"Outcome is Income!" – Process, Accountability & The One Change Adding Millions in Profit Yearly | John Hiester, Dealer Principal at John Hiester Automotive Group

CDG circles signups are back open. If you want to learn from the best dealers in the country,

this is the digital peer group where it happens. Over 3,000 dealership rooftops represented.

Recent dealer-only conversations include Stellantis acquisition caps, AI selection and integration,

pay plan revamps, cooling new car sales, used car sourcing strategies, and more. Don't miss it.

Join us now at CDGcircles.com. So we started saying, how can we, so we put these videos in there?

And it changed to the tune of $600 per deal, our F&I transactions, just by video taping it.

Because what the videos told us were, they weren't following the process.

Today I'm joined by John Heaster, dealer principal at John Heaster Automotive Group.

Dealer ships are facing tighter margins, higher complexity, and a workforce that expects something

very different from the old commission driven model. John breaks down how disciplined processes,

video accountability, and AI coaching are reshaping how his stores operate. From the showroom

to the F&I office, we also dig into diversification, talent strategy, and why he believes the future

belongs to operators who decide exactly what they want and build systems around it.

A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible, lot links,

open lane, and CDG recruiting. And now let's get into the show.

John Heaster on the CDG podcast. John, welcome.

Ooh, glad to be here.

Ooh, who's right? Glad to have you on.

You are the, the mogul from North Carolina. I just, I just gave you that nickname,

but we'll run with you for the conversation.

I may use it in my marketing plan. Tell us about your marketing, by the way.

We started touching on this, and I was like, uh, John, don't, don't keep going. I,

I got a press record. So we're about your, your local marketing.

So we're, uh, we've been known for, for probably 15 or 20 years now, is, uh,

get off your keyster and come to Heaster. So he's, he's throughout a mode of group.

Um, and, and believe me everywhere we go, it doesn't matter if we're in Texas or wherever,

they'll say, Hey, get off your keyster. So it's been here long enough that, that everybody knows it,

and, uh, it's going to be here for a while, I think.

So I'd love to hear that. So what's your, what's your strategy for that?

Is that strictly, like linear TV? Do you put that on, you know, what, what platforms do you, do you?

So we use it in everything. So we've done some really creative stuff with it.

You know, we've had ad contests where we have local businesses build, uh, commercials and submit,

like we'll put $5,000 up and whoever comes up with the best commercial, it has to have.

That is the tagline and, and some other content in it and it works really good.

So we've done it on radio, TV. We do it in sports broadcasts.

Pretty, we have coaches saying it, um, it's been, uh, it's been around.

Is that your brainchild idea of that?

So, so yeah, kind of, it kind of morphed into it. People making comments, you know,

when you're in high school, you get beat up on stuff and, you know, people calling you keyster

and stuff. So it's been around, you know, most of my life. So it was pretty easy to, to slide it in

there. Yeah. And I'm actually, it's naturally curious about you, um, North Carolina at your

whole life, or did you know, there's a point. I was born in Ohio when school in Ohio got married,

moved here in 86. Uh, wow. Yeah. Kind of crazy. I was born yet. John, come on, man. That's right.

So you hadn't gotten all that your brain's not clouded with all the stuff from the past,

right? You're just current. Uh, I don't know, man. Nowadays with all the social media, our brains

are, are somewhat fried. It's not good. It is not good. You know, I, I love it, but the sad part

about it is you can't believe anything you read, which is scary, you know, when you definitely can.

Yes. And, or, or see, I guess the deep fakes point, right? Yeah. You know, when we were in high

school, when I was in high school, there was this app. This was right when the iPhones came out,

it was called like a spoof app where you call your friends. And it would show the caller ID from

any number. And that was like revolutionary. Oh, man. I mean, you could, you know, you could really

do some stuff. But now I just, right before this, I had a call from my operations guy, uh, the company

and he's like, Hey, I'm, I'm merging with QuickBooks really quick. And, and, and, you know, and

they're like, they need to verify your X, Y and Z. And I said, and at the same time, I sent

him a message to text like, Hey, is this really you? Or like, can you, like, why do they need this?

Because you just don't know. Like, yeah, easily, you know, spoof someone's voice.

I mean, look at, look at, you know, voice a, the voice AI in many dealerships has gotten so good

that you, you know, talk to dealers every day. And they say it's just like, you can't tell, you can,

you can manage the accent, you can manage everything about, you know, what region of the country,

the delay that you think it's a real person. Yeah. We had a, one of our employees wife was

thanking AI, you know, she's like writing a thank you letter to this person, which wasn't really

a person. It was a, I think, you see how much, yeah. Do you have that in your dealerships,

voice AI? So we have some AI function and we're getting deeper into it. We're going to use AI

in a different way than, than you would use with a chatbot or something like that. We're using

them for analytics now. But our after hours chat is AI are some of our service scheduling is AI.

But the most recent thing I'm working on with AI, I've been looking at, so, you know,

we video everything. So right now, you know, video, video, F and I, every, every deal we deliver,

we do a video off. So we've been trying a video of what? So the whole transaction. So a customer

comes in the presentation of finance and the finalization of the deal and their steps they're

supposed to take in there. So by videoing it, we can hold them accountable to a process. The problem

is there's so much content that you can't analyze it fast enough to use it to train. You don't

have enough manpower because if they're in there for 45 minutes, yeah, you got to sit there for

45 minutes and watch it. So what we're doing, which we picked it up at NADA, we've got AI. We're

going to partner with the company to let AI analyze every video. So they can summarize and basically

take from a checklist of important things that we want to see happen and tell us immediately where

to go, what to look at to improve. So we're excited about that.

