Latest / Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant / Dangers Of Car Dealerships with Tony Marzullo

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Dangers Of Car Dealerships with Tony Marzullo · Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome the Money in Wealth with John Hobryant, a production
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, Hey,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: this is John Hobriant, and this is Money and Wealth
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: on the Black Effect Network. And we're at iHeart Atlanta
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: headquarters today because today I bring in my first official guest.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Now that must mean this dude is pretty special. Could
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: be a lady, by the way, this particular case, it's
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: a dude. It's my dude. It's my friend Tony Marzulo,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and Tony Marzulo, who I've known for about fifteen years.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: It's a car Fishinado. And we're gonna talk about pimping today. No, no,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: not that kind of pimping. We're talking about those in
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the automotive industry who by here, pay here, basically finance here,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and then I would say repossess here. I'm getting ahead
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: of myself. Let me. It's gonna be a this is
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: gonna be an on and popping episode. So everybody, I
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: want you to tune in and tell your friends and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: sit back with a cup of tea and let's have
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a real conversation about how things work. Now, you know,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I would say, if I was in front of you
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: something other than how things work. You can figure the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: rest of it out how stuff works. That we saying,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: how does this economy work? Like we're gonna unpack all
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: of this, We're gonna demystify the economy, demystify free enterprise
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and capitalism. And I talked in an early episode about
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: generally speaking, how the automative motive industry works at the
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: car dealership level. I talked in general terms about the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: three businesses within a car dealership at the part that
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: sells the car, the part that finances the car, the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: part that maintains the car. But I'm not a car guy.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not I'm a car guy. I don't own a
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: car dealership. I don't own I'm not in the business.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: We have credibility walking in front of us. This is
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: one of the good guys. His name is Tony Marzulo.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: He is the proprietor the owner of Gas Motor Cars
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: and Marietta, Georgia. I have bought and sold more cars
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: with him and through him than i'd like to admit.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: There's also a really cool story that we'll tell about
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a group of cars, a bunch of cars I bought
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: at one time. I just called him out of the blue.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: One day. We'll talk about that, but let's talk about
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: him first, and we're gonna get into something really, really
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: inspiring in the midst of this drama and tragedy that's
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: so bad even the La Times rode a three part
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: series on this buy here, pay here business. Now, by
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the way, is everybody in this business bad people? Of
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: course not. Are there good people in this business? Of
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: course there are. They're good people in the check cashing businesses,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: good people in the payday lending business, and good people
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and almost every sector. That's not who we're talking about today.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about one of the good guys. Tony Marzulo.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: You've been the distance for twenty five years.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Twenty five years, and tell him a little.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Bit about where. I know you think you're honorary black
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: or something, but you're Jewish, right.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Half Jewish, half Italian Black by adoption.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Who adopted you other than you?
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: But I did do the twenty three and meter and
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: it says I am one percent African, so well was
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: in there somewhere.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that accounts for your coolness factor. He's my
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: brother from another mother. I love this dude. He's smart
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: as a whip and funny, I mean not intentionally funny,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: like irreverent, funny like get out of my face, I'm
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: tired of talking to you. Kind of funny like he
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: like he like, was that just disrespectful? Did he just was? He?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Was he actually rude? Yeah, he's not only rude, he's
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: gone like he hung the phone up, like, look good
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: to have a customer in front of your goodbye click.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: So uh, this is a really good guy and we're
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: talking about a really bad set of business practices that
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: luckily doesn't include him. You may not like Tony Merzulo,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: but you'll never say he tried to screw you. And
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: that's a really important part of life. Now we're talking
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: about pimping. We're not talking about the pimping that happened
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: when I grew up in South central LA or Compton.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: We're not talking about that kind of pimping. We're talking
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: about financial pimping. We're talking about people who are this
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: car industry part the part of the car industry where
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: you buy here, finance here, pay here, and I'll add
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: gets repoll here, get the car back here, and they
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: love it. This is the business model we're to talk about.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Where these companies actually love when they take back the car.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Most lenders don't want to take back the car. That's
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: how they make them money. But this is a whole
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: different situation. Now, let me clarify. We're not talking about
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: everybody in the automobile built industry. We're not talking about
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: most people in the automobile industry. We're not talking about
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: most people in the secondary automobile industry. We're talking about
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a select group of people who prey on folks who
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: are financially illiterate, who have too much month at the
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: end of their money, who have broad, big, deep aspirations,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: maybe some challenges with self esteem that get gets communicated
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: through their credit card or their car they're buying or whatever,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: because they want to feel good about themselves. Nothing wrong
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: with that, but somebody's taking advantage of that, and that
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: angers me, and it also angers my brother Tony, and
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: we were just talking about this last week and I'm like,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: we got to talk about this on the show. But
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: before we get into that, let's get into you just
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: real quickly. Why do you give a dang? Why do
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: you by the way, nice watch, why do you care
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: man like like you can always tell by the way
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: a really a really rich dude. He's got on a
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: raggedy T shirt, you know, a secondary hat that's that
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: or this this hat has his logo on it, of course,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: and he just promoted it. He's got he's got on
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: some raggedy jeans and some not impressive shoes and a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: great watch and nothing and no jewelry, no nothing else.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: But you can guarantee the watches bang it right. That's
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: how you can tell a really really rich dude, right.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And I guarantee this is not Tony's only why she's
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about multiple Okay, we gonna start picking on.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: So tell me how did you become like a decent
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: human being? Your Your wife is kind and gracious. She's
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: got more add than you though that's hard to do,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: but she's kind and gracious. Your kids are really respectful
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and kind. And I was happy to come to what
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: was the official I don't want to say it was.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a bar mitzwell mitzell b missa. So I
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: got right with your daughter, which was beautiful. And I
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: haven't met one jerk around you that that is associated
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: with you. Everybody I've met your village. It's my village.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: They're kind of my kind of people. Just met Craig
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: at Butler Tied just a really cool guy. Right, So,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: how where did your decency come from?
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: You know what I think growing up in Atlanta, being
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: native Atlanta and then and then owning and operating in
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: a business in Atlanta for twenty five years. I'm constantly
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: surrounded by other people in my village, and I kind
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: of lived by, you know, a sense of me and
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: and a code of ethics where I didn't want to
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: ever have a hard time sleeping at night. So I
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: kind of just make the decisions, multiple decisions every day,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: knowing that I'm doing the right thing because I don't
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: want to get woken up in the middle of the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: night thinking I didn't do the right thing. And I
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: also have family that's here. And the last thing I
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: ever wanted to hear was, Hey, I had dinner with
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: this guy last night. He says he bought a car
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: from you a couple of weeks ago, and you screwed him.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: I don't need that coming back.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: To me, So bad juju, bad karma, bad juju. You
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: know you don't have any bad juju. You want to
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: make sure that you know your karma is cool. That's
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: that's so, that's one answer to why you operate. But
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: that really wasn't the question I was asking you. I
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: wasn't you know, you've given yourself a lot of credit
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: for running a good business. I know, I'm not talking
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: about that. You're not responsible for you your parents as somebody,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: somebody made you a good dude, Like there was somebody
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: who I'm not giving you that credit. Who in your
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: life I've made you decent?
