So I'm like, I'm about to go to a divorce. I have terminal cancer. It's pandemic. It's 2020. It's then and I say, let's go, baby. I'm a better myself, trusting God. And to be where I am today, it's easy to say that do successful, but it was a lot of lonely, dark nights getting here, you know, over these last three.
What's up, everyone? This is car dealership guy. You're listening to the car dealership guy podcast, which is my effort to give you access to the most unbiased and transparent insights into the car market. Let's get into today's episode.
Bruce Miller is an independent car dealer from New Orleans and the owner of Miller Motors. He's been in the automotive industry for 22 years. In this conversation, we discussed going from living in the streets to selling $150,000 worth of cars per month, raising capitals from friends at church, losing 85% of his income, acquiring stakes and other cardioships and owning the subprime auto loan market in his town. This was a wild conversation unlike any other that I've had on the pod before. I hope you enjoy it and please don't forget to let me know what you thought about the episode by leaving a comment on X, LinkedIn, Instagram or YouTube.
Before we get into the show, this episode was brought to you by cars commerce. The platform was simplified everything about buying and selling cars. I talk a lot on this podcast about how complicated and disconnected our industry can be with so many different moving parts. So as a cars.com and dealer inspire customer of many years, I was excited to hear Alex Vetter announce his team's vision to simplify dealership technology as cars commerce. If you missed it, they've been connecting the most valuable audience from their cars.com marketplace with innovative technology and media solutions such as dealer inspire, accurate trade and are newly formed cars commerce media network. So now this platform means you can work with one partner to advertise to consumers you know are in the market, guide them through a seamless customer experience from online to in store and quickly build a differentiated reputation in your market. Simple. That's what we need to improve the customer experience and future proof local retailers. Go to cars commerce.ink or visit the link in the show notes below to see how you can simplify your business and grow profitability.
This episode is also brought to you by podium the lead conversion platform for card dealerships podium helps you get found at the top of Google search and convert new leads faster with industry leading communication tools and AI with podium. You can finally take the guest work out of lead management, bring every lead into one unified inbox for spawn automatically in two minutes or less and even book appointments using AI get podium and get ready to convert leads faster than ever and see why over a hundred thousand businesses like yours have given themselves an instant advantage with podium get started today with 10% off your plan by texting car dealership guy to 833-441-1166. That's 833-441-1166. Text that number and mention this podcast to get 10% off your plan or visit the link in the show notes below.
Just a group in the woods Louisiana you know childhood wasn't the greatest at two alcoholic parents on alcoholic uncles drug addiction you know just only child man just like trying to survive I think I went to like eight or nine different schools I was always moving to new neighborhoods I was the cheapest rent we lived somewhere for six month move I was at points different schools and I'm man my beginning to my childhood was just typically it was literally surviving you know kind of my mom was having me when she was 15 dad was like an abusive kind of like guy not really not a really good person so I just never really had like love I didn't have that loving family you know that doting mother or the dad that I could that would be proud of me I just didn't have that no so I was on my own in my home mentally for like a long time I didn't really have people that they loved me I guess but they just didn't show it I was as always chipping my shoulder trying to try to make up for that you know I got into adolescence ramp the wrong crowd I had friends that got murder I have friends that got 10 years in prison 7 years in prison 8 years in prison I was at a location with a group of five friends and we got shot at and one of our friends got murdered easily could have been me I kind of escaped any kind of like felony convictions and stuff like that but again had to escape that part of my life and then I you know kind of like found a church found God got married very very young young family and I got into car business all in 2000 you know car business married and my first summer's born you know so 21 years old I'm a father I'm in the car business and I'm just looking for something that I that I can like a industry where I could make you know I sat down with a army recruiter and he said you can make 20 grand a year I said a year so I'm not calling him I'm laughing because like you know it's the bug when people come into the car business they suddenly make like you know 150k you know as a salesperson or something and then they go do some hourly job and they're like what no way I keep your arm sorry to cut you off actually a cousin of mine's wife says now I'm a receptionist at a dealership and you just like those sales people you remind me of those sales people you know so she said you should go apply for a car business and then saw walked in uneducated high school dropout first time I ever had been in a new court dealership in my life my parents were abused cars poopedies and apply for the job I had to beg my way to get the job they didn't hire me right away what job did you apply for at this time? salesperson? salesperson you know 21 years old you know so I applied for a salesperson not like a poor or a detailer and I got you know I always had a gift for gab I was always like a hustler you know so apply for a salesperson they had a class of 20 people and I was the dead last one that I'm gonna talk about the Friday before the class started on a Monday I finally had to figure out how to like get to the guy like go through receptionist hit the zero to get you know I finally had to figure it out of the 40s how to get directed to him and then at 3 o'clock on a Friday he was like okay man okay you can start Monday you know when I got in a class I can hear people tell stories man he's been calling me for three weeks man he's been on me for two months I finally decided to come give it a shot and I was like the last one in the class you know so that was like my introduction to the car business you know so