Questions there. Out of curiosity, what's the company name or who does this? So there's two of them

that we looked at. One of them is auto trainer and the other one is zero. Yeah, I'm zeroes on the

podcast. So I know I'm familiar with them. So and look, we really like them. What we really

liked about them is, you know, I'm speaking IT now. This is way out of my realm, but they use

four different intelligence products to so they can stay current. If something changes,

they can react to it quickly as opposed to somebody that just uses one like chat GPT or something

like that. Have you done this yet in your stores? Have you tried this and seen an impact or?

So no, we actually just went through the demos with both companies and all my staff. So we're

signing up with one of them now. And so, you know, we're excited to see how it does. We actually do

the video analysis now. We have one of our partners review them and they have a minimum requirement

of what they have to review every week, but it's it's cumbersome and it doesn't make sense.

It's manual, I can imagine. So what got you down this rabbit hole, right? It's like I read,

one thing I read about used, you know, just I saw the word data many times on your onboarding,

and I took, you know, I took interest in that. Like what is it about, you know, what got you down

this rabbit hole? How are you taking advantage of data? You just mentioned one great way,

but can you tell us more about your just strategy for the deals? I can give you an easy one. I mean,

if we just use that video there. So when we started video last year, we, our finance numbers weren't

as good as they'd been in the past. You know, we were good, but we hadn't improved like other people

that we dealt with. And so we started saying, how can we, so we put these videos in there. And it

changed to the tune of $600 per deal, our FNI transactions, just by video tape in it, because what

the videos told us were they weren't following the process. So we could go in and we can look and see

if the first question they asked was how many miles do drive a year? We know they didn't take the

time to interview that customer. They're interviewing now on the fly. So they couldn't prepare. So

so we did this video thing. And immediately for the year, it changed millions of dollars in

profit to our company. So so then you take that and you say, okay, you know, how can we use it more

effectively? How can we approve upon that? You know, we've got all the data there in front of us,

but we can't, we can't decipher it fast enough. Yeah, I can't. How did your, how did your

team react to that when you implemented video? You know, when we first, so we tried it one store,

and we we saw a just a drastic increase. And where they were very resistant to it, it was the store

that had probably the performance, the poorest performance that year. And we tried it in that store,

and their numbers went up immediately. They're pay went up, you know, the profit went up. Oh, okay,

so so then it was easy to say to the rest of them, we're doing it. Yeah. So so I guess that would be

that would be utilizing the data to say, Hey, we got to have a change, right? Yeah. So you've

you've taken or you've utilized it in the back end, like you mentioned, right? Analytics,

have you done anything else on analytics front with your dealerships? So here's what we're we're

talking to them about is I think we can take it to other aspects of our business. We can take it

to the service drive, right? So, you know, your video and your service drive, most people have

non specific video. So they're just video in the whole operation. But my thought is, why wouldn't we

take it down to a granular level with the with the customer and make sure that our people are saying

the right things to them? And you could do the same thing. And I think that zero, we talked to them

about it. We talked to auto train about it. And we think they can do it. Take the same thing and let

it analyze the data that way. I think there's opportunity there. We're not doing it yet. But

but I think I think it's maybe part of the future. You're leaning in. I love that. Yeah. You

you had another quote that I'm attributing to you. So correct me from wrongly. You said that

the best way to get what you want out of life is to take the time to decide what you want.

Yes. And when I read that, I smiled because I said, if I had a dollar for every time I had a

conversation on this podcast with someone, you know, including myself who said, when I asked

how did you get into the car business? And they said, you know, X, Y and Z happened. And I was

going to get a real job. But then I stayed. It's like, it feels like the car business has a way

of sucking you in. And with so many people, they actually don't plan to stay in the business.

And maybe don't plan that to grow here and in this industry, but they do. And they end up getting

great things. So what's your take on that, right? Like taking the time to decide what you want.

It seems like you, you're saying to be very intentional and deliberate about your decisions

in life. Yeah. And I would say like I have definitely adopted that mentality a lot more in the

last couple of years, including where I'm physically living, where we recently moved me, my family,

for the first time in my whole life, born and raised in Philadelphia. So I'm curious. Anyway,

so so back to you, right? Like, what does that mean to you taking time to really be deliberate

about what you want out of life? So I could tell you 100 stories and they take too long. But

but the the gist of it is one of the things that I always say is you get what you settle for.

You get if you don't know what you want, you get what you settle for, right? You settle for what

what's in front of you. And it applies to everything when you're trying to recruit people. If you're

not deliberate, if you don't know exactly what great looks like for that position, you know,

you're going to settle for somebody. It comes along. You're going to convince yourself that

they're the right person for the job because you need somebody, right? Where where our our

practice is when we decide we're going to add a position or we need a position, we look at

what's great for that position. All we have to do is look at the rest of the company and say,

who's doing a great job? Well, why are they doing a great job? And what is it about them that

made them great at it? And when we do that, we can come and we can say, okay, so whoever we

interview needs to have those attributes or those characteristics about them, a servant heart,

or whatever that is. So so when we do that, we end up with an employee that stays and grows with

an organization where otherwise, if we just say, okay, we got this position, we got a film,

we interview everybody, you know, you're tired of interviewing people and you say, well,

I think they'd be good at this and you settled. So we try to be deliberate in everything we do.

