What happens when a former professional footballer and football agent walks into the motor trade… and decides to build a dealership with “more care, more style, and a lot less ego”?
In this episode, I’m joined by Josh Apps, founder of V12 Automobil in Central London. Josh didn’t grow up in the trade. He’s built V12 from scratch since 2022, and he’s straight-talking about what actually works when you’re buying and selling everything from a £20k GLC to a £1m+ hypercar.
We get into the real mechanics of his business, like underwriting stock, consignment done properly, why some dealers go bust with SOR, what he’s seeing on Carwow and Motorway, and how he thinks about margin, risk, and stock turn in a market where plenty of people are trying to make £5k the easy way instead of £9k the stressful way.
Episode highlights:
The simple but rare philosophy that’s kept his reviews and referrals strong: do the right thing even when it costs.
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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 visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk
Welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade Podcast, an association with Symco Training. This is the weekly podcast where we share best practice tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department and generally put more profit into your dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett. As some of you probably already know me as Skippy. I will start by saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today I'm joined with Josh Apps of V12 Automotive. Automotive it, Bill with no E at the end Josh. We're going to talk to him about that in a second there. This is going to be a little bit different. Normally we will interview dealer groups, manufacturers, people on the motor trade. Josh is definitely in the motor trade but completely different to what we normally do. Josh was a professional footballer and we're going to find out about his background how he got into starting V12 Automotive. But firstly I just want to say welcome aboard Josh. Thanks for having me Simon. Yeah very good. Listen, let's go back in time because this is a bit diverse. This is different. Football to V12. How does that work? Tell us about how you started off your professional career in football I suppose. My dad was always in football from a young age so he was a scout at Aston Villa, Chelsea and various different clubs. But unlike my parents I had a massive passion for cars from a young age. So going up and down the motorway on the way to games I would spot and identify for a car from a distance and my dad was dumbfounded with how I knew a car from the wing mirror is so far ahead. So I always had that passion for cars but my pathway was into football until I was 19 and came out and got myself into the football agency world. I hated agents and wanted to become a good one. So I've spent kind of 10-12 years being a football agent, being able to talk to people and various people within the football world are actually linked to cars. So for example Ken Chu who's a COO of HR own group is also a Cardiff. So there's certain links where people are involved for various different aspects of the car and motor industry that I kind of thought to myself right well I'm being asked from footballers here and various different people that they're introducing me to. Why don't I set this up as a business and kind of get myself involved and yeah from early 2022 until now V12, all from the wheel was slowly developed itself and pushed forward in industry in central London which is a very hard market, high overheads, very dynamic kind of marketplace for people that are buying cars but we're growing from strength to strength and continuing to push forward. So yeah it's a little bit of a different backstory. I've not come from a motor trade background or family or haven't been selling cars from 15 like a lot of the guys that are probably on your podcast but I've kind of fell into it and had to adapt and learn and develop myself quick and for myself as well that worked for me and that I've learned along the way as well. But there must be so many lessons from a professional football career and then even to being that agent there that's those skills transferable into the motor trade, I'm guessing. You're right I've only ever been in the motor trade, started washing cars and worked my way through the motor trade that way but can I ask you Josh what skills? Firstly from football because you're not just playing football on the weekend there, this is a professional level there. What did you learn that's transferable into the motor trade? I think a lot of it is from a young age from being, I say to people up and ready to go. So I start like 4, 4, 13 in the morning a lot my friends laugh at me but I was like that from football. I would get up and I'd know my day and structure my day and I do that now with V12. So we're pricing cars, just setting algorithms, everything in place that I know I have to bid on 50, 60 cars a day to win a couple of these days with how the market is. I think a big transferable thing from my football days is getting myself up and being ready to go from when I get up within the first half an hour really. So my key is between 4.30 and 1pm that's my strong hours, that's my time to get as much done as possible and then after that I start to whistle away a little bit. So it's followed me from my football days to this as well. So as you can imagine evening games for me