Loyalty, Culture, and Content: The Winning Formula at Southway Ford

How do you build a dealership brand that keeps customers coming back? In this episode of Word on the Street, we sit down with Frank Arroyo of Southway Ford to break down the winning formula for customer loyalty, dealership culture, and engaging content that drives sales.

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Transcript

If you're interested in hearing a conversation from a dealer who's gone from knocking on doors, door to door, selling cars, staying with the same dealership for twenty four years and has energized the dealership to lead the market and sales consistently, keep employees loyal for decades, and then also found a rhythm to get customers to stay loyal and the team to be creating content creating unique outside the box content that gets customers coming into the dealership, commenting on the funny content that they're creating, you're in the right place. The man of the hour is Frank Arroyo, better known as Frank the Tank. He's the general sales manager of Southway Ford in San Antonio. He's been there since two thousand and one. And his story is about more than cars. It's about loyalty. It's about energy. It's about what gets him out of bed day after day, coming into the dealership and delivering, creating authentic, sometimes hilarious content that really makes their dealership stand out. We're going to hear about his journey and his secret to building up a team and the philosophy that it takes to keep him excited and keep his team excited coming in every single day. I'm Andrew Street. This is Word on the Street. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with Frank Arroyo.

I'm joined here with Frank Arroyo, Frank the Tank from Southway Ford, and Ashley Kilbarger, my co-host, who's got twenty years of car experience doing marketing with car dealership groups and a handful of clients of ours. Frank, will you give me a quick breakdown of how you got into the car business, how long you've been at Southway Ford, and why you've been there for so long? So, yeah. Let's see. Let's see if I can go back to memory lane. I've been here for so long that I actually tend to forget. My wife always has to remind me. It's like, man, do you believe it's been this long? I was like, it's crazy. It's crazy how time flies when you're having fun. So that's how it is. So anyways, I believe I started in two thousand one. And I started. Yeah, I just said. Didn't know anything about the car business. Yes. Very long time. Didn't know anything about the car business. I needed a job. I can't remember. Well. I know I needed a job. I thought it was a cool job. I've always loved cars. I still love cars. You know, I think I had a Mustang back in the day and I thought it would be kind of cool. Right. So I was going to school to see. So I was going to school, got a job, started selling cars, fell in love. And that was two thousand one. So here we are. Twenty. What are we? Twenty twenty five. Twenty twenty five. Uh, I'm twenty-five and, and still loving it just the same way as I started. And that's crazy. And, and how long I've been here? I've been here since two thousand and one. First car, uh, first job in the car business. Uh, I've done it, you know, I've done everything. I clean toilets. So. whatever there is to do in the car, in the automotive industry, whatever it is to do at an actual car dealership, I've done it. So still come up every day. Still, still enjoy coming to work still. Somebody asked me not too long ago, what is it about the car business? And I've never done drugs, but, but It's as close as you're going to get to getting that high. Whenever you sell cars, whenever you could talk to somebody, show them your product. If there's an issue, you know, you just come up with a solution. And I think that's what I enjoy the best is coming up with a solution. Uh, now I'm at a different bro from, from back in the day, but, uh, I enjoy teaching people. I think that's, that's the stage where I'm at right now. Dude. Okay. So have you been at Southway Ford since two thousand one since two thousand one? I don't I will need a private I will need some privacy in a calculator to figure out how many years it's been. That's some straight up loyalty. And was that before Mack Hike owned Southway Ford? Sure. Yeah. So it was owned by a private individual. I think it was like two people. And I believe Mack came out here and my boy Terry, they came out and bought the store. two thousand eight, two thousand seven, maybe. I think it was it was two thousand eight because it was during the recession. That was when all that craziness was going on. That was an exciting time. Yeah. Car industry cash for clunkers. And yes, cash for clunkers. How is that for you guys? It was awesome. It was it was it was one of the they still make fun of me here at the store. Cause I, you know, and actually every Christmas we have a, we have a Christmas party and David, which is, you know, my boss, David Dove, He always does a little speech, you know, and he always brings up Cash for Clunkers because I held the record and now they make fun of me because that record been trashed and broken and everything. But, you know, we still remember Cash for Clunkers. And yeah, it was it was great, you know, great, great time in the car business. It was when the car business was kind of it was uncertain. Right. It was the first time I've been in the car business. Right. But first time we