Andy Elliott On Failure, Brainwashing, His Past, and What Makes a Leader

Listen, I'm going to tell you right now, we're going to make a decision. Either you really want to be a leader, and we're going to go out here and we're going to grow this team. We're literally going to brainwash them that they're powerful, that they can make it, that they're going to be the best. We're going to take care of them because that's our responsibility as a leader. Leadership in a position, it's a skill of influence, and we're going to influence them to rise. And we're going to do it with them, and we're going to show them love. We're also going to be super direct how to win. I would say if you're not willing to do that, we need to replace you. That's it.

He, big thank you to our sponsors for making today's episode possible, Dealer DMV and The Car Dealership Guy Industry Job Board. And now, let's get into the show.

How did you get to a point in life where you have this type of mindset? Like most people, you ask them, "How's life?" Like, "Oh, life's great." Yeah, it's cool. Like, no, but like, what? Just give us a little bit about your story. Like, what have you been through? What's the Andy Elliott story in, like, a spark notes version?

Yeah, so, well, well, I'll answer your question because look, here's the reason why. Here, here's the reason why we're kicking a lot of people's asses, okay? Number one, most people, they're trying to run towards a life they weren't okay with. Like, like, I want this, I want that Lamborghini, I want that Ferrari, I want that big house, I want that income. And I'm running from a life that I hated. And that pain, that "bet against me" mentality has really allowed me to change my life. Plus, I lived mediocre for a long time. Um, I was a pushover for a long time. I surrounded myself with the wrong people for a long time. And once you wake up, I always say there's the day you're born, the day you die, and the day your life changes forever. And one day, I just, everything changed. And I was like, "Dude, that guy's dead." And by the way, by the way, I'm a leader, okay? I wasn't always a leader. I always thought like, "I'm a manager, I'm a general manager, I'm an owner," but I wasn't a leader. And a leader is not a position, it's a skill of influence. And I wasn't influencing anybody to be better. I made a lot of money, I made a lot of good deals, I did a lot of things, but I never changed anyone's life. And when I decided to change my life, leaders live for a bigger vision than themselves. I literally opened my eyes, I changed my lens, I saw the world different. And I didn't care how the world saw me at that point. I knew what I wanted. And then literally, I started running from that life that I hated. And along the way, we built the Elliott Group. You know, we did 160 million last year. We've been in business four years. We literally defied all odds. What everybody told me, "Don't do that. I wouldn't do that if I was you." I did it. Guess what? Smoked everyone. Changed millions of lives. We get 100 to 150 million views every 30 days on social media. I built the badass team. The loyalties through the roof. And dude, the cool thing about it is that everyone can do this. Everyone, everyone's qualified for this. But you ask me my perspective, and I'm running from a life that I hated. And I can give you the story, but I wanted to answer that question.

I, I know, I, I want to hear the story. I mean, tell us. So today, you run the Elliott Group, which we'll talk a lot about today. Your previous life, you were in the dealership business. Tell us a little bit about your upbringing in the business, your, you know, your journey.

Yeah, all right. So growing up, my mom left when I was two years old, okay? It's not a victim story. Like, a lot of people have split families and sh... but my mom left when I was two. Most of the time, it's the dad that rolls out. Mine was the mom. So that's like the love creature. So, and then my dad marries like 20 crazy stepmoms, right? So I've, she's been married six times, my dad's been married six times. It's a broken-ass family. I'm raised by kids, basically. We run the streets.

Where was this at? Where was this at?

Just Oklahoma. Yeah, yeah. More, more Oklahoma, tornado alley, right? And, matter of fact, in 1999, the world's largest tornado that was five miles wide, F5, F6, which everybody's seen the movie Twister, right? Smoked high school. And I was a, listen, I was a D student. I was going to fail. And I had to take my semester test, which means I would have got held back. Dude, I never went to school. I have no idea how I passed. I never took any tests. And I'm going to tell you something, no one ever told me it was important to learn. And you think that's common sense, but dude, listen, like, no one ever told me that I was going to become anything. My dad said, "Get a job, stay out of jail." Okay? So here's the goal. That was, no one in my family's ever made more than 60 G's a year. No one. I literally, uh, graduate because a tornado took out my school. And if you had passing grades, you got to walk. So, bam, I graduated. Yeah, the tornado was the best thing that ever happened. Next thing you know, I did construction for one month. And I've got fiberglass all in my body. I'm working from 6:00 AM in the morning till 11:00 at night. And I'm like, "Dude, I've never had any money. I've never had more than $5 in my hand at one time." I, oh, we were poor. People labeled us as poor. Broke. Wore the same two pair of clothes every day. Same two shirts every day. If I wanted something different, I'd have to go steal. And I'm not a bad kid. It's just, well, kids raising kids on the street. You didn't do stupid stuff. Who you around? Who you become? So literally, at 18 years old, I got a job selling cars. My best friend's older brother goes, "Hey man, um, you can make five grand a month selling cars." Long story short, I show up at a car dealership. I got a lay down the first day, which we all know what that is. I made $1,700. And next morning, I got the high gross of the month's Biff, which is $500 cash in my hand and a $1,700 check. My blood started running different through my body. And I was like, "Oh man, this is the world of sales." And so I became obsessed with sales. I bought every Grand Card owned cassette tape, everything you could get, every event I could go to. I became a self-development junkie in sales. I got, I took a serious, I worked from 7:00 in the morning to 11:00 at night. I made 125 grand at 18. I made 225 at 19. I made 500 grand when I was 20 years old. I broke it wide open. My manager told me, "No one can make that much money in the car business." Rule number one for anybody in the automotive industry: Don't ever let anyone tell you how much you can or can't make, okay? They have no idea. They put boundaries on themselves. Don't let them put boundaries on you. Long story short, I made about 7, 800 grand max, the most ever made selling cars. Got into management. Um, I'm gonna tell you something, the car business is a great industry. Transportation space is great. I think everybody should have to go knock doors for one year or sell cars for one year. I really, I think the whole world should have to. I think they should learn how to have thick skin, work hard, get rejected, and learn how to hustle. And, you know, like customer service, you know, hospitality, you know, like mastering a stranger. Everybody should have to do it. The world would be in a better place. Matter of fact, they should put that in college. You have to go knock doors or you have to go sell cars for one year. Just do something to get uncomfortable. That way people can up their communications.

Well, um, going back to kind of where I got in trouble, I, I started my own training company in 2011, okay? Um, I'm, I'm, I'm making 10 grand per account. I have five accounts, which paid me 50, 50 grand a month. Just for context, were you working at a dealership at the time?

I quit the car business in 2011, and I quit it to train car sales. That's what I wanted to do. But it only lasted about five months, and then I went back into the car business. Which I'm sure that you've seen that happen a lot of times, where somebody tries something and then they're back in, right?

How many? The, the big issue with the car business is that, not issue, I mean, you could say it's a blessing or a curse, but it's, you get hooked to the opportunity, right? Golden handcuff syndrome.