as a footballer, we're no good. So I'd have to have a sleep in the afternoon like an old man or a bad way. Yeah. So that's funny. What about now? If you get an appointment, someone coming in looking at a car at 7.30 at night, you still have that kick in the middle of the car. The guys do it now. So yeah. I suppose in your world it's accessing stock is the main thing still, isn't it? Yes. I mean, markets change as your viewers will know with the likes of Carl Weil and Motor Games. It's a very important thing to do with the fact that you're not going to be able to get a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car. So it's a very important thing to do with a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a cars to any car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to the car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car to a car that's going on on on on on on on on on on on So yeah, well, let's go back to being an agent though. Again, I don't understand your world at all wrong shape ball for me Josh. Okay, but being an agent well all of a now is Jeremy quiet the movie But is it more like being a recruitment and The negotiation side of it are there any skills that you learned being that agent and you're still an agent is that right from your Yes, I see our players that I represent But it's a it's changed a little bit so I work alongside a registered agent now to manage the players Works previously. They were solely my my players. I stepped away from a large agency and brought my players with me And now I work with a registered agent so I represent the players With him basically so so it means that I manage their contracts and it's a lot better now. They're a little bit older I specialized in players from kind of 16 to 21 and you have A lot more pressure a lot more stress a lot more moving parts with players at that age Um that you have to manage and kind of yeah help them with their career moving forward given sound advice and not the advice The most agents do if they're trying to make as much money from them. So it's uh, I came away from the football agency world thinking wow, this is uh Corruptors hell and and it's hard to manage people where you have Unfortunately, you have a lot of families that have uh that live on the bread line And if you have a 15 year old son that's going to be earning 5 000 pounds a week at josie You quickly find that the parents give up their jobs and everyone's songs working and they live off of the sun's salary So there's a lot of pressure on a young boy that doesn't really know what he wants in life yet and for me morally it's It's not right because How how do you Yeah, how can you if you was in that position? What would you do if you're on the bread line? Um, so you kind of have to look at it as a double edged coin and it becomes very hard and then you've got the side of it where Um clubs and agents will move players to certain countries or certain clubs because they're earning the most money knowing that that's probably not the best Move for their career. So morally for me standpoint wise. I think being a football agent. Yes, there's some like in any industry There's some great agents out there and they'll do great for their clients But there's also a lot of bad and it's the same in the car world right a lot of people that sell you absolute rubbish and don't care There's always to have the door that don't care but I kind of came away from the agency Uh world full time into the car world thinking I can breathe. There's not the personalities. There's not the girlfriend There's not the parents one thing and house card mortgages But in the same point of view that that that's helped me bring some of that skill set and the chameleon kind of side of it We're adapting to your clients various different levels being able to do that in the in the car world. So so yeah, so it's been a Pretty smooth transition. I would say although very unique from car from football agency to car dealership, um, there's a lot of transferable skills like you mentioned earlier Well, I I mentioned this because you actually wrote that you started v12 with more care more style and a lot less ego And it kind of resonated when you said you wanted to do agents, but do it right do it a lot better than what you'd had though So obviously it's the same Philosophy you've bought into starting v12. Yeah, so for me it's it's a long term So same with the players and same with the cars now There'll be there'll be cars where we've taken a bath on them where I've had to kind of Shell out for repairs where most dealers would kind of shove that away or try and get rid of it Whereas I would rather do the right thing and doing the right thing for me will be a longer term Vision a long term game, but it brings in better quality of clients and better referrals And this business is strong because of the amount of referrals and and the reviews We only get five star reviews because the way we look after people Which I think isn't typical in the in the car industry as a whole again. There's a lot of great dealers out there independence and main um, but treating people Correctly for me is is paramount to to the growth of the business. So yeah, yeah, and can I ask again? this is me not understanding this high and High net worth client place that you're dealing with there's been some high profile And dealers. I can't remember the name. You'll know that we're all over they internet everywhere social media everywhere Selling lots of cars on s o r Yeah, but