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 from Utah. Happy Wednesday. Yeah, it's Wednesday. Yeah, you picked up on that. I did. Yeah, so happy to have everybody here. We are... Thrilled to have a guest with us who's standing by in their vehicle on the way to the car auction. I love that. I do. It's like in the trenches, you know, frequently when we've got Jack Carter joining us, he's in the car. The first time he joined us, he was inside the building at the car auction. Yeah, yeah. And it just, it's because it's so real. And because dealers, for the most part, are out there. in the trenches and so yeah it's it's pretty cool well that's part of what we love about the virtual you know streaming thing yeah we like going live we're just out here talking about the stuff that everybody's talking about we're talking about it anyway we just switch on the microphone we talk about it all the time but it's nice to be able to get other people's perspectives and and um you know be just be having a fresh conversation about every, every other day during the week. So, because there's always new stuff. So, yeah. So a couple of things have happened. Like we've had some important conversations in recent days. Some of them are like colleagues. Some of them are dealers. I had a really important conversation last night with one of our V8 dealer groups and that's the newcomers group. So there's a little more coaching in that one. We're kind of taking them through KPIs and numbers and things. And so it's, So that was really important for us to kind of go there. And I can tell you, the dealers were appreciative. I was able to say to them at the start of the conversation, I said, I'm going to share with you guys tonight some of the stuff that I wish somebody had shared with me way back when I was starting. There's just so many things like that that are important to know. And I think this dealer who's joining us today, we had a conversation not long ago about And I'll let Chris tell the story, but, you know, Chris comes from another industry. So when you step into the buy here, pay here business is like, well, where's all the, where's the blueprint? You know, where do I get this stuff? And so Chris is not the first one to ask. Absolutely. So this is part of what today's about. And I can just say before we bring Chris in this, this is what I think you can say, you know, we're on a white hat Wednesday. This is part of what I think you can expect to see us continue to do is we're, we kind of understand we have a perspective on this thing and we feel like we can help bring some of these pieces together with cooperation, you know? So that's why we're just bringing a really inclusive approach. Anybody who can help us solve this problem for dealers, they're welcome to the conversation. Absolutely. I mean, I would hope that more than anything that our dealer and vendor listeners know that we are agnostic. Everyone's welcome to the, you know, to the table, all of that. But, um, Yeah, it's just, it's, it's an interesting thing is, as I've, like, sat back and observed different, different dealers and, and it's, it kind of boils down, they may be asking the question a different way, but it boils down to the same questions. And it also is interesting to me that we are, we have been, like, when we talk to another vendor or a dealer or whatever, and they're like, how do you come up with topics? it's like it's easy it's really easy yeah there's always something out there and even if it's a topic that we're we're re you know we're revisiting it's a different perspective to the topic so I'm just like super grateful that we that we get to it's not that we run out of topics I think the bigger problem is that people just get tired of listening to us michelle that's oh no so you don't think so okay we enjoy talking about here but we're going to be here anyway so yeah exactly so um should we go ahead and bring our guest in mr chris donnelly for those who don't know chris welcome um we've we've had the privilege of being able to visit chris at his dealership before and and um in Texas. And great, great guy, great operator, you know, wants to do wants to, to learn and, and be able to do the things that are going to just really create great success for him and his team and his customers. So I think, Chris, you heard from backstage and I said, you know, I kind of recounted our conversation when you were kind of like, you know, where are the best practices? And you're not the first person to ask me that. Right. I mean, obviously, the work that we do in coaching and and I can now refer to myself as something of an analyst. And I can just say that, you know, people ask me that, you know, they'll ask, you know, what is the recipe for success? Right. And it's interesting in our business, as you've discovered, there's all these different approaches. And so I wanted you to come this morning, and I appreciate you joining us at the last minute on the way to the car auction. Chris is in the parking lot of the car auction today. So we appreciate you making time to do that. But I just want you to share with me, since you come from another industry, talk to me about what you were able to experience in other industries that you're not finding and buy here, pay here. Well, the industry I came from was very fragmented going into it. And the simplest things made a big improvement in that situation. And it had some players in it that decided that they were going to take their customers and teach them to be better and to help them to grow and educate them. And