Ex-Farmer-Turned-Dealer Mogul: From £450 Peugeot to 150-Car Empire

Malcolm Beatty was meant to auction cattle, not cars.

But after his dad died and the family farm future vanished, the 16-year-old opened the Yellow Pages, circled “car salesman”, and never looked back.

In this raw conversation, the MB Motors founder reveals:

• How a £450 Peugeot 306 on his driveway became a 150-car showroom – and why he still trusts auction sheets over glossy adverts.
  
• The thieves who stole seven of his best cars and the brutal lessons that now keep his yard fortress secure.
  
• Why farmers make the toughest negotiators and the one tactic that still closes deals today.
  
• Building an award-winning website on an independent budget and using #SourceIt to beat franchised giants.
  
• Franchise vs. independent sales – the red-tape, the margins, and the simple reason customers drive past showrooms to buy from him.

If you’re dreaming of swapping a salaried sales-manager desk for your own lot, or just want to know how to turn setbacks into silverware, Malcolm’s story is the playbook.

About Symco Training:

Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.

To find out more visitwww.symcotraining.co.uk

Time, welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade podcast in Association of Car Without. The online car-changing destination. Together we share tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department, and generally put more profit into your department, dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett, or some of you might already know me as Skippy. First thing, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi and welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today I'm joined with Malcolm Beatty from MB Motors in Northern Ireland. Now, Malcolm is part of the IMDA, the Independent Motor Dealers Association, and we've been talking about some of these sales people and we've been training sales people recently, but I'm fascinated about his business.

I'm fascinated about the amount of awards that he's won when I look at his website. In fact, I wanted to interview him because I went to his website, he had quite about some training for his salespeople. I was blown away from an Independent Dealer. How could the website was? I've since found out the awards he's won for it and how many other awards he's won. I thought, I've just got to get Malcolm on the podcast. So, Malcolm, welcome along. Hi, Simon. Thank you for having us. I'm very massive. Welcome to our new YouTube channel. Thank you very much. So, Malcolm, let's go right back to the beginning then. I know that you've been selling cars in Bell and R looking at your website from 2001.

What drew you to the Motor Trade to start with? Did you always know it was an industry you wanted to be in? No, no. It was quite the opposite. It was four-legged things. I wouldn't have been involved with around four-wiz. I'm from a farming background. My father bought and sold cattle and I always wanted to be a cattle auctioneer. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2001 as well, but he said to me, you're not going to end the farming. You do think of something else? Some people listened to this podcast, but we don't remember the yellow pages. Back in 2001, there was the thing called the yellow pages. I literally opened up one day, had got my exams from school, done okay.

I thought, going to sell cars. I love cars. Malcolm was back in the cars. I thought, right, going to sell cars. Right around the local gardens in Ballomina to see who was looking for staff and their local Pugetal guys, who was looking for a trainee salesman. Went there, got the interview and just spent 12 years of my life there. Working up from trainee salesperson right through to sales manager. That's kind of a in that space of time where MB Motors started. Probably 2009 started to sell a few cars in the sideline as everybody does, who's in the industry who wants to make a go of things you sell. I started all selling Pugetal 2, 6th Sapphire Blue, Pugetal 2, 6th at 450 pounds at the side of my house.

Yeah, that's where it all started back about the say 2009. Just have started to progress from the air go up to the stage where there was too many cars around my house. People were starting to complain about cars around my house and write what I'm going to do. So, had a friend who had a wee small sort of yard that held about 25 cars and he retired and he says, look, you know, sure, pardon my yard. When you're working at Pugetal, I'll help clean them and sell them and have me start up a really good friendship. And yeah, that's where the business then started to progress. Yeah, I love that. I want to go back for a second because I grew up in North Queensland where the farming around there is mainly cane farmers.

And I could say the cane farmers, in fact farmers are in the world. Some of the best negotiators ever. I mean, dealing to a farmer, you're in for a hard ride because the whole game just screams the ground. Is there anything you learn from your father in the farming world that's as relevant in the motor trade? Oh, yeah, 100%. Like my, I still love like 24 years later, people are still talking about my dad whenever they come in the business, they just come off the old blog, you know, he could sell Nodes-A-S-C-M-O-D in the same. And he told me everything I know, even at such a young age of a 16 at a time, him and me were spent every day together.