held a little bit of adversity. You know, we didn't know what was going on because I got in after nine eleven that so two thousand one they had they had these crazy deals. So that was one of the ones, you know, they they they had some good interest rates and it spiked up the market. So anyways, in two thousand eight pressure clunker spiked up the market. So it was great. And then you survived through a buy-sell from Southway being independent to Mack Hike still independent, but you've got loyalty. And from my observation, it seems like there's a lot of loyalty between all the dealerships where... Each store has the autonomy of being able to make their own decisions with their marketing, their inventory, staffing, a lot of those things, but still have the power of having a larger group for buying power. But it also keeps the staff loyal within the organization where a lot of times when people leave, they go to different dealerships. Can you explain how in the world you guys are able to do that? Yeah. So the more and more I look at it, cause everybody I talked to, you know, a lot of people come out to their store and, and everybody gets, everybody gets, uh, amazed at the, at the loyalty, especially the time that me, uh, myself and, and multiple dealerships, David included, uh, I've been here since we basically grew up here. You know, I started, you know, when I was. Twenty, I was twenty years old and, uh, I don't want to say I didn't know any better, but I think it's the people that started because we all started when we were so young, and here we are. I mean, how old am I? I'm forty-six, whatever. Yeah, and I think it all comes down to the people, right? If you enjoy coming to work, you enjoy – sure, it's not always perfect, but that's what it is. But I do see – so back to your point, I do see – I mean, I interview people. I hire and fire a lot of people. I was joking because we were in the meeting. We had this meeting an hour ago, and I just were able to get on. Poor Ashley has been waiting probably. And yeah, I had like five. I had already talked to five people. Had to let go of some people. I don't know if that's... But hired more people. Yeah, and got to interview some folks. Interviewed some folks and... you know, on and within thirty minutes, you know, some people take a lifetime. But the car business teaches you. It's taught me, you know, you got to act fast. You know, it's that kind of industry. Yeah. And it resets itself every month. Yeah. And from what it what it sounds like from like in your career. It's like one of my one of my this guy, it's one of my neighbors, he's like a He works at the business school at University of Texas. And he's like, you know where you are? He's like, you're in like the third phase of your career. And I'm like, okay, what does that mean? And it's like, you know, when you're in your twenties, typically it's like, you're just trying to get a foothold on something that makes your parents proud and keeps money coming in and your bills paid and your girlfriend not dumping you. And then when you're in your thirties, hopefully you've kind of found what you're good at or gotten good at what you start doing in your twenties. Then in your forties, you start making more money doing that. Then a little bit later, you can start to look for ways to coach and to teach and to give back to the community and help by not just telling people, here's the lesson, like, but it's like, and here's my experience. Here's what works well for our dealership. Here's what customers, you know, to be able to give back. I think you've accelerated that. Like if you're forty six and doing that now is perfect. Like you're ahead of schedule a little bit. Yeah, just just trying to, you know, it sounds cliche, right? A lot of people say that you find a place or find what you do, what it is, and then make it a better place kind of deal or make it a better industry. I try. You know, there's there's only so much you could do. But I try, especially with with the. with new employees coming in, because a lot of things have changed. I mean, I'm talking about night and day from when I started. I could just imagine people that have been in the car business since the eighties. A lot of people go to dealerships and still maybe older folks, and they still have that notion of saying, oh, you don't want to go to the car dealership without so-and-so, because they always joke around like, who belongs in the bottom of the ocean? attorneys, criminals, and car salespeople, and anchors. They've always said that. When I started the car business, that's the way it was. And truly, some people earned that respect. They truly did. But I mean, again, I started in the car business, you know, at twenty years old. They didn't know any better. Learn from a lot of great folks. I had a lot of mentors, you know, a lot of friendship, so many people. And it truly has changed. You know, it's it's it's it's not the old days. And you have to pivot. Right. Like any other industry, you know, you have to pivot. You have to. you just have to morph to whatever the business is and try to make it better. So, so when I got in the business, you know, let's make it better. Let's start training some of these new youngsters, you know, cause that's who it is. And hopefully they could pay some taxes so we could get a little bit of money when I retire. Yeah. Pay that social security. Yeah. And again, I just did the math. It's twenty six years. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I figured. Twenty five years that you've been there. And um you're talking about it changed a ton what are like some of the good changes that have happened uh so the good changes are for the customer I'll tell you this much for the customer and I'll do two I guess they kind of they kind of interlock. The internet, when I started, the internet was just at an infant stage. You didn't have these big companies. You didn't have all these Shopify's. You didn't have Amazon. You didn't have all these huge companies that have truly changed the way of doing any kind of retail business. Car business has always been a little delayed, especially here in I'm not going to say Texas because that would include Austin. I think Austin has always been a little bit ahead, but San Antonio for sure. We've always a couple of years back. I think we're a step behind Houston and Dallas too. Those are machines of towns for car business. Yeah, it's nuts, right? And we still do. I mean, hell, I just sold a vehicle. Well, one of my guys, but a client that I sold in two thousand two. So they've been coming here. I've sold just about everybody in their family. I'm selling their kids. I'm selling their grandkids because some of them are a little bit older. So it's crazy how kind of that goes, right? We're in a market that people are very loyal. Not all. Right. But San Antonio has always been it's a great city, you know, and the loyalty that you have from from some customers. I mean, they become kind of like your family. Right. Without being your family. So, yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that that I think that. got me where I'm at. Right. Not that I'm at the top or anything like that, but I've had a lot of clients that I still sell, you know, and, and pretty simple, you know, you treat them the way you would want to get treated, you know, and you follow up with people. That's it. So after people's purchase, do you guys, do you have like an outreach protocol that you try to encourage your staff to do or that you're doing well? Everybody's different. Every leadership, you know, there's such a thing of too much, you know, too much, Harvest is crazy. I mean, hands down, it's crazy. You know, you get different management skills. What works? What doesn't work? You know, you get managers coming from what they're used to doing. It all works. I always tell everybody, it all works. Just pick one thing and just do it, right? It all works. It's just everybody's different. But there is such a thing where you're, you know, you'll get a manager like, you need to call, you need to do this, you need to do that. There's There's a way of selling, right? My biggest one is that I call people, I still call people, and I say, hey, Andrew, what's going on? Hey, this is Frank. I haven't talked to you in a while, man. How's the family? How is the kids? How's everything? Or I'll call you during Christmas. Like, hey, man, I just want to wish you a Merry Christmas. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I didn't call you to sell you anything, but I'm touching base with everybody that I, you know, like to touch base with. That's what I try to teach my guys. If you call a customer and you tell them or email, you know, nowadays it's text. Back in the day, there was text was just starting off. But, hey, Andrew, this is Frank. Hey, man, I remember that you, I don't know, whatever it is, you were going to school. You just graduated. How's that going? Everything good? All right. How's the family? And that's it. I was just like, hey, I just thought about you. I had your number on my phone. I wanted to call you. you know, and, and I'm not trying to sell anything. Uh, sure enough, sure enough. Andrew, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in a month, maybe not in six months, but Andrew's going to call me. He's like, Hey Frank, I'm actually interested in a car. You know, I was thinking about, or Andrew, when I call it, I was like, you know what? Funny thing. You call me. I'm thinking about trading in whatever it is that you drive nowadays, Andrew. Um, And, uh, yeah, that's, that's the follow-up. Just right in the back of the limousine right now. So that's my life. I'm just kidding. Uh, dude. And that's like, do you, do you put notes in your CRM about customers during the day? I personally don't, I have a, I have a good brain. Uh, I remember the stuff that I could go to jeopardy. I could, I could. come up with the answers of something that's not important, you know? And I'm not saying, but I remember crazy little things, but, and I don't know if my wife's gonna watch this, probably not, but I will remember, like, I don't remember my kids' social security numbers. I don't remember any of that stuff, like important stuff I don't remember, but odd stuff I'll remember. And that's how I associate a customer, right? But yes, Ultimately, in the car business, you want to put her in CRM so you know, like, hey, I remember talking to Ashley. She bought, I don't know, she had two kids. She bought this, an Explorer. So I know in a couple of years, maybe the kids are getting a little bit bigger. Maybe now we start an expedition. And just know that she had kids, too. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's key. And I think in any sales is that you have to remember little stuff. that it's going to make Ashley say, wow, I can't remember that so-and-so remembered this. And that's what I think. I feel like. Yeah. So you're texting people, calling? Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. I I'm super similar like my notes in our crm about dealers we've worked with or prospects that I've talked to that were like handing off to sales and things it's like my notes are bullet points of like her son's in like pony league baseball and he's really good yeah dad's the coach mom travels and seems super into it as well like you know there's some personal element besides like just how the store is performing that they have they're deficient and pre-owned inventory under twenty grand like there's all these things that are important and that help drive the strategy but like who is this human that's you know on the other side of this conversation and yeah what can we do to help you know foster a relationship with them and that's a relationship I'm gonna give you a tip right here because I'm all full of ideas I'm gonna give you a tip so this goes back to so I grew up a couple years in mexico and if you go to mexico or I think any latin american country and it could be other countries Nobody has, everybody has names, but nobody's known by their name. I don't know if you, a lot of people don't know this. Everybody has a nickname. Everybody has something that you're unique to a person. So how I remember a particular person, let's just say Andrew, uh, Andrew, everybody knows Andrew's redhead, right? Uh, he kind of looks like the boxer, Mexican boxer. So I would put blonde. Yeah. So I would, yeah. So I would put in my phone. Cause it, maybe I have five Andrews. Maybe I have, you know, whatever. So I would put whatever nickname that he has or I could make of, and I will remember who this guy is. So anyways, that's how I remember a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I've never had that before. Well, I, you don't look like him, but I'm saying just the, the, the red hair. know he's he's uh he's like you're like I don't know I think you're like six foot he's like five six but he's chiseled you're not you know oh yeah I wouldn't mess with him how are uh um so when I first was introduced to you I was through um the guy that was doing the paid search and stuff and then I started talking with you and started looking at some of the content that you'd already started creating at the dealership side so I guess the advertiser that's like gold ammo that very few dealers are producing and then we can get it and put in front of people who come to the website and people whose cars over five years purchased then do a trade and trade up like what got you to start doing that? And did you have any sort of like, confidence barrier that you had to jump over? Or any strategy? So, I mean, yeah, I would be lying to you, right? I think we're all human, you know, everybody, some people are better at things, you know, it's uh I went you know I remember going to school I went to utsa you know I couldn't make it to ut and austin they charge too much money I know because my kids go in there but anyways I would take public speaking you know I took two classes and you know the whole public speaking deal a lot of people can't do it you know a lot of people can't be in front of a camera I found this out right one uh All it is, is you have to practice. You just gotta rip the bandaid off and you just have to go for it. Nothing you're gonna say is gonna be perfect. I think a lot of people kind of put that stress on themselves and is it gonna be perfect? Is somebody gonna like it? What are they gonna say? I always tell my kids, you know, it's like, do something even if it's bad, at least you tried it, right? So the people that don't try it, you never know. Cause you're always trying to make it perfect. And here's the deal is nothing's ever perfect. So anyways, so I started doing these, videos and it was a good transition right because when again in two thousand one that was not the case you know facebook came around it was it was new I wish I would have stocked then uh you see how much it is now it's like six hundred fifty bucks wow yeah when I when I when I kicked around the idea was twenty four dollars that's when it came out yeah yeah yeah and you know anyways that's a whole other story But it was fresh. It was new. It was another way of communicating with people. And it just blew up kind of deal. Right. So we used to. So how I started selling cars, we used to go knocking on doors. We used to put flyers on cars. We used to go to and honestly, we still do. We used to go to flea markets, set up shop, you know, and just try to be have that. competitive edge versus just waiting on somebody to come into the store which you know that was the norm he just waited around smoking a cigarette you know everybody bunched up and hopefully a customer right so that's that's that's the the stig that the car business has right like nobody wants to park there because they're like you know we've heard we've heard it all you know like you guys are like vultures or you guys are trust me I've heard it all um but it was another way of communicating with people and yeah lo and behold you know that's what everybody has gotten to where we're at now you know um and I do a lot of advertising everybody so as you can imagine I get people from everywhere trying to do advertising you know you're talking about print tv radio everybody's got the boards. Yeah. Greatest and latest. And the sharpest cookie cutter and sharpest cookie cutter, but wait, there's more, you