Terry Lancaster 0:01
Everyone welcome to How to sell more cars. I'm your host Terry Lancaster. We got a great guest today. I'm very excited. Mr. Charles cannon Charles is the Charles is the general manager of Lexus of ceremony 20 year veteran of the automotive industry and a brand new author and he just he just, he just opened up the he just wrote the new book rules to the game my life in the car business, and this is a great guy. It does a good job of presenting the opportunities there in the car business. We're going to talk about the opportunities that they have. And we're going to talk about the path that he took, and he kind of took a regular path from a path that a lot of people face because number one didn't really want to be in the car business, which is a common story, get in the car business and found out that it was a breeding ground for opportunity. So he did and chose his opportunities and chefs have adopted design backgrounds and great ones and hold on like crazy and finds himself here. And then he put he put the book to the rules of the game and he has I believe they're 20 rules today and what I like is number one, right off the bat the number one rule for the game of the car business of life itself is don't be a dinosaur you have to change with the times and nope know better where to start because the times my friend, they are a change. Charles, how are you? 

Charles Cannon

I'm good how you doing? Good good. So so don't be a dinosaur tell us what that means and, and and how we can how we can abort? Well, you know for a lot of people in our business once they find something that successful more formed they stick with it. And sometimes that can be good but you know overall what happens is business evolves and would work today won't necessarily work tomorrow and vice versa. So you just have to constantly alert on what trends are happening. You know, take read stuff in your industry. See what's what's going on out there. Don't be afraid to experiment with certain things. And just know that this business constantly changes and evolves and what and just know that the people who had that mindset are the ones that are successful. And so we've got a lot more than I thought someone that the current business has changed more in the last 10 years than the last 100 And the next 10 years are probably gonna make the last 10 years look like smooth sailing. I've been I've been busy. We're just talking I've been in the business 35 Four years. I've never seen anything like what we've had the last couple of years car selling MSRP or above every day all day. That's that's just crazy pre orders. They have you're having to go from 500 cars on the lot to six cars on the lot. Tell me about the changes in the dealership and what's the diet what are the dinosaur tracks right now?

Charles Cannon 2:51
Well, you know the the thing is, is that I call this when when COVID get pretty recent for industry. And what I mean by that is you know, dealers, a manufacturer has a chance to see that, you know, you don't have to have hardwood floors on the groundwork to be successful. You can have you know, there's got to be a balance obviously but you know, I was I was executing ideas that let's debate and normally abuse you're curious 75 Maybe 80 days car supply new cars. There's sometimes even wonder where it's because they see that's a sweet spot for us. And I think that works because one it makes it more profitable because when a guest comes in, instead of seeing 20 of the same corner but they see one or two this crisis as urgency for them wanting to make I should spend less on sinners because these corners are turning and three dealerships you know, they realize that they can be just as powerful if not more profitable without having watched cars on the ground. So it just is this great reset for us and I think it's something that was long overdue anyway. And this was just the point that triggered it and put it over the top so you know when you said it's changed last year, Robert, you really this last two years is changed way more than it's changed in the last 10 or 15 years in the last 100 last two years are literally unprecedented. Yeah, I can't think of any any other time except maybe at the at the dawn of the automotive industry. And who do you think I mean, we've no one knows knows best first of all, but you think this is the new normal for the dealers about a half 1015 days into a 30 day 20 days inventory on the lot and no one's gonna get back to those.

Excuse me, manufacturers are smart. Yes. And talking to a lot of people who are across the industry that seemed like what the manufacturers want to do. You know, I just hope that they don't start, you know, they start picking up the 45 day supply because you know, they just want to see what they can get away. With. I hope they keep it around the 1520 supply because that to me, that's the sweet spot and it allows everybody

Terry Lancaster 4:53
I mean that's, that's that's the thing that the manufacturers had the dealers that literally a gunpoint you have to buy as many bars as they tell you you have to buy and the for the what what drove it up the beginning they were the unions and the manufacturers over the barrel and they had to deal with as many cars as the union said, so there's a lot of farcical parts in play. And we'll see how how it changed out but but why do why do we need to change as an industry what do you need to change at the dealership level at the salesperson level to function? You know, the thrive in this in this in this day where people have to order their cars they don't get that immediate gratification in the car, you know, right then and there as soon as soon as they stroke the check, boom, they get the keys.

