Wake up, Buy Here, Pay Here people. It's a beautiful day. Go grab yourself another cup of Joe and say hello to Jim and Michelle Rhodes on the Buy Here, Pay Here morning show. Take it away, you two. Good morning. Hey, happy Wednesday, friends. Welcome to Black Hat Wednesday. This is a recorded broadcast that we recorded earlier in the morning for you all to consume because we need to be driving into Salt Lake for a pretty long time. Yeah, it's an important meeting. We got a VIP coming in and we got the day set aside to do some planning around some of the big picture stuff. Obviously, my raspiness and stuff in my chest is still there. It was a rushed coffee time this morning. Yeah, it sure was. Pulling stuff together and do a quick recording and hit the highway. So we jump right in. Yeah. Well, is there anything that we need to just announcements? The only thing for me would be that I'm, I'm sending the word out by email probably tomorrow that we've got, I'm going to make the seats available in our group three meeting on Monday night so that people that are want to explore the v-eight who've been curious and just want to sit in for free for the first time traditionally we've made a sign a confidentiality and the group three is that's the newcomer group so you know when when we look at data and things on that one we're not looking at individual data we're looking more aggregate data that kind of thing yeah and they get to see that of all the groups that you know, have data together. So they get to see a pretty nice kind of, you know, comparative. Yeah. Kind of get an idea. So if you guys have been thinking about it, reach out and we've, we, uh, we'll have people that will be viewing. They may not be, uh, likely will not be participating, but be able to view and, and step inside the, you know, kind of how, how it runs. Thanks to our members of that group who quickly said, yeah, sure. Let them in. I love it. I, you know, I love it's, uh, I love dealers helping dealers. And, and there was, um, a dealer recently that you talked to that was like, I just, they were talking about just the, the culture of dealers helping dealers and, and how it's not about, well, that's my competition or whatever. It's like all ships rise. We talked about that on Friday too. Yeah. So yeah, I love it. Yep. Let's, uh, I guess the only other thing too, tomorrow morning, we've got Brent Carmichael coming for a V eight plus and we're, that's our V eight members only, but that's a, that's something just for those to know for those outside V eight to be aware of what we're doing and inside there. So I've got that happening tomorrow morning, but yeah, we should dive into our thing. We got to get back to the highway. We got to get to the highway. So, um, shall we yeah okay so I end up kind of making this topic around um overselling because there was kind of different layers of of this and so I think to keep it focused for today what what inspired this was an email exchange that we had so let me kind of back up and help folks understand it white hat way is a company we're over here uh looking to grow our team we've been focusing a lot on who are the people that we can plug in and we've been kind of in preliminary negotiations. We're in the why or the who phase. Yeah, we're really in the who phase. Our why is pretty well established. But the why came into play in that email thread. So one of the three people that we're working with to add to our team kind of simultaneously is somebody that I have in mind to be the director of sales. We don't have to say who it is just now, but I want that person to be our director of sales for two reasons. One, I've known them for some time and they are totally in on the white hat way. They preach it, they share it with others and they get it and like it. Then the other piece is that I know them well enough to know that I can trust them not to oversell. So this is something that to me has always been a thing as somebody who's making a living. So let's go back to, you know, I owned a retail and sporting goods business years ago, right? So we're selling, we're retail merchants and then I'm in the new car business as a salesperson and a sales manager and trainer. And then later it's a buy here, pay here manager and then dealer. And throughout all those years, it's always been my approach, my approach not to oversell and play a long game. Right. Which is white hat way. Right. We really want to think longterm. We don't want, We want to make sure we have happy customers, which means full disclosure, make sure they know what they're buying and they're happy with what they don't feel pressured. Yeah. And the other thing I do in training is I say, we don't need to lie to anybody. Now, if we've got a bad product, that's one thing, but if we had a good product, we don't need to lie. We, we, you know, represent our product well. And, you know, when we talk about overselling, we have experience within the buy hair, pay hair space, you know, the business, what we've done over the course of, since I joined. I mean, and this has been your culture around sales for twenty years. But before that, I worked with a, I've worked in corporate. And the last company before I joined you, You always were really cautious around what you tell salespeople that you're working on, for one. I mean, really cautious. Because in development, when you're developing something, that means it could go wrong. any number of directions it could it could be scrapped because it's just not something that you can do right and so um you know we we were like I I was um I was on the leadership team for just messaging and teaching and and I met with the engineers all the time and so it's like it was the engineers and um and and others were like I don't know that we want to have the sales manager here At this meeting, because the minute that they got information, the next conference, they were making promises that were not backed up. So that's part of this overselling. It's like things that have not