The 14-day kick is killing your used car gross, and other slow-market mistakes

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

Chris Keene (0:00): And here we are folks. are back. is lot talk powered by lot pop. But as you see on the screen, for those that are viewing, you only got two of us today because our brother, Ronaldo is on a much needed vacation. John, I'm going to tell you. Off the grid. Yeah. Actually I'm going throw him back on the grid.

John Anderson (0:18): He's, he's MIA baby. He's, he's, “ he's MI six. He's “ out. He's MI six, man. He's off the grid completely. We told.

Chris Keene (0:25): I'm gonna go back on the grid cause he's down at one of your favorite places. As you know, it's one of him and Miss Jenny's favorite places. They down in Cabo kicking it. So.

John Anderson (0:35): I hate, I couldn't be happier for him, man. That's a, that's a great place to kick it at. So yeah, that's one of my favorites of all, of all places.

Chris Keene (0:44): Not mad, not bad at all. Not mad at all. I'm super excited for that, but “ I'm very, very for what we're about to bring our and listeners, you know, for the viewers and listeners that may be tuning in for the first time.

John Anderson (0:58): Absolutely.

Chris Keene (0:58): have some amazing. Guess today that, you know, I'm going to say it, Renaldo, these are your fill-ins, but, “ these guys are going to bring some juice. And, over the last couple of weeks, “ and viewers, you've heard us talking about, yeah, the shopper index is declining. Yes. We're in that, that awkward lull from mid April till the selling season gets kicked off. After we get past the graduations into the school year, summer sell-a-thon comes about. right there in that law right now. Do not panic. This does not mean into the earth. This is not zombie apocalypse. It's just a matter of less “ bats. “ one of the huge things that John and I held just last week when we were up at the office, you know, we got a good chuckle “ the way that you a, a business development rep, a BDC rep handled an opportunity. And it's like, “ my gosh, you have less at bats. You can't miss right now. So we, we got our good friends from the industry. They're well known. They speak at all kinds of events across the nation and arguably some of the best I would, I would put them in a top two, top three. set of trainers in the automotive industry today. I would put them up there as a top two, top three. John, would you agree?

John Anderson (2:06): 100%. I look, anytime these guys are willing to come and share some space with us, man, I feel very honored because they got a schedule that typically I see them. I, when I see these guys, they're taking pictures on another flight and headed somewhere. Right. So, yeah. So when they, when they're, when they're willing to jump on and take some time with us, man, I'm very honored and blessed because I, I get geeked up and learn so much from them because they, listen, they're work.

Chris Keene (2:32): The jet set, baby.

John Anderson (2:34): You know what's nice about the, what's nice about this is we're, we're constantly in that 20 to 30,000 foot view. Like they're in the airplane and then they land the plane brother and they're bringing it. They're bringing it from action on the ground, right? They're, they're in, they're in the middle of it. So yeah, absolutely. Let's, let's, let's roll, man. Let's get these guys rolling and yeah.

Chris Keene (2:54): Listen, John, I got my pen ready because I'm going to be writing down the notes too. So with that being said, listeners, viewers, please hit the like, hit the share. Cause that's going to welcome our guests that we have today. We got sweet Lou and we got Fred for the car guys coffee. Mr. Lou Ramirez and Mr Fred Lenards. I love it. Gentlemen. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. How in the heck are we doing?

John Anderson (3:18): Yes.

Lou Ramirez (3:18): doing amazing and thanks. Thank you so much for just taking the time to let us be on your show. It's not often that we're on other people's shows. We're either hosting our own show or we're boots on the ground inside of a store. So thank you for taking some time to just hang out with us.

Fred Lennartz (3:35): Listen, I'm here to take notes myself. I know that whatever we bring, I'm going to be taking just as much as I bring into this. In this type of conversation, in this group of guys here, I appreciate you all so much for what you bring to the industry. And I'm thankful that you're out there on a mission just like Lou and I just to help this industry get better every single day. And if we can do that, we know that when we leave this industry, it's going to be in good hands, right? And I appreciate you too, man. Thank you for having us.

John Anderson (4:07): Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you.

Chris Keene (4:08): “ yeah. Again, as John said it earlier, it is definitely an honor to have you guys on. So with that being said, let's, let's dive in guys. Okay. The date is there. It shows we've been sharing it week after week after week for several weeks now. Okay. The shopper index is down. And as you guys were backstage, you might've heard me talking about that again, but that is not

John Anderson (4:29): Yeah.

Lou Ramirez (4:29): GO!

Chris Keene (4:30): start hitting the panic button. start hitting the panic button. It just simply means we have less at bats. But the thing Fred and Lou that I see, and I want your input on this. The thing I see is, is when our market slows down, two things happen. The average dealer panics. The great dealers, the elite dealers start identifying opportunities. To get better. So that way, when we get into the selling season where it's easier to hide mistakes, they mitigate those mistakes because during this lull, they improve. Fred, how do you take that statement of my visual of the way I see it?

Fred Lennartz (5:01): 100 % you know, “ but it's great news. And this is something literally today we just got out of a training session just a few minutes ago before we came on this call and they were like, it's slow. I said, well, but that doesn't mean just you could be busy. You could still be busy. Matter fact, you should be more busy now. And why is that busy doesn't mean with customers. Busy means I'm doing work. I'm actually doing activities that help me not be market driven, but be management driven, be doing what I need to do to get what I need done, get better training, all the things that you can imagine. You know, I look at it like, this is like football season. This is the off season right now. Right? So seasons off, that doesn't mean we don't train. doesn't mean we don't eat well. That doesn't mean we don't work out or work on and watch game film. We still do it, especially because if we're pros, we should be watching that. But then we got preseason. This, I think this is more of that preseason. We're getting better. We're working really hard right now. This is time where, yeah, maybe we don't have the customers in front of us, but

Chris Keene (6:05): Uh-huh.

Fred Lennartz (6:05): We should inspect what we expect right now more than we ever have. Because when it's season time, when it's game to game to game, we don't have time to train and get as good as we need to be. need to be constantly having a training like a lifestyle, a culture, of course, right? Daily activities, learning something daily, but we can really dig in right now. We can figure out what's wrong, maybe like do some trades if that makes sense. know what I mean? Making sure that you have the right people in place. This is the perfect time for all that. just got done with the first quarter of the year, right? That was literally like with tax season, that was like the Super Bowl. Let's boom, right? Now we're getting into this. Now we're getting into this opportunity for us to figure out where we're at. So we should be looking at our numbers. We should see what we did “ see how we can get there and if not better again “ this time, you'll be surprised what activity does. Activity breeds activity. You know, simple as even going out and moving a lot once a week with your team.

Chris Keene (7:05): Uh-uh.

Fred Lennartz (7:06): You'd be surprised how many customers roll in there. I can go all day about what being busy really is. It's not about having customers in front of you all the time, because we don't. The majority of salespeople don't, even on a busy season. What I'm saying is if we stay active and we do work and whistle while we're working, we can really do some big things during this time. You can build some clientele, build a book of business, get people's trust during this time. Because if they're not buying, they're thinking about buying. I believe everybody, everyone in this room right now, I guarantee if I can hook you up with the deal that you want on your dream vehicle, if you don't already have it, you would go get it. I would be able to deliver it to you right now. So let's figure out what that is. Anyway, Lou, I know I can go all day. Chris, you know me, I'm excited about this. This what I see inside stores. But I think that there is no such thing as, it's a bad time. I think there's opportunity in every time. And if we use those times,

Chris Keene (8:05): We Thanks.

John Anderson (8:06): Yeah.

Fred Lennartz (8:06): that we can't do when we're, I'm so busy, I don't have time to train. Well, you do right now. You do right now. You do have time to inspect. And if you're not doing that, you're not really loving your team. Anyway, that's my, Fred Talk and I'll drop.