they've they've folded I suppose does that go hand in hand in that world there? Look, there's a lot of even main dealers do uh consignment s o r Um, I think the problem you've got is Uh with consignment what happens is a lot of people Won't settle off cars. They get a bit greedy or they'll try and buy another car with someone else's funds Thing that I look at it at whether it's stocking whether it's um consignment is that's not my money. It's not my equity That's An individual so we have robust contracts in place. Uh, we get paid out or we do a contra settle between the banks So the banks will then settle off. Um, so we try and protect the customer as much as possible But unfortunately it's rife in the car industry as you're seeing with a lot of these dealers going under um or or going buses that They just don't know how to manage these funds and and and when you kind of play with other people's money Um something goes wrong And so you've sold a consignment car and you use that money to pay keep someone quiet And then you're kicking the can and it just evolves evolves evolves and typically That's what happens with these dealerships is that they they take someone's money from this point and pay that person off to keep them quiet or buy that Bit of so because it's too good to be true and you just can't do that You just got to keep everything separate and for me again Goes back to a moral standpoint a pound is a pound for me a million pounds a million pound of irrelevant It's not my money. So I won't use that money for anything other than paying that person back So we're within the hour. I mean, I I'm the only person with access to to banking and if we have a consignment Um car we tell the customer when we've got a viewing Uh, we typically don't do test drives because we're central london and the kind of cars that we consign people don't really test drive them If they do we take a huge deposit that covered under insurance Um and payments done instantly to us and then to the to the owning party So there's never a case where we have any outstanding funds of customers from a car that we've sold So if it's done right, I think it's a great business and I think a couple of the ones that everyone knows that have gone under Um, I just can't understand with such a setup that they've got and the amount of cars there how for me It's not free money, but it's as good as right. So, um You're not even having to prep the cars because really for me a consignment car is we check them over And the customer if they need prep then the customer needs to prep them before We put them online. Whereas think what a lot of people do is just get them in and try and get them advertised and unfortunately again You're putting yourself in a position where A Ferrari needs an exhaust or it needs a valve or it needs something doing on the car And because you haven't looked into it and you've sold it you're then having that problem to try and get back off the owner It's just it's messy. I just think people's processes are not correct In terms of doing consignment cars basically Is that why you look a lot at your own stock and under on it? Well, what percentage of your business is your own stock josh What what do you look at? Yeah, so we're at the moment about 70 percent our own stock so we'll buy and Yeah, consign stuff, but the consignment stuff is normally on that Higher end bits that we know that we can sell we do great with Aston Martin's Porsche Ferrari Lamborghini We work a lot with banks as well. So we'll buy a lot from banks when they have handbacks or Reposessions. So yeah, we're we're having to get involved at various different levels It's just a case of yeah, knowing what to put our name to and whether it's right for our market So we'll go from anything from you're kind of 20,000 pounds glc all the way up to you kind of one to 1.5 million pound car So we're happy to buy we've got funds to buy but it's just dependent that has to be the spread I can't understand at the moment how people are buying Your hundred to 300 grand cars with two percent margin across them It just doesn't make sense to me in any other world if someone says give me 200 and i'll give you 205,000 pounds back you just wouldn't take the risk So I don't understand how people do it with these kind of cars So for me has to have enough profit across it. Otherwise, it's just not worth the risk Yeah, the return investment really needs to be looked at and yeah, and what we would look at in a traditional car dealership is that 100% Return on the investment. So if you've got 1.5 million pounds worth of stock you want to look at making 1.5 million pounds worth of profit And it's just something we'd look at and in your world. I suppose you could catch a cold very quickly So so what do you look at stockings? You have a 60-day policy where you'll turn the car and Can you easily sell your cars or an option to get rid of it when you need to what what do you do with your stocking of your own stock now? So we typically we've only ever really struggled with a couple of cars past your 100-day point And we'll run a car Normally we'll get everything kind of gone within the 60-90 day period anything over that we've got a massive margin across it We know it's going to take longer to sell When we offload stuff it would really be a case of trading out. We've got a couple of WhatsApp trade groups We did try putting a couple of bits through auction in the early days But it just didn't really make the money so so yeah, it's better really