1. Thou shall not spend more than you make. Stay liquid. Cash flow is king.
2. Never borrow. If you can’t afford it today, don’t count on tomorrow.
3. Protect yourself from deadly partners. A bad partner can sink the whole operation.
4. Don’t leave cars hanging around. Inventory that doesn’t move is a liability.
5. Wholesale is a 24/7, 365-day, one-ring pickup lifestyle. If you’re not available, someone else is.
6. Be consistent. Steady discipline beats sporadic genius.
7. Don’t be a nut and get "mad at money." Emotional decisions cost money—stay rational.
8. Thou shall not have partners. Partnerships create friction; own your decisions.
9. If you must have a partner, don’t choose one who would cheat on their spouse. If they lack integrity in life, they lack it in business.
10. Thou shall not bring business into thy home. Keep work and family separate; protect your peace.
11. Don’t fish in sewer creeks. If the deal smells bad, walk away.
12. Don’t reshuffle auction cars. Wholesale is not retail; play by the right rules.
13. You can’t co-mingle wholesale and retail. Pick a lane and stay in it.
14. In wholesale, everyone knows everyone’s business. The market is small—your reputation is everything.
15. Thou shall not be a gossip. Loose lips sink deals.
16. Thou shall not shmear. Honesty builds longevity; shortcuts ruin reputations.
17. You can’t pay too much for a good car. Quality always holds value.
18. Cheap cars lose money. Junk inventory is a losing game.
19. Pay too much for a creamer? It either sells fast, or even if you lose, you still win. The right car at the right time moves, period.

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Good afternoon, everybody. And welcome to this week's vendor with Robert Holland said good day, Bob. It's been a while. It's been a couple weeks. I know you're

Speaker 2: (00:09)
I knew my friend. I caught the, I caught the stink. This thing is not a joke. It's like for real buddy. And when you're 70 years old, like hits you in the nose, it's like getting a punch. First time you get smacked in the nose. When you're in seventh grade with the first real fist fight, you follow me. you get that stinger. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1: (00:31)
Whether you gotta take, if you gotta take a break to you know, we'll be fine. I'm sure we'll get through this. There's lots on the go. I was just commenting. I was just commenting that you had at one of those lucid motors, electric cars through the lanes the other day,

Speaker 2: (00:46)
First

Speaker 1: (00:46)
One I had seen come up for wholesale. So that's pretty

Speaker 2: (00:48)
Cool. Yeah. Yep. Everything's moving around. There's no question about it. So people buy it. They can make a profit everybody's over word. They gotta, you know, a lot of people take a little, take a little profit and run, man. You know what I mean? Nobody's committed that any of these junks, you know, it's amazing. So just a funny side story quick, Shawn, just to start, right? So I've been doing this for a long time and everybody gets sick of hearing that, but it's true. It's I'm over 50 years doing this. And first time this has ever happened. I mean, we used to go through a period where we get cars stolen off trucks, cars out of auction, you know, things stolen replated whatever. Last night we had a, one of our guys pinched a, a, like a next to new Volvo, a 20, 22 Volvo got traded at Lexus store.

Speaker 2: (01:40)
So he, he grabbed the keys, took it out and he's taken our, one of our attorneys to dinner last night, this, his birthday. And Mr. Frankenstein, Hank Stein, Hank, the best attorney in the United States or Canada, by the way. And you know, they come out from having dinner and they had the car park right in front of the restaurant and it's stolen a 20, 22 vavo. Now I thought they were playing with me when it, when, when I heard they, you know, car had stolen. Cause when you stop and think about this in my entire life, you know, we've had all kinds of things stolen, but we ain't never had a Volvo stolen. Like who's stealing a Volvo. . I mean, you ain't parting the Volvo route, right? It's not getting exported. It's not going into container to vena a Whaler or something. It's it's, it's a, a Volvo that got stolen in front of the restaurant. I don't know. Maybe that's not funny to me. It's hilarious. It's not funny. We got a car stolen. It's a 60 car, right. I'm trying to, I can't wait to find out who stole it. And what's the reason behind it.

Speaker 2: (02:48)
Like, it's not like it's a civic, you know, type something or other we're they're gonna chop it up and put it in a, in a, you know, port the thing out. It's a so well, I,

Speaker 1: (03:01)
I got a Volvo. Well, it brought up a bad memory for me. I got my Volvo stolen story for you then. So we had the 

Speaker 1: (03:10)
Well, I, I agree. So these our yard manager opened up the gates for the auction cuz the snow plow was coming in cuz it was wintertime and he opened it up at five in the morning, about five 30 in the morning. Some guys came in, stole an old Volvo station wagon. Used it to grab more

Speaker 2: (03:25)
Of those. That's that's different. They stole a car, they didn't steal a Volvo. They stole, they stole a, a car. You follow me. That's true. But when you're at something late model, there's gotta be a reason behind it. You got, you got something going on, right? Ain't nobody still Google. The number of cars vavo is the last manufacturer to have cars stolen. It's like out a hundred thousand. I would agree. It's less than 1%. okay. I'm sorry. I'll just,

Speaker 1: (03:53)
I'll just no, no, no. I'll just finish off my story. So we ended up the, well, the police found the Volvo weeks later, months later, even in the back of the woods started right up. It was used in some sort of ATM Grabb one of those old cash machine ATMs of a convenience store. Oh I love it. Ice or whatever, gave it back to us. And put it through the lanes and it brought the same money that it was worth. What months later

Speaker 2: (04:17)
As cars normally do. That's why it's comical.

(04:20)
When I listen to people, fist fighting over a CR or a PDR or some sort of something that's wrong with the car and you know, give it back and arbitrate it. And it's absolutely comical, but it's, it's almost like chisel and granite when something's wrong, rather than everybody off in the chain of command, they wouldn't answer the phone. He doesn't do anything. The time is up 10 days is over. Just go sell the car again. It I'm telling you that more than 60% of the time, the car brings as much or more money and everybody's temperature can go down and you don't need to take Prozac. And you know, like all kinds of things, man, you know, get over it and just like go do it again, put it outta your mind. And everybody stays normal. It, it happens all the time. In fact, it's a high percentage of times a car brings more, you know what I mean? I don't know how we got on that, but it's that's been my experience.

Speaker 1: (05:17)
Well, and I was kind of briefly chatting with you about before the call about how dealers seem to be putting vehicles up on multiple different marketplaces, trying to get the money. And you said, well, it's all about relationships. Or the lack of

Speaker 2: (05:32)
We're gonna have to go down that rabbit hole different time because that, that requires like a whole different mindset. It's where, you know, you have a lot of guys try to get the last 15 cents for a car. And in the process of doing that, they get less because when you actually have a relationship with people that you're doing business with and you need to be at the, you know, like you need something to happen, you need another for grand to make a deal and you got a relationship. I can only tell you hundreds of thousands of times where somebody that's doing business with us that really needs something to make a deal. We absolutely will do it with our eyes closed and nothing to talk about. That don't happen when, you know you're, whoing a car out to 50 different places and there is no reciprocity.

Speaker 2: (06:17)
That's a whole separate issue. Probably a bad topic to get onto today you follow me. But I think if anything happens to be an Axiom in the business that we're in that turns out to be one that is almost never broken. You follow me where you're actually doing business with people you can trust that actually are not scam artists that really do need help and they can reach out and actually find that help at will. You know, it, it's, it's a different circumstance. That's a whole different topic today. Shawney I was thinking about just bringing up the topic that, you know 

(06:57)
Brian Kramer has finally been landed to lead Accu trade, which to me is a phenomenal thing. I've been talking to Brian for probably a year or so.

Speaker 2: (07:10)
Following how they've actually used our tool in their dealership to, you know, we have a lot of dealers at this point in large dealer groups that are turning out to be the cream of the crop because of using our tool in comparison to other stores in their groups. And what we're finding is that when it's used the way we designed it to be used for communication capability for insurance, for, you know the ability to actually help a salesperson and a consumer, as well as the manager to understand, you know, catter dog DNA what is actually a fair price for something and rationalize it in a way that is it's not just verbal, it's visual and then it's factual and then it's scientific by the time you get to the leveraging the EKG or what we call the O B D Tel, right?

Speaker 2: (08:08)
All of these things when they actually are used in a consistent manner incrementally, the rooftop actually starts to Excel, right? Because they trade for less, they trade easier, they trade with better communication. They trade for, to be a cat when it's a cat and a dog, when it is a dog and it's not random let's call it the luck that you traded a CARF to be a cat when it turns out to be a dog. And then going through the torture session with, you know the service department actually coming out and breaking your bubble because it's a, an absolute turd and we traded it to be a shiny little object. You follow me. So all of these things, and Brian has led the charge in his use case and his stores in a way that it, it basically changed the culture.

Speaker 2: (09:02)
And it, it, it kind of like gets the entire dealership on board with a process that and you can use it and they do use it in conjunction with other platforms for other reasons. But when it comes to service drive acquisition it's, it's in a different class. It's not even in the same category when it comes to you know, a salesperson being involved in the trade process, which, you know, that actually rubs off believe it or not into the conversation with the consumer. So it, it just kind of like morphs the the energy and the the honesty and the I would call it the legitimacy of the process. And because of Bryan's success with that suffer from his pedigree. I mean, a guy's got unbelievable pedigrees.

Speaker 2: (09:57)
He's got a deep history in retail success simultaneously having success in the wholesale side being a a new car dealer it's and not, and recognizing the fact that you don't ignore wholesale because it goes back to the old story, Shawn, if you're not the best end user, there's no shame in recognizing it and finding the best end user to actually get actual cash market value for that vehicle fast, easy in the bank, next case you see. So I'm very, I'm very, very happy that we now have, I think what I'm calling 'em the Pope I would say the spokesperson that has skin in the game that has experiential knowledge of how we built and what we built and how it's leveraged in, in the showroom that in conjunction with the again, the leveraging of the B D the EKG, the reading of the heart monitor of the vehicle, talking to the appraiser before you've welded yourself in those Hamburg, you follow me, there's no shame in knowledge, knowledge is actually nothing to be embarrassed of.

Speaker 2: (11:14)
And if we have the knowledge prior to pulling the trigger going in deeper on 122,000 mile car, that you're not gonna spend money on, or going in a little more shallow in a off brand unit with 42,000 miles, that's gonna take a, let's call it a a rebuild in a a reconditioning department in order to get it to the point where you might be able to retail it. It's just incremental use of historic and, and current data that surrounds every VIN before you touch it while you're touching it after you've already owned it. And because we have a need for, in my estimation, a a legitimate voice that is a, I hate to say it a do, not a pontificator, someone who's experienced you know, the the set that we've built to be able to speak the language to a dealer where we're not telling a dealer without experience how to do his job better, but helping them understand how you can leverage our stuff in order to actually make not only your job easier, but more efficient.

Speaker 2: (12:38)
And I would say in the world that we live in efficiency is at the top of the order of things that everybody dreams of, right? In other words, there's only X amount of time in the day. And as you know, the way our worlds are evolving, there's no time to take a private defecation. You, you see what I'm saying? It's just like morning tonight, you're on a a curve of activity that it don't give you any five seconds to do anything outside of the what the noses on a grindstone doing. And my feeling is our tool set. Actually, it, it fits, facilitates that if, if, if that makes sense to you, Sean,

Speaker 1: (13:29)
I like it

Speaker 2: (13:30)
Agent, that's the number one thing

Speaker 1: (13:31)
That's exciting. I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm no, I'm just super excited about Brian heading the charge. It's, it's gonna be, I think you nailed it with the product and you nailed it with him, energy, honesty, and legitimacy. So it's, it's super

Speaker 2: (13:43)
Cool. And, and we gotta have experiential it's this where we, I know I overused the max plank example of you know how experience is more important than you know, like formal learning, experiential knowledge supersedes anybody reading the book and, and then trying to explain what it is you wanna say being in the trenches, being face to face, having a juggler vein pound in a little bit, when you get stuck in a weird spot and knowing how to actually find your way to the promise land in those circumstances, that's something that you don't learn in a book. It's something that it requires being on the hot seat, how to handle the hot potato and doing it correctly, where you have a high percentage of wins, right? If you don't have that, it's so difficult, no matter how much artificial excitement you want to infuse into something car dealers are not stupid.

