Car guys, what’s going on good morning, this is lou ramirez, the car guy.
This is fred lennart’s, the subprime hero and we are in the cafe.
With this we are horrible solutionary that you’re definitely going to want to get set up and get ready to take.
Some notes, because there is a lot that she is bringing to the brew, but until you get to see miss shannon everhart who’s joining us today go ahead and get you [.
Music ] is [ Applause, ], [, Music ].
I don’t know man.
I don’t know if that gets anybody else excited, but man that music really gets me jamming and what you didn’t see is that backstage shannon has been jamming out.
Can we just have music like underneath our entire session, probably hold on all right just kidding so anyway, guys welcome back to the cafe where’s, all the buttons [ Laughter ].
We miss you too.
It’s been like half a year since we’ve seen you february.
So it’s definitely time is flying by gosh.
I remember when february felt normal.
It felt really normal that much.
It really did it’s not normal anymore, but you know, the cool thing is, is that you know a lot of things have changed over the last six months.
So it’s a great time to get you on the show.
I mean not being able to see you, and i know that you’ve being in the position where you’re at we’ll get into that a little bit later, you’ve been able to see what a lot of dealers are doing um it’s.
It’s amazing things that some dealers are doing and there’s some stuff that dealers are just sitting there doing nothing and just holding things right.
We’re gon na tell you i’m proud of some of our dealers oh and go through this.
So yeah we’ve got some good stuff to share for sure.
That’s really awesome.
This is this is exciting, because car guys car gals there’s some people that bring a little bit of a different flavor to everybody’s cup and shannon is a solutionary that is able to uh find a way to literally be the second half of the uplifting.
Well, she does upshift you too she’s an upshift uplifter she’s, a car gal.
That is finding ways to help people uh be better, but she has a real knack for really uplifting people and that’s something that is a culture uh that this business has been screaming.
For for many decades and we’re coming around to a phase where there’s so many people that are trying to bring the positive and shannon as long as i’ve known her has been bringing the positive has been bringing the excitement has been bringing the joy to the room And showing us cruddy car guys how to do the same thing inside of our dealerships.
So i want to make sure that you all understand the the i guess uh the gravity so, but for people that do like the taste of it right.
We want to make sure that you enjoy uh what it takes to get better at what you do by changing how it is that you approach things from the inside out right, there’s so many things that are on the outside of us that impact what we do In the dealership or in our life, shannon has always been somebody.
That’s challenged us to dig deep to be able to affect what’s going on outside of us and that’s part of the culture that she brings.
Uh is, as you see, on her shirt uh.
The esp.
That’s not just making sure that we know how to speak without speaking or you know without knowing, but that’s enjoyable, simple and prosperous, and that’s a culture that they bring to the table.
She is the director at gravitational marketing, that’s right, and she helps to bring an element that most dealerships have actually been utilizing recently, but she’s changed the game on it.
She’s changed the name of it.
She’s changed the way that people even look at it and the effectiveness that’s inside of that is it goes without saying, but i’m excited to get started on this first, oh man, this five-liner, i really am excited it is.
You know we’re gon na get with this fireliner we’re gon na start.
We got five questions for you shannon, and these five questions are designed just to bring out your story.
The first question is nine times out of ten is the same question and i’m going to start with that first question: i’m going to hit you with is: oh, is first things first, before first thing i’m going to hit you with is: have you ever heard of? Forgive focus, fly, it’s not a question.
That’s not a question! We’re going to go right into that because first things first before we go anywhere in this before we do the five liner we do need to forgive focus fly before we do that.
That’s an amazing thing! We got to get our day going, we need to forgive focus.
I remember at the very last meeting we did down there down in in february in orlando, with you guys and yeah yeah 2020.
yeah.
It was february and uh lou gets up, you know and we’re doing our little we’re doing a little circle when he comes out and he gets everybody to do the forgive focus fly.
I was like so proud at that moment, almost choked up watching him do it.
I was like, i actually think i have that on video, oh, what’s either that or a picture of it, i’m pretty sure i have a song video doing.
Oh, that’s so awesome impressive to get like 20 something car, guys old and young right to stand up and do your forgive focus fly.
That’s how our meetings start when we do training all the time.
My meeting starts every day at the dealership.
When i get the guys together, but that’s how we would do our training right, everybody’s trying doesn’t have their coffee in them.
Yet they’re not ready to go.