Yeah, yeah. Well, well, let me tell you this. There's a lot of great stories, and then there's a lot of shitty stories, okay? And by the way, the great ones, they're my good friends. I have a lot of very good friends in the car business, and I love everyone of them. There's also a lot of pieces of sh*t in the car business, okay? So, but there's that way in everywhere around the world.

This episode is brought to you by Dealer DMV. In today's climate, you probably find your dealership selling more, more vehicles out of state. More sales, always a good thing. But then comes time to title and register, and everyone knows out-of-state titling is a major headache. It doesn't have to be this way. Our friends at Dealer DMV have created a program called Dealer 50, a revolutionary approach to 50-state titling. With Dealer 50, your dealership now has 24/7 portal access to calculations, pre-filled forms, checklists, inquiries, plus white-glove processing and specialist support. You can even acquire duplicate titles in all 50, 50 states directly through the Dealer 50 platform. And the best part, it's DMS integrated. Visit Dealer50.com. That's tell me more about.

Before we got on this podcast, I asked you, I said, "Andy, how do you want this to go?" You said, "Yosi, open book. Talk to me about anything." I think something, you know, I wouldn't call it the elephant in the room, but, you know, lots of people have asked me about your past. Lots of people submitted questions. Uh, you know, people have commented on Twitter, blah, blah, blah. What, like, what happened with your past? I mean, what, what went wrong? What went right? Tell us a little bit about your time in a dealership business and, you know, your learnings from that. Just give us the background.

I worked in a dealership that was Shuberg Toy. They were, they were, um, which it's, it's sold, they're no longer around. But it was 800 credit scores, great credit. I mean, it was the Chevy GMC, but it was the greatest credit ever. I mean, it was very rare that someone ever had to go. We had a special finance department, and he went, visited him once a month. Like, there was never any bad credit. Well, I became a general manager and got an opportunity. Remember, I told you I opened my training deal for five months in 2011? Well, I was training, but I was traveling everywhere. And one of the general managers that I was training was a company called Big Red, and it was a guy named Chris Mays, he owned it. And he literally goes, "Andy, I want you to be a general manager for my company, not train it, but be a general manager." Now, I've never been a general manager at this point. I was a lead manager. I'm very good at sales. I, I've done stuff. I made a couple hundred grand, you know, in the car business, 500 grand as a manager before. I made more sales than I did as a manager. And anyways, long story short, he goes, goes, "I'll pay you whatever you want to come be a general manager for me." Well, I said, "No, no, no, no, no." And one day, my wife calls me and she's like, "Andy, you haven't slept at at the house for the last three nights. You're traveling on the road, you're doing this training. I understand you're trying to get out of the car business because you want to be a trainer, but the problem is you're not home anymore. At least when you're in the car business, you were home every night." And so I go over to this guy and I'm like, "All right, I'm going to give you this offer, this crazy offer to come work for you. This is how much money I need." And he literally looks over him and he goes, "Dude, we'll do it." Okay? So that was when I started working for the special finance store. Now, when I went into the store, um, everybody was bad credit, good credit, bad credit, no credit, you're approved. That was the commercials they ran everywhere. So everyone that came in had to have a thousand down to buy all of them, all of them. Well, no one had any money down. So they have this little thing that they put on the contract called King Cash, which means you would come in and, you know, Debbie would have a pay stub, utility bill, she'd have everything, but she'd have any money down. So you just put King Cash on there, and then boom, you'd roll it through. And dude, like every deal was that way. The whole company was doing it. By the way, I knew other companies that were all doing it. But this company was doing like, it was just like, you know, we're in the car business. I was raised it since I was 18. It's kind of like, I didn't really know that you could like get in trouble. Trouble? Does that make sense? Like this is 2011, 2012. Compliance isn't really hard yet, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's not real hard into the companies, not in this one. But anyways, long story short, um, I, I get, I get close to the owner. And I start to realize that one day, um, he's pissed some people off. I don't know who it is, but the FBI comes in. And every little thing that was going on in that company, they're like, um, "Everybody's in trouble." Well, at this point, um, I'm a Christian, okay? And I, I told my wife, I'm like, "Man, like, I didn't want to talk to my wife about this problem because, you know, as any man, you're, you're making good money, you know, making a million bucks a year, whatever." And I'm like, "This is a hard conversation." I go home to my wife. Well, number one, I go, the owner, when the FBI comes in, calls us all to a meeting and basically says, like, "If you, if you don't say what I tell you to say, I'm gonna kill you." First of all, let's just get that out of the way, okay? And by the way, this is all on record, like, so it's fine. But they, they said, uh, "If you don't do what I say, I'm gonna kill you." And at that point, I went home to my wife and I really thought, like, "What am I gonna, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna, like, try to protect my family and be the hero? Or am I gonna come clean and just tell her, like, 'Hey, babe, you know, we're doing some stuff wrong at work and like, we're in trouble and like, this guy's like saying he's gonna kill me if I don't lie?'" And guess what? My wife's like, "The truth will set you free. You're not going to lie, and that's the way it is." Long story short, um, we told the truth every step of the way. Never lied. Um, I started my coaching company. I literally had to recreate myself. Let me explain this to you. Back then, remember I told you I was a pushover? Remember the beginning of this call? I told you I was a pushover. Told you I was like, I was a coward. I didn't stand up for myself. And, you know, my biggest problem is I didn't listen to my wife. This is a big lesson for a lot of people out there.

Andy, wait. How, when did you meet your wife? In, within this journey?

I met my wife, I met my wife when I was 26, and she was 24. We met in 2006. So it was, this was, that was so, this was way before five years ago. We got together. But after we started working for this guy, my wife told me that this guy, "I don't trust him, Andy." My wife has a very good intuition. But honestly, I'm gonna go back to this. I was making such good money. And my wife was nagging me because I, instead of trusting her, I called it a nag. I should have realized she wasn't nagging me, she was protecting me. But I was telling her like, "Babe, stop nagging me. Like, I promise you, everything's good." But I was making more money than I'd ever made. So guess what happens? How many times have we seen people get in trouble because they made good money? By the way, it's more money than I ever made. I was helping people, they got cars. I wasn't hurting anybody. I never showed up and we hurt anybody. I just didn't understand you could get in trouble. I don't know the law. I've never been in jail. Never gotten any trouble. I'm like, "Dude, this is crazy." Long story short, best thing that ever happened to me. I'm going to tell every single.

That was going to be my next question. I mean, do you regret? The best thing?

