The Visionary Creating Unusual Profit Opportunities in Automotive | Car Dealership Guy Podcast
发布时间 2024-06-04 17:00:36 来源
摘要
Welcome to the Car Dealership Guy Podcast. In this episode, I'm speaking with Tony Wanderon, CEO of APCO Holdings, home of ...
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中英文字稿 
From a risk perspective, I would tell dealers don't ever re-insure your gap program. It's no secret dealers have started facing profitability headwinds and searching for new ways for their businesses to succeed. But one industry visionary is laser focused on creating new profit opportunities. Today I'm speaking with Tony Wanda on CEO of Apco Holdings, home of EasyCare, an F&I solution for car dealers. Don't forget to click subscribe so you never miss an episode.
从风险角度来看，我会告诉经销商们永远不要为你的差额保险计划再投保。众所周知，经销商们已经开始面临盈利困难，并在寻找新的业务成功方式。但有一位行业先锋正在集中精力创造新的盈利机会。今天我将与Apco Holdings，也就是EasyCare的CEO Tony Wanda对话。EasyCare是一个为汽车经销商提供的财务和保险解决方案。别忘了点击订阅，这样你就不会错过任何一期节目。
But before we dive into the show, this episode is brought to you by CDK Global. CDK Global has been empowering nearly 15,000 dealers with the tools and technology they need to build deeper relationships with customers. Their team is keenly aware of the state of dealership technology and while many vendors promise seamless experiences between your CRM, DMS, digital retail and fixed ops, most of these bolt-on solutions tend to break workflows and cause more harm than good. That is why CDK has launched a new dealership experience platform. This new integrated software consists of everything you need to operate a dealership officially while delivering an unparalleled experience to your customers. Basically, everything working together, not separate, one system to run your dealership as opposed to 10. CDK developed it with an outside-end approach listening to dealers every step of the way.
但是在我们深入节目之前，本期节目的赞助商是CDK Global。CDK Global一直致力于为近15000家经销商提供所需的工具和技术，帮助他们与客户建立更深入的关系。他们的团队对经销店技术的现状非常了解。尽管许多供应商承诺在客户关系管理、经销商管理系统、数字零售和固定业务之间实现无缝连接，但多数这些外挂解决方案往往会打破工作流程，弊大于利。因此，CDK推出了一种新的经销店体验平台。这款新的一体化软件包含了运营经销店所需的一切，同时为客户提供无与伦比的体验。基本上是让所有系统协同工作，而不是各自为政，一个系统运行你的经销店，而不是十个。CDK在开发时采用了由外到内的方法，倾听经销商的每一步需求。
You can learn more about CDK's dealership experience platform by visiting CDK Global.com slash DXP or clicking the link in the show notes below. This episode is also brought to you by Cars Commerce. The platform is simplified everything about buying and selling cars, including the quote unquote follow-up. Let me explain. Dealers, fast and effective follow-up is crucial for converting leads into customers. But here's the problem. 40% of shoppers report that they are not getting timely or helpful responses from dealerships.
你可以访问 CDK Global.com 斜杠 DXP 或点击以下节目说明中的链接，了解更多关于 CDK 的经销商体验平台的信息。本期节目还由 Cars Commerce 赞助。该平台简化了关于买卖汽车的一切，包括所谓的“跟进”。让我解释一下。对于经销商来说，快速而有效的跟进对将潜在客户转化为顾客至关重要。但问题是，有 40% 的购物者表示，他们没有从经销商那里得到及时或有用的回应。
This is a huge problem because your own team could be leading four out of every 10 sales opportunities on the table. Cars Commerce makes it simple to measure and improve your follow-up performance. A Cars.com experience report tracks the percentage of leads your team is responding to and how customers rate those responses. While dealer inspires retailing technology enables your team to quickly text follow-ups with personalized financing options to make the most out of every opportunity. To learn more about how you can measure and improve your team's follow-up performance, go to carscommerce.ink slash experience or click the link in the show notes below.
这是一个大问题，因为你们自己的团队可能会错过每10个销售机会中的4个。Cars Commerce让你轻松测量和提升跟进表现。Cars.com的体验报告会追踪你们团队对潜在客户的回复率以及客户对这些回复的评价。而"dealer inspires retailing"技术可以让你的团队快速发送包含个性化金融选项的跟进短信，以充分利用每一个机会。要了解更多关于如何测量和提升你们团队跟进表现的信息，请访问carscommerce.ink/experience或点击下方节目说明中的链接。
Lastly, I want to thank EasyCare for coming on as a guest and also supporting this podcast. Tony Wanda Ron on the CDG podcast. Tony, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Good to have you on. I was looking at your website. I started at GWC logo that brought back some memories from the independent dealership days. Yeah, we've been part of that organization now myself for the last 15 months and they're an amazing group of people and spread their wings out through the independent dealer channel and starting to expand into some of our franchise dealers as well.
最后，我想感谢EasyCare作为嘉宾参与并支持这个播客。Tony Wanda和Ron参加了CDG播客。Tony，欢迎你。谢谢。谢谢邀请我。很高兴你能来。我看了你们的网站，看到了GWC的标志，让我想起了那些年在独立经销商工作的日子。是的，我已经在那个组织工作了15个月了，他们是一群了不起的人，不仅在独立经销商渠道中大展拳脚，现在也开始向一些特许经销商扩展。
So excited to hear that you were a customer of ours at one particular point. Oh yeah, early adopter back in the day. You've had your hands in quite a few things and you've been very successful in many parts of this industry. I found it very interesting as I was looking through a background. You were a part of a Take 5 oil change just as an example, something that I didn't even imagine. I was like, oh wow, Tony's involved in that. You had EasyCare for, I want to say close to a decade, got acquired by APCO Holdings of which you know, CEO. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey?
很高兴听到你曾是我们的客户之一。哦，是的，很久以前你就是早期的用户。你涉足了很多领域，并且在这个行业的许多方面都取得了成功。在查看你的背景时，我发现了一些非常有趣的事情。比如，你参与了Take 5的换油服务，这是我之前完全没有想到的。我当时心想，哇，托尼也参与了这个项目。你在EasyCare工作了近十年，这家公司后来被APCO Holdings收购了，你现在还是他们的CEO。能否跟我们聊聊你的职业历程呢？
Yeah, I'll back up a bit. I started off in the business through an agency down in Miami and that company, and I'll go through a little deeper, but that company was acquired by Allstate and I ran that for 11 years. I left Allstate in 2011 and started a company with my sister, Courtney, called Family First Dealer Services and we sold that company after two years to a private equity group, Trives. Trives was our first private equity investor that came in and they also owned a bunch of other companies as well. One of them was Take 5 oil change. So Troy Templeton, who is managing partner at the time, felt that it would be good for companies within the portfolio to be able to sit on the board of those companies and help drive profitability and business for them.
好的，我来稍微解释一下。我最初是在迈阿密的一家机构进入这个行业的，那家公司后来被Allstate收购了，我在那家公司干了11年。2011年我离开了Allstate，和我妹妹Courtney一起创立了一家公司，叫做Family First Dealer Services。两年后，我们把公司卖给了一家私人股本集团Trives。Trives是我们的首个私人股本投资者，他们还拥有其他多家公司，其中之一是Take 5油变化公司。当时的管理合伙人Troy Templeton认为，让他投资组合中的公司在各自的董事会中占有一席之地，能促进这些公司的盈利和业务发展。
So Take 5 was similar to us on the service contract side, working with vehicles and working with customers on the product side. So it was more of a relationship through Trives than it was a singular focus on being on the board of Take 5. You were the CEO of National AutoCare. It got acquired by APCO Holdings. Today you have APCO, you have EasyCare.
所以，Take 5 在服务合同方面与我们相似，处理车辆并与客户打交道。因此，通过 Trives 与 Take 5 的关系比单纯担任 Take 5 的董事更为重要。你曾是 National AutoCare 的首席执行官，该公司被 APCO Holdings 收购。现在你有 APCO 和 EasyCare。
Can you give us just a clear picture of why this happened, what brought you to this point in your career? I think as we've discussed, we've been part of a couple of private equity companies. We've done five transactions over the past 25 years and those have accelerated over the last few years as Family First was acquired by National AutoCare and merged in. We became CEO of that company.
你能给我们一个清晰的解释，说明这件事为什么发生，以及是什么促使你在职业生涯中走到这一步的吗？我认为我们讨论过，我们参与了几家私募股权公司。在过去的25年里，我们完成了五笔交易，并且这些交易在过去的几年中有所加速，因为Family First被National AutoCare收购并合并了进来。我们成为了那家公司的首席执行官。
We transacted again four years later and sold to Lovell Minic and grew that business through that growth and through that strategy four years into that relationship. We went back to market and APCO was one of the companies that were very interested in bolting on our organization to theirs to become one of the larger players in the marketplace. Since January 3rd of 2023, we've been part of that organization of leading that company, which as you said encompasses easy care, national auto care, GWC, Relentless and our most recent personal fusion acquisition. We have seven different companies under the APCO holding company name of which I control CEO.
四年后我们又进行了交易，将公司卖给了 Lovell Minic，并在接下来的四年里通过增长和策略发展了这项业务。之后，我们重新进入市场，APCO是其中一家非常有兴趣将我们公司并入他们的公司，以便成为市场上的大公司之一。从2023年1月3日起，我们成为了这个组织的一部分，正如你所说，这个组织包括 Easy Care、National Auto Care、GWC、Relentless 以及我们最近收购的 Personal Fusion。我们现在在 APCO 控股公司旗下有七家不同的公司，我担任 CEO。
Tell us a little bit about what do you do today at APCO? You have multiple companies as you just mentioned. How do all these different companies impact different parts of our industry? We have a motto, it's protecting what moves you. Anything that moves, we're looking to protect and that could be in the RV space, that could be in the power sport position, independent use car dealers, franchise dealers, manufacturers, financial institutions. Really the credit unions, the encompassing of all the different areas of support that work within an auto or distribution channel that has a power sport or RV as I said.
请告诉我们一些你今天在APCO的工作内容。你刚才提到你有多家公司。所有这些不同的公司是如何影响我们行业的不同部分的？我们的口号是，保护你的移动物。在任何移动的领域，我们都致力于保护。这包括房车（RV）领域、电动运动领域、独立二手车经销商、特许经销商、制造商、金融机构等。特别是信用合作社，以及所有在汽车或包含电动运动或房车的分销渠道中提供支持的不同领域。
So our focus has really been over the past 15 months is to try to bring all the companies together from a branding perspective. We just did a rebranding of our easy care brand. Everything will be falling under that. GWC will remain independent from a branding perspective because their distribution channel is within the independent space and they've grown a very strong brand in that particular area. And our RV and power sport programs operate under our member care program and are managing through our Relentless relationship too, who we purchase out of Indiana.
我们过去15个月的重点一直是从品牌角度将所有公司整合起来。我们刚刚重新为我们的Easy Care品牌进行了一次品牌重塑，所有相关内容都会归在这个品牌下。而GWC在品牌方面将保持独立，因为他们的分销渠道属于独立领域，在这个特定领域已经发展出非常强大的品牌。我们的房车和动力运动项目则是在我们的Member Care计划下运作，并通过在印第安纳州收购的Relentless关系进行管理。
I think it's important to know we've been on a very aggressive M&A strategy over the last four years and they've acquired well over 30 different agencies and companies to help us grow our business from an organic standpoint and an organic standpoint.