going to other dealers But I'm quickly learning With the kind of stuff that you can move on the on the higher ends stop at the moment trading those kind of cars It's just an easier way of making the money than than trying to resell them. I mean on 150 grand Car you could have a five grand Fear across a trade to another dealer. Why would you take the risk to to go make eight or nine grand retailing it Having to put a warranty on it when you can trade them and make five thousand pounds So it's just as I say, it's something up what what the best option is to do and and to run with that really and just back your sock I think you've got to have confidence in what you're buying Where we're a little bit different is everything we buy we buy for a reason I don't just buy for the sake of okay I need to go and get 10 cars and there's probably been time for to us that we haven't been able to get the socks We haven't bought and when we don't buy it costs us money But I'd rather be in that position than be lumber a lot of cars that I know that I can't get out of and I can't read how things with no spec or or lots of owners or no service history or patchy service history So so yeah, it's just a case of really knowing what you're buying and sticking to that Yeah, because I suppose the the world's changed very quickly the whole overs market and You know, we know what's happened with the Porsche dealerships with GT3 carines and all of this sort of stuff there and You just have to look on any social media about some of these great guys in doing lots of content and social media and buying five type ends to get Of one GT3 tour or something like that that those days are gone now. Aren't they are they really slowing down a lot? I think that from the franchise more or less gone. I guess there's always In very kind of sought after cars when they first come to market. There'll always be a little bit ofovers Um, you've got a new Audi coming out the new RS fiber placement where Um, as soon as they touch down in the UK the first few of those will go for overs because people will be desperate to get them And you'll have a lot of the export boys that will want back q versions and and they'll pay a premium Um, but as a as a whole I guess it's just dependent really on the brand and and how many They're looking to produce And when when there was first talk with the two nine six Of being kind of huge overs and then that was a for Ferrari a mass produced car It's uh, it's now obviously gone the other way so um same with the the duty through RS So if you see on our On my banner on the website and also on my linkedin there We have a photo of two duty through RS with delivery miles And that customer was told that if he buys two g3 RS is he will get an adaptation for a g2 RS That's still obviously isn't out yet. So he purchased both of those Um and took a bath on both of them. Um, I mean a serious path i'm guessing too Yeah, yeah a big bath obviously very high-knit worth, but he wanted that duty to RS So he's prepared to do that. So a lot of our client base Are kind of ultra high-knit worth and they'll just set a task and say right josh. I want to 600 grand car. What would you recommend? I want to get it in the next two weeks. How can you make it happen? So, uh, we had a situation recently where jackie works for me by A client that we built up a relationship with who lives in nothing here And he's a big apt customer will only buy apt product cars, but he'll only deal with us So apt having a fish you out there in the in the uk But he will only deal with us and that's because we've always looked after him done right by him And a sort of great cars that he that he's liked irrelevant of the money. So you have customers that are Uh, i'll try and it worth that care about the future values and some of them that are just like I want that car no matter How much it costs me how much I lose as long as it's within reason a good price. I'll buy it. So yeah Yeah, I suppose lots of people if you go back after covid would buy those sorts of cars as not enthusiast What it could earn them? I I think That would happen now. I I kind of hope because I love cars you love cars That those cars get into the right people who use them for me. It's almost sacrilege to see this this car sitting there That's no mileage on it. I get it. I get why people do that, but it's yeah. Oh, please use it I got offered asp3 Um, just before this this cool with uh, 700 miles in it and of course it's a it's a monster of a car But to have 700 miles in the car just for me. It's like it's a sin I've been to customers houses and sin cars. We've got customer that all by Porsche But it only buys stuff with less than 100 miles in it. So we've got kind of 2018 2019 Porsche is that just got delivery miles in them that are just on trickle charge in storage and i'm in my head i Yeah, it of course there's a long term gain there in terms of values, but that's not what they're for It's uh, it's a car. It's there to be driven. So yeah, everyone's their own each alone. They're right. It's uh, I suppose that level It's like uh fine wine sometimes. It's like art, isn't it? Yeah, it's um There to be drunk, but i'm sure lots of nice bottles of wine and never drunk either Yeah, yeah, exactly the same stuff there So talk just about the rest your business there. So it's not just the cars. It's storage as well then I Got a storage facility here in central, London where we're still We're sort of private individuals for our own stock And for banks when needed