Let's decide, let's decide what we want before we go after it. I don't know if that helps.

This episode is brought to you by Lotlinks. What if you had a strategist that could actually look

at your inventory, your pricing, your market, and real shopper behavior, and then tell you exactly

what to do next. That's Lot GPT. It's the industry's first AI-powered inventory strategist built

specifically for car dealers. It analyzes your VIN level data and surfaces which vehicles are at

risk, where the opportunity is in your market and what actions you should take. VIN by VIN,

no digging through reports, no guesswork. And the best part, it's free for dealers. Just head to

Lotlinks.com slash Lot GPT and request access or click the link in the show notes below.

It does help me. How does this manifest in other parts of your life? I'm curious. When you say

everything we do, are we talking about your brand mix? I know you are some other interesting things

about your group and yourself. You're building a new point right now. We can talk about that,

but you also have a parts distributor business. Is that right? That's correct. Tell it, why did you

get into that business? One of our vendors came to us and said, hey, you know, I'm getting ready to

retire. I can't tell you what brand it is because it's probably makes them look good and he says,

look, they've got this parts distribution stuff they're doing. He knew I just bought a warehouse

in town. He said, you should turn that into a parts distribution and let me run it. And I said,

well, you know, so he said, you know, you can call around. So he said, call this dealer in Florida,

who is one of the distributors for this part. And I did. And the guy said, oh my gosh, John,

don't do it. He said, if you could get AC Delco, do it. He said, but if, but don't do that, right?

It's a nightmare. Why, though, I'm just, is it like bad economics or what is it? Bad parts.

operationally, the parts were a cheap part sourced from from other countries and just not. Yeah.

I mean, and it was, you know, they would we've all experienced those parts before. I hate to say

but they'd worry out to the closest dealer to you. So I called General Motors and I said, Hey,

you know, I got this warehouse. If it's good for this brand, would you consider it? And they

flew some guys out and they said, well, we don't do dealers, right? They said, you know, because dealers

end up just buying parts cheaper for themselves and don't really push the business. But these guys

and I hit it off really good. So they, they came back and said, Hey, we've convinced General Motors

to do this pilot program. And we're going to in the four, four areas around the country where we're

not performing well, we're going to, we're going to pilot some, some distribution business. So

I put it in and it's done well. So we've kept it. Does it move the needle in terms of actual

just, you know, net or profit at the bottom line? When you look at your, your total picture,

does it, does it really move the needle? It's a small fish, right? It's not as big as a dealership

that's run properly. But it is, it's, it actually diversifies you a little bit.

Traditionally, when sales are down, parts and services are up, right? Unfortunately, well,

fortunately, and unfortunately, the car business has been really good for a long time now, right?

So you have, and you're not experiencing that, that big parts opportunity that, that you could,

if it, if it really slowed down. So my, my original thought was it diversifies me. I've got the

warehouse anyway. And it's been good. It's good for, because we run our wholesale operations for

our stores through there, which makes it nice. You know, you could, we can, we can scale our

delivery, right? So, yeah, regardless of whether it's Tracy Delco or for one of the stores, we can,

we can use that vessel to deliver all the parts. No, I love it. It's vertical integration.

You're basically getting added exposure to fixed operations. Exactly. I love it. Yeah.

Where are, where do I invest, John? Well, that's a good question. I'm probably too old to take

on investors. I bet you are. What is this year 40? Or are you about to get the year 40?

Well, 86 till now. So yeah, this will be year 40. Are you doing like a massive bash that I'm

invited to or anything like that? I should. We just did a bash for me turning 60. So,

oh, wow. So, okay. So have I now? I would have invited you. Let's go. How is that? It was awesome.

It was awesome. We had 135 people there. Something like that. It was pretty good.

Headable. Yeah. Rotable. Wow. So you're saying no more parties. You're partied out.

I'm partied out. I'm partied out. I love it. What's your, what's your brand mix?

I've got two Chevy stores and two Chrysler Dodge Jeep Brams. They're Stellantis stores.

How do you feel about, did you see the memo that Stellantis sent out that we posted about?

The max of two stores. Yeah. Don't you think that was a car van, I think?

I do. And I would say many people, shameless plug, many people within circles. Of course,

are our chat groups and peer groups that I talk about all the time. They were discussing it.

And there was some consensus that there's going to be like workarounds and it's not,

this is not actually going to happen the way it's articulated in the memo. This could really

devalue or hurt many dealerships valuations and it could blow up deals. But anyways,

there's a lot of back and forth. It does seem like some Carvana-esque type of limiter that said

if Carvana then in some way works with dealers, it could actually, they could turn from like a

foe to a friend. If they're actually working with CDJR dealers to maybe power some of their

technology or their martec, that was again, back to the conversation. So what's your take on that?