我认为重要的是，我们在过去四年里一直采取非常积极的并购策略。他们已经收购了30多家不同的机构和公司，以帮助我们从内部和外部角度来发展业务。
You've said something interesting which I've been hearing a lot which is RVs and power sports. A lot of dealers have been asking me about this. Very general questions about what's happening in that market, its growth. On the other hand, I've also seen lots of dealers just talk about that diversification in this market. There's a lot of uncertainty in the macro thinking about EVs, direct to consumer, how that impacts dealers. What type of growth are you seeing in that segment of our market?
你提到了一件有趣的事情，我最近也经常听到，那就是房车和动力运动。很多经销商一直在问我这个市场的情况，比如它的增长。另一方面，我也看到很多经销商在谈论这个市场的多样化。对于电动车、直接面向消费者的销售模式，以及这些因素对经销商的影响，人们在宏观上有很多不确定性。你在我们市场的这一部分看到了什么样的增长？
Obviously, it's not traditional automobiles but just when we think about power sports and RVs and you clearly have a very close your fingers on the pulse here. What are you seeing in terms of growth? It's hard to put your fingers around what has happened since COVID. If you think about what really did spike RV and power sport and marine was the drive around being with your family and by yourself, not going to a hotel, not staying in a crowded place. Our V's exploded. We saw growth 30, 40, 50, 60 percent in some cases over 100 percent where dealers just couldn't get enough inventory. People were lined up at the doors and they were purchasing RVs or travel trailers, tow behinds, whatever it might be. On the power sports side, people wanted to spend time outside and they wanted to enjoy the time that they had available to them. Power sports really grew tremendously in multiple different areas around the country.
显然，我们不是在谈论传统汽车，而是当我们考虑到动力运动和房车时，你显然对此非常了解。你对增长趋势有什么看法？自从COVID疫情以来，很难具体说明发生了什么。如果你想想到底是什么促使了房车、动力运动和船舶的激增，那就是人们希望与家人或自己在一起，避免去酒店，不在拥挤的地方停留。房车市场爆发了。我们看到了30%、40%、50%、甚至60%的增长，有些情况下甚至超过了100%，以至于经销商根本无法获得足够的库存。人们排队等在门口，购买房车、旅行拖车、拖挂式拖车，等等。在动力运动方面，人们希望花时间在户外，享受他们能利用的时间。动力运动在全国各地的多个领域都取得了显著增长。
As far as the dealers looking for diversification, many of our dealers are in the power sports side either owning Harley-Davidson dealerships, Off-road Polaris type dealerships as well. One of the great things I think of a car dealer going in and purchasing one of those distribution channels is their sophistication and understanding of how to move inventory, how to market their products, how to get digital. It really does help build their market share.
对于想要多元化发展的经销商来说，我们的许多经销商涉足动力运动领域，比如拥有哈雷戴维森（Harley-Davidson）或越野Polaris类型的经销店。我认为汽车经销商购买这些分销渠道的一大优势在于，他们在库存管理、产品营销和数字化推广方面非常有经验和意识。这确实有助于提高他们的市场份额。
I think consumers have grown accustomed to having what they want. When they want it, RVs are a little bit different, especially if you're talking about class A or B vehicles, which are the bigger, larger RVs, very expensive. Interest rates have had somewhat of a negative effect on that, but it is an acquisition or purchase that you make because you want it not because you need it.
我认为消费者已经习惯了随时得到他们想要的东西。但房车有点不同，尤其是你在谈论A类或B类的较大、较贵的房车时。利率在这方面有一些负面影响，但买房车是因为你想要它而不是因为你需要它。
You're probably in those particular spaces a little bit more susceptible to economic issues that happen and puts you in a position to be thoughtful about it. I think it's a great investment and has been for many, many of our dealers around the country. Got it. What are the general economics of these businesses? First of all, two sides here. When I think about your involvement in VSC products, we know traditional car sale, you're going for the vehicle service contract, for the gap insurance, you're going for the tire and wheel, and on and on and on. What does that look like on the RVs side and the power sports side? Is it similar? Is it different? Yeah.
你可能在这些特定领域中更容易受到经济问题的影响，这让你不得不更加仔细地思考这个问题。我认为这是一项很好的投资，而且多年来在全国许多经销商中都证明了这一点。明白了。这些业务的一般经济状况如何？首先，我们这里有两个方面。谈到你参与的车辆服务合同（VSC）产品，我们知道传统汽车销售中你会推销车辆服务合同、差额保险、轮胎和车轮保险等。那么在房车（RVs）和动力运动（power sports）方面，这个情况是类似的吗？有区别吗？对。
The products itself are fairly similar when you look at it from a structural perspective, but there could be some things that are a little bit different and unique because of that customer. It could be towing. It could be because on an RV, think about it, they're not going to be within 20 to 30 miles of a dealership in many cases, or they're traveling during the summer months. So you have to take care of that customer in a different way. They're going to be handled by probably a dealer that's not associated to your store. The products might have different roadside coverages.
从结构上看，这些产品本身相当相似，但由于顾客的需求，可能会有一些稍微不同和独特的地方。这可能与拖车有关。想想看，对于房车来说，很多情况下他们不会在距离经销商20到30英里的范围内，或者他们会在夏季旅行。所以你必须以不同的方式照顾这些顾客。处理他们问题的可能是与您的店铺无关的经销商。此外，这些产品可能会有不同的道路救援保障。
There might be different limits of liability. And because RVs, when they are built, they're built with different components in everyone. We're a vehicle. We know if we buy a Camaro, we know what's in that Camaro. In an RV, we don't. An RV could have 15 different refrigerators in it, different appliances, different mechanisms, different interiors. So it's much more custom and handling the customer in that perspective is a little bit takes a little bit longer, but it also takes some longer to have those vehicles repaired because there is continuing to be a shortage of technicians in those spaces and really all over the industry.
可能存在不同的责任限额。而且，因为房车在制造时，每辆都会使用不同的组件。我们知道如果买一辆科迈罗（Camaro），我们知道里面用的是什么。而房车则不一样，一辆房车可能有15种不同的冰箱、不同的电器、不同的机械装置、不同的内饰。所以它更加定制化，从这个角度来说，处理客户需求会花费更长的时间。同样地，由于技术人员短缺，不仅在房车领域，而是在整个行业，因此修理这些车辆也会花费更多时间。
When it comes out with push comes to shove, do you see that trend just continuing to grow in light of the fact that we're several years past the rush? I say that growth from top line sales and also profitability. How do you see that trend continue? No, I listen, I think dealers are consolidating everywhere. And part of that is consolidating things that are very similar. And again, protecting what moves you or purchasing what moves you seems to be really resonating pretty well in that auto dealer space. Again, I have one dealer who has purchased probably 35 different rooftops and half a dozen of them have been Harley-Davidson locations. And they're not only from the profitability perspective, but just from the experience of the ownership of a Harley store and the lifestyle that that brings and the different types of events that you can do with the customer there versus what you do with an automobile.
当事情变得紧迫时，你是否认为这种趋势会继续增长，考虑到我们已经过了高峰期好几年了？我指的是顶线销售的增长和盈利能力。你怎么看这种趋势的延续？是的，我听说，认为经销商正在各处进行整合。其中一部分是整合非常相似的东西。此外，保护或购买能带动你销售的东西似乎在汽车经销商领域非常受欢迎。我有一位经销商，他可能已经购买了35个不同的门店，其中有六七家是哈雷戴维森店面。这不仅仅是从盈利的角度来看，还包括拥有哈雷店的体验以及这种体验带来的生活方式，以及你可以和顾客一起举办的各种活动，这与汽车店面截然不同。
I think it treats a lot of dealers and puts them in a position to really help during challenging times be profitable where maybe a dealer before that wasn't or also to be able to expand and get better cost control because of the size of their organization. So it's really not just on the power side, it's on the auto side too. Consolidation is here to stay. And I think dealers are looking for good investments anywhere they can because they have had such great years over the past several years and looking to invest in growing their organizations.
我认为这一举措让许多经销商受益，不仅能在艰难时期实现盈利，还帮助他们在原本可能难以做到的情况下扩展业务和更好地控制成本。因为他们的组织规模较大，所以不仅在能源领域，在汽车领域也是如此。兼并整合是大势所趋。我觉得经销商们一直在寻找好的投资机会，因为过去几年他们的业绩非常出色，现在他们正在寻求通过投资来扩大自己的组织。
You mentioned the term want to have versus need to have. And what came to mind right away was I had a conversation with Rick Reicart from Ohio from Reicart Automotive. And I won't forget he said something that really stuck with me said, you know, the power sports business is great, it's strong margin. But you have to remember, it's a customer that they want to keep investing in this vehicle. It's not like a hey, you buy a gap insurance, a warranty and you're done. And so really, really big opportunity if you do it correctly. And again, that's the big if right because it is more niche and you got to specialize in it, but really big opportunity.
你提到了 "想要的" 和 "需要的" 这两个术语。而我立刻想到的是，我曾与俄亥俄州Reicart Automotive的Rick Reicart有过一次对话。我不会忘记他说过的一句话，真的是让我印象深刻。他说，你知道吗，动力运动业务（如摩托车、全地形车等）非常棒，有高利润率。但是你必须记住，这是一个需要客户持续在这个车辆上投资的领域。这不像买一个间隙保险或保修就完事了。因此，如果你做得正确的话，这确实是一个巨大的机会。当然，这是个很大的“如果”，因为这更偏向一个细分市场，你需要在这方面专门化，但确实是一个巨大的机会。
And I think all that said, it just really big testament to continuing to see dealers horizontally integrating here with all these different types of businesses where traditionally it wasn't a conversation that I remember having with many dealers as they spoke about growth, it was like the traditional hey, let's just acquire dealership and another one. Now it's you know, it's gotten a lot more creative.
我认为，综上所述，这实际上是一个很大的证明，说明经销商们正持续进行横向整合，涉足各种不同类型的业务。在传统上，我记得和许多经销商谈论增长时，话题通常是"嘿，让我们再收购一家经销店"。而现在，他们的思路变得更加有创意了。
I do want to transition to dealership FNI, which is where you spend most of your time. What are you currently seeing in the market today, you know, in the FNI office, our industry to just a table set with the audience, dealer profitability has declined over the past year, year and a half about 25% on a net basis. It's still over two x greater than 2019. It's outpaced inflation. So you know, in an aggregate, dealer profitability is still doing very well.
我确实想谈谈汽车经销商金融保险（FNI）部门，因为大部分时间我都花在这里。请问你当前在市场上看到什么趋势？在FNI办公室或者我们这个行业来说，让我们与观众分享一下，目前经销商的盈利在过去一年到一年半内已经下降了大约25%。但相比2019年，盈利仍然高出两倍多，超过了通货膨胀的速度。所以总的来说，经销商的盈利状况还是非常不错的。
Of course, a major driver of profitability, as we know, is the back end, the products, and it's not the actual car. And so, let's just starting very high level, what are you seeing in terms of dealer profitability trends with respect to FNI vehicle service contracts gap and all the other products offered? Look, I think you hit it on the head. It's been coming from where we've come from, where we have limited supply of vehicles, customers were paying less plus in many cases, and happy to do that.