They got an argument on the way to work they’re mad at the customer from yesterday.
You know get that junk off your shoulders.
Folks forget focus, fly, let’s get ready, shannon join us together, as we apply the three f’s, so we can keep growing y’all ready.
Let’s go car guys and kargals on three one.
Two three forgive focus fly.
That’s right! All right, let’s get this five lighter on the way, all right all right.
So first question is the same question.
I ask everybody: i feel like it’s gon na be super personal.
I don’t know why i’m like bracing myself for that, because it is be ready, be ready because it is personal, it is it.
The first question is it’s just your: why it’s your purpose? What drives you every single day when you wake up – and this is, i think, that a lot of people talk about the.
Why and it’s a big deal, because if you have a why, i think that your life can go a lot further than you think.
If you really focus on it, so what is your purpose? What’s your, why? What makes you motivated? What’s your i’m gon na, give you my kind of obvious answer sure you know i have a little girl that i absolutely love.
You know that’s how we all are us moms and dads, that’s how it works so yeah, so um everything is for her and it’s just she and i in this world.
So it’s kind of fun to do things just the two of us.
So you know i get up and work hard because i want to make experiences.
But, interestingly enough, now that i say the word experiences.
That’s really.
I think what gets me up in the morning in general um, i you know i’m kind of lucky.
Well, i’m lucky in a lot of ways actually, but my job at gravitational marketing allows me to kind of get into the inner workings of what’s going on in different dealerships.
So i have a lot of different experiences of all the people that i work with.
Really, if anybody’s going to travel and go, see a dealership and really get into the inner workings, it’s me.
So i really love those experiences.
I think um that adds muscle to my character and to um.
Obviously you know it rounds me out as a person.
It gives me things to talk about.
You know um, so yeah, so the more places you go and and more people you meet gives you all that experience and – and i think that’s i like collecting those.
Yes, i love that answer and it’s it’s it’s that’s.
It’s a very because you’re right that the obvious answer is our families.
You know our children, our loved ones.
We we want to do our best for them.
We want to.
You know we want to be able to look them in the face and tell them hey.
Do it this way, because we do it that way.
We know that it’s the right way.
You know so there’s a lot about that’s leaving a little legacy with your family, but it’s the experiences and you made a very good point there.
I know when you start to think about that question, because it is there’s a lot of most people.
They’ll bring up family and i use family too, as a motivator.
It’s a daily motivator for me, but deep down, it’s it’s more! It’s the experience! It’s the it’s! It’s just that feeling of knowing that i’m moving forward, it’s that feeling of knowing that i’m constantly growing.
It’s that feeling of making those memories happen that looking forward to future memories.
You know – and you make a really good point in that – shannon that’s a great answer.
Why did? Why did we have these little boogers to begin with, you know to make memories through it again to kind of.
Maybe i don’t know, i mean everybody’s got their own reasons.
Why? But you know um to experience life through their eyes and your eyes.
Maybe i don’t know, there’s lots of reasons why we want to become parents in the first place, but yeah once we have them.
We should we should uh, try and make it as rich as possible.
100.
That’s awesome, and what you’ll notice is that there’s a common, a common thread with many solutionaries is that their? Why is they’re investing so much into their their family or those that are going to continue on that legacy, and that is something that we carry out uh.
So much of a of an echoing uh announcement that legacy is very important legacy is what we’re, what what is actually of value.
We have many things.
We have many um, i mean there’s dollars, there’s cents, there’s equipment, there’s, there’s recognition, there’s trophies! There’s rings, there’s all kinds of cool stuff that we can collect over time, but leaving it’s not so much what we get it’s.
What we leave right, it’s what we actually leave and and your child uh and and our children, and it is that thing that we’re working so hard for to make sure that they have it not just better than us, but they have it brighter than us.
They’re they’re more uh, the opportunities are greater for them than they were for us because of maybe some of the the roads that we helped pave or um.
Some of the lessons that we helped leave right, there’s many people that have achieved ridiculously great levels of achievement.
Yet they were taught and given fundamental things from people that they were in the streets with they were in the gutter with they were in poverty with right.
But those core lessons that they received were the things that helped motivate them to achieving great things.
And it’s honorable again anybody that that counts their children as the ones that are the things that motivate them most um, and i completely attribute that i completely uh honor that and we we applaud that and completely understand all you car guys and car guys understand you Guys, you know everything that you were just saying to lou.
