data? And we post a question, ask, ask who owns your data? Um, because that's, I mean, that's a really great place to start is like, is this data mine? Is this data yours? What happens if we decide to, to divorce or whatever? Um, you know, it's kind of like a prenup. Yeah. And that's in the agreement. I'm sure when you were signing their DMS agreement, but I mean, how much little, yeah. So it's like, Then it begs the question, and typically what we see is when, if you move, for example, from one DMS to another, you're typically going to get your real-time data, whatever your inventory looks like, your current receivables, the customer balances, but you're not necessarily going to get historical transactional data, which means How am I going to know what my performance is, like what my results have been with past customers? And some dealers have many years worth of data in that way. So it's an important question to ask. And I think for us today, it kind of extended to a place where We think it's appropriate for dealers to start to better understand this information because we are definitely in an information age, right? The value of data is becoming more and more apparent. And for us to be as effective in managing our businesses as possible, we really need to make sure we can get to useful information. Well, and that's the key, isn't it? It's useful information. And, and, uh, the term benchmarks, and that was one of the things that was talked about the other day. And what are the benchmarks? And there are some challenges with coming up with benchmarks because we all know that everybody has such a vast um, a variety of type of business models. I mean, you know, how can you benchmark someone that has a, um, has a, uh, uh, ACB of 5,000 against someone who's bench, you know, benchmark the next person who has an ACB of 10,000 or whatever. And so it's, there are challenges there, but the data's there. Yeah. And I think that we've got several challenges. One is, you know, people have different business strategies, right? Different business, um, even different processes within their strategy. Then you have different modules in the DMS. Like you have typically have an inventory module, sales module, collections modules, and those don't always, the data doesn't always flow nicely between those. So then you also have, you know, your ability to get to certain data points, you know, as a dealer, if I want to just a quick look at a certain kind of high level management stuff, that's one thing now to have, those quote unquote benchmarks in a way that I can measure, like what are other dealers doing? But let's just, let's break that one down for a minute. Cause I was thinking this morning about when a dealer asked me for benchmarks, are they, do they want to know what, so let's say on the sales side, it's kind of the consumer loan structure, right? The deal structure to the consumer. Is that what they want to know? Do they want to know what the deal structure looks like for other dealers? Like how are other dealers pricing? Or do they want to know what performs best? Because I think in our line of work, it's not so much how you structure it in terms of what potential profit it's got or how much APR you charge, how much down payment you collect. It's what's performing best. And so I think this is really the challenge for us now. And just I think for Michelle and me with White Hat Way, one of the things you can expect that we're going to continue to kind of be the the bulldog on the pants leg of the thing about, we just gotta find how to bring that data together. And I think, you know, there are obviously folks out there who sort of shield the data. I mean, I'll say it, they won't release the data They are very protective of their APIs. They're very protective of the data that lives in their system. And while some of that may be security driven, right? They may be doing it for their own compliance or they may be doing it at least on the idea that it's for their own compliance protection or whatever privacy protection. i just simply think that we we got to have those conversations we got to get out there and start talking about you know I when I think about the compliance protection there's a lot of data points uh uh benchmarks that come out of niada 20 groups and so there's got to be a way to be able to navigate that because there's a lot of data there that they pull together and come up with with different benchmarks but yes I i I get the um I get the the you know, privacy part. And sometimes I wonder whether or not people, any kind of software, you know, your DMS, your GPS, your underwriting software, even your capital providers, there are data points that are being collected and that they, you know, they're looking at what works best, especially, you know, capital providers, all that. They're looking at what looks best. And that's one of the reasons why they come in and they say, These are your covenants, you know, because they know from data what kind of things work best and all of that. But sometimes I wonder whether or not some of the some of the softwares that are out there collecting data, if they really understand what it is that they have. I get the idea they don't. I mean, I think when you say what they have, they don't. First of all, we know it's true that with a lot of the DMS providers, they don't necessarily know the industry. They've never been dealers. They know data. They know how to pull the data together and how to make a display on the page and all that fun stuff. They don't know the industry well. So to be able to create, again, a meaningful dashboard, I think there are so many things to consider here because it's just like going back to that real simple example. For our V8 groups, as we start, we're in our infancy there. We're figuring things out. We're pulling together data. We're meeting with our dealers and getting feedback about what data points are important to them. And It just still, you have that disconnect between the sales side and the collection side, which, because it would take many years for us to be able to measure performance. Of deals right across a long period of time. So, so when we say this deal, people ask me as a consultant advisor, like, you know, what's the optimum deal structure? Well, Business models vary. For one thing, we've got to be careful about that. We got not everybody's going to create the same thing. But I think it frustrates me that after 20 plus years and grand, we just have bits and pieces of data. Right. But we got to go ask the people who are in possession of this data to share with us so that we can share with the industry in a way that's appropriate. Like these folks are going to have to trust us. with, you know, when we go forward and ask them to share APIs, or we ask them to share, you know, certain data fields and whatever, so that we can begin to produce data on behalf of dealers, because this is the part that I just, I think everybody who's listened to us for more than 10 minutes knows we're we're in the camp of dealer. We're trying to make the dealer experience better. Yeah. Yeah. That was another thing that we were talking about last night. Um, about, you know, we've been, we're celebrating our 300th episode on Friday. And so that's, you know, it's two, two years of, um, us showing up and having conversations and bringing people to the conversation and all of that. Um, you know, we've, we've shied away from, from, uh, uh, pitching and, you know, a lot of those different things