He was selling, he worked for a middle firm and selling agriculture for farmers. And then my name is Aaron Biden selling cattle and taking the market and making a few pounds that way. So he then encouraged me, like, you know, you go and buy that be calve there and sure, whatever profit you get going by another and then when you get that, you go and buy two and, you know, that was whenever I was of no height, you know. So I've always had a dealing background of some sort of dealing blood on me, you could say. Yeah. And yeah, they deal with the farmers as great as they are, you know, they love a bargain, they love a high school.

That bet I find difficult in business because business over the years has got very strict on price. So, you know, like social media, your advertising platforms, if you're not keenly priced, people come to you, so you don't have that high room anymore. Some of you come in and offer you £1,000 less than what you're asking for it and you meet at £500 in the middle and you still make profit. It just doesn't work that way, does it? And it's hard getting that close to people. Yeah. The way we sort of do it is, well, can you find that car? Yeah, buy you any else? Yeah. Right. Okay. Well, then jobs don't, we don't need to haggle.

Mr. Customer, you're finding me from the other side of the country. You know, it's the lowest price Toyota, blah, blah, blah, in the country. Tell me what's wrong with it. Exactly. We do, like, even over in Northern Ireland, all over Northern Ireland, we can sell into the mainland as well. So, we do not end great amounts, but we still do it. We sell a lot of car into South of Ireland, but unfortunately Brexit turns top off with that one. With the VRT, it just doesn't stack up. Unless it's an EV vehicle. They sent us to work down. Yeah. I'm not an EV fan, so I don't sell a lot of EVs. I still like my Patreon diesel sort of.

Yeah. People listen with podcast. He can't see on the wall behind Malcolm. There's some nice flash cars there, and it's a big five litre Mustang. It's one of them. Good see there. So, it's a complete opposite to EVs. Talk about the farming still. The only farming motor trade comparison is Clarkson's farm at the moment. And I'm watching that. And it's quite funny that we're up to the episode where he's trying to buy some cattle at an auction. Of course. I know it's all for the show and all that sort of stuff there, but Jeremy Clarkson's the worst negotiator in the world. And he just bit against himself there. And it just remind me of a BCA auctions when you get the private customer in there bidding against themselves and the poll, and all that sort of stuff there.

There must be lots of similar. Do you watch it with farming background thinking, what the hell is he doing? Does a farmer like that show or not? 100%. You know, he went and bought a new bill. Yes. The guy that he took there, I kind of remember him as a kinder, I recall him, and he had done 500 pound less. Jeremy, he bought 500 pound more. You're like, what are you doing? From such a 5 pound of car, he's so knowledgeable about car. He doesn't get me wrong. But yeah, he just doesn't have no action. So it doesn't. All for the show as well. I'm not sure. I suppose if you want to put me under some background that you'd know about, it's on a lot of money for doing it, you would give out gold for the.

That's true. That is true. That is true. So let's go ahead and enjoy what he's going to do with this. This pond now is buying two. Yes. Yeah, it is. So, well, listen, let's go back to the early days again. This really separates the true motor traders. Do you remember the first car you ever sold? I do. It was a pugel 306 D-terrel in China Blue. I just love that when people are in China Blue. The detail of it. Okay. It's always very important. So, it was an import from the south of Ireland. At that stage, the import coming from the south of Ireland to north was just finishing off. It used to be a big thing.

But that was one of the last ones that commenced. It was fully in a lot of respect. It was a lovely car. I wish I got one of them today, I beg your. Isn't there so many times that you look at some of the cars that, well, I'm a lot older than you, but some of the cars that you sold. There was a scrappage scheme on here going back 2008. Someone told me the worst car they seen scrapped was a Porsche, probably a 924 or something like that, which at the time it was not a lot, but they still scrapped it. And you think, no, what was happening at the time? I don't know what that car's worth now, but it's even in the pugel days, there's still pugel406s out in the road.

There's pugel306D turbo out in the road. There's two or five still in the road. I think there's some really nice cars that get scrapped at that time. It's just an absolute sin for them to be scrapped. But that was what it was. Okay. So, you touch on this a little bit there. So, building MB motors, you've got one acre, four-court, you've got 100 to 150 cars, you keep in stock, you've got a close-knit team there. What are some of the key milestones along the way? I know you were the sales manager there, and you started doing things on the side. When did you actually bite the bullet and say, right, I'm not giving you a sales manager.

Okay. Can you talk me through that thought process? When I left the dealership, it was kind of the stage where it was probably recession had been... Okay. I asked that question. Sorry, I'm cutting off there. There's lots of people who will be listening to this, want to do what you've done. You will get lots of people in the franchise world. They are head of business, they're a dealer principal, they're a sales manager, working for someone else. And they think, oh, I want to have a go at it. So, I just want you to talk through the that scary moment where you're giving up a, listen, a great seller as a sales manager in a dealership, earning good money.