Speaker 2: (14:46)
I, I, you know, I've said it many times, I believe we're the most resourceful people that I've ever had experience dealing with, including lawyers and doctors, including professors. It's difficult to a, a car dealer. They smell it, they say it and when they experience something that actually is useful to them you, you, you have a a different set of commitments to it. It becomes part of the DNA of their activity. And my feeling is, and until now I, I believe I'm, I'm accurate when you're actually being introduced to a I think a you know, a, a platform that it really is built to to be part of a dealer's daily operational skill set. When you have somebody that's actually experienced it to help you through that can read, you know, the personality that dealerships to understand how in instances this will be a a winner for them.

Speaker 2: (15:54)
It's, it's really exciting to me. Dealers that have started to use it the way we have designed it in the service drive. You know, we have guys that are buying 40 and 50 cars a month that never systemically bought cars out of the service drive. Now, you have to think about what that means. You're buying cars with pedigree your trading cars with pedigree. It means you more than likely sold that sucker new the probability of that being a better retail unit is algebraically higher than being a random buyer in a marketplace that that's, you know, more than likely a car that's flunked, somebody else's shop. And now you're gonna try to act as if this is gonna be a great purchase. You're buying something that is in your there's no transportation. There's no, there's no entire day sitting there going through CRS, breaking balls, trying to find a car that you think you pinched.

Speaker 2: (16:53)
No, these are cars that are already there. They're not from Syracuse with surface rust under the who knows what these are cars that are sitting there. So when somebody says where this car come well, Mr. Miguel Gotti two doors down from you, that's where the car was sold. New. See, that's a different conversation that that's different when you're bumping 'em for a couple extra bucks, because they actually know that they're buying something that is, you know, something close to being a human's automobile, right? Not an ex rental who knows what, right? It's something. So as we start to leverage this and the, you know, the way that the auto industry is always DeVol, the service and sales are completely separated. I don't give a. What anybody says. Service manager and sales manager never talked to one another. Therefore, who's in for service today.

Speaker 2: (17:44)
Nobody pays attention. If they do, they paid attention for two days. Last month they didn't have any success had, and therefore they forgot about it again. And therefore service has nothing to do with sales. The fact is when it's done in a let's call it a metallic. If you spent the same time in service drive, as you spend going to 12 auctions in a week you would double the number of cars you're buying and the quality of the cars would be better. And of course, you're saying, whoa, what about the cars with 180,000? Well, of course those cars you're looking to buy out of the service drive because without any question or doubt, if you have no fear of wholesale like CarMax and anybody else that's successful, you have an outlet for those cars to actually make profit. I'll say it again.

Speaker 2: (18:29)
I've said it many times your bank account, doesn't ask the question. Well, was this wholesale profit or was it retail, profit? The bank doesn't know, nor do they care. They know you paid X and you brought in Y if that's true, it turns out to be a profit. If it's a profit, the king got manufactured out of your service department, because it's not a car that you wanna put on your front line, because it is adverse selection. For whatever reason, 14 bad car faxes and knocking the motor don't make no difference. If you bought it to be 14 bad Carfax and knocking a motor, and you put it in the right marketplace, you gonna make a wholesale profit. Once again, it to ignore that would be in my estimation ignoring the new Testament, because you're only interested in the old Testament. Doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2: (19:18)
There's no, there's no rational conversation that you could actually surround that, that attitude with to actually become out, to turn out, to make sense. It doesn't make any sense. So I'm, I'm sorry to get off on that tangent, but it's, it's really exciting to me when we actually start the watch dealers to put the attention to many have, you know, when we first started the traded marketplace now instant cash offer. You know, we actually had the, the, the Sims group out in California was an early adopter, and they actually took a whole building and they, and they dedicated specific people just to follow the leads said, wow, that's unbelievable. And what's happened was over time that has evolved into the best case. User actually takes a specific person to follow those leads coming from Elli and from Autotrader to actually go hound the seller and pinch them little babies, right?

Speaker 2: (20:15)
You can't do it casually. You gotta do it with direction and with intention and it works. It really does work. I mean, let's be realistic about it right now. If we do the same thing in service drive, where we actually encourage guys to hire people at a, a wage, whatever the wage is, pick a wage, it don't matter. And then incentivize for each car that's purchased. What you wind up with is a very motivated individual that actually is going through your hundred 42 borrows for the day that actually really does pick the cars and do the right condition report with the B D. So then when we're sending the lead in to the acquisition manager or a new car lead, because now they want to trade, they don't wanna just sell to, to, to, to let's say put those leads into the right hands where they're not just getting followed, but they're getting followed with all the data, the incremental information did we sell at new yes or no?

Speaker 2: (21:16)
Is it a conquest lead? Yes or no. Is this a car we would keep? Is it not? If it's not, let's send it to the person who understands what we're gonna do with it, if we don't keep it right. So it's a really simple process. And, and those leads are not warm. They're red, red, hot. You're actually taking the vast majorities people by surprise. They weren't even thinking about making a transaction to seller trade, but now you're whacking them with the information necessary to create the conversation. Shawn, how much did they sell it for new? Well, our tool shows you what they, what they bought it for new. It, it also shows if it's a second, third or 15th owner. So now we know if we have cat or dog, we also know if the car X ever, and therefore when we have the equipment, the pictures, the dent, and scratch all in one place and deliver that to the person that is the leads best end user.

Speaker 2: (22:18)
We're off to the races. It's not unusual to pick two or three or four cars in a day when you stop and think about it it's as natural as the sun coming up in the morning, but you have to handle it as if it's real. If your used car manager went out and bought four cars a day at the auction, you'd think he's a superstar. Super, he's a super duper star coming home with MP numbers that he's absolutely clogged in the back of his head with in order to force them through and then rationalize, we'll pick up some money in his shop and then we'll pick up some money somewhere else and we'll pick up something else. Well, that's good. But if you did the same thing in service drive, I think your net number, you're not gonna be cringing. The sales force isn't cringing when they see the P number, because the P number obviously means it's a pinched car outside the, oh, it's not so pinched.

Speaker 2: (23:15)
It means it's overpaid for a car because there's auction fees. And in other words, transportation costs along with random shop bills that you didn't know about before you pinched it. Right? all of those things again, incrementally as we walk that back, it turns out that service drive is in my estimation a man, a person, a purchaser's best friend. It's probably too much for today, but it, it, to me, it's very exciting, especially since we have somebody, you know, obviously we believe Brian used our tool set and is gonna be again the minister of the tool set, but there there's stores buying 80 cars a month out of service drive 80 as an eight to eight zero. Now when you stop and think about that how much time does that save of somebody needing to go to the auction and find those 80 course that ain't such an easy job.

Speaker 2: (24:20)
That's actually a full-time job. And then when you think about how they do their turn, their turns, unbelievable. I've never seen inventory. That's better than theirs, but, but when you stop thinking about it, the inventory, the vast majority as pedigree, not your salesperson, they, their sales force doesn't have the approach avoidance thing. When the customer says, well, where duck court come from? What's funny. You asked that folks, we sold the car new. You see when? Well we, we have a professional buyer. He goes to the auction. He buys cars on marketplaces nasty, that, that story starts to get a little fumbled. You follow me, it's different attitude is different. See, we know why Kurt cars turn out to be 30, 60 day cars. They stink like rat rear end customer gets in a Buddhi course, stinks. Salesperson walks that car never, ever in a million years will put the key in that door to show customer again.

Speaker 2: (25:18)
Right? So, so when we have these approach avoidance issues with cars that are aging out, you follow me. You might even be the one that traded it, and therefore you don't really give a Ratri right of the dealership ever sells it. And you're definitely not gonna take your new up. You only get two ups a day. You're not gonna take your up to that car. So these are simple facts of life or Mo sales people don't do that yet. You're sucking a lollipop if you believe that's not true. And therefore, again, and I'm not saying it's the only solution in the world used car dealer. Can't do it. Cause used car dealer don't have a service department. So, so this is basically franchise specific conversation, but when you actually leverage it, I think it's it's something that will not be overlooked by anybody that has, is inclined to think about what they're doing. Does that make any sense to get at all Shawn? Or are you snoring over there?

Speaker 1: (26:17)
I'm not snoring in the least. All I wanna say is that anybody out there listening though, if you're an ADE user are gonna become one and this, sorry, Bob, but I know you don't like me doing this, but in the show notes, check it out, get a demo because we can show you the process that, you know, best in class dealerships are using to acquire these vehicles at a service drive. So just check this show notes and click on, get a demo because

Speaker 2: (26:42)
It's happening and it can happen well for your dealership. It, it really will happen for anybody that actually has the inclination to pay attention. There's no question in my mind about it. So and I'm not, again, this is, of course it's our tool. Of course, it's our product. Of course, it's our pedigree that built the thing, right? So it's not as if this is without shame whatsoever in terms of promoting it, that it's just happens to be when it's true. And it actually works for us not to show a little less shame than we should would be also I think incorrect if I'm not mistaken. We got plenty of testimonials at this point of guys that the, you know, they swear by it and they're at the top of their groups. So it can't just be that they like this dumb, big fat Irish guy and they wanna kiss our somehow. That's not the deal brother. The thing actually works. All right, Shawny. Awesome. Thank you, sir. Hope everybody has fun today.

Bobs article, pg. 6-7, "The Value & Future of the Used Car Dealer" was featured in May 2022 issue of Mid-Atlantic Regional Dealer Association Publication: https://www.midatlanticautodealersunited.org/mid-atlantic-dealer-news/may-2022

Click here for a full length video (31:26) showing more VinTel details.

Hertz Teams With Uber, Carvana in Big Shift to Electric Cars: https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/hertz-teams-uber-carvana-major-110000354.html

Tesla Hertz deal. Hertz is bulking up its global fleet with a hundred thousand electric vehicles from Tesla. This is in turn great news for Carvana, which is working with Hertz to dispose of these cars. Isn't that wild?

It makes complete sense. Let's think about this...

What lanes in an auction are the world's worst? The rental car lane. Everybody knows this. The slugs, nobody really wants them. There's specific people that could buy them because they need to fill holes. They get a title. They don't have to worry about arbitration, things like this.

But, definitely not what you would call a major attraction for people driving from Syracuse to Manheim, Pennsylvania to go buy Hertz cars, right?

The brilliance of this, right, right out of the box of Carvana is going to have to do all of their remarketing, what happens to their top line revenue?

Obviously it goes into stratosphere, right? That's number one.

If the cars are flowing from Hertz, so I would imagine they're gonna be buying them from Hertz and put them through the system.

They may share profit or loss or whatever, how that goes. It doesn't really make much difference what I would call wholesale hold back. They could do a similar thing with those. And I'm sure they already figured that out. They don't need a nitwit like myself to explain that.

However, all of a sudden Carvana's revenue just went through the roof, which obviously drives tremendous value on Wall Street.