been that have not been they're not on the roadmap or they're not that, you know, it's just kind of like an idea that that's something just to really be careful of. Yeah. And I think, you know, if we think about our audience as dealers, obviously where it comes into play for them is if I've got somebody out there on my sales team who is over promising, then I run the risk of having a customer unsatisfied. Let's talk about some of the things that someone might over promise. Well, they would promise things like some kind of support after the sale. You know, let's say in the sales department and a buy here, pay here dealership, I'm working in sales and I say to you because you're buying a car today, hey, listen, if you ever have a problem with your car payment, All you got to do is call, you know, and they'll give you time, you know, or all you got to do, they'll help you in the shop. If you, if you have mechanical problems, they'll, they'll help you back there or whatever. I'm just, I'm, I'm saying more than should be said in the interest of having the customer get comfortable and sign the contract today. But it's like, it's too, it's too, um, kind of focused on the now and, and create the sale and mark commission. Yeah. So if you were to not oversell for those two things, how would you communicate that? That part, you know, those things I would typically say, you know, you'll find that, you know, our customers will tell you or you would see in our reviews that, you know, our company is very supportive. We are interested in your success. You just use softer language. You don't get specific about certain deliverables or promises. Because when you go black and white like that, Um, like we will, unless it's part of your, um, your reinsurance, you know, so you've got like a warranty and that will cover this. And this is what we will do if that happens or a service contract. This is what this covers and that, that those are black and whites and you can talk about those, but anything beyond that, it's like, especially when you're talking like goodwill. Yeah. And it's like, I think most any dealers had a salesperson on their team at some point who, um, you know, they would get customers saying, well, Johnny up in sales told me X, you know, and so we don't have a good way to know if that's true or not. So if I'm the dealer, I'm in a bad spot. And so I think you just, you just gotta, there's a lot of dealers out there that are listening. There's like, Oh yeah, I've experienced that. So, And so I think what we have to do is train our salespeople. If we're really playing a white hat long game, then we train our salespeople. Anytime we're not sure, we err on the side of underselling and underpromising and we overdeliver. We have customers that end up happy because we give them more than what they expected. And that's totally possible. We have a good product. We hopefully have a good reputation and a good solution. So we don't need to overpromise in order to win the customer. So I think what I urge dealers, and we've talked about this, we did a presentation in Arizona, you know, a year and a half or so ago about this idea of selling trust instead. So this is obviously what we do at White Hat Way. And this is part of what, you know, in my email that to this future director of sales, I was able to say, because one of their questions was talk to me about culture and kind of mission. I can't remember exactly how I phrased it. But I thought, thanks for the softball. Let me tell you what our mission is. I have to say that I've read through this, and I know we're kind of being a little bit cryptic, but I read the email that Jim sent that said, here is what we would like to have you help with. And then there was a reply that said, I'm in, I just have a couple of questions. And they were all softball questions Yeah, there were questions like, what would my role be? I mean, but basically the one question around culture was, you know, what is it we're doing, right? It's like, so to me, this is the fun part about what we're doing. It's like, you know, we're doing something amazing, right? And so we get to work on this cool project where we can make a real positive difference. And so, but the thing, the phrase that I've started using around White Hat Way, it's the most concise way I know to explain to people what White Hat Way is. is we're in the business of infusing trust between buyers and sellers, okay? So that's kind of line one. And so if you just think about that- And that's like, we're starting with buy here, pay here. Right. And so you think about, and you and I have talked about, and we've said in some of our presentations, like, Think about if you could bottle trust, if you could put trust in a bottle and buy it in bulk and put it on the shelf and have it available. Like I've, I've banked a bunch of trust that I can, I've got an unhappy customer and I can go to the shelf and I can grab a bottle of trust and I can pour it and we can sit down and you know what I mean? I absolutely do know what you mean. It's like, so it's, it's like, that's, that's what we're selling. So we have to, so if I think about that as a coach over the years, going way back to when I was working with the company in Florida, as the coach, I was real cautious to have the salespeople over promise. And because I'm the one who's got to show up and deliver now, I gotta be sure I know what was promised. Right. Yeah. And I'm frustrated if they promise something that we don't normally do. And here I am stuck doing extra work. So it's all those elements. But I think when we just sell trust. And so what does that look like? So if I've got somebody we're hiring to work with us and represent us with dealers, I want them to just kind of sell this idea that when you engage with us, you can trust that we're working hard to create value for you. Yeah, yeah. And they are either going to believe me when I say that or believe our salesperson, our sales manager when they say that. They're going to believe