It must be scary just to say, right, I'm going to a row-mown boat. Yeah, it was. I have quite a bumpy childhood. My father passed away when I was 16, as I said. I was living on my own when I was 16. My mother had put me at the house for a different reason. I'm not going to a today, but I was living on my own at 16. Yes, earning a good wage where I was. And built up a good... I didn't quite spend a lot of money. Yes, I enjoyed myself, don't get their own, but I was always one for saving money. And you're always paying your mortgage and going, I bought a house at this stage and can I afford to go out my own?

Can I take that step? It's nice having this steady income coming in, but could you actually go out and do it all for yourself? And one of the bosses in the business, he actually, you could say, help me start up my own business. Him and I would have sold cars and stuff together. And it got to the stage where I was, they knew I was doing this and it was like, right, you've got the size and demand, you're either going... With their blessing? There were a couple of people in the business that say, one was a son, one was a son-in-law. The son-in-law knew what I was doing, the son potentially. But I think it was getting the stage where the business was starting to go downhill.

And right, we need to cut some wages and obviously I was earning quite a big wage. And I was like, right, either concentrate on us or go out in your own. And I was like, that's fine. I'm going. It wasn't a hard decision to make. But there's still people who's going to be working for business going, can't I take the step? It's not easy. But I have absolutely no regrets. It's been a tough few years and getting the business to where it is today. But you can do it. You're selling cars. If you're out there thinking, do I want to do this? You know how to sell? You don't need a massive amount of money.

I started off with 450.2 or something. So, okay, those cars have now progressed over 24 years to different bodies. But one, two cars, 20 grand. The ground can set you up with three, four cars. You make 1,500 quid out of it. You keep going. You keep going. It just all adds up. So, I find there's a lot of people, especially in the franchise, world of the minute, who don't particularly like what they're doing. Everybody's getting into these sort of, what would you say? They don't have control of what they're doing. Everybody's telling them what to do. And targets are getting harder to get and making money is harder to get. The used cars, you'll say the things I think, it's a lot more enjoyable.

I'm not going to say it's easy. It's a lot more enjoyable being your own boss, doing your thing, rather than people coming down out every Monday morning, right? You have to do these reports and you have to do this red tape and blah, blah, blah. You can do your own thing whenever you're on your own. Did I read? I know you had seven cars stolen in a late night raid. Was that when you just moved into new premises or was that when you were still setting up? That's got to hurt when you're seven cars stolen at the beginning. When did that happen? And any lessons you can pass on to stop it happening in the future, for others?

One downside I have and my wife always tells me this here that I'm too trusting. Whenever the gentleman was telling me about who helped me set up MB Motors and clean it and sell the cars while I was working, his yard got too small for me. So I had to get new premises, getting premises with planning permission to sell cars isn't easy. So they don't want you in the town. They don't want you in the countryside that's getting that in between things. So there was a Christian man who I got to know, unfortunately, he's passed away now. But I had a chat with him and he says, look, you can have that plot there and that'll help you get set up and got the plan permission and all sort of.

So I moved out here in, it was late January, early February, years ago. And I was so excited if we get onto the site, I'd got it all finished. I got it all stolen, got my poor account and had no electricity on it this stage and it was running off a generator and just was loving life for the first four days, let's say, I need the build up off it. And out of the time, sitting here, there's a, like, I'd come out with 25 cars from a previous slow on this half acre of land that looked like this massive piece of land with all these small space of cars. And it was just a turning circle the whole week.

People just kept them for nosing us to see whatever don't know. Looking back now, there's probably a lot of people scouting the play aside, call people that don't know if a generator and I never thought about it. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So obviously these people were doing their homework to see, well, I trust I, I hadn't proper security around, you know, it's a trouble. What's going to happen? It's going to be okay. So the Saturday morning, there was a track that I, that I, I did my farm and roots where I'm actually positioned in a livestock market, just up in the avenue for me. And they were having a factor on that Saturday morning.

I never forget the phone call. I go out to say, there's cars missing out your yard, gates were burst open, there's something happening. And over seven cars were taken, including my brand new Ford Transit custom and our Connect M Sport. I just bought myself fully signed rent. The Ford Academy was completely trashed again. Now you've, if me, I left the keys on site thinking, sure, it's going to be okay. So massive massive learning could tell for me that you can trust people, you have to be a lot more vigilant. So now I'm complete opposite as far as the whole place of big ballards everywhere. I'm a Christian myself. And I remember getting shirts that Sunday morning and a guy tapped me in the shore and smelled them.