Charles Cannon 5:40
Well, you know the best has been another receptors for salespeople, you're using statements and statements of business or Instagram. And you're having to change the mindset of okay, I need to look down the line and that's going to make you noticed the high the high achievers in our industry do they think wrong, medium and short term? And the average person the average salesperson are the ones below average. They need to think short term relationship. So we ordered a car it almost forced because if you don't, if you say a customer order department three or six months ago, you went into the car, they may forgot about you didn't work somewhere else. It forces you to follow up and build relationships and build anticipation for guests to say hey, you know, here's what's going on. And then knowing that it's not just your viewership. It's not just your brand. It's everywhere. It doesn't matter where they go, chances are that they wanted to see new stream.

Terry Lancaster 6:36
I mean, I love it you said that because that's what I call it is forced follow up. You have to make friends right then and there because if you if you if you if you deliver and you're done or you've made you sign the deal and you're done, you ain't done because until they drop off, and that could be 612 months from now. So you have to learn to make friends.

Charles Cannon 7:00
Absolutely. Absolutely. You had no choice. Yeah.

Terry Lancaster 7:03
So you and you go you go through the book from your very first days. It's the rules to the game. I live on Amazon Charles cannon the third CC it says in the book is read and his mom about as long as you're today. But you did a great job of pointing out and I have here I've got I've got young nephews who are who are 2223 years old looking for their way in the world. And I've recommended the car business to them. And I got kind of the same response and I think you had that is really that wasn't what I was planning on doing. I'm planning on being a chef and and you're planning on being a veterinarian and you know, the car business for so many years. What happens when your plans don't work out? Yeah. And then people find out how much opportunity there is in our business. Even with these two years that we've had, what are the opportunities of our business?

Unknown Speaker 7:59
You know, right now.

Charles Cannon 8:02
Frankly, I've been talking to some of my salespeople that started in the business two years ago that this is such an unprecedented time and amount of money that is not normal one on quote. Because, you know, we're looking at where if you do if you're just an average below average salesperson, you're gonna sell the car and you're gonna make great money versus what it was pre COVID Where you really had to work. So I'm working on changing mentalities of our team and think of you know, building a business within a business. I know that sounds cliche, but it's really work is if you look at it that way and look, how can you generate your own business and that will walk us through traffic. That's that's where the people that are long term successful make great money. And, you know, I wish I was taught that, in very beginning. I was taught, you know, just deal with the customer point of view and figure it out and then learn and learn, you know, trial by ear. It wasn't really a lot of automotive sales training involved when I first entered business.

Terry Lancaster 8:58
I think I think that's pretty standard in the car business. And this is like this idea of William J. And Jeff ox calls a victim mentality versus a farming mentality ghetto. Today, people just standard the dealership and they they are they're bigger. They're bigger, that low hanging fruit because there's fruit swinging by you know, every day and you got you got, you got all the leads. But that's not the way it's always been. And he talked about the things that you get as a salesperson, to start building this and this this idea of building the business within the business and building yourself up and building these relationships and living up to your repeats in the group referrals and getting more reviews. That's that's like the secret that you don't really learn most, most. Most people don't learn till the couple of years in the business, because those first couple years is just flailing, desperately trying to survive, and then you figure out the way you should have been doing it all along.

Charles Cannon 9:55
Yeah, well, not only that, but you can do to somebody because it's not instant gratification. They'll dip their toes into it, then they'll forget about this. I want to solve the customer. Problem is that eventually your business looks like this because you're relying on user tracking. And I preach all the time that you have to think long term. You have to build relationships. You have to figure out what can you do that fit your personality to get customers in the door that come and ask you repeatedly. And you know, I always tell people just, you know, use the technology we have like you know we have software to where you know when a customer comes in to our service right and they bought a car for you in the past. You know, if you know if you know for example, they're off fanatics, and they come into service, you know, you can go buy some golf balls with this branded with your car with your brown X put on the desk and hey, I thought about you boom, there you go. And you know that stuff like that goes a long ways. You know, following people on social media, you know, obviously you need permission to do that. But when you follow on social media, he believes in that way. That's a quick, easy way all of us might have a baby when we have a job, you know, different things like that. You can tell revelation and they go oh, yeah, this is, you know, this is my salesperson that you know, reached out to me in jail care caught me and my family was going on