Well, do I regret it? Well, I wouldn't be where I am right now if it didn't happen. Listen, that's like saying, listen, I got a guy right now that works for me. Uh, he's a seven-figure earner. I got 100 guys on my team. He changes more people's lives than anybody else. And literally, he did drugs and overdosed. When he overdosed, that's today, his life changed. I'm gonna tell you something, man. Sometimes people need a near-death experience to happen, or they need to feel like they're going to lose their freedom, or they need to almost lose their life for people to realize how precious life is. And they need to wake up. And I'm gonna tell you this. So you ask me, do I regret it? I'm not proud of anything that I did. But I would tell you that the man that you're sitting in front of today, that literally is changing millions of people's lives around the world, this guy, this good man, that guy, even as we talk about him, that guy is dead to me. That guy doesn't exist. I don't, it's even remembering it is very weird. But it's important for me to, to have the story and to tell you. And let me tell you why. Every person in the world, at some point, is going to do something that they're ashamed of. They're going to do something. And most people can never come back from it because the world are so afraid it's going to get out. So everybody sees that they're not perfect. Here's what I'll tell you, okay? What you can overcome, you're immensely qualified to help people overcome that same thing. I was around the wrong people, I made bad decisions. You know what? Because I went through that, because I was a bad leader, because I had bad leaders, because I made stupid decisions, guess what? Now, now my decision-making abilities are freaking fire. Now I see trouble from 10 miles, a million miles on. Now I listen to my wife. Now I only surround myself with good people. Now I never make decisions based off money, period. You know why? I'm changing.

What, what do you make, what do you make decisions based off of?

Heart. Number one, heart. Dude, listen to me. If the heart isn't good, we don't hire him. All my people that work in my company, my loyalties are through the roof. My company's insane. Every one of them are amazing. None of them were good at what they did when I hired them, but their heart was good, and they wanted to help people. They wanted to create impact, just like me. Dude, listen, I didn't know when I started my company that we were going to blow up and make this much money. But do you know what I know? Or, or, or change this many people's lives? Do you know what I know? I know that I never wanted to be a part of my old life again. But do you know what I know? I'm gonna tell you this. All those people that are emailing you, that are texting you, that are like, "I can't believe this." You don't know what he did. Can I ask you a question? Shouldn't we be building leaders that actually help people overcome and become comeback kids in their life and literally, you know, like change their lives? Or should we hang them based on their old mistakes? Because I'm gonna tell you, man, most people run around and they're trying to hang people off every, everything they did when they were in the past. And most people that are highly successful, at some point, just like in the Bible, the Apostle Paul was, once Saul, he was a Christian killer, and he took the Bible the furthest. Some of us need to do it all wrong so that we can understand how to do it right. And if you see my passion, if you see my energy, if you see the way I am, dude, it's because I know that this is the good life.

You know, part of my, part of what I do here is, like, I'm not a journalist, right? I just have conversations with people. And of course, I want them, I want them to have, you know, I want them to look good in front of my audience. But, I was, I would say, like, if I'm being honest, I was pretty surprised at how open you were to just talk about anything. Just because, you know, I know how, I've had enough people on this podcast. We're on episode 105, and, you know, everyone has different, um, sensitivity to different topics. I'm curious, have you always exuded this confidence? Or at least since leaving the dealerships, have you had, had this innate confidence? Have you been this outspoken? Is that something you've built up over the years? Have you become more financially successful? What has it been for you?

No, dude. Listen, when I really like, put myself in a bad situation, okay? And by the way, just so you're aware, I remember I told you that guy's like, "I'll kill you if you lie or if you don't lie." Okay? We told the truth every step of the way. We told the truth. Notice I don't have a felony. I don't have a conviction. I went to court, I told the truth, and they said, "You're..." Everybody had a decision to make. When I started telling the truth, was the day my life changed. And so, and so I just want to tell you, you asked about this confidence. I was a pushover. I, I was trying, I would maybe cover for someone or help someone do something that, you know, there's a little gray because, you know, like, "That was my buddy." You know what I realized? None of those people were my buddies. None of those people were my friends. The only, the only person that was really with me was my wife. And I'm gonna tell you, when I went home, I, I decided, and we decided together, me and her, that like, for the rest of our life, the automotive industry is great. I trained, I trained, I trained thousands of stores in the automotive industry who appreciate the fact that I tell their guys, "Hey, you're gonna mess up." And guess what, dude? I mean, you're gonna do the right thing. And I know what the right thing is because I did the wrong thing. But my training is amazing. My training is great. My training builds confidence. I was good at sales, but this new me, I'm not getting pushed over no more. I'm not getting ran over no more. I'm gonna speak up when, when something happens. But I always believe that people can come back and they're overcomers and they can change. So my confidence, yes, where do I get this confidence? I always had it? No, I didn't always have it. And I always was a good closer, and I was a good salesman, but I wouldn't stand up for myself in this way until I almost lost my freedom. And when I felt like I could go to jail and not see my family, something changed in my body. And I totally recreated, and a new level of maturity came into my life. And I really realized how when you're running with the wrong people, or when you don't stand up for yourself, you can really put yourself and your family in a really bad spot. And because I changed, I put a beautiful financial fence around my family. I put good friends around my life. And I changed everything. And so, like, yeah, I always had this, or I haven't always had this confidence, but I have it now.

Tell me, tell me a little bit about the Elliott Group. Right? Tell us a little bit about what it is, what do you do? Like, give us some more context for those that don't know.

2019, the Elliott Group officially started. It was me and my wife at a kitchen table. From 2019 to 2021. And then from 2015 to 2018, I think, 2018, all I did was wholesale cars. Bought cars at the auction and sold them. Like, that was kind of what I did. You just kind of hung around in the car business.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just, really didn't know what to do. I was kind of lost. Um, but I will tell you what I did do is I started to get in really good shape. Um, I started to take care of my physical fitness, which I hadn't done in a long time, especially in the car business. And I should have done that. Um, I got really close to my wife. I got close to my kids. I'm gonna tell you what I did is I started learning and educating. Self-education with Tony Robbins. You know, Tony Robbins just on social media a week ago or two weeks ago, and from a couple million people said, "Andy Elliott's my number one student." I've had Patrick Bet David, I've had all the greatest influencers, the ones that I found on social media. Dude, I'm gonna give you a quick story so you can understand this because I know everybody understands the sacrifice of building a business. Um, in 2019, my wife, when I said, "I want to start the Elliott Group for real, and we're gonna do this," um, we, my wife, we had, we had a million-dollar house in Oklahoma. It was paid off in Oklahoma. That's a nice house. We sold it. And my wife sold all the furniture. We had a conversation with our kids, "Mom and Dad are going to recreate. We're going to become different people. And we're about to go on a journey to start a business together. We're all going to do this together." It was a family decision. Three kids involved. And my wife, my wife got us a rent house. We put mattresses on the floor, no furniture, literally plastic tables. Looked like an FBI stakeout lab with with tables. Why? Because we weren't planning on staying. We literally needed to build a business out of that million dollars that we sold our house for. I spent 700 grand on self-development. I need you to understand this. I needed to recreate my identity. I needed, I needed to learn and train. I'd never been on the internet. The only thing I knew about the internet was an internet lead to call one. But I started researching, you know, Tony Robbins, you know, Dean Graziosi, you know, uh, you know, Bradley, I started Patrick Bet David, you know, David Goggins. I start looking at all these guys and Andy Frisella. And I start realizing that these, these people, I wanted a little bit of what all of them had. So I, I took the best and I left the rest. And I started to build my identity and my new self. And I call it total recreation. And basically, um, in 2021, we were making a couple million. I was doing all the calls myself. I was fulfilling all the stuff. And I told my wife, I was like, "This is where we grow. We're ready." And we packed up from Oklahoma, we moved to Scottsdale, Arizona. Listen, I'm gonna give you a trick. If you ever want to completely change your life, you move from here to there. New people, don't know anyone. No one knows who you are. You have the, the best chance of just changing everything about you. Started fresh. I started fresh. And I'm telling you, I started building Elliott Army at that time. Now we're up to a hundred people in our company. And, um, we're just shaking the world, man.

