Why your used car leads stop converting, and the 3 fixes every BDC misses

Transcript is auto-generated from the episode recording and lightly formatted. It may contain transcription errors.

Chris Keene (0:00): Well, here we

Renaldo Leonard (0:01): I missed you.

Chris Keene (0:02): are folks. We are back. We are back. We are back. You have tuned back into lot talk powered by lot pop. I'm Chris Keene, one of the co-hosts as always the infamous, the curmudgeon himself, Mr. John Anderson. And he takes that with absolute love because he knows we meet it with love. “ And we've back fresh off of a vacation, but still needing a vacation because he had

John Anderson (0:25): I do.

Renaldo Leonard (0:26): Absolutely.

Chris Keene (0:26): two one-year-olds under the roof with them in the family vacation. Mr. Rinaldo Leonard, glad to have you back, my brother.

Renaldo Leonard (0:33): Hey, my man, it's good to be here. Good to be here for sure.

John Anderson (0:38): Yes, sir. I always, I always said that Ronaldo when I come back from vacation, I got, I got, I need a vacation from vacation. Right. Cause you, you typically just when you're on vacation, you're, you're, you're rocking and rolling, man. But you were really rocking and rolling to one year olds brother. So

Chris Keene (0:56): No doubt, no doubt.

Renaldo Leonard (0:57): “ man. dude, let me tell you. Yeah, I've been removed from that stage of life in young ones. “ “ was a brilliant reminder that “ got to teach them everything, right?

Chris Keene (1:08): Hahaha

Renaldo Leonard (1:09): Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. But man, was “ good stuff for sure. “

Chris Keene (1:13): Well, you know, that's, that's, that's definitely, you know, we talk about patients. That is definitely a great segue into today. And this is where I would actually sit there and tell our dealers in listeners, “ viewers, salespeople, you know, dealer principles, C-suite, GMs owners, whoever's on this call today, “ whoever's listening to this podcast. Patience is one thing I would definitely tell you guys you need to have with our. Market taking a shift. Now hear me very close. Just because there we have downshifted and the shopper has done its atypical seasonal drop. This does not mean end of the earth. Just because there we have downshifted and the shopper has done its atypical seasonal drop. This does not mean end of the earth. So this is not a negative light. All it's you is, is there's less at bats. So that patience “ that I'm talking about. Is have patients because like every year for the last 15 years or more, could go back and you could watch the trend. There's that decline in shopper index. And then as soon as we get through graduations, which you guys all know, it's going to happen next month. As soon as we get through that, we get into the summer selling season that we have stability all the way into Q4. So we, We really need to have a little bit of patience here, but yet use this opportunity to not let your CRM lie to you, to use this opportunity to go back and really evaluate the way that we are incentivizing our people. Is it conducive to business? And really important guys go look now. At all the big OEMs Ford, General Motors, the land is Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Honda, Nissan. Go look at them, because when you've got things out there like 72 months, 3.9 % financing on that 72 months. and $3,500 consumer cash on a Ram 1500 bighorn. Do you think that might have reset the values of these late model ones that we bought 45, 60 days ago when we didn't have those incentives? I mean, look at it now, guys. I don't know about you guys, John, Ronaldo. I've jumped on and had some conversation with some dealers and looking at some of this. late model inventory going, Hey, you wonder why you ain't get no activity on it. Have you looked at what's happening on your new car side? I mean, there's a problem. So take note of that. Take note of you're getting opportunities. You have less at bats, but the opportunities you got are really strong in market shoppers ready to say yes. If you meet a more they're at. If you actually pick up the phone and call them back with something tangible outside of, you still in the market? Can you be by this afternoon or this evening? I mean, if you call back with something tangible, mean, heck John, right before we started filming today, I mean, you were talking about a dealer you were talking to that just needs some continual education and You're like, dude, we don't even need to talk about to continue education because you started looking at the way that they weren't handling their opportunities they were getting. Now, again, this isn't a negative light, guys. This is something that we're encouraging that you go in and take, you know, pump the brakes, have a little patience and actually kind of go back and start reading your leads. mean, John, expand a little bit about what you saw.

John Anderson (4:31): I don't even know where to start.

Renaldo Leonard (4:33): You “

Chris Keene (4:34): “ He's like, shit, I don't know. All of it. Yes, answer C.

John Anderson (4:38): I don't even know where to start. I would, you said something earlier Chris, you're not wrong, but I want to put little bit different face on it. And it'll bleed into what we're talking about. You just asked me a question about, “ I don't know that there are some dealers I wouldn't necessarily say have less at bats. I would, I would say as a market, yes, the shopper index has dropped by close to 30%. So there are less in market shoppers. Now what I've seen, “ you guys, I about you guys, but what I've seen is in-market shoppers are still buying cars. I mean, they're active, definitely. But there's just less of them, right? So yeah, so yeah, when there's less market in-market shoppers and the amount of inventory, again, Jason addressed it. We've talked about it, right? Guys, there's not less inventory in the marketplace. There's not. There's less aged inventory, but there's not less overall. You know, know the message out there is there's inventory has dropped. It's not dropped either on new or used.

Chris Keene (5:38): out. Less at bat.