that or they're not based on however many trust deposits we've already made. Do we have credibility? Have we established trust? Oh, we had such a great conversation about that last night. It was super rich. And it reminds me of the podcast that we did when we introduced our third founding sponsor. And we had the two, we had Tim Bird and Tim Lawrence on. And then we brought in Chris Machika from Pastime. And one of the things that Chris said is, we've always had trust as really what is the theme that weaves through everything. And so we've worked really hard to be able to do that. And that this is amazing because there's actually a name and an identity around this idea that we are taking to market. Right. So that dealers, cause there's a lot of dealers and he said in the podcast, there's a lot of dealers out there that are doing it the white hat way. They just aren't doing it. They, you know, it's, it's, they're, they're, they've got a lot of trust. Well, this is something for those that are, that it's a layer in of a super easy lift for those that are already there. Yeah. of being able to say, okay, this is, we do this, this is, this is, and it becomes part of the fabric of their business about these are our guiding principles. Yeah. And, and I think what White Hat Way does is it gives us an identity. So you talked about a dealer who's established and doing it already, but if you're a new dealer and you're building your team, That gives you something to point to to say, look, this is who we are, right? This list of principles and this... sort of code of conduct is, is who we are. And so that lets us kind of congeal as a team around that, which is so important. I think, you know, there's a whole big thing that I look forward to bring into the conversation one day around this idea of kind of this spherical approach that you've heard me talk about in our own work. And I've been sharing that with some of these folks that are joining our team. We're very much bring us a spherical approach to this endeavor and it's a tremendous opportunity. And we think it's, it's going to, build pretty quickly when we succeed in kind of getting united around the core, right? When the core is solid and we're all, all united around that nucleus, then you can build something pretty amazing. Oh yeah. Cause then, then everything in the core is that all of those that are part of that core are aligned on the mission, the message, the principles, and then go out and spread it and get, you know, and it just, it does, it creates this thing that, that, That is absolutely amazing. It's amazing. And it's like, it's just, but you got to be clear about it. Like this is some conversations we've had with friends and family recently. It's like when things started to really snap in place for us on a lot of this is when, when we got super clear about what is the thing, like what is the thing that we're working on to build and everybody can understand this is the thing. And so when, when that became clear and that's why that way in the mission, that is why that way in the core is, then things started to really snap into place. And so it's just a natural thing that would happen once you are clear and you speak about those kinds of things all the time. Right. Yeah. But I think the main thing we should, we're wrapping up here, but I think the, the main thing I would just say is that when we, When we create that level of trust, then, you know, we continue to build those deposits. Right. And so that's that's around transparency. So that's part of what we didn't say about that email. When when that person sent me the email, one of the three managers were looking to hire directors. then I just chose to respond to our business coach and the other two people that we're adding to our management team at the same time. And I said, cause you know, transparency is kind of our calling card or one of our calling cards around here. So I'm just, I'm not going to say to you what I'm not going to say to the rest is like, we're all doing this thing together. And so what I'm sharing with you, I'm sharing with the others, this is what we're all working toward. And so I wanted them all to hear the same thing. And so this is part of how we really have a chance to build, you know, something amazing and build it fairly quickly. Yeah. And I love the whole theme on overselling. Typically, when you're selling just a product, it can be a very straight line thing. And it's like, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. But when you're selling trust, And it's like, we're going to do our darndest to be able to help you. We're going to, you know, we're going to do our darndest to facilitate these things working so that you can be successful. That is not overselling. That's like, we're here on the same side of the table. And I'm not going to promise you specific things, but I'm going to say, if you ever have a problem and something, you come and sit down right here and And we'll work it out together. Right. Good. You know, that is not overselling. That's a strong sell. It is. But that's not overselling. Yeah. Yeah. That's for sure. All righty. What else? I think that's it. We don't have time for anything else. We're going to save the rest for the next episode. I agree. Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for taking some time. It's been a quick episode. Lately, we've been, like, forty-five minutes. Yeah. We really appreciate you all being a part of our journey. And it's just, you know, we're like, we're so grateful. There's so much to be grateful for. All right, everybody. We will be back on Friday. I don't think that we have a topic yet. If there's something you do. I just learned that what I had in mind is not going to work out this coming Friday. So we'll have something good. But, you know, you can always reach out to us and ask for a specific topic, and we'll be happy to look at that. All right, everybody, have a great afternoon, and we will see you on Friday. Thanks so much for joining.