Chris Keene (8:20): So Lou, no, no, no, no. So, I mean, that really just sets the tonality here. So you, you, you talk about, you know, we Q1, that's a Superbowl. Well, it's also kind of, and I'm not a NASCAR fan, but I understand you're the premise of NASCAR. You know, they always start the year out with the Daytona 500. Okay. Which is their Superbowl. But really that's the, that's the, the prelude to

Fred Lennartz (8:42): Mm-hmm.

Chris Keene (8:42): the entire season of the point standings and we're going to end up for the rest of the year. It's kind of like the automotive industry. It's the same thing in ADA and tax season and Q1. That's kind of the Superbowl. That's kind of that Daytona 500 of how to get the tonality set for the year. But Sweet Lou, he talked about the analogy in football of

Fred Lennartz (9:02): Mm-hmm. Mm. “

Chris Keene (9:03): the off season, you still going to eat right? She's still going to train right. If you could say, hey, this is what our salespeople, our BDC, our sales managers, our dealership, you know, dealer principals, our GMs, GSMs, et cetera. What should we be eating? What should we be consuming right now? What should we be training on during this little bit of a lull that we're in? Once again, viewers and listeners is not that the market is horrible. It's just less at bats. What gives us opportunity to eat and trade better? What are some things, Lou, in your opinion, that should be the top one, two things that they're doing right now?

Lou Ramirez (9:37): evaluation of what you're actually doing. So often, many of us are in the game, we're enjoying the game, and the game ended, and we're looking at the score, and we're celebrating, and we're high-fiving, and we have no idea how we won this game, how we got to where it is that we are. And if there is a low, which to Fred's point this morning, we did have that from different students that are... at a Chevy store that are making things happen and they're having some great growth, great first quarter. And they said it, which I'm pretty sure many others are going to say the same thing. That's second week of the month, which is quite often the situation with every month in this business. That second week is a weird week, but when it's explained in the form of the market's slow, we're slow. So it's just slow.

Chris Keene (10:22): Mm-hmm.

Lou Ramirez (10:22): Then we're accepting it. So evaluation is critical. So today we really did challenge the team. What are your top three strengths? What are the things that you are doing? Great. We want to celebrate that. We want to look at that. We want to make sure that you recognize it. What are three other areas that you need to grow? And then we're three key things that you can do to take action towards it. But a key piece for to your point of at bats were lighted at bats. Well, how many actual swings.

Chris Keene (10:50): Mm-hmm.

Lou Ramirez (10:51): do you get the chance to take? We gave this analogy to one of our stores, a huge store, they do huge numbers, but we brought to them a pretty clear revelation, which was eye-opening for everybody, that we take just about one swing per customer. We send them the call, we send them the text, we send them the email, we even send them a video. We do all four of these things to one person, one time.

Chris Keene (11:14): “

Lou Ramirez (11:14): And if they, if somebody raises their hand and shoots back into the, gets the conversation going again, shoots into the dealership, has some fun. Cool. We'll go with that. We'll play those numbers, but when it's less people doing it, we still will look at it and say, well, are we taking enough swings at our customers and processing a customer in with one phone call is definitely not enough. And the challenge that we gave to our team today was saying, we understand you're saying it's slow, but you just reported your numbers and activities. So you're the one that's not calling people. You're the one that's not reaching out to people. If it's slower because people aren't barging into the store, they're not beating down the door. Okay, you got some time to get on the phone. You got some time to send some messages. You got time to do some social creative. So look at what you're actually doing in the times where it is fast, where we do have a lot of customers to be able to work and then see what you're doing right now inside of that slow week. What was your out? output, we would encourage you if you are to do one thing, go look at a successful month and look at your actual activity report. See how many calls you've been making. See how many actual outreaches to unique customers you've been making. And then look at that game tape and say, okay, well, what do we have to do to be able to make sure that we're still playing the numbers? This is always going to be money ball. The other thing that's important, and this is something that you guys definitely lean into heavily is recognize the customers that are not talking with us anymore because we sold the one vehicle they asked about. Other vehicles, then to them, other vehicles, show them other opportunities because for all those car guys and car gals that are out there, how many times have you set an appointment with a customer on a specific vehicle?

Fred Lennartz (12:58): Bingo!

Chris Keene (12:58): Mm-hmm.

John Anderson (12:58): “

Lou Ramirez (12:59): that is available, that is on your lot, that they do get the chance to test drive. And that's not what they buy. They buy something else anyway. They end up getting another type of vehicle, upgrading it, maybe a few less options, maybe a little less expensive, but they get another vehicle anyway. So why do we leave all of those customers out there? If you want to do one thing right now, go to all of your leads, look at all of the ones that are on cars that have been sold and phone.

Chris Keene (13:27): You

Lou Ramirez (13:27): Blitz them go after them. Let them know you have other solutions and train for that many dealerships often train for what to say when the customer calls in and We want to try to set that appointment We want to try to get them excited about it, but we don't know what to say when we recognize I Sold that car yesterday. What do I say to this? That car has a deposit on it. What do I say to that customer now?

John Anderson (13:51): Uh-uh.

Lou Ramirez (13:52): Quite often it sounds just like this. yeah, that one's sold, not available. And what does the customer do? All right, thanks, goodbye. Right, it's “ opportunity's gone. And like you said, if we have so few of those, we have to get great at what we say to those that are reaching out to us. They got over that hump of decision. They got over the fear of calling a human being. And now you have them on the phone.

Chris Keene (14:15): Click.

Fred Lennartz (14:16): Right. “ yeah.

Lou Ramirez (14:17): Be effective with it, know what to ask and also know how to pivot. But so often, because we don't train on it, because we're so reactionary to what the customers are going to do or what they're not going to do, we don't prepare ourselves for what is inevitable. We're to run into situations where we sold the car. We are going to run into situations where we have to present something different and we want to keep the attention of the customer and the most valuable thing for the customer isn't their vehicle. It isn't their dollars.

John Anderson (14:45): Thank

Chris Keene (14:46): Thank

Lou Ramirez (14:46): It isn't even their job, it's their time. The most valuable thing to a customer is their time and how they spend it. So if we're less at bats, it's mainly because people don't want to waste their time doing the things that they can actually get done pretty quick. And when they do, they do it. But the dealers that we see succeeding are the ones that are not accepting the low. They're not accepting that the market is things like Fred said, you're either market driven, which means you're going to live and die by the market. and what the market says and what the index says, or you're to be manager driven and you're going to say, no, we're going to do these things that we know are successful. And if we do these things that we know are successful, we're going to enjoy success. Back to the NASCAR analogy. Tell me which one of those laps they don't need to do their fastest. Tell me which one of all of those laps that they do that they're not giving all that they have, giving it all the gas all the way around. It may be many trips in a circle, but big oval, right? But there's not a time that that driver is not trying to advance, trying to gain position and trying to see how far we can push this engine. They can't hear the crowd. They can't, they're not getting entertained by the crowd. can't hear that. They hear a big loud engine and it's working towards getting them to the end goal. Too many times we do have.

Chris Keene (16:06): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lou Ramirez (16:07): the first few laps are good and they're fast. And man, it's the end of the race. Now it's really time to really get it. End of the month. Let's get some deals. But for the NASCAR driver, he never stops running at full speed. So it's very important we keep that gas down the whole time. Boom. “

Fred Lennartz (16:24): Jordan.

Chris Keene (16:24): There you go. Anderson, throw it out there, baby, because I know you got something. You're brewing something up.

John Anderson (16:30): No, I'll just, look, I... “

Lou Ramirez (16:32): Might be CorgayCrawl.