Number two, what do you think with Carvana? They just put the cars through with their eyes closed. No, this gives them a natural flow of hundreds of thousands of cars for them to pluck from. There's one, that's not going to our remarketing system, that is coming and sticking with us. This is a natural flow.

From the beginning...

How is Carvana ever going to survive?
How are any of these online retailers going straight without a natural flow of vehicles?
It's physically impossible.
Are they going to continue to pay wild money?

Like Hertz is paying on the auction block $6,000 more than a car could ever be worth in a million years, if you were going to sell it retail. But now they're going to rent that car $282 a day, whatever. Right.

And then it's going to Carvana to actually plot or pass along through their marketplace.

IN THE MEANTIME, it gives Carvana or way more influence. Right now when you look at different auctions, you can't get bodywork done. Why is that? Because they're doing Carvana's recon, right?

Adding inventory to their structure will make the engine run more efficiently and eventually lead to critical mass in the lanes. It's a smart move that will pay dividends in the future for their investors.

The CASINO EFFECT: When you sell everything through the lanes, DING DING DING! The buyers will come ready to buy, and they're happy to pay if you're happy to sell.

Leading Carvana to critical mass and more top line revenue.

This is a BEAUTY DEAL for Hertz and Carvana! Hats off from Robert Hollenshead!

When supply ceased in 2020, used car pricing stared to climb, and they haven't slowed since. You can't deny the data. Used cars are wholesaling for more today, than they sold for new! Why would you retail a car for less than you can replace it for?

"A VIN IS A COMMODITY that has never increased in value because they're made readily available by manufacturers."

• R. Hollenshead (E. 33 @ 1:15)

Denying that a vehicle is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it, is like denying reality. Selling a vehicle for less than you can replace it for, makes no sense.

Selling to replacement ensures dealership profitability in the long run. (Retail is still important - ask us about our retail desirability metrics)

Access the data that powers and insures hundreds of thousands of daily vehicle valuations and transactions. We're so confident in our data, we'll back every valuation with our CHECKBOOK. Our suite equips your dealership with the most timely transactional (wholesale and retail) information available. Offer a no-haggle trade-in experience to your customers. They want the convenience, trust us.

Learn more by visiting www.accu-trade.com

It's brilliant. No question is brilliant for one simple reason. The brilliance of Carvana. The brilliance of the people who founded and run Carvana is that they don't sell cars. Why would you believe they sold cars? They don't, they sell finance.

What you pay for a car. It could be completely irrational. It doesn't make any difference. They're not selling a car.
They're using that as an object to make profit on finance.

It's the smartest thing that anybody ever thought of. It's brilliant because they're actually selling the dealer's car at a retail price. That's acceptable to everybody, but they're picking up the finance. That's the only place there's any money is in finance. Right? So now think about it now, room who struggled and let's call it the market cap and you know, all the rest of it and growth, right?

Well, first of all, we already know they don't pay more. That cars are worth because we see them bidding on our course all day, every day, if they were paying too much, they'd buy them all.

We wouldn't need to sell them anybody else. That's not what happens. In other words, their algorithmic proxy takes them to a point where it's a fair market value for core, and they buy them if they're any good, but if they're not any good, they only bid 32 times by proxy and then didn't become the best end user. And why are they not in a panic about that?

It's very difficult to be the best end-user on certain categories at middle mud car, because you got Avis and Hertz completely blowing everybody out of the water.

Okay. So that's all good.

But when you stop and think about the true business model, no, why let's say CarMax is successful because they discovered it now, master wholesale, right?

It's based on the core model of not necessarily selling cars, selling finance. So now Vroom needs to compete. Why wouldn't they buy a company, it would put them in a position to show revenue. And now all of a sudden be able to go out to, to the markets to get more capital, to lend money, credit challenged people and not necessarily credit challenge. I ain't talking about, you know, 400 credit scores, but people that are on the edge.

You have to be in a position to be able to make irrational loans, because don't forget the lower your credit score, the less you actually know or care about what you're actually paying. And it has to be realistic about that, right? So somebody paying cash, they'll break your balls to the point of insanity, because it's actually their cash that they're buying something where they want to be shorted. They get a better price than anybody in the world is ever going to get and all the rest of it. Right. But as your score continues to drop, what you wind up with is, um, a circumstance where you're less acutely aware of what you're actually paying him.

We're focused more, are you getting me approved? Right? I mean, that's just a fact of life. It's, that's not an invention of anybody. And when you look at Vroom, and they need to grow, like all public companies have to grow that revenue numbers got to move. Even if you're losing money, it's got to move right. Now they have an internal source that they're going to be able to go a little deeper getting them bought. I think it's brilliant actually.

All right. Surely. So it's, it's going to sound a little crass. I'm afraid. But I, I guess we've never been accused of being good or really polite about things. You know, as we're watching this thing and it was starting to settle down a little bit, you know, and the prices look like they were normalizing, you get your head around things a little bit, you know, and the crazy things that were happening with the late model trucks were starting to dissipate. And you know, of course weren't bringing over MSRP were three years old. They were starting to come back down to where you actually thought that you had a grip on things and then CNN plowed in CNN did it. So in other words, CNN and the virus. So as we all experienced the craziest thing in a world that ever occurred ever in the car business, add everything up, add it all up.

Nothing's even close. If you took it all on one side of the ledger, everything that was nuts before, and then just this thing over the past year and a half, nothing's coming close. Right? And we thought we were coming out of that a little bit. You dig it. And then bingo, there, it goes, record cases, record this, record that, and then it occurred to me, right? I don't think you need anything other than a daily report of how many cases there are in Texas and Florida and displacing that place to understand the insanity of wholesale pricing. Right? In other words, as COVID goes up directly pegged to it is insanity and wholesale pricing direct, right? So the last couple of weeks we're sitting here, you know, we've got 700 cores, you're going to the block and you normal butterflies. Let's get moving to see what happens here about a bang, we're selling everything, right.

And next thing you know, boom, and I'm buying it and being in a boat, man, then all of a sudden the idea that we found normalcy is right out the window at them when I'm watching who's in, not just in our little thing and in Manheim, but in other places you see asymmetrical people, right? So in our little thing that we track, right? In our normal business, not on the technology side, but on our normal business, we know to really a natural written, how many people are logged in to the lane, how many participate, who it is, the participates, how often they participate when they do them, when they don't, when they're an observer, as opposed to a player. So in the stands or on the field, right. And that changes on a, on a weekly basis. And it's kinda like, you know, are you hungry when you go to the grocery store, are you just going to grocery store, see what you got in stock, right?

Or are you going to the ball game to play? Are you going to watch you follow me? And it's all about not just being a player, but being a fan of them being a fan of them being a player, right. To understand, you know, where you stand with your attitude about cars, the depth and the breadth of what you're doing when you're appraising, because that absolutely changes just like your appetite. When you're going to walk and pass potato chips, you're not hungry. You're not grabbing them. Welcome pay potato chips. You got a little growl on a belly. You're grabbing them. Same identical thing happens when it comes to appetite to buy inventory as a, you know, as a acquisition person. So when you add to that, it's sanity add everything up that happened in the car business until today until COVID on one side.

And then on the other, you know, Hertz is out of business. Avis is gone, they're finished, they're bankrupted their dominance over the tornadoes, blow everything up. And they got no cars. 80 million cars got blown up in a tornado somewhere. God did it right. So they're done, they're finished. There's not the talk about right. And next thing you know, bingo, out of the clear blue sky, you go to the Fort Lauderdale where just five 50 a day to rent a car, you know, from 1999 on limited Isles to like some crazy number, which impossible to imagine and what happens next since they sold all their inventory and everybody bought the rim through it, he's more as we're going out of business. So in other words, forget about them. They got no more chorus. Now what happens next? When you're logged in and you're watching what's happening at the wall street of wholesale, everything that middle bell curve, mud thing that kind of looks like a rental car man.

And not without a sun breaths that no, sir don't need an avatar. So anything that's like a normal mud based car, the roll over it like stink on poop, along with Avis, along with this one, that one, the other one. When you add to that, a couple of corporate people there's trying to drive top line revenue. We won't name who they are that are also kind of blindly buying inventory because they're going to increase their, you know, their stock value because they're going to double their revenue. So you know what they paid don't mean nothing. Cause all I got to do is buy it and make it disappear. Top line revenue flies. When you add those little COVID driven elements to the normal auction rat pots like us, like the average dealer we've been so encouraged to, in my case for 50 years, the average guy, the regular guy, that's the backbone of the industry, the backbone of the auction industry, right?

When we now have to contend whether you're a buyer or seller it's good or bad with these anomalies that have popped up. Now these anomalies ain't going to be around forever. You ain't going to get for 400 a day for a Malibu at the Orlando airport, I think going to last forever and they're going to get their appetite filled. You know? So you could say it's another whatever period of time it is for it to get filled. But until then these anomalies or in conjunction with all the people that don't get shots, they want to go on trips. They're going to go on a trip. But when they go on a trip, what do they got to do to got to rent a car? They got to rent a car. The company has to have cars. And now you have like a perfect storm of, you know, for many rational thinking person up insanity.

Now you can pontificate about it or you can participate in it, right? So pontifications what we're doing here on this show and this little thing, right? The fact is we're going to be participating in it. And as a acquisition person when you're going to be on doing your little proxies or doing whatever you do or seat of your pants or showing up maybe someplace to buy a car, you have all these other things to contend with. Then you have to think about who the best end user is, who the best end user is. You can't contend with somebody that can get to 75 a day to rent a car, you know, for the week it's 1275. So they rent the car five weeks, it's five GS. They made their money. Eh, so if that happens the last 10 weeks, they doubled their money. Right.

That's different than because you're competing with somebody that's in a different business with the same commodity. Right? So it, it, it turns out to me as a participant slash observer, it adds extra complications. It's no longer arithmetic. It's beyond algebra. It's actually, it's actually like calculus in terms of all the ins and outs and who did it and why they did it. And Carvana did the thing and other thing and all these goofy things, they're all flying around. And then when you take the next step back off of that, get your nose off of being the analyst and the pontificator, you kind of just stop and think about, does it really make any difference who is going to buy decor as long as you know, that you can duplicate that price. And if you're in a position to buy the car and you can resell it for whatever reasons that you're going to actually buy that car, right?

It becomes like a, a moot point. I guess the moral of the story is being a moot point. You're better off with the knowledge of what the ingredients are to get you to the point that we're at. Because as you know, you gotta stop thinking about this now again, they're not going to continue to buy cars. The rental car companies won't continue to buy cars forever. It's not going to happen. Right. So when you think about when they're in the market or when they're out of the market, what does it do to you know, your individual let's call it the calculation that two seconds of when you've got the itch to do it or not do it, what you do to, to your decision to actually acquire or not stretch on a trade or not. Right. it just turns out to be like a I would say one more level of of understanding of the intricacies of what we do this leads then to the last piece that is showing it, because we don't want to get people goofy with this who is the best end user, right?

So when you're trading cars or you have cores in inventory that turn out to be something that you, you rent and of course not retail except rent. The core is retail. If the rental car company is willing to pay as much or more than what you'd be able to retail the car for, and they're doing it for a different reason, they're not in your business or retail in the car, they're in the business, a GAF in the consumer at market value to actually put it on a highway. It's it's a very weird thing, obviously COVID related. So, so when we're saying that the pricing is directly pegged to CNN yapping about 4,000 cases a minute in this place, in that place. In other words, it's not like people are thinking about that, but it's directly related to, you know, the whole chip scarcity, the car scarcity, all the other that goes with it.