We're no, I was gonna say, yes. So, so what do you do today, right? Like, sales training for who? To who? What type? Like, tell us a little bit about that.

So number one, we have 10,000 companies on our training system, okay? These companies range from automotive to solar, you know, to home service, which home service is huge. It's a blanket of, you know, businesses, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, stuff like that. Uh, SAS companies, uh, every industry that a company could have. I mean, tree trimming companies, people that communicate, anybody that could communicate, trains their sales team. So I built a general in all sales training program. Now I have like RV training, I have automotive training, I have specific training, furniture. I'm sorry, I, I'm laughing because this morning, the guy that came to do the pest control rang our doorbell at like quarter of seven. The kids are still sleeping. And as you're speaking right now, I'm like, "What would you tell this guy that rang my freaking doorbell at 6:45 and woke up all the kids earlier than they should have woken up today?"

Dude, number one, I, I would say whoever's in charge, whoever told you to ring my doorbell at 6:45, have them come see me this afternoon. Oh, because it's probably not that kid's fault. He probably had someone tell him to go start ringing doorbells at 6:45. I'm just, I'm just telling you, like, number one, you listen. These, these kids, they're, their leaders are telling them what to do, okay? So, like, I'm always like, "Kill the kid," but the, the kid's just trying to do what his boss told him to do. The, the fish stinks from the head, as we used to say. The dealership, the fish stinks in the head. Yeah. So, like, I mean, so I was just saying, what would I do? I would say, like, "Hey, do me a favor, have your boss call me. I want to talk to him about this pest control deal." And then I would have it out with that guy and be like, "Dude, are you kidding me, man? Like, I got my kids asleep. It's summertime. You should know better. 6:45. I know it's hot outside, but have a respect for the client."

What do you view as the number one blocker to the best, you know, call it sales at a dealership today? Like, just give me, I know you can get more sophisticated, distill it from me very simply. What's holding back sales teams from, you know, outperforming and, you know, being number one in their region? Like, what is that?

It's the leaders. First of all, look, the quality of your life will always come down to the level of your leadership. Our leaders right now, they literally, all the leaders in the automotive space, 90% of them don't train anymore. They don't train their team. They talk down on their employees. They have toxic atmospheres. They literally, we're in an era right now where people would rather work for their mentors over money. They're still preaching, "You can make more money if you do this and you do this and you do this," but they don't make anyone better. They're not physically changing their life, so they're not someone that anyone else can look up to. Changing the psychology of the leader will change the business faster than anything else. And by the way, leaders live for a bigger vision than themselves. And it seems like all the leaders are completely selfish. "How much money can I make?" And that's it. And plus, when someone comes in, a lot of the times, people get promoted in a car dealership by who's the manager's best friend, not who's most qualified. And people see that. Dude, I'm trying to tell you right now, we don't train our people. We don't hold them accountable. We don't teach them how to have skill. And it all starts up top. You know what I know? All the salespeople, they want to be the best in the world, but all they're doing is following their leaders. And guess what? When things get tight, this is funny. When things get tight, the first thing to go is training. It's, listen, people spend more money on toilet paper than they spend on training their people. And that's a leader decision, okay? So the ones that win, like Paragon Honda, Brian Benstock, the big companies that train their teams, that break records, that make a lot of money, that kick ass, like those, all those guys, all train with us because they know that human capital is the most important thing in the world. There's marketing, inventory, and buildings. Human capital.

This episode is brought to you by my very own Car Dealership Guy Industry Job Board. CDG Jobs is revolutionizing how talent connects with top automotive companies. Here's a shocker: we're not using any fancy technology or AI. We literally built a simple HTML job board. That's it. But it works really, really well. And the best part, it's completely free for CDG listeners to post and fill positions at their firm. So I'm sure you're wondering, what sets us apart? Well, when companies hire through CDG Jobs, they're choosing from a pool of the most informed candidates in the industry. Don't wait. Whether you're hiring or seeking a new opportunity, visit CDGJobs.com today or click the link in the show notes below. That's CDGJobs.com.

Do you think that, do you, again, broad question, do you think anyone can sell or be taught to sell? Or do you, it's a process thing? Charisma? Like, what goes into it?

I think, I think anyone can sell, period, okay? Like, look, people are made, not born. You know that? Dude, listen, I stuttered at 18, okay? I didn't even, I didn't even know how to talk. I'd say, "What?" I'm like, "What? What? What? What?" This guy's like, "Listen, dude, you got to learn how to master a stranger. You got to learn how to shake a hand. You got to learn how to look at someone in the eye. You got to learn, hey, like, see this right here? This is what we say to people when we go say hi to them. You're gonna write this down 25 times until you got to memorize. And then you're gonna go say it in the mirror. And then you're gonna look at yourself in the mirror. And when you feel good about it, you're gonna come back and shake my hand and you're gonna do it. And then I'm gonna go let you start talking to people." Like, dude, my first manager dropped me off at the mall, literally, and made me go shake a hundred people's hands and just say, "Hey, my name's Andy. You know, how are you doing? Are you having a good day?" At the mall. And it felt really stupid. And I felt really weird. But I at least got over the fact that, you know, I wasn't thinking about people judging me anymore. And he beat the weirdness out of me. And I just want to say that, like, that was a good leader to me. And I want to tell you that, like, dude, we're not doing that anymore. And I promise you, dude, car dealerships, I swear on my life, these guys are sitting on gold mines. I don't care about interest rates. I don't care about, you know, values of cars. I don't care about marketing. I don't care about none of that. Dude, their people suck. Their people suck, man. And the reason why their people suck is because the leaders tolerate sucky people. And by the way, the people don't suck because they're bad people. The people suck because they ain't never been trained. And the leaders don't train. They're entitled babies.

What do you see as the biggest blocker to a new salesperson, an up-and-comer, is it objection handling? Is it confidence? Is it all of the above? What do you see as that, you know, that barrier from success typically?

