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. Oh, goodness. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. It's Wednesday. And we're late. We are. We are late. Well, we stopped doing Mondays. And that, I don't know, having this much of a gap. Is like, oh, wait, what do I do next? And, you know, I'm getting old. And so you start forgetting things that are should be just natural to remember. And, yeah. Wow. My apologies. Making some last minute. Busy weekend. Great. So beautiful out here. Those of you who have never been to Utah. the fall colors are starting to pop and it is so pretty. And I, you know, it's, I know that the place to go to see fall colors is like the Northeast. Um, but Utah's and you're like the Rocky mountains have become more and more on the map. And, you know, you see some of these drone videos they have of going through and it's just like, Oh my gosh. Cause you've got, um, High mountain peaks that are covered with snow. Just gorgeous colors. It's so beautiful. So if y'all have never been to Utah, it's not just for skiing. I mean, there's like such great hiking this time of the year and all that kind of stuff. So it's just beautiful. And the fall colors is really great for my pre-winter distance. You know, it's really good kind of soothing. I'm going to have to, we, uh, uh, we moved into this place how long ago? Um, it's been a year and a half, year and a half. And when we, you all know, those of you have been following us for a while that we moved here from clear to Utah, from Clearwater, Florida. And we, we had a place that I could watch dolphins from my living room window. Um, Um, it was just on a little Marina and there was a family of dolphins that lived right there. And so like the palm trees and the beach and all of that was a big deal. And when we came and we looked through this place in the garage, I don't know if you guys remember, and you probably have grandmas and grandpas or whatever that did the wallpapers of like massive murals. And so we went into the garage and it was just like a tropical beach. Hmm. That was wallpapered all on the sidewall. And so I'm thinking since Jim is starting to experience, you know, this pre-winter that I just need to like do a kiddie pool with some sand that he can put his feet in, a couple of drinks, a hot, a heat thing, and we can just kind of sit out in front of our mural. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe we've coined a new thing like PWD. This is pre-winter depression or winter pre-depression. Yeah, it's just, you know, I dread the leaves are beautiful, but it also means the leaves will be coming off soon. Everything will be dormant and gray. So stop feeling, you know, anxiety is about, well, okay, but you're like already living into... This is full on dread. This is not anxiety. This is... Full on dread. I don't like cold weather. It's mostly about circulation. I just don't like being cold. I have weaker circulation. In the middle of summer, listeners, ladies and gentlemen, in the middle of summer, Jim's got a space heater going on underneath his desk to keep his feet warm. and and my wife has a thermostat that is broken an internal thermostat yes yeah we were getting some laughs about this this last weekend so um what announcements do we have two v eight meetings this um this week we missed um Yesterday was Steve Levine's webinar. And I need to find out if that's available for those folks who are not. Go over there and find Ignite. Now, who was it that was in it? Oh, it was Chad Pennington, the dealer out of Oklahoma and Texas who was a guest. And they were talking compliance on that podcast. And then I guess it's going to be the one that's coming up in October is going to be the one about bankruptcy. And so remember, and I've got like my notes right here. There's a website called Pacer. And it's a U S government website and it's where you can actually track because, uh, bankruptcy laws are federal. Um, you can track who has filed, um, and on pacer. So if people say the B word that, you know, you can check it. Yeah. I try to remember to go put that link with the podcast with Steve from last Friday. So yeah. Thanks again to Steve Levine for joining. Yeah. He's so willing. I love. I really appreciate him. Their whole firm, he and Richard, are very generous with education and support of how we make a difference out there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so there's that. I got a V-Ape meeting tonight with our group five. That's our new group with five hundred to two thousand counts. Too late to join that meeting. But not for next month. No, not for next month. We've got two groups that size and certainly have a chance to get in there. And we continue to work to get our data reformatted with VH. So I've been talking to some of our groups and our members about that. But yeah, some great conversations in there. And then let's see, other announcements. And tomorrow night is our group three. That's the beginner group, kind of our newcomers. It's not too late to get in that one because we're not so much on data with that group. So if you have an interest in some group coaching, in a virtual environment that's a really affordable way to to get in there and meet some other