the blueprint that you had there, I knew exactly where I needed to be as far as a sales scenario, what the sales mix needs to be, what the gross profit needs to be. I needed to know what the closing ratio needed to be for customers coming to see it. And you were able to actually pinpoint areas of improvement and such. So if you needed to have $400,000 in sales at this particular industry and 50% of the people you were actually going to be able to close, then you actually were interacting with $800,000 for the potential business to get 50%. um that's a that's that's um that's that doesn't exist here for me um at this point and you know from just the very basics of hey what should my markup be um to you know what should my portfolio look like um how you know and then you get a kpi I've had some people who've been very nice and have mentored me but then I didn't know the question to ask to define the kpi I had a great conversation with somebody saying, Hey, what percentage of my portfolio should be, you know, current and, and such. And what, what's the, what's the benchmark for past two? And I heard, you know, 20%, 20%, I was not there. And, but I didn't ask after that, Hey, how many of those are repo on hand that you're waiting for the strict foreclosure period to go away? Um, and so I, I didn't get a chance to define it, but then when I did ask the question, people go, I'm really not sure. I'm really not sure. I was like, okay. So I wish there, I believe that if we have good KPIs and we're all working with good KPIs, then our industry is better. Our customers are better. Our business are, are stronger. Yeah, absolutely. By the way, I'll just point out what people are thinking as they're listening to you. You've got a great voice for podcasting. Yes, you do. I have no idea. Yeah, no, that's all good. I think, so that's, that's good stuff. I think, One of the things I can share from my perspective is that, you know, we know in this industry somebody told me a couple of years ago in a conversation around dealers and why why they do what they do is like they use the phrase fiercely independent. It's part of what draws people to buy here, pay here. Dealers can be fiercely independent. And that just means their their practices can be all over the place, right? There's all these different software providers, there's all these different business approaches. And I would say that I've seen Chris just taking your example of the delinquency. What should my currency be or my delinquency be? Well, I've seen dealers running 35 percent delinquency and just quite successful, very consistent in their portfolio, generating cash very consistently. And so that's another element. I mentioned cash. It's like there's there's profitability and then there's cash flow. Right. And so there's you know, that's another thing that we have in our industry that not all industries experience where there's there's this KPI on profit. But then Michelle and I had a long conversation this morning around some of the things that are on our roadmap. And it's like it's important for folks to understand, you know, in our space that, you know, what what you where you price the car is is interesting. But how much is it going to yield? In terms of cash, what kind of return on cash are you going to see? So this is another thing that makes ours a little more complex. I'm not I'm far from giving up, but I do know that, you know, it's challenging in our space because of the. the kind of the disconnect and listen, people, we can have eight dealers in a V8 meeting and eight of them have different, you know, business models and they all can work, you know, it's just because everybody can have a little different strategy and game plan and timelines and lots of stuff. Is it, I, and it seems to me just from my, uh, from an outsider perspective and you kind of have that as well, because you know, this is, this is a newer industry for you is that one, it shouldn't be that hard, right? um it just shouldn't uh it shouldn't be that hard and you know it seems like everybody everybody that we've talked to wants to improve they want to be better whether whether or not that's like their cash you know how much more money is going into the account or how how we're lowering our delinquency or or any of those things and and from my perspective one of the challenges that we have And I hear this time and time again when we talk to people that are holders of data, people and dealers themselves, because they hold their own data and all of that. It's about holding your cards too close to your chest. And so one of the things that I see is that people aren't willing to help in ways they think they're going to take away from them. And from my perspective, it's like... there is more than enough business out there for everybody. Um, and, and so, you know, if, if, if you're turning and if you're, if you're burning through customers, um, you know, there's, there's opportunity for a lot of business that you're just throwing away out the side door or whatever. So it's like, there's, there's an opportunity there for everybody. And so it's, it's let's, let's, open the floodgates and talk about this stuff. And we don't have to talk about this is Chris Donnelly at this address in this city, but this is a dealer in this region that does this. And that, you know, it just makes me wonder whether or not dealers would be more willing if providers, if data providers would be more willing to share freely if that was what they understood was going to be happening. Yeah, that's a trust. Go