Yeah, so, well, number one, I think that because they're not trained right, their confidence is really low. And then number two, um, I do think they are horrible at, you know, objection handling. And I think objection handling is just a little piece of it. I always say this, relationships kill objections. So if you're really good at relationships, if you're really good at connecting with somebody, if you speak to someone with familiarity, there's a good chance they're gonna like you and they're not really gonna object. Okay? I mean, you got to realize, we're in an era where if somebody's in front of you, they're probably gonna buy something because they could be anywhere, especially with the internet. So the fact that somebody's with you, if you did a good job building a relationship, more than likely they're gonna buy. You now, I would tell you that common sense says these same objections are gonna come into every dealership every day. "I need to think about it." "You know, price is too high." "Payments too high." "I need to talk to my wife." "I got a couple more cars to go look at." Like those five things are gonna come every day. And what I learned in the car business is that people are there for 10 years and they still don't know how to overcome "money to think about it." Why? Because no one's ever trained them. They don't work the service drive. How many times do you see a salesperson outwork the service drive? Never. You know why? Because their managers never trained them. They don't know what to say. So they walk over one time, they say something, it sounds stupid, they get rejected, they never do it again. Dude, I am telling you, it's a leadership problem. Massive. It's not. And, and so that, so listen, I built my company off salespeople because managers wouldn't do their jobs. I went out and and sold courses to salespeople. Then the salespeople got good, made money, they got promoted into management. And then those managers, now that were my salespeople that I trained, now they pay me to train their salespeople. That's how we built the L in the automotive space. You know, my prior company, we were building all this tech and all this fancy, you know, stuff, whatever. But there's a thing called bottom-up in SAS. Right? We weren't a SAS company, but all this new trend of software, right? It's like, you know, these communication tools. You go bottom-up, it's easier to infiltrate the organizations. So what you're saying is very interesting, that you've, you know, you've developed this strong social strategy, marketing, you know, you really branded yourself. Like you said, with the salesperson, you got into the dealership to the salesperson, now the salesperson is is growing within and they're, you know, they're coming back to you for more training.

Yeah, that's why it took two years. And then we did the same thing with solar. We did the same thing with the home service space. We did the same thing with SAS. We just, we, we did the same thing across the board, everywhere. Now, leaders is really what I do. Just so you're aware, I've created, I've created a thousand to 1500 videos based off every objection, every scenario, everything you can imagine. I still update it whenever something changes in in a company or or whatever in sales. So we're dominated the sales industry now. I'm getting into the leadership industry, big time. Leadership is what I'm attacking now. Total recreation, dude. I'm getting a hold of leaders and I'm literally changing everything about them because until they change, their teams can change. And so that's been my big kick now, and that's really where I'm crushing it, that's where I'm killing it.

Andy, is it more of a creativity thing or is it more of a process thing? Right? The best salespeople, you know, like consistent, their process. Extremely creative. Curious what you think.

Yeah, I mean, number one, I mean, look, they have self-esteem. They have self-confidence. They have self-belief. You know how they have these things? Is they just do what they, they say they're gonna do. You know, "I'm gonna wake up at this time. I'm gonna go to the gym. I'm gonna walk my inventory 20 minutes before work. I'm gonna make 200 calls a day where I'm gonna sell two cars." That's non-negotiable. Like, like the top salespeople, like they just, they do what they say they're gonna do. And that's where we train them. We train, we teach them discipline.

Well, I'm a father figure to a lot of people, and it never intended to be that way, but that's really what I've become. You know, I had, I had George Claghorn on the podcast, and he was telling me that something that I thought was was a cool strategy where the customer, when a customer gives him an objection, he actually pulls out these cards that have objections written on them. And so you'll tell me like, you'll tell me, "Hey Yosi, I got to think about it." So he'll literally pull out this physical card that says, "I got to think about it," and he'll turn it over, and it'll have like the, you know, the rebuttal to for the customer. And, you know, kind of breaks the ice. Hahaha. And then they get over it.

Dude, closers are funny. Closers gotta be fun. You gotta take all the pressure out of the deal, man. I mean, people get stressed out over money, especially when it costs more money. You know what I always hated? Like when I was just coming up in a business, like, I know I did sell, you know, the first car I sold, we were, we had a trailer, there was like these like wooden steps. And I remember standing there, my dad looked at me, and there was a person came on the line. He's like, "Hey, go to that customer, go help them out." I was super scared. You know, I was in my teens. And it was just scary. I was like, "How is he gonna react? What am I gonna say?" Like, da, da, da, da, da. But anyways, I'll tell you what really bothered me. It bothered me that when we first made our first, like, you know, big-time hire, call it. I, there was, there was no way for me to see how he was closing. Like, it was always like the closer took the person into the room, closed the door, and I felt like I wanted that knowledge. You know? And I ended up, you know, figuring my way into it, uh, because, you know, we got really close and whatnot. But it feels like it was so opaque. Even myself, as an up-and-comer in business, I'm talking, you know, years ago, probably like 15 years ago, I didn't have that opportunity.

Yeah, that's the way it was a long time ago. Remember, is that like, if somebody learned, well, number one, back then, that's when you would get your deal split in half, right? Remember that? Like, if you couldn't close deals, so if the guy...

Yeah, so Spitzky.

Well, my point is, so if I knew how to close and I taught you, that means I can't split your deals anymore. So like, I'm, so, so we went around and everything that we knew, we didn't share it because we knew that the managers would page us in to cut everybody else's deals up because they knew that we could close them. So if we taught everybody how to do it, then we couldn't cut everybody's deals up. That, that was the old days. And by the way, that's how, that's why people learned and got better because you got your deal split and then you were hiding around corners trying to listen to what people were saying because you just wanted to learn how to close those deals. Dude, we're in a generation. They called me, they called me the sponge. That's what they called me. The sponge because I would just ask tons of questions in order to learn, you know, but it was hard. You had to really push yourself into it. There wasn't, uh, there wasn't training available like that, you know, is so readily available and so, you know, demystified that anyone could just get it.

Yeah, well, I told people a long time ago, man, you know, 20 years ago, people used to fistfight. You, you know, if.

You stepped in front of them, and now you walk into any dealership. People are just like, "Oh yeah, you take that war." Do you think, do you think just sales as an art in the car business is, is going to go away? I mean, digital retailing, AI, right? Like, do you think that that's overtime going to go away? Direct consumer, or do you think that, you know, you really believe car business and, you know, human connection, that's going to remain? What's your thought?