That's okay. God will be alright with you. And that's, I think, what do you mean? I've just, you know, come out with 25 car, all my nice dog was stolen. I suppose you showed on Jeep, L200, Mivan, lovely five straight, that summer stuff had actually sold. And you're not in the city. You're out, as you said before, it's in between. So they had all the time in the world to take what I wanted. Yeah. And the frustrating thing is there was something happening that night before in the market. And people actually said to me, Oh, why we seen lights in and out of the place that night, but we just thought you were getting sick.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Rightly. So you can't go in the old white, you know, ring me, you know, because yeah, yeah. You just move down. He's doing this. He's doing that. He's doing the other. But I actually got five of them back over the peak with a few weeks. I got five of them back. They'd been positioned in different places around the country, including Mivan. Well, I thought they'd be on a boat, you go on the docks, a country in a heartbeat. My van was sitting at the docks in Belfast and the Sunday life, and you look on his paper, I had done an article and some guy rang me in the Sunday, sent us on the lunch at a friend's house.

And it says, we've seen your van, right? Where is it? Sent the docks in Belfast. So me and my friend were straight up the road, rang the plate where Mivan there was. So I was over a period of few days. I got five of them by again. And actually two or three of them as I say, were sold. And the customers were great. The customers come in, they started to mourn the lift and say, I'm always going to select. If you can get that back, we'll still buy it. They did. They honored their word. So my whole even social media platform at that stage just went down because everybody was sharing the post. Like that.

So, oh, wow. I didn't see that. So that could have been a great business case. But that fellow that said that too, me and Church saw Sunday morning, I was like, what are you talking about? Now you're looking back and going, yeah. You know, the social media, like we're nearly up to, I think, 30,000 followers now, but the initial burst of that, yeah, over the break and it happened. Like, Dr. Mollat was hard for me. It took a long time to go over because he for the first couple of years after it. Oh, here's the guy that got the car stolen. Yeah. The car stolen. The God, the stage, I look like I'm not being rude.

I just don't want to talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. And it just, it was draining me so much. I was wanting to build my car business. Yeah. And I know the guy who got the car stolen stuff. And even recently, somebody come in, oh, you're the guy that car's missing. Eight years later. And then you're on the podcast and I bring it up. Yeah. Yeah. But you don't mind talking about it now. But at that state, it was so raw. Yeah. Everybody was asking about everyone to know what was happening. Yes, there were some concerns and stuff, but it was just like, oh, good, good gesture. Obviously the people want to hear. Yeah. Yeah. For me, yeah.

And leaving there was no the time was like, yeah, I don't want to talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. And it was sometimes you got the TV just had a wee bit blunt as politely as you couldn't say that. Can we just discuss the days? You know, I don't really want to talk about it anymore type thing. But listen, it was what it was. Massive learning curve for me and for anybody who's listening to your set up your business, make sure you don't leave the keys on site and get as much security around you as you possibly can. Because even today, you still hear people getting car stolen, all these high tech guys. So you just need to be so careful about something about what you do around your business.

Yeah, you do. You definitely do. And I want to talk about, well, actually, so many awards here. Okay. So, awards are going to come up again and again through this. But the first one I want to talk about is you're the finalists for the UK independent dealer in 2019 and 2020. You punch above your weight, as I said before, I want to talk about the differences though between the independent and a franchise dealership, because you've done both sides of it. Okay. What's the biggest difference between running that independent versus when you're running the sales mention, the franchise dealership and backed by a person or so. Seeping an independent there is so many good independent guys out there.

Nice. There is. We'd still get a bad reputation to a certain degree. There's still the odd one that doesn't do things right. But there's so, so many good independent debtors, henceified. I'm now a committee member in the NIMDA and we support nearly 2000 independent debtors. The France-Hade world, I always find, was always a big pass in the buck. So, something went wrong. You just passed on to this when you passed on to that one. There was always different people dealing with the customer. I find in an independent dealer, you sort of own the customer bear. You get the customer far better experience. It's that person to person that you're meeting whenever you walk in the dealership and you're their customer the whole way through.

You have to go and issue their left on the phone to you. And you deal with the bear, I just feel that the independent debtors gave the customers such a better buying experience. And that's one thing that I'm trying to aim to be, I want to be the best independent dealer that's in the country. And it's something that I'm trying over the years. Would it be rude for me to say that you have to try harder as an independent? And again, I've been in the French-Hade world all my life there. So, that might come across as almost rude or arrogant. But do you have to try harder? Because when you've got the brand of Audi of your door, people are going to come in to you for a use Audi.