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Definitely my parents. Yeah, my dad was an entrepreneur. He
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: was a pharmacist, independent pharmacist. Also always did the right things.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Name with John, always did the right thing. Sometimes people
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: would come in and they didn't have enough money for
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: their co pay for their prescription, and he would just
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: give it to many ways and say, just pay me
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: back when.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: You have the money.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: So and I used to work there as a kid,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: and I kind of I just picked up on that.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: And you know, even and then his father, whose name
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: was Paul, one time we had a religious conversation. I
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: had a Jewish mom, I had a strict Italian Catholic dad,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: and I had a grandfather who didn't really believe in God.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: And I asked him one time, I said, what's up
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: with that? And he said, God's not gonna tell me
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: how I should or should not live my life. It
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: was just be a good person, do good things, and
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: don't be an ahole and don't be it just stuck.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: And that's just kind of how I've always done, and
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: that's kind of what I try to instill in the
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: guys that are working for me at the dealership.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I just.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Do the right thing. It's easier, there's plenty, and it's
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: profitable to do the right thing. It's a huge pie
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: with a lot of pieces, and everybody can eat. Especially
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: in the Atlanta market with the high end luxury car market,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: everybody can eat. There's no reason to cut corners. There's
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: no reason to not just do the right thing to
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: make just that little bit more money because eventually it
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: runs its course and that karma does come back, and
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: karma's a bitch. It'll come back and it'll get you.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we just sleep good at night doing things
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the right way.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: So on that point, again, not everybody in this business
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: are bad people, but there's some real pieces of work
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: out here that are planned folks in this whole buy here,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: pay here, finance here, I would add repossess here business again.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: The La Times just did a three part series, not
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: just did, but did a three part series on this,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: which I'll make sure that people can get a link
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: on so they can read it. But you had a
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: personal experience that sort of woke you up. You called
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: me last week and told me about the situation with
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: this young lady. I think she's afric American, correct, And
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: she came into the dealership. Is that right? No.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: So I'm involved with, and have been for many years
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: involved with a charity called Giving Grace, And that's exactly
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: what they do, is they give grace to people who
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: are just down on their luck and having a hard
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: time getting grace. And it may be something as minuscule
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: as somebody's thirty dollars short on their rent and if
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: they can't come up with the thirty dollars by tomorrow morning,
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: they're gonna be homeless. And I've been involved because you know,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: a few dollars here and a few dollars there, when
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: you have an aggregate and a whole bunch of people
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: giving that thirty dollars here thirty dollars, that adds up
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: and it I think has been impactful. I know it's
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: been impactful. It's helped lots of people. So given the
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: fact that what I do for a living and have
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: been doing for twenty five years, I'm kind of the
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: go to for when these people that need grace, and
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: it's the majority are single moms, and if they need
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: help with something automotive, anything automotive, that could be we
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: have a mom that needs a set of tires. You
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: can't drive her car to work safely anymore. I've kind
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: of fallen on that sort and said, you know what,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: when stuff like that comes up automotive, you guys call me,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: and as much as I can do, I will do,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: because I do feel that giving back is the best
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: way to live your life. I think everything comes full
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: circle and you pay it forward. So specifically to my
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: phone call to you last week.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: By the way, it's not like you have nine thousand
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: employees and five locations. You have one primary location. How
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: many employees.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Small family run operation. We've got a dozen employees.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Right, but four or five primary employees that I see
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: around there. Yeah.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have in our main office, the kind of
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: the front of the house sales office. We've got three
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: dedicated sales guys, an internet guy and a back office man.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: The point of this is you don't have to be
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: a big business to be philanthropic and charitable. You can
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: be most businesses in America small businesses. And Tony's showing
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: you can do it as a small business. So all right,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: so this you running this situation.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: I get a phone call from someone involved with the
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: charity that says, we've got a single mom. She's got
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: a vehicle that needs an engine, and we feel that
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the cost of the engine is in excess of the
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: value of the car. Can you step in and try
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: to help this person out? And I said, sure, get
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: her on the phone, get the details of the story,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: and is short, and there's no way a short version
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: of this story. So here is a lovely young woman
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: who has it together, in my opinion, has a job,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: is doing the best she can.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: May not be financially literate. Let's just let's just.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Say she's not financially literate like many people, like many people.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: And told me a story, and this is how the
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: story goes. In twenty eighteen, she needed an automobile, she
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: had a job, she needed a new car. Her credit
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: score did not put her in a position where she
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: could go to a mainstream tier one type of facility.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: The deal you being so polite. Her credit score, her
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: credit was toe up from the floor credit.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I didn't get her credit score, honestly, but assume it
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: was totally jacked do.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: This is not how he talks to me. By the way,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: when he's off camera, he's been very sweet. Anyway, She's
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: a nice lady, sweet lady with.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Credit was to lady with bad credits.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: So which doesn't make her a bad person.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Just doesn't make her a bad person, just maybe had
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: a bad financial decision some point in time in her life.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: And she bought a vehicle in twenty eighteen. She bought
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: a three year old automobile from a from a buy here,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: pay here a lot, one of the larger ones in
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: the country, so not a not a small one kind
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: of corner a lot. This is a massive it's an operation,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: massive operation, the billions and billions of dollars in revenue.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: And I'm not saying all people within the organization are
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: bad or the organization as a whole is a bad
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: There are bad apples and there are bad players in
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: that game. So she buys a car for twenty one
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars is what I recall.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Now, listeners, I want you to now pay close attention
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: to these numbers. This was twenty eighteen. She buys a car.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: She's a mother, right, she's a mom. She's a mom.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: She's got a job. She's not geting lazy about her
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: She's doing her thing. She's being responsible, she's paying her taxes.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: She's a great American citizen who's just need transportations. She
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: buys this, She goes in a lot. She trusts these people.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: She spends eighteen thousand hard on eighteen thousand, I think
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: twenty one. It happened in twenty eighteen. Yeah, and.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Buys a three year old Nissan Altima, I believe. And
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: I don't recall what the mileage was, finances it. I
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: don't even know what the term was. I just know
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: that where we were at as of a week ago
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: was she had been paying five hundred dollars a month
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: at a twenty seven percent interest rate.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Woozers, wow, wow.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Wow, twenty seven percent. It is just watered every two weeks,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: so paying every two weeks. Every two weeks. No, no, no,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: it's just two fifty every two weeks. So she's paying
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: five hundred bucks a month. So COVID hit. She lost
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: her job, which a lot of people did, she got
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: behind in her payments. Instead of repossessing the vehicle, they
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: just added an exorbitant amount of late fees and penalty
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: fees and put it back into the loan. Therefore, it's
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: accruing interest and compounding on the penalties as well.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: So let me translate what he just said in English.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: So she owed two dollars and then she on the loan,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: she owed another fifty cents on unpaid balance because she
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: had lost her job. They charged interest on the fifty cents,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: compounding at twenty seven percent plus fees and probably acceleration
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: fees tied to a default, and they compounded that on
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: top of compounding that, on top of compounding that on
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the original two dollars it was owned. So you can
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: get rich quick on compounding, and you can go broke
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: quick on compounding. Are you as you guys have heard
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: me say, you make money during the day, you build
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: wealth in your sleep. And if you hang around nine
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: broke people, you'll be the tenth. And so if you're
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: compounding in the reverse direction, you go broke real quick.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Think about sharecropping, like, no matter how hard our ancestors
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: worked back in the day, oddly enough, you just never
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: made enough money to earn a profit beyond what it
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: costs for the supplies on the farm you're on. And
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you certainly never earn enough to buy get out of
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: debt with the owner of the farm or the alan
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: try to buy the property, which was the original deal.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: This is a sort of a modern day version of that.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: That's just prettied up. So she buys a car in
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, twenty one thousand dollars, and Jesus, six years.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Later, six years later, she still owes fifteen thousand dollars
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: on this car.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: And she bought it for twenty one thousand dollars. Correct,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: this is unbelievable.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: She claims that her total amount of payments thus far
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: were thirty eight thousand dollars once you include the penalties
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: and the interest and the late fees.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: So again, tell you slow roll that for me again.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: I need everybody. Don't veer off the road when you
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: hear this, pull over and listen. This is crazy. You
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: heard this properly. The principal ballance has balance has gone
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: down since twenty eighteen about six thousand dollars. She's paid
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: thirty eight thousand dollars. Thirty eight thousand dollars. The annual
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: interest rate is twenty seven percent. You literally can't get
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: out of this.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: No, she could have bought a Maserati instead, literally for
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: that kind of money thirty eight thousand dollars already paid,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: still has a brand with a warranty, which yeah, still
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: has a balance of fifteen thousand.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: So do the math. And then the engine fell out.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: The engine fell out, so the costs of replacing the
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: engines about five thousand dollars. The car's fair market value
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: today just using standard automotive metrics to do fair market
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: values five grand.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: So the engine costs is the vehicle.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Costs correct or in excess up because just the the
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: engine was not the only problem. She also told us
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: that the car has just been nothing but problems since
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: the day she had it. But she was she's kind
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: of chained to it. She didn't have a lot of options,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: and to get this car, and to go with this
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: company that would approve her and put her in this
