March 6, 2025 • 54 mins
Join us for an exciting journey as the Lewis Brothers unravel the essence of creating an engaging and dynamic sales environment through the Ultimate Challenge! We dive deep into how high levels of excitement within a dealership translate into superior customer experiences, where every interaction feels authentic. This episode aggregates compelling insights that demonstrate how excited employees can engage customers in a way that naturally leads to sales while fostering a sense of community around your brand.
We explore various marketing approaches adopted to promote the Ultimate Challenge, sharing the nuances of making customers feel valued through strategic discounts and fun-filled events. The chaotic atmosphere creates a carnival vibe that resonates during the month-long campaign, but it also anchors deeper business concepts that other entrepreneurs can apply to their teams.
In tackling sales challenges, we provide actionable tips for management, focusing on how to maintain momentum throughout the month while ensuring that staff remain energized and ready to tackle their daily goals and customer interactions. This compelling conversation serves as a call to create cultures that not only delight and engage customers but also bring forth a sense of belonging for employees. Don't skip the chance to gather insights that could propel your business to new heights!
As always, we invite you to share your thoughts and experiences after listening. If you love our content, please subscribe, leave a review, and join us for future episodes as we keep the conversation going on how to drive your business forward with uplifting strategies!
Feel the dynamic energy of the Lewis Brothers as they deliver real stories and lessons that keep local businesses on their toes, and share how experiences in the community inspire them to keep on driving.
Check out all our great episodes at CrossroadConversationsPodcast.com!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know the business we're in.
There's two different types ofbusiness.
You're either doing physicalwork or mental work.
It's those two.
And if you're in the space ofmental work, which the majority
of people are, you must keep theinternal person, which is your
employee, at an excitement levelthat's high if you want a great
(00:20):
experience for your customer.
Absolutely, it's the same thingwith Cancun Friday.
It doesn't cost us anything, no, hey, welcome to a live edition
of Crossroad Conversations withthe Lewis Brothers.
This is an exciting day becausewe're live, so make sure to join
in on any of our Facebook pages.
Put in the comments if you'vegot something you want us to
talk about.
But we've got some excitingthings to talk about.
(00:43):
Today we're talking ultimatechallenge talk about.
But we've got some excitingthings to talk about.
Today we're talking ultimatechallenge, ultimate challenge.
We'll get into the nitty-grittythere, but we're talking about
years in the making that wecontinue to bring the best deals
, the best selections, theultimate for the trades, really
a great time for people to buyhere in northwest arkansas.
So let's get started with that.
But before we dive into it,shelby, we got to remind them
(01:03):
about last week Habits, oh sogood.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We talked about habits, all things like this one
Creating habits, the habit ofdrinking coffee when you should,
when you shouldn't, getting upearly, how to be disciplined.
We talked personally, we talkedbusiness-wise, that's right.
Kind of broke the whole thingdown.
So it's episode 24.
You can find that on all ofyour podcast sources.
You can find it on YouTube.
You can find it on Facebook.
(01:27):
Make sure you reference that.
Crossroad Conversations withthe Lewis Brothers.
Check it out.
What in the heck are we divingin today?
And I forgot always join inLewisSuperstorecom.
You can check out our inventoryOver 1,000 vehicles in stock.
Ultimate challenge challenge555 vehicles must be sold up to
20 000 off new vehicles rates aslow as zero percent interest.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
That was taylor's part, but you just jumped in
there when I started I know, Iknow you wind this up type a
personality and we get going.
That's what the fun part is sowe are talking about those
specials, taylor, what specialsdid you bring for ultimate?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
challenge.
I've got to go to the absolute,ultimate family truck.
It's on the showroom.
It's black.
Okay, it's got the peanutbutter interior.
It's rear dvds.
It's the best driving roadvehicle.
You're talking expedition.
Platinum max all the cargo foryour kids, all the room for the
entertainment, the ultimateluxury, self-driving, massaging.
(02:23):
Oh, it's got blue cruise.
Blue cruise it means hands-freedriving for anyone.
That's not my brother beside me, because he can't drive under
81 miles an hour differentsubject purposes.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know what I love about that.
What's that?
It's got rear entertainment.
You can plug in and use allyour sources.
It's got max trailer tow.
It's three, five haul it allyeah we're talking 8500.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, so it will be over 8500 pounds.
That is a lot.
That's a lot.
That's more than most peoplepull with their half ton, three
quarter ton pickup.
That is a lot of weight andthat's a super saver.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
It's the ultimate challenge.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Fifteen thousand dollars, fifteen thousand
dollars off hey, you may haveseen our ads out there, whether
you're on social or uh, it's inyour email, or you're driving
down the road and saw abillboard, or really wherever.
Because we spent, we did a lotof marketing.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's we've seen it because it's out there, so we
show you that we have theultimate discounts up there.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Like taylor talked about up to twenty thousand off,
we do have zero percentfinancing.
We got to plug.
We have the ultimate discountsup there.
Like Taylor talked about up to$20,000 off, we do have 0%
financing.
We've got to plug this theultimate amount for your tray.
It is a big selection, but hey,I've got to pause real quick
before you get started here.
And we've got a sponsor in thehouse today.
You'll notice in the coffee cup.
This is one of our partners andBob.
They sponsored us.
(03:41):
Well, it works both ways.
Beasts of the burden, we lovesponsoring people local.
And that's another great reasonthat you do business with us,
because if you've listened toany of our podcasts, if you've
ever talked to us, our goal isto provide a great place for
people to work, a great placefor customers to do business,
but then we also want to giveback local too.
I know that wasn't in therethere, but it just felt right to
(04:04):
say so.
You know it's the ultimatechallenge.
We got to give you a little bitof backstory because some
people are like all right, wehear you on the radio, where did
it come from?
So if we rewind the tape to theearly 2000s, when we were
growing up.
We had this big cell just rightacross the interstate from where
we are yeah, I call it our bigfairground cell at the
washington county fairgrounds.
At the washington countyfairgrounds, where we moved all
(04:25):
of our vehicles there, all ofour employees, and we had this
massive used car sale showdown.
Well, in in 02 that thing hadto come to a close.
Some regulations changed, somelogistics changed, but it was
only a weekend long.
It was only a weekend long, soit started on a thursday, ended
on a sunday, yeah, so then thenthe board got together.
(04:47):
Of course, we were young atthat time, but it was.
What do we do next?
How do we replace thatfairground sale that brings
great deals to northwestarkansas, that helps our sales
people give a big punch ofselling a bunch of vehicles?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
that's where ultimate challenge came from so in 2003,
let's stretch it out for awhole month so at 03, we ran
from 03 right up to 2020.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Okay, so that was 17 years, 17 years of this sale,
and now, in 2025, we're bringingit back.
We had to take a little bit ofa break, sure, uh, because of we
didn't have enough inventory tobe able to hit a number.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
If we told you, ultimate Challenge, 212 vehicles
, we'll be, so We'd have laughed.
You'd have been laughed at soProbably by each other.
Yeah, you know it's part of it,so it's back.
It is back, taylor, it is back.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
It is back.
So when you have taylor, let'swalk through, let's give them a
little bit behind the scenes ofultimate challenge and you and
management, what do you see?
What does that mean besidesjust the big discounts?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
it is internal atmosphere, your excitement
level.
I love anyone that has beentrying to get away from it
because they're like, oh my goshsomething's happening.
You can't hide from it.
It is definitely that it bleedsover to your whole team the
enthusiasm, the excitement, theatmosphere.
It is absolutely a blast to bea part of it's.
(06:16):
I don't care if you're havingthe worst day.
You step into.
It's the best cup of coffee tobe able to get you leapfrog
forward into the day and youhave so much fun with it.
It's ultimate atmosphere foryour team.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I think the best way to describe it is if you've been
part of something retail or inthe automotive industry on the
last day of the year, the lastday of the month, it's like hey
call everybody, you know, tellthem to get down here.
We're not going to refuse anyoffer.
We're going to give a crazyamount for trading because we
need another vehicle to replace.
You bet we're going to givethem the craziest discount.
I'm talking like well below theline.
(06:54):
Taylor was going over priceyesterday and I was just like,
oh gosh, okay, and so we can'tmake up today's work tomorrow.
You realize that to sell 555vehicles, that is at 176 percent
of last month's production.
So it's intense but it'sheavily beneficial for a
customer it's heavily.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yesterday I loved, I jumped in.
Uh, customer was like hey, I, Idon't expect you to make this
work.
I don't expect you to make thisscenario work.
I said hold, let's sit down,let's go through it and guess
what?
He ended up leaving in a brandnew car that he thought wasn't
going to work.
Situation wasn't going to work.
We're going to make any dealhappen and we're going to put it
together.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Hey, I think to put that in context, when we talk
about those big discounts outthere, we started adding up
behind the scenes of how manydiscounts, how many rebates when
we bundle all that together andthe number is actually bigger
than this.
But we had to reduce it down soit was more believable.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
We've got over $2 million marked to help put deals
together.
That's in customer discountsand savings.
Yes, yep, from new cars andused cars of the thousand
vehicles we have in stock.
$2 million in customerdiscounts, $2 million.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
All right, we'll continue on here.
But again, if you're joining us, live out there on any of the
social platforms, hey, throw itin the comments.
We see you guys jumping inthere.
Thank you for the likes, Thanksfor jumping in there and
sharing the video, but if youhave anything you want us to
cover specifically you've beenlistening to the podcast.
You're like man, I wish theywould touch on this Throw it in
the comments and we'll grab ahold of that and talk about that
.
But so the ultimate challenge.
(08:24):
Let's get back into that.
It's kind of our wheelhouse,and if you've been around us, we
love culture, we loveatmosphere and we love
excitement, and if you've beento any of our meetings, so we
take that what you might see inone day and we spread it and
stretch it out for the entiremonth of March.
And so I'm going to kick thisto you, Shelby, why does it
happen during the month of March?
Why not February?
(08:44):
Why not April?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That's a really good question.
So for a lot of differentreasons, but it kind of kicks
off the selling season.
I'm going to go for February,where you've still got a pretty
good chance that it's going tosnow.
That's a short month, it's justFebruary you're getting through
to get to March.
It's the end of the firstquarter.
For the manufacturers.
(09:06):
It's when they are rolling intoFord's truck month.
It's when inventory reallystarts rolling.
And speaking of, we've hadeight transports drop since
yesterday morning.
Eight transports times theaverage of about eight vehicles
per transport, that's 64.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
That's 64.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
That's 64.
That's been fun, so it's thefresh.
That's 64.
That's 64.
That's 64.
That's been fun, so it's thefreshest of inventory.
Our used car inventory justgrows Each day.
We print out a three-day tradeand that's been on an average of
three pages, which is well over60 vehicles each day.
That has grown from trade-ins,from street purchases, and so
it's kind of just.
March just sets up to be hugeit really does.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Now let me go.
I'm going to give you anotherreason, besides just the hype.
We want to sell cars and thesun's coming out, the daylight
savings and all that stuff froma manufacturer's point of view.
It's their last month in thefirst quarter, so january,
february, they get the yearstarted off.
They kind of try to figure outwhere they're landing market
share wise.
Now, market share is important.
(10:06):
It might not be important toyou, the customer, but it's
important to the stock market.
You're getting into the stock.
Oh yeah, I'm going right there.
So it's important there with theinvestment with a publicly
owned company, and if theirmarket share starts going down,
well, when they start reportingtheir first quarter earnings
they would adjust those rebatesto get bigger market share.
So the customer I'm bringing itback around the customer so
(10:29):
then the customer wins rightthere.
So the month of March theyreally get the gas pedal.
It really is a great time totake advantage.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The manufacturer doesn't like coming out in
January 1st and saying, hey,let's do a crazy amount of
rebates right, they just cameoff of of december.
Rebates is a way to right sizethe pricing of a vehicle in
order for a customer to saythat's a good enough price that
I should do business.
And it starts in january.
It's kind of like a new month,an ultimate challenge month.
We're like, hey, let's see ifwe can not be in the negative
(10:57):
when we sell these cars right.
So then as it comes, marshalike, okay, we adjust as much as
we could.
That didn't get us as much aswe want.
We got to go bigger in thediscount, absolutely.
So we take those discounts, westack them with the Lewis
Automotive Ultimate Challengediscounts and it equals huge.
That's where we came up with the$2 million in customers'
discounts and savings.
(11:18):
So it's a big time.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
It really is.
It's a big time no-transcriptpayments 90 days, no payment.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Puts it out, structures it well April, may,
june, that's well intosummertime, june, before you
have to make your first paymentthere.
Absolutely so.
That's structured across theirwhole lineup from Super Duties
to Mavericks to Broncos, tosmall trucks, big trucks, suvs,
cars, all of them qualify forthat deferred payment.
So when the customer shows uphere.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Let's rewind to Saturday, when it kicked off.
How does it look and feeldifferent?
Walk us through.
And this is a month long.
But what did saturday?
As a customer driving off theroad?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
what is it?