当然，我们都知道，盈利能力的主要驱动力在于后台部分，也就是各种产品，而不是真正的汽车本身。那么，我们先从一个很高的层次开始，你怎么看待关于经销商盈利趋势中，与FNI（金融保险）车辆服务合同缺口以及所有其他产品相关的情况？你说得很对。从我们所在的情况来看，车辆供应有限，客户支付的费用较低，而且在很多情况下，他们还很乐意这样做。
Attachment rates for the products in the FNI department were at peak levels, because I think people had affordability was in line, interest rates were low, dealers were experiencing just monumental years. Coming out of that, what we always have told our dealers at that time is, hey, realize that we're going to come back to normalize interest rates. We're going to get to normalize depreciation, which is honestly, in my opinion, the most critical area right now, the challenge that you have is negative equity that's growing on a daily basis, where you had a vehicle two years ago that was worth more than what you paid for two years before that.
FNI部门的产品附加率处于峰值水平，因为我认为当时人们的支付能力相符，利率较低，汽车经销商们也正在经历极好的一年。对此，我们一直告诉经销商们的是，要意识到利率会回归正常水平，折旧率也会恢复到正常水平。在我看来，现在最关键的问题是负资产日益增加。两年前购买的车辆在当时价值高于两年前你支付的金额。
You now have a vehicle that's probably down five, six, seven thousand dollars from the peak point, and now going into negative equity. We're seeing just huge negative equity swings, which puts pressure on them being able to go out and purchase another vehicle. Interest rates being higher, which puts it at a more expensive monthly payment, or going out longer term, and then effectively causing that negative equity to even go worse, because you're buying a new car today with negative equity carryover, and then you're going into the future with a lower amount and a higher interest rate.
现在，你的车辆价值可能已经从最高点下降了五千、六千、甚至七千美元，导致负资产（资不抵债）的情况。我们看到巨大的负资产波动，这使得他们难以再购买另一辆车。利率更高，导致每月还款额增加，或者需要更长时间来还款，这实际上会使负资产情况更糟糕。因为今天你在负资产的情况下购买了一辆新车，未来你将面临更低的价值和更高的利率。
That customer is going to take longer to come into some positive equity to purchase a car. Overall, dealers are still, as you said, very profitable, primarily focusing on fixed operations. Fixed operations, if you look at the inflation rate on parts, labor, in some cases have doubled over the past three years. So dealers are starting to generate vehicles out on the road on average 12 years now, so those cars need repairs, and fixed operations is that place to really drive profitability when you might be having a little bit more of a challenge on the front-end side.
那个顾客要花更长时间才能获得足够的正资产来买车。总体来说，正如你所说，经销商依然非常盈利，主要专注于固定业务。如果看看过去三年间的零部件和劳动力的通胀率，在某些情况下已经翻倍了。因此，经销商们开始制造平均寿命为12年的车，这些车需要维修，而固定业务是一个真正能够在前端销售遇到一些挑战时推动盈利的地方。
Not to say that anyone's hurting. We're nowhere close to where we were in 2008 or 9, but we're in a position of kind of change, investing, having to invest in digital retailing, having to invest on the training and development, and the regulatory things that are going on in the marketplace, looking for ways to reduce their costs, and that's why M&A, an acquisition on the auto dealer side is happening, because you can have synergy costs tremendous if you really do focus your attention on that, and you can drive underperforming stores at a much higher level.
这并不是说有人遇到困难。我们的情况远比2008或2009年要好得多，但我们正处于一种变革的阶段，需要投资于数字零售、培训和发展，以及市场上的监管事务，很大程度上是在寻找降低成本的方法。这就是为什么在汽车经销商方面会发生并购，因为如果你真的专注于此，协同效应可以极大地降低成本，同时也能显著提升表现不佳的门店业绩。
The dealers overall are still very strong, and in particular markets, and depending on the manufacturer, if you look at Honda and Toyota, they're still doing really well. We're seeing a pause in EV, which I think is good for in many different reasons, but overall, I'd say dealers are in a, they're about 80%, 70% of where they were. My concern would be is that you still see that negative equity drop, as I said, and customers are locked out of affordability and just having challenges with credit.
经销商整体上仍然很强劲，尤其是在特定的市场上。根据制造商的不同，如果你看看本田和丰田，它们仍然表现得非常好。我们看到电动车方面出现了一些停顿，我认为这在很多方面都是好的。但总的来说，我认为经销商大概处于它们之前水平的70%到80%左右。我的担忧是，正如我所说的，你仍然能看到负资产的下降，客户在负担能力方面受限，而且在信贷上面也遇到了一些挑战。
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You have multiple VSC companies under your roof. Why do you think the pause in EVs is a good thing? Well, I mean, from our perspective, I don't think anybody realized what the true risk was. There's all this comment around how EVs are much less costly to drive. For our average claim, on an EV is $11,000. Average claim for an MDI for service contract claim. So you're talking about much more sophistication, much higher cost for components, much longer it takes for parts to come in on EVs. Some technicians are not as experienced as probably they need to be and will be as time goes on. But what's happening now is I think it really does it.
你们公司旗下有多家VSC（车辆服务合同）公司。为什么你认为暂停推行电动汽车是件好事？嗯，从我们的角度来看，我认为没人真正意识到其中的风险。有很多声音说电动汽车的驾驶成本低得多。然而，我们处理的电动汽车平均索赔金额是$11,000。对于常规车辆服务合同的平均索赔金额是$11,000。电动汽车的部件更加复杂，成本更高，而且零部件的到货时间更长。一些技师的经验也可能不足，但随着时间的推移他们会逐渐提高。不过，现在的情况是，我认为暂停推行真的是有好处的。
We've gotten to a point of the cost factors are just so out of whack. And that's why I think you're seeing these slashes in incentives or reductions in MSRP's on a lot of these vehicles. I mean, if you look at Tesla, it's taken three or four or eight or cost reductions over the past six months or so, 12 months. The market's just changing dramatically. I think what the factories were trying to push on the dealers to really invest in their facilities for EV has taken a little bit of a pause. I think they're great vehicles and they'll be there forever than I've gone away. But I think it takes a little time to kind of ingest it and understand it and really start to determine what the risk is of selling the EV versus the NIC unit.
我们已经到了一个成本因素完全失控的地步。这就是为什么现在你会看到很多车辆的激励措施被削减，或者厂商建议零售价（MSRP）降低的原因。如果你看看特斯拉，过去六个月或者十二个月里，它已经做了三、四、甚至八次的降价。市场在急剧变化。我认为工厂试图推动经销商在电动车（EV）设施上进行大量投资的计划已经暂停了一些时间。我认为电动车是很棒的产品，它们将会长期存在，不会消失。但我觉得需要一些时间来消化理解这一变化，并真正开始确定销售电动车相比传统燃油车的风险到底有多大。
Do you think based on what you just said, what's driving these costs, right? I guess first question is what's your average claim on a non-electric vehicle, whether it be hybrid, which is partial electric or internal combustion? What's your average claim there? Between $1,500 and $2,000.
你觉得基于你刚才说的，这些成本是由什么驱动的，对吗？我想第一个问题是，对于非电动汽车，无论是部分电动的混合动力车还是内燃机车，你的平均理赔是多少？在1500美元到2000美元之间。
Wow. So that's very meaningful. That's like over 5x greater. Now, so what's driving that? Is this something that you think the market can over time absorb and just get better at and it comes down significantly? What's really driving that 5x increase? Yeah, look, even when I see, so I can go back and I've been doing this for 37, 38 years now, any new component that would come out new, so when you went from a standard headlight to an LED headlight to now what we have, those lights went from $100 to $1,000 because there was no aftermarket ability. So there was what I wanted to set it for and how much over time would it come down by another competitor coming into the market to replace those headlights? Just take as an example, 10 years ago, you didn't really have this brain unit with an 18-inch screen on your dashboard. You had analog and older technology that was in those vehicles at that time.
哇，那真的很有意义。增加了超过5倍。那是什么原因导致的呢？你认为市场能随着时间的推移吸收这种变化并逐渐改善，使成本大幅下降吗？到底是什么导致了这5倍的增长？
是这样的，我回想过去，我在这个行业已经干了37、38年了，每当有新部件问世，比如从普通大灯到LED大灯，再到现在的产品，这些大灯的价格从100美元涨到1000美元，因为当时没有替换市场的选择。所以我可以随意定价，而随着时间的推移，通过其他竞争者进入市场来取代那些大灯，价格也会慢慢下降。举个例子，10年前，你的仪表盘上不会有带18英寸屏幕的中控系统。那时的车辆都配备的是模拟和较老的技术。
Now we're seeing, you know, if we lost a radio before, it was $200 and now it's $2,500, right? If that radio is bad, that's really tied into the overall control system of the vehicle. So the sophistication and the lack of aftermarket products put us at a peak point. I'll use an example when a new technology comes out on a TV, you know, it used to be via a 55-inch TV set for $4,000. Now you can buy it for $400 or less with better quality. So competition drives down costs. I would expect that they would happen over the next several years on the EV side too. Right now, you know, in my mind would be buyer beware. And if you do buy it, you should buy a service contract.
现在我们看到，如果以前我们损坏了一台收音机，它的价格是200美元，而现在则是2500美元，对吧？如果那台收音机坏了，它其实影响的是整个车辆的控制系统。所以这种复杂性和缺乏售后市场产品使我们处于一个峰值。我用一个例子来说明，当一项新技术出现在电视上时，以前一台55英寸的电视要价4000美元。现在你可以用400美元甚至更少的钱买到质量更好的电视。所以竞争会压低成本。我预计在未来几年，电动车方面也会出现类似的情况。现在呢，我觉得买家需要小心。如果你要购买的话，应该买一个服务合同。
Yeah, look, I think technology, the euro to your point is generally deflationary. There's this cool chart online you can find where it shows you like the prices of things over the last decade. And you see like just like TVs, everything just plummeting. So technology is definitely deflationary. But I want to think from like a from an optimistic perspective, like do you have any dealers in your network that are using your products and doing very well with EVs? Like where's the opportunity? If I'm putting my, you know, capitalist hat on right now, and I'm saying, okay, so clearly I've spoken to many dealers that are just not touching EVs right now. If you listen to my prior podcast from last week, the dealer on the pod specifically said, and by the way, very sophisticated to you to deal are very data driven. He's like, I won't touch it. And when I hear that, I think opportunity.