John Anderson (16:33): Car guy coffee. Yeah. I've got me some car guy coffee, man. So no, “ you know, I, Chris, I think sometimes when we talk about, “ I think sometimes we're misinterpreted when we start talking about, “ you know, shopper counts and I know Jason and his videos, all the videos he does, right? Sometimes we hear, and I see in the comments, right? That it's perceived as being negative.

Chris Keene (16:53): could be car, could be puppy.

Lou Ramirez (16:55): Get some, yeah.

John Anderson (16:56): And it's not, and here's my point. it the market has changed or we failed to adjust to the market? The market ebbs and flows all the time. So is it the market has changed or we've just failed to make the adjustment? And to Fred and Lou's point, if we're just going through the day and we're doing what we've all, man, I can't tell you how much that. That phrase drives me crazy. Why are you doing it this way? Because that's how we've always done it, right? It's, look.

Chris Keene (17:23): Ugh.

John Anderson (17:23): Let me ask you a question. Are customers doing things the way they've always done it? No, no. We had a young man that owns an AI company that was watching a podcast and he's in the automotive vertical. And he goes, he reached out to Chris and he's like, man, I'd really like to come on your guys podcast and share some stuff with you. And one of things he shared was by the end of 2026, Google searches are going to decrease by 25%. That's a huge number when you're considering

Fred Lennartz (17:50): No! That's an easy answer right there. “ yeah.

Chris Keene (17:53): Mm-hmm.

John Anderson (17:53): you know, the number one “ search engine, right? And, and zero click searches are increasing. So my point to all that and what I said, customers, customers are outpacing. They're, they're always looking for the next opportunity to make their search. And, and quite honestly, right. To, to, to get as much of that car deal done as without engaging with. “

Chris Keene (18:12): as much as they want to get done.

John Anderson (18:14): Well, and look, it's is that their fault? We blame them or or is it our fault? Right. Because 100 percent. Right. And so so. “ You know, when I think about I love the sports analogies right now, I was fortunate enough for 24 years to have a small role with the Indianapolis Colts. And I'm thinking about you guys talking about this, “ you know.

Fred Lennartz (18:34): Yeah.

Chris Keene (18:34): We dare them to do it.

John Anderson (18:36): the super bowl starting out, but I, remember I was there when Peyton Manning was there, Tony Dungey. And I remember those years and I was fortunate enough to be on the sidelines during that time. And here's the thing during that entire time. You think, well, they go in and make adjustments at halftime. Well, that's true, “ I can tell you that this was dating it somewhat, but there was a fax machine on the sidelines, right? Now they've got iPads, but there was a fax machine on the sidelines and

Fred Lennartz (19:03): Wow. cool.

John Anderson (19:03): between every series, a set of faxes would come down with still photos and those would be handed to Peyton Manning and he's sitting there between every series. You see him flipping through those those and he was looking at the photos of the sets that the defense was running against his offense. So we think halftime. No, it's it's every series adjustment. So from from an auto industry guys, it's it's it's it's adjusting, right? Why would why would I ever do something? Why would I ever do something on my virtual lot or not do something on my virtual lot that I'm willing to do on my bricks and mortar lot and even even bring more emphasis to it. And that's where I want to go with you guys, right? To your point, if I've got a customer that the vehicle they sent me a lead on has been sold. Well, if that customer walked in your showroom door and said, Hey, John, I'm here to see, “ I'm here to see that 2000.

Fred Lennartz (19:55): Bye.

Chris Keene (19:55): Mm-hmm.

John Anderson (19:55): 21 F 150. And I am, and I said, uh, sorry, Lou, we sold that truck three days ago. And I just turned around and walked back to my office, which is what we're doing on our virtual lot. Right. We're just walking away from them. How would my manager respond? How much of a business would I have as a salesperson if I took that kind of stick that kind of action towards that customer. Right. And so we would never do that on our bricks and mortar lot.

Chris Keene (20:22): Mm-hmm.

John Anderson (20:22): but we do it every day on our virtual lot. So guys, if you wouldn't speak to the fact of virtually, how do I take that customer? Cause you alluded to it, right? You said, Hey, you got to reach out to these customers, right? And what's the conversation? So how do I take that customer and bring that juice to that customer so that I don't come up and say, sorry, we sold it. And then the customer, right? Virtually I'm talking about virtual, right? I hit them with that news and they just.

Fred Lennartz (20:50): No. 300 % agree on that. and Yeah.

John Anderson (20:52): 80 % of their brain just went out the window, right? You sold the car I was interested in, right? So how do I approach that to where I pull them in instead of pushing them back, right?

Fred Lennartz (21:03): I'll start it off with the first thing is that everyone's head has to be is. They're never going to be able to buy that car if it's sold. So that car is gone, but the cool thing is is that almost every freaking brand out there. Made a bunch of cars that look exactly the same with the same options and they're available if we go and look for them. If not better options, right? So. That's some great news. Matter of fact, that if the person, and one of my favorite things to ever ask a customer is, don't have to buy today, do you? Why is that such a good question? Because they'll say, no, I don't. Great news that takes the pressure off both of us, right? Now we just have to find you the perfect vehicle. And if you have some time, I can help you do that. Make it easy. That's some great news. It's just too many times we want the low hanging fruit. Matter of fact, all the time.

Chris Keene (21:55): The now business, the now business, buy it now.

John Anderson (21:58): All the time, all the time.

Fred Lennartz (21:59): I want that too. do want it. Don't get me wrong. And I want you to be that salesperson for me that works people to where they understand that right now is the best time to buy. Fact. But it's also the best time to work with me period. And I'm the right person and each one of you all out there, you salespeople, you leaders understand that you are the right person for them. They're looking for help. If they're looking for a car, there's a reason why they look for it that sparked their interest. Find out what that is. And I promise you, you probably have in your inventory something that they're willing to look at and drive right now. And if you don't, you have access to it because there's auctions. There's all kinds of different dealers out there getting rid of inventories. You can call around, try to find it for them. You can do anything. Before there was this internet that we are using these days, which is amazing. Lou and I, when we have used, even used cars, if I knew a dealer 100 miles away had that car, I called and I try to buy it from them.

John Anderson (22:59): 100%.

Fred Lennartz (23:00): I did everything I could for my client, but you know what? That's why we sold so many cars because Lou and I didn't let our clients buy anywhere else. Hey, listen, I don't have it, but I know where to get it and I could probably get you the best deal on it. Right. I'm also the biggest thing Lou said earlier is it saves them time. They don't want to search. They're being told. Here's the thing you don't want to do. I want to say this. Say it's there and it's not there. Added some weak a shi tizzle.

Chris Keene (23:30): “

Fred Lennartz (23:30): That's the weakest stuff you could ever do. You want to talk about why clients don't believe you? The little things like that. I mean, let's just be honest with them. Let's be real and really tell them, hey, to be completely transparent, the vehicle is not here, but that's great news for you. Always bring great news to them. Even when it doesn't rhyme with what they're trying to rap with, right? You just bring great news. It is great news because you can help them. And you know what? You should want to help them.

John Anderson (23:58): Thank you.

Chris Keene (23:59): Uh-huh.

Fred Lennartz (23:59): I want to sell everybody today and right now, but I also want to sell everybody who could buy tomorrow, the day after, two months, a year, five years. This is a career. This is an opportunity. This is something that we should all be pushing towards. So it needs to be great news. You need to know that there is opportunity and they can never buy that car that they are looking for. So show them what they can buy. The one thing that Lou and I believe and we teach is always show them what they can do. And to just sidestep it for a second, even when they don't qualify for a loan.

John Anderson (24:33): Thank you.