So, you know, I'm probably, I probably don't have a popular opinion when it comes to this. I think

you know, Carvana has the right to buy a store and I don't think if you're underperforming

and they're coming into your market and kicking your butt, you know, maybe it's a wake-up call

for you to start performing. I mean, I know that's not popular and I know everybody'd say,

but you know, I compete, I compete with a lot of the big dealerships and I'm a smaller market

dealership and we beat them, you know. So, you know, we're the biggest Chrysler Dodge Jeep

Ram store in the Raleigh market and we're in a town of 3,000 people. So, you know, we compete

against them every day and I'll take my Chevy store here. I mean, we do a good job, but we get

beat by a couple Chevy stores. So, you know, that's on us. That's not on them. I can't look at Chevrolet

and say it's your fault or look at Chrysler and say it's your fault. If I don't have enough, you know,

food on the plate, I got to go out and hunt and, you know, and I just believe that we all have

that opportunity. So, you're not going to hear me crying about the manufacturer, you know, not that guy,

you know. So, I love the mentality. You're just like a, you know, raw, free market capitalist. I

love that. Respect that. I would say just to kind of steel man to other side here, right?

What people would say is that they are taking it, they're vertically integrated, but in a way that

is anti-competitive by offloading, again, I don't want it just to be very clear here because I don't

want to get the hot water. No, no, no, no. It's not quoting anyone. I'm not putting anyone's opinion

and I'm not even saying that this is true. I'm just saying what is set out there. So, just take

out the grain of salt because people are probably, you know, the certain people that I know that

follow me and send me messages all the time. I'm probably licking their chops right now. Sure.

But they would just say that look like, you know, hey, are they, you know, offloading some of their

risk of their loans to, you know, drive time and stuff like that. And, you know, they are basically,

you know, letting drive time, you know, eat in some ways, whether it's by passing along expenses or

risk. And so that Carvana can, you know, be in the market and operate anti-competitively. That's

at least like the other perspective that I've heard you say. Now, we're not here doing an

analysis into their financials, right? Sure. Sure. Happy to have someone send us an analysis.

What's your take on that, though? Right? To the extent that they do have this related party entity

that, you know, could be absorbing some expenses or losses or something.

Every, everybody deals with this, you know, I don't know if we're allowed to talk about brands,

but Rick Hendricks wanted to be the top Chevy dealer in North Carolina last year. So he attacked

the market at City Chevrolet and became number one in the state, you know, and did he do it by

making money on the cars he sold? I bet not. But, I mean, I don't know his financial statement either,

but he made a decision in his, he was big enough to have the luxury to be able to do that, right?

He could eat it, he could soak it up with his other hundred stores or whatever. So how's that any

different, right? So I just think that most of those guys had to start with one, right? And they

had to find a way, a competitive advantage over the people around them and you figure it out. And

I think those that sit there and whine about, you know, what's not should be focused on how we

gonna capitalize on it, you know, how are we gonna take advantage of what they learned from it,

right? I love the mindset. This is why you're number one, man. Ah, it's good. Just took out a circle

back on how this conversation started. I pretty much asked you about taking the time to be deliberate

about what you want. And, um, do you think many dealers are not that deliberate in today's market

about what they want? What's your, what's your thought on just the way dealers are operating?

So the ones that are perform and the ones that aren't don't. I mean, they're, they're,

there's a cause and effect to everything. And when I look at my business, if there's an area of my

business that's not getting it done, I mean, it shouldn't, it shouldn't stay that way, right? I

should look at it and say, what's, what are the things that produce that end result? Forget about

the result. The result is what it is, right? So what, what causes that result to happen? And you can

do it in every single section of your business, every department, every everything. What happens is,

you know, when we're moderately successful is we accept the other stuff, right? So, so in one

store, sales carries everything. So, service is not that big a deal. And another store service

carries everything. So, sales is not that big a deal. But if we, if we take every section of our

business and have, um, have an idea based on the data, what we did last year, what should we do

this year? And how can we get to whatever it is that we want to get to? There's a way. You know,

we've got to, we've got to look at the things that cause the success. And we got to, we got to

focus on those things. I would say one thing I respect about, you know, some of the most successful

people I know is their ability to like run into confrontation, right? Like go ahead first,

find the confrontation, fix it, right? Make it better. I think that's something that I've,

I've tried to always adopt in my day to day. And I'm nowhere near perfect. But I, we have a saying

at my company, which is, you know, just, you have to get at least one percent better every day.

But there's always something to be done. And it could be as small as, you know, fixing the font

size to as big as restructure an entire team. Um, so what's your, like, how do you identify your

focus today? Like, you mentioned measuring what matters, right? How are you measuring? Like, what is

your process? What is, what is it like being in John Heaster's organization? And how are we

identifying, right? The big rocks and the focus? So it's a great question. So I have the luxury

of having somebody that's an assistant to me. And every day when I arrive at work, and you know,

this shares my age a little bit, I've got two sheets of paper on my desk every day that show every

measurable for every department within my organization. And it's got green, red, or yellow, right?

So we try and take the four or five key things that, that guarantee our success in that, in that

department. And then we, we have an expectation and we track them. And when they're red, I know,

you know, that's kind of where I need to go that day, right? I need to look and say, hey,

how can I help you? What's, why are we not here? And then we, we can delve deeper into the data and say,

okay, this is your opinion of what's going on. But this is my opinion, right? Here's what I'm seeing.

You didn't do enough of these to produce whatever that is. So can we, can we focus on doing more of these?