now talk to me about your team today I mean I have tons of questions right what does Miller Motors look like today you launched it two years ago first year you did 725 cars retail what does it look like today same kind of numbers I'm only sitting on point eight five of an acre same kind of numbers but I have an excellent team I have three technicians that make 35 40 and 42 thousand hour like I do I don't even have to ask you numbers man you just you're just coming out coming out swinging with these numbers they're making my life easy yeah no no that's that's kind of my thing I'm good at a good relationship with numbers and I like telling the story I like the transparency cool yeah yeah I stated to say that I got three excellent mechanics I have a service rider slash manager I have two BTLers and all these guys worked in franchise stores in the city they come to work for me why and why they come to work for you why why did that happen over 23 years in the franchise business I've always been a straight up guy I've never been a partier or the it was like painfully married good guy when people were working for me I would always be trying to like get them to go to church or do the right thing or I've got fires from jobs I'm talking about high paying job because I didn't like the way they were strictly employee and I stuck my neck out for the employee and over a few months later I ended up getting fired but ultimately was because I was like I wanted to be a partier but ultimately was because the way I wanted to treat people I've promoted in my time in the franchise world over 20 sales people in demand three of those 20 sales people that got promoted to manage our general managers now two three use code directors two three GSM's and so I've always had a situation where I pour into people you know I give more in my relationship than I take sometimes I don't get nothing back you know I'm just so I have a great reputation and I think that's why
do you think that's happened like do you think that's just that's something a by product of the life you've lived like why do you give more than you get in your given your your background your experiences where it seems like at least early on you kind of you know didn't get a lot why how do you how did that come out of you
I'm a great parent I consider myself a great parent because I've watched how not to be a great parent from my parents I'm a great leader because I've watched for 11 years the first 11 years before I was a boss you know the boss of you know manager managers I seen terrible leadership I seen things that just didn't make sense you know I was a 23 year old findings manager and I've just seen things that it makes sense that 23 but I was the backup finance manager I wasn't in a position to make decisions so when I got to be the boss you know like I said there ain't no fun when the rabbit has the gun when I got to be the boss I put my people first under my leadership on the use car record at eight different stores in the warlands I managed this big Chevy store for for six years only with 63 and nine as far as first place in the city and there's six Chevy dealerships within 30 miles a very saturated market we won every single month you know use car records and six seven eight stores that I managed you know just so so when I began to treat people right and I got these great results then they had a few to fire I said I'm gonna continue putting my people first I'm gonna continue treating people right because it's it's getting me to the results you know so that's kind of where that came from I learned how not to treat people by how I was treating when I was coming up you know I learned how not to be a good parent by the way I was parent and coming up and so you know just just looked at the situation said I'm not doing that you know when I get a chance I'm not doing that
you've had that you've experienced that and you know like you said you know what not to do that's that's very powerful so tell me more about right you now have your independence store you had two decades at least of experience in the franchise world right what was that like for you right like how going from childhood you mentioned into the car business right like how did that happen what was it was all money driven or was there anything else that's brought you into the car business and kind of helped you make a home what was that like for you
Um, I guess it started off as money-driven. You know, at 21 years old, my first year in sales, I made like 60-something thousand. That's not like some store in L.A.P., but that was 23, twenty-something, 23 years ago. And that $5,000 plus a month was more than anybody in my circuit, like my parents, you know, Uncle Lou, my friends. And so it's like, man, I actually went through my life, childhood, and everything, and not really being valued, you're saying. Or not really being loved. And so finally, like, I was valued for my efforts. I was a grinder, hustler. I worked late. I would like to activate all the managers. And then I was even income. That was like, okay, good job, you know, like this is, you're saying, I was almost valued.
So the money never motivated me through the years. I needed money. I put three kids through private school, and one of them went four years at Tulane University. I paid cash for all that. I never was, like, a hunting camp guy or a beach house guy or a boat guy. I was always grind, you know? I had a vision early on that I wanted to own my own dealership. I was different from everybody else. I was misunderstood, you know? Who's everybody else? You talk about your friend group? No, my friend group is kind of like, when I got married and had kids, I kind of stopped hanging with the friend group because I was focusing on my family, you know, my family, church, raising kids.
So, so I kind of, like, all I did was with my kids and work, you know? And so I didn't play golf on my off day with my buddies or, you know, I even learned how to play golf because I was with my kids. I was at Chuck E. Cheese with my two boys, you know? I never bought a boat and a beach house. I was like a little bit like a fish and stuff like that because I coached my kids in travel baseball. I was in the car business as a sales manager. And I would not, I would not accept not being able to do both, not being able to be there for my sons. And so what I did with at the dealership, I just worked really hard to get that time, that leverage, only on a Saturday for those games or coming late on a Saturday for those games. So I felt like I owed the dealership. So I had to work hard to be able to do both, you know, family and the dealership.
所以,我基本上只是陪着孩子和工作,你知道吗?所以我没有和朋友们在休息日打高尔夫球,甚至学了打高尔夫球,因为我陪着孩子们。我在Chuck E. Cheese和我的两个儿子一起玩,你明白吗?我从没买过船和海滩别墅。有点像一条鱼之类的,因为我曾在旅行棒球中教育我的孩子们。我曾在汽车销售经理的职位上工作。我不愿意无法同时做到这两者,无法在我儿子身边。所以我就很努力地工作,争取到那些时间,在周六的比赛上能出现,或者在周六晚些时候出现。所以我觉得我欠了汽车经销商一些东西。所以我必须努力工作,才能同时照顾好家庭和汽车经销商。
So money provided a good lifestyle for my kids. It provided, you know, advantages for my kids educationally. It provided like good vacations and things like that. The results of the money is really what motivated me more, more than the money. And so what got into you that, you know, after a couple of decades in the dealership world as an employee, as a manager, you said, "Hey, I want to open up my own store." Like, what happened? I was unceremoniously fired without cause after being recruited away to be a managing partner of two stores. Now, look, you've been in the car business a long time. You'd interview a lot of people. Think about that. In my hometown, I'm a managing partner, 20% ownership in one store and 10% ownership in another store. That's a crowning achievement, man. That's right at 40 years old. I get this achievement, you know. It's amazing.
These two stores had eight people in the very operations combined. Two stores, big high-end store, big out of the store had a total of eight people. In the barber operation over the course of a year, I changed advertising broke every used car record that ever did. Had 36 people in the barber operation of these two stores, some of the best people in the city. And wait one second, this is where, where is this right now? What are you talking about? What store? This is prior to me going into the independent world. This is like a year, you're talking about?