because we just wanted to be able to stay as agnostic as we possibly could so that dealers would understand and know that we're really here for them. Right. And, um, and so, you know, it's, it's, uh, I look forward to the next couple of years as we start to put together the machine that can help with that data and be able to put out information to dealers that really is going to help them. Because, I mean, you know, it's like, where's your heart? Do you want the success of the dealers? And it's an interesting thing that, you know, when we started this, we were told by many, you know, how are you monetizing? How are you capitalizing? How are you, um, you know, uh, that, that when you give and give and give, then you're going to diminish what you have to give. And, and it's interesting, I got a little emotional when we were talking about this, the exact opposite has happened, um, that we've given, given and given and helped and, and, uh, and educated. I mean, there's two years worth of podcasts out there of education. And it's because we really truly are concerned about the dealers and the dealers welfare. And through that, we have met some of the most amazing dealers. We've been able to help them deeper. We've, you know, we've, we've met some of the most amazing vendors that, that catch this vision. You know, it's like, it's like our, our founding sponsors who stepped in and said, okay, how do we do this? We see what it is that you're trying to do. And so, it's the pastimes, it's the dealer REs, it's the LHPH capitals that they understand where it is that we're going. And it's exciting for me as we continue to build out what we can do with data and find a way to start and build out the way to be able to start parsing out how how best to help a dealer it's yeah I think for me it's really simple it's like you know we're we're going to keep asking the questions we're going to keep going out on behalf of dealers and asking the providers to you know join us and pulling together this information and um you know, we, we expect a lot of cooperation. I mean, I think, you know, with, as you mentioned, our founding sponsors, I mean, they, they support this effort. They'll be, you know, joining us and asking these questions on behalf of dealers and trying to pull together this information. So I think it's something that I'm, I'm happy to, to drive that conversation and, you know, begin to sort of elevate the conversation and let's, let's, Let's take on the hard stuff. I mean, let's get this stuff figured out. Because at the end of the day, the data is there. At the end of the day, there is so much data out there that can really deeply help dealers. And it's there. And if providers don't recognize that, then, you know, let's – I have to think that a lot of them really do know what kind of data because data is kind of that's currency nowadays too. I think the other thing that dealers can expect from us is we're going to continue to be transparent. So as we go forward to the industry and we ask these questions of providers and all the other folks, we're going to do it in a really transparent way in an open way. And so dealers will be able to see the conversation. They will know who's participating, who's contributing and who's not. And so it'll just become very apparent. And it's not about picking on anybody. We obviously hope that folks will participate. But they are just we're just going to ask them to sort of say in as public way as possible is we're either going to participate or we're not. You know, and so we're so this is about just us having a chance to go to work on behalf of dealers. And be able to pull together information that, by the way, will also benefit the consumer. Absolutely. I mean, how because it isn't the data about finding the way that the consumer can be the most successful, because ultimately it makes it helps the dealer be more successful. And so, you know, from our perspective, we were I think it's an old paradigm that when you share, you lose. Yeah. And, and what we're here to say is that that is not true. And so if you don't share because you fear you're going to lose, then it's, you know, we, we just had this, uh, this conversation about, and actually. We're going to be doing a podcast about about resistance to change. And and so we're just we're here to say data providers, dealers, all of that is that sharing does not diminish your capacity and your capability and your your your ability to to succeed and to create the revenues and to be successful and for your customers to be successful either. So it's kind of a call to everyone out there, whether you be a dealer, whether you be a software provider, you know, all of those things is that let's join in a spirit of sharing because there are things that out there that can truly help the dealers to be better. And that we are, we are poster children for sharing actually pays in massive dividends. And so don't be afraid and think that you're going to be losing your slice because there is more pie than a pie. Yeah. And I think it's natural that people, you know, again, when they choose not to share, sometimes it's because of fear of compromising some privacy thing, right? So that can be navigated. That's something that we are aware. I mean, you have to involve attorneys and you have to involve attorneys, but it's like, We can get there in terms of the privacy thing. We can't let that be a hindrance to allowing dealers to get to this kind of information. And then we just have to figure out like for us, it's about who is in a position to be a trusted steward of that kind of data. Like for us, we're prepared for White Hat Way to be a sheriff of data. OK, so this is why we grabbed the domain whitehatway.ai some time ago. We announced that on the show some months ago. This is part of where our future is going to be. And this is part of what White Hat Way is in a position to do. And it continues to be because we've remained agnostic and because we're interested in the success of dealers. And so that just lets us go to any room and any email and ask the questions on behalf of dealers. And so this is kind of what you can expect to see from us going forward. And we're thrilled to be in that position. We're glad to be able to utilize that and go to work on behalf of dealers and knowing that consumers will also benefit. And whatever success dealers enjoy, especially those who operate through what app practices, that the consumer's also gonna have a much better experience, much more successful experience. And so this is part of where you see us continue to go, and we're happy to do that and enjoy the work. And honestly, everyone is welcome. Yeah. So that whole agnostic thing is like everyone is welcome to participate in helping dealers and consumers. Yeah. Absolutely everyone is. Because we can be both agnostic and inclusive, right? We can be. You can, you can. So that's part of what we can do. That's all another conversation. Yeah, for sure. We can wrap up there. Just a reminder, we've got our 300th episode on Friday. We sent out an email requesting if you folks are for prior guests, if you just on Friday, some of the short videos that are coming in. We're excited to do that and have some folks join us on that in that regard. Again, we'll just be back here on Friday morning. Well, have a great rest of your Wednesday, and we look forward to seeing you all on Friday. Thanks so much for making this a part of your day, and we look forward to continuing this charge. Yep. Have a great day.