John Anderson (5:39): “ so when you have less in market shoppers and the amount of inventory you have, then people, there's no FOMO, there's no fear of missing out. So people slow down, customers show down, slow down their buying process and they shop more. “ so, “ yeah, I, you know, “ I had a manager training and, I get on with, “ this young man, he wasn't young, but he cool guy, man. “ really enjoyed talking to him and we started digging into the data and you know, I'm seeing all these opportunities, uh, that they have as a store, um, with their, uh, with customers have reached out on their inventory and they're just not talking to their customers and they're still changing prices on the regular. Um, and so, yeah, I stopped it. mean, I don't, I don't know. I'd say the first thing you need to go back and do, if you want to have a true immediate effect on your store is go back and talk to the powers that be. And you guys need to come up with a process and get your team engaged in talking to your customers. Because I mean, what are we, what are we doing guys? mean, you guys wouldn't do that. “ if, if these customers, you know, if, if you looked out on your lot this morning, you had a hundred customers on your stand on your, on your lot or in your showroom. You're going to scramble to do everything you can to make sure one of those customers gets, “ gets met, greeted and talked to. You're just going to, it's going to be that important to you. And my point is I don't understand why it's not as important on our virtual life. It should be because that's how they end up on your physical life. So, “ yeah, Chris, I just, you know, I, you know, we were talking about it before we jumped on here. There's two things that I continue to see. “ and I'm not sure why. Is, “ we continue to, “ we continue to change prices on our inventory. “ even when we have customers on the inventory, we continue to change prices. “ and, you know, I just see teams, “ that, that aren't, they're not talking to their customers. It hasn't shifted, I guess. Right. We're here. We are almost into may. “ and then, you know, towards the end of June. You'll start to, you know, summer selling season will start to kick in for July and August. Right. But that's still two months away. That's 60 days. Right. And I, and I'm just seeing, you know, “ six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 days, “ on customers that are sitting on inventory that's still in stock that they sent the lead in on and we're not talking to them. Right. “ and, and so that may, you may have been able to get away with that in the spring selling season, cause you were busy. And customers were moving towards you. other words, you may not have had to contact them. They're going to keep contacting you because they want to get something. But that's for the most part, that ship has sailed now. So what are you doing in your store to the customer? The customers have definitely transitioned. Have you, what are we doing in our stores to, to, to transition? Or are we just, we going about things as, as I said, it referred to earlier, right? Why are you doing it this way? Cause that's the way we've always done it.

Renaldo Leonard (9:02): “

Chris Keene (9:02): I mean, we laugh about it, but I mean, just unfortunately, and sometimes it's okay to sit there and go, Hey, here's the white flag. I'm going to wave it. And what am I missing? You know, listeners and viewers, I don't care who you reach out to reach out to us, reach out to whoever your mentors are. You know, take advantage point in view from your frontline team, but somebody got to a flag and say time out, you know, our business is off or our margins. You know, we're not making what we were making before. “ OK. You just heard John talking about it. You know, we've seen it a million times over. We keep discounting prices on vehicles. When you've had activity on them, five hundred, a thousand fifteen hundred, two thousand dollars ago. So I said it a few weeks ago. Uh, more times than not, we're seeing dealers compress their own margins and they think, well, because the market is slowed down, we're going to compress the margin. Do you? I mean, you just had somebody raise their hand on a vehicle at $30,000. Two weeks ago. And you've now discounted it as a 28 grand. I mean, do you really need to discount it? Because those people you had raising their hand on the vehicle at 30 grand. And if you're not measuring, hear me close on this. If you are not measuring the amount of activity per opportunity, then you're missing a boat. Then yeah, you deserve to get your margins cut. But if you're not picking up the phone, call, text, email, and your customer with quality followup. not just quantity, but with quality, then you deserve to get your margins cut. There's nothing you can say about that.

John Anderson (10:41): Thank you. Hey, can I ask you guys a question? Cause, cause I say this a lot. “ I say it a lot. “ and I believe it, but just because I believe it doesn't make it true. Right. “

Chris Keene (10:54): Sure.

John Anderson (10:55): Do you guys feel like if a customer, let's say you got a car price “ that, “ 35 grand and a customer sends you a lead at 35 grand. Do you feel like they're telling you that they're okay with the price? If they send you a lead at that, mean, I mean, is that, are they giving you, are they kind of, you know, telling you that, yeah, I'm, I'm okay with the price. “ I'm willing to. give you my information because I'm interested in the vehicle or my, or am I, am I misreading that? it more about the vehicle itself?

Chris Keene (11:29): John, I'm going to take... Nope. I'm going put it in two different perspectives or two different analogies. Analogy number one, when it comes to shoes, you guys know, I like shoes and boots. Okay. And there's always, so I can promise you this. I am not going to go search for a thousand dollar pair of boots.

John Anderson (11:48): Shock.

Chris Keene (11:49): And or there's some really nice Rios Mercedes boots that I would love to have. Absolutely. But I am not going to go shop for a thousand dollar pair of boots. Because that's out of my price range. I'm not going to go shop for a million dollar home because it's out of my price range. Now you get me into about a hundred, $120 on a pair of tennis shoes or less than that. Then yeah, I'm a, I'm a player. You, you right. You know, can I get them some bitches and orange? You know, so I'm not going to stop for, I'm not going to shop for $1.5 million home. I mean, I bought this house that I'm in, you know, five years ago and it was in my price range.

Renaldo Leonard (12:33): “ man, you can't. Do they come in orange?

Chris Keene (12:36): I was not looking at a $1 million home. Because it was in my price range. So to answer your question, John, is somebody searching for a $35,000 car? It's because that's their budget. So they're not going to they're not going to search for something that is outside their budget. That's not to say that the lending institution ain't going to come back and say, Whoa, bud, you don't qualify for that. Your PDI, your DDI is out of line and you need to be on 30 grand. That's a different story. But as the consumer to darken your doorstep, and if they raise their hand on 35 grand, it's because that's in their budget. That's my opinion on it. You know, and although your thought.