dealers who are also new and have the same questions you have so yeah or yeah and it's funny because a lot of the new dealers are like I didn't even know that that was a question yeah I didn't even know that that was something I had to think about and we've had dealers in there that have said you don't know what you don't know what you don't know and so yeah yeah it's a great it's a great idea Today's topic is kind of a meaty one. It's like, it's an important one. And I think it's, it's one that's tricky to take on without, you know, stepping on toes and, and what have you. But I think in our case, you know, I just concluded yesterday. It's like, this is important because I had a conversation with a dealer. Yeah, yeah. I had an actual client meeting. This is somebody we've been meeting with for a long time. He's been in the industry for eighteen or nineteen years. So a long time industry person. I mean, yeah. I think that we've been working with him for a couple years. So the point is, if this dealer with all those years in business did not know this. It's like semi-active on social. I mean, we'll step in and ask questions and pay attention because when Jim and he get together, they'll have a conversation about something that transpired and it creates a question about this or this and so they can go down that, not a rabbit hole, but down that track. So there was something So when I got on the meeting yesterday, the dealer asked, and so again, this is just like real-time stuff from our world of coaching. This is somebody we've worked with for a good while. But the dealer asked me yesterday, he said, did you see the post that I put on social media asking about these two providers? And for today, I'll just call them, you know. They're just providers. Provider S and provider D, okay? Yeah. No, I'm not going to remember that. It's like A and B. Can we go A and B? Or one and two? Or A and two? Or one and B? I'm not as likely to remember that. The letters help me remember. Okay. So he just said, I put a post out because I got to make a choice about a provider. So I'm looking at a new service. Yeah, in the market. And it's something that you guys have talked about a little bit. So the dealer said, did you... did you see my post asking about opinions asking for opinions this is a What are your thoughts about... This is reportedly a dealer group. They put it in a closed private group that is... We know there's a lot of vendors and providers in there, but it's meant to be a dealer group, right? And so I said, yes, I did see that. He said, well, we got quite a few responses. They were like nine. I think there were seven. Seven? Okay. Yeah, nine comments. Some of them were duplicate. So just seven comments. So... And I think it's not so important about who the providers are in this case. But I would just say that the problem became... Well, as they were kind of going through it, Jim pulled up the post and we're kind of going through the different comments. And for someone that's been in the industry, and I think, I think where this is going is like, we assume, cause we go to conferences and we go to the things and we know the stuff and like the, you know, we, we talk about the golden five hundred and those are the ones that always go to the conferences. Those, the dealers, those are the ones that are always at the things. They know the people, they, you know, they, they're familiar with the who someone is and and who they represent and all of that kind of stuff well this person's not in the golden five hundred and and I don't know that I don't think that since we've been working with him he's been to a conference he does you know he does other things um but but I think this dealer after eighteen years in business and is involved in the so the other thing about that golden five hundred that you talk about is and michelle's the one who we first heard you know kind of used the phrase you know more than a year ago it's like This idea of golden five hundreds, kind of these same five hundred dealers that are twenty group members. They come to the conference. They're active on social media. Right. Yeah. So we know they're always like they're getting new education. They're involved in the conversations. They you know, they they they know each other. When when you get to a conference, it's like that. they all kind of know each other. And, and it's funny cause I, I remember Chris Machika from pastime. Um, I mentioned that and he was just, and actually same thing with, uh, with Tim Lawrence to, um, golden five hundred. They're like, Oh yeah. Um, because it's true. Cause it's, it's, it's, uh, very much so the same people, but I'm sorry, I digress. Yeah. So the point really is that the, um, This dealer probably is right on the fringe of, because they're not very active in social media. They don't go to the conferences. So they would be, but they're in the group. And they pay attention to some of the stuff that's happening in there, have posted questions. In the last six months, they've probably posted four or five questions. So this conversation today for me is for the benefit of what I have come to call the Silver Five Thousand, which is piggybacking your idea that these Golden Five Hundred people are