是的，我认为从技术和经济角度来看，技术总体上有通缩作用。网上有个很有意思的图表，显示了过去十年各种商品的价格，你会发现比如电视等各种商品的价格都在大幅下跌。所以技术确实有通缩的作用。但我想从乐观的角度来看一下，是否有你网络中的经销商在使用你的产品并在电动车方面做得很好的？机会在哪里？如果我现在戴上资本家的帽子，我会说，我已经与许多不涉足电动车的经销商进行了交谈。如果你听了我上周的播客，播客中的经销商特别提到，而且他是非常讲究数据的，他说他不会碰电动车。当我听到这个，我觉得这是一个机会。
And so, what are your thoughts on this? I mean, are there dealers that are outperforming in the EV space? How are they doing it? What's your take? Yes. So last year, was out in LA with one of our larger dealer groups. And, you know, they made a comment, we're opening up an EV use car lot. Because finally, if you think about it, how long is really Tesla been out there marketing maybe seven, eight years, truthfully?
所以，你对此有什么看法？我的意思是，在电动车领域是否有经销商表现特别出色？他们是怎么做到的？你怎么看？是的。去年的时候，我在洛杉矶和我们其中一个较大的经销商集团一起。他们提到说，他们正在开设一个电动车二手车销售点。因为想想看，特斯拉真正开始市场推广也不过七八年的时间，对吧？
So most of those, most of those vehicles released, almost all of them released if they didn't pay cash for. So, you know, when you look and you see that there's no used cars, there's not much you can do with them because you really didn't have any EVs to distribute up until the last couple of years when they started to come into play, right? For the OEMs and normal OEMs outside of Tesla. So I think the opportunity is, EV is needed out there. The values depreciating down to a level that Tesla's probably eating the residual value difference, because those leases come off lease. And those guaranteed residual values are probably below where they expected them to be.
因此，大多数发布的汽车，几乎全部是通过贷款而不是现金支付的。所以，你知道，当你看到没有多少二手车时，也没法做很多事情，因为直到最近几年，普通制造商（除了特斯拉外）才开始推出电动车，对吧？所以我认为电动车在市场上是有需求的。它们的价值正在贬值，而且特斯拉可能正在承担这些电动车的残值差异，因为那些租赁合同到期的时候，保值金额可能低于他们的预期。
Those vehicles are now becoming much more affordable on the secondary side to a consumer than they were before. So they might have been 40,000 a year ago, they came off and now they're 25,000. So I think from an affordability perspective, a customer need, and some people are very much not going to drive an ICU unit. They're going to want EV and you need to present them with that option. The only caution I think a lot of us have in the industry is how is that vehicle taking care of? What's the longevity of that vehicle? What are the repairs going to continue to cost? How happy am I going to be able to source parts for that vehicle when a customer has a problem?
这些车辆现在在二手市场对消费者来说比之前便宜多了。可能一年前它们还要4万美元，现在降到了2.5万美元。所以从可负担性的角度来看，消费者的需求有了变化，有些人坚决不愿意再开燃油车了，他们想要电动车，因此你需要为他们提供这个选项。我们行业内的一个普遍担忧是，这些车辆的保养情况如何？它们的使用寿命有多长？维修费用会是多少？当客户遇到问题时，我能多容易找到这些车辆的零部件？
Because they're surely not going to be mad at the manufacturer when the vehicle's not ready. But when you bring that car into that dealership through that service drive and it's sitting in their shop for two to three weeks because of an ups because they couldn't get the part, they're going to blame the dealer and they may not come back and buy a car from them. That's why what I imagine your dealer that you talked to last week had that concern was does it hurt my brand? Does it hurt my reputation? I'm able to support the customer the way that I support them on an ICU unit. That's right now probably a little bit suspect.
因为他们肯定不会因为车辆还没准备好而生厂商的气。但是，当你把车开到4S店做维修，而车辆因零件缺货在修理店一放就是两到三周时，他们就会怪罪经销商，可能不会再回来买车了。这就是为什么你上周谈到的那个经销商会担心——这会不会伤害我的品牌？会不会损害我的声誉？我能否像在重症监护室那样支持客户？目前来说，这方面可能有些不确定。
The tier point, sometimes it's good to go on the opposite direction of others and set that up and drive that market opportunity. And EV could bring that out there. I'm not diminishing it at all. I'm just saying think about the costs that are associated to it. Think about the impact of your brand. Think about the investment you'd have to make. You also need to think about how quickly that car could depreciate if Tesla comes out with another $5,000 reduction in their MSRP.
层级分数，有时朝着与别人相反的方向前进是个不错的选择，这样可以开辟新的市场机会。而电动汽车（EV）可能就是这样一个机会。我并不是在贬低这点，我只是提醒要考虑相关的成本。想一想对品牌的影响，想一想需要进行的投资，还要考虑到如果特斯拉再降价5000美元，你的车会有多快贬值。
Yeah, well stated. To your point, I think that there's always opportunity. And so, hence why I was curious from your perspective, what that looks like. I do want to talk about Non-EV for a sec. One thing that I appreciate about VSC companies and when you offer vehicle protection is that your interests are aligned with the dealers. There's other businesses in our industry where the dealer and maybe the vendor are conflicting and don't have in aligned interest necessarily. But here, the more a dealer sells, the better it is for you. And of course, the fewer claims in the long run, the more profitable everyone is, it's great.
好的，说得很好。正如你所说，我认为总是有机会的。所以，我想从你的角度了解一下这会是什么样子。我想谈谈非电动车的情况。我很欣赏VSC公司及其提供的车辆保护，因为你们的利益与经销商是一致的。而在我们行业的其他业务中，经销商和供应商的利益可能会有冲突。然而在这里，经销商卖得越多，对你们就越有利。当然，从长远来看，索赔越少，大家的利润就会越高，这很好。
How are you working with dealers to really create the most profitable experience while selling these products and while selling the VSCs while still managing your great customer experience? How are you doing that entire process? And again, I have to imagine you're working with thousands of dealers and so can imagine that this is probably systematized. But what does that look like for you? It's interesting. We do business with thousands of dealers, as you said, some of the largest dealer groups in the country and some that do single-digit sales per month. The reality of it is our focus needs to be on the customer. From our perspective, we're a partner with a dealer and working with them on helping them increase their profitability, but also helping them increase their customer satisfaction and the experience that the customer has when they come into the dealership. Trying to put them in the right vehicle, trying to put them in the right lending environment, the right terms and conditions and products that fit for them.
你们如何与经销商合作，在销售这些产品和延长保修服务（VSC）时，同时保持优秀的客户体验，来创造最盈利的体验的？你们是如何完成整个流程的？我猜你们与成千上万的经销商合作，所以这个过程可能已经系统化了。那么这个过程对你们来说是怎样的呢？这很有趣。正如你所说，我们与成千上万的经销商合作，其中有一些是全国最大的经销商集团，也有一些每月只卖个位数的汽车。实际上，我们的重点需要放在客户身上。从我们的角度来看，我们是经销商的合作伙伴，帮助他们提高盈利能力，同时也帮助他们提高客户满意度和客户在进店时的体验。帮助客户选择合适的车辆，合适的贷款环境，合适的条款条件和适合他们的产品。
But our main goal is really to partner with a dealer to determine what their goals and objectives are, focus our attention on the F&I office as a primary focus and training their F&I managers, product, how to present, needs analysis, follow up with the customer. But it doesn't just stop there. It really does encompass the entire organization.
但我们的主要目标确实是与经销商合作，确定他们的目标和任务，重点关注F&I（金融与保险）部门，并培训他们的F&I经理。这包括产品的介绍、需求分析以及客户跟进。但这不仅仅止步于此，实际上涵盖了整个组织。
Several years ago, one of the things that I've always felt that we've done a very good job with is finding different things to help dealers support their overall profitability and to solidify our relationship with that dealer. So we started investing in fixed operations training and hiring a team to come in and really start to work on not only how the customer is when they're in the showroom, but how we're treating them and offering them value added products within their service drive area as well.
几年前，我一直觉得我们在一些方面做得非常好，那就是找到各种方法帮助经销商提升总体盈利能力，并巩固我们与经销商的关系。所以我们开始投资固定业务培训，并组建团队，不仅研究如何在展厅中服务客户，还研究如何在服务过程中对待客户并为他们提供增值产品。
That then expands out to how do we handle really multiple products. So we've made, as I said earlier, about 35 acquisitions over the last couple of years and our most recent one, Crystal Fusion provides a much different level of protection than our other products. So we're trying to always fill the bucket back up with new products that fit for the customer of today and their driving experience and also making sure that we're hitting our number one goal is to put the customer first in everything that we do. And it doesn't matter what part of the dealership it is from reinsurance to F&I development to fixed operations.
这也延伸到我们如何管理多种产品。正如我之前提到的，过去几年中我们进行了大约35次收购，我们最近的一次收购是Crystal Fusion，这款产品提供了与我们其他产品截然不同的保护。所以我们一直在尝试用适合当今客户需求和他们驾驶体验的新产品来填补市场空白，同时确保我们实现首要目标，即在一切工作中把客户放在首位。无论是再保险、金融与保险的开发，还是固定运营的任何部分，这一点都是一致的。
We focus our attention on really what the dealer needs. And while there is a systematic approach to that, it's also individualized as well for each dealer. While there may be similarities in the dealer, there might be differences in how they present their customer what products they would like to put on their vehicles and offer their customers. So you got to listen, you got to hear, you got to really focus your attention on the need of that one particular relationship versus trying to say, hey, you're a cookie and we're going to cut it off the same way for everybody. That's not how we do it.
我们的重点是经销商的真正需求。虽然我们有一个系统的方法，但同时也针对每个经销商进行个性化处理。尽管经销商之间可能有相似之处，但他们在向客户展示产品以及提供哪些产品上可能会有所不同。因此，你需要倾听、理解，并真正专注于这段特定关系的需求，而不是试图用同一个模板对所有人一刀切。这不是我们的做事方式。
So my Spark knows version of that is lots of process, lots of training, which, okay, it makes sense. Now, is that the key difference you're seeing from dealers that are over performing versus underperforming in your market? Does it come down strictly to process? Is there anything else? I mean, number one, it's the dealer. It's the direction that that dealer that owner has and how they want to treat the customer and what they want the customer experience to look like. Not only their customer being in one purchasing the vehicle, but their customer being their employee, right? And what value can we bring to that individual when they come in from our perspective?
所以，根据我对Spark的了解，很多过程和训练是有必要的，这点没问题。那么，你认为这就是你的市场中表现优异的经销商与表现不佳的经销商之间的主要区别吗？是否完全取决于流程？还有其他因素吗？最重要的是经销商本人，也就是那个老板的方向，他们如何看待客户体验，不仅是购买车辆的客户，还有作为员工的客户。当这些人来到我们的视角时，我们能为他们带来什么样的价值？
If somebody new comes into a store, our goal is to make them better than what they were and better time and time again that we spend time with them. But it really does come down to ethics. It comes down to disclosure. It comes down to commitment to the customer because at the end of the day, the most expensive thing that you can do is not treat your customer correctly. It costs dealers $1,000 to try to get that customer in the door when they're advertising promoting expenses that they're having to put into play.
如果有新顾客来到店里，我们的目标是让他们变得更好，并且每次和他们相处时，都能让他们有更好的体验。但这一切最终都归结于道德、信息公开和对顾客的承诺。因为从根本上说，对于店家来说，最贵的事情就是没有正确对待顾客。为了吸引顾客进店，店家在广告和推广上的花费可能要达到1000美元。
That customer needs to come back and buy again and again, getting them back into the service drive. It's your point earlier about Harley Davidson and Riker. That brand experience brings that customer back in that they're buying t-shirts and they're buying aftermarket items for those units. And we do the same thing on the auto side. You should be proud of the brand that you're driving. And if you are, that excitement, I think, really kind of is brought from everybody that customers in touch with, from their family, their friends, and anybody they know to tell them where they got that car and how they were treated.