ahead. And I think the data providers have to go, we're going to make a commitment to make this industry better as well. That's what happened in my previous industry was the big companies said, we've identified the people that are good operators. We want to help them grow because then they'll buy more of our product. I don't see where we have that in our industry right now. There are some opportunities out there with some companies that if they recognize that and say, we want to pick and choose and identify the dealers who want to grow and do good business. And we're going to, we're going to grow with them. But it, it, it takes the, the, the, the KPIs to identify that. Yeah. And we know that, you know, we're not the first to try to solve this problem. And, and, you know, in reality, it won't be solved in the way that I would like to see it solved in my lifetime, but we're going to keep chipping away. It doesn't mean that's another conversation. Yeah. But, you know, I'm old. I may have a couple weeks left. But, no, I think the part of the thing, you know, is where I'm coming from on this, Chris, is like one of the things we'll do, and you don't have to say who your DMS provider is, but you can be assured that regardless of who that is, I will be happy to ask them with you on your behalf to provide certain things. We had this meeting last night with our newcomer group, and I was able to show them on the screen Because and then what I said to them, same thing, you know, here we are at 1015 Texas time on the morning of the first. I would love for you as a dealer to be able to walk to your DMS and print out a report that gives you this information. Why? Because it's it helps me in depth analysis. It helps me in portfolio performance. It helps me from my accounting standpoint. You know, it's like this report is just not really available. And I know that, you know, a lot of our dealers are out there running QuickBooks and like you can't you can't get a cash flow statement out of QuickBooks. It's going to going to help you one lick with what you're trying to do with running your businesses. So there's just missing pieces. And so I think we recognize that. And I think we also recognize that the way that we solve that is to all work together and ask these DMS providers and make the case for them. Many of them are not from our business. You know, that's okay. They're from the software business. But we need to help them understand what it is that we need as dealers. I like to say we because, you know, I'm a former dealer and I certainly work with dealers every day. And I think I'm on your side. I'm interested in your success. And I think one of the things too, Chris, just quickly, I think, you know, you as an entrepreneur, like there's, I say, and I said it last night, like I think buy your pair dealers like fearless entrepreneurs. I love it. And there's a line that we sometimes can be up against where there's a line between being a fearless entrepreneur and being a reckless entrepreneur. That was also part of the conversation we had this morning. And it's not intentional, but sometimes we're just operating from incomplete information. So go ahead. I can tell you. Yeah, go for it. You know what I'm talking about. Oh, yeah. My DMS is dealer center, and I can't say enough good about them. They've always responded to the things that I need. They teach me how to do the reports. Again, the problem is I don't know what I need yet. And I find out what I need when I look at what I thought I needed and go, oh, I still got a question. You know, one of the things I wanted to know as a buy here, pay here person was down payment, down payment. What should down payment be? Where should it be? And you ask that question and it's all across the board. And so I'm going, okay, I just don't see this. And there's some people who go, I can't believe they have that much money on the street. Other people are like, it's fine. So I started asking some really experienced people, second, third. Oh, I think that we've kind of lost... Back in the day, a person would go to the auction and I'd hear them telling me stories of, well, I go to the auction, I buy a car for, you know, $2,500, $3,000. And then I get $1,500 down or $2,000. I get $1,500 down. I go, okay. In today's time, that means if I buy a car at the auction, I pay $8,000. I'm going to need to get, you know, five or $6,000 down. To keep that same margin going. So what, you know, I see where it was back then. How does that transition now? And of course, inflation comes into play. But what is a best practice for money on the street? Right, right. And I'm still experimenting with that. Yeah. And I think this is one of the other things that I see from my perspective, having been, you know, I've had a number of different softwares and we currently work inside a number of different softwares where we're, you know, pulling reports and assisting dealers. And so we see the software and I think there's several elements to this. You know, in our business, as you know, you buy these cars and you price them. Now you contract them under a certain deal structure. And now we have to be able to measure the long term performance. So to come back and answer your question, there's not enough data currently. And 20 groups are as close as you're going to get to having something that, you know, takes all those pieces from the front and carries it all the way to the back over time. You stay in your group long enough, you'd have enough analysis there. not everybody can justify you know the the price of a 