there. And there's a lot of them of the Silver Five Thousand that are actively involved or are a part of some social media groups on Facebook. Yeah. The silver five thousand? They may be, but I never hear from them. And I'll give you one more indication about that, just for those people to take you inside kind of what we see. When we create the broadcast in social media and I go into, because we had a change in our platform and now we have to share the thing in some of these groups differently. When we go in there, and we select, you know, invite this group, then when it comes time to invite the second group, I recognize virtually none of the names. Yeah. Okay. So this is the best indication to me that that, that five hundred level is a pretty good number. And anyway, we kind of, that's really not even the point of today. So it's like, the idea though, is when I think about, when I'm speaking today, I'm thinking about those dealers who are not active. So if you're one of our regular listeners and we know you, this is not so much about you. It's more about these dealers who are coming into the space, who are getting engaged, and they're asking questions. And so let's go to this actual post. So back to the dealer says, did you see my post? Yes, I did. I said, did you notice that some of the people who responded were... Vendors. Partners. Well, vendors, vendor partners. They're vendors and they're partners at some level. Like understanding agreements, partners. These are publicized agreements. This is not me making this up. These are folks that are publicly in partnership with one another, okay? Mm-hmm. And the dealer said, no, I didn't realize that. Had no idea who these people were. No. He's thinking they're dealers. They're all dealers. Yeah. Which is a problem. It's a problem. That's a big problem. That's why we're talking about it this morning. Yeah. So let's just break this down. Because I got in there, and we actually, on the virtual meeting with the dealer yesterday, we opened his post. and we went through the list and we started with okay first person commented you should use product s you should use product s definitely a hundred percent and and I said they're an affiliate they're a partner of this product that they were I recognize that name. They work for so-and-so. They're a partner. This person is a partner. They're a principal with this other company. They're a partner of this company that they're referring. So this dealer, again, thinks these folks are all dealers. They're just using their individual names, profiles. So the dealer's thinking, oh, well, this is overwhelmingly, you know, people are satisfied with this. And what I pointed out to him, I went through it, and there were seven comments suggesting product S, right? Four of those seven were vendor partners. The dealer thought all of them were dealers. And I can promise you those vendor partners have never used the product. Doesn't mean, let's be sure and clear, but doesn't mean it's not the superior product. Well, and it doesn't mean that they're not familiar with the product, but they've never used the product as a dealer. That's right. So they've done the demo. They're familiar with the product. They've never used the product as a dealer. And one thing we know about dealers is you can look at one product and it's like, this is a great product. But until you're in the weeds with a dealer, and there's not a lot of vendors that really are in the weeds with a dealer. Um, and we are vendors, um, we're vendors, but we're, we are in the weeds with dealers. They don't understand how it fits with all of the things. Um, and how, you know, as you're, as you're going about your day and you're, you know, the, the flow of, of what a dealer's life is like, they're not familiar with that. Um, as a dealer would be, I mean, yeah, I have two solutions. Let's get to the solution. Okay. Solutions. if I'm a dealer and I'm going to go in and ask that kind of question, I would urge dealers to start adding to their post. If you're a vendor state. That you're a vendor. State that you're a vendor. And it's, it's, it's not that cause like I'll look through then it's like, I know who the vendors are. And so I do, but I was not aware. And that was just kind of, it was a real, it was a real, uh, eye-opening thing that this golden five hundred and the silver five thousand it's a real thing and they are not familiar with who people are and I can tell you in the last week especially like over the last two weeks in particular we've heard from lots of I got a text message yesterday from a dealer named patrick I read it to you like he's asking some stuff he saw our stuff on youtube Oh, you finally got a name. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I was chatting with him and helping him understand. He was asking some questions about software. And so I kind of, without even knowing who he is, where he is, I started answering for him, you know, you're going to have to be limited to these three, basically. And here's what I would do. Because he had a very specialized question. Who should I? And Jim's like, these are the ones that can do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I have no affiliation with any of them. And as I always say with those kind of things is there's no referral rewards or commissions to me. And that's something that I'm really grateful for. I mean, for you, when I watch you navigate these kind of conversations with people is you are so transparent. Right. About who you are and what I mean, like even if let's say one of our three founding sponsors were someone that you were going to refer or say these are options. You always say this person is a founding sponsor for White Hat Way, which is about this. Mm hmm. And, you know, so we want you to know that we don't get any, we don't get any money from them for referring anybody to them. But we want to be transparent that we are, we do have an understanding with these people. And so we've been super, super transparent. Always. So you didn't see it. I wrote just in the interest of because we were on this topic. So let's connect the dots. If you read the description for today's podcast, it says in the second paragraph, White Hat Wednesday is brought to you by White Hat Way. White Hat Way is supported by these founding sponsors who have pledged support of the mission to, that is a principle driven mission. I'm paraphrasing now the part that I said and said that those, those vendors are, um, in support of delivering education and solutions to the good guys and good gals of the self-financing industry. Yeah, ethics-based education. And I said there's no referral reward agreement in place. There's no agreement. So this is my own method of saying, here's what transparency looks like, okay? Mm-hmm. So now this is kind of the thing that I think, again, when I'm challenging dealers here to say, and I'm also issuing a challenge to vendors. If you're chiming in in a Facebook thread or otherwise, I think it's on you first to state your relationship to the party that you're recommending. Yes. Now, if as a dealer, I'm just saying when dealers do their posts, they should ask. Ask. to make sure that anybody who comments state, whether you're a dealer who's used it, if you use this product, cause I'm looking. As a dealer. Have you used this product as a dealer? Cause we know that there's a lot of vendors out there that have been dealers, but it's like, and if, have you used this? There were a lot of comments. So there were three people who chimed in and said that they were, and I know that they're dealers. I just kind of know them or looked at their profile and verified. And, um, And so they had their comments, and one said, I used it before, and I didn't like it. I moved over to the other, and so I'm happier over here. So good information, right? Yeah. And so this is what dealers need to hear from dealers on that stuff. And so I think this is why it's, look, can you have referral partners and referral clubs and be partners? Sure. Sure. But be transparent. Transparent. Let people know that's the nature of the relationship. In fairness, that's what transparency looks like. And I think this is us just challenging everybody to say, let dealers know if they're getting feedback from dealers. It's not that it's a problem for a vendor to refer to another vendor. But it's a problem when a vendor assumes, or maybe they don't assume, that people know who they are. And it's just, it slants. It slants a question that's posed by a dealer. Mm-hmm. when it's half or whatever vendors that are speaking out about a thing. I don't know if it would completely slant when you go through and you go, so many people for A and so many people for B or whatever. I don't know. And it, it, that's really not the, that's not the, the, um, the, the thing that it's that, that this is about, but this is about vendors be transparent that I am a vendor and I am a partner of some kind with this person or this, or this, uh, this, um, uh, other vendor. And it doesn't necessarily mean that there has to be money going back and forth, but it's when it becomes an echo chamber of referrals after a while. So let me speak to Patrick for a minute, who I don't even know. Hello, Patrick. Patrick is somebody who... Where's Patrick from? I don't know. Oh, okay. I know his area code. Which I just have to say, this is something that I really, really love. Patrick found Jim YouTube, on YouTube, found the phone number on YouTube, sent him a text. No name, just a phone number. Hey. I have a question. Saw you on YouTube. Murmur, murmur. And then Jim proceeds to just have a quick conversation with him about, well, this is and this and this and this and this and this. And so I think I'm thinking about Patrick this morning when I when I think about why this stuff matters. So if I'm a Patrick out there listening to YouTube and now I'm going to start, you know, I'm investing a lot in my business. I'm taking a big risk in the buy here payer space and I'm making big, important decisions about where I'm going to go. With my business. And so the reason that this referral thing is so important and the reason that even Michelle and I, when Michelle started working with me, she said, why the resistance to the referral rewards? And like I, you know, after years of doing it. Oh, because we've been offered by most people. businesses, vendors for, Hey, if you refer people, we'll pay you. Yeah. In fact, I'm going to tell a second