Fred Lennartz (24:34): Go back and show them what they do qualify and how they qualify. Don't tell them, I can't help you. Show them how you can help them. Same thing applies right here massively is that, hey, great news, I still can help you and I want to help you. Let me send some information. Is this the best email to send you some stuff about vehicles I find? Is this the best phone number to send you videos on also? This is stuff that you should know so that you can pass it on to them. “ if I was you, I'd hire a lot pop. Make sure that they have all that data for you. So when you do call, you have data to be able to share that's in your inventory now. Just saying, that's one of the things I love about what you all do. But anyway, but that being said, I don't know why people get discouraged about it unless you just haven't been taught about it. You should be excited because they cannot buy that car and you can find them a car and they will buy one. They have the ether on them. Now they want it. They want something. Help them find it and make it fun for them. Anyway, that's my little...

John Anderson (25:38): Hey real quick, real-

Chris Keene (25:39): But I think the challenge though, “ go ahead, go ahead, John, go ahead.

John Anderson (25:43): I'll just to follow up on what Fred was saying, right? And Lou, when you guys are in dealership and you're talking to salespeople, because I'm thinking about myself. I can remember early on in my career that I would look at customers that the vehicle had been sold, right? And I found myself listening to the chatter about our, I believe the chatter about our industry. more than I believed in myself. I'm being totally transparent here. What I mean by that is, know, the chatter about our industry is, you know, you can't trust them. It's the worst. They're a bunch of used car guy, right? So I believe that. And so I would look at a situation where I knew the vehicle was sold and I'm looking at the customer. They don't want to hear from me. And I will tell you guys that. And I would like your guys commentary on that. That's the last customers want to hear from you. want, they want, they want to know somebody's working on their behalf.

Chris Keene (26:35): Mm-hmm.

John Anderson (26:35): Right? They don't, they don't want to hear this when they first send you a lead. don't, the first call they don't want to hear, when can you come in and drive the car? They don't want to hear that. They want to know how much you care about what they care about first and foremost. Right? But they do want to hear from me. think sometimes as salespeople, we have a tendency psychologically to psych ourselves out thinking, well, we sold the car. can't call that customer. They don't want to hear from me. They're just going to get mad at me. And they're dropping that customer wants to know you're working for them. Am I wrong?

Fred Lennartz (27:10): Yep. That's right. No, you're not wrong.

Lou Ramirez (27:12): No, you're only 100 % correct. And the thing is, that the customer doesn't really have high expectations for us. They don't, to your point, right? They're already prepared to be underwhelmed in many cases. This is an incredible opportunity for us to be able to really, really surprise them pleasantly. And this is something that is incredibly important for just our notes in our CRM. You know why you don't make that phone call? Because you did sell that car and you have nothing else to talk about with your customer because you didn't take good notes and you didn't ask these key three things. And this is something that everybody listening should be able to know about anybody that they know if you're trying to help them upgrade to a nicer, newer ride. Number one, what do they want?

Fred Lennartz (27:53): You gotta let “ know.

Lou Ramirez (27:54): And what do they prefer? So again, what do they want as in the segment of vehicle? What type of car? A four wheel drive, four door truck, right? But some people prefer the Ram. Okay. A four door Ram. That's four wheel drive. Has the trailer hook up. All of these other things, right? That would be what they prefer. But what they want and what they prefer has to be inside of the notes. The next thing you need to know when, what is the timeframe? When do they actually want to own upgrade or trade out? Know that timeframe and speak to it. Cause again, it's not always today, but one day it'll be there today. And the way that you bridge the gap of time is, know, this third thing, which is critical. What's the holdup? What has been the holdup? Why have you not achieved this yet?

Fred Lennartz (28:39): That's right.

Lou Ramirez (28:39): Why have you not gotten this vehicle yet? Why have you not found it yet? Maybe it's because of me, Mr. Customer. Maybe I haven't found it for you yet. But the great news is I'm going to continue to communicate with you until I do find it. Because to your point, John, the customer does want to know you're working for them if you told them that you would. But too often, we never even say that we will because we really don't know how in a lot of cases. Now, leaders, this is an area for training. Too much of the transactions in this business have been straight transactional. There's not been much of a relationship built on it. You don't have too many of the customers we see anymore that are saying, that's my guy. got to buy from them. Except for the few that actually run their business that way. That's how they actually live. But to the point of great news, we quite often use words that start to raise up the defenses, start to... get people to not want to deal with us anymore. And we don't even understand that psychologically we're telling them we're the wrong person for them to deal with. To Fred's point, stating that I can't do something, we can't find that, you can't buy that. That's all negative and it raises their anxiety, it raises their defenses. But when we say what we can do, when we present what we can do, when we actually do something for a customer, it always is great news. Mr. customer, great news. You made a great choice in a vehicle and that one actually did move fast because it was priced right. The great news is there's plenty of inventories available for us to be able to find what it is that you're looking for. You're looking in the right lane because that one did move fast. We stay aggressive with our numbers. But Chris, if you give me the opportunity to present you a few other vehicles, we might actually get something better and maybe even a little less expensive. I'm going to show you a few of these options.

Chris Keene (30:27): Yeah.

Lou Ramirez (30:27): Right? And then I'm still, still fighting for that time with them. Here's an issue that often does come up.

Chris Keene (30:33): Yeah.

Lou Ramirez (30:33): Setting the appointment for the customer, like we said, the most important thing for a customer is their time. Same thing with us, right? We don't want to waste our time doing things, right? It's in the way of me making money. Well, we agree, the same with the customer. They don't want to waste much of their time, but too often we are delivering information that is psyching them out from even wanting to deal with us. So we encourage you, especially on that inbound call, that customer that's asking about a specific unit,

Chris Keene (31:01): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lou Ramirez (31:02): do all of the fact finding of why they wanted that car, still move that conversation to appointment because it's still the hardest thing for them to narrow down and not leaving it open. When can you get down here? No, no. While I check on availability, let's speak about your availability, Mr. Customer. Are you available during the week or during the weekend? Morning or afternoon? Great, on Thursday I have a 1.30.

John Anderson (31:23): Exactly.

Fred Lennartz (31:24): No.

Lou Ramirez (31:24): And a 415, which of those two is easiest for you? Great, fantastic. I'll go ahead and jot that in there. Oh, I found it. Hold on. I'm going to send you confirmation on the email, but hey, I have to be upfront with you, Chris. That vehicle did sell. The great news is we have plenty of other opportunities for you and we can find something similar, if not better for you. But since we do have that appointment, I'm going to make sure that we do have at least two or three options laid out, ready for you to see so that we can have fun for that appointment. that we already know is hard for them to commit to. But if we get them committed to an appointment into a time while we're searching for the availability of the car, instead of immediately going into, no, it's not available, immediately going into, yes, it is available. And we still don't know what they want, right? Because we could schedule an appointment, they could show up for that appointment on the car that they wanted, and we still don't know why they wanted it. And now we sold it before they showed up, and now we have... plan. And now we're actually letting them down completely because, that one actually did so an hour ago. It left. Right. Where does that customer feel like then? “ sit defeated. And they feel maybe even lied to, but these situations do happen. But with intentionality towards getting them committed to a time to work with you is very, very important, especially while trying to zero in. But the thing is we don't train on that. We don't even prepare for that. We almost are okay.

Fred Lennartz (32:50): No.

Lou Ramirez (32:50): with not being ready for that and getting that customer out of our way because we don't know what to say to them.

Fred Lennartz (32:57): Because well truth be told is that most leadership in today's world that just came up didn't do that. So they don't really know how to train on it and they got away with not having to do that because we don't have it. Good luck, right? And so that being said, it's very crucial that not just the cell staff gets this training, but more importantly that the leadership gets this training too. If they're not getting the training there, it's hard for them to coach on and encourage their team to do and hold them accountable for it. Anyway, big stuff.

John Anderson (33:27): Right.

Chris Keene (33:28): Uh-uh.