We could say that about the people that report to us that we’re trying to develop into leaders – you know 100, so that we can go on and tackle a new challenge.
And you know everything that you were actually saying reminds me of somebody that that i work with that.
I respect immensely um.
Her name is kat fletcher, i’m going to give her a little shout out because she does not get enough recognition in the world.
So just be in the universe is what i’m going to say right now, um, but it was several years ago when kat and i were working together, and we still do that.
I told her.
I was her director at the time i said, come for my job.
If you, if you want my job, come for it, i’m i’m not scared of that um i’ll find something to do.
I i’m i am a builder in this company, and so i was on the leadership team.
I knew what else was happening within the company, so it didn’t scare me for her to do that and now she’s a superstar at our company, and i feel like a lot of that, has to do with some of the leadership legacy that um.
You know i’m gon na pat my own back on, but really it’s because of somebody doing that.
For me too, before i did jack, you know and that’s that is the key.
You know we we talk about lou and i we talk about legacy a lot and the legacy isn’t just to you, children, it’s to everybody, you touch when you.
If you’re a leader, you always talk about your team, like they’re, your kids yeah, it is, and they are, you know they’re like because they are kids, they are children, but no they they absolutely not in that annoying way.
But no, you guys take out of your life to have private one-on-ones with them about what’s going on going on in the dance world.
Absolutely we share with you.
I mean you guys are there for them, you know, and they are you know we actually spend so much time with them.
It’s almost more time than we spend with our own families or almost the same amount.
You know, and so you have to be able to understand that that is a relationship that that is kind of like a father-son, even though it’s not you know, you’re a mentor to to the to the student.
You know you’re the they’re, the grasshopper and i’m the master you know and i’m all i’m trying to do is have them.
Take that pebble out of my hand one day when they do it’s going to be an exciting day, and you look forward to that.
There’s some leaders out there that don’t want that.
I i’ve seen it i’ve seen leaders who try to keep their people down.
They try to keep them as weak their sauce as weak as possible, instead of trying to throw extra flavor in there and help them become that good sauce that everybody wants, and that is the complete opposite of what the culture needs to be.
You know there’s a lot of old-school car guys.
You know, don’t uh, you need to be this way, but we in this world today.
Not only do we need to accept and embrace this type of culture, but we need to bring that on not just to our people that work for us, but into our clients that come in and buy vehicles from us.
You need to treat them.
You’ve developed you’re, developing everybody, i mean.
However, you want to think of development, but just now out of nowhere in my mind, i was thinking of like how film is processed.
Oh yes, like and same thing for our customers too.
We got to uncover what their story is and we’ve got to.
You know work through their anxieties.
Uh we’ve got to develop them; they have preconceived notions of how this whole car buying process is supposed to work, and we’ve got to undo some of that.
So all of the development just like how we’re developing our kids, i love how you i love how you talked about that like it’s the way that they think that you buy a car, but we need to show them the right way.
You know, and that’s it.
That’s the job of a good good and i don’t even like to call a sales person, a good.
You know car buying code right now and that’s the way it is you’ve got to coach people and show them the right way.
People have their arms tied because they’re so used to this old hearts.
You know old school way of negotiating these stupid numbers and trying you know, keep your keeping your cards.
So no one sees your cards.
You know it’s! Okay, to show your cards, it’s okay! To be open, but the people who are selling the vehicle us car buying coaches need to be more honest.
We need to be more transparent.
We need to do all these things, but the biggest thing is we need to understand we’re serving people, we’re not.
You know.
Yeah is there, is there an end game yeah? We want to make money.
We want to do all these things, but those things are byproducts of doing the right thing for people on a constant basis right and if you look at it like that in the end, by the end of the year, end of whatever time that you’re looking at You will be prof, you will be it’ll, be enjoyable, it’ll, be simple and it’ll be profitable and prosperous.
I should say sorry, i’m saying profitable, profitable, that’s fine, but uh, but it is you know, and it’s a great culture.
You know it’s so glad to have you here.
I know we just talked about that first question for a while: i’m gon na let lou jump on to the second question, but man there’s so much that draws from the.
Why it’s unreal? Because it’s you know we can go.
We can go the whole episode on the y right because digging deeper.
It’s always a constant thing that you’re going to have to reference back to, but no training, the guys.