story while we're together here. But the first part is if I'm thinking about Patrick, I want him to understand that and any other dealers that are coming into the space, I want them to understand why this referral element is so significant. Do I know, like in these cases of these four vendors who chimed in on this thread, do I know if they're getting any kind of referral? Probably not, but I don't know if they are. But the point is, if you take a referral reward, if this Patrick, if I had said, go see this software provider, And then Patrick later learned that that software provider was putting a little commission in my pocket for the referral. Isn't that gonna slant? By the way, that's the word that the dealer used yesterday when he saw that four of the people who chimed in, he said, that's very slanted feedback, slanted. So it's going to slant the perspective. It's going to pollute and dilute the perspective that I've offered. So as a coach advisor, I have to stay away from that. I have to make sure that people know that when I refer somebody to a product, it's because I believe it's the best product for the dealer. The dealer's the one who's asking my advice. And sometimes the dealer's the one who's paying for my advice. And so I'm going to make sure that the dealer knows that when I give the recommendation, it's based on feedback I've heard from other dealers. It's based on my knowing the people behind the product. It's all those kinds of things. And it has nothing to do with any kind of referral commission in my pocket. Now, let me tell another story about it. This is something that's been on my mind for years because I had a vendor that I was working with. I made an introduction. Okay. Which I often do. I said, this dealer was starting a product and I said, you're going to want to get with these people and get your, get your product started. which he did. And the dealer, the vendor rather sent over a commission agreement, a partner agreement, commission agreement. I forget what the language was. And was this the one that sent a gift card? No, no. Okay. Okay. Different story. Cause there's another one too, that it was just like, yeah. Okay. This one is, uh, They sent the partnership agreement or affiliate agreement or whatever it was, and it was entitling me to something like a fifteen percent commission, you know, for the referrals. And I read it over and I said, I'm going to decline. the partnership agreement. I appreciate the offer. I said, what I would like for you to do instead is take that same percentage that you were going to gift to me or award to me and pass it along as a discount to the client. We have asked every single vendor and I don't think a single one of them have ever passed that discount. Well, this is the part I would like to know because I can go back to that dealer and find out because they kind of hem-hawed it. Oh, well, it's a small amount. And I thought, If that commission stayed in the vendor's pocket instead of getting passed on to the dealer, then I would have a huge problem with that. And it would certainly affect my future referrals. Right. So, and all I have to do to get the answer to that question is reach out to that dealer and say, Hey, did there, would the discount get passed on to you? I passed on a discount and pass it on to you. And I'll bet it stayed in the vendor's pocket. Well, and I know we've talked about it before when I mentioned it in another one where we referred and got a gift card and then we immediately reached out to the dealer and and gave them a credit for five hundred dollars on whatever. It was like off of the balance of their contract because that was the right thing to do. And the dealer appreciated that. I so appreciate your transparency on that. Because we shouldn't be... Here's the thing. As vendors, we shouldn't be... We shouldn't be... It feels... kind of murky to be getting commissions off of other vendors. It feels a little murky to me, at least without full transparency. Just say it. just say it. Yes. So, so because we, you know, we live in the space and so we know what happens with, between vendor and vendor and vendor. And there is a, there's a, there's, and this is, this goes even beyond vendors and it's, it's like, you know, the whole idea of pay to play all of that, that there's, that we kind of feel like is murky. But it's, it's, What we're really, the charge, the thing that we're calling for is full transparency. Because if a dealer doesn't have a problem with the fact that a vendor is referring a vendor and that there may be some agreement, then great. But it certainly does shift things. for most people, if you know that they are like, this is the only one you should go to, and you know that they're getting money for it, for that, or something like that, that just, it just, for most people, would dilute the referral. Yeah, that's what I think. And listen, as if I'm thinking about other vendors and I told you today, I'm not really thinking about the vendors. If vendors want to do something that erodes their own credibility, I guess they can do that. Like if that's what they want to do, they want to continue to do something and people find out and their own credibility is eroded. Then they find out. I