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. Goodness, it's Wednesday. Yes, good morning, everybody. Happy Wednesday. We did a rerun on Monday. It's been a busy week. week yeah we got extra stuff happening in our life yeah yeah that's okay a lot of people do right we're just uh adjusting you just you just shuck and jive and you flow and sometimes that means I'm not gonna make it on the air at 9 a.m on a monday yeah um but it all you know thank you so much uh good episode that we reran um one that I actually forgot which one I chose It was the one on, um, your shop auto. Yeah. So those of you, yeah, it was Ben Goodman and Jay. Okay. Um, so yeah, hopefully all, um, if, if you hadn't seen it before, you enjoyed it. And if you had that, it was just a good rerun. I mean, I don't know about you. I enjoy reruns of mash and friends, um, all of the things so yeah I mean you know I'm not going to put ourselves on that that same thing but here's the thing I don't think there's anybody out there who caught all 350 episodes right oh my goodness you were saying one of your V8 group people had some questions about some things and then when they got on with you on a call yesterday they were like okay I have to admit that I spent like He said, I watch a lot of videos on the holiday weekend. And so a lot of our content and not just ours, but certainly a lot of our, because he was asking all the questions, clarifying questions about certain phrases that I'm using or what have you. So, you know, it's good that stuff is out there. And formulas and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it was, it's, I appreciate it. Yeah. And so actually those conversations of recent days have stimulated some ideas or things that we need to bring to the podcast to clarify. So after that conversation, you were like, I have a list of straight line topics that are just a page long and Wednesday's not a straight line, um, uh, subject matter. It's usually it's a white hat way, which is white hat, um, um which is more like the squiggly lines you know we talk about straight lines squiggly lines head heart numbers how you apply with your customer um you know what what you how what kind of uh relationship you want to have with them and and it's it's all of that so today is a squiggly line But before we get to the topic, don't we have some announcements? We do. I want to make sure and remind everybody, of course, we've got all of our dates set for the September V8 events, the actual meetings. And there's room in groups. We have a couple spots at least regardless of your portfolio size. And we can create another one. Group dealers buy the size of their portfolio, 500 to 2,000 accounts. 100 to 500 etc yeah and you did you did start a new I don't know have we gone like marketed this that I talked about it at all but it's uh it's like v8 101 or v8 newbies or v8 and so it's more um coaching yeah on just like these are the beginning things and you all know people that have been listening to us for a long time and that we've known in the industry for Jim, for a couple of decades, know that Jim Schtick, since starting, has been helping dealers that are brand new get to the point where they can get their first funding and get their whatever. Yeah, just get them open and get them funding. Get them open and going. Yeah, so that's kind of cool. Other calendar events, let me get to. Yes, yes, yes. So we've got the Mid-Atlantic IADA gathering. I see a lot of stuff on social about that. Yeah, you can find that one. You can go to MidAtlanticIADA.org and you can find the information. That starts on a week from Sunday, I believe, the 15th through the 17th. And then we've got the LHPH Summit coming up, which we haven't mentioned. We need to get them on. Yes, absolutely. We're familiar. It's in October. Uh-huh. Let me just say, until we get a chance to have the folks on from LHPH Capital, that they're the host of that summit. They do it in San Diego in October. And it's not about LHPH Capital. It's about lease your pay here. And so it's a very specific conference for people that do leasing or thinking about getting into the leasing side of this. That's right. Great education. And for those not familiar, and especially those that are out there contemplating stepping into the business of self-financing or self-leasing, I would definitely urge them to take a hard look at leasing before you step in and be aware that there are some tremendous advantages in leasing. And so it can make sense in a lot of situations. Uh, and, and software solutions are growing. They're proving to be more solutions on the recent side. So something to be aware of, but those, those dates, that's, uh, that's actually starts on October 2nd, which is a Wednesday. So, uh, October 2nd should be four weeks from today, I think. And, uh, so yeah, it's not that far away. So, I mean, it's in beautiful San Diego. Right. So, um, those of you who, uh, want to go to San Diego for whatever, you know, i know when we went last time it was just it's just beautiful it's san diego has like it's one of those places that people who want to perpetually chase spring the weather's awesome yeah um year round it's pretty it's it's pretty consistent um it's just a lot of people Yeah, yeah. A lot of people. Because everyone is just like, oh, this is really, yeah, it's a lot of people. And so we're like constantly, where can we go that no one knows about? But I think that there's probably a good million or more people that are thinking the same thing. Probably. Where can we go that there's not a lot of people? Yeah. When I went out there for the first time, I said, I can see what the appeal is. I can see what people like about this area. I know when we were