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: share cropping style loan, she's tied to them. So she
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: starts getting threatening phone calls and emails that they're going
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: to finally come repossess the car. They immobilize the vehicle.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Oh they can do that remotely.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: They can do it remotely. I had offered to fix
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: the car. So from a philanthropy point of view, what
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: was I going to do for her to help? I
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: have a network of really really good mechanics all over
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: the city of Atlanta that are willing to help people
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: that need it and deserve it. And I was just
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: going to have a friend of mine that owns a
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: shop help fix the car. And I was going to
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: pay whatever it costs. So, whether it's replacing an engine,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: fixing the engine, diagnosing what else could be potentially wrong
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: with the car, I was willing to do that to
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: keep her on the road, because guess what if she
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: doesn't have wheels, she can't get to work. She can't
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: get to work, she ain't gonna have a job, have
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: a job, She's not gonna be able to pay her rent.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Then she's gonna be homeless again. The woman has she
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: did tell me she has been homeless twice in her life.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: So I donated a car to her that we had
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: well well.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Be Becka held on running by me again you did.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: You're a for profit business.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Right, I'm a for profit business. You're a capitalist, right,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: You're I'm a capitalist. But but but I felt that
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: it charged me.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: You always charged me full of freight.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Yet but I didn't donate her a Bentley. I donated.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: I donated a car that could get her from A
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: to B. It's not pretty to look at. It's something
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: that we've actually we bought years ago to use as
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: an extra vehicle, like a shop vehicle, right, because it
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: was more cost effective for her and for me, for
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: me to do that than try to fix her car,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: which she'll never get out of.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: It is also very sweet of.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: You to never get out of the car.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and what I said, I appreciate that. I
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: know that. I know that people think you're just a
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: hard nosed business person, but that's actually, let's just take
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: a moment.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: I'm a softie.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: It was very sweet. So uh.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: And there's a couple other pieces of this puzzle. So yeah,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: I mean the business model is and once again preface,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: not everybody that's in the subprise i'm buy here, pay here,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: arena is are all bad. But specific to this this
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: one most recent case that i've heard about. I know
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: how the business works. They sold her a car that
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: was not good from the get go. That car when
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: it breaks and they know it's going to break. This person,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: she or anybody else in a similar situation, is faced
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: with some really awful decisions. Your live paycheck to paycheck.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Your car needs to be fixed. So what do you
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: do do You put the money towards fixing the car
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: so you can still get to work, but then you're
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: not gonna be able to make a car payment, at
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: which time they'll repossess the car, charge you storage fees,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: flatbed fees, repossession fees, and then you got to go
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: get the car back. Anyways, that's option one. Option two,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: they repossess the car, you don't ever come up with
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: the fees the money to get the car back. Then
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: they just sell somebody else, do it all over, and they.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Jam up your credit In the midst of all this
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: correct which makes which makes.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: A bend situation even harder to get another.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: You look like a dead beat. Reality was you were
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: set up to fail from day one. This is modern
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: day share cropping.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: This is are stacked against anyone that gets into these
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: types of equations. And when we're talking. I'm hoping I
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: can give some insight on how to If you are
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: listening and you are someone that does have terrible credit,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: you don't have to be scared of going to all
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: buy here, pay your hair lots there, just is there
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: is a standard operating procedure when buying any that should
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: be applied when buying these types of cars, and she
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: did none of those. And I'll get to that in
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: a second.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Let's take a sanity break for a minute. So Tony
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: is about to get into both deeper good and deeper
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: bad on this situation. But what I want everybody listening
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: to this and watching this to understand is this, in
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: every situation, you have a table and on the one
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: side you have let's just call it the capitalist. On
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the other side, you have the consumer. The capitalist job
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: is to extract as much money from you as they
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: can the highest price while delivering the least value for
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: that thing. That's their job to make a profit. Your
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: job is to extract the most value from the capitalists,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the producer, the entrepreneur, the manufacturer, whatever, the seller for
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the least price. You want to get the least price
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: with the most value. They want to get the most
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the biggest price with the least value. This is called
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a negotiation, and it happens all the time. It's just
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: when you go into a store, it's pre negotiated. The
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: store has come up with through research what that price
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: is that they think is the sweet spot that you're
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: going to buy that thing from. But when you're going
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: to do something that is emotional, oftentimes people play on
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: your emotions and you add on financial illiteracy. So they
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: want to play on your intellectual or financial ignorance, emotions, ignorance,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: low self esteem, desperation, whatever, And whenever you make a
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: decision emotionally, it's a bad decision. Now you have an
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: unweighted or out of balance negotiation because the person on
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the other side, the capitalist in this example, is practicing
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: bad capitalism. They know they can pray on you. They do.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: That's what Tony's about to explain. But don't get mad
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: at folks for doing what is their mission to do.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: It is your mission to get the lowest price in
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the highest value. It is their mission to get the
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: highest value and the lower extract the lowest and to
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: give you it well, the highest the price and the
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: lowest value, and a great negotiation is when both people
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: leave sort of unhappy because that's probably a pretty good deal, right,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Nobody got hosed and nobody got rich. It was, you know,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: an okay deal. And that's not what he's about to describe.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: But don't get mad at like how the world works.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: That's just how the world works. And by the way,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't work that way. If he can't make
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: a profit, then he can't pay his employees. And employees
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: can't pay their rent, they can't pay their car note,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: they can't go to a restaurant. The restaurant goes broke,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the car the car lot goes broke, the state goes broke,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: and there's no taxes. I mean, we all need the
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: system to work, but we don't need the system to
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: be working us, right, So this is the system that
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: was working over this lady, and now we're you're in
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the middle of this thing. Back to you.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So back to what I was saying. I feel
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: so terrible that because of financial literacy, people get in
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: that type of position. So do I make the car
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: payment and keep the car? Do I fix it and
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: can't make the car payment? Do I make the car payment,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: then fix the car and not pay rent and potentially
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: get kicked out of mouse. You're screwed anyway, there's no
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: way out of it, and you know, so for this
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: specific individual, we felt it was the best move for
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: her to just give the car back, Just give it
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: back and start over. And that's what we did, gave
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: her a car.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Did you try and negotiate with this company?
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: I did not. I coached her on how to try
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: to negotiate once was getting also to the point of
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: getting the car un immobilized so I could actually get
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: it to a shop and get it diagnosed and see
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: if it's actually.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: The mobilized means that the car the car seller can
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: basically turn the car off while you're driving it.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Correct. Yeah, that way, it makes it easier for them
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: to repossess the car and then sell to somebody else
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: do the same thing all over again. So it's sad
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: because not only did she not understand the contract she
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: was getting into when she bought the car new, she
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: also didn't know what she was buying because she didn't
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: really do any research on who she was buying it
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: from or what she was buying, which is as two
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: key parts as to how she got in that position.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: She bought a car that really wasn't that great out
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: of the gate.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: And it was a piece of crap.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, they or it could have been. But what I'm
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: getting at is is these a lot of these vehicles
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: that are sold at these types of places are designed
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: to fail, and the sooner they failed, the sooner they
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: get repossessed and sold to somebody else that they will
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: fail on. So from a advisor point of view, what
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: I can do to offer advice to anybody else who's
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: in this position is, if you're going to buy a car,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: no matter where you're buying it from, whether it is
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: a new car franchise, Honda store, or a buy here,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: pay here a lot, have a third party inspect the
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: car and tell you what you're buying. If you're an
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: automotive mechanic, great, check it out yourself. But most people
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: buying these cars at these types of places are not mechanics.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: I'm not a mechanic. When I go buy a car,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: I get it checked out. When I buy cars that
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: we're going to sell at our dealership for profit, I
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: get them checked out before I buy them, because you
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: know why, If I get them checked out and they're
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: really good, I'm going to make more profit if I
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: get them checked out and they're really bad, I buy
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: them for less, or I don't buy them at all.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Thus I don't put myself in a position where I'm
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: not profitable.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: So or somebody says that you saw me a lemon, correct, right,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: So what happened with this lady?
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I imagine the car has now been officially repossessed and
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: they have or are in the process of selling it
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: to somebody else. I got her a car, But this
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: is another thing about being Do I gave it to her?
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: No, no lose her job, no strings attached. She's her car,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: she's driving it to work.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Only did I donate her car to her when the
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: subject matter of insurance came up, because legally I can't
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: sell a car that doesn't have an insurance, and I
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: sold the car. This is theoretically I sold the car
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: for a dollar. So I formed her the night before
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: she was going to come pick up the car that
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: she would need to have insurance. She has to be
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: legally insured in Georgia to drive a car. There's certain limits.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: She said, okay, fine, people listen to this, and she
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: showed up the next morning and I said, do you
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: have insurance? She kind of gave me a face and
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: I said, so, what's up. She said, I found a
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: company and get insurance with but I can't pay for
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: it yet because I don't get my paycheck till the seventeenth.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: This is last week. I said, how much is it?