You know, and I get to, I get to look at it every day, you know, and it, for me, it's a snapshot,

right? So I don't have to be smart enough to get in, dig into every financial statement for every

business I have. And, and so I've got the people there that, that bring it to me. And I know there's

software out there that does this to a level. But, but for me, I know what I want, right? So I know what

I want to look at. And, and I can tell real quick, we're doing good or we're not doing good. Okay. And

like, what are the, in terms of KPIs that you're mentioning here? Okay. What are, what are you looking at

daily? What is important to you daily? So I think the first thing on the list is the business development

center. So it looks at, you know, how many opportunities do we get? How many of those opportunities

converted to appointment? How many of those appointments showed? And how many did we sell from those?

As a example. And see, for me, I can look at that and see real quick, who's, who's screwing up or

who's getting it done, right? So if we don't have a lot of opportunities, I need to go to the

general manager and say, Hey, you're not, you're not providing enough. You're advertising is not

working. Your market is not working. You have the wrong inventory. There's something driving that,

right? But if I have plenty of opportunities and I'm not converting them to appointments,

then I know that somewhere in the process of my BDC is broke down. They're not following the

scripts, you know, they're not offering go sees, we call this unique. What is it? What is it?

They're not offering one. Go see the go see. So our, our, our, we're non-conventional in the way

we handle the phone. We immediately go from if we can't get an appointment today, we want to take

it to them, right? You know, our product specialists give us the luxury of that because they're not paid

commission. So we'll take cars everywhere, you know, and we, we do it immediately. So we'll hold

a car for somebody if they're coming now. If they're not coming now, we go to them. So, so one of

those things has not happened. And if those are all coming in and we're not selling them,

something's breaking down in our sales process, right? So I can look real time at where my,

where my focus needs to be or who I need to focus. Does that make sense?

This episode is brought to you by Openlane. Once again, voted the most preferred digital wholesale

marketplace by dealers. And they've been busy using the power of people in AI to build a

transparent wholesale experience. Openlane intelligence guides their condition reports, feature AI

powered and inspector confirmed exterior damage detection, high quality engine audio recordings,

and OBD2 codes decoded into plain English. Openlane predictive pricing provides historical and

future pricing guidance, allowing you to buy confidently. If you've never used Openlane before

or it's been a while since you have, you're eligible to earn up to $2,500 in buy or sell fee credits.

Learn more at Openlane.com slash CDG or click the link in the show notes below.

Does so tell me about how does that pencil out? If you take the card of every single customer who

does not or cannot make an appointment at second, I have to imagine there's some overlap there of

people that maybe will make an appointment for a couple days out. So there's probably some

cannibalization. But how does that pencil out for you from a cost perspective?

It's fantastic. I mean, it's, you know, we're up 30% in that profit year every year last year.

I mean, where did you just start out? No, no, we've been doing it for a while.

So, so we, we, so if you think about it, I shouldn't say everyone. So we're not going to Kansas today.

Of course. So we have a parameter for where we're willing to go today.

But sometimes they stretch past that. If they have a confidence in the, in the call,

they may go to three hours away, you know, and show a car. Just a show a car. Just a show a car.

Because see, here's the thing. My, my belief is that most people, if you go out of your way for them,

they're, they're going to try and do business with you. You know, so we can sit and say, well,

if I don't have a credit app, if I don't have this, if I don't have that, I'm not going. Well,

that's what a salesman is going to say. We're fortunate. We have product specialists who are

salary employees. And, and they get graded on the number of presentations they do. So they need

to get in front of a customer. So it's, it's a win for them, right? So, um, you know, have I broke

it down to what's my cost per mile and things like that? No, I'd, I'd be misleading if I said that.

But, but I can tell you we're getting it done. Um, both in new in use cars. So, um, so it's working.

As long as the outcome is income. That's right. Um, right. That's famous drake line.

So tell me about, okay, so product specialists not commissioned and graded or, you know,

incentivize for presentations. Yes. So what is their incentive then? Like, is it like, how do you

keep them driven? How are you, how are you hitting these numbers and 30% net profit growth?

Like, right? If they're not making a commission from that, why? Like, what's their, what's, what is

their incentive that? It's a great question. So it started because we've got five major

universities within 50 miles of our store, right? And they're graduating thousands of students

every year out of high density. High density of college educated kids, but they're not

considering the automotive industry. You know, so we're looking at saying, how can we get them

to think about us the same way they do being an apple genius or working at enterprise?

You know, how can we, you know, our, what we have to offer in our opinion is better.

So why aren't they not looking at us? And we took our interns and we said, hey,

answer the questions. And we found out four basic things, right? People weren't coming because

they're uncertainty of pay. You know, when people would interview it for a job at a dealership,

they'd say, you could make from here to here. And, and that, you know, they'd say, okay,

what are you guaranteeing me? Oh, minimum wage. Oh, I go to McDonald's and get 15.

I'm out. So, so we tried to, okay, so we had to solve the pay problem. We had to solve the,

the fear of one-on-one negotiations, right? Because, you know, they, they didn't think

they're salespeople. No one ever does, even though most people are. And then hours was one.

So we designed a schedule to address that with a five day work week.

And then the last one was the stigma of being a car salesman. You know, they're certainly,

you know, the old image out there that you have to overcome. So we, we designed this program where

they're really their only job is to become an expert in the product and an expert in building

relationships, which is really the most important part of sales anyway. So, so we took the negotiating

off of them because we have a manager present the numbers. You got your best closers presenting

numbers every customer, right? So the, the product specialist job is to help that person

find what makes the most sense for what they're looking for. And got it. I think I'm getting it.