there last for the conference, for the conference, you can stay at the hotel. I think we did stay at the hotel. We were there for another thing. If you're not staying on property, even though it's five miles away, it's going to take you 30 to 45 minutes to get there. The famous... Southern California traffic. Yeah, so if you don't have to travel, then yeah, it's like, it's really just lovely. It's really, really lovely. It's a wonderful event. So yeah, for those looking at this great education. So, shall we get to our subject of the day? Are you ready? You don't seem ready. Yes, I am. I am, and it's just, I was sitting here, and it's like my mind was abuzz, and then all of a sudden it quieted down, and I was like, oh. Oh, the subject. Okay, the subject. Yeah. So, we brought today something that, you know, it's kind of something that comes up a lot, but it's one of these kind of soft definitions that I just wanted to take a stab at clarifying. Well, and the topic is... is something that, and you're going to find a lot of times that the White Hat Wednesday or the, you know, and I'm kind of playing with the idea of White Hat Ways as being the name of the, I don't know, we've talked about it, but They're not just buy here, pay here. This is business or relationship, business relationships, all that kind of stuff that we frequently... Frequently, it's just buy here, pay here. But so many of the topics can actually... spread out into a lot of other avenues or a lot of other facets of our lives. And this is one that actually it, you know, we've talked about it in relation to buy here, pay here. And then it came up in a conversation last night that wasn't, had nothing to do with buy here, pay here. Right. Personal relationship. Yeah, it was a personal, yeah. So just absolutely nothing. And Jim is just like, he's, Jim's my hero. I love that man. No, but it's just, Jim is really, has the way his brain works is very grounded, settled. Just, you know, like you've said so many times is I move slowly and intentionally. through much of the things. And so, you know, a lot of people in our world outside of work recognize that in him. And so topics will come up in conversations that we're having with family and friends and all of that. And it's just because they kind of want to be able to get Jim's take on the thing. Because if they ask me, I'm like, what? And when they asked Jim, it's just like, and I'll sit there, I sat there listening to this conversation and I went, I wish I were... It's like I need a bracelet that says, what would Jim do? No, stop. Because he's just a lot more... He can see things without emotion or without the distortions of... I'm not saying you're not an emotional person at all, but just without... fear being a distortion without anger being a distortion without and like and like distorting how you see something and it's just so yeah it's a really great ability so conversation you know I think that probably starts like if I and thank you for those those words I think you also are very wise and bring a lot of sage advice to situations I think what what you're referring to is people sometimes seek me out because they know I'm, I'm level, you know, I'm so whatever those things might be, you use the word grounded. Like I, I do tend to, and I, and I think it starts with listening. I think it's like, you know, it's for me is so our, our subject today is around defining good faith. Like what is good faith? So if we talk about good faith in the context of there's lots of different relationships where you could bring good faith into the dialogue, but it's, to really, we mostly have heard it in context. Like we grew up hearing the word good faith used in certain. So give our listeners like a sentence from the context of how we were raised to hear good faith. OK, so let me just use my own like my first recollection of hearing the word good faith would have been in a lender borrower context, like in a business context, like it was my family situation. My dad is a farmer rancher working with a lender and talking about that. good faith practices like okay so it's like how do you demonstrate good faith so so when I first heard it and nobody explained it to me I just heard what the the context of the conversation was and so across many years since I've heard it you know used in a lot of different ways and the context is typically similar but I think it's important thing for us to take a moment to try to define and clarify because as I said in the description of the show it's like and going back a little bit to the personal relationship we're talking about you know we perception matters right well and and we're always saying um well in in all in in business in interpersonal anything that's interpersonal is you know someone can say well they're wrong or they don't have all the facts Or they're up in the night. It's like, where the heck are they coming off? And it's like, because your perspective is not their perspective of the same thing. And the understanding that their perspective is different also changes how whatever it is is looked at. So we've encouraged dealers and all of that is the thing of... your customer's perspective is your reality and you don't you it's not going to benefit anything to argue your way into having them have the same perspective and so you know it's like how do you get to a point where you can help shift their perspective so they can understand you or you shift yours so you can understand them and then find instead of solution a or b you're finding c yeah and I use the word perspective which kind of takes me to the part about you know the perception or the lens like somebody sees like you and I i see you know you if it's a business matter I