那个顾客需要不断地回来购买，让他们再次进入我们的服务驱动。这就像你之前提到的哈雷·戴维森和莱克尔一样。品牌体验吸引顾客不断回来购买T恤和那些单元的后市场商品。我们在汽车领域也是这么做的。你应该为你所驾驶的品牌感到自豪。如果你确实感到自豪，这种兴奋感会传达给所有与顾客接触的人，从他们的家人、朋友到所有认识他们的人，告诉他们那辆车是从哪里买的，服务是如何的。
So the best investment is taking care of their customer. I can't tell you how many customers and most dealers listen to this can resonate. But I can't tell you how many customers we've had over the years that maybe they're via the expiry or who knows what happened and you still take care of them. It's really important to just view it as a marketing expense at the end of the day. It's the cost of keeping the customer happy. And even though you may be correct and maybe they've had the vehicle for x amount of months at this point and whatever happened and maybe they did something incorrect, whatever it may be.
最好的投资就是照顾好客户。有多少客户经历过各种问题，即使他们的保修期已过，或者发生了其他情况，但我们仍然会尽力去解决。我无法告诉你有多少这样的客户，但大多数经销商听到这话都会感同身受。将其看作是一项营销费用非常重要。保持客户满意本来就是要付出的成本。即使有时你的确是对的，可能他们已经使用了车辆好几个月，发生了什么问题，甚至可能是他们的错误，不管怎样，照顾好客户才是关键。
But at the end of the day, you have to just think with a long term mindset. Is it really worth it for me now to have a detractor and on the street? I hate her. Someone that is just really upset talking to 10 different people posting on Facebook, posting on Google. There's a fine line and many dealers have different tolerances for the stuff. I would tell you, I had a pretty high tolerance, meaning I would really, really want to take care of the customers, even if I knew that they were probably wrong.
但归根结底，你需要有一个长期的思维方式。现在让我有一个在街上不断批评我的人，真的值得吗？我讨厌她。一个非常生气的人到处跟别人说坏话，在Facebook上发帖，在Google上留言。这个界限很微妙，而且很多商家对这种情况的容忍度不同。我会告诉你，我的容忍度相当高，这意味着即使我知道顾客可能是错的，我也会非常、非常想照顾好他们。
And it was because I really cared about a reputation. And so for me, it was investing in the long term and thinking about, okay, how can I really make sure that they leave off happy, especially if it's something that's manageable. And maybe I can just allocate a reserve account on a monthly basis for these types of situations. So that's how we dealt with it. And I'm sure you've seen many other dealers do the same. 100%.
这都是因为我非常在乎声誉。对我来说，这是一个长期投资的过程。我会考虑如何确保他们离开时感到满意，尤其是那些可以处理的情况。或许我可以每个月为这种情况预留一些资金。这就是我们的处理方式，我相信你也见过很多其他的交易商这么做。完全没错。
And that's always been that way that you made exceptions for a customer. Is it the one that screams the most or the ones that need it the most? I think there's a little bit of a balance that you've got to look at. But the reality is that in today's world, customers have a voice. And it's way bigger than their voice used to be. Right? So if I'm looking to build a relationship with consumers within my geographic area, I need to be concerned on what they say and how they talk about us. And that is really something that if you try to do the right thing, because every customer you know on a claim, if you don't pay 100% of it, they're not happy. They're going to complain.
这一直以来都是这样的情况：你会为某些顾客做出例外处理。是为那些叫得最响的顾客，还是那些最需要帮助的顾客？我认为这里需要找到一种平衡。但现实情况是，在当今世界，顾客的声音比以前大得多。所以，如果我想与我所在地区的消费者建立关系，我需要关心他们说什么以及他们如何谈论我们。这真的说明，如果你试图做正确的事情，因为每个在提出索赔的顾客，如果你没有全额支付，他们都不会满意。他们会抱怨。
But the reality is we might pay a $4,000 claim and they have a $250 uncovered component or part. And they are not happy and the dealer eats that $250 or we need that $250. But to your point earlier, it is critical more so today than ever before to make sure that you're thinking about that customer and what they're saying about you. Because it has ripple effects that can really negatively affect you for not just today, but for a long period of time.
但现实情况是，我们可能会支付4000美元的理赔，但其中有250美元是不在承保范围内的零部件。因此，客户不满意，那250美元要么由经销商承担，要么我们需要额外支付。正如你之前提到的，现在比以往任何时候都更关键的是，我们需要考虑客户的感受和他们对我们的评价。因为这会产生连锁反应，对我们的影响不仅仅是一时的，而是长期的。
Tony, you mentioned, you mentioned when I asked you earlier about what are you focused on and your interactions with dealers, you mentioned that exploring new products. Are there any new products on the horizon that you're anticipating the areas that you're looking into? I think when you think about the products that we offer, everybody makes comments like gap is commodities, service contracts, just a commodity. So what's different about you? What things do you do differently?
托尼，你提到过，当我之前问你关于你的工作重点和你与经销商的互动时，你提到过在探索新产品。有没有什么新产品是你们正在期待，或者你们正在研究的领域？我认为，当你想到我们提供的产品时，每个人都会说差异化只是商品，服务合同也只是商品。那么，你们有什么不同之处？你们做了哪些区别于别人的事情？
And the reality again goes to, I think all of us in the industry that are at the top tier are looking to do the same things, offer similar products. And if a new product comes out and I've developed a few products on my own and brought out to market, you got fast followers. If you're a leader, usually it takes you a little bit longer because you're the first one to market and you're spending more money on advertising and marketing it and trying to get it into stores and changing that shelf life. There's only a certain number of products you can sell to a customer. I think they're not going to buy 13 different products. I don't care who you are and if they do, there's a problem. So you want to make sure that they're getting the right thing.
现实情况是，我们行业中顶尖的公司都在尝试做同样的事情，提供相似的产品。如果有一个新产品上市，我自己也开发并推向市场过一些产品，你会发现很快就有其他公司跟进。如果你是行业领袖的话，通常需要更长的时间，因为你是第一个进入市场的，要花更多的钱在广告和营销上，争取把产品送进商店并改变货架上的陈列寿命。你能卖给顾客的产品数量是有限的，我认为他们不会购买13种不同的产品。不管你是谁，如果他们真这么做，那就有问题了。所以，你需要确保他们买到的是合适的产品。
But at the end of the day, how I look at this is that if you got a head start, you only got a firm in it. And if you got it for that minute, you better take advantage of it. And right now, to me, the one thing that really stands out is the lack of understanding of the risks that you have as an owner of a vehicle today because of the connectivity of that vehicle to anybody that wants to hack it. And while it's been discussed, we're going to come a time where we're going to have some type of a hack that's going to be a little bit more broad than one individual car, two individual cars that will gather some challenges.
但归根结底，我的看法是，如果你有了一个领先优势，那也只是暂时的。而如果你拥有了这短暂的优势，你最好好好利用它。而现在，对我来说，最突出的一个问题是，作为今天的汽车拥有者，对你所面临的风险缺乏了解，因为这些汽车与任何想要入侵它们的人都有连接。尽管这个问题已经被讨论过了，但我们迟早会面临某种程度上的黑客攻击，而这不仅仅是针对一两辆车的攻击，而是会带来更大的挑战。
The other piece of that is all the privacy requirements that we all have. And many dealers have taken that into account of when you trade your vehicle and most likely you haven't cleared any of your contact information or all your personal information that might be on the vehicle and they're wiping it out. But you need to be very careful there too is that you're not selling cars that have personal information from the prior owner and make sure that we basically start to build these products that really cover your vehicle, not only from the component perspective, but the external threat perspective that could come from hackers or anyone that could take over your vehicle.
另一部分是我们都有的所有隐私需求。许多经销商在你交易车辆时，可能已经考虑到你未清除车上所有个人联系信息或其他私人信息，他们会帮你删除这些信息。但你也需要非常小心，不要卖带有前任车主个人信息的车，并且要确保我们刚开始制造的这些产品不仅能从组件的角度保护你的车辆，还能防范来自黑客或任何试图控制你车辆的外部威胁。
So is that what you're thinking about nowadays or do you actually have products that are tackling these issues already in the market? We have products that are tackling that issue. The challenge becomes self-space. And you think about when the financial crisis hit, Hyundai came out with an insurance program that said, if you lose your job, we'll make your car payment for you up to 12 months. While that was out there before, that one really 2008-09, to go through that financial crisis drove Hyundai to be one of the top performers during that struggling time.
所以，这是你现在在思考的问题，还是你们已经有产品在市场上解决这些问题了？我们已经有产品在解决这个问题了。挑战在于市场空间。你想想，金融危机爆发时，现代推出了一个保险计划，说如果你失业了，我们可以为你支付最长12个月的车贷。在2008-09年的金融危机期间，这个计划帮助现代在那个困难时期成为表现最好的公司之一。
So there may be a product out there that's a need, but it's not enough need for the customer to invest in it yet. And to me, it's probably the cheapest time that they get invested in it. Because the unknown risk out there, there's going to be an assumption of what the cost might be, but it's not been determined yet. So I want to imagine one or two events that happen will turn the product on pretty high level. And dealers that are proactive in thinking about it, we've even built things where you can build it into the purchase of the vehicle and we give you a free year of coverage and making sure that not only your car is covered, but any car in your household is covered as well.
所以，现在市场上可能存在一种产品，虽然消费者有需求，但这种需求还不足以让他们愿意投资。而我认为现在可能是他们投资这种产品最便宜的时机。由于外界存在未知的风险，人们对成本会有一种假设，但这些成本尚未确定。所以我想象一两件事情发生后，会大大提高这种产品的需求。而那些积极思考的经销商，我们甚至已经设计出一些方案，把产品与购车相结合，提供一年免费的服务，不仅保证您的车得到保障，还确保您家庭中的任何车辆也能得到保障。
Given what you just said, given lots of these products are commoditized, what is your edge? How do you grow? I want to get into deep into your mind of a CEO of a company like this, and how do you continue scaling the company? I think it all comes down to the people that are within that organization, the investment that's being made and keeping the products and the services up to date. We're in a more regulated environment than we ever have been. So making sure that you choose the right company that's going to not only support you from a product perspective, but also from more importantly, from a claims perspective, what dealers are buying from us are our support and product mix, but more they're buying security and knowing that we're going to be there to take care of their customer when they have a claim.