And then we have a finance brokerage in house. So we're fc authorize We will uh broker for a number of main and independent dealers and also obviously our own stock So we've accessed there various different banks directly So we will uh assist in in funding for example on your vwfs with all the video fs dealer groups out there At the moment we were able to absolutely blow them out of the water with the with the monthlies. We don't know Serato and it was 1000 pounds a month cheaper with a with a similar kind of deposit on it So um so the rates and balloons and everything can be kind of tailored to Really where they need to be within reason But vwfs and main dealer groups unfortunately are a very strict with who they can Have on board and there's limits. So for example, we refinanced two cars last last week for a customer Vwfs have 500 thousand pound limit. So he couldn't go and get a euro So we refund we refinanced his dbx and his Bentley ventega so he could then get the vwfs Offer special offer With them to stay under half a million pounds So there's situations like that where we can help a lot of main dealers where we can move and refinance elsewhere and put them with other banks It means that then they can still Retail to customers and they can still with the finance. Um, we work with a lot of individual sales people a head of business and we say to them look if it's a situation where you can't get the Customer through or you have a second or third string and it's not right for them then then speak to us I don't want to tread on the noise toes. I don't want to kind of Yeah cause issues for dealers where they're putting all their finance elsewhere, but we're there to help and and to try and Position ourselves that that we can do what they can't do or what they struggle with really especially with buying the Um past exchanges, which is where we've built these relationships where we'll buy what other people won't so then they give us some of their finance So it works kind of hand-in-hand really it's a relationship where your your word is your bond and as long as you say you're going to do something And you do it so for us it's it's always been about that and that's why we've got the relationships that we've got Again a lot of our business is franchise dealers. Um, so and their supply chains is like a going speaking to I don't know Land Rover for example, okay jlr is where they'll get a lot of their stock and so forth What does sourcing your stock look like on a day-to-day basis? How much is it underwriting through dealers is it going through motorways carwares or the world? Do you go and stick your hand up at bca auction? What what's your day-to-day look like for sourcing stock for you? All of those really um if someone came to me and said that they would want a range of s3r I'd be looking across all the auction platforms. I'd be looking on carwares motorway And I'd be kind of doing a LinkedIn post. I get a lot of luck from LinkedIn from private and from trade Um, and it's the case of going out to my network posting on groups saying I need this kind of car It's just then trying to find that the the right car you can find yourself losing a lot of time very quickly by Kind of posting and putting it everywhere and not getting any luck So really you've got to know that that this kind of stuff that you cancelled and you've got access to so i'm always open to um kind of new relationships and People that can uh do good business I just don't want to work with kind of time-wasters and chains and things where people kind of say they want to buy something or can not for me Stuff and they just don't so I'd rather work with a core group of people that I know that can can assist in Sourcing a car. So if that is looking on carwares this morning until 10 a.m And a motorway or if it is looking through the auctions and and putting it out to people just to see if they can look out for me What do you views on the the motorways and the carwares platforms? It's um, we get lots of um customers Getting concerned that uh deal as a bidding on it not to buy the car The bidding on it to go and knock the price of the car And you see cars come back on again and again. Is that an issue? What's your? I think it's double-edged sword. I think it's great for the consumer. Um, I don't think it's as good Um for the retail side of the businesses. Um, I think car dealers have got better access to stock Now through that but unfortunately what it's what it's doing is pushing the prices up Um, past exchanges for example if someone comes in on a Saturday here and says right, josh, I want your Porsche Uh, what can you give me for this? They've already got a carway or a motorway figure and a lot of the times Those are pie in the sky figures. They're not guaranteed figures. Um, so we had one recently where He came back with a motorway offer and it was kind of 3000 pounds more on a 30 000 But 10 more on a 30 grand car It just just doesn't stack up and then what happens is that deal falls down because it doesn't make the reserve on On motorway or it does and they turn up and say look there's Now we will on a windscreen chip. I need to knock 3000 pounds off and the customer says no I'm not prepared to do that and it just it creates a mess. So it's very hard. I guess for the motorways and carways to police it. Um, but I think From if I was looking at from a critical point of view, I think it would be more so I'm being reasonable with the figures I think that as a business carway We'll just employ people