see a person through a certain lens right this is my field of view this is what I have to work from when I draw a perception of you and so this is why things like um that are somewhat nebulous in terms of, you know, good faith and trust and transparency and these things we talk about with white hat way. This is why I think it's important for us to begin to speak to these things because the dealer may talk about things that the customer does and they complain about something that the customer does. Right. And, and what we hear, and maybe the customer dealer actually says it is the customer doesn't trust the They don't trust me as the dealer. They don't trust us as an organization. And maybe they don't use those words, but that's the conclusion that one would draw when they see all the pieces. And so this is a hard thing for dealers to hear or any business owner to hear is like, well, then we haven't earned it. We have not earned their trust. Well, yeah. And you may never. And it's like, so in the context of the conversation that we had, it was like, how can I trust, you know, how can I trust that you're being honest with me? And so it was like this good faith thing. It's like, well, if someone doesn't trust that you're being honest with them, first off, you have to not be mad about that because there's a reason why they, it may not have anything to do with you, but there's a reason why they don't trust you and or trust what you're saying or trust your intent or whatever. There's a reason why, and it may have zero to do with the person that they're having the conversation with. yeah and I think um you know it kind of falls back to this thing about we can't operate we can't control what the other person believes perceives you know what their own awareness and their own experiences we create a lot of friction when we try to make someone see things our way so I think you know in this context of good faith I would say that um and kind of just borrowing from the conversation we had last night with the family members like In my way of thinking about demonstrating good faith, it's like trying to do the best I can, knowing that the other person has a different awareness and they may have some level of concern or distrust. Let's start with that. They may have that. Maybe they've expressed that. But one of the ways that I can operate in that situation to demonstrate good faith is to communicate openly. Like I think part of the conversation yesterday was in this idea of if there's a level of distrust and it's like if you think about it in the context of cards I think I use the analogy like you know this person wants to see that all the cards are on the table they want to know that you know all the pieces are represented and so you can you can apply the same thing as a lender-borrower relationship it's a dealer in their lender you know and that's the dealer's a creditor and so how does the how does the lender know If you're the dealer borrower, how does the lender know that you're not hiding something? And vice versa, that the borrower is looking at the lender and not feeling like you're hiding something that's going to screw me. So it goes back again to communication. And I think always when I think about good faith, I find myself thinking about, and this is not something I was taught, um in an exact way like I didn't sit in some management class in college and they taught me to do this but when I was managing a business and there was a point where I had sort of like I was effectively the dealer principal I had a had a passive investor owner who owned a business and he asked me to manage it and I started as a general manager and for all possible I was making pretty much all the business and this was a buyer pay here Yep. Yep. This is a buy here, pay here. And, you know, you can go through all the stuff, whether it was a banking matter or whether it was an account adjustment matter or any of those kind of things. I always took the presence of mind to make sure that I documented well everything that I did. So sometimes it might have included an email to him and the parties or whatever. It was just an act on my part to make certain because I'm trying to look at those kind of transactions or activities through a lens of how might they be perceived? If somebody just saw this without the full context, how might that particular transaction be perceived? And so I'm coming at that in a way that I'm trying to operate always in good faith to say, I'm going, I'm, I'm doing more than what is asked. I wasn't specifically asked to do any of those things that I did. I just chose in the interest of demonstrating that, good faith that, um, and that's the phrase that always was in my mind. It's like, maybe I didn't use that in the email, but I basically just was saying, I'm just, I want to, you know, put you, make you aware of this, you know, that this happened and this is why we did whatever. And so this is what I mean. It's like, so back to the relationship thing that we were talking about last night and the cards on the table, it's like, okay, so you put you, I say, I'm putting all the cards on the table and you're sitting with her. Say it. how do I know that's all the cards? Yes. Because I, I mean, I don't see your hand. I don't see the deck. I can't count the cards. Right. So, so that's the kind of the thing. So if we can take that same example in the context of a, of a dealer and consumer relationship, any buyer and seller, it's like, how do I know that you're telling the whole story? You know, I think that there's another... I love this. I really do. Because it's just like we deal with that in any interpersonal relationship. And sometimes if you trust the individual because there's