20 group and so we're trying to create solutions obviously they're going to help um dealers get to some of this information and I think it's but it is kind of connecting all of those dots so that you can have the answers that you're looking because I don't even have them chris I'm 20 plus years and I'm working with dealers all over the place and we got pools of data from here and there but I can't answer that question I can tell you what's average. I can tell you what's typical. I can tell you what most dealers do. Doesn't mean it's right for you. And it doesn't mean, you know, because everybody's cash risk is going to be different. Their capital investment, all these things are going to vary. But I think I feel like what you're going, what I would wish for a dealer is I could answer your question and say, this is the optimum loan structure. This kind of pricing, this kind of markup, this down payment, this performs best. I don't know that anybody in the industry can really say that because when I look at it, one of the things I... Well, okay, they can't currently because they just can't or they can't currently because we're not stringing the right pieces together. That's the latter. It's the latter. They don't have... Go ahead. I'm so sorry. I was blessed to have a conversation with Lindsay from Sterling. And she was very forthcoming with me about what structures they look for in a note so that I could work backwards into a deal. Now, that doesn't mean I'm going to sell notes because that's kind of what nobody wants to sell notes, it seems like. But if I'm going to create a note, I want to create a note that a note buyer wants. That doesn't necessarily mean I want to sell it. She was really good about turning me on to loan-to-value projects. utilizing a black black average wholesale. Meanwhile, I'm going to the auction, buying cars based on, um, JD power, uh, clean trade. And there's differences between the two and they vary by making model. Um, it, it, there are people out there that can provide that information and give us pieces of that information, Jim. And I, I truly believe that you guys with your, with the 20 groups you have are going to get us to those answers, but it's, it's not going to be a, Hey, I got the answers right here. Let me, let me just pull them out. We're going to come up with it because of people talking like in your 20 groups that says, you know, I want to know about this. What are we doing on this? And answering the tough questions in a very safe environment where everybody trusts one another. And I've been involved with your group for, I'd say, about four months now. And I love it. It's fantastic. The crazy thing is after the meeting, there's always somebody goes, hey, can we have a call? And then we continue to talk and go, Hey, well, I'll talk to you again. And that's what's going to, I truly believe we can get there. Dealers teaching other dealers. Yeah. Also being involved with our local industry associations and such and going to those things and attending the state things and having these conversations. I'm sorry. I'll just keep talking. I appreciate what you're talking about. The V8 platform has really helped dealers to connect with dealers that they don't know. And dealers that might have a different perspective or it's like, oh, you have a business model pretty similar to mine. What is it that you're doing that's different? And it is. It's connecting. Yeah. And then one of the other challenges we have, as you say, you sit in a virtual group of eight. You might have three or four different softwares there. You might have dealers who have a different practice for how they charge off their accounts. You know, there can be different practices within those groups. uh groups and that's okay we'll work through that that's part of what we're doing and we're obviously just getting started with that I can say too though one of the things you'll see me focus on chris I'm most interested in analyzing the portfolios that are self-serviced by dealers you know you talk about selling paper or whatever I think it's a different well I know it is I know that it's a different environment when when you and I own paper and we sell it to a finance company That performance with the finance company is going to be different than it would than it would be with you and me. And that's OK as long as we understand that and we can have different measurements over there. Because, you know, I talked to somebody recently and we expect to be able to bring them to the podcast soon. But it's like this is somebody who's made their living in the industry. the bulk buying business. And they talked about their repo recovery is so low in the finance company side where they buy that paper in bulk. Well, it's different for you as a dealer. When you repossess a car, you've got an outlet for it. You've got a way to remarket and do something different with that car. So your recovery will be different from a finance company. So I think it's just not, it's not the same metrics, you know, it's not, it's not going to be exactly the same, uh, you know, side by side. So I think what we're really focused on is apples to apples, uh, Um, trying to get practices where they line up, right. And have some sort of way to convert and make them valid comparisons. And then the other piece for me is I'm trying to stay inside self-servicing. You really want to, you know, it can be your finance company, you know, in the building next door or, you know, around the back, but. your own you know kind of sister finance company that's