It's not. I'm sorry to say that all the other items that are involved in this and how the net end result is all of us have to deal with you know, in our case, it's actually a good thing when it hurts us. It's like having a retail customer in the lane, which is illegal, but they're not a retail customer, even though they're a retail customer, right. From a buyer standpoint, it's probably not a good thing because as we can see there, there's knocking them cars right up to what they would be worth, you know, on the best day of its life. So if you're like in the needs, that kind of category of car, it's going to be very difficult to, to drag them hamburgers home. I don't know if any of that made any sense, Sean, but when I was watching it last week in particular as the market skyrocketed way, way better than what I anticipated when we went into the into the arena it was shocking actually. And then when you think about it, the world's coming to an end because COVID is going up like a like a you know, one of these rockets that are going up into outer space. You know what I mean? It's very weird. It doesn't make any sense. Unfortunately, it's a fact. So you can't deny it right?

Put your sleep Shawnee me, boy, are you snoring on the other end here? No, sir. I just love the park.

Hello. It's competing with somebody in a different business with the exact same commodity. And you know, I guess I think you mentioned that a bushel of corn, to me, Watson, some people make corn flakes and some people use to make it use that bushel to make Doritos

Gotcha. Different gets a commodity. Everybody's got a better end use. And that's what drives value. It's identical to the commoditization of anything, a Venice commoditize best based in an open market, aggregated cars, aggregated buyers to identify the best end user, the best end user can be. The brand specific dealer could be the sharecropping wholesale dealer. It could be a sharecropper used car dealer by your buy your whatever, or in this case, an asymmetrical buyer, right? Rental car companies. Unbelievable, but true. Can't be insatiable. It's not going to be insatiable. You know what I mean? It seems like it is at the moment, but I can't imagine that it's going to be. And if it is, you know, hold on your bridges, the base number, those cars, see, this is the other weird thing. When we, we have a tool that we're telling the dealer target, target trade, what you'd love to trade the car for, right?

Target retail, I'm sorry. Target all wholesale. So target auction price, a price that you should be able to duplicate no matter who you are, not you're at a great associate or in the world. You're going to get three grand over that. That's an anomaly. That's not a duplication of circumstances. Not many people can duplicate that, right? So it's not realistic to plentiful a dealer to be trading a car for target retail. If they don't have access to the broader market, that's the whole theory behind our toolset. Right? so you can't tell dealers that, well, you know, Hertz is buying Camrys and you should trade the Camry for four grand, more than it's worth to you in your localized marketplace. You can't do that. You become dysfunctional. It did the, the transparency between the dealer and the consumer becomes false, right? Cause the dealer can't meet the expectations of being the best end user on that car, because it just isn't true.

If that were true, you only need one person in every auction because they'll buy all the cars. Cause they're the best end user. That ain't the way it works. You follow me, everybody's appetites based on, you know, and that's why he got puts in calls on, on the commodities, man, you got, you got a need for X amount iron or while you're not going to buy all the iron or in the world of the competitors, also willing to pay X amount of money. You now have the commoditized value. That's what we do with Vince, right? Sean,

100%. I think that's a great way to end it for today. Thank you, Bob.

What if you knew where every car has been, for how long and how much?

That would be helpful information when you're trying to make a purchasing decision. These indicators help you understand the desirability of any vehicle.

Sean has a dealer that uses the VIN-dow Chrome Extension (How to install) if you're looking for live vehicle pricing on any public or private listing site, marketplace or online auction.

How Bob uses:

- To use Accu-Trade as a satellite to "right set" his brain

- Look where that car has been, where it was sold new, how much it sold new, where it was listed new, how long it was in inventory new, ie: how desirable was that car new? If it was in stock 130 days when it was new... is that a red hot car?

This is a satellite to use constantly to help you understand if you're right or wrong. The data gives us common sense when making a decision about buying a vehicle or not. When you can see the full retail history of the vehicle you can be sure that what you're doing will be profitable. You can't deny the pedigree of the car.

Opt in for more info and access our webinars at www.accu-trade.com/demo.  

"By the time you've ready about it in the Wall Street Journal, it's already too late." - The Wolf of Wall Street

From Robert Hollenshead's perspective, the market is softening, and cars aren't selling like they were 3-5-8 weeks ago. Inventory predictions for the latter half of 2021 have shifted after Ford receives a new batch of chips and prepares to ship thousands of F-series pickups.

Buying inventory? The market is hot for creampuffs... always was, always will be.  

But what about the others? There is plenty of opportunity to pinch deals as sellers start to lower reserves hoping to fuel activity and sell more inventory!

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

His answer... "Right now, market reports could be the worst thing you could refer to.... the market report is your enemy." 

Keep in mind:

1. Expectations are not being met in the lanes. 

Sellers are not getting the money they were hoping to get and are no longer selling at 90%. We're seeing the average seller back selling around 40-50%.

2. Market reports can't report no sales. 

Market reports report what sells. When people aren't selling, the report can't adjust to the market. Anyone relying on market reports to buy, continue to buy at prices that are not relevant to the market. 

Market reports are your enemy because they can't adjust until people start selling to the market. Until then... relying on them could get you into trouble! 

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

What "strikes" start to matter: 

Previous rental? STRIKE. 

Challenged history? STRIKE.

Market report? STRIKE. (Watch out - these reports are your enemy now, not your ally). 

We watch, understand and transact with all kinds of different players. What we're seeing? STRIKES are starting to come in. 

To hit a home run in this market and avoid striking out, remember.... 

- The circumstances that surround the market are flattening out. What didn't matter, now starts to matter. 

- The Jerry Springer Effect is on with high auction attendance and low bidder participation.

- Sell to the market, and get more! This attitude invites people into the arena when you start selling to the market.

With a team of analysts and experienced Traders taking a look at every VIN that rolls under their nose. Base prices are set by thirty five analysts, and then an algorithm takes over for VIN-specific characteristics of each car (ie: vehicle source, accident history, equipment, mileage, condition).

You want books? Those satellite dishes are available for you within the tool. Use what you're comfortable with understanding the Accu-Trade values aren't made up. They're REAL. They come backed with a check. You can take it to the bank. 

They might be worth when you're in a regressive marketplace, because what we're not going to do is be collectors.

What we are going to do is be sellers to understand the marketplace perfectly, at least from our perspective real well. 

Not saying anything good or bad or anything else we're saying that we see at this moment, all indicators that it's not a crash, it's a, it's a slide, right? So we're not going off Mount Everest directly down without a parachute. What we're seeing is some regression from this insanity that I was hoping to Christ it was going to last until, you know, like August or November or something.

Want access to the most accurate vehicle replacement values? https://accu-trade.com/demo/

Accu-Trade provides dealers with liquid value (cash for any car), auction value (what you can expect to pay to buy this car in the marketplace or what you can expect to sell the vehicle for in the marketplace), and retail (retail listings and history specific to the region of your choice). 

The three values allow dealers to triangulate and decide if they are the best end user for that VIN or if there might be a better exit strategy. 

If you have automotive IQ, Accu-Trade helps you communicate in a way where argumentative responses are impossible. If we present the facts around the value of the vehicle, the consumer can see the fairness in it. 

"What's it take to make a deal," doesn't create confidence for your customer. 

When describing Accu-Trade, "It levels the playing field and gives us common ground to have a logical, rational conversation with a consumer." To base all decisions in facts. - David Long

Decisions based on data, not opinion.  

Using data and science, the buyer and seller could use the same platform to co-validate information and communicate would:

• Eliminate buyer and seller frustration;
• Overcome miscommunication between a buyer and seller.

"We’re never going to have a resolution to condition reports when there are 714 options. It’s frustrating for the buyer and seller and nobody can ever get on the same page."

When does a condition report start? Before you thought about owning the car.

You’re not waiting for someone to get back to you. All buyers and sellers are motivated to transact. 

Here’s something that solves the frustration of sourcing through the Auction, Service Drive, Digital Retail platform, or on your Showroom floor.

We go overboard to make sure the little guy doesn’t get hammered. 

If a platform was able to mitigate the most common reasons deals fall apart:

• A bad description
• A mechanical issue

You can’t argue about the condition of a car when everyone is using the same platform for all marketplaces. A universal condition report increases the capability for dealers to communicate pre-trade to post sale.

Current marketplaces don’t try to hold deals together for anyone, frustrating both the buyer and seller. The marketplace figures you’ll just run the vehicle again. They don’t care.

Use an NAAA-approved condition report across all marketplaces so we can communicate in a common language. Why would we continue to have 700 different languages and nobody talking to each other? 

It’s been an absolutely irrational, insane market. So let’s talk about that, or talk about where it's going or what happens when it's over.

Well, that's something do you know, let the steam out of the brain a little bit in that when you take a second to, you know, take a deep breath, cause you can't even believe that it's happening, what's happening. Right. You know, when you've been around this thing for half a century and at the time when your sneakers are running thin, you bump into this circumstance where it's really it's not realistic. It's, it's so realistic. It's like a fever dream going in the good direction, not on the bad direction. Right? So it's incomprehensible, which is good. You know, when, when you're a kid and you first learn how to ride the wave, right. And you get out there and you can't believe the greatest feeling on earth is when you catch it and it's your slide.

And then it's the whole thing. And then what happens when it crashes on top of you? Right? So the post euphoria thing, right? Depending on how good you are, what you're doing, the post euphoria is it's not like you want to ruin the this dream that we're living. Cause it's not going to happen again. You know, the two by four, she's selling two by fours, you're getting 17 bucks. A board used to be nine, ten cents for lumber. So, you know, if you've already bid the job and you're locked in to what you said, you're going to build it before you're out of business. Because you can't get a two by four. Right? So the person you bid the job to doesn't care whether price of lumber went up, right?

It's no different than an iPhone. You try to go try to buy an iPhone. Can't, they're all sold out. Different stores came and got them. It's gas, it's blueberries. Right? We got a guy that we buy cars from, you know, every year he just goes out and buys new Rolls versus Porsche Lamborghini for ours and keeps them a month and sells them to us. Right. Because he makes so much money in blueberries. You don't know what to do with it. Book for jets, you know, like blueberries, right out of sight. All right. So this euphoria in the wholesale of the world that we're living as it's going crazy and dealers, I think we're all in a situation. If you're not having a record month, it's a shock. And if you aren't, you're definitely doing better than what you were doing last year at this time when the world was coming to an end.

Right. and then the question becomes, are you ready when the wave crashes on you? Right? Cause that wave crashing on your board, pops up, breaks your nose. Now, blood all over the place. You might not even be able to breathe. Then, you know, my feeling is when this wave breaks and you know an unfortunate thing happens like your customers now all own their vehicles for somebody is paying for these cars to bring in 10, 20, 30,000 over sticker, right? Somebody is paying for these cars that are bringing an 18, whatever it is, you look at where the car came from Accu trade. And the sticker price was 47,000 for 52,000 on an auction block with 10,000 miles. So it was really nice one, but it brought 5,000 more than it cost. So that's not real. That's, what's real because that's what the market is.

If you're going to do business, that's the commodities price at the barrel head. Like what if you're going to buy? And so of course it's for this, but we think about the waves then crashing, right? Somebody now owns that course. You got it over the curb, you hit a retail profit. That was unbelievable. Even though you paid too much, it wasn't too much because you sold right away. But you know, I'm going to send it to this today. So we're going to sell another thousand cars tomorrow and dealers bring a lot of money. Yeah. But the problem is they're calling and saying, Holy mackerel, you know, we paid too much, but we sold it right away. Made 6,200 on the car. So was it too much? Of course the answer is, of course it's not too much. You paid market value and you sold it for what, what the market would bear.