Yes, yes. Well, it's been three years that I've been in the independent world. So this is like about, you know, four years ago, June of 2020, as COVID was just kind of taking place and nobody really knew exactly what was going on. We had a good May, you know, because of pent-up demand and things like that. My partners let me go. Okay, they just called me in and like, "It's not working." We had countless, such arguments over people. They wanted me to fire people in March before the negative effects of COVID even happened. I kind of like, we just didn't agree on so much stuff. They were older, kind of legends in the car business in the warms. Everybody knows they were great guys, but we just, we just didn't see eye to eye. And I was let go.
And I was sitting in this, you want to see how I got into the independent world. What happened to your equity? We did not, we had it on paper, but we, the money had never changed hands because they were suing their previous two partners, the previous two majority partners of both stores. They were like in litigation. So we never, they never paid me the 20%, it's like on paper, but I never gave them the money, luckily, because I guess it would have been hard to get the money back from them because they like to sue.
So it was an amazing opportunity. I jumped into it like, all the asthma breaks approach but they were not good they were not the best partners everybody they they end up putting in that managing partner rule they have problems lawsuit stuff like that so but I don't regret it because I learned so much and it's such a crunting achievement like great money like great on the resume type man look what I was able to accomplish high school drop on managing partners so so at this point what happens that leads you to say I want to open up my own store what goes to your head?
I was I had like there's only four or five people to work for in the warms and I had worked for one but when I was putting this together I was all in all gas no breaks I went after the best of the best in the city in the world I alienated a few people taking their their best employees because a lot of people want to work for me and then I was just like let go for no reason I was I was like I had a performing fantastic so I decided to myself I no longer want to work for nobody else anybody else I marched to be my own drum I'm very passionate about like what I believe I feel I'm as gifted to get back to having a new car franchise one day and I said that 41 years old I said this is the time I'm just starting at I thought about the dealerships because you know G.S. 7 ones store in the city of New Orleans a big Chevy store the number one Chevy store in the city the six years there could be the general manager of a Nissan store executive manager of an ESSA store but also the vice president of operations for six stores for that group I did definitely like 13 months at high level great success and then I got recruited away to be of this managing so I had did like a lot of great stuff in the city of New Orleans in a short period of time and I just when I want to go look for a job I talked to a few different people and they didn't want to pay me for my time I bring the circus the time when I come I bring the bearded lady the trapeze the elephants the lions I bring all with me you know if you hire me for your store I got it completely and I'm turning around like that so so Kobe was happening nobody needed the circus nobody needed a Bruce Miller so I said I'm open I'm a home independent I thought about the five or six stores that I put GSM the German and they all have a success they kind of run in my play and I said you know what I'm gonna just do that for myself and so I went from making people don't like to talk about money I don't know why we don't talk about money but I want to make it 60,000 a month to take in a 10,000 I guarantee at an independent lot I went from vice president I mean I went from managing partner of an alley store and a Hyundai store to add a rockline not a rockline but add a little light with a 1200 square foot showroom with 40 cars out front for a guarantee of 10,000 dollars because I just I believe to myself what do you mean what do you mean a guarantee of 10,000 dollars are you friend of money or paying yourself no no no when I went to this independent I wasn't a partner or nothing I was I want to go work for some items existing use for life.
And he says Bruce will guarantee it's in grand and and he treated me like a partner from day one they you know like almost on the barrel side but there was only seven twenty cars a month got it so at the franchise side you were making $60,000 a month as a as a managing partner GM and then that doesn't work out you leave you go to work at an independent store at the independent store suddenly you go from 60,000 to being guaranteed only 10,000 dollars the stores only doing 20 cars a month they can't pay you that much so so what led to you opening up your own store then I went there and had success we did 45 cars and that little bitty location within within 128, change the way the bar cars use my my pool to add ally bank, exit or different banks store had been in business for 20 years so they had all the financials but they just didn't know the right connection change the marketing change the advertising brought good people to the living store and you can you hit on a key point here so you're saying you brought your lending relationships yeah yeah yeah yeah which I had been a yeah so I expected to call about huge unlock for any use car dealer correct adding ally financial and previously you was only using credit acceptance in Westlake adding ally financial and adding and then getting exit there and you know in the other lenders the fuck does that follow suit you know because when you say hey I got out what are the lenders did you bring just like CPS review a couple local credit unions that do in the right landing and stuff like that just use my in anybody anybody who would accept an independent I had the resume and they had the they've been in business for you and they had the financial so we was able to get a bunch of banks
So how did you get to your own store after this? Did you leave this place, sir?
那么在这之后,您是如何到达您自己的商店的呢?您离开了这个地方吗,先生?
I tried to buy a small Chevy store in the end while I'm working for that independent. I tried to buy a small Chevy store for like 750,000 in a rural part of town. And to the common person, listening to this podcast, that is the cheapest possible new car franchise and it still costs millions of dollars.
It still costs millions of dollars in capital. You have to have that 750. The dealership will require you to have a half a million dollars in working capital based upon a 50 car store. Because by having a working capital, you have to have a $4 million floor plan. You have to have millions of dollars of fallback or assets to get a $4 million floor plan.
So even a damn near free dealership, so break that down for us again, right? So you looked at the Chevy store, 750k was the price just for the blue sky or the goodwill and the franchise, correct? And were you buying this from someone else? Like what was where I was buying it from somebody else and buying it from somebody else. And I had some backing and I'm going through the process I didn't have what I didn't have exactly what it took.