鉴于你刚刚所说的，考虑到许多这些产品都已经商品化了，你们的优势在哪里？你们是如何增长的？我想深入了解像你这样的公司CEO的思维方式，你们是如何继续扩展公司的？
我认为这一切归根结底在于组织内部的人员、所做的投资以及保持产品和服务的更新。我们现在所处的环境比以往任何时候都更受监管。因此，确保你选择的公司不仅能在产品方面支持你，更重要的是在理赔方面支持你。经销商从我们这里购买的不仅是支持和产品组合，更是安全感和我们在他们有理赔需求时会照顾好他们客户的信心。
And that because we become part of their overall experience of purchasing a car, and really the one that is the most challenging for a consumer is to bring or an auto appeal owner is to bring that vehicle in for a repair. So if we're not taking care of it the right way, working with their service advisors, making sure that we're giving them the right components and approving it in a very efficient manner, that's not a commodity. That's a service that needs to be upheld. And the investment that we have to put into all the regulatory environments that are out there now that are coming at dealers left and right that we're making sure. But number one, how long have you been in the business? Can you support us as we grow? Are you going to make sure you support my customer? And when I call you at two o'clock in the morning, you're picking up the funds because I'm a partner and trust me dealers are a call no matter what time of the day it is if you're not doing your job right.
这意味着，因为我们成为了他们整个购车体验的一部分，对于消费者来说，最具挑战性的环节就是把车辆送去维修。所以，如果我们不能妥善处理，与他们的服务顾问合作，确保我们提供正确的零部件并高效地批准维修，那就不仅仅是提供商品的问题了，而是一种需要维护的服务。我们还需要在多变的监管环境中进行投资并确保合规。首先，你在这个行业的经验有多长？你能支持我们的业务增长吗？你能保证照顾好我的客户吗？当我在凌晨两点打电话给你时，你能接听吗？因为我是伙伴，相信我，如果你没有尽职尽责，不论什么时候，汽车经销商都会给你打电话。
You mentioned the word shelf space. I think about this a lot, right? You, as a dealer, I can't sell all the back end products in the world because I'm limited by what the lender allows me to or the dumb out of room I have in the deal. And for anyone listening that's maybe not has never been on the F&I side or is not in management, you sell a car, you can only sell X amount of products in the back end, 2000, 3000, you're capped, right? You can't sell unlimited things because at the end of the day, the payment goes up and a customer can't afford that. So this, I thought I had was like, is there a world, talking about like, how do you build a competitive edge? Is there a world where someone like yourself acquires an actual lender and plays around with the margin where you're not actually you're actually lowering your interest rate, but you're increasing your back end availability for the dealer. So it actually makes you as the VSC provider more competitive, because now I can sell more VSC products if I sell with this lender. But net net, it makes the VSC company more profitable, because it puts more product on the street. Am I like in like cloud nine right now, or is there a world where you can actually basically what I'm saying is there is there a way to create more shelf space in this industry, or is it there's no way this is, you know, we're at a fixed amount. And the only way we're going to put more product in the street as you know, vehicles, vehicles, service product or whatever it is, is by eliminating another product. What are your thoughts? A lot a lot to cover there. One, I think if you if you really do look at it, there are service contract providers, administrators that are owned by the OEMs, right? And those OEMs are the finance source as well, right?
你提到 "货架空间" 这个词。我常常会想到这个问题，对吧？作为一个经销商，我不能卖所有在世界上可售的后端产品，因为会受到贷款方的限制，不然就是我的交易中没有足够的空间。而对于那些可能从未做过财务与保险业务 (F&I) 或没有管理经验的听众来说，当你卖出一辆车时，你只能在后端销售一定数量的产品，比如2000或3000，你是有上限的，对吧？你不能无限制地销售这些产品，因为最终付款会增加，客户可能负担不起。所以，我有一个想法是，是否存在这样一种情况，那就是通过收购一个真正的贷款方来建立竞争优势，并在利润空间上进行调整，比如降低利率，但同时增加经销商可销售的后端产品，从而让作为车辆服务合同 (VSC) 提供商的你更具竞争力。这样，如果我通过这个贷款方销售VSC产品，我就可以卖更多的VSC产品。但最终，这会让VSC公司更加有利可图，因为它在市场上推出了更多的产品。我是在异想天开，还是这种情况真的存在？就是说，是否有可能在这个行业中创造更多的货架空间，还是说这是不可能的，我们已经达到了一个固定的数量。唯一能在市场上推出更多产品的方式是通过淘汰其他产品。你怎么看？有很多东西需要讨论。一方面，我认为如果你仔细琢磨，会发现一些服务合同提供商和管理员是由原始设备制造商 (OEM) 拥有的，对吧？这些OEM也是资金来源。
I mean, in my earlier career, we had Nissan was a client, we provided third party field support for them, we marketed their security plus product to their customers, their field force was ours. You know, we were connected there, but from a risk perspective, you really have to look at both of them separately, because the financial risk, even though your margins may increase, because you get a little bit, you're still having competitive pressure coming from independent companies like ours. So you've got to be cost effective, so your margins really aren't going up that much. You've got to be credit quality needs to be in place. You know, one of the things that we've done over our career is work with pretty much every financial institution and lender and providing gap or some product for them to embed in their loans or market it under their brand name. And, you know, again, I think it's a great way to generate additional revenue for yourself, but the two factors are completely different.
在我早期的职业生涯中，我们曾为日产提供第三方现场支持，推广他们的Security Plus产品给客户，他们的现场团队是我们的合作方。从风险角度看，你必须分别考虑两者的风险。虽然利润可能会上升一点，因为有一些附加收入，但独立公司的竞争压力依然存在。因此，必须在成本效益上做到最好，利润增长其实并不大。信用质量也必须有保障。在我们的职业生涯中，我们几乎与每一个金融机构和贷款人合作，为他们提供嵌入贷款或以其品牌推销的产品。我认为这是一种为自己创造额外收入的好方法，但这两个因素是完全不同的。
To your point around, I only have one time to sell, that's true. And what we've tried to do in the industry is put together bundled products that might have three to five different types of coverages in it. So it's on one form. But to your point earlier, you do get capped from the lender, right? And how much can I sell? The one thing that I think dealers overall need to do a better job of is after sale, after the sale of the vehicle, the customer, in most cases, 30 to 40% of the time bought a service contract. There's 60 to 70% of them who didn't. So, you know, there's ways to market the program, which we have and other companies do too, when their manufacturers warranty come to expire offering them another chance at it with a finance plan that, you know, they can get their products more cost affordable.
关于你的观点，我只有一次销售的机会，这是事实。我们在行业中尝试做的是将三到五种不同类型的保障产品捆绑在一起，以一种形式售出。但正如你之前所说的，贷款方对销售额度是有限制的，对吧？我认为经销商整体上需要在售后方面做得更好。通常情况下，在车辆销售后，30%到40%的客户会购买服务合同，但还有60%到70%的客户没有购买。因此，当制造商的保修期即将到期时，我们和其他公司都有一些方法来推销这个计划，可以为客户提供另一次机会，通过融资方案让他们能够以更实惠的价格购买这些产品。
Every time a customer walks into that service drive, there's an opportunity to sell them something else. It could be window, it windshield protection, it could be ding and ding, right? It could be multiple different things. The challenge is the service advisors tapped out sometimes, doesn't have the time to offer it. They're not really in the sales mode, they're in the value quicker mode. So there, you know, some of the technology that's embedded in the vehicles today, you can extract information out of that, find out how many miles they have, and do some very targeted marketing. And also invest in your digital marketing as well too, making sure your websites are up to date with the products that are out there. Because today, I might not think it's important. But after I brought that in for a warranty repair, it would cost me $5,000. That service contract sounds pretty cheap right now, doesn't it? Oh, yeah.
每次顾客走进服务车道时，都会有机会向他们推销其他产品。可能是车窗、挡风玻璃保护或处理凹痕的服务，有很多不同的选项。问题在于，有时候服务顾问很忙，没有时间提出这些附加销售。他们并不是在销售模式中，而是在追求价值最大化的模式中。所以，有时候可以利用今天车辆内置的一些技术，从中提取信息，了解车辆行驶的里程数，从而进行一些非常有针对性的营销。同时，也要投资于数字营销，确保你的网站上有最新的产品信息。因为今天可能不觉得重要的东西，但在进行了一次价值5000美元的保修维修后，那服务合同相比之下就显得很便宜，不是吗？╗
But you just said something which I love, which is the after sale, upsell or whatever you want to call it, right? Which is 50% of people don't buy that VSC or whatever, 40%, 60, it doesn't matter. But a very large percentage. So first of all, going back to my prior question, right, the answer is, you don't quit your day job because that is not the way to put more product in the street. But then fast forwarding, it's like, hey, instead of looking at the direct ability of creating more shelf space that way, there's all these people that didn't buy that product for X, Y, and Z reason.
但是你刚才说了一点我很喜欢，就是售后服务、追加销售或者你叫它什么都行，对吧？也就是，有50%的人不会购买那个VSC或者其他东西，不管是40%还是60%，这并不重要。但这是一个非常大的比例。所以，首先，回到我之前的问题，对吧，答案是，你不能辞掉你的正职，因为那不是增加街头产品的方式。但然后往后看，好像是说，嘿，别只想着通过这种方式直接增加货架空间，有这么多因为各种原因没有购买那个产品的人。
So my question on that is, how do you actually measure that risk, right? Lots of dealers are reinsured, which means in simple terms, right? They have their own VSC company where they share profits or they share in the underwriting profit and loss, of course. So how do you measure risk for someone that did not buy a VSC at point of sale and now wants to buy one? How do you actually do that? Yeah, the two factors there, one, they still under factory warranty with maybe six months or expires. So you're not getting a vehicle that probably is going to have pre-existing condition, right? Usually where you do have to claim this problem would be a high mileage vehicle that doesn't have a service contract. You sell them one, they have a claim within a week or two. And it's a fairly large one.
所以我的问题是，如何实际衡量这种风险，对吧？许多经销商都投保了再保险，简单来说，就是他们有自己的延保公司，可以分享利润和承保的盈亏。那么，对于那些在购买时没有购买延保服务，现在却想购买的人，如何评估他们的风险呢？有两个因素，一个是他们的车辆仍在保修期内，可能还有六个月或者即将到期，因此这种情况下车辆可能不会有先前存在的问题。通常需要索赔的问题会出现在那些没有服务合同的高里程车辆上。这些车辆在买了延保服务后一两周内就会提出索赔，而且通常金额还不小。
So you need to go through the inspection process, you need to qualify that vehicle. If I have that customer in my service drive, I can qualify the vehicle doing inspection and offer the program to them with more coverage. If they don't have an inspection, you sell them a product that has a little bit less coverage. And the reality of it is that our job is really to be able to provide the dealers what their loss ratio is, trends by part by service advisor. We provide very detailed information to those dealer-owned captives, those owners so that they can see where their claims are coming from. And if we need to, we either cease marketing the product in that area or we increase the premium or reduce it if the loss ratio is looking pretty good.