can tell you that dealer in North Carolina yesterday, his credit, you know, the credibility with some of these parties was eroded whenever he discovered that they were partners of the, you know, they have a public partnership with these folks. So that just says that if dealers want to do that, that's, I mean, if vendors want to do that, that's, that's on them. They got to, they got to live with that. Right. But the, the dealers, I'm interested in the dealers today. I said, I'm talking to the silver five thousand. I'm talking to Patrick and I'm saying, yeah, when you ask these questions, you need to ask these questions very specifically and challenge the people that In the threads, it doesn't matter if it's a phone call, it doesn't matter where it is, challenge them to state if they're a vendor or a partner. And now those partners, when they step up and don't do that, Because they're now the Golden Five Hundred. They recognize these folks. People that are very, very active on the conference, they understand the whole connection. And but it just that's the thing that it surprised me when there was because, you know, different people are very active and they, you know, they comment an awful lot. And they're there. They don't. badges or whatever because they're frequent whatever. It just surprised me that our client was just like, I had no idea. I don't have time and I don't desire to do this, but White Hat Way could start chiming in on the threads and doing a little cowboy emoji with some arrows saying, that's a vendor partner right there. That's a vendor partner right there. I really don't have an awful lot of friction around that idea. You could do that because all we're really doing is just announcing in terms of transparency on behalf of dealers. Recognize that's a vendor partner right there. And so, you know, you could, we could do that. I'm not, I hope it doesn't come to that because I hope dealers and vendors will, dealers ask the question in the right way, vendors be transparent and that won't become necessary because we don't want to call people out in that way. But we think it's just my, my interest, let's make no mistake. My interest is in the silver five thousand and of course the golden five hundred. My interest is in the success of dealers who are playing a very, they're, they're in a high risk business and, they're taking they're taking putting their a lot of their own capital at risk and you better believe that I'm going to speak up on their behalf at any opportunity as a former dealer myself and somebody who works with these dealers all the time and we don't we don't take from both sides we we represent dealers they're the ones who engage us and so we're we're always going to represent dealers and what we do and so We love our vendor friends, right? We appreciate they provide some great services. Again, going back to that thread where we started, it does not mean that the product that was recommended by those seven parties or those seven comments. It's a bad one. It doesn't mean it's a bad product. It might be the superior product, but the advice is diluted. The credibility has taken a hit because you behave like you were a dealer who'd used the product and the person who's asking questions didn't know otherwise. Well, and like I said, that if vendors are assuming everyone knows... We're out here to say they don't. And so and so not only not only they don't, but that that there might even be some that know you're a vendor, but don't know you have partnerships or, you know, agreements or whatever. Yeah. Have you used the product as a dealer? Mm hmm. Maybe ask your question that way. So that'll help, you know, uh, eliminate some of this. Uh, but is this part of where white hat way can play a role in just absolutely white hat way is going to speak up on behalf of being trusted. We're, we're going to work to make sure, you know, dealers are trustworthy. We want to see vendors be trustworthy. Um, and we want to see transparency, right. And, and have high integrity in what we do. Uh, we, we have. a lot of work to do in the used car industry. And we, one of the ways we start to make progress is getting transparent. That's how we start to earn trust. And so this is a part of what we're challenging this morning and issuing the charge to let's just be transparent when we're out there, you know, responding to these things and announce our affiliations. Uh, agreed. A hundred percent. Um, yeah, this, like I said, this is, this has been a topic that we have kind of mulled around just the two of us for a while. And then after your conversation with our client, but it was like, it's time to talk about it and it's time to bring it out. And, and you know, we just, the, the, the charges out there, it's like, Hey, let's be transparent and, and, you know, proceed in a white hat fashion. Right. Um, So, hey, guys, thank you so much for joining us on a Wednesday. We really appreciate your support. We will be back on Friday with another straight line topic. Not so much things about ethics, but we usually talk about business types of things. There's tons to talk about. There's tons to talk about. So I hope you guys all have a great rest of your week and we will see you on Friday. Thanks, guys.