an inherent trust or whatever, that you just are like, I'm trusting... You know, and we've had the conversation this morning. It's like, I don't give trust until it's been earned. Well, there's certain things that you just like, you step into a relationship and you trust that this person's going to be, hold my confidences, like if it's a friend or... That will not, you know, that will do X, especially specifically in like an interpersonal relationship, not necessarily a business relationship, but we just, we trust a lot more in interpersonal relationships than we do in a business relationship. And there's good, there's reason. I might prefer to separate those into two definitions. I think there's earned trust and there's what you're describing is something I would call blind trust. Like you're just choosing to trust. Well, and okay. So choosing to trust. And I've been in, I've managed teams. I mean, not buy here, pay here necessarily, but there's a lot of very, it's, there's a similar playbook in a lot of things. And I remember when, Um, I remember, uh, one of the, I've taken a lot of different courses and it's been decades, so I don't remember everything completely clear cause I'm also old. Um, that when you make it, when you make a decision, um, Or an action that affects others that we forget as the action holder or as the one that's making the decision or the action holder, that that action affects others. And whether it be others that are higher on the pecking order of who this affects and also those that are below others. um, that pecking order and who it affects. And so there was, there was something that I was taught, uh, a long time ago that like when you, when, when an employee comes to you with a concern or a thought or a, or a, uh, an idea, um, that this is another thing in good faith is like you listen and then don't dismiss. Yeah. It doesn't mean you have to follow their thing, but part of that good faith in a business relationship, whether it be within your business or other business customer, is that it's a good idea to explain why. And give someone, you know, you don't have to go, I've listened to people that explain why, and it's like, this is a three chapter explanation where it could be a four sentence explanation, but it's just an in kindness or whatever, but explaining why, because people don't like to have faith. blindly in a business relationship. It's easier to do that in an interpersonal relationship, but it's harder to do that in a business relationship because you don't know their intent. You don't know their heart. You don't know who they are. Are they someone that I can trust? Because you don't date them. Yeah. You know, like you do and you date friends, you date romantic relations, but you don't date typically a business or, you know, or an employer, that kind of thing. So there's it's a little bit harder to have blind trust. Yeah. Let me. So I just did a quick search this morning for just Google search. What is good faith? Let's see what the Internet thinks the definition of good faith. The Oracle, I call Google the Oracle. So what does the Oracle say about good faith? Let's see what the Oracle came up with. Oh, it's really, I'm going to do this. But yeah, so. And I'm going to, okay, hold on. There we go. Making my screen bigger. Okay. Good faith. Yeah. So basically what it says, I think the key part of that, can you read it that way? It's a noun. So that means it's an action word or it's a, it's a, it's a, okay, whatever. It's honesty or sincerity of intention. Intention. So intention is a word we haven't really used here, but when you think about intention now, so you're thinking about, okay, so now I'm supposed to know your intention. In what you're doing. So this is why this is a soft subject. This is kind of the squiggly line kind of stuff. When you're talking about intention, how would I know what your intention is? How does someone know your intention unless they know you? Which is why part of what we say is that way in a marketing context is you would be well-served to let your customers get to know you first. Let them get to know you because it's back to that thing about known, liked, and trusted, right? So if they... Start to get to know us. We have to, we have to step out from behind the desk in the marketing context and allow our customers to get to know us. How do you do that though? I mean, okay, so is it like, all right, I'm going to get out there and we're going to have a, we're going to have a beer together and we're going to talk about the stuff. But I mean, how do you as a business owner help your customer know you? So that's a separate marketing conversation for us for one day. It's usually marketing, though. Yeah, let's talk about it one day. And so it's marketing and it's actions. And so there's one thing, too. You know, actions speak louder than words. Marketing is words. Actions are different, too. And so I would propose that one way for someone to get to know you is for a dealer to be active in... like community active I would say marketing is when marketing is done well it's much more than words okay because when when I can reach my market in a way that they can pick up on all the stuff tone of voice expression on my face so just picking me you know I'm going to let them get to know me yeah in a way that they can hopefully eventually get to trust me why would they trust me well because so why and why would that matter it's like so if they see something that they observe something that might look out of character for you. They would view that through a lens that says, well, I already trust this person. I know that that doesn't look quite right, but I know the intention of this person. So I can see, I can