John Anderson (33:28): Right. Yeah. Thanks for clarifying that Lou too, Lou. Cause I said that what they don't want to hear is, and you clarified it. It's not that I say don't set an appointment, but I don't, the first question I want, I don't want to ask them is when can you be here, man? They got to know how much you care before they care about setting an appointment with you. Right. So yeah, that appointment's important, but there's a hell of a lot more stuff important before I get to that, right. That the customer needs to hear from. Right.

Chris Keene (33:57): Well, it's

Lou Ramirez (33:58): And I don't have the right to ask for the appointment until I've properly...

Chris Keene (34:02): Exactly. You haven't earned that right yet. So Fred, Lou, I want to ask you a question because one of our dealer partners does a really good job with this. And I want to know if this is something you guys train on or even maybe some best practice toward it. But you both were talking about number one, I love Lou, how you talk about, the most valuable asset for a customer is their time. And then Fred, you were still alluding to that.

John Anderson (34:27): Right. Right.

Chris Keene (34:27): When you were talking about, you know, always being that great news for them, showing them what they can do. But my question is this, because like I said, there's a dealer partner of ours out there that does a really good job with this. Yeah. They'll look at the opportunity that comes in and that opportunity could be right there two blocks away from the dealership, or it can be 200 miles away from the dealership. But one of the things that they are really good at is they just point blank as the customer. I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember exactly how they say it, but it's to this effect of You know, Hey Lou, I noticed that, you know, you're two miles from the dealership. Is this, you know, something that you're looking at transacting completely online and we'll bring the car to you or are you just gathering some information before you come on in? Or if it's the customer's 200 miles away from them, it's kind of the same question, but they kind of spend it a little bit to, you know, Hey, I noticed you're 200 miles away from us. You could just make a fun day trip and see everything we have great about our town here. Make you bring the family out. Or is this something that you want to get as much transacted, you know, digitally and we bring the car to you. Do you guys train on that or what's your thought on that?

Fred Lennartz (35:42): I think that if that option is available at your store and it should be, if you're not doing deliveries at people's homes right now and doing things digitally, you are missing many opportunities. Yeah, yeah. But there's a lot of them out there not doing it, just saying. So folks, get there. It's not that hard of a process and there's safeguards for you. You don't have worry about fraud. There's all kinds of ways to be able to make sure it's okay. Trust me. But that being said, absolutely. I think that when you give people options,

Chris Keene (36:11): Well, you're six years behind. Let's start there.

Fred Lennartz (36:13): They usually pick one, right? So when you start to give them options that make it easy for their lifestyle and you hit one of them and you know, like, hey, is this something and usually it's going to be one of those, right? Whatever way you want to do it, we're happy to do it for you. Because why? Because too many times they'll call the store and the store says, not only if you come in, your best deals if you're here.

John Anderson (36:37): Yeah.

Fred Lennartz (36:38): Right? Or too many times, you know, it's something like that, where it doesn't feel like I have my options, I want to do it my way. Can I do it three quarters of the way digitally and then finish with you? Or can I do it all digitally and you deliver? Or can I just come in and just start working with you? You should be able to provide all that. Or can I come in, start, leave, and then do it digitally? That's the way I want to do it. You should say yes to every single one of those, but more importantly, be able to present that as an option for them to pick. When they start picking options, that means they're starting to buy. They're going towards that buying process. And the more that you're able to give them, “ amen to that, right? And when you get there, you earn it, right? But when you're able to do that and you're able to make it simple for them, it makes it, that's time saver. That's what they're looking for. Some people want, most people want to save time, but as we all know, there's that one customer that takes a year. I'm okay with that too. Again, I said at the beginning, I want to sell everybody right now.

Chris Keene (37:43): They're down that footle. They're getting down that footle, ain't

Lou Ramirez (37:46): Mm-hmm.

Fred Lennartz (37:46): But if you want to buy a year from now, I want to help you then too. It's I'm here to help everyone and I should be excited. Hey, it's going to take me a year to buy. Fantastic. Am I going to try to make it shorter? Of course, I'm to do everything I can to help them make a decision that's good for them. Right. But at the end of the day, if it takes a year, so be it. It's worth it. Not everyone. I mean, we're all blessed. We are in the car business. We are blessed that we get right now business. People walk in and sometimes without ever any intention of buying and they buy as that ether they get into. Right. Thank God for the car business. love it. You know, and if you have, and that's the, that's the whole point is that when we can make something advantageous for somebody and bring it their way, that way they want to do it, whether somebody who pops in at the balloon just decides to buy out of nowhere, that's the way they want to do it. Right. Or somebody who wants to do it digitally and all these things. It's a shame if you're not saying yes, or at least presenting those right off the rip that lets it make it very clear. Plus more importantly for me, as a salesperson, as an owner, when I'm looking at my data, I know where my customers are, where they want to be. That's I think that's dope that they do that right off the rip. People think that it's not asking for much. It's asking for them like hey, which way would you prefer? Right? I love that. Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Keene (39:13): Mm-hmm.

Lou Ramirez (39:13): Having options is always critical in any case scenarios. Again, it's what you can do. Back to the point of time. Time doesn't necessarily mean that a customer wants to go fast. The customer has their timeframe. The great news, Mr. customer with us, you control the clock. And that's why it's important that you know that timeframe for your customer so that you can plan your followup properly.

Chris Keene (39:34): Yeah.

Fred Lennartz (39:34): Amen.

Lou Ramirez (39:34): Right? If a customer says I'm going to, I'm not buying for another two months. Am I going to wait two months to call that customer? Most salespeople. And I want to be very generous in this, but let's, let's just be real. Many customers or money sales pros won't even call that customer after that two months. They won't remember. They didn't set a note. They didn't make an appointment for themselves. They did not do that.

John Anderson (39:57): you

Chris Keene (39:57): Ha ha ha!

John Anderson (39:58): Right. Right.

Lou Ramirez (39:59): Rather than doing that, sales pros that are out there, set yourself an interval alarm system for your customers to be communicated with, with you so that you can tell them, Hey, John, Hey, Chris, I know that you're still two months away from actually wanting to purchase. There was a few other great things that did show up. I'm going to send you some of that information, but I'm still staying on top of it. Still making sure that I'm looking at everything that's coming through and making sure that you're aware of everything in case you want to move a little bit quicker. But just so that you know, I didn't forget about you. Having those touch bait, those times of touching base with the customer are critical. That's why you need to know their timeframe so that when you call them, you remind them, Hey, I remember Fred, you said you weren't buying for another year, but I promised you I was going to continue to send you information regarding that vehicle and those things that you said you were interested in, especially if I think it's cool. So I'm going to keep communicating with you. You're okay with that, right? Fred, of course you don't with that.

Fred Lennartz (41:00): Yeah. Absolutely.

Lou Ramirez (41:01): every customer is going to be okay with you going above and beyond remember you as a “

Chris Keene (41:06): But until that point, though, Lou, if you sit there and man, this is just a great deal. What time can you be here? What time can you be here? Can you be here? This is a great deal. That you just defeated, you've just defeated everything. You negated, you negated everything you said back to what John was saying about how much you care. That question of when did they want to transact? You just.

Lou Ramirez (41:28): That's a desperate sales flow.

Chris Keene (41:30): dismissed every last bit of that.

Fred Lennartz (41:32): That's That's right. Which exactly. And to John's point earlier, they don't care unless they know you care. And you have to show them that. And that's question asking. It's all that. The fact of the matter is, too, is that even though they you may have done a good job at that moment, they're still shopping. And if you're not staying in front of them, they're going to end up having somebody who's a little bit quicker, somebody a little bit smoother, who cares, shows they care a little bit more. And they're going to end up winning their business when you have been

Chris Keene (42:02): which means you don't care.