If someone's come to use Audi from you, is there the case that you have to try harder? Oh, you do. You definitely do. We don't have a flashy showroom here. We don't have big massive signs up without a ear pewge who are being in WWE or whatever. And you walk in the the franchise, their ships, their own, their suits and ties. Some cases that can actually be intimidating for a customer who's walking into those places. And yes, OK, they get the red carpet treatment and they get tees and scones and all the rest of it. But does it really matter to a customer to the want? I'd bit of a chat, bit of a get-and-do-know-each other, build a bit of rapport, a cup of coffee, and then go through what they want.

Where we're at here, we're starting up to 25 manufacturers. So they can come to and be motored and choose from all these different manufacturers around how to go to the one place. But it's took a lot of hard work to get it to that stage. And just the amount of red tape and stuff that there is in French-Hade world. I think a lot of the French-Hade are now sort of continuing to go in the agency route to you. So yes, even less personal. When it comes to buying a car, it's going to be click a button and go and lift it. And I still feel that people want to come and meet the person that they're buying the car from.

And I've said this, David, to my sales guys that were doing the training with you. If you don't have that rapport with a customer, they're not going to buy the car. They want to buy the car from you. That's the reason my car, my top sales guy, he's so good with customers. People buy him 100%. And it's such a nice way. I'm intrigued with the customer. He gives them that red carpentry whenever they come in, without all the bail and work. But he looks after them. And hopefully, a lot of you guys, with your superb train, of course, we'll get to that stage. Thank you. Thank you, David. Well, that's well. OK. And I suppose if you look at the amount of UK dealer groups that are open, use car operations, even in Ireland, so many of the dealer groups, they've got the use car operations as well.

And every one of them, they say it's refreshing not to have to deal with the manufacturer red tape, as you said. And I kind of get it, the manufacturers, they have to, almost again, this might be wrong, but the last common denominator, I mean, with the agency, it's quite funny. The family run businesses that punch above their weight and they do well kind of hate the idea of agency. But some of the dealer groups, they kind of like the idea agency because it's a level playing field. I suppose the independent, you've got the ultimate, you run your own destiny, you can stock whatever you want. If you decide you can start stocking motorhomes, let's go and do it.

If you're going to start stocking vans, that's where the market is. So I want to talk to about stocking though. And again, I come from a franchise world. And that must be a challenge for you, right? And how do you stock 100, 150 cars? How do you keep on your stock? Are you going to PCA auctions, sticking your hand up? Are you using carway, our buying service? Are you going to motorways? What are you doing? Most of my stock were come from auction. Auction 10 to 15 years ago, I think used to be a bad word. I'm in my car from auction or something wrong with that car. You take like some BCA's in this world and other central car auctions, and semi auction grip.

They do such detailed reports when they're spilling the car out for sale. You've got your mechanical report, you've got your condition report. You know exactly what that car is before you buy. Maybe in Northern Ireland, I can't go and fly all over the way to buy car. I need to be here running the business. So I can sit here from the computer and I buy a 95% of my stock from auctions. The likes of the car wise motorways, they tried to get me on board. But it's trying to be a slightly customers' account appraiser of cars properly. It's their own car and all that. That car never has given me any bother. And there's no marks in that car.

And you hear, I'm in a couple of different WhatsApp grips with guys. And you hear all these horror stories, we're going to buy a car. There's three ways on it's kind of four. There's a bumper hanging off. I don't have time for that. But when you've driven that three hours to get there, it's almost like it's the downtime. Even you say, you can reject the car clearly. It's like, hold on, you can't get your time back, I imagine as well. Or your driver's time back. Yeah. I think we do buy a lot of cars, quite a few cars in public. We've run some social media with on our website that we buy cars. But we always get the customer to come to us.

Say, oh, you can come and look at the car. I don't have that time. And it's not big hit at the side of that time. I'm running the business. I can't afford to go and spend half an hour talking to the customer, picking holes in their car that you don't really want that conversation to happen. So that's why I like buying from auction. On Friday, I bought 10 cars. And I know exactly what they are. They're not even here yet. You put them online, because you know, right? Well, I know what's common that they're going to be OK. And we've sourced a lot of cars for people, too. And that's buying cars without physically seeing it.