Yeah, I mean, look, dude, AI is real, okay? There's robots are real, like all that stuff is real. But the, the realest thing is, is the connection between people. At the end of the day, people may want to buy online, but look, dude, there's always going to be a need for a person. Always. There's always going to be a need for a salesperson. I can't ever see, I can't ever see that industries would want to replace salespeople. I think that it will take down gross profits. And by the way, if you just want to be a commodity, look, if you just want to be a commodity, this is a commodity. You can buy it. This is what you get. It is a transaction. There'll be zero relationship with our company to yours, except for a good experience. That's fine. But I'm going to tell you, there's a lot of people, man, that still love a relationship. And they don't know that until they get a good one. And then they're like, "Man, that was really nice." Okay? So I still think a great relationship. Now, if you're going to have a sales team, if you're not going to train your company, if you're going to have a poor culture, if you're not going to treat people right, well, you're better off to just be a commodity. But I would tell you though, I can't see it going out. I can see businesses going out of business because they're not good enough to keep up. But I, I, I don't see him going out, man. I'm just telling you, dude, I just, no ways, man. God, God made people to talk to people, man. I'm telling you, I can't see it.

Tell me about, if you go into an underperforming store, like what's the first couple things you do?

Well, number one, does, do the people believe? Well, okay, first of all, I would, I would say something along these lines. Um, the leadership is a big deal, okay? I mean, you can go into the stats and go into the numbers, but the biggest thing is I want to go on and talk to the leaders. Look, the eyes are the window to the soul. I can walk in and I can tell somebody's dead or they're alive. I can go talk to any manager and I can tell if they care about the company. I can tell if they care about the people. I can care if they're, I can tell if they're passionate about the business still. I can tell if they're burned out. I, I can tell all that real quickly, right? So I'd have a conversation with the leaders and I would literally tell, just a simple conversation, no training involved, where these people are at, how much they care about the company. Secondly, I'd go talk to the sales. By the way, I'm going to tell you what I do. I'd go talk to the sales and I'd say, "Hey guys." So I'd be like, "Hey Jerry, Bob, you guys are the managers. Come on in here. You got 15 sales people. You guys come on in here. Look, you guys are the team. I appreciate you being in here. Everybody, do me a favor. I want you to grab a piece of paper, okay? Here you guys go. I want everybody to write the name of their mentor down on a piece of paper, fold it in half, put it in the middle of the table. You guys can walk out of here. I'll see you guys in a little bit, okay?" So who do you look up to? Who's your mentor? Write the name. Because what we're going to do is we're going to look them up tonight, guys. We want to see who you look up to. That's all. Everybody write it down. No pressure. Don't put your name down. Just write down the name of the person. When they walk out of the room, I grabbed the managers. "Hey Bob, guys, come on over here." So we're going to open these papers and I want to know how many times each one of your names are on these papers. Here we go. Open them up. Damn, y'all's name ain't on one of them. Which means they'll work for the boss for a paycheck, but they work for the leader for blood, sweat, and tears. We got to get you guys to be the leaders. These guys are on their phones all day long, watching social media and looking for someone to look up to. And they got two leaders right here in front of them that they don't look up to. That's got to change. So I need to change those leaders. And those people will change when those leaders change. And you can't train those people and not train the leaders. Because if you don't, if the leaders don't change, you can't change the people. Because then the leaders stay the same, and then the people resent the leaders because they're not even changing. It's, it's death.

You know, if there's any, well, there's many dealer principals and GMs that listen to this. But if there's, you know, anyone out there right now that's going through this, or they're like, maybe unhappy with their GM, unhappy with their, whatever, sales manager, right? What's your message to them? Do you think that it's a, do you, do you see a high probability from your experience of people being able to adapt and change with that proper training? Or do you think, in, you know, in many cases, it's like, you got to replace? How do you, what's your kind of take on that?

Okay, so look, so, so look, so leadership, okay? It's pretty simple. I'd have a conversation with you. I'd say, "Hey, do you have kids?" "I have kids." "Yes, three." "All right, cool. And you love your kids, right? And you're going to, and your kids, you love more than anybody in the world. And when your kids get bigger, you want them to go work for someone that literally takes care of your kids and teaches them everything they need to know in business and really helps self-develop them and is a leader to them and helps grow them." Would you agree? "100%." Okay. And just like you want that for your kids, every one of your people out there is someone else's kids. Listen, I'm going to tell you right now, we're going to make a decision, okay? Either you really want to be a leader, and we're going to go out here and we're going to grow this team. We're literally going to brainwash them that they're powerful, that they're strong, that they can make it, that they're going to be the best. We're going to train them. We're going to have them look through a different set of lenses. We're going to have them believe different. We're going to alter their identities. We're going to take care of them because that's our responsibility as a leader. Leadership in, in a position, it's skill of influence. And we're going to influence them to, to, to rise. And we're going to do it with them. And we're going to show them love. We're also going to be super direct how to win. And guess what? That's what we're going to do. I would say, if you're not willing to do that, okay, we need to replace you. That's it. That's the only way you build a culture. Remember, the culture and the environment builds the team. And the leader's job is to the culture and the environment. And if you walk into a company and you don't feel a culture and an environment, there's a good chance there's not one. And by the way, if a good environment exists, people don't talk negative. They don't gossip. And they don't complain. And, and they're not lazy in a good culture, in a good environment. And so that's the reason why where I'll, I will have a direct conversation with the leaders and I'll say, "Hey, I love you. Do you really want what you say you wanted? You said you want to break the numbers. You said you want to sell this many cars. You said you want to, you know, do this thing. Said you want to financially put a, a great fence around your family and, and you want to take care of your people. If that's really what you want, then changing isn't a problem, dude. Once you become uncoachable, you're dead. Evolve or die." And, you know, that look, we all know this. And, and so like that's where we decide.

No, no, but, but, but it's really internalizing it. It's really internalizing it. You know, it's like, yeah, I love being coached, right? But like, do you like when that insecurity gets brought up, right? How do you feel about it, right? Are you willing to talk about it to get, get better at it? And, and here's the crazy part, right? Like, we, we don't see, we don't see our faults, right? As, as humans. That's always one of the biggest things. Like, we're blinded to it. We don't actually see it. And so being in a position where you, you accept that and you know, and really internalize that feedback is so important.

Yeah. Why, why tell them losers give away the power to change something? Winners look in the mirror and own their own, their, they change. Do you have any, like, what are your insecurities nowadays? Seem like a very confident person.