Fred Lennartz (42:04): Don't wait that two months. Y'all just saying. But let them know, be transparent. Hey, during this time, this two months, I am going to be saying, just like Lou said, I'm going to be sending you information. You know, I'll make sure that you stay on top of what's hot and what's not during this time. This way, when you're when it's that time, you don't have to do a lot of education during that time. You'll know what's up. Sound good, sir. Absolutely, Fred. Thanks. Got you. And then you do. But then you have to do it. That's the thing. Then you have to frickin do it. Yeah.

Lou Ramirez (42:36): What up?

John Anderson (42:37): Yeah.

Chris Keene (42:37): Then you have to do it. So you talked about Lou, you talked about earlier on evaluate, evaluate what we were doing and not look at the scoreboard. been the scoreboard is fine. Whatever you won, you, you sold 25 cars. You know, you sold 18 cars. sold eight cars. It doesn't matter. You, it doesn't matter. What matters is, is evaluate what we're doing. And you alluded to the game field. Okay. But then throughout the conversation, we also talked about the people leaders, “ within our dealerships. And we talked about. You know, the sales manager. So at one point in time, we looked at it and the average tenure of a used car manager in today's time was like eight years. Okay. Well, even if you took eight years from two years ago in 2024, okay. You talk about in 2016 when the market was really good. So you didn't have to be that stellar, you know, of a manager back then. Then the market got shooting fish in a barrel during Covid. So you still didn't even have to be that good of a manager, quote unquote. But tying in two things here. The game film. In the people leaders within our dealership, because to you guys, this point, many of these salespeople are underwhelming. Because of the underwhelming training that they're getting.

Lou Ramirez (43:43): Mm-hmm.

Chris Keene (43:44): from their supposed leaders. Okay. If you were back in a dealership today and you went to watch game film, whether that be listened to phone calls, recap a deal that you didn't win because the customer was either transacting with you live or transacting with you digitally. What are some key things that you would be listening for if you were You know, listening to the phone calls, if you were recapping the the entire process to the point where you lost them or to the point that you won the deal either way. What are some game film things that you're looking at and putting a lot of focus on?

Fred Lennartz (44:16): Wow, that's a great question.

Lou Ramirez (44:18): Fine? Good.

Fred Lennartz (44:18): that you know it it starts with there's a million things that we look at. have tracking sheets. We do a lot of things with team members just to see where they're at because activity is the true. You can sell five cars in a week and not do anything. That's just called luck. I'm just being honest and then you can go the very next most likely because of that you're going to go 001 something like that right? We see it happen all the time, but there's also times that you know you work your butt off, but you didn't produce anything right so. When we get to that, when we look at a like a 90 day rolling average, for example, you want to look at how many dials they're doing. So if I'm to look at a person, can't, I don't coach everybody the same and I wouldn't just because they're all different. Like, why would I coach if I'm a coach, a quarterback, I don't coach them like a running back, right? Or so on, so forth. They're all intricate parts. I get they all sell in most cases, right? They all are doing that stuff, but they all do it in a different way. And if I try to make Lou like John, it's never going to work, right? I can't lose not Fred. I'm not Lou. You're you know all on that. But that's great. I want the different roles on my team. So yeah I'm gonna look at different things but the first thing I do is always how many dials did they actually make. That's a huge number because most people to lose that earlier they're calling one time to each lead. So if you get on average five six leads a day you're making six dials. What is six dials really doing. It takes eight dollars even get a hold of one lead and it takes like 14 or 15 to even set an appointment. So what are we doing? Right? Let's just get honest with each other and let's look at that. yeah, if I'm, so if I have somebody who does a lot of dials, for example, I'm going to just, and I'll get to this real quick. If I have somebody who does a lot of dials, but they're not sending a lot of appointments, then I do listen to their calls. I do want to hear what they're saying. I might type in keywords like, you know, did they say appointment? You know, don't have to listen to all of them. I can search for that with AI now. Did they even ask for an appointment? Right? First thing I see that a lot of salespeople don't. I just want y'all to know that it's a crazy thing. But people get on that call and their word appointment was never even brought up. Go search that y'all watching this right now. Go in there and look at your team, pull it in AI and say, hey, how many times in my team say appointment or this individual? You'll find that they don't. that lets you know that they're just missing something. So then we need to listen to game film, listen to how they say it. They're probably missing something, not getting nervous, going backwards, talking about stuff that doesn't matter. So you just got to re-coach them. Or just maybe the fact that they do everything great and at the end they don't like most salespeople who fail they don't ask for the business. They don't ask for the appointment. Right. It's like a lot of that comes in they show them stuff and they say OK I'll see you later. OK. Hope you come back. They never even asked what can I do today during your business. Right. It's so much. It's like so that starts there. It's really figuring out where your people are by numbers because numbers don't lie. Let's get real. Right. Look at the numbers and then from there go inside there if I have to listen to your game film maybe that's not it. Maybe it's

Chris Keene (47:42): “ huh.

Fred Lennartz (47:43): Okay, now you have a lot of appointments showing up, but we're not selling anything. Right? So what's happening when you're here? Maybe you're not great at features and benefits, actually building value inside your store, you in the the auto, you know, whatever it is, right? So then we have to look at that. Then I then at that point, then we have to really investigate that way too. So it just all comes down to the person. But it all starts with the tracking of the numbers. The most stores sort of track, but they don't really, they really track one thing. How many cars did you sell last week? And that doesn't tell you what they did last week. You can sell five cars but did no activity. So you're set up for nothing this week. Now you're going to have a bad week anyway. So it starts with tracking the number.

Lou Ramirez (48:28): And so this.

Chris Keene (48:29): Well, to your point though, they'll talk about, you know, how many appointments did you set? How many showed? How many do you sell?

Fred Lennartz (48:36): Yes.

Chris Keene (48:36): versus closing the gap on, Hey, you had this many opportunities. You reached out to this many opportunities. You connected with this many opportunities. So what about the ones you

Fred Lennartz (48:45): Correct. There's somebody who said appointments with those connected ones and then it goes from there. Yeah.

Chris Keene (48:50): Right. So what about that gap between the opportunities that you had and the ones you didn't connect with? How do you close that gap?

Lou Ramirez (48:57): That's, it's a great question, but it takes intentionality from the leader. So answering the question on two different sides, your, your question before this of what can we actually do when looking at it? It's look at our game, so with intentionality and doing something that sometimes is not part of our culture. Like even inside of this, we're talking a good deal about what's broken, what's wrong, what's not working where honestly it's disappointing. You know that That comment from, from a dad son, I'm not angry with you, but I am disappointed. Right. Those things really hurt the heart. And quite often most sales meetings sound like where you disappointed me, where we missed the shop, where we didn't get the goal, the number that we're not getting salespeople are disappointed. Why? Because they're not selling enough, right? The market's down. The customer can get disappointed. That vehicle is not available anymore. That customer can get disappointed.

Fred Lennartz (49:44): Yeah, very true.

Lou Ramirez (49:45): That person that I was looking for isn't even working at this store anymore. But this is something for those of you that are taking notes and for those of you that are leading, whether a customer or a sales team, you have to replace disappointment with direction and leadership. Where do we go from here? What do we do from this point? That way you ask Chris, how do we close that gap? And it is listen to the game tape. See what it is that we're doing. How many swings are we taking at the ball? What are the actual numbers? But what are we saying? Fix your language. That is the most critical piece in all of this communication is to fix our language. Too often we lean into the disappointment with either our sales team or we lean into the disappointment with our customer and we submit to it rather than giving it direction, pointing it in a new way. and then giving some leadership, holding ourselves accountable for it. If we're going to get better at something, we're going to have to practice it and stay diligent on it. But too often we get amnesia when the customer is going up. When all of a sudden we start getting car deals, the customers are out there. We forgot all of the things we did to get things going for our people, for our customers. Instead, we need to be able to hold on to the direction that we're going. No different than us directing our children.