We try to make sure that they stay hyper focused on the.
Why so that they stay committed to doing the what they’re doing right? If you lose sight of why you’re fighting inside a war, you may not do it anymore if you lose sight of what it is that you’re working or why you’re doing this job, you might not want to do it with as much passion right so that y Is such a big motivator and that’s why we kick it off every single time making sure that we get to the deepness of the brew? That’s what the beans we’re talking with! So speaking of doing things that are enjoyable, simple and prosperous, and getting to the! Why? I’m going to kick another why, over here, okie dokie, because for you car guys and car gals that do not know um what it is that she has helped become a leader and an innovator in, and we kind of just touch base on it.
The the shaping of not just being a sales person, but being a coach right, somebody that’s taking a customer and not just selling them something, but we’re teaching them how to properly buy something that posture is different right and then also making that be something that a Customer is convinced, and knowing that you’re not just saying these things to me, so that i buy this you’re, not just saying these things to me so that you have a sale, you’re legitimately trying to help me be better at buying.
Because it’s me that pays the price.
It’s me that is in this for the long haul.
It’s me that’s trusting my life in this automobile right, so that person is being told that maybe some of your ways of thinking are not the best.
Okay – and i know we met an hour ago, but i’m trying to tell you that what you’ve done to get where you are, i’m gon na help you fix, but going forward.
We can’t do these things anymore, right right.
Well, that’s even that’s! Like post, you know uh coaching right, yes right right.
Yes, that’s right coach! So with that – and she has – and this is the whole reason why we met inside of orlando at a meeting with a bunch of car guys and car gals, because they created a place where managers can come together and learn how to adjust the culture.
It’s one thing to get leads it’s another thing to understand how to actually process them when they show up at your store and all stores are different.
Some have bbc’s some, don’t some have sales people, some have consultants, some coaches, some all those different things, but she transformed the name from bdc to 18.
right.
Oh i’m, spelling the beans.
I need to let you get to that.
Why was it so important? So let me help with that everybody.
She has a system of making bdc departments, which is what we’ve come to know them as right, incredible, incredibly effective and she changed it.
Why was it so important, shannon here’s? Your question number two: why was it so important to change the culture or the understanding of what a bdc department was and to bring that into uh such an elevated place of understanding inside of the dealership culture? It’s on you, okay, i’m gon na back up a little bit, because um is definitely a constraint that i’m passionate about that.
I want to talk about um, but i also want to make sure that we clear the first constraint that most dealerships have that when i first start talking to dealerships.
Usually, this is the problem that we need to get out of the way.
The first obstacle to get out of the way is getting leads, and i don’t mean buying lists or getting leads from third parties or anything like that, but having really authentic, naturally um excited about your business customers either coming in as web forms in leads or actually Picking up the phone or coming into the dealership um for the most part, the industry really does not uh, there’s two very distinct markets in our industry and for lots of reasons.
The industry really only focuses on one part of the marketplace and it’s a very small percentage of the marketplace.
It’s only about two percent and those are your shopping customers, but what about the people that are in the 98? The people that aren’t that didn’t wake up? This morning and think that they could buy a nicer, newer car, but we know in the industry that most likely whatever it is, that’s holding them back from a nicer newer car is something that we can help them with, and so the works constraint is to make Sure that you guys have um enough of those types of leads that are coming in, because the conversations with that customer versus a shopping customer is different.
A shopping customer, usually i feel like, is more of a transactional conversation when you’re talking to somebody who has a problem who um like we just said, feels like they know how the shopping experience is supposed to go.
For example, they believe strongly that they’re supposed to have a sizable down payment in their back pocket when they walk in the dealership.
That’s not necessarily the case.
We know that, but the buying public, the people that have problems the people that don’t have cash right now feel like that’s, what’s holding them back.
So the first thing uh after we clear the constraint of leads, is to make sure that we clear the constraint of.
What’s been holding them back and the typical bdc does not have those kinds of kinds of conversations they have the kind of conversations that the shopping customer can relate to where it is more transactional.
It is more about like cloth or leather um.
You know, do you know car truck suv? Third, you know third row or not sunroof or not.
That’s a very transactional conversation and so every bdc out there in the world is getting up today and doing that kind of job.
By and large, that’s that’s the conversations that are happening, but really the people that can help grow our business, the ones the customers out there.
That would love to buy a nicer, newer car, but don’t think that they can, because they don’t have that down payment that they believe they absolutely have to have.