Terry Lancaster 11:08
in the relationship and another thing that happens in the business and this is one of the things that you went through is you got to be pretty good is that you build and you build these relationships. And this is a big opportunity from from a salesperson from a dealership opportunity. Big opportunity is your opportunity to build these connections on social media. We've got to have more contacts in this than NASA had in every computer in the world for 15 years. The world is at my fingertips. I can have this conversation just like this. And these are opportunities that we didn't have 20 2011 Tim Kaine years ago. So you know, we that's the big opportunity, but the the conundrum is what's salesperson gets to be pretty good at that. And that first getting that taste of good money. There. Get the cars rolling in there. They're starting to build this book of business, they're starting to see some repeats and referrals. The big boss comes knocks on the door and says, Hey, you ought to be a manager. And not everybody is thrilled about that. And not everybody ought to

Charles Cannon 12:12
do that. Yeah, it's a totally different skill set something just because you're a great salesperson, does that make you free? You have to learn because you have to learn to lead people to care and not everybody has that mentality because when your salesperson is really ti you know, obviously you've worked with tough ones the dealership and you do what's best for your fellow salespeople and all that. But it's really an individual sport to a certain degree. When your manager is not seen by your team. It won't last long. If you only worry about what's best for you and you don't care about the other people and then you have to worry about the skill set of training people. Hold them accountable. Make sure they're following up in you know you're a part of your knowledge on that person and the people around you making sure that they're doing the job they're supposed to do.

Terry Lancaster 12:58
So and so how do you do that? I mean, this and I struggle with this and this is one of the things I do is I train salespeople to market themselves until around the worst sales trainer in the history of the world. We couldn't close a screen door on a separate but I'm a heck of a marketer. And I think the sales job has changed too much more and is in the process of changing from a closing job to a marketing job. But getting people over that hurdle and looking past the next deal in the next step. isn't as easy as it sounds. How do you how do you do that?

Charles Cannon 13:33
Well, you know from my point of view, I just aren't really my personal experiences of stuff I get and you know, I tell all five something I know that if I tell people 10 ideas they make their teams foreign to them in depend on the personality, their comfort level and different things like that. And then I tried to find things that are free. Obviously, there's time involved, but you know, just different things they can do that follow what they're guessing and always want to get to think long term strategy what is best for the guests. What is best to build a relationship with them so they want to voluntarily refer their friends and they say, Oh, I know this person down the street. They take care of me all the time on cars in on that tell them you know, ironically, the people that you know, don't want to pay more money for vehicle because you're they're paying for your experience at this show with just a car. And when you have a point that's when you make crazy amounts of money in this business. And I tell people that all the time I appreciate and again, it's hard because again, a lot of people get down into short short term and you know a lot of them frankly are like I don't know if this is our career, this is a job. And so that's a totally different mindset as well. So you have to they have to be dedicated that this is their career. This is what they see doing five or 10 years out why because they think like that then they know that I have to do a book in business. I have repeatable, sustainable work. I don't have to work 6070 hours a week I can work 3040 hours and get the same results if not better. And so those are things that they have to wait and if we as an industry do that, I think will reduce our turnover. Because you know people in sales is working 12 hour days, six days a week and it doesn't have to be

Terry Lancaster 15:08
that matters to you. If you have to work 60 hours a week each job you do it means you're you're doing you're doing it wrong. And you made that switch in your head, except when you made that switch in your head. You started looking around to the people who were selling 50 100 cars a month and trying to figure out what they were doing and you said success leaves clues.

Charles Cannon 15:30
Yeah, absolutely. And you know when I after I got let go, the Cadillac stores are free all manager and wife's in the hospital. My youngest daughter was like, you know, I know that I'm going back to that last ditch problem that I see you know, I'm really gonna, this is my career. I'm really going to dig in and see what people are doing. So I Google search, I looked online before with the seminar that you name it, I did it. And I just as I was learning, so I will just pick one or two things implement, and I try and okay, that worked good. If not, okay, I put inside I get trying things and then I'm starting to see results. And so I knew it work. And I had to pull it down next month before I got promoted. I was getting to a point to where I was transitioning, I was forcing myself not to take up so I can work on building my business because I didn't want to get the Instagram page. I was thinking long term so that I could work you know, 3040 hours so 4050 cars a month and it was possible because I've seen other people in industry doing

Terry Lancaster 16:25
so doesn't work the other way now. Now you're sitting in the big chair. In the big office, and you're looking to find someone who can who can pick that up? What are the clues you're looking for on the front end for someone who might have a career in the car business either as a long term salesperson that they're going to be in for years and build a business that they can live off up forever or they're going to progress up and now you know you're working for a corporate dealer you can either advance through management be the general manager of your dealership and even in the corporate, the corporate into things so what are you looking for to find someone to put on one of those two pads?