Renaldo Leonard (13:18): Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. I mean, I have yet to see. Well, I'm going to take that. Let me reel that back a little bit. I was about to kind of step all over myself there. “ But yeah, the majority of the time, somebody sends in a lead on a vehicle, it's in the price range or it's within what they feel like their monthly budget could sustain. Yeah. Now, a lot of times the first thing they'll ask you,

Chris Keene (13:46): Yes. There it is.

Renaldo Leonard (13:47): is how much coming off of that thing, right? Well, absolutely. But yeah, I think they're signifying two things.

Chris Keene (13:53): But we conditioned to do that, haven't we?

Renaldo Leonard (13:56): It's in my price range and I would like to talk to somebody about moving forward with it.

Chris Keene (14:02): I want some more information on it.

Renaldo Leonard (14:04): And from that, right from there. Yeah. You get the balls in your court. “ we're talking about shopper camps being down and you know, I had a chicken little situation a little earlier. Well, shopper camps are down. So we're not going to sell as many vehicles. I was like, you know, I always liked to see situations like this because I can equate it to that Saturday. End of the month, last Saturday of the month, you got everything lined up. But then it starts raining and it's coming down, right? And everybody's walking around. They got the Milly Mouth face on. Oh man, it's raining. We're gonna sell anything today. I'm like, no, I love to see rainy days because it cuts out the riff raff. People that come out on a rainy day, what are they doing? They're buying. Same situation now. If you handle things, you know, the way that you should.

Chris Keene (14:56): Hahaha!

Renaldo Leonard (14:56): with the basics and the fundamentals. I'd much rather have that situation than, know, leads coming out of the woodwork. There people that are, we used to call them tire kicker. What's that?

Chris Keene (15:07): and you try to follow through. And you say, you trying to fuddle through which one's a buyer and which one is it?

Renaldo Leonard (15:15): Yeah, we called them tire kicker whistle pissers. know, they walk up, kick the tire. “ that looks good. That's a nice truck. How much it cost? You tell them, boy, that's too much for me. And then they go off. You know, you take that out of the equation and now you can laser focus on your opportunities to do some business. Right. So, John, that's my answer to your question. Took the long way around the barn, but we got this.

John Anderson (15:42): Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's, it's good, man. I, you know, I think, yeah, these are, you know, I, I know there are certain cars, right. They gather, cause we see it like, you know, the Hellcat, uh, the Hellcat gathers a bunch of leads on it. Right. A lot, a lot of guys, lot of guys dreaming. Uh, Not a lot of guys, but younger people looking at it. Right. I get, there are a few vehicles, know, Z06 Corvette, they're going to get a tension because people want to jump on and look at the car and dream, but that's a small percentage, a very small percentage. So, you know, I, I just, I wanted to ask that question because of, of what we started the conversation about, right. if, we see it in. We see it in our software because we track when the car come in and the original price, right. And when the lead, when the lead came in on that vehicle at that price, and then, you know, here you are, here you are. Here you are. Seven weeks later, the car, “ you know, the car hasn't sold yet. “ the lead hasn't been talked to, but every, you know, maybe we've contacted them, “ you know, two or three times in the seven weeks. And in the meantime, we've taken the car and dropped the price by 2,500 bucks. Right. And that's what I'm talking about. just, I, I don't know. I'm trying to grasp why we still do that. mean, why, you know, listen, what's what's I would bet that if there's anybody, any of our listeners or viewers that You know, or have been with us eight or nine years or, or, “ we're with us right back in the beginning stages. I could just see them sitting there kind of rolling their eyes and laughing their ass off right now, because, you know, back in the beginning stages, we didn't have the lead data. Right? So what we did was we pulled data up on Google docs. looked at for areas where the store was struggling inventory wise. And then what we would do is jump over into. their inventory management tool and address those vehicles. And most of the time, now we would look at the merchandising definitely and see how the photos aligned. What was their presentation? How their descriptions, right? Where we get, where we putting photos of the descriptive items that we were trying to tell the customer were important items. Were we sticking those up in front of the photos? So we would do all that. But typically it come down to working with them on price changes. Right. And so now as our software has evolved and we have software now, we've brought in the lead data. That's all changed. Right. And, and that was the epiphany that Jason had when he brought in the lead data. He was like, cause we couldn't understand. We're looking at these cars that are sitting in inventory and we're, we're addressing these cars week after week on meetings. And you know, if it was a, if it was a V auto VIN dealer, we're seeing a lead bubble with leads on it. Right. But the car's not. The car's not selling and we're changing the price and the car's still not selling. We're like, what the heck is going on in the dealer sitting there going, I don't understand why this car is not selling. And then Jason brought in the lead data and it was like, holy crap. Right. Here's why the car's not selling. We're not talking to, we're not talking to our customer. It'd be like, it'd be like you guys, it'd be like you guys looking out the front window of the dealership and seeing customers all over your life. Nobody's going out to talk to them. You know, you. Right. It's so that's why I, you know, it's.

Chris Keene (19:22): Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Anderson (19:23): “ man, you know, I'm throwing, you know, we talked before we got on this call and I was throwing a lot of this stuff out there because I, know, I, it's still, “ it's still as baffling to me, right? Some of these things that we still do today. Right. Well, I'm going to give somebody some credit here. One of my favorite guys that I, I watch on, on social is Frank Lopes. and, and I, you know,

Chris Keene (19:50): Mm-hmm.