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: She says it's two hundred and ninety dollars a month.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: I said, fine, I'll pay for it, so you're legally
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: because I have some liability. I didn't want her driving
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: run around insured car, and you can pay me back
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: when you want. Oh no, no, I just said, I'll
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: just pay for it. And then she said, well, I
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: get paid on the seventeenth and the seventeenth I can
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: come give you the money for the insurance. I said,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: that's up to you. I don't expect you to do it,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: and I don't want you to do it, but if
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: you feel it's what you need to do, then sure
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: come back.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: And by the way, everybody, you have to have me back.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: You have to have at least liability insurance. That's the law.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: You want to have comp and collision if you can,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: you know, if you can afford it. But because that's
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the part that gets your car repaired for you, but
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: you have to at least have liability for in the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: case you have an accident and it's your fault.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: So I asked her who she'd gotten the insurance through.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: She said, some blah blah blah. It's a blah blah.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: It's an app. It's not a company I've never even
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: heard of, and I've been doing this for twenty five years.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: I get on the app just to call because I
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: wanted to see if I could pay and how I
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: could pay. So there's no phone number on this app.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: So in my mind, I'm like, well, what if she's
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: on the side of the road and she needs to
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: call her insurance compan because she's been in an accident
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: or maybe utilized roadside service or whatever. There's no freaking
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: phone number. So I told her, let's investigate this.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: So this is if you search on the internet for
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: car insurance, you're gonna get like this entry come up,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: and you may you may end up paying for this
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: because everybody's app a tized these days, app obsessed and
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: getting a situation where you actually have a situation and
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: you can't call the company. There's no number, no phone.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Number, just a live chat so I said, let me
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: just stop this. I called a universally known I'm not
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: going to advertise for them unless they want to send
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: me a hat or a T shirt. A universally known
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: insurance company picked up the phone, called there one eight
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: hundred number, got a lovely lady on the phone. Explained
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: to her the situation. I said, ma'am, I am donating
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: a car. It's worth about five thousand dollars. This lady
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: needs to get the bare minimum insurance to be legal
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: to drive in Georgia. What is it going to cost?
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: She gets a conference in or she's actually at my desk,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: So we put her on speaker, gives her driver's license number,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: her social Security number, her address, the last vehicle she owns,
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: so forth, and so I'm within three minutes. She spits
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: out a quote of two hundred and forty dollars a month, which.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Is which is considerably less than what she got off
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the internet.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Less with a more reputable company, right, with good reviews
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: and an actual phone number you can call. I then asked,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: is there a discount for a pre payment and if
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: we were to pay six months in advance, which I
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: knew that the answer would be yes, but I wanted
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: to see what that discount was. It was a ten
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: percent discount, So then the insurance goes down to like
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty bucks a.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Month, maybe in a good driver discount.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Maybe correct. So I got softer and felt more than
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: it was my need after looking into this girl's face.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, I'm very blessed. I've never been in
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: a position where I didn't know where I was going
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: to get two hundred dollars for my car insurance right,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: and I decided to just prepay her insurance for six months.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Maybe it was the Jewish and me I felt better
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: by getting the discount. I don't know what it was.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe you sow six cars that day and you make
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: you feel guilty because you made so much product as
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: you wanted to give back. Whatever it is, we are
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: thankful I.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Went ahead and prepaid her insurance, and that, honestly, I
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: think changed her life or her quality of life for
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: the next six months. And now she's fully insured with
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: the reputable insurance company with nothing to worry about, nor
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: does she have to worry about making payments for this insurance.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: So I left work that day feeling good and bad.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I felt good that I had done something nice for
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: somebody who, by the way, was hysterical crying in my
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: parking lot, because I don't think anybody's ever done anything like.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: This for her without any strings attacks.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: No strings attached. I even went into my desk and
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: I even got a little extra gift for her, put
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: it in the center console. Didn't tell her about it.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: And Okay, okay, you're gonna just walk right past that,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: because I know what it is. You're gonna walk past that.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: I felt that it would be in our best interest,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: and it made me feel I was doing the right
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: thing by giving her a little bit of a cushion.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: And that cushion means God forbid something else goes wrong
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: in her life or with that car, or with her rent,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: or her refrigerator stops working next week, that she could
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: just go on a vacation from financial distress. So I
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: gave her a thousand dollars and I put it in
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: a center consols.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: What.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I gave her a grand center console US currency
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: one hundred dollars bills.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's beautiful, man.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: And I didn't tell her about it, and I waited
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: a minute for her to get home, and I sent
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: her a text saying, because I was like, oh crap,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: if I forgot that, if she doesn't know what's in there,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: she here car get broken into it, the car washing.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: The car wash is getting the money.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: So I texted her, check the center console before you
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: get out of the car. And you know what I know.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: I know that I impacted her life and helped her tremendously.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: And as far as I'm concerned, now, it's only been
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: a week, but this is a week that she's probably
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: been sleeping better. She's able to get to work, she
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: doesn't worry about how to put food on the table
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: for her for her nine year old son, and she
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: doesn't have to deal with this predatory by here pay
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: here company ever again. So what I told her I
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: wasn't trying to be her daddy or her teacher. I
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: did recommend that she she engage with Operation Hope and
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: and try to get more financially literate. But I did say,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: I've given you a little bit of a of a
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: cushion for these next six months of not having to
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: pay insurance, squirrel money away. Try to save some money
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: for a rainy day so the next time she needs
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: a car and let's be honest. The car I gave
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: her is old. It may not last forever. It's probably
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: good for a few more years. But in a few
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: more years I want her to be in a position
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: where she's able to get her credit score up, she's
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: able to have a lot more longitudent latitude of what
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: to buy and in more options. And it hopefully I
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: did that.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I can't.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Well, I'll talk to her in a year.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: We'll see how it goes.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: So, first of all, kudos to you, man, and I
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: love you brother. One of the reasons I like you
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: so much. You do well and do good at the
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: same time. It's a good capitalist. Now, good capitalism is
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: what this is. That was a good example of that.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Now you've given her dignity, You've given her hope. What
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: you can't do is give her a lifeline for life.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: You can't have just having her calling you every six
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: months saying, you know, hey, remember that good thing you did.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: I needed to do it again, which which is why
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: is important you refer to her to Operation Hope to
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: get financial literacy counseling. She doesn't want to hand out,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: she wants to hand up. But it's what We don't
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: know that, we don't know that's killing us, but we
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: think we know and we think that asking the question
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: of what's the payment is the right question. No, it's
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: what's the interest rate? Anything over one thousand dollars and
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you're financing it, you don't ask what the payment is.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: You don't ask what the payment is an interest rate
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: attached and it's over one thousand dollars, you want to
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: know what's that interest rate? That twenty seven percent interest
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: rate was gonna destroy her as a time bomb. You
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: go on a lot and you get a Mercedes and
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: it's eighteen percent interest. It's not a Mercedes, it's Mercedes payments.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: So kudos for you doing that, and thanks for referring
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: her to Operation Hope. And let's make sure that we
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: follow up with her and follow through because we got
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: to give her a life of self sustainability and so
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: in resilience and hopefully she pays it forward, hopefully she
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: gets to a point where she can help somebody else.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Is this example, though, is just so common? Unfortunately? Right,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: So let's now talk about this industry, this business, this,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: this this is These people aren't they aren't going They're
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: not get up with the morning and saying ooh, let
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: me hurt poor people. They're just trying to get paid
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: any way they can't, is my sense? Is that right?