fine but we just really want to measure performance and we're starting I can show on the slide I got something I don't know if you'll be able to see the screen very well chris from where you are um in the car but I just produced this with a client yesterday after meeting with their cpa because cpa was kind of pressing for some deal analysis as it was related you're doing the glasses thing just like I am yeah I am what I am No, it's like, and so we don't have to get into the particulars of this particular graph and what this shows. But what I did is I took this dealer's total of payments. Like if you, so you might think of that as a term of the loan with finance charges, right? That's the entire loan term. And then within that, we started kind of analyzing, okay, that first red bucket that you see there, that's cash and deal. So you can see the kind of what that represents in this dealer's case. it doesn't show the top line, but it's like 25,000, almost $26,000 for total payments for an average deal structure. And the dealer's risk in that contract at the time of delivery is $8,800. Now, their cost of money to fund, and this particular dealer, the math is done at a 55% draw. So I said, okay, if this dealer were to draw 55% on this contract and to pay 18.5% interest, which is where they are on their line of credit, and they were to curtail from their payments down to make sure they stay at a 55 percent ratio, then we calculate, okay, this would be the interest expense associated with that one contract across the term of the loan. That yellow bar is the average net charge off for that dealer. What we don't have currently broken out that green up there is combination of its average potential cash. It's like it's what we would collect in cash. Beyond what it was, it was the initial investment. Correct. So that green bar is not only beyond the initial investment of cash, it's now beyond their cost of money. So that green section has given us, this is the potential profit. And it doesn't, for this bar or this graph you're looking at, Chris, it doesn't differentiate between profit on the sale and finance income. Right. Like we just are looking at it's just cash. Like, you know, the red bar is the dealer's cash risk. And then obviously we don't have overhead represented there either. So look for us to move forward with that. You know, in a V8 group, we're not tracking overhead. We're not looking at that. We're trying to keep it super simple and turn it around quickly. But I think these are examples of know where we're trying to go and I think it's helpful for the cpa we had a really nice conversation with the cpa and we're able to figure out how he thinks about it so he's an advisor to the dealer from another perspective and I tell you that conversation too chris is like doggone it and I remember having quickbooks and quickbooks is just you know it's workable for most of us it's just like man, it's just so frustrating that we can't go over there and run a report. Like I want dealers to be able to look at a report that says we brought in this much cash. And I mean, this to me is something we should be able to have five minutes after we close. Now, but my question is, is, is does it require some standardizing of how we are, how we are charting things in our DMS, how we're moving things through and how we're, You know, it's like one of the conversations that we had, just you and I, was about where do you put expenses? Where do you do, you know, these kind of things. So is it, would it be helpful to be able to get to that place where you can just like, this is the thing, if there was more standardizing of some kind of how the dealer is inputting the information? Yes and no. The part that I'm talking about currently, Chris, is just cash. Like to look at cash, it's not about markup. So what I have, that report I was able to work with the CPA with yesterday, line one, down payments collected. Line two, principal and interest collected this month. And you could have another line for cash sales and other money that came in, but I'm really just looking at, you know, what is our buy here, pay here business generating in cash? So in the month of April, for example, we generated this much cash. That's easy. I can have that report in minutes. Chris can have it too, how much cash was brought in. Now the challenging part would be, again this is what we were working with the cpa to figure out is but how much cash did I write out of my checkbook this month buying cars overhead so you know that you get into this whole accrual accounting versus cash accounting and that's okay I mean I understand dealers are going to do accrual a lot of times but it it makes it difficult for I just want no cash I want to know operationally like for this dealer's case I was able to say to the cpa and I would be able to say to you and any other dealer if I'm a dealer I want to know when can I quit drawing on this line of credit You know what I mean? When do I forecast enough cash to be able to stop drawing on this line of credit and paying this price for this external money? And so that was kind of, you know, if the dealer's not using external money, they want to know, hey, when can I start having some positive cash so I can start taking a little time off or whatever? It's just cash. And so to me, this is why it's challenging in QuickBooks. And, you know, I love QuickBooks. They help us with lots of our business, but it doesn't. it doesn't help us get to cash and so this is the part that I'm saying we can work on this chris this is part of where