know, there's all that stuff. And I'll tell you this much again, it all works. Just got to pick something and go for it. But the way I kind of started choosing, you know, cause I started doing it for, for myself, right? Like I, that's, that's how I was sending cars, you know, as I got into management, I started getting, you know, You know, guys to do it. Uh, I started showing people and then of course, then I got to the whole store and I started doing it for the store. So I looked around and if you go, even if you're driving, really pay attention. And what is everybody on? Everybody's on their phone, right? Eighty percent, ninety percent of the people are normally on social media. So I was like, you know what? I got something right here. And if I could put that in front of people and they're advertising, because, of course, you know, that's why Facebook's at six hundred fifty dollars a share is because they start charging people. You get in front of a lot of people and they're always on their phone. So I was like, why not? It's a no brainer. So that's how I that's how I introduced myself. That's how I took it. And that's where I'm at. That's where it was like, right after I left Facebook, they had taken the organic reach of a page from like all of the people that followed the page to like zero people that could see that content. Like it just wouldn't distribute it anymore. And everyone's freaking out. And all these companies that I was working with were like, oh my God, this is like a hostage thing. We just grew all these followers. I'm like, let's just play the game. Let's be the ones that are running the ads. is when you could just target anybody and you could say I want to target you know men between thirty and forty five that drive a pickup truck right now that's over three years old and introduce them to the raptor and that was like the game is like let's be the ones that are spending money and going through the feed because it's like yeah it's like that's where people are discovering things they're not necessarily searching for trucks on social, but it's like up to you to have the cool content and us to have cool content, like go through that person's feed, go through that person's stories and make them think about us. It's kind of like that phone call you make to past customers. And if it's not them right now, then it's their friends that might, their brother that might be in market. It's gonna be them eventually and their spouse that's eventually gonna be in market. And what can we do if TV or billboards aren't as trackable or as applicable right now? It's like, what's the next thing? It's like, as soon as like social media, whatever channels we're using with Facebook and Instagram and TikTok, once those aren't cool, I need to figure out what the hell is cool and where people are spending their time. Cause there's always gonna be like an, an advertiser more willing to go out of business faster than us. Yep. And so you started creating content. It was totally different. It was pranks. It was getting the cult, like getting the vibrancy of the staff and the people, not just the cars and the vehicle walk arounds and the drone shot of the logo out front. Um, what was that experience like, like getting. being able to go into like, I feel like there's a level of comfort at the dealership. Oh yeah. I'm surprised I still have a job. I am surprised. So I'm a fun person. You know, that's just, that's, I don't know. I guess that's how I am. Um, I enjoy laughter. I enjoy having fun. In fact, again, when I hire people, I tell them, I, I want them, like that's their duty to Have fun. I want you to have fun. I want you to enjoy coming to work because the moment at any industry, right? The moment you start saying, I've got to go to work, you know, instead of I can't wait to go to work. That's when it goes all downhill. Right. So I feel that laughter. I feel that enjoying. I feel that being loose, of course, in a professional manner, especially with the customer. It's always the best thing. best that's worked out and I think it's worked out you know so far uh yeah and yeah those pranks you know that's just I like playing pranks it's it's crazy you know and and I give it to david uh the boss and and and uh he's put up with me I think uh he's put up with me because uh you know we sell some cars and he's got to put up with me how about that yeah and in my experience it's easy to lose like what you think is fun as you like spend more time there as you grow in the ranks. And as your career evolves, you kind of lose track of like why you started it and the fun stuff that you liked about it. And now it's like, okay, now there's a different level of pressure at this level. And I need to manage people and I need to train people and, oh my God, we're not hitting our quota, you know, and forget about what was fun about it. Even if you can delegate some of the fun stuff, it's like, okay, naturally I need to hold onto that thing. Like I've noticed now, like a lot of the content you guys are creating is somebody new. Yeah. Yeah. So touch on that. Uh, there is such a, the, just like technology, uh, technology, what do they say? There's new technology, whatever you, kind of deal. Uh, I couldn't even get on this car. I didn't have a mic. I didn't have a, uh, I'm borrowing somebody's computer. I mean, this is, that's the truth. I'm old. uh, my, my, my mind is still young, but, uh, technology wise and, and just the new generation