Right. That's easy. However, you know, it's just like getting drunk. It's really funny. I had an unbelievable time. The hangover, right? It's a little bit different, right? If you get me out of this one, I'll never do it again. I swear to God, God just get me. Don't let me die on this one. I swear. I'll never curse again, whole thing. Right? In other words, hail Mary, the whole thing. Right. But that's post euphoria. Right? And from my perspective, after being through the first, second, third gas crisis in the thing and all the other things you don't, when you think about it, when you're in the middle of it, you're looking left and right. And the cool validation, everybody else is doing it, it's okay to do it. The question becomes and of course, from my perspective, anyway, we'll never stop and try to act like we can predict the market.

(05:35):

It's you gotta be out of your mind. If you do that, typically as soon as you predict the exact opposite occurs, right? It's almost like science, where there's a direct relationship. You've got a magic wand. You predict something. The exact opposite thing happens immediately.. You can push anything because you predicted something and it would automatically then turns out to be something different, right? It's normal. However, in the back of your head, you know, that horse might not come across. You didn't mush it. And as a result, it's like, what do you do when your customer comes back in? Who paid? You paid 4,000 over sticker price. They paid 9,000, every sticker price four years old. And now all of a sudden, like any other person they'd like to change paint, changing nothing to engine.

So let's say this thing rides, it's going to last for, I'm not going to say the number could be next week could be six months or no, it might be a year because don't forget. You're not going to be able to get tires next. Right? That's the wholesale issue of tires. Tires are going to be scarce. You can't build new cars, cars can't drive without tires. After there'll be tires and there'll be wires. And there'll be something else who knows. What so predicting when this is going to end is obviously only for fools to do. However, the one thing that's chiseled and granted by God, whoever your God happens to be chiseled and granted, right? Like the, you know, the 10 commandments, whatever goes up will come down. Right. That's guaranteed. And when that happens, I'm not saying that again. We're not going to stop what we're doing.

We're going to do it until we hit the wall. Like when we crashed into the wall, that's where we said, Oh geez, the market changed. Right. but the post thing, it's almost like what you would call it from my perspective. Think about it. These people that are getting, they're not getting slammed because they're walking into doors, nobody's tricking them in or nothing. They got to have a new court. Cause it's, you're independent. You're not going anywhere, but you need to have a new court. Anybody knows that that's normal. You got up, got to buy a two by four, got to pay $17 for the one you throw in the trash barrel because they only cost two bucks, bro. And I was 17. So that 2018, F-150 that they paid 63,000 for. Right. and that car in a normal market is going to be 31 five.

How do you alert or mastermind your way out of that one? You follow me? And my feeling is because of that. Well service on one hand, I think it's going to go nuts. Just like renovate the house. You can't afford a new one. Therefore you're going to renovate the one you got, you got to paint it and spackle and do different things. Still get spackle. Although Sherwin Williams is out of paint just in case anybody's wandering. Right? So paint at the wholesale level is no longer available. Right? Talk to your Sherwin Williams representative, see how you make out. Right? You got your, a special customer. They'll still get it in for you. But in general, it's another commodity that is, it's not available. Right? So it as a car dealer and nobody has the time to think about this.

Cause you got to go find another car and go sell another car. I get that more than anybody could possibly believe. I'm the number one, you know, like proponent of all of that. Right. But what you got to think about in my estimation is post this euphoria. How are you going to actually transact business when there are cars available, right? And your customer is now upset anybody with a trade 60% of the cars. And don't forget, we're now going to change the residual on lease cars, obviously, in order to be competitive, you've got to do that. And the buyout on the lease car turns out to be no, not like it is today for GHG low, to be 10 G low, actually an awful lot of leases. You know, like a Ford pickup truck right now is coming back at 31 G, car’s worth 46 at the auction.

But if it's under 120 days, you can't buy it because you know, even the Ford dealer can't buy all of that's different. It don't matter. Right. It's understandable. It's all part of this insanity. Right. But when it happens, did they then Oh, 57 and it's worth 35. I'm not sure exactly how that's going to work out. That's a weird thing. I don't know where the magic wand is coming in. And then you got to do one last thing because I'm thinking about this myself, right? This euphoria is unbelievable. Right. And record everything's records. Right. But now when these folks start changing the tax, right. And it's going from X and it's going to Y and they're talking about a hook to go backwards on the tax. Right. So does euphoria that you're in and you're doing really good. You're even thinking about a jet and all the other things that you can think about.

(10:39):

Right. And then they start this tax thing, hooking backwards in order to pay for the first 2 trillion. You know, we already did the second 2 trillion. Now nobody can come to work because you know, are getting paid more to stay home. So why in a world where they go to work you know, all of that absolute insanity. And now we're talking about the next two or 3 trillion. Like it's, you know, you just say the word that pops out of the machine, nobody has to pay for it. Right? So now we're going to force people who are in your 40 at the moment, blueberry farmers, you know, two by four Canadian, two by four providers car dealers with cars. Now you're going to actually pay the Piper for the music. Right? And then when the thing goes, the other direction, my feeling is, I don't know if anybody ever had the experience.

Right. When I was in the Marine Corps, I was out in camp Pendleton and getting ready to go overseas in 1969. We were at the Pacific ocean, 16 years old, you know, drunk of course on a, on a weekend, on, you know, the minutes leave from camp Pendleton. And we get out a little bit too far. Then next thing you know, we're having a ball, riding the waves, man. And then one of them waves comes in. It was like one of the fifth wave in once it's gone and all of a sudden you're down and you really, really can't figure out how you're going to get out of that. Right? This wave, when it breaks, you see what I'm saying? You might come up for air, but I'm going to tell you with the tax thing going to hit you in the head, cause you made so much money.

It's unbelievable. Of course, you're gonna pay taxes. Everybody pays her taxes. So whatever felt so good, record everything. And now you're paying double the amount of tax that you were paying previously. And then you got the cars coming back with wacko out of whack. Oh equity. Because obviously the market never stays high. Right? It's never going to be forever. Like this two by fours will not be $17 a piece forever. I swear to God, they won't. I know you're from Canada, Sean. So I hate to break you the news and so forth, but they're not going to be that way forever. The same way you know 2015 Corvette, because 73,000, who's not going to bring 86,002 years from now. It's not going to do it. And I'm not saying, I know that I'm just saying based on experience, what goes up will come down when it comes down.

My feeling is that you know, you gotta be a little bit, not, not where you're worried about doing business today. Cause you can't, you got too many things to do, but you gotta keep that in the back of your head, that when it does, how you going to modify right. And modify everything. So the fact that, you know, there's lots of new marketplaces, more common marketplaces, et cetera, process, and sell to the bottom of horses out the window. That's never going to occur again. That will never be back again, worry about what somebody else is selling and make sure you sell it for less. You know, that's the moot point in a non-existing inventory marketplace. And if you're following that, please just call me. I'll take all of your cars, a hundred percent of them, by the way. Good, bad and indifferent. Cause that's nonsense. How post euphoria does the thing you know, shake out which pieces will work? Are we still going to be completely maniacs about being sure that we have the full thing done for like Carvana, touchless, everything touchless. I think that could work, make an experience different negative, perfect, guaranteed. Everything happens as penny perfect. And everybody gets the car delivered in front of their face, et cetera.

But the thing that remains as a weird thing in the back of my little brain is, you know, first make sure you're paying attention to what you paid in tax, because you thought you made 19 million for the year, but you really didn't cause your tax rate change it to be something different. So hopefully we didn't build the overhead and to make sure we thought we made, we didn't make because everything's different. And then how are we going to deal with a handling the out of every, your fork right now? And ADA increased so much the lens it's beautiful. It's unbelievable. I'm sure ALG helped them do that and all the rest of it. Right? It's a little problem is when that reverts. And now everybody wrote their least to match that where everybody financed the match that, and then, and it could happen in July or August or sometime it's going to happen sooner or later.

Maybe it's not till next year, this time when it happens. But when it does and you're upside down 27,000 in a $20,000 car, that's going to be tough to deal with because you took that cat out of the market permanently, it's worse than cash for cars, cash for junk, whatever it was called, cash for junkers that ruined our market for buy here, pay your typically it's the end of November. We go goofy. Everybody stock it up for the tax checks. And you know, everybody bought a new Hyundai with a hundred thousand mile warranty because you gave away your trashcan. Obama's brilliant idea. Get it trading and trash. And you know, people bought new cars rather than buy it's free junks for that particular year. I think this is going to be, I could be wrong about it. I want to be wrong. I think the market's going to go up forever.

It's never going to come down, but if I ain't wrong, it does come down. Right? The, the post euphoric thing that we're in, I think is going to be weird. It's going to be really weird. And if you weren't able to come up for your second breath, you know, people that are paying a hundred million dollars for a franchise and bought a Nissan Nissan dealership for a hundred million, I saw that their friends from, what do you call it, bought it the other day. And California, I wish everybody all walk in a world with that. And, and these people are good operators. So I think they're going to do good. But the truth of the matter is when all of these things collide together at the same time, it's a question of are, are you prepared for that? And how do you get prepared for it?

And you know, are the fixed ops becoming more important? And are we doing recon in the service drive as opposed to, you know, just change your oil and so forth, to make sure that we got like all the bases covered because when things get a little tough boss, I need another 20 grand to trade this car. Cause their payoff is 80,000 cars worth 40. You know, that's going to be weird. That's going to be weird, cause it's not possible for it to be something different. It's not like these cars are going to be worth what they're worth forever. Right? They will be produced in the future sometime after there's no shortage of chips and no shortage of tires, cars are going to get produced. That's an absolute guarantee. And then the aftermath of that is we're going to be giving away everything.

Again, I'm positive of, it's a shame that we didn't have to do it to begin with, but because we're all, you know, based on volume and doing something better than your neighbor selling it for less than your neighbor, as opposed to what it's worth. Right. that's going to return. I'm absolutely positive about that as well. And the the playing field at that point is going to be weird. It's going to be very interesting. Does that make sense to you at all?

Well, it's a ton of food for thought, Bob, and I think it's important for everyone to remind ourselves, right. Even if we're in the midst of it and because you're right, it goes up halfway. It feels good, man. It does feel good though. You gotta admit. It's unbelievable. Ain't it? Yes, sir. It is. Every time something feels that good. Right? Like getting the high. In other words, really nice. She finished the bottle and it's really good. You had a nice evening. How you feeling the morning, payback time, big hangover.

Accu-Trade has information totally unique to our industry because we are traders ourselves. 

“We are by nature traders. We have 1300 years of experience with our little group of folks that have been with us since the beginning of time, 1300 years, 1300 years, individual years of experience in the wholesale business valuation business. 

As a result, our data tends to be a little closer to reality. 

When I say reality, I shouldn't say a little closer to reality, a little closer to a checkbook, not a speculative, theoretical, don't ask me if you really need to do something type of thing, but in other words, a hundred percent, 100% of the time. If you need to check, you can touch the machine and it's going to spit one out. You know, that's just how simple that is. Right? And, and when you reach out, you're actually talking to someone who has had more experience in the open marketplace as individuals, than anybody else in the industry.”

3:34 - “ All the books and market reports are all lies. They're all lies.”

5:55 - Stop using oxidized theory about pricing cars to the market. You’re going to get locked out of the market if you keep doing things the way you’ve always done them. 

7:34 - “Well, what's the actual market. It's the commodities market. What's the commodity? It's a VIN. The VIN is a commodity that when you put it in front of all potential best end-users, it comes up with a value within 15 seconds.” 

You can’t sell a car for less than you paid for it. 

10:30 - Nissan isn’t going to be doing it anymore. 

13:00 - Are we going to offer the consumer more money for their vehicle than they paid in 2018? Of course not. 