Charles Cannon 17:04
Well, you know the main thing I just asked them what is it what your angle is, you know, is it going to be on the floor and Google's management and I find out why? Why they want to do up and then you know we figure out what the game plan is and I just saw this is what I did. And again what works for me may initially work for you but there are basic fundamental steps. But you know, the main thing I always tell people is have a server mentality. Because if you don't, you won't last long. I don't care who you are. I mean, be humble enough to say you know, I know what I don't know but let's figure out together you know and genuinely care for people. You know, generally want to build a ship Julie want to see them the way they don't worry don't don't make decisions just based on just what new make decisions as based on what's best for the team in the store wall and always hoping when you do that the money will follow.

Terry Lancaster 17:55
Yeah, buddy of mine, Bob Berg, great author of the book The Go Giver, he told me the thing is that there's no 5050 It's not when it's all about the customer. You can't figure that out.

Charles Cannon 18:13
Yeah, I always tell people that dictators get shot. If you have a dictator mentality in the business. People get turned off by that kind of stuff, especially nowadays.

Terry Lancaster 18:23
One of the rules you talked about in the book was was the role of habit. The role of consistency of building yourself up Thomas is asking in the chat. If you believe salespeople and managers create good habits in tough times. And bad habits and good times. Like you're just saying, How do I prevent bad damage from taking rounds, so that so that when times do change, everyone's ready to get in there and actually do the work of connecting with them.

Charles Cannon 18:50
But in my opinion, it starts with management they have they have to want to be successful. They have to they have to want to see okay, this is what's happening. And if they have this urgency like it was the COVID It'll be fine. Where the problem is everybody gets up because everybody's making money but you know, the market is gonna change we know that we don't know what's gonna be next month or a year from now or two years from now, but we know it's going to change. So let's pretend that it's changed now. Let's build the habits now that you would normally do. Pre COVID make the phone calls do the follow up, feature or maintenance hooks to a customer new training they care about they care about the guests, you do all that and then when the market does change, you'll be clear because I promise you your competition majority of the stores I'm not going to be going they're going to wait for the market changes and when it happens they're going to fall in place there's gonna take time for them to build up you know a lot of people want to quit because all of a sudden I'm able to make twice the calls me have on a Monday and is that right? You know, it just a lot of things happen. So if you if you set up expectations up front, you shouldn't have those problems or

Terry Lancaster 19:57
some of the things that you did as a salesperson, and now's a great time for questions coming through the door and the money is great and they got the positive margin. But you're you know, even if you have a one and done customer, you have a one customer now that's when I interviewed Ali Rita. Audrey the number one car so first, he told me that he doesn't think about selling a car to a single person. He thinks about selling the car to the entire family for the rest of their lives. Yeah. Some of the stuff that you did the personal branding stuff and building your website and sending out videos and sending birthday cards and and holiday cards with your face on them because everybody's smiling face and then big you realize that we couldn't your face on Facebook when you face on birthday cards and thank you cards. You did all these things and people started doing those. Now to build that future. You give them options down the road.

Charles Cannon 20:54
Oh absolutely. I always tell people sounds old school, but it works because nobody does it. I challenge people to Thomas's sending out something like a birthday card. A handwritten birthday card goes a long way because everybody's used to getting a text or an email. People appreciate a handwritten word they are happy birthday so it took a lot for me to sit here and make sure that you know I did it right. But you know, people appreciate that. And yeah, my holiday cards I would do. They enter the holiday cards to do Christmas cards because I don't know everybody celebrates Christmas. So I always get holiday cards and I sit by now right at Thanksgiving. So I want to make sure was the first card they got and no one when I did it it especially my whole family. You know, I wanted them to know that I wasn't just a car salesperson I had my family. This is this is who I support and this is where I work for.

Terry Lancaster 21:46
Yeah. And the great thing is sitting down on Thanksgiving, it stays on the wall and whenever you're sitting out this stuff that stays under refrigerator in some cases, as an ad a lot of our manager the other day, I sent him a card when he opened his new store seven years ago. We don't need that that's been sitting on the bulletin board across his desk every day for the last seven years or so. So the great thing about snail direct mail and old school is it sticks around

Charles Cannon 22:13
Yes, it does because nobody does. And so you know I challenge people to write out the opposite way to do set up videos in our video chats and video emails and a lot of you are very uncomfortable with that because putting the video together just kind of nerve racking but so you know to step up from zone and try the worst kidding is you always end up presented worst case scenario they don't like it no big deal but is it any different than sitting out? They're not going to be people management he said video Hey, Mr. Smith, I saw about you happy birthday. hope everything's going well. You want to love that because nobody's doing that. So you try to find things to do that you could eat in the market that nobody else is doing. And that helps you stand out.