If you've ever been to aamusement park, take a disney
world, take a six flags, oryou've ever been to a really big
sporting event and you'rewalking through all the
tailgating, the excitement andthe hype, that's what you'll
feel here.
Yeah, that's what you'll fear,feel here is when you walk in.
There's things for the kids todo, there's excitement.
We had the hot dog cart here.
We had the arts uh mobile rvhere making pottery on hand.
(12:50):
We had the live remotes.
We had jack's ice cream here.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
So all these things and the coffee trailer shout out
on saturday and I laughed aboutthis.
Uh, atomicomic Dogs absolutelykilled it and we laughed
whenever he showed up.
We had so many customers showup for Customer Appreciation Day
.
He showed up with 150 hot dogsand said, oh, that'll be plenty
of enough to be able to do it.
We doubled that.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
But here's the thing Enough is never enough.
And so we tried to help himwith that.
And so I would check on thevendors.
Hey, how's the coffee going?
How's the ice cream?
Do you have enough pottery?
How's everything going?
Uh, and so the the hot dog guywas like, hey, it's going good.
I was like, hey, your line'sgetting really long, let's
simplify.
Do you want mustard?
Do you want ketchup?
Because he was making likechicago dogs oh yeah, I was like
(13:40):
give me some gloves, let mestay.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
He's like oh no, sir, step back like, oh no I.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I was like, oh no, I'm USDA approved, Give me some
more.
You're messing him up.
And so then he said I'm runninglow.
And I said you keep working.
Trenton, go to Sam's Club now,yes, and buy mass amounts 5,000
packs.
He's like that's not of thediscount and the idea that rolls
to the whole thing.
(14:03):
Yes, and Craig's over therelaughing because he just knows
that's how it goes.
We're always going to find whenthe customer shows up and
they're like I'm looking for ablue crew cab, two-wheel drive,
long bed, got to have this,there's no chance that you'll
ever have one.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I'm like you came to the right place.
You sure have come to the rightplace and I think the point you
make there is what you see onwhether it's a podcast or you
see us wound up in a meetingthat's the same thing you'll get
when you come here, is it'strue and it's transparent, and
we care and we love beinginvolved.
We also love the excitement.
We want to create great placesfor people to work and a great
(14:40):
place for a customer to do atransaction to.
We know that we fight thisperceived notion about how it is
to buy a car or what thatexperience is like, and we're
out to set a new trend with that, to make it fun, to make it
exciting, which it should be.
It's the second largestpurchase in your life and March
is a great time for that becauseyou get those big savings.
(15:02):
You get that 90 days, nopayments.
We got payments that start at$199.
We love to talk about.
We sell a car for anybody youknow, whether you're on a $199
budget or a $5,000 cash carbecause you just got your taxes
back, or you want a brand new,loaded out with every bell and
whistle, whether it's anExpedition or a Grand Wagoneer,
we want to be able to help youthere.
Let's talk a little bit aboutUltimate Challenge.
(15:24):
We talked about 13 years.
We're coming back now how thatthing has progressed.
I can remember when the numberwas high 200s.
I remember when Dad put outthere, 300 must be sold, no
matter what it takes.
I was like man, how are wegoing to get to 300?
We did, though.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It's just one of those things you put the big
number and then you divide thatthe Lewis Ford store is going to
sell this, the Springdale storeis going to sell this, the
Chrysler store is going to sellthis, and then how many people?
It's no different than wealways talk on the podcast.
We come up with the grandscheme as an automotive group
265 employees and then we'regoing to start separating and
(16:04):
bringing it down and bringing itdown.
So that's another thing I justsent out this morning to all the
managers hey, let me help youwith your daily travel rate.
And then we do some forecastingand we say hey per person.
And then you did someforecasting of cutting it up, of
how many activities need tohappen, and that's group wide,
so that it is achie right,you're not trying to eat the
(16:24):
entire elephant one bys.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I think we're going to pause here.
We've had our sales hat on andall the hype.
We've got to talk to all thebusiness owners out there
because there's some goldennuggets there.
When we talk about this 555number, that's a big number,
what people talk about.
You're going to sell 555 cars.
That's big, big.
We reduce it down to per storeand then per salesperson and
(16:50):
then our managers know and oursales people know we're
concentrating on daily.
Okay, that's just today,yesterday's history, tomorrow's
a mystery, today's the present.
That's what you got to manage.
You know we manage today'sactivities.
So if you're out there with abusiness, we got to go to our
business owners for a minute,manage your daily activities,
(17:11):
set your monthly goal, but thenit's over there.
It's what's your daily goal.
How many appointments do youneed?
How many inspections do you gotto do?
How many plumbing repairs do weneed to go do?
How many phone calls do we needfor that?
You know our guys for example,the sheets you're talking about
we broke it down in an equationbased upon their stats and their
numbers how many emails toequal sold.
(17:33):
How many texts to equal sold.
How many phone calls to equalsold?
How many visits?
How many numbers, how many testdrives, so on and so forth, and
you're like whoa, that's a lotof data.
Hey, business is people andprocesses and managing that
mathematical equation.
And if you'll do that, thatcompounding will happen day
(17:54):
after day after day.
You know, if you start thinkingabout 25 or 30 phone calls we
got, you know, the people thatdo it every other day.
They only get in half the workof the person that shows up
every single day and they do 25to 50 phone calls.
They'll beat everybody else.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Just because their daily activities are higher,
more will come out the other endand what I love about that
would just like my natural, ournatural endurance to say okay,
if this is the normal elevation,I want to know what's up here.
Right, we talk about habitstacking we just came off of
last week.
Talk about creating habitswithin, within the dealership,
within processes.
(18:29):
I think if you were just, youknow the idea is to be just one
percent better each day.
You know, over the course of 31days that'll put you 31 better
than you were.
So we know the mathematicalequation.
To go from our last 90 dayaverage to where we are now.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
It was 134% of production, no, it fires me up
because I know our team.
Even though when we throwsomething out there like that,
you can see it in their eyes.
They look at you like that's it, boss, we got you, we got you.
We know we're going to have togo to work every day.
We know we have a superstarteam, developed, trained, ready
to go, and we're going to takeyour number and we're going to
(19:05):
one-up it.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
That's what I love about our team.
That's the idea and yesterdaywe had to spend some time.
Saturday we launched it just inpure hype and it's been an hour
in a sales meeting.
It was kind of tough of likebring the hype then, bring some
understanding of how it works.
So yesterday we broke that downa little bit more because, as
we've grown massively and it'sbeen since 2020 since the
(19:28):
ultimate challenge happened andwe'll talk about the auction in
a second, so it's been since2019 since the auction happened
I said everyone raised theirhand salesperson-wise, who's
been a part of this before, andof the team of 45 people that
were in there, it was less thanfive and so I said, wow, I need
to spend some time to bring myhype down a little bit and
completely understand so thatwhen I'm like, hey, we need to
(19:51):
sell 13 per day at this storeand I need to sell three per day
at this store and seven per dayat this store, they're not like
, oh my gosh, what are you doing?
They just understand what theirstats are and so we help them
understand.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
All right.
So tip one we've gone over,once we've gotten kind of past,
our excitement of ultimatechallenge is managing the daily
activities.
All right, here's tip numbertwo.
As a business owner Now, Idon't care what business you're
in, or even if you're ineducation and teaching.
Here's tip number two you mustget your internal customer,
(20:24):
which is your employee's buy-in,first.
First, before you want anexternal reflection, which is
your customers doing businesswith you.
We haven't even talked about howmuch we've spent and how we've
guerrilla marketing every singleadvertising and marketing
channel that you could possiblyhave out there.
But if you don't let yourinternal employees know what's
going on and you spend all thatmoney to drive traffic to come
(20:46):
into your store or to call yourphone or to send in a web lead,
just to get an answer on theother end of like, I'm not
really sure what they're doing.
Let me gather those details.
They're coming out with newstuff all the day.
You've missed your shot toknock it over the park.
That's what we talked about onSaturday.
We talked about yesterday.
Knock it over the park that'swhat we talked about on Saturday
, we talked about yesterday.
(21:07):
We are constantly gettingbuy-in from our employees so
that they're ready to go andthey're singing the same song,
beating to the same drum beatthat we are.
So when the customer comes in,it's simply a handoff.
We started up and then wecontinued to go forth on that.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
So, taylor, once you go in a little bit deeper, or
any other thoughts that you haveabout getting the employees
involved so they know what'sgoing on, they're ready for the
customer the biggest deal aboutthe employees and it starts you
already get that nail in thehead, but with management,
because you can sit and talk andrah, rah and hoorah and
everything in the meetings.
But until that manager realizesand it takes a upper level
(21:41):
manager to make sure, hey, I'mgoing to be here, we're going to
go do this.
And it is different.
You're getting up, you're inthe atmosphere, you're walking
the walk of what you're doing,of your talk there, and you're
in the middle of it.
So it really stems, matt, fromthe managers in the whole area.
Yes, they have to have an idea,they have to be 150% of whatever
(22:03):
they need to be, so the teamaround them really understands
hey, we're going to be bought in.
Hey, I'm looking at carsdifferently.
Hey, I'm marketing carsdifferently.
It's going to be ready to go.
I'm going to talk to everysingle customer like I'm talking
about, and I'm going to deliverthis experience.
That is already great that wehave, but I'm going to take it
to that next level and it startswith management being able to
(22:25):
do that, as your team willfollow you and ask, as you ask
for that next year.
They see ah, taylor's in it,shelby's in it.
Okay, I've got my othermanagers in it.
They're right there to help meso I know if I fall they're
gonna be there to pick me up andpush me on.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
So it really starts there I think that's so good and
you especially hit on therethat you prepared them, you role
played.
We went through all the details.
So you're not practicing andintroducing on the customer, no,
you're prepared and ready to go.
Think about a sports team howmuch they practiced before game
day.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
That's a really good point and understanding that
Yesterday we referenced it alittle bit Like if you did a
March Madness or if you did aMidnight Madness and you didn't
tell the whole team about it.
So I referenced it to anamusement park a really long
line of people, because that'swhat it looked like on Saturday
they did.
That being said, still, theaverage time from a consumer
(23:22):
showing up and purchasing avehicle was less than two hours
long, because everyone waswell-trained, well-oiled machine
and so while it looked that'swhy I was at the hot dog cart
saying, hey, sir, we're going tomove a little bit quicker
because I don't need anyonegetting a bad taste in their
mouth and I'm not talking aboutyour hot dog.
So we talked about that, of howto help them process so that we
(23:42):
were all linked together, likeyou said, beating to the same
drum, and then they understand.
Okay, yeah, this is differentinternally from externally, so
let's break it down to themarketing.
How does this look differentand why is this different?
How?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
does it work?
So, number one, with ourmarketing.
If you're sitting in amarketing meeting with our you
know dream team, they would talkabout 360 degrees, that the
marketing needs to talk aboutthe same message.
Whether it's in person at thedealership, it ought to feel and
look the same.
If it's a billboard going downthe road, whether it's static or
digital, if it's a traditionalradio spot, if it's streaming
(24:20):
audio or video, if it's socialplatform, if it's website, if
it's banner ads, wherever it maybe, that it's going to talk
about the same message.
And that's a key in marketing.
Don't have multiple differentmessages going on everywhere.
You need consistency, and thenyou've got to up the frequency
with different channels tocontinue to plant those seeds in
(24:42):
people's mind about why theyshould do business with you and
then call to actions, which wecall ctas and then our in person
.
We wanted to make sure, oncethey got to the dealership, that
it felt like a big deal,because it is a big deal.
We create that through theatmosphere.
We've talked a little bit aboutit, but I can see you just
pulled up the calendar there.
We had to calendar this thing.
(25:04):
We had so much stuff going on.
Give them a couple ideas.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
So we told you what Saturday looked like, so we will
kind of build throughout theweek.
So today is a talk of Tuesday.
We start to roll in ourpromotion for service.
Tomorrow is $50 off oil changeacross the board, the first $50
podcast live going on now.
Yesterday our first mail drophappened, which was 20,000
(25:30):
pieces of mail went out.
We had a Cedar marketingcampaign additional savings
going to additional people thatlaunched and then we roll into
Wednesday.
We talked about the oil change,but it'll be Wednesday where we
start giving away items thatyou'll see on social media.
We gave a Stanley awayyesterday and it rolls into
(25:51):
Thursday.
And then Friday starts thecommotion of the carnival again,
and so it's cancun friday.
That's right.
So you will see us.
That's right.
Spoiler alert you will see us.
And the best of the best, thenicest of the nice, the tackiest
of the tackiest, tommy balltommy.
But no, it's been fun and sothat we've been pre-phasing the
entire team, like don't show up,fr, and say I couldn't find one
(26:13):
, I couldn't get one, it didn'tfit, I'll have something for you
, we're going to have somethingfor you and it's going to be
ugly I'm talking from a Bucky'sversion, I love that From Tommy
Bahama, from an Opo suit, andit's just.
people are like why not?
You know, I told this storyyesterday, I'll tell it again.
(26:35):
So on valentine's day ourmarketing team said, hey, make
sure you wear pink or red.