所以你需要经过检查过程，并确认该车辆是否合格。如果我在维修站有这个顾客，我可以通过检查确认车辆状况，并向他们提供包含更多保障的方案。如果车辆没有经过检查，你可以卖给他们保障稍微少一点的产品。实际上，我们的工作是提供给经销商他们的损失率、各部件的趋势以及服务顾问的相关信息。我们会向那些经销商自有的保险公司和车主提供非常详细的信息，这样他们就能看到他们的索赔来源。如果有需要，我们要么停止在那个地区销售产品，要么提高保费，或者如果损失率较好就降低保费。
So I don't think there's bad risk in many cases. It's a bad price. You need to put more into that reserve account. But one thing I'll tell you is, I don't know how many phone calls and TV or radio ads have you heard of somebody selling a service contract. I mean, I don't think I can get in the car and drive my seven miles to work and not hear two or three of them. So those guys are making money somehow. And that really is something in my mind that should be going to the dealer. And they would be much more, they'd be taking care of much better than these independent shops that are out there selling through radio, TV and late night ads. Where are these? I know exactly what you're talking about. I've seen these ads a ton. So they are very heavy in marketing. But like, where were they really after here? Are they after the customer that did not buy a dealer or are they after the person that's owned that car for 10 years and thinks that they need a repair and they're like, let me go get after the VSC company because you know, they'll pay for my damages. I mean, who is that customer? Is that really an opportunity?
所以，我不认为在许多情况下存在“坏风险”。问题在于价格不好。你需要在储备账户里投入更多。但有一件事我要告诉你，我不知道你接到过多少电话或听到多少电视或广播广告，有人推销服务合同。我的意思是，我认为我开车上班的七英里路程里，听到两三个这样的广告是很正常的。所以这些人肯定是在赚钱。而在我看来，这些钱本应该留给经销商。他们会比这些独立的修理店处理得更好，而这些独立修理店通过广播、电视和深夜广告来销售服务合同。我确实知道你在说什么。我看过很多这样的广告。所以他们在营销上投入很大。但他们的目标客户到底是谁？是那些没有在经销商处购买服务合同的顾客，还是那些已经拥有汽车十年，觉得需要维修的人，并希望服务合同公司承担他们的维修费用的顾客？那个顾客是谁？那真的算是一个机会吗？
Hey, let me let me let me qualify that with one more thing. Just one more thing I want to call. So the last five years, what you've seen a ton of is like, we'll buy your car, right? It started out with we buy any cars. And I know car max has been doing it for like 50 decades. But for the most part, it was we buy any car was like the big one. And you know, of course, then you had car max, carvana, and then it kind of, you know, dissipated into the dealer community. And I don't think dealers did it for extra margin. I think dealers did it because they needed the cars. That was the forcing function, right? It wasn't, Hey, you can make a little bit more money. That wasn't enough of an incentive for the average dealer, in my opinion, right? It was, Hey, you can sell, you need the inventory. This is how you're going to get it. So what is it going to take to get dealers to do the same thing for what you just mentioned? I think what ends up your original question was, what kind of customer is buying this product? The one that needs it most likely, the one that feels a higher mile product that, you know, they're having a little bit of a problem. I'm not going to say this happens with all, but maybe a very hard close environment with a monthly payment that is spread out over 12 to 24 months. The affordability becomes a challenge. Cancellation rates are really high. Denials of claims are high.
嘿，让我再补充一件事。只是我想补充的一件事。在过去的五年里，你看到的很多情况是类似“我们会买你的车”的广告。最开始是“我们买任何车”，我知道CarMax已经做了几十年了，但大部分情况下，“我们买任何车”是最主要的，然后你有了CarMax、Carvana，接着这种模式扩散到了经销商群体。我不认为经销商这样做是为了额外利润，我认为他们是因为需要车源。这是推动原因，对吧？不是说你可以多赚一点钱，我觉得这对普通经销商来说不够激励。其实是说，你需要销售库存，这就是你获取库存的方法。所以，要让经销商为你刚提到的产品做同样的事情，需要什么条件呢？我认为问题的关键是，什么样的客户会购买这种产品？最可能需要这种产品的客户，可能是那些高里程数的车主，他们遇到了一些问题。我不会说这种情况适用于所有人，但可能是在一个压力很大的环境中，他们需要分期付款，可能是12到24个月的期限，负担变得很困难。取消率很高，索赔被拒的情况也很多。
The best place to buy a service contract is from your dealer. I don't care who the administrator is. I don't care if it's an OEM program or independent. That dealer is invested in you more than anybody else from an ownership perspective. The independent companies like ours that might sell, which we don't sell directly to the consumer, have to transact at a higher price because there are closing ratios during single digits, low single digits. So instead of them being able to sell something at a more affordable price, they're having to sell it at a higher price. And I just, the cancellation rates on them are very, very high. The loss ratios are usually very high. The only way that I see it really working well is, number one, you market your product to that customer when they need it. And that could be a year from now, two years from now or three years from now. And you really then provide them a cost that's effective.
购买服务合同的最佳地点是从你的经销商那里。我不在乎管理员是谁，不在乎是原厂（OEM）项目还是独立项目。从所有权的角度来看，经销商在你身上投入的精力比其他人都多。像我们这样的独立公司，虽然我们不直接向消费者销售，但如果要卖，也必须以更高的价格进行交易，因为成交率仅为个位数，很低。所以，独立公司无法以更实惠的价格销售产品，不得不提高售价。而且，这些独立公司的合同取消率非常高，损失率也通常非常高。我看到这种方式能很好地运作的唯一途径是，首先，你在客户需要的时候向他们推销你的产品，这可能是一年后、两年后或者三年后。然后，给他们提供一个具有竞争力的价格。
If not, like I said, we're developing and some companies have it this monthly or quarterly or semi-annual service contract that becomes much more affordable for the customer today. So when they do get into a little bit of a financial situation, they're not canceling that credit card recurring payment. They're keeping it because it's of value to them and it's cost affordable. So I think it all really does come down to if you look at penetrations on vehicles that are financed versus not almost non-existent when you have a cash customer because it's a check out of their pocket for today versus you're able to spread it out, that service contractor gap or whatever it is over the term of the contract.
如果没有这样的服务合同的话，就像我先前说的，我们正在开发并且一些公司已经有了这种按月、按季度或半年一次的服务合同，这样对客户来说就更能负担得起了。所以当他们遇到一点财务问题时，他们不会取消信用卡的定期付款。他们会继续保留，因为这些服务对他们有价值，而且价格也能接受。所以，我认为这实际上归结于一点：如果你看看融资购买车辆的客户渗透率，相比直接用现金购买的客户几乎是不存在的，因为现金客户需要马上掏钱，而融资客户可以把服务合同或其他费用在合同期限内分摊。
So the cost affordability monthly is the most important factor that I find for any of the products that we sell to the customer. Tony, do you find lots of variability in profitability between dealers or should I say profitability percentage? I remember, again, I'm thinking back to our reinsurance company and I was always told, you're performing super well. I think we were at a 40% loss ratio or something. Now, mind you, we were selling off-least cars 30,000 miles factory warranty. So these weren't 100,000 miles cars or 30 to 40% loss ratio, I should say. And of course, that kind of oscillated over time. But is there a benchmark for anyone listening to this if they have a reinsurance company or if they're just curious about the economics of running an automotive warranty company or selling automotive VCs? Is there a benchmark? What does that look like?
因此，每月的成本是否负担得起，是我认为对我们向客户销售的任何产品最重要的因素。托尼，你是否发现不同经销商之间的盈利有很大的差异？或者我该说盈利百分比的差异？我记得，回想起我们的再保险公司，我总是被告知我们的表现非常好。我记得我们的损失率大约是40%。请注意，我们当时卖的是行驶3万英里、仍在厂家保修期内的二手车，所以这些车的损失率不是10万英里的车的30%到40%。当然，这个比例会随着时间波动。但是，如果有人在听这个，他们有再保险公司，或者他们只是对经营汽车保修公司或销售汽车相关产品的经济学感到好奇，那么是否有一个基准？那一般是什么样子的？
Yeah, I think it depends on the manufacturer and the area of the country that you're in, the credit quality that you have to your point earlier. Your credit is going to be driven on what the advance would be. So you better your credit. Usually you get a higher advance amount. I think when you look at the captives, the dealer-owned captives, they're extremely successful for dealers. And loss ratios range anywhere from, to your point, low 40, but that's not normal. Normally it's in 60, 70, 80% loss ratios. That's typical on the insurance side of the business. And it really is, again, driven by the work that we do for our dealers and the partnership that we have to really go over where their losses are trending to and making sure that we're doing the right thing and pricing the product the right way. But it ranges dramatically, depending on the area of the country and the dealers. I can tell you, in windshield protection for us in Texas, seven to eight times higher in loss ratios than it is in Kansas City, in Missouri. I mean, so just dynamic. Any of the other products, the dynamic of it is much more dependent upon the area of the country you're in. Yeah.
是的，我认为这取决于制造商和你所在的地区，以及你之前提到的信用质量。你的信用状况将会影响预付款的金额。所以，信用越好，通常预付款金额越高。我觉得当你看那些由经销商自营的业务时，它们对经销商是非常成功的。损失率通常在百分之四十左右，但这不常见。通常情况下，损失率在百分之六十、七十、八十。这是保险业务中的常态。这真的取决于我们为经销商所做的工作和我们之间的合作关系，以确保我们了解他们的损失趋势，并确保我们的定价和产品是合理的。但这差异很大，取决于你所在的地区和经销商。我可以告诉你，在德州，我们的挡风玻璃保护的损失率是堪萨斯城的七到八倍。所以，这非常动态。其他产品也是如此，它们的动态更多地依赖于你所在的地区。是的。
And I should also qualify that with, it comes down to, from my experience, how much money you're spending in recon, first of all, right? You're spending more money in recon, more preventative. So that's not going to reflect in your loss ratio, but you're going to take that, you're going to make that investment or expense on the front end, obviously. If you're going to help that customer out and it's not going to hit the warranty, that's an expense. Again, it won't reflect in your loss ratio, but you're still going to, it's still going to come out of your pocket. So it does also, to your point, it does depend on that specific dealer. And then what about gap reinsurance? So we talked about VSC reinsurance. Do you see that as, is that a pretty popular product? Do you see a growing, declining, in different thoughts?
从我的经验来看，这还取决于你在预防性维修（recon）上花了多少钱。首先，你在预防性维修上花的钱越多，花费就越高，但这些花费不会反映在你的损失率上。不过，这笔钱是在前期投入的。如果你要帮客户处理问题，而这些问题不会计入保修范围，那这也是一笔支出。同样，这不会反映在你的损失率上，但还是需要从你的口袋里掏钱。因此，这确实也取决于具体的经销商。
那么关于差额保险（gap reinsurance）呢？我们之前讨论了VSC再保险，你觉得差额保险是一个受欢迎的产品吗？你觉得它在增长还是在减少，有什么不同的看法？
Well, I don't know that there's anybody out there that sent gap as long as I have, we started a gap in 1983. Saw a little ad in automotive news from a guy that was in London that was putting together the product and brought it here and put it together. I've been called the Godfather of Gap for it. I can tell you it's one of those products that you're either making a whole lot of money or you're getting your butt whipped. I'm not into getting my butt whipped. So from a risk perspective, I would tell dealers don't ever re-insure your gap program. It has too much flexibility in it. And honestly, because a captive has such a consistent, in most cases a consistent look, you don't have that fluctuation. And that would be, I've never seen dealers get so upset when we told them not to do it and they have. They say, why'd you let me do it? Don't do it. I'm laughing right now because I've never re-insured Gap, but I have explored the opportunity.