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: I think, once again to what we said a minute ago,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: not all of them are bad. Yeah, people get up
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: and work. People get up in the morning, get dressed
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: and go to work to make money. We all can't
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: be nonprofits, so we are a for profit company. My
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: business is a for profit company, and in these by here,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: pay here types of car dealerships are are our for profit.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: But there has to be a happy median, at least
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: of my objective or naive opinion, because I don't know
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: a tremendous amount of specifically how the back of the
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: house operates with one of these places, Like do they
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: even take the time to qualify when they're assessing a
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: twenty seven percent interest? Is there someone that comes in
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: there that has less lousy credit that gets a twenty
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: six percent interest? And is there somebody that comes in
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: there that has even worse credit than I heard the
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: pay twenty eight percent. I don't know what data points
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: they use to come up with what the going to be.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Are you breathing? Do you have a job right? Now
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: that we can confirm, is there a bank account. Is
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: your credit score somewhere above four hundred and fifty or
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: five hundred, We can't get you financed in place else
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: we know that we got you held hostage here financial hostage.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: And you need a car for transportation. So I really
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: have you. And I've got an immobilizer, which means that
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I don't have to chase you around and repossess this car.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: I can just turn it off, and I can turn
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: your life off. I can turn your credit off. I mean,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: is it is? They know exactly what they're doing, and
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: really they make their money correct me if I'm wrong
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: a lot on the maintenance shop, because that car is
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: gonna break down. They're gonna fix it in charge double
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: or triple what it's worth. The repairs they got to.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Everything just gets plussed up. The interest rate gets plussed up,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: the payments get plussed up, the fees get plussed up,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: the maintenance charges get plussed up, and you get to
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: a point where you give the car back, which they
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: probably don't mind because they're gonna resell.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: It over and over and over again. It's like like
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: dogs in the dog pound. Somebody takes it home, it
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: ain't the right dog. They just bring it back, they
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: give it to somebody else, and it just it just
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: is just over and over and over again. You know,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: as far as like my opinion of the industry or
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: how much I know about the industry, I do remember
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: years ago, twenty plus years ago, when I was new
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: in this industry, met a guy who's a good guy.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: He explained to me, you know, at a very fourth
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: grade level, how he ran his buy here, pay here
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: a lot. He said he would go to the auction
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: and he would buy cars, not necessarily bad cars, but
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: he would buy a car for eight hundred dollars, twelve
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: hundred dollars, fifteen hundred dollars, bring it back to his lot,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: and put it up on the market. For it doesn't
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: matter what you're asking for the car. When the person
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: comes in, it's all about the payment. It could be
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: it could be a four thousand dollars car, or it
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: could be a forty thousand dollars car. As long as
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: the payment, if it's in their budget, they're gonna take
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: the car.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Even it also is important to the car it looks nice,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: so they've painted it, or they've watched it or detailed it.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Clean it up, sure, you know, painting over the rust
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: and the crack and the frame because it was in
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: three accidents.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: But what he explained to me was that the money
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: down that he would get was what he owned the
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: car for.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: So if he had bought a car auction for eight
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: hundred dollars and he was selling it on paper for
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: four thousand dollars, he would get his his equity out immediately.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: So eight hundred down, and then you can pay it
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: over a certain amount of time. Then to look the
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: rest is profit. Yes, a conventional auto term is five
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: years or sixty months. Sometimes people will stretch to seventy
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: two to get the payment down. Rarely will they go
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: to eighty four to get the payment down. Anything past
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: that is insanity because the payment will outlast the car. Right,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: these types of cars, they're not gonna last seven or
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: eight years. This is it's it's like once again, you're
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: screwed either way. So he kind of explained to me
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: that's how the business worked. And then you know, other
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: people I've spoken to over the years, and I I
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: hear the stories from from both the consumer and from
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: the dealer of yeah, well, you know, we sold it
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: for X, the person defaulted after the first ninety days,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: we took it back, we sold it to somebody else again.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: So you know, they're selling the same car over and
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: over and over again. And I'm not saying all people
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: in the industry, but I know many people in these
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: true many people in the industry purposely sell bad cars.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: First of all, you can buy a bad car cheap,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: and then when you sell it, it's going to break.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: And then once again it puts that person back in
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: the position of do I fix the car and not
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: make the payment. Do I make the payment and let
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: the car sit in the driveway, or do I fix
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: the car and make the payment and then get kicked
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: out of my house.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, you said, you said something. They're really powerful
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: here about auction. I mean, by the way, you had
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: to also think about why is a car at the auction.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: It takes a lot of effort for a car to
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: actually get to the auction. It didn't sell to a
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: end user, it didn't sell to another car dealer, it
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: didn't sell to a wholesale car serplus. Yeah, if he
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: got to the auction, I'm not saying it's a bad car.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: I'm saying it's interesting.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: And it's a cycle. I mean, before COVID, before the pandemic,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: there was there, or there were enough cars at auction
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: where they all weren't bad. And I'm saying they're all
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: bad now. But yeah, the cycle you're talking about is
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: a car comes into a dealership on trade, the used
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: car manager at or off lease for example, that manager
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: decides if he's gonna keep it because it's a nice car.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: He knows he can turn a profit and sell it
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: that's good merchandise. If it's a little dodgy, he's gonna
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: then give it to a hostsaler, and that hohstsaler is
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: going to try to place that car somewhere amongst any
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: other dealership. Let's just just say in the Atlanta area.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: They may even call me and I'll look at it
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: and say, yep, you know what, that's not for me.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: So after a certain amount of time, that whostsaler will
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: then take the car to auction, and it may actually
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: sell that auction to another dealer. Once that dealer is
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: unsuccessful in selling that card to your sixty days, they
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: take it back to the auction again and then somebody
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: else buys it. A good car is going to sell quick.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: It's not rocket science. A great house is going to
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: sell quick. So anything that has there's a supply and
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: demand where you've got more demand than you have supply
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: and if it's good, it's gone.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Is an auction car. Again, one of the genius things
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: you said to me today which I did not know,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: is it Oftentimes, if you're buying a car auction at
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the lower end level, you're selling the car for what
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: the down payment is what you paid for that car.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: So if you're in so you've made your profit. Everything
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: else after that pure profit. It's pure profit. So you
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: make three four payments, it's all profit. You come back
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: and get the car repaired, it's profit. You know, I
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: chase you and add on at additional fees you pay
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: that it's profit. I nail you for I would say
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: I'm damage your credit if you don't pay me, you know,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: three months to settle this. That's also profit, right, So, uh,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: that's fascinating. The Carfax does Carfax track a car are
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: that's sold at auction?
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Carfax and auto check Carfax. When a car runs
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: through the auction, we'll say if it was sold at auction,
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: or it'll just say, at auction.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Does it say that whether it was in an accident?
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Does that history there?
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: So carfax is a very valuable tool that we use
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: in our industry. It is just a tool, though, so
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: it may not be.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: If somebody's fallible, if somebody's lying, then it's only as
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: good as information is going in.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: It is still upon the consumer to do their own
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: research and due diligence to make sure they're what they're
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: buying is good. Tons of cars have clean carfax reports.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: Carfax only reports the information that's given to them. So
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: there are occasions where a police agency neglects to report
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: an accident properly, or an insurance company neglects or mistakenly
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: reports a vehicle that may or may not have been
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: in a flood, and we see it every.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Day, Well, may or may not have been in a flood.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Look six and nine sometimes get transverse ones, and
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: l's sometimes get transverse. So sometimes you could be looking
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: at the carfax of a vehicle that's not actually accurate
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: for that specific vehicle, and then you buy it without
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: getting it checked out by a third party who actually
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: knows what you're looking at, and then you have all
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: kinds of problems a month two, three months later because
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: the car was in a flood, because it could have
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: been in a flood of fire, a theft recovery of
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: a horrific accident. I mean, we've heard it all. We've
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: seen cars with bullet holes in them that were covered up. Wow,
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: swear to god, can't even make it up. Yeah, And
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: I mean I had a range Over years ago that
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: was getting serviced at Rangeover because the seat wouldn't move
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: up and down. And the service writer called me and
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: he was very calm and collected, and you just said, hey,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: we're gonna need you to come down here and look
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: at this this issue here with the seat. We've diagnosed
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: what the issue is, but we're really not at liberty
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: to discuss it over the phone. And I said, this
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: has got to be good. So I drove down to
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: the rain Drover dealers. Should they take them back in
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: the shop, And they show me a non millimeter slug
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: lodged in the seat track, right, So somebody died in
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: this car, but the person that bought it didn't know that.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: So they just brought it to us and said, hey,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: can you help me get the seat fixt.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: That the new owners driving around in a coffin.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, don't wear a dead man's boots. They
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: were driving a dead man's rovers. You just you not
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: to be confused with it. It just gets back to
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: what I said, or and I keep saying over and
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: over and over. Just just do your research and check
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: out what you're buying. Like I mean, you go on
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: a date with a prospective male or female, you get
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: to figure out if that's something you want to spend
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: some time with, get your car checked out, figure if
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: it's just something. Look, your car's your second biggest investment
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: and you spend a lot of time in it.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: And if you're going out on a date with somebody
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: asking what the credit score is, exactly if you're serious
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: about them, I'm I'm serious. Is that this is your
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: partner for life?