So taylor was going aroundsaying, hey, white, we'll get
away with it, it's pink or red.
I just happen to have a fullpink opo suit, sure, white, pink
.
And so I'm so used to wearingthese things from christmas
suits to saint patrick's daysuits, and so I put this pink
suit on.
And then I forget on my way homeit's Valentine's Day that I
(26:55):
need to make sure that I haveeverything I need to take care
of my family for Valentine's Day, absolutely.
So I stop at Walgreens becausethe best deals happen right.
Then, yeah, it's my mostfavorite.
So I stop at Walgreens to get acard to get some candy, sure,
and I'm candy, sure, and I'mwearing this bright pink suit,
like it was fine here.
But then I'm like I'm worn down, fish out of the water day, and
people are just looking at me.
(27:16):
I'm like, why not?
Right?
But what we've learned is noone has had a bad experience
when some guys dressed up likejohn candy.
Yeah, you know, with this uhcancun channel.
So we start that cancun friday.
We'll be giving away cancunbased activities.
We'll have a food truck at theFarmington lot.
We'll have a food truck at theSpringdale lot.
We'll have dual food truckshere.
(27:37):
We'll have pickup car washgiveaway.
We'll have all this.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
What about the other random stuff?
You gave them a good breakdownper day, but just give them a
couple examples of random thingsthat they might not think
they'd have activity wise ifthey showed up we have multiple
rolling video game trailers okay.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Arcade trailers okay.
Uh, axe throwing okay, uh, wewill have.
We talked about the potterything.
We will have, uh, maybe amechanical bull.
Maybe we'll have a race, uh,nascar we have a lot.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
There's all sorts of there's 31 days of crazy off the
wall activity okay, so some ofy'all are listening and you're
like that's great man, but I'vegot six employees and, um, we
just can't do all that.
It's scalable.
It is very scalable.
A lot of the things we've goneover, like the food trucks, for
example, or this or that, theydon't cost any money.
(28:36):
You just have to create theexcitement.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah, and how much was the 31 foot full-on
claymation pottery.
What?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
was the cost of that.
It was just through asponsorship, so it was zero.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
So because if you go back four or five episodes of
proper networking when you canhelp the grassroots.
We said, hey, we have thismonth of march, the ultimate
challenge, gone.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
They said we'd love to be a part of that.
I think that's the value whenyou start making deposits and
helping others out.
You have built up this bank,what's called this savings
account.
Then you get to start makingwithdrawals from throughout the
year and everybody out there hasa sports team that they did
this or they sponsored this.
Get them together to do a carwash, you know, for donations.
(29:22):
It's a commotion out in frontof your place.
You can scale any of this.
We didn't start off when wewere selling 300 cars with all
this in there.
No, we've scaled it a littlebit at a time.
We've added more in there forthe employees, more in there for
the customers.
Again, take, don't allow yourbrain to just close off and go
well, it must be nice to havethat budget.
I wish we could do that.
(29:42):
Hush, it's all scalable.
What can you do?
The social media, theexcitement, so on and so forth,
and just get in there and makeit where an employee wants to be
a part of it and a customergoes wow, I've never seen
anything like this.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, internal atmosphere.
You know what that costsabsolutely nothing.
That's controlled by you.
Every single day you get tomake the choice and this rolls
into the whole thing we'vetalked about.
How do you prepare your day?
Are you battle-tested to beable to handle any objection
that comes in from a customerand are you ready to set the
tone for your entire team everysingle?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
day.
Like what if you tell the teamtaylor, hey, on friday you can
do, you can wear jeans what doesthat do to your team?
Speaker 3 (30:27):
they just come unraveling, I don't know why,
because I like a pair of slacks.
That's, it's you're excited.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And what's the cost of that?
Nothing, and so do you thinkbecause they are excited to wear
their jeans.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
The customer gets a better experience they do,
because you know the businesswe're in.
There's two different types ofof business.
You're either doing physicalwork or mental work.
You know it's those two okay.
And if you're in the space ofmental work, which the majority
of people are, you must keep theinternal person, which is your
employee, at an excitement levelthat's high if you want a great
(31:02):
experience for your customer.
Absolutely.
It's the same thing with CancunFriday.
It doesn't cost us anything, no, it's just fun, no different
than when we do a Razorback dayor wear your favorite sports
team day.
We do this or you do that.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
You wait until I bring a kickstay out, because if
people are so fired up thatwe've got these ridiculous shoes
, they're so comfortable.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
So again, and we could talk for hours about just
creating excitement and you'veheard it on the other podcasts
but I'm just telling you thereason we paused there because
it is a big deal and how we'veevolved from selling 300 cars in
a march to 555 is just byscaling all that.
I didn't change any of it.
We scaled it, we developed andgot the right team together and
(31:44):
it's very important that youtell your team whatever your
goal is out there and you'relike well, matt, well, I'm a
roofing company, great, youdon't have goals.
You don't have daily goals andmonthly goals.
Maybe you should, if you'll getyour team on there.
You've got to tell them.
Once you tell them the goal, Ibelieve in you and you can do
this, because if you don't setthe standard and the
expectations of not only is thisbig, but I know you can help me
(32:06):
accomplish it, they'll neverbelieve in themselves.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
So that's important, ever, yeah.
So that's important and I thinkthat's a good point is you work
up to that, what that goal is,and as that continues to grow
and you talked about reachingout to have that hype, also, you
have to realize the work thatwent into this underground, yes,
to make sure that you put thework and if you're not on the
front lines, that you put thework in.
So when you say it's big, itactually is, that's right.
So the inventory building thatwe've been doing we talked about
that right of the purchasingand we work directly with the
manufacturers say, hey, we havea larger than normal travel rate
(32:38):
.
We need your help to get more.
We worked with the banks, yes,and got a automatic markdown of
two and a half points on yourinterest rate.
I know people would like thatright.
So across the board, with 27different banks, two and a half
points average mark down thereit's huge.
So we called all the banks andsaid, hey, here's the deal, it's
ultimate challenge.
I need you to buy a little bitdeeper.
(32:59):
You know, if there's an iffycustomer, remember all the good
customers I sent you.
We told all of our buyers,which are generally all internal
, but we get 10 differentsources on every single trade
value.
We said hey, it's the ultimatechallenge.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I love this.
On Saturday and we hadn't evenover.
But talking about outsidesources my buyer I sent him
about 15 cars in two hours andhe's like, oh God, I didn't even
look at the date, it's March1st, are y'all bringing this
back out again?
And I started dying laughing.
He's like I'm so excited.
(33:33):
He said I might just come downthere and just stay on spot all
month long.
He said this is great and Ilove being a part of it.
Thank you so much for bringingthis back.
So that's feeding to an outsideexternal source vendor that we
have the excitement and it'sbleeding over to them because
they realize what it's going tobring.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And you have to realize that yesterday, in a
construction meeting, one of our, in our construction yes, we're
still in construction.
We poured a sixth foundationyesterday as we continually grow
.
But one of the guys he'sshopping for a vehicle for his
wife.
He came here, looked at it avehicle for his wife.
So he came here, looked at.
But then his wife said hey,there was a new model at nissan
I need to look at, there's a newone at honda I want to look at,
(34:12):
said absolutely.
I said thank you for giving usan opportunity.
But yesterday in theconstruction meeting, what did
he say about he?
Speaker 1 (34:19):
said of all the places I went in northwest
arkansas and he said we went toa bunch of them on Saturday he's
like nowhere was there as muchgoing on as you guys had going
on, and not only that, your crewand they didn't know him from
Adam until he got involved withus.
Your crew was attentive, theywere nice, they weren't pushy,
(34:40):
they wanted to answer questions,test drive vehicles.
The experience felt different,looked different and it looked
like a place I wanted to be anddo business.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
That's a really good point, and here's the thing we
talked to our team and I am aokay to share everyone with this
entire world.
We talk about how do you sell avehicle.
It's not my pressure, it's notby tricks, it's not by pulling
the wool over your eyes, andit's a simple analogy.
We talk about value and pricethe price of a product and the
value that that vehicle and youas a seller bring to that, and
(35:11):
so by not bringing pressure tothat person, we can allow them
to move on their terms and intheir timing.
We say, if you can get thevalue to exceed the price, the
purchase is as simple as justprocessing the paperwork, and if
you can make it fun, make itexciting, make it a great
experience.
I mean, I think they ratebuying a car with like going to
the dentist.
(35:31):
I don't even like looking atthat stuff.
You know having to deal with anattorney and so we realized it
doesn't have to be.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I think another nugget that I'll pull out here
in case anybody missed it iswhat Shelby talked about there
is look at the value you'reoffering, whether it be a
product or a service, and beforeyou're like, hey, we're not
doing enough business, we bettercut our price and we better do
this or that, pause for just asecond.
(35:58):
I'm not saying you don't haveto be competitive, but I'm
saying relook at the valueyou're bringing.
Are you explaining what allyour company offers?
Are you explaining all yourexpertise and what you actually
go through?
Because there's probably wecould dissect anybody's business
.
There's a lot of value pointsthat need to be translated to
your customer on why they shoulddo business.
Absolutely.
So you've got to make sure youlook at what's your value
(36:20):
proposition and don't hold it asan owner or as a manager in
yourself.
Is your's, your whole team,talking about that?
Yeah, because once that valuedoes exceed the price, then the
customer says, yes, they have agreat experience.
They tell others what arecalled repeats and referrals,
which then close at a higherratio, and then you start
building your business long-termorganically.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah, and $0.
Hey, shout out to all thepeople watching out there we got
Jeremy, derek, david, Trent, wegot Tucker, we've got Sarah,
we've got Ken, we got Mark, wegot James, we got Trenton.
We got Kale, we got Code Red.
Hey, I love the support.
If you guys have somethingspecifically you want to know
about the podcast, you bet whyTaylor Parts is here.
(37:01):
Left versus right, yeah, hairleft versus right.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Matt's got a black short-sleeved shirt on you
completely went over this, matt,and I'm going to bring it out
and throw you on the spot,because you know better than me
or Shelby or anything else wemissed our automotive fun fact.
Whenever the team was puttingit together, I loved the
responses.
I said you need to be able tofigure it out because we don't
know exactly.
But how many ultimatechallenges have there been over
(37:25):
the years?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
okay, so this will be number 18, okay, this will be
we're going into number 18.
Number 18 it's like tom brady.
So if if it had not been asuccess in 03, then like, okay,
we'll try to get an 04, butlet's say, three or four years
into it it had just dozedove andit wasn't a success.
But that wasn't the case.
(37:47):
Yes, northwest arkansas waslooking for this, our employees
were looking for this oh yeah,they were looking for a reason
to do business to start off.
Maybe they're getting ready togo on spring break, maybe
they're thinking aboutsummertime, maybe their car's
out of warranty, maybe it's timefor new tires.
And you combine that with thelonger days, the daylight
savings and all the incentivesand it's just it's perfect
(38:11):
season for having to sell likethis, to sell cars it is and I
love the, the branding awarenessthat comes with it.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
We call our ultimate challenge, but I can't tell you
how many people I talk to.
They're like oh yeah, you, yeah, you're March Madness.
You're March Madness.
And let me tell you this rightnow If a customer comes up, do
not say no, it's wrong, it'sultimate challenge.
Be like oh yeah, march Madness,they're talking about
basketball because it's thefinal four, everything else in
(38:39):
March, you're good at that.
Yes, be involved with it.
Yeah, shelby will show you allthe alley-oops and everything
else you got.
It's about the hustle.
But whenever a customer comesin and is excited about
something, make sure you nevermake that mistake of no, you're
wrong.
Say absolutely, thank you somuch for coming in and showing
that whole process of whythey're excited that's really
(39:01):
important and it's funny becauseour kids are getting to that
age.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
And so my, my kids asked last night so this is an
update for you as of tuesdaywe're, uh, saturday, monday,
we're rolling it.
This is tuesday morning, uh.
So they said, dad, do you thinkyou'll sell 555?
I can't think of a year that wehaven't hit the number, and I
haven't always been, you know,on the very top of the helm
figuring the things out, but I,in the years that I've been a
(39:26):
part of it, we've hit it andstretched it.
555 is a lot.
That's 555 customers that canget approved that we agree on
numbers.
That trade deals with imbalance.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
I said, buddy, that's a lot hey, I'm gonna help all
the car guys out there becauseI'm sure some competitors are
listening.
We invite that, come on, listenit.
Uh, that 55000 is 100% retail.
No fleet deals yes, okay.
No wholesale deals.
No dealer trades Nope.
555 customers that we take apicture with shake their hand.
(39:57):
Red carpet, real deal.
No fluff in the stats.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
That's a good point.
Thanks for pointing that out.
That's not, uh, the additional400 that we sell to Tyson, you
know, or whatever it is.
So so do you think we'll hit it?
And I said, uh, we're gonnagive her, gonna give it all we
got, which means customer on theother side.
You should probably show up andraise your hand pretty quickly.
Uh, so, as of this morning, wewere 52 yep 52 sold and and that
(40:25):
other point.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
We got to go back to this because I know we have
business.