Terry Lancaster 22:54
Yeah, I tell everyone no one's sitting around the dealership practicing leaving a voicemail taking doing their voicemail taking 100 takes you leave the call and you leave it on the go. It is the same thing. It's just the cameras on. Exactly. So we got we got we got a question coming in here that talks about the customer experience, do things for the customer. And then he talks about the the time that it takes to close the deal. And I think that's probably the biggest thing that people dislike about departments is is how long it takes to buy a car. Do you think that's a problem and how do we fix it?

Charles Cannon 23:28
It is it is a sore point. We all as industry recognized that and I know we're working on streamline that, you know it's read article the other day that I guess it's a Gen Gen Z. That's a huge pain. Point. They don't want to wait there you know there's a use get everything. They also we as an industry have to adjust. I think that's why we're lucky we're transitioning to do as much stuff as possible on bots and when they come in, the cars ready to go or we take the car to them directly. But that definitely is a pain point that we have to as an industry figuring out

Terry Lancaster 24:00
so what we're going through these changes we have these pain points that we're overcoming. There's there's old school stuff that still works and the opportunities that are there. Let's talk about the future. What what do you think's going to change and let's put the cap on two years with the strangest two years that either of us have seen in the car business, what's the next couple of years look like? And what the dealers and salespeople need to do now start getting ready for that

Charles Cannon 24:27
next big evolution in the electric car. And we as an industry have to figure that out. Figure out what that looks like not only for sales but for service. as well. You know, we need to learn to speak that language. You know if I for example, let's say we have people coming out early next year of course score but they have multiple course I'm not I know the main pressure the same way. But we have to know that's a different type of guests versus a traditional one as far as what their expectations are and so as he was industry set up the expectation of how that shifts going to work. And I think the beginning next challenge is how much can we do online and what does that look like for for the salesperson but for the dealership as well. And guess what is that what is the next online transition for has been through all the paperwork, the legal point of view completely online so where they don't have to come in at home? You know, honestly, I think in the next couple of years that will be the big thing to figure

Terry Lancaster 25:21
out. I think everyone's always looking for the silver bullet. I think digital retailing is that thing if you've got this everybody got this electric vehicles, it's another sore spot that they agree with is all or nothing. And we were either going to be digital retailing at that we're going to be old school internal combustion engine. And that's not the way customers they could not care less. They want to get what they want with the least amount of trouble and the least amount of time as possible and whatever tools you have to use to get that even digital retailing you got to be a human being at the other end of it or it's just another robot getting in the way.

Charles Cannon 25:55
Absolutely. And you know that I think in my opinion, that's something that these manufacturers are trying to go direct to consumer missing is that human element Yeah, I know that for example, Tesla that's what they do. But I think that for the most part, people still want to interact with humans. When it comes to this. They just don't want to feel like you're getting screwed over. Anyone deal with somebody they feel like they know what you're doing. So that's I think once we figured out that balance, I think will be fun this industry.

Terry Lancaster 26:21
Yeah, at the end of the day is what human beings are going to another human being and the human connection for you with every single time as long as you act like a human being and we got a couple of minutes. Anyone want to open it up and I have a comment or a question for Charles. We got we just unmuted that

are wearing jump in

Unknown Speaker 26:56
there is a faster way so just put notice on the customer arrives, that's great. But it's so much faster when you can get the information from the customer about their trade, about the background of what you're looking at and have all the documents prepared so that when they get there, you're just checking the car out verifying that it's what you expected it to be as far as the trade goes if there is one, what the what the amount owed is going to be if there is any. And then while that's getting checked out by management, the salesperson can then be taking the customer alum test drive to make sure the car is everything that they expected. It to be when they're looking at buying one. So by the time everything's done, it's just a year yeah, but here's what we figured out for you. Yeah, which

Charles Cannon 27:47
is very important to build there for payment for business and even appeal for a business trust is already there. They're gonna take your word for it and it's a quick, easy to open way quicker. than somebody just walked in. The door.