that will kind of go off of cap and look at figures and say to the customer on the phone Yes, we think you can Get this figure if we put it on the on the website and a lot of the time I don't think those figures are accurate for where they value the car So it kind of gives false hope to the consumer and then a deal of times up and Right rightly so kind of says look well It's got cracked pan roof and that's going to be three four thousand pounds or however much it is And the consumer is led by most way and they think no, it's this is the price So I'm going to six my guns and and off your trot. So it does create a bit of Friction so it's it can be tricky from time to time. Yeah, it's last year And we sold four cars through and we went to all the different platforms just to see how they work from Yeah, not just the dealer side of it. We kind of know that from the consumer side of it And it's amazing and I get it the dealers turn up every single one would turn up and say ah, sorry I didn't realize it had the just the 20s on it. I thought it was 21 inch And I get it because they're trying to chisel the price down because it's profit, right? But I suppose put yourself in the customer shoes. There must be friction there And I know the platforms will all say ah the dealers got to pay a certain percentage Otherwise we'll ban them from the site But again the other side of it is customers Will mr. Scrub the car. I suppose it's it's um, one thing they have though is you can drive the car as opposed to maybe bsa options Yeah, yeah, sure. It definitely happens that you can go and see Um the condition of the car you can drive it. You can kind of look over the paperwork In a in a relaxed manner. Um, I guess yeah as you say from a from a consumer's point of view It's it is tricky that the high percentage of these dealers out there are going to knock it for us and how we'll Uh kind of go to a motor of car. Wow is we'll only knock it if it generally should be knocked We're not turning up and saying oh, well, you know, it hasn't got the bows. We didn't see that in the photos Um here have made deal a group saying that they don't take a car unless it's got 600 to a thousand pounds knocked Otherwise they walk away for me We're buying cars from Scotland from northern island from everywhere in the uk that time is money for a Small team like us that i'm not going to send someone to kind of quibble over 400 pounds I'm I'm bidding because I know i've got the margin in it that if we have a Build like that that we can swallow it up and it might reduce the margins a little bit But it's still a good quality stock car that then pushes us to have after sale products whether it's finance Whether it's warranty whether it's either wheel protection and stuff like that where we can make up a little bit of a loss there So again, I think it's it's building those relationships. I'm finding that I say to our lads to always ask for business off the people we're buying So we've done fair few deals of sourcing cars people we bought off we funded a lot of cars And we sell warranties to a lot of these people buying as well. So I feel like every Transaction is an opportunity to to look at margin and making some money And so to build the relationship with the right kind of customers that selling those cars is is only going to grow the business I suppose a team a small team of your size. What what size team do you have Josh? So there's five of us here You can't afford to have someone drive all the way to Edinburgh turn up there and come back Just the time lost in that it just doesn't stack up doesn't yeah So you're anywhere from 600 to a thousand pounds for a job like that at outsourced So for us to do it's probably three 400 pound mark and just not worth I need people here all day every day. So if they're out they're out for a valid reason So it's a it's a decision that we'd only really walk away from a car if it really didn't smell right in terms of The history and checking out everything that we've kind of done or or there was a really valid reason So so yeah, I would say probably nine out ten cars that we'd be buying From a smartphone car one In terms of the ones we go to in terms of our stock profile where we buy from mostly it probably would be your car Ours and your motorways, we do get quite a lot from from bca because we buy Unique we do well with your kind of your asymatons that people don't want or your Porsche panomare's or your v8 Range Rover's your typical central London buyers cars That's what we do well with so they seem to do well on On auction sites that we can have a go on them the rest of the stuff as I say is from those auction sites Can you share when your biggest colds that you caught on filming your cars? We miss something that Elisens might cry over What's one of the lessons that you've learned on miss? Yeah, we've learned a few Do this on a Monday morning, Josh Range Rover's I have a love hate relationship for a range Rover's we had a range Rover that had full service history Customer purchase from Northern Ireland Ship the car I've done for all crown video when customers buy from a distance video or grand video We do a very Yeah kind of detail of any stone chips that a customer knows exactly what they're getting Customers from the US but had moved from Northern Ireland his wife doesn't drive a car much Had the car probably a month drove down the road and said the call-it light was on obviously we can't verify how long the call-it light was on Engine went pop Nowhere in