You know this whole podcast isabout helping other businesses
out.
We talk about the number 555,really like once.
It will reference it every oncein a while, but what you really
talked about this morning washere's where we're on pace,
here's what we've got to dotoday and we managed today.
(40:47):
We managed today and today'sactivities and it stands on its
own.
It's funny because I rememberthat.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Remember when we had mall sales and this came from
the fairgrounds of dad to ourgrandfather and he would give
the whole speech, lead the wholeship of what the day needed to
accomplish.
Yeah, he was.
And so I remember dad at themall with his calligraphy.
He had the cardboard with thecolored paper and it would have
its goal on it.
It would.
(41:12):
And so if we were turning up orturning down, there was plenty
of times that we were behindSure, and so I remember it
wasn't like 325 must be sold or450 must be sold.
It's like okay to get back onpar, we've spent all the money,
we've got all the stuff we needto sell.
42 today.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
I think another point I'm going to give you all
behind the scenes, of what's thebiggest challenge for us.
Managing it during the month isyou know we look at a Friday, a
Saturday, a Monday.
You know those days aretypically larger in the car
business, so we do moretransactions.
So you come off a Saturday, youcome off a Monday.
You know those days aretypically larger in the car
business, we do moretransactions.
So you come off a Saturday, youcome off a Monday and you're
talking about how we've alreadysold 50 plus vehicles.
(41:51):
Well, we have to concentrate on, as leaders, is the Tuesday,
the Wednesday, the Thursday.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
So their dobber doesn't get down Like I sold six
today or I sold one today.
You help them back on the trackand off you go, little buddy.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
So we know those are key days that we have to double
down on those daily activitiesbecause we might not have as
much natural traffic that'scoming in that we would see on a
Friday, a Saturday and Monday.
So we've identified that within.
So we don't have everybody thathas a big Saturday, like we did
, or a good Monday, and thenthey're on cruise control
thinking like, hey, this thing'sjust going to keep duplicating
(42:27):
itself.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
No, the Tuesday, Wednesday, thursday are the
deals that we couldn't getaccomplished or we were missing
a couple pieces the trade or weneeded all parties involved.
So Tuesday, wednesday, thursday, help us go through those and
put those deals together.
The difficult deals, the dealsthat had some strings that were
hung out there and then thatstring's kind of helped keep us
on pace.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
You bet Taylor, you had it in there kind of talking
about the pros and cons ofUltimate Challenge.
We've talked a whole lot aboutthe pros.
Yes, I let in talking about I'mjust going to say a challenge,
not a con a challenge that wegot to focus on that Tuesday,
(43:08):
wednesday, thursday.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Yeah, the biggest deal in there and I love this
analogy shelby brought up hereof and it's no different than in
a race you're in a con wheneveryou run a type of whole month
sale, not a weekend push, not aday push, not anything else is
making sure you are on the gasthe right amount, because if you
taste yourself, you gotta paceyourself and somebody that's
been weathered through it youcan gas it pretty hard and then
reset and then just keep gassing.
(43:30):
But as your team is developedin different stages, you need to
make sure that you manage thatcorrectly.
Don't take this by any means oflay lower level, don't push as
hard.
No intensity level needs to beup, but you need to forecast and
look and see, hey, I've gotthis much gas in the tank you
(43:52):
bet, and it's gonna have to berefilled throughout the month.
But do not over push your teambecause then what will happen?
Speaker 2 (43:59):
you're done so I'll talk about intensity, and we had
some people that were kind ofseasoned and then some total
rookies.
This was some years back inUltimate Challenge.
It was a Friday and the closewas on a Saturday, yep, okay.
So March 31st was on theSaturday, it was Friday and they
got so jacked up because we hadbrought the intensity level
high.
They'd come from a big salesmeet, a huge day of activities,
(44:23):
and they said let's do a 24 hoursell.
Oh yeah, wow.
And so we're talking about amarathon or a hundred mile race.
And they were a mile, 70 or 80,and they said let's just sprint
.
Well, I said you guys do you?
Here's the keys of the building.
Good luck to you, right?
Uh, well, I loved watching onthe camera.
(44:44):
I went home yeah, I mean, itwas like 11, 30 or midnight
before I got home with normalbusiness, got in bed, woke up
early and I could see them onthe camera.
They goofed off.
They were not doing a 24 hourcell, but they were so jacked up
they were like playing kickballon the show.
It was a big control.
And then the next day theirheads were welded to the floor.
Oh, yeah, and so then we putthem back on the tracks and put
(45:07):
a nitro booster underneath andsaid, hey, appointments,
appointments, appointments, youget out.
And by the end they were.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
They had sprinted way too yo I think that's important
as a big leader is like likeyou love the excitement, you
love the buy-in, but you alsohave to show them the path and
keep them what we call betweenthe boundaries you do.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Sometimes you got to kind of tap them back in here,
tap them back in you have to doit carefully and tastefully, so
you're not just a fireextinguisher to put out like
well, shoot.
I thought I was bringing theheat for this ultimate challenge
and they said this is stupid.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Don't do that, that's you as a manager, as a leader,
you know when to let the reinsout and pull them back.
It's constantly out back, outback.
You are constantly changing,adapting to whatever they're
looking for you to say go orpull back, go or pull back.
So you got to make sure, as aleader, you're going through
that with them every single day.
(45:58):
Like matt talked about dailyactivities.
Why we break that downcompletely is because if you
look at a whole picture of a 555or selling x amount of roofs or
doing this many services, ifyou look at the total number,
you'll never accomplish it.
If you don't take it intobite-sized pieces, there's no
way.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
It'll overwhelm people, and that's what a good
coach does on any sports team isthey'll keep them within the
boundaries.
They don't just bring out thehell mary first play of the game
.
You know they call the playswhen it's appropriate, they call
a time out, get their team ifit's going in the wrong
direction.
They say pause, let's reset, nodifferent.
(46:37):
You're talking about last weekwith the axe on sharpening that.
No, it's like you have there.
There is gold in the pause andthen, given the correct
direction that you want yourteam to go.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
I will tell you as a consumer, if you're on the other
side thinking and you'resharing this, or you might want
to be part of the March Madnessor Ultimate Challenge Lewis
Automotive Sale, I want to giveyou an inside trader tip.
You want to move sooner thanlater.
That's very true.
You need to move.
So do not wait to say hey, I'llwait until March 31st and I
want to be that last dealbecause you're going to be
(47:10):
driving away in a purple Pinto.
That's going to be all I have.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Or if we're already at 563, that doesn't mean we
won't put another deal together.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
No, we will, but we're not going to lose 10 grand
and travel to.
Minnesota to go get this thingfor you.
But if you'll do it early,we've got our daily goals that
we have to hit and you're goingto have a better selection.
Now we'll keep bringing ininventory and we'll keep buying
vehicles, but why the team isstill fresh and why the
inventory is the freshest, and Ipromise you you said, don't
(47:41):
bring out the Hail Mary.
We brought the Hail Mary in thedistance.
Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
So don't bring out the Hail Mary.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
We brought the Hail Mary in the distance.
Oh yeah, for sure.
So don't think the deals willget better, because we came
right to the beginning withwe're winning this Super Bowl
and this outwork.
So, as a consumer, don't worryabout us, we'll pace through it.
You will get the best deal andthe best selection right from
the get-go.
From the get-go.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
I agree.
I agree we broke down UltimateChallenge pretty solid there and
Taylor, our automotive fun factquiz of the week.
We told them you know we'regoing into year 18 there,
they're going into 18.
So what other takeaways ortalking about on Ultimate
Challenge do you guys have?
We've talked about the deals.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
We've talked about that it's a great time for a
customer to take advantage Kindof dissected how we get our team
on board first, we get all ofour marketing behind and, guys,
it takes all those details toadd it up I think it's an
important part and we won't talkabout the auction we'll save
that for another time, anotherconversation but one of the
things that we do, unless youwant to talk about one of the
things we do, uh, in our 360marketing a cool thing that I
(48:41):
don't know when this started,but years ago you will see
driving on the road, on the backwindow to be part of the sale,
which is all of our employeesthere is a big chloroplast
sticker, two foot by three footultimate challenge sticker, so
that when you're at the gasstation or at the light, people
will say, hey, what is that?
What's the ultimate challenge?
(49:01):
And so that's something that ifyou haven't been a part of that
or if you're a consumer seeingthat, you say what is that?
That's part of our 360 gorillamarketing without the gorilla
yeah um you know.
So that's a big thing that ispart of, like one of the hidden
mickeys.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Yeah, somebody also asked the other day like hey,
his brothers and me, y'all arey'all which we say we're
involved, or they say onweekends here, y'all still there
involved in.
I laughed about this.
I came home after saturday theday because it was sunny, it was
like that why is your face inthe head right?
I said I don't think I wentinside the entire day, which is
my most favorite days.
(49:37):
You can normally find shelbyjogging back and forth in
between the front of the strikejust a traffic just talking I
looked at one point.
Matt and shelby's son, oliver,and lincoln were here and they
had set them up throughout theparking lot to be like traffic
directors.
Yeah, I said, boys, what areyou doing?
One of them was sending themback here.
We had an event that there wasat our conference room over here
(49:59):
and whenever they were leavingit was a sunshiny day, we said,
hey, let's wash all their cars.
So one of them was directingthem, the other one had the code
back at the car wash and theywere walkie-talkie and back and
forth like, hey, I got a couplemore coming your way.
So I love the atmosphere on theweekends.
It's a full deal.
Family, whether it be family oremployees that are part of the
(50:21):
family.
Love the atmosphere that itbrings on Saturday.
Oh, that's so good.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
It's definitely an all-scale and it was definitely
important, as you know, as oneof the leaders, to make sure
that, even through all thepeople being here, that there
wasn't someone that fell throughthe cracks.
If they were like, well, itlooks crazy, but no one ever
helped on it, no one ever talked.
So if we can talk to everysingle car when it comes in and
they're greeted, we can givedirection and we can help them,
make sure that at the end of theday, you're not left with that.
(50:47):
It's like getting in that moneymachine and the money's blowing
around like there was so muchmoney and there was so much.
You split her dumps like justshow me what you got and they're
like well, I didn't getanything.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Now, that's true, that's true for sure.
All right, next up, uhfrequently asked questions there
and I'll dive in here.
They threw out there what is?
What is a frequently askedquestion that I get about?
Ultimate challenge.
Now, I've been around for a lotof these years uh, part of when
I was in college, but then themajority of them I've been here.
(51:15):
The biggest thing I get is fromother people in business what
outside company did y'all use?
What firm did y'all use to putit all together?
You know, both internally andexternally.
And it blows their mind when wetell them it was all done
internally, it was done by ourteam.
(51:36):
They're like well, how did youdo that?
And that's changed throughoutthe years, how we've scaled.
But we now have an amazing teamthat we started meeting over a
month ago spitballing ideas,coming up with stuff.
Now those employees had toalmost sound like a disclosure.
I'm not talking to anybodyabout it, secrets aside, but
(51:58):
there's a lot of planning andprep that happens behind the
scenes to make sure that day onewe get going.
But all that happens internally.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Yeah, absolutely, I thought we were already talking,
frequently asked questions, soI said about that, about the
stickers, but uh, you're good,uh, so that that's definitely a
big deal of just having thatwhole thing tied together
absolutely, and I think we hitthe nail on the head of
everything, of just being a partof it, and that people ask and
hey, what do you what?
Speaker 3 (52:24):
how are y'all involved, besides just being
there?
So telling them the whole storyof how it's evolved from this?
Because I always love and weget the questions there that,
hey, I'm not at that scale.
We started at a scale that wasso small and it's evolved from
there.
I had someone ask me todaybecause they've seen the um, our
(52:44):
crazy club-like atmosphere inthere.
He's like hey, I play loudmusic, but it's on just on this
little boom box.
You know a couple speakers Isaid that fires me up so much
that you're starting there,because 20 years ago that's
where, that's where we startedwith a cd player and it doesn't
matter what scale you're at,just do take the initiative and
(53:07):
be different, but bring theatmosphere to your team.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
And that's a really good point, and so we share,
like our Ford team, shout outMarianne for being on here.
We brought them through and weconstantly will give it to her.
We'll always.
She works for Ford, but we willalways give her a car wash,
treat her like a high valuedcustomer, make sure that they
feel special.
So if they have a question orif I need help from Ford,
they're like, hey, these peopleare supportive, how can I
(53:32):
support back?
And we said, hey, any Fordevents that we could host, we'd
love to have them here.
And people say, why would youlet other people in your trade
here?
Because I know the odds arethat we can give them the entire
playbook, so true, and theywon't put it into play.
And so, even if it's a juniorboombox, and so we were watching
a video from man, it was likeprobably 04, maybe 05.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Somewhere in there.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
And it was a boombox, a pig nose amp with a silver CD
player and halfway through theintro the CD was skipping and we
walked and clapped for thewhole song.
Your hands would be white bythe time you're done with the
tambourine and stuff.
But it was just the idea ofactually putting it into scale
(54:17):
in the atmosphere, so my keywould be just to start.
Speaker 1 (54:21):
Just get started.
Just get started.
Today's the best day to do that.
Hey guys, thanks for joining uslive here.
Remember, the ultimatechallenge is going on.
It's going on in all locations.
We're in Fayetteville, here,but it also goes on up at our
Springdale store.
It goes on out in Farmington aswell, and make sure we'll be
back same place next week live.
So send in those questions.
Get ready to share the videosout so we can cover the subjects
(54:51):
you want to talk about withbusiness.
Hey, and take the time to goover to Crossroad Conversations
podcast.
Make sure to like and share andsubscribe so you get the latest
information from us trying tohelp you with your business.
Thank you, guys.
You know the business we're in.
There's two different types ofbusiness.
You're either doing physicalwork or mental work.
It's those two.
And if you're in the space ofmental work, which the majority
of people are, you must keep theinternal person, which is your
employee, at an excitement levelthat's high if you want a great
(00:20):
experience for your customer.
Absolutely, it's the same thingwith Cancun Friday.
It doesn't cost us anything, no, hey, welcome to a live edition
of Crossroad Conversations withthe Lewis Brothers.
This is an exciting day becausewe're live, so make sure to join
in on any of our Facebook pages.
Put in the comments if you'vegot something you want us to
talk about.
But we've got some excitingthings to talk about.
(00:43):
Today we're talking ultimatechallenge talk about.
But we've got some excitingthings to talk about.
Today we're talking ultimatechallenge, ultimate challenge.
We'll get into the nitty-grittythere, but we're talking about
years in the making that wecontinue to bring the best deals
, the best selections, theultimate for the trades, really
a great time for people to buyhere in northwest arkansas.
So let's get started with that.
But before we dive into it,shelby, we got to remind them
(01:03):
about last week Habits, oh sogood.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We talked about habits, all things like this one
Creating habits, the habit ofdrinking coffee when you should,
when you shouldn't, getting upearly, how to be disciplined.
We talked personally, we talkedbusiness-wise, that's right.
Kind of broke the whole thingdown.
So it's episode 24.
You can find that on all ofyour podcast sources.
You can find it on YouTube.
You can find it on Facebook.
(01:27):
Make sure you reference that.
Crossroad Conversations withthe Lewis Brothers.
Check it out.
What in the heck are we divingin today?
And I forgot always join inLewisSuperstorecom.
You can check out our inventoryOver 1,000 vehicles in stock.
Ultimate challenge challenge555 vehicles must be sold up to
20 000 off new vehicles rates aslow as zero percent interest.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
That was taylor's part, but you just jumped in
there when I started I know, Iknow you wind this up type a
personality and we get going.
That's what the fun part is sowe are talking about those
specials, taylor, what specialsdid you bring for ultimate?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
challenge.
I've got to go to the absolute,ultimate family truck.
It's on the showroom.
It's black.
Okay, it's got the peanutbutter interior.
It's rear dvds.
It's the best driving roadvehicle.
You're talking expedition.
Platinum max all the cargo foryour kids, all the room for the
entertainment, the ultimateluxury, self-driving, massaging.
(02:23):
Oh, it's got blue cruise.
Blue cruise it means hands-freedriving for anyone.
That's not my brother beside me, because he can't drive under
81 miles an hour differentsubject purposes.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know what I love about that.
What's that?
It's got rear entertainment.
You can plug in and use allyour sources.
It's got max trailer tow.
It's three, five haul it allyeah we're talking 8500.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, so it will be over 8500 pounds.
That is a lot.
That's a lot.
That's more than most peoplepull with their half ton, three
quarter ton pickup.
That is a lot of weight andthat's a super saver.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
It's the ultimate challenge.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Fifteen thousand dollars, fifteen thousand
dollars off hey, you may haveseen our ads out there, whether
you're on social or uh, it's inyour email, or you're driving
down the road and saw abillboard, or really wherever.
Because we spent, we did a lotof marketing.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's we've seen it because it's out there, so we
show you that we have theultimate discounts up there.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Like taylor talked about up to twenty thousand off,
we do have zero percentfinancing.
We got to plug.
We have the ultimate discountsup there.
Like Taylor talked about up to$20,000 off, we do have 0%
financing.
We've got to plug this theultimate amount for your tray.
It is a big selection, but hey,I've got to pause real quick
before you get started here.
And we've got a sponsor in thehouse today.
You'll notice in the coffee cup.
This is one of our partners andBob.
They sponsored us.
(03:41):
Well, it works both ways.
Beasts of the burden, we lovesponsoring people local.
And that's another great reasonthat you do business with us,
because if you've listened toany of our podcasts, if you've
ever talked to us, our goal isto provide a great place for
people to work, a great placefor customers to do business,
but then we also want to giveback local too.
I know that wasn't in therethere, but it just felt right to
(04:04):
say so.
You know it's the ultimatechallenge.
We got to give you a little bitof backstory because some
people are like all right, wehear you on the radio, where did
it come from?
So if we rewind the tape to theearly 2000s, when we were
growing up.
We had this big cell just rightacross the interstate from where
we are yeah, I call it our bigfairground cell at the
washington county fairgrounds.
At the washington countyfairgrounds, where we moved all
(04:25):
of our vehicles there, all ofour employees, and we had this
massive used car sale showdown.
Well, in in 02 that thing hadto come to a close.
Some regulations changed, somelogistics changed, but it was
only a weekend long.
It was only a weekend long, soit started on a thursday, ended
on a sunday, yeah, so then thenthe board got together.
(04:47):
Of course, we were young atthat time, but it was.
What do we do next?
How do we replace thatfairground sale that brings
great deals to northwestarkansas, that helps our sales
people give a big punch ofselling a bunch of vehicles?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
that's where ultimate challenge came from so in 2003,
let's stretch it out for awhole month so at 03, we ran
from 03 right up to 2020.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Okay, so that was 17 years, 17 years of this sale,
and now, in 2025, we're bringingit back.
We had to take a little bit ofa break, sure, uh, because of we
didn't have enough inventory tobe able to hit a number.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
If we told you, ultimate Challenge, 212 vehicles
, we'll be, so We'd have laughed.
You'd have been laughed at soProbably by each other.
Yeah, you know it's part of it,so it's back.
It is back, taylor, it is back.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
It is back.
So when you have taylor, let'swalk through, let's give them a
little bit behind the scenes ofultimate challenge and you and
management, what do you see?
What does that mean besidesjust the big discounts?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
it is internal atmosphere, your excitement
level.
I love anyone that has beentrying to get away from it
because they're like, oh my goshsomething's happening.
You can't hide from it.
It is definitely that it bleedsover to your whole team the
enthusiasm, the excitement, theatmosphere.
It is absolutely a blast to bea part of it's.
(06:16):
I don't care if you're havingthe worst day.
You step into.
It's the best cup of coffee tobe able to get you leapfrog
forward into the day and youhave so much fun with it.
It's ultimate atmosphere foryour team.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I think the best way to describe it is if you've been
part of something retail or inthe automotive industry on the
last day of the year, the lastday of the month, it's like hey
call everybody, you know, tellthem to get down here.
We're not going to refuse anyoffer.
We're going to give a crazyamount for trading because we
need another vehicle to replace.
You bet we're going to givethem the craziest discount.
I'm talking like well below theline.
(06:54):
Taylor was going over priceyesterday and I was just like,
oh gosh, okay, and so we can'tmake up today's work tomorrow.
You realize that to sell 555vehicles, that is at 176 percent
of last month's production.
So it's intense but it'sheavily beneficial for a
customer it's heavily.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yesterday I loved, I jumped in.
Uh, customer was like hey, I, Idon't expect you to make this
work.
I don't expect you to make thisscenario work.
I said hold, let's sit down,let's go through it and guess
what?
He ended up leaving in a brandnew car that he thought wasn't
going to work.
Situation wasn't going to work.
We're going to make any dealhappen and we're going to put it
together.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Hey, I think to put that in context, when we talk
about those big discounts outthere, we started adding up
behind the scenes of how manydiscounts, how many rebates when
we bundle all that together andthe number is actually bigger
than this.
But we had to reduce it down soit was more believable.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
We've got over $2 million marked to help put deals
together.
That's in customer discountsand savings.
Yes, yep, from new cars andused cars of the thousand
vehicles we have in stock.
$2 million in customerdiscounts, $2 million.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
All right, we'll continue on here.
But again, if you're joining us, live out there on any of the
social platforms, hey, throw itin the comments.
We see you guys jumping inthere.
Thank you for the likes, Thanksfor jumping in there and
sharing the video, but if youhave anything you want us to
cover specifically you've beenlistening to the podcast.
You're like man, I wish theywould touch on this Throw it in
the comments and we'll grab ahold of that and talk about that
.
But so the ultimate challenge.
(08:24):
Let's get back into that.
It's kind of our wheelhouse,and if you've been around us, we
love culture, we loveatmosphere and we love
excitement, and if you've beento any of our meetings, so we
take that what you might see inone day and we spread it and
stretch it out for the entiremonth of March.
And so I'm going to kick thisto you, Shelby, why does it
happen during the month of March?
Why not February?
(08:44):
Why not April?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That's a really good question.
So for a lot of differentreasons, but it kind of kicks
off the selling season.
I'm going to go for February,where you've still got a pretty
good chance that it's going tosnow.
That's a short month, it's justFebruary you're getting through
to get to March.
It's the end of the firstquarter.
For the manufacturers.
(09:06):
It's when they are rolling intoFord's truck month.
It's when inventory reallystarts rolling.
And speaking of, we've hadeight transports drop since
yesterday morning.
Eight transports times theaverage of about eight vehicles
per transport, that's 64.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
That's 64.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
That's 64.
That's been fun, so it's thefresh.
That's 64.
That's 64.
That's 64.
That's been fun, so it's thefreshest of inventory.
Our used car inventory justgrows Each day.
We print out a three-day tradeand that's been on an average of
three pages, which is well over60 vehicles each day.
That has grown from trade-ins,from street purchases, and so
it's kind of just.
March just sets up to be hugeit really does.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Now let me go.
I'm going to give you anotherreason, besides just the hype.
We want to sell cars and thesun's coming out, the daylight
savings and all that stuff froma manufacturer's point of view.
It's their last month in thefirst quarter, so january,
february, they get the yearstarted off.
They kind of try to figure outwhere they're landing market
share wise.
Now, market share is important.
(10:06):
It might not be important toyou, the customer, but it's
important to the stock market.
You're getting into the stock.
Oh yeah, I'm going right there.
So it's important there with theinvestment with a publicly
owned company, and if theirmarket share starts going down,
well, when they start reportingtheir first quarter earnings
they would adjust those rebatesto get bigger market share.
So the customer I'm bringing itback around the customer so
(10:29):
then the customer wins rightthere.
So the month of March theyreally get the gas pedal.
It really is a great time totake advantage.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The manufacturer doesn't like coming out in
January 1st and saying, hey,let's do a crazy amount of
rebates right, they just cameoff of of december.
Rebates is a way to right sizethe pricing of a vehicle in
order for a customer to saythat's a good enough price that
I should do business.
And it starts in january.
It's kind of like a new month,an ultimate challenge month.
We're like, hey, let's see ifwe can not be in the negative
(10:57):
when we sell these cars right.
So then as it comes, marshalike, okay, we adjust as much as
we could.
That didn't get us as much aswe want.
We got to go bigger in thediscount, absolutely.
So we take those discounts, westack them with the Lewis
Automotive Ultimate Challengediscounts and it equals huge.
That's where we came up with the$2 million in customers'
discounts and savings.
(11:18):
So it's a big time.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
It really is.
It's a big time no-transcriptpayments 90 days, no payment.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Puts it out, structures it well April, may,
june, that's well intosummertime, june, before you
have to make your first paymentthere.
Absolutely so.
That's structured across theirwhole lineup from Super Duties
to Mavericks to Broncos, tosmall trucks, big trucks, suvs,
cars, all of them qualify forthat deferred payment.
So when the customer shows uphere.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Let's rewind to Saturday, when it kicked off.
How does it look and feeldifferent?
Walk us through.
And this is a month long.
But what did saturday?
As a customer driving off theroad?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
what is it?
If you've ever been to aamusement park, take a disney
world, take a six flags, oryou've ever been to a really big
sporting event and you'rewalking through all the
tailgating, the excitement andthe hype, that's what you'll
feel here.
Yeah, that's what you'll fear,feel here is when you walk in.
There's things for the kids todo, there's excitement.
We had the hot dog cart here.
We had the arts uh mobile rvhere making pottery on hand.
(12:50):
We had the live remotes.
We had jack's ice cream here.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
So all these things and the coffee trailer shout out
on saturday and I laughed aboutthis.
Uh, atomicomic Dogs absolutelykilled it and we laughed
whenever he showed up.
We had so many customers showup for Customer Appreciation Day
.
He showed up with 150 hot dogsand said, oh, that'll be plenty
of enough to be able to do it.
We doubled that.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
But here's the thing Enough is never enough.
And so we tried to help himwith that.
And so I would check on thevendors.
Hey, how's the coffee going?
How's the ice cream?
Do you have enough pottery?
How's everything going?
Uh, and so the the hot dog guywas like, hey, it's going good.
I was like, hey, your line'sgetting really long, let's
simplify.
Do you want mustard?
Do you want ketchup?
Because he was making likechicago dogs oh yeah, I was like
(13:40):
give me some gloves, let mestay.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
He's like oh no, sir, step back like, oh no I.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I was like, oh no, I'm USDA approved, Give me some
more.
You're messing him up.
And so then he said I'm runninglow.
And I said you keep working.
Trenton, go to Sam's Club now,yes, and buy mass amounts 5,000
packs.
He's like that's not of thediscount and the idea that rolls
to the whole thing.
(14:03):
Yes, and Craig's over therelaughing because he just knows
that's how it goes.
We're always going to find whenthe customer shows up and
they're like I'm looking for ablue crew cab, two-wheel drive,
long bed, got to have this,there's no chance that you'll
ever have one.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I'm like you came to the right place.
You sure have come to the rightplace and I think the point you
make there is what you see onwhether it's a podcast or you
see us wound up in a meetingthat's the same thing you'll get
when you come here, is it'strue and it's transparent, and
we care and we love beinginvolved.
We also love the excitement.
We want to create great placesfor people to work and a great
(14:40):
place for a customer to do atransaction to.
We know that we fight thisperceived notion about how it is
to buy a car or what thatexperience is like, and we're
out to set a new trend with that, to make it fun, to make it
exciting, which it should be.
It's the second largestpurchase in your life and March
is a great time for that becauseyou get those big savings.
(15:02):
You get that 90 days, nopayments.
We got payments that start at$199.
We love to talk about.
We sell a car for anybody youknow, whether you're on a $199
budget or a $5,000 cash carbecause you just got your taxes
back, or you want a brand new,loaded out with every bell and
whistle, whether it's anExpedition or a Grand Wagoneer,
we want to be able to help youthere.
Let's talk a little bit aboutUltimate Challenge.
(15:24):
We talked about 13 years.
We're coming back now how thatthing has progressed.
I can remember when the numberwas high 200s.
I remember when Dad put outthere, 300 must be sold, no
matter what it takes.
I was like man, how are wegoing to get to 300?
We did, though.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It's just one of those things you put the big
number and then you divide thatthe Lewis Ford store is going to
sell this, the Springdale storeis going to sell this, the
Chrysler store is going to sellthis, and then how many people?
It's no different than wealways talk on the podcast.
We come up with the grandscheme as an automotive group
265 employees and then we'regoing to start separating and
(16:04):
bringing it down and bringing itdown.
So that's another thing I justsent out this morning to all the
managers hey, let me help youwith your daily travel rate.
And then we do some forecastingand we say hey per person.
And then you did someforecasting of cutting it up, of
how many activities need tohappen, and that's group wide,
so that it is achie right,you're not trying to eat the
(16:24):
entire elephant one bys.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I think we're going to pause here.
We've had our sales hat on andall the hype.
We've got to talk to all thebusiness owners out there
because there's some goldennuggets there.
When we talk about this 555number, that's a big number,
what people talk about.
You're going to sell 555 cars.
That's big, big.
We reduce it down to per storeand then per salesperson and
(16:50):
then our managers know and oursales people know we're
concentrating on daily.
Okay, that's just today,yesterday's history, tomorrow's
a mystery, today's the present.
That's what you got to manage.
You know we manage today'sactivities.
So if you're out there with abusiness, we got to go to our
business owners for a minute,manage your daily activities,
(17:11):
set your monthly goal, but thenit's over there.
It's what's your daily goal.
How many appointments do youneed?
How many inspections do you gotto do?
How many plumbing repairs do weneed to go do?
How many phone calls do we needfor that?
You know our guys for example,the sheets you're talking about
we broke it down in an equationbased upon their stats and their
numbers how many emails toequal sold.
(17:33):
How many texts to equal sold.
How many phone calls to equalsold?
How many visits?
How many numbers, how many testdrives, so on and so forth, and
you're like whoa, that's a lotof data.
Hey, business is people andprocesses and managing that
mathematical equation.
And if you'll do that, thatcompounding will happen day
(17:54):
after day after day.
You know, if you start thinkingabout 25 or 30 phone calls we
got, you know, the people thatdo it every other day.
They only get in half the workof the person that shows up
every single day and they do 25to 50 phone calls.
They'll beat everybody else.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Just because their daily activities are higher,
more will come out the other endand what I love about that
would just like my natural, ournatural endurance to say okay,
if this is the normal elevation,I want to know what's up here.
Right, we talk about habitstacking we just came off of
last week.
Talk about creating habitswithin, within the dealership,
within processes.
(18:29):
I think if you were just, youknow the idea is to be just one
percent better each day.
You know, over the course of 31days that'll put you 31 better
than you were.
So we know the mathematicalequation.
To go from our last 90 dayaverage to where we are now.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
It was 134% of production, no, it fires me up
because I know our team.
Even though when we throwsomething out there like that,
you can see it in their eyes.
They look at you like that's it, boss, we got you, we got you.
We know we're going to have togo to work every day.
We know we have a superstarteam, developed, trained, ready
to go, and we're going to takeyour number and we're going to
(19:05):
one-up it.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
That's what I love about our team.
That's the idea and yesterdaywe had to spend some time.
Saturday we launched it just inpure hype and it's been an hour
in a sales meeting.
It was kind of tough of likebring the hype then, bring some
understanding of how it works.
So yesterday we broke that downa little bit more because, as
we've grown massively and it'sbeen since 2020 since the
(19:28):
ultimate challenge happened andwe'll talk about the auction in
a second, so it's been since2019 since the auction happened
I said everyone raised theirhand salesperson-wise, who's
been a part of this before, andof the team of 45 people that
were in there, it was less thanfive and so I said, wow, I need
to spend some time to bring myhype down a little bit and
completely understand so thatwhen I'm like, hey, we need to
(19:51):
sell 13 per day at this storeand I need to sell three per day
at this store and seven per dayat this store, they're not like
, oh my gosh, what are you doing?
They just understand what theirstats are and so we help them
understand.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
All right.
So tip one we've gone over,once we've gotten kind of past,
our excitement of ultimatechallenge is managing the daily
activities.
All right, here's tip numbertwo.
As a business owner Now, Idon't care what business you're
in, or even if you're ineducation and teaching.
Here's tip number two you mustget your internal customer,
(20:24):
which is your employee's buy-in,first.
First, before you want anexternal reflection, which is
your customers doing businesswith you.
We haven't even talked about howmuch we've spent and how we've
guerrilla marketing every singleadvertising and marketing
channel that you could possiblyhave out there.
But if you don't let yourinternal employees know what's
going on and you spend all thatmoney to drive traffic to come
(20:46):
into your store or to call yourphone or to send in a web lead,
just to get an answer on theother end of like, I'm not
really sure what they're doing.
Let me gather those details.
They're coming out with newstuff all the day.
You've missed your shot toknock it over the park.
That's what we talked about onSaturday.
We talked about yesterday.
Knock it over the park that'swhat we talked about on Saturday
, we talked about yesterday.
(21:07):
We are constantly gettingbuy-in from our employees so
that they're ready to go andthey're singing the same song,
beating to the same drum beatthat we are.
So when the customer comes in,it's simply a handoff.
We started up and then wecontinued to go forth on that.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
So, taylor, once you go in a little bit deeper, or
any other thoughts that you haveabout getting the employees
involved so they know what'sgoing on, they're ready for the
customer the biggest deal aboutthe employees and it starts you
already get that nail in thehead, but with management,
because you can sit and talk andrah, rah and hoorah and
everything in the meetings.
But until that manager realizesand it takes a upper level
(21:41):
manager to make sure, hey, I'mgoing to be here, we're going to
go do this.
And it is different.
You're getting up, you're inthe atmosphere, you're walking
the walk of what you're doing,of your talk there, and you're
in the middle of it.
So it really stems, matt, fromthe managers in the whole area.
Yes, they have to have an idea,they have to be 150% of whatever
(22:03):
they need to be, so the teamaround them really understands
hey, we're going to be bought in.
Hey, I'm looking at carsdifferently.
Hey, I'm marketing carsdifferently.
It's going to be ready to go.
I'm going to talk to everysingle customer like I'm talking
about, and I'm going to deliverthis experience.
That is already great that wehave, but I'm going to take it
to that next level and it startswith management being able to
(22:25):
do that, as your team willfollow you and ask, as you ask
for that next year.
They see ah, taylor's in it,shelby's in it.
Okay, I've got my othermanagers in it.
They're right there to help meso I know if I fall they're
gonna be there to pick me up andpush me on.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
So it really starts there I think that's so good and
you especially hit on therethat you prepared them, you role
played.
We went through all the details.
So you're not practicing andintroducing on the customer, no,
you're prepared and ready to go.
Think about a sports team howmuch they practiced before game
day.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
That's a really good point and understanding that
Yesterday we referenced it alittle bit Like if you did a
March Madness or if you did aMidnight Madness and you didn't
tell the whole team about it.
So I referenced it to anamusement park a really long
line of people, because that'swhat it looked like on Saturday
they did.
That being said, still, theaverage time from a consumer
(23:22):
showing up and purchasing avehicle was less than two hours
long, because everyone waswell-trained, well-oiled machine
and so while it looked that'swhy I was at the hot dog cart
saying, hey, sir, we're going tomove a little bit quicker
because I don't need anyonegetting a bad taste in their
mouth and I'm not talking aboutyour hot dog.
So we talked about that, of howto help them process so that we
(23:42):
were all linked together, likeyou said, beating to the same
drum, and then they understand.
Okay, yeah, this is differentinternally from externally, so
let's break it down to themarketing.
How does this look differentand why is this different?
How?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
does it work?
So, number one, with ourmarketing.
If you're sitting in amarketing meeting with our you
know dream team, they would talkabout 360 degrees, that the
marketing needs to talk aboutthe same message.
Whether it's in person at thedealership, it ought to feel and
look the same.
If it's a billboard going downthe road, whether it's static or
digital, if it's a traditionalradio spot, if it's streaming
(24:20):
audio or video, if it's socialplatform, if it's website, if
it's banner ads, wherever it maybe, that it's going to talk
about the same message.
And that's a key in marketing.
Don't have multiple differentmessages going on everywhere.
You need consistency, and thenyou've got to up the frequency
with different channels tocontinue to plant those seeds in
(24:42):
people's mind about why theyshould do business with you and
then call to actions, which wecall ctas and then our in person
.
We wanted to make sure, oncethey got to the dealership, that
it felt like a big deal,because it is a big deal.
We create that through theatmosphere.
We've talked a little bit aboutit, but I can see you just
pulled up the calendar there.
We had to calendar this thing.
(25:04):
We had so much stuff going on.
Give them a couple ideas.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
So we told you what Saturday looked like, so we will
kind of build throughout theweek.
So today is a talk of Tuesday.
We start to roll in ourpromotion for service.
Tomorrow is $50 off oil changeacross the board, the first $50
podcast live going on now.
Yesterday our first mail drophappened, which was 20,000
(25:30):
pieces of mail went out.
We had a Cedar marketingcampaign additional savings
going to additional people thatlaunched and then we roll into
Wednesday.
We talked about the oil change,but it'll be Wednesday where we
start giving away items thatyou'll see on social media.
We gave a Stanley awayyesterday and it rolls into
(25:51):
Thursday.
And then Friday starts thecommotion of the carnival again,
and so it's cancun friday.
That's right.
So you will see us.
That's right.
Spoiler alert you will see us.
And the best of the best, thenicest of the nice, the tackiest
of the tackiest, tommy balltommy.
But no, it's been fun and sothat we've been pre-phasing the
entire team, like don't show up,fr, and say I couldn't find one
(26:13):
, I couldn't get one, it didn'tfit, I'll have something for you
, we're going to have somethingfor you and it's going to be
ugly I'm talking from a Bucky'sversion, I love that From Tommy
Bahama, from an Opo suit, andit's just.
people are like why not?
You know, I told this storyyesterday, I'll tell it again.
(26:35):
So on valentine's day ourmarketing team said, hey, make
sure you wear pink or red.
So taylor was going aroundsaying, hey, white, we'll get
away with it, it's pink or red.
I just happen to have a fullpink opo suit, sure, white, pink
.
And so I'm so used to wearingthese things from christmas
suits to saint patrick's daysuits, and so I put this pink
suit on.
And then I forget on my way homeit's Valentine's Day that I
(26:55):
need to make sure that I haveeverything I need to take care
of my family for Valentine's Day, absolutely.
So I stop at Walgreens becausethe best deals happen right.
Then, yeah, it's my mostfavorite.
So I stop at Walgreens to get acard to get some candy, sure,
and I'm candy, sure, and I'mwearing this bright pink suit,
like it was fine here.
But then I'm like I'm worn down, fish out of the water day, and
people are just looking at me.
(27:16):
I'm like, why not?
Right?
But what we've learned is noone has had a bad experience
when some guys dressed up likejohn candy.
Yeah, you know, with this uhcancun channel.
So we start that cancun friday.
We'll be giving away cancunbased activities.
We'll have a food truck at theFarmington lot.
We'll have a food truck at theSpringdale lot.
We'll have dual food truckshere.
(27:37):
We'll have pickup car washgiveaway.
We'll have all this.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
What about the other random stuff?
You gave them a good breakdownper day, but just give them a
couple examples of random thingsthat they might not think
they'd have activity wise ifthey showed up we have multiple
rolling video game trailers okay.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Arcade trailers okay.
Uh, axe throwing okay, uh, wewill have.
We talked about the potterything.
We will have, uh, maybe amechanical bull.
Maybe we'll have a race, uh,nascar we have a lot.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
There's all sorts of there's 31 days of crazy off the
wall activity okay, so some ofy'all are listening and you're
like that's great man, but I'vegot six employees and, um, we
just can't do all that.
It's scalable.
It is very scalable.
A lot of the things we've goneover, like the food trucks, for
example, or this or that, theydon't cost any money.
(28:36):
You just have to create theexcitement.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah, and how much was the 31 foot full-on
claymation pottery.
What?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
was the cost of that.
It was just through asponsorship, so it was zero.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
So because if you go back four or five episodes of
proper networking when you canhelp the grassroots.
We said, hey, we have thismonth of march, the ultimate
challenge, gone.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
They said we'd love to be a part of that.
I think that's the value whenyou start making deposits and
helping others out.
You have built up this bank,what's called this savings
account.
Then you get to start makingwithdrawals from throughout the
year and everybody out there hasa sports team that they did
this or they sponsored this.
Get them together to do a carwash, you know, for donations.
(29:22):
It's a commotion out in frontof your place.
You can scale any of this.
We didn't start off when wewere selling 300 cars with all
this in there.
No, we've scaled it a littlebit at a time.
We've added more in there forthe employees, more in there for
the customers.
Again, take, don't allow yourbrain to just close off and go
well, it must be nice to havethat budget.
I wish we could do that.
(29:42):
Hush, it's all scalable.
What can you do?
The social media, theexcitement, so on and so forth,
and just get in there and makeit where an employee wants to be
a part of it and a customergoes wow, I've never seen
anything like this.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, internal atmosphere.
You know what that costsabsolutely nothing.
That's controlled by you.
Every single day you get tomake the choice and this rolls
into the whole thing we'vetalked about.
How do you prepare your day?
Are you battle-tested to beable to handle any objection
that comes in from a customerand are you ready to set the
tone for your entire team everysingle?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
day.
Like what if you tell the teamtaylor, hey, on friday you can
do, you can wear jeans what doesthat do to your team?
Speaker 3 (30:27):
they just come unraveling, I don't know why,
because I like a pair of slacks.
That's, it's you're excited.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And what's the cost of that?
Nothing, and so do you thinkbecause they are excited to wear
their jeans.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
The customer gets a better experience they do,
because you know the businesswe're in.
There's two different types ofof business.
You're either doing physicalwork or mental work.
You know it's those two okay.
And if you're in the space ofmental work, which the majority
of people are, you must keep theinternal person, which is your
employee, at an excitement levelthat's high if you want a great
(31:02):
experience for your customer.
Absolutely.
It's the same thing with CancunFriday.
It doesn't cost us anything, no, it's just fun, no different
than when we do a Razorback dayor wear your favorite sports
team day.
We do this or you do that.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
You wait until I bring a kickstay out, because if
people are so fired up thatwe've got these ridiculous shoes
, they're so comfortable.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
So again, and we could talk for hours about just
creating excitement and you'veheard it on the other podcasts
but I'm just telling you thereason we paused there because
it is a big deal and how we'veevolved from selling 300 cars in
a march to 555 is just byscaling all that.
I didn't change any of it.
We scaled it, we developed andgot the right team together and
(31:44):
it's very important that youtell your team whatever your
goal is out there and you'relike well, matt, well, I'm a
roofing company, great, youdon't have goals.
You don't have daily goals andmonthly goals.
Maybe you should, if you'll getyour team on there.
You've got to tell them.
Once you tell them the goal, Ibelieve in you and you can do
this, because if you don't setthe standard and the
expectations of not only is thisbig, but I know you can help me
(32:06):
accomplish it, they'll neverbelieve in themselves.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
So that's important, ever, yeah.
So that's important and I thinkthat's a good point is you work
up to that, what that goal is,and as that continues to grow
and you talked about reachingout to have that hype, also, you
have to realize the work thatwent into this underground, yes,
to make sure that you put thework and if you're not on the
front lines, that you put thework in.
So when you say it's big, itactually is, that's right.
So the inventory building thatwe've been doing we talked about
that right of the purchasingand we work directly with the
manufacturers say, hey, we havea larger than normal travel rate
(32:38):
.
We need your help to get more.
We worked with the banks, yes,and got a automatic markdown of
two and a half points on yourinterest rate.
I know people would like thatright.
So across the board, with 27different banks, two and a half
points average mark down thereit's huge.
So we called all the banks andsaid, hey, here's the deal, it's
ultimate challenge.
I need you to buy a little bitdeeper.
(32:59):
You know, if there's an iffycustomer, remember all the good
customers I sent you.
We told all of our buyers,which are generally all internal
, but we get 10 differentsources on every single trade
value.
We said hey, it's the ultimatechallenge.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I love this.
On Saturday and we hadn't evenover.
But talking about outsidesources my buyer I sent him
about 15 cars in two hours andhe's like, oh God, I didn't even
look at the date, it's March1st, are y'all bringing this
back out again?
And I started dying laughing.
He's like I'm so excited.
(33:33):
He said I might just come downthere and just stay on spot all
month long.
He said this is great and Ilove being a part of it.
Thank you so much for bringingthis back.
So that's feeding to an outsideexternal source vendor that we
have the excitement and it'sbleeding over to them because
they realize what it's going tobring.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And you have to realize that yesterday, in a
construction meeting, one of our, in our construction yes, we're
still in construction.
We poured a sixth foundationyesterday as we continually grow
.
But one of the guys he'sshopping for a vehicle for his
wife.
He came here, looked at it avehicle for his wife.
So he came here, looked at.
But then his wife said hey,there was a new model at nissan
I need to look at, there's a newone at honda I want to look at,
(34:12):
said absolutely.
I said thank you for giving usan opportunity.
But yesterday in theconstruction meeting, what did
he say about he?
Speaker 1 (34:19):
said of all the places I went in northwest
arkansas and he said we went toa bunch of them on Saturday he's
like nowhere was there as muchgoing on as you guys had going
on, and not only that, your crewand they didn't know him from
Adam until he got involved withus.
Your crew was attentive, theywere nice, they weren't pushy,
(34:40):
they wanted to answer questions,test drive vehicles.
The experience felt different,looked different and it looked
like a place I wanted to be anddo business.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
That's a really good point, and here's the thing we
talked to our team and I am aokay to share everyone with this
entire world.
We talk about how do you sell avehicle.
It's not my pressure, it's notby tricks, it's not by pulling
the wool over your eyes, andit's a simple analogy.
We talk about value and pricethe price of a product and the
value that that vehicle and youas a seller bring to that, and
(35:11):
so by not bringing pressure tothat person, we can allow them
to move on their terms and intheir timing.
We say, if you can get thevalue to exceed the price, the
purchase is as simple as justprocessing the paperwork, and if
you can make it fun, make itexciting, make it a great
experience.
I mean, I think they ratebuying a car with like going to
the dentist.
(35:31):
I don't even like looking atthat stuff.
You know having to deal with anattorney and so we realized it
doesn't have to be.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I think another nugget that I'll pull out here
in case anybody missed it iswhat Shelby talked about there
is look at the value you'reoffering, whether it be a
product or a service, and beforeyou're like, hey, we're not
doing enough business, we bettercut our price and we better do
this or that, pause for just asecond.
(35:58):
I'm not saying you don't haveto be competitive, but I'm
saying relook at the valueyou're bringing.
Are you explaining what allyour company offers?
Are you explaining all yourexpertise and what you actually
go through?
Because there's probably wecould dissect anybody's business
.
There's a lot of value pointsthat need to be translated to
your customer on why they shoulddo business.
Absolutely.
So you've got to make sure youlook at what's your value
(36:20):
proposition and don't hold it asan owner or as a manager in
yourself.
Is your's, your whole team,talking about that?
Yeah, because once that valuedoes exceed the price, then the
customer says, yes, they have agreat experience.
They tell others what arecalled repeats and referrals,
which then close at a higherratio, and then you start
building your business long-termorganically.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah, and $0.
Hey, shout out to all thepeople watching out there we got
Jeremy, derek, david, Trent, wegot Tucker, we've got Sarah,
we've got Ken, we got Mark, wegot James, we got Trenton.
We got Kale, we got Code Red.
Hey, I love the support.
If you guys have somethingspecifically you want to know
about the podcast, you bet whyTaylor Parts is here.
(37:01):
Left versus right, yeah, hairleft versus right.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Matt's got a black short-sleeved shirt on you
completely went over this, matt,and I'm going to bring it out
and throw you on the spot,because you know better than me
or Shelby or anything else wemissed our automotive fun fact.
Whenever the team was puttingit together, I loved the
responses.
I said you need to be able tofigure it out because we don't
know exactly.
But how many ultimatechallenges have there been over
(37:25):
the years?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
okay, so this will be number 18, okay, this will be
we're going into number 18.
Number 18 it's like tom brady.
So if if it had not been asuccess in 03, then like, okay,
we'll try to get an 04, butlet's say, three or four years
into it it had just dozedove andit wasn't a success.
But that wasn't the case.
(37:47):
Yes, northwest arkansas waslooking for this, our employees
were looking for this oh yeah,they were looking for a reason
to do business to start off.
Maybe they're getting ready togo on spring break, maybe
they're thinking aboutsummertime, maybe their car's
out of warranty, maybe it's timefor new tires.
And you combine that with thelonger days, the daylight
savings and all the incentivesand it's just it's perfect
(38:11):
season for having to sell likethis, to sell cars it is and I
love the, the branding awarenessthat comes with it.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
We call our ultimate challenge, but I can't tell you
how many people I talk to.
They're like oh yeah, you, yeah, you're March Madness.
You're March Madness.
And let me tell you this rightnow If a customer comes up, do
not say no, it's wrong, it'sultimate challenge.
Be like oh yeah, march Madness,they're talking about
basketball because it's thefinal four, everything else in
(38:39):
March, you're good at that.
Yes, be involved with it.
Yeah, shelby will show you allthe alley-oops and everything
else you got.
It's about the hustle.
But whenever a customer comesin and is excited about
something, make sure you nevermake that mistake of no, you're
wrong.
Say absolutely, thank you somuch for coming in and showing
that whole process of whythey're excited that's really
(39:01):
important and it's funny becauseour kids are getting to that
age.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
And so my, my kids asked last night so this is an
update for you as of tuesdaywe're, uh, saturday, monday,
we're rolling it.
This is tuesday morning, uh.
So they said, dad, do you thinkyou'll sell 555?
I can't think of a year that wehaven't hit the number, and I
haven't always been, you know,on the very top of the helm
figuring the things out, but I,in the years that I've been a
(39:26):
part of it, we've hit it andstretched it.
555 is a lot.
That's 555 customers that canget approved that we agree on
numbers.
That trade deals with imbalance.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
I said, buddy, that's a lot hey, I'm gonna help all
the car guys out there becauseI'm sure some competitors are
listening.
We invite that, come on, listenit.
Uh, that 55000 is 100% retail.
No fleet deals yes, okay.
No wholesale deals.
No dealer trades Nope.
555 customers that we take apicture with shake their hand.
(39:57):
Red carpet, real deal.
No fluff in the stats.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
That's a good point.
Thanks for pointing that out.
That's not, uh, the additional400 that we sell to Tyson, you
know, or whatever it is.
So so do you think we'll hit it?
And I said, uh, we're gonnagive her, gonna give it all we
got, which means customer on theother side.
You should probably show up andraise your hand pretty quickly.
Uh, so, as of this morning, wewere 52 yep 52 sold and and that
(40:25):
other point.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
We got to go back to this because I know we have
business.
You know this whole podcast isabout helping other businesses
out.
We talk about the number 555,really like once.
It will reference it every oncein a while, but what you really
talked about this morning washere's where we're on pace,
here's what we've got to dotoday and we managed today.
(40:47):
We managed today and today'sactivities and it stands on its
own.
It's funny because I rememberthat.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Remember when we had mall sales and this came from
the fairgrounds of dad to ourgrandfather and he would give
the whole speech, lead the wholeship of what the day needed to
accomplish.
Yeah, he was.
And so I remember dad at themall with his calligraphy.
He had the cardboard with thecolored paper and it would have
its goal on it.
It would.
(41:12):
And so if we were turning up orturning down, there was plenty
of times that we were behindSure, and so I remember it
wasn't like 325 must be sold or450 must be sold.
It's like okay to get back onpar, we've spent all the money,
we've got all the stuff we needto sell.
42 today.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
I think another point I'm going to give you all
behind the scenes, of what's thebiggest challenge for us.
Managing it during the month isyou know we look at a Friday, a
Saturday, a Monday.
You know those days aretypically larger in the car
business, so we do moretransactions.
So you come off a Saturday, youcome off a Monday.
You know those days aretypically larger in the car
business, we do moretransactions.
So you come off a Saturday, youcome off a Monday and you're
talking about how we've alreadysold 50 plus vehicles.
(41:51):
Well, we have to concentrate on, as leaders, is the Tuesday,
the Wednesday, the Thursday.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
So their dobber doesn't get down Like I sold six
today or I sold one today.
You help them back on the trackand off you go, little buddy.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
So we know those are key days that we have to double
down on those daily activitiesbecause we might not have as
much natural traffic that'scoming in that we would see on a
Friday, a Saturday and Monday.
So we've identified that within.
So we don't have everybody thathas a big Saturday, like we did
, or a good Monday, and thenthey're on cruise control
thinking like, hey, this thing'sjust going to keep duplicating
(42:27):
itself.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
No, the Tuesday, Wednesday, thursday are the
deals that we couldn't getaccomplished or we were missing
a couple pieces the trade or weneeded all parties involved.
So Tuesday, wednesday, thursday, help us go through those and
put those deals together.
The difficult deals, the dealsthat had some strings that were
hung out there and then thatstring's kind of helped keep us
on pace.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
You bet Taylor, you had it in there kind of talking
about the pros and cons ofUltimate Challenge.
We've talked a whole lot aboutthe pros.
Yes, I let in talking about I'mjust going to say a challenge,
not a con a challenge that wegot to focus on that Tuesday,
(43:08):
wednesday, thursday.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Yeah, the biggest deal in there and I love this
analogy shelby brought up hereof and it's no different than in
a race you're in a con wheneveryou run a type of whole month
sale, not a weekend push, not aday push, not anything else is
making sure you are on the gasthe right amount, because if you
taste yourself, you gotta paceyourself and somebody that's
been weathered through it youcan gas it pretty hard and then
reset and then just keep gassing.
(43:30):
But as your team is developedin different stages, you need to
make sure that you manage thatcorrectly.
Don't take this by any means oflay lower level, don't push as
hard.
No intensity level needs to beup, but you need to forecast and
look and see, hey, I've gotthis much gas in the tank you
(43:52):
bet, and it's gonna have to berefilled throughout the month.
But do not over push your teambecause then what will happen?
Speaker 2 (43:59):
you're done so I'll talk about intensity, and we had
some people that were kind ofseasoned and then some total
rookies.
This was some years back inUltimate Challenge.
It was a Friday and the closewas on a Saturday, yep, okay.
So March 31st was on theSaturday, it was Friday and they
got so jacked up because we hadbrought the intensity level
high.
They'd come from a big salesmeet, a huge day of activities,
(44:23):
and they said let's do a 24 hoursell.
Oh yeah, wow.
And so we're talking about amarathon or a hundred mile race.
And they were a mile, 70 or 80,and they said let's just sprint
.
Well, I said you guys do you?
Here's the keys of the building.
Good luck to you, right?
Uh, well, I loved watching onthe camera.
(44:44):
I went home yeah, I mean, itwas like 11, 30 or midnight
before I got home with normalbusiness, got in bed, woke up
early and I could see them onthe camera.
They goofed off.
They were not doing a 24 hourcell, but they were so jacked up
they were like playing kickballon the show.
It was a big control.
And then the next day theirheads were welded to the floor.
Oh, yeah, and so then we putthem back on the tracks and put
(45:07):
a nitro booster underneath andsaid, hey, appointments,
appointments, appointments, youget out.
And by the end they were.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
They had sprinted way too yo I think that's important
as a big leader is like likeyou love the excitement, you
love the buy-in, but you alsohave to show them the path and
keep them what we call betweenthe boundaries you do.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Sometimes you got to kind of tap them back in here,
tap them back in you have to doit carefully and tastefully, so
you're not just a fireextinguisher to put out like
well, shoot.
I thought I was bringing theheat for this ultimate challenge
and they said this is stupid.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Don't do that, that's you as a manager, as a leader,
you know when to let the reinsout and pull them back.
It's constantly out back, outback.
You are constantly changing,adapting to whatever they're
looking for you to say go orpull back, go or pull back.
So you got to make sure, as aleader, you're going through
that with them every single day.
(45:58):
Like matt talked about dailyactivities.
Why we break that downcompletely is because if you
look at a whole picture of a 555or selling x amount of roofs or
doing this many services, ifyou look at the total number,
you'll never accomplish it.
If you don't take it intobite-sized pieces, there's no
way.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
It'll overwhelm people, and that's what a good
coach does on any sports team isthey'll keep them within the
boundaries.
They don't just bring out thehell mary first play of the game
.
You know they call the playswhen it's appropriate, they call
a time out, get their team ifit's going in the wrong
direction.
They say pause, let's reset, nodifferent.
(46:37):
You're talking about last weekwith the axe on sharpening that.
No, it's like you have there.
There is gold in the pause andthen, given the correct
direction that you want yourteam to go.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
I will tell you as a consumer, if you're on the other
side thinking and you'resharing this, or you might want
to be part of the March Madnessor Ultimate Challenge Lewis
Automotive Sale, I want to giveyou an inside trader tip.
You want to move sooner thanlater.
That's very true.
You need to move.
So do not wait to say hey, I'llwait until March 31st and I
want to be that last dealbecause you're going to be
(47:10):
driving away in a purple Pinto.
That's going to be all I have.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Or if we're already at 563, that doesn't mean we
won't put another deal together.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
No, we will, but we're not going to lose 10 grand
and travel to.
Minnesota to go get this thingfor you.
But if you'll do it early,we've got our daily goals that
we have to hit and you're goingto have a better selection.
Now we'll keep bringing ininventory and we'll keep buying
vehicles, but why the team isstill fresh and why the
inventory is the freshest, and Ipromise you you said, don't
(47:41):
bring out the Hail Mary.
We brought the Hail Mary in thedistance.
Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
So don't bring out the Hail Mary.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
We brought the Hail Mary in the distance.
Oh yeah, for sure.
So don't think the deals willget better, because we came
right to the beginning withwe're winning this Super Bowl
and this outwork.
So, as a consumer, don't worryabout us, we'll pace through it.
You will get the best deal andthe best selection right from
the get-go.
From the get-go.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
I agree.
I agree we broke down UltimateChallenge pretty solid there and
Taylor, our automotive fun factquiz of the week.
We told them you know we'regoing into year 18 there,
they're going into 18.
So what other takeaways ortalking about on Ultimate
Challenge do you guys have?
We've talked about the deals.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
We've talked about that it's a great time for a
customer to take advantage Kindof dissected how we get our team
on board first, we get all ofour marketing behind and, guys,
it takes all those details toadd it up I think it's an
important part and we won't talkabout the auction we'll save
that for another time, anotherconversation but one of the
things that we do, unless youwant to talk about one of the
things we do, uh, in our 360marketing a cool thing that I
(48:41):
don't know when this started,but years ago you will see
driving on the road, on the backwindow to be part of the sale,
which is all of our employeesthere is a big chloroplast
sticker, two foot by three footultimate challenge sticker, so
that when you're at the gasstation or at the light, people
will say, hey, what is that?
What's the ultimate challenge?
(49:01):
And so that's something that ifyou haven't been a part of that
or if you're a consumer seeingthat, you say what is that?
That's part of our 360 gorillamarketing without the gorilla
yeah um you know.
So that's a big thing that ispart of, like one of the hidden
mickeys.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Yeah, somebody also asked the other day like hey,
his brothers and me, y'all arey'all which we say we're
involved, or they say onweekends here, y'all still there
involved in.
I laughed about this.
I came home after saturday theday because it was sunny, it was
like that why is your face inthe head right?
I said I don't think I wentinside the entire day, which is
my most favorite days.
(49:37):
You can normally find shelbyjogging back and forth in
between the front of the strikejust a traffic just talking I
looked at one point.
Matt and shelby's son, oliver,and lincoln were here and they
had set them up throughout theparking lot to be like traffic
directors.
Yeah, I said, boys, what areyou doing?
One of them was sending themback here.
We had an event that there wasat our conference room over here
(49:59):
and whenever they were leavingit was a sunshiny day, we said,
hey, let's wash all their cars.
So one of them was directingthem, the other one had the code
back at the car wash and theywere walkie-talkie and back and
forth like, hey, I got a couplemore coming your way.
So I love the atmosphere on theweekends.
It's a full deal.
Family, whether it be family oremployees that are part of the
(50:21):
family.
Love the atmosphere that itbrings on Saturday.
Oh, that's so good.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
It's definitely an all-scale and it was definitely
important, as you know, as oneof the leaders, to make sure
that, even through all thepeople being here, that there
wasn't someone that fell throughthe cracks.
If they were like, well, itlooks crazy, but no one ever
helped on it, no one ever talked.
So if we can talk to everysingle car when it comes in and
they're greeted, we can givedirection and we can help them,
make sure that at the end of theday, you're not left with that.
(50:47):
It's like getting in that moneymachine and the money's blowing
around like there was so muchmoney and there was so much.
You split her dumps like justshow me what you got and they're
like well, I didn't getanything.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Now, that's true, that's true for sure.
All right, next up, uhfrequently asked questions there
and I'll dive in here.
They threw out there what is?
What is a frequently askedquestion that I get about?
Ultimate challenge.
Now, I've been around for a lotof these years uh, part of when
I was in college, but then themajority of them I've been here.
(51:15):
The biggest thing I get is fromother people in business what
outside company did y'all use?
What firm did y'all use to putit all together?
You know, both internally andexternally.
And it blows their mind when wetell them it was all done
internally, it was done by ourteam.
(51:36):
They're like well, how did youdo that?
And that's changed throughoutthe years, how we've scaled.
But we now have an amazing teamthat we started meeting over a
month ago spitballing ideas,coming up with stuff.
Now those employees had toalmost sound like a disclosure.
I'm not talking to anybodyabout it, secrets aside, but
(51:58):
there's a lot of planning andprep that happens behind the
scenes to make sure that day onewe get going.
But all that happens internally.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Yeah, absolutely, I thought we were already talking,
frequently asked questions, soI said about that, about the
stickers, but uh, you're good,uh, so that that's definitely a
big deal of just having thatwhole thing tied together
absolutely, and I think we hitthe nail on the head of
everything, of just being a partof it, and that people ask and
hey, what do you what?
Speaker 3 (52:24):
how are y'all involved, besides just being
there?
So telling them the whole storyof how it's evolved from this?
Because I always love and weget the questions there that,
hey, I'm not at that scale.
We started at a scale that wasso small and it's evolved from
there.
I had someone ask me todaybecause they've seen the um, our
(52:44):
crazy club-like atmosphere inthere.
He's like hey, I play loudmusic, but it's on just on this
little boom box.
You know a couple speakers Isaid that fires me up so much
that you're starting there,because 20 years ago that's
where, that's where we startedwith a cd player and it doesn't
matter what scale you're at,just do take the initiative and
(53:07):
be different, but bring theatmosphere to your team.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
And that's a really good point, and so we share,
like our Ford team, shout outMarianne for being on here.
We brought them through and weconstantly will give it to her.
We'll always.
She works for Ford, but we willalways give her a car wash,
treat her like a high valuedcustomer, make sure that they
feel special.
So if they have a question orif I need help from Ford,
they're like, hey, these peopleare supportive, how can I
(53:32):
support back?
And we said, hey, any Fordevents that we could host, we'd
love to have them here.
And people say, why would youlet other people in your trade
here?
Because I know the odds arethat we can give them the entire
playbook, so true, and theywon't put it into play.
And so, even if it's a juniorboombox, and so we were watching
a video from man, it was likeprobably 04, maybe 05.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Somewhere in there.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
And it was a boombox, a pig nose amp with a silver CD
player and halfway through theintro the CD was skipping and we
walked and clapped for thewhole song.
Your hands would be white bythe time you're done with the
tambourine and stuff.
But it was just the idea ofactually putting it into scale
(54:17):
in the atmosphere, so my keywould be just to start.
Speaker 1 (54:21):
Just get started.
Just get started.
Today's the best day to do that.
Hey guys, thanks for joining uslive here.
Remember, the ultimatechallenge is going on.
It's going on in all locations.
We're in Fayetteville, here,but it also goes on up at our
Springdale store.
It goes on out in Farmington aswell, and make sure we'll be
back same place next week live.
So send in those questions.
Get ready to share the videosout so we can cover the subjects
(54:51):
you want to talk about withbusiness.
Hey, and take the time to goover to Crossroad Conversations
podcast.
Make sure to like and share andsubscribe so you get the latest
information from us trying tohelp you with your business.
Thank you, guys.
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