michelle and I talked about some link this morning it's like in our business we have that added layer there's profitability but there's obviously in our business there's this phantom profit you know that deal that screen I just showed you that dealer's 8 800 negative after down payment like you know that's that's not It looks really great. It looks nice. We got plenty of profit on paper. But from a cash standpoint, we're negative. And so this is the part that I'm a cash flow guy. So I'm always working and trying to figure out ways to get to cash flow stuff. And the profitability is there. When I'm working with new people, I often say, you know, in our business, and you know what I mean, you can almost take profitability for granted in our business. You've got plenty of markup. You've got a high APR. You've got everything. quite a bit of profit the question is can we manage our way to success and manage our cash you know to really make it successful so you know this is all the stuff and and so you know we're just trying to figure out and so for you I thought it was really interesting to hear from you about what is it you're missing like what what do you feel like you need to be able to make better management decisions day to day you already talked about down payment mm-hmm Again, it comes back to what do the successful people do and how did they do it and identifying that. And the successful people, just because somebody is successful, it may be a different model than I have. And I need to be knowledgeable enough to go, that works for them. I don't want to be that. There may be an entity that has a very loose underwriting and their plan is to... be very good at repossession and reconditioning and reselling and such. So they, they, they make that work very, very well. Repossession is, is, is something we just, it's really kind of the icky part of this business and we really don't want to do that much of it. So our underwriting might be more stringent, but we build that into our models so that we go, this are, we're, we're going to be more stringent in this situation. So we are going to miss deals, but the deals we get are going to be structured this way. That's what I look at. I have to do a shameless plug. That's why I'm involved with the Houston Independent Auto Dealers Association. You guys have been down to that. Well, plug away for the associations. We meet every month and we have these conversations. And in October, we have something called our survey meeting where our members that choose to do it confidentially fill out a survey that provides us information. And then we just have an open discussion about what these graphs say. Very much like a 20 group, but not. It's just people in the room talking about, hey, the average is this, and you don't see who it is. All of the numbers are aggregated, and we have a discussion about, is this best practice? Is this not And I have a goal that at some point on our HID website, we will have a best practices tab where you're going to be able to see numbers. Maybe not right. Maybe it's not a here, do it like this. But at least it'll be a start for you to go, hey, this is where it is. This is what goes into that number. And Michelle, yeah, a standardized chart of accounts will be something that's needed in our industry as well to have the common size and the common discussions about Where does that go? Charge-offs is a great one. Everybody goes, oh, my charge-off is 2%. Well, does that include total losses? Yeah. There's so many questions that have to be asked so that we can define it, so that we can use those benchmarks to improve our industry. I feel like I'm on a broken record, but yes, I love these conversations. What's crazy is April and I have these same conversations like you guys do at night. What about this? What about this? And we ask these things about, well, what is that benchmark? What should it be? I don't know. Some of our listeners don't know. I think, but I'm confident we can get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So some of our listeners don't know April. Who's April? He dropped. There you are. Okay. Who's April? Did we lose you? I can't hear you. Oh. I don't know. There you're back. Okay, so Jim's like, you know, we know who April is. You want to tell people who April is? April's the love of my life. She's my fiancee, but she's also involved in a very large entity here in Houston and such. And she's also very involved with the industry association. She's actually be speaking at NYADA in Las Vegas in June. And it's great to be in love with somebody who's passionate about the business that they're in as well. So we have very boring conversations. What's that? And it has a different perspective because you're not working for the same company. And so it's like we're both in the same industry. And so what is it that we're doing here? What is it we're doing here? And that's I think that's fantastic that, you know, you're getting that kind of insight into like what's working, what's not working and how can how can I maybe improve my business based on what it is that you're experiencing with your business? Yeah. Yeah. And you can rest assured as you move forward. And with April, we're, we're happy to support the Houston association. And we, through the morning show, we can continue to slide in subliminal messages where we can't, there's a story there. I'll explain later, but we will slide in messages on behalf of your association. And we know that's an important place. You guys have a wonderful group down there. A lot of in your