look past that and know that that's not as it might be perceived because I know the person behind the company and know the intention. Yeah. Oh, it's well, it's kind of to me, the example, a really good example of that is Southwest Airlines. Southwest Airlines had a while ago, like a major snafu in their software. It was they weren't hacked. It just like whatever. But people know them. Mm hmm. And so people were not as willing to just like, well, you made one mistake and you're gone and I, you know, be gone. That was not the case that people were like, oh, this is a thing. I'm going to trust that they're going to fix the thing and I'm still in it. I'm still with you. Yeah. And I think so. So this other thing about how an action might be perceived, you see something. So you and I talk about this in our context of our own relationship and we're We're seasoned individuals. We're seasoned individuals with some life experience. And I would just say one of the things that Michelle and I talk about is this idea of having equity in a relationship. So in our case, in a personal relationship, it's like there's a high level of equity. There's ownership. And equity isn't equitable at all times. Right. But equity is I've invested equity. And so it's like I'm putting it's like there's there's equity of like actions. And, you know, equity is how we create equity. And our relationship is. Yeah. Get emotional. Let me finish my story. I've been caring for my brother. Jim and I are like old farts that want to go to bed at 9.30. And he doesn't. And so and it's like, all right, there's I'm trying to I'm trying to honor like our, you know, our relationship and we have coffee time and that is sacred time to us. And so it's like, all right, coffee time is more important than going to bed at the exact same time. But what creates equity is I come downstairs and Jim has taken all the pillows off and pulled my side of the bed down and have a light going. And it's like little drops of kindness, little drops of, I see you little drops of, you know, you matter to me and it doesn't have to be big things, but it's little things that just like, it's like, Oh God, you care and you see me and thank you so much. It's like, that's like, that's, that's important stuff. Yeah. So I think in any relationship and ours is, is an easy example because folks know us, you know, through the podcast and whatever across industry. And so it's like, it's easy to help people understand. Like when we talk about relationship equity, it's like we, we use the context of, or the phrasing, like you, you make deposits, you simply, you make deposits. How do you do that? You show up in the relationship, you do certain things, you, you, you, you just sort of give in the relationship right and so that builds equity and trust so there comes a time in most any relationship where there we have to make a withdrawal yes okay there's something hard that has to be discussed sometimes if you don't have equity it just destroys It can. And so this is why, so if I take this back to a relationship between a dealer and consumer, it's like when I have established enough equity in that relationship with the customer, how would I do that? By acting in good faith day after day after day, making deposits and then they can see and they can begin to understand who I am in the relationship and my, um, my commitment and my intention. Now, when I have to make a withdrawal, I have to have a hard conversation with the customer and say, this is your responsibility. You know, so this is something. We need to figure this out and we're on the same side of the table, but it's going to get figured out. This is going to be your financial responsibility, the damage to the car, you know, so these relationships can be difficult and they're really difficult. We probably lose the customer if we don't have that degree of equity. So we're getting a little bit deeper than good faith, but good faith to me is such an important part of how you ever earn that level of equity is by acting in good faith, which is acting transparently in a way that demonstrates our intentions and that... you know nobody would really find anything to the contrary right because we act that way very consistently and that pattern that we've created demonstrates our intentions yes so I think that's just an important part of the the idea the notion of good faith to me it's it's I i use the expression it's doing more than it's doing more than what is asked because it allows me then to create that equity to demonstrate. And so back to the example about the deck of cards, how do I know that it's all the cards? Well, sometimes this is just simple phrasing, right? And so this is really where, you know, our ability to articulate and communicate with the other parties. So dealer, you know, How do we communicate so that we can express to the customer that we're being sincere? We're being forthright. We're putting all the cards on the table. So to me, that really is about language and communication. Yeah, absolutely. And I love some of the things that... we see out there different products. Secure clothes is actually, it's one of those that, that it's, there's an element of education. There's an element of let's slow down for a second and talk about all of the things. These are our, these are our, our cards, right? So let's slow down and talk about the things. Cause when you rush someone through something, you know, you don't know it's, it's, it's harder to feel that like all the cards are there, but you slow the things down and you have the conversation about all the things and nothing's being forgotten and you're being consistent, which, you know, compliance, all of that. But the, you know, another part of that to me too, and we've talked about this so many times is, you know, uh, uh, after the close how are you solidifying the cards that it's like this is let's not forget let's you know here's like I'm going to remind you this is the stuff and we're here for you and all of that and that's just that's like another way of I'm in good faith I'm just, I'm, I'm just reminding you of all of the things and I'm here for you for the stuff. And, you know, we can work together. This is a business relationship. We're sitting on the same side of the table and now let's just, you know, do what we can to help each other be successful in this. Yeah. And I think, you know, and you brought up secure clothes and it's a wonderful product. Like I've known Ace Christian for a long time. So we can talk about that. It's a good product. I think what I want to be careful about with that product or anything similar is like when dealers think, okay, I told you all the stuff on the day of closing. And so now we're done. And if you mess up, Mr. Customer, then I got a gotcha. I got a way to show I told you this. So again, it solves something. It doesn't solve the part that I'm talking about, which is what do I do as the dealer? That's a nice demonstration of good faith. It's a, it's a nice demonstration of transparency and thorough communication. That's a good start. Now, what we have to do is that that really is step one of a dealer demonstrating their intention. But I said, we got to do it day after day after. So because the customer doesn't just, they're going to trust us blindly. If they're giving us trust on the day that we bought the car or they bought the car from us, they either have, you know, come to know us through other means referrals and through they either know us before that day or they just chose to buy with us based on blind faith. And so any equity that we create in that relationship is going to happen after the secure closed stuff is signed as an example right so I'm just you know obviously we're not picking on them and we're not we're not promoting them we're just simply saying as a solution what that does is it it does offer a thorough level of communication which is wonderful that's a good first step now we just have to make sure that we continue to operate in good faith to Create that relationship and build that equity in the relationship so that when there is something hard that we can navigate. And we do. We talk to dealers all the time that have been in the business for 20, 30 years. And they're like, it's different. I mean, the day that ACH came out, everything shifted. Yeah. And, you know, we didn't see the customers, our customers coming in and, you know, asking the, it's like, hey, Mary, how's your mom doing? Because you knew that she had, mom had surgery, whatever. And Mary came in just really feeling uptight. Last time she made a payment, it's like, oh my goodness. Because- we all know this is that, that, that people like to share what it is that they're struggling with. Um, and so, you know, taking that time, that's creating equity, that's creating, you know, uh, and so we have to, we don't have that same ability to do that. Like we used to, So we have to find different ways of interjecting that, that still feeling connected and whether that be, you know, text campaigns or email campaigns or, you know, whatever it is. If it's riding a Shetland pony through the neighborhood, whatever it is, however we get connected with the customer. An elephant. Yeah, wherever we can reach them. I just mean it like that's marketing to me. And that to me is, It's it's it's a little bit like just getting known, liked and trusted. And so how do you do that? Well, you just keep showing up and you allow people to get to know you, which for for dealers. Listen, I don't use this word very often, but for some of you dealers listening, that means you're going to have to be a little bit vulnerable. And so we've got some dealers that we we know that, you know, they were resistant to this idea of stepping out there in that way. And I get it. It's uncomfortable when you first step into it. But it's the only way I know to let folks really get to know you. Because if you really are a good guy or a good gal, which is what White Hat Way is all about, let your customers get to know that about you. Yeah. And it's, I mean, really, honestly, what do you have to lose? Right. You have a lot to gain. And so we have the ability to be able to structure a debt to, you know, all of these things that help us mitigate loss and mitigate, you know, because the, you know, it's like we, we have to go based on what our past experience is. But when we give like that, you're not losing. Sure. uh, you're not losing anything. Um, but you have a lot to gain, a lot to gain from that. We did a survey, um, probably a year ago and we can wrap up here, but I think, um, the survey asked dealers and we asked used car dealers, not just buy here, pay here, um, Does trust, does having the customer trust you translate into more sales? Does being trusted as a dealer translate into more sales? And the results came back like 98% of dealers said, yes, it does. So if that's true and it must be, if it's true, then ask yourself as a dealer, what have I done in my marketing? or I don't even call it marketing, in my outreach. Yeah, thank you, I like that better. Yeah, what am I done in my outreach to earn any level of trust? Does the customer trust you or not trust you? What has been your interaction with your community in the last six months? Go back and look at your marketing and your campaigns and your outreach. What have you done that would help them trust you? I know you put out there that we have cars and we have