15:50 - Sooner or later the market is going to shift but nobody has a crystal ball.

For the Youtube version of this podcast, with pricing examples, please copy and paste this link:  https://youtu.be/dzv30e_vUAE

You were talking about how at the beginning of COVID last year and this is quote, quote I was stupid enough to know that we were definitely staying current to the market, so we are selling. So why have you always gone that route, Bob? You're not holding back.

Oh God, what a good question, Sean. This is really simple. And now we have other people that follow our methodology. One of them I'm referring to is John Wolfe. He's doing unbelievably well with the playbook. So we call it the playbook because it's something that's time tested and trusted because of endless hours of conversation before we would actually implement it. 

And Johnny's implemented it to the hundredth degree, right? Where you can't do certain things to people. 

Inviting People to a Party

When you invite them to a party, you invite them to a party and you give them, you know, unsweetened lemonade. You follow me and a stale pretzel, right? Well, you asked them to come. They gave you the respect of showing up. They're all dressed up and so forth. Even shined their car to get there, right? And then you throw it in their face because you didn't give them a reason to be there.

What I'm referring to is,” I need $300 more for that one”. No Sale, No Sale, No Sale. Really OVE started it. When OVE first started over 20 years ago, whatever that number was, right? It's put your no-sales on here and tell everybody you want too much for a car that’s unsellable and that's carried through till today. It happens on all marketplaces.

You let people list cars on a marketplace that has no relationship to the market, but you're hoping to find somebody to bump their head and pay too much. And sometimes that happens and therefore it's kind of like gambling, put it all on red. And sometimes you win. But when you're all done, the marketplace, it does the same thing. As any other gambler, you're going broke and begging people for toll money to get up the Atlantic city expressway.

You dig it?

Attracting People to the Marketplace

Now from the very first day. What we understand as players is how you attract more people to a marketplace is never, never insult them because they give you the respect of showing up. Never do that. Always take the fear out of any kind of transaction that they find to be not beneficial to them. I'm going to give you a perfect example, from last week We sold a S-Class Mercedes to a dealer, five States away.  Low mileage, beautiful car, you know, sport panel, et cetera. Right. And he gets it home and he says the words, ‘why it's got a PDR here” and maybe the thing on the books weren't lined up correctly in the glove box or some craziness. 

You ain't allowed to own it.  In other words, you don't sell it because you can't have it.

What we're really doing when we say that is 1) where we are half Irish, stupid mutts. 

But number 2), you ain't allowed to have no fear coming here. When you come to this party, you will be overfed over, over drunk. You follow me and you will listen to the music that you want to listen to. That's critical mass, right? 

And by eliminating the fear, what do you wind up with? More aggregated people willing to do business. And what you wind up with is a hundred percent sold for market value. You see what I'm saying, Sean? 

When we frustrate people in our own microscopic PVC pipe, two inch PVC pipe that you gotta get every penny for every car, or you're not going to let the other guy participate You invite them to the party and then charge them for the food.

Nah, nah, I don't think so. The piranha effect will never take place. Where you’re putting blood in the water. Look what just happened.

The Jerry Springer Effect.

Now what you wind up with is I would call it laser focus, cause you're not going to miss what can happen on Jerry Springer show. “Look! She slapped his mother right in the mouth. I can't believe that happened.”  The Jerry Springer effect. 

 In a marketplace, if you don't enable that but instead go with- 

• “I’ll no sale that, we'll run it again.”
• And Don't worry about giving the buyers bitter fatigue.

Oh, now we have what you would call chauffeur knowledge, driving the bus.  Never been a player. Do not understand the depth of what creates a marketplace, but you own the marketplace. So you must know, unfortunately it’s “chauffeur knowledge”

You've been there. You saw it, you failed at it, but now you're going to do it again? Nah, that’s chauffeur knowledge. Just look that up someday and read it. You'll love it because it's a fact.

 The truth of the matter is if you don't have skin in the game, in the marketplace, where everybody give you the respect of being there. Every single unit's getting sold. It's Harry Carey's time brother.

It increases the will of players to come back and repeat the same circumstance to pay too much for cars that they're definitely taking home and selling. In our case, if you did take it home, you couldn't sell it. We'll continue to hold your hand. I ain't going to act like, I don't know your name. You follow me. No what's going to happen is we will help you get back off of that unit.

The Words No Fear become Blank

Because if you don't do that, the words, the words, no fear are blank. Daddy-O.

They're there without meaning you see, in other words, the words, no fear when you're actually  not just pontificating, but BS-ing, right? 

That means you're inviting somebody in with the false hope of actually having no fear. The opposite is true. You follow me. And if you actually enable someone to, I don't want to call it trust, but understand there is no possibility of fear. You wind up with the reason why we say every car that goes to a block is on a one way trip.

Don’t Step on Your Neighbours Poncho

The other thing that is very interesting is not stepping on your neighbors poncho. 

One of the most irritating things in the Marine Corps that I ever found, right, is you're on a force March.

You're going from here to there and it's raining and it's freezing cold. And in other words, you're worn out, man. You know what I mean? Even though you're only 17, you're worn out and somebody steps on your poncho… I can distinctly remember three fist fights that this created. Cause I'm not a tough guy. I'm a, I'm a little sissy, three distinct circumstances where I got in a fist fight because somebody stepped on the poncho.   Stepping on the poncho is really interesting, right? It's where you want everything. You want to be the buyer and the seller. And you want to be in the retail business and in the wholesale business. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That don't work brother. See, cause you're either in the kitchen or you're in the toilet.

One of the other, you can't be in both places at one time. Right. And there's different reasons why you're in the kitchen or the toilet. Right? Some places a flush, some places to inhale. 

Right. And from my perspective, when you cross that, when you cross that little bit of an unseen Chisholm, right? You're in dangerous territory. We would never dream of retail on a car. Cause I ain't getting in the business of what our customers give us the respect to participate in whether it's in software or in, in bricks and mortar. We are never going to be there. The temptation has never been there because that, ain't what we do. You follow me. 

What we do is help a dealer:

1. Initially make a deal.
2. Cash them instantly. Right? So there is no wait while you're paying something off.
3. Know that our word is our bond.

So the tools to bond, our word is our bond. When you said it, you don't have to second guess it or backup, Oh, you farted. And then you had to change your mind and I'll make up a good story. And then we'll not pick it up or something that ain't the way this works. Because as soon as you do it, you follow me. Your word is no longer your bond and you no longer have trust. And now you created fear as opposed to lack of fear. Does any of that make any sense to you? Sean? Did I answer your question?

Thank you. I needed to hear that myself. So thank you very much.

My pleasure. I really appreciate it. We'll lay some more down when you got a chance, Sean-ie encourage anybody that has questions to shoot them in there. That we can address that stuff. So it's not just on topics that you were. I feel like we'd want to talk about. I'm happy to do it on anything. Let's call it related to what we do. Don't want to get in a space we don't do because then we'd become a pontificator. You might be talking about marketplaces and not be a player.

What you need to manage your used car inventory: 

G-ardener (4:00), A-ttractive (10:00) and Adverse (16:00), R-ub off (9:00), D-ouble Take  (7:00), and Dedication (11:00), E-motions  (14:32) , N-eeds (13:00) 

G-rowth  (6:00), R-econditioning (19:00) , O-ptimizing (4:01) , W-eeding (3:00) 

Limitations: 

• How big is your lot?
• How much money is available for inventory?
• Need to know what grows - What is sellable in your market, your demographic, who are your customers?

Considerations: 

• Adverse selection will cause reduced production.
• What plants produce the most in your climate? What can grow in the shade? What can't grow in the shade?
• Rub off: an emotional relationship that impacts the value of the vehicles around it.
  • Ex: A dealer brings in a series of cars that are pruned for sale. Varied items organized correctly, colour well represented,  pruned and blooming, seasonally selected.

Qualities in a Gardener: 

• Attention: your inventory requires concentration on specific information
• Vigilance: your gardener has to be  wary of weeds
• Intelligence: good at identifying weeds
• Dedication: time and energy spent on productivity
• Maintenance: what kind of recon are you doing?
• Watering: clean cars bring more money in any marketplace

Watch for: 

• Invasive species competing rather than complimenting other plants.
• The double take effect creates a subliminal attractions for us.  Are you doing a double take when you drive by your lot? You can be drawn to exotic species even if their likelihood of survival is nil. ALTHOUGH...  It could strike a customer in the same way, or it could be totally out of the gardens ability to support its production.

We hope your garden is in full bloom this spring! Thank you for tuning into the VIN-dow Podcast with Robert Hollenhead. 

The most successful publicly traded companies are not looking to break even wholesale.  Check out their financial statements online. Where you find "wholesale", you will find profits. Carvana and Carmax are doing it!

Three rules to follow to make a wholesale profit: 

1) Buy right to sell right. Make profit when you acquire, not when you sell. Avoid getting welded into trades by having a measurable, repeatable process in place to trade frequently, and at an advantageous price. When you offer what a car is really worth based on its condition, desirability, and history, you avoid getting welded into the trade. 

2) Ask too little, and get too much. Understand the piranha effect.  Carvana strategically asks too little for cars inducing the "piranha effect". By doing this they convert 99% of the time and avoid bidder fatigue (ie: bidding on cars but experiencing IF bids over, and over, and over again)

3) Acquire challenged cars that you have no interest in retailing. Leverage your service lane. The best opportunity in your dealership? The easiest cars to acquire are the challenged vehicles sitting on your lot. Direct upload the daily RO's into Accu-Trade and have someone printing out live offers on every trade coming through service. 

You won't go to hell if you make a wholesale profit! 

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

Listen in as Bob defines:

• Those “cheap” cars that may seem cheap based on the market information at your disposal, but become very expensive when you can’t sell them.
• And the actual “cheap” cars, that have the “double-take factor” for your clientele that move the metal.

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

You know, last year on this day is when it officially became a disaster of the world, right? In other words: 

• everybody's shutting down.
• You didn't know what you were going to do with cars.
• Some people said they were smart enough to understand that they should keep them.
• I was stupid enough to know that we're definitely staying current to the market so we are selling.   And we did exactly that. We stayed current throughout the disaster…

What materialized during the past 12 months

and then came out the other side to be the brightest days in the history of the wholesale business, right?

Where:

• if you were a seller you couldn't make a mistake, if somebody paid you to make a mistake, you couldn't do it. You could be Stevie Wonder and just randomly buy anything on four wheels, bring it through a block.
• And if you had no sale that it could only be because you need to get I would call it admitted to an insane asylum.
• And as long as you could get them, you could make money.

What’s Happening Now

So what we got going on now is, I would say, version two.  It's version two, where we're watching coast to coast, wherever we're pricing, buying and selling cars.  We're watching cars, a higher percentage of cars that are bringing way more money... 

Since our data shows us in Accu-trade where the car has been, the pecker tracks of that vehicle, since it was born.  We're seeing way more cars that are selling wholesale for more than they were asking retail last year. Last year, you know, retail price, $53 G ca brings $57,000 on the auction block today.

What this is doing to the buy/sell guides - 

If you were going to do some sort of an intellectual study of things and you'd come up that there must be something wrong with the data, cause this is not possible. Somebody doesn't know what they're doing. That's a pontificators point of view. Cause a pontificator are not traders, they're not buyers and sellers. They're not active. They're not on the field. They're in the stands. And they learn throughout their classes of graduate level statistics, so forth. There's certain norms and there's anomalies and there's all kinds of other things. And when, when something doesn't make any sense, they throw the outliers out. We see that actually on MMR. In other words, the stars (*) next to the results are outliers.  Outliers mean they brought something that the computer in the AI and the pontificator can't understand.

So in order to come to a number that makes sense, they've got to throw them out because you can't explain it.  Therefore it becomes outside the data set that the people pontificators use to tell everybody what's good and what's bad and why it went up one quarter of a 10th of a percent..  Which translates into what I would call noise. I guess initially you would say that they do that for the people that buy and sell cars would have some guidance in terms of desirability and where the market direction is going. But it turns out to be only good for other pontificators and has nothing to do with a trader.  A person who's their job and their livelihoods based on understanding how they're going to find cars, how they're getting rid of cars, why they get rid of cars and where they do it. All the rest of the things that have started since the beginning of time.

Now what Accu-trade does as we look at this..., and, you know, obviously we are involved with buying/selling thousands of cars and we're up a couple hundred thousand appraisals a day here. We're actually in the middle of something that if you're going to talk to a trader or a person like a used car manager, a used car dealer, or somebody whose livelihood is directly related...  Or a dealer principal, whose investment is their portfolio of cars, right? They also have 401ks and stock accounts with professionals to tell them how to buy and sell stock.  It’s the exact scenario.

In other words I think what we extract and what we observe, and then hopefully what we'd be able to help people understand are the anomalies that don't make any sense, but they have to make sense because otherwise you become an in lane pontificator, even if you're not in lane.

The Self-Defense Mechanism of In-lane Pontificators

So what I mean by that is this Sean-ie. You've been in the auction business a long time. So I think you'll understand this pretty clearly. When a car gets up in the wind and a couple people lock up, three, four people are now locking up on it on the internet and it's banging away and a floor could be, you know, 27 G and a car brings 33 G. You can see where CarMax quit, you can see where Carvana quit. You can see who really is the best end user. And then everybody starts saying, “I don't like grapes”, because you can't reach them. You say you “don't like grapes”.

No, the answer  would be, “Oh man, he stepped on his balls on that car. Boy, what's he going to do with that? He, he, he killed himself.” Okay. The pontificator, the in-lane pontificator at that point is basically justifying why they don't have the ability to understand why the car brought so much money.

And that's like a self defense mechanism, right? “Oh my God, what's he going to do with that car?”

First of all, what's the difference. 

Now there's a willing buyer or a group of willing buyers ran a car to a point where they all got sick of bidding and they don't see how they could actually find a better end user than the person that actually was still standing.

The Buying Algorithms at Work

Now, you're starting to see this. I'm watching it very clearly, right? Where I could tell you exactly where certain algorithms from the bigger buyers are set to buy. They're bidding on just about every car. So therefore the pontificator in the lane, once again, say “oh Jeeze they’re buying all the cars' ' They're not, I think we covered that in a previous session. No, they're not. What they're doing is putting it on cruise control and ending their bid at a point where they're happy to own it.

And therefore, if they own it, when I look at the statistics, it's rare that the car brought anywhere close to too much money. They bought a car for what it was worth. 

It could be a little muddy because of equipment or dust or that, or whatever, but they bought a car worth of candy and they need fillers. So they're happy to do that, right?

“Fillers” are cars that actually are in the middle of the bell curve that fill the holes up. 

That's not a point car, and that's not a trick car. Something with, you know, too many miles with a little story to it. But it's so cheap. Anybody in the world can sell it to a, let's call it a different demographic of buyer. You follow me?

If you ain't got them, you can't sell them.

When you think about it, Seanie and anybody else, that's been in our business for a period of time, the pontificator who loves to throw stones at the person that turned out to be the best end-user.  You know what they do?

They go home with a car.  

 And you know something, it's really weird how this works. If you ain't got them, you can't sell them. 

You can't talk about how much cars are bringing to a customer when they walk in the door and they're looking to buy one. If you ain't got them, you definitely can't sell them. You got to have them. 

Transact with Confidence but it all comes down to this...

Now, what that really means is it's all about, you know, when we talk about our tools to commoditize the VIN, and we give you all the statistics and reality and insurance policies around that. So you can transact with confidence. 

What it really means is the market really will dictate what the value of a VIN is. And, and by the way when you look back and forth to swing of the rhythm of the market in different categories of cars.

It gets to a point like we are right now on the anniversary of disaster, we are on the anniversary of the second birth of the craziest, most unexplainable, incredibly dumb thing in the world, which is all based, obviously on what?... you guessed it supply and demand. You follow me. 

Nobody's Coming in to Buy your Cement Parking Blockers

In other words, when they're aint’ none, and you got to have them, cause it's really hard as piss to sell cement parking blockers, you can't sell them, but you can't drive them. So nobody's coming in to buy your cement parking blocker. You see, you gotta have something instead of the cement parking blockers therefore it's called a car, right? And if you ain't gotta ‘em, you ain't gonna sell them.

Any vehicle that falls into any category, that's one that you like, and there's a bunch of other people the same, and there aren't enough of them... like a big shock.

They go and bring more money. You see what I'm saying to you?

The Books Don’t Catch Up

And, and so then the, you know, the pontificators also say, “well, you know, the books don't catch up” . “ NADA won't let me finance it.”

 That's, that's an inevitable thing. It's kinda like when market reports don't catch up and you've got a two, three, four week period where they can't catch up with the real market. So cars are bringing it to three g, four g over five, eight, ten G over, right. It's not unusual to see one bringing 10 G over whatever they brought 30, 60, and 90 days ago. 

And the thinner traded units. When you look at one, put it in Acc-trade, look to see where it was last year or the year before, two years ago. It's not unusual to see a 2017 that retailed for $49,000 in 2017, bring in $52 500 today, and a retail for less than three years ago.

It's not unusual at all. Now, is it a shock?

Is it like, well, “that's impossible. That's crazy. What are they going to do with that car” Pontificator.

You can Watch Somebody else do Business, or You can do Business

 Well, what you'll do is you can watch somebody else do business, or you can do business.  In other words right now. And it looks like, I mean, again, I'm not going to pontificate when new cars are showing up. When people started having inventory again. But I can tell you one thing, if you wanted to buy a new Rolls Royce, you couldn't find one. You want to know why? They're all gone. And you know, when they're getting more, never  They're all going to China. So in other words, if you want one, you are going to have to pay up. So that means they could have retailed two years ago for X, but now it's going to wholesale for the same price.

We see it over and over and over again. 

Now that don't mean one that's all hamburgered up chopped up, you know, wrapped and nine different people have owned it and that no, no, no, not, not that one. Cause that turns into a pure and absolute trashcan. So trashcans, aren't cars, trashcans are trashcans. Right. And some of them are on wheels,and that has a home.  But it just ain't going to be the one where we're saying in the general marketplace that we're looking at right now.  Like a human owned it, and it took care of it a little tiny bit. And now it shows back up in the marketplace and they bring too much money...if you're a pontificator. 

What they're actually bringing is market value. Does that make sense to you, Sean?

Did you Pay too Much?

So at your auction yesterday, when dealers were like paying up a little bit here or there on a car and the other guys are looking around, making goofy faces, like they're eating sour grapes or something.

Did you hear that yesterday at all? Sean, in your auction?

“You hear the crowd murmur”

“Oh my God, how did he step on his thing? Oh my God, what's he doing?”

 Okay, I'll take exactly what he's going to do. It happens to us on a weekly basis, the car, it looks like it was brought like Mars type moonshot type money dealer says, “Jeezus, I paid a lot for that car.” 
 

Really? My answer always is, “could you please bring it back? I never would want you to pay...”

 “Oh no, I can't bring it back. I sold the b$t¢h.”

So then the question becomes, did you pay too much? No, the answer is, of course you didn't pay too much.  You paid arbitrage market value. 

Not Selling it to the Bottom

And you had enough brains to not sell it to the bottom of the three other cars that are maybe similar, maybe not.

That you have to push a little. “So I can’t sell cars, if I can't be number one, number six of the ranking of 27, can't do it”  So that's where you get to pontification. In other words, data and processes that cause brain freeze.   And it also puts common sense on the back burner. And the minute you put common sense on the back burner you've actually committed intellectual suicide. 

So in other words, in our half knucklehead business that we're in right? “Only halfway educated people, you know. Could have been a drug dealer. If I wasn't a car dealer.” you know, the personality types, the “larceny” that's in everybody's heart and all the rest of it. Right? You can say all those pejorative things, right?

But the fact is common sense really is central to anybody that you could point to and say, this is a guy that actually has what they're doing.

Now, if you give the information that's necessary for those folks to make good decisions, you're actually filing their pencil down to be more effective. And the more effective they are, they don't spend time worrying about what somebody else is doing with the car because they're actually focused on not selling Macadam, not selling pavement.
 

The Market Outlook

We're going to be in a tight market for the next, I'm going to say for sure, two months. It's probably going to be a four month period where we're back to the euphoria of last year's May, June, July, and August, where “there's no way this could ever keep going” because it was completely crazy. Right? 

But it kept going.  Well, you know, in December, we started going back almost to reality and you know, the average sellers back to “no-saling” half or three quarters of their cars.

But at this point, if you're presenting your stuff correctly at whatever level you're going to get surprisingly good money for your vehicles. It basically comes all the way back to - “how's the market?”  

The market is starving for inventory. 
 

Cater to Your Buyers Today 

I'll tell you the other thing that's happening right now, with these acquisition things, where you're gonna go on social media and you're going to FaceTime with the seller and you're going to do all kinds of things, right? 

That over the next month, two months, three months is going to actually rebound to the point where everybody's going to try to understand how:

• They're going to have their own buying center.
• Who's dedicated to paying off?
• Making sure it's a great experience?

And get a good Yelp from the consumer that you bought the car from, that had a lack of equity.

And now you're going to do all kinds of things and tricks to make sure he gets the car and he's happy. And he gives you a good review, right? That's going to be over the next month, two months, three months. 

That's all going to pop back up because as people say, I can't go to the auction and pay these prices. I can't do that. 
 

Digging into Service Drive

The only alternative would be to dig into your service drive.

And we're not trying to over talk about what we have built for that to happen with the service drive tool and Accu-Trade, right?

In other words, next level everything, when you're talking about how we're going to know

• who the customer is,
• what the car's worth,
• what's broken on the car

and understand how you craft your conversation. If it's a car you're going to keep. If it's a car you're going to wholesale because you didn’t have an opportunity because it needs $4,300 in the shop and they can't afford to do it. 

Now you're actually going to acquire it and push it to one of these knucklehead marketplaces and pick up your $2200 profit, right?   Or be able to acquire it. And with enough room in it, do your repair. 

So you're no longer moaning with your service manager, how he's trying to ruin you because you know, you're trying to make a profit. And all he wants to do is ruin you with his RO in the shop. You see? So, I think what we're going to see when we say “what's the market conditions like?”

Flipping Rocks and Looking for Salamanders

We're back to, we got to start finding out if your neighbor wants to sell their car, go on facebook, to the things with Craigslist, all of the things that you would normally do.  Start flipping rocks, looking for salamanders, right? That's back on full swing.

And again, not to be a Hawker here, but that's exactly what our tool is built for to sit on those platforms, to be able to not only recognize, but to act on. 

 Leveraging our tool in this particular use case to know:

• where it is
• when it’s been
• how long ,
• who sold it?
• Look at the pedigree when it came back
• when the last time was listed
• How long it sat there,
• understand what the accident was
• the equipment and all of the rest of it

The means to know if you're going to call Mr. and Mrs. McGillicutty and make them an offer they can't refuse. 
 

Summing Up - It’s Time to Clean Out

You see what I'm saying to you? You see what I'm saying to you? Sean-ie?

I don't know if that's a I would say is a comprehensible understanding of where we are in a market.