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Well I don't see that goes away. I don't see
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: that going to a second date. But but but yeah,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Just just credit score, she asked me mine, not on
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: the first date.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: That's a that's a black that's a black thing. We
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: don't we don't do that. We don't do we ask
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: if you like you have you're nut allergy or dairy allergy.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Are you gluten free.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Well, you got to be smooth about it, like, oh, look,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: you seem like you're really like on top of your game.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: I'm just fascinated with, Like, you must have a great
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: credit score, like what you might tell me what it is?
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Why why don't you pay for dinner sweethearts? So I
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: can see what kind of credit cards you have? Exactly,
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: equally romantic, exactly they pull out a black card sold
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: death married right, I'm on one knee immediately.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: So so you've seen some crazy stuff come through. By
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: the way, you heard that Tony did a great, great thing.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: He also does great business. And he's referred me to
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: people who also are not bums, like, uh, Adam Maryland.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Adam Marland is not a decent guy. A man over
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: at Atlanta Motorsport is it motor Cars of Atlanta?
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: Brandon good friend, good guy? Yeah, not all. Not all
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: people in our industry are bad dudes. There's plenty of
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: good ones. I like to consider myself one of them,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: and I like to surround myself with the good ones.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: And you know, you know something I've been saying for
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: years when I'm when I'm looking at a car for
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: a good friend or a client or a family member.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: I always asked the prospective seller, would you or would
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: you not sell this car to your mom? Would you?
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Would you not sell this car to your next door neighbor?
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: And based on that answer is if I'm going to
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: proceed or not. And a lot of people don't think
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: to ask those types of questions.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: This talks about dreams and dramas. So in your business.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: One of the dream calls you got was from me,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and I want to know it was any dream call
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: better than mine. I called you one day. Normally I
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: call you and and I just give you a headache
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: because I've talked. I want to talk to you infinitum
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: about the details. And that's when I get the click
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: and he says, I'm sorry, I got it. You don't
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: see I'm sorry. He just hangs the phone up.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: I'm a capitalist. I actually have to make money at work.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: But one day I called you after I had sold
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: one of my companies, Either Blue, and I said, I
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: wanted you to find I think it was eight or
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: ten cars for my twelve twelve twelve cars for my
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: employees for my nonprofit because they didn't get a bonus
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: and they couldn't didn't get stocked on stuff. So they'd
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: been working hard, and I wanted to buy them all
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: a car, and you found them all for me within
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: a week to ten days or some crazy thing.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: We typically need a thirty day lead time when someone
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: comes to us for one car for a car, unless
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: it's you, and then it was I need a dozen
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: cars and I need them yesterday. Oh and by the way,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: here are the specific colors, colors optionspes. Yeah, but my
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: team did it. We bade it our priority. We knew
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: it was a good thing to do because you were
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: doing a good thing by giving these cars to these
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: people that forgive me for saying it this way put
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: you where you are. They supported you every step of
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: the way. You rewarded them for it, and we were
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: really happy and blessed to be a part of it.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it was it was fun. It was Uh,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: it was a good day delivering you know, some brand
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: new cars. Some were older, kind of bucket list dream
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: cars for some people. You know, everybody kind of had
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: their everybody had their own personal spin on of their
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: own personal taste of what they wanted. And you know,
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: you had a couple of people that were just straight
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: up practical, like I just want to an act your MDX,
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: That's all I really want. Okay, So we got in
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: a mac your MDX, conservative, practical, reliable, good car holds
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: its value. Then you get other guys like well, I've
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: always wanted to Portion nine eleven, Gabriole, get him his car.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: And then one girl's like, well, I'm I'm a little
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: bit of a hippie, so I want an electric car.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: So then we get the electric car. Uh. It was
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: it was a lot of fun.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: So any other dream situations that happened like that at
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: your place? And I want to get to the horrors
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: the dramas. So those are the teaching moments for people.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: But I mean.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: We we love or I I have managed to turn
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: a hobby into a career, and and that that's the
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: dream right there is I mean I get excited to
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: go to work every day, and that that's that is
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: a dream. As far as anything exponentially more impactful than
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: you gifting all those cars to people, We've been involved
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: in a lot of a lot of happy moments. You know,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: a lot of uh you know, the second generation uh
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: give backs where you have a blue collar mom and
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: dad that supported their son who's become monumentally successful, and
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: then he was finally at a certain age in a
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: position to buy his dad his dream car. So we've
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: been able to do that, and we've been able to
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: get involved with some wonderful charities as well. So I mean,
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: you know, donating this car, I've done this more than once.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: This was just the most recent time I've done it.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: And there's other times where we've been able to utilize,
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: you know, our connections and and our access to these
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: neat cars to to give them up for whether it's
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: a raffle or or any sort of philanth that raises money,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: or just some bling to park in front of an event,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: or people that need rise. People need to borrow a
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: car for something, whether it's some sort of medical need
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: or whatever. Like we we do this stuff all the time.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: You saw me a car that went into a movie.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: What was it, The Fast and the Furious.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: You had a car that was in Fast and the Furious.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: We we've had a bunch of cars that we've rented
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: out to the movie studios over the years, and that's fun,
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: that's just cool. I mean, I don't know if I
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: don't know if that's giving back because we get paid
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: for that. But but it's it's just cool, like we've
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: we've met a lot of cool people, have met a
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: lot of really important figures in history and celebrities, whether
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: it be an athlete or somebody the music business or musician,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: people in TV, film theater, whatever. I mean, it's it's cool,
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: Like every day is exciting at the shop and you know,
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: you just you don't know, but yeah, but you know
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: where you're going with this is the the nightmares. Every
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: every day is a nightmare too.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: So you so people walk in people, people walk in
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: to gas motor cars with a dream, and that dream
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: may not match their financial propriety, their financial situation. Give
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: me a couple of examples of the thing that just
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: that just tears your heart up. It frustrates the bajeeva's
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: out of you that you see all the time coming
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: into your high end mostly high end shop with folks
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: who may not have a balance sheet and income statement
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: of a credit report or financial resource to match. Give me,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: give give our listeners a few examps.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: I have people coming to don't know what a balance
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: sheet is. Sty'll think balance sheet is like a It's
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: like a piece of paper that you're trying to put
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: on top of a soda can so it doesn't fall
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: to the left or the right, Like they don't know
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: what a balance sheet is, not all but a lot,
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean it's a it's a pretty common
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: occurrence that somebody comes in and we do not just
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: for the record, we do not judge books by his
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: or her covers, so we do not pre qualify. So
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: everybody's a potential buyer.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Translation, they get rappers running in walking in there. You
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: never know, if you're not following a rap who they are.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: But he's like, hey, you never know who that is.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Be nice to me. You get you might come in
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: with overalls or you know, the light from the country.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: You never know that a person may own the dealership
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: down the street.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: You never know.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so don't judge anybody.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And so we get people to come in on
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: a daily basis and they have the intent they want
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: to buy, they want to fulfill that dream, but they've
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: not taken the time to figure out how he or
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: she may be able to pay for that dream. So
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: we'll spend time with them and hours, yes, showing them
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: whatever car they're interested in, explaining to them the ownership experience,
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: what they need to look forward to if they're buying
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: a certain type of car, may have a higher maintenance
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: expense that they need to be financially prepared for. And
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: we've gone times where we've had people with good credit,
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: or let's just call it good enough credit approved for
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: a seventy eighty one hundred thousand dollars automobile. H However,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: banks they want you to have some skin in the game,
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: so it'll ask for a down payment, maybe a thousand bucks,
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: maybe five thousand bucks. And I'm not joking. I've had
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: as recent as last week gentlemen got approved for a
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Tesla and eighty three thousand dollars Tesla. The bank wanted
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: fifteen hundred dollars as a down payment. He did not
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: have the fifteen hundred dollars, could not even put it
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: on a credit card. But he's about to sign up
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: for close to a two thousand dollars a month car payment.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Let's run this one more time. Eighty three thousand dollars
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: car approachase two thousand dollars a month payment, haven't even
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: gotten to the insurance or whether there's a warranty, which
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: will be without the warranty there's going to be maintenance
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: coming up. Having gotten to that two thousand dollars a
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: month car payment on this car, and this person did
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: not have fifteen hundred dollars for the down payment.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: You can't say this person. These people, it happens every day,
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: and I am not their financial advisor. Once again reiterating
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: I'm a for profit business. I want to sell cars.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: That's how I feed my It's how I feed my family,
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: how my employees feed their families. We do do it
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: in a very fair way. And I have at certain
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: points in time become a financial advisor to some of
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: these people. They're not going to be able to afford
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: the ownership expenses. So when you're buying your dream car,
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: may be a certain year Jaguar, Mercedes, Spence, Partia, anything
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: European when it's ten twelve years old is expensive to maintain.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: It goes with the territory. You got to pay to
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: play right. You want to drive a Jaguar, you want
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: to drive a Mercedes, you want to drive a Bentley,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: a Rolls Royce, a Lamborghini, you have to be willing
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: to put forth the maintenance expense because if you don't
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: maintain them properly, then they will die and then you're
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: stuck with a two thousand plus dollars you know, more
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: than that monthly payment for a car. You can't even enjoy.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: That to me's just foolish.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: So when you tell, when you tell somebody you going
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: from car salesmen to financial advisor, you know, from car
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: you know, from car presentation to care compassion counselor did
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: they get upset with you? Do theyre like, hey, man,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: I want to buy this car and I'll be you know,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: do they think you're discriminating against them, by the way
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: or somehow?