Northern Ireland for eight months can look at the car. He's obviously within six months Period So we are having to send a truck to Northern Ireland to bring it back to London to then go into a queue for an engine We then had a Eight and a half thousand pound engine revealed down on the car It was tested Done a hundred and something miles in the engine or good Went back on the truck back over to Northern Ireland And on the day of delivery the delivery driver rang us up and said you do realize there's no calling in the calling bottle and we're like Hold on a minute This is starting to get really stressed because obviously stuff like that it's For me, it's really important like the level of service and you can't really explain that to a customer other than telling them as it is so So yeah, so luckily they just hadn't pressurized the system Um, so we had to get that done locally and the car's been fine since Um, thank you Big big problems, but I try and do as many checks as possible salvage yard checks hpis Uh, so it's history. I do a lot of the uh calling as well. So there's a lot especially on BMW W and iDrive system that shows service history, but it's not got the BMW service history because anyone can kind of Hold it in and put it on the iDrive So I'll always try and check the history to make sure it is genuine history So fingers crossed we do enough checks, but you never say never but hopefully yeah Yeah, if we do have one and hopefully it's not not a big bath Because yeah, that would uh, I don't think i'll be getting out bed on a monday mornin Day before I come in so yeah, and listen. We've all dropped a dropped a bollock on a car Uh, we've all uh, valued car completely wrong I suppose it goes back to the statement you said before Sometimes if you can make a quick five grand to the trade as opposed to making eight grand I get it sometimes. It's like yeah for sure. We were often like for me I can never make sense of it when I when I speak to the lads here like we'll go and buy we had an incident where we bought three cars um, we bought a q7 and as you say I dropped a bollock on it because I Quickly realized that the suv market especially in London struggles without pan roof Just we set on them for a long time. I saw this q7 all the options and I thought I saw pan roof and didn't have pan roof So we bought three cars. We've got an estate car the q7 Um, and we thought we'd try a little cheap car between us with said right Let's try a cheap car and automatic you know it's easy to get around with we'll try a full focus So three of us went down to the auction to collect the car We done a flip of the tails to see who could drive what what I don't know why I agree So that because it was one of the hottest days of the year and there's me losing in a forward focus with no air conditioning These guys is a masarasi the guys have a masarasi in a q7 aircon everything lovely and we kind of said right What car is going to sell the quickest and I thought the masarasi because it's valued for money. It's a London car absolute looking Um, as the q7 is going to be the um, the one that that takes the longest and I think the focus will be in the middle The q7 sold in two hours of going live nine o'clock at night. Um, the focus we ended up Making a loss on after two months two three months and the masarasi took yeah probably About 100 days to sell and although we had margin across it. It was uh, yeah, it was a long one So for me the the cars that I always say to the lads. Yeah, that's gonna fly That's gonna that's gonna go quick seems to be the ones that don't and it's the ones that that we say are not going to sell quick Fly out you just for me. You just can't write it and we haven't got big enough stop profile that we can kind of say well That's you're gonna sell it's just it's just the buyer's market really so it shot me that you had to go to focus That's not really your clientele at all or you just thought you'd have a go I even read somewhere about you have a girl motor home. Is that right? Yeah, so we had a Motorhome that I had a customer for I have customers that will buy absolutely everything that the guys laugh at me They genuinely will find a reason to buy something whether it's uh, annoy the wife Whether it's away from the wife or whether it's to give to someone as a gift. So this chap Missed me six months ago saying Josh. I've got builders or whether the dreams I have a motor home So I like to get something cheap to let me know and I had a Mercedes dealership Um ring me and said Josh, you're not gonna want this, but I'm gonna offer it to you anyway I really need help. I've got to get a car so he's offering me a bloody motor home and I'm like I'm buying it. He was like no, you're not I said I'm buying so many the photos I sent the photos to the guy and he's like how much is it sent in the money? He was like, yeah all good to go this guy thought I was the best thing since sliced bread I think in the dealership. They're like this guy buys most of us were none of us can buy most Ride most of us buys most of homes Japanese camper bands like this dealership is like absolutely loved us ever since because we're buying Absolutely everything off of them because we know where we can place it really. So yeah, that's it 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 symco training dot co dot 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 sal's fitness online sal's training program Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett through linkedin Thank you