John Anderson (51:01): Thank

Chris Keene (51:01): Hahaha Mm-hmm.

Lou Ramirez (51:02): or our loved ones, right? If they mess up, if they miss the mark, the last thing we want to do is make them feel like that's their identity. Now we have up in the car business where you're a lot dropping mofo, right? Where that's how we were talked to and that's how things are. Definitely not my cup of tea, but it built certain muscles in that time, right? Because I wanted to be accountable. I wanted to be right. We have a new generation.

Chris Keene (51:27): Mm-hmm.

Lou Ramirez (51:28): that does need direction and will quickly leave you if you don't give them direction. And what's very, very important is that that disappointment that we continue to find ourselves engaging with and dealing with, we're not dealing with it in a way that actually brings growth. We're swinging the same way we swung at it again and saying up next, who's up next, next one. Let's try again. Instead of saying, wait a minute, what can we do to fix this? What, how can we change our language? If there's anything fundamentally that we do change with the teams that we train, it's changing their language. We have no, most people have no idea how many things we say to a customer that makes them defensive and makes them actually work against us and not believe that we're trying to help them. Instead, adjust our words. Don't accept disappointment, recognize it and give it direction. Give it the leadership that's needed because you're the professional.

Chris Keene (52:16): Mm-hmm.

Lou Ramirez (52:16): If you're the professional, then you're the one that is trusted and commissioned, literally commissioned to make things easier for your client. And if you're a leader, if you're a leader leading people, it's your job to make things easier for those that you're leading. How can you help them carry this load? How can you make it easier for them to be able to achieve their goal? Not by making things lazy, not by not doing the work.

Chris Keene (52:39): Yeah

Lou Ramirez (52:40): But how do we do the work efficiently? Because if you show people how to catch fish, they'll go fishing more. But if they're just used to the fish jumping inside of the boat, they're just going to keep paddling that boat around until more jump in it. Now we're in Kentucky. We got some of those Asian carps. You put a bow on real fast. Awesome. I absolutely love it. We need to do that sometime. Go bow fishing. But not often is that fish jumping in the boat. And that's what we live off.

Chris Keene (53:08): Just say the word, I'm in.

Lou Ramirez (53:09): is the fish that does jump into the boat rather than us really learning how to open up our nets and really give them something to be pulled in with. We have to give them leadership and we need direction, especially when we run into disappointment. That's real time action. Use that leaders.

Fred Lennartz (53:25): and the low hanging fruit.

Chris Keene (53:26): John, I see you grinning over there, big dog.

John Anderson (53:29): I just, I'm taking all this in. First of all, let me say this, dealers “ that are watching and listening, managers, if some of this sounds familiar to you, I wouldn't hesitate. It'd be my first call on my list to reach out to Lou and Fred and have them come into the store. mean, these guys, if you haven't already gathered, “ the depth that they bring and, the, and the enthusiasm they bring, “ you know, I want more of that. Right. So I would, you know, if you guys are struggling and looking for looking for answers, “ the two guys on your screen are the answers. “ but I, but I, why I was smiling was I was thinking about it from a management perspective. Right. I think a lot of times, cause it,

Chris Keene (54:10): next level.

John Anderson (54:10): I see this a lot, right? A lot of, a lot of the stores we deal with Chris, right? It's just, it's not there. It's. boy, I gotta be careful how I say this. It's not their fault from a bandwidth standpoint, right? They have, most stores, the management team is wearing 15 different hats during the day, right? Depending on what's coming at them. And that's why it's so important, as you heard Fred and Lou talk of what needs to be paid attention to, right? Because I think sometimes, depending on what, that day look like for that manager and the stress that comes out of that day, we have a tendency to project that outward. And that's just a big negative, right? And then out of that projection is, “ what did you do for me today? Right. And so then the salesperson takes that, what did you do for me today? Coat and drapes that on them. And that coat is hot and muggy. Right. And so then, then that rolls that.

Chris Keene (55:02): Thank “

John Anderson (55:02): rolls downhill, right? And so then the salesperson has a tendency to look at the customer and say, what are you going to do for me today? Right. And then that's all they're interested in. And then all that gets short-cut. And then before you know it, just as these guys have been talking about, I don't have proper notes in my CRM. I'm not following up because that customer didn't give me that business that day. So as I'm sitting here, I was smiling because I was thinking, man, if I was a manager listening to this, I would step back. And I would really take the heart, right? I want to promote with my sales people, look, do business how your customer wants to do business. And if that means that's 30 days down the road, I'm okay with that. Right. I want to inspect what I expect as these guys said, right. But I don't want my salespeople feeling like I'm only interested in what you can bring to the table today. No, in order for me to build a book of business.

Fred Lennartz (55:57): That's right.

John Anderson (55:57): I got to be interested about today, tomorrow, next month, six months, a year down the road. We literally, “ We literally have run into dealerships “ that. The management, the management staff is, okay with at the 14 day mark, kicking the customer to the curb. They haven't bought a car in 14 days. They haven't, they haven't given, you know, that after the initial, after the initial buying conversation, right. Customer didn't reach back out to us. And so we're just kicking them at 14 days. And I'm like, what

Chris Keene (56:24): There's CRM companies that tell you to do that.

John Anderson (56:27): Right. So, Hey, listen, thread and Lou, I specifically remember, and I don't know, I don't know if he alluded to, but it was at a event that you guys were at. was at, and I remember speaking to a manager there. I think he was there to talk and that's what he was a general manager. And that's one of things he told me at day 14 were, were out. I, my eyes went like, what are you? Right. So I just, I don't look.

Fred Lennartz (56:52): They don't know what they're doing.

John Anderson (56:54): I want you, I really am, I'm, I'm, I'm reiterating this because I don't want us to drop on the ground. This is, this is a gold nugget. Do business like your customers want to do business and then inspect what you expect managers with your sales team. Right. Because if, if yes, a customer could say I'm six months from buying a car, but we all that changes constantly. Right. So.

Fred Lennartz (57:15): Hmm. Hmm.

Chris Keene (57:15): Mm-hmm.

John Anderson (57:15): If don't, don't let the salesperson write, put that in there in the CRM and then not follow up with them for six months. Right. I want to, I want to let them know I'm working for them because that six months could turn into “ six days. Right. So I just, I don't want, I don't want that to drop on the ground and not be, not be.

Lou Ramirez (57:36): Yes.

Fred Lennartz (57:36): Yes.

Chris Keene (57:36): But there could be... John, could be... “

Lou Ramirez (57:39): don't. And so we do put this out there for some people that are listening that are maybe taking some notes and what things to say not to say. Two key things never to say to your customer, especially when you're doing follow up, don't ask them if they're in the market. That's a dumb question. You've got their lead. They said they wanted your product, right? And that's a quick don't talk to me anymore. If I say no to it.

Fred Lennartz (58:03): They say, no, what do you say? You're going to be like, put yourself in the corner. Like, why? You know?

Lou Ramirez (58:09): “ And don't ask them if they're interested. Don't ask them if the things you're suggesting, they'll be interested in. make suggestions, you put options in front of them, and then you lead them into choosing. Remember they have the ultimate power, the customers. Us as leaders for our teams, what is very, very critical is that we make sure that we adapt. We switch it up, we change up what it is that we're doing if it's not working. But in order to find out what's working, what's not working back full circle around, you got to go back to the game tape. You got to go see what you did to actually win. And most people have no idea what they did to have their great success outside of, had a whole lot of cars, man. We got some strong South people and man, my managers are very, very good at.

Chris Keene (58:53): Yes.