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: I've never knowing them, never picked up on discrimination. I've
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: kind of picked up on the I don't care or
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: mind your own businessess. But you know, I feel good
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: about it. When I talk somebody out of buying a
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: car that I know they can't afford own, and then
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: I objectively counsel them into the right car, I feel
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: a lot better about doing that. They still look, they look.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: The basis of sales, in my opinion, is trust. If
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: someoney trust you, you can sell them any You could
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: sell ice to an Eskimo if they trust you. So
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: why not just make that the genesis of The relationship
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: is trust and I think you're going to have a
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: long standing relationship. Is my entrepreneurially advice. Let your client
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: base trust you and you'll keep them.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Forever relationships over transactions.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: If they don't trust you, they're not coming back.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: I've called Tony a dead set on buying X. I
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: want to get X. No, John, you're not buying that.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: I'm not selling it to you, and you shouldn't buy it.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: It's stupid. Here's the reason it's stupid, and it will
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: give me all the reasons why it's stupid. Or I'll
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: call him because I've I've got a you know, a
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: car that's fifteen years old or whatever, and he's like, well,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: what you're expecting it's fifteen years old. Of course you're
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: going to have a maintenance issue, not one now, it's
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: going to be in the future. Like it's not it's
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: not a flying carpet, it's a car, right, So you know,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: he's very he's very It is an end of the story.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Can we please start there. It's sort of Tony Marzoula,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: which is beautiful. So you often will run into people
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: who get approved but don't have the stroke, the down
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: payment or who spend a lot of time talking about
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: a very high end vehicle, who can't get approved every
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: day every day, the dress nicely, good jobs, but.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: Jacked up credit. And you know, it's funny how many
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: of them, you know, you you know they're full of it.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying all, but oh my god, I thought
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: my credit was great. I did forget about that car
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: that was repossessed last year, and those two credit cards
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: I haven't made a payment on in six months, and
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: the house that was foreclosed on.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: But other than that, other than that, I'm doing it.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Other than that, I pay my Macy's card every month.
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, I once again, I understand it.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: I get it. I'm I was raised differently. I mean
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: I had I had. Look when I the first not
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: first car, but one of the one of the first
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: cars I bought when I, in my mind, was successful,
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: was I went to BMW and I leased a brand
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: new BMW and I was so excited. Was in my
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: mid twenties, and I was so excited. The payment was
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: like like nothing back then. It was like two hundred
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: and twenty five dollars a month, and I drove, I
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: wanted to. I was so excited. I wanted to go
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: home and show. I wanted to gona home. I wanted
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: to go show my dad. So I drove to my
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: tat's house and he said, that's a nice car. Where'd
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: you get that? I said, I bought it the dealership.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: He said how much was it? I said to twenty
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: five a month. He slapped me in the face. I said,
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: you don't have the money in your pocket, don't buy
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: the car. So you know, I get it. You're seen
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: in your car. Your car to a lot of people
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: is their identity and it is their way of proving
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: that they've made it. Like you could spend that money
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: on amazing house, but if you're a single dude, you
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: can't pick up a girl in the house. So the car,
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: or as a buddy mine used to alway, he's from La,
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: he say, Man, it doesn't matter where you live, because
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: in LA it's all about the stoplights. People don't see
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: you in your apartment, they see you in your in
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: your car. So I understand the drive to have the
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: flashy car or or the you know, just the nicer
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: car because you're seeing in it. However, I I you know,
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: I always really rely on you to educate me on
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: how some people do get to such a point where
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: they're so financially illiterate, and they do get themselves in
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: these Ferocia high car payments that they can never pay,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: and then they just get to a point where they
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: can't pay it. Then they have to give the car
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: back that destroys their credit. Then it makes it impossible
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: for them to get another car and not get preyed
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: upon or ever buy a house. I mean, we're Another
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: horror story we're seeing right now is the market is
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: going back to normal for the first time in four years.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: You know, the economy has been on cocaine and steroids
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: for four years. Everybody had to have a Mercedes during COVID,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: and it was all it took was three months of
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: being locked in your house and not being able to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: go out and shop and eat and travel. Everybody had
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: a by July of twenty twenty, everybody had the down
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: payment that they never had before, and they all wanted
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: to go out and get cars. Well, guess what, manufacturers
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: weren't building cars for a period of time either, So
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: you had six x amount of time amount of people
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: that wanted to buy cars with no cars to buy.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: So what happened The manufacturers or the dealerships started selling
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: new vehicles at above MSRP, at a premium, massive premium
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: pacific to the high end luxury market something. Let's just
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: go acute specific. A Mercedes G sixty three with an
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: MSRP of two hundred thousand dollars at.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: Its peace is a manufactured record.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Suggested retail price correct was selling for three hundred thousand
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: dollars to a lot of people that didn't have three
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars for the makewe hundred. So now fast
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: forward to where we are right now, You've got somebody
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: with a six thousand dollars a month car payment and
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: maybe his or her visit. Yeah, that's not uncommon in
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: the high end luxury car not even remotely uncommon. Now
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: they're in that car, and maybe they woke up yesterday
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: and decided that six thousand dollars payment was a little aggressive,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: Maybe maybe we should dial it back a little bit.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: So they've been paying on that car two years, three years,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: whatever they may oh to twenty five. Well, guess what
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: now that the used car market has gone or not
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: totally back to nore, but is normalizing going back to
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: what things were like before the pandemic. That car is
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: only worth one hundred and twenty five, and then Mayo.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: To twenty five, so triganization.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: There was negative equity pre pandemic, one thousand, two thousand,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: maybe five thousand bucks maybe the most. I think the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: worst we'd ever seen was twenty thousand dollars negative equity.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: We've seen multiple transactions or multiple potential transactions in the
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: last six months where they're fifty sixty seventy five thousand,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars negative, oh, one hundred thousand dollars more
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: than what your car's worth. Tryed it forever.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: I remember you told me this guy did really doing
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: really well, bought a g Wagon or something, you know,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: at a premium, didn't care, I'm going to buy it,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: and he brought it back to you a year later
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: to try to sell it back to you to buy
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: something else, and you're like, well, here's the price, and
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: he got upset with you. But you told him from
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: day one, this is overpaying for the car. But he
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: never he didn't understand the market had shifted, and still
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: thought that everything was selling at a premium. You're getting
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of that. This was a highly success full,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: highly sophisticated, seemingly financially literate individuals. So we're not, by
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: the way, when we talk about financially illiterate here, people
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: need to understand. If you're making one hundred thousand dollars
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: a year, half of those people are living from paycheck
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: to paycheck. You're making two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: a year today, a third of those are living from
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: paycheck to paycheck. Seventy percent of this country is living
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: from paycheck to paycheck. So whether you're white, black, red, brown,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: or yellow, you want to see some more green. You
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: got too much month at the end of your money,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: and you're living through this situation of not having a
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: budget but having a payment schedule, and you're basically asking
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: can I make these payments, which is the wrong way
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: to go about this. And Tony is being forced to
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: negotiate your budget for you in reverse when he can.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: Sometimes he's running so fast he can't. And what he's
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: in his job, by the way, is to make a profit.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: So at some point, if you're dead set on running
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: yourself into a wall, it's a free country. And so
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: during the pandemic, all these prices inflated a lot of demand,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: not a lot of supply, the price goes up. Now
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: lots of supply, lower demand. Prices have come down for
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: not just average cars, but for luxury vehicles.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so all cars, especially the luxury market. And even
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: it's actually now touching what we would call the collector
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: car market as well. And here's the funny thing is
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: has it happened forever since automotive let's just call the
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: automotive retail market started with Henry Ford, you know, where
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: you could go to the dealerships and buy a car.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: And Mercedes Benz technically invented the car, but Henry Ford
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: would kind of put what we still to this day called,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: you know, just a conventional auto market.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: And also created the middle class.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: We're good, yeah, correct, And so you know, in twenty fifteen,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: if you would go buy a brand new anything, let's
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: not even go to ultra luxury, a rand new Honda
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: Accord for thirty four thousand dollars before you got home,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: forget next year, before you got in your driveway, you
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: had lost ten to fifteen to twenty percent. Right, That's
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: how it always was, and no one ever seemed to
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: care then during the pandemic, the used car values went up,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: meaning you could go buy a car, drive it home,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: and sell it for five thousand dollars more than you
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: paid for it because there was somebody foolish enough to
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: do that or just had to have it and everybody.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: If you want to know why inflation went crazy, that's it.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: You can buy in the stimulus payments. We never had
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: stimulus with a T in front of it in the
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: history of this country. Trillion. We had nine t'es, nine trillion.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: Now you've got supplied demand issues. You got cars you
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: can sell for more than you paid for you got
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is just nuts. Watches were at a premium,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: art was at a premium. Everything real estate was at
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: a premium. And so the federerserve really had no choice
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: but to raise interest rates to take the froth off
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: of this market, or it would have imployed at a
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: pump the brakes at the breaks.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: Why wouldn't you go buy a four hundred thousand dollars
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: car if you could get it at zero percent interest
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: or zero point nine percent, it's almost free money? Why not?