coming out, I'm considered old, you know, and yeah, you could be, you know, I still enjoy having fun and doing all that stuff. So, so yeah. So now it's like, you know what, of course I have different roles and I have to concentrate. I can't just be, you know, having fun all the time. I actually have to work, you know? I got to sell some car. We had to sell some cars. So I started saying, okay, well, I want to invest my time differently, right? Because you have to, and I can't just always be doing this. But also what I noticed is that not only did I not have the time, younger people are coming to buy cars, right? So now we're getting the twenty-year-olds coming in. to listen to what I gotta say you know there's different stuff that that that is moving people and also I wanted to get a new ideas of okay well what's what's fresh I'm not twenty anymore you know I'm not that person so let's get somebody else to start doing some of these uh some of this content and see if it works uh and so far you know I still put it at some input, you know, they're probably thinking I'm crazy all the time, but I still give them some input, but they ended up doing it. I'll still get in front of the camera if need be, but I slowly have transitioned and, uh, given him that, that, that those rains. I love it, man. It's like, I've got ideas, but I'm like, what, what do you guys think? Like weigh in on what's cool. Like what's a dance. What's the thing. What, where are your friends spending time? Yeah. It's like when I'm talking with people in their twenties or even like later teenage, I'm like, where do you guys, what do you guys do online? Where are you spending, spending your time? Like doing it in front of their parents. So it's not so creepy, but it's like, I need to know what's around the corner so we can keep looking at it. So maybe now it's not the time. Maybe they don't have advertising. Maybe it's not a car buying age, but it's like, let's keep our finger on the pulse of what they're doing. So we don't just get obsolete and sell to people that turn into senior citizens. And at some point they'll stop being able to drive cars. Yeah. What's, is there something that like you've tried all the different types of advertising? Is there something that you wish advertisers did that they don't do or they knew about? That's a, that's a tricky one wish. Again, you know, it all works. I feel that all advertising works. It's just, you know, as a business, you have to pick something and, you know, are you going to enjoy it? That's the main thing. Like, if you have to shoot videos or commercials, I don't know, some people shoot them every week, you know, like every Tuesday. It's like you don't do anything because you got to put on your makeup, like you, Andrew. It's just some toner. but you know and and again it becomes it becomes something you know you just you're doing it because you're going through the motions and you're doing all that stuff but It all works. Transparency. Let people pick. If you're talking about advertisers, just let people pick. Yeah, I'm sure it works. I'm sure you have metrics. But it's OK if somebody wants to try something different, too. Time changes, you know, some people may try something different and they come back to whatever, whether it's social media or whether it's radio, whether it's TV or whatever, print. whatever it is but there's not really something in particular I think I think everybody does a decent job yeah I feel like it's cool to have like a little like earmarked budget at the dealership for testing stuff out that's you know five or eight percent of the budget it's not a ton but it's like let's test out something different and at the end it's like do we know if it worked I don't know we sure had a lot of fun doing it or I don't think it worked and it was a pain in the ass and it was expensive to do that, but let's keep testing new stuff that all the other Ford points in San Antonio aren't doing. Yeah. Um, you know, like you said, just trying something different and, and the budgets, you know, they're crazy every, but every, every, everything's expensive nowadays. Everything's expensive. It's just, you know, try it and see if it works. It's, it's hard to quantify that if that's even the word. know in this business you're only we're only graded you know and and the first line of the first line of sales were graded by of course how many cars and what's in the bottom line you know that's how everybody gets paid that's just how it is it's hard to quantify what you say you spend x amount of money on social can you really put an ROI on that social. Sure, you could earmark them or G, G for whatever Google does and follow it. It's very hard. It's very hard. I think at the end of the day is like we said, you know, pick something, enjoy what you're going to do. You know, you'll see it in the bottom line. If you don't have a job, you'll know you did a bad job. you know, that's, that's, that's everywhere. Look what's going on right now with the government. You know, a lot of people did bad jobs and that's, that's how it goes. Yeah. There's a lot of companies starting to, they started with like businesses. They did doge stuff at their businesses. Yeah. Like cutting unnecessary expenses and all of a sudden working on profitability and their stock prices rose. And yeah, it's a, unique time and like with advertising and trying to measure it at the dealership level it's kind of like real estate and other industries