And people come to say, well, you've got a good reputation per doing it. Yeah, because we do the thing right. There's no point in for Simon who wants a 2023 series. And it had a big score up the side off, putting a rip on the seat and holes in the car. But, you know, Simon's not going to take that car. So you need to do the thing 110% right. And that gets your reputation. Again, your website. And everyone, just to go and have a look at Milken's website, MB Motors. It's really a cracking website. And listen to your video there. It's something that stood out for me is like, we'll source your car. OK, just click on, tell us what you want.

We'll go and source that. Is that a Northern Irish thing more? You do that because people can go to the UK and go and get themselves. But they want you to do the legwork on guessing. So that's came from years ago when I was, had my own business and people to come in and see now. And I for sitting there in Graham, I love that car. It was black or white or blue, you're red and you're going home. I think I accessed all these cars. So do you want to fight? Oh, what do you mean? Well, I can source you on you. If you like that car, you've driven it. So you know what an A5 drives like and you like the S line specs.

You know what the S line spec is, but you just like that car white. Yeah. Right. OK. Well, sure. If I send you some photographs, you help me. Yeah. And that was it because don't be wrong. Yes, people can go to England, but do they know what they're buying? Yeah. You go on to other people to look for cars and there's all this lacy photographs, all the rest of it is that some of these go out very good AI intelligence. Backgrounds, you know, I've heard so many horror stories about people cubbing reviews on their websites. So it looked like their reviews and people getting burnt and sending money over and it's not being there. And it's just like, why would you take that risk?

Well, of course, you more money buying it from me. Not really. We don't charge for the service. It's a free service. I'll be trying to make the cars competitively priced as I can. But you don't have any of that hassle. Yeah. You just tell me what you want and I'll go on source it from auction because I know what's going to come. What my color works for Dona. What stone chips are on it. What tread the tires are. You're giving that cost from that piece of mind. And I branded it hashtag source it. Yeah. Years ago, right? It's just some that stuck and again, rather than guys to then now go on, you're the guy that the car's stolen.

You're the guy that can source cars. So it's worked to the benefit and get just repeat customers could bring you out and send you to service two, three years ago, kind of get X, Y and Z. Yeah, let's go and find it. Yeah. So the other thing, again, I come from the franchise world. So it's maybe not understanding your world. But can you help me understand the supply and new cars so down a few years ago, there was the global shortage of semiconductors, then it was wiring looms. So we know that less new cars were sold in the vehicle park. That's got to be the effect now. Okay. We've got less use cars because you're selling cars that were, you know, pandemic was because maybe five years ago now, four years.

Yeah. Yeah. You're right. It's five years. Yeah. Right. I saw him was born just before the pandemic started in the 17th of March. And I was one of the last dads into the delivery world and then COVID hit. And so yeah, I just turned five there. So five years ago, five years ago. Wow. So that's got to have an effect. Are you having to pay more for the cars? Is it harder to find the cars there? Is it easier to sell the cars? Because we've now got limited supply. It's going to like the new car world after the pandemic was, we've got one for you. You want it? If not, there's four other people want it.

Okay. And even the fact when like I used to sell a lot of discovery sports, like sort of 25, 30,000 pound type stuff, this would be before I realized that I don't want to sell Land Rover product anymore. But that's an honor to us. We were ringing them three, four years later. So I'll give you back what you paid for the car three years ago. And they were going, what? Yeah. Prices have went up here. So it's madness. It's hard work the same as what you paid for it three years ago. And okay, yes, it worked around about they had to pay again the new vehicle. But when you told the customer you were buying the car back for what they paid three years ago, it doesn't make sense.

Now, thankfully that has all I I think eased out. You were talking about supply and demand. A lot of the franchise debtors like back when I was selling pugels, we only sold pugels. Yeah. We went to a four dealership. They only had four used vehicles. BMW had big, you know, you get the idea. Now, all the franchise debtors are multi-use car debtors. We've had to, haven't we? Yeah. That's what's happened. We've got that. Not only are the independents looking for these used cars, the franchise guys are now looking for these cars as well. As you said, the new car supply got caught down over that two, three year period. So a lot of people sort of like the moment complaint and all we can't get stuck, we can't get stuck.

Thankfully, I've never complained about getting stuck. I always seem to have had a steady flow of stuck. Maybe it's a stock I keep. Some people are very, very faucet of what they buy. You must be one owner. It must be under 30,000 miles. Back when I started, I was happy buying anything that you got to turn a profit out. It was a good car. I do try and keep my stock under 10 year old, under 100,000 miles, no more than three owners. And I feel that that gives me the avenue to continuously buy cars. Sometimes your profit margins get scarce to me. But last year, 18 months ago, at 150 cars here, it's because I've extended my business premises since I started here, eight years ago, I've extended it three times and had more space when I wanted to buy more cars.