John Anderson (19:50): He puts some pretty direct stuff out there, which I appreciate it. Right. And, and in the last week, “ you know, the other day he put most managers are losing because the market is tough. You know, he'll throw some things out there, one gets some feedback, right? Most managers. “ I'm sorry. Most managers are not losing because the market is tough was his statement. Right. And then guys will comment on it. Right. So, “ and I, and I, you know, I agreed with him. The market's not tough. Right. We just, we've got less in-market shoppers, but it's not tough. People are still buying cars. Right. “ and then earlier he put a lot of dealerships don't want the truth. They want to lie. They can afford to keep telling themselves. Right. Interesting. Interesting. Right. And I thought, you know, that's good. Those are two good things that Frank brought up for conversation. Right. And that's what we talked about before jumping on this call is it, “ is the stuff that when the market and I'll ask you guys when the market transitions like this. When a market transitions like this and we have less in-market shoppers. Are we truly, I'm trying to figure out a phrase. Are we, are we less busy? Are we, are we, are we less busy at the dealership level? Right. During, during, “ typically during February, “ March, “ first week or so, depending on where you're at in the country, right. First week or so of April, right. “ people were out there spending that money they got from, “ uncle Sam and they're buying cars. Right. Buying vehicles and then it starts to transition. so we were busy, “ then, but are we less busy now? What's your guys thoughts on that?

Chris Keene (21:31): No.

Renaldo Leonard (21:31): You should be more busy. You should be more busy because executing on those fundamentals, reaching out to your customers, that should be a paramount. I had a conversation, dealer's asking me or he makes a statement. I feel like we are not taking advantage of the opportunity to make more gross.

Chris Keene (21:48): Mm-hmm.

Renaldo Leonard (21:48): Are we making price changes too quick? First thing I said to him, if that thought crosses your mind, the answer is yes. “ And then, yeah, what are you referring to? Well, I just think we're making price changes too quick. I said, well, how can you make price changes too quick if it's your last resort? Huh? I've never had a conversation where if you have a vehicle that's still in inventory and you cross a time marker, the first thing I say, you gotta change the price. Now, check your merchandising. Is that getting you SRP and VDP conversion rate that you are looking for? We got a floor. We want to be above that number. Are we above that number? Yes. Yeah, we are. OK. So people are putting their eyes on your vehicle. So why are you changing the price?

Chris Keene (22:36): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Renaldo Leonard (22:37): Why don't I have any leads? We take a look at it, you got 13 switch opportunities on a vehicle. You don't have any leads?

Chris Keene (22:45): You have leads. Yeah.

Renaldo Leonard (22:46): Well, didn't know you could work it that way. Okay. Yeah, you can work it that way. Just look at the vehicle, see how many opportunities you have, attack those opportunities. Talk to your customers. Does a requires some work? Of course. Of course. But, well, that's the reason why not the majority of people are doing it.

John Anderson (23:06): That was the point I was getting at, Ronaldo. Yeah, that's what that was really. That was really what. You know, when I said, we less busy? We're really not, right? And Chris, I didn't mean to cut you off. I know you want to jump in there, but I just, we're not really less busy. You know what the difference is?

Chris Keene (23:26): Bye.

Renaldo Leonard (23:26): .

John Anderson (23:27): Now the action has to come from us, right? Earlier, the action was coming from the customer, right? They're picking up the phone, they're calling, they're coming into the store, right? Now for the most part, that's transition. Now that transition has to happen with us and our team, and now we've got to dig and start doing all these little things that... “ I don't know, man. I'm trying to use my, I was about to say these little things that are, but they're not really difficult, man. They're just stuff that look, there's stuff that that's what, that's what's crazy. Right. I guarantee if we walked into stores, “ I don't know what day on a Saturday morning on a Monday morning, I guarantee somebody's out on that lot, walk in inventory, looking at they should be, I think for the most part, physical lot. We're checking things, right? And, and, “ we're looking at things where we're looking things over. If we see a customer, we're getting somebody out there with them right away. And so we're proactive on our physical lot, but we're just not making that transition to the virtual lot. that's.

Renaldo Leonard (24:32): Well, I would argue with it, John, that everything we do at the physical lot is reactive. And the things that we handle with the digital lot are a little more proactive. And so, yeah. “

John Anderson (24:44): No, I agree. I agree with you because that's what brings, that's what brings your customer in. So yeah, you're being pro.

Renaldo Leonard (24:51): Yeah. But what I see is that, so, you know, when we started this, we started out first episode, it's no longer shooting fish in a barrel, right? We're coming off of the high of COVID. Everybody's just walking in and begging to buy vehicles. And we had to get back to the basics. And I see February, March, beginning of April as being that COVID hot. And when those shopper counts start to come down, we've got to get back to those basic fundamentals that drive activity and drive the results that we're looking. It's just a, it's a smaller window of time, but it's the same process. And it's like Groundhog Day. There is nothing new that's happened in the car business in the last 20 years. Absolutely nothing new. As far as trends go.

Chris Keene (25:36): Yeah.

Renaldo Leonard (25:37): the activity you have to put into generating sales. All of that is the same. It's just being recycled. And those cycles that repeat themselves, sometimes they're two months, sometimes they're two years. And we are just coming off of that COVID high where we have to work to show value, to talk to customers, and to turn a prospect into an owner.

Chris Keene (25:57): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Renaldo Leonard (25:58): And I've never been accused of being the coldest beer in the fridge. So “ if I see it, understand why John, you sit there and like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Cause it, And that, you know, maybe I'm over simplifying it.