You know, man, dude, I mean, honestly, dude, I, uh, I just don't want to become ungrounded, you know? Like, our goal in life is to create impact, truly. And, you know, when you're kicking ass and you're doing great and you're making a lot of money and, you know, everybody, you know, not that everybody loves us, but everybody's like, "Man, you changed my life. You changed my life." You got to make sure that you don't ever let that flattery get to you. You say, "Hey, appreciate you. Love you. Let's keep going." Um, and you keep moving because, you know, like, it's not about us, right? I mean, listen, all I want to do, you, I told you I was in a bad place. I told you that, you know, I didn't, I looked in the mirror, I wasn't proud of who I was, you know, I felt like I let, I let my family down. And, you know, so I just know what that feels like. So like, I just, I want to help as many people as I can. Like, no BS, like this is our ministry. I wish I would have had me when I was 20. It's a great way to put it. Yeah, I needed me. I needed, I needed some wisdom. I needed some maturity. I needed someone to be really direct to me. I needed someone to tell me what, you know, like, like what the law of the lay in, in, in business was. And, and to be honest with you, the car business doesn't educate anyone. Work hard, show up, get on the phone, do your job. I mean, honestly, like, I, I, I wish there would have been a little more self-development inside of that, you know? I know some industries offer it and some industries don't. And it's very rare that, and that's why I say like leadership, so important because that would be something that a leader provided, which would be a father-like figure that would say, "Hey, all right, you're my responsibility. Down, let me teach you about money. Let me teach you about relationships. You know, go home, be good to your wife. Work hard when you're here. And then when you go home, put your phone down. Be present with your family. They'll support your job a lot more." You know, Andy, when, when I see you talk and everything you're saying, I think about this. And I don't even need to bring up this chart because you know this, I'm sure. But like, you know, Wall Street Journal put out this chart of like the decline in like family values in America. And it feels to me, it feels to me like I expect that many people come to you like what you just said, like a father figure. Like they're looking for that. They're looking for that, you know, that purpose in their life. And they don't have that. It's like, it's like an all-time low in our country. And I can only imagine that what we see in automotive is just a simple byproduct of that of a much bigger root, root issue.

Yeah, it's everywhere, man. And, and the cool thing is that's why I said, we, so when we built the Elliot Group, listen, uh, we have our company. We have a CH hard school in the back. All of our kids go to school here. What do you mean by that? You run a school yourself? Yeah, we have our own, our own, uh, our own teachers back here. They teach all of our kids. It's amazing, man. We teach our kids entrepreneurship. We teach our kids about God. We teach our kids, you know, the curriculum of work that they need to do. But ultimately, we teach them the art of communication. We teach them physical fitness. I mean, we're raising killers. I mean, we want to, I mean, I'm saying like, we want to raise kids that are going to go impact. We're not raising followers. We're raising leaders. And I'm not saying my kids can't follow a good leader, but like, we're raising our kids to be leaders and understand that the God of this generation is comfort. And like, they're not going to be comfortable. And since our children, remember, you know, I had a pretty crappy upbringing. Bring my kids. Since they have a very good upbringing, we don't want them to be entitled, you know what I'm saying? Like, we want them to.

So how are you at, yeah, and how are you, how are you doing that? Like, that, I can only imagine they see, you know, the Instagram, the F cars, the money. Like, they, they just have to be exposed to it. So how are you, you know, how are you do, how are you balancing that with your kids?

Well, well, so like my wife's right here, and, uh, she'll, she'll say to our kids, you know, they're eight, 11, and 13. And by the way, like, we do things our way, but other people do things their way. For the last five years, it's been pretty simple since they've gotten bigger. It's like, she's like, "Look, do you want me to treat you like a two, three, four, and five-year-old and feed you ice cream, or do you want me to treat you like the badass I know you are? Like, you tell me. How do you want me to talk to you? You going me talk to you like a little kid, or you going me talk to you like the leader I know you're going to become? You tell me. You tell me how you want to be treated." And they say, "Well, treat me like the badass." "Okay, okay. Cool, cool. You do that, you can die. You do that, you're going to get in trouble. You do that, that's not good. You do that, that's what losers do." Okay? Like, we tell them, like, God puts people in this world that that aren't badasses so that you can see if you don't get your [ __ ] together what you're going to look like, okay? So, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's just, it's just like, if you want to be a winner, you just take what a loser is and you flip it. And so any loser can become a winner just with a couple changes, you know what I'm saying?

I do. Andy, tell me a little bit about something that's, I think you've done very well is your, your social strategy, your marketing game. You know, anyone that's listening here that's been to, you know, NADA, has heard you and your team. You know, you guys have your, your, your chance. I mean, you're very distinct. You've branded yourself in a very distinct, unique way, um, that I would call is very noticeable, very provocative. Um, I, you know, I say provocative like, if you see, you know, it grabs attention. And, you know, I, I feel like it's like people like, and you could tell me I'm wrong here, but I feel like people like either love you or they like despise you, right? And again, you could tell me I'm wrong, that's just my hot take.

Yeah, no, you're right, man. I mean, listen, here's the deal. At the end of the day, look, dude, um, you've heard it a million, million times, you know, um, you know, losers don't like winners, and winners don't like losers, okay? You, you can say it like that. You can say people that are lazy don't like hard workers, and hard workers don't like lazy people, okay? People that go out and, uh, try to build a life for themselves, try really hard, love culture, love to go out and motivate, inspire people, right? And then people that want to keep their mouth shut, you know, not speak up, not try to build theirself anything, people that don't want to be, remember, don't break generational curses, don't break the bloodline in their family. They don't like people that are trying to. When you see us out and you hear the chants and all that stuff, what that is, is we are winners, and we are taking winners with us. And who wants to win? Let's go! That's the chant. And if you hear that chant and you're like, "Oh, I don't like that." Well, then what you're saying is you don't like winners, okay? And by the way, like, listen, I don't. Haters, haters are are algorithm feeders. I love them, okay? Like, if you want to know how I reach so many people, well, it's really simple. Number one, we inspire the hell out of a lot. But then the haters leave comments. Just so you're aware, winners don't leave comments. Winners send me DMs and say, "Hey, Andy, you changed my life. I appreciate you. I love you. Tell them the truth. Thank you so much." Haters go to the comment sections. So if anybody wants to learn anything about social media, if you ever see somebody's channel, trust me, I know. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's where the haters live, you know? And, and the deal is, is that, listen, man, don't ever take advice from somebody you don't want to become. If you don't want to be them, don't listen to them. And, and that's a big one, you know? And, but what, what I'm, I'm really trying to tell you, what our message is, and, and so like, as we go around, is I'm an underdog. Very clear. I'm an underdog. I'm an overcomer. I'm the comeback kid, okay? I'm, I, I work from a state of madness. I'm a person that's like, "Bet against me, right? Bet against me. Like, I'll rip your throat out." Like, I, and by the way, I won't say anything to you. I will bankrupt you. I will, I will make sure that we put you out, okay? In a loving way. Listen, I'm a Christian. I love people. But I am very competitive. And people that don't, that aren't good people, I don't like that. And so like, I won't say anything, but I'm going to build up companies around them to put them out of business. Good companies. Companies that take care of themselves. And so you can be a hater for a long time. Here's what I'll tell you. It's the right message to the right person at the right time, okay? You, you could have hit me with this message that me and you were talking about when I was 30 years old, and maybe it wouldn't hit. But then when I had something happen in my life, I was like, "Oh my God, I'm like, I need to wake up." And, you know, I realized I was letting my family down. I wasn't playing my max potential. And then I'm like, "I would have loved to have found this because this is, this was the best version of me that I always wanted to play." And so like, you know, I get it. You know, it's like when I talk about fitness, you really talk about fitness a lot, right? I have people that say, like, "What are you, a fitness guy or a sales guy?" Look, I'm gonna tell you this, fitness changed my life. And wait till you get a bad doctor's report and you lose your, your health, you'll agree with me, okay? It's, maybe not today, but one day, okay? And, and if you don't, you know, I tell people all the time, like, take care of yourself. Maybe, maybe you don't, maybe you're like, "Screw this guy, I don't have to." And maybe your kids are watching you, and now they're beasts. You know, and one of them gets sick one day, and you did that, okay? Like, you showed them that way. Like, I didn't, right? That, I, I tried to tell you, and you got mad at me for telling you the truth. You know, I tell people this all the time. I'm like, "Dude, four years ago, you said you were going to do something different. Three years ago, you said you're going to do something. Two years ago, one year. And then now I'm telling you to run a new play. Now, and I know the play, and you're mad at me because you're not getting results you want. You're talking [ __ ] on me, okay? Cool. Stay the same. Stay." And by the way, am crazy? I know you're crazy. You take any successful person, you crack them open, they're crazy. Just the way it goes.