Lou Ramirez (58:54): Working car deals but managers your most important thing to do is make sure that your salesperson is setting things up for tomorrow and beyond the work that you do today is Critical for tomorrow and beyond and to your point John too many sales managers are asking What do you got for me today rather than saying how can I help you set up tomorrow? And that is the fundamental critical piece that we've been working with managers across the nation. And we completely empathize and sympathize with managers. Mid-level management, the people who make the dealership run, the people who work the car deals, the people who deal with the fires and deal with the headaches, they don't have a lot of training. There's not a lot of options out there to be trained. And this is one area. Say again? They were a good sales person that was being the manager.

John Anderson (59:39): They were a good salesperson, Lou. They were a good salesperson. And so they get thrust, they get thrust into this management position. Yeah. It's like me when I first started sales, you know what they did? They handed me a, they handed me a book of worksheets and a pen and goes, there's your desk. And that's how my sales training was.

Lou Ramirez (59:57): Right. And that's, so, so I, I'm sorry for them in a sense that, man, they're, they're asked to do stuff that they've never been shown to do. They're asking their salespeople to do things they've never learned how to do. And they, if they jumped right next to them, many of them can't do the same thing. A lot of times their best meeting is the, when I was in your shoes, I did that. And we all know how everybody loves to hear that. Right.

Fred Lennartz (60:22): Yeah.

Lou Ramirez (60:23): My goodness. But instead recognizing that no, my fundamental role here is to help you be set up for success and leaders that are listening to this leaders that may have a general manager that says, we don't need to talk to your customer anymore after 14 days. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Right. That that's somebody that is not invested like an with the mentality of an owner running a business. Tell me which one of the customers pull up your entire database.

Chris Keene (60:48): Uh-uh.

Lou Ramirez (60:48): Pull up every customer that you're outreaching to and tell me which ones you don't want to sell. Which ones? Because at the end of the day, you do want to sell them all. You do want to help them all. And the fact is they all do buy. They all do purchase. Somewhere, somehow, we still have to win them. But in order to win them, we have to really think like winners, not reactors, not people that are just saying, hey, market's good. We processed a lot of business.

Chris Keene (61:15): Yes!

Lou Ramirez (61:15): But we don't know how we created any of it or we actually didn't. The car was made, the customer needed it. And I just so happened to get into the way. Or man, I got a car guy, his name is Chris and any, and I am not talking to anybody else because he's on the hunt for me. He just called me the other day, sent me these other options and he's probably going to call me again next week. And I'm okay with that because I told them what I wanted to purchase. And he's talking to me about relevant information. That's inside of the CRM. If we take the notes. Take notes, everybody. If you're gonna take notes, take that note. Take notes.

Chris Keene (61:52): Well, here's some notes that everybody needs to take down. And I wish I could give you all of them because John per usual, when we get the opportunity to break bread with Fred, Lou, I've got like three pages of notes here, but you know, unfortunately, unfortunately, as much as Fred and Lou and John and myself, we can sit here for eight hours and completely give just nuggets away.

John Anderson (62:13): I it. I'm with you, brother.

Chris Keene (62:15): You just give nuggets away. Brett would kill us if we did that. So in terms of spending eight hours, he'd be like, how am I going to edit eight hours? It's going to take me four days to do it. But here's here's some nuggets I want to give everybody as we wrap today. Game film. Game film is something extremely important to watch, but it's not about just what we didn't do great.

Fred Lennartz (62:37): Yeah, right.

Chris Keene (62:37): It's also about what we did great and what we did elite because we want to duplicate those opportunities to go from being that five car guy by accident to being that 15 car guy, that 20 car guy, or even if you're that guy selling 25, 30 cars a month, how do I get to 30, 35, 40? So watch your game film. Don't look at just all the mistakes. Look at all the things that you did. Good. Okay. Um,

Fred Lennartz (63:01): Yep, exactly.

Chris Keene (63:02): Most valuable asset that the consumers have as much as we think it's their pocketbook, it's their time. And when you show, as John talked about a lot, a lot of care about their time. And when we show a lot of care about their time and we bring valuable insights to them about their purchase, then that consumer is going to tell you exactly how to sell my car. So make sure that you respect and you pay close attention to that asset of their time. Lou brought this in, this was strong. Understand what they want. Understand what they prefer. Understand when they want to transact and understand why they haven't transacted yet. Understand that. Fred, I love this in here. Measuring your activities, not just about how many ups you've had, how many demos you've had, how many phone calls have you had, how many of this have you had, how many appointments you set, how many showed, how many sold. Okay, that's fine, but really those are more in results. But Fred talked about very heavily, measure the activities per lead. Okay, how much activity have we done with this one opportunity that we had? You know, if it was your last opportunity ever and that last opportunity was your golden egg in that last opportunity was going to enable you to retire. How much activity would you actually put into that? So treat every activity like that. And then the last three major things here that Fred wrapped up or excuse me, Lou wrapped up on.

Fred Lennartz (64:18): Amen.

Chris Keene (64:18): Guys, we've said this a million times over. Never act. Don't pick up the phone. Mr. Consumer, Mrs. Consumer, are you still in the market for a car? Don't ask that. Don't ask Mr. Mr. hey, are you still interested? Don't do that. And then managers work. Not for today, but work for tomorrow and the days after. Don't work for today. Work for tomorrow in the days after if you stay two, three, four steps ahead, salespeople, same thing, BDC, same thing, GMs, dealer principles, C-suite members. Today is today. It is what it is. Yeah.

Lou Ramirez (64:47): How did we get here? How did we get to today? We set it up days before or we didn't, right?

Chris Keene (64:53): one of the two. mean, you don't sit at a marketing meeting to “ for today. You sit in a marketing meeting to market for the weeks, the months, the quarters, the years. “ “ your team and your opportunities that way. Manage not for today, manage for tomorrow and beyond. “ and viewers “ in the next couple days, sometime this week, You're going to see a resource page on lot talk podcast.com on that resource page. You will find Lou and Fred, the car guys coffee. You're going to see them on that resource page with their contact information. We encourage you. all but beg you to pick up the phone and just have a consultation call with them. We implore you to go to their podcast and subscribe to the Car Guys Coffee podcast and listen to that weekly to help fuel that tank, to help eat and consume things that are going to help you be better not right now, but tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that. So.

John Anderson (65:46): Yeah.

Fred Lennartz (65:46): That's right. That's right.

Chris Keene (65:48): Listeners and viewers, take advantage of the opportunity that you're getting here today. Take advantage of the resource page that you will find here in the next several days on lottalkpodcast.com. Take advantage of that and leverage and utilize great resources like Fred and Lou. So in closing, the number one most important thing Not only for John, for myself, for our family here at Lotpop, but Fred and Lou share the same sentiment. We are so thankful for great folks like yourself in the industry that are continuing to try to improve. So that way, not just for now, while we're all still in this industry, but for the generations and futures to come. that you continue to improve this industry, because it's been great to all four of us and many of you listening, many of you watching this podcast right now. From the bottom of our hearts. And on behalf of Lou, on behalf of Fred, Mr. Anderson, Ronaldo, everybody at the Lop Pop family, all the families involved with Car Guys Coffee, we thank you so much for tuning in. We thank you, Fred. We thank you, Lou, for taking y'all's busy ass schedules to come join us and drop those nuggets in. It's been a pleasure as always.

John Anderson (66:50): Absolutely. “

Chris Keene (66:50): It is a complete honor to have you guys on today. We thank you, we thank you, we thank you to the viewers. Thank you for tuning in. So on behalf of them and on behalf of LotPop, we wish you all the success and we will catch you next time right here at Lot Talk powered by LotPop. We out.

Fred Lennartz (67:08): Thank

John Anderson (67:08): Think like winners, not reactors. Come on.

Fred Lennartz (67:11): Poof! Whoa! Let's win!

Lou Ramirez (67:12): Go.