Chris Keene (26:13): Heh. I mean, there's no doubt about it. Well, no, but we should be we should be equally as busy when we're seeing the amount of opportunities that haven't fallen away from dealerships. You know, what are the things that you've been looking at with dealers when they're talking about, “ man, Chris, our businesses slowed down, our business slowed down immediately. I go in and I look, I'm like, well, I don't know how. Now. Maybe the amount of sales you've had. Yeah, that's what I'm about, Christian. We were not pacing to sell what we were, we were selling. Okay. I get it, but you're still getting the same amount of opportunities. Matter of your opportunities have gone up. And in matter of fact, your opportunities on cars that you still have in stock has gone up. So all of that to say is when you have your team. saying, or if you're even saying it for the viewers and listeners out there, but we're calling our customers. Okay. I don't want anybody to miss the point I said earlier. Stop looking at you, the amount of opportunities or liberal. Let me put it in the language of the CRM. We don't have a bunch of open tasks. We don't have a bunch of overdue tasks. Stop looking at like that. Stop looking. Stop looking at, you know, we're calling our customers. We're emailing them. There's not a customer that's overdue, but start looking at and measuring. Your activities per opportunity. There's the start. But John was talking about it earlier. If you had a hundred customers standing on your lot, you're going to hit on all eight cylinders and you're absolutely going to lose your ever loving mind. If five car Fred lot drops a customer and you look up and go, where's that customer you had on that Tahoe? well, he said he ain't buying today. You would lose your ever loving mind and damn near fire. Good old five car Fred for letting that customer leave out of there without a TO. Well, okay, fine. Have that intensity. And I'm a hundred percent all for it. And I'm a million percent advocate for a hundred percent manager TO. But if you're getting exponentially more opportunities in your virtual dealership, how come you don't have the same standard there? You know, we looked at, I “ on the phone with the dealer last week and we looked at an opportunity and he's, he's pissed at Chris, but I'm telling these guys, I need to, I'm telling them this. I'm telling them that I'm telling them this. I'm telling them that I was like, okay, you're doing a really good job of show and tell. You're really doing a really good job of show and tell. But when was the last time you did a good job at coaching? When was the last time that you actually picked up the phone and worked with one of your salespeople to show them what a phone call should look like? I do not begrudge any salesperson or BDC rep. At all. But I will get a little ass sideways with the manager that just wants to stand up there at the ivory tower and tell them how to do it and never show them. Never coach him. Because there in lies a lot of problem. The example John was this. It was a capital one lead. Okay, so hear me close on this. It's a capital one lead. And the response from the auto responder and the human response was, got your pre-qualification. What's a good time to come down to go through your pre-qualification? That was a paraphrase, but that was the response. I said to him, said, I said to the, to the GSM, I said to him, said, Hey, let me ask you a question. That's capital one lead, right? He said, yeah.

John Anderson (29:50): Yeah.

Chris Keene (29:50): Now as a capital one lead, what's your perception of a capital one lead? Oh, they got back credit. I don't know. Do they? And he says, well, typically they do. said, okay. Do you get a lot of those deals done? Because, oh yeah, we get them done all the time. So the customer sends a lead in to talk about financing, but you want to start talking about the vehicle and an appointment. Did you ever answer their question? Well, I guess not. Well, I mean, it's either yes or no. Did you, did you, did you meet the customer where they're at? He goes, well, you put it like that. No, it's okay. So really where's the problem? Well, the way we responded to the lead, I said, okay. And you're sitting here yelling at your salespeople to go do it. Did you ask yourself the question if they know how to do it? If they know how to respond to somebody inquiring about financing, are they qualified?

Renaldo Leonard (30:47): the

Chris Keene (30:47): And first listen for any sales person or BDC rep listening to this call, it is not expected, least from us, that you are qualified to have a finance and insurance conversation with them. Why? Because you're sales people and BDC reps. But for the GSMs and the GMs and the sales managers and the owners and the C-suite members on this call, if you're creating an expectation for them, to do something that they're not trained to do, shame on you. So back to your original question, John, should we be busier? Yes. If we knew how to handle the business we had. That's about two cents worth on it.

John Anderson (31:24): Is it knowing how to handle it or is it a bandwidth issue?

Renaldo Leonard (31:28): Thanks. I think it's a girl, I think it's a-

Chris Keene (31:31): I would, I would go ahead and I'll know because I think we're all on the same page here. ahead.

Renaldo Leonard (31:38): Yeah, I was going to say that it's more, there has to be a level of confidence involved in order for there to be success. And in that particular instance, you guys got me scratching my head because I'm getting all of these advertisers from Capital One saying, you've been pre-qualified, go down to the dealership. I think that, and especially in that particular situation, in that particular scenario, if a salesperson has the amount of confidence that all I need to do is ask them to come down and we can have every conversation that we need to in order to be able to get them in a vehicle that they can afford. And that meets their pre-qualification. It's an open invitation to come down and answer the questions that you might have about an opportunity that's been presented in your lab. It's just a conversation, right? If salespeople don't feel comfortable with picking up that phone, because they don't know what they're going to say. They don't know how it's going to go. They're not prepared for it. They have zero confidence in it. So yeah, you're going to be screaming at them about picking up the phone, following up with that lead and having a conversation with that customer. But it's like going back to the fundamentals. And I always like to equate what we do to the game of football. How many times have you seen somebody that was all pro or all world become a coach and can't coach a player through a paper bag? because they work on these assumptions that they already know how to handle those situations. But you gotta spend the time equipping them with tools to handle and feel confident in every situation.

Chris Keene (33:15): Mm-hmm.

Renaldo Leonard (33:15): Mm-hmm. When I get a mm-hmm, I think it was on the mark. “

John Anderson (33:20): I'll see.

Chris Keene (33:20): Yeah! just because we've talked about the end market shoppers, okay? And we've talked about the decline and all that fun stuff. But I want you viewers to take a look at this for a minute. This is a dealership. Okay, this is a dealership here. And this is their information snapshot right now. And the blue line is a representation of their active opportunities coming into the used car department. The orange line is a representation of their active opportunities coming in on cars that they have in stock. Now, if you look from a little bit before March 30th up until the current day, That number has been stable with a slight little dip, but nothing but growth. So if in our market we have seen a decline. with shoppers, which is a fact. But yet this specific dealership, yeah, they had a decline. But then they stabilized and then they've had a little bit of growth in there. and they're still selling cars. And as a matter of fact, they're on track to sell more than what they've been stocking. And it's not because of what's going on in the rest of the market, it's because the opportunities that they're getting, they're taking care of them. regardless of what's going on in the rest of the world. So let's just say this was a little backwards. And let's say that their active leads had declined, which at one point in time they did here, as you can see. But even during that period of time, they were still selling cars because they're sticking to their basic fundamentals and they are actually measuring How many times that they are touching an opportunity and they're reading their leads. And if it's a capital one pre-approval lead, they're talking to the guy about financing. If it's a guy on a one ton pickup, they're talking about what their customer is using the one ton pickup for. So I would venture to say that based upon looking at that, based upon our conversation today, John, that When the opportunities are there, read the lead. make sure that we're touching the lead and make sure that we have manager engagement because here's a news flash. If you're saying you ain't that busy at the store and you ain't selling cars. Did you got time to T.O. deals? You got time. I wish else thought, or did I just oversimplify that?

John Anderson (35:35): No, I think it's look, I think it's good if we're oversimplifying it, you know, what I look, here's what I would say in most stores. “ and I'm, that's a general generalized statement. get it. in the stores that I have experience with. in, in working with and, or jumping on, “ you know, I look, we look at a lot of data of, of, “ of used car and new car departments. Right. And so, “ of the stores that I'm familiar with from that perspective, I would say that, the, the management team at these stores. are wearing a lot of hats. Just like I did, uh, just like you guys did, you know, from talking, right. And it's not, that's not unique, right? Uh, if you're a sales manager at a store, you're probably appraising trades. You're talking to the bank, you're submitting deals, you're, you know, you, you're, you're doing one-on-ones with your salespeople.

Chris Keene (36:28): Mm-hmm.

John Anderson (36:28): You're involved back in service. Yeah. You're involved back in service. You're, you're trying to, “ you know, probably today you're going out on trade row and you're, you're, “ you're updating, “ your, “ your list for your service department and assessing your trades and things that you just, “ a myriad, we could keep going on. There's a myriad of things. Right. And so

Chris Keene (36:50): Thank you.

John Anderson (36:50): Are you taking the time? “ are you taking the time to assess all those things that you have a hand in and what should be addressed, “ in order of importance? Right. Because are you, are you setting up priorities for your day? “ or is the, know, what's the old saying, “ are you running the day or is a day running you? Right. Because I think. To your point, Chris, “ if I was working a deal as a manager with one of my team members and I realize that, you know, they were struggling a little bit, I'm going to jump up from behind that desk and go out and have a conversation with the customer and try to help. Right.

Chris Keene (37:32): You go coach, you're going to coach the situation up.

John Anderson (37:35): Yeah. Yeah. And so, “ are we doing the same thing? Right. Are we picking up the phone? “ with our, you know, with our, with our team members, right. Bringing them up to the desk, going over to their desk, going in an office and picking up the phone while they're sitting there with us and taking an opportunity to pick up the phone, talk to the customer and coach your team member on. What, you know, what the proper way to handle a customer, Chris, you said something, I think two weeks ago when we were, “ you and I were talking as we do a lot and we were looking at, we were looking at, “ we were looking at the same thing. We were, we were looking at leads for dealers. And I think I had, I had brought it up to you because I had a dealer that was struggling and, and, and you jumped in there and we're kind of looking at some things and we jumped into CRM and you said something that. stuck with me and quite honestly with all the things that we do, It kind of evaded me and I hadn't looked at it that way. And it's really simple. And you say reading the lead, but I want to dig a little bit deeper on reading the lead. Reading the lead also means, yeah, well, I want to read the lead. What questions did the customer ask us and are we getting them answered and are we having quality conversation with the customer? But another important thing that Chris brought up is Are we reading a lead from the perspective of when did the leads, when did that customer send us that lead? Did they send us that lead at five 30 in the afternoon? And then since then, “ we're not, we're not having any, we're not able, we're not getting any contact from them and we're sending all our responses back to them at eight 39 o'clock in the morning. Right now. I know some manufacturers require that we send out, we address, “ at least that's what I was told. Some manufacturers want their customers.

Renaldo Leonard (39:37): you

Chris Keene (39:37): ...

John Anderson (39:37): spoken to right early in the morning. I get it. Right. But it doesn't mean that we can't in that lead, say whatever the context of what we want to talk to the customer about and say, Hey, I'm also going to reach out to you, “ early this evening around six o'clock. Right. Because that, that I'm just letting them know that I'm going to reach back out to them at that time and then follow up with it and reach back out to them at that time. Cause that's when they sent you the lead. Right. If you get a lead in.

Chris Keene (40:12): of 5.30. 6 o'clock, yeah.

Renaldo Leonard (40:13): Hmm

John Anderson (40:14): If you get a lead in at two 30 in the morning, chances are you got a guy that, that works the nights or is up. so I've, know, so I've got to, I've got, if I'm not getting any response from the guy and I keep sending out attempts to Chris's point, study that little bit harder, read the lead. When did, when did they reach out to you? And am I reaching back out to them in a similar time? And again, guys, look, “ These are all these small things. And I think this is where I think the divide is at to me is a lot of these small things. I'm going to use the word tedious. They are tedious. They are tedious things. I've got to pay attention and I don't want tedious to be thought of a of times tedious is thought of in a negative light. It's not negative. It's just the stuff. It's the, it's as Ronaldo says, it's the fundamental type of stuff that when now maybe your store's busy as hell and go, man, that's awesome. But at some point you're going to have a law and, when I have a law, “ and I'm to tell on myself, I used to do this as a salesperson. I'm going to tell on myself, I would have a good month. Right. I sold, “ you know, back in my day, if you, know, you're selling, you know, 20 to 25 cars with the commissions, they were paying, that was a hell of a good month. Right. And so, you know, and, and so I had a good month.

Chris Keene (41:45): Mm-hmm.

John Anderson (41:45): didn't blow the lid off of it, but it was a good month. I was making good money as a salesperson. And then what would I do at the end of that month? would, subconsciously I would tell myself.

Chris Keene (41:58): I got a little breather.

John Anderson (42:00): Busy man, I banged out a good month. was busy. then subconsciously I tell myself it's okay for me to kick my feet up and take a couple of days off. And so, you know, when I say take a couple of days off, not physically take a couple of days off, just not as active and just, I want to take a deep breath and relax. Right. And then the next thing you know, that two days now, all of a maybe it's three days now. All of a sudden I'm like, Oh shit, I haven't had any done any business. Now I got to get to work. Well, now I start working at day three.

Chris Keene (42:39): a breathing room.

Renaldo Leonard (42:40): Okay.

John Anderson (42:40): And it takes two days for that customer to acknowledge and respond in most cases, right? 24 to 48 hours. So now I've just lost the first week of the next month that I'm in. Right. And now I'm scrambling that whole freaking month to try to catch up. Right. And this is, this is kind of what I'm alluding to, right? Is, is when things shift and we don't do all these small things, then

Renaldo Leonard (43:05): Mm-hmm.

Chris Keene (43:05): Yes.

John Anderson (43:06): We're not proactive and we get behind the ball, man. And then we're playing catch up the whole freaking month and nobody likes to play catch up because it's not, it's, listen, here's the other thing. When we start playing catch up, our inventory starts to age. And then what do we do? We start pricing our inventory down. Cause it's aging and then guess where our customers and a market like today, guess where they're coming in and feeding on their feeding on that age markdown inventory and guess.

Chris Keene (43:35): Mm-hmm.

Renaldo Leonard (43:36): changed.

John Anderson (43:36): what you're forfeiting at that point. You're forfeiting your opportunity for gross profit “ more importantly, net profit for your department. Right. And so all these things are interconnected “ it's all the small stuff that can here. You know what? I pulled this up “ I was, I was just curious, “ of cause we, we, “ allude to, “ to what we do “ kind of like, “ getting yourself fit. Right. And I typed this in because I was just curious as what it would say. And then I closed it out. “

Renaldo Leonard (44:08): So why you let me let me just ask a question real quick. We're talking in reference to in reference to reading the lead. And this is something that when I first it was introduced to me, say I want to try it, see what happens. You get a lead that comes in. You make a couple of attempts to reach out to someone or to engage them.

John Anderson (44:30): Yeah, no, yeah.

Renaldo Leonard (44:31): When did it become a problem to ask someone when they would like to be contacted? Or how they would like to be contacted?

Chris Keene (44:39): Valid.

Renaldo Leonard (44:39): in following up with, you know, an initial lead.

John Anderson (44:42): You know, Ronaldo, that's a great point. And to your point, “ Fred and Lou last week brought that up, right? That that's exactly one of the things that they brought up is, you know, asking how your customer wants to do business.

Renaldo Leonard (44:57): Yeah. They must have been watching some of my little training videos from back in the day.

John Anderson (45:02): You know, but just think about that for a second. How, how easy is that? And also let me flip that on the other side. How much do you set yourself apart by asking that question? Cause how often are they hearing that?

Chris Keene (45:16): Heh.

Renaldo Leonard (45:17): Absolutely. that, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Keene (45:18): They're not. All they're hearing is, is yes, this is stock. What time can you be here this morning or afternoon?

Renaldo Leonard (45:25): Yep. And from what the data is telling us about the number of leads that they may have submitted to other dealerships on other vehicles.

Chris Keene (45:33): They just heard that 12 times.

Renaldo Leonard (45:35): Right. How many times are they going to hear, Hi, my name is Rinaldel. I'll be here to assist you on your journey with finding your new vehicle. First thing I want to know, how often would you like for me to contact you? And next, what medium would you like for me to use? You prefer phone call, text message, or an email. It's my goal in life to make this process as easy as possible. And if I do something that you don't agree with, you do me a favor and please tell me now? I'll wait for your response and I'll bring you all the information that you need. Dun and Dun.

John Anderson (46:13): Yeah. No, it's listen. “ you know, when I mentioned earlier that we do things this way, cause we've always done them this way. I still think there's a, I still think there's an underlying, and I could be wrong because I know in the last, you know, since I've been out of the store, I know there's been a lot of transition to, “ younger managers, “ you know, being placed in that position, right? But I would still say that subconsciously we're always thinking about, we've got to get this deal today or we lose it completely. And so I totally 100 % agree with, and I want to exhaust every opportunity to try to get a deal today. But I also want my customer to know if that doesn't happen, I'm not out. I'm not out. And neither are you. If I'm contacting on a regular basis,

Renaldo Leonard (47:03): I'm here.