Your ethos, I love it, Andy. You know, we're about to wrap up. This has been awesome. First of all, and I appreciate it. I mean, you're super passionate about what you do. Uh, first thing I want to ask you before we wrap up is, what's next for Elliot Group? You've done all these great things, you've built a massive social media following. What's next, really?

Dude, I just, just want to keep doing what I'm doing now, and just things are going to evolve. I mean, God's connecting the dots, man. You know, I always, I told you I want to stay grounded. Like, that's like what I meant to say is like, like, never lose, stay humble. I stay, stay humble, yes. Realize that all this can be taken away. Um, it's not because of me, I'm doing the right work, okay? Um, just, I need to, I need to stay here. Um, and, and I have my wife, she is the backbone, the CEO, the, the leader of our whole company. She's the one you should be talking to, truly. She's the best. Um, she's built all of this. And, and because I took my family with me, um, that was amazing. So I think, I think what's next is this, um, and I, I'll finish with it. Never be one-dimensional. Never believe that you can only have one thing. You can be financially free. You can be free in your mind. You can be a great father. You can be a great husband. You can be a great business person. You can be close to, to God. You can be physically fit. You can be all those things. And so what I think is next is for me to continue to put energy in, all the energy I have, into all the buckets that are most important. And I never get confused or lost along the way. And, and that's what I want. And then I think that, I think good things are going to happen if I just keep doing that.

Before you share your closing thoughts, you were talking about coaching earlier, which is such an important topic. Um, you know, my prior company, at our peak, we're at about 200 employees, and I had hired, you know, an executive coach. And, you know, we had other coaches trying, helping us throughout the company. But the point being is, I, I remember before getting to that point, how much I, I didn't know what the benefit would be, but I knew that, you know, I was like, "Hey, this is what successful people do. I want that." Because you don't know what you don't know. I've really lived by that. So my question to you is, you know, if someone is listening to this and they're like, "Man, like, maybe I could use coaching." Like, what would you tell them? Like, what do they do? If I'm at a dealership, if I'm whether I'm an owner or a salesperson or anyone in between, like, what would you do if you were that person?

Well, well, so number, so number one, like modeling proven practices are like what everybody should do. I mean, the whole goal is to crush the learning curve, to compress time frames, to get to the goal where we want quicker, right? So a team, every day, if you, if you were a team and you wanted to coach well, number one, there's three things that salespeople should be doing in a car dealership. Number one, they should be selling something, looking for something to sell, or training to get better. Like, it's pretty simple, right? So like, think about it. If I had a team, if you, if you came and work for me, and I was a manager, I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna hire you." And I was like, "Let me tell you what the expectations are." Number one, you're selling something. That's pretty common sense. Someone's in front of you and you're selling them. That you're spending the time to sell them something, okay? Number two, you're looking for something to sell. What does that mean? You're going to be working the service drive. You're going to be sending videos of cars on a lot to clients, or you're going to be making the dials. You're going to be calling customers. You're looking for something to sell. You're going to be posting on social media. You're going to be self-genning leads, okay? Selling something, looking for something to sell, or number three, training to get better. Listen, you're going to work eight hours a day. You're probably going to sell a car a day, which is two hours to sell a car. That means you're going to be doing nothing with the other six hours, okay? So you're going to make calls for two hours, okay? Now you have four more hours. Out of those four hours, you can take at least another 30 minutes to do some training. That still leaves you with three and a half hours to screw around. You sold the car, you made some calls, you still did your training, and you got three and a half hours screwing around time. That's on an eight-hour workday. Most people work eight to 12 or 12, even 10 to 12 hours. Here's the point is that I would say coaching allows your people to come in and know what to expect. We're looking for something to sell, we're selling something, or we're training to get better. That's all we do. We don't, we don't do anything else. That's all we do here. This is our job. We're going to go home after this. Spend time with our family. We're going to go to the gym. We're going to go do hobbies. We're going to go do something. But this is, we're at work, so we're going to work, okay? Like, like I really feel like coaching allows structure to enter, um, a company. And then with leadership, especially, like, dude, I've watched managers, they don't even know how to have a sales meeting. I'm gonna be honest with you. I mean, they, listen, there should only be a sales meeting when there's a meeting with something to say that literally makes the team want to do better, kick ass, want to reach for more, and or build culture, or maybe correct a situation. But then end, end on a good note. Dude, I hear managers just talking to hear themselves talk. Talk. And most people have never, they don't self-coach themselves. They've never let anyone. So to me, individual self-coaching, like the leaders, is different than the team. The team is a digital training system. It's very simple. It's an app. I have one. They literally log into it every day. You can say who, see who did the training, who, who didn't do the training, and what training they did. It, it, it's so simple. But, but leaders are like one-on-one stuff like that. To me, like that's how you, you figure out, you know, how to grow them. And dude, yeah, and listen, and the car business, like I told you, dude, it's such a good industry. The transportation space makes more millionaires than anything else. But they got to have training. And honestly, like, there's just a lot of people that don't believe in it. And the car business believes in hard work. And a lot of people work their ass off in the car business. But there's not a lot of people in the car business that make good decisions and are financially free because they don't know. They don't, they've never been coached. And, you know what I mean? I've been through my own, my own fair share. So I appreciate you coming on. Your son really wants to go home, so I'm, I'm going to let you go. And all seriousness, this was awesome. I really appreciate you sharing your insight, your candor, your transparency, uh, your insight into sales training and coaching and leadership, uh, which I totally agree with you on the, the need for leadership and really the thirst out there. Uh, so it really was great having you on and I appreciate it. We're going to have to do this again sometime.

Yep. Anything you need, man. I hope somebody got a little bit of value today. Lots of good ideas.

All right, hope you enjoyed that episode. Please give the podcast a rating. Consider subscribing to the show and check the show notes for links to what we talked about. Thanks for for tuning in. I'll see you guys next time.