I've like worked in it's like end of the day you got to get somebody belly to belly with the customer do the appraisal help them find a vehicle that makes sense for them for their budget for their family and get them into the car and then kind of pointing it back to where that person came from is tricky. You can look at clicks and click through rates and blips and blops and time on site and all these things, but it's proxies for what actually sold the car, which is the sales person. But it's kind of like, I think it's on the advertisers. responsibility more and more to be in the front seat next to the dealership saying, hey, here's a strategy I think we should try out. We've been doing this. It seems like you guys are low on pre-owned trucks. Let's do a truck truck buyback month during the month of March. I'm going to go after everybody who drives an F one fifties saying your truck, you know, helping the dealership to make those decisions and give the dealership the power to say, you're way wrong. Like, that's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to you know, sell all these midsize SUVs. And it's like, okay, cool. Here's some stuff that's, you know, have to, instead of us sending a PDF of numbers and clicks, and maybe a line graph that looks up into the right, what if the dealership sales are going down into the right? We got to, you know, find some, you know, some healthy conversation to help continually work with what the dealership needs versus what we see from our end of like, oh, no, clicks are great. Clicks are cheap. Yeah, yeah, because I mean, let me show you this report and we're going to go over it and look how great we are. And if I can't, you know, or anybody in this kind of business, you know, they can't say you can't really put a pen to say because of this click. Mr. Street bought this vehicle. It's very hard. It's very hard. Yeah. There's a couple ways that people attribute and we've done all of them, but it's like, okay, this person was in, it's like direct mail. Even it's like this person was in this audience and ended up buying a car. So are we responsible or, uh, this person was targeted and ended up in your DMS. So we're responsible for the car. You know, it's kind of like trying to find that attribution or here's a lead form that converted into a sale. And tying it to that when so few, you know, not a lot of people are filling out the lead form, it turns into an up and trying to find that balance in the middle. So if you figure that out, let's both quit our jobs and let's start doing the direct attribution. We'll be rubbing elbows with some, you know, different people. But although I love the car business, I love everything about it. Yeah. That'd be totally different. Yeah. Frank, thanks for your time. Can I give you some rapid fire questions real quick? Yeah, sure. That are just more fun. Hey, can I, if I don't know the answer, can I just say next question? I don't know what you're going to ask. You say pass. Yeah. Oh, you know what? I'm going to phone a friend. I'm going to phone Ash. Yeah, you can hand the microphone over to Ashley. They're all surface level. I'm just experimenting with this. Cool. Favorite car. Favorite car. Well, I like the Monte Carlo, old Monte Carlo. Okay. And the reason why, because that was my first car. The first car was five hundred dollars. I had to pay my dad back. I had to fix up my car. So, yeah, it's my favorite car. Nostalgia. Do you have it? Do you have any bad trade in stories? Oh, yeah. Plenty of them. You know, I think we still have the picture. I could send it to you. And I think there was not even. Two cars. centimeters of non-pact and trash on this f-one-fifty we have and I think there's a we still have the picture of it somebody came in they literally I think they were driving cross-country there and it was a truck it had a camper show on it the camper you couldn't open up that you remember the old camper shows so you'd open up the back low latch if you did that all the trash would fall off Disgusting. The guy, the person, I'm not going to say guy. Let's leave that out of it. The person that was driving it, the trash was molded. And I'm talking about rappers, burger rappers, whatever kind of rappers. It was molded into it. So I assume that whoever was this person, driving it they would eat drink do whatever and just kind of toss it toss it toss it toss it so crazy story that that uh we had that person and it uh it was at one of our pre-owned lots and uh I think the guy had an issue with with with with this urine uh hold it yeah yeah the guy it was bad it was bad it was bad but anyways we needed the guy wanted to trade in the car so what do you do as a car salesperson right you you're gonna take it you're gonna do whatever so we couldn't get anybody the original salesperson did not want to because you would have to move the car to go get it appraised right take it to the used car manager and I refused he gave up his deal he said I will not sell there's no way I'm getting in that vehicle so we had to spiff in our industry it's called spit we had to pay somebody an extra little money to drive that vehicle to go get it appraised and uh sure enough you're in the car business you're always going to find some some takers we'd like to call it takers and the guy had to you know like ace ventura he had to drive the vehicle with his head out it was nuts and anyways this guy came inside the dealership stunk up the whole dealership I'm