So the gentleman selling it to me he had a partner and he says look me and you he liked my plan because it mean you were just going to buy out my partner and I'll back you. So I went through that whole process, got the paperwork from General Motors, filled out all the paperwork, had four interviews with the regional guy and they all knew me for my Chevy days and the last step of just going flying to Dallas and having a formal former interview. I was approved to be a Chevy dealer and that guy changed his mind. He didn't want to be financially responsible for the more he ended up losing the franchise.
And so I went through trying to, you know, we all caught guys, we think all move on to buy a new car dealership. I'm going to quit this job and I'm going to buy a new car dealership and I'm going to take way more money than you even can imagine to be able to obtain one, even a cheap one. This was like a raggedy location, raggedy building worth nothing. It still cost me another thousand.
Yeah and you said you would need four million dollars in a floor plan. And again, for anyone that's listening not familiar with the term floor plan is pretty much industry term for inventory line of credit.
We don't pay cash for the cars, especially new cars. We finance them for a portion. We just been interested only, basically we pay interest only for a period of time until the car gets sold. So the new car thing fell through. Another gentleman in the city was going to try to buy two dealerships an hour away and was going to let me purchase 20%. We fell one day, one day a day late and a dollar short of like getting that transaction. They sold it to the other person.
So like the doors will be enclosed on what I wanted to do. So I just said I'm going to go to this independent world. While I was pursuing. these new car franchises, I was working daily in that independent store. And I took them from 18, 20, a four year average of 21 to the high of 45. You know, the him and his partner was putting dirty grain a month from years. That's just what they made now. They split in 150,000, you know, so I said okay, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna open up a new car, I mean independent used car lot.
About six months later, I found a building. How did you find the building? Where did that come from? New Orleans is very landlocked. We don't have, we are a lot of buyers of water like smaller areas, not like Texas, it's not like, you know, we only have four and a half million people in the entire state. New Orleans has the great New Orleans area has barely over a million people. And so it really was just like, I looked at two or three locations. I wanted to purchase something, not lease it. Because at the end of the day, if you're operating a business, and the very little you're at least making that mortgage. you're buying, you pay, you're winning. You know, you're paying something off.
You know, and I'm did you have the cash to do that? I found three gentlemen from my church. And I'm not afraid to say this, they put up a large amount of money and I gave them a decent amount of equity. And that's how I was able to, I didn't start with a rock block. I started with like a 6,000 square foot building on a nice, you know, busy street all concrete. It has a service department. When I started my business, I said I don't want to start from a trail on a rock block. Many people start from a trail on a rock block and go on to be successful. But I don't want to wait two, three years. I wanted, I wanted it now.
So I found some investors that had a hustle. Look, if you listen to this podcast, you want to be on use collide and you need to try to find investments and you need to be on the You have to be known to work hard, known to have success and these people are like I've been going to church with for 20 years. They knew my successes and they had no doubt no no equivocation of giving me money because they knew it was going to get a return on the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road you know all the same one I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and I was leaving the road and you know all the same one we are leaving the road and you know all the same one we are leaving the road and you know all the same ones all the different ones all the different ones all the same ones all the different ones around around around around around around around around around the road and the road and the road and then it happened, and then it happened, it happened, you know like you know like you know like you know you know as the same one, you don't have to see somebody have to see somebody talk somebody in me talking about it, if someone She everyonescope to heja says what I said it had someone procedure to be someone I said he got to be a guy with a man stray that way to join somebody and then if something you might say something like a man Gil will tell you what I said 77 you ain't about you or something like a man else, I lose sky for you school.
Because it's not in proprietary. You just could open up your own useful life. But this isn't there been 20 years. Me and his guy were coming good friends. And I want he was allowing me to like be just being an investor. And so I gave him 125,000. And I have no problem saying this. I've made three times that money in two years. And and and what did you get returned for 125,000? 25% So basically this guy says, okay, you're going to open up down the street from me. You know, you're doing great job. Like you may squash me, you may not let me offer you to buy an equity stake in my company. So now you're running both stores, or you have a stake in both stores. And you know, he wins, you win. Everyone wins. Yeah, well, person out, every person that works there, I'm hired off from the franchise world. So what happens is basically, I kept all his people in place that you know, I managed them and and marketing advertising. It's been a beautiful, like, he just completed a $250,000 renovation on his store. Because it's his building that's his store. I'm just an investor. And it's been a beautiful relationship is what I'm trying to say he. And from my perspective, or anybody listening, how long would you have had to think about giving somebody 125,000 dollars for a stake and a huge color, and you didn't notify an answer. There's no guaranteed economic uncertainty. But I wrote that check out of faith, because I figured that my time is now this is the right decision. And that and it's not open millimeters and wrote a check for that in that same year. And it's been it's so people could look at me now say, man, look at the sky owns a couple of years for a lot to just get into more successful guy marches to the beat his own drum gets to wear whatever he wants to work man, pushes so successful.
But would you have taken the 10,000 a guarantee? Would you have turned down $400,000 plus year jobs to go better than yourself? Man, we all got this provider we all alpha males and the core business, right? But think about how much of an alpha male that I had to be to say, Oh, yeah, and I got terminal cancer. I got a weird cancer that that that I'll never be rid of and I'll always be medicated or always have surgeries or always be trying to fight this cancer. I could have said, Oh, yeah, my wife decided to leave me, you know, never cheat. I never cheated on that. She just decided to leave. She got tired of the whatever and she decided to leave me. So I'm like, about to go through divorce. I have terminal cancer. It's pandemic. It's 2020. It's then I say, let's go baby. I'm a better myself trusting God. And to be where I am today, it's easy to say that do successful. But it was a lot of lonely, dark nights getting here over these last three years. I can only imagine God bless you. Got some crazy strong willpower to fight through all this.