I was being silly. I was buying cars just for the sake of buying them and not making good margin. I caught myself on them. There's more over age stock. Their cars are not making good money. I need to change things. So I very much rump things up about a year ago now, keeping less cars, but slightly nicer cars and making more profit per unit. And holding it up to that profit. That's what it takes me back to the highlands side of things. You have to hold out for the profit because it is hard enough to get that stock. But there's no point giving it away. If you really have a kidney priced on the website that you are the top five cars, you need to be there.

So you can't afford to put an extra 500-kilon on it just to allow it in the trade-in price or whatever. So you do have to constantly look at your prices. You have to make sure you're there in the market and maximize your profit per unit. So do you run a 60-day policy, a 90-day policy? Do you measure your stock turn in the franchise world? That's something that it would have been drummed into you from Persia. What's your view on your stock policy? When do you decide to first watch it, your best loss? What do you do? Or is there a bond for every seat? Make sure to both to a certain degree, but on the same, I'm still an old five-some 90-day person.

I know a lot of, especially franchise guys, or 30, 40 days car has to go. We installed a new dinner management system back in October and November time called DinnerKit. It has really changed the way I do business. I'm not familiar with that DMF. So I deal a kit. Dinner at DinnerKit. Yeah. These guys were independent dinners. They thought, right, we need something for our dealership. They created this DMF that the guys, there's such a great bunch of guys from the guy who owns it to does the program and to the sales guys. I've actually got quite friendly with them over the years and brought, I was the first in Northern Ireland to get the system in and thank a lot of other guys that come online.

They're just very romping up. The dinners are getting on board throughout the UK, but it's such an easy system to use, and you can monitor everything maybe. Did you have a key loop or carriage or something like that beforehand? Or not? I don't want to drop another name into it. Not a PMS. I don't have a different provider. A different provider who were super. I couldn't say a bad word about them. They were great over the years, but just seemed to lack moving forward. This dinner kit system is just, it's modernized revolution to what I do. For us here, I'm out to 15 staff. You've got technicians, you have 100 cars, you're trying to get cars out.

You want the dinner kit dashboard, and you can see what jobs are out there and what cars need. The dent guy comes off on a Tuesday and Friday, you print them off a list. There you go. There's your dents. The LLE refer guy comes in. You're not walking around with the dents guy, or he comes in with his list, the stuff that he's telling you what it needs. Exactly. You charge it against the car, and it gets you a better idea of what your profit pre-unit is with the car too. That's what didn't really do that. You're able to see now, it's gave my stock turn. I worked out about 60-65 days. I'm going around 35-40 days, stock turn.

I think that's because I'm looking at the figures a whole lot more. You're constantly going on the dashboard to see what stock you have, what's over age, what needs worked on to it, and your finance penetration, your warranty penetration. It's just it's all there. You can go on to your phone method. It really is a superb system. I probably should be on commission for them here. I think I'm going to love it. Literally, a dinner kit is a superb plate. It's only getting better. This is the thing. The last DMS stock, making things better. I've only met these guys six months and they're constantly bringing out new tools and going right, what about this, what about the entrails, the thing at the minute, where the cost of the parts and voices rather than the service manager having to put them on.

She literally sends the email that goes on to the cost of the vehicle. It's just it's making life so much easier and so much more efficiently because I'm massively in deficit. This has really helped do that. Is it really just for the independence, the CMS or a franchise deal is using as well? Do you know of? I think it's just for independence, but it's something that franchises could potentially use to. I don't see why they wouldn't or couldn't use it. They may well be in frontiers, dershims. My house always independence. I'm always saying that the independence is not really paying attention to what the frontiers guys are doing, but it's a superb piece of software.

It's not overly expensive either to be fair. I think the price of it's very realistic too. I was a bit naive there. I just assume as the independent, you're just selling used cars. I've just imagined the used car department, but you just said something with the technicians, you've got 15 staff. I didn't think about that side of the business. With your service side of the business, is that mainly prepped for your used cars or are you actually servicing your custom base as well? Are you a bit of both? The level of stock that we have and this stock turnover we have, we do most of our prep, well, all of our prepped on it and how so most of our technicians are literally prepping cars, making sure they're ready for the world.