John Anderson (47:03): My entire database on, on, inventory and stock, right? If I'm, if I'm, if I'm, if I'm exercising those things on a consistent basis and I'm staying consistent with the activities, then my business should be consistent. And so I do care if a customer, if I can earn it because it's the customer's business today, I'm going to do everything I can to earn it. But I also understand that if I'm my team, if I've coached my team to stay consistent, that business is going to be there. And that customer may. It may be 60 days, but that customer is going to buy a car from us. And it's going to come on a day when I need a sale. Like every day I need a sale. Like every day I need to sell a car. Right. And what I was getting to earlier is Jason always alludes or kind of compares to our industry, to the health industry. And I just typed in what happens when you stop being active, not being physically active leads to sedentary lifestyle that causes weakened muscles, reduced metabolism, weight gain. weakened bones and decreased immune function. It significantly increases risk for serious condition. Well, okay, what are we talking about? Weight gain would be aged inventory, right? It increases “ serious conditions, right? And so it's that sedentary that we suddenly become sedentary and we're not doing the things that the little things that we know are gonna amount to big things, which is consistency month in and month out, right? And we have some dealers doing it. And we could show it. We have showed them on here and we could show it time and time again. And the one thing you see is the consistency never changes. It's like clockwork. They're working inventory. And when I mean working, they're not always changing prices. They're looking at merchandising. They're looking at their change in their photo arrangement. They're changing descriptions because as Chris says, those Google spiders recognize that we get better relevancy by changing things up. So that's a way for us to get our inventory in front of more people online. Right. We don't necessarily have to change the price. and they're con-

Chris Keene (49:08): And John, this is a point. This is a point in time. I don't want to catch up, but I want to make sure our viewers and our listeners don't miss this across the nation. Everything's starting to bloom. Weather started to get better. If you are not going in looking at your pictures with make sure there ain't a bunch of dead trees in the background and two foot of snow in, a thermometer, they're showing that it's 17 degrees outside. You're missing the boat.

John Anderson (49:36): 100 % and it's all that stuff, right? It's all that stuff. you know, again, I, Man, I hope you got, I hope it comes across guys. We look, we do this because we want you guys to have massive success. You know, I want, I want everybody in our industry. Our industry is great, man. Without our industry, this country would be in, in massive trouble, man. And, and, and just drive down the road and, and, and all you gotta do is drive around Dallas one trip and see how many people are driving freaking cars, man. It's just, everybody has to have transportation. And so our industry is, our industry is a great industry. Man, I just want everybody to be able to, to, to maximize on, “ their, efforts, right? Man, you spend a lot of time, effort and energy in that store. Right. And, and, you know, the stuff we're talking about is really not that difficult. It's just, it's just having, having a process and adhering to the process and making sure that day in and day out, this is what I'm doing day in and day out. Right. It's just, uh, you know, the most successful sports teams. It's, it's, it's not about their, it's not about the trick plays or anything like that, man. It's about the consistency they have within their work ethic, their coaching, their players, and, how that's pulled out on the field, how that's put out on the field. It's, it's, it's process management on the field. How effective are they? Right. I was funny. It was funny because I'm an eye, obviously I'm an IU fan and I, you know, I saw.

Chris Keene (51:10): Hahaha

John Anderson (51:10): I saw the response from, “ from, the quarterback at Alabama saying, well, Indiana didn't really, they did the same, they lined up and did the same thing “ on every play. So they weren't, they weren't that difficult to figure out, but they never made a mistake. They did it every play. “ never made it. They never cracked. They never made a mistake. So, I mean, “ right.

Chris Keene (51:33): wore you down.

Renaldo Leonard (51:34): They were difficult to figure out, but they were impossible to stop. You knew what was coming.

John Anderson (51:40): So, right. But you can't, right. So that, that's, that's what we're talking about right there. That's what we're talking about, man. It's just being, not accepting anything, but this is our process and this is what we're going to, this is our process. Now you may change it at some point, but you still adhere to that process. And I'm talking about everybody, right? Please, please, please stop saying I can't get my team to do that. Please stop saying that. Don't, don't, don't say that. Don't say that. You should never come out of your mouth as a manager in a dealership that I can't get my, I can't get my team to do that.

Chris Keene (52:19): Nope. You know, with Ronaldo, with your reference and unfortunately, man, this is something we talked about for hours. Um, but Brett would kill us. But Ronaldo, with your reference to how we look at everything from a football mindset and the three of us were football guys. Okay. John, with your reference, you just talking about, you know, Ty Simpson talking about how In the end, it didn't do anything special. That just is the same thing every time. And they just got really good at it. Leads me to close with this listeners and viewers. Number one, you know, the biggest takeaway from today. Look at the amount of activity that you are having with each and every last one of your opportunities and make sure that we are getting. all hands on deck working the opportunities we got, whether it's your general manager, your owner, another salesperson, another BD rep, you know, just a manager of any sort, you're working with these customers to meet the lead where they're at. That's the biggest takeaway. But to the reference of football, and I'll close this with this today. Nick Saban. arguably who was the best college football coach, at least of our era. He never focused on the end goal of being a national championship. He went into every spring training. He went into every week. Focus on nothing but the process. And as a matter of guys like signetti from IU come kind of off of that tree of Nick Saban. But they focused on the process.

Renaldo Leonard (53:45): Apple doesn't roll too far?

Chris Keene (53:46): Yeah. That Apple didn't roll too far from that tree. What does signetti focused on the process? What did Nick Saban follow, follow through with each and every year he coached the process for those that aren't football people listening and viewing this. The bottom line is this. They won a lot. Why? Because they obsessed over the process. And we encourage that you do the same thing. Obsess over the process. If you obsess over the process, you don't have to worry about winning the national championship because you're just going to win, period. The harder we work and obsess over the process, the more you will continue to win. So with that being said,

John Anderson (54:24): Good words. Good words.

Chris Keene (54:26): On behalf of Mr. Anderson, Mr. Leonard, and everybody from the family here at LotPop, we wish you nothing but success, and we ask that you continue to tune in, subscribe, and like to Lot Talk, powered by LotPop. I'm Chris Keene, and we are out.