好吧，我不知道是否有任何人像我这样长时间参与 GAP（贷款差额保险）业务。我们从1983年开始做 GAP。当时看到《汽车新闻》上有一则广告，是一个在伦敦的人正在组装这个产品并带到这里来。我被称为 GAP 之父。我可以告诉你，这种产品要么赚很多钱，要么被打得很惨。我不是那种会被打得很惨的人。所以从风险的角度看，我会告诉经销商们永远不要重新投保你的 GAP 计划。它有太多的不确定性。老实说，因为自家保险公司在大多数情况下都比较稳定，不会有那么大的波动。这就是为什么，当我们告诉经销商不要重新投保，他们却做了时，我从未见过他们如此生气。他们会说，为什么你当初允许我们这么做？不要这样做。我现在笑了，因为我从未重新投保过 GAP，但确实探索过这个机会。
And I personally, I'm nowhere nearly as knowledgeable as you about this. But the reason I never did it was because I felt like I needed to do too much volume to where if there's a very high risk that I'm not going to hit this level of volume and I hit the bed. And so that's why I never did it. But it's pretty funny to hear you say this because it seems like you're very strong opinion on this clearly for good reason. There's no doubt, again, if you kind of go back, we sold our original agency administrator to all state, took them up at a peak point. We're doing 200,000 Gap contracts a month. So we had pretty much 60% of the market at that particular time. And I can tell you it was very hard sometimes having to sit down in front of the people that I reported to and say, we lost a certain amount of money this year.
我个人对此并没有你这么了解。但是我从未尝试过的原因是，我觉得我需要做大量的工作，而如果我无法达到这个工作量水平，结果可能会很糟。所以我一直没有尝试过。但是听到你讲这件事感觉挺有意思的，因为你对这件事有非常坚定的看法，而且显然是有充分的理由的。毫无疑问，如果回顾一下过往，我们把最初的代理机构管理员卖给了全州保险公司，在那时达到了巅峰。我们每个月处理20万份差额合同，当时我们几乎占据了市场的60%。我可以告诉你，有时候坐在我汇报工作的领导面前说今年亏损了多少钱，确实是相当困难的。
But here's the plan to make it up. In the reality of it was we had such a big market share to your point around you've got to have scale. We had such a big market share that we could raise our prices enough to cover that adverse loss development where other people couldn't do it. They really had to follow our pricing structures. So today, honestly, Gap needs to go to the next level, which is to start to take risk from a three or four price product. It needs to get down to make model and average area of the country. It should be priced almost like auto insurance to some degree and not just be such a fixed price. Now, if it gets to that point, then yes, I'd say, we ensure it takes some of that risk because it's much more focused on the risks that's associated to it.
但是，这就是我们的补救计划。实际上，我们的市场份额非常大，您提到的规模效应非常重要。我们拥有如此大的市场份额，以至于可以通过提价来弥补不利的损失发展，而其他公司却没办法做到这一点。他们不得不跟随我们的定价结构。因此，老实说，Gap现在需要迈向下一个层次，开始承担从三四价产品中带来的风险。它需要根据具体车型和国家的平均情况来定价。它的定价应该有点像汽车保险那样，而不仅仅是一个固定的价格。如果达到这一点，那么是的，我认为我们可以承担一部分风险，因为那样的风险更加专注和明确。
Everybody three years ago, four years ago, are upset because it didn't take gap. Now they're wanting out. But you can't just jump in and out because you have a six year tail on it. It still takes five to six years for those contracts to earn out. So your decision you made three years ago is affecting you today. And that's a big part of our business is we have to make a guess and they call it actuarial science. We have to make a guess of what that risk is going to be like two or three years from now. Trust me, no one three to four years ago thought that we'd have inflation on parts 40, 50, 60, 80, 100%. We never thought we'd have labor rates that are now exceeding in some cases, $275 to $300 an hour.
三年、四年前，大家都很不满，因为中间没有空档期。现在他们想退出。但你不能随便进出，因为合同有六年的尾期。这些合同仍然需要五到六年才能完成。所以你三年前的决定现在影响着你。这是我们业务的一大部分，我们必须做出预测，这被称为精算学。我们必须预测两三年后的风险会是什么样子。相信我，三到四年前，没有人想到零件的价格会有40%、50%、60%、80%、甚至100%的通货膨胀。我们也从未想到工人工资在某些情况下会超过每小时275到300美元。
That's what we used to pay our attorneys. That's what we're getting on hourly charges and the script has changed. The script has changed. Yeah, even the complexity of the vehicles now, we're prepared used to take an hour. Now is an hour and 15 minutes. So all of that plays into part of loss ratio. But let me see, don't do gap. If I learned anything big, it's definitely that. Although I feel like you just subtly ideated a billion dollar opportunity, which is to create a product like gap that actually works and takes in way more factors than just three prices. I mean, is that, am I missing something? Is that not a huge opportunity?
这就是我们过去支付给律师的费用。这也是我们现在的小时收费，而这个情况已经改变了。情况已经改变了。是的，甚至现在车辆的复杂性也提高了，我们过去需要一个小时的工作，现在需要一个小时十五分钟。所以这一切都影响了损失比率。但是让我看看，不要做差价。如果我学到了什么重要的东西，那就是这一点。虽然我感觉你刚刚隐晦地提出了一个价值十亿的机会，那就是创造一个像差价产品一样的东西，但实际起作用并且考虑的因素远超过三个价格。我的意思是，我漏掉了什么吗？这难道不是一个巨大的机会吗？
No, the problem is that simplification is really critical on the auto dealer side and really having the ability to price based on the risk is a little more challenging. Right. So we don't, as an industry, get down into those finite little things that you look for in auto or homeowners or other lines of business. You can try to generalize it. And if one section of it goes off a little bit, that's where you need to find the right administrator to be able to make that adjustment. So you're not in a situation two years, three years down the road. You go, why did I do it? Again, gap to me is the most valuable product to a consumer there is. My point of my dealers, if you're not one of our dealers, that's fine. You should re-insure it because then you're going to want to come to us and do business with us because you'll be met at your current provider.
不，问题在于简化对汽车经销商来说非常关键，而基于风险定价则稍微有些挑战。对吧。所以我们这个行业不涉及你在汽车、房主保险或其他业务领域中所关注的那些细微差别。你可以尝试把它概括化。如果某个部分有点偏差，就需要找到合适的管理员进行调整，这样你在两三年后不会后悔为什么当初那样做。再说一次，对我来说，缺口保险对消费者来说是最有价值的产品。如果你不是我们的经销商，那也没关系。你应该自己再保险，然后你会愿意来找我们合作，因为你在当前的提供商那里会感到不满。
In this case, we want you to write it, but we don't think you should take that risk. We can blend it out a lot more balanced than you can in your area. We'll state it. Tony, before we wrap up, a general question, what's exciting to you nowadays? What's going through mine? What are you thinking about? It's exciting to me to see how the dealers have really started to come together again to focus on the customer as much as they are.
在这种情况下，我们希望你来写，但我们不认为你应该冒这个险。我们在这方面比你更能平衡处理。我们会说出来。托尼，在结束之前，一个通用问题：你最近对什么感到兴奋？你在想些什么？令我兴奋的是，我看到经销商们真的开始再次团结起来，像他们一样专注于客户。
For me personally, it's been, as I said, I've done five transactions, even though in the same seat, part of a lot of different companies because of the equity that we've made and the mergers that we've done. I'm excited about the people that we have in our organization, the opportunities that they bring to us as a group. But to me, the most exciting thing right now for us is bringing all these great companies together that we have underneath our abco umbrella, working with some of the best dealers in the country, and learning from them just as much as they're learning from us.
对我个人来说，如我之前所说，即使是处在同一个职位，我已经完成了五次交易，因为我们通过股权投资和合并参与了很多不同的公司。我对我们组织中的人员感到非常兴奋，他们为我们整个团队带来了很多机会。但对我来说，目前最令人兴奋的是将我们旗下所有优秀的公司整合在一起，与全国最好的经销商合作，并且从他们那里学习，同时我们也在教他们。
I'm excited about our partnership with Bob Merito and the racing team that we're working with and Jordan Anderson Racing, which from our size and our organization, we never had the opportunity to do those kind of things before and we can now. Honestly, I think the auto business is one of the greatest businesses. There are out there, they drive so much opportunity for their local communities and really do a lot of work for a lot of charities around the country too.
我对我们与Bob Merito以及我们正在合作的赛车队和Jordan Anderson Racing的合作感到非常兴奋。从我们的规模和组织来说，我们以前从未有过这样的机会，现在我们终于可以实现了。说实话，我认为汽车行业是最棒的行业之一。它们为当地社区带来了很多机会，也为全国的众多慈善机构做了很多工作。
While people may talk poorly about car dealers sometimes and service contract providers, I haven't met a better group of people in my lifetime. I'm excited about that, but it's some particular point I'll probably miss them too. Maybe not that much, but just a little. Well, I'm a fan. I'm a big fan, especially the story just mentioned about gap insurance and your history with it. That's really remarkable. I didn't know that.
虽然有时候人们会说汽车经销商和服务合同提供商的坏话，但我这辈子还没遇到过比他们更好的一群人。我为此感到兴奋，但在某些特定的场合，我可能也会想念他们。也许不会想念得太多，但还有一点点。总之，我是他们的粉丝。我是大粉丝，尤其是刚刚提到的关于差额保险的故事以及你在这方面的经历。这真的令人印象深刻。我之前不知道这些。
If anyone wants to learn more about easy care, I have the website pulled up here, easycare.com. We'll throw up the link in the show notes as well. No, listen, I appreciate the time and I didn't tell you this story, but I found you on the way on a little golf jinket that I was going with my son on and some other podcast and I was checking through the phone and saw you have gone and listened to it for about four hours that day.
如果有人想了解更多关于Easy Care的信息，我这边已经打开了他们的网站，网址是easycare.com。我们也会在节目附注里放上链接。感谢大家的时间，说起来，这件事我还没告诉过你呢，我是带着儿子去打高尔夫球的时候，在其他播客中发现你的。当时我在手机上看到了你的节目，那一天听了大约四个小时。
Very impressed, excited to be a part of your organization, what you've built in a very quick period of time. So thank you for the opportunity and look forward to hearing more and more from you as the years go on. Appreciate you. It's only the beginning. We just launched CDG News and a lot more to come, so we're growing quickly as well. I want to have it up last. Tony, thanks for coming on. Had a lot of fun. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right.
非常印象深刻，很高兴能成为你们组织的一员，你们在短时间内取得的成就是令人敬佩的。感谢这个机会，期待未来多多听到你的消息。非常感激你。这只是个开始。我们刚刚推出了CDG新闻，还有更多内容即将到来，所以我们也在快速成长。我希望把它放在最后说。托尼，谢谢你参加节目，玩得很开心。感谢你。好了。
Hope you enjoyed that episode. Please give the podcast a rating. Consider subscribing to the show and check the show notes for links to what we talked about. Thanks for tuning in. I'll see you guys next time.
希望你喜欢这一集节目。请给我们的播客打个分，并考虑订阅我们的节目。查看节目说明中的链接，了解我们讨论的内容。感谢你的收听，下次再见。