Unknown Speaker 27:57
You

Terry Lancaster 0:05
We all agree that it's four times faster, that's four times faster, you can close the deal faster. And oh, but a lot of that is to is because not only the trust but because of the disconnect with the transactional customers. They put the lead in cars.com. They've entered all this information four times by the time they get to you and most of the time the salesperson wants to start collecting it again when they sit down because they've got to go through their road to the sale and I think that is all internal communication. Be ready to get the deal done when it's time to do the deal.

William J McCormick 0:37
I got a quick question for Charles and William. You know, there's a couple of comments one wrote earlier about you know, today's supply right so we sound like a 20 year relationship with Nissan if you if you went pre pandemic and took all the Nissan's on the watch for all the dealers across the country about 360,000 vehicles sitting there today. It's around 17,000. Right. So their day supply went from you know, 6570, something like that down to single digits and I know it's climbing a little bit. But at the end of the day OEMs are saying one thing, right? They want to keep the supply low. I just don't know if I'm buying that and here's why. You know, OEMs make their money wholesaling ice vehicles, especially the trucks and SUVs sedans, only 25% of the vehicles today anyway right? Well, every time they're wholesale those vehicles to Charles and William I mean they're they're making the most money that they can on those trucks SUV can only have Evie margins are about 30% less than ice vehicles right? Pre COVID Those plans from running around 80% capacity today they're at 60. I just have a feeling that when they can, they're going to ramp those plant production back up. At 85% Because I think they got a full stack I think they got to wholesale those trucks this SUV so they can further Evie initiatives. Those initiatives I mean for 11 billion on that plant in Tennessee and Kentucky on day five Biljana plant in Georgia. You got r&d, you got battery you got massive overhead. It's hard to make the math work. I know they'll continue to figure it out. But for me when somebody from the factory saying, Yeah, we want to keep the supply low. I don't know if I'm buying that because they got to sell those trucks and SUVs, the farmer habit and I just don't know if I'm delivering that yet. So I just wanted to hear what Charles and William had would have to say about something like that. You know, I that's what I say I

Charles Cannon 2:28
agree with you. I am fearful that, you know, five years down the line and it could creep up to that level. I hope it doesn't you know, but right now they're they're emphasizing all the manufacturing sites in term. I hate how quick you sell the current list is a lot. And obviously the deal is that term cars faster and make more access to inventory. And he was I don't but yeah, I do agree that that could be an issue down the line, a free book to you know, we're basically 20 now 25 years from now 4050 Could be 60 again and they see you know, they need the money to further already pay their bills.

William J McCormick 3:05
With the lunch and EDS and everything all of a sudden, we've got to be able to manage the electrical grid as well. So if we're having some crazy in California because they're pushing so hard there and the rest of the country knows that they're not going to have that feeling of action because they're running slower. I mean, they're gonna have to do something in the meantime. So I don't know that it's going to hit so fast, but I may see, I would imagine they'll do things like you know, little price increases here and there. As we go along. Just just so they can hit their targets for revenue but not necessarily have it to where the cars are going to get pumped out any faster or any or any more bulk because they want to keep that demand up. And if it goes down, the demand is gonna stay high. And then I'll hear from the dealer standpoint, if they'd like to where it is but they're not paying all the bank fees for heaven. Cars in their inventory for extensive periods of time. They don't have any type of incentive to move things much faster anyway, it would be like her but at least they can build off of it. Some of the car arrives at the dealership they can sell right off the delivery truck because they already have a reservation on

yeah, there's some things to sell a lot. Now they sell off the list, right? Yeah.

Terry Lancaster 4:28
I gotta I gotta sell off the wall. To keep all the invoices hanging on the wall when the truck itself goes down on its own. It won't be here for three months, but it's gone now. And I think the deal for the manufacturers is it's a big game of chicken. It's just to see first because I guarantee you you get to the end of the fiscal year and Ford's in danger of losing employment issues being the top selling drug in America, they're going to open up the spigots and get those getting those assembly lines rolling. They'll crank those drugs out.