The market's nuts it's completely off the wall, goofy, nuts, wacko, crazy, unbelievable. 

Where, when you're buying trucks from Enterprise, which you could never buy, it's like who in God's name would buy a truck from Enterprise and you show up at an auction and it clips off 2,700.  You see, take another look at your Enterprise trucks that have never had an internet look and think about placing that little baby under a hammer, see how it works out for you. 

You see, because they’ve skyrocketed not because they're spectacular,or have a good look to them. Of course, they have a horrible look, tiny little wheels, got nothing inside, but you see at this time when you have a complete fever in the marketplace.

 Oh, no question about it. Now's the time to clean that out. It's time to clean it out and make yourself a wholetail profit. And in many cases, I'll reiterate it more than you're asking for the car retail. Absolutely. The broader arbitrage market will reveal it to the other best end or better end users.

Thank you to anybody that takes the time to get bored with these conversations. Have Fun everyone.

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

The VIN-Dow Podcast, Episode 11:  Leverage The Used Car Invoice and STOP Overtrading by Ignorance

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/accu-trade/

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

Check out the YouTube episode and other. 

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/accu-trade/

Previously, Bob spoke with Keith McCord from VIN-tel, an an OBD reader that decodes the truth of every VIN and instantly associates the diminished value in Accu-Trade. The transparency that is brought to the reality of every VIN has never been revealed before. 

"Every vehicle going through the shop is an opportunity.  Your bank account doesn't understand if it was a retail or a wholesale opportunity. " - Robert Hollenshead

Dealers can then use ACV, Backlot Cars, or their own auction Marketplace through Accu-trade if they were so inclined. 

The more you disclose the more a car brings, the less you ask, the more you get. 

Know what's happening to your consumers car before it drives into service. You can upload any spreadsheet to your Service Lane to automatically decode the true merits of the VIN. 

Your service lane is an immediate opportunity for you to acquire and market vehicles. 

Can your sales person justify why they need more $ for their customers trade? 

Not including your service department in vehicle acquisition is like eliminating a whole department at your dealership. Create the VIN-story and communicate it with the consumer. 

What are the three best places to buy a car? 

1. Direct from a consumers garage (the classified sites);
2. A car someone willingly traded;
3. A car that is parked at your dealership (in your service department

This episode is available on YouTube. 

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/accu-trade/

1:23 When did dealers start buying cars directly from the public? 

2:50 What is the epitome of the market that will never repeat itself? 

3:33 What two things happen when you get your dealer license? The whole world knows that you’re a pile of dirt; You become the ultimate optimist. 

4:02 Who does the automotive industry attract? Freedom lovers that aren’t afraid of work because they'll work as much as they want for themselves. 

5:07 “At what point (when) are we going to hit these barriers where we can’t do anymore?” - John Wolfe 

7:20 When would an optimist admit to things getting a little weird? The total unknown of everything The insanity going on with the division of people. The economic hit for 2 million people. Fancy cars are more desirable than ever before. 

11:24 What do you mean by the “mud” category of cars? 

13:39 Where can the average dealer leverage the liquidity of a platform? 

16:00 What is the definition of a smart buyer? 

18:15 Why can’t you put a proxy on anything in the market? 

19:13 If CarMax is bidding, they’ve touched the car. 

23:16 Why you don’t have to second guess your trade value… ever again. 

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/accu-trade/

"The rainbow of different needs of all categories of dealers it dictates that there has to be a common sensical, universal, agnostic set of solutions that let people have the capability of communicating with buyers and sellers, wholesale and retail." - Robert Hollenshead. 

Bob has built a suite of solutions that do just that: www.accu-trade.com 

Bob discusses how Carvana is selling partner inventory direct from dealers lots. They're doing the advertising and the source is happy to sell them this way. Carvana essentially becomes Amazon in this case. Carvana is agnostically listing cars that fit in a category with no cost of carrying the inventory. It no longer matters where the vehicle is located. The closest dealer facilitates the delivery. ie: more efficient distribution and a better consumer experience. 

Any OEM can be doing this right now. It's worked out for Amazon. The industry is going to have to create the logistical infrastructure necessary for dealers to sell inventory direct like Amazon. Truth is... there is no Amazon Prime for moving your inventory in 2021. But there are tools that can enable your dealership to do just that. For yourself, your dealer group, your OEM: https://accu-trade.com/ 

Need to build a logistic infrastructure for your dealership? See where your vehicles are and who can move them, right now: https://made-logistics.com/

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

Linked In:

 https://www.linkedin.com/company/accu-trade/

Target Trade, aka: adverse selection, or STRIV: Short Term Residual Insurance Value, an underwritten number that dealers can base a trade value on. 

Target Auction, aka: conscious selection. This value is what you would anticipate the vehicle bringing in an auction marketplace if the best end user was present. 

By adding a data-driven process you can trade cars without  FEAR or uncertainty. You make money when you acquire vehicles, not when you sell them. By acquiring vehicles based on their VIN-specific characteristics, you're able to avoid welding yourself into cars that you can't retail or wholesale your way out of. 

5:50 The hum-line or insurance number (target trade) gives the dealer confidence to call the car, then find the best end user. 

Does your appraisal process include an OBD reader for decoding the truth about each VIN? Know the status of the VIN before you acquire the vehicle to ensure profitability on every trade.  

8:00 What process will allow you to mitigate the risk of losing a customer? 

8:30 Target Retail based on the VIN-specific characteristics, mileage, equipment, colour, condition, history, keys, service history, etc in the retail market. Are you going to certify the car? That will bump up the relevant retail ask. 

It's not based on what your neighbour has going on, it's based on what you'd have to pay to replace that vehicle in it's current condition. 

10:50 Who is the best end user? Bob shares a story of one of his friends that just took in an S-Class Mercedes at their Toyota dealership. It's competitively priced but the dealer can't sell the car. Problem # 1) He's in Florida and the car has no AC. Problem #2) He's only got one of them. 

What does this reveal? He is not the best end user. 

The theory that everybody is the best retail dealer for every car is simply not true. There is typically a better end user. 

19:50 Be careful when you're buying. Some cars are colour sensitive, equipment sensitive, history sensitive. You need you to input these data points. It's not sustainable to buy trades without fully understanding the VIN-specific characteristics. 

The auction reveals a better end user that is willing to overlook certain items and pay the ultimate amount of money for that vehicle. 

Do you want to pay the ultimate amount of money before presenting the consumer with the condition of their vehicle to rationally understand where your offer is coming from?

Like what you hear? Check out this episode and many others on YouTube. 

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/accu-trade/

(( Tune into this episode and many others on YouTube. ))

The probability of you making money in the wholesale market is not the same as it is in the retail market. 

The same commodity... cars. Different probability of luck in the marketplace. How to interpret full retail data so you can understand the true value of every VIN. 

Understand the pedigree of the car when you acquire it so you always have an exit strategy. Dealers can leverage tools and common sense around how deep you're going to go into a unit. 

Has it been exposed to the broader market? You're not picking something up from the shop by buying a retail ready piece. 

What's going to happen when you don't sell it? You don't have an exit strategy or curb appeal. 

If you know where a car has been on the retail market, why do you believe you can get more for it? Reveal where the vehicle has been and for how long. See current days on market of any VIN in North America with Accu-Trade. 

Watch live auctions using the VIN-dow extension so you never buy a unit without knowing it's current in market retail status. Leverage retail market knowledge to play smart in your market. If we go into another shut down, people will go back to needing cars. Desirability of some vehicles will not go up until scarcity sets in and the factories shut down again... if that happens. 

If you were able to buy cars with a wholesale exit strategy available on every one... your used car lot would never be stale. IF you get caught in a market shift and you have to If your retail inventory is jammed with cars that haven't sold in 60 plus days, and a customer drives one in to trade. You have to buy the car with a wholesale strategy in mind. You won't be able to sell it if you haven't been able to sell the other ones you bought.

How to create desirability around a unit to make it appealing enough for competitive interest? In the lanes or between the sales people at your dealership. 

If you're buying cars online, can you ensure that it hasn't been in the market for the last 365 days? Check your retail history to understand how many customers have already seen it on the market. 

Get the VIN-Dow Chrome Extension for any online auction, Adesa, Manheim, EBlock, TradeRev, CarGurus, BackLots, vAuto. Free to all Accu-Trade subscribers. 

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.

How did dealers think about wholesale profit 40 years ago and what has changed since then? 

What if there was a process to help the consumer understand where their trade in value was coming from? 

New car dealers don't look at every car as an opportunity to make a profit. If it doesn't fit their retail makeup, they often assume that the vehicle is going to be a loss. That doesn't have to be the case if you have a process in place to protect your profits. 

6:15 The most successful companies are not looking to break even wholesale, they recognize that there is a wholesale opportunity on every VIN.  

If there is no rationality in your trade-in process, it's hard to manage your trades and avoid welding yourself into a trade. By adding a process, everyone will be able to justify the value of the trade. ie: your customer can understand, the dealer can understand and the sales person can understand. With a process, you set the dealership up to succeed by taking in trades at what they're worth without the fear of losing the deal. With a process that clearly justifies value, nobody can argue that the car isn't blue... when the car is blue. 

With a process, you can make wholesale profit. Why wouldn't you consider this opportunity? The opportunity to trade a car for what it's worth rather than out of fear. 

10:30 The theory of not making any money wholesale, is crazy! Why would any stakeholder be ok with not trying to make a profit in every silo they can at the dealership? 

12:07 "If you ask too little, you get too much." The piranha effect is on. Carvana puts a little blood in the water every weekend, log in on Sunday and see for yourself. 

13:40 You'll never see Carmax run a car off the money, that's why they convert 99% of the time. This ensures that the buyers never experience bidder fatigue. 

14:20 Will you go to hell if you make a wholesale profit? 

16:10 You make profit when you acquire, not when you sell. There is an opportunity to create a wholesale profit on every VIN that you acquire by adding a process at your dealership. The best opportunities are right under your nose... Do you have a service lane acquisition strategy?

18:04 The best opportunities for wholesale profits are in mileage or condition challenged car that is sitting in your service department. 

19:50 Reveal the facts and you can have a profitable wholesale department at your dealership based on transparency, not ignorance. 

23:00 Are you going to ask too much or too little for a car on the block? If RHAS is capable of turning mega profits year over year, so are you! 

25:12 Dealerships that leverage the process without fear of making wholesale profit will come out ahead. 

Next week ... How are Canadian vehicles seen in the US market and how can dealers benefit from this opportunity? 

The VIN-dow Podcast is brought to you by Accu-Trade. Do you want to improve your vehicle acquisitions with transactional transparency for your customers? What about the trade-in process? 

Developed by the largest independent wholesale dealer in history, Robert Hollenshead. It’s the same tool they use every day to do their job. Every lesson learned from over $20 Billion in transactions and 900 cumulative years in wholesale is built into the platform. All made easy to understand and available for anyone to use.

Robert Hollenshead is a serial entrepreneur, the World's Largest Automotive wholesaler (R. Hollenshead Auto Sales) and visionary behind disruptive automotive industry solutions such as: 

Accu-Trade: www.accu-trade.com

Galves Market Data: https://www.galves.com/

MADE Logistics: https://made-logistics.com/

Headstart VMS, LLC: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/headstartvms/

MADE Financial: https://www.rhollensheadautosales.com/made-financial/

AutoMoto Social: https://www.automotosocial.com/

AutoMoto HR: https://www.automotohr.com/

WreckCheck.com: https://www.wreckcheck.com/

PuroClenz: https://puroclenz.com

Robert has been and continues to be a game-changing thought leader in the way vehicles are bought and sold today.