Show notes
Selling to the Current Market
You were talking about how at the beginning of COVID last year and this is quote, quote I was stupid enough to know that we were definitely staying current to the market, so we are selling. So why have you always gone that route, Bob? You're not holding back.
Oh God, what a good question, Sean. This is really simple. And now we have other people that follow our methodology. One of them I'm referring to is John Wolfe. He's doing unbelievably well with the playbook. So we call it the playbook because it's something that's time tested and trusted because of endless hours of conversation before we would actually implement it.
And Johnny's implemented it to the hundredth degree, right? Where you can't do certain things to people.
Inviting People to a Party
When you invite them to a party, you invite them to a party and you give them, you know, unsweetened lemonade. You follow me and a stale pretzel, right? Well, you asked them to come. They gave you the respect of showing up. They're all dressed up and so forth. Even shined their car to get there, right? And then you throw it in their face because you didn't give them a reason to be there.
What I'm referring to is,” I need $300 more for that one”. No Sale, No Sale, No Sale. Really OVE started it. When OVE first started over 20 years ago, whatever that number was, right? It's put your no-sales on here and tell everybody you want too much for a car that’s unsellable and that's carried through till today. It happens on all marketplaces.
You let people list cars on a marketplace that has no relationship to the market, but you're hoping to find somebody to bump their head and pay too much. And sometimes that happens and therefore it's kind of like gambling, put it all on red. And sometimes you win. But when you're all done, the marketplace, it does the same thing. As any other gambler, you're going broke and begging people for toll money to get up the Atlantic city expressway.
You dig it?
Attracting People to the Marketplace
Now from the very first day. What we understand as players is how you attract more people to a marketplace is never, never insult them because they give you the respect of showing up. Never do that. Always take the fear out of any kind of transaction that they find to be not beneficial to them. I'm going to give you a perfect example, from last week We sold a S-Class Mercedes to a dealer, five States away. Low mileage, beautiful car, you know, sport panel, et cetera. Right. And he gets it home and he says the words, ‘why it's got a PDR here” and maybe the thing on the books weren't lined up correctly in the glove box or some craziness.
You ain't allowed to own it. In other words, you don't sell it because you can't have it.
What we're really doing when we say that is 1) where we are half Irish, stupid mutts.
But number 2), you ain't allowed to have no fear coming here. When you come to this party, you will be overfed over, over drunk. You follow me and you will listen to the music that you want to listen to. That's critical mass, right?
And by eliminating the fear, what do you wind up with? More aggregated people willing to do business. And what you wind up with is a hundred percent sold for market value. You see what I'm saying, Sean?
When we frustrate people in our own microscopic PVC pipe, two inch PVC pipe that you gotta get every penny for every car, or you're not going to let the other guy participate You invite them to the party and then charge them for the food.
Nah, nah, I don't think so. The piranha effect will never take place. Where you’re putting blood in the water. Look what just happened.
The Jerry Springer Effect.
Now what you wind up with is I would call it laser focus, cause you're not going to miss what can happen on Jerry Springer show. “Look! She slapped his mother right in the mouth. I can't believe that happened.” The Jerry Springer effect.
In a marketplace, if you don't enable that but instead go with-
- “I’ll no sale that, we'll run it again.”
- And Don't worry about giving the buyers bitter fatigue.
Oh, now we have what you would call chauffeur knowledge, driving the bus. Never been a player. Do not understand the depth of what creates a marketplace, but you own the marketplace. So you must know, unfortunately it’s “chauffeur knowledge”
You've been there. You saw it, you failed at it, but now you're going to do it again? Nah, that’s chauffeur knowledge. Just look that up someday and read it. You'll love it because it's a fact.
The truth of the matter is if you don't have skin in the game, in the marketplace, where everybody give you the respect of being there. Every single unit's getting sold. It's Harry Carey's time brother.
It increases the will of players to come back and repeat the same circumstance to pay too much for cars that they're definitely taking home and selling. In our case, if you did take it home, you couldn't sell it. We'll continue to hold your hand. I ain't going to act like, I don't know your name. You follow me. No what's going to happen is we will help you get back off of that unit.
The Words No Fear become Blank
Because if you don't do that, the words, the words, no fear are blank. Daddy-O.
They're there without meaning you see, in other words, the words, no fear when you're actually not just pontificating, but BS-ing, right?
That means you're inviting somebody in with the false hope of actually having no fear. The opposite is true. You follow me. And if you actually enable someone to, I don't want to call it trust, but understand there is no possibility of fear. You wind up with the reason why we say every car that goes to a block is on a one way trip.
Don’t Step on Your Neighbours Poncho
The other thing that is very interesting is not stepping on your neighbors poncho.
One of the most irritating things in the Marine Corps that I ever found, right, is you're on a force March.
You're going from here to there and it's raining and it's freezing cold. And in other words, you're worn out, man. You know what I mean? Even though you're only 17, you're worn out and somebody steps on your poncho… I can distinctly remember three fist fights that this created. Cause I'm not a tough guy. I'm a, I'm a little sissy, three distinct circumstances where I got in a fist fight because somebody stepped on the poncho. Stepping on the poncho is really interesting, right? It's where you want everything. You want to be the buyer and the seller. And you want to be in the retail business and in the wholesale business. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That don't work brother. See, cause you're either in the kitchen or you're in the toilet.
One of the other, you can't be in both places at one time. Right. And there's different reasons why you're in the kitchen or the toilet. Right? Some places a flush, some places to inhale.
Right. And from my perspective, when you cross that, when you cross that little bit of an unseen Chisholm, right? You're in dangerous territory. We would never dream of retail on a car. Cause I ain't getting in the business of what our customers give us the respect to participate in whether it's in software or in, in bricks and mortar. We are never going to be there. The temptation has never been there because that, ain't what we do. You follow me.
What we do is help a dealer:
- Initially make a deal.
- Cash them instantly. Right? So there is no wait while you're paying something off.
- Know that our word is our bond.
So the tools to bond, our word is our bond. When you said it, you don't have to second guess it or backup, Oh, you farted. And then you had to change your mind and I'll make up a good story. And then we'll not pick it up or something that ain't the way this works. Because as soon as you do it, you follow me. Your word is no longer your bond and you no longer have trust. And now you created fear as opposed to lack of fear. Does any of that make any sense to you? Sean? Did I answer your question?
Thank you. I needed to hear that myself. So thank you very much.
My pleasure. I really appreciate it. We'll lay some more down when you got a chance, Sean-ie encourage anybody that has questions to shoot them in there. That we can address that stuff. So it's not just on topics that you were. I feel like we'd want to talk about. I'm happy to do it on anything. Let's call it related to what we do. Don't want to get in a space we don't do because then we'd become a pontificator. You might be talking about marketplaces and not be a player.
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