If we tell them, which is what you guys are doing at your dealership, you’re telling them hey, you don’t need that.
You don’t need to even worry about your problem.
Right now, come and tell us what your problem is and then we’ll be able to fix it.
Most likely, or else we’re going to give you a lot of information around this situation.
So, like you said lou, we don’t repeat these behaviors.
We don’t do these mistakes in the future, but really um.
The bdc model is very transactional, and so it leaves in the kind of flailing in the wind that customer that needs help and when you ask them if they want cloth or leather they’re like uh, i mean i, i don’t even know.
If i can get into a nicer, newer car, so sure cloth, leather, uh, leather, yeah, so really the entire model of the bdc, even the title, bdc like i, when you you know you chuckled a little bit fred when i said whatever that is, stands for business Development center, but if we’re out hanging with our friends on a friday night, you know having a beer with our with our buddies talking about our week and somebody says: hey: what do you do? What do you do? Bdc your bdr, like where where’s the where’s, the rallying cry in that where’s that and so um we had a similar experience in our agency um at gravitational marketing.
We have a call center, too they’re, calling on you guys, all day long trying to uh get you guys introduced to talking to the 98.
Like i was just talking about a little bit.
We have an entire advertising campaign, um and process and systems around it.
To talk to the 98 to be able to really relate with the 98 right um, but in our world we were, you know they were just a call center and we realized that they were suffering.
They were suffering from a lack of identity.
Um of purpose.
We had a lot of turnover, we had a it was like the plague.
I mean, i know, that’s probably not even funny to say right now, but um back then i mean this is a long time ago now.
This is about eight years ago now that team was very unhealthy.
Literally and figuratively i mean they were out constantly.
There was always somebody that wasn’t there that day and the job the mission of the department can’t be lifted without uh a team – that’s well modded.
You know body, mind and soul right, yes, yep.
No, it was just we.
It was just constantly banging our heads into the into the wall with this team with great people on it, i mean super.
We were incredibly proud to have them on as highers.
We didn’t just hire nobodies right, we brought them into our culture, we wanted them to fit and we couldn’t get that puzzle piece to fit until we stopped just calling them a call center and gave them an identity and gave them a rallying cry gave them a Mission, we literally reintroduced the entire department to the company we pretended in a company meeting that that department had been eliminated um and then we turned on some music and started jamming, because that’s how we do things you know and um reintroduced this entire team.
They walked in, they had their team shirts on.
They were all decked out in their gear to match the theme and from then on.
We have not looked back.
We don’t refer to dealership bdc’s as bdcs if i’m traveling and i’m out i’ll, just walk in the floor, and i talk to somebody on the sales team they’re like oh, the girl’s back in the bdc and i’m like.
They need the support from everybody that they are doing something it’s difficult in the first place to be on the phones all day, long in what i very derogatory.
What else can you say, they’re sitting in their own stink all day, long right, and then you just want to reduce their their role, acronym, that doesn’t really even mean anything business, development center, so yeah, so that is the that is um the.
Why really behind changing that name and for the dealers that we work with, like you guys, you are able to take advantage of that lead acquisition, 98 coming to you and then uh the coaching around how to take care of them, making sure that you empower the Team, whether they’re on the phones or on the floor, to understand that they’ve got something bigger than just metal to push today and that’s something that you have have led the way in.
As far as uh making sure that it is clear that we do put the relationship over the revenue, we do put people over processes, we do make sure that it’s we’re building up the person that we are with every day.
Instead of just trying to squeeze everything we can out of them without giving them the the proper identity, giving them the value that we have for them right to have them motivated to have them excited to go, do their job right.
You completely change the culture, and i completely understand what you’re talking about when somebody misquotes what that that title is, or the jargon inside of the store doesn’t line up, because anytime, that you’re trying to create a culture.
It comes with language yeah.
It has to have the proper language right.
I come i’m a i’m a hip-hop kid right, so i have hip-hop culture in inside of me, but it comes with the language right, so it doesn’t matter what it is that you’re, a part of that culture has a certain language, there’s so many different things that We can say in the car business that most customers would look at us and be like man.
What what do you mean? I’m one like it up.
I don’t even understand what that means.
Oh, it’s because that’s our language, but that’s in our culture.
When you’re trying to change a culture, you have to change the language.
, bye, .