So, so you're saying the managers, the manager is commission. The manager is commission.

Okay. And so I get it. Now, based on that framework, do you see yourself promoting product

specialist to managerial roles? Do they ask that? I have a ton of it. So they're calling.

Why ask that? Because if I'm a very sales driven, you know, like aggressive salesperson

will I take the product specialist role? Or is that like a different type of personality profile

who's not so sales driven? It does not promote well. How do you see that? Okay. So, so we're not,

we're, so when this came, we were wanting a fish and a bigger pond for employees, right? We were

wanting to, you know, before we were settling for whoever, it wasn't sure what they wanted to do.

So they thought they'd try car sales or they didn't like the place they were working. So they're

coming to you. This gave us, this gave us a huge opportunity to, to draw people in. So what we

started drawing in were career-minded recent college graduates. And we put them on a career track

that had a ladder, right? So you're at stage one. You have a minimum expectation of six presentation

a week. And after 60 or 90 days, they would move to the next level if they were at 12 presentations

a week. And see, we could scale it easy. We know, we know what the closing percentage is, right?

So we could take and back into it and, and save money and guarantee them a salary. So let's say they

started $800 a week while they train. And it, it ladders up. And what we did is at level five,

when you reached level five, we sent you to finance school, right? So you, you trained to be

an F and I manager. Didn't guarantee you a position, but it gave you the schooling. So you're,

you're developing these people. So if you look across our company, probably 40% of our last two or

three years with the managers came through that program. Wow. And is this just an internal program?

What is this called? Product specialist. So it's our own, it's our own. No, I meant like,

how do you, when you say that, like, whenever you just mentioned training, is this internal,

or do you outsource this to intern, you know, it's internal, all internal. It's all in turn. In fact,

right now, I'm, I'm, you know, a hair away from hiring a full-time trainer for, I was going to

ask you about this. Like who's actually running this? Because that, you know, four rooftops,

which is super respectable, but you know, you don't have the operating leverage of 30 rooftops.

That's right. So how do you, how do you make that work, you know, economically?

So, so right now, we're not using outside sources, right? We're using us. I started this thing

called the Easter University, where I actually just said that's what was going through our mind,

university. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, but, but I have a good friend of mine, who's a dealer in Hawaii,

and he, uh, he had a tremendous year last year. And one of the things that he accredits at too,

is he hired a professional trainer from one of the FNI providers.

And this guy trains in every department, service writers, salesman, finance. He, in every

section of his business, he's got this guy training, and his numbers, he exceeded his,

his expectations last year by a lot. And, uh, and so, you know, I've started doing the math on

does it equate. And when I look at the difference, just that one move in FNI made last year equates,

you know, it's almost like training works. It, it's crazy, isn't it? Do you know, uh,

out of curiosity, do you know who he hired, which firm? It wasn't a firm. He hired the person from

a firm to be hired internally internally. And that's what I'm going to do. I've done the math.

I mean, it pencils. I can hire this guy full time. I've got enough stuff for him to do in my business.

I can pay him well. And, um, and I can, because you know, everything, you know,

there's so many corners being cut in every aspect of our business, but you can't, as me, you know,

I came, you know, I blood, sweat, and tear this thing. And I, I feel like I'm a pretty good trainer,

but I don't have time, right? I can't, you know, I started doing this thing where quarterly,

I meet with department heads, like I'll take a group of business development managers. I'll take

a group of equity mining managers, I'll take a group of sales managers, use car, new car,

parts, service, and I'll work with them and it'll make a difference, but I can do it quarterly.

You know, this guy can do it, this guy can do it all the time. That'd be his job.

You know, I'm a big believer also in, you don't know what you don't know. It seems like you're

a just very inquisitive, like, you know, it seems like you're very curious, like you're AI training.

I love it. Like you have this just like refreshing energy and you have, and this isn't your first

three years in business. I mean, you've been around. So it's like, you're staying, you know,

you're in the game and you're thinking about what's next. What do you think you're missing?

I know it's a tough question because you don't know what you don't know, but what do you think you're

missing? You're missing three more stores. You know, I'm missing. I haven't learned how to buy,

right? So I've tried. Oh, there you go. That's actually a really good one. Like being, like,

acquisitions are not easy. There you go. They're really not. I in, you know, part of it is the

quality of life thing. I mean, I want, I want local stores, right? I want them to be at the round

to what I have because I have a bench of people that I can inject and I don't want to have to move

them three hours away. So I want it to be regional. And then let's, let's be honest, this area I'm

operating in is one of the best places in the country to live, you know, year in, year out.

If you look at the reports, a roly market, everybody wants to be here.

Tell me more. I'm curious. Why is that? Well, there's so much diversity here. So, you know,

we have the universities. It's the capital. You know, it's growing. Wake County, one of my stores

is in Wake County. Wake County is growing 66 people a day. You know, it's, it's where everybody

wants to be. You know, that, that Bible belt region, you know, Georgia, North Carolina,

all the way down to Florida, really, Texas, you know, the south. People want to be here. The weather's

good. You know, almost, you can play golf year round. You know, there's a lot good about it.

Education, we got great, great universities. You know, we got NC State, Duke, Carolina,

ECU, Campbell, you know, we got a bunch of universities right here. So, you got all that,

that secured income. We've got the research triangle park in the roly market that most of the big

companies like Nova Nordus or whoever, IBM, all have their, their research center here.

So, we get a lot of money from those things. Epic Games, we got, we got a lot.

Wow. Yeah, it's, I don't know if calling it a sleeper is correct, but North Carolina is booming.

I've seen a couple people move there recently just for my network. So, it's, I, it seems like

it's, it's definitely growing. Tell me, so, okay, acquisitions is, is an opportunity for you.

That's, that's good. And, and I get the quality of life thing that I totally understand where

you're coming from there. Family? Two, two kids, two daughters, neither one of them wanted to be

in the business, but both their husbands did. And they're with me. Yeah. So, they're with you. Look

at that. They're with me. You know, I wish I had seven more kids because, you know, they're

great hires. I'm, I'm highly blessed. That's, I mean, think about it. All of it, you know,

every generation before us, all of eternity, you had a big family so they could work to farm and

it just. That's right. You know, I could go back. I've talked to my wife about it, but she's not

interested. I'd love to have more kids, you know. So, you know, ones in operations, ones in variable,

they're both workers. They don't, they're not, you know, looking for a handout. They're both

fighting the fight. I think if you asked, if you quizzed my entire company and said, who your most

valuable players were, they'd be on the list. So, it's good stuff. And they don't, and they don't

get special treatment. Now, which is a little bit. Now, I would say they, they have to tow to

house. They work harder than everybody else does. And I think you might get some people in the

company that would argue that that's not the case because I may call and say I need them to be

off this day or something because we have a family event, but understandable. That's about the

extent of it. So tell me, so what, so what new point are we building? Wait, can you tell us about

this brand? Because tell us, give us a little hint, something, the best day. It's domestic.

Let's just say it. All right. So, and what was the, like, how did that come to happen to you?

It approached real estate or, oh, they approached you. They said, this is going to be an emerging

market. And we'd love for you to be there. So I started looking property, crazy deal. I look

property in this area for, and everybody, because everybody knew what's coming there. And it was

hard. Everybody wanted a premium for the property that, you know, two and three times what it was

worth. And so I ended up buying a big track of land. And, you know, I paid way too much for it,

but then Disney bought the land across the street for me. And, and ended up being pretty good.

And it worked out. Then it worked out. Yeah. Look at that. Do you, are you a big real estate guy?

Others with your ships? I do have some holdings. We, we do dabble in, and for years,

has most. Yeah, other than that, any, any other interesting alternative investments or anything

else, interesting in your world from that perspective? So I'm, I do a lot in the development or

a real estate business, you know, a pilot. So I'm building a hangar right now. Another hangar

right now. Oh, you're a pilot. I'm a pilot. Okay. What do you, what do you fly? So I can pretend

that kind of, you know, what you're talking about? Sears. Oh, okay. I actually do know what that is.

So that's good. Yeah, I want, I want something bigger. So I have to build a bigger hangar.

So do you like it? Is a, you just do it as a hobby? Enjoy it. You know, I, I don't, I'm not one of

these guys that just loves to fly all the time, but it's really nice to get in a plane and go

to the beach. Takes you 40 minutes, as opposed to three hours. I do like that. Oh, so you fly

yourself to the beach? Yeah. Well, my mind's pretty bad ass. Yeah. Yeah. That's bad ass. Yeah.

This episode was brought to you by CDG Recruiting. The car dealership guy platform has direct access

to thousands of skill professionals in the dealership and automotive industries. And so building

on top of our free industry job board, we've launched CDG Recruiting a hands-on white glove

automotive recruiting service. Whether you're looking to fill roles in dealership management,

deceased suite, FNI, fixed stops, auto tech, or SaaS, we take the hassle out of hiring by doing

the heavy lifting for you. It's easy. Start by submitting a confidential talent request on our

website. Next, we connect you with a dedicated talent expert who will thoroughly understand your

unique needs. And finally, we present you with top notch candidates who are ready to drive your

business forward. And here's the best part. We vet and screen every candidate for you so you

don't have to. And with our placement guarantee, hiring through CDG Recruiting is 100% worry-free.

Collectively, our team has decades of experience and has successfully placed over 1,000 roles

in the automotive industry so you know you're in good hands. If you're ready to find your next

rockstar employee, try CDG Recruiting today by visiting CDG Recruiting.com or clicking the link

in the show notes below. Again, that's cdgrecruiting.com. Wow. Do you have a great story?

What did I ask you? You're an interesting person. What did I? What is there? What's out there?

I've got a couple books. You haven't read them yet, obviously, because the way you're right.

Yeah, what type of a... What is it right about?

Leadership stuff. So the first one was called Why Jacob Matter and it was about a product specialist

that I hired who checked every box and loved it here and then all of a sudden put them in

the store and wasn't long-equipped. So I personally, when he quit, I wasn't going to accept it.

So I went to him and I said, look, why are you leaving? He said, oh, I'm leaving because I said,

no, no, no, I need to know the real deal. So I guess what you're asking me is why am I not staying?

So then he listed eight or ten things that were the reasons he wasn't staying. And then I begged him

to stay and give me a chance to fix those things. So we did it together and we made that. So now he's

a manager for me ten years later. So it kind of clicks through the story of how we got there,

right? It's a pretty good read because it surrounds the automotive business.

If I had it to redo, I'd like to redo it now just to... Because I could chain some things in it

that would make it... Yeah, make it a new version. Yeah, the audiobook I would have read it myself

instead of having somebody do it. And then I wrote a second book on hiring who you want

about, you know, when the recession or when, you know, it was COVID happened and it was so hard to

hire anybody. I wrote that book because my daughter had a bakery that had a waiting list of

employees wanting to come there and all the other restaurants in the area were closing down

because it couldn't staff. And, you know, we learned a lot from that and we took, you know,

some of the lessons from that and some of the things we experienced in our own business and put it

in the book for them. So I had the chance to speak a lot back then and then COVID hit and, you know,

that kind of cured my speaking career. Wow, that's super impressive. You were also a 2024

time dealer of the year nominee. Yes, sir. Did you see that? Didn't get it all though.

Hard to stand up there and stage in so many other ways. Yeah, you know, that story about that

product specialist, every single dealer has been in that situation, right? When someone that you

don't want to leave leaves, and it is, you know, many people are earlier in their careers. Maybe

they don't think change will happen or maybe they're just, they struggle to communicate,

right? But such a good example of, you're like, hey, like tell me the real reason. Like, let me fix

this. Let me help you. I work for you. I like to say that because it's kind of the truth. I mean,

right? I'm here to make it good for you. And I think it's incredible that you solve that

with this specific person and they're still with you 10 years later. That's a good lesson for many

people listening because again, if you've sold a car in your life or if you've been in this business

or run it, you've been in the situation. It happens to everyone. But, you know, you could, you could,

I could give you a situation happened last week. The truth is, most of the time those employees

are savable. If they've been with you for a while, so I had one literally last week, someone came

to me and said that a BDC employee that had been with me for almost seven years was put in her notice.

And I'm like, okay, why? Let's, let's, let's look through it. So we look through it. And she

hadn't made any money the last three months. We're really bad for her. And, and so in your mind,

you're thinking, well, that's, that's a motive. So I, I said, well, let me talk to her. And they

said, well, we've already talked to her. She's, she's going to do this. She's already going to start

her own business and everything. I said, well, let me talk to her. So I sat down with her and I said,

hey, you know, listen, you've been with us a long time. Tell me what's on your heart and in your

mind. And she said, well, you know, I thought I saw it. We had a few bad months. She said, yeah,

it's hard because I'm critical of myself that I've got numbers that I know early in the month.

If I'm not on track, I'm not going to, I'm not going to get paid. My month is ruined.

My month's ruined. Change. So, you know, so I started thinking, well, you know, what else? You

know, so I had her talk to me through everything and, and, and really in her mind, she just

disheartened, well, for us, we have another guy that's moving back to Pennsylvania of all places

because his family's there. So I sat down with her and I talked to her and I said, let me,

let me work on this. So I met God with her manager and I said, listen, the reason she's in a situation

she's in is she's scared financially. Here I've been here seven years. I've climbed to a certain

point and I'm not climbing back yet. She said she asked about management at one point and you guys

kind of didn't hire for that position and there's been no more talk about it ever sent.

So what I've guaranteed her is that we'll, we'll start training her. Can't guarantee

her job in the future, but we'll start training you to learn the skills to be able to do that.

And I told her, give her guarantee for a few months. She's been here seven years. You know, she's,

you got a pay track record. Give her a guarantee for a few months. Take the pressure off of her,

right? And let's teach her some things. And of course they did it and she stayed.

You know, so there's always, there's a root of the problem. You know, it's, it's just like what we

talked about earlier with knowing what good looks like. You know, if you know it, you can get it.

You know, this is why you're successful, my friend. You find the creative solutions that, you know,

many others won't. Yeah. So incredible. John, this has been really fun. And I, if I'm listening

and I'm in the market or maybe even if I'm not, I mean, you're someone I'd want to work for.

Because he seems like you run, you know, a tight ship and I like your leadership style.

Reminds me a lot of the things that, you know, I try to embody and I, and I really believe in

especially with, you know, every action has a reaction or cause and effect. And just finding

those solutions. So I'm excited to follow your journey and see, see what you do next. Any,

any closing thoughts, anything else you want to share before we wrap up? You know, I, you know,

I enjoy your show. You know, look forward to some better quality speakers on your show than you

got right now. But, but yeah, yeah, no. But yeah, no, I love, I love what we do. You know,

there was a time in my life where I thought about getting out of this business and, you know,

a friend of mine owned a business that was very successful, tried to get me to go into it and I

looked at it pretty hard and and that's when I made the decision to buy a store because I,

I thought to myself, you know, I get to be in a business where I get to, to walk into a grocery

store or a hardware store or wherever and see people that I've helped with the transportation

issue. And, and, and I'm proud of what we do. So I said, you know, I get to be in the lives of,

you know, 75 to 100 people a day that, that have ups and downs and wins and losses and, and,

and I'm there, you know, I'm, I'm a part of their lives. And, you know, and so I realized that

this is what I love to do. So it's what I'm going to do the rest of my life. So I've been here ever since.

So you're the man. Incredible story. John, he's true. He started a motor. John,

thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me.

All right, hope you enjoyed that episode. Please give the podcast a rating. Consider subscribing

to the show and check the show notes for links to what we talked about. Thanks for tuning in.

I'll see you guys next time.