Tell me about just like how you run your dealership. I just have some very tactical questions. Right like, just let's start with floor planning. Like, who do you floor plan with? I floor plan with ASC. How does that work for you? Like, how much money did you have to put up? How much do you pay on the floor plan? What's your interest rate? I think I have to put nothing up because I had good credit. My partner said the credit there. Oh, there there were, you know, millions of dollars and, you know, so I had to put nothing up. I started with a 600,000 on the floor plan at the other location. So again, I learned so much working down the street, working in that, you know, years ago, they did they got a floor plan with AMC. And then they said they don't want to pay interest. They want to play a flat fee. So they got it like a very, very good flat seat. And the agency does offer this to people flat fees. And so when I opened up, I said, look, I don't want to pay interest either. So they gave me a flat fee. And I can't tell you how much money I'm saving with the interest rates going up and floor plans. Floor plan is closing huge crolats across the country, because they're paying $1,000 to finance a $30,000 on the car for two months, you know, how are you managing between the floor plan and your inventory turn right now? Like, have you have you been moving cars quicker as rates have been rising? And you know, interest has been, you know, it's been more expensive to hold cars. How have you been managing that?
Less few months have not been the greatest, right? So what has been the greatest? The business, you know, just finally, like for the first six months of the year, the higher interest rates and in the in the limit, the banks scaling back, you know, in the bank credit banks, secondary banks who cater to more people re establishing their credit are way less aggressive than they were six months ago, because they're borrowing the money for way more than they've bought it in the past. So they have less margin. So they're just not buying as deep. And then when I got to the summer months, the drop and use core values. the banks just like, like not buying as deep, we didn't have a great summer. Okay, now we just finished a great October, really, really good October, net profit wise, everything. But it was a tough, it was a tough summer. And so I had to scale back. I had to scale back.
The answer to your question, I was trying to stock 120 cars to force this force me to get to 75 retail. You can't get, you know, a month, a month, per month. Yes. So branch out world, you can turn your inventory quicker, independent, it's a little longer because it takes longer to get our cars out of service and stuff like that. You know, just I don't know, it just happened, I haven't turned been the one to one guy yet or 30 day turn yet. He says I've been open. So why are you saying it takes longer to get cars out of service and independent? Are you just are you just alluding to the fact that independence may buy cars that need a little bit more reconditioning? Yeah, 80, 80,000, 100,000 miles is I got some nice pieces out there that would bless miles, but my bread and butter, what I sell is a 20,000 on a car, 100,000 miles, you know, that the banks like I bought across the banks, like I don't buy across the bank doesn't like, you know, and that's my like bread and butter. So yeah, those cars take longer to get service. I only have three technicians and in four days. So inherently, it's longer. The dealership might have 12 days, you know, and maybe if I use car tax or something like that. So from the purchase of the auction to front and I'm ready. Unfortunately, it's taking like 14 days, you know, so that's the car is dropping in value.
And so, most of the short answer to your question, what I had to do to handle my floor plan and things like that is I had to stock less cars. So I didn't buy a car for six weeks, the beginning of the beginning, the end of September to toward the end of October, I didn't buy a car for six weeks. That's just so what we had and got down because when the when the end of the floor plan comes and you have to pay cash for the car, that's just a terrible thing for business. Okay, to have that car 100 days old and you paid it off in cash. So you're taking the capital. You're referencing if you're holding on to a car for too long and it hasn't sold yet, right? You have to make these curtailment payments to the to the to the lender and essentially you're you're saying that if you hold that car too long, you have to pay it off with your network and capital now. And it's a huge drag on the business. Huge drag on the business and it causes people to go under because you have paid off cars that you can't take an auction because another thing that people don't really realize independence typically do not fare well at the auction, especially all the local auctions where they say, man, Bruce is someone 55 cars. Yeah, you can take to the auction. You're just going to lose your pants. Right. They're not going to step up and buy my car like they would from a new car franchise because there's more faith in buying a huge car from a new car franchise. Yeah, reputation. Yeah, we had a great discussion about that on my podcast with with Hollenshead. Talked to all about this. Okay.
So I got to reach out a lot of them. You only have so much work in capital and then you looked and you're like, where's the money at? Well, it's all sitting on the line. And so I got named pretty well and I had like forced the sale of those cars. And we my team responded. We did 56 last month with a year over year increase. 56 is a big number for independent. I'd be most new car franchises and use car sales in this area. I'd be every independent in this area. You know, for New Orleans, Louisiana, I picked someone to listen to in Texas. They might say 56 is not a big number. But for New Orleans, Louisiana, that's a big number. And I saw so many cars that I had like 8,000 in the hotel, so many cars that were paid for cash and replenished my working capital. And, you know, that's what you have to do.
And who's your average customer? Like what's the average interest rate they're paying? Is it all deep subprime subprime? Like where are you? Yeah, probably the average interest rate is in a team. You know, I mean, like what? Average interest rate in a new car. Yeah, average interest rate is in a new car. As you always document is damn near 10% now. You know. it's creeping up there. So I want to use car with 80,000 miles per year old car 18%, 17%, 60% that that's kind of like on more of the night. That's what my customers pay. No. I have a whole piece about this that I could talk hours on. The reason we sell so many subprime cars is because the new car dealerships do not want to mess with mess with it. A consumer may say I'm buying the car for 18,000. Okay. And that's my internet price in a car. If you have good credit or go to your credit union or pay cash, I get the whole 18,000. If you have bad credit, I am paying a $2,000 bank fee from that sales price. It's hard for you to imagine, but no, I am taking from my front groves to help buy the deal for you. That's in essence what's happening. And I do that 30 times a month. I'm giving $50,000, $60,000 away to help people then getting funded. It takes 10 days, two weeks to get funded on a primary second deal. That's why the new car dealership doesn't want to do these things because they don't want to do a low margin deal. They don't want to pay the high bank fees and they want to be funded immediately. Like they are with good credit and new cars. So that's one thing that we cater and I'm comfortable with. I have enough capital to be able to do these transactions.
So I get new car referrals all over the city of New Orleans. When the customers say no, and they think that people can buy, they say, Bruce, making you help my people. I'll give them like a referral sheet. I do about 10 or 12, but those deal with loss. Yeah. Like you said, what people don't realize is that with a critical risky customer to a bank, at least that's how the bank perceives it, they need to mitigate that risk. And the only way to do that is to lower the type of loan they're putting out. And the only way to do that when someone is capped on state max interest rate is for Bruce Miller or Mr. Deeler to pay down the actual loan to value so that they're taking less risk and that they can actually do the deal. And so to your point, right, like it's a huge margin hit and the only way to do it profitably is to do some significant volume and to specialize in it, right? Which is, that's from my experience why lots of dealers don't deal with it because it is more work. There's no doubt about it. Right?
But what do you seem down on that? What's your average profit? Like front end, back end or profit on the car, said differently or profit. On the ancillary products, the vehicle service contract. What are you seeing like that? I typically don't mean, so when I purchased the car, I add a $1,000 to the car. And for the consumer listening to that, that is basically to help me cover all my expenses regardless of what we make on the car. I'm ashamed to say I have like $160,000 of expenses every month, technicians, salespeople, advertising, marketing, you know, we run a top notch organization and cost money to have good people and things like that. So a thousand dollars add to every car. So this will be, I don't make much more than that when I sell the car on the front of the car. 3,400, 600. Now making $1,600 total, but I'm just telling you the first thousand I had is an inventory cost and it's called a pack. That's what we call it in the car business. So there's 16,700 total counting that pack on the front and then another, you know, 16,700 on the back, you know, about about about 3,200 a car. And then, you know, about 3,200 cars, one week and that's my process, you know.
And then how many cars do you have in stock? I have 101 as of this morning and we still have 56 last month.
那么你们库存里有多少辆车呢?截止今天早上我们有101辆,上个月还有56辆。
How are you attracting your customers? Like what forms of advertising are you using? This is going to, this is going to confuse a lot of people. Okay. When I first opened, I spent 12,000 miles a month for the digital marketing agency for independent. right out the gate. I want to sell 100 cars. I've been pursuing trying to sell 100 cars out this location. I did it for a long time over a year and I'm ashamed to say and I'm scared to say I stopped spending that 12 grand with that digital marketing company and my sales have not went down.
We sell so many customers. I'm very active on Facebook. I'm very active on all of the local forms. I post stuff all the time. If you're my friend in social media, you're going to see me on TikTok, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. And I'm always telling a story about my business and about my team. And then I encourage all of my salespeople to use marketplace to post to personal posts a day. So my team is very engaged on social media. And we do really, really well on getting repeat referrals.
When you sell people with bad credit, they tell their friends, hey man, my credit was terrible. I went here. And after two years of doing that, most of my traffic, most of my sales are just organic. I sold a $95,000 Escalade 2022 Escalade in Arizona based upon like a car blue ruse listing.
We do sell cars outside of like the scope of bad credit. And we do sell cars outside of the scope of referrals and stuff like that. But the over 50% is just my reputation, the dealership's reputation, my sales being a reputation and how we use social media.
Listen, content marketing is extremely powerful, right? I think I can attest to that one. But I think as a dealer, like you said, lots of referral business in the subprime business and from your position, right, to put out that organic content to document your process, right? Like this proven strategy. And so it just takes work. And so the fact that you're saying that that's a huge driver for you, it makes a ton of sense to me that that's where you're going to be attracting a lot of your customers and retaining them as well.
So 21 cars, the last five days of October, and to sell 21 cars, the consumer might not understand that, but it takes the sell 21 cars, it takes 100 customers to sell 21 cars. And we literally had 100 people in here over five days, no mail sale, no huge ad campaign, just a consistent message, non-careous anymore.
Can you explain that for anyone listening? That's not familiar, right? Like you say it takes 100 customers to sell 21 cars. I understand that. Can you explain that to the audience why you say that? It probably takes a little bit more when you do know a subprime. Because people, you know, like if you typically across the industry, you want to sell two out of every hundred. You get 100 customers and then 40 come back, it's like a math. My mentor, it's a funnel. It's a funnel. Yeah.
Somebody has some training where it says eight leads, five appointments, three shows, and then one sale. So he teaches that it takes eight customers to sell one car. So it takes 160 contacts to sell one car. People are shopping, people are looking, people are all over. You know, when they're looking for a car, they're looking on the car at five different places at one time. So you have to be like on your game, you have to be good follow-up process. You have to get good information. You can't give them the one around, you know, because you got to take the lead, the customer, the contact, and then make it into an appointment.
But then you also have to do things to ensure they show up for the appointment. They say, oh, man, I'm coming to the other ship. But they told the other two dealerships that was coming to. And maybe that dealership sent them a little video of the car. Maybe that dealership, you know, worked the deal over the phone a little bit more than we did. It just takes a lot of effort to sell one car, you know.
When people show up to the dealership, we sell, it's more than 160 to sell 20. When they hear, we sell them a high percentage of time because we work really well with the back credit banks and we have the cars that work. So if they're coming in and they just need transportation, more than they leave in on the car. Maybe they couldn't afford the payment, maybe they couldn't get insurance. Maybe they don't have the right down payment. But we get them approved. And then a lot of people come back with that. They figured out insurance. They got more down payment or they got a cost on it. But no, it takes, like I said, it takes a lot of customers to sell one car, you know, at least 10, you know, 14, 13, a lot of leads.
Did you have to respond to a lot of messages on Facebook marketplace? I mean, the amount of people you got to talk to that sell one car is a lot of work.
What do you think are the biggest misconceptions about independent dealers in the market today? Independent dealers, dealers, all dealers in general have certain, you know, reputations, obviously. Some better than others, some worse than others. But what do you think the main misconceptions are about independent dealers? We sell junk. We're trying to get them. We're masking problems and just passing on to the customers. A bunch of misconceptions.
You know, look, my two years, I've probably bought 10 cars back because they broke out for the fact and by the letter of the law, I didn't have to buy them back, but a letter of the law. It was following that customer 50-50 parts and labor. They paid 50-50, you know, but I bought cars, I'll write back. I bought, I'm not lying, 20 engines and transmissions, you know, over two years. I bought customers warranty, didn't cover it, whatever, it happened too fast. I spent all this money on, like the weather told you earlier, the bank fees, you know, so I do so much, but still some people are unhappy. You can't please them all. So, but the misconception is that we make money every time we sell a car, that's not the case. You know, they'd be surprised when we lose $5,000 to sell a car, like real money, you know. The misconception is that we sell junk, which I have the same kind of inventory. I'm going to the auction buying from new car dealerships. I'm buying their trees, so I'm buying the same stuff that they sell. Yeah, and then this is a few misconceptions, but I work tirelessly on social media to dispel all of those.
And I try to stand by what I preach and teach myself people, and manage those. Like we hear to help people. I don't hear about how much money you need to make and XYZ. If you help people, we will get what we're trying to be. So, we try to be different, you know, so far so good.
What do you think about, like, how do you see the future of the independent dealership? I mean, there's a lot going on right now, the economy and just, you know, the industry is changing, consolidation, dealers are getting bought up left and right. What do you think about the future for the independent dealer?
I'm pretty confident that there always will be independent dealers, you know, selling cheaper cars in the franchise world. You know, people will always need transportation. You can rent a house, but you can't rent a car. You know, you need to buy a car. So, there is consolidation, but that's me, you know, in the franchise where new cars, they're big conglomerates are buying up other dealer groups, and that's happened. Right now we have one going down in the city of New Orleans where somebody has 12 stores, and two different dealer groups are buying those 12 stores. And so there's only five, six people that you could work for in New Orleans, where one's going away. And now, like imagine if you had these two dealer groups that have combined 30 stores in New Orleans, imagine if you pissed off one of those guys and you pissed off the other guy, you can't get a job at 30 stores. But for the independent world, just on West Bend Express, where that's the name of the street that my business is on, there's 15 independent dealerships, you know, and there's one popping up all the time. You know, there's plenty of independent dealerships, especially when you get down to the buy here, pay here, and tote your note and rent to own stuff like that. So I think they'll always be in the end of the edition. I think they'll always be like an alternative to buy use cars. I like to consider myself a used like new car franchise has a new car and then a use car lot. I consider myself a use car. I really don't consider myself an independent. I'm just I'm the same thing as you go into the Chevy's use car lot, you know, whatever Chevrolet use car lot or whatever, how to use for that. I stock the car. I have a service department. I have the same banks. I have experienced guys who used to work in those franchise settings. So I think if you have a model like that, you always have a chance to thrive and be around. And I think that, you know, you can't get you can't get here with that scratch. You know, we'll always be.
Do you think you'll ever get back into the franchise world? No doubt. 100% of our routinely put on LinkedIn telling people, let me buy 20% in your store and I'm still operating my usual. I want to be treated as owner. I'm not looking for a job. I want to be a Germanger. And I got I got some bites on that. And as I'm going from two years, collides to four years, collides, and I start putting away with capital for myself. 100%. You know, it's not it's not if it's a win. My story will continue to be better and better. And, you know, look, open in the. My own independent use car to use collides during the pandemic is one story, right? With the with the difficulties. Another great story is during a deep recession and things upside down. And I'm going to open up two more use for lots. So if I'm only going to act as how do you explain that? How do you explain that to the listener that's being, you know, that's sitting there saying, wait, what like, how is that possible to do in this market? Like, how do you how do you explain that? Well, if you have success, it's this duplicatable. You know, like, if I'm here in this city, people understand, but if I opened up a new school, I've crossed the street and maybe it's a good thing. And I've crossed the street and maybe it's something different and had the same and had different employees and different salespeople with different objectives. They would sell dirty car. You know, once you have the banking and the structure and the floor plan and you can just. Yeah, you have the foundation built already. Yeah, that second location that I'm open for millimeters. I'm not hiring anymore technicians. I'm not hiring anymore back office people. You know, there's certain certain expenses that are just not going to duplicate. So it's the economy of scale. Yeah.
Tell me, one thing I wanted to ask you earlier on is given your background, who taught you about equity? Like, what point in life did it hit you? Right? Because you mentioned your, you know, super humble beginnings to, you know, to say the least. And then from there, you know, a decade or a decade and a half later, you're, you know, getting an equity stake at a dealership as a managing partner.
And I find that many people that start in the car business, but don't grow in the car business. They don't understand the power of equity, the power of compounding and all that. So like, how did you learn about that given, given where you came from? So no, I learned it from watching others in the business, seeing things on the fold. And I just had this unwavering belief at a very young age, 25 years old, that I'm on, on New Corps, France.