not talking about an office the whole dealership did he have money or financing to get a new car yeah you know what that was the highlight I don't think we sold him the vehicle I don't think I think the guy was I don't know honestly but I do remember that very vividly and uh yeah if I had to say that one kind of is up there on my trade-in trade-in stories I don't know. I don't even know if people listen to this or watch this, but so you can share all your secrets and share that picture with me after this. And we'll see if we can put a picture of it on here. I'll find it. I'll find it. We have it. My guy, Mike, has it. I'm sure he does. Secrets, man. There is no secret. There is no secret. A lot of people, it's like, man, what's yours? That's funny that you ask because it's like, what's the secret? The loyalty from when we started this, the loyalty, how do you guys are successful? You're measured by how many cars you sell, all that stuff. There is none. It's just coming to work, lacing up, giving people what they're looking for, treating them the way you would want to get treated. Callback is the number one. You have to follow up, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent, whatever. You just have to let somebody know. If you can't help them, don't help them. And people appreciate that. And I don't think there's a secret, honestly. I don't think there's a secret on anything, unless you're like a famous something. you guys doing the follow-up yourselves yeah yeah yeah you got the bdc internally that's doing it no we don't do we don't have a bdc I'll be honest with you we do it like if a person again I personally on the grave you yeah yeah that's what I would do I think I've talked to all different aspects and sides and angles you know if you've been in the this is your living Why would you hand off your customers that you spend two, three hours, whatever, how long it took you and just hand them off because now you're too busy for them. It's just, it's, it's kind of like, you know, farming. You just, yeah, you, you could be a hunter or you could be a farmer, right? A hunter. What do they do? They go out there, they, they kill everything on site. You never really manage it. And guess what? You're going to die. You know, there's not going to be any more animals, but if you're a farmer, you cultivate, you grow. You cut, you do it again. You rinse, repeat. And I think, I mean, it's not a secret that everybody could do that. So that's the key. I think you're right. I think you do a lot of stuff the same way I think I would do it if I was in your shoes. I'd probably flounder and get fired pretty quickly. But I think I would do a lot the same way with content, with note-taking, with CRMs, with... staff and things like that okay if you weren't in the car business what would you be doing man you know I don't know what I would be doing now I'm I'm too in I'm in the thick of it that I don't know what else I would I would do of course it would have to be business uh business related I probably would have you know maybe a own personal business something you know I I enjoy more short-term rentals yeah so so I you know I do I started dabbing in that uh it took a uh it took a little bit of hit on there but you know my wife I give her kudos you know I just I just do it and I bunch it up and I throw it at her I was like here you gotta handle it I'm too busy this is my number one job and you know of course everybody's Everybody's got the dream of retiring and doing X amount, maybe traveling, doing all that stuff. So that's been ours. And she's a great help. If you don't have a great help, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. So I give her that. But anyways, it would be business. I enjoy building stuff. So I don't know. Maybe that would have been it. I'm always curious what people would do if they weren't in the car business. Cause it translates to so much more in life. It's like, you could be a, if you've got the ability to sell stuff and sell yourself and follow up and show up and look like you can do a lot of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But this one is super old capitalism at its finest for people want a product and you just happen to have a bunch of them. Yeah. Yeah. And everybody wants to, everybody always wants to upgrade. Everybody wants to, maybe the newest, some, some people need to, you know, some people just something happens to their vehicle. They they're, they're, they're in a rough spot, but man, it's Texas. You know, we don't have the public transportation that maybe East coast or West coast have, uh, everything's so spread out. So people need cars. That's just bottom line. It works well for us. Yep. Well, Frank, thank you. Anything people should know? Any way people should contact you or follow you? Do you want people to contact you or follow you? Man, I'm not famous. I do it because I enjoy it. This is how old I am. I don't even have an Instagram. I only have Facebook and it's Frank tank or Frank the tank, you know, uh, I kind of adopted that, but I don't know when that movie came out and, and, and that's it. But no, I mean, I I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I enjoy coming to work. I enjoy my guys. Uh, hopefully they do the same. I'm not out trying to be famous. I just come to work. I love the clarity. Yeah. All right, brother. Actually, Frank, it's been real guys. All right guys, good to meet you, Ash. Yeah, nice to meet you. That was it.