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: But you know it's it's correct, it's over, I mean
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: it is now.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: They got to actually work at, you know, work at
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: doing something we've.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: We are working harder than we've ever worked because not
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: only are we having to still try to do our
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: normal day job, which is buy and sell cars and
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: try to make people happy, we are also having to
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: explain to them reality and we also have to explain
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: and convince them that a couple things I didn't create
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: this market. I also didn't build the car. So I
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: may be Italian, but if you bought a Maserati and
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: it's broken, it's not my fault. And I'm certainly not German.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: So if you bought a BMW five years ago and
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: you can't afford to put a transmission in it, don't
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: call and yell at me because I sold it to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: you seven years ago or five years ago, because I
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: didn't build the car. And that's what we do every
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: day now. So that it's another thing that we're seeing is,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: you know a lot of people that bought vehicles they
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: cannot afford are letting them go into disrepair. Then they
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: get to a point where they're unsellable, so then they're
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: just trapped with the car. They don't have the five
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: to ten or even sometimes fifteen twenty thousand dollars to
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: get the car back on the road. Yes, but they
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: still are making a payment on it. Yeah, So it's
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: a vicious cycle and it's I don't know how to
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: fix it. That's your job.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: And Tony and I have great Well, this has been
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: a great conversation. We have lots of great conversations. We're
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: wrapping this one up. This is we covered so much
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: beautiful ground and hopefully you guys have been educated and
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: inspired and shocked and dismayed. But also you're smarter than
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: you were when you first start listening to this about
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: the automotive space. And you know there's an honest broker
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: here that actually wants to do well and do good,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: but he also still needs to make a profit, and
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: you should want him to make a profit, no different
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: than you want to make a profit for your home.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Even if you want to distribute money like a socialist,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: you got a first collected like a capitalist. It funny
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: how that works. So we've had a fambulous conversation here
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: in public. I need you to know. This is the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: nice version of Tony. Tony will call and lovingly curse
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: me out about some decision I made going to make
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: didn't make taking too long to make about a car.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: I will tell you I'm really good in many areas,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: but making money with cars is not one of them.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: The only time I ever made money with the car
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: was Tony Marzoulo, and it was only because I listened
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: to his advice. And it was a very complicated series
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: of transactions. It involved multiple vehicles, but timing was really important.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: And he's like, John, you got to pull this trigger
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: right now. But the market is changing. This is a
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: great car, but I don't control market values, and it's
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: going to change in six months. And he was right.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: It did change. Nothing changed with the car. Nothing changed
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: the car, the same beauty car, the same roads, the
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: same environment. But the price shifted because the market shifted,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: and luckily I listened to him. So, look, you don't
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: have to be trapped in your world. You can create
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: the world that sets you free. But you've got to
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: live within your means, and you've got to deal with reality,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: and you have to understand that there's somebody out there
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: trying to separate you from your wallet. And that's most businesses.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: That's not just this one. That's most businesses. And you've
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: got to be your own family defender. And when you
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: have questions about whether it's something a good deal or not.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: And this cannot be the whole nations like counseling line,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: but when you have questions about whether there's a good
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: deal or not, give Tony a call, give us people
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: a call. They really do care. Over at Gas Motor
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Cars and there's and if you're in a city where
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Gas is, you know, he's not you're not in Atlanta,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: or you're not trying to do a transaction for a
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: unique vehicle, He'll refer you to somebody that he trusts
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: in a local area. He'll tell me all the time, Nope,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: don't do this with that. I know those people with
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: their bumps. No, don't, don't John, turn around and walk back.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: Don't walk out of the dealership. Back out of dealership,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: because you turn around, they'll have their hands in your
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: back wallet. Like, back out of that dealership right now,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: and then click. Then he hangs the phone up. Any
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: final words, Tony.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: No, I mean thank you for having me on the show.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: This was a lot of fun. I truly truly hope
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: that I'm going to be impactful and help somebody with
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: what I just you know, vomited all over this microphone.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: You know, it's not useless information because if somebody can
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: use it, so therefore it's useless. And you know, John
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: has been roasting himself a lot, but he is one
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: thing he does well. He knows how to get what
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: he wants.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: It's something that I call selective hearing. So I will
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: tell him the same thing over and over and over again,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: and about the tenth or fifteen times. Sometimes he'll agree
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: with me and say, yeah, you got it. So yeah,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: anybody else that needs help call me. I'm not going
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: to give you fifteen chances to convince you. I'm gonna
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: give you one. But I do, truly, you know, come
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: from a good place where I want to help people.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: And this is if this is what I can help
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: people with, this is my skill set, then that's you know,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: that's why God put me here. I mean, you know,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: I can help people with their card needs.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: Yep. And and evidently he's also an underground philanthropist because
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: they also help somebody with their heart needs, their dignity needs,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: their their compassion needs, which was the young lady who
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: walked into his life through a charity he was involved with,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: who just needed a hand up, not a handout. She
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: just needed a break. She just needed a She needed
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: a moment where she could believe that all the world
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: was not set up against her. Thank you, Tony for
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: being a blessing and for being a good guy, even
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: though we don't want anybody to know it. And you're
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: not completely a hard no, you actually have a heart
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: underneath that hardhead of yours. Thank you for all you do.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: And this is John O'Brien. This is Money and Wealth
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: on the Black Effect Network podcast series on iHeart. This
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: is where we make it plain and help you understand
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: how stuff works. It's John O'Brien. Let's go change the world.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: Go to Operation Hope and get your financial literacy coaching
• 1:12:24
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• 1:12:26
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• 1:12:29
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• 1:12:31
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• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: give it to someone else, put it into a library,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: put it into a school, have a weekly conversation about
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: money at your kitchen table. Number one calls a divorce
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: and a Mary America money and stress and it can
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: also be a stress reliever. When you decide to work it,
• 1:12:52
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• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of
• 1:13:12
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• 1:13:15
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• 1:13:20
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