William J McCormick 4:55
And I find it interesting. I can't remember if it was audible or news and fake news when you know Jim's partly from Ford said you know we got to go to 100% on live TV. So we'll be no NPV and return at the dealerships direct to consumer and all that. I mean, is he looking at Tesla? Is he looking at Elon Musk? Elon spent $0 on advertising and there's only outlets right? Think about what Ford spends I mean your typical OEM wholesale gross profits on my students 50 to 70% He wants to make them 33 You know he's Elon is like I got the Tesla three a $35,000 Evie everyone can afford now he said seven price increases he can't touch for under 47 grand. I'm just wondering if Harley's looking at the margins and how he wants going to market and saying I can eliminate the dealer and do that too on the Eevee but still keep the dealers happy with the ice vehicles. I don't agree with it. I think it's wrong. I think the dealers are severely underestimated by Farley and what he's talking about. That at the end of the day. I've always put my trust in the dealers because they've always persevered every single time through thick and thin. If Farley's thinking about going direct on easy and just having the dealer be the delivery center getting a fee for doing that. I just think that's a slippery slope but I think all they're looking at is the dollars because he sees what he wants margins are at 33% He's not even half that. So that's kind of scary. I don't like it. I've always been a pro dealer guy, but that when Farley said that I think it caught a lot of people's attention. I don't know if you all agree with that. But it was a very interesting comment that he made probably.

Charles Cannon 6:37
Now I read that in automotive news and guess what, a month ago when he said it? Yeah, I disagree. I think that he is on the constant Tesla. And that's the main thanks for watching. But you know, I just feel bad for the viewers. We think how many of us like recently renovated their buildings and spent millions of dollars renovating. Also have you seen them out on a hydrogen product? I don't think that's fair. And I think our billing our new issues as an issue or Invisalign, for selling cars over MSRP and why I don't I understand that point of view. You know, I always educate people that you know, if you're used to selling farmer cars and money and all sudden you're selling big your second bite, well, you still have a personnel like yours and you still need it, you got to pay your bills don't sell at all. And the other thing is, is that you know, I tell people say you're getting more for you're treating your 1000s more you've been with what any given time and you see people all the time flipping these cars on different websites, I look at different cars and bids and bring a trailer where people were flipping these cars and making 50 100 grand themselves. So you know, nobody like we're doing and you know it again, it's delicate now but I forgot one thing to supply amounts that people were charging that were way over MSRP never and there were some news out there

Unknown Speaker 7:54
that you saw you saw Matt cake in the Corvette and the publicly shamed about Yeah, he's allegedly sold it. I don't know what was co 90 of manual agreements or 90 over MSRP and then all the people weren't coming on board. He took them back down MSRP but if they we only got kind of got called out all of that was kind of crazy. It was. It was

Charles Cannon 8:15
yeah, that was that was bad. But then they'll say people buy it for our manual range.

Terry Lancaster 8:20
I think the thing to remember the magic behind all this is when Farley says all this stuff with Carvana says all the things that they say and all the things that they do and and Carmax and even though you know Elon Musk, they're they're really not selling cars, they're selling stuff. They're talking to Wall Street when they do that and and what what that's all smoke and vapor let's do we know who knows what's going to happen? They're in the business of pumping that stock up always bonuses based on the stock price. And so they want it they want to drive and they can get not only can they get they don't have to necessarily get the margins on EVs, but the P E ratios are much bigger for a 740 So we had a great conversation maybe maybe we're just a little bit long. One more question. Does anybody have anything or comment before we wrap it up? There we go. Everyone looks lovely. There's There's mom Hi mom. She'll turn on her camera, Mark Easter the old guy back in there. Hey, Mark guy, Darren, granny. Sherry, thanks so much for popping in. Charles last word, what he's had to say about the rules of the game and your life.

Charles Cannon 9:29
Thank you, Jerry for having me on. The book this talks about you know how I got this advice and this perseverance, you know, everybody goes through self they failed. You know struggle and you just have to figure it out and figure out is this really clear for you? If it is sky's the limit? It really is. This is a business where there is no income salary cap, you know, the only cap is let me put on yourself but something that was on so you put in the work if you have a bowl, how much money you want to make, just do the math work backwards, you can get there varies.

Terry Lancaster 10:01
The book is available on Amazon and visit there and get you a copy and

Charles Cannon 10:05
it's also available on Apple and audible as well.

Terry Lancaster 10:09
Apple. Did you read here this is my question because I'm researching this now is are you the voice guy?

Charles Cannon 10:21
I didn't think it was. I didn't want to pay anybody to do it. Myself.

Terry Lancaster 10:28
That's a tough call and I'm making that decision right now. Charles, thank you so much. Again, everyone. Thank you for joining our video versus on YouTube. And in my Facebook group.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai