Ep. 32 - Pivoting Your Business for Future Success

Surviving and thriving for 79 years in business doesn't happen by accident. The Lewis Brothers pull back the curtain on how they've navigated crossroad moments and pivoted their automotive dealerships to stay relevant in an increasingly competitive market.

The episode opens with a powerful revelation - despite running successful dealerships, the Lewis brothers continually evaluate and adjust their business rather than simply repeating what worked yesterday. They share practical strategies for recognizing when change is needed, including stepping away from daily operations to gain perspective. As Matt Lewis explains, "If you don't step away from your business and the day-to-day hustle and bustle, you'll never see it."

Against the backdrop of their recent move to a new state-of-the-art facility, the brothers detail how they've created unique customer experiences to differentiate themselves in an industry where products and pricing are standardized. Their niche innovations range from doubling factory warranties to 10 years/120,000 miles without extra cost, to developing remote service vans that handle recalls at customers' homes or workplaces.

The conversation takes an especially candid turn when the brothers share their business failures - including overstocking $5 million worth of luxury Wagoneers that generated $180,000 in monthly floor plan interest. Rather than hiding their mistakes, they reveal how these moments became pivotal learning opportunities that ultimately strengthened their business.

For business owners struggling with when and how to pivot, this episode delivers actionable frameworks for evaluating your current systems, creating scalable processes before you need them, and fostering a culture where employees feel comfortable providing candid feedback. Whether you're running a family business or managing a growing team, these insights will help you recognize opportunity where others see only challenges.

Ready to transform how you approach business evolution? Listen now and discover why sometimes the most important pivots happen when things seem to be working well.

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!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everyone, welcome to Crossroads Conversations
with the Lewis Brothers, wherewe aim to share real stories
about running a successfulfamily business, working through
adversity and pouring back intothe community that keeps our
doors open.
We're your hosts, taylor, mattand Shelby, and we'll bring you
relevant local business adviceand automotive insights that are
sure to change the way you lookat running a business and maybe

(00:23):
even throw in a plug for you todo business with us.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome back to Crossroad Conversations, episode
32.
Kicking this thing into gear.
Hey, this is our first time inour own recording studio.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
I know Not only episode 32,.
We've been planning and talkingabout this for a long time.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, so not only 32 weeks, but like years and years,
and years and years.
So if you're wondering wherewe're at, we're on campus in
Fayetteville, we're in our DeathStar, as you might call it.
It's a three-story blackbuilding and we're in our own
podcast recording studio withour own team doing all the stuff
.
So you're fired up.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
I would say shout out to podcast videos, though.
They really helped us, you know, get everything going here.
We had this idea and theyhelped us really put the
traction into it and the setupand what equipment we needed and
software, so on and so forth.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
So shout out to our partners up there podcast videos
yeah, so if it looks different,sounds different, or if there's
a spot where we run out ofaudio or video, we're figuring
it out.
And that's part of smallbusiness, right?
That really is.
So today we dive into crossroadmoments, pivoting your business
within a niche for the future,and so we're going to dissect
that and kind of figure out howto stay relevant, to find that

(01:41):
little niche in the business, tocontinue to be relevant for
that consumer to come to you,whether they've never done
business with you or if they'vecontinued to do business with
you, that it continues to stayfun and exciting and how you're
helpful to others.
So we'll fully dissect that.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
All right, before we get started, we got to talk
about last week's episode, so ifyou didn't hear it, make sure
to go back and check it out.
That was about developing theleader inside of you.
We talked a lot about you know.
A guy we listened to is CraigGroeschel.
He always talks about you know,everybody wins when the leader
gets better.
We went through the journey ofhow each of us make sure that

(02:17):
not only did we get better 10years ago, but how do we get
better yesterday.
And then how do we challengeour team and team leads to do
that as well, because we knowthat you're either moving
forward or you're moving back.
You're never staying the same.
So that's a big deal to us isto make sure, as the lead and as
the pace setter, that we arepushing our business forward,
both evolving work ethic andthen new systems and new

(02:39):
procedures to move our businessforward.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Absolutely hey, and always be sure and check us out
at lewissuperstorecom or oncrossroadsconversationpodcastcom
.
Hey, what did we drive today?
Well, you know what?
We kind of walked over, so wedidn't necessarily drive, but I
got to talk about we've talkedabout the Maverick.
Several weeks ago we just gotsomething that dropped in.
Okay, this thing is so sweet,it's a Maverick Lobo and it is

(03:05):
absolutely positioned to thewhole community there.
It has the wheels, it has thelook, it's lowered sport,
everything else.
You got to check it out.
This one is in black but lookslike you should be cruising up
and down the beach somewhereheaded to a car.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
It's a whole different grill, it's got
different emblems, it's two-toneinterior with the stitching and
Lobo embossed in the seats,different taillights and
headlamps, like you said, it'slowered.
Yes, so they kind of took ascene out of, I believe, the
Hispanic and Latino and theykind of took in the sport truck
scene, oh yeah, and they meshedit together with the affordable,

(03:43):
fuel-efficient fun Maverick andit's a Maverick Lobo.
It's pretty sweet.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
It's sweet.
I mean the fuel economy onthose things are amazing.
People still have all thestorage in the bed.
I hear it time and time again.
I didn't realize how much I wasgoing to love this truck from
customers because of the ease ofbeing able to park and being
able to maneuver.
Yet still it's a crew cab, no,and it's got the bed space and
it's got some tow capacity too.
So if you want to tow a jet ski, your small fishing boat or a

(04:10):
lawnmower, it can handle allthat.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Hey, and first for this year 25, they now stack the
hybrid and all-wheel drive.
Oh, that's a big one.
So you can go hybrid, get up to47 miles a gallon.
You can tow, I believe, up to 4000 pounds, up to 4 000, and
you can do that with anall-wheel drive.
So you've got really no excuse.
Most of our customers we seethat transition into a maverick
are not always coming from atruck.

(04:33):
There's a percentage that arecoming from truck, but a lot are
from a car, from an suv.
That might mean a little littlehobby farm.
Have them need a little hobbypickup bed.
So that that's what we'reseeing there.
So stop by and check out theLobo or any other options.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Maverick-wise, absolutely so today we dive in
about pivoting and finding nichepieces in your business.
And I'll start this off.
We'll start kind of with a baseso we get everybody thinking
Now you got to remember, asyou're listening to this podcast
, we've been in business for 79years.
Now we wouldn't have been inbusiness for 79 years I'm not
tooting our own horn, but if weweren't successful.

(05:06):
But that doesn't mean that wejust keep doing things.
We keep putting the record onrepeat.
So we're always trying to lookat our business and our areas on
where we can improve.
And some of that comes fromrecognizing signs on when to
adjust, how to refine whatyou've been doing, and then
trying to pivot which we'vepivoted a whole lot, you know we
got stories on stories aboutthat.

(05:27):
But then also trying to find aniche in your business and
almost you take that niche andyou throw it in the first part
and the niche is not alwaysnecessarily the lowest price or
it might not be the only onethat offers up that product.
Now some of y'all are inbusiness and you do have that
option and that luxury thatnobody else has, your product

(05:47):
Well, that's your niche In ourbusiness.
For example, our niche isn'tthat we have the only F-150
nobody else can get, or we havethe only Wrangler that nobody
else can get.
So we have to look farther thanthat because we don't want it
to just be about price.
We want to be competitive, wewant to help out.
But then what is our nichethere?
Before we go into that, I wouldsay the first part is

(06:09):
recognizing signs or indicatorson when you need to pivot or
when you need to adjust.
Guys will be if you don't stepaway from your business and away
from the day-to-day hustle andbustle, you'll never see it and

(06:29):
we've all been there and I thinkyou guys can relate is you get
in the middle of it and you'reingrained and you're putting in
the 12, 14, 16 hours hammeringaway.
The numbers look good, youthink everything is great.
You can't see it because yourmind is consumed with the
day-to-day activities.
And that's where we found realvalue when we step away from the
business, go to an outsidemeeting, even if it's just a

(06:51):
conference we go to, and then weget to collaborate.
We get around those otherlike-minded people.
They're like shoot, I neverthought about that.
Maybe we do need to refine ourprocess, maybe we do need to
adjust.
What do y'all take Seth?

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Oh, I think you hit the nail on the head whenever
you talk about being able tostep back and really look at it.
You sometimes and it's nodifferent than we've talked in
previous episodes of you'regrowing, and when it's your baby
, your business, you're growing.
There's a little bit of fear ofloss, of, hey, we're going to
lose a little bit ofproductivity, I'm going to have
to step back.
But we've talked about this.

(07:29):
If you enable the rest of yourteam to be able to produce, even
though it's at a lower level,it's going to produce way more
than you ever could runningyourself into the ground.
So being able to step back andlook at that, you can really see
what needs to be adjusted.
That you would never see.
You would never see because inour mind we sit back and we say
we'd never let that happen inour business, Our family owned

(07:52):
business.
We would never let that happen.
It's happening if you are nottaking the time to circle around
and go through service, gothrough parts, talk to customers
, and you can only do that ifyou make that part of your daily
routine activity go through andbe able to talk to people.
That's the only way that youcan effectively manage and do
all the different areas I thinkthat's twofold of something you

(08:14):
said and then something you saidtaylor.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
So you talking taylor about walking through and
checking things out moreoftentimes and I love reports
and I love stats.
They're KPIs, they keep youunderstanding where you're at.
But also if you can get theword from the horse's mouth and
sometimes there's just being afly on the wall.
Coming out of UltimateChallenge some weeks back that

(08:37):
was a big thing of ours isreally being involved.
I would on Fridays andSaturdays I wanted to be at the
desk and I was appraising thetrades so I could be in the
middle of it, one to help theteam accomplish the goal,
because there was way moretraffic than everyone was used
to.
But it also allowed us to seeno one's bringing a tattle

(08:58):
report or no one's bringing adamage report.
You're seeing it live.
So then you can makeadjustments on the fly.
Sure, you know.
So that little niche that needsadjustment there.
So you can do that from withinyour business without that being
your daily task, because you'vetasked those people.
Secondly, matt, you said abouthopping away.
So you can get away from yourbusiness.
Remember, you've tasked otherpeople to be able to handle

(09:18):
those things, so you can getaway.
It's important that you can seethat from outside the trees.
But also, if you surroundyourself with like-minded people
, then they might be in the samestyle business or just in
business, general handlingpeople, and then you can say I
never thought about it like that.
Right, it's just a totaldifferent perspective because
they're in a whole differentpond.

(09:40):
You know, we talk aboutlike-minded ponds with different
ponds and they're like whatabout this?
Have you guys started seeingputting flatbeds on trucks?
You know, and you're like huh,hadn't really thought about that
, I'm just stuck in the grind ofit, and so doing that really
will help you maybe seeopportunity.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
I agree that those are such great points.
And maybe you're listening onthe other end of that and you're
like, oh, that sounds great andI've been there, so this is why
I'm going to go down this road.
That sounds great, but I don'thave anybody to connect with.
I only have five employees.
I can't leave town for three orfour days to go to a conference
.
Let me tell you, there arehundreds of podcasts out there.
We want you to keep listeningto ours, but there's hundreds

(10:18):
out there of other people thathave been highly successful.
Or get on Clubhouse or get indifferent Facebook groups and
they'll talk to you about it.
You listen to it on your way towork or go to check on the job
sites and you're like, oh shoot,I never thought about that.
Or I'll tell you another oneI've had.
You can call it writer's block.
I don't really write, but youcan call it writer's block or
management or leadership block,creativity block, and I've had

(10:43):
an issue going on at work and Ijust can't really figure out
what the right direction is orhow to fix it.
And I'll go on a run and 30 or45 minutes into the run, when my
mind is calmed down, it'll cometo me like that now.
It usually doesn't ever come tome.
If I just sit down and eat foodfor lunch, I gotta be on an

(11:03):
activity.
You know, whether it's riding abike or you're swimming, or
you're running or you're workingout, whatever it may be.
I'm just telling you, even ifyou just step away for an hour,
get out of the atmosphere, yourbrain, it'll come to you.
If you can shut out the rest ofthe noise, it'll be there and
you're educated enough.
But you've just got to shut thenoise out and let your brain
start processing.

(11:24):
What do I do for my company,what do I do for my leadership
here to be able to grow thedepartment and to change?

Speaker 2 (11:31):
That's really good, because you're saying that is
like, because we've all donethat at different levels.
What happens when you do that?
Like when you go to a meetingand you can't run to Jordan's
office, you can't run to serviceand you can't run to the sales
tower, you can't run to Jordan'soffice and you can't run to
service and you can't run to thesales tower, you can't pull
those levers to fix those thingsand you only send X amount of
texts.
Or if you go run, everythinggets simplified.

(11:54):
It does.
You know, if you go run, if yougo exercise, your brain gets to
a point where it only cancompute so much and so, like you
said, it takes out the noise,noise.
And then you're just like huh,there's, it's right there.
Right, I didn't even, I didn'teven recognize that right, but
you can take that away.
So you're not, you know you'dbe working on your business
without working in your business.

(12:14):
And then you're like got itthere, it is, that's it right
there.
And then take notes, make sureyou write it down, take notes,
um, even if it's a voice text,you know, or or like you know,
just voice notes, cause if youare doing something strenuous,
there's a decent chance that youmight forget the details.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
I can tell you that I'm glad you bring up that point
, because early on I thought inmy brain I'd convinced myself.
I'll remember that it wascrystal clear, crystal clear.
And then all of a sudden I gota big hill or something, or run
up and didn't get finished, andsomebody asked me a question and
I can't remember it.
So now I had the greatest idea.
I know Like what was that?
I had this great idea.
It'll come back to me.
So now, as I'm running, I'lljust holler at my phone, you

(12:56):
know, I'll just holler at Siri,take notes, and then it's there
and even if it's jumbled up andnot perfect, it's triggered.
It's the triggers.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
That took some time to figure out how to do that,
but then it's like oh, that wasso easy.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, no different than if I'm listening to a
podcast on a run and sometakeaways come I'll pause and
same thing, voice text that overto myself, hey.
But I want to go to anotherreal world example of where
success may be cloudingopportunity.
Of where success may beclouding opportunity.
We noticed this during UltimateChallenge.
One of the things we did asbrothers and as a management
team was okay, we've done thisbig sale before, but how do we

(13:34):
elevate that?
And not just from hoorah, notjust from marketing, not just a
bigger number, but actuallymanaging and giving our managers
the tools they need to be ableto push their team?
You know, one of the reports wewent over each week had the
salespeople and their goals.
It also had the overalldepartment.

(13:55):
Now, most people would manageby overall department and they
would see it and tell you yourteam absolutely killed it during
ultimate challenge and you wereahead of the goal like all
month long.
But what those reports showedis, overall, as a department,
you were ahead, but you had fouror five people that were behind
.
So then that helped identifyfor you to be able to tell your
managers this is who you need togo spend extra time with.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
Absolutely.
It was big there and I lovebeing able to see it because it
was a nice way of you slowlyreminding and saying that, hey,
there's a little bit more,there's a little bit more,
there's a little bit more andit's not a big number and the
number was huge.
We hit a number that we neverthought we could.
We blew way past it and itshows you hey, this is
attainable only because youlooked at each individual piece

(14:40):
of the 20 plus sales guys wehave.
Whenever you're looking at, hey, I need two from you, I need
one from you, I need three fromyou, I need four from you.
Well, that's when we looked upon our days and we could do 20
to 30 to 40 cars because youdelegated no different than
delegating your task.
It goes from your highest levelof a manager down to your lot

(15:00):
porter.
You have to delegate and that'sthe only way that you become
extremely and highly successfuland that's what we did.
It was just every day a littlebit more, and our guys that were
hitting on all cylinders thatwe were well past their goal hey
, you just adjust it just alittle bit.
And what it did to those guysthat made it attainable, they
could grab it every single dayand they, in turn, hit the

(15:23):
biggest goal they ever thoughtthey could.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Now that was good, but you wouldn't know if if you
didn't have the KPIs.
So it's a balancing act, andShelby talked about that earlier
about pulling up reports.
You got to have that to have astarting place, but then you got
to go get around it to actuallyhear what's really going on.
The numbers say this, but Ineed to hear what's really going
on so then I can make myadjustment.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
It starts the conversation with proper
education, you know, and then alot can develop from there.
You know, whether it be one ofour micro meetings or a meeting
that we have with the team or aquick hey, how's it going, you
can start out with thatinformative information that
people learn to expect, and thenpeople also understand the
metric where it's coming from.
And then you can say and fromhere we go what needs help, what

(16:08):
needs assistance, you know, andso that's a really good thing
there.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
We've talked quite a bit about pivoting throughout
the episodes.
You know, if you hadn't heardwhether it's through adversity
or through things that havehappened in our business and I
just remind, I really want tohit the high part of pivoting
here is just be ready to pivot.
Be ready to pivot.
Don't just sit there and, youknow, complain and this and that

(16:31):
, if something's happened, pivot, look for opportunities.
You know, in our business if wedon't have inventory to sell
and we hadn't gone out andbought it or whatever else, and
people aren't buying as manycars, what means they're keeping
their cars?
So there should be more serviceopportunity.
You know, we've seen that before.
You know.
Or if we're low on used cars,we got to pivot and go to new
cars.
Or new cars are low, we got topivot and go to used cars.

(16:54):
Or we got to look at, pivot andoffer up different options.
You know, as far as servicecontract and so on and so forth,
whatever it may be, we'vepivoted into buying cars off the
road and paid ourselves forthat.
Lots of different ways that youcan pivot If you just step back
and go okay, here's the cardswe're dealt.
Now how do we pivot, work andwe maximize.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
You know, I think that I'll say that was driven by
the manufacturer is, in thepast years, ford has come on
with remote services, stemmedfrom Kolen, so remote services
going out into the community anddoing the work.
And so we had to buy a van,expensive van, that had the
ability to do all these things.

(17:34):
Sure, over $150,000 invested,plus two people to operate this
thing, and this van is upfittedto be able to do everything you
know tire rotation, oil change.
But while we looked at oilchange, oil changes are we watch
it very carefully to make sureour price is right on the mind.
You know, it's no differentthan Walmart end caps Like those

(17:54):
are their price leaders to getyou in the door to say, hey,
these are really good prices, Ican trust this place, as you
should.
And so it was the same thing.
And then we got to looking likeoil changes will not pay the
bills for this hundred and fiftythousand of, and plus two
technicians.
And so you know, we were like,okay, what do we do?
One we need.

(18:15):
We had to hit a metric.
Ford had set a standard forremote services that we had to
be able to hit, was said, okay,without Throwing everything out,
because we have to hit.
It is not decision, do we wantto or don't we have to.
But this is not something thatpencils to make sense or dollars
.
So then we look to see whatother opportunities of recalls

(18:35):
where it was not a customerexpense by any means.
But you know, some people say,oh my gosh, ford has so many
recalls.
And I say, oh my gosh, we haveso much opportunity.
You know, people don't like theidea to get a recall.
One could be a safety concern.
Or people don't like the ideato get a recall.
One could be a safety concern,or two, it's just a burden.
Like yo, I got this car.
It has an issue.
Why in the heck do I have to gosit in the dealership?
This is not fun.
And so then we got to take anot fun situation and we got to

(18:58):
take a non-profitable situationand we said, hey, let's go out
to these people at their home,at their work, at their school,
and let's use this van toperform these recalls.
We could perform them muchfaster.
We could find groups ofbusinesses that had X amount of
vehicles, we could find rentalfleets, and so that was kind of
finding a niche to re-pivotsomething we were already doing

(19:19):
in our business.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
That's great, because I know there's a lot of people,
you know, even in our industry.
They're still sitting on thesidelines going.
It doesn't pencil.
Why does it spend $150,000 on avan just to do oil changes?
And how wonky is it to do alittle change?
And you look at it and go well,hang on, here's an opportunity.
You know, ford may have wantedus to do this and I hear you on
that, but I think there's even abigger opportunity over here.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah.
And that came by being ingroups of people to say, hey,
how's your remote servicescoming, what are you doing,
what's successful?
Groups of people to say, hey,how's your remote services
coming, what are you doing,what's successful?
And we had all these meetingsand sometimes in those meetings
I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Ihear you, I hear you, I hear you
.
And sometimes I'm like back up,slow down.
I'm like I've heard this, I'lllisten to it again, I'll listen
to it again.
I'm like what else could we do?

(20:04):
And it might have been just likea flash that came across and
was like hey, ford releasesanother 800 000 recalls.
I'm like we could do that right, because we were limited on how
much oil we could carry and wehave huge tanks on this thing.
But you can only do so many oilchanges and the more you did,
the more it cost you money.
But then you also had to pumpthe old oil back into the van.

(20:24):
Then you had to come back andpump it back off and you had to
guarantee these guys time.
It was like what if we justcarried like 20 of this recall
part, 20 of these recall parts?
You could knock out as many asyou wanted, because most of them
are 20 to 45 minutes, and youcould.
One was downloading, you couldbe installing, and then you
could be downloading and theninstalling, and so it was just

(20:45):
opportunity.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
That's good.
So let's talk a little bitabout, before we move on, about
niche, you know, and in ourbusiness I'll set the stage and
then y'all can talk about someof the niche stuff we have done,
not overall, I mean not onlyoverall throughout our years,
but then also when we move, weare able to build some stuff in.
You know, our business isarguably one of the most
transparent, competitivebusinesses that are out there.

(21:07):
Transparent competitivebusinesses that are out there,
and our listeners may not knowthis, but it's actually
regulated federally that everysingle dealer pays the identical
amount on new vehicles.
So no matter if you're inAlaska, california, florida or
Arkansas, you pay the sameamount for the F-150, the
Wrangler, the Escape, the Ram2500.
The only difference is thatthey can change is the amount

(21:30):
for delivery, how far you arefrom the factory.
Also, rebates they're connectedto your zip code.
So that old saying out there Ican go to Dallas, or that one
time I went to New York I got abetter deal that's not the truth
, you know, because your rebatesare connected to your zip code.
Plus, we're one of the onlyindustries that you can go
online and figure out theinvoice price and this and that.

(21:51):
So we're at a very highlycompetitive.
It's not like we can order.
Hey, if we order 500 F-150stomorrow, we'll get a better
deal, because if we could, wewould We'd stockpile those
suckers.
So we've had to figure outother ways to find a niche
besides just lowest price, andwe've got 10 F-150s available.
But we built a lot of that intoour new store, didn't we?

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, we built a whole lot so that you know, like
the experience.
So when people showed up theywere like, huh, I've seen Ford
before, but something'sdifferent here.
Yeah, I've seen a Jeep storebefore.
So from initial, when you driveby, you know you see our huge
car vending machine, our vehicledisplay tire.
You're like, hmm, something'sdifferent.
And then when you go to pull inthe single entrance you're

(22:34):
going to see all of our vehicledisplay pads and you're going to
start out with the big rock ofthe Bronco rock and the Jeep
rock and be like, hmm,something's different.
And then our service drive isthe first entrance that come in.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
Then when you get to talk to the people and talk to
the flow, then you talk aboutthe lewis guarantee.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
So then that's definitely different sure, like
on the lewis guarantee, like ona new vehicle, we're doubling
the factory warranty.
Yeah, so when ford says we'redone at you know five years or
60 000 miles, we say let'sdouble that.
And it was real, like weresearched this for years to
make sure this was tangible,that that a customer could claim
it anywhere.
It was a zero cost to thecustomer, that it was actually
rubber met the road.
So now we doubled it to a10-year 120,000-mile powertrain

(23:17):
warranty that was free 99 to thecustomer and they could claim
it anywhere.
And it didn't have all theseexclusions like had to do every
single service interval.
You still need to service yourcar, but had to do every single
service interval.
Still need to service your car,but had to do every single
service interval at ourdealership.
Like let's make this real andtangible and different.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
I think when we looked at that, especially the
Lewis Guarantee, we flipped it,looked at it not from a business
standpoint but a customerstandpoint.
You know everybody wants toknow.
You know what's in it for them.
And they need to know like, hey, I hope they stay northwest
arkansas and I hope they keepservicing with us, but life
happens if they move tocalifornia or chicago or down to
dallas, you know our louisguarantee is still good there.

(23:54):
You know we'd love for you toservice with us but there's
nothing silly connected to it.
Like you got to come for aone-year checkup and if you
decline anything, we say it'svoided.
That's not how we do businessand you say that.
But most of them are.
And that's what we've found.
Yeah, that a lot of the otherones have the hoops and this and
that.
And then all of a sudden youknow, oh, I'm sorry, that
doesn't qualify, so that's notus.

(24:16):
Another thing, taylor, and youcan walk them through.
You know, when they come to getan oil change with us, there's
a couple things we do, frompulling in to the alignment, and
then when we finish with ourcar, it gets to run through one
of your favorites.
Oh, yeah, and they can't findthat at the quick load down the
road floor at the Walmart.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
No, not only being reputable and us taking care of
it.
If a mistake happens which onhere I will tell you.
If you're in business, mistakeshappen it's how you handle the
situation Whenever it happens.
What defines your whole processBecause they're going to happen
happens.
What defines your whole processbecause they're going to happen
and the reason why someonecomes and trusts a reputable
business is so, whenever it doeshappen, it's not a quick lube,

(24:55):
jiffy lube, anything down theroad they're going to say, hey,
you're on your own.
I, we checked that.
No, we made a mistake, I'mgonna make this right and we'll
we'll take care of it.
But matt was talking about theycome in, they get in a free
alignment so you can see rightthen.
And there, hey, my tires arealigned.
They're not aligned.
Let's catch the problem beforeit eats through a whole set of
tires.
Then you roll straight intogetting your oil change,

(25:19):
multi-point inspection, tirerotation in there.
Then, once you're done there,it rolls through our own VIP car
wash club so it comes outvehicle's clean, ready to go,
and I love that whole process inthere because it's been really
fun to be able to have that andoffer that to all of our
customers.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
I think those are just a couple of great examples
of niche areas we found in ahighly competitive market where
when you're in the middle of it,you're like what do you want me
to do?
Niche you know, everybody getsthe same Escape and the same
F-150 and the same this and thesame.
That it's like OK, hang on backup from it for a second.
What else could we offer togive to the customer?
And then, of course, you knowour niche is.
We've been here for 79 years andwhen you spend money with us,

(26:00):
we prioritize that.
We reinvest the money herelocally.
So if you go to your kid'ssports game or you go to a field
or you go to a nonprofit,you'll see us there, you'll see
us sponsoring so people can feelgood about.
Well, that's why I spend chooseto spend money with them is
because they're reinvesting itback at a local level and large
corporations can't do that.
No, they just can't.

(26:20):
You know they do it maybe on anational Red Cross or whatever
else it may be, but what we do,it boots on the ground,
ingrained into our localcommunity, where it matters.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, and I love it because I had a customer this
past month that we'd messed upin the shop.
We took ownership of it andwent into and it, if you're,
there are two different typesand there's so many businesses
that come and go into businesslike, hey, I want to own my own
business, that's great, anything.
There's a whole lot of newideas that come out there and I

(26:51):
commend you on wanting to go outand figure out your own
business.
If you want to be in the youown a business route and be in
that game, you have to beinvolved and we choose to do
that every single day.
That's why we're different andthat's why, when you're talking
about niche yeah, we've got allthis other stuff, but the other

(27:12):
absolute dark horse that we canshare our practices, our
policies, our thing they don'thave the X factor of being able
to have.
Yes, we're blessed to be able tobe three brothers that work
together, but being able to workthrough it, being able to be
involved, it's a lot of hours.
If you want to be in thisbusiness, it's a lot of hours

(27:32):
and that's the difference you'reable to make whenever you hear
things, whenever you see things,whenever we're.
Hey, we want to help thisbaseball team, we want to help
this school.
So it was so fun and me toconfidently go through with the
customer and say, hey, this iswhat we're doing, this is how
I'm here to help you.

(27:53):
No one else would do this of acorporation.
You could say you were going tox, y and z and they wouldn't
care.
I sponsor all these peoplebecause I want to pour back in
the community that we're a partof, and you can only do that if
you're fully, fully involved.
So wanting to be that's reallythe niche sort of where I look
at of x factor, of having us inhere, of all the great things we

(28:16):
have, but being able to worktogether and being able to help
make the process better than itit could possibly be if you
weren't involved now that's good.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Okay, we got to get to our automotive fun fact quiz
of the week.
Now when I read this one, knowI went back a few years because
this was really exciting, likewhen you get your first car.
You know what was the firstcommercially available car radio
brand.
So we're talking aftermarket.
Put it in the car you knowwhether it was cassette or your
8-track or CD player, in my caseand it says here's our options,

(28:49):
here a Sony, me Jensen seesMotorola and Diaz Auto Tech.
I can't believe they didn't.
The list here you know what mypreferred, the one when I was
growing up, is you needed anAlpine, you know, and I could
think I saved up forever just toget an Alpine and my 85 Mustang
, but we'll come back to see.
Since Alpine's not on there, wegot to pick one of those other

(29:11):
four.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
It's not going to be that Absolutely Rolling straight
into the pivoting process.
So we've talked kind of ofsigns of why you would want to
move or what you would want tomove or how it's different.
But this is kind of rollinginto the process.
So of going through and we'regoing to talk about a couple of
different things, but talkingabout what you're involved in

(29:33):
staying authentic to your brand.
So one of y'all rolling intothat, but staying authentic to
your brand, not gettingsidetracked from what you're in
the market of doing and whatyou're really wanting to do.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
Yeah.
So one of the pivoting piecesI'll take and we've talked about
this previously but I'm goingto bring it back up we're still
in the brand of selling cars,delivering cars, but as the
business evolved and as all thistechnology came out in business
, I can remember when I firststarted in the business that's
not like it was that long ago.
When you did a delivery of avehicle, you showed somebody how

(30:10):
to program their garage dooropener, you showed them how to
do the presets on their radio,how to change the clock when
time adjustment happened, andmaybe a memory seat, and that
was it.
Yes, that was it.
We evolved to now and there'smultiple computers.
You've got a huge process to gothrough.
We pivoted there because werecognized that the traditional
salesperson one they didn't havethe technology mindset or the

(30:33):
patience to hook open an iPhone8, an Android, a Samsung and an
iPhone 16 or 17, you know at thesame time and then spend.
Some customers want to spend 15minutes, some want to spend two
hours, and we've got to be ableto adapt to that.
So how we pivoted is we removedthat off the salesperson, still
staying true to our brand andselling cars in our way.

(30:55):
But then we hire people thatwere delivery specialists.
We paid them on the deliverythemselves.
They're not thinking aboutselling the next car and they
were able to spend the timethat's necessary.
And we evolved with theautomotive business for today's
times.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
I think a big thing there, and you guys both said
brand multiple times of ourbrand and generally, when you
think brand and when we sayadvertising, we speak of tier
one, that's manufactured, tiertwo, that's your locality, tier
three is dealership and tierfour is the employees at the
dealership.
When you say brand, I think thesame thing, right, wrong or

(31:31):
indifferent but when you saybrand, I think what we get to
have fun with and what we builtinto our whole thing is we're in
the experience business andthat becomes our brand.
You know, 79 years of doingbusiness in Northwest Arkansas
is great.
Four generations is great, butas we often say in sales

(31:53):
training with them, what's in it?
For me, the customer doesn'treally care.
Like that didn't help oldbusinesses survive, right?
You know that didn't overlyhelp Radio Shack, just because.
And so we get to develop thisexperience.
It's no different than going tobranson or going to las vegas.
They all have shows, right, butthe one that has the best

(32:14):
experience is one that peoplecontinue to go to, that they'll
continue to refer their friendsto, they'll continue to go back
to for the next season or whenthey want another experience.
So I think that's what we get todevelop is our brand, the lewis
brand, and it's the brand ofthe experience that you get,
from the car wash, thecomplimentary alignment check,
to the cappuccino machine, tothe friendly people that you get

(32:37):
to build that relationship with, from the remote services and
kind of all the way across theentire platform of 260 plus
employees, of that experience.
And so I think we continue topivot in our construction
process.
We said how do we build thatbrand, our brand of the
experience, into a customerexperience?
I think we listen to the market, which is not our brand, but

(33:01):
it's our higher tier brand, andso then we see okay, what do
people see, what domanufacturers push?
And then how do we develop inthat into our brand?
So that was part of our pivotprocess of taking our brand,
taking it up a notch.
You know it's a new level, it'sa new excitement, and how do we
keep that experience?

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, and I would roll into so if your market
knowing your brand stayingauthentic to that, what about
some lessons learned and anyinsights on things that we kind
of have tried in the pivotingprocess but maybe had to step
back and go a differentdirection?

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah, that'll happen for sure.
Yeah, but don't I have toremind myself this, and I am one
of those people that I'm I'mreally I'm quick to think and to
pause and slow to react, andthere's some times that I've
missed some things that I shouldhave just thrown it out there
and go.
It's okay if you make a mistake, it's okay if you don't have it
all lined out, and I'mconstantly working on that Now.

(33:57):
I try to find a happy mediumgoing.
Hey, I don't always have toknee jerk reaction.
I never want to get to thatbecause the building's not
always on fire but that doesn'tmean that I need to think about
it for a week.
You know, there's a lot oftimes where I could sleep on it
or give it an hour.
But if it's an easy tomonotonous decision, I've got to

(34:18):
make it right then.
But there have been times thatthen something's passed us by
because I've waited too long tomake a decision, um, or there's
been other times where we'vesegmented things off.
You know, whether it was aservice process or a sales
process, we thought on paper itwas going to look great this way
, and then it didn't work, andthat's okay.
And then we had to pivot andmove on.
Yeah, that's no different.
We talked about on episode thatfun store we opened up that was

(34:40):
called Top Gear.
If you ever came into it, itwas a whole lot of fun.
We had a ton of traffic.
People came in and looked atthe muscle cars and the Broncos
and the Jeeps and all the hotrods and this, and that we had
more traffic than the new carstore.
But it didn't convert intodollars.
No, because not that manypeople.
It was almost like we shouldhave just charged a museum
entrance, you know, fee Becausethey came by and the dad and son

(35:01):
came by.
It just didn't work, no, sothen after a while we just had
to look at the numbers.
It After a while we just had tolook at the numbers.
Hey, it's okay, it didn't work,let's pivot, let's move forward
.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Absolutely.
I think you definitely have tothink like I totally get and
understand.
As a leader, you have to makesure, kind of like you have a
roadmap planned, of like if Itry something new, I don't want
to feel silly saying I don'treally know, we're going to
figure it out.
That seems unplanned, that thatseems unplanned, that seems

(35:31):
willy nilly.
On the other hand, we miss outon opportunities because we're
looking for that plan or thatyou know like you might not make
that correct stock buyer.
You didn't get as an earlyinvestor in that because you're
like I don't know Cause.
You have to keep in mind howbig the decision when you're
looking at pivoting.
How many people does it affect?

Speaker 3 (35:46):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
You know.
So if it's a small scale thing,like take risks and then be
willing to measure it and thenpull plug when it's necessary,
right, don't be scared if it'snot something that's overly
affecting everyone, I'm notsaying, go change everyone's
health benefits plan, just like,oh, this looks cool, I'm adding
on the internet.
Do it Like no, that affectseveryone.

(36:08):
But there's some things outthere that we've been able to
try that sometimes you're likethis seems like I shouldn should
, give it a whirl.
Let's put it on a no contract,yeah, month to month basis.
And then really keep our thumbon it, be like, hey, this was
great, like let's go, let's pushsome more chips in there.
Or like, hey, you know what weactually didn't really even tell

(36:28):
anybody about this has beenrunning on the side or in the
background.
Uh, let's pull the plug there.
So you have to, you know, inthose things, be willing to fail
.
You have to be willing to fail,but just know where.
Don't ride the ship to theground.
Do not ride it like, no, I'm init, I'm going to.
You know, this is the greatestand I'm committed.
I got to do it, hang on, hangon, it's okay to fail.

(36:50):
And then say, well, hang on,let's not just bankrupt the
thing.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
I think that's a really good point you bring up,
but yet tough for leaders and Iwould say including us as well
is especially if it's your ideaand you put a ton of research in
it and then it's not working.
You know you feel like I don'twant to fail.
No, and you know, you see thisin large companies.
We talk about this with Walmartall the time, where at one

(37:15):
store they might be using adrone to deliver and the other
one's a slingshot or somethingto deal.
I mean they're doing this orthat.
We started working on that inother departments.
Hey, just start with thisdepartment, pilot it, yeah, you
know, and then if it works,we'll go everywhere else.
I love the filter.
I'm going to call it.
That you just brought up is oneof the telltales is how many
people does it affect?

(37:36):
And you got to kind of thinkabout chess a little bit is does
this affect everybody?
Is this a disruptor?
You know well we could bechanging an entire process, or
if it's just within onedepartment or two or three, let

(37:56):
them run with it and see whathappens.
You know it's no different thanin order for us to change our
main software like a CRM or anAMS.
It's got to be pretty calm thatthat makes sense, because 300
people have got to change.
Adapt A website's the samething, but to change a plugin on
how to evaluate your tradeonline, that's not a big deal.
You don't really have to tellanybody, you don't at all.
So I think you've got to run itthrough those filters as a

(38:17):
leader, but then be willing,like you said, to make that step
and it's okay if you fail andwe love talking about sports
analogies.
How many people do you hearthat they talked about how many
times they failed to be able toget to that success?

Speaker 2 (38:31):
And no one's really remembering how many times you
failed, but just remember on thewins.
And you said, like sometimes asleaders it's hard to do that
the first time you do it will bethe hardest.
It would be.
It would be the hardest timebecause you'd be like man, what
are they gonna think about If Isay, hey, here's where, because

(38:51):
we do that in our, you're likenow they're going to think I
don't know what I'm doing.
It's like no, hey, I learnedfrom that, there's a much more
efficient.
I'm so sorry I was making yougo around the building to the
right.
Let's go counterclockwise.
That's way faster.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, I think it's so important there somebody an
attaboy, and it doesn't matterwhat level they're at, because,
remember, we've talked about inprevious episodes of always
encouraging ideas to come to you.

(39:23):
And that's how, wheneversurrounding people around you,
how you continue to grow andcultivate good ideas, yeah.
So whenever you do somethingwrong or see that you need to
adjust, call it, pat them on theback, say hey, yeah, let's keep
going, and that's yourself as aleader, growing your whole team
and moving them forward there.
So huge deal in the pivotingprocess.

(39:45):
I love that whole area thereStaying authentic to your brand,
listening to the market,lessons learned and insights.
So that's big there.
We got to get back to thefunfester day.
Let's put a radio in the firstcommercially available.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
That was Sony.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
You had like a tape that you just pull out here.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Hopefully they pivot away from that quickly.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
It's like blank put or something, but coming through
either Sony Jensen, Motorola orAutotechch I would have gotten
this one wrong, the firstcommercial available car audio
brand yeah, I would have pickedlike autotech, just like I don't
really even know what stereosthey did, it just sounded old.
Yeah, it sounded old, uh, butthat's not right that's not the

(40:31):
right answer.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
The right answer is motorola.
And I would not have thought.
I would have thought that wasobviously the first in-car phone
.
I thought of a jensen orsomething else motorola.
The first car radio thatcommercially was available was a
motorola, debuted in 1930.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
Wow, he's serious clerk yes, okay, luxury item
right Now as we segment intothis final segment here our
journey, our niche and how it'schanged over the years.
So I talked about ourexperience.
That's our brand, or at leastin my mind.
Our brand is Lewis Brothers.

(41:08):
There's always an owner or oneof us in the store that you
could talk to, you bet, and thatbecomes the entire culture of
the organization and so peopleenjoy what they're doing.
I would say yesterday weprerecorded this.
I'm sure you guys know this.
But, finishing the ultimatechallenge, it was an 18-hour day
and if without a good cultureand a good group of people

(41:31):
around, it will eat you up.
I left before my family wasawake and I got to bed before or
after they were asleep, but thepeople around, like some of our
new managers and newsalespeople, were so excited.
We hit so many personal bestsand so many new records and they
were like I've never been apart of so many people working

(41:53):
together, selling so many carsand have a fun experience.
So understanding our journeyand our niche.
What are some of theadjustments you think we've made
to grow this far?

Speaker 3 (42:03):
I think one of the things we've really learned,
especially as we've moved, iswhat we were doing.
Is that scalable?
And I'm sure y'all can rememberbeing in meetings and some
people I don't know that theyreally took me seriously until
we said it multiple times.
It's like, okay, what you'redoing now, could you do that if
you doubled or tripled yourvolume?
So you got to plant that seed?

(42:24):
And they're like what are youtalking about?
We sell 150 to 200 per store.
Well, what if you sold 400?
Would that process?

Speaker 2 (42:32):
work.
Don't try to figure out how tosell 400 in this moment, correct
.
But if you did, that's wheremost people get home.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
That is, they wait to try to plan for growth during
the growth.
Instead, we're going to put thesystems in place, not only for
today but where we're going,because you can scale it.
But if you've got the system,if you got the system, then it's
like we've been training forthis.
We know what play to put inplace.
We've been practicing thisthing's got enough bandwidth

(42:59):
that you just keep going.
And that's what we've talkedabout a lot since we've moved
and we've changed a whole lotbecause of that, because really
our systems were maxed out.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
We have changed so much from hiring a high caliber
HR director to then seeing, hey,he's chasing some things that
don't need his attention, let'sget him an assistant to.
Then, hey, let's get a highcaliber office manager
controller and then get anotheroffice manager.
And then hey, we're clickingenough buttons on our phones

(43:32):
trying to figure out socialmedia and trying to, you know,
favor this and Canva that, let'sget a full-blown marketing team
.
And we keep scaling from heyparts department process, manual
and standard operatingprocedures within service and
sales.
It just it continues to grow.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
I mean same way how we appraise our trades, how they
go in there, how we processpeople that are going to finance
, how we get them out, thefollow-up, and we're not done
yet and none of them are.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
sit it and forget it.
You have to know that.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
I think that's important.
We didn't talk about thatearlier and I was going to bring
that up.
But you do have to rememberlike, don't just throw it out
there and then hope it works.
It needs leadership.
That's why there's a coach.
They try to put in a new play.
The coach might say, okay, Idrew it up and it looked like it
was going to work, butso-and-so can't quite make that

(44:23):
pivot.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
They're going to blow the whistle and they're going
to show it to them again.
You're learning pyramid.
They're going to say, run itagain, yep, and run, and run it
again, and run it again.
Remember, it's going to take onaverage 90 days to create a new
habit.
So if you're changing yourprocess, who moved my cheese?
It's going to take constantattention of like you know what.
Maybe we'll flip these two.
You're not a fast enoughpulling guard, that's okay.

(44:46):
You're a better blocker,pulling down and let's do this,
but then staying after it,showing all the little things.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
You must make sure, though, when you do that, that
you have created a culture andan atmosphere where your
employees are not intimidatedand will share with you feedback
.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, and that's a tough one.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
Because so many people, they have not opened it
up, where employees arecomfortable saying, hey, I know
you went over this boss, butwhat about this?
And you really, to get thatstarted, you got to ask them,
not give your opinion.
As a leader, you need to be thelast one that talks, no
different than the last one thateats.
To be able to get their opinion, you need their feedback.

(45:27):
So then you're adjusting andyou kind of really go into it
that way too.
You say, hey, we're puttingthis in place, we've all vetted
it.
Some of y'all have been in thefocus group and we've talked
about it.
But there's going to be someadjustment and I need
everybody's feedback so we canmake it tailor-made for our
culture of what we're trying toachieve.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
And I think you got to know, whenever you're
building and changing policiesand processes, it's not going to
just fit in like a gear in atransmission that's coming along
, it's not happening, it isgonna be bumpy and it's okay.
Build the team, have the opentalk, everything else that's
controlled and structured.
I don't want people justjabbering to jabber, say, say,

(46:09):
hey, this didn't work, thisdoesn't work, work blah, blah,
blah.
No, have controlled process,structure everything that goes
into it, and realize that withchange comes difficulty, process
stepping forward, everythingelse.
And it's good.
Listen to us talking aboutchanging in just a year's time.
Moving over here it's been alot of like we sit back and like

(46:33):
what are we doing?
What are we doing?
But then we see a little bit oflight and it's going there and
we of like we sat back and likewhat are we doing?
What are we doing?
But then we see a little bit oflight and it's going there and
we're like okay, and then we hita big month and it's like, oh,
that kind of worked pretty goodthere.
All right, we can change thisor change that.
So it's good to know that.
Hey, there's some difficultybut it's better.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
That's a really good point, as we grew and said okay,
we need more processes, moreprocedures, which?
meant more people and so there'sbeen many of uh, in the months,
middle of months, every days ofthe months, I'm sitting there
scratching my head at thenumbers of like we have doubled
or tripled our business, butafter we've paid all these

(47:10):
people for all the things we'veheard, where the business me,
you guys, are making less money,just saying then we did on all
faithful over there.
Yeah, it was gosh, you know?
Because?
Because who can we talk to?
I'm not going to talk to mywife about this.
Right, like no, honey, you cango by target once a month please

(47:32):
.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Hey, we just hit our goal, but I made less yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
And so you know, I'm like man.
And then I'm like, hey, mad.
And he's like, oh yeah, youwant to see how we did at
chrysler.
And I'm like, all right, okay,I'll keep to myself, I'll just
be over in the corner yellingmyself, and so it's one of those
things.
But after but every once in awhile you get light.
At the time you're like I dookay, yeah, that guy's doing

(47:54):
really good and he's making alot of good money, so you're
proud of him, you know.
And there there's wins in there, so it's a long-term play there
.
You know, that's the key there.
Ain't this, ain't no amazon fba.
Sit at home in your underpantsand I'm not outsource some.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
We do not sit on disclaimer.
We do not sit on the beach andlet the business keep running.
Perfect, if you do that.
That's everyone's businessdream.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
I think it's a long-term, like you said there,
shelby, and I have to remindmyself this and we talk about it
.
But there's a lot of businessesout there that off of growth
and you can take an Uber, youcan take an Amazon, you can take
any of their business modelsand they really spend the time
building what we call our unitsin operation.
Once we build our units inoperation by selling the car,

(48:40):
getting the trades they go intoservice.
We connect them with a Lewisguarantee.
We're organically building thisthing, not for these peaks and
valleys, but for long term.
So I can tell you guys what'sgoing to happen is in three
years, five years, all thesepeople are going to be saying
how did they do that?
They're so lucky, they've beenin business that long.
And it's like no, peel back thelayers and let's look and see

(49:02):
what you did and you knowprofitability, pay, so on and so
forth, and everybody thinksit's just growing on trees.
It's like no, we're sacrificingthis to get this.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Yeah, we hunker down, make it work, and I think
that's a really good point.
There.
I'm just um learning lessons,adapting when necessary.
And you said earlier, matt.
But you said ask the people forfeedback, yes, and when you do
that, be very cautious.
Remember 70 to 80 percent ofyour communication is nonverbal.
Do not react and say that'sdumb, that's stupid.

(49:37):
I've tried that.
It didn't work.
No way.
Nonsense, that's too expensive.
Bite your tongue, put your bestsmile on possible and take
notes and say, okay, what else?
And what else?
Because there one time I had acall last month.
I was driving going to a admeeting and someone texted me.

(49:57):
He's like, hey, where are you?
That was just a question that Ihate.
Like I live my life at thisstore.
Like, if you need something,ask me that question.
But and I said, do you, can Icall you?
And they said, uh, sure, and soI called and they're like hang
on.
And they were like, hey, wouldyou want to know if his
ex-employee wasn't happy?
And dah, dah, dah.
I was like, oh, absolutely,yeah, I need to know that and
tell me what's going on, likebecause they're talking to them,

(50:19):
not talking to me or you or you.
And I was like, yeah, tell meabout it, but you have to be
very careful to not say no,here's, that would never work.
Like Wayne would say, I'm gonnajust keep throwing ideas at you
, yeah, and every thousand oneof them will stick.
And he knew like you'd say,wayne, that's silly.

(50:40):
Like no, I'm going home, it's10 o'clock.
But you have to not overreact,because right then they'll be
like I knew I shouldn't havebrought up my idea.
That was stupid.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
This really feels stupid.
You know that goes back to yourlistening to listen, or listen
to respond.
Yes, and some of y'all outthere that your meetings and
your feedback, you're going ohmy gosh, I do that right now.
My meetings, I talk the wholetime, I ask at the very end if
anybody has feedback or commentsand nobody ever says anything.
You need to change yourstructure.

(51:10):
Yeah, and it's not going toautomatically happen.
You're not going to say ameeting and be like I need
everybody's input today, whileit's going to happen, like you
said, you're going to have to goaround the room and ask for
inputs.
What's one takeaway, what's onething you need help with?
And then, slowly but surely,you'll look up a couple months
down the road.
They're all speaking, you'retaking notes, you recap it and

(51:30):
give direction at the end.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yeah, that's super solid.
I love that.
All right frequently askedquestions.
We love asking them, we loveanswering them, even if we got
to dig and find the next thingor whatever else.
So a question for you, mattwhat's the biggest business
failure that you have faced orthat sticks out in your mind
Largest business failure?

Speaker 3 (51:50):
Well, I'll tell you recently, let's talk recently.
Okay, so as we were scaling tomove, I ramped up on the CDGR
side.
I ramped up on inventorymassively because I didn't know
exactly who would come into thenew store, what that scale would
look like and what they wouldneed.

(52:10):
I looked up and we had 45Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneers in
stock.
Those are pretty good price Atan average cost of $101,000.
Okay, that was over $5 millionin that inventory alone.
I looked up as the sales weregoing on and I had really swung

(52:32):
for the fences.
Our monthly floor plan intereston the vehicles, just city
money to all, to borrow moneyjust for the new inventory, was
a hundred and eighty thousanddollars a month.
Now that decreasesprofitability pretty big quickly
, but dollar for dollar.
But as we talked about in thething I could just pivot yep, I
could just pivot, yeah, and wepivot.

(52:53):
We put space.
We put massive discounts outthere for the customer and we've
talked about in the thing Icould just pivot, yep, I could
just pivot, yeah, and we pivot.
We put SPFs.
We put massive discounts outthere for the customer and we've
dwindled that down to five.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
So you gained a customer.
Your salespeople got to sell acar.
Yes, finance got to processthrough.
We got to trade in, wentthrough the shop.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
Then we had a good used trade, so that this is
leading my lunch because it willvery quickly eat your lunch and
the raw still happened, justnot in front of all the
employees.
You know what I mean.
As I sat in the room I was likeholy cow, I'm gonna go for a
longer run.
I thought we were gonna makemoney this month and we didn't.
Where's the problem?

Speaker 2 (53:26):
there it was how do I attack it?
Long-term business here, allright, so taylor in the opposite
.
What's the biggest win as ofall time and or lately, in
business that you've faced?

Speaker 1 (53:37):
This took a long time and we mold this over and push.
It was in the sales department,it was in the finance
department.
I have to shout this out.
We just absolutely just cameoff of a banner record month.
They hit a height that we neverthought was possible.
Talked to the guy, our directorof finance he laughed at us
whenever we gave the idea of thegoal out there and we blew past

(54:01):
the goal.
Oh yeah, only because we tookthe right time, we put the right
person in there and, funnyenough, we added another team
member to the finance departmentand we about ran their wheels
off whenever we added the otherteam member in there.
So it's got to be expanding the, in particular the finance team
.
It took them to a new level andand pushed it so far that it's

(54:27):
knocking on the door close ofexpanding it here soon in the
future again.
So I love seeing that ourprocess was there, the structure
was there, we put it in gameplan and it just went off to the
race.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
That's solid, that that's a win, because it didn't
come without struggles.
The current finance peoplefeeling like, hey, you're taking
money out of my pocket becauseyou're taking business from me.
We said, no, the customerexperience is not as great.
Remember, we talk about we'reselling the whole culture of
experience, and they're like, no, no, I can handle it.

(54:59):
They were chipmunking andthey're like, no, no, I can
handle it.
No, no, no, I can see Mrs Jones.
She's been over for three and ahalf hours and we promised her
a 90-minute promise.
We're hiring someone else andin the end, now they get to
leave early and now they get totake their days off, and then
they can all still make a goodliving.
So that's a solid window.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
That's really a tough one.
Those are good feedbacks onboth of those.
Hey, it's been fun, our firstepisode in the new studio today.
We hope you guys have enjoyedit.
Make sure to give us thatfeedback.
You know we're talking aboutfeedback here.
We want feedback.
Our goal is to bring value toall the business leaders out
there.
So if there's a subject youwant us to do a deeper dive into

(55:38):
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, I wish they would cover that.
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That's a wrap for crossroadconversations today.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Thank you, guys if you enjoyed this episode, be
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Thank you again and we'll seeyou in future shows.