prices on cars and we have down payments. That is transactional. Transactional. So when we step away from that, and so this is kind of, I wasn't expecting to go into marketing and our good faith conversation, but it's, it belongs there as much as any other level of our interaction with consumers and interaction with lenders and interaction with anybody. It's like, How do we create a level of good faith and build trust in the community? Because that's part of what good faith is doing is it's building trust. And so I think when we go out and we think about our outreach campaigns, how do we let folks get to know us? Are you trustworthy as a dealer? I'll just, are you trustworthy? If you are, let folks get to know that about you. Like again, it is, it is, there's nothing to lose because we all have to be transactional in a way. That's, that's like the, the deal, all of, all of that. But if you choose to just be nothing but transactional. Yeah. without developing relationships with your customer, then, you know, it's just, it, it gets to be no emotion, no whatever. But when you are ready to invest in your customer and invest in, I am here and I, you know, I'm going to do the things and I'm going to, I'm, I'm, I'm be, I choose to, to have a relationship with you beyond the transaction. Yeah. And I'm going to show up. Right. Yeah. And just one more thing to kind of, you know, round it out. It's like when I say let the customers get to know you and show them that you're trustworthy, I don't mean get on the video and look in the camera and say, hi, I'm Jim. Come do business with me because I'm trustworthy. It means nothing. It means nothing. I'm a used car dealer. Trust me. Come on. We can do better than that. I think everyone's guard would just go, whoop, what in the heck is this person hiding? Yeah, for sure. That's a good point. It's obviously the obvious conclusion there is actions speak louder than words. We don't have to ever use the word trustworthy in any of the outreach that I'm talking about. We just start to show. We start to allow folks to get to understand our intention. And now that works a lot better. And so when they see me speak or they see me speak about a car or car prices, they've drawn the conclusion that I'm trustworthy based on other things that I've shared, not because I'm standing up saying, look at this solid used car, right? And, you know, it's the little things that we do that are above and beyond the straight line transactional things. Right. It's, you know, go back to Southwest. They make it fun. They don't have to be comical, but they make it fun. And so like their spiel is something that people enjoy. And it actually is part of that. It's like, you are a person. Yeah. And you, you know, you've got a great sense of humor and, and, you know, you're going to make me laugh or just all of the things. And so when we, when we, become vulnerable because I mean, someone could be up there trying to be funny and it's like bomb completely, but they're, you know, they're being vulnerable and they're out there just trying to, to, to delight their customer in little ways. And I actually have a book that's called, it's about lessons from the mouse. And that is about how Disney does things. And any business can really benefit from that. And so it's about how do you delight day after day after day. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money. It doesn't have to whatever. But how do you delight your customers? Because those little bits of delight um of like I see you you know here's here's a thing um we're doing a turkey thing and thanksgiving we're doing you know just whatever little things that you can do to delight actually add a lot of drops into that equity and the only thing I would say there is I would I would personally in my own outreach I would prioritize engagement over entertainment True. I want real interaction. I want the customer to know that I, you use the word see them, like I want the customer to know that I value them and that I see them as a customer. I appreciate them and they can hear it from me face to face. I'm not standing on a stage with bright lights entertaining a bunch of people. that's a different thing. It's not to say there's not a place for that, but I'm just saying in this level of engagement that we're talking about where I'm becoming known, liked, and trusted, I got to engage. Mm-hmm. And that means getting real. That means being vulnerable in the context of I'm going to talk about the real stuff and I'm going to let folks get to know the real me. And they'll either know, like, and trust you or they won't. But if you're trustworthy, then I think as you get to be known, you can get to be known through all these channels that we're talking about. Odds are you're going to get to be liked when you're likable. people are going to get to to get to know and like you eventually and eventually with enough um awareness of your intentions then they'll begin to trust you I agree yeah great topic yeah I enjoy talking through this stuff yeah yeah we should do this more often every wednesday we'll do it every wednesday hey everybody thank you so much for joining us today we really appreciate your support White Hat Wednesday, take an opportunity to find other ways to delight your customers and to develop trust in that. And sometimes that's just recognizing that your perspective is not the only one to have. I mean, yeah. All right. So have yourself a great rest of your day. We will see you on Friday. And if you've got a topic that you would like to hear us have a chat about, please feel free to reach out to us. Got a lot of numbers. Got a lot of numbers. All right. We'll talk to you later. Thanks again so much for joining.