And like belief is like, when you believe something, there's a lot of people that's going to try to talk to you out of that. A lot of people that's going to try to like tell you stupid or why do you believe that. But that belief was so strong. It's like, it was like the sun that my universe revolved around. You know, that was it. So, so obviously that's my goal to own a new car dealership. I have to pay attention to when I hear things of soul, that hear, hear conversations.
And when I was in the franchise world, this is like, you know, crazy store, not crazy, but at that Chevrolet store, we opened up three satellite use collides. How many people across the country have new car franchises that open satellite use collides? We sold 225 use cars a month at just a regular franchise Chevy store. A high of 300, you know, and, and so I negotiated all those leases.
This is how it worked. I would contact the people, negotiate everything. And I ended up in my general manager's office like, let's do this. But I had it all worked out all the details. Then when I went to this organization called Ray Brain, and I was the vice president operation for six stores, one of the stores had no frontage. And I got another use collides. I bought a guy's use collides. Actually hired him to be the German of the franchise. You know, so I'm not like a negotiate that. And then the last, you know, I did another use collide for the last year when I was the managing partner. So I had negotiated six or seven, you know, transactions.
I had sat down and being recruited away and dealing with Ray Brain, Guy, buses, so when he died, worked $750. I worked for the Benson organization, you know, just just a few time Benson and Gayle Benson and they own the St. The Pelicans and, you know, I had conversations with them and I was recruited away by Donnie Bone and the bones. They're like legends and the car business and the Orleans.
So I look up one day and I like, wait a second. I'm one hell of a negotiator. I sat down with billionaires, you know, basically and negotiated pay plans and things like that. So that's how, like when I bought the percentage at GNC, I was already prepared for that. You know, when I opened Miller Motors and I got some investors, I was already prepared for that. And so it's just like, you know, you go through, you go through, you have a dream and you go through your life and you, everything you're doing is, it's backed up by that dream.
You know, I'm working 13 hours today because I want to own new putting show one day. I'm putting up with the BS because you put up a lot of BS when you work for other people because I need this experience because I want to own my own digital symbol gate. Own it on and on. Once you have a strong belief, everything in your life kind of revolves around that.
And like I said, I've learned about the equity, watching others, but then I also negotiated a lot of stuff. I just learned about. Look, when it comes to the digital system and equity and percentages and things like that, I consider myself the knowledge that I gained. And it's good as anybody else's. And I already just don't mean that the carbon is nobody else taught me.
I think just my high level thoughts, it's super impressive to see how you've, how, what you've done for yourself, how far you've come, just, you know, being persistent. And, you know, you've definitely gotten knocked down a lot in many different situations, but it's not letting it put you down and continuing to push forward and finding solutions and staying positive.
So it's a super, super admirable man. Seriously, like congrats on congrats on what you've done. And I'm sure you're going to do a lot of, a lot of other great things. Really appreciate your transparency. You know, you can tell that you're just like a straight shooter. You keep it real, which is, which is another reason why I'm sure why you've been so successful.
Any final thoughts, anything I didn't ask you that you want to share with the audience?
有什么最后的想法吗?还有你希望与观众分享的,我没有问到的内容吗?
No, I mean, great podcast. Like I said, I just, I want to offer like.
不,我的意思是,这是一个很棒的播客。就像我说的,我只是想提供一些。
Literally, if I can do it, whatever I'm doing, because of me preferences by. saying this, many, many, many people way more successful to me. There's just regular general managers at dealership that, that I'm making a million out of the year.
Many people wait way more successful to me. So I'm just on my level of success. So if you, you're looking at me and saying, man, I'm not as successful as him. How did he get there? If I could do it, if anybody could do it.
Any catchphrase or keyword that would hinder your life or statistic, I've experienced it all. High school dropout, my day committed suicide, alcohol, parents, drug addiction, parents, divorce, cancer, terminal cancer, Katrina, cash replunkers, DMS bankruptcy, pandemic, you know, recession.
And I'm still here. And I've made it through all that with a mentality. Catchphrase that a few years ago, somebody said, Hey, there was some memes going around and it says, if this was a person, like a picture of an ugly person. If ugly was a person, this would have been somebody sent me a, it took one on pictures of Facebook and said, if all gas will break with a person. And like, that all gas breaks mentality is like, you crave or something, you plant or something. And when the door opens, you got to jump through the door. You can't be like, you crave for this. You plant for this.
So when certain doors open in my life, I easily recognize it. Okay. That's me. I don't put a whole lot of thought into like trying to talk myself out of it. We all talk ourselves out of it. We all live in so much fear. 90% of like 95% of like whatever you fear, never even comes through. We have, we do that in business transactions. There's not many people that want to turn down a $400 money a job with three kids in private school who will be $10,000. Because they believe that this was the path that they were supposed to be on, you know.
And so men, stop being free, post life with all gas, no breaks mentality. Try to, like if you believe in this, if you believe something, then you need to really believe it. Because this guy is going to send things in your path. The door is going to open up. And if you don't jump through those doors, then that was it. That was your chance. You know what I'm saying?
You can call me on my cell phone. I don't answer my phone all the time. 504-615-9297.
你可以拨打我的手机电话。我并不总是接电话。504-615-9297。
In the business that you want to help, you want to see how to get from salesperson. Because I excelled in every spot in the variable operation. I was a salesperson in the year. I was a .30 finance manager. I ran the best numbers. I was a young sales manager, a young new car manager, a huge car contractor. For a period of time, I was a fleet manager. In between jobs, I sold 20 cars a month as a fleet manager. I excelled in every spot in the variable operation.
So if I can help you, I really would take a phone call and offer help. If you're in New Orleans, you want to buy a car and come see me. You want to sell your car and come see me. But if you're in the automobile business, reach out to me. And like I said, I love talking about the car.
Thank you, man. I enjoyed it. Alright, 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.