group. I see the photos and kind of know who's part of that and recognize a lot of the names and faces. And, uh, So yeah, you've got a really strong group there. And I would definitely encourage dealers in South Texas to get over there and get part of that. And everyone listening, and you too, Chris, we have no problem with plugging an association. None. Because for all of our listeners out there, because it's been a while since I've gotten on this soapbox, your association, regardless of whether or not you're a member, is always out for your best interest. always and because they're trying to help improve the industry and and like the rules that you have to live by are are um from capitol hill well your industry or your your association is who the voice for the industry is and so if you know it join your state association join your state association join your state association because um It's not that expensive, but it really helps you, even if you never go to a single meeting. It helps you in your business because they're out there asking the tough questions and fighting the fight. Going back to the previous industry scenario, we had a very strong association that allowed us to grow our industry and become more successful. The better my industry association is, local and state tiara is fantastic um the better they are the better my businesses it's not it's it's it is a hand-in-hand scenario a great association does not hurt a business it only helps a business yeah the more people we can have involved having this discussion the better it will be And it's not something like they're only helping if you show up to the conference. It's they're helping. They're helping by changing how you can do your licensing. They're helping by changing what it is that someone can go after you for or what you can go after someone for or all of the things that it's like there's a tool now that you have. There's someone in your court and you don't have to go to a conference to experience that. It's just default. I can wrap it up with one other thing. Intangible KPI, I'll call it. So one thing about being a member of associations just occurred to me hearing you guys talk is if I'm a member of the Texas Association, Houston Association, I get to sleep a little bit better at night. Because I know that I'm part of the conversations. I know that my business is going to be more compliant because I'm in the know. So I just, I know that I'm in that group that can sleep a little better at night. So just one more thing to think about if you're going to be part of those associations. Absolutely. I love, too, that sleeping better at night is because you don't have to be a lone island. You don't have to get it all figured out on your own. It's because there's a lot of people out there that are connecting with other dealers. Like you were talking about from the V8 group. It's like, hey, can we get on the phone and talk about the thing after the meeting? Yeah. You know, it's about you don't meet those people until you engage too. I mean, join, but then engage. Yeah. And, you know, you'll be better. So hopefully by the time you return. Preach. Preach. So hopefully by the time you return. Preach, man. That's it. Yeah. By the time you come back, we'll be able to say, dealers who are members of associations sleep 1.23 hours more than non-members. Thank you so much. We appreciate you joining us from your car. Jim told me last night, he's like, oh, Chris is joining us. That's fantastic. We appreciate your willingness with not like a week's notice so that you're willing to come on and have a conversation with us. Your insight is valuable. Thank you. I don't know about that, but any opportunity to move our industry forward and improve our industry with a conversation like this just improves my business as well and my fiance's business. And my friends. So I'm happy to do it anytime. And thank you all for doing this. Because I don't know that you get the feedback of how much this does mean and how much you are tying our industry together and moving it forward. Excellent. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Anything I can do to support that, I will. Thank you. Thank you. Stick around for just a second if you can. We're going to close up and then we'll say a proper goodbye. Okay. Thanks so much. Great conversation. Something else you witnessed there that I want to make sure we get said is that, you know, one thing about somebody like Chris is you hear him say freely, I don't know what I don't know. Right? And that's a hard thing for some people to just even have come out of their mouth. Like it's just, you know, they sometimes want to act like they got it all figured out. And I think the most successful dealers in my experience are the ones who can say, I don't know what I don't know. You know, so you got to... Or that I'm open to improvement or hearing other people's ideas because it may be like, oh, I never thought of that. But... So, hey, everybody, thanks for joining us. Thanks for making us a part of your Wednesday. If you need any help and assistance with anything, the things that we've talked about, whatever, joining a VA group, some coaching, some education, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. You can find us on all the social media platforms. youtube go to youtube and like and subscribe too while you're at it yeah if you'd like me to help ask the questions of your dms provider for better reports just message me let's exactly all right have a great rest of your week everybody thank you again so much again