We do then offer that service to our customers. We come back next year and you want your car service, we can do it. Our stock turn has got so good that it's sort of hindered putting the service with retail customers because you're constantly trying to get cars prepared. I'm buying stock and the guys are selling it, right? You need to get it into the workshop and that's for that come soon. But yeah, over the last two or three years, I've tried to bring as much stuff in the house as I can because obviously you're outsourcing mechanical work. You're paying more for it. You're outsourcing tires. You're paying more for it. And even just the logistics of it, used to send a guy in to get tires and you would go right, that guy's taking the car in.

He has to sit and we get the tires been fitted. Then he has to go back out to that guy who's losing that time. Now that we get the tires delivered to us here in the mechanics as they're servicing the car, fit the tires to the car, that person's not having to go and we get the time to get tires we're looking at all the way refurbishment machines at the minute. We've been chatting to the guys last week, we're bringing that in house as well because we have a high standard of how we present our cars that a customer can come and say, well, what about that, Mark and the way, and what about that?

There's none of that here. It's literally that car is sitting to the best we can make it. So if we have money by refurbving the way it's in house too, then it makes it more fun. I can tell you, I just love this. Sal's measures listen to this. I know it's in the franchise world. I know it's not down to you. They'll tell you what you've got to do, but prep a car before you sell it. I just this old fashioned, we'll get that wheel fixed for you, we'll get that dent out. Just get the car right first and I get some people saying, ah yeah, but if I go to sell it to auction because it hits my 60 day or 90 days, I'm not going to prep it until it sells.

I just don't get that. Exactly. There's three or four customers come look at that car and just get four scoped wheels. That's why it's sitting there 60 days later because you haven't sold it. I mean, good as it is, 2025, but there's still that mentality sometimes out there that I just don't get. I just don't get retail. If you present your cars correct, if you've got a good reputation, you present your cars correctly. Even the sales guys who are doing the training with you, it's just those wee bits and pieces that you can pick up from training because the car has kind of sold itself online. Yes, it has now. It's price rate. They can see all about it.

They can see all about you. You just need to make sure you capture that customer, give them the treatment that you need to put that car. Retail is in the detail. It was drummed into me. I'm 51 now. I started when I was 17. I think it's as true today as it was when I started. Retail is in the detail. That's how it works. We sell cars that maybe have just landed. That's not fully prepped, but we've got the reputation to say, well, look, we'll leave that right. Yes, that's fine. 95% of my stock, there's no downside. There's no marks in the pain. The wheels are all set and refurbished. It's certain, ready to go.

Yes, even that one, I always love to not show a customer car beforehand. It was possible. I get it. Sometimes you want to get the car sold straight away there, but get the car prepped straight away. Well, if it's better, it's so much easier to sell. Chicky question. What's your prep time then? A car lens, you've got 10 cars you bought on Friday. How long before they photographed on the website, ready for sale? We always like to reduce that as much as we can. What can you get that to with your own stuff? At the minute, it used to be if I bought a bag of the single 10 car they bought and fired out of the door then with a coming soon on them on the website.

Then because the stock terms are much, we just want a lot of coming soon as you have one look good. So, I do something called a wheeling prep. Whenever the car is land here, some states this week, the ballers are lined up ready to go wash over the car with a photo booth you may have seen on the website straight into the photo booth and literally three or four photographs of the car. They're not brilliant photographs, but it's just to let the customer see what the car is. It's not just waiting a car coming, car coming out. So, we've got the goal to see the actual car there. One sat's done the car then gets prepped whatever needs to do, full balled, then probably photographed and video and what.

I've a new guy started this year who's in charge of taking the photographs probably doing the social media, that sort of thing. He's been super and it's just because again, attention to detail, you want the photograph to be good. The customer's flicking through all these different cars. Your car has to stand out from the rest so it does. So, as far down to your question, I would say once the car lands here, we have a fully photographed and prepped within 14 days. Okay. It's one of the things as an interval, we keep on trying to push that further and assured as you possibly can. I suppose it's the RON-A philosophy. The plane's not making money if it's not in the air in our world unless we can have it on the fork or ready for sale.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not sitting sitting here saying I'm a perfect dealership in any shape or form that we have over 20 cars sold there, sitting waiting to go out and it's an inch away at me with those 20 cars that I can't go out and replace. The plane was holding up. Well, that's waiting on that part and waiting on that. The customer doesn't want to pick that up the next Friday and that is just part of the business that you try and have to work around. That just leaves me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the Motor Trade can be found on our website simcotraining.co.uk.

Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars. Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program. Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett through LinkedIn. Thank you.